Don't Ruin the economy with an auction house! please![dev1019]

[Rentahamster]

If you want a healthy economy, you have to make sure the items people create leave the economy at about the same rate that they make them.

Yep.

Most people here are only proposing solutions that don't address the root cause of the problem, which are the fundamental basics of economics.

[ESAR]

Yep.

Most people here are only proposing solutions that don't address the root cause of the problem, which are the fundamental basics of economics.

The problem with th economy is no what know what others need. Therefore if you need something you are forced to get it yourself.

This can be fixed with a better retainer searh.

An auction house has alot of problems. Paying a fee to put items up and the definition
caused by sales history.

Market wards fix this provided a better retainer search.

[Fieros]

Careful, any logic or rational thinking will be lost forever when ESAR deletes this thread.

[Wolfie]

The problem with th economy is no what know what others need. Therefore if you need something you are forced to get it yourself.

This can be fixed with a better retainer searh.

An auction house has alot of problems. Paying a fee to put items up and the definition
caused by sales history.

Market wards fix this provided a better retainer search.

No. You do not understand how economics works. Search function will have absolutely no effect on the economy becoming a disaster when/if more people start playing this game.

Also you already pay fees on your retainer.

[kukurumei]

You had to level a craft to near-max in FFXI not because of the Auction House, but because of how stupid the market was set up. Items you synthed to level up your crafts were near-worthless and could not be used for anything, and you either vendored them or tossed them out.

Then when you got to high level, NQ items were worthless as well, because everyone and his grandmother was doing the same "profit" recipe, and the market became oversaturated with NQ items. HQ became the only profit.

If you want a healthy economy, you have to make sure the items people create leave the economy at about the same rate that they make them.

Not exactly.

The crafting system in FF11 (and not much difference in FF14) is that a crafter of higher level will almost always, and 99% always is pretty good, make more of the exact same product, a HQ product, and fail less of the product of anything a lower craft would make.

Therefore, competition leads everything you craft for XP to deflate because there was no dis-avantage to being a higher level crafter.

You're stupid if you think you're the only one who thinks "If I lose money now, I'll make it all back later". That's why you always loose money on xping crafts. You are competing with almost every single person on the server to level it up.

There's no ways around it. supply vs demand. The demand outstrip the supply of breaking even, because the inherent skill up is the variable.

And sadly that's a healthy economy. No amount of Whining is going to change that fact. The economy doesn't favor anyone, it's a force of nature. You not being able to invest enough money to make your own money back doesn't make it an unfair system.

It wouldn't have mattered if everything that's sellable was your skill up recipe. Like meat. No matter if you skill up on meat, and sell it on the AH. You would never be able to break even on meat recipe against the lvl 100 food crafters.

If you can't do it, gtfo and become a farmer. Having a tough life is how market economy works. For every winner, there has to be a loser. If there are no losers, there are no winners.

Now what is call government assistance, otherwise called wellfare, can be applied to make people's life easier. Though most of the time it's simply taking from the rich and give to the poor, assuming because the rich can afford to give up more. Which is fine, in theory and in practice.

in MMO we do that in many ways, such as making it harder, the higher you go, making alternatives, or the "poor man's huerk" ideal, to keep prices down, making things that are fairly distributed (rare/ex), etc. Reward for effort (CP items/BCNM/etc) was one novel way FF11 developed which was particularly effective.

Sadly those are tricks you do, when you have an efficient economy, not this FF14 economy.

[ESAR]

No. You do not understand how economics works. Search function will have absolutely no effect on the economy becoming a disaster when/if more people start playing this game.

Also you already pay fees on your retainer.

You pay the fees when items are sold not to put items up.
The reason people moved to rolanberry fields is because they wanted to avoid this initial fee.

Market wards solve this problem and a better retainer search will solve the problem of the economy.

Think about it, the real problem is there's no scoping what people want. Yes an auction house fixes this, it does this because of the sales history.
The sales history has negative effects, that's why they didn't want it and because everyone flocked to R. Fields they figured taking not of that would help create the best solution to deal with that.

If we however could get our retainers to ask for the stuff we need even though the items aren't in our possession it would give us everything we're looking for.

It would also add some interesting factors like PvP quests.

An auction house would bring this same thing but at the cost of immersion.
And the sale history does define the items. This was prevalent throughout FFXI, there's no denying the fact.

Also, if you add an auction house without a sales history your not solving the problem of people not knowing what others desire.
A better solution is a better retainer search.
We're right were we need to be with this subject there's just one more step.

[XiaoMaomi]

I disagree 100%. I do not have time for the crap buy/sell system that SE implemented.
Its like the game is casual for everything but the "retainer" crap...
In my opinion not implementing an AH in an MMO is like removing levels.. its wrong, and I will NOT support the current system.. I never use the market wards.. EVER.

