Franchise Mode: Flipping animals needs to be prevented

[Salamol]

Please take a look at my Trade History to illustrate the issue. To explain, I'm buying Buffalo for dirt cheap (either from Frontier Zoo or from players listing at the suggested trade price) and then relisting them for a much higher amount. There aren't many Buffalo (often the list is empty) on the market, so even a high price will sell very quickly (within minutes).

I don't think there would be a major negative effect if animals bought on the market with (Conservation Credits) could not then be resold. For the last 28 hours I've been breeding animals like Warthogs and Peafowl, with most of my time dedicated to selling them for a profit of ~10CC each time. I slowly crept up to 20,000 Conservation credits. Within just an hour of "playing the market" I made another 20,000.

Part of the challenge of Franchise, for me, was working through and breeding gold quality animals, then selling those to buy more, expanding my zoo. The Conservation Credit system was the major draw, like a ladder I needed to climb. This is a shortcut that needs to be closed. It was brought up repeatedly in Beta and it's a little disappointing it hasn't been dealt with.

 

[Geordie1881]

It also wasn't a census opinion during Beta so I find your suggestion a little unbalanced. It was brought up repeatedly but it was also challenged repeatedly. Taking your example, if there was a cap, you'd be less likely to breed to a Gold standard (why would you go Gold for 20cc when you can get 10cc for no badge at all) allowing a fair market is the fair way forward. You found some bargains... be happy

If someone is selling below market rate then that is their choice. If people pay over the top then again it is their choice.

Perhaps the issue here is that Frontier shouldn't feed the market with cheap options and their animals should be in line with the rest of the market.

 

[sleepy_sloth]

I see your point, but I really like the cheap frontier animals. I would love to be able to spend 28 hours for just breeding and selling warthogs and peafowls, but I don't have that much time. I also sell good animals cheaply, because I don't buy that much from the market anyway and somebody else might be happy to get a gold red panda for 200 leaves.

I think a solution would be to put an end to "buy and immediately sell".

 

[Salamol]

I'm certainly not suggesting a cap. And I don't have a problem with the Frontier Zoo animals.

I just don't think the most efficient way (by a country mile) of earning Conservation Credits should be to buy low and sell high. That doesn't, to me, seem like intended game behaviour.

 

[MsRedNebula]

Perhaps just a time limit on how quickly you can sell an animal for CC after you've bought it - you'd only be allowed to sell for cash or release for a certain period of time. Making it inconvenient, but not impossible, would curb this behaviour.

 

[Agathorn]

I always find it hard to accept people saying that you shouldn't be able to do something, while they go ahead and do it.

 

[Amancham]

I always find it hard to accept people saying that you shouldn't be able to do something, while they go ahead and do it.

Well, it's proof of concept. You can play the entire game without doing what was intended (buy animals, breed them, release or resell their young to gain conservation points to buy a better animal and start the cycle again) and just playing the market. I know why I'm not a fan of the entire franchise concept. Oh well, yes to the concept, big no no to how it works right now.

It just bugs me, because the idea behind franchise is, that people work together to breed good quality animals and release them to the wild or trade them with other zoos to keep from inbreeding and messing up the gene pool. But as it stands right now, I look at the market and all I find reasonably priced are inbred animals with low genes as in 0 fertility or/and 0 immunity and any slightly better animal costs you an arm and a leg, because people buy and resell them, just to gain conservation points. So yes, I understand the OPs statement, that this 'should not be possible' it's just not what was intended with the feature, but frontier left it open to be messed with. Intentionally or by accident, I do not know.

Either way this makes it, so that you are kinda forced to overprice your animals in order to progress in the game and makes it harder for people to start out if all they get for their few cc is animals with bad genes that don't sell. It is really hard to progress if you are trying to be fair and price your own animals at normal prices. Or maybe I'm just too nice. Guess I'll rather stick with the other modes and leave franchise be.

