Not being able to buy single items from a stack on the marketward.

[-Aleth-]

... By that logic if you want a stack of item X it makes perfect sens to sell it to you for cheaper per unit, then if you want 1 or 10.
Really I am not adding gas to the fire...

I'm not saying that there is something wrong with trying to make more money out of individually sold items.

You said your picked at stacks sold too slowly in comparison to whole stacks.

But then you added that you had raised the individual unit price of stacks that had been "picked at".

Raising the price would not have helped them sell any faster.

Hence the "fuel on the fire".


I do understand the points people have made in favour of the current system regarding the economy and preventing people from flooding the market with specific items.

As a player playing a game for fun though, I'd prefer the option to buy and sell individually from stacks.

[XenoZaixeno]

I think the current system, as implemented, is fascinating. Let's throw out the discussion about the merits of either the 1.0 or ARR system for now and enjoy a quick allegory:

Abe sweats all day mining superareium ore in the hot desert sun. He wraps up a nice day's work by paying a visit to his retainer:

"Aesop! C'mere m'boy. Sell all of this ore for me. Quickly now! Bulk! None of that separate bull. Daddy needs some new Darklight!";

"But Abe...the crafters really just want to buy...";

"Aesop...";

"And at the price I'll have to charge no one will...";

"Stahp...";

"So if I were to just sell a single...";

'JUST DO IT AESOP.' and Aesop does...because he's an NPC. Abe doesn't have to worry about micromanaging his products and he can go back to happily mining confident in the fact that a pay day is just right around the corner; all he has to do is wait. So he thinks...

[XenoZaixeno]

Meanwhile Betty checks the AH in search of some superareium ore for a beautiful neck piece she's making for Sally because Christine had one and everyone was talking about her and Christine always gets all of the attention and Sally just wants someone to notice her...just once :'(.

- ahem -

"Let's see, let's see. Dang. All of these stacks; don't those roughneckians know I only need one of these..."

Faced with this dilemma, Becky has two choices:

1. Level her mining up to a point that she can mine the one ore she needs (time consuming, boring if gathering's not what you want to be doing)
2. Acquire enough gil (legally this time Betty, jeesh) to drop on the stack and hope her capital is paid back after she takes what she needs and pawns off the leftovers (high initial cost, inherently risky, and potentially time consuming)

Enter Chris Christofferson. He saw Abe stupidly (or was it?) selling his entire stack on the market at a wholesale discount, but a heafty sum nevertheless. He witnessed Betty's quandary. What to do...

[XenoZaixeno]

Eyeing his own coin purse and accounting for his rare loathing of doing anything in an MMO (except for EVE) that's actually...well MMO'y (except for EVE MMO'y), he makes his decision. See friends...Chris doesn't play Gladiator or Pugilist. Chris plays Retailer. He has a friend high up at Wal'than Mart'orzea and understands that he can buy Abe's goods at a huge per unit discount (Abe just wanted to sell sell sell) and repackage them to meet current market demand by offering single unit to low quantity unit listings at a per unit price higher than Abe, thus making himself a little money in the process. Does he care that it might take 19 of his 20 retainer slots? No. Because Chris' goods will fly (demand remember) off the shelves, freeing up room for more wheels and deals. That's how the Retailer class rolls.

TL;DR: Current system allows for a Wholesaler -> Retailer -> Consumer economy which I find fascinating, cool, and deep.

Why ask the devs to take time away from developing cool new content for us when simple player behavior changes will let everyone have their cake and craft it too? IMHO

[TirionCrey]

TL;DR: Current system allows for a Wholesaler -> Retailer -> Consumer economy which I find fascinating, cool, deep.

Why ask the devs to take time away from developing cool new content for us when simple player behavior changes will let everyone have their cake and craft it too? IMHO

Cause history has shown...if you rely on player behaviour...it's a lost cause. Wait a few weeks...nobody will sell anything as single units...and all the people that need a single unit are screwed over.

Usually the only players buying whole stacks are the ones that need the material for craft grinding. If anyone needs a single unit...most of them won't buy the whole stack and "re-sell" the rest...cause that's how it works. Whenever there is "work" involved most people choose to skip it and just move on.

[Amaretto08]

This was brought up as a huge inconvenience back during beta phase 3 by pretty much everyone, JP/NA/EU. I remember a dev post from then saying they would address it, but it was a little disappointing to see in phase 4 that we were still unable to buy what we wanted to buy. If stacks were small it probably wouldn't even be an issue, but they're not and most of the time in XIV you have what you need and generally only need to pick up a few mats when you do have to hit the markets. (Speaking as a Lv50 crafter.)

[Wellz]

As I said in my previous post;
People are just too spoiled, they want their cake and eat it too.

If you get the exact amount of mats/items you need/want, you will just have to pay a little extra.

Sometimes people are in a hurry, or they just plain don't want to take their time to break their stacks, but they generally list the price slightly bellow average, to encourage the bulk sale.
On the other hand some other people will always take their time and break down their stacks for the convenience of the buyer, but once again, he will list the price of each individual item slightly higher, because his time, and the convenience he is providing is worth money.

Besides, are people really QQ'ing about this during beta though? Give it sometime for the market to stabilize, most people didn't even bother with the market.
I consider myself a TRUE MERCHANT at heart, and I know I didn't, I didn't bother at all, I just occasionally traded items between friends.

[Mishaela]

Cause history has shown...if you rely on player behaviour...it's a lost cause. Wait a few weeks...nobody will sell anything as single units...and all the people that need a single unit are screwed over.

Must suck to have no friends.

[Kinseykinz]

Give it a couple weeks. People are just upset because it's new and they aren't use to it. If there are real problems, SE will fix it.

As of now though, the only issues are:
- not enough people are using the markets/retainers (or on new servers even have access to them)
- not enough people understand the system
- not enough people have the mats/crafts to sell anyway
- we could only really be level 20/had level 20 content. Most everything you need pre level 20 the game hands you/can be bought cheaply from an NPC.

Or basically, growing pains.

Once people start to level, gather and craft full bore on each server, the markets will be much easier to use and they will offer different volumes of products.
This past weekend, was mostly about inventory management for Legacy Servers (selling old products to gain room for new) and just getting market/retainer access on New Characters/Servers.

[TirionCrey]

Must suck to have no friends.

Lol nice try.