Weekly Discussion 81: The Player-Market

[GM ColdSpark]

Happy Sunday everyone! Last week you discussed the creation of Hard Mode options or New Zones and Missions - Writeup is here. Really excellent discussion last week I thought, loads and loads of well thought through ideas, thanks everyone!

 

This week it's a discussion on the player-market in game and how it works - this was brought up from the Beta Transit Feedback thread

 

Weekly discussion 80 Week 5th Dec till 12th Dec 2020

Let's talk about - The Player-Market 💰

 

Things to think about:

• What makes an effective player-market work?
• What changes might you like to see made (less so on UI changes as we discussed that recently)?
• How might you make it more accessible (if you feel it's not already)

 

ALSO! Next week will be a vote for the next few weeks of discussions - so if you have suggestions you'd like to throw into the mix and you'd like to win an in-game title for one of your characters (if your topic is chosen), then please send me a message this week and I'll add it to the list.

 

Standard reminder - keep it respectful folks.  😇

[Mr. Vee]

I think it's fine as it is. The only change I'd like apart from the fix to the retrieval bugginess would be an increased stack limit. Every other MMO i've tried I've wanted COX's double blind system.

[Take One]

The current economic model of spending merits on enhancement converters to sell on the market to get influence to buy ATOs and other enhancements instead of buying the enhancements directly with merits is a convoluted mess, and tends to trick new players into spending more merits than necessary to get what they want for their characters.

 

I suggest reducing the merit cost for enhancements by a lot, to make them a valid choice for spending merits.

 

Or put Hero/Villain/Winter Packs up for sale on the merit vendor, for 100/250 merits a piece. It makes more sense to roll random loot this way than to be told to buy some meta-salvage enhancement converters, sell it on the AH, then use the inf from that to get what you actually want. At 100/250 merits I think they are competitively priced compared to buying the exact ATO you want, instead of rolling for it randomly. You usually get some other nice stuff in the packs too. But if other people have a better grasp on what you usually get in a pack, and think my prices are way off, then I'm sure they will show up to tell me.

 

 

[Greycat]

I have yet to buy a player on the player market. I have no idea where I'd put them. With my luck, I'd clear a nice spot on the shelf and find out they're claustrophobic.

 

 

All right. Market wise... honestly,  I think it's fine. I don't have billions, sometimes finding things is a pain, yes, but it's a player market, not an NPC vendor.  The main issues are technical -

- Lag, at times, finding/filling things.

- The infamous "not showing the proper prices/price crossover" bug.

 

It would be *nice* if there were a way to access them in bases, as it's a popular request, without the issue of having to load the database in every time (as I recall the explanation being.) I don't know how to get around it, though, so...

 

The pooling of items (whether it's just all common salvage into the pot, all ENHs of a type together, etc.) is - well, mostly a godsend. On live I seem to recall purchasing at "off levels" to get a deal sometimes, but it was in general more of a pain. Much better here.

 

Only other thing I can think of really is - even though I've taken full advantage of it - I'm not sure why WInter packs are 25m versus the others at 10. I generally don't see what I get out of them being 2 1/2 times better. But, eh. If that's my biggest complaint or question...

[Max Firepower]

A longer list of previous sales?  
 

number sold in past 24 hrs

avg selling price / high / low price in last 24 hrs

number sold in past 7 days

avg selling price / high price / lowest price in past 7 days

[The_Warpact]

Correct me if I'm wrong but almost everything in this game can be used to buy or converted to inf through a process.

Much like rl with precious metals, stones, currency, etc.

So that being said we can convert emp merits to merits but why nothing with shards/threads? I have thousands of threads on a finished build and nothing to do with them.

It seems to be a waste when it could be used to further boost the market.

Also, I think a sliding scale should reflect the amount of merits you get on TF'S/SF/Trials, so obviously +4×8 would garner maximum merits whatever that might be..ie; risk vs. reward or rare pool drop/hami/etc, something further to enhance the market.

As far as the market directly, the infamous price bug, some lag, prices not showing up until hitting find several times.

[CrudeVileTerror]

Per @Faultline's request in https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/23372-focused-feedback-travel-updates-base-teleportation-long-range-teleporter-accolade-special-tp-powers/page/43/?tab=comments#comment-293425

 

I would like to see the long explanation of where the Devs' heads are at in regard to the market.

Please, and thank you for your time!

