Market Ward Overcrowding Needs Immediate Fix

Ok SE you have two easy choices: Limit retainers placed in a towns market to two; or link the city state markets in the search. I just got home from work 2:00pm (1400) est, and the Ul’dah market place is full and will not allow me to call out retainers. Do something about this and do it soon!:mad:

In good taste I’ve avoided the profanity I wanted to use and did not write in all CAPS

Anyone know the development tag number for the Markets, so I can update my Subject?

Transferred to new Server, Cant call retainers in 90% of the wards. This is not good, costing me more having to sell everything out of the jewelry ward ><
I thought the wards were going to empty with the merge?

Even in Limsa and Gridania? That's when you know it's bad.

no one will ever sale in grid or ll because thats not the main hub

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Originally Posted by Green_and_a_Half

no one will ever sale in grid or ll because thats not the main hub

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You can actually sell stuff there, just at a slow rate. As long as you put competitive prices, it should be ok.

This server merge with everyone's retainers down could have been a chance to bring life to those other markets.

Clean slate and all.

I wonder if Ul'dah markets will be so overcrowded that people will want to sell in the other cities?

Upon merging all market wards I sincerely hope that the cap will be abolished or at least raised significantly. I couldn't pull up my retainer in ANY market ward today.

Yay yet another topic complaining about over crowding. Guys there are the stands which you could use. 10 in each ward and 90% of people ignore them due to them costing 500 gil a day.

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Originally Posted by AidanSchutze

Yay yet another topic complaining about over crowding. Guys there are the stands which you could use. 10 in each ward and 90% of people ignore them due to them costing 500 gil a day.

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It still needs an immediate fix, regardless of whether there are reasonably accessible ways of evading the issue. What SE has done is akin to putting a cap on the number of Jeuno AH slots that will be used at any given time, server-wide. It probably (hopefully) was an unintentional side-effect and not a ridiculously misguided attempt to force us into using other markets, but in either case, it is a severe problem.

The fix probably needs to be multi-part, as well; a short-term fix to alleviate immediate congestion, and then a long-term re-thinking of the retainer system, because if this game becomes as popular as SE hopes, it will eventually fill up again, if they just increase caps (merging the markets being the same thing).

This just adds to my sense that SE rushed the server merge. This is not an eventuality that they should have been oblivious to.

Right now it is completely unfair that alot of people have TWO retainers in the Ul'dah market wards and I can't even put one there. I offer a simple solution that can be implemented with the current server software and will solve multiple problems.

1. Allow players 3 retainers. (This is not completely necessary, but it would expand the markets in all 3 cities.)

2. Allow players to place only 1 retainer in each city's market wards.

3. Increase bazaar capacity so that players can sell more items per retainer. The reason for this is because of the incredibly high drop rate in this game.

4. No more partial stack sells. If players want less than a full stack they can buy it from bazaars or merchants. Partial stacks take up space on the wards, which sucks because it only shows the 20 cheapest.

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Originally Posted by AidanSchutze

Yay yet another topic complaining about over crowding. Guys there are the stands which you could use. 10 in each ward and 90% of people ignore them due to them costing 500 gil a day.

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Actually on Durandal even those are full. Are we supposed to camp them now?

My retainer has been in LL since the merge and hasn't sold a single thing.

This is something that needs to be considered and dealt with. We 1.x folks are willing to tolerate it but how many of their desired 2.0 demographics will put up with something like this?

Moreso, reviewers will come into this game with the predisposition that it still sucks as much as the last time they reviewed it. To them, the market wards will still be the market wards of 2010.

We see all the improvements they've made, but what will non fanboys/girls see?

1) A pseudo-AH item search function that not only completely kicks you out after each purchase, but also blinks everyone around you out of existence and renders your character unable to take any action other than walking around for upwards of 10 or more seconds.

2) A system unable to accommodate a server's population. It's by SE's design that everyone has been in Ul'dah for a year and a half. Economies are shaped by convenience. Just look at how WalMart has choked the life out of Main Street.

