Virtual Trades, a proposal to deal with inflation.

[Riemstagrad]

Inflation has always been the bane of collectors who see their allready hard-to-get target cards with low owners getting sniped on the auction by inflators who pump their value sky high. Not only did you miss that card, it becomes almost impossible to get another copy in the future.

Inflation went really out of control after TCALS was removed.
Just look at the decks on the first page of the rankings and rank their cards by value. So many decks have page after page filled with intrinsically worthless commons and uncommons.

This is my proposal to deal with this:

Everytime a sale is concluded (auction or gift), 1 card, randomly chosen from the entire card-pool, is instantly 'traded' between two automatic system traders and that trade is registered as a normal trade and as such contributes to the market value calculation of that card.

This is the rule for a trade:
1) A match is made between Lowest Ask and Highest Bid
2) The maximum a match can be is the Market Value of the card
3) The hard-cap for a match is Junk-value * 1000 * Season multiplier

*) if there is no ask: Lowest Ask = Market Value
*) if there is no bid: Highest Bid = Junk Value
*) Season multiplier: S2 = 1; S1 = 2

I tested this formula on a number of cards to see what it would do with them:


most column headers should be clear for regular card players.
"Trade" is the actual trade that is decided by the rules described above.
"newvalue" is what would be the resulting market value after this trade if the previous 10 trades where all at the previous MV.
"ID" is simply card ID, for easy reference.

Name	MV	JV	low	high	S Mult	match	max	cap	trade	newvalue	ID
TestlandiaS1	500	1	888,88	191	2	539,94	500	2000	500	500	1
FrisbeeteriaS1	296	1	340	100	2	220	296	2000	220	288,4	2
UlvlandS2	499	0,01	39,99	6,42	1	23,21	499	10	10	450,1	3366497
BallotoniaS1	203	1	10000	20	2	5010	203	2000	203	203	38
TestlandiaS2	126	1	190	75,35	1	132,68	126	1000	126	126	1
NervunS2	419	1	400	20	1	210	419	1000	210	398,1	5
GreatNepalS2	130	1	500	5	1	252,5	130	1000	130	130	1522
VardinyaS2	0,05	0,05	0,05	0,05	1	0,05	0,05	50	0,05	0,05	146
JharznelheS2	1	0,05	2	1	1	1,5	1	50	1	1
CyborgianStatesS2	0,05	0,01	1	0,05	1	0,53	0,05	10	0,05	0,05
WestCosovainiaS2	683	0,01	683	0,09	1	341,55	683	10	10	615,7	3216476
RiemstagradS2	2,05	0,2	3,14	2	1	2,57	2,05	200	2,05	2,05	425
riemstagradS1	12	0,2	99	19,7	2	59,35	12	400	12	12	425
XetrinS1	10000	0,01	10000	10,01	2	5005,01	10000	20	20	9002	2553473
FindhornS1	5600	0,05	56	0,07	2	28,04	5600	100	28,04	5042,8	110567
MikeswillS1	945	0,5	5000	80	2	2540	945	1000	945	945	1011
MikeswillS2	20	0,5	157	18,11	1	87,56	20	500	20	20
FarrakhanS1	952	0,5	444,44	10,09	2	227,27	952	1000	227,27	879,53	832895
RubynaS1	1124	1	750	30	2	390	1124	2000	390	1050,6	20857

Legendary cards or any cards with some interest in will have no hard time to keep their value. Cards that are not backed by anyone will decay. This decay will be much faster for inflated commons then for legendaries. Cards inflated above their max cap will decay regardless of being backed up.
I can do other cards in this spreadsheet if you link them in a reply.

This is a raw proposal. Things like seasonal multipliers might need some tweaking or instead of tying it to auction trades, it might be better to just fire some of these virtual trades at regular intervals or when the server is not very busy.
Another idea, to leave more room for market workings is to take Highest Bid as a sort of minimum cap: This would allow backed commons to stay above their max cap, but only if people are keeping good bids on the card.

[Vylixan]

I like the idea, but isn't it easier to let MV decay in some way?
Like say only take Trades in account that happened in the say last 30/60 days, or if distance in time to a trade grows, reduce it's effect by reducing the amount or something like that?
We need some way to reduce MV over time if it's not supported, I agree with that.

