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    Your Elvenar Team

Funneling under-produced resources out of your Fellowship...

Katwick

Cartographer
But if (by prior agreement) a zero star request is posted, the only risk is that somebody will complain that they were trading while sleeping, and misclicked.

DO PLEASE consider that Miss Goody Two Shoes might be badgering an entry level player who would rather be left alone.

Intrusively " helpful" folks can get pretty obnoxious.
 

Laftar

New Member
As usual, the fog of 1:1 as "fair" clouds the judgment. ("reversible" here being a substitute for "fair.") The thing is, people don't trade 1:1 all the time and thus, "same-tier 1:1" isn't a viable answer. After all, the only thing this OP said was that the trades that were being taken and re-posted were NOT being posted to the advantage of the fellowship. To me that means they could have been 1:1 same tier trades since if a good is scarce all the trades posted might be 1:1.1 rather than 1:1. Posting a 1:1 trade in a trading environment where all other trades of the same type are 1:1.1 means you don't get your trades taken....or you get them taken by players willing to lose the profit of the 1:1.1 trade. In my experience, people willing to do that are rare. So the issue would not have been solved by a 1:1 posting alone and the problem seems to have been that the trades were being posted in larger quantities, thus making them out of reach for smaller players in the fs. Even if the trades re-posted were of the same tier 1:1 type, it's not the type of trade, but it's size, apparently, that is the problem. The same problem would be there if the trade were cross-tier or otherwise different from the 1:1 type.

The magic formula of reversibility doesn't work here if the trades weren't same tier 1:1, no matter what the size. The reason the ratio of the trade goes away from 1:1 is because there is a perceived change in value in the good. The cause of that change can be an actual production loss caused by the game mechanics, or a psychological change in the individual's perception in response to changes in his/her desires. All very complicated and very human.

I do agree that one thing you can do to at least reduce the problem is get smaller payers to post what they want rather than always looking for it.

The only thing I think can be done is for the AM to clearly state to all the players what are the limits of trading. If size matters then it should be stated and why and how it matters with it. Get feed back, discuss it, and when somebody doesn't post trades in the manner described, ask why. Sometimes there are reasons, even if the reasons sound a bit fishy. But if we at least understand them, we can better deal with the situation.

AJ
I am a huge fan of open communication, so I totally agree with fishing out the why part - which is what I did. Some people were fine with it, other people were super offended I asked at all. We're all different I guess. And yes, the prohibitive/restrictive size of the reposts had me asking more questions and part of the reason why I took the trades back when I saw them reposted. I just wanted to make sure the smaller players in our Fellowship have access to those goods first.

The request thread I started within my Fellowship (just a member, I'm not the AM) seems to be working and some people see it as a good idea and are participating so I think overall despite the friction it will turn out fine. Thank-you for your input.
 

crackie

Chef, Scroll-Keeper, Buddy's #1 Fan
@Laftar I don't see this as a problem if they are even trades. People within the fellowship that need goods can continue to post their own trades as their demands require. If he's taking their trades and flipping it, your FS needs are still met. If he's flipping your trades, you have the potential to trade it into whatever form you need too (like Soggy said) OR...the option to stop taking his trades. I looked up your FS roster and you have plenty of big cities in the group to support your smaller cities. Given Sentient goods are traded server wide, I assume you mean this is an issue with basic goods. Are your chap 17 cities running out of basic goods then? That might be a more interesting problem.

But I might have the obscure minority view though. I started a new fellowship and somehow recruited 1 marble boosted player out of 17 recruits. Instead of fixing it, I was ready to double down to create an artificial marble shortage by barring all future marble boosted players so we maintain the one lonesome marble player, both as a joke to pretend to make her feel extra special and to continue to blame the person responsible for recruiting for such a craptastic job balancing out the FS. Fortunately (or unfortunately), our next applicant was a new player that rolled marble boosted. His limerick was attention grabbing, so we let him in and it foiled my plans. But yeah, I am our biggest city (chap 15 as of this writing) and like the other bigger cities, take all the intra-FS trades of the smaller players, but everyone is smaller in my case. I just tilt my inventory to be more marble heavy when I'm re-balancing for myself and window shopping with neighbors, or what not. I feel like taking your fellows' trades and flipping it to whatever is needed by you as an individual or by your fellowship is already a natural part of the process, at least for me. So if you don't like the extra process of laundering marble for example, you could always just not take that person's trades anymore.
 