(Withholding my own comments until we've either received the long version, or we're roughly halfway through the week.)

[Grindingsucks]

I've a tendency to be rather grumpy when commenting on the player market, so I'll try to keep it positive and helpful here.

 

In a practical sense, I think most of the salient points have been addressed already.  Fix the bugs with the price listings not showing (or showing the wrong price).  Make the market accessible in bases, so we don't have to portal to the Vanguard base, University, or wherever to craft our inventions.  fix the lag/hanging that sometimes occurs when making a purchase.

 

Now, for a more personal suggestion.  The currency of the game is called Influence.  Now, why is it called influence, rather than just currency (or wealth, or money, or credits- as in most other games)?  Presumably, because the mechanism for acquiring things is meant to represent not simply raw wealth and buying power, but networks of allies, political connections, fame, reputation, and/or even the ability to leverage threats and fear to get what you need.

 

This is logical in a modern-themed super hero genre game, and is consistent with how it's treated in many tabletop super hero rpgs, and is also faithful to the source material in the comics.  However, in a real, practical sense, it does not function this way in CoH.  Rather, it is simply a unit of currency used to buy and sell on the market.

 

I wish influence actually functioned as Influence, meaning that it could be used as a form of "social" currency, rather than simply "monetary" currency.  How might this work, though?  I have a few ideas.

 

1) Add dialogue options in missions that allow for the possibility to bribe NPC's, if you have sufficient amounts of influence.  This could allow you to avoid fights, cause one or more enemies to switch to your side during a fight, or even allow you to get sprung from jail if you get captured during a bank heist or other mission (as opposed to simply bashing through the cell door, as per usual).

 

2) Add more influence related badges.  These badges could be political positions, both local and national, from council member, to mayor, to senator, governor, etc.  They could also represent corporate power (Shareholder, Major Shareholder, CEO, etc.).  For Redsiders, they might represent control of  certain "turf" in the Rogue Isles, or being higher in the pecking order of Recluses meritocracy.  Maybe military ranks for people that achieve command positions in the U.S. army, or Vanguard, or Arachnos.  Any type of badge might open up unique missions with political, corporate, or internecine warfare (for villains) themes.  You might earn these badges, not just by paying influence, but by first completing certain mission arcs that then allow you to buy your way in.

 

3) Earn a salary from your non-hero/villain job.  Politicians earn a paycheck.  So do stock traders and CEOs.  Villains running a criminal organization bring in wealth.  This could be a daily, or weekly, or monthly (whatever) influx of influence proportional to whatever badges you've earned.

 

4) Supergroup Base NPC's that can only be placed if you have certain badges.  Security and bodyguards for politicians/business tycoons.  Wolf Spiders or Family goons for bad guys.  No, they wouldn't have any mechanical application, in-game, but it would be a nice little prestige thing that would be cool for people that have swanky bases and had accrued a decent amount of social clout/currency.

 

I'm sure that I could think of other applications but, the point is, the idea of making the unit of currency in the game something more abstract than simply pure wealth is a wonderful concept with a great deal of potential, but that potential has simply not been leveraged in any meaningful capacity in the game.

 

I would love to see that change.

[UltraAlt]

5 hours ago, GM ColdSpark said:

• What makes an effective player-market work?
• What changes might you like to see made (less so on UI changes as we discussed that recently)?
• How might you make it more accessible (if you feel it's not already)

What makes an effective-market work? 

GOOD PVP.

The best PVP in CoH is the Market. It always has been since it's release.

It is great the way it is. Totally balanced.

 

What changes might you like to see made (less so on UI changes as we discussed that recently)?

Only things I would add would make what others would call ebil marketing easier.

Don't make it easier.

Make people work for the market. (My right pointer finger can crack concrete blocks by doing a double click again all due to posting on the posting on the market! Maybe I do know kung fu! ... but wait! We will also throw in this 6 piece set of ginsu steak knives absolutely free!) 

 

How might you make it more accessible (if you feel it's not already)?

Easiest way is to have a marketing tutorial similar to the University tutorial which I'm assume most players blow past and don't even know it exists.

For this reason I would make the Marketing and University tutorials stay on the players contact list until the missions are completed or the player OPs to intentionally remove them from their contact list.

 

Homecoming Market changes that already exist

I understand with the changes Homecoming has already done with the Market due to the size of the player base.

It took while to figure out what was going on, but I'm acceptable to it and it makes sense over all.

