Not being able to buy single items from a stack on the marketward.

[Almalexia]

If anything, comments in this thread defending this system are from people who are taking extra effort to try to sell things in convenient quantities for buyers like you. Sure, that's not representative of everyone and there are definitely sellers out there who are not selling in a convenient manner, I see their listings, too, but you know whose fault that is? Theirs, not SE's.

They are taking the "extra effort" because they have to, not because they are concerned for the buyer. SE's system prohibits a more convenient approach of simply putting the whole lot you have for sale in a single market slot. Sellers aren't doing us any favors; they just don't have a choice. It's play by the new rules or don't play at all.

[Sotek]

They are taking the "extra effort" because they have to, not because they are concerned for the buyer. SE's system prohibits a more convenient approach of simply putting the whole lot you have for sale in a single market slot. Sellers aren't doing us any favors; they just don't have a choice. It's play by the new rules or don't play at all.

And the new rules are better for us.

If people can take what they want from a stack, there is only one price for an item. You put up a stack at the same price, or much more likely undercutting, everyone else, and that's that. Buyers slowly chip away at it.
Now, there are (in theory) multiple prices. There are more options for sellers and buyers. The bigger the stack, the cheaper it should be (and again, games not a month old, give the market some damn time to stabilize...). Smart sellers can work out the best/fastest way to profit. Smart buyers benefit too, unlike reality the stacks you buy on the Market Board don't have "Not for individual resale" stamped across them...

As a seller, I'm playing by the new rules because they are better for me, not because I have to. If you can chip away at a stack though, then I have to conform to a single price and I pretty much have to undercut in order to sell items faster. If they changed it back to how it was in 1.0, then I'd have no choice in the matter, not the other way around. There is a reason we're defending this system...

As it is, I can move items faster and generally at a greater profit, while putting extra effort in to be nicer to buyers... So again, I'm playing by the new rules and putting in the extra effort for the buyer because I want to and because it's vastly better for me than 1.0s system. Items move faster, and generally at a greater profit. There is nothing wrong with this new system, the only thing wrong is people expecting a stable game economy weeks into launch.

[Almalexia]

As a seller, I'm playing by the new rules because they are better for me, not because I have to. If you can chip away at a stack though, then I have to conform to a single price and I pretty much have to undercut in order to sell items faster. If they changed it back to how it was in 1.0, then I'd have no choice in the matter, not the other way around. There is a reason we're defending this system...

The seller after you is going to undercut you every time. They aren't whipping out a calculator and thoughtfully determining how to maximize their profit margins; they see you listed an item for X so they are selling it for X-1. Now it's a matter of whether someone undercuts them for X-2 before the item sells.

All 2.0 does is make the same protocol we've used since 2010 more tedious.

As it is, I can move items faster and generally at a greater profit, while putting extra effort in to be nicer to buyers... So again, I'm playing by the new rules and putting in the extra effort for the buyer because I want to and because it's vastly better for me than 1.0s system. Items move faster, and generally at a greater profit. There is nothing wrong with this new system, the only thing wrong is people expecting a stable game economy weeks into launch.

If you have to break a stack of x99 Bahamut testicles into 9 stacks of 11, don't mistake 5/9 sales in a row as "moving faster." All that means is the buyer wanted 50 and yours were the cheapest. In any other universe, the same buyer would look for the cheapest stack of 99 and buy 50: the exact number he needed.

As a general rule, a player-run market system should favor convenience over meticulousness. The market should quickly facilitate our way into other activities without being an activity in its own right; this is why nobody liked retainers in the 1.0 market wards. If I want food for a dungeon run, I shouldn't have to shop around. If I want a certain number of Bahamut testicles, I shouldn't have to buy them 10 at a time because another player told me this is how it has to be--especially when I only need 8 Bahamut testicles.

[Sotek]

If you have to break a stack of x99 Bahamut testicles into 9 stacks of 11, don't mistake 5/9 sales in a row as "moving faster." All that means is the buyer wanted 50 and yours were the cheapest. In any other universe, the same buyer would look for the cheapest stack of 99 and buy 50: the exact number he needed.

No, if I sell 99 Bahamut testicles at a significant discount and the whole stack sells because of that, and the buyer then even makes a small profit (or rather, mitigates the cost somewhat) selling the unneeded testicles at the higher rate for lower quantities, then I'm moving them faster. In an alternate universe where the buyer can just buy the quantity he wants, he'd buy 50 and gods knows when my remaining 49 would sell... More so when people want 50 and I've now been left with 49, much more likely they'd just go to another stack of 99 instead and ignore what I'm selling. In which case I'm left doing exactly what I'm doing now, splitting large stacks into the quantities people want them to make them move faster. In both worlds I'd be farming 100 Bahamut testicles and selling them in stacks of 50, because in both worlds 50 is what people want, only difference is I'll get annoyed when people start chipping away at the stack in the other world.

