Partial Buy for Marketplace

[Rongway]

You could just buy the stack and resell what you don't need in smaller stacks at a significant markup.

[kcj]

You could just buy the stack and resell what you don't need in smaller stacks at a significant markup.

You're assuming....
1. That I actually have the money to do that repeatedly. As a new player, I'm at about 150k in gil.
2. That I have plenty of slots for selling stuff. I've only got the 2 retainers that the game gives me, so that's ... 40 slots?

[Bun_Vivant]

You're assuming....
1. That I actually have the money to do that repeatedly. As a new player, I'm at about 150k in gil.
2. That I have plenty of slots for selling stuff. I've only got the 2 retainers that the game gives me, so that's ... 40 slots?

And that's why letting people buy portions of a marketplace listing is a bad idea: with only 20 slots per retainers, sellers aren't going to want to use up a precious retainer slot to sell mats one at a time. So sellers will quit bothering to sell at all, and the marketplace will have fewer items at higher prices because of the reduced competition.

Buyers may want the marketplace to work more to their advantage, but that's a recipe for disaster.
Things are fine the way they are now, which is how they've been for years.

[kcj]

And that's why letting people buy portions of a marketplace listing is a bad idea: with only 20 slots per retainers, sellers aren't going to want to use up a precious retainer slot to sell mats one at a time. So sellers will quit bothering to sell at all, and the marketplace will have fewer items at higher prices because of the reduced competition.

Yet, you just listed a very good reason to have partial buys: You can list all of the item in one slot rather than having to spread it out among multiples.

I have two full pages of inventory full of drops, not counting consumables. There's no way I'm going to be able to resell, assuming that I just stop playing the character; in any sort of time less than months.

[Bun_Vivant]

Yet, you just listed a very good reason to have partial buys: You can list all of the item in one slot rather than having to spread it out among multiples.

I have two full pages of inventory full of drops, not counting consumables. There's no way I'm going to be able to resell, assuming that I just stop playing the character; in any sort of time less than months.

My two main crafting characters each have 6-8 full retainers of mats. If I stop playing the character, I don't really care what happens to the mats -- they're just bits in a game database after all, with no inherent value.

The problems faced when a player stops playing a character should not be foremost in the developers' minds.

[Jojoya]

The problems faced when a player stops playing a character should not be foremost in the developers' minds.

And I don't think it is.

One of the things that does need to be in the developer's minds is the new player experience. Players have quit games when they felt like the player market systems are too far above what they can afford as a new player.

Allowing partial stack purchases at least allows the new player to get what they can afford, creating a better experience for them and creating a larger pool of potential buyers for the long term.

From a seller perspective, there's another advantage to it - you're going to encourage the other player to buy from you instead of deciding to become your competitor. Half of what I sell is usually because I was willing to be lazy and buy from another player but what was listed was unreasonably high in price and/or in excessively large stacks compared to what a player would need to use. I decide to stop being lazy, farm up a massive amount of the item above what I need, then list the excess in smaller stacks and/or tank the price to something more reasonable for the type of player most likely to purchase. It becomes a lot of fun when I find someone buying up my items to resell for profit yet I'm sitting on a supply large enough to keep relisting for days.

[Bun_Vivant]

And I don't think it is.

One of the things that does need to be in the developer's minds is the new player experience. Players have quit games when they felt like the player
market systems are too far above what they can afford as a new player.

The game gives new players everything they need -- gear, food, gil. And there are NPC merchants for what you're not given.

So because new players don't need the marketboard, making a fundamental change to the marketboard system for the benefit of new players doesn't seem necessary (or wise) to me.

There's very little in this game (and nothing that a player needs) that can only be got from the marketboard.
It's just a convenience, not a necessity. Even though I don't merchant much -- just drops I don't want mainly -- IMO the marketboard ain't broke, so don't "fix" it.

[AnotherPerson]

While I'd be normally for such a system in a MMO, I'm against it for FFXIV in particular. FFXIV's market system is surprisingly good for both buyers and sellers at the moment (especially due to the ease of obtaining materials and gil in the current state). The current marketboard system gives price advantages to the buyer based on their needs, which also works for the seller as well because the market provides a better control to the targeted audience to the seller, thereby creating a diversity of different listings. The current system only works if there's a lot of people playing to consistently create a decent supply chain.

For big crafters who do need materials in bulk to craft a lot, they prefer buying large quantities to craft items. The seller's targeted sales volume are more designated for them because they craft in bulk and can utilize all the resources. For regular players, they rather buy a stack of 5 to 10 because they only need a smaller amount, which then works better for everyone else. Crafters can profit properly as a crafter and are less likely to buy smaller stacks that are more expensive individually/causes excess buildup of materials that can't be used, allowing regular players to buy them instead. Regular players can get the goods without the crafters emptying and affecting their demand and possibly driving prices up to the point regular players start losing out and be unable to afford them. Prices are thus relatively stable. Likewise, if the market for said product is slow because it's not as valued (either not as relevant), then the market for that item doesn't immediately crash due to a difference in targeted audience.

From the buyer's perspective they just buy the lowest priced goods that best suit their needs. With the change, it will simply affect the lowest price of every player, which dramatically hurts the newer players the most as prices will skyrocket up when everyone is now pricing things for the 'crafter' who consistently buys in bulk and sells their products at a higher cost to make profit. Basically creating inflation, but people who are well off aren't as pressured compared to newer players who won't get that kind of gil anytime soon to keep up.

For slow products with partial-buy change, the seller just loses out entirely if they're not undercutting to stay relevant if the demand for said material is fairly slow to sell. It will actually lead to more people undercutting goods by 1 gil to get stacks sold faster, before leading to significant price drops and then directly crashing the market price and destroying the economy in the value of goods (or just not pricing them at all anymore), which is really bad considering gil is easily obtainable the longer you play and the higher level you reach and the marketboard is only for convenience (thereby also killing convenience if people just stop listing them from the price drop). The problem is more prevalent with bots. In the current system, the pricing isn't affected as significantly even if the demand is lower because there's multiple types of 'buyers' in the current system, thus still making prices fairly competitive.

The change only benefits buyers in optimized market scenarios, but hurts everyone in a non-optimized market scenario. If the game has a much smaller audience, I'd be for it since the fluctuation of prices won't be as drastic thanks to the smaller demand with 'one type of seller'. For a large population, I'm against it.

[SannaR]

Yet, you just listed a very good reason to have partial buys: You can list all of the item in one slot rather than having to spread it out among multiples.

I have two full pages of inventory full of drops, not counting consumables. There's no way I'm going to be able to resell, assuming that I just stop playing the character; in any sort of time less than months.

You can probably get rid of a lot of those drops if they're sold by a shop. Depending on how hard it is to get the drop and if you're going to even be crafting any time soon You could just npc sell those materials. Freeing up some space in the process.

[UkcsAlias]

Yet, you just listed a very good reason to have partial buys: You can list all of the item in one slot rather than having to spread it out among multiples.

And this is the best counter argument to not want that ever: bots

Bots can always refill the stacks. Which means that as long as they have the lowest price, no one else can get a sale regardless of stack size. Or the item would be at such low price its not worth selling. Bots dont care, they can just bot the items anyway.