Please change taxes...

[Sotek]

And yes, the game economy will stabilize over time. There will be less undercutters when the general value/price of an item is pretty well established.

Silver Sharks were already pretty well established at 4k.
Silver Sharks continue to Yo-Yo around the 1~3k mark weekly.

Stability !

Don't worry, I'm on the phone with Oxford University Press as I type to let them know that the definition of "Stability" has been changed to "In constant fluctuation".

Seriously, the only "well established" price anything is getting at the moment is one which fluctuates, what a fun oxymoron. There is no "Oh, Silver Sharks are now well established at 3k!", there's "Silver Sharks fluctuate wildly day to day". As long as there is no reason not to undercut, people are going to undercut. How on Earth anyone can think otherwise is beyond me, people are seriously not going to just stop if by some miracle prices stop fluctuating. They're going to keep undercutting, because there is no reason not to.

[Nalien]

Sure they use a lot of math, but they aren't hiring mathematicians. The hmmm... comment was to point out the even worse irony that you claim physicists work for banks or other financial institutions. I'd rather see a financial firm run by finance, accounting, and econ majors.

What you would rather see does not fucking matter, you obviously aren't in the industry or even studying any of the subjects at university level so just leave you ignorant mongrel.

[Zigkid3]

Sotek: The game is still very new. Yes, things are still in fluctuation right now. However take a look at trade items with many unique (different) suppliers. How many unique/different people are there currently supplying silver sharks? 3? 6? 30? 125? You're cherry picking a specific example to represent a generalization as a whole, fallacy of composition. Like I said before, the game is still fairly new, there are still a lot of items on the market that have 0 suppliers.

Nalien: Stop with both of the ad hominem fallacies, that's even worse than Sotek's logical fallacy. You're a science guy aren't you? And I'll have you know that yes I actually am. Regardless though, even if I wasn't it's obvious you're just attempting to use a poisoning of the well ad hominem on top of the abusive adhominem as well.

[Kazamoto]

Zigkid3,

One question.

What will stop the undercutting?

You mention time and time again, that once the economy 'ages' the undercutting will stop.

You mention that item prices will become stable.

What will cause this?

You say that the price will establish over time, how so?

--

With the current system, the only thing stopping someone from undercutting, is being physically unable to undercut. This is why the 'Stable' price of many items is now 1g. And you say this is good for the economy?

This is certainly good for buyers, but offers little incentive for sellers. And if a seller can get a tax free 1g from a npc, or a taxed 1g from the auction house, why post to the auction house.

Now you say that once no one sells an item on the AH a seller could decide his price? Then another seller would undercut him, and the price would constantly fluctuate. Thus, never becoming stable.

[Sotek]

Sotek: The game is still very new. Yes, things are still in fluctuation right now. However take a look at trade items with many unique (different) suppliers. How many unique/different people are there currently supplying silver sharks? 3? 6? 30? 125? You're cherry picking a specific example to represent a generalization as a whole, fallacy of composition. Like I said before, the game is still fairly new, there are still a lot of items on the market that have 0 suppliers.

The "the game is still new" argument really doesn't hold water on Legacy servers.

As for Silver Sharks, though it is fairly difficult to tell with Retainers, I'd estimate 30 unique suppliers, probably more though. The markets with fewer suppliers seem to be much better off in my experience. The problem really isn't that there aren't enough suppliers, it's that due to ease of undercutting, undercutting becomes a much greater problem. With undercutting only being an issue when you first put something up for sale (something achieved through taxes), that problem goes away. Currently, people wait for everyone else to finish selling and ridiculously undercut prices, then prices return to their established value. People see this, go out gathering with that value in mind. When they return, they undercut by a small amount. People currently selling see this, and undercut again. That spirals, very quickly, into oblivion and people only gather again when people cease supplying and the prices rises again.

