Content Spotlight Discussion: Trading

[Stephen Teague]

We strictly want suggestions on implementation, not peoples' opinions of whether they like trading or not. There have been many threads discussing peoples' opinions on trading from the past. To keep reliving those threads isn't productive and doesn't serve the point of this thread.

If you wish to discuss the merits of trading in TLOPO, please create a new thread.

Thank you!

 

[Goldhawk]

From playing POTCO— I’ve always wished for a trading feature. I’m pretty excited for what is to come from what the TLOPO team has already stated/released.

I’ve played enough mmog’s to recognize that players tend to standardize trading values so it won’t be easy to acquire a high-end item (legendary) even if all trading options were released in the update— so I don’t get why many are upset.

My implementation suggestion is that I think all trading should be allowed especially weapons. A filter of lvl 35 and up for cursed is a good idea. Perhaps additional filters of lvl 40-45 for famed item (weapon) trading and max lvl (50) for legendary weapon trading (or even ship trading!) would still allow interchange while promoting looting to get to those levels to be able to trade in the first place.

I also think making a “trade box” where you can drag a combination of up to (6) or (8) items in a single transaction and then hit a 2-factor “accept trade” button to make the transaction would be neat. It would allow for interchange of weapons for mats or clothes or any combination of gold, weapons, clothing, materials, potions, or maybe even entire ships.

This combination of items would allow pirates to “even out” in terms of building a well-rounded pirate if they only loot and have weapons but want ship materials or vice versa.

Then, having key trophy’s for looting would keep dedicated-looters happy by being able to unlock each looted legendary item achievement as they grind through the looting process.

Hope this helps!

 

[John Macbatten]

From playing POTCO— I’ve always wished for a trading feature. I’m pretty excited for what is to come from what the TLOPO team has already stated/released.

I’ve played enough mmog’s to recognize that players tend to standardize trading values so it won’t be easy to acquire a high-end item (legendary) even if all trading options were released in the update— so I don’t get why many are upset.

My implementation suggestion is that I think all trading should be allowed especially weapons. A filter of lvl 35 and up for cursed is a good idea. Perhaps additional filters of lvl 40-45 for famed item (weapon) trading and max lvl (50) for legendary weapon trading (or even ship trading!) would still allow interchange while promoting looting to get to those levels to be able to trade in the first place.

I also think making a “trade box” where you can drag a combination of up to (6) or (8) items in a single transaction and then hit a 2-factor “accept trade” button to make the transaction would be neat. It would allow for interchange of weapons for mats or clothes or any combination of gold, weapons, clothing, materials, potions, or maybe even entire ships.

This combination of items would allow pirates to “even out” in terms of building a well-rounded pirate if they only loot and have weapons but want ship materials or vice versa.

Then, having key trophy’s for looting would keep dedicated-looters happy by being able to unlock each looted legendary item achievement as they grind through the looting process.

Hope this helps!

Thanks for the comprehensive suggestions Goldhawk!

 

[Rose]

I always imagined if trading had been implemented in POTCO it would have resembled another Disney game called VMK. I believe a trading window & interface like this would be ideal, with different sections for different items as well as the trading confirmation.

 

[Goldhawk]

Good idea,

A game called Realm of the Mad God (ROTMG) also uses something similar to this and it works very well in the game. Could be a game to draw inspiration from.

 

[Rose]

I made a quick mockup of what I feel trading could potentially look like.

 

[John Macbatten]

I made a quick mockup of what I feel trading could potentially look like.

Awesome job!

 

[GothicRide]

as someone who has played MMORPG's for YEARS and someone who has been in the MMORPG development scene for just over 6 years, i can attest that this will be a double edged sword

some items that should not be trade-able
- Legendary's should never be trade-able unless another legendary is able to be traded, this is how that should work
- Ammo, Potions, cheat cards

some items that should be very limited to trading
- Ship Materials, jewelry and collection treasures

now obviously your going to be asking this what about gold??

welllllllllllllll heres where that gets complicated, gold would be the universal standard for trading, how this is done the right way is by first getting rid of the standard system all together, this means gold is now useless, to some players already their gold has hit that fine point of where its already useless to them as they are completely maxed out

restructuring how gold works is very very very difficult and challenging, there are several complicated ways of doing this however, what you would need to do is first put in a "worth" calculator with trading, this way items that are trade-able always have a "worth" which you can then tell the game what to do with it, what loot pools, what item stage brackets its placed in, etc, this also allows you to do some wacky things with them.

