Join 2,355+ Players and socialize together

Join the Community Today

Come hang out with us on the Minecraft Addicts Forums — it's the perfect place to chat, trade cool stuff, and connect with awesome builders just like you! Let's plan epic builds, create amazing worlds together, and then show off your masterpieces to everyone! Plus, we’re all about having fun, so feel free to talk about anything under the sun—games, hobbies, favorite snacks, you name it! Can't wait for you to join and share all the Minecraft magic!

Register Account Login Join our Discord

Shop prices that fluctuate with average server attendance

Status
Not open for further replies.
Tsar_Maple

Tsar_Maple

Well-known member
Joined
May 24, 2012
Messages
673
Heyo

The other day we were talking about server shop prices and how certain blocks are significantly more expensive to buy than to sell.

Ex.

Quartz Piece: Buy 0.75 | Sell 0.04
Quartz Block: Buy 3.00 | Sell 0.08
Obsidian: Buy 10.00 | Sell 0.50

With a larger server population, it makes sense to have higher prices in order to encourage player trading, but when the server population is sub-10, this becomes increasingly difficult. If there was a way to regulate prices with regard to activity, I think this would definitely help those who are in need of harder to get materials.

I'm not sure how feasible this is, but just food for thought. Was an idea someone had brought up.
 
It could be feasible however it would also have to be done manually and I would assume that every time we considered making a change we would need to have discussions to make sure it was fair as although yes it will help people build it will also stop any effort of seeking someone to buy it from as well as any worth for gathering it.

Your examples. I agree that the sell price for quartz is wrong there. I would suggest it be a little higher as it is a harder material to gather. The buy price though I would have said is fair. before when the shop didn't have quartz or it was higher priced that that I am sure that I was buying it for 1 cap a piece (4 caps per block) and saying that I recently went out to get quartz ore and it is really plentiful out there and had no real issues getting it. What prices were you suggesting? As if you say what you think it should be that could be a good point to start a discussion from and get everyone involved.

Some items e.g. sea lanterns we nerfed the price for as they were a nightmare to get and they are really useful in building and for 2.5 caps compared to the 50 or so that players were trying to sell them for.


Whole shop prices:
Hidden
 
My thoughts on quartz prices:

Cheaper:
As common as iron in the over world
Fortune means you get 2.2 for every ore!
No one to buy it from?
Not as much as a commodity as Iron

More expensive:
Located in the nether
Nether is well stocked currently, no lack of resource to go and mine.
Netherrack is easier to mine than stone (instant with gold pick)

As from that I would base it on iron price with a correction value of 2.2 for the fortune.

So iron block = 30 caps so a piece of iron is 3.3 so 4 pieces is 13.2

If I then divide by 2.2 cause fortune you get to a price of 6 caps per block. Now that would be the price I think would be fair and doesn't even take into consideration the danger of the nether.

Now doing the same thing to the sell price you get 2.5 caps as a block sell price. I would have said that is high as it isn't as much of a commodity as iron.

From that I think the 3 buy is more then fair perhaps even too fair but I think the sell should be more like 1 cap each.

Your thoughts would be interesting to work through.
 
dph and I have been talking about this a bit in-game, and I do agree that the quartz sell price could certainly be looked at. One thing I do want to keep is that gap between buy and sell prices. This may make it more painful to buy something from the shop, but at the same time it means acquiring a given item makes it a better asset to you. What we set prices at in the shop directly impacts the prices you can ask / request from other players.

That said, I would like to see a sell price closer to around .25 caps per quartz piece, or 1 cap per block. Quartz is fairly common in the nether and as dph stated can be fortuned for better yield. At the same time no smelting is required to get your final product (like iron) so I don't think it's worth needs to be raised much beyond that. While iron is a fundamental ingredient in a lot of items, quartz is (mostly) purely for aesthetics.

If we did 1 cap sell price for a quartz block, I'd like to see buy at 4 personally. Now before you freak out at quartz being a little more expensive in the shop, remember we need to address costs through both the mindset of consumer and producer. Yeah it might be more of a pain as a consumer (buying it), but it also gives it greater value as a producer (mining it). The 1 sell price means you could make money selling to the shop, but the 4 buy price means you could also find incentive to mine it more because you could reasonably ask for 2-3 caps when selling to other players.

Just my two cents... definitely a good conversation to have!
 
dph said:
My thoughts on quartz prices:

Cheaper:
As common as iron in the over world
Fortune means you get 2.2 for every ore!
No one to buy it from?
Not as much as a commodity as Iron

More expensive:
Located in the nether
Nether is well stocked currently, no lack of resource to go and mine.
Netherrack is easier to mine than stone (instant with gold pick)

As from that I would base it on iron price with a correction value of 2.2 for the fortune.

