Sentient Goods are unbalanced

[Ashrem]

My points were made, you rejected them. I suppose everyone not in Farming or Manufacturing in the US are all parasites especially those terrible retailers and wholesalers..

Again, you're pretending that doing something because you want to, and doing something because there is a need for it are the same thing. I can't get oranges without a retailer, because I can't justify driving 3500 miles to get oranges. I am content to pay a retailer to handle shipping and storing oranges so i can have them. I can get that two star platinum trade from anywhere on the server. I don't need you to take it and store it for a few hours and then pretend you are doing me a favor when you "facilitate" the trade the next day by offering it at a markup. That doesn't make you a retailer. It makes you a profit-taker.

 

[StarLoad]

Okay, we are done. I choose not to devolve to name calling

Okay, I am what some of you call a "parasite" and what I would describe as a "market maker".

Sorry but you cant pull that card out, You already acknowledge this with your very first post so you cant say anyone is name-calling.

 

[MichaelMichael]

I only post sentient trades as 3 stars (usually giving 6,000 and asking for 5,000 of whatever I need). I do this for various reasons but also as a kindness to the community because I know how difficult sentient goods can be to acquire for some players.

Well, bless your heart - truly that is the best argument I've heard. I do my charity a little different. More than once a player outside my fellowship has asked for a favor from me to take trades, I normally would not. I accept those as my give back. I also contribute KPs to virtually every player in my immediate viciniity. You have every right to consider me a troll if that is how you operate. I suppose I enjoy the competition perhaps too much. I enjoy the challenge of finding the fastest way forward - frankly that is the attraction for me. Please fee free to make your three star trades. I will try to avoid them and will reverse any trades I take from you by accident if you let me know..

 

[MichaelMichael]

I can't get oranges without a retailer, because I can't justify driving 3500 miles to get oranges.

So you buy everything on line at the lowest price and are willing to wait,.Or do you sometimes go to a local retailer that changes a higher price but has the goods available immediately? You actually can order Oranges directly without a middleman. There are a lot of goods that can be ordered cheaper if you are willing to wait and every retailer makes a profit on their time.

 

[MichaelMichael]

Sorry but you cant pull that card out, You already acknowledge this with your very first post so you cant say anyone is name-calling.

I didn't say I liked that name. I choose to defend and explain the reasoning for a strategy that was being demonized. This was the first time it was used after I explained the logic. Earlier name calling, I forgave that use, as it may have been due to ignorance, This time the tone was more personal.

 

[Ashrem]

So you buy everything on line at the lowest price and are willing to wait,.Or do you sometimes go to a local retailer that changes a higher price but has the goods available immediately? You actually can order Oranges directly without a middleman. There are a lot of goods that can be ordered cheaper if you are willing to wait and every retailer makes a profit on their time.

I don't buy any of my groceries online. One, I respect the salaries of local employees who pay my own wages, and two it's virtually impossible for me to get most perishables shipped to the northern Canadian Prairies cheaper than buying them locally, even assuming they got handled with care and producers were willing to ship refrigerated during the summer or protected from the cold in the winter.

You're going to have to work a lot harder if you want to extrapolate a single good into an entire life. As I said, the wholesaler and retailer are offering me a service that I can't reasonably do without (of which oranges is a single example among hundreds). At best, I'd spend my entire day looking for deals and producers willing to ship food in a way that would reach me in an edible state, mostly in a different country from where it started, unless I were willing to exist primarily on potatoes, turnips, and dry goods, at least for the five months when it never goes above freezing. There is absolutely nothing about running my Elvenar city that is made better by you taking the trades for a few minutes and increasing the price. Your pretense that you are acting as wholesaler or retailer in order to improve trade is laughable. You aren't saving anyone time, you aren't saving anyone money, you aren't saving anyone anything for the profit you demand. Your activities are purely parasitic.

 

[MichaelMichael]

Your pretense that you are acting as wholesaler or retailer in order to improve trade is laughable.

I checked again, no one other than Market Makers are offering Shrroms. You can get them right now, if you want them. right?

I will repeat again they are not offered by others 1:1 ever for any meaningful time period, before or after I started trading Shrooms.

 

[DeletedUser6326]

Well, bless your heart - truly that is the best argument I've heard. I do my charity a little different. More than once a player outside my fellowship has asked for a favor from me to take trades, I normally would not. I accept those as my give back. I also contribute KPs to virtually every player in my immediate viciniity. You have every right to consider me a troll if that is how you operate. I suppose I enjoy the competition perhaps too much. I enjoy the challenge of finding the fastest way forward - frankly that is the attraction for me. Please fee free to make your three star trades. I will try to avoid them and will reverse any trades I take from you by accident if you let me know..

