Currency Ex, Why So Complicated?

I have been advocating for years for a proper TP. Seeing the content reveal made me very excited, not only for the first iteration of an in-game trade system, but also for gold. I've been working on a lengthy post to highlight the benefits of a proper TP, but scrapped it as you are clearly working on it.

On thing that baffles me, however, is why you've made your first TP so overly complicated. Perhaps it might do to ease of programming as you already have the backbone for this on your external market. I don't know.

What I mean is that you've presented a solution in game, and even part of the currency exchange (CEx), that being gold. Why, o why do you not just have whatever currency, and you have hundreds, trade for gold? Sell chaos for gold, buy chaos with gold. Sell divine for gold, buy essences with gold. Sell fossils for gold, buy oils with gold, etc.

Just like now, and every league, and every market, the prices would be bonkers in the fist few days or weeks. These are the growing pains of something new. In a short amount of time, the market forces would decrease the volatility and standard rates would be found. These would still change over time as more game mechanics are revealed that would provide more gold making, chaos making, or whatever making opportunities which would affect the price of gold and that specific currency, but it would be less volatile than in the first couple weeks of play.

The volatility would be greatest now because we have no idea what the value of gold is since we can make it in game. It is essentially, just a new currency that will be used as a standard, just like chaos and divines are now. As the season progresses and ends, we will have a much better handle on it and know what to expect for next season, assuming settlers goes core. If not, there could be, and this is not an original idea that has been suggested many times by other players, have a vendor that accepts basic currency for gold which could be used on the CEx.

Either way, it seems way, way simpler to me to know the value of something compared to one currency, gold as opposed to chaos being equal to 10 other things, which are equal to 10 different things, which might be equal to something else. WTF. Having this complexity and separation of one currency from another means that value is obfuscated. It might be more vulnerable to market manipulation through trading hidden behind this. A simpler exchange of currency for gold would be less so due to transparency. I'm not saying it's foolproof. Every TP is open to some kind of manipulation, like external social posts. Even flooding a market, which currently exists, would be less effective as there's a tax on sales, and we'd be able to see that flooding and ignore those post. The point is to mitigate the risk.

I'll always point to GW2 as the best example. It seems you guys are going down a similar path by having sellers posting wares for buyers and buyers posting bids for sellers. I believe that is the best way to go, so kudos. I hope you make this much simpler.

Because you don't understand the importance of a finite, one-way, "sink". It isn't complicated at all....there just needs to be a cost. And this is the best possible solution: consider how crazy it would be to figure out a system of "cost" across 100 different currencies rather than just one?

Without the sink and one-way transaction, there is no reason to play the game. Bots and other maladroits can run rampant WAY more easily, much like they already do now. With a one-way gold transaction, people need to actually farm gold and not flip for it. This serves as a necessary limiter.

Also, what the heck do you mean by TP? Because for almost everyone in the arpg and rpg gaming industry, TP = town portal.

Not once do you refer to this mystery term by name, and also refer to the market as the "currency exchange", and not anything remotely T or P.

It is important that the cost for trading (gold) is something non-tradeable to minimize botting.

Yeah. So much is wrong here, but it might be your not communicating enough.

"

jsuslak313 wrote:

Because you don't understand the importance of a finite, one-way, "sink". It isn't complicated at all....there just needs to be a cost.

I don't know what you mean by this, but typically, a sink is gold sink and one way would be no way to retrieve it doing that activity. If that's what you mean, you do realize that our current system doesn't have this. We have sinks in crafting, but not trading.

A sink in trading is created by a tax. The new system has a gold tax, therefore, it's a gold sink. This makes it so you can not infinitely trade. Our current system has no tax. If I wasn't clear in my post, which I mentioned twice, that I'm a big advocate for the new, upcoming system. I also recognized the importance of a tax. Did you actually read my post?

"

jsuslak313 wrote:

consider how crazy it would be to figure out a system of "cost" across 100 different currencies rather than just one?

We already do this. It's usually limited to divines and chaos, but you can screw yourself if you don't know the divine/chaos conversion rates. There's also people who trade in other currencies. This is one way that current traders make money. But if you just focus on chaos and no other currencies, you are doing the same thing as gold.

Have you seen the new system? It, and the current system does what you think is crazy figuring out the cost many different currencies. In the new system, I can place orders for chaos in up to 10 different other currencies, or I can exchange alts for fusings or jewelers for scouring. It's mayhem. This is exactly what you describe as crazy.

"

jsuslak313 wrote:

Without the sink and one-way transaction, there is no reason to play the game. Bots and other maladroits can run rampant WAY more easily, much like they already do now. With a one-way gold transaction, people need to actually farm gold and not flip for it. This serves as a necessary limiter.

You play the game to have fun. Bots are already out there because there currently is no sink to trading. Bots would have a much harder time in the new system because there's a gold tax on all transactions automatically limiting them. They would need to actively farm the gold. Also, I think you didn't read my post, if you have all transactions in gold, then the buy sell will reach an equilibrium where the buy price and sell price is the same. This naturally keeps bots from driving up a price or making it crash because there are real traders in the market and they can see the trends more easily in one currency.

"

jsuslak313 wrote:

Also, what the heck do you mean by TP? Because for almost everyone in the arpg and rpg gaming industry, TP = town portal.

Not once do you refer to this mystery term by name, and also refer to the market as the "currency exchange", and not anything remotely T or P.

TP means trading post. It's an extremely common usage and within the context of the topic, it should have been clear. But you are correct that I should not have made the assumption that a reader would think I'm talking about town portals in the middle of a trading discussion.

"

MagosX wrote:

It is important that the cost for trading (gold) is something non-tradeable to minimize botting.

Our current system has no cost for trading and trades in currencies that are tradable.

The new system also enables one to trade in tradable currency. The trade service is a gold sink. In that way it is better, and I recognized that and advocated for that.

From my experience it s always chaos or divine , very rarely exalts and it cant be in awakened sextant anymore.