Trading Measure To Prevent Economy Destabilization

[Ithgare]

I finally got a chance to watch the interview for update 8 and saw the question pop up about if things would be tradeable. It was stated there would be an extremely limited option to do so to prevent any "want to buy" or "Willing to sell" issues.

 

I had something come to mind revolving around this and agree that the Devs are smart in playing it safe. However I think there are still options out there that can be done to prevent the economy disruption while still allowing players to trade within their clan.

 

This would all be based on the clan members length of memership. For example a clan member who just joins can only trade with other clan members based on the basic model they are planning to set up. After a certain period however they are able to trade more i.e. credits, resources, etc.

 

An example of this would be the longer the membership in the clan is, the more types of things can be traded. Below is essentially a mock setup. These rules would only be held within the clan itself and not other players outside the clan. Obviously these numbers would be altered to better ballance it.

 

30 day member can trade credits among clan mates.

45 day member can trade resources among clan mates.

60 day member can trade mods among clan mates.

75 day member can trade weapon blueprints *considering the glaive can only be found atm*

90 day member can trade warframe blueprints

 

Then comes the question of if a 30 day member wants to trade with a 75 day clan member. Well they could only exchange credits based on the lowest membership day between the two players.

 

Just an idea and wanted to see what others though of it. Sorry if TL;DR

[ninjahmaster]

so you can only trade if your in a clan.....that will screw over alot of people.

[Playbeyond]

Apparently it will be inside clan trading only. As other wise it can be abused quite easily and we dont want that

[ZaxNyu]

Just stop asking for mod and blueprint trading, it's stupid. If you would not have to farm for practically anything in the game, you would not have much to do except level up your gear. There would be tons of people like these now that are waiting for Update 8 to play actively again.

 

And of course it could still be abused like hell this way.

 

Example: Make a huge clan with lots of random guys, as everyone wants to be in a big clan to trade much. Create lots of accounts and dump them in your clan until whenever you can trade with them. Give them all things someone would pay for on eBay and sell the account.

Edited May 11, 2013 by ZaxNyu

[Haldos]

I know a heck of a lot of people want trading in Warframe but I have to say, I am very skeptical about their "Plans" to keep it from blowing up. It's hard not to be when we don't know what they are as of yet, which is a little unfair for both sides.

 

I sincerely would rather it not be implemented at all. I'd hate to be chatting and hanging out in a clan dojo and having trade info being spammed every 4 seconds.

Edited May 11, 2013 by Haldos

[Aggh]

Just stop asking for mod and blueprint trading, it's stupid. If you would not have to farm for practically anything in the game, you would not have much to do except level up your gear. There would be tons of people like these now that are waiting for Update 8 to play actively again.

 

And of course it could still be abused like hell this way.

 

Example: Make a huge clan with lots of random guys, as everyone wants to be in a big clan to trade much. Create lots of accounts and dump them in your clan until whenever you can trade with them. Give them all things someone would pay for on eBay and sell the account.

Then put in activity reqs, like having played a certain number of games with clan mates per month.  A high enough rank mastery requirement would make creating a lot of accounts kind of pointless too.

[MrGrae]

Then the game becomes a job. 

 

I'm with DE on this, leave it at highly limited trading. Playing the game with clan mates and friends to farm what you need is more fun anyway.

[Nixsy]

Then put in activity reqs, like having played a certain number of games with clan mates per month.  A high enough rank mastery requirement would make creating a lot of accounts kind of pointless too.

I like the idea of limiting what can be traded based upon rank mastery. This would make players that have spent a lot of time and effort on the game able to trade with other players of equal or greater time spent and as you said it would virtually stop all of the multi-account scams.

[Aggh]

Then the game becomes a job. 

 

I'm with DE on this, leave it at highly limited trading. Playing the game with clan mates and friends to farm what you need is more fun anyway.

If you're actually in a clan you'll be regularly playing with clan mates anyways.  If you intend to keep playing the game you'll reach a rank three for example, in a reasonable amount of time.

[ZaxNyu]

Then put in activity reqs, like having played a certain number of games with clan mates per month.  A high enough rank mastery requirement would make creating a lot of accounts kind of pointless too.

