Option to respond to trade offer with "considering" rather than just accept/decline

[synditrix]

When I'm deciding between a couple trade offers but need some time to think on it, I know it can be frustrating for people who have offered on my trade to not know what I'm thinking. The way the system works now, there's no way to tell someone you're considering their offer but aren't sure yet. It's not particularly transparent for the offerer - if the person with the trade hasn't accepted or declined, that could mean anything from them being away from DC, leaving you hanging, or actively considering. If "considering" (or something similar) was added as an option alongside accept and decline, that would allow someone to know that their offer still stands a chance as opposed to just waiting blindly for an indefinite amount of time. It could also let them know that their offer might need some minor tweaks in order to push it to "accept" territory.  That would be helpful since people would be able to re-offer something slightly stronger in those cases - the communication would benefit both parties. There's definitely been times where I'm unsure whether I should add more to my offer or whether I'm over- or under-shooting, and a "considering" feature would definitely make this easier to gauge. Most times I would be totally happy to add more to a trade if I knew that was the circumstance. 

 

Let me know what you think!

[Nightwalkerkey]

I think this is a great idea! I often wonder how many times someone has even seen my offer and has left it to be considered or not. 
Vice versa, I wish I could let someone know I was considering it.

[HeatherMarie]

While I very much understand the need for this, I personally would *not* want to get a trade notification only to have it just be a 'considering', which basically means nothing in terms of actual action. If I get a trade notification it should be because the trade was accepted or declined (or cancelled), not just telling me that it may or may not be accepted later. 

 

Also:

4 hours ago, synditrix said:

 It could also let them know that their offer might need some minor tweaks in order to push it to "accept" territory.  

 

Tbh I feel like this point would make this idea even *less* useful. 'Considering' does *not* mean 'I want something more' or 'please tweak this offer'. 'Considering' means, simply, considering the offer. With this scenario there is absolutely no way that the offerer would know that 'considering' might actually mean 'add something', so I would *hope* that a 'considering' button would *not* be used that way by traders. 

[Paintra]

6 minutes ago, HeatherMarie said:

Tbh I feel like this point would make this idea even *less* useful. 'Considering' does *not* mean 'I want something more' or 'please tweak this offer'. 'Considering' means, simply, considering the offer. With this scenario there is absolutely no way that the offerer would know that 'considering' might actually mean 'add something', so I would *hope* that a 'considering' button would *not* be used that way by traders. 

I don't think the OP intended that in what they said. From what I understand, they were saying if they got a 'considering' offer and had wondered about if they should add more to their trade, they might go ahead and add more because it might make the trader go from just considering to accepting. 

 

This is a really great suggestion. I personally am super impatient and I hate being in the dark about trades, so getting a notif that someone is considering would be way less frustrating. For example, there was a code in the trade market a while back, and any trades on it sat for days, with minimal declines. People were getting frustrated and cancelling, but that might have been avoided if the trader had the ability to mark offers as "considering."

 

Personally, I wouldn't be bothered by getting a notification for this. Unless you're offering on dozens of trades at once, it's not like it really has the capability to be super spammy (especially if a trader can only mark a trade as "considering" once). I'd immensely prefer any slight annoyance that comes from this than the frustration that comes from eggs just sitting on trades with no declines.

[Stormcaller]

IMHO, this is not a particularly good idea at all.  When someone puts up a trade and another makes an offer on it, I believe they have an obligation to accept or reject it within a reasonable amount of time.  True, this doesn't always happen, but it's something to aspire to rather than to set up another way to approve of a delay. 

 

If you don't like an offer enough to accept it, just reject it and free up the buyer's creatures so they can trade them elsewhere.  Or, if they really wanted to, they could always bid again on your item with an increase or other change if they thought it might help.

 

 

[HeatherMarie]

2 hours ago, Paintra said:

I don't think the OP intended that in what they said. From what I understand, they were saying if they got a 'considering' offer and had wondered about if they should add more to their trade, they might go ahead and add more because it might make the trader go from just considering to accepting. 

 

 

Goodness I would hate that, as a trader. If I'm 'considering' an offer, that either means I'm not sure if I want that specific offered dragon or maybe I'm waiting a bit to see if I get anything better. Not that I'm interested in more than what was offered. I *already* hate it when I get a perfectly acceptable offer but before I can actually look at it and accept it it's cancelled and then re-offered with multiple add-ons that I don't actually want at all. Please let's not encourage people to add random stuff in the hopes of getting accepted!

 

I also sort of agree with Stormcaller... Again, I do understand the idea of wanting people to know that you've seen the offer and haven't outright rejected it, but what good does it *actually* do, except to maybe stop the offerer from cancelling the offer too soon? It's not a yes or no. It's not giving the offerer anything except 'well maaaaybe', which personally I'd get annoyed with. I'd rather have my offer sit there for awhile than be *notified* that... It's been seen but is still going to sit there for awhile and still don't know if it will be accepted? And yes, this could encourage traders to let offers sit for longer without actually choosing anything because 'oh well I told them I was considering it!'. 

