[Question] Trading Goods for FP.

[DeletedUser11609]

Is trading goods for FP a legitimate game trade?
I ask this because it seems clear that such a trade can be easily exploited by players.
Since there is nothing to stop a player from buying 100 CE goods with diamonds, then trading it for 200+ fp, it would seem like a cheap way around FP purchases. If you can get 200+ FP for 100 CE goods, you just saved 90% by not buying FP directly.
Someone from Inno want to make a call on this? I don't want to start doing this, and then find I'm going to lose my Great Buildings.

 

[DeletedUser8428]

Sorry A - I'm a little confused. How does one make a direct trade of goods for FP?

 

[DeletedUser11609]

Sorry A - I'm a little confused. How does one make a direct trade of goods for FP?

A number of people on the servers I play are offering goods in trade for FP on their Great buildings. Person puts in so many fp, Great building owner arranges an unfair trade with person to pay the goods.

 

[DeletedUser]

Trading goods for fp is legit as long as its not across worlds.
Its usually accomplished by donating the fp to the gb of choice, then an "unfair" trade of desired age good x2 : 1 BA good
If you can find someone willing to give 200 fp for 100 goods send them my way lol. (D world)
A lot of players will offer goods as an additional reward for donations to their gbs but from my experience its not that effective.
FP are the most important and useful resource in this game getting people to part with them is pretty tough, its not a simple matter of trading one for the other.

 

[DeletedUser11609]

Inno provides Rules as to what is allowed and what is not allowed. Of course there are aspects of exploitation in the game. However, purchase of goods with diamonds is not possible by direct action.
My guild and I were in an intense TE sieges for acquisition of sectors and we needed goods added to the Treasury to continue. One of our fighters in Guild Chat said he would donate in exchange for forge points. I told him "this is a bad time for extortion". He was booted the next day for treason.

Purchase of goods with diamonds is not possible?
Go to the great building menu, open an unfinished Great building, buy some of the goods with diamonds........You were saying?

 

[DeletedUser8152]

OK, here's the scoop. Trading goods for FP (on the same server) is not in itself against the rules. However, a pattern of unbalanced trades is against the rules -- it is pushing. If you make a habit of trading goods for FP, you might be pushing without realizing it. That judgement would be up to the game mod investigating the case. While you're probably not going to be banned for something like that without warning, you do open yourself up to sanctions.

So my advice would be: occasional trades like that are probably fine. But I would avoid making a regular habit of it.

 

[DeletedUser14175]

Booted?
You're super nice.
On war time treason deserved at least the guillotine...

 

[DeletedUser10415]

a pattern of unbalanced trades is against the rules -- it is pushing.

Many guilds will make unbalanced trades with members so that they can get Great Buildings ahead of time. Is that pushing?

 

[DeletedUser8152]

Many guilds will make unbalanced trades with members so that they can get Great Buildings ahead of time. Is that pushing?

If there is a pattern of imbalance, then it is pushing.

I wouldn't think this kind of thing would normally be an issue. Sometimes you will benefit from unfair trades to get your GB up, and other times you will take the unfair trades to help a guildmate. It ought to average out.

But if you are in LMA and putting up a whole bunch of late age GBs through unbalanced trades, and you aren't helping other people in a similar way, then yes I think you are at risk for pushing. The decision about that would be up to the investigating mod.

I think you would also be irritating your guild if you were doing something like that.

 

[DeletedUser]

If there is a pattern of imbalance, then it is pushing.

Of course there is a pattern of imbalance: the younger/weaker players get free goods provided by older/stronger ones.

Both "goods for GB" and "goods-FP trade" are common practices now. You cannot punish players for it, because you'll need to ban half of players in old worlds or apply selective judgement to punish only those you don't like personally (it's all up to mod's judgement, right?).

"Goods for FP" is not pushing and is not imbalanced - both sides benefit from it, although receiving different benefits. If you want to prohibit it, you should do it explicitly (but there is so many shades of gray I doubt anyone would be able to formulate normal rules).

If you call "goods for GB" pushing, so is any help to younger guild members. If you play for 2 years producing 300 goods/day, how much would you value 2k goods needed for Alcatraz? Is it worth 4 units/day the younger member will be able to supply for GvG?

 

[DeletedUser8152]

The game rules are clear:

Operating a push account is forbidden. This is defined as unbalanced routine resource (goods, Forge Points etc.) transfers from one account to the next even if involved accounts do not belong to the same player.

It doesn't matter why or how that resource transfer is occurring, and as far as I know that rule is not up for debate.

Does that mean you can't help a guildmate get his Alcatraz? Not at all. That would normally involve many players, it's only happening once, there is a clear reason for it, and presumably the recipient will pay back that value by contributing to GvG or just the guild in general.

