Weekly Discussion 81: The Player-Market

[Saikochoro]

4 minutes ago, gameboy1234 said:

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.

 

You may not enjoy the market, the invention system, or farming, but there are many that do. Each of those things are part of the game and thus playing those things in the game IS playing the game. People need to stop spreading around the idea some in game activities are not playing the game. 
 

Also, people need to stop spreading misinformation that you need to use a spreadsheet to effectively use the market. This is just absolutely false and bad information to people who have not used the market. The UI could use some improvements, yes, and there are some bugs. But the design of the market on HC is top notch and extremely pro player with the changes HC made.  The only real systemic problem is lack of in game information about  the market. That is why a tutorial is needed to instruct players on the basics. That is all they need to be able to effectively use the market.

 

We should not remove the invention system or the market. People are already rewarded for doing what you consider to “playing the game.”  Story content and task forces award merits that are very valuable and can be used to advance character builds in a number of ways.  
 

Your suggestion would not only remove aspects of the game that many enjoy, but would force people into playing only one way.  This suggestion just sounds like more of the same people looking down on farming or marketing as lesser ways of playing the game.  So, because you believe then to be lesser ways of playing the game, and don’t like it, it should just be removed?  No, they shouldn’t. They are important aspects of the game. 

 

While the market may be the fastest way to gear up, it is not the only way. And you certainly don’t need to devote a lot of time or resources into using it effectively, if you decide to use it at all. As has been said repeatedly, you can fund extremely expensive builds fast with nothing more than a few minutes on the market at the end of a play session selling converters.  Even if you don’t use the market at all to make money, it is still beneficial because you can purchase what you need from it. 
 

It makes sense that people willing to use all the tools available to them will have the most success. That’s said, it is a choice. However, if the market and invention system was removed player choice would simply be removed from the equation. Less options is never good. 

[UltraAlt]

3 hours ago, gameboy1234 said:

 

On 12/15/2020 at 6:00 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.

What you are suggesting would be a huge overhaul of the system.

Pretty much you are requesting removing crafting entirely from the game.

Without crafting to gain funds, the only way to make influence is to trade random enhance drops, sell merit based items and farm. And that would create a situation were people felt like they need to farm for Merits (which some already do). So this causes more farming which I'm against from the get go on multiple levels including that it is grindy.

 

I would much rather seem them take at much time to overhaul the incarnate system first.

The Incarnate system is way out of hand.

Being able to trade the Incarnate ingredients for crafting would be one of the first things on my lists.

I totally hate feeling like I am wasting a team's time standing around after a mission to feel like I picked the correct part of Incarnate salvage.

 

I really wouldn't suggest that they go after either one unless we don't want them working on anything else for multiple months.

I think the DEVs' time can be used more productively to refine the existing systems instead of trying to created a different system from scratch using leftover parts from the parts of the game they aren't retooling entirely.

In saying this, let me just say, if you change the game too much, it is no longer City of Heroes ... the game many of us fondly remember and love so much.

[Grouchybeast]

4 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

Being able to trade the Incarnate ingredients for crafting would be one of the first things on my lists.

I totally hate feeling like I am wasting a team's time standing around after a mission to feel like I picked the correct part of Incarnate salvage.

The incarnate system is stupidly complicated, but as an easy fix for that particular problem they could just cut the thread cost for sidegrading components.  (TBH, for anything other than Very Rare I just pick whatever I have least of, because the sidegrade costs are small enough anyway that I don't care.)

 

I don't really like the idea of adding Incarnate components to the market, because that removes one of the biggest incentives to run iTrials.

[Ura Hero]

10 hours ago, Saikochoro said:

Also, people need to stop spreading misinformation that you need to use a spreadsheet to effectively use the market. This is just absolutely false and bad information to people who have not used the market. The UI could use some improvements, yes, and there are some bugs. But the design of the market on HC is top notch and extremely pro player with the changes HC made.  The only real systemic problem is lack of in game information about  the market. That is why a tutorial is needed to instruct players on the basics. That is all they need to be able to effectively use the market.

