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

[KrazyKarp]

Eh, I'm pretty neutral. If people like it, then cool, if not, that's cool, too. It's not really something I'd use myself or care if someone used on my offer.

[Screech]

I'm pretty neutral on the subject too, but if this button were implemented, I would definitely use it to show that I've seen the offers but can't decide. On the other hand, this isn't the main situation I get into.

 

It seems to me that one of the most recurrent issues for active offerers is the lack of decline by the trader. If traders systematically declined what they didn't want, then the offerers would be less prone to thinking that they are being strung along and more inclined to think that the trader is simply offline. Being able to accept part of a trade would also help with this, since it would remove the issue of an offer hanging around because there's too many elements offered or part of the offer is uninteresting to the trader. If the Trade Hub culture were to shift in this direction, then a 'considering' button would be useful to send a message to the other party(/ies) involved that their offer is seen and being considered. That, though, doesn't deal with the situation when there's multiple good offers and a trader is still balancing them out. As it stands, I agree with others that implementing this idea would probably not change much for the majority of Trade Hub users. But hey, if it's implemented, I'll use it.

[MissK.]

10 hours ago, HeatherMarie said:

 

(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.

 

Oh I would probably forget as well, but I was still talking about trades that have been sitting there for a while already. Being in Europe myself I always allow time since a lot of people might be on the other side of the globe, but when it's already been the better part of a day or I just want the fastest trade possible to get something off my scroll I simply would like a hint if someone is considering my offer or if I should just move on. 

 

In general I think this suggestion would be useful in certain situations, it wouldn't solve everything since some people might just never use it but at least it offers some more information than we have now. 

[Jazeki]

I'm neutral here. I don't really care if it gets implemented as I probably won't use it and I'll probably cancel any of my own trade offers in consideration. But if it makes some trader happy, fine. Please no lighting up the notification bell though since nothing is actually happening with the trade.

[Ruby Eyes]

19 hours ago, Stormcaller said:

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."

In that case, that's what the decline button is for. No need to be rude and keep people hanging for nothing.

Edited August 23, 2020 by Ruby Eyes

[HeatherMarie]

1 hour ago, Ruby Eyes said:

In that case, that's what the decline button is for. No need to be rude and keep people hanging for nothing.

 

But if you don't get another offer, it's better than declining and not getting anything at all. I don't think it's rude to hold out for something better but not decline in case something better doesn't come.

[Stormcaller]

1 hour ago, Ruby Eyes said:

No need to be rude and keep people hanging for nothing.

 

That's a big part of the problem with this suggestion. It's not a yes or no response, it's just a maybe, which is the situation that exists without using it.  Bidders are still left hanging.

 

Edit:

 

HeatherMarie said, "But if you don't get another offer, it's better than declining and not getting anything at all. I don't think it's rude to hold out for something better but not decline in case something better doesn't come."

 

See, there it is...  It may be better for the OP of an offer, but it's not good for the bidder(s) who are left waiting. Their items are aging and, if there are more then one waiting, they might hatch, grow up, or otherwise become unable for them to trade to someone else.

Edited August 23, 2020 by Stormcaller

[HeatherMarie]

13 hours ago, Stormcaller said:

 

That's a big part of the problem with this suggestion. It's not a yes or no response, it's just a maybe, which is the situation that exists without using it.  Bidders are still left hanging.

 

 

Exactly. I get the thinking behind a suggestion like this, but in practice I'm not sure it would actually change or help anything at all. It's not an answer. It's not doing anything for the offerer, really. It's not a guarantee. It's not promising anything. It can't even be used as an 'I saw this' confirmation, since not everyone would use the button consistently. Clicking a 'considering' button doesn't actually change anything about the state of the trade/offer, absolutely nothing is different from before the button was clicked except that possibly the trader now *thinks* the offerer won't cancel or the offerer now *thinks* the trader might accept... Which is no different than before, just with an added communication that doesn't really do anything. 

 

(And, personally, I'd rather *not* see a 'considering' on my offer at all... As in, I'd personally rather just let my offer sit without knowing if it's actually been seen yet or not, rather than get confirmation that it *has* been seen but it's still just sitting there. At least the way it is now I can hold out hope that it just hasn't been seen yet and as soon as it's seen it'll be accepted. Knowing it's been seen but not accepted is... Not a positive thing, in my mind.)

