Merchant Autotrade-Duration Variance
Intro
This is an idea to help lessen the whining over prime spot vendor camping.
This "Enhancement" idea focuses on rewarding or punishing the behaviors of vendors depending on how they use autotrade. Each master account will need to store 1 value, which represents the number of times they use autotrade in a good way divided by the number of times they use autotrade in a bad way across all character accounts on that master account.
Enhancement Description
When you first start vending with your merchant, its autotrade time can vary between: [0,9] days
As you continue vending, if you let the merchant time out on its own(as in you don't kick it by manually logging in), and the ratio of times it times out vs the times you manually kick it remains greater than say 5:1 (these numbers can be changed), then its lower bound vend time keeps increasing until it reaches an autotrade time variance between: [5,9] days
If on the other hand, your vending behavior consists mostly of kicking the merchant manually (which is what spot savers typically do), and your ratio of times it times out vs times you manually kick was, as a starting point greater than 5:1, then first the lower bound variance starts to decrease until it reaches 0. If this kicking behavior continues, and lets say the ratio approaches 1:5 or less, then the merchant's upper bound also begins to decrease until it reaches a minimum autotrade time variance between: [0,3] days
Recap
Good Behavior
If you're more prone to let the merchant time out, your vendor autotrade time approaches a random time between: [5,9] days
Ratio: 5 timeouts per 1 kick (if the stored value is 5.0 or greater)
Indifferent Behavior
If you let the merchant timeout and kick it manually, each equally often, your vendor autotrade time approaches a random time between: [0,9] days
Ratio: 1 timeout per 1 kick (if the stored value is 1.0)
Bad Behavior
If you're more prone to manually kick the merchant, your vendor autotrade time approaches a random time between: [0,3] days
Ratio: 1 timeout per 5 kicks (if the stored value is 0.2 or less)
*Graph Notes:
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Black line represents current autotrade duration (fixed at 7 days)
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Blue area represents the variable autotrade duration range depending on what your autotrade behavior (stored value) is equal to.
The minimum autotrade duration is represented by the bottom edge of the blue area.
The maximum autotrade duration is represented by the top edge of the blue area.
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Graph is on logarithmic scale, and the curved lines are actually linear.
Rationale
Putting in this sort of variance will attack prime spot camping with a 5 prong approach:
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Encourage spot campers not to manually kick their merchants with the reward to achieve longer average vend times.
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Spot campers that continue to behave the way they do, will only be vending for 0-3 days, which will allow other players to take the spot when their merchant goes down.
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Spot campers that continue to behave the way they do, will have to put their merchants up 3 to infinity (if they are really unlucky) times more often than they currently do.
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No matter what behavior is selected, the autotrade time will have a variance, so spot campers will not be able to perfectly "time" when to login to their merchant to retake the spot.
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Tying the stored value to the master account rather than character account ensures "spot saver" characters aren't temporarily used to save a spot for a spot camper's "actual" vendors.
Additional Information
*Notes:
-The variance times increase or decrease linearly, so if your ratio is somewhere between the values, you will have to interpolate to get exactly what your variance end caps are.
-Manual kicks that occur under an hour of vend time will not count in the formula (QoL to help if vendors mess up what they are vending)
-Server crashes will not count to either behavior.
-The same formulas may be applied to buy shops.