Make trades time-limited (optionally)

[Elizabeth Moonstone]

EDIT: after feedback, I realise that making trades time-limited should be optional. So we could have two public trading options: regular trade (as it is now) and time-limited “lightning” trades.

 

Idea: when creating a public trade, a user must (now CAN) choose the number of hours the trade will be up (between 1h and 24h). A timer is then displayed on the Trading page (x hours remaining for this trade). If the user has not accepted an offer by then, the trade is automatically cancelled.

 

Why? It helps people that offer on trade to have an idea when they will get an answer for their offer. 

 

Potential caveats: If a user hasn’t got any good offers in 24h, they will have to repost their trade. It could be a bit aggravating but I would argue that after 24h and no good offers, it might be better to repost the trade anyway to give it more visibility and maybe edit the requirements as well.

Edited July 15, 2021 by Elizabeth Moonstone

[_Ro_]

Second this. If after a day I haven't been accepted or declined I tend to just cancel my offer anyway.

 

Maybe make it optional though, as with gifting eggs sometimes the recipient is offline for a while..

[Elizabeth Moonstone]

This would of course only apply to public trades, not private transfers/trades.

[DigitalGarden]

I'm on the fence, considering the current system does not offer auto-reposting with already remembered parameters... Reposting trades and typing the wants over and over is more of a hassle when you're away and when the away time is out of your control. I would rather have some sort of a bump button that activates with a 24h cooldown, so I can refresh the trade if I feel it's necessary. Sometimes I want to keep my trades active a little longer; sometimes I get good offers after 2-3 days.

 

BUT, if we're doing the timed trades, I'd like to get an on-site notification that my trade expired. Just to avoid confusion, as some of us tend to be forgetful.

[Fuzzbucket]

For this last reason. I don't support - we may be unexpectedly AFK for a day or two and lose out.

[HeatherMarie]

NO support for required time limits on trades. It's really just not needed, and more of a problem than a solution. Who cares if a trade stays up for a few days? If you are *offering* on a trade, I understand that it can be frustrating to get no response, but that's not actually what is being addressed with a suggestion like this. A better suggestion for helping *offerers* would be something like a push-notice, like if your offer hasn't been rejected/cancelled within 24 hours you could click a button that would act like a re-offer (as in, the person would get a new notification reminding them of the offer). But *this* suggestion by itself is not going to help offerers and is only going to hurt traders. IF there are no standing offers, who is it hurting to allow a trade to stay up?

[Elizabeth Moonstone]

2 minutes ago, HeatherMarie said:

If you are *offering* on a trade, I understand that it can be frustrating to get no response, but that's not actually what is being addressed with a suggestion like this.

As an offerer, it would help me to know if this is an 1h trade (I’ll get an answer right away), a 12h trade (I offer in the evening, know the answer in the morning) or a multi-day trade (in that case, I would prefer not to offer or offer at the last minute).

At the moment, all the “power” is with the trader: they can take as much time as they want to accept/decline an offer. Meanwhile, the offerer can only wait and hope for the best, which may be inconvenient if you need to keep an egg spot open just in case you get the trade.

 

Of course if there are no offers on a trade then nobody minds that it stays up. Then, instead of the trade itself being time-limited, offers could be auto-declined after x hours. So the trader would lose potentially good offers if they forget to check their trade but the trade itself would stay up and gather new offers.

 

 

[dragongrrl]

I really like and support this idea since I prefer to have any public trades completed within 24 hours, so I can influence, incubate, hatch and grow my babies as quickly as possible. 24 hours allows players anywhere on the globe to view the trade and make their offers. Get it done!

 

However, I cannot see it happening as I know there are more than a few traders who like to drag their trades out as long as a week for each stage in their attempts to possibly get better offers. I don't have the patience for them, but it is a legitimate play style.

[HeatherMarie]

Well, no, all the 'power' is not with the trader. Offerers can choose to cancel their offers at any time. And many do, many users decide after 12-24 hours to cancel their offers. 

