Do the developers even care about the market board, and its problems?

[Skivvy]

They could always just change the market board to the way FFXI's auction house was. You could only see the last price someone paid for the item rather than what people are actually selling it for. Never really saw undercutting in it or at least the undercutting wasn't nearly as aggressive as it is in this.

I would go back to an XI style auction house in a heartbeat. Price-fixing is the only main issue I can think of. I know that was a tactic of RMT. They would artificially lower the price on a particular item substantially, so then once the masses started selling at the lower number as well, they would buy them all up and then gouge the crap out of everyone. lol. So again, not bad, just playing the market....but perhaps that's what they were trying to avoid.

[therpgfanatic]

I would go back to an XI style auction house in a heartbeat. Price-fixing is the only main issue I can think of. I know that was a tactic of RMT. They would artificially lower the price on a particular item substantially, so then once the masses started selling at the lower number as well, they would buy them all up and then gouge the crap out of everyone. lol. So again, not bad, just playing the market....but perhaps that's what they were trying to avoid.

You can still do that right now with the current system. I can buy up all the bat wings from 1 gil on the market and relist them at 20-30 gil each, and people will buy them if it's super late at night and nobody else lists bat wings. I've done it several times. But the price inevitable drops down to 1 gil again within a few hours.

Price-fixing with listing fees is actually not a big issue because in order for it to work, the player needs to have a huge amount of money to constantly re-list their items, and be willing to take the risk of a big loss. Remember, there are listing fees. Even if they craft or gather the items, there is a time investment there, too.

It's entirely possible when the monopolizer to be list a bunch of items 50% below the market price and another player to buy those items up and then relist them at the actual going market price. Right now, people just relist their own item rather than buy the undercutters item and list it at a higher price, but if you just paid 5,000 gil to list an item and someone is now listing that item at 200 gil, it is cheaper to buy that item and relist it at a higher rate. It protects the investment you've already made with the listing fees. There is motivation from other players to stabilize the economy due to listing fees, that is why it works.

This means the monopolizer to be just lost money (he both paid a listing fee and sold the items well below market worth), and would need to regather / craft the items again in order to try his scheme.

It is much easier to do price-fixing when there isn't any listing fees. There is less financial risk. We see more of it right now because there is no listing fee.

[Xystic]

You're hating this suggestion without fully understanding the mechanics through which it works. You don't see markets crashing in WoW because of the listing fees for the auction houses.

You clearly don't see the mechanics yourself. I don't hate this mechanic, I actually prefer it when I want to make a ton of gold/gil. I can use the listing fee to corner markets to my liking. I don't think you understand how powerful the listing fees are.

Your argument that prices in world of warcraft don't crash is invalid because you don't understand how monopolized the market is in world of warcraft and how much gold is being withheld constantly in that game.

The reason you don't see the the prices crashing in world of warcraft is because a handful of us control it. Why do you think the markets don't fluctuate? Because a few people monopolize and set the prices. When someone undercuts in my market in that game, I just straightline them to the minimum profit margin, forcing them to relist at a loss or leaving the market altogether. At this point, I can readjust the prices to my liking again. Rinse and repeat producing this so called stable prices you believe you are seeing when in fact it is just a monopolized market.

In this system, everyone stands a fair chance at making gil and overall, people do make more gil.

Like I stated earlier, the market is much more competitive here because of the equality and if you feel listing fees is going to give you an edge, than your completely wrong.

Because you see prices stable does not mean everyone is prospering due to it.

[Skivvy]

I do think they should have added listing fees vs. taxes on the item. It may not have a huge impact on the cheap items, but it may make people pause a moment before dropping the price of an item 5 times a day.

[therpgfanatic]

The reason you don't see the the prices crashing in world of warcraft is because a handful of us control it. Why do you think the markets don't fluctuate? Because a few people monopolize and set the prices. When someone undercuts in my market in that game, I just straightline them to the minimum profit margin, forcing them to relist at a loss or leaving the market altogether. At this point, I can readjust the prices to my liking again. Rinse and repeat producing this so called stable prices you believe you are seeing when in fact it is just a monopolized market.

