With last Commerce buff people with maxed proficiency can make huge amount of gold (even 11k gold in 5h with using only daily labor recover) now lets compare to this Larceny that got nerfed 2 patches ago to open 1h worth of farming you need ALMOST 2 days of daily labor recover. My suggestion is to reduce Commerce gold and reduce 6 labor per open for ancestral purses. I belive that gonna be more "balanced".
The Trade pack system was a huge selling point when Archeage began and slowly it was pushed to the side patch after patch. Commerce being boosted makes the game more fun for everyone and I will explain.
1. It makes other professions relevant again like farming and harvesting. A player can make a good amount of gold from selling these mats
2. Trade runs are now worth the time, effort, and risk for people to do them. This also creates in game pvp situations
3. It lowers the cost of Onyx due to people doing trade runs. The cost of a cargo is often 14g-18g and being able to turn in that same cargo to get double (TC) and up to three times at (DS) keeps the cost of onyx low or worth running for risk vs reward. The trade system is now working like it was intended to on live
4. There are many "gold sinks" in the game i.e. gear, costumes, crafting ect... Having the ability to make gold or buy onyx/dragon essence cheaper helps low gear players gear faster
** Larceny can not be compared to Trade runs due to larceny having no upfront labor cost, mats, time, and risk. If i am farming purses running full loot drop i can move to another spot if i get PK. I can even log out and come back later having many of my buffs still up. The same can not be said about Trade runs because you lose labor,mats, and time to only get a 20% return (Larders are the exception because you lose everything)
I am not against a buff to other professions and i think the more professions buffed the better it is for the game. So reducing the labor cost on purses would be a good thing. I also believe finding ways to revitalize other crafts like Metal work, printing, tailoring ect... would be really good for the game.
*** 11k gold in 5hr is not accurate but i am sure you have heard this said by players. I will break it down using my own exp as an example
*Example*
Commerce @230k prof (Cinder to Solzreed@130%) i also have vocation stipen giving me a max labor pool of 7k
*Making Gilda packs* Transport: Merchant ship (18 slot) Time: 40 min give or take using a daru to turn in solo run (total time doing x3 trade runs)
2660 labor per merch and 1638 profit per run/ 91g per pack
Mats used: 16k dried flowers 270 apples 108 gilda starry stars (1) shadow daru
Doing x3 trade runs resulted in 7k labor plus using 1 labor pot earned 4,860g
(Great gold but labor and material heavy but best profit for time)
(Cinder to Solzreed@130%)
*Making Fert packs* Transport Merchant ship (18 slot) Time: 1hr (total time doing x3 trade runs)
1440 labor per merch and 612g profit per run/34g per pack
Mats used: dried flowers/grain/trimmed meat/chopped produce 4,500 ea. (2) shadow daru
Doing x5 trade runs resulted in 7k labor earned 3,060g
(does not include % reduction when turning in packs or negotiation bonus on certain packs. This was an average of what one would get for profit using 7k labor. Many other runs have the same profit/time i.e. Two Crown to Solz =/ Sanddeep to Two Crowns/ Halcy to Two Crown, Cinder, or Solz ect..)
** Making 11k in 5hr is easy to do but would require a lot more than the standard 5k labor w/ natural regen. In the examples I gave above that is how long it took me to burn through 7k labor making those packs. So a person would have to use several labor pots and have tons of required mats
and uhhhhhhh.... No