 

edit: The only way I could see something like this actually being *useful* in practice is if clicking the 'considering' button started some sort of timer, and if the trader doesn't decide before the timer runs out the offer is automatically cancelled, thereby acting as a sort of automatic rejection. This would give the offerer some sort of information on how much longer they have to wait, and give the trader an incentive to choose. Not that I would want that! I very much would not want that, I'm just expressing how something like this could actually make a difference (instead of continuing to repeat my reasons I don't think it would make much of a difference...)

Edited August 24, 2020 by HeatherMarie

[Stormcaller]

7 hours ago, HeatherMarie said:

Knowing it's been seen but not accepted is... Not a positive thing, in my mind

 

I don't see it as being positive either.  Unless there was some unique reason not to cancel a specific trade, upon seeing that, I  would almost always terminate that one and move my creatures along to a different offer.

 

As a matter of fact, when someone posts their offer with a comment that if it hasn't been accepted quickly, they are probably considering it,  I always avoid bidding on them. Quick trades are always preferred.

[Fuzzbucket]

I would cancel any offer  for which I got a consider, actually. Just as I always decline when I don't want something.

[purplehaze]

I don't really see the usefulness of this. Just from the different views in this thread about what considering might mean to either the trader or the offerer, it is obvious that it would be meaningless in use as no on could know what that particular person meant by it.

 

I would not hold up a trade for a "consider" either. Either you want what I am offering or you don't! Are you considering it while you hope for a better offer? I'll take my offer elsewhere.

[ADN6]

I second what others have said about not seeing the use of this. The only reason I could see myself using it was if I was egg locked but wanted the egg (in which case, "considering" wouldn't even be accurate and might be worse than saying nothing and hoping the offerer looks at my scroll). 

[Jazeki]

I like the idea of a timer for offers in consideration...since who knows how long someone would take to think about it. It would give people an incentive to keep trades actively moving and not go about life and possibly forget about them. I think a 12 or 24-hour window would be ok. 

[ShorahNagi]

On 8/24/2020 at 1:54 AM, HeatherMarie said:

edit: The only way I could see something like this actually being *useful* in practice is if clicking the 'considering' button started some sort of timer, and if the trader doesn't decide before the timer runs out the offer is automatically cancelled, thereby acting as a sort of automatic rejection. This would give the offerer some sort of information on how much longer they have to wait, and give the trader an incentive to choose.

I'm with others that don't quite see a use for a considering option as it...though I do like the idea of there being a timer that turns to auto-decline (I'd say 24 hours from time the choice is made [ex. Choose considering at 8am on September 1st, the offer stands until 8am, September 2nd] is enough time for all parties involved because you don't know what someone has going on [ex. The trader might have to work from 8:30am to 5pm so can't see if there are any new offers until then].

 

While if implemented i probably wouldn't use it, I don't see the harm in having it.

[Screech]

On 8/24/2020 at 11:48 AM, Jazeki said:

I like the idea of a timer for offers in consideration...since who knows how long someone would take to think about it. It would give people an incentive to keep trades actively moving and not go about life and possibly forget about them. I think a 12 or 24-hour window would be ok. 

I like the idea too. A 24h window might be too long for the people hanging around waiting - if they want things to move and would cancel if they see that it isn't within, say, 2h, 24h won't do anything for them. But if it's a 'short' timer, like 1h, it could keep things moving - if the trader has seen the offer, clicked 'considering', and hasn't made their mind up within 1h, then I'd assume they weren't particularly interested in the first place and should have hit 'decline' straight out.

 

The only situation I've ever been in where this button would have been very useful to me, is that one time I asked for SAlt-kin and got 18 different responses in 10mins. I immediately declined what wasn't of interest to me, but I was still left with 7 genuinely equal offers. It took me 30 more minutes to weigh them out and decide. If there had been a 'considering' button, I would have given those 7 a notice that they were being considered, and every other offer would have been declined. It wasn't a straight-out 'I want your offer or I don't' situation.

