Sentient Goods are unbalanced

[T6583]

if we could buy sentient goods in the wholesaler with coins like we can buy non-sentient goods, that would solve most of the problem.

Make an official suggestion for this. I have been frusterated before by not being able to buy sentient goods with coins or supplies as well. Though the reason this probably isn't an option is because we don't use coins or supplies to create sentient goods. The type of good isn't the issue in my opinion and I see no reason to use non-sentient goods as examples when discussing the balancing issues with the trader. As per your example you can still use you boosted sentient goods to purchase your nonboosted sentient goods. Also I don't think being able to buy sentient goods with coins and supplies is going to solve most of the problem with the current trader imbalances.

 

[ajqtrz]

Khelonaar is currently at 79 pages offering bismuth, zero shrooms, and a total of 2 soap offers (asking for shrooms). The entire first page is all 10-20% premium. I want to post trades but feel that I would be making the issue worse by posting higher to get them to move quickly as I also don't want them just sitting there either. I actually have started to load my FS to having much higher numbers of soap and shrooms producers because things seem to be getting worse to try to at least help keep members progressing.

And the markets have spoken. The laws of supply and demand are at work even in Elvenar. Artificially changing the demand or the supply has a direct effect on the the other and on the relative value of the resources in question. Thus, the stated value for any resource is artificial and will remain so most of the time in a dynamic system. The fastest way to adjust any system is to let it adjust itself, which can only occur when the participants are allowed to determine their own values for the transaction. Suggesting what the value of one thing is compared to another allows participants to think they a balanced trade, but, obviously, sometimes they aren't because of the artificial nature of the pegged value.

I love it when I'm proven right. (Mostly because it happens so rarely -- LOL!).

AJ

 

[Ashrem]

And the markets have spoken. The laws of supply and demand are at work even in Elvenar. Artificially changing the demand or the supply has a direct effect on the the other and on the relative value of the resources in question. Thus, the stated value for any resource is artificial and will remain so most of the time in a dynamic system. The fastest way to adjust any system is to let it adjust itself, which can only occur when the participants are allowed to determine their own values for the transaction. Suggesting what the value of one thing is compared to another allows participants to think they a balanced trade, but, obviously, sometimes they aren't because of the artificial nature of the pegged value.

Only there's nothing dynamic about the Elvenar system.

In a dynamic system, when there is too much gum and not enough platinum, some gum producers would stop making it and switch to making platinum. They don't have that choice in elvenar. The only way they can opt out is by quitting the game in a rage over having their goods devalued. which certainly helps normalize the price (I.e. driving producers out of the market) but is hardly a desirable result. (especially since gum producers are all producing Steel, so driving them out of the market also reduces steel production.)

 

[ajqtrz]

@Ashrem What is dynamic is the prices people are willing to pay. What keeps them from fluctuating as much as they might if the system weren't controlled are the artificial measures advertised by the star rating system and the basement and ceiling relationships hard coded into the trade board. And, I might add, if I were a silk producer on K and could make a decent profit because silk was in short supply I might very well start producing more. In fact, if the markets were free some players would build a lot of goods mfrs and move them in and out of inventory to meet increased demand when it was profitable. Even if you stick to your boosted goods there is usually a shortage after the tournament for that good. It lasts for only a few days but opportunity might be there if the system was allowed to fluctuate a bit more.

The "switch to producing" only works in real life if you have the resources to make X instead of Y. In fact, if I'm producing soy beans and want to switch to potatoes to take advantage of the potato market, I may not be able to do so because my land/climate is not suitable for potatoes. There are limits to "switch to meet demand" but the markets do that, and if you have the goods needed you can certainly ramp production up and down according to market conditions.

That the gum makers don't dedicate space to something other than gum may be a product of the cap on prices for other things as much as too much gum. Space is limited and as such any trader will use his/her space as effectively as possible producing whatever he or she can profitably produce and the greatest profit as possible. Artificial measures of the value of a commodity restrict this process by insuring it's not profitable to drop your gum and produce something else in that space. If I could get a 20% profit on steel I'd be pulling my steel mfrs from inventory and replacing my 50-60 gum trees.

