New item stat: Value

Suggestions
1

What if all items available in game had a statistic called Value, that would show how they are placed versus each other in terms of obtaining difficulty.

Would be similar to Rank we have for tools, but actually more similar to block prestige that is based on how time and resource consuming it is to obtain such a block.

Why would it be helpful (if at all)?

  1. None cash transactions. Any item for item exchange would be easily balanced by adding up the Value of items on both ends of transaction.
  2. Setting a fair price for items. There were many posts in the forums with people asking if they prices were fair. With the Value stat, any doubtful items could be priced based on market prices of other items. Look at their Values and scale up/down accordingly.
  3. When shopping its sometimes hard to judge how fair is a price we see. Look at the Value of other items even in the same shop to check if at least they are priced fairly in relation to one another.

Have other more extreme ideas on how such stat could be used to regulate in-game market, but won’t share it just yet. Let’s start simple and without making this post too long.

Thoughts and opinions welcome.

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2

I feel that your proposed system is what rarity on items was supposed to fulfill but I feel that rarity sometimes does not actually reflect well how common certain goods are because of player economy as a whole.

Perhaps part of the issue is that it is non-numerical info. I feel like your proposed system is more clear-cut.

I’d like to do more item to item trades but to be fair people always value things differently based on how they play. At one poInt I valued inky and fibrous leaves kind of poorly but now I have a lot more personal value in them.

In any case I quite like your suggestion. :slight_smile:

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3

“Lets add VALUE to the game”
… maybe not something devs want people running around saying about the game lmao.

3 Likes
4

When I think about it now, there is Rank for tools and maybe if it was applied to all items it could serve as reference, helping to trade item for item or judge fairness of prices in shops.

5

True, but rank in itself feels a bit arbitrary for value don’t you think? You can have max rank tools that have different boons on them but are worth something different to different players. :thinking:

*Not to mention you can raise lower-end tools to the base rank of an unforged gem tool, though they won’t necessarily match in power or value.

I think for rank to fit this purpose it would have to be an item feature that has reference values that are explained to us as players. At the moment all we factually know about rank is that it is dependent on the base item and can be increased via forging by adding boons to a tool. The game doesn’t actually explain how to compare equipment by using the rank as a reference. Hence why I feel it’s a bit arbitrary.

6

Something that I noticed is that what one sees as of high value others see it different. A good example was when I was looking for plants and boulders to put around my base to decorate. One shop stated that they based their prices on how nice or pretty the plant looked, the nicer, the more decorative the higher the price. Another went with where it came from and how dangerous it was to get. A sword flow from a level one is much easier to get than a Trumpet Root from a level 7 planet. Which one would you be willing to pay more for?

Since I have started to sell some of the plants, mushrooms and boulders I have to look at how difficult it is for me and the danger I am in. This one is so much prettier, yes, it is and it also cost me a life to get that pretty blue glowing plant for you to put by your door. And the shimmering orb that is has is also in high demand so I think my 100 - 150coins for it is a fair price. (forgot the 1 in 150)

That would be with everything. Some gems are easy to get to and some harder; some last longer than others, some are better at fast work but wear out faster whereas others are best for working on level 5 and 6 planets.

Some take longer to gather. Go and gather the fleshy leaves and that will take a lot longer to collect than the foliage leaves off the trees or bushes. Spicy beans are easy to get and the bitter ones are harder to get and more rare as they are on the dangerous planets. So that makes them more expensive to buy than the spicy beans, sweet beans in the middle, not as hard as bitter or in as dangerous of a setting. But, then that would depend on who is hunting for them. A level 20 player with low armor is taking a chance even with a explorers fist and iron slingbow whereas a level 50 with full armor can take a hammer and go and smack the irritating stout spitter for being in their way (have done that several times).

So, value is subjective, what I see of value, as being worth a certain amount of coin will be different from another player. That is the fun in setting a price.

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7

I think the coin minting values we’ll see once it goes live will be a more indication on the market value of an item (although I doubt this). But I do understand that knowing how much someone has undercut or overpriced the average market value of an item would be useful in players making the best possible purchasing decision.

