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Perhaps the range needs to be narrower, but I think you must have a range. If players are forced to trade at the highest level offered by the merchant then there is no reason to trade, unless perhaps you play a 0 DM game. This rule change essentially bans trades between players by proxy.
I do really appreciate where you are coming from Tirnoch with the point about abuse, but making significant changes to many legitimate players’ gameplay to tackle a minority of aggressive abusers seems to be the wrong answer to me. I think there will be a range available which will allow players to still play their game but which will stymie the abuse you are targeting by making trades between players broadly even to that of the merchant. 3:2:1 is not the answer.
I get where you're coming from, and I agree that for many players, fair and flexible trading has always been part of the game. But here's the thing: the whole appeal of fixed trade rates like 3:2:1 is that it removes ambiguity, which in turn:
Kills off trade-based pushing/pulling abuse,
Simplifies the job for an already overstretched Game Team, and
Levels the playing field for everyone.
Even if the number of players abusing the system is relatively small, the impact they have is massive, because they're typically involved in top-tier account coordination, DM-fueled growth, or outright resource laundering. And they do it under the radar, because the range gave them cover. That’s what made enforcement so difficult.
A "narrower range" may seem like a compromise, but it doesn’t solve the core problem — it just keeps enforcement complicated and subjective. That defeats the point of the change.
And as for the concern that players won’t trade anymore because they could just use the merchant: 3:2:1 is already the best rate the merchant gives. If someone wants to save DM, they'll still trade. If someone doesn't care about DM, they’ll keep using the merchant like they already do.
So in practice, the net impact is minimal for fair players — but a major win against abuse and for the Game Team's ability to enforce rules consistently.
I think respectfully Tirnoch that this misses the point of most fleeter miner interaction. Of course players can get a better rate from the merchant, the selling player’s (usually the miner) main incentive to sell at a lower rate is protection from the buying fleeter, and the buying fleeter is incentivised by the lower rate than they can obtain from the merchant offer. If the buying fleeter no longer receives a preferential rate then there is no incentive to buy and no reason to reduce their targets. Nobody on any server I have ever played on trades at 3/2/1.
My point is that this change removes the vast majority of the incentives for trading, and in doing so more or less bans trading. As you say, doing so may be a good thing to prevent abuse, but I think that the community and the top powers need to be clear eyed on the effect of this change and the impact it will have on player interaction
by Neotinea