But could a guild decide to focus all their attention on moving one player to the top of the charts, by helping him out wherever possible for as long as it takes? I'm pretty sure that would draw attention and be a problem.

The mods are here to make the game fun and fair for everyone. I really doubt any of them would see a problem in something that is fun and fair. But if you think there might be a whiff of unfairness about something going on, I'd be careful. But I'm not a game mod, and they are the ones who make the case-by-case decisions.

 

[DeletedUser]

The rules do not prohibit goods for FP trade. So we have only 'clear' formulation of "unbalanced routine resource transfers". Please tell me: 100 CE goods for 100 FP is balanced or not? If not, in which way? What will be the balanced rate?

There are guilds that use "fair trade" ratios, there are those who stick to 2:1 ratio for all adjacent ages. "Fair trade" guilds use 1.25:1 for IndA-PE trade. Obviously, both 1.25:1 and 2:1 rates for the same good pair cannot be balanced at the same time. Many players trade either mostly age-up or mostly age-down, and do this routinely. So, we clearly have "unbalanced routine resource transfers" in either "fair trade" or "2:1" guilds. Which type of guilds shall we ban?

I understand the difficulty in formulation good set of rules in such "open" game as FoE, but the current rules about "pushing" are in no way clear. Otherwise we wouldn't have the original question in the first place.

 

[DeletedUser2193]

Ah yes, the guillotine, perfect! The next one perhaps

- - - Updated - - -

Yes of course, you can buy goods to build your Great Buildings, but I was responding in general to the "context" of the discussion which was goods for trade points.
Thank you for clarifying that detail.

 

[DeletedUser8152]

I understand the difficulty in formulation good set of rules in such "open" game as FoE, but the current rules about "pushing" are in no way clear. Otherwise we wouldn't have the original question in the first place.

As you say, there's no workable way to formulate a simple set of rules that wouldn't be abusable, the game is open enough that things are situational. We rely on human game mods to make those judgement calls, and they seem to do a good job.

So what I'm saying is a good rule of thumb is just to avoid ongoing routine exchanges that aren't simple 1:1s. If someone posts that they want to trade 100 CE goods for 100 FP and you think that sounds good, go for it. If they then suggest that you make that exchange every week, I would decline.

 

[DeletedUser8861]

I would agree....while I cannot reveal all our methods or thought processes on detecting push accounts...I will say this...grow your account....if you are donating/trading all your forge points without seeking to continue growing your account, that might be determined as a push. One of the first things I am going to look at is your growth and are you operating an account that is being actively played or is it just being logged into each day to unload the forge points/resources and we see no evidence that you are doing anything else or really playing the game.

 

[DeletedUser38659]

I'm relatively new to the game so I'm going to try not to make statements as if they are fact unless they are. It's common practice for players needing support for their GB to offer a lower level player the advice of trading FP at some example ratio around 4 or 5 Future age goods, to build such GB as the ARC, for each FP that they contribute to a GB of the Future age or higher level player. We all benefit from following through on a scenario such as that. A pusher account seems like it would be one that contributes to the advancement of one individual other than itself or a particular group of individuals such as a guild. I can see where there might be an unclear line of separation between a player and a pusher but I imagine that if you feel that you are benefiting as a player to a similar dergee to the player with whom you might be making a goods for FP trade, you should have reasonable faith in the moderators to see this.

Picture this scenario:
You have an older model pickup truck (iron age goods) and you see an advert that says will consider a trade for a reliable pickup truck. You formulate a notion based on the fact that your vehicle's value is significantly lower than the value of the aggressive looking family sedan (Future age goods) of the other party. You know your truck is reliable and you want that sedan so you offer the other party your truck and X number of Currency units (FP) to even up the value or at least put it somewhat in the other party's favor. An agreement is made and you drive off in your awesome sedan to park it next to your old beater station wagon in the parking spot at your mobile home park. Of course you're wiping the tears of laughter from having spent some of your drive thinking how funny your old truck is gonna look at his fancy house parked next to his Vette.

 

[DeletedUser29726]

Nice necro This is a 4 year old thread - having discussions around points made that long ago is rather pointless at this time. While the push rule is still there and the general rule of 'as long as you're playing your account for your own interests you're fine (which may include helping out a guildmate for instance)' still holds, the situations described in this thread are no longer relevant.

Goods and FP are generally much more plentiful, goods are therefore generally cheaper, and the size of FP donations from a goods sale now wouldn't really raise any red flags at all anymore.

 

[Dido 815 the Scourge]

I blame the Archeology event. More threads have been necro-ed since the event started than I’ve seen in a long while. I think people are taking the whole “dig for ancient buried treasure” thing a weeeeee bit too seriously.