 

But again, this suggestion wouldn't address the issue you seem to want it to without also causing unnecessary headaches and frustration. Even if you change the suggestion to offers being time-limited, that still leads to tons of frustration for people who *don't* mind their offers staying up. Forced time limits and automatic canceling only helps the people who want answers sooner, while hurting all the users who don't mind a longer wait.

 

A better line of suggestions would be things that we could do to encourage things along, without *forcing* unnecessary action. A 'bump' feature for trades that haven't gotten any offers in a certain amount of time, a 'push' for offers that have been sitting for a certain amount of time, being able to offer the same thing on multiple trades (which has been suggested before), being able to accept only part of a trade (which would possibly lead to better turn-around times), etc etc.

[Elizabeth Moonstone]

20 minutes ago, HeatherMarie said:

Forced time limits and automatic canceling only helps the people who want answers sooner, while hurting all the users who don't mind a longer wait.

The current system does the opposite (helps people who don’t mind waiting).

 

To be fair to both play styles, why not have two different types of trade? Time-limited “lightning” trades and regular trades (like we have now)?

[ShorahNagi]

1 hour ago, Orchi'dea said:

would rather have some sort of a bump button that activates with a 24h cooldown, so I can refresh the trade if I feel it's necessary.

Personally, I feel something like this is a better option than time-limited trades.

 

I often have to work anywhere between 6 to 12 hours a day, and while it's all well and good a player can set a trade to be up for 24 hours, that's not going to do much good depending on their schedule.

 

For example:

 

-I post a 24-hour trade at 5am when I wake up, no offers from that time until I go to work at 6am.

-I can't check for any offers until I come home from work at 6pm (very limited signal for internet) - no offers/an offer made and canceled due to not being accepted right away/within a certain amount of time

-I go to bed at 10pm, giving me just 4 hours to watch for trade notifications.

Thus, if I get any offers after 10, I won't see them and the trade will expire.

 

Time-based trades are a decent idea in theory, but I feel it would be a bit impractical for most. Though I wouldn't mind it as an optional option for trades [ex. I find an All Caps horse dragon egg on the AP. I collect horse dragons, but not All Caps codes - so I'm on the fence about keeping it. I put the egg up for 24 hours, if I get an offer from someone who loves all caps codes, I accept. If not, I keep the egg*]

 

*I am aware I can do this now, I just need to manually watch the time

 

[HeatherMarie]

16 minutes ago, Elizabeth Moonstone said:

The current system does the opposite (helps people who don’t mind waiting).

 

To be fair to both play styles, why not have two different types of trade? Time-limited “lightning” trades and regular trades (like we have now)?

 

Now that sounds awesome. It would definitely be nice to have a specific 'lightening trade' option where you know going into it that it's going to be relatively quick, while also having the option to use trades that may stick around longer. If you want fast and simple, there it is, and if you don't mind waiting for awhile to see what happens it's there too. Very nice.

[Darkrat]

I agree that this sounds a bit unfair, however I think the opposite might be good, have the ability to make time limited offers. Aka you want an answer in an hour set it for an hour only, you don't mind waiting and you don't have to set a time limit.

This or allowing offers to be set on multiple things at once would be a good solution as this way the person offering on trades does have the power to ensure that their offer will not sit forever without having to manually cancel it.

I also support trades being posted with optional time limits. 

Additionally neither limit should be allowed to be shorter than an hour to prevent people using short times to hope the person panic-accepts/panic offers. 

Edited July 12, 2021 by Doglover80759
adding more ideas

[_Ro_]

What about some sort of 'online' indication, so when offering you at least know if you're offer is likely to have to wait or if the poster is still online at the time and is more likely to answer soon.

[HeatherMarie]

2 hours ago, Roseora said:

What about some sort of 'online' indication, so when offering you at least know if you're offer is likely to have to wait or if the poster is still online at the time and is more likely to answer soon.

