20 item limit per retainer for the Market Board stifles economy

Now that I finally have a gathering and a crafting class up to 50 I find that I've been much more involved in the Market Board economy. I'm constantly going there to buy materials and to sustain myself I'm constantly farming and selling materials. Lately I've really noticed the restriction of 20 items per retainer on my selling habits and I realized how much healthier the economy would be if that restriction were removed or substantially increased.

For instance, I might grind a material for high quality for something I want/need. I'm left with 150 of normal quality of whatever that material is. I don't have a real need for said item, so I go to sell it on the market board. Whoops! My two retainers are 18/20 at the moment, selling bigger things that I need the gil for. I don't have a need for 150 of said item, I know that not many other people do either. It's a waste of a precious selling slot to sell a manageable say 5-10 of said item which will bring in a negligible amount of gil (compared to other things I'm trying to sell). So I either stick up a stack of 99 and a stack of 51 or I just vendor/trash it. Not healthy for me or for potential buyers.

Now let's swap the situation. I'm a botanist + carpenter so I often need things made by alchemists (waxes and oils and what not). I'm just trying to make a single item, maybe for a simple task like a provision turn-in or leve-quest turn in. It takes 1 item made by another class. I hit up the market board and...the smallest stack of it i can buy is 50. So I either don't buy/craft the item I wanted or I eat the extra cost and try to resell the rest of the stack or vendor/trash it.

The fact is, people don't want to sell small amounts of easily obtainable items because of the 20 item restriction. This is especially problematic when you look at how many crafting professions there are and how many recipes are dependent on the other classes. I don't want to waste my selling slots on fish and mushrooms when I can sell spruce logs and crystal clusters. Whenever I do something simple on my DoW as well like beastman dailies and I get 1-5 of random items like imp wings, instead of breathing them into the economy I just trash them.

If I want to farm 1000 oak lumber and sell them all in neat little stacks of 5, I should be able to, and I think the economy would be much better for it.

I would prefer that you were able to put up a stack of 1000 and I can buy as many as I want, e.g. 6

That's one reason I plunked down the extra $4/month for two more retainers.

But I've found that since I know my markets well and only list things that are going to sell quickly, I struggle to fully stock all 80 slots. The 20 item limit is only really a problem if you're not moving goods that fast. And I mostly craft gear, not gather things, so it's 1 item per retainer slot.

Those of us who remember FFXI also remember the 7 slots per character, which was a much more crippling limitation.

They need to put bazaars bavk in game imo.

Hm, I don't want bots to have a bigger part of the market than they already do. :/

If I gather mats, I'll just get one full stack. When I go to sell on the mb, I'll post stacks of multiples of 3 or 10 depending on if it's used more for crafting or GC turn ins. I know I tend to avoid buying from folks that put up more than 5 of the same item, so I will only post 2 or 3 of the same item in each city. If it sells quickly, I'll turn around and post another stack in the same city. If not, I won't gather any more of that item. The leftover mats sit in my retainer inventories til they are needed.

There isn't really much people need to buy from the MB in this game. Supply tends to far outpace demand. Massively increasing the supply of items will cause prices to plummet, killing profits. I'd much rather just be more wise about how I use said slots. People think undercutting is an issue now, watch what happens when there are much more items on the MB. The amount of buyers isn't going to increase.

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Originally Posted by Cuervo78

I would prefer that you were able to put up a stack of 1000 and I can buy as many as I want, e.g. 6

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Used to be like that back in the day, miss those days, I hate having of buy 99 of something when I only may need like 10 or something.

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Originally Posted by CYoung187

There isn't really much people need to buy from the MB in this game. Supply tends to far outpace demand. Massively increasing the supply of items will cause prices to plummet, killing profits. I'd much rather just be more wise about how I use said slots. People think undercutting is an issue now, watch what happens when there are much more items on the MB. The amount of buyers isn't going to increase.

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Your thought process is a bit flawed because in a lot of cases there are zero profits for the items I'm not placing on the market board because of the item slot restriction. Sure we're going to bring down prices on flax seeds and shriekshroom mushrooms. But you know what? They'll be available. And when they are available people will be able to buy and use them, and the overall economy will become bigger and healthier.

I hate going to the market board to get what I need for something small that a level 25 X class can make with ease and there's nothing there but an inflated priced stack of 99, or even worse, none up at all. It's because there's hundreds of recipes out there and many items that are used to create one or two items in the game. That creates ridiculously low demand AND low supply and when there's low demand and low supply the prices are wildly inconsistent and that's an unhealthy market. Removing the restrictions will allow people to fill in the holes of these low demand items with more supply and the prices will stabilize and everyone will have easier access to the things they need - and no, no one's "profits" are going to suffer from this except for probably infinitely available items gated behind quests or rep (like soot black dye).

If you need that many spaces then you are selling stuff for to much. Start undercutting.

LOL

Now really when I am trying to clear up space. I log on and put 40 on and before I log off I put maybe 30 more on. Repeat and no issue.

Some people have 4 retainers therefore 80 slots on the economy. It's fine. If you want more selling power get a retainer. If 80 isn't enough for you then that's your problem imo. I rarely even fill 1 return to full. Probably only a few dozen times have I ever done that.