(Spoilers) Something rustles in the grass!

[CrazyWizard]

My sample of two (worlds) isn’t much, I know. ;-) The answer is:
- In my Traders city it’s not a big problem to get shrooms for bismuth, but it’s a problem to get soap - fortunately when I post 3* trades for soap, they do get picked up (eventually).
- In my Constructs city I see a lot of bismuth, there is no problem to get it for my shrooms. The few trades asking for soap that I posted so far were taken quite quickly.
- Summary: in both worlds the easiest T6 goods to get is bismuth. And I tend to believe the Moonstone Gate does have a significant impact on this. Everyone who want CCs from Libraries needs Moonstone Gate(s).

I won't disagree that it has an influence, but there is a difference between an annoyance and a problem.
That it takes a bit longer to get what you want but you get is is an annoyance.
Being unable to het what you need because noboday wants it is a problem.

I do not believe the moonstone gate is a "problem". thats my take on it.

 

[FieryArien]

I do not believe the moonstone gate is a "problem". thats my take on it.

Well I believe that every building that produces the same goods for everyone (instead of boost+N, where N is 0, 1 or 2) is a problem. Especially when such a building is obtainable again and again and again.
I guess we won’t persuade each other, so let’s agree to disagree on the Moonstone Gate topic. ;-)

That it takes a bit longer to get what you want but you get is is an annoyance.
Being unable to het what you need because noboday wants it is a problem.

Yes, I totally agree. My boosts on beta are steel, scrolls (yay), dust and will be gum, velvet, bismuth. There is a lot of good souls around me (fellowship and neighbors) who take my small (scrolls) trades, but I dread the time when my city grows up and my production becomes big ...

 

[PaNonymeB]

I won't disagree that it has an influence, but there is a difference between an annoyance and a problem.
That it takes a bit longer to get what you want but you get is is an annoyance.
Being unable to het what you need because noboday wants it is a problem.

I do not believe the moonstone gate is a "problem". thats my take on it.

In my (first) world bismuth and shrooms trade well at 1:1 ratio, while soap is harder to get (as in, 1:1 trades aren't taken in a day, but 1.05:1 are taken easily.) Bismuth used to be even harder to get than soap. This means, probably because of the moonstone gate, bismuth players get less value from their bismuth now than before.

My point is, as I don't think there are many players with farms of moonstone gates, the library set even limited it to 1/player would probably have an effect on scrolls equal if not superior (the set produces more scrolls than bismuth) to the effect it currently has on bismuth, which is already noticeable. However, it would indeed not be as bad as it's now.

 

[Pauly7]

On my world the market is absolutely saturated with Bismith, compared to Soap and Shrooms. You can still trade the other two, but you have to post trades and wait. If I want to buy Bismuth then I just need to choose from any of the 10 pages of 3 star trades on offer.

If Bismuth was my boost I would be annoyed about that because I would probably always need to offer a profit on trades that isn't necessary on the others.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

In my (first) world bismuth and shrooms trade well at 1:1 ratio, while soap is harder to get (as in, 1:1 trades aren't taken in a day, but 1.05:1 are taken easily.) Bismuth used to be even harder to get than soap. This means, probably because of the moonstone gate, bismuth players get less value from their bismuth now than before.

Since we don't have any way to know what the breakdown of boosts per active player is for any of the servers, for all we know in your situation, it was a bunch of players finally making it to chapter 14 and happening to have bismuth as their boost. Which could also mean either the players boosted in the other two are playing more slowly or have quit before making it to chapter 14.

 

[Karvest]

The hardest thing in this task is to define "active" and how to differentiate it from "inactive".

 

[SoggyShorts]

Also the real question is... is there still a bismut issue? are there people who are unable to aquire other goods with there bismut or is the issue that there are sevaral pages of goods on the market?
Because as long as those goods are picked up, it doesn't matter if there are 10 pages of bismut offers.

For my servers:
1:1 bizmuth trades sit for days.
1:1 anything shrooms/soap for anything gets snapped up very quickly.

So yes, there is an imbalance.
It may be the moonset
It may be the market parasites
It may be something else

Regardless of what the cause is, bizmuth sucks.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

The hardest thing in this task is to define "active" and how to differentiate it from "inactive".

Yep, especially since years ago they stated that for privacy reasons, and probably EU privacy laws, a "last login" or something similar would never be shown in the game.

 

[Karvest]

Recent "last login" is far from "active" in my opinion. Even absence of elvenstats inactive marker (no changes in rating for a few weeks) doesn't mean that player is really active and trades any sentient good.

 

[SoggyShorts]

Yep, especially since years ago they stated that for privacy reasons, and probably EU privacy laws, a "last login" or something similar would never be shown in the game.

Another load of BS about EU privacy laws.‍
Loads of games that operate in and out of the EU have "online status" features. If inno was desperate to make sure their butt was covered all they have to do is this:

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Another load of BS about EU privacy laws.

