Couple of points
What metric could you use to determine fair pricing. Fair to who? at what point in the game is it fair? What seemed just a dream at some point in the game, say for example 10,000 Granite. At level 70 is nothing at all. Just a few days to collect.
What difference do you think unlimited storage actually makes? I have for example 1,700,000 on the island, never mind star, and i know i am not alone. The numbers got silly long ago.
the spreads used to be a lot smaller when there were more active players. there was actual competition.. these days not so much.
if you want frendly prices or charity go to guild.
what would happen if starred res would be forced to be traded? everything would cost 1 fish. hows that for a great market?
Thank you for your many comments and suggestions. Let me try to summarize:
Many high level players have "silly" (thanks, Kriegor) amounts in storage. The game currently does not offer them enough of an incentive to put those on the market. If we had more trading, price spreads would be smaller. Some of you are opposed to that, liking the opportunities for getting "rich" of these inefficiencies. To those: Rest assured. Stupidity, genuine mistakes and inexperience will remain, so there will always be buyers for just about every kind of deal. :-) Yet, the majority of people who commented here or in private messages to me see a more efficient market as worth pursuing. So far, suggestions to change that were
- increase the number of active players (Q: how? BB will probably shower you with gems for good ideas on that)
- a ebay-like bidding system including a "buy now" price,
- abolishing star storage to force goods into trading,
- allow more or longer (I suppose: "free") trades by players, and my
- Master Trader suggestion.
I apparently did not make it clear enough to be understood. So, let me try an example: A "Trader" sends 1 mio. marble into their upgraded Trade Office, sets a price and waits. The system then posts trades (buy and sell) at that price - even when the player is offline, so the market is having larger volumes available in slow hours. The traders have the adrenaline rush every morning to see how their stock performed (trust me, that can be quite thrilling or frustrating). If the price they set is at the current market price, there will be active trading in both directions. If the price is too low, the Master Trader will soon hit their pre-set "stop loss" (let's say: no more sales once stock drops by 25%). If the price is too high, the trader will hit the "purchase limit" (no more buying if stock increased by 25%) - both a sign that the price needs to get adjusted to match the current market situation.
The incentive for the player to act as a broker is NOT getting rich (no payout of profit ever, at best the chance to get the initial resources back) but to get XP as a compensation for being a broker. To avoid abuse, trades by friends/guild members and multiple transactions by the same player(s) in a specified time will probably have to be excluded to avoid gaming the system. Other ideas for precautions are welcome.
The functionality I suggested is not part of the current trade office but it would not require a dedicated server, just some programming and data tables. Nothing out of line with what BB does already.
To clarify some recurring misunderstandings: "Fair" prices were never my point. Fairness is subjective and I just mentioned that word as part of my impression that some players are benevolent. Others made clear that they know selfish and irrational players. Fine, the game can handle that, the new functionality would not even be affected. And yes, guilds are often an alternative to the trade office - in mine, most things cost a fish and a thank you. That does not eliminate the benefits of a more transparent market. We'll still be able to have a lot of fun even in trading - some goods like grout will remain rare, market prices will remain irrational at times (we are all humans after all). Events, quests etc. will ensure that prices will fluctuate like they do in all markets. So, don't fear boredom, folks.
Last edited by Wuselwirbel; 17.11.17 at 20:47.
It sounded like in your original post it was an intertwinded system with the current one with your desire/preference to reduce the amount of price checks for example, when the verdict of those wanted or not is not out.
New players may become weaker wisdom wise if we have a kind of suggested retail price running parallel along side the current system. This is an example of what I said earlier where new players may be more vulneable. Besides having a system in place making new players weaker (long term) by not thinking on their own, they might trust this new system as the bible of trade. I know you mentioned a few things like effeciency, XP for players but the new players seemed like your flagship issue. Experienced traders find the variances and phases of trade office refreshing and challenging for them, keeps them entertained.
Let's put it this way, I will try to use the current TO to support your system. Once in a while you see a post of 1 million units of something. Chances are it has a bulk sale price attached to it. I know many players watch this sale closely. Ones who are especially interested in such a resource. If it doesn't sell for that bulk cheaper price, then it gives a player a good sense of it's worth. Epecially over a few of those by different players. This does not have the same kind of resolution as yours where players would see a fractional result as it's posted, and may also be someone who has big plans with this amount and buys it. But, it's a very strong guage for players to go by, and if that 24 hour post suggestion I had earlier came to be, it would be posted long enough so players won't wonder if it expired or sold. A 24 hour post of 1 million units at bulk price can give ALL players a good sense of an items worth. If trade was as busy as it was a few years ago it would probably work. Because it seems to be much slower now, your system kind of places artificial multiple orders to compensate that in a way so I find your idea in itself is welcome.
The other trade system we have already that runs along side of what we have is "giving". It's very clear the value of the gift because the giver usually has a sense of worth in TSO or genuienly doesn't care. It's very one dimensional and doesn't affect trade directly as it's a very periodic system.