 

I'll chime in on the spreadsheet discussion.  I have made literally billions on the market without once ever touching a spreadsheet.  It isn't rocket science or brain surgery regardless of what Doc Buzzsaw wants you to believe.  It does take a few minutes of looking at what sells good and what doesn't.  That is really the difficult part of it.  The rest is crafting and converting.  Or potentially just flipping recipes to enhancements or just flipping enhancements from low bids to higher bids.  It isn't difficult by any means, but it isn't super exciting for most people either.

 

Strawman arguments like "You have to have a spreadsheet."  or " I can't self fund through drops." are trash.  Both statements are patently untrue.  You don't need a spreadsheet to figure out the market and you can self fund through drops.  A spreadsheet might help if you take the time to fill it out properly.    Drops can fund your builds, I did it on Live for a very long time.  It is just slow as molasses.

[Ukase]

On 12/13/2020 at 9:55 AM, Coyotedancer said:

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. 

I enjoy the market. I do not enjoy Roleplay. I say that to say that HC's version of City of Heroes is genuinely a City of Options. I am grateful for these options. And it's not lost on me that more than a few folks don't want to spend their time farming, crafting, converting to subsidize their alts. 

I belong to a fairly large SG. Within that SG I frequently notice that people are farming. A lot. Players that you wouldn't think would bother with farming because they seem to enjoy teaming so much. But they farm. Why? Because they have alts, of course. A few may actually enjoy it. I do not, except every now and then. I do it for the inf. Mainly the inf I can make from the market with the drops I get. All because of the converter. 

 Even though it would pain my characters a bit - and many other players as well, I think converters are making the accumulation of influence too easy. They help create a greater separation of earning between the marketer and the non-marketer. And the range of difference isn't going to get any smaller. My billions will eventually parlay into a trillion. It may take me a year, but I will get there if things are left unchecked. I could almost make the case I'd be there already if I didn't give so much away. 

So why is this difference relevant? Because if people in similar positions as mine were to choose to, we could literally buy every defensive IO recipe and crafted IO, attuned IO to drive up prices. If I chose to, I could literally buy every converter on the market. I might have to pay more than I'd like, but I could do it. 

50,000 converters x 100,000 inf = 5 billion. (roughly) Easy, no sweat. Even at 2x that, I could do it. And then - place bids to keep buying them. I can stash ..10k on each character, right? It's not like I wouldn't eventually use them. Granted, with winter packs being on sale, more folks would drop converters on the AH, but I could easily bid on them and gobble those up as well. 

Obviously - I think this would be a jerk move, so I'm not going to do it. I just would like there to be some fair way to prevent this ability. I just don't know that way. (and no, I'm not going to mindlessly give away all my influence)

 

[tidge]

47 minutes ago, Ura Hero said:

Strawman arguments like "You have to have a spreadsheet."  or " I can't self fund through drops." are trash.  Both statements are patently untrue.  You don't need a spreadsheet to figure out the market and you can self fund through drops.  A spreadsheet might help if you take the time to fill it out properly.    Drops can fund your builds, I did it on Live for a very long time.  It is just slow as molasses.

I want to offer some folks the benefit of doubt when it comes to a stated inability to self-fund through drops; but I can't picture how this is true, even with a marginal build an a low-DPS AT. I've tried to think about different corner cases I've experienced, so here are my thoughts on approaches I have taken with different characters.

 

At level 50, there are essentially two extremes of play: The first is to have a well-equipped character that can run x8 content and get beaucoup drops. I'll ignore that. The other extreme is to run x1 content... you will get fewer drops, but you should still be getting merits for completing arcs. The merits by themselves can self-fund... yes it is going to take a while if you insist on buying 100 merit recipes, but if you choose to avoid less expensive methods, that's on you not the game.

 

At low levels (say 25, when set IOs really start to matter and powers have slots) it is trivial to run Ouroboros content that is both fast and rewards you well. I ran a self-funded character through the Aaron Thiery Atlas Park mission hella-many times, and each time before the final mission I would take a detour through Perez Park to street sweep Hellions. The LTs and Bosses will con Yellow/Orange so you get both good XP and good drops from them. With the extra slots in powers, it is much easier than facing them at the true level. That arc concludes with a rare recipe drop, plus merits. It's not the best return in the game, but it is very straightforward.

 

Another low-level arc that is near-trivial to 'flashback' into is the first Signature Story arc (either red or blue). This can be run for 20 merits each week (plus another 20 for running it immediately after the first time you run it). Even the lowest DPS characters can complete this solo in 10 minutes. You don't even have to visit Oroboros to run this mission.

