Why trade system isn't working...

Game Discussion Levelling and Economy
1

Wondered why your blueprints and ship parts seem to be unsaleable ?

Here are some reasons for it:

1) Missing demand
Many players don’t have T5 destroyers so why should they bother buying related blueprints and modules.
Other player don’t see a need in Mk5 Weapons, as the cost in manufacturing a orange weapon or module isn’t worth the better specs.

2) Fixed minimum prices
If the demand is low usually the prices fall. Here you still pay the same overrated prices for blueprints or ship parts even if there is an excessive supply.

3) Matured markets
There aren’t enough new players to absorb the mass of blueprints and parts that are bought with the caches.
The market may still be able to produce more demand but only if for example T5 destroyers would be introduced again.

4) Amount of money in circulation
The amount of money in circulation is reduced with every trade transaction (tax 10%). If players don’t buy Galactic Standards for hard currency the amount of money out there is shrinking. As there are no more tournaments for earning GS the only way to get GS is to sell stuff (which isn’t really working) or to buy GS (which works pretty fine).

How to fix the trade system ?
Good question - I would start to reduce the prices.

But in the end the real reason for trade is to make us buy more GS.
That is okay for me as servers and developers need to be paid - but the line
between a fair compensation and naked greed shouldn’t be crossed too often…

That is my view… feel free to comment.

Voodoo

 

2

One of the biggest problem is that there are too many items that has only one specific use. I mean, just for Tai Kin we have around 10 of them. Add (1 per mk5 + 3 per destroyer modules) per ranks. 

Why can’t we have “mk5 r12-r15 fighter weapon blueprint” instead for example ?

 

That would increase by a huge margin the demand. 

3

Wait, cant you just get GS by having a Gold sector?

4

8 minutes ago, MightyHoot said:

they changed them to iri sector ![:D](<fileStore.core_Emoticons>/emoticons/006j.png “:D”) 

Same for tournaments

5

If they re-introduce R14 destroyers nice and proper, and make them conceivably possible to build without months of grinding for monocrystals, then the demand for the components will absolutely skyrocket, im sure of it. But personally, I am not buying weapon and module components for something I don’t have yet…

6

2 hours ago, VoodooMaster said:

  1. Amount of money in circulation

this is the only part i cant agree on. usually, the problem of income generating loot in sandboxes is that the amount of circulation is constantly increasing, devaluing items, because loot is generated out of playtime. there are only a few parts which you basicly “use up”, so you will only buy each item once, as all needed materials to really craft these things is not tradeable. so items are actually not devalued.

the money in circulation is basicly endless, because people could always buy new gold standards

however once you have unlocked specific items, you do not have any need for it anymore. except to earn yourself GS, for unlocking further content. But then you actually use the market the other way around, to obtain GS.

de facto any whish to have a true trading system with a market, which is more than a stamp collectors exchange is hardly imaginable.

I imagine, things will change if it gets expanded. But I am not yet sure, how it would work.

 

7

2 hours ago, g4borg said:

this is the only part i cant agree on. usually, the problem of income generating loot in sandboxes is that the amount of circulation is constantly increasing, devaluing items, because loot is generated out of playtime. there are only a few parts which you basicly “use up”, so you will only buy each item once, as all needed materials to really craft these things is not tradeable. so items are actually not devalued.

 

Hmm… you’re right in a way. Basically items lose value which isn’t reflected by minimum price. The more of the same item is available the farther away is the minimum price from the real value for players. The players could buy new GS but only a few will really do. There are a lot of players who don’t invest any real money in the game. Bottom line - new GS can only be added to the system by buying it.

 

8

3 hours ago, Weylin29651 said:

If they re-introduce R14 destroyers nice and proper, and make them conceivably possible to build without months of grinding for monocrystals, then the demand for the components will absolutely skyrocket, im sure of it. But personally, I am not buying weapon and module components for something I don’t have yet…

Considering that Gaijin seems to like the mindless grinding of recources i highly doubt that R14 dessies will be an easy to farm thing when they reimplement them… espacilly with this stupid contract system they have developed compared with the (for me) very old one that was way more convinient.

9

10 hours ago, VoodooMaster said:

Hmm… you’re right in a way. Basically items lose value which isn’t reflected by minimum price.

actually my point is, in SC, items DO NOT lose value because your personal demand is 1. Forever.

All this is is an exchange of “unlocks”. It’s not economic. I always try to suppress my laughter, if others talk about “economy” in this game, as if it really exists.

10

1 hour ago, g4borg said:

actually my point is, in SC, items DO NOT lose value because your personal demand is 1. Forever.

