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Post by hypevosa on Sept 1, 2013 20:52:09 GMT -5
It's the decimal that's my main cause for concern. I do not have enough faith in your average person to say it won't be a bit problematic once we start having more average people playing. Mistakes will be more and more frequent, complaints will be leveled on the forums, etc. I'd rather do away with the extra keystroke, the extra attention that must be paid to how many 0s you have before or after something, etc.
On a side note, my past training in the field of pharmacy might be why I'm so certain mistakes will occur because of our decimal use. Accidentally killing patients by overdosing to a factor of 10 is a semi-regular occurrence in hospitals, if the professionals are doing it, I have no reason to doubt the layman will do it even more frequently.
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Post by quicklite on Sept 1, 2013 22:13:52 GMT -5
Alright, I feel like I should butt in here, but on a slightly different note. Although I'm still frankly undecided on whether or not it's fair to undercut people with a 0.00001 bid system, there's something else that I can see could be seriously problematic with this feature: bots. Yep, bots. As unrealistic as this sounds, trader bots were a pretty big thing in realm (before the damned RWT ones), where items were directly progressional, but also were very much directly obtainable (via drops ofc, which coins will no longer do eventually), and also unbuyable (and even now you can't buy stat pots/they aren't the only things to buy.). Whereas in grid, coins will not only be the only thing to buy, but they'll also give you access to everything, as rob plans to make everything tradeable. So I can only imagine that even without any particularly stable RWT, a good number of script kiddies will use the trading mechanics to program a practical coin generator that basically gives them a nice $20 of coins without any actual effort or money spent. Here's how:
Bot A is created. Player tags along for a few voy hunts with bot A and quickly gets his hand on a nice hurricane unlock, which the player sells off for a coin. Now, here's where it gets programming-like. Basically, the bot is programmed to constantly churn out 0.5 coin buy offers and, say, 1.5 coin sell offers, thus resulting in a maximum 1 coin profit every time. But what if someone undercuts said bot? Well, what if you programmed to detect when it wasn't the highest bidder (which just involves checking the market/inventory for replica items up for sale, as yours won't show up), and then immediately undercut said other bidder by 0.00001 of a coin. Since it's always online, trying to get your offer seen would be sorta fighting a losing battle, that is, unless you got to the point where you tried to undercut the bot to a value that wouldn't be profitable any longer (so selling a hurricane for 0.5 for this example). Then the bot could just buy the thing, and get something else to pedal off for a cheap price. But as you may have figured out, pedaling hurricanes wouldn't exactly be the fastest way to get money. But once a bot had made 20 coins, it wouldn't be too hard to reprogram the bot to do the same thing for specters. Then wildfires. Then pallies...and then by this time the bot's practically a moneymaking machine. Not to mention that this can be done through a variety of item types and levels through a variety of shiny alts whose profits could be nicely compiled through a few instantaneous buy/sell offer antics with 2 bots. And that's before you start to look at the 20 other people who will all be trying to do the same damned thing. Any economy would practically be in lockdown, because no matter what you do there will always be a bot undercutting by a pathetically small and painfully repeatable amount until your item lowered to the point where it is barely worth half of what it should be, only to be swooped up and sold off again.
Okay, maybe that was a seriously extreme scenario, but even if this is done to a far lesser extent, this is something which should be avoided IMO. And the best way is as far as I can tell is to do some form of what hype suggested. Bots wouldn't work if they couldn't use constant undercutting with values that are practically non-existent.
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Post by Guest on Sept 2, 2013 11:40:41 GMT -5
I'd rather have a risk for mistakes at the very lowest prices, than at the highest(where naturally, you would lose more money).
Quick, that's a good point, and as you can see we talked about two possible solutions in the thread, as well as the fact that the price will end up not at half of what it should be, but exactly what the market values it at. Bots, though the advantage that they get is bad, would just speed it up, which is actually a good effect. (They exist in real life as well, and though I don't think many people like that fact, they do contribute to a healthy economy.)