 

I admit to not knowing exactly how the coding side of this stuff works, but I do know that 'online' indicators are very rarely accurate and certainly can't be trusted across the board. I never log out of my account, am I technically 'online' 24/7? I often leave DC open in a browser even when I'm away from the computer, will that show as 'online'? The only type of indicator that can actually be dependably accurate would have to be based on activity, so for example if my account hasn't done any actions (whether hunting/naming/whatever) in a certainly amount of time it would stop showing as 'online'. Overall I think anything like that would bring more confusion and frustration than anything (especially if you *see* someone is supposedly 'online' but they don't actually respond to your offer, that's going to be even more frustrating!)

edit: Also, that would be super anxiety-inducing on the trader's end (for those of us with anxiety issues), honestly I'd probably stop posting public trades if I knew there was that sort of pressure to accept/decline right away because people 'know' I'm 'online'. Goodness, no thanks.

Edited July 12, 2021 by HeatherMarie

[KageSora]

I'd dislike being made to use this, but as an optional thing that sounds nice.  Quick "lightning trades" could be great for people who don't have a lot of time, or who know they'll be around during the entire duration the trade is up to respond right away and for people who don't want to wait potentially days while a person deliberates on their offer--or if they get called away and are unable to respond.

 

I know I often put up a trade, then don't get a reply before I go to sleep, and by the time I've come back it's been 24 hours or more since the trade went up because I had something else going on so if I were forced into this I'd rarely get to trade anything.  But it being a second type of optional trade would be useful--allows everybody to have a preferred trade style they can work with.

 

And some people would use both, I'm sure!  I'd certainly use both.

 

8 hours ago, _Ro_ said:

What about some sort of 'online' indication, so when offering you at least know if you're offer is likely to have to wait or if the poster is still online at the time and is more likely to answer soon.

 

The problem with something like that is they're often either inaccurate or people shy away from them.  I almost always set my online status to idle or invisible when given an option simply because I don't like being pressured into responding right away because people see I'm online when I may not be ready to respond.  That or I leave the window open while I walk away from my computer for 12 hours--would it show me as online all 12 of those, even if I'm not?  HeatherMarie mentioned this, as well, and I know quite a few other people who do the same as me with online status (and some who put it as "offline/do not disturb" all the time).  It's very useful for people who genuinely use it to showcase their availability!  But there's plenty of times where just because they're online doesn't mean they'll respond all the same.

 

I don't have anything inherently against an online indicator as long as it functioned like other sites where I can manually alter how it's displayed if I don't want people to know I'm online (such as if I'm not able to respond to something at the time I might mark myself offline so the other party doesn't feel they're being ignored).  I just, for the reasons I stated based on how I use online indicators, know it wouldn't be universally helpful.  Maybe it would be more helpful than not!  I just wouldn't like being forced to display my status especially if it'd be highly inaccurate because I walked away for what I intended to be 10 minutes and got roped into something that took several hours instead.

[Fuzzbucket]

9 hours ago, HeatherMarie said:

edit: Also, that would be super anxiety-inducing on the trader's end (for those of us with anxiety issues), honestly I'd probably stop posting public trades if I knew there was that sort of pressure to accept/decline right away because people 'know' I'm 'online'. Goodness, no thanks.

 

I agree with this. If it applied to forum trades as well, I would only ever offer on the trades of others in future, or post asking for PMs. And I would certainly switch to invisible.

 

3 hours ago, KageSora said:

I'd dislike being made to use this, but as an optional thing that sounds nice.  Quick "lightning trades" could be great for people who don't have a lot of time, or who know they'll be around during the entire duration the trade is up to respond right away and for people who don't want to wait potentially days while a person deliberates on their offer--or if they get called away and are unable to respond.

Lightning trades as a separate thing - fair enough. I'm not sure how you could do a time limited offer on a trade though - I would think the coding might be too fiddly.

 

3 hours ago, KageSora said:

The problem with something like that is they're often either inaccurate or people shy away from them.  I almost always set my online status to idle or invisible when given an option simply because I don't like being pressured into responding right away because people see I'm online when I may not be ready to respond.  That or I leave the window open while I walk away from my computer for 12 hours--would it show me as online all 12 of those, even if I'm not?  HeatherMarie mentioned this, as well, and I know quite a few other people who do the same as me with online status (and some who put it as "offline/do not disturb" all the time).  It's very useful for people who genuinely use it to showcase their availability!  But there's plenty of times where just because they're online doesn't mean they'll respond all the same.

