S3 Goods Imbalanced - Bots needed

[Iyapo1]

I do not think it is the player's fault. There were complaints about the Moonstone Set going on when I first started playing and first joined the forums in Feb 2020. And some of those posts were already months old THEN. It took nearly another year and a half for the game developers to take player complaints seriously and change the Moonstone set. For that matter, I have heard that the initial Beta feedback about the Moonstone Set was that it would be a potential problem. The Devs ignored this and introduced it as is.

This makes me sad! I was one of the voices complaining bitterly about the set. They "fixed" the problem and I am terribly afraid that the are just going let this burn itself out.

 

[Darielle]

With all due respect Darielle,

There's as much as a 20% premium being placed on some S3 trades, and there's literally 100s of trades to choose from.

I don't understand why it should be acceptable that some players must eat a 5-10% penalty that the rest of the players do not have to incur? This "penalty" of devaluing boosted goods in a simple economy is by in large what caused players to quit and create this issue in the first place.

I'm just asking for the game to identify and remedy this imbalance, before it does further damage. The game has already lost many of it's seasoned steel players. It takes over a year for those new players to get high enough in level to help balance this naturally, and I don't really want to suffer and wait that long for others to catch up..

I agree with you. It is wrong and I want it addressed as well. But I'm just saying that while having to live with the current system, people should make it as easy as possible on themselves, and three star trades are simply easier than dealing with the wholesaler or making nonboosts yourself. We've been forced to live with this situation for years and we make the best of it. I urge people to make the best of it. I never said I liked it ... in fact, I said I didn't.

 

[Iyapo1]

@Enevhar Aldarion

I can not even see sentient goods. Speaking only for what I am seeing in my trader right now- 200 trades asking for scrolls or steel. 82 of them are same tier. 108 are 2 star(13 of the same tier trades are 3 star). There are only 9 trades up asking for something other than steel or scrolls.

There is not a single 0-1 star offer on the board.

I am plank, scroll, dust boosted. I thought outside the box and have a lv 30 BTG. So I will be fine. Other payers might go the way of all the scroll boosted players that just up and quit. It will correct itself eventually, the question is how many more players will we lose to make that happen?

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

It will correct itself eventually, the question is how many more players will we lose to make that happen?

As long as more new players start than old players quit, Inno will not care. They do not see the difference between someone in the first few chapters and someone in the end chapters. And now that they are finally cleaning up the dead and inactive cities, their auto-placement system will put more people into spots with scrolls as a boost. They may just not be able to really help people for a year or two as they grow.

 

[Henroo]

@Enevhar Aldarion

I can not even see sentient goods. Speaking only for what I am seeing in my trader right now- 200 trades asking for scrolls or steel. 82 of them are same tier. 108 are 2 star(13 of the same tier trades are 3 star). There are only 9 trades up asking for something other than steel or scrolls.

It does seem like steel is the most rare T1 good. However as far as the lack of trades, I wonder how much of that is due to the Pilgrim's Manor Set? A full set of it allows a player to make a large amount of all 3 types of tier 1 good daily. Since they are making everything, there is less need to trade T1 goods. This is especially true if they also have Mermaid's Paradise, which also provides all 3 types of T1 goods. Artifacts for it were in the spire a few months ago, so many players might have built it as well.

 

[Erivan]

@Erivan You do not say which goods are being offered in those trades asking for bismuth, but I doubt it is all of the other eight sentient goods. the Beta server has similar problems, that may even be worse, because it has a smaller population than Harandar. There have been plenty of times there that I have offered my tier 1 and 2 sentient goods for the tier 3 that I need. Or if people only seem to want the sentients that are not my boosts, I will trade my boosted goods for the non-boosted good I do not need, and then trade that good for the other non-boosted that I do need. People need to think outside the box.

Soap is the only S3 good you find sitting, and again, there's hundreds of trades sitting unfulfilled.

Cross tiered trades are not really a viable solution imo, and outside of the few times the game dictates surpluses through the demands of research and city growth, believe balanced cities and an economy with enough same tiered goods is the best indicator of health.

I've been able to stay balanced in all my goods throughout this game, and have had very few times to have posted cross tiered trades.

Also, I'm really getting tired of defending my case to other players on different servers though. I must say, I've posted this to try to let the folks running the game know there's an issue. I believe it's an issue when my boosted goods are devalued because I can't trade mine at 2 stars to save my life because there's already 100 other 3 star trades sitting there. There are only soap trades sitting available, and I disagree with anyone who says it's healthy for there to never be trades of all goods available at all times.