Game design is a huge topic and still at its infancy and sometimes even going backwards it seems. This is a design not a suggestion so keep in mind the devil is in the detais as they say. It's amazing just how much changes from the original idea once implemented. So if I/we were to at least try to boil out your design for some stand alone solid ideas and try putting those parts together I would try them. In fact, throw a few more stand alone trade systems that carry a guaratee not to turn the current TO upside down and I would treat them like toys. There's more things in game then to play around with while looking out for the advantages and pitfalls. So it would be pretty rare I would refuse any new trading features but I would hope what comes in new, preserves the great things the current one generates.
If I was to shoot from the hip here and say TO is perfect, I would put a lot of focus on the side effects if a whole new system is going to run beside what we have already. If you get a lot of resistance from wanting anything significant added to the current TO by players, it means they do like the way it is. You may not get enough feedback though unless you finish your design.
I know you're trying to solve a lot of things seen as problems in one system. Reducing a lot of resources hoarded in game can have so many possibilites. I'm almost hoping for something along the lines of using them in a type of adventure in very large numbers. Things like the balloon event was a neat thing giving players a chance to commit a lot of resources but wouldn't be a long term thing unless the first one had a huge success and could do once a year. Maybe if there was a large tier system of rewards next time.
I'll look forward to your 1mio "guidance" trades. It will be interesting to gauge the impact on trade prices. (My guess: not much at first but I know that in Sandycove the trades by Star*** serve that function to some despite always being a bit pricier than going market rates.)
In my guild, there was a consensus that the Crisis Event looked like BB tried to drain stocks prior to Halloween by making people spend huge amounts of resources on those quests. So, I assume that BB is contemplating ideas for dealing with the stockpiles. Hence, maybe your balloon event (or the volcano ideas) will come to life. Who knows....?
Solzar, just hit me: Your one million stones etc. "guidance trades" will be invisible to low level players as they will not have the resources (gold coins or whatever) to buy so much. The standard in the TO is to not show such trades, so the effect of guidance trades might be rather limited unless they are posted in smaller quantities (which then leads the to the "risk" of them being executed because people want the resources, not just the price guidance).
If I was a low level player concerned with prices I would click that option on in hopes of more price samples, simple. I myself always have that option checked whenever I do a Refresh Offers. I know a lot of players do not bother with it which I'm sure suits them or can't always be bothered to switch it on but if your hoping for more examples of worth, it's just 1 click. That's of course if 24 hour posts came in along with maybe another feature I will mentioned below...
If BB said we are allocating 3 weeks of work into the trade system, "what do you guys want?". I could come up with a wish list of 12 things. One of them as mentioned earlier was the longer posts. Even if they just doubled it to 12 hours would be fine as I log in twice a day. 24 hour long posts are ideal because of the way the game is set up. Players need to log in once every 24 hours or producion stops (unless they get a wake up buff). It's actually twice a day for optimal production realistically. If you only log in once a day you can lose 1 or 2 hours of production I find. Twice ensures you got it all coming in. When you get into doing a lot of things in TSO, you will find twice a day gets you everything. Has a lot to do with Explorers and Geologists. I play another game that allows for posts up to 3 days which can be nice. It allows me to try posting things for a better price in case a player out there is really anxious for a particular type of resource. The 24 hour long one is ideal, since players who care about producion must log in once a day and therefore will see the post.
A second trade feature I would love to see is "Repeat Post(s)". So for example my last 11 posts would be repeated with one click. This suits well a player who is in a major production of a particular type of resource. I would put up maybe 5 slots of 4 lots let's say of something. As you may have realized if a stack of 4 lots are up, player A can only buy one of them and the post then dissapears for them. If we had just these 2 features alone I bet we would see a lot more posts up. I still have millions of Saltpetre which I purchased before you started playing. Most all of it was obtained at 15.88 units for 1 Coin (some calculator fun for you on todays value). I don't bother to sell it because of the micromanagement involved with trade office currently so I just keep the powder hut running 24/7. Even if Saltpetre went down to 1:1 I would say to myself I would rather keep it avoiding me from ever mining for it. That, and also will be used on recipe perhaps in future and Scenarios etc. No regrets. You give me 24 hour posts with a repeat feature I would have a new love with the trade system all over again. Many of my posts would attract resellers and others might be a mix of things. Like things I may not want to part with but if the price is right, perhaps. More to play with.
So with the above said, I would rather have a few really nice features we would all want, than a new system running parallel with one we already have.
When they mentioned PvP was coming, I was dreaming of a situation where our main islands were directly involved. It was about taking caravans of resources from your main island to the PvP area. It would be a simple conquest game like Risk. Kept simple, but resources shipped from your main island would play a huge part. So players who do not wish to get involved with PvP could make bread production for example to fund the wars. Trade Office would be very active and may even sell out on some items because demand is so high. Maybe they can call the current PvP system something else and do something like this. It would be a strong and simple way to get trade really flowing. New players would be very active as things like stone and pine logs would be used for repairs let's say. Gunpowder would be in great demand and metal bars of all kinds would be needed to repair and make things. Even the Leather collectable may be used to make those rare air balloon bombers players want to make for battle. Traders would be flowing with production, forsight, regrets, drama, riches, plans. Would be something wonderful I think but until then I will have to keep hoarding stuff until the battle starts
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote