Can we have changes to the market system?

[Jojoya]

Making said changes wont hurt anyone or anything. The changes suggested have been in TONS of other mmo's and werent effected by bots. Letting ppl select a specific amount to buy from any stack will make sales go faster due to ppl being able to buy at an affordable price for total purchase and it wont hurt the sale price as long as youre not selling it for a OP amount in the 1st place. All the ppl here that are against it are just greedy, plain and simple, that or just wanabe fail trolls, that much is obvious. And ppl wonder why their stack of 51 of (any materia) never sells LOL.

No one is trolling. They just have their idea of what makes the market good for them without considering what would make the market good for others.

No one is wondering why their stack of 51 materia didn't sell because it did in fact sell even if you weren't the buyer. Overmelding is a thing and there's a huge profit to be made from selling even presumably useless materia in large stacks. I made over 50 million gil at the start of patch 4.3 selling good materia I had obtained by transmuting useless materia I bought cheap off the MB.

There can be profit for both sides when people know what they're doing under the current system though I still believe adding partial stack buying would serve the game better. Players able to spend less by buying a partial stack instead of a full stack means they'll have gil left to spend on other purchases. Players only needing to list one full stack instead of 10 partial stacks to get their stock to sell means they're able to list more items to reach more buyers.

Both things will stimulate the player economy. It will also make the market friendlier to new players who don't have the gil to afford those large stacks when they need just 2 or 3 of an item. It's easy for them to get frustrated with the game when the things they need at low level are priced out of reach by veteran players who are trying to profit off other veteran players with lots of gil.

[Avenger]

I think that they should make it so that you can change prices from a mobile app, by spending kupo nuts which you can buy with real money. Oh, wait....

[Kytrin]

WHAT!?
I'm sorry, either please buy my entire stack or find another purchase source. =3
I don't ever want to see my market board listings disappear in chunks.

Amen to that! I sell in the stack sizes I do for a reason, and I don't need people messing that up thanks.

[Tohe-Spidhire]

I perceive that part of the issue revolves around players that want to level crafting quickly, so they churn out X amount of NQ stuff, then post to the marketboard, flooding the market, instead of just tossing the stuff.

Or maybe someone does a bunch of hunting for exp., then quickly posts a stack of raw mats before logging out. This is observable where there’s a bunch of (say) hides posted, 2-3 at a time (mostly NQ), for a pittance, which just sits there until someone comes along to clear it out.

Contrast this with an organized crafter that, using a combination of HQ crafting gear and mats, will craft HQ gear and tools/weapons for posting to the marketboard at a premium.

The constraint on this market activity is the retainer system, where everyone is limited by the number of items that their retainers can place on the marketboard, the exception being new players that don’t have access to retainers, essentially forcing them to vendor stuff for a pittance.

As a solution to the issue, “Why can’t I just buy a portion of that stack of mats,” it might be doable to have a wholesaler system, with representatives outside of villages, upon whom you can dump those assorted mats out of your inventory. Payment for those mats would be on par with vendoring, but they are then lumped together for purchase through a commodity system (representatives in the cities).

Of course, players can still post stuff to the marketboard, but for NQ mats there is incentive to sell quickly to a wholesaler, with crafters then being able to buy portions of the available mats through the commodity reps.

With this system being standalone from the marketboard, any economic issues caused by the wholesaler/commodity exchange system can be disabled by closing the exchange (presumably by order of the regional governments).

[Kytrin]

I perceive that part of the issue revolves around players that want to level crafting quickly, so they churn out X amount of NQ stuff, then post to the marketboard, flooding the market, instead of just tossing the stuff.

Or maybe someone does a bunch of hunting for exp., then quickly posts a stack of raw mats before logging out. This is observable where there’s a bunch of (say) hides posted, 2-3 at a time (mostly NQ), for a pittance, which just sits there until someone comes along to clear it out.

Contrast this with an organized crafter that, using a combination of HQ crafting gear and mats, will craft HQ gear and tools/weapons for posting to the marketboard at a premium.

The constraint on this market activity is the retainer system, where everyone is limited by the number of items that their retainers can place on the marketboard, the exception being new players that don’t have access to retainers, essentially forcing them to vendor stuff for a pittance.

As a solution to the issue, “Why can’t I just buy a portion of that stack of mats,” it might be doable to have a wholesaler system, with representatives outside of villages, upon whom you can dump those assorted mats out of your inventory. Payment for those mats would be on par with vendoring, but they are then lumped together for purchase through a commodity system (representatives in the cities).

Of course, players can still post stuff to the marketboard, but for NQ mats there is incentive to sell quickly to a wholesaler, with crafters then being able to buy portions of the available mats through the commodity reps.

With this system being standalone from the marketboard, any economic issues caused by the wholesaler/commodity exchange system can be disabled by closing the exchange (presumably by order of the regional governments).

So like... npcs whose wares are dependent entirely on what people bring them? It's an interesting idea, but you'd have to be clear on what can and can't be given to such people or we'd have people flooding them with animal skins and the like when you can buy those off half a dozen vendors already, and you'd need more than a vendor price incentive to get people to put up the more valuable items or they'll put them on the MB anyway.

