Weekly Discussion 81: The Player-Market

[Yomo Kimyata]

12 minutes ago, Zepp said:

One issue I see is that, especially at 50, the cost to craft recipes is often more than you will get from selling the crafted enhancement. Maybe take a look at moderating the influence cost (especially seeing as it is cheaper to P2W to get the portable workshop than to get it through the badge...).

I'm going out on a really short limb and saying that was intentional.  A level 49 recipe costs less than half that of a 50 to craft.  But there is a limited window where a farmer can get level 49 recipe drops, but an unlimited window to get level 50s.

 

But the point is relatively moot since recipes are fungible.  Vendor your lvl 50 for 5k or try to sell it on the AH, and buy it back on the AH at a lower level.  Mischief managed.

[tidge]

12 minutes ago, Zepp said:

One issue I see is that, especially at 50, the cost to craft recipes is often more than you will get from selling the crafted enhancement. Maybe take a look at moderating the influence cost (especially seeing as it is cheaper to P2W to get the portable workshop than to get it through the badge...).

I sell the level 50 common IOs (on average, they are 100KInf each) to the vendor to fund crafting (and posting fees) for the other lvl 50 recipes, the most expensive of which are 600KInf (without discount). With the relative drop rate of commons to others, and the fungibility of recipes in the marketplace I don't see a reason to change costs.

[laudwic]

1 hour ago, S P A C E S said:

 

 

P.S. nerf standard rewards for architect entertainment plz kk thx

There is a big difference in playing story focused arcs in AE than playing in the farms.  The story focused arcs are a great way to enjoy content and they already give less in terms of rewards than playing radio missions.    

 

There is no reason to nerf the story focused in AE.

[Hedgefund]

1 hour ago, UltraAlt said:

What I said could very well have happened because it could happen for those exact reasons.

Without evidence to prove that did not happen the way that I explained it, there is no evidence to prove that it did not.

 

My examples are based on the system working correctly.

Because you believe the system isn't working correctly, you disbelieve an explanation that explains why this could occur with the system working correctly.

I "believe" in what the evidence unequivocally shows in that thread I linked.  I'm not going to debate that evidence here, take it to that thread if you're able to disprove any and/or all of the evidence displayed there.

[Grouchybeast]

1 hour ago, UltraAlt said:

What I said could very well have happened because it could happen for those exact reasons.

Without evidence to prove that did not happen the way that I explained it, there is no evidence to prove that it did not.

The evidence for the bug is literally in the thread that you didn't read.

 

You can go into the game and repeatably prove that two specific listings are showing exactly the same sales.  Basilisk's Gaze Accuracy/Endurance Reduction/Recharge is showing the same last five sale as Devastation Acc/Dam/Rech.  If you make a purchase in one of them, it will show up in the other, something that people in that thread demonstrated.  There are three other pairs that have been nailed down exactly listed in that thread, plus more suspected affected listings.

[Fingernailgun]

5 minutes ago, laudwic said:

There is no reason to nerf the story focused in AE.

 

In my opinion, if enhancement converters are nerfed and standard rewards for AE removed, the bronze/silver/gold rolls for tickets will be worth more, which applies to all levels that do AE instead of just level 50 where the real standard rewards are.

 

However, if playing AE as it was intended becomes less profitable, I think that's a small price to pay for slaying the beast that is fire farms.

[Zepp]

51 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

I'm going out on a really short limb and saying that was intentional.  A level 49 recipe costs less than half that of a 50 to craft.  But there is a limited window where a farmer can get level 49 recipe drops, but an unlimited window to get level 50s.

 

But the point is relatively moot since recipes are fungible.  Vendor your lvl 50 for 5k or try to sell it on the AH, and buy it back on the AH at a lower level.  Mischief managed.

I'm just saying that an overall reduction in sub-50 recipes of 10-20% and bringing 50s in line with the pre-50 formula would increase the number of enhancements of the market and reduce the number removed from the market because they aren't worth crafting.

Also, you can't actually buy your own recipe (even if there are no bidders on the market there is a restriction in place to prevent selling to one's self.)

[Yomo Kimyata]

17 minutes ago, Zepp said:

Also, you can't actually buy your own recipe (even if there are no bidders on the market there is a restriction in place to prevent selling to one's self.)

True dat, but you *can* sell to yourself from one character to another, and you *can* very easily sell a given item on one character and buy it back on the same character and make a profit.

