For context: I am reffering to todays global lab patch where gathering mastery was increased. We need lifeskill buffs. But this is an overall nerf to Gathering + Cooking. 

I have 10k+ hours in BDO with accumulated play time. I am currently Guru 9 gathering, Guru 39 cooking and I have 665 GS grinding gear with Kutum. I believe I have done enough lifeskilling and grinding to provide an informed opinion.

Dear PA, what happened to the Devs and GMs who actually understood BDO economy? Because since Elvia release, we did not see any reflection of that. 

The basic concept of suppy and demand regarding any economy is very simple. If you increase supply while demand remains same, profit goes down. With increased gathering mastery, you have increased meat supply. Which means increased supply of cooked meals. But did you think about increasing meal demand? Because 90% of meal demand comes from Imperial. As long as Imperial delivery remains the same, market will be flooded with meals, because there wont be enough buyers. It will result in Imperial meals being min-listed + unsold. I shouldn't have to tell you what that means but I'll tell you anyway because I cant be 100% sure you would understand otherwise. It means much less profit for meat gathering and meal cooking. 

We NEVER said gathering is too hard, we need to climb mastery ladder easily. For those of us are still doing lifeskilling in BDO, we are doing it despite making much less money compared to grinding is because we love this activity. We are not afraid of pushing gathering levels by doing something we enjoy anyway. This mastery buff was completly unnecessary. All we asked for lifeskilling to be more profitable. Sometimes, I really wonder how your thought process works! We ask for apples and you always deliver oranges!

What can be done to fix this situation? 

You need to increase Imperial profit and gathering drops. 

1. Lower CP requirment per Imperial box by 50% so people will be able to deliover more boxes. This way, they will have to buy more imperial meals from market. Currently we cant even make 100 mill per day from imperial cooking delivery if we take meals market value into account even at 400 CP and 1400 cooking mastery. In the current state of BDO's inflated economy, 100 mill is nothing. Doubling Imperial profit will still place gathering + cooking income way lower than grinding, but it will atleast keep the interest alive.

2. Increase caphras, hard and sharp drop from gathering. Right now gathering bonus drops, specially meat gathering drops are very low compared to hunting. Market has high demand for caphras, hard and sharp. This is how the demand can be met while making gathering more profitable.

I wish I could write all this above in proper Korean because I really like lifeskilling. I gather I cook everyday despite having 301 AP with Kutum. I waited for a long time for lifeskill buff but this is very disappointing. If you dont fix it the right way, I dont think I'll stick around for long. 

They doesn't understand economy, but this should be clear since day1. It's not like literately their neighbor country would be an literal (failed) example of what they are building in their own game...

Also if I remember correctly they said they want to buf the underperforming lifeskills, and meat gathering isn't underperforming. On the other hand they buffed the chapras from tree cuting forexample.

Meanwhile, meat gathering has not been buffed like some other types of gathering (like hoe gathering, tree chopping, tree sap) so collecting meat will still be oriented towards meal cooking. It does not "nerf" cooking, it creates more potential competition on the market by raising the added mastery from your level, and obviously low level gatherers will benefit more from it than high level gatherers.

And if you can't sell your meals, keep them for imperial (and the restrictions on cooking delivery have been lifted, remember?). More time to do something else.

More fruits for alchemy, more caphras when you chop trees or collect sap if you still want to gather... Interesting for most players.

And grinding also comes with its requirements, its competition... And its active playtime... 

Just regarding Suggestion 2;

I think it would be nice if we could have Scorched Fragments added to list of items we could obtain from lifeskilling (gathering etc.) Something that's valuable, but also actually useful for lifeskilling itself too. 

These changes are not a funny joke. 150 mastery is nothing. We need money from life skills. As long as imperial boxes (e.g. from cooking) give 100-150m per day, the life skill does not exist. Trash from mobs is worth: 100m but per hour, up to almost 1b per hour (on golems). So we have a gigantic disproportion compared to life skills (and trash give us raw silver), and life skill also requires activity and items worth hundreds of billions.

Conlusion is simple: life skills should also give high value trash for sell.

well... most likely with most of the post i do agree.

I'm gathering g43, g50 cooking since 2 yrs or so... it was already easy. Giving for free brackets so early... it's just a spit in the face to people like myself, in higher ranks. Thx for (not) challenging content.
Devs are just bored. Seems like all they got for us is making game "easier". For some reason they care more about making game viable to "new players", than taking care of old cows that still give a milk... just saying.

Hey you, new player, dont push yourself too hard, as you can see, it's pointless.. just a matter of time and you will get it for free.

Edit: for people who are lacking with understanding of the matter, I'm not salty or anything... hands down, please, try to see my point of view. I bet most people w/o decent lifeskills, who struggle alot it's a quality of life buff. I'm happy for them.

My ideas: add artifacts for lifeskillers, like exp buff, +1/+2 energy recovery, +10/+20 mastery for ea lifeskill or in general... there is so many options. Finally, some lifeskill treasuers, my crazy idea is a infinite energy potion, which isn't that crazy if you think about it moneywise... ain't big of a deal. You (pearlabyss) guys wanna make money? release T5 pet skill for energy recovery. Add mastery scrolls to a pearl shop. Current glab mastery change is more of a furniture moving matter, doesn't change alot. Hunting spot would be highely occupied, same as behr herbs but for how long...? at the end of the day, the player base you're looking into, which is low and mid tier is looking for money/h not an archivement as a thing. Most of them want to make quick gains, gear up to figure out there is not really much to do than treasures. Party content? please... :) it's just a grind for money in most cases... Yeah i know, golems, anything else? Game has such a big potential since i play it, yet so many people quit, bdo is losing more players than gaining according to latest charts. JUST saying... it's a feedback, nothing else. Maybe it's time squeeze couple more drops of content to your loyals as well.

Disgusted vet player.

I stopped selling my meat to the market Since I no longer have a Value pack.

And that's a sentiment that a lot of Gatherer and Hunter do the same.

It becomes systematically more profitable to do activities that do not depend on the Central market.
All life skills are more profitable when you systematically avo the central market and Build a Big Damn Worker Empire for Supplying 80% what you need.
And adjusted prices will change absolutely nothing, since everyone can do everything.

If there is a supply problem, it is not because there is no production. It is completely Zero-IQ to sell at the central market because of the taxes.

And raising the prices of materials, meals, and imperial boxes will not change anything. The tax will still exist.

I hunt and cook for my own imperial turn ins. Selling anything at the market is literally giving 50% of my profit to someone else.

Without the imperial and the Easy Money that is the turn ins of the cooking box, you wouldn't give a damn about the supply.

Nothing can be fixed as long as everyone can enjoy imperial cooking and alchemy that is 110% of the demand and that 99% of people can profit from it, period.
People that sell meal on CM are literalty giving money to people.

And again there. what ever thier could do, It will not make me sell my materials. 

It will always be more profitable and more beneficial in the long term to be entirely autonomous. Selling material dont give CP and CP is Everything.

Economy does not exist mainly because of this tax.

I also don't sell anything even though I have hundreds of thousands of mats that have ... hundreds of thousands of preorder on market.

This is how p2w kills game.

?? I think you are missing one simple fact.  On NA there are about 1 million preorders on every type of red meat.  If they doubled the amount of meat gathered it still wouldn't be enough to fill the demand.