Fair trade and fellowships

[Diellashana]

I've been on for over a week now. I've noticed that the majority of FS require 1:1 fair trades. There is a majority of players not following that. I appreciate following my FS rules and the help they've given but it seems like I'm paying an opportunity cost for not participating in the free market. Now that I've switched to 1:1 trading, most of my trades are not taken by my FS or my local Neighborhood but by those outside those groups. I feel like I'm existing to only balance others goods.

Solution :
1. Make trade offers expire after 48 hours.
2. The community needs to change their mindset. Change the general FS consensus rule to have 1:1 trades offered on the weekends or after tournaments and let the free market prevail elsewise.

 

[Diellashana]

Idea - daily reward players who complete a fair trade offer with a random enchantment.

Idea - once a month drop all trade offers and force fair trades for a day. Rewards for completion of an offer.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Trades already expire after 7 days.

People who don't post 2 or 3-star trades are shunned by most players.

Some fellowships intentionally have newer players post really bad 0-star trades to help them get goods to grow quickly.

 

[Alram]

There are a few open trade FS. You can also chat with your AM and see if you can come up with a code that means-Neighbors Only.
If your regular 1:1 trades are just sitting for a long time, you might need a new FS.

 

[Alram]

I just copied and pasted my advice from another post. I hope it helps her or anyone else thinking about switching fellowships:


To find the perfect fellowship for you:

1, Click on your score while in game (in the upper left of the screen) and then click on the fellowships tab. Scroll through the fellowships, paying attention to their "overview." If there's nothing there, I would pass because I'd be afraid they don't take the time to define their fellowship. That's just me ... some fellowships are great without ever having put up a welcome note in their overview. But most of the time, the most active and engaging ones will have a good overview. You can get a feel for the fellowship from that. Do they have a lot of rules you don't like or can't meet? Do they sound unfriendly? Pass them by.

2. Gather a list of at least 5 fellowships that you like based on their overviews. Go to elvenstats.com and put each one individually in the "fellowships" tab. Make certain that you are selecting the right fellowship for your world. Some fellowship names are in more than one world and they can be very different from one another.

3. On each of them, look for the following things: First, check what boosts they need. If the fellowship is in desperate need of the things that you also need, and have too many of what you have, that probably won't be a good fit (although there are exceptions, but it's not usually good for newer players). 2nd, check to see if the members of the fellowship have a black triangle next to their name. If I saw more than one or two with a black triangle, I'd pass on that fellowship as not being active enough to suit me. 3rd, if the tournament is important to you, check how many chests they get in the tournament and whether you would be a good fit for their level. If you really want 10 chests and can do at least 1600 points each week in the tourney, but they only get three or four chests as a group, you might be disappointed. Lastly, scroll all the way down and see how stable their team is. If half a dozen people have left within the past week, that may mean nothing ... or it may mean that there is trouble in paradise. I'd want a stable group.

After you find one or two groups that you really like and that fit all of the above criteria, then it's time to write to the Archmage or recruiting mage and tell them a little about yourself and that you'd like to join their group. If they allow open membership, you can click on "apply," but don't rely on that alone to get you in. Some people forget to check that page, so write to someone in charge and tell them a bit about yourself. That's the quickest way to get in. Apply to only one group at a time ... if the first one doesn't reply within 48 hours, then try the alternate.

This, I think, is the best way to find a good fit. Good luck!

 

[Iyapo1]

I think I am not understanding your post.

it seems like I'm paying an opportunity cost for not participating in the free market.

What opportunity cost are you paying?

Now that I've switched to 1:1 trading, most of my trades are not taken by my FS or my local Neighborhood but by those outside those groups.

What trades were you offering before that your FS and neighbors were taking?

 

[crackie]

Now that I've switched to 1:1 trading, most of my trades are not taken by my FS or my local Neighborhood but by those outside those groups. I feel like I'm existing to only balance others goods.

Does it matter who is taking your trades though? If anyone, in fellowship or otherwise, needs goods, they can just post their own trades if someone had gobbled up trades you left for your fellowship. In an active FS, trades won't sit very long. It's also very easy for large cities with massive inventories to go through trader and clean it out taking smaller trades, whether they are in your fellowship or not.

