Credits Exchange redesign

[Most Lee Harmless]

My option would be two-fold :

Firstly : ANY bank may, if it wishes, trade in credits : this would be 'instant' trading and its reasonable to assume a certain premium in their pricing, subject to supply and demand

Secondly : Much like the 'loan request' system, a player can bid for or offer credits : this will create an 'event' notification in every bank, as with loans : any banker can then accept the bid/offer, even if it does not meet their 'instant' rates, or make a counter offer : as with loans, once the player accepts the offer, the deal is done and the funds transferred : For practicality, such funds would have to be moved via a bank account so verifying fund availability and payment.

So, If I need coins or credits now, I can cruise the banks and seek out the best offer today : If my needs are less vital, I can make my bid/offer and wait for a banker to bite at it, my reward being a better rate.

Addendum : I think a simple bit of coding could easily gather the prevailing prices in each bank and from that create a 'daily fix' which could be announced in-game (via 'events' or the market page) as a guide to the current exchange rates.

[Captain Jack]

...it was only with the removal of an option that players may have worked hard to receive...

I disagree with the work hard part, strongly. Especially when it comes to banks. A 2B fleet can be destroyed. A 2B bank cannot. How exactly the game respects the hard work of someone who built a 2B fleet when he can lose it?

The answer is simple, the fleet owner knows that he is doing a risky business. He still does it because the expected profits are high.
To be perfect fair though, the actual risk is much lower as the greatest cost are captains (still expendable through voodoo).

It's the same with Fishing feature which ended up to pay back more than trading. It had less risk and required less to operate (as there was no merchants cost). We had to change it to balance it.

The banks are a different case. Banks are a safe investment so their profitability should be lower than riskier investments. They offer bonuses to their owners even if they are kept closed - many bankers use them as their quick deposit after all.

Banks can also make money. But they do so slowly and this is expected. Even their building description warns you about it:

Code: Select all

Bank
The bank allows you to undertake the role of a Banker. Though beware, bankers will need tremendous resources in time and financial assets to become successful.

We have been aiding banks since start because we want them to play a central figure in the game. When the credit exchange idea came, we gave it to the bankers as we wanted to improve their ROI, which we found lower than expected. We also wanted Bank levels to play a greater role. These elements must be maintained in the future through other features/changes, this is certain.

Now, we just finished a feature that informed us of the total revenues and profits of all banks. I will share them:


The overall profit is an estimation. Hopefully the figure is correct. If not, let me know.
I must admit that I expected a bigger profit for banks. Still, it is not a bad sum for 6.5 months. It is a sum divided among few banks after all.

I stated at my first post that the banks are a concern. I stated that we need to find other ways, another buff to their profitability. We have not come here with this feature to strip it from the banks. I understand concerns but the post was something more than a concern - it felt like an unfair targeting.

We have came here with this feature to improve the game. This feature will improve the game I believe. It will give you a live auction market where futurely you will be able to gamble. Right now after all, there are a lot of private trades going on that skip the banks all together. These are also hard to police.

To sum it up:
-Game balance is always above any single feature. Yes, if we find that a feature is too powerful, we will change it, like we did with Fishing. This is a different case though.
-Development wise, it would be better for us to keep the current system. However, the current system is inferior to the one proposed.
-Bankers should not be too concerned. We will find ways to ensure their profitability, somehow. I will come with exact metrics on Send Payments on this topic to explore whether or not this will be enough.
-Whichever the case, a bank solution will be given in the same time the new feature launches, whenever this is.

Let's not be narrow-minded after all. Bankers could be the initial players at the new system (before we open it to public) and once we open it to public, they can be the leverage offers (if you want to make leverage bids, this should be provided by a bank).

[Grimrock Litless]

My option would be two-fold :

Firstly : ANY bank may, if it wishes, trade in credits : this would be 'instant' trading and its reasonable to assume a certain premium in their pricing, subject to supply and demand

Secondly : Much like the 'loan request' system, a player can bid for or offer credits : this will create an 'event' notification in every bank, as with loans : any banker can then accept the bid/offer, even if it does not meet their 'instant' rates, or make a counter offer : as with loans, once the player accepts the offer, the deal is done and the funds transferred : For practicality, such funds would have to be moved via a bank account so verifying fund availability and payment.

So, If I need coins or credits now, I can cruise the banks and seek out the best offer today : If my needs are less vital, I can make my bid/offer and wait for a banker to bite at it, my reward being a better rate.

The thing of biding and offering credits is great, lets say, X offers you 10 credits for 1,000,000 and later, another person can go and bid on he will offer 12 credits for it, same for the buying. Like a voodoo market.

[Captain Jack]

My option would be two-fold :

Firstly : ANY bank may, if it wishes, trade in credits : this would be 'instant' trading and its reasonable to assume a certain premium in their pricing, subject to supply and demand

Secondly : Much like the 'loan request' system, a player can bid for or offer credits : this will create an 'event' notification in every bank, as with loans : any banker can then accept the bid/offer, even if it does not meet their 'instant' rates, or make a counter offer : as with loans, once the player accepts the offer, the deal is done and the funds transferred : For practicality, such funds would have to be moved via a bank account so verifying fund availability and payment.

So, If I need coins or credits now, I can cruise the banks and seek out the best offer today : If my needs are less vital, I can make my bid/offer and wait for a banker to bite at it, my reward being a better rate.

The thing of biding and offering credits is great, lets say, X offers you 10 credits for 1,000,000 and later, another person can go and bid on he will offer 12 credits for it, same for the buying. Like a voodoo market.

An automatic system in the fashion Haron proposed is a highway - especially because it is more difficult to exploit (more fun too imo). Another reason we used Bankers at first place is that we trusted every one of them to help with cheating cases. And they do help till now (They are few bankers able to exchange credits, all trusted although it is always easy to check 5 people than hundrends). Giving an instant trade manual option to everyone is very difficult to police.