So where there's a shortage due to lack of players, bots or some other solution is needed.

Cheers, Happy New Year, and good night.
~E

 

[Yogi Dave]

It seems like every server has a problem with one or more of the S goods being in short supply or a glut of. The A goods have the same problem, especially since they are new. There has been a lot of discussions about this issue since they were 1st introduced. Unfortunately, I don't really there is a good way for Inno to deal with it and I shudder to think of the ways it might. It's tougher on people who have just gotten a new S good boost since they need them and haven't been able to build up a stockpile.

I proposed allowing some high-level players switch boosts to remedy the imbalance in less than the year or two it will take steel players otherwise growing their cities.

How would these players be chosen? Do they get a choice to be or not to be chosen? The layout of the map is what determines one's boost, so this becomes a new type of problem and potential can of worms.

If not that, then creating some trade bots to produce and balance the broken economy would help.

This idea scares me. It seems like a simple problem from the outside. You use as the metric the average sum of goods in the trader and how long they sit there. 0- and 1-star trades sit there a long time. Are they counted? 3-star move fast, so do only 2-star trades get used? Does that mean the amount of goods the bots take or make shifts over time? Couldn't the bots end up hurting the people that produce the goods the bots are now providing, especially if their actions shift over time? It also sounds like people would no longer have to trade with each other as much since the bots are providing what you need. This is a cooperative social game. I think bots would remove some of that.

With time, we work around the problems Inno introduces. Some people quit the game. Those who stay move on with the frustrations of the game. In the meantime, we try and come up with ideas that they might use. Until then, we find work arounds.

when I want a sentient good that is in such a big demand that no trades ever seem to stay in the Trader long enough for me to even see them, I just post my own trades. I make them with a 5 to 10% benefit, such as offering 11000 for 10000, to the person taking them and they are never up for more than a few hours.

Yeah, 3 star trades move, even when there is a glut. I just wish more people realized that since you're getting so much more from your boosts, it's still better to trade at 5-10 percent off than it is to try to produce the nonboosted sentients yourself.

I do what these two and others do and put up 10% bonus trades. They get a 10% bonus and I lose 9% off an equal trade. I have a lot of excess goods, so this isn't a problem for me, and the trades do move very fast. However, as I said above, if it's a new S good for you, you don't have the stockpile to let you do this. Yes, it's frustrating as hell. When a new chapter is introduced to the game there is always shortages in at least one of the goods. This slows down progress, but we get through it. I know this doesn't help you and that the Moonstone Set caused problems that are still reverberating through the worlds. I've learned to build two of the manus for the new good that is coming in the next chapter. Sometimes the 2nd one isn't needed much, but it's better to be ready if it is. This isn't an immediate solution for you, but it would take Inno a long time to implement any solution, unless they have it in the works. Maybe that's why they aren't doing other things we want done, but I hope not.

 

[Erivan]

@Erivan You do not say which goods are being offered in those trades asking for bismuth, but I doubt it is all of the other eight sentient goods. the Beta server has similar problems, that may even be worse, because it has a smaller population than Harandar. There have been plenty of times there that I have offered my tier 1 and 2 sentient goods for the tier 3 that I need. Or if people only seem to want the sentients that are not my boosts, I will trade my boosted goods for the non-boosted good I do not need, and then trade that good for the other non-boosted that I do need. People need to think outside the box.

I shouldn't respond, but kinda can't help it..

I believe cross tiered trades are largely due to imbalance, and although many use them, are actually a symptom of an unhealthy economy.

Regarding thinking outside of the box, believe I am. That is why I'm offering a solution to a problem and trying to bring this to the game's attention, before more people quit and the economy and server collapses..

Finding a way to prevent 33% of the people in a game from being screwed unlike the other players in the game seems reasonable, fair, and right. If all players in the game faced this same issue, and therefore had to be creative in the same manner, that is one thing, and I'd embrace it..

But if it's not by design, or universally experienced, then it should be fixed. To stay the course is to stay within the box, imo.

 

[Darielle]

@Enevhar Aldarion

I can not even see sentient goods. Speaking only for what I am seeing in my trader right now- 200 trades asking for scrolls or steel. 82 of them are same tier. 108 are 2 star(13 of the same tier trades are 3 star). There are only 9 trades up asking for something other than steel or scrolls.

There is not a single 0-1 star offer on the board.