So iron block = 30 caps so a piece of iron is 3.3 so 4 pieces is 13.2

If I then divide by 2.2 cause fortune you get to a price of 6 caps per block. Now that would be the price I think would be fair and doesn't even take into consideration the danger of the nether.

Now doing the same thing to the sell price you get 2.5 caps as a block sell price. I would have said that is high as it isn't as much of a commodity as iron.

From that I think the 3 buy is more then fair perhaps even too fair but I think the sell should be more like 1 cap each.

Your thoughts would be interesting to work through.
Click to expand...

Right, so my main concern is the difference between the buy/sell prices then. Logical to base the pricing off its rarity and location, but that also means it makes sense to beef up the sell price.
 
Jexter said:
dph and I have been talking about this a bit in-game, and I do agree that the quartz sell price could certainly be looked at. One thing I do want to keep is that gap between buy and sell prices. This may make it more painful to buy something from the shop, but at the same time it means acquiring a given item makes it a better asset to you. What we set prices at in the shop directly impacts the prices you can ask / request from other players.

That said, I would like to see a sell price closer to around .25 caps per quartz piece, or 1 cap per block. Quartz is fairly common in the nether and as dph stated can be fortuned for better yield. At the same time no smelting is required to get your final product (like iron) so I don't think it's worth needs to be raised much beyond that. While iron is a fundamental ingredient in a lot of items, quartz is purely for aesthetics.

If we did 1 cap sell price for a quartz block, I'd like to see buy at 4 personally. Now before you freak out at quartz being a little more expensive in the shop, remember we need to address costs through both the mindset of consumer and producer. Yeah it might be more of a pain as a consumer (buying it), but it also gives it greater value as a producer (mining it). The 1 sell price means you could make money selling to the shop, but the 4 buy price means you could also find incentive to mine it more because you could reasonably ask for 2-3 caps when selling to other players.

Just my two cents... definitely a good conversation to have!
Click to expand...

Yeah that makes plenty a sense. 4:1 buy/sell ratio isn't bad at all
 
Another item that boggles me: 3 caps for 1 ink sac? Didn't they used to be cheaper? Yikes
 
The whole point of the shop wasn't to make things easily available. It's there pretty much for those that can't be bothered to go and get the materials hence the prices are high as a trade off.
 
alien12 said:
The whole point of the shop wasn't to make things easily available. It's there pretty much for those that can't be bothered to go and get the materials hence the prices are high as a trade off.
Click to expand...

While true, and a good point, I think a counter point would be that as a build-oriented server with, as we've stated above, a lower playerbase than when prices were established, the prices still seem too high to justify.

When it comes to things like Ink Sacs, those are items that players rely on spawning to get, and spawning seems very hit or miss right now when venturing into PvE. Squid also seem to spawn very rarely on my build plots...

Going back to Quartz after thinking about it a bit...

When it comes to items like Quartz, the "rarity" might be the same as iron, but there's a couple of distinct differences:
-We have easy direct access to Quartz with the nether spawn
-Quartz is a surface spawn and much easier to find and gather
-Quartz is a very high exp gain material, especially with fortune III, and you lose that when buying from the shop, which should lower its value. I personally, and others as well, use Quartz for exp for mending items when my tater farms aren't running. I mine more for Quartz for exp than I do for blocks as I typically just bought my material off players in the past who made killings off of it due to shop pricing.

Another thing still that I didn't think about is that quartz is definitely a highly used build material. When people need it, they need a lot of it. Take Cedar City for example
69odW7v.png


Of the now 11 buildings on there (Sponge has built a house not shown on world map), 8 of those use quartz as a major resource. That's a ton of material for something so widely used and (on our server) easily accessible. That is one of the biggest differences I think from gathering Quartz on the server as opposed to SP: it's just easier to get. So why is it so expensive then?

Just some food for thought/discussion
 
Will update this to add reasons as people suggest them.


Cheaper:
As common as iron in the over world
Fortune means you get 2.2 for every ore!
No one to buy it from?
Not as much as a commodity as Iron
You don't get the xp from buying it from the shop (Same with iron though?)
Commonly used build material, could we make cool things by having it cheaper

More expensive:
Located in the nether
Nether is well stocked currently, no lack of resource to go and mine.
Netherrack is easier to mine than stone (instant with gold pick)

I would counter the experience argument by saying that iron is the same, you buy already smelted iron. Granted Iron gives 0.7 exp per piece and quartz after backtracking 3.5 ave per ore gives 1.6 average per piece @2.2 drop average. As I was basing the calculation that suggested the values of Buy: 6 caps, Sell 2.5 caps.

Given the additional reasons what do you think it should be Maple. I like suggestions as I cannot interpret your reasons into the value you may be thinking of. I still think 3 and 1 is fair. If we made it too cheaply like I have had it suggested to me (cannot remember the figure but it was <1 cap I would think it would be too common, no real point of going and mining it.