[Grouchybeast]

12 minutes ago, Zepp said:

I'm just saying that an overall reduction in sub-50 recipes of 10-20% and bringing 50s in line with the pre-50 formula would increase the number of enhancements of the market and reduce the number removed from the market because they aren't worth crafting.

Level 50s already have a lot of options for making inf.  One of the nice things about the current combination of IO bucketing and lower crafting costs for lower level recipes is that it makes crafting drops much more profitable for sub-50 character, which encourages the flow of inf from 50s down to lower level characters.

[UltraAlt]

1 hour ago, Grouchybeast said:

The evidence for the bug is literally in the thread that you didn't read.

 

You can go into the game and repeatably prove that two specific listings are showing exactly the same sales.  Basilisk's Gaze Accuracy/Endurance Reduction/Recharge is showing the same last five sale as Devastation Acc/Dam/Rech.  If you make a purchase in one of them, it will show up in the other, something that people in that thread demonstrated.  There are three other pairs that have been nailed down exactly listed in that thread, plus more suspected affected listings.

I believe that the system is set-up to believe that some IO set types are interchangeable, and it give you the one that you bid on out of that combined pool.

So someone posts one, you bid on the other, and it becomes the type you bid on when it is delivered to your character.

 

Edited December 16, 2020 by UltraAlt

[Saikochoro]

3 hours ago, S P A C E S said:

Converters are the defining factor in the current game for deciding who is fighting for inf, and who has more info than they know how to use. The prices of every enhancement are so dependent upon the conversion process that any use of merits other than for buying converters is sub-optimal. It is fundamentally wrong that every use of merits beyond enhancement converters is throwing away money. It's fine for level 20-24 reward rolls to be worth more or less than 25-29. But for all merit uses to be categorically inferior to enhancement converters is broken and should be nerfed.

 

Bring back the other uses of merits. Nerf converters.

 

P.S. nerf standard rewards for architect entertainment plz kk thx

Nerfing converters will serve to increase prices across the board in the market and so I do not support this notion at all. 
 

There will always be a most efficient use of merits or other currencies. And yet, people still buy other things with merits.  If you want things to become more expensive and less available, then needing converters would serve that goal. However, that would not be good for the health of the market.  The devs have stated in the nerfing double xp influence thread a whole back that they don’t want to do something to harm the conversion process because it is so beneficial to the market and the economy. 
 

AE standard rewards should also not be nerfed. More than just farmers use it. The devs have already had a targeted nerf for influence inflation earlier this year. The devs do have a target painted on afk farming, but not on farming as a whole.

Edited December 16, 2020 by Saikochoro

[Fingernailgun]

1 minute ago, Saikochoro said:

Nerfing converters will serve to increase prices across the board in the market and so I do not support this notion at all. 

I do

[Saikochoro]

Just now, S P A C E S said:

I do

Well I would venture to say most people do not support increasing of prices across the board. Low prices benefits everyone, especially new players. There is nothing positive to be gained from inflating prices, causing shortages, and harming the game economy through nerfing converters. 

[Fingernailgun]

2 minutes ago, Saikochoro said:

Well I would venture to say most people do not support increasing of prices across the board. Low prices benefits everyone, especially new players. There is nothing positive to be gained from inflating prices, causing shortages, and harming the game economy through nerfing converters. 

Low prices mean players, even new ones, make less from putting their goods on the auction house.

The current converter market means if you aren't farming or converting, you're making a pittance compared to those who are.

The current market means most salvage and recipies are junk that get dumped at an NPC for nothing, unless they're deleted outright.

Plus, nerfing AE and converters doesn't raise the price for everything. Things like ATOs are depressed in value due to superpacks.

[Saikochoro]

3 minutes ago, S P A C E S said:

Low prices mean players, even new ones, make less from putting their goods on the auction house.

The current converter market means if you aren't farming or converting, you're making a pittance compared to those who are.

The current market means most salvage and recipies are junk that get dumped at an NPC for nothing, unless they're deleted outright.

Plus, nerfing AE and converters doesn't raise the price for everything. Things like ATOs are depressed in value due to superpacks.

Low prices are good for everyone. They may make less for selling a recipe, but they also have to pay less money for something else they buy. That and the amount they make off the market is worth more because it can go further. Converters make everything substitutes in a given category and thus allow people to turn an unwanted recipe into something valuable. This is a very positive thing for the economy and for players. 
 

Savage is fungible and is thus not junk. It is used in crafting, which is a staple in enhancement conversion. If people stop crafting en masse, then demand for salvage dries up. 