[Thousand Branches]

I like the idea, but isn't it easier to let MV decay in some way?
Like say only take Trades in account that happened in the say last 30/60 days, or if distance in time to a trade grows, reduce it's effect by reducing the amount or something like that?
We need some way to reduce MV over time if it's not supported, I agree with that.

Or perhaps the MV of a card decays differently depending on rarity?

[The Unified Missourtama States]

I like the idea, but isn't it easier to let MV decay in some way?
Like say only take Trades in account that happened in the say last 30/60 days, or if distance in time to a trade grows, reduce it's effect by reducing the amount or something like that?

That's a great way to make valuable legendary cards worthless. I was going to link all of the top 20 Legendary cards with no trades in the last month, but that would be 18 links I'd need to post.

[United Calanworie]

I like the idea, but isn't it easier to let MV decay in some way?
Like say only take Trades in account that happened in the say last 30/60 days, or if distance in time to a trade grows, reduce it's effect by reducing the amount or something like that?

That's a great way to make valuable legendary cards worthless. I was going to link all of the top 20 Legendary cards with no trades in the last month, but that would be 18 links I'd need to post.

Is that... a bad thing? It would encourage those top cards being placed on the market in order to prevent their value from decaying, allowing more individuals a chance to purchase them, by breaking up large collections where people may have dozens of the same card.

[Imperium Anglorum]

It doesn't help inflation to just pretend that the market value of a card is lower than it is. That's just a cosmetic 'solution'. Inflation is caused by the surplus of money, the lack of supply, or otherwise excessive demand. You need to tackle causes rather than apply an adjustment factor to 'market value' that makes the stated MVs irrelevant or inaccurate for their purpose: valuing a card ie how much someone would need to pay to get it.

[Fauzjhia]

It doesn't help inflation to just pretend that the market value of a card is lower than it is. That's just a cosmetic 'solution'. Inflation is caused by the surplus of money, the lack of supply, or otherwise excessive demand. You need to tackle causes rather than apply an adjustment factor to 'market value' that makes the stated MVs irrelevant or inaccurate for their purpose: valuing a card ie how much someone would need to pay to get it.

inflation trade are large / pointless transfers.
yeah One can talk about the very large BANK we puppets user have gathered, but that large bank does not directly call us to inflate.
who inflate take advantage of the current MV calculations and the rarity of cte cards.

therefor, all we have to do is to change mv calculations or the rarity of inflated card to make inflation pointless.

[One Small Island]

The solution to inflation is never going to be found if you're targeting the value of the card.

What needs to happen is there needs to be a way to remove bank from circulation introduced; and it needs to be something that will both eat bank and be worth the bank that it eats.

[Fauzjhia]

The solution to inflation is never going to be found if you're targeting the value of the card.

What needs to happen is there needs to be a way to remove bank from circulation introduced; and it needs to be something that will both eat bank and be worth the bank that it eats.

What is your solution ?

and how exactly is my bank causing inflation ? I know i had much Bank, at least 20 000, but how does that bank cause inflation ? we see players creating more (inflation) with less bank then what I have.

[One Small Island]

What is your solution ?

and how exactly is my bank causing inflation ? I know i had much Bank, at least 20 000, but how does that bank cause inflation ? we see players creating more (inflation) with less bank then what I have.

I don't recall saying that I had a solution; if I did have one then I would have made a thread on it.

As to how bank causes inflation... well that's pretty simple, there's nothing to do with bank, so people are able to accumulate excessive amounts of it, the excessive amounts of bank are then used to inflate cards. If the excessive amounts of bank didn't exist, the inflation wouldn't exist.

There will always be people who just enjoy inflating cards and so horde their bank for that, but if there was something worthwhile to spend bank on then there would be a lot fewer people doing it.

(I also don't really see inflated cards as the massive problem that some people do.)

[Kwisatz Carderach]

What is your solution ?
if there was something worthwhile to spend bank on then there would be a lot fewer people doing it.
(I also don't really see inflated cards as the massive problem that some people do.)

I am not certain that you can make this assertion with no proof to back it up. In fact, when TCALS was removed from the game, making inflation even easier than it was before, we (meaning the Cards Discord) saw a sharp decrease in activity/a number of traders stop playing or leave the discord, while a few players started or continued inflating at ridiculous amounts.

What is "something worthwhile" anyways? Besides Season 3 of course

Anyways, I disagree with the idea that removing bank from the system is the only way to solve inflation, though I suspect that implementing market caps would be far easier than Riemst's idea here...