Market Ward concept has failed

The market ward concept has failed and requires revision.

There isn't enough space on each row to accommodate everybody's retainers. This leads to monopolizing certain areas of the market as well as extreme disorganization within the market wards, because spots are so rare that people sell whatever they have when they find one.

What purpose do they serve, anymore, anyways? What's the point of perusing the markets when you can easily search for whatever you need and instantly find it? It's a system that combines the search functionality of an auction house with the manual labor of a market. It needs to be one or the other.

I came here to say the title of this thread.

I reinstalled the game recently, coming in after having quit soon after release. I made a new character and got him up to 14 in just a few hours. I was feeling pretty good about things. Then I decided "maybe I should go sell some of this stuff I've got so I can buy gear."

Then I got back to town, remembered I needed a retainer, got one, gave her my junk, and set off for the markets. Then I got there, searched through the main things I wanted to price, and tried to set her up in a market. Except I couldn't, presumably because the place was wall to wall NPCs already.

I completely forgot how horrible this was. It's a cute idea in theory, but trying to emulate the realism of a real market and having to go to vendor to vendor, and even with the search function having to go and find them, is nonsense.

Make a decent auction house, then tell everyone they've got two weeks to get their junk out of the market before it all vanishes into the abyss. This market idea needs to be purged with fire. Even the AH in FFXI, as horrible as that was (hello mystery prices and 7 item caps!), was less miserable that this mess.

Yup i agree with everything you guys said, i dont' get it how there are people that defend that the market is a good idea, i find myself having to write down the name of 10 items i want to sell and their respective categories because i have to go search for them 1 by 1 to check their price then write down their prices next to the name so i dont forget and then go back to summon my retainer, if there is any space left... then finaly set the the baazar up and leave, not to mention the process of buying for example a full set of gear u have to look for every piece of gear and jump from ward to ward trought a barrage of loading screens till ur actualy done with shooping, it's ridiculous

The market ward was doomed to fail since the first day we started using it.

So I quit this game about 4 months ago because I was tired of the disaster they call the Market Wards. I don't give a rats a$$ who thinks that the wards are a good idea! They are TERRIBLE. It takes you, at least, 4 times as long to look for an item you could easily walk up to an AH window and search for in 30 seconds. I beta tested this game last summer and I truely WANT it to succeed, but without a consolidated way of gathering resources/weapons/armor/ect. in a time sensitive way, there is no way I am coming back. I heard that they were dropping the fatigue system, which is also a step in the right direction. I'm still not sure where SE gets off thinking that they have the right to dictate my play time and/or halting my progress in the first place for a game they hope that I will pay for. I played FFXI for 3 1/2 years and I was hoping that they would take the best of that game and up the ante a bit to this one. Bad news it appears, because TERA comes out in September and your chances of winning some of your loyal crowd back will die when it does. I can deal with questing bugs, glitches, and everything else if finding/selling items doesn't seem like such a timesink that I cannot quest. Good luck!

I'm honestly relieved to not see anyone defending this system. Before the search feature went in, the wards were almost a game-breaking failure. Now they've been mitigated to an annoyance. But still, why do they exist? The very feature that improved them also proved how pointless they are. I'm searching through an auction house-like system anyway to find the item I want, it's organized by price, so I'm obviously going to buy the cheapest one.. why am I marking the retainers, transporting to the ward, finding the NPC, and buying it from them? It would be comically absurd if it wasn't so dreadfully stupid.

Retainers are great storage. They are atrocious zombie merchants. An AH would fix a lot of issues.

you are not alone, i stopped playing in the first month of the release when i came back 2 days ago i noticed how the game changed to the better (no more menu lag) i played a little when i noticed my bag was full i went to the market but when i saw how time consuming it will be just to sell my items i just simply logged out...

while i appreciate the developer team for trying to be innovative, they should let go of this idea, some things even if it is old but proved to be effective do not need to be replaced, they should bring the AH back and leave the retainers to be used in small towns or villages in the game.