the second most important part to this is by making the gold system more refined by re-doing how you obtain gold, selling items to npc's, looting from bosses, pvp ships, etc is the current method, there is so much gold floating around the server that gold is practically useless in its own right, currently the cap of gold is 300k, that amount of gold doesn't really go very far once your capped out, maxed out, and have nothing else to do, ships as far as i know have 6 tiers of upgrading, clothes cost gold, etc, theres not much you can do with it, this is why making the gold system more refined by increasing the cap from 300k to say 1m and then adding content as you go for things that would be worth that much gold, would be very ideal for the economy as a whole, i mean really the sky's the limit.

i could go on and on about how to re-do the gold standard system, but that would honestly take up half this forum post alone, when it comes down to it, you can do alot of stuff

 

[Fortune Burnrose]

1. Longevity – This is less of a trading issue and more of a flaw of the game. However, it's not going to suddenly be shortened - trading won't suddenly make it incredibly easy to get anything you want. You still have to give something equal or even more valuable in return.

While I do agree the current longevity of the game is flawed, I don't agree that it wouldn't be affected by trading. Trading would definitely make it incredibly easy to get anything you want. I know plenty of people who have spare legendaries and legendary duplicated who would be willing trade them to someone who doesn't. Additionally, there are plenty of players who already have a lot of legendaries, but simply have them scattered across different pirates. If legendaries became trade-able, there would be players with all the most sought after items within 24 hours of the update.

9. The End of Passionate Looters – There's always going to be people who heavily focus on looting in the game. Trading isn't going to just magically make items more common. They have to get those items from somewhere. In fact, I would think this would encourage looters as they can trade for other things they want (e.g. mats and such).

Again, trading would make items "magically" more common. That's exactly the fear of every looter protesting this feature. As far as people quitting the game, I think you seriously underestimate how many people would do this. And remember, these are the game's most active players. So when they're gone, the whole game is gonna be a lot quieter.

 

[Baabaa Booey]

why not just allow to trade for one legendary and that is the only one you can trade to get per pirate make it just like you chose after defeating el patron

 

[Arr]

While I do agree the current longevity of the game is flawed, I don't agree that it wouldn't be affected by trading. Trading would definitely make it incredibly easy to get anything you want. I know plenty of people who have spare legendaries and legendary duplicated who would be willing trade them to someone who doesn't. Additionally, there are plenty of players who already have a lot of legendaries, but simply have them scattered across different pirates. If legendaries became trade-able, there would be players with all the most sought after items within 24 hours of the update.


Again, trading would make items "magically" more common. That's exactly the fear of every looter protesting this feature. As far as people quitting the game, I think you seriously underestimate how many people would do this. And remember, these are the game's most active players. So when they're gone, the whole game is gonna be a lot quieter.

If players want to trade THEIR items to themselves then they should be able to since they actually worked to get them. Legendaries are already pretty common and yeah there is going to be SOME players that give them away. Players can already trash or sell legendaries and other items and I feel they should have full control of what THEY looted and not me or you or anyone else should be able to dictate what they can and can't trade.

 

[Fortune Burnrose]

If players want to trade THEIR items to themselves then they should be able to since they actually worked to get them. Legendaries are already pretty common and yeah there is going to be SOME players that give them away. Players can already trash or sell legendaries and other items and I feel they should have full control of what THEY looted and not me or you or anyone else should be able to dictate what they can and can't trade.

I wouldn't otherwise be opposed to trading between alts if it weren't for the "gun only" and level 24 dagger strategies which make looting certain weapons easier. For example, my alt, Fortune Gunrose, found mercer's pistol because she only had gun and doll leveled up. This meant that there was only 1 legendary that she could have found at the time, making it easier than if I had tried to loot it on my main pirate who has everything leveled up. Since this alt strategy provides an advantage over other pirates, I don't think it's fair to allow alt trading.

 

[Arr]

I wouldn't otherwise be opposed to trading between alts if it weren't for the "gun only" and level 24 dagger strategies which make looting certain weapons easier. For example, my alt, Fortune Gunrose, found mercer's pistol because she only had gun and doll leveled up. This meant that there was only 1 legendary that she could have found at the time, making it easier than if I had tried to loot it on my main pirate who has everything leveled up. Since this alt strategy provides an advantage over other pirates, I don't think it's fair to allow alt trading.

