So this might be a lot of work, but I just had an idea that I think could fix the Great Depression in the Sylestia market XD What if when you went to put a sale price on a pet, the system would scan the traits and set a base price that you could not go below, but could set higher if you wanted? I think this would help some players who are not sure how to price, and it would raise the value of pets. I also thought there could be a little box you could check that would determine if it were a gift, and then it would automatically be set at 1g. (with the player ID option of course) And no, this wouldn't affect breeding, but it was just a pricing idea I had. :) Hope you guys like it.

There has been a similar suggestion https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=18085

I wouldn't mind the gifting bit. Might make it easier to gift pets if we could indicate it's a gift, and there's a dropdown list of our friend list.

For the main suggestion of a fixed base price, this was my response:

Link: https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=18085&page=1#10 Author: Wonderfulwander Time Posted: 10/18/2014 at 11:40 AM [Just to add on to what Selestial, I'm one of those players who price my pets at 999,999,999 gold to differentiate them for gifting/releasing. Though I usually set it sellable to my own ID so only I can see that price. Besides, I highly doubt anyone has that much gold. (would really like to see if there is someone that rich o_o ) So I'm pretty sure people who set their pets at that price are not intending for them to be bought.] To add my opinion to the main suggestion, I'm not for the idea. Like Shadow said, I don't really like the idea of people determining my pet value for me. And most likely, with this system, there will be more unrest within the community as some people may "force" others to conform to the price, even if there is "freedom" (There are already certain unofficial standards that some people will nag at others to conform to. Have seen that, though rarely. If there is an official standard, it may get worse.) That said, personal feelings aside, it's probably a really hard feature to implement. For one, the tracing of lineage means a lot of work for the system. So all the coding, and added burden on the system... probably too much work especially considering Krin is the only one doing the coding. And then (with themed pets) there is still that issue of dyeing pets of which some people are very rigid in absolutely no dyeing for themed, whereas some others are okay if the dyeing occurs within the natural colour swing, whereas others still uses their rights to do whatever they want with a pet that is theirs. There is no right or wrong opinion in this case. But with such a system, the admins would be forced to make a stand on the issue, and "force" others to conform to their stand, since the stand they take will affect the "official" pricing. (ie does dyeing themed pets lower/not affect the themed pricing) And for non-themed pets, having a system to base pricing on genes/mutations is really iffy. Some traits are more liked than others, especially the newer ones. And what about traits combination? Some combinations work better together, while others look horrible together. And who's to decide what looks nice? different people have different opinions. And what about colours? Some multi-vis pets have very plain colours, and I wouldn't pay to buy them, whereas other few vis pets have absolutely gorgeous colourings. And again, differing opinions will make this impossible to fix. While I understand what the main post is trying to address, I just think the suggestion is not really feasible, and will more likely create more problems than solve them. =/ Pets differ from items in that, for items, there is only one "variation" of it. any different colours or changes to the item, and it goes by a different name. Whereas a species of pets, with different colours and traits combination, are all still that same one species. I do believe though, that the admins plan to implement a system in the scale shop where users can sell their pets for a base scale price, to reduce the problem of 1g pets. Not sure if it's confirmed/in the works. We'll probably have to wait and see for that. =/ And they are thinking of ways to help reduce the problems in the pet economy. It's not easy, but they're putting a lot of thought into it and trying their best. =)

Mainly, let's wait till the new features planned to counter this issue (ie limited hatchery space and base scale price) is implemented before trying another angle. =P


Edit: also, for purebred themed, the last i know, the admins have not made an official decision on whether they should be marked differently from normal pets, which is why there are currently no indications for purebred themed. Since the worth of purebred themed was something the community created. This base price would force the admins to make a stand on whether purebreds should be worth more, or the same as other pets, since the base price would be "official".

I'm not really in favor of setting this kind of base price, for exactly the issues raised. I've already had people try, on several occasions, tell me I should mark down a pet to x because that's the "standard price". Sorry, but the market is, for better or worse, a supply and demand market. Prices raise and fluctuate often on some rather odd quirks of who likes what. I really don't think having a base price is going to help any of that. If anything, it may raise the BASE price, but it will also tend to lower the prices many people would otherwise be willing to spend, because "that's not the going rate". I doubt seriously that Krin would be willing to set these base prices all that high either, as that would just not be fair to newer players with fewer resources.

As far as tagging purebreds, I would LOVE to see this implemented for a number of reasons and have suggested at least two ways for this to happen, and seen one or two more raised by others. Krin consistently shoots it down. I don't know if this is a coding issue or something else, but he does not seem willing to tag even future purebreds, and it's very unlikely it would be retroactive, which would make the kind of pricing system you propose unlikely to be fair for older pets that may be purebred, but not tagged as such in your system. And if you can't get purebreds tagged, ANY kind of automatic pricing system is going to be flawed, IMHO. For that matter, even "project pets" will end up being priced the same as regular randomly bred pets, which seems a shame. If someone spent the time and resources to buy the essences and/or dyes to make a project work, the pets from that breeding program really should be worth more than randomly bred pets.


One final thing... it's always bugged me that "gifts" had to be set at 1gold. Really? To me a gift is freely given. It bothers me each and every time I have to "give" a pet by setting a price on it. Even 1 gold is not free. It's one gold, not much, but you have to have that one gold to receive the "gift". That's not free to me.

I completely get what you are saying :) It was just an idea. Also, I thought I mentioned those base prices could be raised to the user's liking? I just wondered if it would appeal because a lot of pets are up for 1g just sitting around, I just thought it would fix that issue is all. No 1g pets clogging the economy.

The trouble is, making a suggested base price like this doesn't really address the problem with all the 1gold pets. If anything it will make things worse by making it that little bit much more expensive to buy the pet you want, and the "base price" will be too expensive. I can almost guarentee that with a base price set like this, people would start trading pets for "free" to work around it.

The real problem is that it is too easy to breed 100 pets at a time, and not having a means necessarily to keep them all. Personally I hope that Krin institutes the above mentioned NPC that will buy up extra pets (whether for scales or something else) so that unwanted pets like these will start being used instead of, as you say, clogging the economy. Instead I think we will get a reduced hatchery first, which again is only going to slow things down but not really address the main problem- too many pets will still be created, just not quite as many as are now. Likely still far more than demand for those pets, at least.

Even so, because of the way the game is structured, this will likely always be something of a problem. It's just too easy to breed a lot of pets, and not have much of anywhere to put them. Since breeding is one of the coolest parts of the game, I really don't see a way to completely resolve this issue without nerphing the way breeding works, which would really be a shame.

Oh I would LOVE it if I could sell the pets I didn't want back to the game! I do this on Pocket Frogs and Rise of Berk and it is sooo nice, I am glad you toldme of the NPC.

Well, it may be one of those things that will come with the total revamp Krin and Fai announced. I really do hope we get it before then, but at this point it's not looking likely, lol.