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

[Niwashi]

in order for 'buying what you need from the stack' to work, SE would have to basically rework the entire retainer system, and either severely limit how many selling slots you have on each retainer (IE instead of 20/retainer you now have 5) or limit how many retainers you can have access too/have selling items.

You're assuming that not only do we have our current limitations on splitting stacks based on the number of available selling slots (which is clearly true), but also that that was the intended purpose behind that limitation. It's far more likely that the limitation on selling slots is purely about how many listings their Marketboard Database can hold before the time needed to query the database is adversely affected. All those decisions players have to make about how many of their available slots they're willing to dedicate to splitting smaller stacks, those decisions are only necessary as an unfortunate side-effect of a software limitation.

If people could put up larger stacks, while letting sellers take whatever portion they want to buy, that decreases the overall number of MB listings involved in those sales, making it easier on the MB database. So it would be easier on the database (fewer listings), easier on buyers (can buy the amount they want) and easier on sellers (can list more of what they want to sell). Now sellers would eventually want the final few items to sell, so they should be able to offer two prices, letting buyers get a cheaper price if they buy the entire stack, but then it seems everyone would benefit.

[Naamah]

I try to work around this and cover the needs of people like me who only require a smaller amount of materials by selling very small bunches (stacks of 2, 5 or 10, depending on the item).
Needless to say however, my 2 retainers don't remotely have enough selling slots to make business like this very profitable...

[Antonio_Xul]

I actually ran into this problem when I started leveling my Crafters and thought, " I wish I could just buy 1 from the stack." Then I stated selling stuff in the market board myself and realized why people sell in stacks as you want to get rid of everything at once for maximum profit and opening up space to sell more. One thing I do when I just want 1 or 2 from a stack of 5 or 99, is buy the whole stack, use what I need and resell what I didn't use for a slightly higher amount to get a little extra for the inconvenience of buying the whole stack. I make what I want and money at the same time.

[Kuwaitum]

IMO the MB system is great as it is. As a Crafter I also encounter into a situation that I need 1 item of a 99 stack, and as a Gatherer I want to allocate my retainer slots to sell various items as possible as stacks of 99 for profit.

Gil vs. Time:
As a Crafter I learned that as you level up, you sell more & "normally" you should start buying more. Both I (Crafter) & Seller (Gatherer/Looter) are benefited; the MB System is designed to rotate gil in such way! Otherwise if you want to be Jack-of-All-Trades, you'll be a Master-of-None. Gil vs. Time differs between individuals; if you have the time you can turn sand to gil. MB is for the ones with limited play-time.

Whole Sale:
As a Gatherer: I put a stack of 99 of Item-X for 100 gil (9.9K Gil total), also I put a stack of 20 of the same item for 150 gil (3K Gil), usually the latter sells since the buyer doesn't need 30 pieces, or even buy 1 piece for 500 Gil. This is the concept of whole-sale (Stacks) and Retail Sale

[Kuwaitum]

Cont.

MB Stock Market Stalker:
Similar to Gatherer, I check various items on MB looking for profit, I buy cheap Stacks of 99, and resell them in smaller Stacks for higher prices. Implementing the ability to buy from a stack will eliminate this method, becasue anyone can get 1 or 10 items of the 99 Stack.

Slot Management:
The MB pushes the player to use his management and piroirity skills, Should I:
- Sell Stackable items? in what quantities? or
- Sell unstackable items?
- What is the optimum price to sell?
- How much time I wait for it to sell?

My trend is selling smaller stacks, I once sold total of 4 Stacks (~400 item) with higher price then a 99 Stack for someone whose stack was listed for a week.. eventaully I bought it and now re-selling it with profit.

Bottom line: I'm against the ability to buy from a listed stack.

RMT/BOTS: 2 Retainers.. 40 Slots.. 9999 Shards per slot.. with ability to buy from a stack will be a fertile ground for them.

[Moerser]

Nope, thx.
If u need smaller amounts, be lucky and buy at someone like me (i usually sell 10, 50, 99 - depending on the item) or get those items urself.
If ur thinkin "Oh noes, that makes me progress much slower :<", yes it does and u should say "thank u for makin me havin fun for some more time".
I see so many players b like "MWOAH ME NEEZ CONTENT NAO CHAAAARRGEE!".
Dont try to get everything as fast as possible, u´ll only hurt urself.

Greetz,
Mörser out

[JayRising]

Snipped

Gil vs. Time:
Whole Sale:

Cont.
Snipped

MB Stock Market Stalker:
Slot Management:
Bottom line: I'm against the ability to buy from a listed stack.

RMT/BOTS: 2 Retainers.. 40 Slots.. 9999 Shards per slot.. with ability to buy from a stack will be a fertile ground for them.

This is good stuff right here. Learn how to play the market, make it work for you not the other way around.

[Aunalise]

One consideration is SE won't allow individual buying because technically, each sale of a single item can be a tax-free transaction if below 20 gil. That is both ways. The tax is one of the important gil-sinks in the game. Conversely, maintaining higher market prices helps sink more gil. Just a thought.

[Aunalise]

Also, if I am willing to sell the whole stack at 99gil each, and I have an option to make the stack breakable, then why would I raise my price? I wouldn't, unless someone is selling an unbreakable stack for the same. You see, there are TWO undercuts in the current system. One is the price per piece. The other is price per stack. This has the effect of drawing the price higher, because one of the 'undercuts' allows a higher piece-price. This allows single-item sellers to sell at as high a price as 2x or 4x the per-piece stack price, and sell those all day where the stack never sells. The piece-sellers can draw the price back up from a rock-bottom price of a stack-seller.

[Aunalise]

But if a stack seller can sell a breakable stack, then there is only a single undercut, unless someone comes in and sells unbreakable stacks. With just one undercut, no one can sell singles for higher. They can only undercut the lowest possible price. Then unbreakable-stack sellers would have to sell at even lower prices. The end result is that all sellers will see lower prices. We already see people selling single cheap items at 1g when they could just vendor them. In fact, I regularly see 2g to 7g and higher-priced items selling in stacks for only 1g/pc. With the sales tax, they are getting less than 1g/pc for items they could have vendored for 2g or more. And when some undercut, they undercut down an even hundred or thousand, because they are OCD morons. OP idea is great for buyers. Horrible idea for sellers unless they can survive being the low-price provider in a below-cost world.