[Suggestion] Quantity selector on market board trades

[Kiritsuki]

Quantity selector would be great in market board trades. It's... strange that you need to sell/buy stackable goods in -exact- quantities over the board. It's tedious and wasteful for the seller, and frustrating to buyer - because seller has to try to guess what exact quantity the buyer will want, and the buyer rarely finds the right quantity at right price. Why can't you just put the amount you want to sell in on single stack (up to 99 of course), and let buyer buy as many as they need like in any -reasonable- regular shop.

[Dererk]

Because then people would jack up the prices.

Yes its not a perfect system. But if we could only buy what ever how much we need or want the prices would ingress to make up for the loss of not selling the stack.

[Stormtronic]

I believe it's an intentional flaw of the system. The concept of selling in bulk is often used in real life, so it makes sense to see it as part of the marketplace on FFXIV.

[Kiritsuki]

It may be intentional flaw, or it might simply be it was much simpler to code it that way. I'm leaning towards the latter reason. What it causes for market though is instability. Selling 1 of something, or selling 90 of something are entirely different things right now. Take grilled raincaller. The people are buying them sometimes for 6k each, but no one is interested if you list a stack with 2k each. That's because usually no one needs more than one (for GC delivery). On the other hand to -make- one, you need high level fisher -and- high level cook. So basically no one bothers to make just one, and for the most part taking up sales slot for selling a single one is pointless.

[Kiritsuki]

(cont)

A system where you can buy specific quantity on the other hand would create much more stable economy. Prices would become much more stable, and for crafters for example, it would provide a much more reliable source for ingredients. Preferably this should be accopanied by ability to make 'buy orders' as well.. f.ex. list an offer to buy 20 HQ cobalt plates. This way a crafter would -know- there is a market for those plates, and they could make them and sell. There's a lot of potential in market that's just untapped right now, because -matching- the seller and buyer is so poor. This kind of system is in effect in GW2 actually, and works really well there. I believe it has potential to work even better in FFXIV because of the synergy of crafting classes, and the fact you actually need to train up gathering skills to harvest materials (in GW2 anyone can collect anything).

[Kiritsuki]

Because then people would jack up the prices.

Yes its not a perfect system. But if we could only buy what ever how much we need or want the prices would ingress to make up for the loss of not selling the stack.

Maybe, maybe not. It depends on product. There's the other side of this. If I need 2 cobalt ore to make something, I can look up market and see you only sell stack of 99. So I grab my pickaxe instead, and go gather some. It's pointless to just gather 2, so I end up gathering 50 instead.. I craft what I need, and then put up the stack of 48 for sale, and undercut you by 30% to make them go away fast. So suddenly the prices dropped 30%. If someone now puts another stack of 99 up, they kind of have to undercut me again, or not bother. Or it might be that someone buys the stack I put up for sale - and suddenly the prices jumped back up 30%. In a system like that, as a crafter you just can't rely on buying something from market in most cases.

I believe it's an intentional flaw of the system. The concept of selling in bulk is often used in real life, so it makes sense to see it as part of the marketplace on FFXIV.

If it was an option, sure. But most of the time it doesn't make sense. If I want to sell 99 mythril ore, I don't really care if one person buys all, or if there's 50 people who buy it between them. As long as it's sold, I'm happy. Chances are if I require one person to buy it all, there will be less people interested in it. And you can force-feed the market only to a point. If someone buys all of it, they probably have to store what they don't use - and then they won't buy more for a long while. In long run that benefits no one - not the seller, and not the buyer.

[Niwashi]

If this were added, I'd want the ability to set two different prices on the listing.

When I'm putting stuff up for sale, it's usually to clear it out of my inventory. If you buy part of a stack but not all of it, it's still there taking up a slot (a MB sale slot rather than an inventory slot but it's still blocking my ability to put up something else). Essentially, it's not sold until it's completely sold, so I want to be able to offer a discount for someone who buys the entire stack, while charging extra to people who just pick a few pieces out of it.

[Kiritsuki]

@Niwashi
The problem is, the 'whole stack' no longer exists the moment someone buys the first item from it.. so it would have to be an option to 'lock' the whole stack into single unit. But that doesn't make it sell any faster, because it limits the buyer's options. Buyer doesn't care about your space, only about price. If you want to clear out, you just put up lower price than regular market value. Doesn't matter if one person buys it all, or if 10 people buy it by pieces.

What I'd really want to see is 'buy orders' included on the list - that is, offers to buy things, as well as offers to sell things. That would clear your problem as well - since you could simply sell the stuff you want to clear, to people who have listed an offer to buy them. The prices in a system like that (one that has both buy and sell offers) will stabilize over time, and the difference usually ends up to close to sales tax (if the difference is significantly higher, someone will put up a higher buy offer, and then put the stuff for sale as soon as they get it).

[Niwashi]

@Niwashi
The problem is, the 'whole stack' no longer exists the moment someone buys the first item from it.. so it would have to be an option to 'lock' the whole stack into single unit. But that doesn't make it sell any faster, because it limits the buyer's options. Buyer doesn't care about your space, only about price. If you want to clear out, you just put up lower price than regular market value. Doesn't matter if one person buys it all, or if 10 people buy it by pieces.

Well, the whole stack would be a different size if someone has already bought out a portion of it, but I'd think it would still leave that "full stack" price on whatever remains. The last person who clears out the listing by buying everything remaining in that stack gets the discounted price. People who just buy a portion but leave some there have to pay a higher cost for that flexibility.

[Sida]

Buyer doesn't care about your space, only about price. If you want to clear out, you just put up lower price than regular market value. Doesn't matter if one person buys it all, or if 10 people buy it by pieces.

But that's sort of the point, it matters a great deal. The cheaper price is there specifically as a sort of reward for the buyer to clear out the slot. It doesn't make sense to offer it for those who just pick at the pile for their own convenience. And as long as the price is unit based, as it is on MB, defining that the "whole stack" is "whatever is left" is the most sensible way. So yay, cheaper price for the one who decides that whatever is left in the pile is worth the discount.