Improve matching and UX for packages, or rather unowned and wishlisted games included within them

Only rarely do users wishlist packages directly on the site. Most wishlist entries are synced from Steam, and it follows they're mostly appIDs.

In the offer screen, packages are not first-class citizens: they live in their own dark corner of the list, not among the real games. Packages can appear in offers in confusing ways (this bug is that a user can't be offered the package, but lacks package content in library, so that floats freely between two other packages, and it looks like it belongs to the package above). Once a package is added to an offer, the package contents the trade partner is missing are not shown anymore. It would be neat to see how many items in a package the other party already owns, similarly to how ESGST shows this for bundle tables. (Though this relies on users syncing their DLCs!)

On my crusade for enforcing package trading https://github.com/bartervg/barter.vg/issues/23 https://github.com/bartervg/barter.vg/issues/24 a better trade experience for them would be most welcome.

For each item included in a package in your tradables, its tradables list should show you as having it combined, with the combined text linking to the package. (What about multiple qualifying packages? Should they all be listed, or just the first SQL result?) Example https://barter.vg/i/50729/ included in https://barter.vg/i/110959/

Solves:

[16:34] Tecfan: regarding packages on barter tho: I always add both the package and the individual DLC's/games in my tradables, as you don't show up as a tradee on the DLC page if you only add the package.

See also https://steamcommunity.com/groups/bartervg/discussions/0/3938911974173620566/

It would be neat to see how many items in a package the other party already owns, similarly to how ESGST shows this for bundle tables.

To elaborate on this point, both the Match and Offer screens should enable expanding (uncollapsing) a package into a list-like (indented?) view that shows collection statuses and perhaps tags for the individual included items in the package. This could be akin to the tradable/wishlist/library/etc collection info you see for each item added to an offer, or it could be a new view. Unfortunately there is no package distinguisher, as we flag them Game and such, or DLC if it is a DLC bundle, and in case going by included presence is the only way, we would have to clean up actual base games to which we included apps every owner gets (like not-really-DLC, Tools, server daemons), else we'd also show this for a variety of base games. Optionally, there could be an extra icon showing (on hover? on click as a mini-popup?) why a package item or within-package item is matched to a user or in-offer wishlist. This might aid in debugging all of the above.

Practical example: As a result, a user X (who owns the The Night of the Rabbit base game) should only have to wishlist either one of https://barter.vg/i/12906/ and https://barter.vg/i/39374/ to be offered all Barter-wide ways to trade for their missing DLC. A potential trade partner Y with a copy of The Night of the Rabbit Premium Edition would be shown by the uncollapsed package view (on the Match or Offer screen) that X is merely missing the relatively minor DLC and thus – in this constellation – their item does not have a lot of trade value between these two parties. Y will know only to part with it if they can easily spare it. X will know that they would have to "overpay" to get their missing DLC, as for the other party it's a whole game & DLC package. Y won't ask X for Skyrim in return for it, whereas X won't be offended and leave angry remarks for the comment moderators to deal with. Everybody wins, lives happily ever after, and so on. In cases where games have many complex editions, included some apps that have meanings and others that are just symbolic, a on-the-spot "chart" can provide a great deal of immediate transparency, albeit it will not carry information what other packages exist that are not in a potential trade offer. Only if a trader has several editions of the same game on offer does it really allow easy comparison. Due to its limited coverage, this added information is merely a nice-to-have benefit and not an actual full feature. Showing full /sub/ comparisons is vastly out of barter.vg's scope and would require extensive almost-live SteamDB information.

For each item included in a package in your tradables, its tradables list should show you as having it combined, with the combined text linking to the package. (What about multiple qualifying packages? Should they all be listed, or just the first SQL result?) Example https://barter.vg/i/50729/ included in https://barter.vg/i/110959/

Solves:

[16:34] Tecfan: regarding packages on barter tho: I always add both the package and the individual DLC's/games in my tradables, as you don't show up as a tradee on the DLC page if you only add the package.

I just got a trade thanks to me adding a DLC from a package to my tradables. The other user would never have found the package/DLC if I had not done it this way.

Now I'm however punished by having to micro manage (decrement) 11 other individual items on Barter + the package manually.

https://steamcommunity.com/groups/bartervg/discussions/0/3108016781882223503/