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Post by hypevosa on Sept 2, 2013 16:16:21 GMT -5
But do you want a "healthy economy" where players who want to use them can almost never get items because bots are bullying prices for maximum profits, or do you want a game where players who will use the items more often get them to make for a healthy game? The economy should be secondary in importance - bots horde items keeping them out of the hands of players - they make for a shitty game and a shitty economy for humans that want to use it for its intended purpose: the exchange of goods.
Working with higher prices normally makes players more cautious, this counteracts the risk of user error slightly - much like how working with real money makes one more cautious. Someone making a bid on an ebay auction is more likely to double check themselves with an item costing them thousands than an item costing them a hundred.
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Post by quicklite on Sept 2, 2013 21:22:02 GMT -5
I'd rather have a risk for mistakes at the very lowest prices, than at the highest(where naturally, you would lose more money). Quick, that's a good point, and as you can see we talked about two possible solutions in the thread, as well as the fact that the price will end up not at half of what it should be, but exactly what the market values it at. Bots, though the advantage that they get is bad, would just speed it up, which is actually a good effect. (They exist in real life as well, and though I don't think many people like that fact, they do contribute to a healthy economy.) Bots don't 'speed it up'. See, since 0.00001 has no monetary value, undercutting a price by 0.00001 is basically just stamping your offer over theirs. The difference in values will never actually matter, all all that has been achieved is that the bot's value is on top, as both values are practically same, due to a 0.00001 difference being basically one and the same. Of course, with non-bots, people will stop playing, and people won't always be watching their item, so there is more time between undercuts for items to be bought and lowered by actual value. Unfortunately, neither of these things actually apply to bots. Bots are always online, and have only one duty: watch their damned item. Therefore, bots can keep their item of choice at a constant state of undercut. Thus, bots can basically have an iron fist over the entire economy. Any value too high for the bots will be undercut, and any other values will just be taken by said bots and sold off at higher prices. The person in charge of the bots basically gets to choose the price of everything, allowing no actual variation and natural change, as anything out of the norm in highness or lowness of price will be quickly lapped up or blanked out by bots. Although this will work, this would fucking suck, because it basically stops anyone who isn't a bot user from actually being able to use the market interface; you know, that thing that the game technically revolves around. Whereas, if there was a maximum lowering value, even if something like at least 0.01 or 5% lower, then bots would be effectively be neutered: After all, without undercuts, any lower bid that the bot makes will actually be lowering the price, rather than sort of slapping on a near identical value right over the thing. This would mean that at worst, bots would just speed up the natural economy as you mentioned, but at best (and what is probably the most likely), bots would be just too unproductive to run. After all, if their values can constantly go down without any actual human surveillance and judgement, without being able to just practically match values anymore, bots would just end up seriously underpaying/overselling most of the time, causing a hilarious income-based implosion. |
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Post by Guest on Sept 3, 2013 11:41:22 GMT -5
There isn't a tradeoff between "good economy" and "good game". Those are intimately connected.
The seemingly small changes in price do have a monetary value, because they add up to something much greater very quickly, especially when you have a bidding war between multiple people/bots(two bots trying to outbid each other would be the fastest). Bots of the exact type discussed(and also, to a lesser extent, the really saddening version that is "human bots") create a better economy for real users of it, in real life and in artificially created economies. That does not mean they're not a problem, because they do get a large unfair advantage, and so, something still has to be done against them. It just means there are other viable solutions than placing restrictions that negatively impact regular users.
The real issue that leads to a shitty markets in MMOs is making games too loot-centered, encouraging egoistical behavior, scams, exploits, etc. Especially in the co-mob games, where the combination means that anyone the player doesn't know is reduced to a resource to exploit for maximum profit. Does that sound a bit extreme? It's a very real thing that we saw in a large portion of the Realm playerbase as the development shifted in this direction, and later as the population of the game increased rapidly. Grid has been making a shift kind of in the same direction(hope I don't sound too negative for pointing out these facts... Grid12 is getting more interesting with each update).
Related: Someone in game was talking about the fact that two thirds of the testers are realm players who are mad at kabam, and how it probably affects the development of Grid.
Who knew virtual economies were such an interesting topic!