I use Silver Sharks as a single example, I could pick plenty more, though yes Sharks are probably the worst and thus best to highlight the problem. The fact remains though, prices have reached "equilibrium", and that "equilibrium" is a state of constant flux. This shows no signs of changing, and why should it? Like I said, Sharks already had an established price. I was selling them for 4k for several weeks. Now? New suppliers saw that and jumped on board. That's fine, I'd expect some undercutting from that. Instead what I get is rampant undercutting as sellers see the inevitable weekly price crash and constantly adjust prices to ensure theirs sells as soon as possible before said crash. People, like me, see the price crash and decide the item is no longer worth their time (because honestly, at the price it falls to, it isn't). The price slowly rises back up ready for next week, and the cycle repeats. Items go up, initial undercutting occurs, secondary/tertiary/etc. undercutting occurs, item becomes worthless, people stop farming, price rises again, repeat. Is that your equilibrium? Your stability? Heck, your market efficiency?

Again. There is no reason not to undercut with it being so simple and cost-free. People will not suddenly stop undercutting with time. With more Retainer Bells coming in Sanctuaries, it will get worse if anything. Same for a Retainer Ap. Currently people have to be in an Inn or by the Market Boards to adjust price, with more places where they can adjust price, more people are going to adjust price more often.

Here's an alternative though, since taxes are teh bad. Limit the amount of times you can put items up for sale and adjust their price. If you put an item up, it stays up. If you adjust its price, you can't adjust its price again for another X hours. If you take it down, it returns to your/Retainers inventory, but you effectively get -1 space on your sales list for where the item previously was, for X hours. This halts rampant undercutting. You cannot adjust price frequently, prices do not crash instantly. If you take something down to adjust price and get around that, you lose sales space (though with 40 slots who the hell cares).

[Zigkid3]

Kazamoto: It will stop when sellers are not willing to undercut any further because they'll have an idea of how much people are willing to pay for the said item, this will eventually stop people from trying to flip items. Then you have the people that aren't flipping, but got an item by other means, theyll post it up and probably will try to undercut a little if they want to sell it right away, if they do, someone will buy it right away and take it off the market. When prices reach equilibrium it's not like it's set in stone forever and cant be changed, there will be a tiny amount of fluctuation but it will hover around a certain point. If the fluctuation is small, it's relatively stable; if there's a lot of variance in prices then it's not stable. anyone who sells below equilibrium, their item will sell fast because its too good to pass up or flippers will have an opportunity for arbitrage, if you sell above equilibrium then no one will buy it and then you're forced to sell for lower.

For things selling at 1g, you're probably seeing this with items that can be bought from a vendor. I'll use cinnamon for example since this is something I actually did. Cinnamon can be bought from a vendor for 4gil, but can only be sold back for 1g. What I did was I noticed the price for cinnamon was way higher on the market than 4gil, I took advantage of this. I bought 100 cinnamon's for 4gil each, sold them in stacks of 5 for I think 80gil each at the time, made 8,000-400=7,600gil profit. People began to catch on that this was an item that could be bought from a vendor for only 4gil. As a result the price tanked down to 4gil, the vendor price (luckily I stopped when I saw the trend of people undercutting down to the vendor price). Everyone else who bought from the vendor for 4gil could either hang on to it and use it themselves, but for those who bought a bunch or people who found it through the game and have no use for it would rather undercut 4gil than get 1gil from an npc. so for those who have cinnamon but don't want it, would want to sell to the market since they can get more than 1gil, but it also needs to be under 4gil. As a result it's going to hover around 2-3gil or even 2-4gil. As for those selling at 1gil, there is no reason to do this since they could instead vendor it for 1gil and get their money right away and not be taxed. I noticed people selling animal hides for 1gil each, same as the vendor price, I bought all of the ones for 1gil and sold them to a vendor and got rid of some supply from the market and increased the price to 2gil. Though I could've maybe sold them for 2gil each instead and double my earnings. If anyone were to undercut and put it up for 1gil again, i could buy it myself and sell for 2gil. then if i was done with the animal hide market I could vendor the rest that never sold for the equal price. So if it drops to 1gil, someone could do that. Anything that could be bought from a vendor that is selling on the market would range from a price of how much it vendors for+1 to how much it can be bought at a vendor, and would hover within that range.

That is for items that can be bought from an npc though. Anything else that can not be bought from an npc however, the price would be player driven and decided by the players.

