Why further enhancements to market wards?

[naaros]

I also like how you can open the window to browse a shop from about ten times farther away than the distance you can actually purchase things at, and how you are rendered completely immobile while it's open so you have to exit out of everything to get closer.

I agree. This part really bugs me, personally. Why can I open and browse the bazaar from far away, but not be able to purchase? Makes no sense. And why do I stop when I open a player bazaar or retainer? You don't when you Check someone. How am I supposed to buy something from someone possibly running away if I auto-stop, and they run out of range for me to buy (because as I said above, you have to purchase when you are close-ish). I know I can message and tell them to stop, but that's besides the point - I shouldn't have to do that. :/

[Coglin]

I personally am for the MWs. They revise the search a little for HQ items and I will be happy.

The one thing I have to admitt that baffles me here is the hypocrocy. Everyone wants to scream "do something to stop RMT" "Do something to stop XYZ issue with auction houses." The devs create a few systems that really curb the top 3 AH isues complained about, and severly curb RMT, and it gets bashed hard.

Like it or not, if you saying down with market wards, what your really saying is I support RMT. For those of you this may confuse. If you don't undrstand how it curbs the issue, then you are speaking out of pure ignorance when asking for the sytems to change.

[lackofwords]

Yes, but they seem to have this uncanny thing for trying to re define already perfectly working systems and break them up to the point of no return. That and SE is so amazingly pridefull that they just cannot let go of this system that they created, admit it's failure, and just scrap it and make something that works.

They aren't afraid of trashing stuff that doesn't work. They've scrapped the combat system two times already. Remember the combat gauge, which then turned into stamina bar, and now it's auto-attack. Remember the repair system, and what they are planning to do to the crafting to system starting 1.19.

The Market Wards right now has three big issues I can see;
1) Doesn't list HQ items when it is crowded out by NQ items
2) Overpopulated wards
3) Overhead process

The first issue can probably be easily patched up by adding a new sort feature. However, the second issue isn't as easy to solve depending on how they want the market wards to function.

To me it seems they want just one large wards where people can just wander around searching such bazaar like a flea market. You can pick which supplier you want to buy from, unlike an AH which you will always buy from the lowest priced item, even if it is 1 gil difference. Additionally, you can see if someone is trying to purchase from the same retainer you are looking at. Thus, adding a sense of pressure to purchase the item before someone else does.* These concepts are nice but I haven't too many people meandering around the wards like that. Most of the time I only see 5 actual players, at best, moving about in a given ward.

*(Only during the early launch of FFXIV have I ever had someone run up to a retainer I was about to purchase from to swipe an item from me.)

The third problem is the overhead processes from purchasing an item, which was mentioned by the OP. This is really a given nature to a bazaar type of market. You can't have a bazaar, without having any overhead since each bazaar is a shop that you have to head to. If they really want to streamline everything, then the simple answer is to just have the item deliver to you instead of having you walk to the bazaar. However, I'm pretty sure they still want people to actually walk into the Market Wards.

@OP, Personally I don't have much of a issue with having the Market Wards purchase process. Most of the time I'm only searching for 2 or 3 items to buy, which doesn't take that long to grab them all. Granted it can become rather tedious if you're looking to shop for 20 different items, however anything becomes tedious when you have to repeat a process over a large quantity in a short period of time.

[Orcishgrappler]

Im with Draco 1000% on this one. We need to keep this topic alive so they read it and listen.

Get rid of the Market and get a real AH. Draco is not talking about what the very few people left on this game now want. He wants the game to do well in the future. This will only happen if SE learns from mistakes. Those who are confused really need to read some of this games reviews. A real AH is essential for most new players. Another thing why bash Draco for making his opinion known? That is what this is for in the first place. If you disagree thats fine but no reason to not be civil about it.

[Chocobits]

I personally am for the MWs. They revise the search a little for HQ items and I will be happy.

The one thing I have to admitt that baffles me here is the hypocrocy. Everyone wants to scream "do something to stop RMT" "Do something to stop XYZ issue with auction houses." The devs create a few systems that really curb the top 3 AH isues complained about, and severly curb RMT, and it gets bashed hard.

