Partial Buy for Marketplace

[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.

[Canadane]

It's actually a nice thing this isn't an option.
It gives people the ability to make more money by not selling in bulk.

Don't wanna buy 99 for 800 gil each?
You can buy my 2 for 8000 gil each.

[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.

[LuciferNacht]

Partial Buy: By that I mean the ability to buy some rather than all of a stack. It's frustrating from the perspective of a relatively new player to need 1 and have to buy 99....assuming I can even afford it!.

As many other games have already implemented this feature, I'm wondering why this one hasn't.

No.

Sellers get to choose what they want to sell their items for and in what quantities.

You want a specific quantity of the item in a different way GET IT FOR YOURSELF.

It is not the sellers fault that you don't want to level your crafters and gatherers and make you're own stuff.

The game is 100% self sufficient, they even nerfed crafting and gathering into the ground for you. They even made it so you can visit like 20+ other worlds on most DCs for you to do your shopping and find better prices/quantities.

You being too lazy to level your characters, or world hop is not the market's problem.

[kcj]

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.

Bots is an excuse, something the game owners/developers have to deal with. It's not an excuse to avoid change or even suggestions that tend to improve the new player experience.

And until I started this thread, I didn't even know that you could change servers to look at the auction house. So from now on, I'm planning on spending however long every day it takes me to server hop to find what I want at the cheapest quantity and price.

[Ravenblade1979]

It mostly depends on how much you sell. I only have the basic 2 retainers so I literally don't have the space to split up my sales most the time.
And I wouldn't call selling stacks stupid. It's more a convenience for people who don't live by the summoning bell to do it once and be done with it.
With this being said, I still am 100% against partial sales and say the power should remain in the hands of the seller and not the buyer.

Did I ever lead on that I was for that stupid idea. I just know from experience that smaller quantities moves far quicker then stacks do.

[Bun_Vivant]

And until I started this thread, I didn't even know that you could change servers to look at the auction house. So from now on, I'm planning on spending however long every day it takes me to server hop to find what I want at the cheapest quantity and price.

Well, if that's what you consider fun, go for it. It's just a game after all, so do whatever you find entertaining.

But it's probably not a good strategy for maximizing your in-game wealth. It's pretty easy to turn time into money in this game -- it's only a slight exaggeration to say that if you do almost anything, the game shoves gil down your throat. So that time spent world-hopping to save a few gil might be better spent, from a purely in-game financial point of view, doing dailies or weeklies, running quests or FATEs, and so on.

Or that time spent world-hopping might be profitably spent outside the game, but you do you.

[Thurmnmurmn]

Did I ever lead on that I was for that stupid idea. I just know from experience that smaller quantities moves far quicker then stacks do.

The last bit was more just me covering my stance on it since my response can be used as a positive for partial sales.

[Espon]

I honestly don't see many negative consequences to allowing you to buy partial stacks. Seems like most that are against such an addition simply don't want it because it's a change. While it means that single high priced items won't sell, it's more convenient for those that have a lot of different things to sell (you can only sell 20 items per retainer regardless of quantity unless it's more than 99) as you don't need to wait for someone who needs a high number of materials, and makes it easier for people to buy the number of items they need instead of server hopping or reselling because there's only stacks of 99 available when they only need a small amount.

All they would do is add a feature that allows you to pick how many of an item you would like and it would buy them starting from the cheapest stacks first.

For example, need 12 logs to make a bow? The game will buy the stack of 5 for 300 gil, 1 for 350 gil, 3 for 398 gil, 1 for 399 gil, and 2 from the stack of 99 for 400 gil.

[Bun_Vivant]

I honestly don't see many negative consequences to allowing you to buy partial stacks.

When you go to the store for, say, cotton swabs, do you expect them to let you buy just one out of the package of 200?
When they have apples in bags at $3 for 6, but loose at $1 apiece, do you expect they'll let you take an apple out of the bag and buy it for $0.50?

Of course not.

Now why do you think that the case? That is, why do you think bulk discounts are so commonly offered?