The only major setbacks are that low end players can't sell salvage to make a profit. 98% of their salvage doesn't see for much of anything. But there are so many players that 2xp through stuff and powerlevel/farm to 50 that it doesn't really make any difference for many players

 

The secrets of Ninja Marketing are not to be discussed.

There is no such thing as Ninja Marketing.

Move along, citizen! There is nothing to see here!

Edited December 13, 2020 by UltraAlt

[nihilii]

I like the market as is.

I like Faultline's perspective on it.

I'm only concerned we're seeing slight deflation lately. Which makes more and more items useless and even detrimental to sell.

So I think my only wishes wouldn't be directly related to the market, but more to UI and ease of use.

Stacks of x99 rather than x10. Expanded salvage/recipe storage on characters. All of this could be optional upgrades that you pay influence for, for another inf sink.

Perhaps a look at crafting costs. When a level 50 IO has a hardcoded 450k fee to craft and sells for 500k, it just means the only people who are going to supply the market at a profit are those aware you can craft that same IO at say level 20 for much cheaper.

 

The following is speculation, but I worry some number of casual players are crafting IOs and selling them on the market without noticing the crafting fees, and sell at a loss. Because a shrewd marketer wouldn't bother crafting level 20 IOs of the types that sell for 500k, anyway. There's much more profitable venues.

 

If it were me, I'd do away with crafting fees entirely. Their existence doesn't make sense anymore with a level-independent market.

 

Edit: but I suppose I'm advocating for deleting a significant influence sink there. Alternate wish, do away with the scaling on crafting fees. Tie it up to the maximum, or the average. But maybe people would complain about their lower level alts not being able to craft anymore. Ah well, it's a good thing I'm not a dev. 🙂

Edited December 13, 2020 by nihilii

[Coyotedancer]

Just on pure principle, I'm not a huge fan of the idea that we're all expected to be playing "City of Marketeers"... But I have no complaints with the auction house itself beyond the usual gripes about display bugs and transaction lag.

 

Bucketing? Brilliant.

Being able to pick regular or attuned versions of enhancements from the same stock? Also brilliant.

Seeding to prevent Market PvP Shenanigans with certain salvage types? Thank you. 

[UltraAlt]

23 minutes ago, Grindingsucks said:

I wish influence actually functioned as Influence, meaning that it could be used as a form of "social" currency, rather than simply "monetary" currency.  How might this work, though?  I have a few ideas.

The way it worked before the market (and it still does this but not so much as it did before the market came out) was that whoever did the most damage on a target got the most currency.

Defenders and controllers were dirt poor. You would be luck to slot up generic enhancements in the mid teens. I had a couple of characters that were controllers and defenders (especially empathy defenders) that were stuck and dirt poor until the market came out.

So what this meant was that the guys that did more damage and got more damage could buy better enhancements to do even more damage than the defenders that couldn't by anything. It was a vicious circle with the mantra "I'm a -insert damage dealing archetype name-, and I am so cool. Defenders and Controllers are worthless!"

Teams loved to have Defenders and Controllers on a team, but they could care less how badly they were scraping by.

 

Influence was the monetary currency from the get go. It is supposed to express the public's view of your character, but that pretty much gets thrown out the window with power-leveling and farming.

 

The Market simply gave players a way to generate revenue with the salvage that they were getting that they couldn't use or didn't have room to store in their base.

 

So Influence was currency from the get go.

The Market only make it becomes strait up currency.

We don't need multiple types of currency andy more than there need to be multiple types merits and what not.

 

Keep it simple and remove the clutter; don't add more clutter to the system.

[Grouchybeast]

Please fix the last sold display bug.  PLEASE FIX THE LAST SOLD DISPLAY BUG.  PLEASE FIX THE LAST SOLD DISPLAY BUG.  

 

I might be back later with more thoughts, but until then, PLEASE FIX THE LAST SOLD DISPLAY BUG! 

 

>insert flashing, sparkling, rotating marqueed version of request here<

[Coyotedancer]

But what do you *REALLY WANT*, GB? 😁

[Grindingsucks]

11 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

The way it worked before the market (and it still does this but not so much as it did before the market came out) was that whoever did the most damage on a target got the most currency.

Defenders and controllers were dirt poor. You would be luck to slot up generic enhancements in the mid teens. I had a couple of characters that were controllers and defenders (especially empathy defenders) that were stuck and dirt poor until the market came out.

So what this meant was that the guys that did more damage and got more damage could buy better enhancements to do even more damage than the defenders that couldn't by anything. It was a vicious circle with the mantra "I'm a -insert damage dealing archetype name-, and I am so cool. Defenders and Controllers are worthless!"

Teams loved to have Defenders and Controllers on a team, but they could care less how badly they were scraping by.

 

Influence was the monetary currency from the get go. It is supposed to express the public's view of your character, but that pretty much gets thrown out the window with power-leveling and farming.

 

The Market simply gave players a way to generate revenue with the salvage that they were getting that they couldn't use or didn't have room to store in their base.

 

So Influence was currency from the get go.

The Market only make it becomes strait up currency.

We don't need multiple types of currency andy more than there need to be multiple types merits and what not.

 

Keep it simple and remove the clutter; don't add more clutter to the system.

It may be that my expectations are misplaced.  I am a role player, looking for games that will enhance my roleplaying experience.  I tend to think of CoX as an online, Superhero RPG.  But maybe it is just meant to be a pure action MMO game, with a super-hero theme.  In that event, I suppose it is unrealistic to ask for more changes meant to transform the game into something that it was never meant to be.

 

I do, generally speaking, agree with the philosophy of KISS (keep it simple, stupid).  So I do see where you are coming from.   And yet, I can't help but feel there is so much lost potential for enjoyable game play here. 

 

Also, I can't deny the fact the the word "influence" sticks in my craw.  If it isn't going to function according to its label (mechanically speaking, I mean), then just call it what it is:  Resources (or wealth, or whatever).

[drbuzzard]

I've seen them mentioned already, but about the only things I'd suggestion are:

A) Bigger stack sizes for selling or buying (though honestly this isn't a big deal)

B) Fix the price display bug

C) More price history- the short price history favors the bottom feeders at the expense of people unfamiliar with the market

 

After spending a bit of time on other servers, one really comes to appreciate the adaptations taken by homecoming to make their market work in a small population environment (though the environment isn't nearly as small as those other servers). Other places basically don't have a functioning market at all. 

[Yomo Kimyata]

I've been looking forward to this topic for quite some time, and I think that I'll have a lot to say.  So much so that I'm going to put it forth in several posts over the next week by category.  Some of it will talk about UI, since apparently I missed the thread where that topic was addressed.

 

Part I:  The Bugs

 

This is imperative to me, and I'm surprised that it's not more important to the developers.  Given that this is a player-driven market, anything that discourages people from using it is a big no-no, and some of these bugs range from annoying to game-breakers.  No one will use an economic system that they have no faith in.  On no real evidence, I *suspect* that having a dedicated server just for the AH might help with these bugs, but that's based on the assumption that there isn't currently a dedicated server, and that there was a dedicated server on Live.

 

A.  Missing history display.  When you pull up an item to bid on in the top half of the AH, sometimes/most times the price history does not display.  A work-around, of course, is putting in a dummy bid for a low amount, then when your bid appears in the lower half of the AH, refresh the history and you then get a display.  Now you can go back to the top half and make your bid based on this information.  I think we can all agree that this work-around is clunky, and those who are unaccustomed to doing it can easily get frustrated.

 

B.  History display not updating.  I notice this a lot when I move from one character to another -- when I open up the AH it defaults to the last item I was looking at on my previous character, and the prices have not updated since my last character looked at them.  It's generally a few minutes, but that can mean a lot with a market like salvage.  There are other examples of the price history not updating as well, but this is the most easily documented one for me.  I'm not asking for a rolling update, but maybe a refresh button in the bid section would be nice.

 

C.  The false history bug.  This is the 800-lb gorilla and the one that really bugs most people.  This is when an item displays a past history that is completely erroneous, and either only shows a false history or vacillates between a true history and a false history.  Miracle proc is probably the most notorious example, but there are numerous other examples.  Sometimes the bug is temporary; for some items the bug appears to be permanent.  Common wisdom is that the false history is bleed-through from another item, and that may be the case for some items.  However, I believe that in some cases the price history is completely unrelated to any other item in the AH.  I'm basing this on having searched every item in the AH database to find the item that is bleeding through to Miracles, and I've been unsuccessful.  This is not game-breaking, but it can be exploited, and it certainly erodes confidence in the AH system.  If I had to pick Yomo's Number One Homecoming Priority(tm), this would have to be it.