Laftar

New Member
@Laftar I don't see this as a problem if they are even trades. People within the fellowship that need goods can continue to post their own trades as their demands require. If he's taking their trades and flipping it, your FS needs are still met. If he's flipping your trades, you have the potential to trade it into whatever form you need too (like Soggy said) OR...the option to stop taking his trades. I looked up your FS roster and you have plenty of big cities in the group to support your smaller cities. Given Sentient goods are traded server wide, I assume you mean this is an issue with basic goods. Are your chap 17 cities running out of basic goods then? That might be a more interesting problem.

But I might have the obscure minority view though. I started a new fellowship and somehow recruited 1 marble boosted player out of 17 recruits. Instead of fixing it, I was ready to double down to create an artificial marble shortage by barring all future marble boosted players so we maintain the one lonesome marble player, both as a joke to pretend to make her feel extra special and to continue to blame the person responsible for recruiting for such a craptastic job balancing out the FS. Fortunately (or unfortunately), our next applicant was a new player that rolled marble boosted. His limerick was attention grabbing, so we let him in and it foiled my plans. But yeah, I am our biggest city (chap 15 as of this writing) and like the other bigger cities, take all the intra-FS trades of the smaller players, but everyone is smaller in my case. I just tilt my inventory to be more marble heavy when I'm re-balancing for myself and window shopping with neighbors, or what not. I feel like taking your fellows' trades and flipping it to whatever is needed by you as an individual or by your fellowship is already a natural part of the process, at least for me. So if you don't like the extra process of laundering marble for example, you could always just not take that person's trades anymore.
Well, we're elixir and gem heavy so I wasn't the only one who took issue with taking needed dust and then placing 100k trades up (for elixir and gems - which we have excess of) that smaller members could not pick up. He wasn't flipping it for something we needed or that could not easily be provided by other members. He was just placing the trades out of reach of smaller cities within our Fellowship. I'm a larger city myself and had no problem taking them back in. I let him know this, and a lot of anger came in from numerous places. It made me curious why people would have a problem with me placing priority on our own members who were pretty much empty of dust (and scrolls and steel, which I also produce). I also didn't get why he cared I picked them back up since he got the elixir and gems he claimed he was actually looking for (after saying he needed dust smh). I settled on not trading with him. He ended up packing up and leaving.
 

SoggyShorts

Mathematician par Excellence
The request thread I started within my Fellowship (just a member, I'm not the AM) seems to be working and some people see it as a good idea
A trade request thread seems rather redundant to me.
The existing trader already accomplishes this:
Players can post trade requests there by simply posting... trade requests. ;)

Plus with a thread you have to deal with the downsides: Either all FS members are required to check the request thread before taking any trades, or else trades will be taken that have been "reserved" for specific members. Lose-Lose. It's a recipe for resentment and frustration.

He was just placing the trades out of reach of smaller cities within our Fellowship.
It's nearly impossible to post trades that are the right size for smaller players. For one, you have to ask or guess as to what is the perfect size for them on any given day for every particular good. Then you have to ensure somehow that no other player takes it, FS member or otherwise. Totally impractical if not impossible.

The simple answer is to have those players who need goods post requests. This way the size of the trade is always 100% perfect, and there's no such thing as "the wrong person" getting the trade.

If the trades are 1:1 same tier, then the bigger players can easily help by snapping up every single trade request from smaller players regardless of what good it is and simply reverse it in the market.


