Trading

[Swiur_Yngwi]

Do you like the sound of money flow and the "cha-ching" effect made by your cash register? Let the profit rule the world!

Trading

Well, almost no experiences on that field, because trading doesn;t exist in the game at the moment. And I mean buying and selling goods for coins. Because barter is doing quite fine.
As for the moment the biggest issue for other players is to travel to my trading station through the whole map and buy/sell nothing. Mostly because they donΓÇÖt know in advance what i want to buy or sell. They get that info while on place and that is too late (u dont bring your whole inventory of stuff for a trip in which u can die every three seconds and lose all). Therefore i suggest adding a new building ΓÇô trading info point ΓÇô in which u will be able to check buying/selling lists of all active offers and the name of the trader. To be build by the players itself. Then everyone will be able to find and compare the buying/selling offers and make a choice or even reservation.

The same with jobs. Like: need 200 coal. Time to do:24 hours. Payment: 20 steel ingots. Payment locked in advance in the machine. When another player chooses offer it will lock for him. When done: payment + LP bonus. When failed - LP substraction and offer is active again till cancelled by the "caller". Can be done the same way as trading + info points build by players itself.

[EvilMammoth]

 And here comes my view:

  Trading

a) Newbies and undeveloped players should be available to trade too. Not only high tier players, who ΓÇ£researchedΓÇ¥ commerce. For new player map may look too big, dangerous and unrevealed. So it can be a problem for him to run and find trading station of another developed player. A newcomer should be also available to set his trading table and sell some raw materials (stone, fiber, wood, farm production and other). So developed players can come and check if they need something (they always need raw materials) and buy it.
b) I strongly sure that copper coins should be removed out of trading system. It cost nothing and can be found in rad-towns. Therefore, as a seller ΓÇô I donΓÇÖt want to trade my goods for those copper coins. Because I can go and loot it myself in radtown. Or craft it at low cost out of cheap copper.
On another side ΓÇô gold coins have its value. Gold is hard to find, it is needed in high level craft so it is interesting to sell goods for gold.

So just remove copper coins and add 1-2 types of coins, made of gold + steel in different %.
Like :
- 1 gold coin (clean gold)
- 1 mixed 30% gold + 70% steel coin
- 1 mixed 10% gold + 45% iron + 45% copper coin

All types of coins should contain valuable gold. No any of those should be available easy to loot in radtowns. It should be possible to smelt coins back into gold, steel, iron, copper ingots with 10-20% material loss.
Any player, even newcomer, should be able to craft at least cheapest coins.

c) Players need to barter. For example: I want to sell 20 canisters of mineral oil, so I set price not just in coins, but also/instead I can set price in one of the raw materials and, may be, even simple resources - 2000 fibers, 3000 iron ore, 130 iron ingots, 30 berry jam bars, 5000 planks…

d) As one of the players noticed ΓÇô it will be nice to have some kind of list, where players can find united information: who sell what and where.

c) May be it will be interesting idea to think about safe zones for trading, so seller and buyer can come and be sure ΓÇô they will not be robbed. Guarded underground market, island or orbital trading ΓÇô can be a kind of solution.
Because on PVP servers raiders can wait near trading station for buyers and sellers.

d) PlayerΓÇÖs trading stations should be VERY hard to destroy even with explosives because seller lose everything inside. No one will set trading station in the middle of the PVP map and put good stuff inside, because first griffer will destroy it ΓÇ£just for lulzΓÇ¥

[Swiur_Yngwi]

And here comes my view:
...

I agree with all what was written. Excellent ideas.

[Xargt]

I'm a new player. What hooked me to try and play the game is the trading system that is introduced in CryoFall. I mean, I've played a lot of survival games and I've never seen such cool trading system that is introduced here. Therefore, I would like to experience and enjoy that scenario.

Unfortunately, after playing a couple of days, I got little disappointed, but I still got my patience. A few players already learned tier 4, if not 5. Commerce were set to tier 3. Yet, I feel like the trading system/station is ignored. I wonder why? I feel the reasons but I'm not sure. I see players looking for trades in chat since my first day on the game, but why until now, no one is using Commerce - the trading system?

Maaaaan, I just want the cool trading system to shine!

Players wanted to trade since day 1. We can't do commerce, so we do something else complicated just to trade.
In PvP server, in my opinion, this can be seriously abused, to the point that bad things will affect the community. Abused players will get frustrated and the abusers will just laugh at them, making the scenario even worse. I mean, we play game to have fun, right? Not to get frustrated. I'm sure you all know what I'm talking about.
...

Enough of this dramatic story. I'm aware this is alpha stage. I'm just here sharing my opinion. Hopefully I can help a little bit.

After reading previous posts which is very helpful and interesting, I also have a suggestion. Please..

