Market Wards Suggestion

[Xoo]

Coglin, it's not about people undercutting - it's about people working/manipulating the seller list in order to get their names highest on the list regardless of price.

[Era]

The economy of MMOs is something I have a lot of fun and spend a majority of my time playing around with. OP brings up one of the most common complaints about the current market wards and how items are displayed when doing an item search. One of the biggest problems, that was mentioned, was that only a set amount of items are shown (the cheapest) and this pushes the HQ items/equipment with materia off the page due to them being priced higher BUT for a legitimate reason: higher quality.

I do understand where OP is coming from, but as someone else said, it's a free market. Anytime someone brings up the fact that they were undercut they're usually upset that someone else is willing to sell the same item at a lower price thus they wont be making the same profit they are used to or thought they would make.

Saying that the current way the items are listed is the cause for "rampant undercutting" and abuse is where I disagree. While it is a free market, besides the HQ items mentioned above, NQ items are all exactly the same, thus selling items tends to rely less on building a dedicated consumer base and more with selling the items consistently and evolving with the very fragile economic environment.

Undercutting may seem unusually rampant but I believe this is due to the average player having only 20 slots to try and sell items on the market at a given time. With a system like this I personally like to list items that sell within a decent amount of time so that I can continue to sell new items and adapt with price changes. This being said, if an item that normally sells at a certain price is suddenly being heavily undercut I can assume that this item is suffering from either increasing supply or decreasing demand, or worst case scenario: both. Due to the fact that I am trying to sell a lot more items than the 20 slots given to us, it might be fiscally prudent to simply settle for the new "low" price and move on to another item.

Now what I described above is an over-analyzed version of supply and demand as I've experienced it in this specific game. I did this to provide a possible reasoning behind what OP and others may describe as undercutting for the simple sake of being first on the list, aka:

it's about people working/manipulating the seller list in order to get their names highest on the list regardless of price.

-Xoo

I don't even understand what the point of doing that (disregarding price and just aiming for the top of the list) would be since if you are disregarding the price then there's no point in being high on the list, i.e. you wouldn't be making enough of a profit to continue doing it. So, rather than this, I think some of these reactions are people experiencing the fast paced economy that FFXIV has cultivated.

I'm not sure if that helps explain anything, but I hope it at least provides some kind of reasoning as to why it happens and even though this is just my personal experience, it explains a situation where your items might be undercut but not while disregarding the price, but rather "cutting your losses" so to speak to move on to other stock.

[Kiara]

Hiding names would be a good idea but wouldn't stop undercutting.

The only way SE can really solve this issue is to have a floor and ceiling price for every item and I'm sure many people would be opposed to that.

Hi Jinko and Answa,

It's an interesting topic (and the related topic of undercutting).

My worries are about when we get the Server Merge (so we'll have TWICE the # of players / retainers), and the eventual 2.0 Launch (even more people / retainers), *and* the Unified Markets (all 3 Nations share 1 Market Ward) (even more people / retainers), how any regular player can compete with RMT / Gil Sellers or those that want to bully regular players out of the market?

If we only ever display the Top 20 Cheapest Items, even right now, on my server, for popular items you'll see:

Abfggd 99 gil
Abfggd 99 gil
Abfggd 99 gil
Abfggd 99 gil
Abfggd 99 gil
Abfggd 99 gil
Abfggd 99 gil
Abfggd 99 gil
Abfggd 99 gil
Abfggd 99 gil
Peony 99 gil
Peony 99 gil
Peony 99 gil
Peony 99 gil
Peony 99 gil
Peony 99 gil
Peony 99 gil
Peony 99 gil
Peony 99 gil
Peony 99 gil

And everyone else's retainer / items don't even show.

It's a free market, sure, but even in the U.S. there are rules and regulations to prevent Monopolies, Price Dumping, Market Manipulation, etc.

There are laws to protect Competition from those that unscrupulously try and do Price Dumping (selling at ridiculous prices to force the competition out of the market). Any RMT / Gil Selling Corporation (or those players rich enough) can dedicate 2 Retainers (= 20 Slots) and take and control the Listing for the Top 20 Slots and Price Dump, forcing regular crafters and players to try and keep up, or leave the market, and then the RMT / Dumping Player now controls it (raising prices later).

That's always been my problem with FF XI and this game, and it's only going to get worse when the Servers Merge and then to 2.0 and beyond.