[Fuzzbucket]

3 hours ago, HeatherMarie said:

While I very much understand the need for this, I personally would *not* want to get a trade notification only to have it just be a 'considering', which basically means nothing in terms of actual action. If I get a trade notification it should be because the trade was accepted or declined (or cancelled), not just telling me that it may or may not be accepted later. 

 

Also:

 

Tbh I feel like this point would make this idea even *less* useful. 'Considering' does *not* mean 'I want something more' or 'please tweak this offer'. 'Considering' means, simply, considering the offer. With this scenario there is absolutely no way that the offerer would know that 'considering' might actually mean 'add something', so I would *hope* that a 'considering' button would *not* be used that way by traders. 

 

I agree with this.

 

32 minutes ago, HeatherMarie said:

 

Goodness I would hate that, as a trader. If I'm 'considering' an offer, that either means I'm not sure if I want that specific offered dragon or maybe I'm waiting a bit to see if I get anything better. Not that I'm interested in more than what was offered. I *already* hate it when I get a perfectly acceptable offer but before I can actually look at it and accept it it's cancelled and then re-offered with multiple add-ons that I don't actually want at all. Please let's not encourage people to add random stuff in the hopes of getting accepted!

 

I also sort of agree with Stormcaller... Again, I do understand the idea of wanting people to know that you've seen the offer and haven't outright rejected it, but what good does it *actually* do, except to maybe stop the offerer from cancelling the offer too soon? It's not a yes or no. It's not giving the offerer anything except 'well maaaaybe', which personally I'd get annoyed with. I'd rather have my offer sit there for awhile than be *notified* that... It's been seen but is still going to sit there for awhile and still don't know if it will be accepted? And yes, this could encourage traders to let offers sit for longer without actually choosing anything because 'oh well I told them I was considering it!'. 

 

And with this. I don't find this idea [particularly useful at all, tbh.

 

The change I would LOVE to see would be the ability to accept PART of an offer. OI offered on one a while ago, it was rejected and the trade was posted again with "can only accept one egg." So I was able to offer again, and be accepted. The trader could have accepted me in the first place if "accept part" had been in place.

[VixenDra]

3 hours ago, Stormcaller said:

IMHO, this is not a particularly good idea at all.  When someone puts up a trade and another makes an offer on it, I believe they have an obligation to accept or reject it within a reasonable amount of time.  True, this doesn't always happen, but it's something to aspire to rather than to set up another way to approve of a delay. 

 

If you don't like an offer enough to accept it, just reject it and free up the buyer's creatures so they can trade them elsewhere.  Or, if they really wanted to, they could always bid again on your item with an increase or other change if they thought it might help.

 

 

Actually me and my peeps sometimes hold on accepting for a little bit when we offer something of a higher value asking for higher amounts of something of a lesser value (e.g 2g prize for some Baikalas, like getting just 1 Baikala for a 2g Prize is not very fair but still better if Baikala is what one of us needs instead of another sibling of said 2g Prize) and get only 1 of what we wanted. There are times when that only 1 Baikala is the only relevant offer and is the only thing we can accept in the end and in some other cases there are 3 relevant offers one being bulkier than the others. And I know of people cancelling within 2h since offering just because their offer wasn't noticed yet. Like right now you have no idea if you should cancel or not and or time to trade is extremelly limite, considerign we can offer the same egg on only 1 trade at a time... If I knew my offer is at least considered, I wouldn't cancel too soon

 

As for notifications, I would prefer the bell not to highlight for the considering status, I'd like it visible on the Trade page near the cancel offer button though.

[MissK.]

Traders already let offers sit for days, I don't see how this would encourage that any further. 90% of the time I end up with a cancelled trade notification either because another offer was accepted or because the thing hatched/grew up, and the person had clearly not even bothered to check the trade all this time while my offer was tied to it. Knowing that at least my offer has been seen and is considered would be a great help, even if it is not eventually accepted. I don't necessarily think we should get a notification for it, since the trades we've offered on are displayed on the page it could just be an indication there or inside the trade link and it would be up to the individual to check for that. 

 

Don't see any downsides to the suggestion honestly, people who don't care about leaving trades hanging forever will keep doing it, and people who care are not likely to 'abuse' the feature. 

[Tiira]

I can truly relate to the frustration of not knowing what's going on with a trade and your offer on it. I really dislike waiting for several days only to finally get a notification that the trade has been cancelled, which is annoying especially if I have offered exactly what the trader was asking for and don't want to cancel my offer because I could get something I really wanted. If I see their dragons dying on their scroll in the meantime (in case their scroll is visible) I can suppose they're not going to look at my offer and find something else but sometimes I see them putting up new trades on the hub instead. I can't know if they are considering or if they just don't bother to react, until they accept another offer or cancel the trade for any reason. My bitter experience is that usually after I've got the notification of a cancellation my own things have too little time left for me to find anything decent for them.