 

I never said, nerfing farming would raise prices. Farming is fundamentally different than converting. Funding increases the money supply. Crafting, converting, and selling reduces the money supply. Farming has benefit in supplying the market with needed salvage and recipes to help keep costs low due to having a good amount of supply. Converting helps keep the supply of desirable items high and prevents people from manipulating price. Converters are nothing but good for the market and the economy. 
 

People making a pittance is purely a choice. The barrier to entry to using the market and converters is extremely low. Anyone can do it starting from level 1 on a fresh account. That may be harsh, but it is true. The choice may be largely due to ignorance, which is why people have been pushing for a tutorial for market, converters, merits to spread the information in game. However, when people know about the tools and still refuse to use them, that is solely on them. 
 

People can skip crafting and converting and just sell converters or boosters and make enough to fund anything they want. Sure, it may be less than crafting and converting, but it also requires less time and effort. So it makes sense that it will make less. 

 

ATOs are not depressed in value. They sell usually for 7-10m, which is good value. Most of the time you will make a profit off of super packs even if a small one. If super packs were not seeded, then the price of ATOs would rise. That may suit your desire for higher prices, but it would be bad for pretty much everyone else. Higher prices are not a good thing.

[Fingernailgun]

Rather than quote point by point I'm going to just say I disagree with almost everything you just posted and we'd have to agree to disagree on the opinions. So who cares, people disagree. I think a few areas aren't just opinion differences. "People making a pittance is purely a choice" is where we agree though. People make the wrong choice by doing anything that doesn't involve converters. Random recipe rolls? Wrong choice. Buying Purples recipes with merits? Wrong choice. Getting AE tickets instead of regular rewards? Wrong choice. Buying ATOs with merits? Wrong choice.

 

Everything done with merits that isn't done with converters is wrong, and I believe that's bad for player engagement and the market. Cheap, or even free, stuff does not always make things better. But, if that's your flavor, you're in luck because the prices are so low on so many things good enhancements are often made at a loss for the regular player simply because the crafting cost plus salvage is higher than what marketers can manage.

Edited December 16, 2020 by S P A C E S

[QuiJon]

23 hours ago, Saikochoro said:

Fair is deriving equitable benefit from similar actions.  

Yet we also have to look at fair in terms of the over all game and its intended goal. The goal is that we should have people in game playing, making alts, leveling up, teaming and having fun. Yet we had people PL and farm and market their way to completed characters. Which frankly i have no problem with. But we nerfed farming by about 50 percent, didnt change game play rewards, and left marketing alone. 

 

So now if someone wants to build a character from farming it is much more time consuming, and that is play time. I have to actually take part and use my time to farm, so i would say at least right now that is fair. If i play the standard game as intended (missions, tf etc) I am at the biggest disadvantage for earning money to complete my toon because the time it takes to earn the influence and merits is much longer. If i market i can make whatever toon i want maybe investing 7-8 hours of time into setting up sales and buys and converting product and still spend the rest of my time playing doing whatever i wish. So exactly how is that fair and equitable to say that marketing doesnt need to be beaten with a nerf bat to bring it down in line with the earning potential of other in game choices of time use? 

 

Every IO recipe has a price at the store they sell for. A recipe that sells for 10k to a vendor even crafted should not be netting a player 4-6m on the markets. So at minimum i think everything that has a merit price in game should have that cost cut in half right now. Nothing would be over 50 merits. Plus the hero packs should be cut in cost. Then lock convertor use for only personal IOs. Now the market becomes less a tool to exploit other players for your own gains and EVERY player in the game has an easier time completing toons by playing as the game intended. 

[drbuzzard]

I have played on some of the other COH servers of late just to try something different. The most jarring change is the lack of a functioning market which HC does have. The mix bucket of attuned IOs and the ability to use fairly cheap converters to make desirable products for the market is central to this. As it is on those other servers you might as well just sell all the dropped recipes at a vendor except for the very rare ones you might want. Drops become a hindrance, while they are not that here. Some of the dysfunction on other servers is low population, but if the HC structure was present, some form of market could function even with a fairly low population.

 

The market is not a tool to exploit other players. It allows players to trade value. Using converters to play the market is a way in which players convert time and effort into providing things other players want.

 

What's funny is that I actually do use merits to buy a lot of the things people are saying are not a value. Why do I do it? I have piles and piles of merits from hero packs and doing lots of TFs. It's simply less bother to use the merits.

[AboveTheChemist]

All my observations have probably been brought up before in this thread, but this is one of the rare weekly discussions focused on a topic that I both feel strongly enough and knowledgeable enough about to want to offer my thoughts.

