Is it meaness or shear stupidity -- MB Pricing

I'm on Exodus and curious why people do this:

1. List items at 1 gil (very widespread across many item types)

2. Wide variance in HQ item pricing; for instance, most HQ Toadskins listed at 550 gil and above -- then some knucklehead lists them at 150 gil.

What gives? Have mean-spirited players purposely determined to ruin the marketplace for lower level players; or, is it just ignorance and being too lazy to check prices?

Totally curious why this happens and what, if anything, SE can do to unscrew the economy. Coincidentally, I'm convinced this screwed up economy contributes mightily to continued RMT issues.

My suggestions:

1. Prices are blocked such that they cannot be set lower than what can be achieved from selling directly to an NPC.

2. Prices are additionally blocked such that they cannot be set lower than 10% below the average of all similar items (differentiated between NQ and HQ).

I'm just tossing these out as a starting point. Interested to hear other ideas -- or maybe you're one of those people who don't believe there's even a problem. Be nice, please :)

This is what happens when they tax after sales instead of taxing before sales.

Imagine if you were taxed before an official listing, how many people would repeatedly undercut?

This is the only game I've played with an after sale listing and it baffles me.

Tip: you buy those and resell, you make money off people's stupidity. Dont try to baby sit them please

Perhaps it is generous players who are giving other people the opportunity to buy their under-priced stuff and re-list it for an easy profit?

I'd love to have a lot of people like that on my world. :)

I've never understood the reasons for mb pricing things at 1 or 2 gil. You can get that from a vendor npc. After tax you'll end up owning SE money ;).

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Originally Posted by MihaelB

This is what happens when they tax after sales instead of taxing before sales.

Imagine if you were taxed before an official listing, how many people would repeatedly undercut?

This is the only game I've played with an after sale listing and it baffles me.

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Pretty much this. As it is now, people can babysit their auctions and adjust as need be to the annoyance of everyone.

I've priced FATE minions at 1 gil before, simply because I had no use for them and that extra 59 gil for selling them to an NPC isn't worth it. If someone wants the item that I clearly don't, then I'm basically giving it to them without shouting, "does anyone want X?" all over the place. I of course have standards on how low I'll set the price for an item I'm actually trying to sell, but on items that I have no use for, and that aren't worth more on the MB than to sell to an NPC, I'll occasionally put them up for 1 gil so someone else can have it. Even if they're just going to sell it for that slight profit, they're getting just as much use out of it as I am. If it's an item I want to sell, and someone else has put it up extremely low, then I'll just buy it and relist it to keep it from cutting the average price down too far......

EDIT: As for it "contributing to the RMT", that's not the case, I can almost assure you. If items are selling low enough on average that they get down to such low values, or stay that way, then either they're not profitable enough to sell in general, or people will stop listing them and the price will go back up. When you can get gil in fairly large amounts from just running dungeons, FATE grinding, or completing challenge log entries, you have to either be selling high priced items or in large bulk if you want to make an actual profit that way. I do sell my trash items I get for extra gil, but I don't consider it profitable to farm for them. Most of the time if you list something like that as a single stack in large enough bulk to make a decent profit, then no one will buy it or it'll sit on the MB for quite some time, simply because there are people above and below you in the price range offering a more reasonable number of items.....

I price things quick at standard sell price/ 1 Gil because I want it out of my inventory and it's probably more useful for someone else than just tossing it to a vendor.

Same with HQ stuff. If it's super undercut like that I'm almost 100% want it out of my face and don't care if it gets bought and resold.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by LaylaTsarra

I've never understood the reasons for mb pricing things at 1 or 2 gil. You can get that from a vendor npc. After tax you'll end up owning SE money ;).

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The tax isn't applied at things below a hundred gil if I remember correctly.. it's something like that. Maybe ten gil. Either way no tax for those low amounts.

The person is being nice to new players from a consumer stand point. A LTW that needs those to grind/level will have a hard time without them. FFXIV is too nice with their auction house. If like MihaelB and Skivvy said someone who tried listing something at 500 gil x 99 and there was a 5% fee, the seller would have to pay 2700 gil to even put it on the market board. If it fails no refunds for the tax.

I thank anyone who is willing to quicksell or 1 gil sell an item. If my item is fairly priced it will sell in time on its own.

It's mostly stupidity. Players are basing those prices off how much they spend and how much effort it took them to get it. Maybe the standard of living is just really low? Most mats I know are regularly priced at 300 to 1000 gil each.

Most games actually give a recommended value for the item when you put them on the marketboard. SE doesn't do that. You have to research the price of the good you're selling yourself and then type it out by hand.

So the suggestion: don't fix or set minimum/maximum prices but instead give players a recommended value for each item (has to make sense for crafters too, so might take a lot of r&d). Most players will sell at this value and the rest of the market will either undercut a little (because nobody undercuts too much if they know there's a standard value) to sell faster, or they will intentionally buy out the other stock to inflate their price at their value (only very wealthy players will do this). Either way, you still have 70 to 80% of the server selling at standard prices.