Advance Warning : Lengthy Philosophising Ahead!
Firstly, I can see why it was initially thought necessary to introduce more Scrolls into the Trading environment. The chosen method was far from sensible, but still, I can see the rationale, having found Scrolls (and their most common T1 companion Boost, Steel) to be in such short supply on my first Server, Felyndral, that not only did I change FS several times (for only that reason), but in the end, I changed Server entirely, abandoning my City at the end of Orcs & Goblins in the process after well over a year of playing, and there were many others like me. Of course, the reason for the shortage was obviously the overly difficult Scrolls Tournaments, which caused many players to abandon Scrolls-Boosted Cities, which then affected Steel as well, causing many frustrated players like me to leave the game due to the chronic shortage of those Goods. The best solution, even to me, as a new player, appeared to be to reduce the difficulty of Scrolls Tournaments, but it seems that didn't occur to the game designers, who came up with a solution even worse than the original problem in the form of the Moonstone Library Set... and so here we are today.
The inevitable Moonstone Set-induced Scrolls surplus has had, and will have, so many detrimental knock-on effects upon game balance that it's difficult to imagine how game designers with enough sense to write complex code, and with advanced data-gathering and player monitoring tools (let alone coders who, we are told, pay close attention to 'balancing' issues), firstly didn't predict these effects, and even now haven't moved (quickly and decisively) to adequately remedy the ever-worsening situation. First and most obvious of these effects is the increasing glut of Scrolls (and Magic Dust) just about everywhere; second is the slower but increasing surplus of their upper-Tier equivalents in Sentient and, now, Ascended Goods; but third, and more insidious (and difficult, if even possible, to remedy) is the growing realisation, amongst not only current but, more importantly, potential new players, that being Scrolls-Boosted is a major detriment to one's game. Existing players who start a new Scrolls-Boosted City will probably abandon it, just as some later-game Scrolls-Boosted players are also abandoning those larger Cities as well (removing from the Trader not only their Scrolls, but all of their other Goods, too), but as word inevitably spreads as to WHY being Scrolls-Boosted is unenviable - and word spreads very fast these days, mainly thanks to Anti-Social Meeja and gaming websites - then completely new players, too, will eschew Scrolls-Boosted Cities.
The result is, of course, more and more dead Cities (which are, in themselves, both off-putting to newcomers and also a Trading hindrance)... but what is worse, an enduring reputation develops which - even if the Scrolls disaster is fixed tomorrow - the game itself will be lucky to shake off in a matter of years, if at all. Many players ask around before or upon starting any new game as to what they should know upfront, and the first thing they will hear just about everywhere Elvenar is mentioned will be: "Don't have a Scrolls Boost". That kind of rumour-mill 'truism' is very hard to lose, and games often keep these reputations for the rest of their viable lives, whether or not the problem is actually resolved.
And there are other related problems, too: many players with Crystal or Silk Boosts and a Moonstone Set (or two, or three...) have no need of Scrolls at any price, being self-sufficient in them, so the three-way Trading of Tier 2 Goods (and more... see below) becomes increasingly price-distorted and unbalanced; market manipulation becomes more of a problem than it would due simply to human greed because less scrupulous Crystal/Silk-Boosted players find themselves able to command higher prices for their Goods; Steel (as the most common T1 pairing with Scrolls) becomes increasingly rarer, so that the same problems start to apply to Steel, too (and Elixir likewise); and so on in the game's upper Goods Tiers, as well.
And on more fundamental level, being unable to Trade one's Scrolls (or related Goods) at fair rates, or at all, is more than just a matter of Trade; one's progress though the entire game, in every aspect, relies largely upon the ready and fairly priced availability of Goods of all types, and if some Goods are in short supply, or more expensive than others, then one's entire game, from Research progress to ability to Cater in Tournament or Spire, and every other aspect, in a chain reaction, will be affected. I could go further, but I'm sure I've made my point clear enough; Trade does not stand alone, but rather is one of the primary foundations of the game, and if Trade is unbalanced, then so is the entire game which rests upon it.