You can cry BS all you want, but the effects of the changes to those EU laws a couple of years ago had a lot of negative impact. Forums I used to frequent were shut down, rather than be updated to meet the new laws.

 

[SoggyShorts]

the effects of the changes to those EU laws a couple of years ago had a lot of negative impact.

Of course they did. In no small part because many people misinterpret and exaggerate them. poke.

 

[ekarat]

For my servers:
1:1 bizmuth trades sit for days.
1:1 anything shrooms/soap for anything gets snapped up very quickly.

So yes, there is an imbalance.
It may be the moonset
It may be the market parasites
It may be something else

Regardless of what the cause is, bizmuth sucks.

This is my experience too. I don't even bother trying same-tier trades for the bismuth I produce. I trade for T4 or T5 and then trade those for shrooms or soap. I consider the same-tier markets for T2, T4, and T6 broken due to the presence of some oversupplied good (scrolls for T2, tree gum for T4, and bismuth for T6).

On the other hand, I love being boosted in scrolls. I produce velvet, which I can trade for obsidian, and they decay into silk and crystal respectively. That leaves me my scrolls to spend as cheap, cheap KP.

For the analysis, the fact that sentient goods decay does not affect things that much, as spent goods don't decay, so the effective decay rate is less than you might think. It only takes a small imbalance to upset the markets. However, the decay rate does mean that the imbalance could be fixed faster for gum and bismuth than it can for scrolls.

 

[ekarat]

You can cry BS all you want, but the effects of the changes to those EU laws a couple of years ago had a lot of negative impact. Forums I used to frequent were shut down, rather than be updated to meet the new laws.

Having been responsible for updating a site for those, they weren't that hard.

The two obstacles were 1) figuring out what the law actually needed me to do (this was really the hardest part), and 2) paying attention and doing maintenance at all.

I've also had a website on life-support that got pulled due to any maintenance whatsoever being required, so yes, something like this will kill anything on life-support and without maintenance.

 

[PaNonymeB]

Since we don't have any way to know what the breakdown of boosts per active player is for any of the servers, for all we know in your situation, it was a bunch of players finally making it to chapter 14 and happening to have bismuth as their boost. Which could also mean either the players boosted in the other two are playing more slowly or have quit before making it to chapter 14.

This is indeed possible, and that's why I wrote "probably because of the moonstone gate". As other players reported similar behaviours in other worlds, this is likely not a coincidencd.

 

[Lelanya]

On my world the market is absolutely saturated with Bismith, compared to Soap and Shrooms. You can still trade the other two, but you have to post trades and wait. If I want to buy Bismuth then I just need to choose from any of the 10 pages of 3 star trades on offer.

If Bismuth was my boost I would be annoyed about that because I would probably always need to offer a profit on trades that isn't necessary on the others.

Bismuth is my boost in that realm, and my trades get picked up. You may see a lot of them but that doesn't affect my ability to do reasearch or upgrade buildings. The biggest issue is the perception that the trades have no value. Guess what? I make scrolls as well and my neighbors and fellows take them off my hands too.

 

[ekarat]

Bismuth is my boost in that realm, and my trades get picked up. You may see a lot of them but that doesn't affect my ability to do reasearch or upgrade buildings. The biggest issue is the perception that the trades have no value. Guess what? I make scrolls as well and my neighbors and fellows take them off my hands too.

I feel that a lot of the time fellows will pick up trades as an act of charity. That is not the same thing as having a healthy market (where people don't need to rely on charity).

 

[Lelanya]

I feel that a lot of the time fellows will pick up trades as an act of charity. That is not the same thing as having a healthy market (where people don't need to rely on charity).

More likely we keep increasing our goods and still need to balance them. I always use lots of scrolls whenever the option comes up in the Spire but the game rarely takes them tbh

 

[PaNonymeB]

I feel that a lot of the time fellows will pick up trades as an act of charity. That is not the same thing as having a healthy market (where people don't need to rely on charity).

This. In my second city (chapter 16, silk-boosted) I can regularly take all scrolls for silk trades (there's usully not more than 1-2 pages.) But I currently have 3.7m+ scrolls and increasing, it's been my highest goods stock (even more than my boosted goods) probably for a year. (The world opened 16 months ago.) And it's similar for other players in my FS, we're taking scrolls we'll probably never use. I remember in May when they boosted T2 goods productions for the birthday people in the chat saying "is it really useful to put MM on our scrolls factories", and excess scrolls at the end of a scrolls tournament (though the scroll imbalance was also due to an excess of scroll-boosted players at the top in such a new world. We still see an excess of Velvet in the market.)

 

[Arthus]

Can we talk about May evo building here or is it too early?
There's an urgent need to push them to changes or some players (silk producing ones) will be flooded even more with SCROLLS