I feel like the game needs to do a better job explaining trader fees to new players. If I see a player consistently list 1 or 0-star trades, I'll visit their city or fellowship to see what's going on. Usually the situation is newer players don't understand trader fees or they're in fellowships with other small cities so none is the wiser. Due to their limited scouted region as a new player, they see a lot of lopsided trades since most players fall outside their scouted region. If a neighbor outside scouted region posts 10000 trade, that's 5000 in fees, which is also an exorbitant amount for a new player. Even though they listed a 1:1 trade, the trader will show it as 10000 for 15000 to someone who hasn't scouted to them. It appears super lopsided, more so than 100 for 150, even though it's the same percentage of fee. The new players think it's normal to list 0 and 1-star trades because that's what they see all over their trader. On the browser, it's a tiny yellow exclamation point to indicate that trade has fees. On the app, the exclamation is larger but it's like a faded out grey and there's no mouseover or info to indicate what the heck that exclamation even means.

p.s. Remember tourneys in the old format used to require massive amounts of goods of that tourney so the trader is bare of those goods for a whole week. Fun times!

 

[Eldinar]

Idea - daily reward players who complete a fair trade offer with a random enchantment.

Idea - once a month drop all trade offers and force fair trades for a day. Rewards for completion of an offer.

I make trades based upon my best interest, which means I never do 1 star trades and will often do 3 star trades. I push the production of my boosted goods to maximize efforts then trade to keep the sum of my non-boosted goods equal to my boosted goods (this means I maintain a surplus for emergencies and can do 3 star trades if necessary). About once a quarter I will take a week off from the fellowship to just work on my production. I always meet the minimum requirements for my fellowship and often go above and beyond to encourage good-will and build relationships to help me out when I get into a bind. Building relationships also means finding out who my non-fellowship neighbors are and reaching out to them to build trade relationships for goods that may be scarce within my fellowship. You can do the minimum and build that way, but I personally find investing a bit more in others which also means becoming a reliable source of help for non-fellowship cities below my level means there are always others i can turn to for help and I like the added bonus of fun and feelings of camaraderie.

just sayin

PS: I also always ask if cross tier trades are allowed in a fellowship before joining - I try to avoid cross tier trades, but occasionally they can be helpful in maintaining balance if you get out of kilter - the best solution is maintaining a good balance of manufactories between tiers but other factors can help throw you out of balance.

 

[Crikee]

Does it matter who is taking your trades though? If anyone, in fellowship or otherwise, needs goods, they can just post their own trades if someone had gobbled up trades you left for your fellowship. In an active FS, trades won't sit very long. It's also very easy for large cities with massive inventories to go through trader and clean it out taking smaller trades, whether they are in your fellowship or not.

I feel like the game needs to do a better job explaining trader fees to new players. If I see a player consistently list 1 or 0-star trades, I'll visit their city or fellowship to see what's going on. Usually the situation is newer players don't understand trader fees or they're in fellowships with other small cities so none is the wiser. Due to their limited scouted region as a new player, they see a lot of lopsided trades since most players fall outside their scouted region. If a neighbor outside scouted region posts 10000 trade, that's 5000 in fees, which is also an exorbitant amount for a new player. Even though they listed a 1:1 trade, the trader will show it as 10000 for 15000 to someone who hasn't scouted to them. It appears super lopsided, more so than 100 for 150, even though it's the same percentage of fee. The new players think it's normal to list 0 and 1-star trades because that's what they see all over their trader. On the browser, it's a tiny yellow exclamation point to indicate that trade has fees. On the app, the exclamation is larger but it's like a faded out grey and there's no mouseover or info to indicate what the heck that exclamation even means.

p.s. Remember tourneys in the old format used to require massive amounts of goods of that tourney so the trader is bare of those goods for a whole week. Fun times!

I just had to explain fair trades to the members of my new FS. Just like you said, they did not understand the trader fee. I had one posted a trade of 50 steel for 350 planks because the player thought that was how it was done. (It was not a prearranged special trade). They understand now, but it took a while to explain it. I agree that the trader fee aspect needs to be better explained in game.

 

[Darielle]

I've been on for over a week now. I've noticed that the majority of FS require 1:1 fair trades. There is a majority of players not following that. I appreciate following my FS rules and the help they've given but it seems like I'm paying an opportunity cost for not participating in the free market. Now that I've switched to 1:1 trading, most of my trades are not taken by my FS or my local Neighborhood but by those outside those groups. I feel like I'm existing to only balance others goods.

Solution :
1. Make trade offers expire after 48 hours.
2. The community needs to change their mindset. Change the general FS consensus rule to have 1:1 trades offered on the weekends or after tournaments and let the free market prevail elsewise.