I had suggested to Yoshida-san and the Dev Team that they dedicate a few people to be like the Final Fantasy XIV version of the SEC / Anti-Competition Committee, where they can track if large quantities of items are being Price Dumped and a market is being controlled by a few people, where they drive out the competition, and then raise the prices for themselves.

We'll see where this goes, but it's already looking ugly.

And as Myrhn pointed out, right now HQ Items don't show up separately (but they did say they'll work on a system to display HQ eventually), so it's very hard to shop or sell HQ items.

[Crica]

the reason no one else's names show is because no one else is selling the item as cheaply as those that are showing...

the sort order is the the 20 cheapest items show up - therefore if YOUR items are not one of the 20 cheapest then YOUR name is not going to show...

no one WANTS to see your name OR items UNLESS they are in the top 20 cheapest list - working as intended...

[Jinko]

Well with any luck we will get a WoW style AH interface in 2.0.

This way you can can click {price} to display the list by price {name} to list by alphabetical name of item, {quality} to list HQ items at the top.

{colour}, {level} etc etc

I don't even think retainer name should even come into how the list is displayed that should be completely random.

This obviously goes beyond the scope of the OP's suggestion but they need to make the marketward categories easier to find and not list them by the ward name and please add a way to type in text to search for items.

[Answa]

the reason no one else's names show is because no one else is selling the item as cheaply as those that are showing...

the sort order is the the 20 cheapest items show up - therefore if YOUR items are not one of the 20 cheapest then YOUR name is not going to show...

no one WANTS to see your name OR items UNLESS they are in the top 20 cheapest list - working as intended...

You're totally forgetting about all the other people that just have retainers with names further down the alphabetical order with the item at the exact same price.

And HQ items.

And materiad items.

[Crica]

You're totally forgetting about all the other people that just have retainers with names further down the alphabetical order with the item at the exact same price.

And HQ items.

And materiad items.

Ok, I think I understand what you are saying - if I place an item up for sale and its the 21st item, then the 20th item gets bumped off the list, regardless if its the same price as mine?

Hmm... even in WoW it works the same way - if you choose to sort the item list by lowest price first, the most RECENT lowest priced listing will be displayed first in the list, regardless of how many listings there are for the SAME price.

How ELSE would you suggest the game sort the listings?

SOMEONE has to be first on the list - what is wrong with the most RECENT lowest price listing being first?

I am NOT saying that all other listings should not be shown - if it is possible to show all listings, like WoW does, then by all means show them all - but that does not negate the fact that there are going to be 20 listings that are FIRST in the list no matter what.

[Answa]

Ok, I think I understand what you are saying - if I place an item up for sale and its the 21st item, then the 20th item gets bumped off the list, regardless if its the same price as mine?

Hmm... even in WoW it works the same way - if you choose to sort the item list by lowest price first, the most RECENT lowest priced listing will be displayed first in the list, regardless of how many listings there are for the SAME price.

How ELSE would you suggest the game sort the listings?

SOMEONE has to be first on the list - what is wrong with the most RECENT lowest price listing being first?

I am NOT saying that all other listings should not be shown - if it is possible to show all listings, like WoW does, then by all means show them all - but that does not negate the fact that there are going to be 20 that are FIRST in the list no matter what.

That is exactly what I'm suggesting. Right now it's alphabetical.

[Crica]

That is exactly what I'm suggesting. Right now it's alphabetical.

Oh.. I did not realize this.

Erm... wow...

[Peptaru]

Ok, blah blah.

The complaint is not over pricing or date of listing. Its about an unfair alphabetical system runnin the wards. If character named "Aaaaaaaaaaaarthur" has the top ten listings, all for 40 gil..... his name only REALLY needs to be up there ONE TIME. He doesn't need to be, or deserve to be, taking up 50% of the list. it prevents others who might also be selling at 40 named "Zzzzzzzzarthur" from ever even having their items appear on the list.

This is a seperate, and at the same time identical, issue that affects +1 or melded items which are obviously listed at higher/much higher price and thus get dropped off the bottom of the list for the pricing reason.

If you want to argue for a SOMEONE being first on the list, let the oldest listings take priority but reset them once a week... "Sorry, you had your week at the top, you'll be kicked to the bottom now." The problem with this is people would, as with all things, exploit that with friends to control and overprice the listings for many items. Price gouging instead of price cutting.... at least it would be a change of pace.