 

I will also echo that spreadsheets are not necessary to use the market... but you will need to have some understanding of what folks will buy. Generally, looking at builds in the forum should give you a simple idea of what sort of pieces interest folks. Looking at the for sale/bidding ratio will also give you an idea (hint: just because it is a %proc doesn't mean anyone wants to buy it)

[Xeres]

I'll add one that I haven't seen here.  In the default search results, please break up the results into categories.  For example: if I search for unbreakable guard, I'd like to see minimized, expandable headers for recipes, enhancements, and attuned enhancements, etc - unless there's only 1 category, then have the header expanded.  Or even a filter as you type.  Unbreakable guard -r (omits recipes), -e (omits normal enhancements) -a (omits attuned) or a combination (-re, -ra, -ea).

 

Edited December 17, 2020 by Xeres

[Yomo Kimyata]

Part V:  Yomo's Outrageous and Abominable Opinions and Suggestions

 

Right now, the HC economy is in kind of a sweet spot.  Despite the massive inf accumulation in the system, inflation has not reared its ugly head.  In fact, prices have dropped because (IMO) there is a lot less aggregate demand than there was a year ago, and more people are wise to converters and other convenience plays.  Prices are kept in a relatively tight band for most items, either through seeding or fungibility or statistical arbitrage.  We don't need to make things cheaper -- they are basically as cheap as they can get while still giving marketers the incentive to create the items that people don't want to make for themselves.  In a perfect economy, everyone would be both a buyer and a seller, and everyone would have the knowledge base to be able to use the AH and converters (and would have the option to opt out of any of that, knowing full well that they will be worse off if they do).  But for now, I think that there is just way too much of everything.  That is certainly colored by the fact that I personally have way too much of everything.  That said, here are some of the items on my ridiculous wish list:

 

A.  Drastically reduce the number of transaction slots per character.  I generally max out at 200, and you can have 55 right out of Outbreak.  That's just too much.  People can, and will, use that for hoarding storage and/or market manipulation.  I could literally take an hour or less, make 10 new characters and put 5500 bids on any given item at twice the market price.  Yes, my bids would eventually fill, but until they do I'm blocking everyone else who wants to buy it.  What used to take dozens of concerted marketers dozens of characters each to do (e.g., luck charms on Live), one person could do in an afternoon.  Cut the multiplier of slots by half, or ideally 5-fold.

 

B.  Lock converters by account.  Converters are magic, but they are not providing equal benefits for everyone.  They have become a de facto exchange medium for merits (which are also too abundant), but every converter you sell means giving up 3-10x that value in usage benefits.  The power sellers can, and do, buy up hundreds of thousands of these, use them, and sell goods back to end users at markups.  Let's give everyone the incentive to use their converters for themselves.  Stop making the rich richer.  Do it for yourself.

 

C.  Unlock merits by account.  Make these bad boys tradeable on the open market.  Once you make merits convertible to inf directly, you get rid of the converter middle man.  This is a little bit in opposition to Suggestion B above, but some people are going to want to liquidate their merits directly.  This will still make the rich richer, since we will buy merits and exchange them to converters anyway.  But at least there is a bit of a speed bump/governor there to slow things down a little.

 

D.  Take Hero Packs and Winter Packs seedings off the AH and make them very rare drops.  People have bought over 100,000 Winter Packs since the 2020 Winter event started.  There is no incentive to use merits to buy ATOs or WOs.  I'd like to change that, because I'd like to see a more diverse set of options other than "converters".

 

E.  Change the merit/converter exchange rate.  As mentioned, on Live it was 10:1 plus a conversion fee.  On HC it is 1:3 with no fee.  I appreciate converters more than you know, but I would start by making it 1:1 and working from there.  

 

F.  Big honking influence sinks.  This is the only one that I don't expect to be received with boos and hisses.  Some people (I'm one of them) just have too much inf, more than we need, more than we can possibly every need, and we are making more inf literally faster than we can give it away.  Take away the incentive to blow it on market shenanigans.  I know @Jimmyhas stated that they feel that low level influence sinks may be more effective than high level ones.  But you could probably take a good trillion inf out of the system overnight if you had something scalable.  I'm going to come back to my trillion inf idea:  Bring back prestige for SGs, but make it so that its *only* purpose is SG ranking (continue with no base upkeep fees).  Then if @Ukaseand I want to have a contest, we can and it has no impact on anyone else.

