Trying to understand player behavour with MB & MSQ dungeons

[Kamatsu]

Hope this is the right place for this, but I'm trying to understand some players behavours regarding both marketboards as well as the lvl 50 MSQ duneons.

1. MSQ dungeons "skipping" cutscenes.

Not a point about whether they should or shouldn't be skippable, I know this is a touchy issue. Curious as to why some people do what they do to still skip cutscene's in the lvl 50 MSQ queue dungeon.

I'm curious, because I've timed it... and when it happens it shortens the run by 2-3 minutes generally (and this with groups that are clearing the fights fairly quickly). I honestly don't see the point in going to the length's they do to save 2-3 minutes.

2. Marketboard selling under merchant prices.

I can understand undercutting people (and no, I'm not asking this because I've been undercut lol), even extreme undercutting... heck, even the ppl who sell at the auto-price which is merchant price. What I don't understand is why ppl would sell a significant amount of stuff under the amount they'd make selling to a npc?

IE. Say an item sells to a npc merchant for 200 gill, they put it up on the MB for 100 gil. That's a complete loss... and I'm not talking about 1-2 items, I'm talking about lots of 20-99 in multiple batches.

Are these bots/ppl trying to kill the market for these items so they can then control them? ie majorly undercut, then when ppl stop selling because no profit... yank the price up to high level's... and hope the profit from doing this is greater than the profit if they'd just sold 'at market level'?

[MPK]

1. If you get a bunch of people it's more than 2-3 mins. Like a LOT more
2. Cuz I want gil now

[Gokuhan]

if you see people selling that far before npc price, buy and npc it yourself for profit! d(^_^d)

most people probably dont bother to look at npc price.

[VenKitsune]

2. Cuz I want gil now

That makes no sense. Your retainer can act as a vendor, you can sell items to them directly at vendor prices, and you have to use your retainers to sell it on the marketboard.

[Tranquilmelody7]

2. Charity listings while also being eager to get rid of the respective item.
Selling an item to a NPC vendor essentially deletes said item from the game, and sometimes I'd rather take a loss and see if I can sell common items to anyone who may need them.

On that note, Buying vendor distributed items en masse to resell for profit is generally ineffective.
You may get lucky and profit off of ignorant players who don't read vendor prices, but odds are you'll just end up trying to rid yourself of items you don't want or need.

[Canadane]

Back when they were legitimately skippable, not watching cutscenes would take off half an hour if not more to the run.

[Gemina]

1. High risk. Low gain. If you're talking about the DC method, that is strictly prohibited and well... they like to gamble I guess. I think someone did some math on this that showed something like all DPS players would have to do it, otherwise virtually no time is shaved off. Whatever time is lessened (which is minuscule) is absorbed from the first encounter with Ultima Weapon because of his invulnerability at the beginning of the fight. This just leaves the second encounter with UW and Lahabrea. Each of whom cannot be burned down before everyone else loads in... after all the cutscenes.

2. Equally as idiotic or ignorant. These players either don't care or don't know that their retainer can take care of the transaction right there and then. It's crazy too because even if you do put it up for sale, your retainer starts the default price at its vendor selling price. So they are deliberately taking an extra step to even lower the cost.

So yeah. Some loons out there man. Not much else I can say about it.

[Jojoya]

Hope this is the right place for this, but I'm trying to understand some players behavours regarding both marketboards as well as the lvl 50 MSQ duneons.

1. MSQ dungeons "skipping" cutscenes.

Not a point about whether they should or shouldn't be skippable, I know this is a touchy issue. Curious as to why some people do what they do to still skip cutscene's in the lvl 50 MSQ queue dungeon.

I'm curious, because I've timed it... and when it happens it shortens the run by 2-3 minutes generally (and this with groups that are clearing the fights fairly quickly). I honestly don't see the point in going to the length's they do to save 2-3 minutes.

2. Marketboard selling under merchant prices.

I can understand undercutting people (and no, I'm not asking this because I've been undercut lol), even extreme undercutting... heck, even the ppl who sell at the auto-price which is merchant price. What I don't understand is why ppl would sell a significant amount of stuff under the amount they'd make selling to a npc?

IE. Say an item sells to a npc merchant for 200 gill, they put it up on the MB for 100 gil. That's a complete loss... and I'm not talking about 1-2 items, I'm talking about lots of 20-99 in multiple batches.

Are these bots/ppl trying to kill the market for these items so they can then control them? ie majorly undercut, then when ppl stop selling because no profit... yank the price up to high level's... and hope the profit from doing this is greater than the profit if they'd just sold 'at market level'?

The real cutscene skippers are shaving off far more than a couple of minutes. One of my alts was in a Praetorium group with 3 players cutscene skipping and it took 12 minutes off the usual clear time for me as soneone who was watching the cutscenes. Those 3 players had killed Lahabrea before the second Ultima Weapon cutscene had even finished so for them it shaved probably close to 20 minutes off the instance. It was a miserable experience when the rest of the group was denied the chance to participate in the fighting.

Merchant prices are random prices picked by SE and have nothing to do with free market values which are influenced by many things. There are a considerable number of items I can make for fair less than the random price SE picked. By pricing under the merchant price, I can get you to buy that item from me instead of you going to the merchant to buy it. I'm still profiting from the sale.

If you don't like the price others are setting for an item, don't sell that item. Sell something else.

[Espritduo]

By pricing under the merchant price, I can get you to buy that item from me instead of you going to the merchant to buy it. I'm still profiting from the sale.

Except you're not really? You're losing profit by not selling the thing you crafted for below vendor price directly to an NPC. I understand charitable people that just want to help others by listing items below vendor price, but that is literally the only logical reason to do it. If you think you're somehow making more money by selling something below vendor price....I uh...got no words.

EDIT: Re-re-reading your post I think you are confusing the price the NPC is selling the item for the price we sell it back to them. That is what is being referred to here.

[Kamatsu]

Thank you for the replies.

1. I can see that if enough people are skipping it could take off quite a bit of time to kill the bosses fast. However that either relies on luck that enough people will do that, or you've queued in a big enough group to do that. When I come across someone doing whatever they do to skip cutscenes, I've only come across a max of 2 ppl doing so. Guess I've been unlucky/lucky depending on how you view it

2. I don't think it can be a 'lazy' choice to list items under the npc merchant price - isn't the default MB price set to the amount you'd get by selling to an npc merchant? Thus they would have to intentionally change the price to be lower than that... at which point they are making a loss.

I guess it could be "charity" selling - people willing to take a loss to try and get items at a cheaper price to people.

And I do sell or not sell items on MB depending on what the prices are - for those that are selling under npc merchant buying price, I've been holding on or just merchanting them.
Good suggestion to buy them... hadn't thought of that. Make a small profit on them. lol