 

D.  The locked market bug.  I've submitted tickets about this and been told it's working as intended.  I've posted on the Bug forum and got no dev response.  This bug ranges from confusing to extremely exploitative, and is a far bigger deal than the devs seem to realize.  I will be happy to discuss this via email or phone with any dev, but I do not want to broadcast the details of this bug here.

 

Coming soon, Part II:  The Simple* Fixes

 

*Nothing is simple.

[ForeverLaxx]

We're going to see a lot of the same comments, such as "fix the last sold display bug" and "extend the last sold menu to more than the last 5 only", and these are good suggestions and fixes for people that use the market often. Having to click around to multiple different enhancements before the one you want will finally populate the sale price listing is very annoying, and only seeing the last 5 sales means you could be seeing only someone who was very impatient buying everything up. Then there's the bug that shows you the wrong sell data entirely... there are lots of things with the sale display that needs fixing.

 

However, none of this addresses what I think is the real issue. The HC dev team has expressed their opinion that ALL players are expected to utilize the market on at least a basic level (selling drops), but nothing in the game really directs a player on how to go about doing this. The invention tutorial, while it does break down the basics in crafting, never has you interact with the market and can be completely skipped/ignored with no indications that you're missing anything. This is fine in a world where the original dev team wanted these systems to be unobtrusive and optional, but we're in a version of CoH now with a different team that fully expects all players to be taking advantage of this system.

 

So what I think needs to happen is some way to introduce players to the market on at least a basic level. I would go so far as to suggest some way to mention Merit rewards, their role in the system, where you can find them (many newer players don't know about the Salvage menu at all), and how you can use those Merits to either buy items you want directly (which probably needs to be looked at on its own; the price for things in direct Merits is too high) or use them to buy enhancement modifiers that can be listed on the AH and sold for profit to bankroll non-set IO crafting.

 

If players are going to be expected to engage with this system, then the system needs to make its presence known.

[Grouchybeast]

16 minutes ago, ForeverLaxx said:

We're going to see a lot of the same comments, such as "fix the last sold display bug" and "extend the last sold menu to more than the last 5 only", and these are good suggestions and fixes for people that use the market often. Having to click around to multiple different enhancements before the one you want will finally populate the sale price listing is very annoying, and only seeing the last 5 sales means you could be seeing only someone who was very impatient buying everything up. Then there's the bug that shows you the wrong sell data entirely... there are lots of things with the sale display that needs fixing.

While I agree that a market tutorial would be a great idea, I think the UI bugs in the AH have much, much more impact for new players than for experienced marketeers.

 

When I go to the AH and try to price a drop, and all the prices displays are blank, I know that I need to place a dummy bid and use that to call up the info.  To a new player, it's just broken.  The answer to that isn't 'here a tutorial that explains the arcane rituals we use to work around the buggy interface', it's to fix the interface.

 

If I look at the listing for a Snipe or an Immobilise IO, and see that it's trading for 20,000,000 inf, I think, hmm, looks like the #@$&ing last-five bug is here, too, and I treat with extreme caution.  A new player thinks they've hit the jackpot, crafts, and wastes more than the real selling price on the listing fee.

 

The buggy interface is the number 1 thing that is going to screw new players in the AH.  Honestly, until it's fixed I don't think we SHOULD be encouraging new players to use it.

[Zepp]

As someone who uses the market quite a bit, there are not many issues.

 

The key issues, however, are:

• reliable sorting
• an increase in market data (at least making the list of recent purchases longer)
• access in base (and possibly PvP zones)
• text scaling (even if I change my text size preference, the size of text in the Auction House remains static)
• a claim all button for purchased items...

[The_Warpact]

13 minutes ago, Zepp said:

 

• access in base (and possibly PvP zones)

Base yes, pvp zone no. I can see this being exploited. 

[ForeverLaxx]

1 hour ago, Zepp said:

access in base

I don't think they'll be able to get the system to work inside a base without completely changing how works under the hood. Opening the menu loads the data into the map and keeps it loaded until that map despawns. This would do the same thing to missions, except as more and more people access the data inside a mission (or base, they use the same program), eventually the server would strain so much that it would crash.

[gameboy1234]

7 hours ago, Take One said:

The current economic model of spending merits on enhancement converters to sell on the market to get influence to buy ATOs and other enhancements instead of buying the enhancements directly with merits is a convoluted mess, and tends to trick new players into spending more merits than necessary to get what they want for their characters.

