Market Wards, enough is enough

[Kiote]

Seeing as this is such a ridiculously volatile argument I think it is only reasonable to ask Square to do another new survey. I think the community is pretty split down the middle. The numbers from the last survey are completely unreliable as they did not specifically ask about this. They instead asked where this issue was prioritized in the community. If they want to preserve their player base this question must be answered.

Personally I am of the opinion that this argument is unnecessary. If you want to satisfy both sides of the argument you need only add and AH with taxes on it to create a gil sink and simultaneously remove the taxes from the market wards. The market wards will then become their intended purpose of a Rollenmart deterrent.

[Amineri]

Seeing as this is such a ridiculously volatile argument I think it is only reasonable to ask Square to do another new survey. I think the community is pretty split down the middle. The numbers from the last survey are completely unreliable as they did not specifically ask about this. They instead asked where this issue was prioritized in the community. If they want to preserve their player base this question must be answered.

Personally I am of the opinion that this argument is unnecessary. If you want to satisfy both sides of the argument you need only add and AH with taxes on it to create a gil sink and simultaneously remove the taxes from the market wards. The market wards will then become their intended purpose of a Rollenmart deterrent.

Seeing the confusion just in this thread about what "auction house" means, a poll is probably a bad idea. Unless the poll gets into details about just what features of 'auction house' or 'market wards' are being talked about, and, let's face it, most players don't care enough to get into that kind of detail.

In addition, such a poll would NOT be representative, but would only represent those that are (a) currently playing the game, and (b) interested enough to bother to respond to the poll.

A random survey would probably be more effective, imho.

[Kilta_Firelotus]

Btw an AH should not be a price determiner. Make your own price up. (which is how stuff start anyway) I played ffxi when they added new stuff on the AH like all the lvl 78 gear.... they were 50K a peice before stablizing. Make up your own price and see if people buy it. If not lower the price a bit. Items rarely stay "rare" after a while in mmo.

[Amineri]

Btw an AH should not be a price determiner. Make your own price up. (which is how stuff start anyway) I played ffxi when they added new stuff on the AH like all the lvl 78 gear.... they were 50K a peice before stablizing. Make up your own price and see if people buy it. If not lower the price a bit. Items rarely stay "rare" after a while in mmo.

Making up your own price doesn't take into account the realities of compromise between buyer and seller. Seller can set whatever price they want, but it won't sell unless some buyer is willing to pay that price. Any market system should serve to facilitate bringing buyers and sellers together to exchange goods. An actual auction can serve this purpose.

And yes, agree 100% items don't remain rare. When items become common enough to become a commodity, they'd move to the markets, since people know how to price. Then the undercutting comes in, bringing down the price to some sort of equilibrium.

[Kilta_Firelotus]

Making up your own price doesn't take into account the realities of compromise between buyer and seller. Seller can set whatever price they want, but it won't sell unless some buyer is willing to pay that price. Any market system should serve to facilitate bringing buyers and sellers together to exchange goods. An actual auction can serve this purpose.

And yes, agree 100% items don't remain rare. When items become common enough to become a commodity, they'd move to the markets, since people know how to price. Then the undercutting comes in, bringing down the price to some sort of equilibrium.

You do not get it :P which is ok. no harm no foul.

Even with an Auction house players whom are first to sell something are the first to set a price. And they tend to go for greed vs anything else. Everytime a new item an item was added to the AH it always had a 50K-1mil price tag. Even with an AH system players are setting the price. SE doesn't tell players what price is good.

[Amineri]

You do not get it :P which is ok. no harm no foul.

Even with an Auction house players whom are first to sell something are the first to set a price. And they tend to go for greed vs anything else. Everytime a new item an item was added to the AH it always had a 50K-1mil price tag. Even with an AH system players are setting the price. SE doesn't tell players what price is good.

