Trading System v2.0 - Proposal
This new system design hopes to re-engineer some of the underlying concepts that provided the foundation of the current trading system. I expect these changes to be considered controversial given they are quite radical.
As a proposal, this is not a binary yes/no suggestion, but one that is up for debate for detail changes. In-fact, this is unfinished and not even new, but I have decided to post it so that people can take it into consideration as a baseline when talking about trading system feature suggestions and to help contribute to the next radical system design.
Another thing to note is that the new system will not entirely replace the old. The old one will be set into a locked state, this means people will be able to equip what they want before the lock and then keep it like that after the lock until they decide to move.
Some of the existing problems now
DP
There have been three versions of this:
- No bank cap, no system banks - Inflation in such an economy is inevitable, as new players will enter all the time,
veteran players will have hundreds of thousands, and eventually millions of DP. Without reason to spend it,
this devolves into an ever-increasing amount of DP in the system. - No bank cap, but limited DP via system banks - without a cap, people often reach a system-based limit, simply because the system banks run out of DP. It stops the inflation of the above, but still, people hit the soft cap and stay there.
- Bank Cap, limited DP via system banks - With a cap, we have simply an enforced limit, instead of a soft cap based on the system banks players reach the bank cap and stay there
The real problem with economy lies not precisely in any of three choices above, but rather in the very rare interactions users have with it outside of gaining DP. If players do not spend their currency, it has no value, the economy in this instance may as well not exist.
Items
Why do players not spend their currency? Because too often, they get what they need without using it at all. Loot boxes facilitate gaining all types of items, without the need to spend any DP, instead they just need to level up.
The other problem is that, to a single user most items have no value because they don’t need them, and most of them they cannot sell to anyone either, for the same problem.
DP Sinks
Now with the above in mind, there are DP sinks that exist to try and combat this issue. We have:
- XP Efficiency - both a sink and a potential spending target for players, since the 100% cap was removed (again) players can spend DP to increase the xp gain, which directly increases how fast they gain new items.
- Item Lifetimes - This sink inevitably did not involve DP as the main factor, because users will use the items they get from loot boxes to restore the lifetimes of their beloved items instead, sacrificing the items they don’t want anyway, for the few items they do
No market
Right now you need to trade with other users directly to gain items or DP from others. A market would allow users to open up for sale items to any user. The problem still is that this will suffer from the item problems mentioned above.
New changes
Specialisation
Players will have to pick one of either: Titles or Tags. This will be their specialisation, which means that is the item type that will be getting from loot boxes and other type-specialised activities. Your initial reaction may that this is a severe restriction on players, but let’s explore what this means.This system is the precedent of most if not all the changes listed here and is what powers interaction in markets and trading.
This change means that any user, no matter who they are, will gain 2 main item types at a lesser rate than they are now.
One source of non-specialised item types will be the shop, which will be getting a revamp.
Shop
The shop will sell R4-R6 items only. This will be for a high price, but all main item types (Title/Tag/Color) will be available.
Costs to buy:
- R4: 3,200 DP
- R5: 6,400 DP
- R6: 12,800 DP
The shop will also sell R4-R6 loot boxes of all main specialisations too, but again for a high price.
The shop will allow players to sell any of the main item types (Title/Tag/Color) but with a twist. The problem of allowing this transaction is that it sets the minimum bar for how much an item is worth, because it means you can always sell an item for at least that amount to the shop. So when players want to buy an item from someone, that person will price it at least that of what they get from selling it to the shop. To open up more opportunities for pricing, the shop won’t always be buying every item type and rarity at once. Instead the shop will change what it buys each period but in a deterministic pattern, it may look like this:
| Period | No. days | Buying |
|---|---|---|
| Period 1 | 4 days | Titles R1-R3 |
| Period 2 | 4 days | Tags R1-R3 |
| Period 3 | 4 days | Colors R1-R3 |
| Period 4 | 3 days | Titles R4-R5 |
| Period 5 | 3 days | Tags R4-R5 |
| Period 6 | 3 days | Colors R4-R5 |
| Period 7 | 2 days | Titles R6-R7 |
| Period 8 | 2 days | Tags R6-R7 |
| Period 9 | 2 days | Colors R6-R7 |
| Period 10 | 1 day | Titles R7-R8 |
| Period 11 | 1 day | Tags R7-R8 |
| Period 12 | 1 day | Colors R7-R8 |
| Period 13 | 14 hrs | Titles R9-R10 |
| Period 14 | 14 hrs | Tags R9-R10 |
| Period 15 | 14 hrs | Colors R9-R10 |
Why?
Items take up inventory space. You may have to wait up to 31 days before you can sell your item (R10 color, starting at period 1), which you don’t want and is taking up space. This opens up an opportunity for players to buy items from others players for a reduced price and sell at a profit later. This also means prices can be set properly, that way items are worth a proper amount, but the availability of when they can be sold for that amount is limited.
Selling Prices:
R1: 100 DP
R2: 200 DP
R3: 400 DP
R4: 800 DP
R5: 1,600 DP
R6: 3,200 DP
R7: 6,400 DP
R8: 12,800 DP
R9: 25,600 DP
R10: 51,200 DP
Corruption
The main problem with lifetimes at the moment is that at 0 time left, the item is removed. The second main problem is that their lifetimes go down when you’re not playing. Instead of removing the item at 0 time left, the item becomes corrupted, and must be repaired.
Corruption, instead of the removing the item, removes its functionality. This means that a title [King] when equipped would not change the users title at all. To remove corruption, you need to repair the item.
Durability
Lifetime itself will change too. Instead they will have durability. Which may look like Dur: 100%. Durability is used up by sending chat messages. Each message you send will reduce the durability by some amount. This removes the second problem because we don’t need to track users who are online, instead we simply do something when they send a message. This also avoids some of the buggyness of the lifetime ticker. (Potential problem: players may not want to send messages as often because it uses up their items?).