First off, you are confusing "controlling the market" and "monopolizing" with what is actually happening: players self-regulating the market to protect their own financial interests (i.e. make back the investment they just spent with listing fees"). You're not monopolizing it; that would require you to be the only one able to produce and sell the item in question. Which you are most certainly not able to do in an MMO like WoW or FF XIV. A monopoly requires exclusivity.

In actuality, by writing your post you've just agreed that listing fees do exactly what I've said they do.

I stress again that you do not fully understand the mechanics at work here.

PS: You also painted a scenario that looks ideal to you. But it could go (and often does) another way: the other player might be trying to do the very same thing to you. And he might have more money than you. When you try to "force someone" out of a market by getting them to relist lower and lower, you yourself take on a financial risk; you are spending money to do all the listing over and over. If you both have sizable bank accounts and egos, you can waste a lot of money going back and forth like that...until another third-party comes along, buys up all your items and relists them at the fair market price. Then you both lose.

It is too much financial risk to engage in constant undercutting wars when list fees are involved, that is why they aren't as common as in FF XIV. And good for the developers; tons of money gets drained out of the economy when players engage in those turf war attempts.

[Purrfectstorm]

I like the current market system and I get undercut all the time.

Try to sell items that not everyone is trying to sell. I list different items every day and make about 300-500k from crafting. In this game economy that is a pretty decent amount of gil.

The FFXI AH sucked. It sure is fun to play a guessing game on what you can buy an item for especially when it's priced so high to be unpurchasable (sarcasm).

Supply/demand in FFXIV DOES work and most players that are undercutting are not bots. I may get undercut on some items but I also raise prices beyond what they've sold for in the past if I'm the only one selling, so I often make more also. Prices can and will fluctuate regardless of the system you use and people can and will undercut regardless of the system used.

Just fight fire with fire, you can undercut as well and it doesn't have to be often. I check my prices just twice a day and accept I can't sell EVERY item EVERY day.

EDIT: Oh one more point is this - wealth is relative. If prices crash due to undercutting, you may not make as much selling the item but it doesn't cost you as much to buy the item either.

[LineageRazor]

At this point, I can readjust the prices to my liking again.

It's always adorable to see people who feel they have any kind of actual "control" over the market beyond short-term fluctuations. MMO markets aren't like real markets. When someone strongarms, no one goes bankrupt, no one is forced to leave the market forever. They don't depend on the business to keep a roof over their head, or food on their plate. If a particular market becomes unfavorable - they just stay away until it's favorable again. You haven't taught anyone a lesson, you haven't discouraged undercutting - you probably haven't even so much as irritated your target. The one and only thing you've done is make a few buyers happy for as long as your vendetta lasts.

In an MMO market, particularly one like this where nothing is sold that is best-in-slot, and very little is sold that can't be acquired by anyone who bothers to level the correct DoL or DoH classes, there is one and only one factor that affects the prices of goods in the long term: supply and demand. If there's more products available than there are interested buyers, prices go down. If there's more buyers than product, price goes up.

Anything anyone (even RMT) does to game the market or "fix" prices - buying out cheap stock to sell high, selling at cost to punish or scare other sellers, none of it works beyond the short term. People simply won't buy overpriced goods because there's little reason to - nothing is best-in-slot. (Note: "overpriced" is relative; a very wealthy player will be willing to shell out more for something than a player with very little money.) Underpriced goods will sell fast as long as players are willing to underprice them, but that's by definition a losing game.

[Xystic]

First off, you are confusing "controlling the market" and "monopolizing" with what is actually happening: players self-regulating the market to protect their own financial interests (i.e. make back the investment they just spent with listing fees"). You're not monopolizing it; that would require you to be the only one able to produce and sell the item in question.

In actuality, by writing your post you've just agreed that listing fees do exactly what I've said they do.