 

Too right. I know someone who, like me, never logged out from a forum I'm on. She has not (to my personal knowledge) been there in almost 10 years - and still shows as on line. And many players here raised objections when others of us asked for scroll indications of activity on our trades/offers.

[Chaosdawn]

13 hours ago, HeatherMarie said:

edit: Also, that would be super anxiety-inducing on the trader's end (for those of us with anxiety issues), honestly I'd probably stop posting public trades if I knew there was that sort of pressure to accept/decline right away because people 'know' I'm 'online'. Goodness, no thanks.

 

My first thought was if they see I'm online, I'm going to start getting flooded with PMs to accept their offer, why aren't you responding, etc. My anxiety said NOPE. 

[Nalyua]

I don't support this. For the simple reason that people playing this game live across the globe with all sorts of different time zones. Aside of that people do have a real life and sometimes it just gets in the middle of things.

 

What I would prefer is an option to offer dragons in multiple trades and to be allowed to set up public trades for dragons that I offered in a public trade.

 

That way the owners could try different trades that apeal to them at the same time which might cut down the frustration of any trading goods being blocked while offered on a trade.

[missy_]

On 7/12/2021 at 12:59 PM, HeatherMarie said:

NO support for required time limits on trades. It's really just not needed, and more of a problem than a solution. Who cares if a trade stays up for a few days? If you are *offering* on a trade, I understand that it can be frustrating to get no response, but that's not actually what is being addressed with a suggestion like this. A better suggestion for helping *offerers* would be something like a push-notice, like if your offer hasn't been rejected/cancelled within 24 hours you could click a button that would act like a re-offer (as in, the person would get a new notification reminding them of the offer). But *this* suggestion by itself is not going to help offerers and is only going to hurt traders. IF there are no standing offers, who is it hurting to allow a trade to stay up?

Agree—No support for the time-limited trade idea due to reasons stated above.

 

However, I don’t think it’s necessary to have a push notification.  Why?  Because there are generally three types of traders.  First are the traders who keep re-offering and canceling their offers so that they always stay on the first page.  (At least, while the traders are awake.)  They shouldn’t do this, but this happens.  (And while I often don’t like it and it technically breaks the Trading Hub rules, It has a certain utility, in that offerers know which traders recently put up their trades.)  (There are also traders who re-offer because they change the terms of their offer.  Or they made a mistake in the wording of their offer.)  Second are what I will call the “normal“ types of traders, who refresh their trade once or twice a day.  Third are the traders that put their trade up once and then forget about it until it grows up or dies. 

 

On 7/12/2021 at 1:47 PM, HeatherMarie said:

Well, no, all the 'power' is not with the trader. Offerers can choose to cancel their offers at any time. And many do, many users decide after 12-24 hours to cancel their offers. 

 

But again, this suggestion wouldn't address the issue you seem to want it to without also causing unnecessary headaches and frustration. Even if you change the suggestion to offers being time-limited, that still leads to tons of frustration for people who *don't* mind their offers staying up. Forced time limits and automatic canceling only helps the people who want answers sooner, while hurting all the users who don't mind a longer wait.

 

A better line of suggestions would be things that we could do to encourage things along, without *forcing* unnecessary action. A 'bump' feature for trades that haven't gotten any offers in a certain amount of time, a 'push' for offers that have been sitting for a certain amount of time, being able to offer the same thing on multiple trades (which has been suggested before), being able to accept only part of a trade (which would possibly lead to better turn-around times), etc etc.

Agreed— not all the power is with the trader.  First, if there are no offers on the trade, the trader is forced to rethink what is an acceptable request for their trade. Second, as HeatherMarie mentioned, offerers can cancel their offers at any time. They may see an offer they like better, and they are free to do this. They are not forced to keep their offer up for 24 hours. ... See how that sounds? 🤫.
 

Imagine if your suggestion was for offerers—not traders—to be forced in advance to choose a time frame for their offer to remain up. Imagine they had to choose to leave their offer on a given trade  from one hour to 24 hours.  As an offerer, that would make me feel constrained.

 

The issue I have with this suggestion is that, in my view, neither traders nor offers should feel restrained by time limits, restraints, or constrictions.

