A new way to gift?
DestinyPolo
Member Posts: 65 ★
Despite it’s name, the gifting event rather resembles a mass trading event when players often swap gifts for gifts. Most typically this is a greater gifting Crystal for a greater gifting Crystal, in varying amounts. The excitement of opening these crystals can be immense but I can’t help but feel for those who fall for scams, particularly in global chat, promising a GGC in return for a GGC etc. My idea is nothing radical or original by any means, but it does mean these people (and anyone for that matter) can have better security in those they are gifting with.
The idea is that a player can initiate a ‘trade’ with a friend in-game (purely so no-one gets randomly spammed), in which they can ‘offer’ a certain amount of units worth of gifts to the other player. They also have to set a ‘return’, which includes whatever gifts they desire in return (if any). To confirm, the ‘offer’ must be within the amount of units held by the player at the time it was made. Subsequently, the unit worth of the gifts offered will be removed from the players account to prevent spending them whilst waiting for acceptance.
Once confirmed the ‘trade deal’ will be sent to the other players inbox in which they can clearly see the ‘offer’ and what they are expected to gift in ‘return’. The receiver then has 3 options:
-To accept the deal (a confirmation will be given) - this confirms the players approval of the trade and puts it in action. Both players will receive their end of the bargain and the units required from the receiver will be removed.
-To reject the deal - In case the deal isn’t as agreed upon or is unfair, the player can choose to reject the deal. This functions to prevent players from scams. If the receiver doesn’t have the units to afford the ‘return’, they will be unable to accept the offer and only be able to choose option 2 or 3. A counter-offer cannot be made (to prevent endless cycles) - instead players have to start a new deal. Any units removed from the initiators account will be refunded if rejected.
-The final option is to reject the deal and block future trade interactions with said person. This is in case of spam or other situations. This will be able to be undone if pressed accidentally.
Whatever option chosen will be clearly communicated back to the player which initiated the deal in the inbox, either containing the goods or detailing the rejection. The deal will only last for 24 hours once sent out - if no action is taken by the receiver, the deal is null and void with the initiators units being refunded.
This doesn’t necessarily have to replace the typical ‘gift’ system we currently have, instead working alongside it and counting for the gifting events. However if fully implemented it would prevent global chat from turning into a scamming moshpit every gifting event due to necessary safe measures in place. I know a ‘trade’ isn’t necessarily a ‘gift’, but let’s be honest the majority use the event to trade gifts. This will just aid the security of these deals and prevent the alienation of naive players who fall victim to such scams.
Any other thoughts/input?
The idea is that a player can initiate a ‘trade’ with a friend in-game (purely so no-one gets randomly spammed), in which they can ‘offer’ a certain amount of units worth of gifts to the other player. They also have to set a ‘return’, which includes whatever gifts they desire in return (if any). To confirm, the ‘offer’ must be within the amount of units held by the player at the time it was made. Subsequently, the unit worth of the gifts offered will be removed from the players account to prevent spending them whilst waiting for acceptance.
Once confirmed the ‘trade deal’ will be sent to the other players inbox in which they can clearly see the ‘offer’ and what they are expected to gift in ‘return’. The receiver then has 3 options:
-To accept the deal (a confirmation will be given) - this confirms the players approval of the trade and puts it in action. Both players will receive their end of the bargain and the units required from the receiver will be removed.
-To reject the deal - In case the deal isn’t as agreed upon or is unfair, the player can choose to reject the deal. This functions to prevent players from scams. If the receiver doesn’t have the units to afford the ‘return’, they will be unable to accept the offer and only be able to choose option 2 or 3. A counter-offer cannot be made (to prevent endless cycles) - instead players have to start a new deal. Any units removed from the initiators account will be refunded if rejected.
-The final option is to reject the deal and block future trade interactions with said person. This is in case of spam or other situations. This will be able to be undone if pressed accidentally.
Whatever option chosen will be clearly communicated back to the player which initiated the deal in the inbox, either containing the goods or detailing the rejection. The deal will only last for 24 hours once sent out - if no action is taken by the receiver, the deal is null and void with the initiators units being refunded.
This doesn’t necessarily have to replace the typical ‘gift’ system we currently have, instead working alongside it and counting for the gifting events. However if fully implemented it would prevent global chat from turning into a scamming moshpit every gifting event due to necessary safe measures in place. I know a ‘trade’ isn’t necessarily a ‘gift’, but let’s be honest the majority use the event to trade gifts. This will just aid the security of these deals and prevent the alienation of naive players who fall victim to such scams.
