[Suggestion] Quantity selector on market board trades

Quantity selector would be great in market board trades. It's... strange that you need to sell/buy stackable goods in -exact- quantities over the board. It's tedious and wasteful for the seller, and frustrating to buyer - because seller has to try to guess what exact quantity the buyer will want, and the buyer rarely finds the right quantity at right price. Why can't you just put the amount you want to sell in on single stack (up to 99 of course), and let buyer buy as many as they need like in any -reasonable- regular shop.

Because then people would jack up the prices.

Yes its not a perfect system. But if we could only buy what ever how much we need or want the prices would ingress to make up for the loss of not selling the stack.

I believe it's an intentional flaw of the system. The concept of selling in bulk is often used in real life, so it makes sense to see it as part of the marketplace on FFXIV.

It may be intentional flaw, or it might simply be it was much simpler to code it that way. I'm leaning towards the latter reason. What it causes for market though is instability. Selling 1 of something, or selling 90 of something are entirely different things right now. Take grilled raincaller. The people are buying them sometimes for 6k each, but no one is interested if you list a stack with 2k each. That's because usually no one needs more than one (for GC delivery). On the other hand to -make- one, you need high level fisher -and- high level cook. So basically no one bothers to make just one, and for the most part taking up sales slot for selling a single one is pointless.

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A system where you can buy specific quantity on the other hand would create much more stable economy. Prices would become much more stable, and for crafters for example, it would provide a much more reliable source for ingredients. Preferably this should be accopanied by ability to make 'buy orders' as well.. f.ex. list an offer to buy 20 HQ cobalt plates. This way a crafter would -know- there is a market for those plates, and they could make them and sell. There's a lot of potential in market that's just untapped right now, because -matching- the seller and buyer is so poor. This kind of system is in effect in GW2 actually, and works really well there. I believe it has potential to work even better in FFXIV because of the synergy of crafting classes, and the fact you actually need to train up gathering skills to harvest materials (in GW2 anyone can collect anything).

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Originally Posted by Dererk

Because then people would jack up the prices.

Yes its not a perfect system. But if we could only buy what ever how much we need or want the prices would ingress to make up for the loss of not selling the stack.

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Maybe, maybe not. It depends on product. There's the other side of this. If I need 2 cobalt ore to make something, I can look up market and see you only sell stack of 99. So I grab my pickaxe instead, and go gather some. It's pointless to just gather 2, so I end up gathering 50 instead.. I craft what I need, and then put up the stack of 48 for sale, and undercut you by 30% to make them go away fast. So suddenly the prices dropped 30%. If someone now puts another stack of 99 up, they kind of have to undercut me again, or not bother. Or it might be that someone buys the stack I put up for sale - and suddenly the prices jumped back up 30%. In a system like that, as a crafter you just can't rely on buying something from market in most cases.

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Originally Posted by Stormtronic

I believe it's an intentional flaw of the system. The concept of selling in bulk is often used in real life, so it makes sense to see it as part of the marketplace on FFXIV.

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If it was an option, sure. But most of the time it doesn't make sense. If I want to sell 99 mythril ore, I don't really care if one person buys all, or if there's 50 people who buy it between them. As long as it's sold, I'm happy. Chances are if I require one person to buy it all, there will be less people interested in it. And you can force-feed the market only to a point. If someone buys all of it, they probably have to store what they don't use - and then they won't buy more for a long while. In long run that benefits no one - not the seller, and not the buyer.

If this were added, I'd want the ability to set two different prices on the listing.

When I'm putting stuff up for sale, it's usually to clear it out of my inventory. If you buy part of a stack but not all of it, it's still there taking up a slot (a MB sale slot rather than an inventory slot but it's still blocking my ability to put up something else). Essentially, it's not sold until it's completely sold, so I want to be able to offer a discount for someone who buys the entire stack, while charging extra to people who just pick a few pieces out of it.

@Niwashi
The problem is, the 'whole stack' no longer exists the moment someone buys the first item from it.. so it would have to be an option to 'lock' the whole stack into single unit. But that doesn't make it sell any faster, because it limits the buyer's options. Buyer doesn't care about your space, only about price. If you want to clear out, you just put up lower price than regular market value. Doesn't matter if one person buys it all, or if 10 people buy it by pieces.

What I'd really want to see is 'buy orders' included on the list - that is, offers to buy things, as well as offers to sell things. That would clear your problem as well - since you could simply sell the stuff you want to clear, to people who have listed an offer to buy them. The prices in a system like that (one that has both buy and sell offers) will stabilize over time, and the difference usually ends up to close to sales tax (if the difference is significantly higher, someone will put up a higher buy offer, and then put the stuff for sale as soon as they get it).

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Originally Posted by Kiritsuki

@Niwashi
The problem is, the 'whole stack' no longer exists the moment someone buys the first item from it.. so it would have to be an option to 'lock' the whole stack into single unit. But that doesn't make it sell any faster, because it limits the buyer's options. Buyer doesn't care about your space, only about price. If you want to clear out, you just put up lower price than regular market value. Doesn't matter if one person buys it all, or if 10 people buy it by pieces.

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Well, the whole stack would be a different size if someone has already bought out a portion of it, but I'd think it would still leave that "full stack" price on whatever remains. The last person who clears out the listing by buying everything remaining in that stack gets the discounted price. People who just buy a portion but leave some there have to pay a higher cost for that flexibility.

