Supplier Pass Suggestions

Full support for supplier pass bundles! Earlier this week a friend actually invited to join a supplier pass sharing group and I ended up turning down the request. I'm too risk averse for marketplace trading (I don't know how things are now, but when I first started playing, I heard stories of other users sniping marketplace trades and making a big fuss about or outright refusing to give the items back) and the idea of sitting down to do 50+ trades to receive and then send back everyone's passes (it would be a lot less trades just to send mine out, but ideally I would also benefit from joining lol) sounds miserable to me. The way this feature works is actively discouraging me from collaborating with other users on a site that otherwise encourages collaborating with other users. I do also agree with these points though. Trying to hunt Ditto or any of the UBs is already such a slog because the supplier is really the only viable way to do it (the addition of Beast Balls to the prize shop was very much appreciated, but collecting those is still much more expensive than ordering eggs in bulk from the supplier). I'm not sure what making that experience even worse will achieve other than discouraging users from doing those hunts. I think it sounds fair to lock the passes until the order is delivered, and I could even see the argument for locking them until eggs are retrieved (though, again, this will disproportionately impact users who are using the supplier for things like Ditto and UBs which take a long time to hatch and don't have alternatives), but adding a single blanket auto-release timer to all eggs ordered from the supplier when all eggs ordered from the supplier are not created equal doesn't feel balanced to me. My vote would still be against adding a timer entirely, but if I may make a suggestion: I think if you do add an auto-release timer, you should consider making it different timers for different groups of eggs. All else being equal, a user who orders 24 10k exp eggs will take twice as long to hatch them as a user who orders 24 5k exp eggs, so why should both users be put under the same time crunch? Why should a user ordering 24 30k eggs also be put under that same time crunch? Would it be so unbalanced if the auto-release timer scaled with how much time it takes to actually hatch the eggs?

The players would also "be happy" if every single Egg hatched Shiny. That doesn't mean it's good for the game. My current thoughts would be along the lines of "hold time = 12x the max delivery time, counting from when the order was placed". So practical hold time would be somewhere between 11x and 12x depending on how quickly it actually arrived. This would bring back the 24 hour limit for the Swarm category, but give you almost half a year to claim Ditto eggs. The point being, it shouldn't be infinite, because that enables "advantage play" for certain egg hatching tournaments, if you can pre-order a mountain of eggs and hold them until a specific Tournament happens.

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I can definitely look into tiers of passes that give more slots. Here's an example of how it could work with the locking of "in-use" passes: - Let's say you already have the max of 6 orders in progress. You want to order another 3 eggs, and you have a "Supplier Pass 10" in your inventory. - After confirming, the "Supplier Pass 10" would be "locked" to your account, giving you 10 extra slots even though you're only using 3 of them. - You could then order another 7 eggs without any further Pass being needed, since you have an active expansion of 10 slots. - Once you've collected enough of your orders to be below the normal limit of 6 again, the locked "Supplier Pass 10" becomes reclaimable, since you aren't actively using it any more. Essentially this means that the pass is "used" to expand your Supplier orders, but you can "reclaim" them once you aren't using them any more. It was always intended to be that one pass equals one extra order. Going forward I do want to have bigger passes, but let's stick with the solo pass for a moment. If I have one and order an extra egg with it, then trade it to a friend so they can order an extra egg, that's two eggs being ordered with a single pass - and of course there's no reason to stop there. This is the "overpowered" part of the pass that's literally not working as intended. That's what I intend to adjust with the "pass locking" system.

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Of course with such a rework, the prices would need to change. They'll still be quite expensive because the Supplier is primarily useful for lategame players so it's good to have that be expensive overall. But obviously if I intentionally add something like a "Supplier Pass 10", I'm sure we can all agree that having it cost 5k GP is a bit excessive! When the time comes, there'll be a way to recover some value from the passes - whether that be a full or partial refund of the GP, or trading them in for an appropriate bulk pass.

Thank you for looking into tiered passes to make them easier to trade. ^^

first of all, i love the suggestion as a whole. i never personally borrow or lend supplier passes as i dont like the risk involved with the market, and trading 5 at a time takes waaaay too long for me to bother with it. bulk passes would be an awesome idea, and might incentivise me to lend out my passes when i'm not using them. i like/don't mind all of the other points you've put forward regarding your plans for supplier passes in future. however, could this not be solved by slapping the 'time of creation' rule on more tourneys? the supplier seems to already track creation based on when the eggs are available, but i might be missing something here. let me know if i'm having a silly moment, i just got back from work so my brain is a little fried xD losing the hold time wouldn't usually affect me too much, as i usually hatch my eggs on the day of them being available. however, i think at least a week minimum should be added for the lower rarity eggs. as other people have said, life happens and sometimes you cant get to your eggs straight away. i know swarm-common aren't exactly expensive for the late game users like me using them, but it's still a considerable loss if something out of your control comes up. ultimately, i do agree with people saying that having no limit to it has been and will continue to be best. sometimes i order eggs fully intending to get through them before a tourney or type race for example, don't manage to hatch them all in time/they don't arrive on time and so i save them until after the event is over. having to use them instantly OR losing time on an event would be really frustrating to me. but yes, going back to it i really love the idea of supplier passes giving multiple order slots! that sounds like a great improvement for such an expensive item. I also think the 'locked to account' part is fine too, it's very fair for such a powerful item. very interested to see the potential price changes too :D edit: my melted brain quoted the wrong part of the message