Personally, I have never been overly annoyed by the Market Ward system in general. People placing their stuff in the wrong place, now that annoyed me until the search came in. Yes, it was bad initially, but it has greatly improved. The market ward system didn't fail. The failure was in the players' grasping of the concept, or blatant refusal to try.

Is the Market Ward system a perfect solution? No. Is it so terrible that the only solution is to replace it with an Auction House? Also no.

People like to spew the adage "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." The fact is, innovation is choked out with that mentality. I'm not saying the Market Wards are innovative, only that we shouldn't be afraid to try out new concepts simply because the old way worked just fine.

I'm using the market ward and selling stuff. Soooooooooo

The market wards are pretty useless. they really should just add a ah already and save time.

What truly annoys me is the lack of items in the Ward. It's as if people on Wutai didn't use it at all. '_' I want an AH. Please.

The wards are a mess - there is no denying it. I started a new character with this patch to experience the changes with a fresh perspective, but even with the additions to the wards like the search counter and the consolidation of types of floors it's still nothing more than a laggy mess.

Prices are all over the place, and I mean really outrageous prices like 9999999 for a piece of level 15 armor. There's almost nothing available for the new player, and there is no way for the market to stabilize itself using this system.

The market wards have to go.

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Originally Posted by AamesxDavid

... But still, why do they exist? ...

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Quote snipped. The direct answer to this, I fear, is that SE's original plans was to motivate people into adding $1 per retainer per running subscription. Mind, we were only intended originally to have one freebee retainer. People were supposed to be motivated to buy additional retainers per ward per city they wanted to sell in. With the option of not, but losing out on game profits by high tax penalties or not being represented in a pocket market. To my knowledge this plan is still going forward after billing is reinstated.

We've been promised numerous times, that if the fan base wanted an auction house so will it be. However, its been a very long time that we've requested it and we still get the same response. I've become to fear that the promise of the auction house is an empty one.

If the reason why the wards are kept on life support is a financial one, I can't say I entirely blame SE for trying. the FF series mmo's have the unique and wonderful feature of centralizing around one character and one subscription. Unlike other MMO's on the market which gather a few extra bucks off people who have to pay to play as an alternative class. There's really was never a need for anyone to buy an extra character in FFXI unless...wait for it... you wanted extra spaces to sell stuff on the auction house. FFXIV is the same way, more or less, except switch out mules for future retainers.

I don't like any bit of it though.

I'm confused as to why people settle for the wards and don't better advocate for an auction system. Because they added a sort of search function and that's good enough? It's all lipstick on a pig to me. The only argument I ever see repeated is players don't want them to focus resources on making something different at a time when other things should be done. But if you look into the development schedule, they have more market ward stuff planned. If they're putting time on the plate for wards anyway, it could just as easily be diverted into an auction house.

The only issue I have with the market wards is the horrible undercutting going on. When you have a price war with someone or multiple people just to sell a shield, and end up selling it for less than a R15 shield, who ends up winning? The buyer, but not the seller. It makes crafters less motivated to actually craft something and sell it. I've heard of people getting into price wars purposely just to buy a competing retainers wares for cheap and then re-sell them at a higher price.

This may be a symptom of low server population, but it's just annoying.

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Originally Posted by Kio

.........It's all lipstick on a pig to me.

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Market Wards is one SEXY pig!

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Originally Posted by Kio

If the reason why the wards are kept on life support is a financial one, I can't say I entirely blame SE for trying. the FF series mmo's have the unique and wonderful feature of centralizing around one character and one subscription. Unlike other MMO's on the market which gather a few extra bucks off people who have to pay to play as an alternative class. There's really was never a need for anyone to buy an extra character in FFXI unless...wait for it... you wanted extra spaces to sell stuff on the auction house. FFXIV is the same way, more or less, except switch out mules for future retainers.

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Well that's not entirely true. There's probably only a handful of lesser mmos that require you to pay for additional characters - mainstream games like WoW and Rift give you ten per realm, 50 realms total or something equally ridiculous. That's a lot of characters for your subscription, and it's actually a lot less limiting than FFXI and XIV if you really take the time to think about it. FFXI could argue a convenience factor with having everything centralized, but it should in no way affect the standard mmo base price and it always felt like a heavy-handed tactic.