Diellashana, because you're new it's hard to get started. I understand how you feel and I can sympathize. But I want you to understand what you're doing by posting 0 or 1 star trades. You have many, many, many neighbors who can see and trade with you that you cannot see or trade with (fairly) yet. Someday, you'll widen your neighborhood and gain a whole lot of new trading partners. But by consistently posting "unfair" (0-1 star) trades, you are giving yourself a bad reputation in the neighborhood. There are some people who see that behavior and learn to associate your name with "greed." They get a negative opinion of you. And then later, when you realize that MOST people post fair trades and the only reason you weren't seeing them was because you were new and your circle wasn't wide enough ... well, then you're sorry that you've gotten a bad reputation. You'll want to make up for it by posting 2 and 3 stars, but by then, people have learned to avoid you.

There are some neighbors (and I have talked to more than a couple people who have said this) who will never trade with you ... they'll avoid picking up your trades even when you post 2 or 3 star trades. They also won't visit you, because they've gotten a negative impression of you from the start. You are making the game harder for yourself in the future by getting a bad rep early on.

Hang in there and believe the majority when they say to post fair trades. Don't give in to this temporary frustration. Building long-term relationships is hard, and being a good neighbor is sometimes hard too. But I promise you, it will pay off in spades. You'll be glad later that you started out fairly, no matter how difficult the journey on the road to success. Good luck.

 

[Diellashana]

I think I am not understanding your post.

What opportunity cost are you paying?

What trades were you offering before that your FS and neighbors were taking?

1:1.5, I didn't know that fair trade meant 1:1,I looked through the trader and saw a lot of 1:1.5. I thought fair meant not ripping people off and shady cross tier stuff. Seeing a lot of 1:1.5 and seeing that I was successful at that level told me that was the standard. After a FS mage messaged me saying two star I read more here and found that my initial thoughts were wrong. The FS rule is fair trade but a new player doesn't know that means 1:1. I had to feel what I thought was fair not knowing the standard.

The opportunity cost is people have been taking my trades and I'm in profit. Now the rule is to let that profit go by.

Another poster asked about if 1:1 trades not being taken. Of course they are and my FS/neihborhood is very active and respectful. A great place for new players. Why would I leave them when their rules are standard. I'm questioning the zero profit standard community wide.

Maybe having fat goods stacks is not as important as FS AW KP access. I'm still figuring it out.

 

[Myne]

I've been on for over a week now. I've noticed that the majority of FS require 1:1 fair trades. There is a majority of players not following that. I appreciate following my FS rules and the help they've given but it seems like I'm paying an opportunity cost for not participating in the free market. Now that I've switched to 1:1 trading, most of my trades are not taken by my FS or my local Neighborhood but by those outside those groups. I feel like I'm existing to only balance others goods.

Solution :
1. Make trade offers expire after 48 hours.
2. The community needs to change their mindset. Change the general FS consensus rule to have 1:1 trades offered on the weekends or after tournaments and let the free market prevail elsewise.

IMHO, you need to look hard at the FS you are playing in. If you are posting fair trades and none of your FS are taking those trades, there is something wrong there. Really look at what you are benefitting as opposed to what you are investing there. It may be that you have outgrown your FS. I cannot speak for other AMs but in my fellowship, the trades posted by my fellowship come first, then I look at neighbors offerings.

Edit: Accepting three star trades can be profitable. Normal play is 2 stars. 1 or 0 stars IMHO denotes greed unless it's an emergency situation agreed to by your fellowship. And fat goods stacks come with time.

 

[Henroo]

1:1.5, I didn't know that fair trade meant 1:1,I looked through the trader and saw a lot of 1:1.5. I thought fair meant not ripping people off and shady cross tier stuff. Seeing a lot of 1:1.5 and seeing that I was successful at that level told me that was the standard.

1 to 1 is always the standard for fair trades as long as both goods are the same tier.

If you are talking about cross-tier trades then 1 to 1.5 is the accepted ratio for fair trading for a single tier's difference. For example: offering 1500 marble/planks/steel in exchange for 1000 silk/crystal/scrolls would be a fair 2 star trade. And the ratio would work the same in reverse, if you are offering tier 2 goods and asking for tier 1 goods, then it would be appropriate to offer 1000 and ask for 1500.

If you are trying to trade tier 1 good for tier 3 goods, the fair trade ration is 2.25. For eamaple if I wanted to trade marble for elixer, I would need to offer 2250 marble and ask for 1000 elixer in order for it to be a 2 star trade.

 

[Henroo]

IMHO, you need to look hard at the FS you are playing in. If you are posting fair trades and none of your FS are taking those trades, there is something wrong there.

It could be he is just in a really hot trade neighborhood. And the neighbors are snapping up his trades before the fellowship can. I have noticed this is the case for me since the great migration.

 

[Myne]

It could be he is just in a really hot trade neighborhood. And the neighbors are snapping up his trades before the fellowship can. I have noticed this is the case for me since the great migration.