AJ

 

[Ashrem]

That the gum makers don't dedicate space to something other than gum may be a product of the cap on prices for other things as much as too much gum

No, it's that they can't produce the other sentient goods with a boost, so they are producing 1/8 the volume in the same space as if they make their boost, and at the same cost in seeds. So whether they have the space or not, their cost of production is 8 times higher than the person who has it boosted.

If I could get a 20% profit on steel I'd be pulling my steel mfrs from inventory and replacing my 50-60 gum trees.

And no matter how much steel they produce, they can't trade it for Sentient goods, so it's worthless in that context

The "switch to producing" only works in real life if you have the resources to make X instead of Y. In fact, if I'm producing soy beans and want to switch to potatoes to take advantage of the potato market, I may not be able to do so because my land/climate is not suitable for potatoes. There are limits to "switch to meet demand" but the markets do that, and if you have the goods needed you can certainly ramp production up and down according to market conditions.

Which is why I said "some" would shift productions.

And you're painting the production in a vacuum. The soya producers wouldn't shift to potatoes, they would shift to something else, while other people who are growing other things in areas where they can grow potatoes would shift to potatoes to fill the gap. None of the gum producers can shift to producing anything else efficiently.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Since nothing is going to really change anything to make any of this more "fair" for the unlucky people, there is one simple solution, which will just take time and KP to put in place. A level 30 Blooming Traders Guild gives a 500% bonus to wholesaler trades. 500% make the trades an even amount, meaning you would never have to place a sentient trade again. My BTG is only level 12, so now I have a new long-term goal in the game.

 

[Iyapo1]

Since nothing is going to really change anything to make any of this more "fair" for the unlucky people, there is one simple solution, which will just take time and KP to put in place. A level 30 Blooming Traders Guild gives a 500% bonus to wholesaler trades. 500% make the trades an even amount, meaning you would never have to place a sentient trade again. My BTG is only level 12, so now I have a new long-term goal in the game.

Oh holy wow! I think I need to look at that woder again! Thx for the info.

 

[StarLoad]

LOL now that you brought it into the open it will be added to the secret INNO Nerf list, like the other nerfed Wonders

 

[TheGiftedKes]

Since nothing is going to really change anything to make any of this more "fair" for the unlucky people, there is one simple solution, which will just take time and KP to put in place. A level 30 Blooming Traders Guild gives a 500% bonus to wholesaler trades. 500% make the trades an even amount, meaning you would never have to place a sentient trade again. My BTG is only level 12, so now I have a new long-term goal in the game.

You can only do 2 of those even trades in a day though (one of each non-boosted sentient good), then it becomes pretty uneven until trader reset, right? It helps, but I don't think the daily volume will be enough for those who are in chapter 15 for example

 

[DeletedUser18062]

Something definitely needs to be done about the imbalance of sentient goods, it’s just ridiculous.
One way to fix it is to change the research and upgrade costs to require more of the resources that are more abundant in that world. That shouldn’t be too hard to code, it’s just a matter of averaging the total world production for each of the goods and charging accordingly instead of charging according to the player’s boosted goods.
Same would go for the spire, it could ask more of the goods that are more abundant and less of the ones that are more rare according to the worlds total production.
Bottom line, create more demand for the goods that are over abundant and less for the others.

 

[michmarc]

How often would those costs change? It would really be horrible if I'm saving up to research something that costs 250k Soap only to finally reach that total and find out that it now costs 250k Shrooms.

 

[Palavyn]

Only there's nothing dynamic about the Elvenar system.

In a dynamic system, when there is too much gum and not enough platinum, some gum producers would stop making it and switch to making platinum. They don't have that choice in elvenar. The only way they can opt out is by quitting the game in a rage over having their goods devalued. which certainly helps normalize the price (I.e. driving producers out of the market) but is hardly a desirable result. (especially since gum producers are all producing Steel, so driving them out of the market also reduces steel production.)

Furthermore, the consumer has no freedom. You need fixed amounts of sentient goods to advance in the tech tree or upgrade your buildings. In a free market, if soy beans are too expensive you can buy more potatoes, or vice versa. There's no such option in Elvenar. My whole purpose for this thread was for INNO to give us (the consumers) some situations where we can choose which sentient goods to use.