[Most Lee Harmless]

My option would be two-fold :

Firstly : ANY bank may, if it wishes, trade in credits : this would be 'instant' trading and its reasonable to assume a certain premium in their pricing, subject to supply and demand

Secondly : Much like the 'loan request' system, a player can bid for or offer credits : this will create an 'event' notification in every bank, as with loans : any banker can then accept the bid/offer, even if it does not meet their 'instant' rates, or make a counter offer : as with loans, once the player accepts the offer, the deal is done and the funds transferred : For practicality, such funds would have to be moved via a bank account so verifying fund availability and payment.

So, If I need coins or credits now, I can cruise the banks and seek out the best offer today : If my needs are less vital, I can make my bid/offer and wait for a banker to bite at it, my reward being a better rate.

Addendum : I think a simple bit of coding could easily gather the prevailing prices in each bank and from that create a 'daily fix' which could be announced in-game (via 'events' or the market page) as a guide to the current exchange rates.

I'm aware of the level issue for banks offering credit exchange : its one I have always objected to : but, if all banks could offer credit exchange, then by using current bank level limits, we would still restrict the amount that such a bank could trade due to its overall storage cap and account limits : so, if trades had to be conducted via the bank account in the bank, its effectively capped to that limit per transaction : include fees and taxes and either the bank must offer excellent terms, or lose trade in the bigger transactions : This would be a great motivator for bankers to steadily grow their bank and thus increase their trading prospects, rather than the current one of investing a billion just to get a foot in the door.

[Captain Jack]

Another point we need to decide is whether or not the gold coins used at the market will be placed at a special (upgradable) account or a Banks account. At the latter case, turns cost for deposit/withdrawals/send payments will be linked to bank level (3 turns for lvl 1-9, 2 turns for lvl 10-15, 1 turn for 16-20).

[Captain Jack]

Send Payments Statistics:
Transactions #: 7,578
Net Worth: gc 64,084,278,069
Period of about 14 months

Or last 12 months:
Net Worth: gc 60B
Period of last 12 months


A fixed fee of 10k per transaction would generate 75M for Banks (14months period metric)
A 1% minimum fee per transaction would generate 640M for Banks (14months period metric)

If we want to take it to a more realistic base though, we should use the 5B per month and about 500 Transactions per month as an expected medium for the next 6 months.

A 0.5% minimum fee plus a 5k fixed fee per transaction would generate about 27.5M per month for banks. Most probably fixed fee will not be implemented.
This is a low figure again. Banks profits are very much linked to playerbase size. If playerbase size grows significantly their profits will also grow. Since we currently have a big portion of newcomers who are starting to move more in the the economy market, these figures will improve.

In comparison to the Credit exchange, it becomes clear that the credits exchange is much more profitable than it. In fact, they have more than double profits than what send payments minimum fee would score at 1%. To match their profit exactly, we should require about 2% minimum fee which sounds a bit unrealistic.

I will leave these on the table and no decisions will be taken before some feedback is received.

[Haron]

In my suggestion, banks would be used for the credit transactions on the market, and could profit from requiring a fee from such transactions. I think this would be a good compensation to bankers for the loss of selling/buying credits.

As for a gc transaction fee: If this becomes too expensive, players will simply send each other credits instead (this is currently free), and agree on a price for the player to buy it back on the "stock exchange". So, banks should be able to get a profit from credit transactions (as a sort of broker perhaps; see points 6 and 7 in my suggestion early in this thread). If the credit transactions are free, and sending credits are free, then certainly no-one will be willing to pay to send gc.

[Sir Henry Morgan]

I may be wrong, but I believe somewhere in the forums concerning banks and exchange re-design, I read the sending credits function will be closed after the new credit exchange comes online.

[Haron]

My bank does not deal in credits, so I really don't have an investment in this issue. However, knowing how much some players have invested in their banks to be able to be the elite players dealing in credits, it seems like a terrible thing to do to them on the outset. If you promise aspects of the game if you use an enormous fortune and a huge time investment only to take it away once they have achieved the status, how can serious plans be made for future events. How can people say "I am going to make the commitment to achieve this option of play" knowing after their hard work it may be taken away from them.

I look at this as an issue of can we trust game development in the future. If a new feature comes out, should we make the commitment and effort knowing it could be taken away? This game has been played knowing that you must change with the times, but there are times when the changes have been so drastic it has completely done away with months of preparations and hundreds of millions maybe even billions gold that have been spent.'

I realize this would only be in play for a few players who are bankers, but you are dealing with destroying things these dedicated players have worked hard for. It is my opinion that these players should keep what has been promised them. I am of the opinion that some of them probably did not build their banks to get the credits option up for profit but for in Igame status. This status could not be replaced by giving them "ATM fees".

These few credit option bankers have my greatest respect and will have my most sincere condolences if this travesty befalls them.

I meant to respond to this earlier, because I think Kart raises an important issue. For this particular suggestion, my personal belief is that the bankers would benefit from this as well, and that the change is good for the game, but I think the general principle of Kart's comment is important: Making long term plans and investments is difficult when the rules may change and alter the results of such plans and investments. This, of course, needs to be weighed against the need for the game to develop and improve. The devs involvement with the community, and ability to implement new features, is to me one of the things that makes this game stand out.

I think the best way to achieve a proper balance between the need for predictability and the need for the game to evolve, is if the experienced players are active in the forums, helping to stop the "bad" ideas, and improve upon those with a potential to improve the game. Commenting every suggestion would require a lot of time, but comments at least to the suggestions which Captain Jack had shown an interest in, would be really helpful, in my opinion.