 

G.  More macroeconomic events.  I'm a market junkie, I admit, and my favorite thing is when something fundamentally changes either permanently or temporarily to shake up the markets.  Adding new IOs, the Winter Event, etc.  I'd love to see more of these.  But I'd also like to see more random things pop into the system every now and then.  Change drop rates.  Change conversion ratios.  Do it randomly or announce it is in effect for a limited time.  The economy in HC is interesting but simple, and if I were a college student, there is a great thesis on how classic economic theories do or do not apply in this environment.  

 

H.  Lift some price caps.  It's not that I want to drive prices up, but I'd like to see more volatility in the price band.  It would be fun!  Certainly more fun than playing backgammon, yuck!

 

I want to reiterate the two tenets I mentioned in an earlier post:  We need to keep demand alive and we need to keep supply alive.  For the former, we need to encourage new players, new alts.  For the latter we need to keep suppliers interested enough to keep making stuff in the middle of the night like the shoemaker's elves.

[RobotLove]

Leave it alone.

[EmperorSteele]

I agree with @Yomo Kimyata's basic point: we need moar stuff to buy and sell. We used to have that, but HC got rid of temp power recipes and put them all on F2W. Which is just as well, they either sold at vendortrash prices, or were hillariously understocked.

 

So then, what else could we sell? How about a new breed of IO that needs Dayjob Salvage to craft. Dayjob Salvage would be just what it sounds like: an item you get for X time logged out at a DJ location (my thinking is about a week?). The new IOs would need DJ salvage from 3 locations, so you'd either have to spend 3 weeks just to craft one IO, OOOOORRR you could just use the market to get the ones you need... or just buy the IO at a markup.

 

The big downside of that is it would just make things more complicated (also Dev time to create the new IOs and salvage), but it would certainly shake things up!

[Ukase]

@Yomo Kimyata said thing so much better than I ever could. I vaguely recall the term fungibility from an econ class a zillion years ago, but I doubt I could use it properly in a sentence, despite my knowing at a gut level how to make inf in this game easily. 

I would suggest something as mundane as a badge for an inf sink. 

Philanthropist -- You have given and it doesn't hurt. Give 1 million inf away to 50 different global accounts. 
Altruist - You have given until it did hurt. Give 1 Billion away to 50 different global accounts. (this one could be classified maybe like bug hunter and not count towards badge totals.) 

Unfortunately (or not) - SG leaders that host costume contests would likely be the primary winners in this category, despite the inf potentially coming from the entire SG. Still, I believe some of the more wealthier folks are avid badgers as well. 

Perhaps reducing AH slots would be a way to go, with a way to buy them back at some ludicrous price. 50 Million per slot. 

Of all that Yomo states, he's right about at least one thing. The enhancement converter is out of control. 

 

Edited December 17, 2020 by Ukase

[Coyotedancer]

The crafting and salvage side of the game is already complex enough. It doesn't need to be made even more-so.

 

Also, be wary of strangling the rest of us in the process of trying to put a leash on the top-hats-and-monocles crowd. 

[thunderforce]

 

On 12/16/2020 at 1:29 AM, arthurh35353 said:

The thing with everything about the market (and buying things off the market) is that it really is gated on people willing to spend the most time on... not playing the game.

 

Other things are so ludicrously expensive that most people don't even know they exist without being told things (like expensive pay 2 win items, or buying super-packs for the only way to get things like brainstorms and boosters. Boosters are supposed to be *common* salvage according to it description, yet is effectively the most expensive "common" salvage in existence. Even more so, if you factor that you need at least 5 per IO basic or set enhancement to use. That actually makes them effectively more expensive than Catalysts.

Now, I agree that the market is, in a sense, not playing the game, but a bit of a bag on the side of the game - but two things:

 

On Homecoming, you can get far more goodies with far less time spent in the AH than on live. This is good and should not be tampered with carelessly.

 

You don't _need_ boosters at all; ED means boosters typically give very marginal benefits, and in particular if you're boosting a basic IO in a slot that could sensibly take a set IO, something has gone very awry.