 

[SoggyShorts]

Here's a possible fix to at least part of the problem:

Hiya everyone, we've asked for a world chat feature for long enough, and until Inno gets around to making one I figure we might as well make our own.
www.tinyurl.com/elvenarworldchat
It's on Slack and everyone is welcome to join. (please use your Forum/ in-game name, not your RL name.
There is a General channel as well as a specific channel for each server that you can use for recruiting.

As a bonus, we made a "trade" channel for each of the servers so that we can swap sentient goods at 1:1 without having to take those garbage 1-star trades from you-know-who.

 

[DeletedUser18062]

How often would those costs change? It would really be horrible if I'm saving up to research something that costs 250k Soap only to finally reach that total and find out that it now costs 250k Shrooms.

Not saying the cost would change, I’m saying if shrooms are in short supply in that world ease up on the shroom demand for research and spire. Create more demand for the goods that are available.

 

[DeletedUser18062]

even for upgrading buildings, make the cost more of what is in excess production. It can be done by exact % since the data is there to calculate total production for the whole world. So if that world produces more gum by 50%, the cost of research, upgrade, spire, will ask for gum 50% of the time more than the other resources. The overall cost will not go up. This will solve the unbalance with the sentient goods, for each world, with minimum coding.

 

[DeletedUser18062]

Every time I go to the trader there are no trades for my goods. Always have to post. If I post 2*, it could be days before someone picks up the trade. I post 3* by 5 to 10% and still have to wait. This is unfair because the players who have the goods that are high demand don’t have to wait and get a bunch of 3* trades.
There appears to be the same issue in every world with different goods.
The only other solution besides the one I already gave would be to open trading of sentient goods across all worlds, intergalactic trader lol.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

The only other solution besides the one I already gave would be to open trading of sentient goods across all worlds, intergalactic trader lol.

Except each world is a completely separate computer server. There is no connection between them.

 

[LordVorKon]

Except each world is a completely separate computer server. There is no connection between them.

Oh, if only there was some kind of way to let one computer talk to another....

 

[MichaelMichael]

Okay, I am what some of you call a "parasite" and what I would describe as a "market maker". In some worlds, including my own, before I added liquidity to the market; it was virtually impossible to get any of the rarer items. This fact has been confirmed by other users on other worlds. I suppose if I were a small fish in a leading felllowship, it would less difficult, but I am the biggest fish in a second tier fellowship. I also could produce Bismuth at tier 3, the very least valuable tier 3 good on my world. I passed on that, as we all do with building with low returns

Also my fellowship produces next to ZERO steel, we get steel by holding onto Platinum that decays into steel. For normal goods, I have offers of ALL 8 normal other commodities ALL THE TIME and I might get one taker every 2 or 3 days - I have gone weeks without ever getting a bite - BTW all of those are 2 star "fair" trades. Being starved of steel doesn't sound fair to me. Those are the problems, if you don't like my solution, I ask how it hurt you? If you think I am the only one that likes and take adventageous trades from your fellowship for rarer commodities, I think you are fooling yourself.

How come there is chronic shortages of goods? In my regular job, I manage pricing at a large fortune 500 company so I have some expertise on how markets should operate. To give an example, the NY stock Exchange has a "Specialist" for every stock to ensure that there offers and bids at all times. They make a profit off the "Bid-Ask spread". "Bid-Ask spread" is the difference between what is offered and what is bid. In my world, the "bid-ask spread" for say Platinum is about 13% as most of the time as I offer 64k platinum for 75k Gum tree while also offering 62k of Gum Tree for 64k of platinum. I am disliked, because most of the time I offer the best price available and no one likes a competitor that sells for less. I know now that many elvenar players hate capitalism. To the good, I get many thank you as well from players who I take their trades, most commonly at say 110 Gum for 100 Platinum. You ask "Why is the 'bid-ask spread' so high?" - because few people are willing post Platimum at fair return of say 7-8%. I ask myself why people are unwilling to trade as market prices and eliminate my profit? The reason is simple, the game offers the concept of the "2 star trade" and people blindly believe that is "fair". What is worse, many fellowships codify that that making 2 or 3 star trades the "ONLY" acceptable trades. The truth is the game is not balanced for goods, but some players pretend that is not true. and/or are too lazy/hesitant to post deals at anything other than the default price (or very close thereto)