[Steggun]

You pay the fees when items are sold not to put items up.
The reason people moved to rolanberry fields is because they wanted to avoid this initial fee.

Market wards solve this problem and a better retainer search will solve the problem of the economy.

Think about it, the real problem is there's no scoping what people want. Yes an auction house fixes this, it does this because of the sales history.
The sales history has negative effects, that's why they didn't want it and because everyone flocked to R. Fields they figured taking not of that would help create the best solution to deal with that.

If we however could get our retainers to ask for the stuff we need even though the items aren't in our possession it would give us everything we're looking for.

It would also add some interesting factors like PvP quests.

An auction house would bring this same thing but at the cost of immersion.
And the sale history does define the items. This was prevalent throughout FFXI, there's no denying the fact.

Also, if you add an auction house without a sales history your not solving the problem of people not knowing what others desire.
A better solution is a better retainer search.
We're right were we need to be with this subject there's just one more step.

Almost all of the people in Rolanberry Fields were there because they were selling expensive/rare items. You wouldn't waste your time selling cheap/fast moving items out there as it would be unproductive unless you sat in front of your screen all day and swapped in more crap as your other crap sold.

[Wolfie]

You pay the fees when items are sold not to put items up.
The reason people moved to rolanberry fields is because they wanted to avoid this initial fee.

They moved there because the AH was used to sell items that could 1) actually be put up on the AH, as not everything COULD, and 2) to avoid the relisting/initial fee as you said.

The problem with this is that the way it's set up now, there is no good place to sell consumables, materials, and stuff that you generally want off your hands ASAP for quick money. You also cannot sell a variety of items without taking a penalty for being in the wrong ward, etc. Check out my topic somewhere below this one for the full list of unsolvable problems that the market ward system has.

Market wards solve this problem and a better retainer search will solve the problem of the economy.

See my topic.

Think about it, the real problem is there's no scoping what people want. Yes an auction house fixes this, it does this because of the sales history.
The sales history has negative effects, that's why they didn't want it and because everyone flocked to R. Fields they figured taking not of that would help create the best solution to deal with that.

There is more than one AH that can be put into a game. An eBay style AH like western MMOs have is probably the best thing for this game. Hidden price + price history made + limited slots made the AH in FFXI way more cutthroat, stressful and easily manipulable than it should have been. Your AH slots were extremely precious, which is what caused rampant undercutting, price fixing and general douchebaggery as people tried to get their money fast so they could put up another item on the AH.

Undercutting DOES happen on eBay style auction houses as well, but not on the scale that FFXI saw.

If we however could get our retainers to ask for the stuff we need even though the items aren't in our possession it would give us everything we're looking for.

Not quite.

It would also add some interesting factors like PvP quests.

Not sure where this came from, but I'm not against PVP or more quests. +1 to that.

An auction house would bring this same thing but at the cost of immersion.

This really bothers me, because not everyone sees immersion the same. You're probably thinking of immersion as having a realistic game that doesn't break the 4th wall. I see it as having a game that has no frustrating mechanics or require me to look stuff up online on third party sites or have me waste extra time shopping when I really, really don't want to.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I'm in the majority of MMO players here. We want fun, not realism.

And the sale history does define the items. This was prevalent throughout FFXI, there's no denying the fact.

Also, if you add an auction house without a sales history your not solving the problem of people not knowing what others desire.

Yep. Which is why I don't want a FFXI-style auction house. You can do everything that they're doing with retainers now (seek items, seek repairs, etc) while removing the damn NPCs, because the base design of "NPCs doing the trading for you" is a fundamentally flawed design that requires a lot of workarounds and awkward feature implementations. You quite literally can do everything that retainers do now from a simple window interface that is infinitely easier to make user friendly and to program.

[AngryNixon]

This topic is certified grade A dead horse.

All I ever see are people complaining about them implementing an "AH" because it will shatter the earth when what they're talking about is implementing the "FFXI AH" with all its problems... Of course that wouldn't be very productive or helpful.

Also stop blaming price histories for every problem you've ever had in your life... Flying Spaghetti Monster forbid you should be given a useful price history better informing you as to market trends over the last month and preferably over the last year.

P.S. Fees were never a serious barrier to entry unless you're a cheapskate in which case that's your problem. They provide a reasonable way to siphon some gil out of the economy.

I keep editing this thing... Wolfie your last para. is +1.

One final addition. Basic economics is about supply and demand. You'll note that the classic FFXI style AH is one sided giving voice to only the supply side of the equation. That, in and of itself, is broken. Think outside the box a little.