 

I suggest reducing the merit cost for enhancements by a lot, to make them a valid choice for spending merits.

 

Whoa, somebody's reading my mind.  Yes the whole Enhancement system is a mess, and the current model that tries to preserve what was supposed to be an upgraded enhancement system for paying players is likewise a mess.  In the short term you could reduce the cost of recipes bought with merits by around 60 to 80% (this is my own guestimate on what I actually make on the market using Converters, my actual "cost" for an IO is about 70% less than what I'd pay for it using just merits) and also reduce the cost of Catalysts and Boosters by a similar amount, just to be proportionate. 

 

You might consider allowing Merits to replace salvage directly when crafting recipes, just to avoid buying that junk on the market.  Or make some form of "universal salvage" that we can get with merits (or change our junk salvage into) that allows us to make any recipe in our inventory.

 

I'll point out also that people are asking for buttons to stop salvage from dropping, or auto sell salvage.  Which kind of tells you the state of the whole crafting / enhancement system: not good, and not valued by players.

 

In the long term I'd probably get rid of Enhancements entirely, if I were king.  I'd replace all Enhancement systems 1-50 with a skill tree system that just adds skill points to an entire power set, improving all of its powers in all aspects (accuracy, damage, other "effect" -- healing, hold time, taunt, etc. --, recharge, end rdx) in one go.

 

6 hours ago, Greycat said:

The main issues are technical -

- Lag, at times, finding/filling things.

- The infamous "not showing the proper prices/price crossover" bug.

Yes please, bug fixes too.

Edited December 13, 2020 by gameboy1234

[Yomo Kimyata]

4 hours ago, CrudeVileTerror said:

Per @Faultline's request in https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/23372-focused-feedback-travel-updates-base-teleportation-long-range-teleporter-accolade-special-tp-powers/page/43/?tab=comments#comment-293425

 

I would like to see the long explanation of where the Devs' heads are at in regard to the market.

Please, and thank you for your time!

(Withholding my own comments until we've either received the long version, or we're roughly halfway through the week.)

Thanks to VT's post, I now see a little about what @Faultlineis thinking, so I'm going to call an audible.

 

Part II:  The Philosophy of Player-Driven Markets*

 

* These are my opinions.  Your opinions may differ.  If so, please state your opinions.

 

What makes a PDM?  In the case of COH, I'd say there are a few defining characteristics:

 

1.  Players create the demand for some/most/all items.  Sure, you can sell some things to the vendors (and in some cases that's your best economic move), but the lion's share of the demand is going to be driven by players wanting items.

2.  Players create the supply of some/most/all items.  This is a little less cut-and-dried than Point 1, but again, the lion's share of the supply in the system is created by players, for players.

3.  There is a clear and logical system for facilitating trades between players.

 

There may be more characteristics, but those are the three fundamental ones that come to mind.  Now, we ask ourselves what are the motivations that will encourage players to utilize the AH, which embodies Point 3?  The motivation for Point 1 is clear:  people want stuff.  It improves their characters, it gives them something to RP with, etc.  The motivation for Point 2 is a little more complex.  I'd say the main reason that players want to supply items for others is the profit motive.  A secondary reason that I care about more than I should is to provide order and liquidity to the system.  But it's mainly going to be about profit.

 

So what keeps the system running?  Continuous demand for new items (which can come from new players, from creating new alts, even from market shenanigans, but a fully built 50 HAS NO SIGNIFICANT DEMAND) and the profit motive to incentivize players to continue to supply new items.  I believe that both of these conditions are necessary to keep the AH alive and useful over any given time frame.

 

I'll come back to those two tenets later.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[gameboy1234]

34 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

Thanks to VT's post, I now see a little about what @Faultlineis thinking, so I'm going to call an audible.

I'm also appreciated that link.  What I think is most concerning:

 

Quote

The short explanation is that influence exchange between players = good, influence generation out of thin air by rewards = bad.

Just because it's player interaction, doesn't make it good.  Sure a lot of player interaction is the way to go in an MMO, but this particular type of interaction in the market isn't great imo.  It's basically like playing with a spreadsheet, which isn't the type of interaction I'm after.  Interaction -- teaming up and doing content -- that's what I'm looking for.  Impersonal interactions like the market not so much.  I think the Enhancement system as a whole is a bust, and needs to be rethought.  If that means figuring out how to get more, good, player interaction, so much the better.