 

Or, just don't make any of these features at all and concentrate on adding new and interesting content, like tilesets, bosses, gear etc.

 

We currently have 2 ways of getting things in Warframe: farm the blueprints and materials and build them, or buy them with platinum. There really should not be a trade system, or don't you want DE to make money and keep up the good work? I would prefer not to be able to trade anything at all before being able to trade blueprints and mods.

Edited May 11, 2013 by ZaxNyu

[KhanCipher]

whenever i see a dev against trading and the reason they pull out is "abuse" (it's 2013 ffs, it shouldn't be that hard to track who is "abusing" it), i tend to start thinking the actual reason is "oh no, we can't let players get 'rare' items more easily. (and pay only items for free)"

[ZaxNyu]

Why aren't you simply happy that there ARE things you can keep playing for a long while? Getting everything easier or faster really only reduces playtime by alot. The game itself is fun, that's why farming is. But if you wouldn't get ANYTHING from playing because you already had everything, how much would you still play?

[TGPhoenix]

Why aren't you simply happy that there ARE things you can keep playing for a long while? Getting everything easier or faster really only reduces playtime by alot. The game itself is fun, that's why farming is. But if you wouldn't get ANYTHING from playing because you already had everything, how much would you still play?

While I generally agree with DE for severely limiting the types of things that players will be able to trade, I disagree with your point. I have played for over 130 hrs and have yet to find a barrel diffusion mod, which severely limits my pistol's capabilities at the higher levels of play. I would gladly trade for it if I could and happily keep playing after I had it. That is the only thing out of mods or BPs I would want to trade for though and only because of how mandatory it is to play past a certain level in the game. (Insert here furious comment towards the RNG Gods who hate me so much) I was playing along side my friend/clan mate when 2 barrel diffusions dropped for him on separate runs, the last mod of one run and then the very first mod of the following run. I have put in over 100 runs since then looking for that mod so that I can have pistols that are actually useful in upper waves of defense and without it I am losing interest in the game because I can't find something that is practically required to go any further.  I'm not saying that the system wouldn't be abused, but when it comes down to mods, which can only be obtained as random drops and can't be purchased for plat even if I wanted to, I wish I could trade them.

 

So in short the answer to your question, at least for me, is that I would play more if I could trade and get the few last things I NEED in order to continue playing, not play less.

[KhanCipher]

But if you wouldn't get ANYTHING from playing because you already had everything, how much would you still play?

 

translation: "playing the game to get stuff to trade for something you want isn't farming."

[Xeniith]

They're trying too hard to "preserve the economy," I think people are just worked up over nothing, and besides, the game doesn't have a real economy yet because it doesn't have trading yet. They're just trying too desperately to make their game perfect, and trading is just going to be completely useless

 

Also, to all of you that think trading will ruin the farming aspect of the game: You need to farm resources to trade for other resources. It would NOT take farming out of the game, but simply relieve the frustration of getting the same crap over and over again that other people could do with.

[ZaxNyu]

While I generally agree with DE for severely limiting the types of things that players will be able to trade, I disagree with your point. I have played for over 130 hrs and have yet to find a barrel diffusion mod, which severely limits my pistol's capabilities at the higher levels of play. I would gladly trade for it if I could and happily keep playing after I had it.

 

That is more of a RNG problem and should not be solved by simply adding a trade function. Maybe the chance for every rare mod should slightly increase for every mod you find, so at some point the chances for all mods you never get dropped increase that much you should really get it.

[Aggh]

Why aren't you simply happy that there ARE things you can keep playing for a long while? Getting everything easier or faster really only reduces playtime by alot. The game itself is fun, that's why farming is. But if you wouldn't get ANYTHING from playing because you already had everything, how much would you still play?

Helping out clan mates is enough for me.  I grinded out a couple sets of warframe bps (volt, trinity, nyx, banshee) in the hopes that I'd be able to trade them to clan mates :|

[ZaxNyu]

Helping out clan mates is enough for me.  I grinded out a couple sets of warframe bps (volt, trinity, nyx, banshee) in the hopes that I'd be able to trade them to clan mates :|

 

And that is not how it works. If you, as a "long" player with tons of materials and blueprints, simply gift every friend of yours all the blueprints and materials and credits they need to build these things, the "urge" of buying warframes or weapons with platinum will reach zero.

