Please change taxes...

[Sotek]

So... After a few weeks of this, I can safely say Market Board taxes are ridiculous...

For one, they're pretty damn high... Ideally I think the tax the seller receives should be based on the stack size they're putting up, to hopefully encourage not putting 99s up, as well as singles. Ideally the quantity that gets taxed the least should be in the 10~20s range, though I guess it really does depend on the item in question...

The worst of it though, is that the seller is taxed after the item sells. Do you know what this does, Yoshida? It results in an absolute mess, that's what. Right now we have utterly rampant undercutting. Why? Because once you put something up, you can adjust the price of it free of charge. So I put something up, someone sees what I put it up for, they undercut, I see them undercutting and adjust my prices, repeat ad infinitum and with a dozen or so people... You're seeing items dropping in price at a ridiculously fast pace. Tax sellers the moment they put an item up for sale, then they'll be much less willing to adjust their price since it'll cost them extra. Alternatively just put a tax in for adjusting the price... Anything... Just stop this madness...

I also don't really get why we still have a tax based on the location of the Retainer... With Market Wards gone this seems like something else that should have gone with it, but with the ease of transport I guess that is much less of an issue. Still, it doesn't really add anything at all to the market...

[Dallie]

Totally agree. If I could give you another thumb I would.

[Loxius]

Totally agree you should have to pay a fee for adjusting the price, else it is heaven for gilsellers and that sort of people who like to undercut all the time.

[Zigkid3]

5% is fine. it's enough to create a [del]gold[/del] gil-sink to combat inflation as well as to detract people from flipping the market for profit unless the buy/sell spread (the profit has to be larger than 5% or else it's actually a loss) is large enough, in which case it'd place the value of said item closer to equilibrium of the market price.

As for the 99 stacks, they'll be discouraged from posting them up like that simply by people not wanting to buy their stack and they will learn that it's not selling.

You need to keep in mind though that the tax rate, unlike most other mmo's isn't set in stone. The tax rate can and will change accordingly to the market. This is one thing that I like about the FF14 market since the tax rate can actually change accordingly.

[Zigkid3]

Onto the next point: It's a good thing that you are taxed only once the item sells rather than each time to put it up or adjust the price. If the game punishes you for every time you list something rather than actually selling it and thus contributing to the economy, then everyone in this game will lose more money than they can gain on the market due to competition and other suppliers. It would discourage anyone from selling most things on the market, thus creating a shortage of suppliers and thus increased prices for the buyers. People will always need to adjust their price if their item is not selling.

[Zigkid3]

Second, under-cutters are healthy for the economy, this also ties into why people should be allowed to adjust their prices freely. Under-cutters will try to sell for less than the other person even if it means by 1 gil, this will drive prices down to equilibrium which is good. The reason why you're seeing a lot of under-cutters right now is because the game and it's economy are still relatively new, it's in it's infancy as people are still in the process of figuring out where supply and demand would meet. This has nothing to do with the economy being 'bad', but rather with the economy being new and structuring itself. It seems your post isn't really about the economy, but rather you are just being angry that you can't sell stuff due to your competitors.

[Zigkid3]

As for the last thing.....
I also have no clue why the different cities have different tax rates. It would make sense for each city to have their own fluctuating tax rates if the markets in each city were separate from each other, that way it would encourage people to sell at the city with the lowest tax rate to increase the supply in that city to ensure that everything is evenly distributed.
However, since the market is connect with all of the cities, this makes it completely pointless as everyone would just sell from the city with the lowest tax, but the same supply will be able to be accessed from any city.


Sorry for all of the posts in a row, the forum imposes a 1000 character limit -_- my post was like 4500.

[MJFERN]

zigkid3's undercut post

Rampant undercutting isn't good for the economy. Much of what players list on the market has considerable time invested in obtaining it, whether through time gathering and crafting or running through instances. Just because someone can devote their every waking hour to gathering up items for the market it means the times I end up with a piece I don't need it's utterly useless. The return on selling in the market is too low, and I can't give it away to another toon of mine, thanks to the in-account mail restriction.

Equilibrium prices, where any given day they price can fluctuate +/-5% are great, but when the geniuses undercutting are selling crafted items for 1g, we all know that's ridiculous beyond L1-5 crafting. Yes, the market's young but that's not an excuse for the things we're seeing in the market. I don't mind competitors, but I prefer they have a brain.

[Zigkid3]

People will continue to undercut repeatedly until prices fall enough to hit equilibrium. I was under the assumption that people liked cheaper prices and stability in the markets, I guess I was wrong.

[Sotek]

I'm not against undercutting, I'm against rampant undercutting. The kind which has seen items fall from 5k to 100g in the space of a day.

If you're taxed for adjusting prices, then that makes you think twice about adjusting prices. Prices become much more stable because of that. Undercutting still happens, it just happens when a new supply enters the market, supply and demand being the most basic principle in economics. Items would have much more stable prices with such a tax, because people would sooner wait for it to sell than eat a tax. New supply would drive the price down, that's the way it should be, not "Impatient sellers who camp the market drive the prices down into oblivion" like we're seeing now. Do you get punished if you misjudged the market? Sure. You put something up for such a price that there is no demand for it, you'll have to eat that tax to adjust to a reasonable price. That's actually a good thing. It means you don't over price, because you'll likely get taxed. Prices fall to much more reasonable levels faster so as to avoid taxes, and undercutting becomes considerably less rampant resulting in much more stable prices. Win-win.