Ha ha! Either I don't get it, or I do get it, but you don't get that I get it

In either an Auction House (with actual auctions, meaning bidding) or a marketplace of some kind, sellers don't set the price. The may ATTEMPT to set the price, but buyers have just as much power in determining the final sale price as the buyers.

I could try and sell my Darksteel Ore for 1million gil per piece, because no one else is selling. But no one would buy it. That means that I haven't set the price.

When I look at the item search function for the current market wards, I don't think "Item X is selling for price Y", I think "Someone is trying to sell item X for price Y". There is a world of difference.

Sellers always try and maximize the amount that they can sell an item for. Buyers always try and minimize the price they buy something for. Nothing will change that. The goal of a market system or auction system is to quickly and efficiently allow buyers and sellers to reach a compromise price that they will both agree on.

Currently, the system is ineffective and sluggish because sellers can only guess at prices, and if an item doesn't sell, re-list it at a lower price. Buyers are not represented, because the 'item seek' function is broken (in oh-so-many ways).

In the end transactions only happen because the buyer and seller value the item and gil differently. If the seller values 10k gil more than a pinch of bomb ash, and the buyer values the pinch of bomb ash more than the 10k gil, then a transaction occurs. The current market system fails to find these pairings efficiently.

Slapping an menu-interface on the current system, and allowing instant delivery of the item to the player will hardly accomplish anything. More tools to aid buying / selling are needed.

These could include:

• Fixing the 'seek item' system to allow it to be searched, sought items to take only one bazaar slot, purchasing of smaller increments than the total number requested, and not requiring the player to already have the items to be sought. This fix has nothing to do with auction house vs market wards.
  
• Allowing buy orders, where a retainer is given the order to go out and search for items at or under a given price. The retainer seeks through the market wards, looking for the item, returning it if found. If not, the buy order can remain in effect, until someone lists such an item. Again, nothing to do with auction house vs market ward.

This is what Bayohne said. There are deeper issues that are keeping buyer and seller from finding each other to exchange goods. I hope that the dev team is coming up with some good solutions ... but I'm not holding my breath.

[Sorel]

Slapping an menu-interface on the current system, and allowing instant delivery of the item to the player will hardly accomplish anything. More tools to aid buying / selling are needed.

These could include:

• Fixing the 'seek item' system to allow it to be searched, sought items to take only one bazaar slot, purchasing of smaller increments than the total number requested, and not requiring the player to already have the items to be sought. This fix has nothing to do with auction house vs market wards.
  
• Allowing buy orders, where a retainer is given the order to go out and search for items at or under a given price. The retainer seeks through the market wards, looking for the item, returning it if found. If not, the buy order can remain in effect, until someone lists such an item. Again, nothing to do with auction house vs market ward.

This is what Bayohne said. There are deeper issues that are keeping buyer and seller from finding each other to exchange goods. I hope that the dev team is coming up with some good solutions ... but I'm not holding my breath.

I am definitely on-board with the idea of buy orders.

But I don't think I understand your first bullet-point, Amineri. I don't understand what problem that is trying to solve. Could you break that one down for me?

[Kilta_Firelotus]

An example is ffxi's barwatera spell. Lower jeunos shop had it for about 200-300 gil. (been a while) while the AH price right next to it had a 1K price tag. people then flooded the AH with them and price droped.

[Kilta_Firelotus]

Honestly even on ffxi I tend to set my own price. When I seoll something on the MW's i list it at what I felt was a fair price I do not look up prices. I end up selling items lower anyway as I am not greedy. And hey it gives crafters a break finding cheaper mats. Even stores set their own prices, same for diners etc. Like there is a breafest diner in raymound called the longbranch a group of 3 can get a big breakfest and it will come to $31 (this is including a $5 tip) That is 2 hot chocolates a shortstake pancakes with choco chips a side of bacon, a hot coffee with refill, an egg meal with cinomin(sp) french toast, a egg/hash meal with hash bowns on the side and a fruit cup. (and this place is always packed even got waiting lines)