 

[Geordie1881]

It just bugs me, because the idea behind franchise is, that people work together to breed good quality animals and release them to the wild or trade them with other zoos to keep from inbreeding and messing up the gene pool.

Unless I am missing something you are speculating on the purpose of franchise mode. If that is the intention (which I also kind of agree with btw, but am not happy to state it as fact without evidence) then my trade suggestion would be one option (see link)

Trading Animals

It would be good to offer a "swap-shop" style within the market to allow similar animals to be traded (without cc or $ changing hands) with a focus on varied breeding Suggest that once your Zoo reaches a certain reputation you could sign-up to inter-Zoo agreements to swap animals for the...

forums.frontier.co.uk

Personally, I'd welcome both options but both should impact your conservation status (stars) and this should limit what animals you can feature in your zoo.

It seems a little off that you can have any creature you want even with staff at level 1 and no conservation reputation. I started my zoo with a single Siberian Tiger... how many small local zoos in real life have that?!

 

[Geordie1881]

Perhaps just a time limit on how quickly you can sell an animal for CC after you've bought it - you'd only be allowed to sell for cash or release for a certain period of time. Making it inconvenient, but not impossible, would curb this behaviour.

I see your point, but I really like the cheap frontier animals. I would love to be able to spend 28 hours for just breeding and selling warthogs and peafowls, but I don't have that much time. I also sell good animals cheaply, because I don't buy that much from the market anyway and somebody else might be happy to get a gold red panda for 200 leaves.

I think a solution would be to put an end to "buy and immediately sell".

I'm certainly not suggesting a cap. And I don't have a problem with the Frontier Zoo animals.

I just don't think the most efficient way (by a country mile) of earning Conservation Credits should be to buy low and sell high. That doesn't, to me, seem like intended game behaviour.

All of these are personal preferences and do not necessarily reflect everyone's view and would spoil the game for many.

Salamol -> how would you fix the problem without introducing caps ?
Sleepy -> Who doesn't like cheap animals in the game? but then why savage the people who sell for a higher rate when the people are willing to pay it? It is market forces in action
Red -> Perhaps, and I don't disagree to an extent, but how long is ok? The animals don't age in the market so does it really matter if you have to wait 6 hours? 24 hours?

Personally, I think people can choose what to list their animals for. I'd like to see another parameter dictating what animals you can access to and I see reputation as the obvious choice.

Under the crrent system, I have multiple habitats (or soon will have 5 for each species) for cats (currently Sib & Ben Tigers + Snow Leopards) and am breeding to sell/release. For still a small zoo (~10 species) it seems strange that I have such animals. I am comparing this to UK Zoos and appreciate elsewhere this may be the norm.

 

[Amancham]

Unless I am missing something you are speculating on the purpose of franchise mode. If that is the intention (which I also kind of agree with btw, but am not happy to state it as fact without evidence) then my trade suggestion would be one option

Uh, I can't recall exactly anymore, but I believe, that it was said in a stream by frontier themselves, that Franchise was meant to be a way for Zoos to work together to breed/release and so on. But in all honesty, I am not 100% sure anymore nor would I know where to find that again.

 

[Geordie1881]

Uh, I can't recall exactly anymore, but I believe, that it was said in a stream by frontier themselves, that Franchise was meant to be a way for Zoos to work together to breed/release and so on. But in all honesty, I am not 100% sure anymore nor would I know where to find that again.

It may have been intended to be a way to work together but that doesn't make it the only reason for the market to exist. Your post suggested it was the only purpose

 

[Salamol]

Salamol -> how would you fix the problem without introducing caps ?

I think the idea to prevent reselling entirely should be explored. The functionality already exists with Frontier Zoo cash-bought animals, it could be extended either to Frontier Zoo CC animals, or even as far as all player animals.

I think we're all here to voice our personal preferences, that's why I haven't raised this issue in the Issue Tracker because it's not actually a bug, but I do believe it devalues the Franchise Mode experience. I no longer need to spend any time breeding animals to build up my CC balance, and neither does anyone else. A new player could start a franchise and have 100,000 Conservation Credits within a day. I've made 120,000 CC since making my post yesterday, and that's with only playing for around 6 hours. It definitely started as uh... for proof of concept reasons... but now it's hard to not just feed contraceptives to my breeders.