The current Event's Grand Prize productions (CCs and CC-required Relics) demonstrates that the designers are at least attempting to provide a replacement for the Moonstone Set (and to heavily push Crafting, but that's another story...), but not only is this a lacklustre and rather random attempt (not to mention greedy, if it turns out that Diamond-bought Event Currency may be the only way for some players even to earn one complete Pilgrim's Manor Set, let alone two or more), but even assuming that this attempt, together with the limiting of new Cities to only one Moonstone Set, actually succeeds, another problem will inevitably develop, especially amongst the more savvy players, and this is the realisation - and it will come - that once Scrolls are finally once again a balanced Good, meaning that Scrolls-Boosted players no longer have to heavily discount their wares (if they can sell them at all), then it will become very profitable to keep those old Moonstone Sets going regardless, and have no need to buy anyone else's Scrolls, seeing as only a couple of Moonstone Sets can keep a player in Scrolls as well as their own Boosted Goods (and the higher, more difficult-to-obtain Sentient and Ascended Goods, of course)... for free. Another reason why many players will be likely to keep at least one Moonstone Set is the prestige which it carries, since it implies a good performance in the Spire - which many now see as a useful, if not the most important, aspect of a player's ability and/or desirability as a FS member.
On a related note, and although I consider this to be (at best) thoughtless, I already often see Crystal/Silk-Boosted players with Moonstone Sets - who know all about the Scrolls surplus - selling Scrolls into the market instead of, or as well as, their Crystal and Silk (and the same goes for related upper-Tier Goods), and this, too, will only become more of a problem if, or when, Scrolls finally once again achieve real value - unless, of course, the game developers finally decide to nerf the Moonstone Set and/or remove multiple copies already placed or in Inventory, which I very much doubt will happen. One cannot hope to prevent thoughtless (even unscrupulous) behaviour, of course, but one would also think that designers working for a company as experienced as InnoGames would build into their game - before release - mechanisms to account for and, one would hope, minimise the tendency of some people to behave in a less than thoughtful manner, rather than doing what amounts to enabling careless and/or self-interested behaviour on a grand scale. Many other games have done so, since a basic understanding of common human nature - including its downsides as well as upsides - is hardly esoteric knowledge.
All of these problems, and more, all spring from the flawed decision to introduce free-to-produce - and fixed-type - Goods into what is, for better or for worse, a closed, controlled, and non-free market, where nobody can compensate for Goods droughts or gluts by changing their Boosts accordingly, which would, of course, be the only long-term solution which the players can provide. The fixed Goods-producing Event buildings brought up by
@Silmaril are good examples of this kind of faulty idea, but of course the crowning example (so far...) of such poorly thought-out decisions is the Moonstone Library Set, especially in multiples per player - an error which was, of course, recognised as a serious future problem when first released on Beta, where several players provided good reasons why the Set (and all other Goods-producing buildings) should never have a fixed, Boost+0 production... but unfortunately, the Beta community expert players are rarely given due credence by the game's designers.
While I realise there is no chance that any such thing will happen, there can be no real or permanent solution to the perpetual imbalance of Traded Goods in Elvenar other than to scrap the Boost system entirely, in favour of all Goods being equally costly/cheap to produce - which would enable the players to do as they do in most games with a trading economy, i.e. to produce Goods which are in demand, and cut back on those which are not. It would take a lot of code re-writing, of course, and it's never going to happen for that and many other reasons, but it is the only way to
genuinely and permanently fix Elvenar's fatally flawed, artificially constrained, RNG-based
* Goods Trading mess, now and forever.
* By which I mean: Boosts are randomly - or at least not systematically - assigned on City start, and it is wholly random which City will Trade at all, how much, how often, and at what prices. For this reason alone (assigning fixed Boosts, but then not adequately monitoring and balancing Trade in those fixed Goods), nothing will ever prevent imbalances in such a fatally flawed Trade system - never mind Moonstone Sets, Event buildings which produce Boost+0 Goods, and all the other, avoidable mistakes which have only compounded the system's unavoidable in-built flaws.
