Accept a member who posts Zero-star trade offers

[Cynthia de Luz]

I have a thought, shoot me down as you will, based on recent experience: benefactors providing resources to starter players and other FS. If you are, say, a ‘senior’ player with millions in resources and you know that this is a matter of hoarding beyond the needs of your own FS, you seek out and find others more junior and not as privileged as you to share your wealth. You contact that junior player and approach with an offer of providing lopsided trades in their favor, say 6:1 on trades less than 25k items. As Benefactor, you cannot post the trades with your target - we would all snatch up a 60k for 10k trade - instead the Benefactor asks the junior target to contact ahead of the lopsided zero star trade of 10k for 60k of target goods. This puts the junior trader at great risk of being ostracized by the FS team who don’t realize that by allowing this prearranged trade deal to happen, the junior player‘s FS is enriched by the Benefactor. That player is bringing in goods they were not able to obtain from FS members, either because the balance of boosted goods is not equitable, or FS players just not trading. The transactions should be done with plenty of communication to clarify what is happening. Junior players can help build the overall resources of the FS using the Benefactor strategy. However, I can also say there are those ultimately opposed to this activity, and I understand. I believe I was recently booted from a FS in which I was enjoying and growing, because I have a generous benefactor and despite communications, my actions with my benefactor were not understood or appreciated.

 

[Darielle]

I have a thought, shoot me down as you will, based on recent experience: benefactors providing resources to starter players and other FS. If you are, say, a ‘senior’ player with millions in resources and you know that this is a matter of hoarding beyond the needs of your own FS, you seek out and find others more junior and not as privileged as you to share your wealth. You contact that junior player and approach with an offer of providing lopsided trades in their favor, say 6:1 on trades less than 25k items. As Benefactor, you cannot post the trades with your target - we would all snatch up a 60k for 10k trade - instead the Benefactor asks the junior target to contact ahead of the lopsided zero star trade of 10k for 60k of target goods. This puts the junior trader at great risk of being ostracized by the FS team who don’t realize that by allowing this prearranged trade deal to happen, the junior player‘s FS is enriched by the Benefactor. That player is bringing in goods they were not able to obtain from FS members, either because the balance of boosted goods is not equitable, or FS players just not trading. The transactions should be done with plenty of communication to clarify what is happening. Junior players can help build the overall resources of the FS using the Benefactor strategy. However, I can also say there are those ultimately opposed to this activity, and I understand. I believe I was recently booted from a FS in which I was enjoying and growing, because I have a generous benefactor and despite communications, my actions with my benefactor were not understood or appreciated.

There is usually no problem with this sort of transaction. It is prearranged in advance, both parties are usually online when the transaction occurs, and the transaction is not staying up for days to reel in misclicks. It stays up often a matter of minutes, and the vast majority of players never even know such transactions occurred. People should not be ostracized in the fellowship if they drop a line in chat saying they have a large neighbor who is helping them out. When you posted in chat that you were getting these transactions from a neighbor, did anyone tell you it wasn't cool? Did you go against the wishes of the AM or mages? More info would be needed to figure out why they booted you.

I personally think these kinds of transactions for new members are a very nice thing to do, although unnecessary. I never accepted such transactions until I was begged to do so by my fellowship only because they wanted me to get us over the top in the tourney, since they had all done as much as possible and we needed the kind of points that I could not get on my own, without unfair trades. I was helping the team by taking the trades, so nothing shady about it. But it is easy to distinguish this kind of transaction from the shady kinds. The "bad" ones are not arranged in advance and they stay up for hours or days. They aren't really meant to help the team with a task. They are often just meant to enrich the player through misclicks.

I think in your case you should not have been booted, if you put up the trades in a timely fashion. Did you wait until your benefactor was online before you posted them? That might have been the problem, if you had them up too long waiting for him to come online. Like I said, more info would be needed to be able to figure out why they would do that.

 

[SoggyShorts]

I believe I was recently booted from a FS in which I was enjoying and growing, because I have a generous benefactor and despite communications, my actions with my benefactor were not understood or appreciated.

Sorry, that wasn't why at all. Those same benefactors have expectations such as 6 visits, clearing 2 floors of the spire, and getting 1600 tournament points every week. They are totally willing to pay for it via goods until your city can sustain it on its own, so really there is no excuse for not reaching those minimums and not communicating why you didn't reach those minimums.

 

[Gladiola]

I am not calling into question anyone's motives, which I think are generally good if one understands them.