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Originally Posted by Kiritsuki

Buyer doesn't care about your space, only about price. If you want to clear out, you just put up lower price than regular market value. Doesn't matter if one person buys it all, or if 10 people buy it by pieces.

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But that's sort of the point, it matters a great deal. The cheaper price is there specifically as a sort of reward for the buyer to clear out the slot. It doesn't make sense to offer it for those who just pick at the pile for their own convenience. And as long as the price is unit based, as it is on MB, defining that the "whole stack" is "whatever is left" is the most sensible way. So yay, cheaper price for the one who decides that whatever is left in the pile is worth the discount.

Hmm, well that would work. The incentive to 'buy out' would increase as the stack gets smaller, and for the seller it would be no loss if part of it was first bought on higher price. I still feel it doesn't matter that much though in bigger picture. Assume we're talking about mythril ore for sake of example. Assume the price has stabilized at say, about 100 gil per unit again for sake of example. You have 82 ore you want to clear from inventory. Now, you could put them up for say, 80 gil per unit, but have to buy all 82. Or you could put them up 80 gil per unit, no restriction. If it's no restriction, obviously -everyone- who buys mythril ore will buy from your 20% off stack. It should go almost instantly. If it's restricted to whole stack, then someone who wants just 3 ore for their craft, will still buy from someone else 100 per unit. Of course if we had buy orders, you would probably find buy order for 90 gil per unit, and it would all be gone at the click of 'sell'.

That assumes the market stabilises and yes to some amount it does. But look at it now, small stacks, 1-3 units tend to always be marked up a bit, or the giant stacks marked down however you look at it. In your example if we assume that the 100 is the "just buy what you need" price that's stabilised I'd put the whole stack even lower, maybe 70, and price my "buy as many as you want" to maybe 90. That way I undercut the normal market, and still offer discount for those who get me rid of the stack.

Without buy orders yes, to a point - because sellers can't immediately see the level of demand, and so supply doesn't always react quickly. With buy orders, it's guaranteed to stabilize - buy order can never be higher than sale offer since it would be filled immediately. And there almost never is large difference between them since then someone will put up a slightly higher buy order to get the stuff, and slightly lower sales offer to sell it back to market - free profit from the value difference. To move the price either way there must be a consistent difference between supply and demand - which is natural market behavior. Oversupply means buy orders are eaten away, and sales follow down. Undersupply means sell offers are eaten and buy orders will start climbing to match. Stable prices create market for crafters who can look up the price of components and goods - and if components are cheaper, they make goods and sell them.

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Originally Posted by Kiritsuki

With buy orders, it's guaranteed to stabilize

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Only for items which would actually get buy orders. Lots of people buy stuff that's available but would never put in a buy order in hopes of getting it at some point later down the line.

For simple stuff, if you're going to have to wait to get your order fulfilled, you may as well just go gather it yourself. The only point in buying it in the first place is for immediate access without having to take time to go get it. For more difficult stuff, which a player may not be able to get themself, you're often choosing between multiple possibilities, and which ones are being offered at what price can be the deciding factor. So those wouldn't get buy orders either.

Don't get me wrong, I'm in favor of adding buy orders. I think they would help a lot for when there's a specific piece someone really wants and it's something that's not regularly available. The buyer could get their rare item they were hoping for, and sellers could provide such items knowing they aren't going to just sit there taking up an AH slot for ages. But it would probably be a relatively small part of the overall market, too small to have all that big of an impact on prices.

For basic resources there's generally always someone who can wait if they get a discount - and question is mostly how high a discount. The wait usually isn't very long in an active market if your offer is reasonable. If lowest price is 100, and there's no buy orders, someone would probably throw in a bulk order at 60 - there's always someone who wants to clear inventory, and that's a lot better deal than you get from NPC. Once you have the stuff, you put it for sale at 90 or 95. It's true there are some items that likely wouldn't have an active market. Bronze rivets, table salt - something basically anyone who might need them, can craft at will. Or something that's used so rarely there's just no point. I think acorns might have been used in only acorn cookies, but I don't remember for sure. But yes, either way I could see a lot of use for market with quantity selectors and buy orders. I have practically all crafts at 50+ (all save culinary) and there's more times than I can count where I would have bought this or that on market to make something - except everyone wanted to sell 90 pieces instead of 2. So off I go with my pickaxe.

I like this idea but I could understand the worry about space on the market listings for the seller. Do you think it would work out fine if additional market slots were added alongside it?

Adding them wouldn't help. See, as it is now, what's regulating the prices to some extent is the limited slots to sell stuff. In general if I want better price for my products I list them in multiple small stacks because people in general are ready to pay a bit extra for not having to buy in bulk. But that limits the slots I can keep occupied with the items. If I could put a stack on sale with people being able to pick up as much, I could have higher price in hopes the price raises as it's not eating many of my sale slots. On the other hand if I want to empty slots I use lower price to encourage someone to buy the whole bulk. It could care me less if he then resells it on higher prices. Increasing the sale slots doesn't remove the fact that the game has easily more items I might want to sell than the slots so there always comes a time when I want to have possibility to encourage the buyer to by everything I have left in one pile and only way to encourage buyers is the price, more so if one can pick and choose from the stack.

It's amusing how in a way it's -beneficial- for seller that they have limited number of sales slots. Well as a seller you generally count profit per slot per day, and try to maximize that. Simple principle but difficult to carry out.