1.) Move the Commerce to at least Tier 2, first thing on the left.
2.) Change the required resources that is possible for tier 2.
3.) Game designers will decide and set the prices. No need for players to make the prices.
*New players are clueless on how rare or how difficult to get these resources compare to other resources anyway. Forum is always open for suggestions of increase/decrease in prices.
4.) Make extra icons on the map showing what the player is selling and buying.
5.) Make an extra icon on the map showing how dangerous to trade there. If a customer gets killed by another player in after a few minutes, the icon will turn red. This is continuous as more customers were getting killed by another player, not by monsters or by hunger and such, in a period of time, thus turning extra red, otherwise, green. (Something like that)
6.) Make the trading machines to be invulnerable, except for the owner, unless the "Land Claim"  is destroyed.


...
Thank you.

[Xargt]

These trading machines can't be destroyed unless the "Land Claim" is destroyed, right?

[Swiur_Yngwi]

These trading machines can't be destroyed unless the "Land Claim" is destroyed, right?

Unfortuantelly it doesn't work like that. TS has its own structure points and yet can be destroyed. The only positive feedback is that all inside will be destroyed too... so agresor will get nothing. That is why most players use their TS not for trading, but for storaging the most preciuos and valuable goods in it (like bombs, ammo, weapon).

Money in this game so far mean nothing. Barter is the only reasonable trading system.

[Djekke]

After reading you post, I have another good idea that give you all that you ask here.
Add NPC trading stations, that can not be destroyed, with automatic price adjustments (if the item is often bought ΓÇö the price is up, often sell ΓÇö the price is down) Add 2 of them on the map with marks (May be later move this marks do discover from datalogs from rad-towns). It would be a nice pvp-zone with pros and cons. (Ofc no landclaims allowed near this)

[Xargt]

@Swiur_Yngwi
Noooooooo.... Money should be meaningful in this game! LuL

@Djekke
That idea is okay. Although I really would like to see a city filled with people's own hard built and well designed market places. Won't we all..?

[Xargt]

Then I would also like to suggest that these trading machines should be invulnerable unless the "Land Claim" is destroyed. I'll update my previous suggestion list.

[Xargt]

I'm asking too much.

Anyway, if the game comes out on steam with price increased, I'll be glad to spend for this.

The game itself is already good, but with a cool trading system like this feels unique.

I prefer to see this whole idea of trade first than others like vehicles and such.

[Dolingen]

I wish to second or vote for Djekke's idea about trading stations being run by NPC's that cannot be destroyed, or they can be shot at and the player will be shot back by the NPC and banned from said trading station for like 24/48 hours.

[Jpeasy]

Even a simple marketplace people can access from within their bases to trade with others would be nice

[Swiur_Yngwi]

Maybe I should wait with this post until wipe, but I already wrote it on discord, so why not here too....

I have been testing trading possibilities and abilities for about two weeks on US server. And my conclusion is: it is possible, it is doable, it is profitable.
But under one condition: DON'T BE GREEDY

Set fair prices (u earn, but not tons of coins on one crapy item), allow other players to earn money (trading stations have buying option - use it). But again - DON'T BE CHEAP.

Forget about SHINY coins. No one will have them. And penny coins drop from rad towns.

Reinvest your income - I put about 30% of my daily income back into machines to buy resources (and adjust prices when needed). Simple, raw, easy to get resources - wood, fibre, pyrite. And more demanding - sulfur, natural rubber. Exclusive ones - mechanical parts, rubber, precious stones. It doesn't mean i always buy all I want - but at least i call my demand.

And finally - have a huge variety of products to buy/sell. I sold almost everything (except bombs and food). Lithium, plastic, stone, iron, steel, copper, bandage, cigars, vodka, cement, electronic components, all kinds of armour, all kinds of weapons and ammo. Medicine, medicine chemicals, chemicals, solvent. Even products on demand for certain customers/players. Sometimes with negotiable prices.
For all of that I am using 14 trading stations - 6 with buying mode and 8 with selling mode.

Results? When properly restocked, daily income was like 4k coins. Average - 2,5 to 3 k coins. Maximum daily - almost 6k coins.

I assume that my total trading income up to day is like 40-45k penny coins. I have reinvested about 30% of that sum - that means about 12-15 k coins in circulation.
Total profit: +30k penny coins and lots of raw resources (which i spent on making items to restock the markets). I still have to mine, chop and gather some resources, craft semiproducts and do plenty other things, but it is worth of it! My ingame time is now priced

All above brings me to another issue....to be found in separate topic

[Warbot]

Why the hell are people like "all coins must contain gold" and "coins are worthless" or "there should be a loss when turning coins back into metal"?!

That's all so wrong...

[Lurler]

Swiur_Yngwi, thank you for sharing that!

Can you also write a bit more about specifics of your approach?

For example:
- How often do you need to restock? How many times a day?
- Is the storage capacity enough?
- In trading stations that buy items - how do you control how many of each items you want to buy?
- How many coins do you typically keep in each trading stations?
- How do you decide how much of each type of goods to stock?
- Do you advertise your services in any way?
- Do you have regulars? If so - do they leave any feedback to you about your trading stations? Have you made any changes based on their feedback?
- Would you change anything in the current trading system?

In one of the future versions we are also going to introduce detailed statistics to make keeping track of your sales easier. Do you have any requests for this or additional features?