I only have sailing, cannon, sword, fishing, and potions mastered also my pirate is level 50 and to me this strategy doesn't increase my odds at getting a sword that I want in fact it doesn't even increase my odds at getting valuable sailing items. All I keep getting is the same common and rare sailing items and swords. I also have a fully mastered pirate that seems to have the same odds and I have more goods on that pirate. I'm guessing you just got lucky.

 

[Beggar]

So here's a thing players will do:

1. make and level 5 alts on 5 different, FREE accounts
2. park those 5 alts at the same boss, looting the boss using each one
3. Acquire weapons across all of those alts an average of 5x more quickly than anyone could on only one account
4. Transfer weapons acquired across those 5 alts to one pirate.

This is why trading should never be in a free mmo with item collection at its core....

But please, if trading really is inevitable, come up with some way to stop players from doing that. If it's possible for players to do this with legendaries then we're really gonna be in a mess of trouble.

 

[Crashalot]

So here's a thing players will do:

1. make and level 5 alts on 5 different, FREE accounts
2. park those 5 alts at the same boss, looting the boss using each one
3. Acquire weapons across all of those alts an average of 5x more quickly than anyone could on only one account
4. Transfer weapons acquired across those 5 alts to one pirate.

This is why trading should never be in a free mmo with item collection at its core....

But please, if trading really is inevitable, come up with some way to stop players from doing that. If it's possible for players to do this with legendaries then we're really gonna be in a mess of trouble.

You'll have to provide the algorithm you used to obtain those results.

 

[Crashalot]

I only have sailing, cannon, sword, fishing, and potions mastered also my pirate is level 50 and to me this strategy doesn't increase my odds at getting a sword that I want in fact it doesn't even increase my odds at getting valuable sailing items. All I keep getting is the same common and rare sailing items and swords. I also have a fully mastered pirate that seems to have the same odds and I have more goods on that pirate. I'm guessing you just got lucky.

Rumor has it you need to level weapons above 25 for the good loot to start flowing.
Ask Misha, he would know.

 

[commonsense123]

Not sure if this has been asked in this thread, but will we be able to trade ship materials?

 

[Arr]

So here's a thing players will do:

1. make and level 5 alts on 5 different, FREE accounts
2. park those 5 alts at the same boss, looting the boss using each one
3. Acquire weapons across all of those alts an average of 5x more quickly than anyone could on only one account
4. Transfer weapons acquired across those 5 alts to one pirate.

This is why trading should never be in a free mmo with item collection at its core....

But please, if trading really is inevitable, come up with some way to stop players from doing that. If it's possible for players to do this with legendaries then we're really gonna be in a mess of trouble.

I don't get how people play 5 different pirates at once and you'd have to do that for hours since looting is random luck. This to me isn't enough of a problem to not add trading/trade legendaries. If someone does somehow play 5 different pirates and loots on all those pirates at once then that's a huge accomplish in my eyes and they should be able to give all the legendaries they obtain to one pirate, they still worked hard to get the legendaries, probably harder than most people.

 

[Beggar]

I don't get how people play 5 different pirates at once and you'd have to do that for hours since looting is random luck. This to me isn't enough of a problem to not add trading/trade legendaries. If someone does somehow play 5 different pirates and loots on all those pirates at once then that's a huge accomplish in my eyes and they should be able to give all the legendaries they obtain to one pirate, they still worked hard to get the legendaries, probably harder than most people.

Ridiculous. I know dozens of people who have already played on five (or more) pirates at once and have gotten plenty of legendaries doing it. It’s not difficult and it’s definitely not an accomplishment. Attributing finds collected across multiple pirates to one pirate is cheating, end of story. Trading should not be set up in such a way that it enables that cheating.

A pirate’s inventory should only be reflective of the loot that pirate has collected. Trading is already going to mess that up, but if legendaries are off the table then at least something will still be reflective of effort alone.

 

[Beggar]

You'll have to provide the algorithm you used to obtain those results.

Uh...

(hrs*pirates)*(probability of finding a legend) = legends.....?

5 pirates looting in exactly the same way collectively find legends 5x as quickly as only one pirate. This isn’t rocket surgery.