Worlds Becoming Unbalanced on Goods Production

[ajqtrz]

So, if I understand this correctly then I should just offer my scrolls at enough discount that my trades get picked up (and yes, it will probably be cheaper for me than producing unboosted goods myself). But if all offer scrolls at discount then what happens???

All this means is that Lord Fredrick has decided the fair market value of scrolls to him is a 1.5:1 ratio between scrolls and silk. If he has a lot of scrolls and is producing a lot he will maintain that ratio until he feels he has enough silk and crystal and then he will either cut production or start warehousing scrolls. My point is, it's Lord Fredrick who decides the value of his scrolls and if the consumers (those who purchase scrolls) think they are worth even less they will sit there -- until somebody thinks otherwise and purchases Lord Fredrick/s scrolls. Since pricing of scrolls is set not by the game but by trading partners Lord Fredrick has determined that either, all things considered, his supply of scrolls is so high he can afford to unload them at a steep discount OR that since silk is in such short supply and he's having a hard time getting it he must offer what he has (scrolls) at a steep discount. So you can say the Lord Fredrick is either responding to a personal surplus in scrolls or a personal shortage in silk. Either way it's Lord Fredrick who is determining the value of his scrolls.

How do you profit in such a market? When it comes to "profit," the thing is, you won't sell them without an agreement between you and the buyer about what they are worth in that transaction (i.e. the parties situations and what they are willing, in their current state, to trade for) and that agreement is therefore always "fair." Since no one is forced to make the agreement the total agreement -- the aggregate of the goods and intangibles you gain in comparason to the goods and intangibles you give by the trade -- must be, in the view of the traders, even or profitable, and thus "fair." Another way to say it: If you think about it, you may not like the terms of the agreement and feel "forced" by market conditions to make it, but, in the end you make it because you gain the advantage of the goods and intangibles you get in exchange, and those goods and intangibles are, in your evaluation, worth the price.

@The Fairy
Thank you. This is a great example. Goods aren't moving, someone offers a discount, everyone else has to offer a discount...Goods aren't moving, someone offers a bigger discount, everyone else has to offer a bigger discount...and on and on further devaluing the goods.
Discounts don't help the co-op. Solidarity in pricing does. Discounts only move one's own game forward.
*I do see that you are specifically talking about the scroll problem. I hope people are seeing it and that the ones who aren't scroll boosted will, at the very least, stop filling the few scroll orders that are out there.

This is almost correct. "Everyone else has to offer a discount" is the problem. In fact, no one has to offer a discount unless they want their goods to move. The "unless" is important because wrapped up in that little word are the intangibles. Why do they want their goods to sell? And why now? Perhaps they need the silk to finish a quest. Perhaps they need crystal to upgrade a building. All sorts of "secondary" needs are at play and thus if they feel pressured to sell at a discount because they must sell now that's an intangible. I would offer that the general pressure of these intangibles can't be ignored in understanding the "fairness" of any transactions, but it's the traders themselves who determine the value of those intangibles and thus the ultimate value of the goods offered and accepted. That many players have a surplus of goods is not a problem unless some player need other goods and feel they can't wait for the "fair" 1:1 ratio trades to show up.

In addition, your "devaluing the goods" isn't as accurate as you think, though it's certainly commonly used. The goods have no value but the value you and your trading partner give them at the time of the trade. He or she posts them at what they value them to be at the time of posting -- which includes the intangibles of their situation. You come along and if you value them at the same price or more -- again the actual number you assign to the goods adjusted to include the sense you have of the value of the intangibles -- you purchase them. The only valuations that count are the ones the trading partners have made. So the market does not devalue anything since nothing has an intrinsic value -- the "fair market value" is a measure of what the goods are currently selling for -- meaning the average of all the transactions over the last X amount of time. It's not the actual value of the goods but only used to consider what might be a profitable trade. The actual "profit" is what the trade partners decide it is and it might appear on paper that somebody is losing their shirt, but, in fact, once you consider the intangibles, they never lose their shirt without gaining something worth that shirt -- to them -- in exchange.

AJ

 

[Iyapo1]

Goods aren't moving, someone offers a discount, everyone else has to offer a discount...Goods aren't moving, someone offers a bigger discount, everyone else has to offer a bigger discount...and on and on further devaluing the goods.
Discounts don't help the co-op

This!
I am scroll boosted in 2 cities and have my eye on the Blooming Trader. Its seems like the best way to get T2s at what I consider to be a fair rate. Listening to the sentient goods problems it sounds like it will be a good kp investment overall. Still 2 chapters away from that fairy wonder but it will absolutely bee in my cities.

 

[samidodamage]

the ones who aren't scroll boosted will, at the very least, stop filling the few scroll orders that are out there.