 

I typically do not enjoy participating in in-game markets any more than is absolutely necessary, but I feel differently about the CoH market. The auction house did not exist when I played on the retail servers, so on Homecoming I relied on helpful guides on the forums to provide the knowledge needed to navigate the market and to utilize it effectively. Along the way I discovered that I enjoyed using the market. It has its warts, but overall the market works well and does what it is intended to do. I also get the sense, more than in any other MMO I have played, that the HC team genuinely cares about the health of the game economy and that they take reasonable steps to keep it healthy.

 

That being said, an effective player market works when the users have the information they need to be able to utilize the market to its full potential. The CoH market lacks that in certain areas. I mentioned relying on several guides for the knowledge I needed to start using the market, but there is no one guide that provides everything a new player would need to utilize the market. I think having such a guide, either in the form of a forum post or better yet, an in-game tutorial, would be a great addition. At a minimum, it should cover:

• the basics of using the auction house interface to search for, buy, sell, and claim items/inf
• how to make a rough determination of item value
• how auction house fees work and what to expect when the auction house takes its cut
• common pitfalls, bugs, and other limitations of the interface that should be highlighted for new players so they avoid losing money and/or otherwise being discouraged

The CoH market also lacks information in the form of market activity, specifically in the relation to the last 5 sales window. As it stands now the last 5 window generally provides an extremely narrow snapshot of market activity for a particular item. I would support any changes that would provide the player more information in that regard, be it averages over a day/week/month, the ability to view a greater number of past sales, or any other mechanism that would provide more insight into market history. I would say the sky is the limit, and that no amount of information would be too much, up to and including regular database dumps of market activity and/or a means to view data outside of the game via a website (such as how pricing information on the Grand Exchange in Runescape is available on the Runescape wiki). Those last couple of items are likely tall orders, and might not even be feasible, but any means of increasing access to information about market activity would be welcome.

 

Finally, there are two separate but similar bugs that impact the last 5 sales window that have been documented in this bug report thread. These bugs have been mentioned before, but they are:

• The "Mixed Price" Bug: Prices for Item B are mixed in with otherwise reasonable prices for Item A when viewing the price list for Item A, and clicking "Find" does not change the list.
• The "Dual Price List" Bug: Item A has two apparently completely different and otherwise legitimate looking (i.e. no mixed prices) price lists, with only one containing reasonable prices, that changes when the "Find" button is repeatedly clicked.

Both result in players receiving erroneous information about market activity and seeing both resolved would be a welcome improvement. There are a few other annoying and slightly less insidious bugs that plague the AH interface that have been mentioned previously and also are deserving of attention, but the two above are most worthy of immediate attention.

[Yomo Kimyata]

Part IV:  The Realistic* Suggestions

 

* I understand nothing is simple, but these are QoL fixes that, in my completely uneducated opinion, would be easier and less controversial to implement that some others on my wish list.

 

A.  Port all fixed price items for sale at the P2W vendor to the fixed price section of the AH.  /AH is a heck of a lot easier than traveling to a P2W vendor, especially since I only know offhand where three of them are located.  I'd suggest moving them completely, but as previously noted, you can have a P2W in your base, but no AH.  Pros:  more convenience for players to access influence sinks.  Win win.

 

B.  Add time stamp to the date stamp in trade history.  It would be very useful to know if the last trade was 20 hours ago or two minutes ago.  It would also alert people if someone was "painting the tape" with respect to previous trades.  

 

C.  Change "Make Offer" button to "Make Bid".  This is a semantic quibble of mine, but in any market in the world (except the US real estate market) the word "offer" means an order to sell.  It is confusing and contradictory to click a button that says "Make Offer" in order to make a bid.  I'm tilting at windmills here, but what better place to do it than in this thread!

 

D.  Remove fixed price seedings (for salvage, for example) and offer the items for sale at a fixed price in the fixed price section.  As it stands, the devs just put 10mm items up for offer, and that masks the real dynamics of the trading mechanism.  If the purpose is to have a ceiling, make that specific and infinite.  People could choose whether to buy an item outright from the fixed price section, or could bid in the free market section. 

 

E.  Allow stacking of enhancements for sale.  You can currently put in a bid for 10x of any enhancement with a single market slot, but if you want to sell them you have to sell each one individually, using 10 market slots.  I assume this is a programming constraint, but I'd really like to see that change if it is possible.

