Trade/Trading Hub: Allow Offerers to See Other's Offers

[Kiyoura]

Currently: when offering on another person's trade, we cannot see what other people have offered.

 

Suggestion 1: Offer an option to let users see other current offers when creating a trade. For example, a checkbox "Allow users to see other current offers." When checked, everyone offering on the trade can see everyone else's current offers (usernames can be omitted and each individual can choose anonymity/publicity from the existing Account Settings). Having this option also allows users to not use it and keep trades the way it currently is.

 

Suggestion 2: Instead of allowing users to see other offers, "Allow users to see how many other offers there are."

 

Why? This can help avoid duplicate breedings by multiple users. For example, a trade asking for a "2nd generation Breed from Holiday dragon" may receive several of the same offers. As it is right now, multiple users can do the same breedings and it might be frustrating for the person who was rejected and wasted their breeding slot for the week for that particular dragon.

 

Possible Critiques: Vindictive users may try to viewbomb their "competitor's" offer. My counter to this is that there should be a disclaimer when offering on such trades, and that this is an acknowledged risk. However, Suggestion 2 would take care of this critique.

 

Thank you if you've read throughout this entire post. Apologies if this has been suggested before; I did do a search and look through several pages in the Suggestions for similar ideas, but either missed it or didn't see it.

Edited November 28, 2021 by Kiyoura

[HeatherMarie]

My knee-jerk reaction is 'no way!', but I'll respond more in-depth than that, lol. 

 

The second suggestion, simply showing how many other offers there are, wouldn't actually solve the 'why' issue, would it? If the reason behind this is so users don't waste breedings when there have already been similar offers, just showing how *many* offers won't actually accomplish that at all. That said, it's the only option I'd actually support.

 

I would not support suggestion 1 in any way. It feels like there are way way too many downsides to 'fix' an issue that I'm not sure is really a huge issue anyways? Are there really a lot of people breeding for trades and getting upset when their offer isn't chosen? I mean, isn't that just the risk, you offer something but there is never any guarantee of it being accepted, if you 'waste' a breeding that's your decision.

 

I'll also say, as someone who often *gets* multiple same-type offers on my posted trades, I would *hate* it if people were discouraged from offering simply because they know others have offered. There are tons of factors that go into selecting what offer you want to accept, you can have five different offers of the exact same gen/pairing but very different actual personal value (maybe you already have an offspring from one of the pairs, maybe the pairing has 'tags' like 'CB' that you don't want, maybe they have long names which you don't like, etc etc). This sounds like something that would be checked by the user posting the trade, so okay I could just not check it, but that means I *will* see other people's offers on all trades that have that option selected? 

 

The 'possible critique' posted is actually a very serious concern and one of the main reasons I wouldn't support it. We already have multiple suggestion threads about the fact that eggs in trades are completely vulnerable to viewbombing, you can't hide/Ward/etc anything that is in a trade. That's already a fairly big issue and one that people have been discussing a lot. Suggestion 1 would kind of be a huge plus for any potential viewbombers, a much easier way to find targets, and still leave us offerers helpless unless we want to cancel the offer and miss out on the trade. I would never support Suggestion 1 unless we finally got some way to actually protect things in-trade. 

[ShorahNagi]

2 hours ago, Kiyoura said:

Suggestion 2: Instead of allowing users to see other offers, "Allow users to see how many other offers there are."

Personally, I like this option better. I feel it would put less pressure on people making offers, and as you said - could help those who might not have a lot of breeding spots decide if they want to gamble on breeding the wanted egg or not.

 

It might also keep people from canceling their offer if they don't immediately get an accepted/decline - as now they know the trader is looking at other offers too.

 

The first suggestion I feel has too much room for abuse, and could give some users a false idea* or what an egg/hatchling is worth* OR intimidate some from making an offer at all.

 

TL/DR: Support for option 2

 

*Everyone values everything differently, and while the majority agree a (example) CB gold is very high value - we might not agree on just what that value is.

Edited November 28, 2021 by ShorahNagi

[Fuzzbucket]

I can't actually see the point - so no support for either one. Because when I loo at  offers I think of all sorts of things that wouldn't help others - not least things like - "Ahh, they don't have ANY prizes; I think I will let it go to them," or "I remember they stiffed someone else on, so NO WAY"...

 

We all have weird reasons for accepting or declining.

[Moriaty]

option 1 is definitely no. It's not even on the issue of viewbomber, I simply think they would hurt the entire idea of trading. It's a bit hard for me to phrase my thoughts right now, but I really don't like the way it discourages people from making offers.  With the limited text I can input into the text box it's very hard for me to list out the priorities in a meaningful way, then in the case I ask for several things in a trade, if someone sees an offer fulfill one requirement they might be discouraged from trying to fulfill another, even though the one they can fulfill might take priority. I kind of feel like it encourages comparing too...also, I as an offerer (is that the right word?) will definitely not want my offers to be visible to others, but you seem to be suggesting it's the trader's choice to show/not show them (it's not about whether I want my username attached, I simply loath the idea of allowing others to see the eggs I'm offering) so that's a double no from me.