If they continue with these plans, I can guarantee you their next reviews will be even worse than the last ones, because when the game is fixed to a point where they CAN charge for it, what they DO charge for it will be in the spotlight. No one is going to understand why SE seems to need to charge 3$ per extra character \ 1$ per retainer when WoW lets you have 50 with your subscription.

I'm enjoying the market wards.

If only the wards would go die in a fire...we'll get there eventually.

I think its going to be the single most destructive force in this game come PS3 release if it isnt removed, much like PC release, people are going to take one look at it and go "What the F@~!" and never look at the game again.

All of these features they are adding to the wards over the past few months, its begining to feel more like an AH, get rid of the tedious zone switching and running through each ward and what we got really is an auction house at the end of the day.

Keep it around as bazaar land...better than people crowding up the maps...

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Originally Posted by Souljacker

Well that's not entirely true. There's probably only a handful of lesser mmos that require you to pay for additional characters - mainstream games like WoW and Rift give you ten per realm, 50 realms total or something equally ridiculous. That's a lot of characters for your subscription, and it's actually a lot less limiting than FFXI and XIV if you really take the time to think about it.

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As someone who had...8? Maxed level characters in wow during WotLK, i can tell you that its not quite as limitless as youd think.

Why? Because all of those chars i mentioned save 1 after all different classes. >.>
Those classes have also been almost every spec imagineable, even changing things like only a few points..which really hurts you monetary gain.

FFXIV may have little available in terms of quantity of chars, but you can do A LOT more with a single character then in any 'mainstream' mmos ive played.

Actually, most games beat WoW in that aspect, seeing as how wow doesnt even have character based customizable stats points.

So as far as ''taking a little time to think about it'', take a bit longer to think about it, and youll reach the same conclusion.

The market ward would be just fine if you could actually avoid wasting time and lag and buy and sell stuff from the item look-up counter...

I also like and occasionally dislike the market wards. I think it has pros and cons and personally I would keep them. Everyone complaining about how 'time consuming' it is to find items - I just don't understand you, I'm sorry. How often do you go looking for more than a handful of things at a time anyway? I outfitted 3 of my classes with all the new gear I could find yesterday and it took me maybe 30 minutes tops. Plus... and here is what I love most about the Market... I got to SEE what I was buying before I bought it. I mean sure, some things everyone has and you know what it looks like - but more unique or new gear... I want to see it before I buy it, and I love that about the retainer system.

Only complaints I have really are (1) I want to be able to see HQd items identified without having to rely on ppl knowing to end the price with 1/2/3 and (2) it kills me how centralized it is with everyone in Ul'Dah and hardly anyone in Grid or LL - b/c it's a pain in the butt when you're crafting in Grid and you can't even find basic mats in the market there.

Just put a time limit for retainer i. Markes place. So all can be able to put his retainer in his porpers wards.

The system is ok. Just need fix this issue.

Btw. It will be great if all retainer have the same armor please. So if i see a retainer whit any armor i will know is an armor for selling. Not he retainer clohes.

Just let the wards die already.
Stumbling through a bunch of twitching zombies isn't fun.

If they're so hell bent on making this work why not make retainers like a bazaar you can leave behind when you log off? (as opposed to the ffxi method of leaving your character logged in) Give retainers a tax break and have it compete with an implemented legtimate auction house. I'm just firing off ideas, if someone sat and really spent some time I'm sure they could come up with anything better than what's in 14 atm.

It's just a shame to have such a high level of detail in crafting and gathered/farmed/crafted mats only to have such a hap hazard way to sell things. A fixed AH and mail system alone would bring players back imo.

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Originally Posted by Kio

Quote snipped. The direct answer to this, I fear, is that SE's original plans was to motivate people into adding $1 per retainer per running subscription.

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Which is kinda odd considering that most people would buy more retainers just for the extra inventory space, even if we did have an AH-like system.