All this is is an exchange of “unlocks”. It’s not economic. I always try to suppress my laughter, if others talk about “economy” in this game, as if it really exists.

No. Once everybody owns a blueprint the value of any surplus blueprint is close to zero (you can still sell it for credits).
Any new blueprint of this type adds no value for players, it just fills your storage.
There is a kind of economy but for sure none of the free market type.
You still have supply and demand, correct ?

11

Controlled distribution of goods in value and quantity… Where did I hear of this? 

12

Imo trade is in its infancy much of this i would expect to work itself out after time.

However the interface itself is not fit for purpose. A txt dump of everyone excess bs that they try to offload. Players take their share of blame with this too tho. Copy/paste all the useless stuff u accumulate regardless of value into trade chat. It dont matter that nobdy has shown interest maybe u get some gs for that mighty T3 plasma gun bp that everyone and their grandmother has. Spam some more. Maybe s1 buy the part of something that you made with credits and vouchers months ago.

Also is problem of RNG resources, it can never be truly random so due to spam and other things the few parts that everyone looks for does not even take position as valued resource. There are perhaps enough to go around but miss the spam and s1 selling then too bad.

A shift to have buyers being the one doing the talking would be better for now but i dont see that happening. Better would be a store(s) where ppl interested in buying/selling could go and select what they want. Rather that than this rabble of T3 bps, parts for ships that dont exist rn, parts for weapon u cant build without 20 of them, the guys looking to offload their activators and the new ship node pieces that many dont know what they do.

The only thing that is valued rn is the one item that a buyer is after, ppl too busy falling over each other in trade chat trying to sell junk to find out what that is.

13

Maybe if people only posted WTB requests, there wouldn’t be spam? If someone wants to buy something, and you have it, whisper them…
Otherwise its just a flooded mess of crap nobody wants.

I guess the alternative would be players spamming WTB requests on items that nobody has?

14

How about this?

15

1 hour ago, ORCA1911 said:

How about this?

They don’t want to. It’s to connect peoples. 

16

I would be glad to see Mk.V version reworked on some point. They need too many resources (in quantity) in contrast what they give in result. 3% increase in dmg for weapons is not worth 30 mono. They would be more attractive if they for example give a variation of item like pirate modules have, like increased rate of fire at cost of less damage. In current form nobody apart from heavy collectors would invest 150GS for them.

17

the only thing I would change is to divide the trade into 1)WTB and 2) WTS. Also make it impossible to type cyrillic please, the trade gets overflown with irrelevant russian people. It should stay english.

18

On 15.4.2017 at 9:38 AM, VoodooMaster said:

No. Once everybody owns a blueprint the value of any surplus blueprint is close to zero (you can still sell it for credits).

yes, to you, the value gets zero, but also interest, as there is no “demand” after that. so every participant has a demand of 1 (or x) per item. true demand however comes through necessity.

after all, it is more or less an unlock, not some goods. as far as “free market”, the free is certainly still valid, even with taxes. and the scarcity is also present, emulated by the items’ “drop rate”, still however, as long the item drops, it basicly never reaches true scarcity.

it is very different from the mechanic, how a goods-market creates supply and demand, so true capitalistic economics. there are “producers” and “consumers”, while “middlemen” buy cheap goods at low demand and try to sell it at an average or higher profitable price over time. much of all this still works in theory with our system here, but as said, concluding the item loses its value would mean, everyone has it, and nobody will ever join the game as a new player. Any market would break at that point. That’s why I would say, our market here is much more an “exchange”. in games where you buy “goods” which are destructible your demand never ceases to exist. There the value truly depends on supply and demand. Those markets would not work with GS as currency tho, except if you can transmorph GS into sellable items for the markets’ currency.

The thing which keeps the value the same, basicly at the average selling price, is the price of GS. It is also the only thing on the market, which in itself becomes a good, where your demand never ceases to exist. In a way, the true currency are the items, the true goods is gold standards. Only if you see it like that, some “items” lose their value as “currency” to get GS.

You understand what I mean? We use the same words in both examples, but they are just “mechanically” different. Maybe I am wrong of course, but that is how I see it.

19

Also, why can’t we sell multiple of 1 item type(like PARTS for vulcan and whatnot) that require MORE than 1 to 3 of it, instead of having to waste all your trades just to trade 15 of them.

20

Bump

How about trading among alternative accounts? One may complete ship part missions, like those we have at the moment for Spiral and Endeavour, with 2-3 accounts and trade those to one for minimum price. Trade ban among alternative accounts ever considered?