Ink sacks may need an adjustment but want to focus on Quartz for the moment until we make a decision to at least get the ball rolling on it.
 
dph said:
Will update this to add reasons as people suggest them.


Cheaper:
As common as iron in the over world
Fortune means you get 2.2 for every ore!
No one to buy it from?
Not as much as a commodity as Iron
You don't get the xp from buying it from the shop (Same with iron though?)
Commonly used build material, could we make cool things by having it cheaper

More expensive:
Located in the nether
Nether is well stocked currently, no lack of resource to go and mine.
Netherrack is easier to mine than stone (instant with gold pick)

I would counter the experience argument by saying that iron is the same, you buy already smelted iron. Granted Iron gives 0.7 exp per piece and quartz after backtracking 3.5 ave per ore gives 1.6 average per piece @2.2 drop average. As I was basing the calculation that suggested the values of Buy: 6 caps, Sell 2.5 caps.

Given the additional reasons what do you think it should be Maple. I like suggestions as I cannot interpret your reasons into the value you may be thinking of. I still think 3 and 1 is fair. If we made it too cheaply like I have had it suggested to me (cannot remember the figure but it was <1 cap I would think it would be too common, no real point of going and mining it.

Ink sacks may need an adjustment but want to focus on Quartz for the moment until we make a decision to at least get the ball rolling on it.
Click to expand...


What I mean about the whole XP issue is that quartz is often mined exclusively for XP, while iron is not. That's what gives it value in the Nether. That value is significantly reduced when buying from the shop as a building block.

I think it'd be productive to have a voice chat about this at some point with everyone to help elaborate reasonings and whatnot if that could be arranged
 
Tbf I don’t think that the nether is as hard as the over world, because the nether has 2-3 common mobs. Ghasts which can be annoying and can hurt, but it's relatively eazy to avoid their attack, which is a projectile. And pigman which are peaceful by default. The other big thing for me with the nether are the lava lakes, which are dangerous, yet you have to try to fall into them. And it's not like there are a huge amount of reasons to go the the nether in the first place. The biggest reasons, at least for me, are wither heads and quartz. And seeing how one of the biggest things of getting quartz is the xp, then you're missing out on one of the reasons to even pick it up.

I'll agree that the nether's been reset recently, so it's not like it's the hardest thing to get, as it's the same spawn rate as iron, but at the same time it's one of 2 (counting glowstone as an """ore""").

I guess it's just me being lazy but i think it could help to have the buying price of the shop be a little lower. Mostly because of the lower population of the server, which is my biggest thing against the argument of being lazy/encouraging player trading.

The only thing that I 100% agree with is the increase in selling price to the shop.
Price suggestion Buy:2-2.5 Sell: .5-.75?
 
Last edited:
A common theme I'm reading is that quartz is frequently mined for its XP. If that's true then said players mining quartz for XP should have plenty of it!

My opinion on this is really simple: if you want easier access to resources, then build in creative. If prices get squashed too much in build then I think it begins to turn the build world into an alternative, ever-so-slightly-more-challenging creative world. What makes a lot of builds impressive on this server is that some resources in build do not come easily.

Like I told Maple in-game, if you were constructing a building and were given the choice between steel or lumber, you'd have to weigh your options. One is a more impressive, sturdy material, yet much more expensive. The other is a more common resource that's much more affordable. Now just because you like steel a lot more doesn't mean it should cost the same (or close) to lumber. Now I'm not saying anyone here suggested our discussion of quartz specifically be priced similar to cheap items (dirt, cobble etc), but I am arguing that we should certainly keep a healthy range between basic and higher-end building materials. One of the funner aspects of our server is that resources are not hand-outs... if you want to make a build that's more impressive, then it should come as more of a challenge - whether purchasing those resources or acquiring them yourself.

If I'm building a large project and making the whole thing out of quartz proves too expensive, then I'll simply consider an alternative material for that build. One of the things that makes builds such as dph's casino and some of Maple's modern builds in Cedar City stand out is they were built with quartz, and its high value is what makes those builds more impressive than projects made with cheaper materials. If we kill off the value of quartz, then suddenly everyone has it. Those builds suddenly lose much of what made them unique in the first place.

In summary, I'm quite opposed to reducing the buy price of quartz in the shop. I believe it should either stay at 3, or preferably go to 4. I can certainly agree with just about everyone that the sell price def needs to go up though. I think up to 1 cap is fair. This means it's no longer worthless to sell to the shop, but at the same time a 4 buy / 1 sell price would mean the difference between the two prices still encourages selling to other players. Could easily ask for 2-3 caps a block when player selling.

For the sake of example, if we went with 2 buy and .5 sell, that'd mean realistically you'd only get .5 to 1.5 caps per block when player selling. Point being if we drop prices too much it begins to hurt the player market more. Sure it might make it easier to get things via the shop in build, but suddenly it devalues quartz as an asset too.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top