On 12/16/2020 at 5:38 AM, Ignatz the Insane said:

But I still have reservations on the current system because the friends I've recruited to play have been at best lukewarm with the same system, and have ended up leaving the game. 

On a personal note, the arrangement I have with my more casual-interest friends is "give me your crafting stuff; I'll give you sets". This is an extremely good deal (not many novices slot ATOs at level 10), and if they want to take an interest in crafting later than can.

On 12/16/2020 at 2:46 PM, 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.

I'm surprised every time I find it's still true, but boosters are very seriously close to converters for merit sales - close enough that the time you save not dragging endless stacks of converters into the market might make up the difference. But this is why I propose making merits directly AH-tradeable.

[Saikochoro]

5 hours ago, Ukase said:

I enjoy the market. I do not enjoy Roleplay. I say that to say that HC's version of City of Heroes is genuinely a City of Options. I am grateful for these options. And it's not lost on me that more than a few folks don't want to spend their time farming, crafting, converting to subsidize their alts. 

I belong to a fairly large SG. Within that SG I frequently notice that people are farming. A lot. Players that you wouldn't think would bother with farming because they seem to enjoy teaming so much. But they farm. Why? Because they have alts, of course. A few may actually enjoy it. I do not, except every now and then. I do it for the inf. Mainly the inf I can make from the market with the drops I get. All because of the converter. 

 Even though it would pain my characters a bit - and many other players as well, I think converters are making the accumulation of influence too easy. They help create a greater separation of earning between the marketer and the non-marketer. And the range of difference isn't going to get any smaller. My billions will eventually parlay into a trillion. It may take me a year, but I will get there if things are left unchecked. I could almost make the case I'd be there already if I didn't give so much away. 

So why is this difference relevant? Because if people in similar positions as mine were to choose to, we could literally buy every defensive IO recipe and crafted IO, attuned IO to drive up prices. If I chose to, I could literally buy every converter on the market. I might have to pay more than I'd like, but I could do it. 

50,000 converters x 100,000 inf = 5 billion. (roughly) Easy, no sweat. Even at 2x that, I could do it. And then - place bids to keep buying them. I can stash ..10k on each character, right? It's not like I wouldn't eventually use them. Granted, with winter packs being on sale, more folks would drop converters on the AH, but I could easily bid on them and gobble those up as well. 

Obviously - I think this would be a jerk move, so I'm not going to do it. I just would like there to be some fair way to prevent this ability. I just don't know that way. (and no, I'm not going to mindlessly give away all my influence)

 

As it is now, yes, a player can earn a ludicrous amount of money in this game. There is no denying that. But the thing is, anyone can do that. And anyone can easily combat market manipulation because converters are plentiful.

 

I know that some prominent marketers want converters nerfed in one way or another to lower influence accumulation. However, this would only make market manipulation MUCH easier. Converters are one the biggest things that combat manipulation. 
 

While I agree that a super rich player could possibly manipulate the market to some degree, converters actually make this very difficult in the long run. Converters make everything substitutes. So even if they did buy all the defensive recipes and IO and converters on the market and then relist at a higher prices, I could completely side step that attempt at market manipulation because of converters and merits. 

 

I could turn my converters into merits and buy a random cheap recipe and convert to the IO I want. I could do this to keep or to sell. The fact that everyone can do this even if the rich marketer does continually try to manipulate the price means that there could still be a supply of cheaper items that they are trying to manipulate. They may have some success with people that don’t convert, but converters honestly combat market manipulation instead of enable it. 
 

The manipulator would probably be successful in driving up the price of certain goods, but only to a certain extent. Say the goal was to corner the defense IO market.  Say a red fortune is 2.5m on average and a LOTG is 6m on average. You may be able to drive up the price a few million for a time. Don’t get me wrong, that is quite a bit percentage wise. However, there is a point where people care less about saving time “buy now” and more about saving influence. If they realize that their lower patient bids aren’t being filled they will turn to converters.  
 