@scavengers Unfortunately that doesn't solve the advantage play issue. Let's say for example you have 100 passes. Right now you can see a Tournament get announced, and see that the supplier will work (eg. It's not a Lab or Daycare one). You then immediately order 106 eggs from the supplier, but don't pick them up until the tournament starts. You then also trade the passes with friends so they too can order 106 eggs, all from the same set of passes. You now have a friend group with an effective 100 point head start on anyone else in the tournament. This is too powerful. Not to mention you can set it up in advance, taking all the time you want to prepare to flood a tournament of your choosing. Bringing back the time limit will reduce the impact of this strategy, as will locking the passes until the eggs are collected.

Even if a timer is implemented, is there anything stopping someone from ordering the eggs anyway? You can only sign up for a tournament 3-4 days in advance before the tournament starts. Given the timer you are proposing, it would not be short enough for those eggs to be boot anyway. And what is stopping someone from using the supplier to order those eggs 23 hours before the tournament starts? I think a system to lock the passes will keep people from tradng the passes and giving others that unfair advantage, definitely. But I don't think a time limit will stop that unfair advantage you're talking about. I also don't really see it as an unfair advantage either. Would you say that people that can afford to buy hundreds of DCP have an unfair advantage in some hatching tourneys because they are not restricted to the free shelter + daycare adopts? Just because someone can afford to purchase DCP or buy from the supplier doesn't make it unfair, I think it is just them using the systems available to all members. They just happen to have the currency to afford these things.

I have my own opinion on the whole thing that I may edit into this post or post later so as to not double post, but I just wanted to say that you took the words right out of my mouth with this. (Well, personally I do think there is a bit of an unfair advantage there, but it's more to do with the way the tournaments are designed than people using the tools at their disposal.) Locking passes, I understand. (Though personally I'm not a huge fan of that either, for reasons I was going to get into in my explanation that I'll add in later.) But a lack of time limit giving people a huge advantage seems like a stretch to me, because they can do the same exact thing with daycare passes, and even with a time limit, if they start ordering once the next tournament is announced, they can still stock up. If someone has enough money, they can stock up on daycare passes, get a 99% pair, and click away to stock up on hundreds of eggs a day before the tournament. When you have a high percentage pair, it's not really hard to end up sitting on a bunch of eggs, even with the auto-release. Honestly, that seems like more of an inherent downside to that type of tournament, rather than the supplier. Someone with more money to spend will always have an advantage. If it's a daycare tournament, someone who can afford DCPs will obviously have an advantage over a newer player who only has their daily free adoptions, and late game players or people who are willing to spend real money on ZC, who can afford hundreds of them, will always be able to come out ahead so long as they're willing to put in the effort of clicking all those eggs. The same is true for non-lab tournaments with certain goals, but to a lesser extent. Users who can't afford the supplier, supplier passes, or tons of DCPs will be restricted to their free daycare adoptions, lab, and shelter adopts, and will struggle to make top 100. Anyone with more currency or who hoards items has an advantage. (Though this is helped a lot by the revamp of the lab! Easier lab reloaders and more slots makes it much easier to find valid point-scoring eggs!) Of course it's also the case that you have to be willing to actually put in the effort wrt clicking to actually make use of any advantage, but even then, people who put in the effort but are unable to afford tons of DCP or whatnot will still be behind, because they'll hit a brick wall that others will not.

I can understand how locking passes will greatly balance this (only one person gets the advantage, rather than a whole friend group), and I can understand how limiting the time limit will also help (so you can't just stockpile eggs months in advance). But, when tourneys sign ups already only open two days in advance, will there be a meaningful difference between someone who orders eggs two days before the tourney starts and someone who orders eggs one day before the tourney starts? Also, on the topic of "advantage", you could draw a comparison to DCP, and to a lesser amount, Shelter Passes. Someone who buys a pack or two of DCP will also have that "100 point headstart". Someone with a Shelter Pass Star will have an advantage over those who don't. Someone who buys ZC to support this amazing site, like I do on occasion, will have more resources/currency to put towards any goal they have. Long-time players having more resources to spend is a normal part of nearly every community game. However, I understand that you may want to "draw the line" at supplier passes for the sake of drawing a line ^^

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In other news, I'm probably gonna rename this thread to just a more generic "Supplier Pass Suggestions" in accordance with the unexpectedly increased scope of this thread.

Well this is why we discuss things XD Yeah, you guys are right, the time limit really doesn't change the impact to tournaments. I just... don't really like having things be "permanent"? Like the Daycare auto-releases after a day and that's okay because it helps keep the Shelter stocked... It's also kinda for in-universe reasons, Eggs aren't really supposed to be "permanently" eggs, if that makes sense? But I get it. I need a "good" reason to bring back the timer, and as you've shown, I don't really have one yet.

Thank you, Niet. I personally think it's pretty fair to have them last as long as we need - it is a huge startup cost as well as an additional cost of another currency to order any significant amount of them, and locking them so only one person can have the order active at a time will likely encourage others to get their own supplier passes, especially for long orders. I do loan mine out but I wouldn't want to loan out a lot of them if they were going to gone from me for a week!