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8

Forgive my lack of remembering, but someone on the forum has created a program or something like that where prices at shops can be scanned and then put out for players to see them. You have to join something to be a part of it, I think. Back is hurting bad so brain is really fuzzy.

Anyhow, that can be of help, but for those who don’t use it there is still a lot of running around and checking prices and I have missed out on some good buys so need to check into that system.

And the frustration of running around to make sure I have fair prices.

9

That was @Simoyd and I think @fuzzylkd

https://boundlesstrade.net/

Also you don’t need to sign up if you are just looking for prices. But if you want your shop to be actively scanned you need to sign up. Chances are tho if your in a mall or connected to PS at all your shop has been scanned already.

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10

I’ll be doing a round of scans tonight, so get your scan requests in now!

11

Other then for items that are junk, I do not see this system working at all, in every MMO I have played the value of an item as displayed and the value of that item to other players is often orders of magnitudes higher then the displayed value,

also since this game is trying to promote a player ran economy, this can be hard to accurately keep track of the data required to make this a dynamic value, and if they try to keep track of it, it opens the door for this value being manipulated by purposefully conducting transactions of bad values among friends or a group, to add „false“ data into the pool of whatever is being used to set this value.

Lastly even if this system was able to have an limited amount of success as a static system that did not try to keep track of current market value, then this seems to be close to price fixing by the devs by being extremely suggestive of what the price should be, and may not adapt with changes in demand. again against the point of the economy being player ran.

I am not sure what you are suggesting here but the key word i am going to pick from this statement to try to deconstruct is „Regulate“

and therefore I will assume whatever ideas are hidden by this statement is Anti-Player Driven Market. and is a bad idea. since regulations are typically designed to restrict what one can or can not do and as such doesn’t promote a player ran or free market.

TLDR /// Bottom line: This is a player ran market, and therefore you kind of have to refer to what the players are doing to find the value, Not try to refer to an in game tool tip that was designed by the devs.

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12

Looks like something similar has been added <3

image

13

I don’t’ know if this way work or not, but I did point out this issue couple months ago.
There is a huge problem in this game which is you can always trying to lower item’s value on market easily.
Its super easy to do that as long as you can continuing selling that items with lower and lower pricing.

Any rich players can do that, and it just because money is really not that necessary, so they don’t mind to get slightly income daily as long as they sell something.

The result affect on market a lot, it will make this game seems like more grindly day by day.
Because when the pricing go cheaper, means players need to sell more “quantity” to remain the same profit as before. Yes, you can buy everything with lower pricing for sure, but when people don’t have that much time to play this game, the market feature just kind of impossible for them to involve.

A perfect example here. Advance Power Coils in Sept to October was around 17k/ unit. Now is 1k - 1.5k .
before i only need to craft one and i can get 17k, but now i need to sell 11 ~ 17 units to get the same profit as before.

At least personally, market like this really make me don’t want to involve at all, I prefer use that time to do other things in game or in real life.

14

I am wondering if this is true. If you lower the price in the market then the price to buy and sell both decline so the purchasing power of the coin would stay the same wouldn’t it? Example if I can sell a rock for 2 coins and it take 50 coin to buy compact iron then I need 50 coin. If the market goes down 50 % then the rock is selling for 1 coin and the compact iron for 25 so I still need to sell 25 rock for each iron. Of course it is not going to always decline in perfect sync with each other, but in general I would think it would not take more grind you just need fewer coins. This does mean the coins from the feats and objectives would go father.

I will agree with your points that individuals with enough coin can affect the market and also that an argument can be made that the market is not very efficient. This may also be due to the lower player count and the over supply of resources in player storage.

15

Exactly why I had some more expansive thoughts on using the Value idea, to which @Trundamere responded with skepticism (rightly too, to a degree).

Unlike in real life, in game people might not care to sell at a loss. Firstly, even in real life it can happen if there is something in place that can cover the losses.
One way to cover “loss item” is to draw customers into a store where they are likely to buy other goods. In Boundless that’s made easier by footfall mechanic, as selling top and highly demanded items can bring enough traffic to cover losses.
And last, but not least - when one has millions made through different means, losing some money is not a problem.