[Tohe-Spidhire]

So like... npcs whose wares are dependent entirely on what people bring them? It's an interesting idea, but you'd have to be clear on what can and can't be given to such people or we'd have people flooding them with animal skins and the like when you can buy those off half a dozen vendors already, and you'd need more than a vendor price incentive to get people to put up the more valuable items or they'll put them on the MB anyway.

Nope. The incentive is having NPCs that the raw mats can be dumped on, saving time. We already see people dumping stuff on the marketboard for cheap, so paying large amount of gil is not the motivation. Indeed, gil can’t be a motivation, otherwise, like you say, people would buy from vendors, and then flip for a higher price.

If someone feels they can get a better price, then they would need to use the marketboard. If they dump HQ mats to a wholesaler, then it is automatically converted to NQ. With respect to which mats could be dumped, that’s up to the game designers. I can only paint the broad strokes.

However, as I say, this system would complement the existing marketboard, resolves the OP’s request, and could be independently turned off if there were unforeseen issues. Otherwise, the OP’s request is inherently risky because it tinkers with an existing, core system (from a programming standpoint). Don’t forget the code modifications, quality assurance, and testing that are limiting factors on decision making.

[Kytrin]

Nope. The incentive is having NPCs that the raw mats can be dumped on, saving time. We already see people dumping stuff on the marketboard for cheap, so paying large amount of gil is not the motivation. Indeed, gil can’t be a motivation, otherwise, like you say, people would buy from vendors, and then flip for a higher price.

If someone feels they can get a better price, then they would need to use the marketboard. If they dump HQ mats to a wholesaler, then it is automatically converted to NQ. With respect to which mats could be dumped, that’s up to the game designers. I can only paint the broad strokes.

However, as I say, this system would complement the existing marketboard, resolves the OP’s request, and could be independently turned off if there were unforeseen issues. Otherwise, the OP’s request is inherently risky because it tinkers with an existing, core system (from a programming standpoint). Don’t forget the code modifications, quality assurance, and testing that are limiting factors on decision making.

Okay, maybe it's just because I'm not awake, but I still don't understand how this is any different than simply vendoring excess mats vs. putting them on the MB? Will attempt to re-read later when I've had more caffeine.

[Tlamila]

Okay, maybe it's just because I'm not awake, but I still don't understand how this is any different than simply vendoring excess mats vs. putting them on the MB? Will attempt to re-read later when I've had more caffeine.

If I understood it right, the difference is just you sell to the npc and the npc sells to players, but choosing the amount you want to buy, bit like Guild Wars works. But I may have totally misunderstood cause I also found it confusing.

[Espritduo]

Seems like the idea is a communal dumping bin for unwanted stuff that anyone can just peak into and see what others have put in there for the taking, first come first serve. Like those bins with piles of used books in them at stores. I take my unwanted stuff, sell it to the NPC for a set amount of gil, he then has it up for anyone to buy for a set amount of gil. Same items would just be lumped all together into one stack, but buyers can buy however much from the stack they want. This would prevent it from being flooded with animal skins and the like, and still alow people to buy what they want. It'd be an interesting idea and it could be fun to look in there every once in a while to see what people have dumped. Would be fun for just throwing "gifts" you want to get rid of in there for those good samaritans looking to make someone somewhere happy. Could be fun, i dunno.

[Tohe-Spidhire]

If I understood it right, the difference is just you sell to the npc and the npc sells to players, but choosing the amount you want to buy, bit like Guild Wars works. But I may have totally misunderstood cause I also found it confusing.

You got it. The confusing bit is probably how I’m fleshing out how the npc interactions might appear in the game world (i.e., game logic). Though the devs would have to do the hard work, such as deciding restrictions, creating graphics, writing flavour text, etc.

Seems like the idea is a communal dumping bin for unwanted stuff that anyone can just peak into and see what others have put in there for the taking, first come first serve. Like those bins with piles of used books in them at stores. I take my unwanted stuff, sell it to the NPC for a set amount of gil, he then has it up for anyone to buy for a set amount of gil. Same items would just be lumped all together into one stack, but buyers can buy however much from the stack they want. This would prevent it from being flooded with animal skins and the like, and still alow people to buy what they want. It'd be an interesting idea and it could be fun to look in there every once in a while to see what people have dumped. Would be fun for just throwing "gifts" you want to get rid of in there for those good samaritans looking to make someone somewhere happy. Could be fun, i dunno.

Yeah, when buying basic mats, I notice that people frequently toss handfuls of items onto the marketboard, but priced low, around what one would expect to get from a vendor.

In other words, to these players, they have collected “junk" mats, but they’re being nice by taking the trouble to post for crafters to buy (i.e., help crafters save time collecting mats).

So the wholesaler system provides a “communal dumping bin” that makes it easier for these players to dump their junk mats quickly, and in a way that doesn’t require a retainer. The mats are lumped together at NQ, and it makes sense that crafters could then buy portions from the stack.

Over time, there will be two possible outcomes for a given mat:

A- Nobody actually wants the mat, so it just accumulates to whatever the stack limit is.
B- Crafters periodically check the listing and scoop up what they need.

For (A), unwanted mats are an indication to the devs of where new recipes could be created to make use of those mats (i.e., improve the gathering/crafting system).

For (B), high-level crafters can actually use the NQ mats because they have enough skill to produce HQ items from NQ mats.