 

F.  Make moving recipes and salvage to the AH easier.  Right now, if you double click on an enhancement in your tray with the AH open, it automatically moves it to the interface.  But for salvage and recipes you need to open the relevant window and then click and drag them 10 at a time to the AH interface.  I would love it if you could open the salvage or recipe window and when the AH is open, just double click on the stack to move it 10 at a time to the AH.

 

G.  Create an in-game tutorial.  I have nothing new to add to the excellent suggestions we have already seen on this topic.

[wjrasmussen]

I think our AH system is the best of all the other mmorpgs out there.  I wouldn't change the mechanics of it.  I would change some UI things, but apparently that is off limits here.

[Grouchybeast]

3 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

I believe that the system is set-up to believe that some IO set types are interchangeable, and it give you the one that you bid on out of that combined pool.

So someone posts one, you bid on the other, and it becomes the type you bid on when it is delivered to your character.

No, that's not how it works.

 

IO bucketing only applies to the same specific IOs. They aren't even interchangeable within the same set.  A level 20 Basilisk's Gaze Accuracy/Endurance Reduction/Recharge IO can become a level 30 Basilisk's Gaze Accuracy/Endurance Reduction/Recharge via an AH sale, or an attuned Basilisk's Gaze Accuracy/Endurance Reduction/Recharge.  It can't become a Devastation Acc/Dam/Rech, or even a Basilisk's Gaze Accuracy/Hold.

 

The bug doesn't actually affect the sales themselves (as has also been tested and demonstrated), only the last five display.  I assume if the actual sales were affected, then the devs would have given the bug much higher priority.

[arthurh35353]

I suppose it's possible that some IO set recipes might be aliasing other ones. Proving which ones are which is probably a pain in the butt with only last 5 sold and no dates.

[gameboy1234]

Progress so far: I've made 51 million so far this week (including last weekend) and it's still as exciting as watching paint dry.  It's nice to be self funding but it's not really fun.

 

Other market improvement: the search function needs to also be able to search for any of the text on the IO, sets, insp, etc.  That would be very helpful rather than simply searching for the "name" of the item.

 

A feature like the "Find" button which goes to the right spot in the collapsible menu tree would also be helpful (maybe "Show Item".  Once I have searched for an item, I normally want to see other similar items, which are often nearby on that collapsible tree.

 

On 12/15/2020 at 3:00 PM, Ignatz the Insane said:

This is true.  I only have anecdotal evidence to draw on, but one of my friends wanted nothing to do with the market...so he vendored recipes.  When it became clear his tanker was "cute but squishy" according to a teammate he quit and hasn't been back.  What if we get rid of recipes altogether and instead received enhancement drops?  Would that incentivize folks like my friend by simplifying the entire IO process?

This is something I agree with a lot.  The current system is far too obtuse for new players.  I know it (mostly, I still have to ask lots of questions) because I've been playing very seriously and reading every guide for like years on live.  But it's bugger all complex.

 

We really need to reconsider it completely imo.  What I think is fun: I like doing arcs, so arcs after level 25 or so should drop a "super merit" that is good for one attuned IO of your choice.  Below 25 arcs can drop a merit which can be used for an SO of your choice.  We'll need a few more drops like those because players will rocket past arcs and not have enough super merits, but the general idea is to reward players with something significant and useful for doing fun stuff, not farming the AE or fiddling about with the market.  After that everything about the invention system can basically be removed: all drops, recipes and regular IOs which differ only slightly by level can just go away, they're not needed.  That would simplify things a lot and make it easier on players who want to play the game and not a spreadsheet.

 

[gameboy1234]

On 12/15/2020 at 2:47 PM, tidge said:

Because of the plentiful amount of recipe drops, and the existence of converters & catalysts... no player "needs" to go to the market if they don't want to. It's more expensive to get things like ATO, Very Rare or PVP pieces without using the market, but from my PoV the market is saving us orders of magnitude of both time and "currency" compared with not using it.

I have to disagree with this.

 

I don't make enough in just plain recipe drops to be self funding.  Buying Recipes with Merits is hideously expensive.  If you're playing with converters, you need salvage to craft first, and that almost certainly means buying it on the market.  And fussing with converters isn't any more fun or interesting while you gamble with IOs than just buying them on the market.

 

HC is better than live in many ways, yes I agree with that.  But it still isn't good or good enough.  The invention system still needs a big out of the box think to make it into something that's actually fun to deal with rather than a chore.  "Better" is a pretty low bar, honestly, and there's still a fair ways to go up before it's good.