Suggestion: Equivalent Exchange for Philosopher's Cache

Equivalent Exchange for the Cache Components: Are you interested?

Good Idea!	13.8%	[ 4 ]
Interested but Skeptical...	20.7%	[ 6 ]
It wouldn't work.	41.4%	[ 12 ]
Needs more fine tuning.	24.1%	[ 7 ]
Total Votes:			[ 29 ]

[Felinicus Mow]

Philospher's Cache
Equivalent Exchange (EE)
Suggestion to Forumites

The Point:

-To give each Alchemist an equal chance of creating a steady stream of Caches.
-To place no value of one component over another.
-To fight the inflation of components both in the marketplace and exchange.
-To make Alchemy more readily available to the average Gaian.
-Backwings.

The Premise:

Each and every item needed for the creation of a cache (excluding gold shop components such as pancakes and grade A bait), has no more value than any other ingredient, regardless of the regular MP pricing or Gaia Exchange rates.

As such, you will disregard any other monetary value of a component other than quantity.
I.E.
100 Red Carnations = 100 Bubble Eyed Goldfish
or
100 Goldenrod Papers = 100 zOMG Flamingo Feathers

An eye for an eye.
A tooth for a tooth.

This is not to say that components will always be traded in such high numbers.
The point is to balance out the lack of a particular component in an Alchemists formula.
Following this method a singular Alchemist need not hunt all over Gaia in the towns, fishing, and zOMG, but may instead agree with other Alchemists to share any Excess.

Excess, meaning that you have too much of one component, and a sever lack or none of another. A deal can then be brokered where two Alchemists equally exchange their items should they find a matching deficit in their Cache formulae.

Or Option Two: A Trade Ring
In which Alchemists form an agreement to each farm one particular area, and equally exchange the spoils from the endeavor.
This Trade Ring will last until the Alchemists involved are able to craft at least 1 Cache each.
Longevity of the Trade Ring is up to individual discretion.

Threads:

1. Threads for EE in which an agreement of Excess is made, should be tagged as such. Just as with topic titles in which a Gaian is Buying or Selling an item: {B} or {Buy}, and, {S} or {Sell}.
An Excess thread may have the title tag {E} or {Excess}.

2. Threads forming a Trade Ring should also clearly state the condition of the Ring. Whether it needs Farmers for a specific area or whether the Ring is Inactive or Full.

Keep in mind, these are only guidelines, and suggestions, not rules.
I look forwards to hearing your thoughts on this!
cat_blaugh
-Mow

[Felinicus Mow]

Revision Ideas by Alchemists:

1 - "Divide and Conquer"
by: Persistant Alchemist

Persistent Alchemist

I see this working if the componets are devided into groups.
Zomg components
Town componets
Fishing Components (trash can be included both here and in towns)
Meaning that Zomg components share the same value, town items share the same value, ect.----We alchemist should form a sort of pact like this, it will only be beneficial.

[Snipplus4]

Like the plan I would be for it

[Destrius]

The problem with this is in the time it takes for me to gather 1 flamingo feather, another person could have easily picked 10+ white daffodils or daisies.

The current prices are all based on supply since the demand between all items are equal in cache creation. The more expensive something is, the harder it is to find and that's the way it should be.

[Felinicus Mow]

Destrius

The problem with this is in the time it takes for me to gather 1 flamingo feather, another person could have easily picked 10+ white daffodils or daisies.

The current prices are all based on supply since the demand between all items are equal in cache creation. The more expensive something is, the harder it is to find and that's the way it should be.

That's the reason why I thought of two methods.
Excess would likely be used for the more easily obtained items.
A Trade Ring would form under the duress of need for the rarer components.
Take zOMG items for instance. In all likelyhood, you wouldn't have just one Farmer going at the process. This is ideally of course, but the principle does work. (I tested it with a few groups eariler this week. Five caches in a day!)

[Persistent Alchemist]

Felinicus Mow

Destrius

The problem with this is in the time it takes for me to gather 1 flamingo feather, another person could have easily picked 10+ white daffodils or daisies.

The current prices are all based on supply since the demand between all items are equal in cache creation. The more expensive something is, the harder it is to find and that's the way it should be.

That's the reason why I thought of two methods.
Excess would likely be used for the more easily obtained items.
A Trade Ring would form under the duress of need for the rarer components.
Take zOMG items for instance. In all likelyhood, you wouldn't have just one Farmer going at the process. This is ideally of course, but the principle does work. (I tested it with a few groups eariler this week. Five caches in a day!)

I see this working if the componets are devided into groups.
Zomg components
Town componets
Fishing Components (trash can be included both here and in towns)

Meaning that Zomg components share the same value, town items share the same value, ect.

But great plan though, I am down for it. We alchemist should form a sort of pact like this, it will only be beneficial.

[Felinicus Mow]

Persistent Alchemist

I see this working if the componets are devided into groups.
Zomg components
Town componets
Fishing Components (trash can be included both here and in towns)

Meaning that Zomg components share the same value, town items share the same value, ect.

But great plan though, I am down for it. We alchemist should form a sort of pact like this, it will only be beneficial.