The manipulator also run the risk of other marketers seeing this manipulation and the higher price on defense IOs and converting hundreds or even thousands of defensive IOs and putting them on the market for slightly less to get the sales. Yes, the manipulator could buy these too, but this would only encourage other marketers to continue crafting and converting into the defensive IO market because they would continually be getting the sales. Eventually, given a big enough scale, the manipulator will run a significant enough loss that they won’t be able to keep up.  High margins breed competition and competition erodes profits. Converters allow everyone to be a competitor. 
 

If converters were harder to come by, or worse, removed entirely, it would be not only possible, but fairly easy for a super rich player to manipulate the market by buying up everything in a certain part of the market and setting price. Converters make it impossible to have a true monopoly and price setting power. As long as converters can be bought with merits, true market manipulation can’t occur unless people just refuse to use merits to get converters and use converters to craft & convert.

 

The only thing that I could see real price manipulation would be with salvage. But even that would be mitigated because you wouldn’t be able manipulate the price to go above the seeded value. Sure it would be annoying to have to pay the seeded value, but even those values aren’t astronomical.  
 

Converters, merit to converter ratio, item bucketing, and seeding salvage were great solutions to make drastic market manipulation basically impossible. The best way to prevent lasting and material market manipulation is for players to be educated on the market, converters and merits. This is another big reason there needs to be a tutorial because if players know they don’t need to obey the going price on an IO they won’t unless it is convenient for them to do so. 

 

[Ukase]

54 minutes ago, Saikochoro said:

This is another big reason there needs to be a tutorial because if players know they don’t need to obey the going price on an IO they won’t unless it is convenient for them to do so. 

This is a fantastic idea.

[Saikochoro]

6 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

B.  Lock converters by account.  Converters are magic, but they are not providing equal benefits for everyone.  They have become a de facto exchange medium for merits (which are also too abundant), but every converter you sell means giving up 3-10x that value in usage benefits.  The power sellers can, and do, buy up hundreds of thousands of these, use them, and sell goods back to end users at markups.  Let's give everyone the incentive to use their converters for themselves.  Stop making the rich richer.  Do it for yourself.

 

D.  Take Hero Packs and Winter Packs seedings off the AH and make them very rare drops.  People have bought over 100,000 Winter Packs since the 2020 Winter event started.  There is no incentive to use merits to buy ATOs or WOs.  I'd like to change that, because I'd like to see a more diverse set of options other than "converters".

 

E.  Change the merit/converter exchange rate.  As mentioned, on Live it was 10:1 plus a conversion fee.  On HC it is 1:3 with no fee.  I appreciate converters more than you know, but I would start by making it 1:1 and working from there.  

 

G.  More macroeconomic events.  I'm a market junkie, I admit, and my favorite thing is when something fundamentally changes either permanently or temporarily to shake up the markets.  Adding new IOs, the Winter Event, etc.  I'd love to see more of these.  But I'd also like to see more random things pop into the system every now and then.  Change drop rates.  Change conversion ratios.  Do it randomly or announce it is in effect for a limited time.  The economy in HC is interesting but simple, and if I were a college student, there is a great thesis on how classic economic theories do or do not apply in this environment.  

 

H.  Lift some price caps.  It's not that I want to drive prices up, but I'd like to see more volatility in the price band.  It would be fun!  Certainly more fun than playing backgammon, yuck!

I’m only going to share my opinion on some of your points. 
 

Locking converters by account and allowing merits to be traded. This is kind of a wash since merits are already able to be liquidated via converters/boosters etc. So there isn’t much point to this. All it would do is disrupt the market. 
 

Hero Pack and Winter pack seeding. Removing the seeding would serve to almost certainly increase the price on ATOs. Having it as a super rare drop or their current merit costs would most likely bring them up to about the same price of as purples with the superior versions being more.  There is nothing wrong with the current prices of ATOs and their supply. There greater availability to the player see as a whole is a great thing about the market. Seeding allows this. 
 

Nerfing merit to converter ratio while also making converters a bone trade item would serve to nerf enhancement conversion. I’m sure this may be your intention in efforts to reign in the top earners. However, this would reduce supply and increase prices for everyone. Higher prices won’t do anything to mitigate the difference between have and have nots. Even worse, nerfing converters will actually enable greater and more drastic market manipulation.  Converters allow everyone to be competitors and allow all goods in a certain buckets to be substitutes. Nerfing converters will simultaneously nerf completion and substitution thus enabling more effective market manipulation. Plus the devs have already expressed that they don’t want to do anything to hurt the converter process in the double xp nerf discussion earlier this year, thank goodness.  
 