 

option 2 is a ok with me, though I don't really see how it could help the "why" problem you listed. If I really want what you're offering I wouldn't care how many offers you have gotten and if the trader for whatever reason ended up picking my offer, it's still a full week of breeding wasted for those who offered before me.

Edited November 29, 2021 by Moriaty

[LevelsOfViolence]

Very strong no from me personally - the suggestion offers very little gain for several potentially severe drawbacks.

As someone who posts trades, I feel it is my personal responsibility to stay online for at least 1 hour after requesting a bred egg so that I may accept the first offer without forcing several users to breed duplicates. For someone who breeds, it should be their personal choice to breed for a trade, knowing full well that it may either be rejected, or that their pair may produce nothing/reject/breed a different egg than requested.      

Not only does showing other offers to public enable viewbombing, it might also discourage users to make their offers to begin with - ironically, when their offers might be more desirable by the trader than something more 'valuable'.

 

Here's a tangible example of what I mean:

I post a trade requesting a CB Red.

User A offers three bred Red eggs, because they do not have a CB on hand but [reasonably] think that I might consider the offer anyway.

User B sees the offer of three Reds and decides to not offer their CB, because they might assume that for me, quantity matters more over lineage.

In truth, I would reject the first offer and gladly accept the second one, because user A is unable to read my mind or is unwilling to go through my scroll and doesn't know that I only collect CBs.

 

Also suggestion 2 doesn't make much sense to me - what would be its purpose? The trader already has information of how many offers they receive, seeing "2" offers as someone who is willing to offer wouldn't ever sway my desire to give my offer, because again - I do not know what other users are offering. For all I know they could be attempting to trade a less desirable dragon than I have.

 

There simply aren't enough pros to outweigh the possible cons here.

Edited November 29, 2021 by LevelsOfViolence

[HeatherMarie]

@LevelsOfViolence Makes really good points. As another example, one that actually just happened, I made a trade and got 5 offers, 4 of which were fairly similar and exactly what I'd asked for. But I ended up accepting the last offer made because it was 'better' (read, messier) than all the others, *even though* the others were also what most consider 'messy'. It would be a shame if that last offerer hadn't bothered to offer just because they saw other people had already offered what was requested. I feel like anything that encourages *not* offering isn't a good idea, despite the possible-benefit of keeping people from 'wasting' slots/breedings. 

[purplehaze]

I am not in favor of this for reasons that have already been stated.

It just seems like it would reduce the number of offers that a trader would have to pick from and I don't see that as a good thing. There are many factors that go into selecting the egg you want -- codes, parent names, and many more. So even apparently identical offers are not really equal.

As far as "wasting" a breeding, that is just a risk you take when you want to offer.

[Kiyoura]

I am changing my mind a bit about my idea, in that, if it's too much effort to implement, then I agree, maybe it's for too niche of an audience who would want to use a feature/option like this.

 

However, if it's not that much of a hassle to code for... personally, I would still use this feature (Suggestion 2) when I make my own trades. There are enough times when I don't want to get more than one offer and would rather spare the trouble for other people.

Edited November 30, 2021 by Kiyoura

[purplehaze]

Another downside of this: even if you could only see how many offers there are, and not the specifics, there is no way to know if they are valid offers. I have a hatchie offer right now on an egg I am trading. I would love to accept that offer, but can't because the other trader is egg locked. I looked at their scroll and their oldest egg has 19 hours left to hatch! If someone else could look and see that I had that offer and decide not to offer, I might lose out on a chance at something else I would like to have. I don't want to decline the offer because it is something I really would like to have -- even though it is not what I asked for -- and I am hoping they will leave it up until I can accept it, if I get no other offers before then.

[Darkrat]

On 12/2/2021 at 1:19 PM, purplehaze said:

Another downside of this: even if you could only see how many offers there are, and not the specifics, there is no way to know if they are valid offers. I have a hatchie offer right now on an egg I am trading. I would love to accept that offer, but can't because the other trader is egg locked. I looked at their scroll and their oldest egg has 19 hours left to hatch! If someone else could look and see that I had that offer and decide not to offer, I might lose out on a chance at something else I would like to have. I don't want to decline the offer because it is something I really would like to have -- even though it is not what I asked for -- and I am hoping they will leave it up until I can accept it, if I get no other offers before then.

I will agree with no support for this reason, I have gotten quite a few offers that were far from what I was looking for as well. I wouldn't want to miss out on actual offers because someone offered say a really messy dragon from the ap or decided their offer is special enough to not listen to what I wanted.