Undercutting bots are getting out of control!

[Vahlnir]

What this game could need is buy orders.

Make it so that players can "order" items on the market-board so that if someone tries to sell an item they have to sell it to the highest buy order.

This way no one should be able to tank the price of items as easily.

A free market is better, in my opinion. If this was an option alongside this "order" system then yeah, sure, but as things are it's fine even if some players are...much less intelligent than most when it comes to making a profit by undercutting to heck and back. What isn't fine though is the bots who have hijacked certain markets.

[Starshower]

A free market is better, in my opinion. If this was an option alongside this "order" system then yeah, sure, but as things are it's fine even if some players are...much less intelligent than most when it comes to making a profit by undercutting to heck and back. What isn't fine though is the bots who have hijacked certain markets.

I happen to really like you in these forums, so I won't be offended if you were calling me dumb in this respect, but how am I to do better then? If I'm not undercutting to get my items to sell what should I be doing? Putting a price and waiting one week to see if my items sold? what If I want to sell a large volume of items and don't have enough retainer space to sell it all in this way?

[Vahlnir]

I happen to really like you in these forums, so I won't be offended if you were calling me dumb in this respect, but how am I to do better then? If I'm not undercutting to get my items to sell what should I be doing? Putting a price and waiting one week to see if my items sold? what If I want to sell a large volume of items and don't have enough retainer space to sell it all in this way?

Oh no, I wasn't really calling anyone dumb per say, they just lack the market know-how which was more or less what I meant. I suppose I should have said that a lot of players aren't smart when it comes to the MB. I didn't mean to call anyone dumb, so I apologize. There's also a difference between undercutting by 10-20 or up to a few hundred gil and undercutting to extremes. It's when players get into the thousands/tens of thousands where markets begin to crash. Personally, I will list a bunch of things and leave them be for a week or so, sometimes longer. This is when I have 5-6 retainers full of items to sell. Maybe more if I've been busy and my retainers have been kind. If they haven't sold by then (more often than not they don't, as I've been undercut a dozen times at least between the time I list my stuff and when I go to adjust the prices) I will usually go half off on everything if not more as sort of a "clearance" sale. Everything must go! There's nothing wrong with getting rid of your stock to make room for more things to sell. Players just...tend to take a high selling item and tank the price within a day. To me, that is not being smart. It is being greedy and not maximizing one's profits. That is what I and most other people have an issue with. All I can really suggest is not contributing to the undercut wars if you can, at least not bad enough to tank the price, but sometimes you simply have to ride the wave before it crashes.

[Starshower]

Oh no, I wasn't really calling anyone dumb per say, they just lack the market know-how which was more or less what I meant. I suppose I should have said that a lot of players aren't smart when it comes to the MB. I didn't mean to call anyone dumb, so I apologize. There's also a difference between undercutting by 10-20 or up to a few hundred gil and undercutting to extremes. It's when players get into the thousands/tens of thousands where markets begin to crash. Personally, I will list a bunch of things and leave them be for a week or so, sometimes longer. This is when I have 5-6 retainers full of items to sell. Maybe more if I've been busy and my retainers have been kind. If they haven't sold by then (more often than not they don't, as I've been undercut a dozen times at least between the time I list my stuff and when I go to adjust the prices) I will usually go half off on everything if not more as sort of a "clearance" sale. Everything must go! There's nothing wrong with getting rid of your stock to make room for more things to sell. Players just...tend to take a high selling item and tank the price within a day. To me, that is not being smart. It is being greedy and not maximizing one's profits. That is what I and most other people have an issue with. All I can really suggest is not contributing to the undercut wars if you can, at least not bad enough to tank the price, but sometimes you simply have to ride the wave before it crashes.

Yeah, that's basically how I feel... The last thing I want is to crash the market... When I see there is someone that undercuts by a lot on the item I'm selling I stop and let them sell theirs first. And I usually only update prices 2 or 3 times a day.

[Jojoya]

If I'm not undercutting to get my items to sell what should I be doing? Putting a price and waiting one week to see if my items sold? what If I want to sell a large volume of items and don't have enough retainer space to sell it all in this way?

Check sales history to see what the recent sales prices are and how fast the item has been selling. If there are currently 20 items listed but it's taken 3 weeks for the last 20 sales to occur, it's probably not a good idea to be selling that item. The demand does not meet the available supply and those 20 other sellers are trying to get their item sold same as you.

Also don't overprice your item even if you're the only seller. A lot of times I'll come across an item being listed at 200k+ but when I check the sales history, all sales were for less than 30k and spread out over time. If players were interested in paying 200k for the item, you'd see sales for that price. List at 30k instead, which you know people are willing to pay.