Sotek: At this point I'd just be repeating myself to you, just go take another look at the graph I showed you with how a tax effects the market. We know that if an item is taxed when it's posted and for any price adjustments, the game will tax more overall than if it was only when an item was sold. So we already know it's going to increase, the issue is how that tax hike would effect the market.
However I do like your other alternative much better of implementing a cooldown for adjustments (not taking away space though). Taxes wouldn't increase, the supply would stay about the same. The only thing is that the supplier's turnover rate would become worse, which would mean slower markets which is what you want but at least this way the prices will stay the same instead of increasing. Though personally I would prefer a faster market than a slower one, but it's way better than the original proposal.

edit: good to know that you can bypass the 1000 character limit by doing an edit. so annoying.

[Nalien]

Nalien: Stop with both of the ad hominem fallacies, that's even worse than Sotek's logical fallacy. You're a science guy aren't you? And I'll have you know that yes I actually am. Regardless though, even if I wasn't it's obvious you're just attempting to use a poisoning of the well ad hominem on top of the abusive adhominem as well.

No, you obviously either are not or work for some no-name institution. Otherwise you would not be so ignorant and oblivious to simple and well known facts.
The research departments (and a high amount of other employees in any of the leading finance houses) are real scientists and not economists who wrote two exams about supply and demand bullshit which holds little merit. I highly doubt you even finished a degree considering how blind you are and how strongly you hold onto the most simple (and still, for any actual situation useless) models.

Right now there's three people calling you out on your shit and all you've offered so far was flailing with your arms like a two year old screaming no with nothing to back it up.

Edit: Using Latin won't make you look any less stupid by the way, in fact it serves the exact opposite.

[Kazamoto]

It will stop when sellers are not willing to undercut any further because they'll have an idea of how much people are willing to pay for the said item,

This entirely goes against human nature and the desire for instant gratification.

ASSUMING the arbitrary understood value of widgetA is 50g, the next seller will put his up for 49g, to sell faster. Its human nature, and it will further the spiral downward. As long as there is no cost to undercutting, there is no incentive to not undercut.

In games with well established economies like EvE and FFXI, the tax is applied to the seller at the time the item is posted. In 14 the tax is taken when it sells. With this change, there would be a penalty to constant price adjustment and more stable prices would occur.


It matters not, in terms of gil sink when the tax is taken. Before or after, the only change is to how people sell things. Heck, in ffxi it was possible to sell at a loss.

In Jeuno the taxes were:
Single item fee = 1% of the seller's asking price +50 gil.
Stacked item fee = 0.5% of the seller's asking price +200 gil

So if someone wanted to sell an item for 1g, it would cost them 49 to do so.

If 14's tax model followed, people wouldn't dump items on the ah for 1g, nor would they constantly adjust their price by -1g to out undercut their competitors.

And in a trial of absurdity. I dumped all by 5k of my gil into my retainer then attacked the markets. I bought anything selling for less than its npc price.

After 2 hours, i had 12k. (12-5=7k profit)

This should not work

(Thanks Sotek for the fish idea, most of my money makers were fish. When it npc's for 12g, why is the stack up for 3g each!?)

[Zigkid3]

No, you obviously either are not or work for some no-name institution. Otherwise you would not be so ignorant and oblivious to simple and well known facts.
The research departments (and a high amount of other employees in any of the leading finance houses) are real scientists and not economists who wrote two exams about supply and demand bullshit which holds little merit. I highly doubt you even finished a degree considering how blind you are and how strongly you hold onto the most simple (and still, for any actual situation useless) models.

Right now there's three people calling you out on your shit and all you've offered so far was flailing with your arms like a two year old screaming no with nothing to back it up.

Edit: Using Latin won't make you look any less stupid by the way, in fact it serves the exact opposite.

Nalien, Through-out this entire thread I've been the person who's given out the most evidence and reasoning for my claims, you on the other hand have contributed the least. All you do is commit a bunch of red herring fallacies with every post: Ad hominem, Poisoning the well, abusive fallacy, and recently appeal to authority and bandwagon argument/appeal to majority. Most people believed the Earth was the center of the universe, just because you're not on the majority side does not make you wrong. Besides, you don't even count, I know you're in the same exact guild/FC with Sotek, you're just here to support your fellow guildie. Most of this thread has really just been Sotek and I, and only just recently did Kazmoto chime in.
All you do is attempt to derail any actual arguments in an attempt to discredit the opposition through an appeal to authority fallacy. But since you keep whining about it, here you go: Graduated from CA State University of Fullerton (one of the best business schools on the west coast), double major in finance and economics, graduated on dean's list, I've taken multiple econ/accounting/finance courses (even did AP Econ in highschool and scored a 4/5 on the AP exam, 3 is needed to pass), was in the finance association which is a club at Fullerton/mihaylo college of business, interned at Goldman Sachs LA branch for a year, currently working at ALM advisors which is a financial advisory firm for investments.
Though not like it matters, you'll just disregard everything as usual even though I gave you what you wanted. So since you bring it up, what about yourself? Let me guess, you're a physics major aren't you?