Repairing
Repairing uses either DP or sacrificing of items. However, repairing via sacrifice will require an item of the same type. The cost itself will be set such that it is cheaper to sell the item to the shop and use the DP you get than to directly sacrifice the item. Each R will repair durability by a set %, regardless of what is being repaired, this means rarity and DP are both easily comparable to their durability value.
DP Cost Comparison is the amount of DP you would have to pay to repair that percentage directly rather than using an item.
| Rarity | Repair % | DP Cost Comparison | DP gained by selling item |
|---|---|---|---|
| R1 | 0.1% | 50 | 100 |
| R2 | 0.2% | 100 | 200 |
| R3 | 0.4% | 200 | 400 |
| R4 | 0.8% | 400 | 800 |
| R5 | 1.6% | 800 | 1,600 |
| R6 | 3.2% | 1,600 | 3,200 |
| R7 | 6.4% | 3,200 | 6,400 |
| R8 | 12.8% | 6,400 | 12,800 |
| R9 | 25.6% | 12,800 | 25,600 |
| R10 | 51.2% | 25,600 | 51,200 |
| R11 | 100% | 51,200 | 102,400 |
| R12 | -% (Unusable in repairing)\ |
To make it more clear what the last two columns mean, let’s talk about the R1 row. If you used the R1 item to repair, it would grant 0.1% durability. If you used DP to repair 0.1% instead, it would cost you 50 DP. But if you sold the R1 item, you get 100 DP. So that means that selling the item allows you to repair the item for 0.1% and gain 50 DP, you get both benefits or you can repair for double the durability.
However, repairing via DP needs to be done by a specialist. So if your speciality is Titles, then you can repair the durability of Tags and Colors using items of the same type only, but not DP.
Repairing Colors with DP is done differently; Colors will be repairable with DP by top voters of the month, maybe top 2, or 3, the number will depend on how it compares to active users. This might change, but it simply needs to be some measure that almost guarantees these people are around to help others repair their colors, which they may charge for.
Loot Boxes
As mentioned before, players have specialisations that affect what type of loot box they get. A player specialising in Titles will only get loot boxes that give them titles. The amount of items you get from a loot box will also change a lot.
Three Rarities of Loot Boxes:
R1 Loot Box:
- Gives R1 type items
R2 Loot Box:
- Gives R2 type items
R3 Loot Box:
- Gives R3 type items
As mentioned in the shop section, and above, these will be useful in repairing items or selling for DP, the lower rarities allow there to be a bound on how much DP you can get from simply leveling up (and selling the items to the shop).
Also obtainable:
R11 Mega Loot Box
- Gives R7-R8 item of your specialisation
Voting
Voting itself will change too. Right now voting:
- Gives XP
- Gives Credits
- Gives a Vote Loot Box
Instead voting will give Essence. Essence is a stackable inventory item, stacking up to 5. Essence can be used to craft:
- (Undecided)
Market
With the above in mind, market can now be more useful, since you can sell items you can get from loot boxes, and you know that others users will have some use for them:
- To simply equip them since they cannot obtain that item (unless its R4-R6 from the shop)
- To repair their non-specialised items, say buying a crappy color to repair their good color
- To sell to the shop when possible (if such is profitable)
The market works simply:
You pay a fee to list an item for any price you want.
Users can go and view all items available for purchase on the market, each listed with the lowest price available, but users can pay for any of the listings.
You can group by either item, or by type (Title/Tag/Color/etc), in-case you’re looking to buy any title/tag/color to use for repairs.
Rarities
Rarities will be broken down as such, by the original source:
- R1-R3: From loot boxes
- R4-R6: From the shop
- R7-R8: From mega loot boxes
- R9-R10: From gambling
All except the shop are constrained by the aforementioned specialisations. That means R1-R3, R7-R10 of a non-specialised type will be unobtainable without getting it from another player.
This still leaves Colours and Cmds, since these are unspecialisable.
DP
The currency will return to being:
- User Bank uncapped
- Limited via System Banks
The gain rate via in-game activities will be limited more than it has been. This means that the rate at which you gain DP via in-game will provide you with only a little portion.
Credits
With credits not being rewarded for voting, it’ll move to the gambling section. This means that free players can still gain credits via gambling DP, otherwise they may still be purchased for $1 = 1 Credit
Credits will be usable for:
- Creating a custom Title/Tag
- Purchasing a DP Booster, a special item that while equipped will boost the users DP income. Expires after 1 day of being first equipped.
- Purchasing an Eff Booster, a special item that grants +% eff that can go over the maximum of 100% upon use
Leveling
Leveling will still be the main source of Loot Boxes.
Level 1 - 20 grant only R1 Loot Boxes
Level 20 - 40 grant R1+R2 Loot Boxes
Level 50+ grant R1+R2+R3 Loot Boxes
Each 50th level grants you:
- 1 free upgrade, the next upgrade will cost 0 DP
Each 100th level grants you:
- 1 Mega Loot Box
Each 150th level grants you:
- Eff Booster
Each 200th level grants you:
- 1 Credit
Gambling
Gambling will be the place to go for the highest rarity items. It’s also a place to find things that are otherwise unobtainable:
- R9 items of specialisation type
- R10 items of specialisation type
- Boosters
- Credits
- DP
In most cases, the winnings are simply DP or nothing.
Reset
This update drastically changes the system. Therefore, it is required that all accounts that wish to move to this system are reset completely. This means emptying inventories, reseting DP, XP, Levels and Upgrades. As said in the beginning, moving to the new system will be optional with the alternative being a frozen equipped state from the old.