But, as has been pointed out, I'm the only one who would actually have understood what I meant by it. Offerers have no way of knowing that I have a 'decline or accept as soon as you see it' personal policy. It goes back to a sort of Trade Hub culture and what we see other users' behaviours are - if we tend to experience the 'considering' button more in a context of 'I'm waiting for a better offer', then that's what it'll be taken to mean, regardless of intent.

 

Furthermore, now that I think about it that way, apart from telling them that I'd seen the offer and was considering it, what use would it truly have been for the offerer? Their offer hasn't been declined or accepted, not much new information to them. It would feel like that moment when you've clicked the new egg release and the website has a delay while it's trying to figure out who out of the 50-odd egg-clickers got there first.

[HeatherMarie]

If there was any sort of countdown-timer-thing associated with a 'considering' button it would have to be long enough to really be of use to more than a tiny handful of super-dedicated online-all-the-time players. As I've been told many times on this forum, most players aren't able to spend a ton of time on DC every day, and many players only have short bursts of time when they can play (for instance, in between classes or during lunch at work or something). It wouldn't do them any good for 'considering' to lead to an auto-cancel/reject within an hour or two if they aren't actually able to get on DC to accept in that timeframe. Then we would run into the issue of most people simply not clicking that 'considering' button at all because the time limit is too restrictive, in which case the button goes back to being relatively useless and not used often. Of course that needs to be weighed against too *long* of a timer, in which case offerers will probably just give up an cancel anyways... 

[Fuzzbucket]

51 minutes ago, HeatherMarie said:

If there was any sort of countdown-timer-thing associated with a 'considering' button it would have to be long enough to really be of use to more than a tiny handful of super-dedicated online-all-the-time players. As I've been told many times on this forum, most players aren't able to spend a ton of time on DC every day, and many players only have short bursts of time when they can play (for instance, in between classes or during lunch at work or something). It wouldn't do them any good for 'considering' to lead to an auto-cancel/reject within an hour or two if they aren't actually able to get on DC to accept in that timeframe. Then we would run into the issue of most people simply not clicking that 'considering' button at all because the time limit is too restrictive, in which case the button goes back to being relatively useless and not used often. Of course that needs to be weighed against too *long* of a timer, in which case offerers will probably just give up an cancel anyways... 

 

As I said earlier - I have contacted people on forum who frankly admitted they had forgotten that they had a trade up. Also I have seen people who had lost internet. There are all kinds of issues people have when trading and I don';t think any one-size-fits-all solution will make that much difference.

 

3 hours ago, Screech said:

I like the idea too. A 24h window might be too long for the people hanging around waiting - if they want things to move and would cancel if they see that it isn't within, say, 2h, 24h won't do anything for them. But if it's a 'short' timer, like 1h, it could keep things moving - if the trader has seen the offer, clicked 'considering', and hasn't made their mind up within 1h, then I'd assume they weren't particularly interested in the first place and should have hit 'decline' straight out.

 

The only situation I've ever been in where this button would have been very useful to me, is that one time I asked for SAlt-kin and got 18 different responses in 10mins. I immediately declined what wasn't of interest to me, but I was still left with 7 genuinely equal offers. It took me 30 more minutes to weigh them out and decide. If there had been a 'considering' button, I would have given those 7 a notice that they were being considered, and every other offer would have been declined. It wasn't a straight-out 'I want your offer or I don't' situation.

But, as has been pointed out, I'm the only one who would actually have understood what I meant by it.

 

Whatever you had meant by it, if I had got a "considering" I'd have cancelled my offer.

[Screech]

6 hours ago, HeatherMarie said:

Then we would run into the issue of most people simply not clicking that 'considering' button at all because the time limit is too restrictive, in which case the button goes back to being relatively useless and not used often.

Fair point.

 

5 hours ago, Fuzzbucket said:

Whatever you had meant by it, if I had got a "considering" I'd have cancelled my offer.

And it would have entirely been your right.

 

Really, if someone wants to cancel their offer for one of myriad possible reasons, being made aware that their trade is under consideration probably won't change anything.

 

Yeah, I'm starting to think that this feature wouldn't be of much use. But hey, if implemented, I'd try to use it anyway.