However, I will say that as a new player I am glad to be in a fellowship that is not pressuring me to get 1600 points in the tourney each week. I would not join a fellowship that had that requirement until I've grown a bit. To get to 1600 points, I'd need to do six tournament provinces to six stars. This would imply that I had a minimum of 54 provinces open. However, as a chapter 3 player I want to stick pretty close to the 50 recommended provinces for my chapter. I have been getting 800-1000 points per tournament so far, and starting this week will be averaging 1350 with maybe an occasional week of 1080 or 1620 depending on how provinces fall in the ring. It will probably take me another month before I can hit 1620 on a regular basis.

Of course if a benefactor were to essentially give me a lot of goods through unbalanced trades, I could go further and score more points. It wouldn't be very fun though. There is not that much challenge in accepting trades and clicking Cater. For players like me, a kind thing to do would be for others to score 1800 points for a little while and allow me to grow. This would benefit the fellowship in the long run because I would develop a balanced playstyle and learn to make wise choices in goods and troop production. Not to mention I will have a developed city with plenty of factories and workshops that will be helpful in Fellowship Adventures.

I have no trouble getting to the High Halls of the Spire and would love if my fellowship wanted to join me there, but I accept that just as I don't want them to pressure me more in the tournament, I won't pressure them more in the Spire -- at least not until I can help them with the thousands of goods they have to spend on convincing!

 

[mucksterme]

However, I will say that as a new player I am glad to be in a fellowship that is not pressuring me to get 1600 points in the tourney each week. I would not join a fellowship that had that requirement until I've grown a bit.

Well, in truth, that will probably not be a problem for you.
It is doubtful that any FS that requires 1000 or more points would take a Chapter 3 player.
As much as "big" guys like to help "little" guys, they wouldn't want a guy who's obviously too little to meet their requirements.

 

[Gladiola]

@mucksterme It's not how big it is. It's what you do with it. By the end of chapter 3 I should be able to reliably get 1600-1800 points per tournament and climb to the top of the spire. The main reason that a fellowship with very large players (as opposed to players who score higher than 1600 in tournament and climb the Spire) should hesitate to take a puny city like mine is that I can't help them very effectively with trades to keep up the goods demands of tourney and Spire for really large cities.

 

[hvariidh gwendrot]

we have taken new and smaller players all the time as we already hit 10-12 chests every week and we let them do 0 star trades and lopsided trades to grow .. we don't expect them to hit 1600 from day 1 but we do expect them to set a pace for themselves that's comfortable to trend up to 1600 (with help and info it doesn't take long no matter what the size) .. then if they don't, because it's not can't with all the help provided they get the chop .. if a player communicates what they are doing then there's never a problem posting the 0 star trades

 

[Alram]

... we would all snatch up a 60k for 10k trade...

We "all" would not snatch up that trade. Many of us would assume that lopsided trade is an in house attempt to help a FS mate. Many of us would message the trader and ask them if they are helping someone or really in need of the specific goods.
Snatching that trade might peeve the local neighborly benefactor.

 

[ajqtrz]

After scanning through this thread
and ignoring most of the ubiquitous battles of words
I have a couple thoughts about the original subject

I do not like zero star trades except for the "in house, help a friend" type
I would not want someone in my FS who plays that way, because I just think they are shady

I never knew anybody would use them as a storage method
So, I guess I have to adjust my thinking some because those people aren't trying to be shady
However
I still wouldn't want them in my FS because I think they are, shall we say, not the brightest egg in the tool box.

Thanks for the civil and rational response. I agree. If I had a person in my fellowship who posted 0-star trades the first thing I'd do is ask him/her why? If it was "storage" I'd suggest he just give them to me to store for him. It's easy, and since I function in my fellowship as the quartermaster, it works. I write down what he's stored and there it sits -- sort of like a bank.

There are always ways to get around problems without imputing bad motives and I find that usually looking to a persons motives is a bit of a waste of time. Who cares why they do it, if you don't like it, find a way to convince them it's not the best option -- provide other options in other words.

Thanks again for the well stated response.

AJ

 

[Darielle]

Sorry, that wasn't why at all. Those same benefactors have expectations such as 6 visits, clearing 2 floors of the spire, and getting 1600 tournament points every week. They are totally willing to pay for it via goods until your city can sustain it on its own, so really there is no excuse for not reaching those minimums and not communicating why you didn't reach those minimums.

I knew there had to be more to the story. Thanks for clarifying.