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Post by hypevosa on Sept 3, 2013 22:40:28 GMT -5
There isn't a tradeoff between "good economy" and "good game". Those are intimately connected. The seemingly small changes in price do have a monetary value, because they add up to something much greater very quickly, especially when you have a bidding war between multiple people/bots(two bots trying to outbid each other would be the fastest). Bots of the exact type discussed(and also, to a lesser extent, the really saddening version that is "human bots") create a better economy for real users of it, in real life and in artificially created economies. That does not mean they're not a problem, because they do get a large unfair advantage, and so, something still has to be done against them. It just means there are other viable solutions than placing restrictions that negatively impact regular users. The real issue that leads to a shitty markets in MMOs is making games too loot-centered, encouraging egoistical behavior, scams, exploits, etc. Especially in the co-mob games, where the combination means that anyone the player doesn't know is reduced to a resource to exploit for maximum profit. Does that sound a bit extreme? It's a very real thing that we saw in a large portion of the Realm playerbase as the development shifted in this direction, and later as the population of the game increased rapidly. Grid has been making a shift kind of in the same direction(hope I don't sound too negative for pointing out these facts... Grid12 is getting more interesting with each update). Related: Someone in game was talking about the fact that two thirds of the testers are realm players who are mad at kabam, and how it probably affects the development of Grid. Who knew virtual economies were such an interesting topic!Good economy and good game can be a tradeoff. When you don't regulate the economy properly and it suddenly renders the economy almost useless to all but the bots, your game's quality takes a hit since human users cannot get goods at the price they want to pay or sell for any longer. Regulating the economy such that it rewards pioneers and punishes those that would abuse it, is part of ensuring your economy stays a boon to all players, and not just merchants. If by very quickly you mean 3 years (assuming an average of 10 transactions a day with an added bonus of 1/10,000 of a coin) then, yeah, I guess minimalist undercutting can add up to something, a whole coin. Or you can require a larger increase than that, meaning the average buy price goes up faster, meaning I just get alot more money period since bids are determined by the last to place them. Assuming those 10 transactions a day at 10% increase, on an item worth only .01 on average (meaning an increase of .001) would mean I get that I get a whole coin 10 times faster - one whole coin every 3 months... Even if the effect was so dramatic that the number of transactions dropped to 2 per day I'd halve the time it took to make a whole coin. So I still see 0 benefit to protecting the minimalist undercutting practice. As a seller I make more money, as a buyer I have more security in my bids on items and have to tend to them less often. Aside from the angle of me wanting to just be able to undercut someone at only the cost of 1/10,000 of a coin at will for something, or programming a bot to more easily manage my bidding, what benefits does your system actually pose? |
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Post by amitp on Sept 3, 2013 23:01:46 GMT -5
I suspect that all of this is going to be quite different once there are thousands of players, so although it's worth thinking about, they may want to see the behavior of a larger playerbase before deciding on which solution to use.
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Post by Guest on Sept 4, 2013 9:42:43 GMT -5
I suspect that all of this is going to be quite different once there are thousands of players, so although it's worth thinking about, they may want to see the behavior of a larger playerbase before deciding on which solution to use. I think that might be the problem here. I am looking at this with a large, active playerbase in mind, but clearly these solutions do not apply to the current game. |
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lights
Very Brave Tester
Posts: 15
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Post by lights on Sept 4, 2013 13:34:03 GMT -5
Isn't it just as easy to type 100000 instead of 10000 though? Yes, but just like the real world, we have dollars and cents (in the US anyways). Why don't we just count everything in cents? Probably because it looks neater and is easier to read/organize. |
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Post by Guest on Sept 4, 2013 15:05:10 GMT -5
Isn't it just as easy to type 100000 instead of 10000 though? Yes, but just like the real world, we have dollars and cents (in the US anyways). Why don't we just count everything in cents? Probably because it looks neater and is easier to read/organize. Expanding on that, the fact that fractional dollars are used over cents in marketplace-type transactions only supports my point(the unit used doesn't have to value as low as the cheapest object on the market). |
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