In game though, players can create longer term losses because there is no real danger to it, it’s not your real life and survival at stake.

The problem here is that any new player (and let’s agree we all would love thousands of new players joining the game) that would want to run a shop, would have enough work to try to establish themselves in an existing market with a lot of well established shops in place. Through good work and time spent on progressing their characters (tax, crafting skills, building shops and obtaining machines etc.) everyone can get there.
However, things get way harder when you have a situation where established players can actually sell at a loss (no matter how good are such sellers intentions, like ‘making life easier for other players’).

@Trundamere was right feeling that I had some regulated prices idea, which sounds dangerously at first look and to be true it’s not like I am 100% convinced about such measures.

However, even real life free market is not truly free, as there are always some regulations present.

I was thinking about it this way: if one runs a shop, the price of item with lowest Value, would decide about minimum pricing of other items in the same shop.
To make it work, even remotely, the Value stat would have to be really well balanced. Who knows if it is possible task at all.
Value of crafted items should be based on summed Value of recipe ingredients, spark cost, power cost, difficulty of obtaining of the said ingredients (in case of gathered resources), and also (that’s actually VERY IMPORTANT part) time needed to get the ingredients.

One of the things happening in game when selling at a loss is that some players don’t value time they spend gathering/buying needed ingredients, putting them together in machines etc. It puts players with a lot of playing time available in pole position there.

EXAMPLE OF MINIMUM PRICING SYSTEM: lets say the lowest Value item in someone’s shop is a stone block and that it has Value of 5. If the price of stone is set to 0.2 coins (thinking about coming chrysominter update), then the minimum price of other items in the shop would be in proportion to Value differences between stone and other items.

So, if a stone hammer Value is (arbitrary numbers here) 200, which is 40 times the stone Value of 5, then the minimum price for it would be 8 coins. The shop owner cannot sell below that, but sure she can sell at any price above (with Value stat of items letting inexperienced players find how overpriced a certain item is).

If an iron hammer value is 1000, then its minimum price in the same example would be 40 coins.

Etc.

P.S. Now waiting for a storm. :grin::wink:

16

This may be correct for IRL, but often in games, there is no such regulations. outside of an maximal price set mostly due to a hard limit by the system not being able to handle a value larger then the set max. But just because there are some regulations on marks IRL due to laws, doesn’t mean we need to have that in the game.

This at once destroys selling items for free, Which some people do, to try to give back to the Community by offering free items, or even cheap items. Then there are guild stores that might want to sell well below the good value.

Not only would it need to be very well balanced, but a modestly complex system would have to be designed with an Good AI, to try to keep it that way, as the market is often changing, and the value of everything can change. Therefore we would need an AI to be able to evaluate the situation and adjust the value. This is a lot of work for the devs to do.

Both of theses are somewhat subjective, and can vary vastly from player to player, making quantification from this hard, the time parameter you suggest being the hardest to quantify accurately.

I am not 100% sure if this is correct, But typically when I see most people who are willing to sell something at a loss, it is typically one of a few things,

Ⅰ The player rather have faster money now, then wait for the item to sell at what it could sell for given time

Ⅱ The player haves much to much of the item, and is selling it at a lower price just because the player wants it gone, but would rather get something from it and not nothing for it by tossing it out to the wilds.

Ⅲ The player made an mistake. And did not check the pricing and ends up leaving a number or two out of the price, More common for games that have sell values such as 1000000, then it is for games that deal with very small numbers but I can see it happening in boundless.

Unfortunately everything after this point is a bit much for an Frost Troll to process as we don’t really do maths very well without an inordinate amount of coffee, however I really just do not see a need for people to be forced to sell something above a price for any reason. I can see the system being helpful for total noobs to marketing, but a thorn to anyone else.

Marketing is often the pinnacle when it comes to money gains in a game. Not counting players who got to where they are at via questionable means, the richest people in online games are typically the ones who can play the market well, Marketing should be hard, and there should be no hand holding by the game if you choose to dive into this aspect of the game.

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