Suggestion, introduce trading to the game

  • EvilTortoise
    Master
    Insider

    I will start by saying that i love all the new content, this game is so alive now.

    With that said i've been talking to a fellow pirate about one thing that would give the game even one more dimension, trading.
    Back in the days the seas were filled by pirates, but what they fed on was the merchant ships.
    I think introducing the aspect of trading to the game would be so fun, not sure what exact would work best for this game but i'm thinking something like your weekly events.

    Example:
    Every week there's hi and low demands on outpost, players can sail around talking to the taverns to get this information then get crates for bananas, planks, cannonballs, gunpowder etc but also the option to buy the rare tea, sugar, silks or spices at a low demand outpost to sell at an high demand outpost for a nice profit.
    However these voyages doesn't come without risk, there might be pirates lurking around the outposts looking for possible merchant vessels to steel the loot from and it's up to the players on the risks.
    High risk - High reward, Low risk - Low reward.

    I guess with the alliance system this might be a real fun thing to do with protecting vessels etc and since the merchants need to buy the cargo there would still be a big reason for pirates to attack and get the rewards without the costs and prevent the events to be one big alliance teaming up.
    Maybe set a limit for 3 ships in an alliance to prevent to big alliances(think that could be a good limit now already).

    This might have been up for discussion already, i don't know?

    What do you guys think?

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  • DuMy2008
    Commander
    Insider
    Boatswain
    Founder

    @eviltortoise This idea has been thrown around a load. The idea of timed trading between outposts is great. It gives PvP orientated players a purpose, and also opens up a few in game careers. Not only would you have a Merchant, but you could also have said merchant "hiring" protection in the form of other crews. Say, when a crew activates a trade route, the other merchants will speak of it as a rumor, advising where the crew is leaving from and heading to, giving any crews an opportunity to decide to intercept or not. Gives the risks to all parties. The trades could be timed, so the faster you deliver, the better, but then by delivering faster, you have to take a direct route which is easier to predict and intercept. So it can create tactics on both the trade route and protecting crews, and also the attacking crew(s)

  • EvilTortoise
    Master
    Insider

    @dumy2008 i figured it's been discussed a lot. :)

    Yes it would open up so much possibilites like the ones you describe.

  • SurveyorPete
    Legend
    Insider

    There are all sorts of opportunities for in-game trade that I can think of:

    • Selling unused supplies, before logging off, to another crew.
    • Farming supplies for the express purpose of selling to another crew.
    • Going out and hunting animals for the express purpose of selling to a crew wanting to complete Merchant Quests.
    • Selling your ship, before logging off, allowing others to build alliances.
    • Trading loot for gold, or vice versa.
    • Selling unwanted clothing, equipment and weapons at a discount to shop prices; or "exclusive", time-limited items at a premium.
    • Laying down Athena missions for a price.
    • Mini-games like dice or cards, that can be wagered on

    The only thing I would be wary of is allowing the use of doubloons in trades, or allowing for a gold/doubloon exchange rate. That could allow people to accumulate doubloons; and thereby buy their way to Pirate Legend even faster than doing the Bilge Rat missions would allow.

  • EvilTortoise
    Master
    Insider

    @surveyorpete Yes i agree on the doubloons, but if ppl use them to get to PL they going to have a wake up call when they need to buy legend stuff for their ships..it's more or less the grind that makes it possible to buy anything lol
    I was personally thinking about doing that my last levels before legend, but i'm so glad i didn't.

    I wish i could sell half of my old sails ans hulls just to get more PL stuff...

  • Nebenkuh

    @eviltortoise
    Really great idea.
    The variable prices could apply to Gold Hoarders as well, so digging up chests stays viable compared to trading.

    An issue I see is that with this system, you could potentially lose gold, something hardly possible at this time.
    Sure, you can buy a quest and get sunk and lose the initial investment, but even at max level that's just a couple hundred gold.

    What if I buy 100k worth of spices at Golden Sands, hoping to turn it into 500k at Dagger Tooth, but get sunk on the way there? Sure, that could just be part of the risk and I personally would love that, but the crying on the forum would be inevitable if people start losing money like that.
    Maybe it could be possible to get insurance on your investment.. so you don't lose it all.. really a lot of possibilities here.
    But what if the server crashes or you get a disconnect?

    Would the supply of goods at a certain outpost be limited, and those who get there first could buy up all of the supply? So would the market be actually affected by the players, or would it be a "fake" market controlled by the devs?
    Would you be able to buy the entire stock if you got enough money, or would it be limited to a fixed amount per crew?
    If not fixed, would it be indeed possible to buy 100k worth of goods? How would you get 100k worth of tea onto your ship? Would that alone be enough to limit how much goods people buy, because they don't want to spend 2 hours loading and unloading their ship?
    Could there be some sort of cargo crane, operated by the players, that would allow them to load their ship faster?
    What if you sink a ship with 300 crates of sugar - would there be some kind of device to retrieve more than one crate at once?