Wards are an interesting idea. In practice however you can't honestly say it's more (or even as) efficient as an AH. You can like it more (you can like anything) but to say it's as efficient is just a lie.

Not being able to view every retainer in a ward due to rendering lag is not acceptable. How is this acceptable. It's not. In FFXI you had the AH and then your gates outside of Juno. AH was the goto get-it-done place to be. How much should I sell this thing for? Let me check out AH history. When you wanted to see some cool bazaar stuff you'd actually commit to walking around the Juno gates and examine 50+ or so players to see what they had. Oh neat, that person is selling that armor for max gil. Oh wow, I didn't know you could get that material for so cheap. There was the AH and Bazaars, both. Both are necessary, neither is sufficient by itself. If XI only had Bazaar lol that would have been awful (lol sooo bad).

Let there be 2 supermarkets in your town: 1 that had everything organized (and nothing was invisible due to lag lol) for quick grabbing, and another with nothing in order. Any busy person is going to the ordered market regularly, and maybe the disordered one on the weekends and days off from work/school. Some people will make the time to go to the disordered one just because.

So yea. If they add a straight AH then MW won't be a pain anymore because it will be optional. I can think of 2 mmo's off the top of my head that have both and buying/selling is easy breezy. Anyone saying "but this isn't 11" is really saying "I want something completely different from 11 just because". If having an AH makes a mmo FF11 then there's tons of FF11 clones out there with no chocobo's or Redmages.

As a botanist, the Market Wards need tweaking. For one, listing the prices that other retainers are selling items for is not helpful for the seller (though it's wonderful for the buyers). The FFXI system of showing the last couple of sell prices is a much better system because 1) it tells the seller how often the item actually sells and 2) it limits crazy undercutting.

When I go to sell something, I see how many other retainers are selling the same item and for how much. I don't know if that item is actually in demand or not. Botanists get a lot of random stuff, so I have no way to prioritize my time. Should I bother putting that Eagle feather on my retainer, or should I just NPC it? Also, the selling price for Eagle feathers range from 5000 gill to 100 gill. There is no way to keep a price stable. In FFXI, a buyer would look at the last few selling prices and shoot for that range. That system helped to minimize undercutting. Now, it's easy peezy and running rampant. Soon, all items will be sold for 5 gil above NPC price.

I also liked the 7 item limit for the FFXI auction house. While putting Mistletoe onto my retainer, someone else was selling 56 of them. Should I even bother with my measly 2? I guess I could put them on for 100 gill less and try to undercut, but that's only good until someone else undercuts me, which is easy to do in this current system. If we limit the number of items to sell to a small number, people will be selective about what they put up for sell and we won't have hundreds of the same item up for sale.

Buying from the Market Wards is fine. I don't mind it at all, but selling things is awful.

I am kinda tired of this topic after all these months but still feel the urge to let SE know within these topics that they should finally implement the AH. I am all up for new approaches and ideas concerning such systems but I don't see the market wards ever working as easy and efficient as an auction house.

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Originally Posted by GhostInfinity

If they're so hell bent on making this work why not make retainers like a bazaar you can leave behind when you log off? (as opposed to the ffxi method of leaving your character logged in)...

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You do realize that's how it has been since the beginning...right? That is, of course, disregarding the early ward crashes and all.

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Originally Posted by BlaiseLallaise

You do realize that's how it has been since the beginning...right? That is, of course, disregarding the early ward crashes and all.

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BAWHAHAHA!!!! I about fell over after that one. Good post man.

The Market Wards current system fails in so many ways that I think its time for the Auction House to be release...and while you at it some type of house or FFXI like Mog House. Please SE stop stacking all zones for Missions/Companies onto the same zone Market Wards actually create its own place or at least create elevators of actual existence. I find it lazy and cheap...that keep repeating...don't get me started on the new raid armor...lazy and just changing colors. I get it your busy fixing other things but sometimes I find it stupid to be adding the hide weapon future or the "awesome" 3D fonts that blind me when someone joins the party or even more fun drops the party because they disconnect because of poor servers, especially in raids.