Like it or not, if you saying down with market wards, what your really saying is I support RMT. For those of you this may confuse. If you don't undrstand how it curbs the issue, then you are speaking out of pure ignorance when asking for the sytems to change.

People are biased against RMT in this game why? In FFXI you could directly see the damage they were doing to the economy, although the economy was susceptible to manipulation from non-RMT. So, just because someone is manipulating the economy doesn't make them RMT, and just because someone is an RMT doesn't mean they're manipulating the economy. In FFXIV there's little to no way to track RMT with the current system, so there's no evidence to suggest this RMT paranoia everyone whispers about in hushed voices has any basis in reality.

RMT are gold farmers. They're not concerned with endgame activities or crafts unless they can generate large amounts of in-game currency with it. Since stats on items are worthless, and most people just choose inexpensive gear approximate to their level, and there's not a lot of need for consumable items, I'm just going to go out on a limb here and say they're PROBABLY not too concerned with abusing crafts at this point. They'd be the ones farming synthesis MATERIALS and doing gil rewarding tasks nonstop.

If anything, I think some serious RMT action in the crafting corner might give the economy a revitalizing injection. More money exchanging hands = more need/desire for items, more fluidity, and more accessibility for everyone. Until item stats matter though, people should unruffle their tailfeathers. The game isn't being destroyed by RMT in the economy. The economy itself is what's destroying the game. That's all, you can carry on now.

[Amineri]

What I'm really, really, REALLY wondering is how the current (or any) market system is going to handle items with various types of Materia attached?

I mean .... 30 materia (estimated), up to 5 attached, that's over 24 million combinations of materia. How are people going to find an item with specific materia, or order it up if they want it?

[Vesper]

Sorry but the market wards are a doomed system. As Draco stated..

Walk up to Wards
Select Item Search Counter
Select desired ward
Select desired catergory
Find Item
Select Item
Hit "Yes" button at bottom to track item
Select Market Wards
Select desired ward
Wait for loading screen
Run to desired retainer and select
Purchase desired item from retainer
Run back to the Market Ward window

That is a completely asinine routine to go through everytime you want to buy an item. Not to mention the games population is very low atm. If these other changes coming and the release of PS3 end up helping the population explode again whats going to happen?

First thing that will happen is Wards will once again reach their retainer caps shortly after a fresh reset. To fix this the devs have two options. Once again expand the camp for retainers, low end machines be damned as the retainer lag will increase more. The other option, add extra instances of each ward to spread retainers out more. So now you have to not only deal with all the crap Draco stated, but now you get to choose which instance of each ward also.

I love retainers and I really liked the idea of having market wards, but at this point in time the market wards system is just something that in many peoples opinions will just not work out in the end, even though many of us did in fact enjoy it. But the system is showing its failings now.

Not only that but how are market wards going to handle the materia system? Being able to add your own materia is going to add ton of variations of gear. The system can't even tell us what item is HQ or not atm, how it is going to handle dozens of materia combinations for each weapon?

It's time to stop spending ANY/ALL dev time tweaking the market ward systems and move those resources over to an AH now. Unless they can make the market ward system as fast and easy to use as an AH the system should just go. And I am willing to bet that all these market ward changes will in the long run not have been worth it as I fully expect an AH to arrive.

[Verecund]

If only some of you actually read before posting.............

[Biggs]

They are fixing the game. Just because Events team releases a seasonal event doesn't mean the other teams stop what they're doing

Right, but I think he means he would rather see those people working on fixing the game. More man hours would mean less time in production. If we had the option of getting bathing suits in August or getting the 1.19 a week earlier, I think many of us would choose the extra time.

[Felis]

@ Abriael ......... .

Approach AH
Select Catergory
Select Item
Purchase Item
Equip Item

Rinse repeat 5-10 times all without having to move your character from place to place.

Is that what you meant?

And again, this is not an action house

An action house would be:
Approach AH
Select Catergory
Select Item
Bid Item
Wait a little
Bid again
Purchase Item
Equip Item