In Jeuno the taxes were:
Single item fee = 1% of the seller's asking price +50 gil.
Stacked item fee = 0.5% of the seller's asking price +200 gil

So if someone wanted to sell an item for 1g, it would cost them 49 to do so.

If 14's tax model followed, people wouldn't dump items on the ah for 1g, nor would they constantly adjust their price by -1g to out undercut their competitors.

And in a trial of absurdity. I dumped all by 5k of my gil into my retainer then attacked the markets. I bought anything selling for less than its npc price.

After 2 hours, i had 12k. (12-5=7k profit)

This should not work

Congratulations, what you have just described is something called a "price floor". Price floor's are used to increase the minimum price of an item above what the actual equilibrium is (but we were discussing the implications of imposing more tax). A price floor could get rid of any items that are selling for 1gil, if one is imposed it would probably be slightly lower to how much an item can be bought for from an npc, cause if i wanted cinnamon an npc can sell it for 4gil so i wouldn't want to pay any higher than that, but then there'd be a tax on the 4gil if it was set at 4, so better just get it from the npc for 4gil and no tax instead which would mean the price floor would need to be set to about 3gil for cinnamon. Though if stuff are selling for 1gil then that means there's so much supply and very little demand for it, you'll see this with very common items.

As for the profit you made in 2 hours through reselling stuff. what you did was help fix the market equilibrium. if there's a huge price gap in items, people will take advantage of it until the point that it's no longer possible, just like what i did with cinnamon. Another example would be last night, i looked up silver sharks on my servers since sotek mentioned them. There were only 6 posts of silver sharks, and only 4 of them were unique different sellers, so at least on my server it was a market with a lot of volatility because there are so few suppliers that someone can easily take advantage and single-handedly monopolize the silver shark market on my server (i did this with undyed cloth). all of the silver sharks were selling at 3,500 each except for one which was selling at 1k, I took it and resold that one for 3.4k by undercutting. in doing so im bringing an item closer to equilibrium. The faster people are able to do this, the faster prices can fix themselves from price discrepancies. the slower the market, the slower that prices are able to fix themselves from price gaps.

[Nalien]

Finished Economics , now studying Mathematics and had my fair share of insight into reputable banks.
Since I actually have experience from both sides I can tell you that you have no idea about mathematics and if you truly believe your pity models have merit for any scenario other than telling silly Economics undergraduates that people will buy less crap if the price goes up and similar then you either only very recently finished your studies and have missed the point of the degree.
With what information you have now given you have barely even scraped on the surface of the finance world and have at best gone through some spreadsheets or powerpoint presentations.
You're clearly still green or you wouldn't be holding so dearly to the models of your little degree.

I thank you for stalking me by the way, but I am not here to support anyone, I just find it exceedingly amusing how perfectly you fit into the role of a little economist student who knows and understands shit all even after the completion of their degree.

And lastly, 4/5 (80%) is nothing special , people with such scores won't even be taken at any of the three universities that I have attended or am attending currently. If you managed to average >96% in lolhighschool (I can't believe you're bringing 80% in a single high school exam up, how sad) and manage to maintain >95% in at least economics (you obviously won't be able to pull of mathematics) I might think of being impressed. You'd still be a fool for giving merit to a model that is about as advanced as a traffic light though.


Actually here's some more since I barely even skim your post:

Any "club" or association at university means nothing at all, they take anyone. I've had to deal with complete airheads at such a place during my econ days and boy was it a waste of time. The only good this serves is networking and nothing else.
And the sheer fact you bring up "several econ/finance courses" as if it wasn't a given when studying at an HE institution is quite entertaining as well.