I feel I have to add to this post, since the lack of an AH is a game maker or breaker for myself.

I stopped playing the game last year about 2-3 months after it came out after purchasing the collectors edition.

The market ward was one of the main frustrating reasons of why I left this game because frankly, when I log into play after a long day of work, I want to be able to relax and enjoy myself with the couple of hours I have to play before I pass out drooling on my keyboard from exhaustion. I do not want to waste 1hr out of those 2 that I have, searching through a market place.

After loggin in today I see some attempt has been made to make the market ward more user friendly, however it's still time consuming and misses the core point. I appreciate the developers trying to be unique and integrate story line with function however there is a reason why every single successful MMORPG has an AH. People want to spend time playing and having fun instead of wasting it on a market ward.

Please, admit to the fact that this concept has not worked and provide a functional AH for people. Leave the two in place in tandem and you'll see how many people will still bother with the use of a retainer when an AH is made available to them.

I can't see myself coming back to this game or letting my friends know it's okay to play without this feature. I will most likely cancel the account again for a few months or just not log in.

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Monkeysnarf

The market ward would be just fine if you could actually avoid wasting time and lag and buy and sell stuff from the item look-up counter...

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THIS!!!

Talk about a simple and elegant solution...maybe not for every issue, but certainly for the majority of them.

Yes, yes, it's basically an AH at that point, but isn't that the point?

Keep what we have, and add this on top. For those who want to go wander through the mall and actually see what they're buying, go to it; and for those who want it quick and dirty, done and done.

Also, +2 to Ivy re: details about rate of sales and limiting the number of items for sale.

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For one, listing the prices that other retainers are selling items for is not helpful for the seller (though it's wonderful for the buyers). The FFXI system of showing the last couple of sell prices is a much better system because 1) it tells the seller how often the item actually sells and 2) it limits crazy undercutting.

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While I disagree with your conclusion under #2, I wholeheartedly agree with #1.

I disagree with #2 because undercutting was rampant on Ramuh in XI. When buying, I would always start well under the most recent price; and when selling, I would ALWAYS undercut, even if only by 2 gil, just to get the next sale, because I want my mfing money!!!

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I also liked the 7 item limit for the FFXI auction house. While putting Mistletoe onto my retainer, someone else was selling 56 of them. Should I even bother with my measly 2? I guess I could put them on for 100 gill less and try to undercut, but that's only good until someone else undercuts me, which is easy to do in this current system. If we limit the number of items to sell to a small number, people will be selective about what they put up for sell and we won't have hundreds of the same item up for sale.

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THIS THIS THIS!!! ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Brilliant! Couldn't have said it better.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Ditching the MW for an AH is not the answer. Most of the arguments I see for implementing an AH are at the very least related to the ability to instant-buy without physically walking to a retainer. This can be solved without a complete rework of the system we have.

For the record, I am not against an instant-buy feature. I actually think it would make a good addition to the current MW system. The implementation of it has to be just right, though. Picture this: When you go to the MW, the choice to go to the item search counter sends you to another smaller instance of a ward, where you see actual counters with actual NPCs to interact with. These NPCs would act just like the item search counter currently, except with the option to buy on the spot. Why put them in another ward instance? Well, for realism, honestly.

Now here's the catch. Just putting in a feature like this sight unseen would remove any incentive to 'window shop' except for those who really enjoy that. This would be an easier in & out feature that would threaten to completely throw the current method of shopping into obsolescence. Now, some of you may think that's a good thing, but many do not, so let's not sacrifice that on the altar of convenience just yet. To balance things out a little, I would propose a transaction fee for every item bought at this new counter. What you would gain in time saved should be countered with a fee or some other method. Something like this would essentially be an AH for those who want it, but preserve the fundamentals of the MW system for those who want that. Those who like to window shop, or wish to avoid a fee, can still go to the retainers instead of purchasing the item at the search counter.

Would such a compromise be acceptable to the pro-AH community?