[TehJumpingJawa]

whenever i see a dev against trading and the reason they pull out is "abuse" (it's 2013 ffs, it shouldn't be that hard to track who is "abusing" it), i tend to start thinking the actual reason is "oh no, we can't let players get 'rare' items more easily. (and pay only items for free)"

I think d3 is the perfect example of why trading can be detrimental to a game's overall experience.

It's not abuse, or balancing (though they obviously play their part), it's that while you're trading you aren't playing the game.

In the case of d3, trading turned the game from a hack and slash into a stock market simulator. The rich and powerful are not the ones who play the game, they are the ones who play the market.

I think this is why DE are wisely cautious about introducing trading; go too far and they'll create a parallel reward system that will diminish from the game proper.

Edited May 12, 2013 by TehJumpingJawa

[Aggh]

And that is not how it works. If you, as a "long" player with tons of materials and blueprints, simply gift every friend of yours all the blueprints and materials and credits they need to build these things, the "urge" of buying warframes or weapons with platinum will reach zero.

A single player couldn't possibly shut down an economy.  Nevermind that the amount of grind required to gather the parts for a warframe and craft it essentially mean that it's already paid for.  The people that trade for those BPs might spend money on slots/potatoes/color packs/mod packs/boosters etc. etc. whereas the grind or prices my just drive them away from the game.  At the prices that most warframes are sold at, most people don't have the urge to buy them anways.

Edited May 11, 2013 by Aggh

[ZaxNyu]

A single player couldn't possibly shut down an economy.  Nevermind that the amount of grind required to gather the parts for a warframe and craft it essentially mean that it's already paid for.  The people that trade for those BPs might spend money on slots/potatoes/color packs/mod packs/boosters etc. etc. whereas the grind or prices my just drive them away from the game.  At the prices that most warframes are sold at, most people don't have the urge to buy them anways.

 

That might be true, but still there is a difference if a rather new player farms together everything to build a new warframe, or a 100% evolved perfectly equipped player does. And still, there is the huge problem that these players would be able to sell all these things, NO MATTER what kind of protection you want to implement. That is never ever gonna happen in Warframe (at least I really hope so for the sake of DE).

 

It's right that many people will never buy a warframe with platinum (me neither), but what if you can just get it from someone else? No one would ever buy something again except the things you still couldn't not get even with trades.

 

And no, a single player could not, but what do you guess how many people out there are nearly 100% "done" with their account and would trade things for friends just to have something to do again and have any small "reason" to play. This will happen to these friends too later - nothing more to do for your own account!

Edited May 12, 2013 by ZaxNyu

[Drakontis]

I think the only way to "balance" this would be to give every item that is tradeable a required credit amount. For example, 1 Alloy Plate = 100 credits. 1 Nano Spore = 1 Credit. 1 Warframe Part Blueprint = 200,000 Credits. Then, while trading, you would be required to match numbers. Such as 200 alloy plates for 1 Warframe Part Blueprint. 100 Nano Spores for 1 Alloy Plate. This way, you can trade items or credits, but everything has a set value. You cannot be uneven. A true trade. The "economy" of the game would remain static. 

[xStonedRaveNx]

They're trying to implement and more importantly, monetize a trade/gift/ item transfer system that will not appear completely $&*^ish to users. I hope they don't jam a platinum price tag on trades...

[Ithgare]

I'm amazed at how mixed the reactions are so far. I can see the points of both sides of the arguement though. I'm just suggesting that if they were to make this type of thing available, make it extremely time restricted.

 

Think of someone who wants everything right off the getgo. Well with a setup like this they can't because first they have to join the clan, then just to trade credits alone they would have to be a 30+ day member in that clan. You can't tell me by your 30th day of having this game you didn't have a good chunk of mods, blueprints, etc. By the time you can trade for mods/blueprints, odds are you will have all of them except for the ones the RNG gods deam you unworthy for.

 

Love the input so far guys! Warframe community is awesome!

[Xeniith]

How about they just make it so you have the option to unlock trading with 75 platinum after reaching mastery rank one?