By using listing fees to filter out players, you force people out of the markets, allowing you to monopolize/control specific markets, meaning you will be the only one to produce goods in that market. People will not produce or sell goods that make no money if someone is going to make sure you make no money any time you enter a specific market. We see it time and time again when we enter a certain market, someone immediately drops the price on you to the point where you make no money and when you leave the market, the person readjusts the market back up.

Based off your replies, you are bent, on defending your topic regardless how terrible the cons are in listing fee systems. Regardless of my explanations, it appears, they will all be ignored or considered irrelevant. So I will end my argument that listing fees are not as you claim, with you.

I would recommend the community to CAREFULLY look in to listing fees before deciding. Listing fees have been around for nearly 10 years and so its been analyzed thoroughly. I personally, like I stated before, don't mind what system we do because I've attained enough experience over the years to do well in either system but listing fee systems are not what people think they are.

I'm very active on the markets forum, its the number one forum I sit in. There are quite a few threads about listing fees and listing fees have been discussed much much more thoroughly as well there if anyone is interested in learning more about what listing fees really do.

~Cheers

[Xystic]

no one is forced to leave the market forever.

This is not real life markets but the dealers and buyers are still very real. People will not produce and sell at losses. All this information about surviving or going bankrupt is very irrelevant. As long as People will not produce and sell at losses, you can force people to leave markets.

People simply won't buy overpriced goods because there's little reason to - nothing is best-in-slot.

What is the blue bird BIS for?

[LineageRazor]

This is not real life markets but the dealers and buyers are still very real. People will not produce and sell at losses. All this information about surviving or going bankrupt is very irrelevant. As long as People will not produce and sell at losses, you can force people to leave markets.

Again, you can force them to leave, but you can't force them to stay gone. That is why my talk of bankruptcy is relevant: in the real world, if someone is forced out of the market, they are very likely gone forever. It is unlikely that any bank will trust them to start up the business again. It's what makes strongarming a very real and scary tactic when applied in the real world. It's why real-world sellers stay gone when they are forced out of a market. There are NO SUCH PENALTIES in this game.

If a player decides to throw a market tantrum, once the tantrum is over (and it WILL end eventually - like you said, people cannot afford to produce and sell at a loss forever, and that includes YOU) their competetors can get right back into the game. It's as simple as that. Your competetors haven't lost any property or bank trust; they all have the same capabilities as they did before you began. Thanks to the lack of listing fees, they haven't even lost any gil. Nothing you did makes any difference at all. You forced people out of the market, and once you stopped they came right back.

Any player is free to drop a rock into the ocean. Don't expect it to leave a hole. That is how insignificant yours, RMTs, or ANY sellers' games are on the markets.

What is the blue bird BIS for?

Like everything else on the markets, blue bird is not BIS anywhere (though in this case because it has no real slot). It happens to be a luxury item, and only the wealthy with money to burn will every buy one in the first place. All of that is irrelevant; blue bird is as immune in the long term to market manipulation as anything else. Your strategy of forcing others out of the market is even LESS workable here, because blue birds are serendipitous. No one in their right mind will deliberately farm blue birds with the intent to make money selling them because obtaining them is time-consuming and unreliable - even at the prices they sell at, it's simply not a good way to make money.

So, sellers are predominantly folks that happen to have lucked into a blue bird. These are not blue bird salespeople, they are people who happen to be trying to sell a blue bird. So, you decide you're going to take control of the blue bird market. If you buy up all the blue birds in stock and resell at a higher price, all the people trying to sell a blue bird walk away happy. You put up your birds at a higher price and, depending on the current market, either you'll sell them or you won't. As a luxury item, people will only buy them if they can afford them. You will have to price according to market demands, same as anyone.

If you try to massively undercut, eventually you will run out of blue birds (probably pretty quickly), and all of the people who you "forced out of the market" will start selling again. What else would they do with their blue birds? NPC them? No, they still have them, and are simply waiting for hurricane Belcross to run its course. The only result of this is that you've lost a ton of potential cash selling those birds cheap.