Broken Market Board by Rich Players.

[Norvagon]

Is it just me or is anyone else struggling to sell and make money on the market board due to rich player buying out and controlling the prices of items in Cerberus?

I have recently been trying to sell some of the more expensive items such as the ruffled skirts but have been bullied out of selling it by a player that buys all the cointe cloth and leaves only the expensive ones available.

This very same person and there FC members control all of the high level crafting items and making it impossible for anyone to sell even one thing. Am I the only person who is experiencing this issue? and if not, what can be done to make the market board a more fair place again?

[Hestzhyen]

Once world visit is implemented later this year you will be able to travel to other worlds and buy from their market boards, so you might see prices falling as the people who control the limited markets lose their captive audience. They will only be able to sell on their home world's market board so the increased competition may force them to stop price gouging.

In the short term, there's little you can do unless you invest the time to acquire all the mats yourself. They aren't really breaking any rules unless someone catches them botting (which never seems to get punished anyway) so there's nothing to stop them from forcing out competition.

[KageTokage]

I foresee this problem becoming worse when you have numerous bored, multi-billionaire bot farmers who need something to do with their excess gil that can now server hop to clean out every market board instead of just their's.

[NanaWiloh]

No there is no way to make things fair really. There are two parties who can control the market board in this game they are Rich players and Omni Crafters/gatherers. If one decides to control the MB then anyone who is not part of one of those sides will struggle to profit off the MB. Best you can do is hope that they loosen up their grasp on the Market at some point so people like yourself can make money..

[Dmhlucky]

The best way to make it fair would be like ffxi's AH system. It didn't list the prices, it just picked up the lowest priced item.
Yes, there was "bidding" involved, But you won't see a price drop from from 100k to 5k in a few hours.
Possibly one of the most frustrating things in this game honestly.

[Windsun33]

Over the past 20 years I have played many of the major MMO's. While FFXIV's market system is not the worst, it is not the best. One problem is the limited number of slot to sell limits competition. I think the best market system is what EQ2 uses - but it also has the issue of listings never expire, so junk can stay up for months. But as far as "the rich people" owning the market, not so sure - anyone can undercut them, and they are subject to the same slot limits as El Noobie is.

[Windsun33]

One thing I would like to see is the ability to set up BUYS, and not just sells.

[xJimmehx]

Was just speaking about this with my wife. I am very fond of RuneScape's market board system. It is called "The Grand Exchange." That game is dated and barely playable for me now, but the market is done wonderfully. I really wish they adopt something similar here. It works like this:

If you place 1000 items up for sell in a stack, you can sell any amount from said stack without needing to sell the whole stack. Then it will keep trying to sell your items until the stack is all gone.
You can also sell something for a price that you set(lets say 1k) and if anyone is willing to buy said item(s) for 1k it compares possible transactions and if you match it runs the transaction for you.(even if you or the buyer are offline)
If you are buying for 1k and somebody offers said item for 900, you get your transaction items but also your excess (100 in this case) back.
It doesnt show sellers or buyers or even whats available 'now.' They only things you see are current average price for an item listing, and if it is sold/bought yet.

Ive noticed prices there dont seem to fluctuate nearly as much as they have in any other games I've played. Unfortunately Yoshida has basically said he cares nothing at all for crafters, gatherers or the market. I dont remember the exact quote he used, but I do know not to expect anything noteworthy.

[ElianaGoldstein]

If anything needs to be implemented it's a warning prompt if you try to post more than 5% below current lowest price and a flat out block on posting lower than 10% below lowest market price. There are too many fools who seem intent on crashing every market known to man and Miqo'te and it is seriously annoying. Where is the sense in taking an item that sells like clockwork at say 5k each and crashing the price to 500 gil? Everybody loses apart from that one rich guy who can afford to buy out every single item and correct prices. Yes I hear the free market argument, but even a free market needs protecting from idiots.

[Windsun33]

... and a flat out block on posting lower than 10% below lowest market price.

That sounds like a REALLY bad idea. Another game I played long ago had some features like that, and what happened is that prices went up, some by several hundred percent. The market in this game is not active enough for anyone to crash the market. If you don't like their prices, buy it and resell it.