Please redesign the goal of markets
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WoW economy always used to be shite. Everything's worthless unless it's in the top tier of items.
The single best economy I've experienced in any game is EvE Online. There are many "local" markets, so some players make their entire career about exploiting price differences between different game regions. Others stock up local hubs near where players do certain activities, with the items they'll need for that activity (e.g. ammo). Others mine raw materials (sometimes AFK) and sell them. Others buy materials from the market and produce them. Others find cheap items and relist them at a higher price. The economy alone supports at least 4 different "sub-games" within EvE.
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@wtfrank agreed. EVE market is so realistic the devs hired a full-time economist just to keep track of it.
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It seems that an eve like market might fit screeps best (automation, etc). I'm not familiar with EVE so I can't compare them really.
A question about local markets. Are screeps shards a good approximation of EVE's different markets? It seems like the shards would have to be more asymmetric to drive that kind of economy. E.g. X spawns at a higher rate or large deposit in a shard0.
I'm not inter-shard so it's hard for me to judge just how hard it is to accomplish. But I assume that it's good proxy of the complexity of shuffling materials between market in EVE.
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Oh the localized market in screeps could be easily implemented by setting a max distance for the terminal in screeps.
Maybe two quadrants so about max 18 rooms away OR as alternative each player has it's own "Market" and vision would be required in order to access it.
Except sub tokens those should always be global.
Also I would change the fee to be abducted after the deal is made and charge a fixed sum for creation/editing the order as already mentioned.If your goal is to be a dominant trader you would need to spread your trading network over a big area.
An interesting idea could be to introduce a trade rank similar to power and expansion rank. This would gamify trading.
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@tigga Is inflation really an issue in the game? I don't mind the market tax, every market has it, real or fake...I don't think there should be a tax for listing on the market. That's the disconnect from real life markets that I see. The market tax should be on the one executing the deal. This would encourage the use of the market since there is no penalty for listing your wares on the market, and achieve the inflation issue you speak of.
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@conquest said in Please redesign the goal of markets:
The market tax should be on the one executing the deal.
We already have that in energy costs for terminal transmission.
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@JBYoshi yes, one side pays a tax in energy when
.deal()ing, but a tax of credits for the creator is made at the creation of the order. i think @Conquest is saying that the credit tax shouldnt be on creation, but when the.deal()occurs, just like the energy tax.Honestly, i agree with this. perhaps lower/eliminate the credit fee for adjusting prices of existing orders too. That would make it easier for ppl to enter the market. I know a lot of people are afraid of posting orders with prices that dont sell or otherwise dont get filled. they would get charged a fee for creating the order and again when they adjust it due to a mistake. This makes ppl hesitant to even enter the market to begin with, or automate it where a single error could cost millions of credits, and another millions to fix.
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@jbyoshi I mean, that's another thing. It shouldn't cost 10k energy to send 10k energy across a Sector
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@deft-code The shards are very like the regional markets - as there are hard limits on information shared between regions (i.e. you can't see what's in another shard/region unless you travel to that shard/region)
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@conquest I have actually done the math, it never reaches 100% price of order amount. I think largest one you get is like 60-70% on shard0 dealing from center to edge or some similar distance (don't forget that market-wise worlds wrap around at the edges).
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@orlet shard1 from center to edge costs 8647 energy to transfer 10k energy. No math used here, just using default API methods. A bit higher then 60-70%.
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There is simply no need to send energy across the map. Buy local or just set up an ORDER_BUY.
If you need to estimate credit/energy overhead costs to maximise profits you can use the energy sending cost and multiply it by the cost it would take you to buy more energy (Highest buy order + 0.001 in my case).
The market is fine IMHO; just one more programming challenge to overcome.
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@gimmecookies hmmm... i must be misremembering something then. But it still doesn't reach 100% either
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Yep the function is an asymptotic curve IIRC so you would get relatively close to infinity before you hit 10k
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To me the main issue with the market is that it's very difficult to link up buyers and sellers. The only way to express your interest in buying or selling a resource is to create an order. There are two issues here:
- The limit of 50 orders is totally insufficient. There are 42 resources, so you can't even have 1 buy and 1 sell order for every resource. That's before we even think about multiple rooms (which will be needed, because the market is localised).
- Orders are subject to a fee as soon as they are created
These issues seriously discourage creating prospective market orders. I have some LO to sell, but I'm not going to create an order because I can't afford to waste one that might never be fulfilled. I have no idea if anyone is interested in buying, or if there is, I have no idea what price they would buy at.
If I do decide to create a sell order, what price do I start with? How long do I wait before lowering the price? Has it not sold because I'm asking too much or because there are no buyers right now? What amount should I place the initial order for? If I create an order with a small amount to see whether anyone is interested, perhaps no-one will buy because they don't want to waste a terminal cooldown on such a small amount. If I create it with more, I'm wasting more credits if no-one buys or I have to reduce the price.
Both issues discourage creating orders in the first place. If I do create an order, the up-front fee with no refunds causes orders to be placed with tiny amounts, even if I have 500,000 resource to sell.
This is what slows the market down, and it's particularly bad for less popular resources like middle-tier boosts.