Market feels broken. I'm curious why -- and does this diminish crafting?

[_Koneko_]

think this is one thing bdo does better nothing ever really losses value granted thats both good and bad :P

[Rufalus]

There's usually a nice spike in prices when an expansion releases, then it drops back to nothing is worth anything for the rest of the 2 year period. I know I'm exaggerating a bit.

Crafted stuff could be worth something if it was requiring very rare materials or massive quantities (99 ingots), but that would also make it very painful if you botch for any reason including your internet dropping. So I'd like a failsafe system that always returns a portion of the mats when a big synth fails.

And for long term demand there must be things that people need more than once, besides food.
How about a system where having a large quantity of any item lets you forge them into some kind of super crystal, available in several different grades depending on the item used. And you need those super crystals as a catalyst for a new tier of crafting, or every grade of crystal for augmenting your gear.

That would delete the oversupply of all old items on the market, since any listed too cheaply would be bought up to be morphed. Such a sweeping change could reinvigorate every dead item on the market, giving people a lot of room to find a niche to supply.

[Jojoya]

How about a system where having a large quantity of any item lets you forge them into some kind of super crystal, available in several different grades depending on the item used. And you need those super crystals as a catalyst for a new tier of crafting, or every grade of crystal for augmenting your gear.

That would delete the oversupply of all old items on the market, since any listed too cheaply would be bought up to be morphed. Such a sweeping change could reinvigorate every dead item on the market, giving people a lot of room to find a niche to supply.

You just described Demimateria, which usually only comes from desynthesis. Many ARR and HW recipes require it. I'm not certain why SE started excluded it from SB/ShB recipes, switching to scrip materials instead.

Desynthesis had been eliminating a lot of the oversupply on the MB until the crafting and desynthesis changes this expansion removed most of the profit potential. Demand for materials gained through desynthesis has plummeted, making it much riskier as a way to make gil since you're primarily relying on demimateria RNG. Not much point in buying up a stack of items at 1000 gil each when your chance of getting a demateria that will sell for 7500 gill is only about 10% and the remaining materials are only selling for 100-200 gil each because almost no one is using them to level anymore.

[Hoshi-Shouri]

My favorite is the girl/bot on Phoenix who has about a million retainers and undercuts herself by minimum 20k at a time with 4 full retainers of one item. xD I understand undercutting is a natural part of an economy, but when it's obvious something fishy is going on, it'd be nice if there were any kind of repercussions for these people from SE. When you've started naming retainers 'phoenixone' 'phoenixtwo' 'phoenixthree' -- up to 20 or so, or given up naming them altogether (one literally was named something like 'aslfjasjf') you're obviously not a legitimate player at that point. And you can't confront them about it in game or you'll get reported for 'harrassment' tell me how that's fair. xD

[Liam_Harper]

That's not just on Phoenix sadly. The reason they name their retainers "phoenixone' 'phoenixtwo' 'phoenixthree" is because that's their Phoenix retainers. They then have their Zodiark, Lich, Odin, Shiva, Twintania retainers too all supplied by one crafting bot. When cross DC becomes a thing, unless there are trade restrictions, botting rings will have access to pretty much every market.

[LystAP]

There are indeed people that purposely crash a market so they can snap up all the people that rush to undercut or if the bots undercut they can snap them up and then sell on another World Server to make a profit. It's weird. But right now there's quite a few selling these stacks worth millions on a few of the pricier map mats, the markets dropped rather drastically and the way it's worked out it looks like it's the same person or a group of related people.

https://imgur.com/a/0TnrnXZ

I admit. Sometimes I crash a market just because I think it would be funny or out of spite for a competitor. It's a free market and there's no restriction on people engaging in unmarket-like behaviors. I've always seen the MB as a game in of itself. You win or lose. If you want gil, you dance around until you find a open market, then leave when you find it not worth the investment. Or you find it fun to compete with others to sell their product, you can do that too. I don't like bots, because they don't try to challenge you after a certain threshold, but it is fun trying to figure out those thresholds.

Crafting exists to allow you to craft your own products to use. The MB is a tool to sell surplus. There are other ways to make gil. And SE seems intent on trying to find ways to decrease the gil supply, which is pretty up there from what I've seen.