Item buyback suggestion

[Gizzmo 14]

I am sure someone somewhere talked about this, however, I wanted to add my 2¢ to the conversation. Since it is not possible to sell/trade equipment within the game I would really appreciate if TankiOnline would initiate a "buy back" program to pay users for turrets/hulls/paint (supplies excluded) which players do not want anymore. The reason behind this request is simple: the garage gets too crowded over time and players may want to sell unused paints or turrets so only the equipment they use stays in the garage.

 

For instance: a player purchased a product kit "Krakatoa" with Invader paint. However, the player never uses the Invader because Vulcan (Invader protects only from Vulcan) never bothers the player as much as, say Firebird, so the player always wears paint that protects him or her from the Firebird. Now, however, Invader paint is available in the player's garage and s/he needs to scroll through it to get to new, better paints s/he could purchase. Over time such unused paints accumulate and it gets annoying to get through stuff in the garage. This, however, is not limited to paints. A player may purchase Firebird M0 to try it out, and later realize that they do not like it. Later the player may buy another turret they enjoy better than anything else. Now the player would like to get rid of the Firebird from their garage forever, but currently they can't... The opportunity to sell unwanted equipment from the garage would be an awesome solution to this problem.

 

How to determine the amount of crystals to pay back? I would prefer to get back exact amount of crystals I paid for the item. However, keeping track of how much a player paid for a particular item (i.e. did he or she bought it in a kit, on a holiday sale, or paid the full price) may be hard to implement. As an alternative TankiOnline may choose to to buy back the equipment at a set rate (say, 50% off of the current price). In this case, if I'd choose to sell back, for instance, a Mammoth M2 (full price is 80,300 crystals) I'd have an opportunity to sell it back for 40,150 crystals which I then could use to buy other items. As another possible alternative (I'd prefer to have both options available), a player may choose to receive supplies as the form of payment for 100% of the crystals his or her item currently worth. In the previous example, the player, who wants to sell the unwanted Mammoth M2, would have an opportunity to get 80,300 crystals worth of supplies he or she can pick and choose (i.e. 400 repair kits, 200 double protection, and 6 speed boosts, at the player's discretion, would be a valid combination to receive back for that Mammoth M2, same as 535 repair kits and one double damage). Since supplies are being sold in kits at up to 80% off, players wouldn't be able to cheat the system by buying items in kits at 40-45% off and then getting supplies at the full price. Even if an item was purchased on sale, the sale percentage would only transpose to supplies.

 

How about microupgrades? Current system already keeps track of this. If a player fully upgrades Mammoth M2 before reaching Generalissimo rank, the moment they hit the 1,400,000 XP mark they can buy the Mammoth M3 for 0 crystals. This means that the system already considers their current Mammoth M2 valued at M3, so the value of such, fully microupgraded Mammoth M2, would be 324,500 crystals, instead of 80,300 crystals. I doubt any player would do such a thing in really life, however; it is only an example.

 

How many items can be removed from the garage? I think that the only limit should be the floor of, say, two purchased items. Let's take a look at paints: such paints as Green, Holiday, Premium, Helper, etc. should not be counted against this limit; only paints the player purchased for crystals. Also, any item which was earned or won cannot be sold, so if a player won a dream tank they cannot sell any part (turret, hull, and paint) of this dream tank. This will give player an opportunity, as s/he ranks up, to remove any and all purchased paints, leaving only two most useful paints they like (such as Africa and Lumberjack).

 

How about experience earned with the unwanted item? There are couple of ways to go about. If an item, such as paint, was never used, there is no problem: a player earned 0 XP so buying it back wouldn't mess player's stats. However, if a player used that Firebird M0 for an hour or two before realizing it's not what he or she wants, they have accumulated some experience points, which now are tied to their account. To be fair in this regard, it is possible to remove the XP points as long as it doesn't downgrade player's rank. Allow me to illustrate this. A player, who just ranked up to a Master Sergeant (20,000 XP), used Invader paint to earn 10,000 experience points and now s/he wants to sell the paint. He or she cannot sell it at this rank because removing 10,000 XP points would drop their rank to Sergeant. Instead, the player need to rank up to First Sergeant (29,000 XP) and earn another 10,000 XP using some other paint before this player will have an opportunity to sell back the Invader paint. It means that if an item was used to earn more than 145,000 XP, then only Generalissimos will be able to remove such item from their garage, given they earn 1,400,000 XP points, plus the amount of XP points the unwanted item helped them to earn.

 

Another way to go about XP is to leave it as it is and charge players a "used item" fee in the form of crystals. Say said Invader paint (worth 2,000 crystals) earned a player 1,000 XP. This would mean that the current value of the paint is (2,000 - 1,000 =) 1,000 crystals. Following my logic above a player can trade it for supplies (worth 1,000 crystals), or sell it back for 500 crystals, high then they may use to buy other items. TankiOnline may choose to set a rate (say 25%) at which they would accept back an item if it earned more XP than it costs. In such a case, if said Invader paint used to earn a player more than 2,000 XP, it's value still would never drop below 500 crystals (if paid in supplies).

 

There is a philosophical issue about these XP points (actually about how they would reflect in player's profile). Consider a situation when a player removes two hulls they seldom use from their garage - wouldn't this distort their profile image? In my opinion player profiles are already somewhat distorted because it doesn't reflect how many XP points the player earned with, say, Hornet M0, how many were earned with Hornet M1, Hornet M2, etc. It just shows bulk XP earned with Hornet hull. In my opinion more precise way way would be to separate each modification of the Hornet hull to show accurate picture in the player's profile, however, that would be too bulky and, frankly, unnecessary. Since the profile image is already somewhat distorted, making the suggested changes wouldn't add too much entropy in the profile. If TankiOnline are concerned with preserving an accurate picture of the profile, then they may create another "bulk" item in the profile called "Other hulls," "Other paints," etc. In this case, if a player sells a Wasp and a Mammoth hulls they don't like to use anymore, at some point their profile may read: "100,000 XP earned with Viking M2 hull, 50,000 XP earned with Hornet M2 hull, 10,000 XP earned with Hunter hull, and 35,000 XP earned with Other hulls."

 

All of the above is merely a suggestion, which, I'm sure, many players would welcome. I appreciate that you read this far and I truly hope you decided to act on it, be it in whole or in a smallest part. Thank you for your attention and have a great week ahead!

[fordmustang12345 3,910]

Tanki won't add this as it would supposedly "ruin the economy" of Tanki

[r_L-E-O-P-A-R-D-2003 657]

hmm nice idea carry on :)

[r_L-E-O-P-A-R-D-2003 657]

Nice u write to long but i didn't read a single word u wrote :D

[billypowell2 84]

It won't happen. Suggested countless times before and will still never be implemented into the game.

[Maf 32,305]

• Ideas regarding refund and / or selling items are not accepted.

Ideas and suggestions section rules.

 

Also I think you may be interested in making a reporter application :)

 

Closed.