How I explained it to a smaller player before:

Option 1
I post 60 trades of all mixes of goods and all sizes​
result:​
some of those trades are maybe useful for them​
maybe they get them before someone else does​

Option 2
They post a trade asking for what they need​
result:​
They get exactly what they need 100% of the time either from me or someone else​
 

Lelanya

Scroll-Keeper, Keys to the Gems
Ugh
How many times have I posted circular trades for wee neighbors only to have the biggest player on the map snap them all up! Lol remember our zero star FA trades for Potions?
 

crackie

Chef, Scroll-Keeper, Buddy's #1 Fan
He was just placing the trades out of reach of smaller cities within our Fellowship.
It's a common (bad) habit of the smaller (sometimes larger too) cities to not post their own trades and rely on window shopping of what other people have listed instead. Some go as far as making their own unboosted goods instead of listing their own trades just because they don't see the trade combo they need. Another example are the menaces trying to corner the market for sentient goods by taking all the trades and then flipping it around for a profit via uneven trades. You know how you foil that genius of a plan? Just post your own sentient trades too! People will be so hungry to see an even sentient trade listed that they'll be gone in a flash! So yeah, the small players should get in the habit of just posting trades in the combo they need, in the denomination they need. Same tier, 1:1 trades go in a blitz no matter the size of your city (unless you're in the desert with no neighbors, then it's a different problem). Big cities with massive scouted areas gobble up neighborhood trades all the time, esp for the little ones.

I once heard sage advice that flippers just flip, from a penguin, believe it or not.
 

Fiona Selah

Well-Known Member
@Laftar The former member basically lied to you about what he needed and why seems to me? Guess that was the basic issue which was unacceptable IMO.

Our FS policy is just to post in chat if you have a trade that's priority to the poster. We all try to pick up and those of us who can will fulfill a zero/one star trade no matter the poster's city size if they need it.

That's because our policy is laid out for new members and lower star trades are allowed for small cities or those who need it for tourney/spire. Laying out FS policy has simply prevented problems. Also Honest communication by our members!

The world rebalancing also solved our problems of shortages - ours was steel a while back.
 

ajqtrz

Chef - loquacious Old Dog
Or it could be worse. You could be collecting in your mug and then get mugged too.

AJ
 

crackie

Chef, Scroll-Keeper, Buddy's #1 Fan
It's funny: If you need some goods I'll happily help out with an 8:1 zero-star trade, but posting 1-star trades is strictly prohibited.
I guess it's the difference between putting money in someone's mug and getting mugged by someone...
I offered to give away goods this week and naturally, people got excited. I offered a very specific amount as determined by my wholesaler, which in the grand scheme of things is not much at all, but we have a bunch of tiny larva ants in our colony so they think it’s a lot. I would say in the grand scheme of things, it only costs me pennies, but in this case, I really just wanted to tell somebody that 50k of goods cost me 50M in coins from the wholesaler after making coin badges and having to dump excess into wholesaler :D
 

Shae-Leigh

Rushing in Place
And no matter what I would be watching the trade boards more closely from now on.
Being the police takes alot of joy out of the game. There will be people who you don't like like, gaming styles you don't like. Just walk away. I have walked from a few places like that, because I enjoy the game, just not everyone that plays it. We can't know why they posted it that way. But if you are policing what you have already traded away, that will only spell frustration for you. Maybe just take trades rather than post them. That way, if there are fellows you don't see eye to eye with, you don't have to worry a out it. And then, enjoy the game!
 

Starderup

New Member
I get that it really bothers you, but you asked for everyone else's thoughts on the matter, and I was just sharing why it doesn't bother me at all. If this were a competitive game rather than a cooperative one, I may feel very differently about it.
It is not always co-operative. This player places ONE KP on every AW in my FS, but due to a qiirky quota system, effectively blocks anyone from doing the same. If I could block her, I would.
This is not in the spirit of co-operation at all. She's a squatter.
~Star
 

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crackie

Chef, Scroll-Keeper, Buddy's #1 Fan
It is not always co-operative. This player places ONE KP on every AW in my FS, but due to a qiirky quota system, effectively blocks anyone from doing the same. If I could block her, I would.
This is not in the spirit of co-operation at all. She's a squatter.
~Star
You got one less KP to pay for to complete your wonder. If your FS can’t afford 2KPs to bump them off if reward chests matter that much, then there are greater issues at play.
 
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