6/5/2023 - devlog
This week we can share what the next release will entail and Fabian dives into the details and motivation behind the rating mechanism update.
Michi (molp)
I am back from a short vacation, so naturally there is not much I can talk about this week. Except! There is a new release upcoming, and we finally can share what it will entail!
You can find all the details in the respective Release Notes topic on the forums!
It is also the start of a new month, and that means it is time for a new monthly economic report!
Click the image for the full report
I haven't been able to add new categories this time, but will do so for the next report!
Fabian (Counterpoint)
Today I want to talk a bit about a rework of the company rating system that will be a part of the Liquidity release.
Currently, every company's rating has 3 sub-scores: activity, reliability and stability. We've been getting feedback on these for a long time now, mainly that high reliability (i.e. a high percentage of fulfilled, and therefore not breached, contracts) is by far the most important factor for almost all players. Activity on the other hand is seen more as an "interesting trivia" piece of information and "stability" is easily the most obscure one that's rarely every considered for any decisions.
In the future, there will only be one rating, and no more sub-scores. In short, we will "double down" on the idea of the previous reliability sub-score, but take into account the value of each individual contract. The old reliability rating only cared about "fulfilled contracts" and ignored whether said contract was buying 3 rations or 300 prefabs. In the future, the latter contract will be much more impactful for your overall rating, since the value of conditions involving either currency or materials (i.e. "something of value") changing owners will be considered. As a side note, this will be especially important for the new loan contract templates we're introducing, since these are even more well-defined "pure value" exchanges than e.g. buying or selling commodities.
Your company rating will then be determined by how much the contracts you fulfilled were actually worth (versus the contracts you breached). Of course a few other mechanisms will stay in place to e.g. ensure we take a healthy mix of different contract partners into account and also don't only just consider the most valuable contracts ever to give the ratings a bit of recency.
However, the overall idea is to simplify the ratings by getting rid of superfluous elements, while also making them more meaningful and useful to players at the same time by placing more weight on fulfilling more valuable obligations. As usual, let us know your thoughts on these upcoming changes in the forums!
As always: we'd love to hear what you think: join us on Discord or the forums!
Happy trading!