 

And if you still want a time limit on traders, and you want to definitely know if my trade is going to be available for one hour or 24 hours, then the same should be asked of offerers. Is your offer going to be up for my trade for 24 hours? Do you commit for 24 hours, as an offerer, to not offer on any other trades except mine?

 

21 hours ago, HeatherMarie said:

 

I admit to not knowing exactly how the coding side of this stuff works, but I do know that 'online' indicators are very rarely accurate and certainly can't be trusted across the board. I never log out of my account, am I technically 'online' 24/7? I often leave DC open in a browser even when I'm away from the computer, will that show as 'online'? The only type of indicator that can actually be dependably accurate would have to be based on activity, so for example if my account hasn't done any actions (whether hunting/naming/whatever) in a certainly amount of time it would stop showing as 'online'. Overall I think anything like that would bring more confusion and frustration than anything (especially if you *see* someone is supposedly 'online' but they don't actually respond to your offer, that's going to be even more frustrating!)

edit: Also, that would be super anxiety-inducing on the trader's end (for those of us with anxiety issues), honestly I'd probably stop posting public trades if I knew there was that sort of pressure to accept/decline right away because people 'know' I'm 'online'. Goodness, no thanks.

I agree that this would be super anxiety producing. Not to mention, as you said, it is very hard to gauge online indicators. My browser can accidentally/automatically refresh this page and it shows up that I was on here when I wasn’t. Even if someone is online, it doesn’t mean they are looking at their trades. There is no way to force people to look at their trades. There is no way to force them to accept offers that they don’t want. There is also no way to force an offerer to keep a trade in place any longer than they want to.

[Elizabeth Moonstone]

57 minutes ago, missy_ said:

And if you still want a time limit on traders, and you want to definitely know if my trade is going to be available for one hour or 24 hours, then the same should be asked of offerers. Is your offer going to be up for my trade for 24 hours? Do you commit for 24 hours, as an offerer, to not offer on any other trades except mine?

If it’s a “lightning” trade (valid for only 1h or 2h), then I don’t see a problem with committing my offer for that whole time.

[missy_]

50 minutes ago, Elizabeth Moonstone said:

If it’s a “lightning” trade (valid for only 1h or 2h), then I don’t see a problem with committing my offer for that whole time.

But how is this going to be enforced? See below.

 

17 hours ago, KageSora said:

Quick "lightning trades" could be great for people who don't have a lot of time,

There was someone with a “quick trade“ recently on the Trading Hub. It sat there for several days. The person had advertised that they would accept an offer immediately. 

~~~~~~ 
 

The point being, even if someone says it will be a lightning trade and commits to a lightning trade, it doesn’t mean they will actually be around for that trade.

 

There are no certainties with trading.  You can impose arbitrary limits.  That doesn’t mean anyone is obligated to stick with them.
 

As a hypothetical, let’s say I put up a one-hour lightning trade. Then, five minutes later, someone puts up an irresistible trade, and I want to offer on that trade. 

 

My point is, even if I did commit to a lightning trade, nothing is stopping me from canceling that offer. Unless you plan on forcing me, literally preventing me from canceling that offer in any way, which sounds kind of—pardon the pun, draconian. 
 

If you want to impose some sort of penalty, such as their Magi goes on cool down if the trade expires, then there would have to be an equal sort of penalty for offerers. Such as, if an offerer cancels on a trade, their Magi BSA goes into cooldown.

 

I see issues with:

 

1. Equality— Why do different rules/standards apply for traders versus offerers?

 

1. Enforcement— How would you enforce a lightning trade if it was canceled by either party?  The site has no way of enforcing if someone doesn’t give you the dragon you were promised, such as if the trader promised the dragon would be influenced female but it is a male. How exactly would this be enforced? Or would it just be a loosely applied standard with a timer?

 

3. Timer— Sure, you can use a timer.  It could have some value in stating that you have a one-hour trade in place. But again, the timer in and of itself has limited significance.  You can have a one-hour “Lightning Trade” timer that technically one or both the trader and the offerer could ignore. 

 

 