I've basically been doing nothing but DoL/DoH for the past week or three, and when people aren't wearing their pants on their heads and selling for the value a NPC will buy an item for, or less (seriously...), the varying price range for quantity size has been working. Rampant undercutting is still a problem, of course, but that is down to there being no pre-sale/price adjustment tax more than anything. When people can freely adjust (undercut) the price every five minutes the economy is never going to stabilize, and we'll only see this new system working on a handful of items for brief windows... I blame Retainers, because they're just awful. Retainers are selling, so they can only tax after the sale. Retainers are selling, so any time you want to do anything with your Retainer, you pull everything your selling off the Market Board... Completely and utterly awful. As much as I like the new system, I'd gladly see a return to something like XIs Auction House (with just a single or stack sales option) if it means I can be free of Retainers.

No one should have to muck around reselling the difference because they couldn't find the quantity they wanted. A system that rewards passing the buck isn't an improvement over the old system.

To be fair, I'm not arguing that it is convenient for the buyer, I'm just pointing out some benefits. Once more sellers get savvy to the needs of the market, more people will be selling in quantities people will actually want. For the fifth (?) time now; the game isn't even a month old and log in issues are only just being sorted, nobody should expect the market to be good in anyway.

I wanted 8.

Then substitute '50' with '8', either way I'm going to have some left over in the end and either way I'm going to be selling them in the ideal stack size (or multiples of).

[Almalexia]

No, if I sell 99 Bahamut testicles at a significant discount and the whole stack sells because of that, and the buyer then even makes a small profit (or rather, mitigates the cost somewhat) selling the unneeded testicles at the higher rate for lower quantities, then I'm moving them faster.

No one should have to muck around reselling the difference because they couldn't find the quantity they wanted. A system that rewards passing the buck isn't an improvement over the old system.

In both worlds I'd be farming 100 Bahamut testicles and selling them in stacks of 50, because in both worlds 50 is what people want, only difference is I'll get annoyed when people start chipping away at the stack in the other world.

I wanted 8.

[Bufkus]

If I want a certain number of Bahamut testicles, I shouldn't have to buy them 10 at a time because another player told me this is how it has to be--especially when I only need 8 Bahamut testicles.

Why don't you just buy the stack of 10 and sell the 2 extra? You could even sell them individually at higher prices than you paid for them, and make a profit!

[Jinko]

Why don't you just buy the stack of 10 and sell the 2 extra? You could even sell them individually at higher prices than you paid for them, and make a profit!

You know how this scenario goes .. ?

I do as you say and buy them, have 2 left over and sell them in singles for 9000 gil each, I add a bit extra because I have to factor in the tax fees that a) I had to pay as a buyer and b) I have to pay as a seller.

An hour later ..

Someone else or maybe even an RMT comes along and under cuts me, now I have to under cut the undercutter just to sell these left overs, losing profit, time and inventory space in the process.

Granted if Bahamut Testicles are rare you may not run into this issue.

[Almalexia]

Why don't you just buy the stack of 10 and sell the 2 extra? You could even sell them individually at higher prices than you paid for them, and make a profit!

This isn't a sustainable way of handling a market. Every time someone buys more than they need, two parties are taxed. If you keep taxing down the same but progressively smaller item set, you just accumulate taxes. Let me just run through a scenario with you:

I have a 50x stack of gigas thumbs, and Jinko--Excalibur's premier Thumbcrafter (TMB)--only needs 25 for his production today. First he'll have to pay 100% more than he bargained for, then he'll have to put the 25 other thumbs up for sale. Now Altuary wants to get in on the TMB biz, but she only needs 12; she buys Jinko's 25 thumbs--again, 100% more than she intended to pay--and puts the remaining 13 back up for sale. And on, and on, and on...

In every case, someone has to a) pay more than they intended b) resell the item for more than they bought it in order to recoup taxes c) waste retainer listings on items they didn't want in the first place. The only real winner is the person at the top - that's me - because I sold the batch first. Or did I? Earlier, I had to buy 99 gigas thumbs because there was no other listing.

Basically, if the markets don't have the exact quantities desired, buyers have to suck it up and lose money or disrupt production and lose money. This should only happen if there's a shortage of goods, not an excess of goods in the wrong listing.