There are other aspects of Franchise Mode and PZ in general that I really enjoy. But there's something that happens in games, particularly online, where the most efficient method of earning currency makes the other methods seem... shall we say "not worthy of the effort", unless they're fun to do. Buying an Elephant for 500 and selling it for 5000 within 30 seconds is a far more efficient way to generate CC than to wade through any fast breeding animal, separating out good and bad genes, keeping the best stock and selling the rest.

 

[Geordie1881]

I think the idea to prevent reselling entirely should be explored. The functionality already exists with Frontier Zoo cash-bought animals, it could be extended either to Frontier Zoo CC animals, or even as far as all player animals.

I think we're all here to voice our personal preferences, that's why I haven't raised this issue in the Issue Tracker because it's not actually a bug, but I do believe it devalues the Franchise Mode experience. I no longer need to spend any time breeding animals to build up my CC balance, and neither does anyone else. A new player could start a franchise and have 100,000 Conservation Credits within a day. I've made 120,000 CC since making my post yesterday, and that's with only playing for around 6 hours. It definitely started as uh... for proof of concept reasons... but now it's hard to not just feed contraceptives to my breeders.

There are other aspects of Franchise Mode and PZ in general that I really enjoy. But there's something that happens in games, particularly online, where the most efficient method of earning currency makes the other methods seem... shall we say "not worthy of the effort", unless they're fun to do. Buying an Elephant for 500 and selling it for 5000 within 30 seconds is a far more efficient way to generate CC than to wade through any fast breeding animal, separating out good and bad genes, keeping the best stock and selling the rest.

Salamol, yes but you are doing the exact thing you are complaining about. If you didn't do it, how would it really affect you? There are still animals to buy cheap and you can sell for whatever you deem appropriate. Seems like a very simple user-fix to me.

In reagrd to buy and sell, I often do this within 6 months. By a male to use as stud then sell him on once the female is pregnant. I don't look to make a profit necessarily, i just sell at what I perceive the market rate to be at the time.

Removing re-sale entirely, stops me from doing this (and 'stud' animals are a common zoo practice). Your issue with the market can be resolve simply by not doing it...

 

[Silhouette]

I've been pretty neutral about this whole topic ever since the beta. Probably doesn't help that in games in the past, I was a reseller that bought low and sold high to make a profit xD But anyway I've finally gotten into playing Franchise more and my opinion on this is:

I don't see a benefit to begin limiting players on what they can or can't do in an open market.

You're going to get resellers. You're going to get snipers. That's just how an online market works, and starting to limit that is then going to infringe on people that aren't 'abusing the system's, like Geordie for example.

If it bothers you so much then don't sell your animals cheap? I often sell my animals quite a bit below market price, simply because I know they'll sell quickly. I don't really feel like waiting for hours just to sell at a high price. If someone wants to then resell at a higher price ok, go for it.

Also the main mechanic of CC and Franchise mode seems to be start with smaller animals and make your way up. New players aren't meant to come in and have a tiger right away. If they want that, they can go to Challenge mode. It's not even hard to make CC. Nile monitors for example are easy to have at the beginning and I've released babies into the wild for up to 100CC.

 

[Salamol]

In reagrd to buy and sell, I often do this within 6 months. By a male to use as stud then sell him on once the female is pregnant. I don't look to make a profit necessarily, i just sell at what I perceive the market rate to be at the time.

Removing re-sale entirely, stops me from doing this (and 'stud' animals are a common zoo practice).

I genuinely didn't consider this.

 

[Geordie1881]

I genuinely didn't consider this.

good, thanks for the honesty in replying too. Unfortunately I am in the position where I just messed up and bought a bear instead of the stud tiger I needed (thought I already bought it!) haha