~~~~~~~

 

Lightning Trades:

 

Having said all this, I do believe there would be some value in having a one-hour timer, no longer than one hour, in which people could mark their trades as “lightning“ trades and they would show up at the top of the Trading Hub, perhaps with little lightning bolts next to them to designate them as Lightning Trades. After one hour, the trade would be automatically canceled.  This could be good for people who are looking for a quick trade, but other than the timer, I would hope there would be no arbitrary requirements for participation, nor penalties if one did not complete a trade, or if one canceled a lightning trade early.

 

Edited July 13, 2021 by missy_

[Shadowdrake]

59 minutes ago, missy_ said:

My point is, even if I did commit to a lightning trade, nothing is stopping me from canceling that offer.

Nobody is saying otherwise. Whether you're trader or offerer, you should be free to cancel of your own trades and offers freely, lightning trades or normal. The only point of a lightning trade is a guarantee to an offerer that either the trader sees and potentially accepts their offer, or their offer is now free to go onto another trade should the trader forget. The only "enforcement" is the automatic cancelling of a trade as it expires because the trader failed to check in time after explicitly choosing to have a time limit.

 

  

59 minutes ago, missy_ said:

1. Equality— Why do different rules/standards apply for traders versus offerers?

Because they already do. A trader can leave their trade for days and expect it to be seen by dozens of players while an offerer can only display it to one person at a time, and if the trader declines while the offerer's away, that could be hours to days wasted before they can come back and offer on another trade. If a trader doesn't get any offers, they still had more chance than an offerer who's forced to bargain one slow trade at a time.

[HeatherMarie]

@missy_  Admittedly I may be off in my understanding, but there is a huge difference between *saying* it'll be a 'quick trade' with the system we have now and a possible implementation of an *actual* quick-trade feature. An actual dedicated quick-trade option *would* be quick, whether or not the player was around or there were offers or whatever. A trader could put up a trade specifically choosing, say, 3 hours, and in 3 hours the trade will be cancelled. Whether or not the user is around, whether or not there have been offers, etc. There is no forcing, and I don't really see an inequality there: Offerers have always had the option to cancel an offer, that's not changing and is nothing new. Traders always have the option to decline, or accept, or cancel, whatever. Nothing is changing there except *deciding* ahead of time that it's either a quick trade or no trade, and allowing an actual in-cave feature to actually make it a quick-trade with a specific deadline. 

[missy_]

55 minutes ago, Shadowdrake said:

Nobody is saying otherwise. 

But:

 

(realizing that by “user” she meant “trader,” bold emphasis mine, edits to “trader” mine:

 

On 7/12/2021 at 11:35 AM, Elizabeth Moonstone said:

Idea: when creating a public trade, a trader must* choose the number of hours the trade will be up (between 1h and 24h). A timer is then displayed on the Trading page (x hours remaining for this trade). If the trader has not accepted an offer by then, the trade is automatically cancelled.

@Shadowdrake, she specifies in her idea that the trader must, emphasize must, choose a number of hours their trade will remain up.  She doesn’t specify that the offerer must choose a number of hours that their offer remains up.**  And while your point that an offerer can only offer on one trade at a time is a valid one, what is the benefit to a trader, under this suggestion for a specially timed 24-hour trade, unless the offerer agrees to the same terms as the trader?  Otherwise, why wouldn’t the trader just make a regular trade and check it in 24 hours?

 

As to the lightning trade idea, I quite like it, as long as both parties can freely cancel, as in any normal trade — and with the stipulation that lightning trades are limited to one hour.
 

While this was not part of the original suggestion, I like the idea of adding a little “lightning bolt“ to the lightning trades, and having them possibly (?) float at the top of the Trading Hub so that people can easily view them and distinguish them from regular trades. (Or if not float, then at least the timer symbol or lightning bolt symbol would alert players to the type of trade.)

 

I could support this suggestion only for the lightning trade feature, and only if lightning trades were limited to one hour. I don’t support it for longer trades, not even for two or three hours. 

 

 

**As long as both are free to cancel like in regular trades, I have no issues with a one-hour lightning trade concept, but don’t see how it could be practical for 24-hour trades.

Edited July 13, 2021 by missy_