3) By 2.0 they will have had more than two years to get it correct. Reviewers and new players won't be as forgiving as we are.

4) That any reason is a good enough reason not to bother with this game given the recent and continued overcrowding of the MMO market. We're all gamers, we know how most of us are. First impressions are the only impressions in gaming. So if someone starts the game and comes to the wards to try and peddle a handful of Dodo skins just to be told their not allowed to sell them, that's likely one less player in the game.

So, yes, there are a few topics discussing this. I support them because I'd rather this game not get another 4.5/10 come this fall. Being able to sell your wares, no matter where you decide to sell them, shouldn't be an issue. It's why I'm quickly becoming a supporter of the Auction House.

I was willing to give the Wards a chance, even back in the days when they were random and you had to search retainers one at a time.

I'm sorry for being so wordy, but "just use the stalls" isn't an answer to the larger issue when this game has to impress people twice as much as a fresh release in only seven months.

Market Wards are soo full it's eyes are brown.

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Originally Posted by smithdag

Right now it is completely unfair that alot of people have TWO retainers in the Ul'dah market wards and I can't even put one there. I offer a simple solution that can be implemented with the current server software and will solve multiple problems.

1. Allow players 3 retainers. (This is not completely necessary, but it would expand the markets in all 3 cities.)

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This would be good (one per city). However, inventory would need to be decreased per retainer. So it would be 100/retainer, rather than 150 (therefore retaining the 300 limit overall).

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Originally Posted by smithdag

2. Allow players to place only 1 retainer in each city's market wards.

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This makes sense, and would help avoid everyone sticking 3 retainers in Ul'Dah ^.^;

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Originally Posted by smithdag

3. Increase bazaar capacity so that players can sell more items per retainer. The reason for this is because of the incredibly high drop rate in this game.

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If we have 3 retainers, and each can sell 10 items, then the total number of items available for sale is 30 (rather than 20 as it is now). So that should take care of itself. Not sure it should be even higher than this. (Not sure I want to manage 30 items for sale as its such a cumbersome process). It is also open to exploit as bazaar space does not count as 'inventory' space and people could fill it with storage items at 999999999 gil.

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Originally Posted by smithdag

4. No more partial stack sells. If players want less than a full stack they can buy it from bazaars or merchants. Partial stacks take up space on the wards, which sucks because it only shows the 20 cheapest.

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Not suer this is practical. There are a LOT of items a LOT of people need that can rarely be found available for sale as a full stack. I'm often lucky to buy 3 here, 12 there, 4 there. Some days I clear up 10+ retainers and still do not get a full stack. If this was not possible, I would have nothing ; ;



To sum up, if they want an 'easy/quick' fix for Wards today:
Increase retainer count to 3. (should be easy to do).
Decrease retainer inventory size to 100. (Should also be easy to do).
Limit one retainer per city's ward (Not sure how easy to do).


This would hopefully tie us over until they come up with the super-douper-awe-inspiring-amazingly-licious-AH-of-our-dreams system in 2.0

A simple solution that would piss everyone off:

Reset the wards weekly.

Nah I'm serious. You'd weed out the inactives, give everyone a chance to get a foothold for the next week, and soft-reset the slate so prices have a chance to jump back up from all the undercutting.

It's only cumbersome and tedious to the player. But if I were SE, I wouldn't give a ****. I've got 2.0 to be worrying about, not your griping about outdated systems.

Resetting price histories i think isn't a fair idea. It just means to cull the undercutting you invite over-pricing, which means buyers will know to wait till before the reset when everyones done undercutting eachother cause no one will want to buy anything when the history has just been reset and knows that everyone will repost as high as they can to start.

If the reset was on tuesday i'd do all my shopping on monday.

I realize undercutting is a problem here, perhaps more so then many other titles, but you will always see undercutting if someone can make make a profit below your sale price they are likely to do it. And it happens in FF14, other MMOs, Virtual and real life (barring monopolies and collusion).

I'm selling on my server in Gridania, both retainers. And profiting modestly. Modest yet fairly constant profit a workable solution.