That is possible. I am in the process of retraining my FS to constantly check the trader since the move. For the most part it moves faster now. With the exception of scrolls which are scarcer than hens teeth where we are.

 

[crackie]

I just saw trades from @Diellashana in my trader with no exclamation marks. I went to my map to see where she is and...she moved in two cities over. Aha!

Anyway, I was moved here slightly before the Great Migration and can confirm it’s a pretty active neighborhood. Consider yourself lucky you got to start out the game in an hopping neighborhood! Since I am in your neighborhood and have a larger scouted region than you, I can also confirm most of the trades are actually 1:1. There is only one or two players listing 1* trades within my scouted region and they are new players. Therefore, you aren’t missing out on the free market with unbalanced trades. Those 1:1.5 trades are the trader fees we’ve been talking about. You are seeing them with a 50% fee added to their original listing because you haven’t scouted to them yet. For example, I might see them as 1:1 bc I have already scouted to them so to me, that is a regular 2* trade, but to you, it’s a 1* trade. Therefore, it’s not that there is a market for taking trades at a loss, but there are larger cities nearby with massive scouted regions so they are taking regular 1:1 trades still. As @Darielle pointed out, it’s not an advised strategy to post 1 or 0 star trades. It might look like a sweet deal when you are making an extra 100 or 1000 goods now, but when your city becomes bigger and needs tens or hundred of thousands of goods, you might find yourself already blackballed by a lot of neighbors for flooding trader with uneven goods.

(If you find your Father Trees covered in one-ply scrolls, the Shenanigan Elves next door have absolutely nothing to do with it.)

 

[Darielle]

1:1.5, I didn't know that fair trade meant 1:1,I looked through the trader and saw a lot of 1:1.5. I thought fair meant not ripping people off and shady cross tier stuff.

Just want to mention that there is nothing shady about cross tier trades. Long ago, Inno valued the 3rd tier goods too highly and so cross tiers got a bad rap from back then. However, nowadays, the valuations are much fairer and there's nothing wrong with FAIR (2-3 star) cross tiers. I make all my cross tier trades three star because the longtime players still have a negative connotation hungover from the old days, and I don't want to tick them off. My cross tiers usually get cleared pretty quickly. Basically, there are no shady trades EXCEPT for zero and 1 star trades that are done by the player purely for profit. (But remember, the player is not responsible for the trading fee, so if you see that trading fee mark next to a trade, don't blame the member for it. They do not get anything extra from that trader fee.)

 

[BrinDarby]

I didn't know that fair trade meant 1:1

It doesn't... this debate has been going on since I started playing.

1:1 is an " Even " trade, too many FSs have co-opted that to mean " fair ".
The game itself is unfair across the board concerning trade, yet FSs
continue to harbor arcaic rules from when conversion rates were different
that only serve to benefit the older more established players at the
detriment of newer players. Not to mention that when trade issues are
discussed, there is a different discussion relating to all 3 types .....
Basic Std , Sentient, & Ascended goods, and all too often the 3 are
lumped together when to make everyone happier they must be kept apart.
Adding to the great debaucle, is the inversely unfair 50% trade fee the
newer a player is.....

Trade is NOT " fair " across the board in any respect, and the artificially
imposed rules most FSs have , that extend to include Basic Std goods,
make matters worse, not better.....

The ONLY ..... Unfair Trade, is a trade that a player is forced to do, when
they don't want to.....as far as I've seen, there's no button that forces anyone
to take any trade..... If you want to "order" trades..... thats simple.....
They are "even", "expensive", or "cheap" .... none of the 3 are Unfair !!!!

 

[Deborah M]

This subject has been beaten to death multiple times so not going into a long explanation. I refuse to take 1 or 0 star trades. My choice because I firmly believe that unless prearranged with another player it is somebody who thinks they are 'special' so they can try to gouge other players. I actually like seeing the ones that sit there day after day until they time out in the trader. I do allow cross-tier trades in my Fellowship. I do my best to pick up all trades in my fellowship and check multiple times a day. I do not pick up other cross-tier trades unless I really, really need something and that is very seldom.

 

[AtaguS]

This subject has been beaten to death multiple times so not going into a long explanation.

Indeed it has.
The larger consensus each time it gets rehashed is that fair trades are more desirable.
I regularly ignore the handful of players' trades on my world who are obviously playing this "Free-market" game as does most everyone in my fs.
Not going to bite on the semantics of words and the merits of profit arguments, blah blah blah.
If a player doesn't like the fair trade rules in a fs there are likely other fss out there that better suit their style.
I'd urge everyone to change fellowships before trying to change the game at large.