I have done this in my crystal boosted city. I make crystal and trade it for silk. But, I'm not taking any trades offering scrolls except from FS scroll boosted members who can't get crystal/silk from outside the FS, so that also impacts the neighborhood trading market. I still think it's a problem that won't be addressed by simply removing the Spire set bldgs (those bldgs won't be deleted from our cities due to the other benefits we get from them or the link bonus they provide to other bldgs) or future chapter research requirements. I don't have any solution to offer, just more info to suggest there is a problem.
Here's my T2 inventory in that crystal boosted city right now:

 

[Iyapo1]

@ajqtrz

I assign value to my goods. I say my scrolls should be equal in value to silk and crystal.

They are not because "blah, blah, blah".

I feel cheated. There are a number of people who also feel cheated.

Your persuasive argument is failing to persuade because you are not the arbiter in this dispute. Your opinion on your trades is yours. You decide for you, I decide for me.

 

[SoggyShorts]

This!
I am scroll boosted in 2 cities and have my eye on the Blooming Trader. Its seems like the best way to get T2s at what I consider to be a fair rate. Listening to the sentient goods problems it sounds like it will be a good kp investment overall. Still 2 chapters away from that fairy wonder but it will absolutely bee in my cities.

I wonder if this goes on long enough could this bee a cause for more problems?
A level 30 Blooming Trader gives you a 1:1 trade per day, so if more players have them, fewer trades end up being posted/taken, right?
If you need to swap a bit of goods why bother searching/posting if the wholesaler is a guaranteed 2-star? Especially if you have scroll-boosted-spire-induced PTSD?

 

[Alram]

I wonder if this goes on long enough could this bee a cause for more problems?
A level 30 Blooming Trader gives you a 1:1 trade per day, so if more players have them, fewer trades end up being posted/taken, right?
If you need to swap a bit of goods why bother searching/posting if the wholesaler is a guaranteed 2-star? Especially if you have scroll-boosted-spire-induced PTSD?

It is unlikely to bee a problem since most players are fascinated by combat wonders.

 

[edeba]

Nonsense, you're doing it, and so is someone on Winy and Khel (and I believe all other US servers?)
All you need is to build up a decent stash of sentient goods and enough free time to buy everything and repost at higher prices.
Once you have a big enough stash you can even take some bad trades as long as you replace them with your own even worse trades.

The fact is that if you weren't doing what you do (and no other parasite replaced you) all other players would have more T4-6 to work with and pay less for their trades.

You add no value and every day that massive decay of goods from your inventory is goods that other players could have used to advance their cities, complete the spire or upgrade their buildings.

Double nonsense. This may have been possible when there were few players in the sentinel goods chapters, but this argument is approaching your-influence-over-the-money-supply-by-collecting-dimes. Lots of players have millions of sentinel goods stashed away now.

 

[SoggyShorts]

@edeba But it's there. It's literally happening right now and has been for months. This certainly implies that it's possible.
Saying something is impossible while there is ample evidence which everyone can see is a strange position to take.

Without trading, there is a hard cap on how much sentient goods anyone can have due to decay.
For someone with zero factories to amass tens of millions of every sentient good they must be trading at great volume and profits.
If someone is making great profits someone else is paying.

 

[edeba]

I wonder if this goes on long enough could this bee a cause for more problems?
A level 30 Blooming Trader gives you a 1:1 trade per day, so if more players have them, fewer trades end up being posted/taken, right?
If you need to swap a bit of goods why bother searching/posting if the wholesaler is a guaranteed 2-star? Especially if you have scroll-boosted-spire-induced PTSD?

The bee's benefits are dependent on your boost so not likely to create imbalance, and you don't have to do trades. But, you can also use excess supplies for goods, so I think a very good choice for the scrolls boosted player that is finding it very hard to get trades taken. I have 5 million more scrolls than silk or crystal so I don't want to take scroll trades because I know there's no one wanting them. Boosted or not boosted, too many players have a gross excess of scrolls.

 

[SoggyShorts]

The bee's benefits are dependent on your boost so not likely to create imbalance, and you don't have to do trades.

I wasn't thinking the bee could cause imbalance(certainly not on a scale with spire sets), just fewer trades.
"Fewer trades" is, generally, bad for a game like this.
Really it would take years and loads of scrolls boosted players sticking it out to get high-level bees to have any impact though.
Still, just another negative consequence of a bad design choice that inno isn't fixing in a timely manner.

 

[Alram]

Still, just another negative consequence of a bad design choice that inno isn't fixing in aroblem timely manner.

Inno isn't responsible for players choosing to discount goods or choosing to pay premium prices to advance their own cities. We, the players, can fix the problem.

 

[MichaelMichael]

Looks like you may just be in a bad part of your world for scrolls and the entire server may not be that imbalanced.

I know in my region on Arendyll that people offering scrolls never have to make them that out of balance to get them accepted. Or if they do, the trades get taken too quickly for me to see them.

I see

Looks like you may just be in a bad part of your world for scrolls and the entire server may not be that imbalanced.

I know in my region on Arendyll that people offering scrolls never have to make them that out of balance to get them accepted. Or if they do, the trades get taken too quickly for me to see them.