I will offer the solution to the issue. This will put me out of business "bid/ask spread" will drop to nearly zero. The game should measure production in the last 24 hours and all goods should be valued relative to their production totals. By totals, I mean the sum of all production of all players. Then the real market price will be identified correctly as 2 starts. This should be the default value when a trade entered. - done and solved. There will be no more guessing The game will tell what is fair rather than defaulting to 1:1 which we all know is unfair outside of perhaps the few and largest fellowships that are perfectly balanced.

BTW, there is another commodity you need to consider when deriding my strategy. It is the most valuable - Time. It takes time to put up and maintain all my trades and sometimes they don't sell. It is a lot of work. Also every player can always, and "I mean always", get a better price than I offer, Place it and wait. Or take my offer and get what you need now. I offer another solution for each fellowship. Only offer the less valuable commodity via the trader and I (and probably no one else) won't take it. The bottom line, my trades only look good because I work at it. It is a better deal than the competition. When you offer a poorly priced deal that is either too low (and too tempting to others beyond me, they close before your fellowship members pick them up) or too high (and no body wants them), who is to blame? Offer bad trades (above the market price) and they will always be available within your fellowship.

Personally, I like fair trades or better yet good trades below the market price and so does everyone else. Trade at about 8% above or below as appropriated and I leave that market as there will be no bid ask spread. I will also add an exception for the 8% rule of thumb. Bismuth, that terrible good I could produce. It is next to worthless. The fair price is more like 12-15% below or higher for Alloy Shrooms. I often have to leave that market as no one will take Bismuth at any price. If you look at bismuth offers, they go on or 80 pages or so.

Fixing the production inequities of the various goods is the solution, or accepting that "market makers" are are good while bidding down excessing "bid ask spreads" or better yet change the game's or your definition to a fair price. All these solutions work. As for me, I got dealt a lousy hand, so played it the best I could. My solution helps others especially compared to the situation where none of the valuable items are offered at all. If I were designing the game, I'd see "market makers" as a good solution to a quite difficult problem. One solution I might consider is fellowship only offers, but it just gives more power to the big guys and hurts those coming up. I am happy that most of you posting here have balanced goods within your fellowship but if you are short on some items I think you might begin to imagine life for most of the rest of us.

 

[ajqtrz]

I will offer the solution to the issue. This will put me out of business "bid/ask spread" will drop to nearly zero. The game should measure production in the last 24 hours and all goods should be valued relative to their production totals. By totals, I mean the sum of all production of all players. Then the real market price will be identified correctly as 2 starts. This should be the default value when a trade entered. - done and solved. There will be no more guessing The game will tell what is fair rather than defaulting to 1:1 which we all know is unfair outside of perhaps the few and largest fellowships that are perfectly balanced.

Naturally, having attempted to less eloquently apply the same economic theory to the game, I have to agree. I've said elsewhere that the use of the star system psychologicaly replaces the valuation of goods by those in the transaction. Thus, if it says 2-star it's "fair," when, in fact, if I'm overloaded with steel and can't possibly use it but am starving for silk and can't get it -- both because the system does not allow me to price each as I see fit and because everyone thinks they are being cheated if they stray a bit from the 2-star standard -- then the system itself is unfair. What is a fair trade is, as I've said before, what the two making the trade believe is fair. Any attempt to directly or indirectly label their trade as "unfair," fails to recognize the purpose of trades isn't to please the general public but to enhance the flow of goods to meet your needs.

Your answer is intriguing but probably unnecessary if we were in an open market where prices are set by those doing the trading. Market makers may be needed, that is true, just as they are in the stock markets. But in the long run commodities arrive at their current value in the eyes of the trader exactly because no trader will pay more for a commodity than he wants and no trader should sell for anything less than she wants. Even your solution is a bit macroeconomics oriented when the solution is probably more in a natural aggregate of independent transactions.

Of course some players think this is a game. That is true. But it's a game people play and if you make the game fit how people act in real life it can be more fun and varied than if you attempt to artificially manipulate things.

AJ