 

Still, I'm unsure if this suggestion would help the situation at all and if I would even like the feature, anyway. Would the players who now leave the offers hanging there use it if it was added to the cave? I don't really think so, unfortunately, because I don't know if I've ever had my offer accepted after waiting for a long time, so if the traders had been considerate enough to react to my offer, they could have simply used "decline" in the first place. In my opinion, the problem in most cases may not be the lack of a suitable option, like "considering", but the fact that not all players think they need to react in any way to an offer they're not interested in. And reading the first post and some replies, I started to think if some players might actually use the feature to push the other player make a better offer. I hope not – that wouldn't be nice!

[Ruby Eyes]

8 minutes ago, Varislapsi said:

My bitter experience is that usually after I've got the notification of a cancellation my own things have too little time left for me to find anything decent for them.

I think the solution for that would be that other suggestion, being able to offer the same things on multiple trades.

 

By my experience, traders set up their trade, then go about their real life completely forgetting that they've put up a trade that *might* have gotten some responses already.

Like, I've offered on a trade 22 minutes after it has been put up, exactly what the trader required. The trader hasn't been online (at least not on the forum) since 12 minutes after they put up their trade, and now I'm WAITING and WAITING and WAITING. If this trade goes like the majority of trades I've offered on have gone in the past, that trade will be cancelled in a day or two or so because their trade offer grows up and auto-cancels the trade.

 

The gist is, I don't think a "considering" button would really affect all that many players in the hub. Because it would require the trader to be ONLINE in the first place to SEE any offers.

[MissK.]

10 minutes ago, Ruby Eyes said:

I think the solution for that would be that other suggestion, being able to offer the same things on multiple trades.

 

By my experience, traders set up their trade, then go about their real life completely forgetting that they've put up a trade that *might* have gotten some responses already.

Like, I've offered on a trade 22 minutes after it has been put up, exactly what the trader required. The trader hasn't been online (at least not on the forum) since 12 minutes after they put up their trade, and now I'm WAITING and WAITING and WAITING. If this trade goes like the majority of trades I've offered on have gone in the past, that trade will be cancelled in a day or two or so because their trade offer grows up and auto-cancels the trade.

 

The gist is, I don't think a "considering" button would really affect all that many players in the hub. Because it would require the trader to be ONLINE in the first place to SEE any offers.

 

I agree about that suggestion being extremely useful. However if we can't have that for some reason, or until we do, this might be an easy small thing to implement. What you described is exactly the situation in which I would find a considering option useful, because if the person doesn't even hit consider then clearly they haven't even checked the trade, and I would rather cancel and offer on something else. Ideally I would say why not both though.

 

Edit: additionally, I would also use it on my side as I've had people cancelling within an hour while I was trying to decide if I should take the offer already or wait a little longer.

Edited August 22, 2020 by MissK.

[Tiira]

@Ruby Eyes Oh yes! I think I've taken a look at that thread once or twice but I had completely forgotten it. Anyway, I've also had situations like that you described. It's annoying as well but at least for me it's easier to wait if it seems the trader has gone offline. Just because I guess we all agree that real life is the priority and sometimes it happens that you forget. Then if they're not showing up soon enough I can just decide if it's better to find another trade or if I can wait and keep the things I offered in case they don't return. All the same, like you stated, a "considering" option wouldn't help here. It seems to me that even if there surely are some cases when that kind of respond button would be useful, in the majority of problematic trades it wouldn't really change the situation.

[Fuzzbucket]

1 hour ago, Ruby Eyes said:

I think the solution for that would be that other suggestion, being able to offer the same things on multiple trades.

 

Oh YES - I forgot about that; that would be WONDERFUL.

 

I have on occasion tracked someone down to here and asked if they are going to accept my offer, or whether I should go after something else instead. Almost every time they have said cheerfully "Oh I forgot I had that trade up." So I don't think a "considering" button would help at all. Even if they saw it - unlikely - they might not get around to using it.

[Keileon]

Support. Just don't make it light up the bell and have it visible near your offer.

[HeatherMarie]

8 hours ago, MissK. said:

 

I agree about that suggestion being extremely useful. However if we can't have that for some reason, or until we do, this might be an easy small thing to implement. What you described is exactly the situation in which I would find a considering option useful, because if the person doesn't even hit consider then clearly they haven't even checked the trade, and I would rather cancel and offer on something else. Ideally I would say why not both though.

 

Edit: additionally, I would also use it on my side as I've had people cancelling within an hour while I was trying to decide if I should take the offer already or wait a little longer.

