We Need More Complex Logic Options for Chat Filters

[Draxiss314]

Particularly for trade chat, the ability to include or exclude certain terms is a life saver. However, there's still some flaws in the current design. You cannot filter for a list of strings whose elements may appear in any order within a larger string and you cannot choose circumstances in which to not exclude a string, if you normally exclude a string.

Since even I'm having a hard time understanding what I just wrote, let me provide an example of a common problem:

In the trade chat, Person A is looking to sell the Nosepicker Prime Fingernail. Person A is not looking to buy anything. Because the unfiltered trade chat is a never-ending torrent of chaos from which there can be no escape, Person A first sets their filter to include only strings containing 'wtb [nosepicker prime fingernail].' Suddenly, that never-ending torrent becomes a tiny trickle! Person A realizes that people will often be looking to buy more than one thing, and it's possible that someone else listed a different item in front of '[nosepicker prime fingernail].' Realizing this, Person A changes their filter to instead look for 'wtb' and '[nosepicker prime fingernail].' Suddenly, they can see a lot more offers! However, a new problem emerges: many of these offers are people looking to buy things that have nothing to do with the Nosepicker Prime, and many of them are other offers to sell the Nosepicker Prime Fingernail. What can person A do now? Well, they can solve part of their problem by including a 'NOT 'wts' ' term. This eliminates one of their problems, but Person A is still left trying to figure out how to deal with the other half of their problems. Person A is still figuring that part out. 

What Person A doesn't realize is that they've created a whole new problem for themself. See, there was another person, Person B, who was looking to buy the Nosepicker Prime Fingernail as well! However, Person B was ALSO looking to SELL the Nosepicker Prime Nugget, because they have four already. Because the trade chat forces you to wait a decent chunk of time before posting again, Person B is incentivised to put all their 'wtb' and 'wts' terms in the same comment. Thus, Person B posts 'wtb [nosepicker prime fingernail] 69p wts [nosepicker prime nugget] 34p.' Person B will never pass Person A's filter! Person A's filter eliminates anyone who uses 'wts' in their terms, even if they'd also be 'wtb.' If chat filters had more precise and nuanced logic, this problem could be avoided. 

Alternatively, an auction house-like trading system would be nice. Just . . . just saying. 

 

 

 

DE fix please.