In my part of Arendyll, I have offered 100k to 150k scrolls at 2 star for all 8 other goods for weeks on end. I am never cleaned out but they do take a long time to close. I see many trades offering 20,000 scrolls for 15,000 crystal that are apparently never entirely filled. Scrolls are the one item that is always in excess in my part of our world. As noted previously, I do not make any one star offers in regular goods.

Because of the Moonstone set, I produce as many scrolls as I do my boost (silk). My recommendation remains to change the goods produced by spire buildings to be boost+1 (or+2) rather than the same for all players

 

[MichaelMichael]

I have done this in my crystal boosted city. I make crystal and trade it for silk. But, I'm not taking any trades offering scrolls except from FS scroll boosted members who can't get crystal/silk from outside the FS, so that also impacts the neighborhood trading market. I still think it's a problem that won't be addressed by simply removing the Spire set bldgs (those bldgs won't be deleted from our cities due to the other benefits we get from them or the link bonus they provide to other bldgs) or future chapter research requirements. I don't have any solution to offer, just more info to suggest there is a problem.
Here's my T2 inventory in that crystal boosted city right now:
View attachment 8846

My proposal to change the spire buildings production to boost +1 or +2 will solve the scrolls problem immediately

 

[SoggyShorts]

Inno isn't responsible for players choosing to discount goods or choosing to pay premium prices to advance their own cities. We, the players, can fix the problem.

Inno is 100% responsible for making a widely available very efficient building only produce ONE type of good instead of taking the VERY simple solution given to them by Beta players of making the building produce different goods for players with different boosts. (commonly referred to as "boost+1")
This would have (and still could) alleviate the problem since boosts are more or less evenly distributed with about 1/3 of players having each.

 

[Deborah M]

I'm getting really, really fed up with the imbalance in the trader where I am on the map! As the years have gone by and as Elvenar has chosen to leave cities which I know beyond a doubt haven't played in literally years, it has become seriously imbalanced. It is very difficult where I am to get marble, crystal & gems. I know of multiple dead cities that I used to trade with for those goods. I completely understand why Elvenar has chosen not to remove cities who have bought diamonds but they sure don't have to leave them sitting where they create a serious imbalance. Now they have let them sit there for so long that even if they do move them to their own section it would still probably take at least a year before any grow to the point of being any big benefit to their neighbors.

I also get very irritated by players who post gouging trades, especially sentient goods. If they think they can turn around and offer fair trades on those or other goods and I and others won't remember who they are they need to think again. I have nothing but distaste for players who set out to take advantage of other players. If I remember somebody's name who gouges and I see their trades posted I do not care if I have millions of what they are asking for. Definite no go! The only way I take any trades from those players is if I really need them, but I cringe if I feel like I have to.
On sentient goods I think it annoys me even more because I always post what I'm looking for + a %.

 

[Silver Lady]

My recommendation remains to change the goods produced by spire buildings to be boost+1 (or+2) rather than the same for all players

That seems to be a decent suggestion. They could change it to be “Endless Goods” and give tier 2 boost +1 or +2. Inno could even update the Endless Scrolls I have placed or in inventory and I’d be good with that. But I would kinda like for it to still give spell fragments. Why don’t you post that in the Suggestions & Ideas forum?

 

[Alram]

Inno is 100% responsible for making a widely available very efficient building only produce ONE type of good instead of taking the VERY simple solution given to them by Beta players of making the building produce different goods for players with different boosts. (commonly referred to as "boost+1")
This would have (and still could) alleviate the problem since boosts are more or less evenly distributed with about 1/3 of players having each.

I'm only in ch 4. I have every piece of the library except an endless scroll. I read the forum. It isn't fair to scroll boosted players. I CHOOSE to not place it in my city. It does hurt me. I'm ok with the pain. I only have 13000 spell fragments. I stand in solidarity with the scroll boosted players.

 

[samidodamage]

My proposal to change the spire buildings production to boost +1 or +2 will solve the scrolls problem immediately

@Kekune made that suggestion (in the proper forum and format) months ago, monitored the discussion, edited the original post to incorporate ideas from that discussion, got it to a vote that was favorable and it was forwarded to the devs on July 30, 2020. The available path to the devs is one-way; we rarely hear back from them, so we don't know anything other than that they have seen it. You can find that thread here:
Adjust Spire set goods output

 

[Iyapo1]

I'm only in ch 4. I have every piece of the library except an endless scroll. I read the forum. It isn't fair to scroll boosted players. I CHOOSE to not place it in my city. It does hurt me. I'm ok with the pain. I only have 13000 spell fragments. I stand in solidarity with the scroll boosted players.

Thank you for this! It is a happy thought but a completely unreasonable sacrifice. I am scroll boosted and have a love/hate with the library. I want the spell frags enough that I have 5 of the stupid things in my city!

 

[Sir Squirrel]

Yeah Alram, although I also appreciate your support, you need the catalyst and frags the set gives! All we can do is hope the Devs hear us and fix the damn game already!