Yes, I think this is just one part of the bigger issue of competitive (wants to get further faster and gain more) players versus the casual players (slower, more about building towns the way we like them, not worried about aggressive trading/fighting/Adventures/etc.).
The varying play styles complicates aspects of the game like the Trader, where we're all connected.
I have several members in my franchise of fellowships who have been around for 5 years who are barely in the Elemental chapter. The more aggressive players can get through chapters a lot faster because they are playing for a different reason, which is fine. There is no one right way to play the game.
We all play how we like to but it does tend to get muddied when we're talking about trades, Evolving buildings, event prizes, tourneys, on and on.
Thanks for the willingness to not take 3 star trades if asked. As this is a complicated topic, I don't know that there is a compromise other than willing to work with players on trades, if asked.
Just know you're making a lot of people upset with how you choose to use the Trader, especially if those trades are accidentally taken from another player who can't afford to make mistake clicks.

 

[Ashrem]

I checked again, no one other than Market Makers are offering Shrroms. You can get them right now, if you want them. right?

I will repeat again they are not offered by others 1:1 ever for any meaningful time period, before or after I started trading Shrooms.

They don't have to be offered. They never had to be offered. There just needs to be a market for the inverse trade requests, which there always was before manipulators started messing with the supply.

 

[SoggyShorts]

I suppose everyone not in Farming or Manufacturing in the US are all parasites especially those terrible retailers and wholesalers..

Ridiculous. You are none of those things.
You are a guy who buys up all of the produce in the store and then sells it in the parking lot.

 

[StarLoad]

@MichaelMichael, I will take you up on your offer and expect never to see you or your FS mate that also trades without producing Sentient goods take any of my trades or that of my Significant Other, "Allanonn" is the account name.

Do you accept?

 

[Iamaita]

Chapter 5 and a different server here, so no vested interest in sentient goods yet. But reading the OPs suggestions and some of the other comments, I was just curious... if the problem is primarily that there is not an even number of producers for each type of goods on each server, why wouldn’t inno just create and run their own bot accounts to fix it? They could look at each server and just add an inno account to make whatever good is in short supply and trade it. If they don’t want to use a computer run account, they could also assign it to an intern who could spend a couple minutes every day on the inno account helping to balance trades. Just an idea.

 

[StarLoad]

Chapter 5 and a different server here, so no vested interest in sentient goods yet. But reading the OPs suggestions and some of the other comments, I was just curious... if the problem is primarily that there is not an even number of producers for each type of goods on each server, why wouldn’t inno just create and run their own bot accounts to fix it? They could look at each server and just add an inno account to make whatever good is in short supply and trade it. If they don’t want to use a computer run account, they could also assign it to an intern who could spend a couple minutes every day on the inno account helping to balance trades. Just an idea.

Now really you can't expect a simple and logical idea to work, its INNO you have to make it more complex and fraught with traps and issues.

 

[Ashrem]

Anything that tries to balance after-the-fact tends to create a see-saw effect which is worse than the problem.

• if you go with producing-factory-levels, a group can game the system by upgrading factories but not running them, or hoarding the output, and you have to figure out how many of hte current factories are active accounts vs abandoned ones, which have no effect on goods.
• If you go with goods on hand, a group can game the system by hoarding a particular good (Also, susceptible to abandoned accounts)
• If you go with trade volume, a group can game the system by putting up lots of trades and taking them back and forth among multiple cities to drive production of other goods
• If you go with total total trade volume currently on-offer, a group can game the system by putting up large volumes at a poor value-ratio to drive excess production of other goods

etc.

Direct interference requires some fairly complex predictive analysis to avoid doing more damage than good.

 

[Iyapo1]

Chapter 5 and a different server here, so no vested interest in sentient goods yet. But reading the OPs suggestions and some of the other comments, I was just curious... if the problem is primarily that there is not an even number of producers for each type of goods on each server, why wouldn’t inno just create and run their own bot accounts to fix it? They could look at each server and just add an inno account to make whatever good is in short supply and trade it. If they don’t want to use a computer run account, they could also assign it to an intern who could spend a couple minutes every day on the inno account helping to balance trades. Just an idea.

This or some variation on this seems like the simplest fix. A bot that accepts all 2 star trades for sentient goods daily. You would have to set very narrow trade parameters to prevent abuse.

 

[Ashrem]

A bot that accepts all 2 star trades for sentient goods daily.

Might as well just let everyone produce everything as their boost? What need is there for a trader if all even trades are going to be taken every day?

 

[Iyapo1]

Might as well just let everyone produce everything as their boost? What need is there for a trader if all even trades are going to be taken every day?

Are sentient goods not boosted?