 

(bolding for emphasis) Be careful with that assumption. Just because someone doesn't click a specific 'considering' button doesn't mean they haven't seen the trade, or don't/wouldn't want the offer. 

And, again, this shows me how different a 'considering' button could be interpreted. Does pushing it mean you might accept that exact offer soon, or that you want a 'better' offer from that user? Does not pushing it mean you actually haven't been online, haven't seen the offer, or just haven't remembered/bothered to click that button? (Because I can say with certainty that I *would* forget to click it sometimes and I can't be the only one!)

 

As long as it doesn't light up that notification bell I guess I don't really care, I just honestly don't think it would be as helpful as some seem to think.

[Stormcaller]

12 minutes ago, HeatherMarie said:

And, again, this shows me how different a 'considering' button could be interpreted. Does pushing it mean you might accept that exact offer soon, or that you want a 'better' offer from that user? Does not pushing it mean you actually haven't been online, haven't seen the offer, or just haven't remembered/bothered to click that button?

 

It could also be interpreted to mean "I've noticed it but I'm not impressed and probably won't pick it if almost anyone else bids."  Or, it could mean, "I'm holding out as long as I can to see how many bids I can get before I pick what I consider to be the best one."   Since we are not all mind readers, the term "considering" is just too ambiguous to be helpful.

 

 

[Paintra]

You know, I've been thinking on it, and while I still don't think it's a bad idea, I'd much prefer the ability to offer on multiple trades if one feature were to be prioritized. It's TJ's call in the end.

[olympe]

If a "considering" option was there, it should be applicable to only one offer. Because, seriously, if you can only choose one offer, it seems wrong to let several people know you're considering theirs. Either you have a favorite among those that are already there, or you can reject them all.

 

This "considering" thing might also come into play for an "auto-accepting" feature before your trade gets broken (egg hatching, hatchling growing up). So, you get several offers. You mark one as "considering". Yes, just one. You also choose the auto-accept feature in case you forget about the trade so, at the very least, you'll get the almost ideal offer.

[Keileon]

I don't see why only one would have to be able to be marked. If I'm trading something good, and two people offer something I like and I'm not sure who to pick, I am considering both offers even if I can only pick one.

[olympe]

2 minutes ago, Keileon said:

I don't see why only one would have to be able to be marked. If I'm trading something good, and two people offer something I like and I'm not sure who to pick, I am considering both offers even if I can only pick one.

Because multiple "considerations" will string along several players, probably for days on end. Just mark all offers for consideration, and you've made several people hope that their offer might be it. If you can't decide between two offers, just *don't* reject them.

[Fuzzbucket]

17 minutes ago, Keileon said:

I don't see why only one would have to be able to be marked. If I'm trading something good, and two people offer something I like and I'm not sure who to pick, I am considering both offers even if I can only pick one.

 

13 minutes ago, olympe said:

Because multiple "considerations" will string along several players, probably for days on end. Just mark all offers for consideration, and you've made several people hope that their offer might be it. If you can't decide between two offers, just *don't* reject them.

 

This is exactly why it really wouldn't help anyone.

[RainDear]

My opinion.

 

There are so many reasons for someone to be AFK: sleep, work, errands, even forgetfulness. If people depend on someone using this feature and they don't, both sides may miss the trade they wanted. It has the potential to be helpful, but just how helpful would it be in RL situations?

[HeatherMarie]

43 minutes ago, Keileon said:

I don't see why only one would have to be able to be marked. If I'm trading something good, and two people offer something I like and I'm not sure who to pick, I am considering both offers even if I can only pick one.

 

39 minutes ago, olympe said:

Because multiple "considerations" will string along several players, probably for days on end. Just mark all offers for consideration, and you've made several people hope that their offer might be it. If you can't decide between two offers, just *don't* reject them.

 

25 minutes ago, Fuzzbucket said:

 

 

This is exactly why it really wouldn't help anyone.

 

What fuzz said. I actually agree with Keileon, if we can show that we are 'considering' an offer it shouldn't be restricted to just one, because that's just not how people actually think. There isn't just one specific 'considering' offer, the person might be actively considering multiple offers. How do you choose which one to push 'considering' on and which one you'll just have to hope doesn't cancel? That doesn't seem right. And honestly, if there is a worry of 'stringing along' players, then this shouldn't be a feature at all since that's basically what this amounts to anyways. Giving hope without any actual guarantee of follow-through. 

[Keileon]

1 hour ago, olympe said:

Because multiple "considerations" will string along several players, probably for days on end. Just mark all offers for consideration, and you've made several people hope that their offer might be it. If you can't decide between two offers, just *don't* reject them.

Speaking from experience, I would much rather have the option to be told "considering" and risk being left for two days than just be given zero feedback and have the same happen.