I am plank, scroll, dust boosted. I thought outside the box and have a lv 30 BTG. So I will be fine. Other payers might go the way of all the scroll boosted players that just up and quit. It will correct itself eventually, the question is how many more players will we lose to make that happen?

I have the same problem on sentients. I have 54 pages full of sentient goods in the trader right now, so that's hundreds of trades. Today I was absolutely floored to find someone wanting obsidian (my boost) in a 3 star trade. I was thrilled. It has been weeks since I saw anyone asking for obsidian at better than a one star trade.

My moonstone and cosmic bismuth fare only slightly better. Seems like I was hit with the worst combo of sentient goods, and I blame that on the moonstone set. I don't know what they were thinking, but it has often crossed my mind that I'm playing with one hand tied behind my back, trying to gain equal footing. Like you, I am relying on wonders, particularly the BTG and wonders that reduce sentient decay, as much as I can, so I'll be okay. It's just unfair, that's all, and I hope the rebalance after the moonstone fiasco doesn't take forever. I'd love to see what I saw today, an actual GOOD trade for my obsidian, but one trade out of 54 pages' worth of trades is not exactly fair. But it's better than I've had these last 2 or 3 weeks.

 

[iamthouth]

@helya
I've looked into this a bit further. It turns out that the input seeds and goods (and their output) do not match the trader differences of 1.5 between each level, which is causing the imbalance. S4 is more expensive to produce than S6 as an example, thus it is in our favour to produce S6. They should be matching the trader differences to get a fairer market.

You can see in the table below that output resources per input seed actually decreases per level, and output resource per input resource is also lower for S4 and S5 than S6. Output per seed and resource should match the trader differences between each level, and outputs per resources should improve (not diminish) when you upgrade manufactories (example Elixir). Ie we should have a lower seed cost, or get more output resources for Steel > Scrolls > Elixir, not the other way around as it is today.

Do let us know how to best put this in the forum so that it can be brought to InnoGames' attention and adjusted.

Numbers are with Timewarp 28 and Vortex 15.

Spoiler: Screenshots of each production

 

[BrinDarby]

I wonder how much of that is due to the Pilgrim's Manor Set?

Henroo, what about those players with the Trifecta like me.....
3 sets that forever will give 1 tier of goods......
Manor- T1, A.Traders- T2, F.Ruins- T3

I saw a big dipp in trading of T1 goods after the Manor set came out.
I was brand new for A.Traders, and now I see even more T3 offers
that never sell .....

It will take years to redistribute and repopulate Steel/Scrolls players
to rebalance out what used to be worthless....... scrolls.....
I now see Gems as the new scrolls, it seems.

 

[helya]

@helya
I've looked into this a bit further. It turns out that the input seeds and goods (and their output) do not match the trader differences of 1.5 between each level, which is causing the imbalance. S4 is more expensive to produce than S6 as an example, thus it is in our favour to produce S6. They should be matching the trader differences to get a fairer market.

You can see in the table below that output resources per input seed actually decreases per level, and output resource per input resource is also lower for S4 and S5 than S6. Output per seed and resource should match the trader differences between each level, and outputs per resources should improve (not diminish) when you upgrade manufactories (example Elixir). Ie we should have a lower seed cost, or get more output resources for Steel > Scrolls > Elixir, not the other way around as it is today.

Do let us know how to best put this in the forum so that it can be brought to InnoGames' attention and adjusted.

View attachment 12232
Numbers are with Timewarp 28 and Vortex 15.

Spoiler: Screenshots of each production

View attachment 12233View attachment 12234View attachment 12235View attachment 12236View attachment 12237

Thank you for doing all of this math so I don't have to. I'll share the chart with the devs and see what they say.

 

[Iyapo1]

I now see Gems as the new scrolls, it seems.

I have not noticed gems being overly abundant. I have noticed a serious uptick in stagnant cross trades offering T3 for T2 or T1s. But all same tier T3 offers are cleared from the market in all my worlds within a few hours max.

 

[Myne]

I have not noticed gems being overly abundant. I have noticed a serious uptick in stagnant cross trades offering T3 for T2 or T1s. But all same tier T3 offers are cleared from the market in all my worlds within a few hours max.

no shortage of gems here.

 

[Iyapo1]

no shortage of gems here.

I have no shortage or surplus of gems in any city and I am not seeing a shortage or surplus in any of my traders. Just an increase in stagnating T3 cross trades.

 

[BrinDarby]

I can't give gems away