 

[SoggyShorts]

I will say that as a new player I am glad to be in a fellowship that is not pressuring me to get 1600 points in the tourney each week. I would not join a fellowship that had that requirement until I've grown a bit.

For sure the requirements are lower for smaller players, something like 200 or 300 points per chapter would be fine. We don't really care about tournament points per se since 1 player isn't likely to change our outcome from 13 to 14 chests and even if it did there's not really much difference between those rewards.
Provided there was evidence of growth and/or improvement.

The spire is a little tight though with needing 21 players to complete it fully for the Gold rewards, so doing less than 2 floors puts a bit of pressure on the others.

of course if a benefactor were to essentially give me a lot of goods through unbalanced trades, I could go further and score more points. It wouldn't be very fun though. There is not that much challenge in accepting trades and clicking Cater.

Indeed, the expectation is always that you'd spend some(most?) of the free goods upgrading your factories.
"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for his lifetime"
In our experience, this has taken 2-3 weeks depending on the player's chapter.

Going from no spire to just one week of a paid-for full gold spire gives over a hundred hours of timer boosters, a bunch of CCs and w/e else you win which can really turn a city around.

 

[hvariidh gwendrot]

side questions ... shouldn't the mod move this thread ? is this really a player looking for a fellowship ?

 

[Gladiola]

@SoggyShorts I think in many ways the best way to benefit a small, new player is to have them participate in a fellowship where they can acquire relics quickly from tournament chests -- and even then the benefit can take up to 9 weeks to fully accrue, depending on the timing of tournaments.

The reason is, when the relic boost is low, say 86% to 141%, the payback period for upgrading factories is ridiculously long -- it can take 14 days or more for the increased production to return the amount of goods invested in the upgrade. When the relic boost is higher, over 200% or more, the payback period is much shorter and paying for one's own upgrades is much more sustainable. That's a great reason for fellows to help small players with goods to build factories. Personally, part of the fun for me is planning upgrades strategically, so even if it's a few days slower I'd rather generate the goods myself.

 

[Cynthia de Luz]

The Benefactor strategy can be a double-edged sword, that much is true. Keeping to the high road and minding self-improvement would appear to me to be the best route towards serene progress versus struggling out of a trap. Patience is key, as always, and greed rarely rewards.

 

[Cynthia de Luz]

The Benefactor strategy can be a double-edged sword, that much is true. Keeping to the high road and minding self-improvement would appear to me to be the best route towards serene progress versus struggling out of a trap. Patience is key, as always, and greed rarely rewards.

And yes, this thread may perhaps be best moved out of the member seeking fellowship thread.

 

[Deleted User - 1178646]

when I start a new small account and I need to do some questing for coins / supplies
We place zero star trades so nobody picks them up.

Guess what? even the 400 for 800 trades are picked up
aaargh! lol, I thought those would be obvious enough not to be picked up

 

[Gladiola]

@CrazyWizard if you don't want people to take those trades, why not just cancel them as soon as you create them?

 

[mucksterme]

If it was "storage" I'd suggest he just give them to me to store for him. It's easy, and since I function in my fellowship as the quartermaster, it works. I write down what he's stored and there it sits -- sort of like a bank.

I still don't understand this necessity of having someone hold goods for you, or sticking them in bad trades to "bank" them.
There is a much easier system. You know you will need 100,000 planks for research? Then, DON'T USE ANY PLANKS.
You already have unlimited storage that is available to you 24/7. So you don't need to wait on some quartermaster to be online so you can trade for your goods back. And you don't need to fill up the trader with bad trades that will either annoy your neighbors or cost them in a mis-click.

I must be missing something here. Because to me this sounds like I have two steaks in my freezer. I'm inviting my brother to dinner on Thursday so I take those steaks and a couple of potatoes and ask my neighbor to hold them for me so I don't eat them by mistake.
So what is it I don't understand?

 

[Deleted User - 1178646]

@CrazyWizard if you don't want people to take those trades, why not just cancel them as soon as you create them?

Please read again, because those trades where to quest for gold coins and supplies. so they were ment for a specific account. not for random people.
You trade for example 4000 kristal for 8000 scrolls with another player, that player then places 10 trades 400 kristal for 800 scrolls.

You can then constantly swap quests and complete the get x scrolls quest for gold coins and supplies as a reward.
But if someone else grabs those trades you cannot complete those quests.

 

[Gladiola]

@CrazyWizard I misunderstood. I thought you were talking about a "place x trade offers" quest. I see how what you are describing could work, although I generally do those quests by producing whatever the required resource is.