    The more I think about it, the more I love the idea, but it needs to be really fleshed out or it could lead to a lot of issues.

  • EvilTortoise
    Master
    Insider

    @nebenkuh
    Yes there's definately things that needs to be figured out and adjusted to perfection.
    I would personally love the idea of a living economy within the game but it might be a big step to do if the game wasn't intended for it to begin with, with that said it might be an "easy" implementation as well i do not know since i'm not a game developer.

    My idea though is more about getting it started, i think weekly events with high and low demands on various regions such as wilds have a high demand and shores of plenty a low demand could make a great start.
    About the ability to loose gold, well i see a problem with server disconnects etc but that should be able to be compensated by rare support if that happens.
    But my guess is that if you doing high risk merchant runs you are going to have players you know to join and not randoms which makes it possible to reconnect to the ship even if the game crasches(unless it's a complete server failure).
    Anyways that's why i also want it to be low risk "missions", maybe deliver 25 barrels of gunpowder(if that can be counted as low risk haha) instead of buying cargo but then the reward will also reflect the fact that there's no apparent risk involved except the possibility to accidently create the first nuclear explosion in sot.

    But in the long run an living in game economy would be great, maybe in the future with more maps and longer voyages.

    Think of the terrifying thrill to know you have a 100k cargo on the ship worth 3 times if deliviered when you suddenly see a legendary galleon in the horizon.. :)

  • Riareth
    Captain
    Insider
    Founder

    Although I like discussed trading mechanics, the problem is that in reality the risk would be minimal. There are only 6 ships in the server, so the likelihood of someone trying to intercept a merchant ship are slim to none.

    You could make the merchant ships more distinctive and that might help other ships go after them. Maybe when on a merchant voyage you'd have lantern lights with a different colour and very bright, you can see the skellie ships from 10 squares away.
    You'd also need to make the merchant ships slower, let's pretend that's because of the heavy cargo, to give the pursuers a chance to catch them.

  • EvilTortoise
    Master
    Insider

    @riareth
    I don't know, why would the risk be minimal, i would say the opposite?

    Since there is a specific area that the cargo is being dropped off to each week the pirates/hunters will know where to look for the merchant vessels, it's not that it's random for each mission.
    Everyone will know that in order to get the big bucks one week you'll need to buy your cargo at Sanctuary and deliver it to Ancient spire, so i'm pretty sure there will be pirates lurking in the waters around Ancient spire.

    The merchant vessel doesn't need to be slower or more visibile, when you have 30 crates of exotic silks in your cargo you cant just run and sell it, you need to be clear of the threat by either having protection or fighting the pirates off since you will loose cargo you purchased for maybe 20k gold.
    I think it would be a great exiting addition to the game.

    I know for sure our Galleon would wait in those waters for the merchants to arrive.

  • SurveyorPete
    Legend
    Insider

    Another MMOG with a pirate theme, is Puzzle Pirates. It is a few years old now, and much less popular than it used to be. It was a very different game to Sea of Thieves, being a 2D isometric game where the ship mechanics, and battles, and so on were played as simple mini-games not unlike games like Bejewelled, Tetris, or Breakout.

    Nevertheless, you still crewed a ship with many real-life people around the world; working together to gather resources, dig up treasure, fight skellies, and engage in both PvE and PvP battles at sea.

    What Puzzle Pirates did have, and which Sea of Thieves lacks, was a very well developed economy. It was well-balanced too, with both sources (treasure and resources found or looted from other ships) and sinks (cost of housing, taxes, and decay of clothing and weapons) allowing hard-working pirates to get rich; but not allowing anyone to get too rich too fast.

    Cannonballs, and rum, were essential commodities for going to sea; and these were available for market prices at populated islands. Players could trade almost anything - ships supplies, raw materials, clothing, swords, etc - for PoE (pieces of eight); and could gamble on several different games of skill and chance in the taverns.

    Here is a diagram of the Puzzle Pirates economy. I am not suggesting that Rare need to go anywhere this level of complexity with an economy for Sea of Thieves; but there is surely food for thought here.

    Puzzle Pirates Economy

  • KattTruewalker
    Vanguard
    Insider
    Founder
    Deckhand

    @eviltortoise

    Really enjoy reading the ideas in this thread and as @DuMy2008 mentioned, it's something we've been discussing since the beginning, something that would add depth and immersion to the world as well as allow us a varied set of goals/activities to look for when we log in. Most games do have the ability to buy/sell/trade items, even if it is just selling things back to the merchants from which you bought them, but in Sea of Thieves the potential is really there to create a demand/supply mechanic for Outposts in particular.

  • Tragic OrNa
    Rogue
    Insider

    Trading wouldnt be a bady thing, however with trading comes abuse. It would have to be in the works for some time befoee it was ever released so we didnt have people glitching, and abusing the system like every other game that has a marketplace or a trading based system.

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