Any other thoughts/input?
7
Comments
Just trade or gift who you trust
I’ve even ran arena to. Get the units to send them back(in the invent where we two ppl sent without a mess in alliance chat)
But I’ve always let my alliance know what I have and if I can repay(so it was a trade)
Thirdly there is no reason to disagree with it unless you plan on scamming yourself. Not everyone has people they trust and may naively fall for gifting scams. The trade mechanic would simply prevent this from happening and people taking advantage of others desperation.
The problem is all the corner cases you have to account for if you decide to open this can of worms. Suppose I initiate a trade with someone. I need to have the units to do that. After I send and before the player agrees, what happens to those units? Do they get put in escrow? What happens if that player never comes back? How do I get those units back? Do you need to implement a cancellation process? What happens if the player agrees *after* I hit cancel? What happens if I try to use the units after initiating a trade? What happens if I initiate two separate trades back to back and they are open simultaneously?
No matter how strange, silly, unlikely, or nonsensical, the developers would have to account for every possible sequence of actions to prevent bad things from happening like units disappearing or trades getting broken. You have to account for server crashes while thousands of trades are in process. You have to think about all possible ways to exploit this so players don't figure out ways to break the system for exploitable gain. All that would take a lot of developer resources, for something that happens once a year.
That said, if implemented it would a complex way of implementing a "Gifting Crystal Store". I don't see the requirement, takes the flavour away. Trade with randoms at your peril.
Again if you go general chat you r screwing yourself
No point in making it more difficult for others if u want to screw your self
It TELLS you are SPENDING units to GIFT if you SEND a GIFT
2) Don't trade with randoms
These two steps should keep you maybe 80-90% safe from scams. The rest is your discretion.
Confirming trades with ally mates in a group chat will give you some evidence in case the other person backs out, so there is a way to be held accountable.
For the most part trade with friends and ally mates.
As for your suggestions, that seems like an overcomplication of an otherwise simple process. I'm sure there are still drawbacks to it, as DNA mentioned.
It would also take a lot of effort from the game team to actually implement the system. It's easy to suggest these things, but from a programmers point of view, it may well be a nightmare.
Not to mention, there isn't a way for them to properly test it out since the event happens once a year. You'd be surprised how many codes that 'should' work have little bugs in them, and for such a hyped event, all hell will break lose. We've already seen over the past few months that a lot of content, especially new features, tend to have some bugs.
See this kind of holding units as 'collateral' and two way transaction, it's not like anything that's been done in game. There are a lot of 'what ifs' to account for.
For a two week event, it's too much work, and too many variables. Gifting is very lucrative for Kabam, and a system like this could lead to a nosedive.
I'm glad you liked the Jumbled Words thread. There are still a few on there that I couldn't wrap my head around if you're interested.
And yes, I created the matchmaking thread because global is a horrid place to find a trading partner. People on forums seen a little more reliable than global, and I assumed at least a few of us would have the problem of not having friends or ally mates to trade with, so to partially help alleviate it, I made the thread.
As long as it helps even 2 people, I'm satisfied.
We're not talking about building a transactional backend system from scratch. We're talking about implementing a constellation of transactions within a system that already exists, and whose limitations you have to account for.
If I ask the developers to correct a typo, that takes only ten seconds. But they have to verify my correction is actually correct: that could take time. They have to take my correction and verify it matches the writing style guides for the game, if I'm changing enough words. They have to pass that to the localization team to translate the correction to other languages. They have to make sure my correction doesn't cause the text to no longer fit in the allocated space in the game interface. In every supported language. A five second typo correction becomes a few hours of work, just like that.
A suggestion to make a trading system is that, times a thousand. Every piece of it has to be scrutinized carefully, and that will require multiple developers doing multiple things, and while they are working on that they cannot work on what they are currently scheduled to work on. In fact, one thing I've learned in my interactions with game developers is that a feature request that will take a hundred hours of one developer's time is often easier to make happen than a feature request that will take twelve hours of six developers' time. If you need two minutes of a writer's time, and half an hour from the GUI designer, and fifteen minutes from the mechanics designer, and two hours from the data integrity manager, and ninety minutes from the operations people, good luck.