I hadn't thought of dividing them into groups like that. It makes better sense altogether and no one can complain about the rate of exchange being more or less than the item's worth. (Except for a few nitpickers, of which there are always some.)

I'm adding your idea to the Reserve post so that others can see and consider it.

[Periwinkle Buttercup]

Wow. Just wow. Have you ever set yourself down for a Gaia 24-hour period and run through towns picking everything you possibly can pick, as in don't leave a single scrap behind, not even one in a single town. If you do that you will see exactly how the ratios fall with the various town items (providing you can find many of the rarer items--there are people who run through towns during dusk and pick every pink carnation because they have tons of the other flowers and none of them). You can gather 1000 white or blue daisies while you could be doing extremely well to gather 100 pink carnations. Towns just aren't balanced like that. There is good reason why a white daisy costs 1G and a pink carnation costs over 800G. Trying to have an even exchange rate for these items absolutely will not work.

[Felinicus Mow]

Periwinkle Buttercup

There is good reason why a white daisy costs 1G and a pink carnation costs over 800G. Trying to have an even exchange rate for these items absolutely will not work.

Which is why we're trying to find a good way to make it more readily available.
Expecting a perfect turn out on every run isn't realistic, both you and I are aware of that.
This is the reason why I proposed partnerships and that this topic is up for discussion.
The point is: Put aside associated values for the sake of the end result, something we're all trying to get to, and want.
Persistant Alchemist had an interesting idea, to divide the exchange of materials on equal footing, but only within the groups they were collected from.
zOMG to zOMG, Towns to Towns, and etc.

[A.D.1492]

A nice idea in theory, but I don't see how exactly would it work.
I think no matter how you turn this around, it is inevitable that within one group there happens a shortage of winged leafs, feathers and pink carnations.

Also, with groups divided by area, for example - a pink carnation - old crumpled newspaper 1:1 trade would be fair, almost all other very questionable.




After farming in zomg and making caches, I have 43 plastic, 3 feathers and 3 winged leafs left. That says something.

[Felinicus Mow]

A.D.1492

A nice idea in theory, but I don't see how exactly would it work.
I think no matter how you turn this around, it is inevitable that within one group there happens a shortage of winged leafs, feathers and pink carnations.

Also, with groups divided by area, for example - a pink carnation - old crumpled newspaper 1:1 trade would be fair, almost all other very questionable.

You're right about that.
I've been noticing the drop rates of the items aren't spread nearly as evenly as one might hope.
But further distilling the item division is also a very good idea.
There's also the fishing to consider as well.
I've been noticing the catch rate of some guppies, particularly the red ones, is much lower than for others.

[Camass]

I was thinking about this the other day when the FMA items came out. Ed would s**t a ******** of bricks if he saw the jackassery we are calling alchemy.

[Istoleyourtaco]

a few problews and a couple sad realities


1) every item has to have some sort of value in it . Even if you go to a pure barter system which is what you are suggesting somethings will rarer than others unless you change the raratiy of things and it is clear that gaia wants to keep certain things rare so that is a major problem to this. Also as long as th mp exists ther will be some player that will put a value on it then others players will start doing the same and it becomes a snowball effect.

2]all the item mentioned except those in stores may not have single value [but they do have a single cost to obtain them which is free all you have to do is play the game that they are in. All the value is for is if you sell it on the mp or trade them in an exchange

3] it would be nice if everyone would pick a spot and farm that spot but there is really to many players and not to mention there will probably be some players who will not agree to it and there also town and zomg players that want nothing to do with alchemy

4]this would mess up gaia's whole gold system because many of these items are used outside of alchemy some examples

flowers can be used for boquets

bugs are used for ink which in turn is used for tattoos

fish can be exchanged for other items

zomg items are used in recipes

5] everyplayer is going to be after the same few items .I don't know about you but I don't have a problem finding white daisies,

6] almost forgot this one . with the trade ring idea .I don't know about you but I don't really have extra items to trade and the few I do have like daisies no one is going to want because every one will be wanting to trade for carnations

this would be a good idea but the items are to intertwined in gaia's money system to be seperated into a seperate barter system and there will always be atleast a few greedy playyer or a troll that will try to mess things up. Besides Gaia has already made alchemy really easy now any ways any player should be able to do alchemy now.

[Persistent Alchemist]

Ive come up with a pretty solid way in crafting cashes at low rates with the help of a combined effort. In my guild I buy your components for half the market price and sell the cashes back to you for half the price. Right now I barely started the guild so it's not up and running yet but I thinks it's pretty effective and that goes for any alchemy related items too.

[Felinicus Mow]

It all comes down to this:
Are you willing to put in the time and effort it takes to make a team effort?
I cannot in all fairness say that this premise doesn't have flaws, it does, big ones.
But I also cannot say it will not work without trying.

Take this hypothetical situation:
Two players are running fairly short on say, red carnations, they agree to each farm towns and the resulting haul of Red Carnations will be distributed evenly between them.
Because towns are unbalanced, one player may get a little in one run, another may get a lot.
Thus the reason why the agreement would exist to Balance the outcome of a single effort.
Greed is a problem, and it would take people willing to put aside their differences to do it. But it can, and has been done.