 

[NightshadeCS]

Yes, but just one per tier, just like regular goods. I think what Ashrem is saying that there would be no point to boosts if you have a bot clean up trades all the time. We could just have a game where we all produced everything ourselves and there was no trader.

 

[Iyapo1]

Not all goods are imbalanced. Not to the level being expressed on this forum re:sentient goods. I am not there yet and I cant see it but it sounds like it needs a fix. They wouldn't need to touch any other goods just this. People will still make their boost, people boosted in bismuth will be able to stop making other things.
Even if it only cleared the market once a week? Every three days? At least until inno can figure out what's wrong?

 

[MichaelMichael]

@MichaelMichael, I will take you up on your offer and expect never to see you or your FS mate that also trades without producing Sentient goods take any of my trades or that of my Significant Other, "Allanonn" is the account name.

Do you accept?

I don't tell other people how to play. I can ask, but I can only commit to how I play. That said, but your arguments about mistakes due to the interface and the sweet person that intentionally offers 6000 for 5000 same tier trades to help unknown others are compelling. I will do what I can do. First off, I acknowledge the obvious. My trading is for my own benefit. If it did not help me, I wouldn't offer the trades I do. But I don't ever want to exploit others errors or intercept intentional generosity - I don't need to do that. I like to win, but not that way. I was perhaps Gordon Gekko-esk, arguing for capitalism and free markets to justify taking a profit. Frankly, I believe all profitable strategies are fair game when everyone is playing to win in a fair game. In those situations, there is no need to apologize for a profit. However, the situation in this game is not that simple. Consequently I will change my actions concerning same tier trades. Going forward, the only 3 star trades I will accept are those that offer a lower valued sentient good. These 3 star offers will be ignored as they represent players playing a different game or those that entered typos.

I know that is not what you asked, but if your offer is 10,000 Platinum for 9,999 Gum Tree, I will ignore it. Frankly, my strategy rarely accepts trades, and I may not need to accept any trades outside of my bid-ask spread to progress, When I remember, I will try to ignore your (and your partner's) 1:1 trades as well and will consider ignoring most, if not all, 1:1 trades of higher valued goods entirely. I will continue to accept and make periodic ad hoc trades and acceptances and offers for balancing across tiers, but they seem to be a lower concern.

Unfortunately, the genie is out of the bottle. I don't think any action I might take will change the situation much. As a student of economics, any trade below market rates are arbitrage opportunities. I believe enough people are opportunistic that some will likely take my trade at a higher price and yours at a lower price and take a quick profit when available. I think that would be the case even if my "mate", also did as you request.

I trade about 5 million or so goods every day so it is impossible to remember and review individual trades successfully every time so I can't promise you that. If the interface allowed me to ignore certain player's offers, I would. If you are playing a different game, and my direct action of accepting your trade hurt you let me know, I will do what I can to make it right. On the other hand, know that I am playing a different strategy and I will put out my trades every day as I have. I find that challenging and find joy in finding the best strategy I can. I am not alone with that objective. I had many players that were good players seeking to progress, that came and went. They left when a better offer at a larger stronger fellowship came knocking. I myself have receive numerous offers to join other fellowship. Many players are playing Elvenar as a competitive game, and the fellowship are also in competition. As I sought my path forward, at one point my fellowship had a lot of empty slots, and I approached many small fellowships about mergers to get further on the spire and in the tournament. I discovered that there truly are two games going on. The ambitious group with a singular purpose of growing bigger and faster and a lot of low stress groups that were playing a social game with a nice group of people. That social group had no interest in anything beyond a friendly game with their own group of buds.

I play to win, that is why I play games, Even more so when I was a young adult. As I've gotten older, people have become more important to me. I also enjoy helping others - to progress if that is their desire or I will gladly give stuff away if that produces happiness and gratitude. My behavior changed about games when I used to visit a couple to play games. Over time, I realized they were letting me win as it seemed to give me joy and they enjoyed my company. I stopped trying to win when I visited them going forward We spread around the winning (as it didn't matter to any of us) and I tried hard to enjoy their company more. Life and values change over time, but I still enjoy the challenge of finding optima and that is why I play Elvenar. I will also admit that I do have a little chip on my shoulder concerning the very largest and elitist fellowships advertising their 10 chests every week, They are playing to win and some have poached some of my best players that produced goods I needed. I think most are playing the same game and for the same reason I do. If they don't like my strategy, I am far less understanding of their plight. They are winning and I am playing by the rules and I don't mind if they dislike hearing my footsteps. That is the area that causes some trepidation on committing to bypass acceptance of all 1:1 trades of high value goods - the large fellowship's actions of posting large 1:1 trades of more valuable goods disrupts my strategy. If they are playing to win, the battle must be joined and may the best player and strategy win!