Macroeconomic events I am more agnostic towards, but still overall lean toward being against. I am against any event that serves to increase prices or strangle competition.  Temporary events that serve to reduce prices for a time I suppose are somewhat acceptable. The winter event can allow some people to make a killing, especially if they are patient. However, it also allows some people poorer players who couldn’t afford WOs the opportunity to get them at an lower price.  It also floods the market with supply that may keep the price lower for a while, which honestly isn’t bad. If just as soon not have events at all though. A stable market that functions well with reasonable prices is a good market. I understand that these events can be fun, so i see an argument for it, however, a stable market is more important in my opinion. 
 

I am against lifting price caps. While we generally don’t get to the price cap on anything at the moment, this only opens the door to allow greater market manipulation. If conversion was nerfed AND price caps via seeding or merit cost increased or removed, then the super rich could easily drive up the prices to unreasonable levels. 
 

Overall, apart from some bugs, the market functions splendidly. It has very reasonable average prices across the board and no supply shortages because of converters. Players have multiple ways to make a steady earnings on the market with various time and effort commitments.   Anything done to curb competition, substitution, and allow for greater market manipulation would only hurt the economy in my opinion. 
 

I agree with @Coyotedancerthat we need to be careful in any approach to reign in the “top hat and monocle crowd”. Reigning them in at the expense of the market as whole is not a good idea. If the devs are ever truly worried about atrociously rich players, then they should address those players instead of strangling the entire market. 
 

Edit: I realize I should probably also comment on stuff I agree with. That’s only fair. I need to be better about that. 
 

Inf sinks are a good thing. I’m down for influence sinks as long as they don’t really affect the poorer crowd. Things like expensive glory badges. Altruistic/philanthropic badges. Various status competitions that don’t have bearing on player progress or the market as a whole are all good starter ideas. I’m sure more ideas can be added as time goes on. 
 

Market slots - I can also get behind this one as it combats market manipulation. Sure, I like to buy my build all at once from level 2 or so just so it is there waiting for me. It allows be to put in my “patient” bids to make my guide overall cheaper and spend less time on the market. I’m willing to give this up though in the name of combating market manipulation.  I think somewhere between 50-100 slots would still be reasonable.  
 

Perhaps a more targeted approach could be to limit the number of a single item you can bid at any given time. What if instead we limit concurrent bids on a single item be a couple stacks?

Edited December 17, 2020 by Saikochoro

[Hedgefund]

By and large, I do like the market in its current state.  After a year and a half, there's been basically no notable inflation, mostly due to downward forces that have been mentioned above.  

 

The main thing I'd like for new functionality is - more data, more data, more data.  If I had carte blanch I'd have some means to access the sales history data to query as I wish but I have no expectation of that.  What would be nice would be a way to dig deeper.  A button to show last 100?  I'd be content to have a high and low sale from the last 100, especially if it comes time stamped.  

[gameboy1234]

2 hours ago, Hedgefund said:

The main thing I'd like for new functionality is - more data, more data, more data.  If I had carte blanch I'd have some means to access the sales history data to query as I wish but I have no expectation of that.  What would be nice would be a way to dig deeper.  A button to show last 100?  I'd be content to have a high and low sale from the last 100, especially if it comes time stamped.

I'd like to see the median, the mean and two standard deviations for the last 30 days, updated once per day.  That'll help with being able to determine where prices really are at.  Then the same thing for the last six months, updated once per month.  Not too hard on the server, and really useful for players.

 

Edit: and by "mode" I actually meant the mean.  Argh.

Edited December 17, 2020 by gameboy1234

[Saikochoro]

1 hour ago, Ukase said:

This is a fantastic idea.

I think one more point worth mentioning is that I think if you and other uber rich players really wanted to wreck the market you would have done so already. I think it takes a certain mentality that just usually doesn’t manifest overnight. That said, even if you did spend everything to do so, I still believe they way the market is set up it would be mitigated to an extent. 
 

Most uber rich players I know, whether they be marketers or farmers, are actually some of the most generous players I know. They are usually willing to help out players or fund competitions. Or at the very least they are content to lay on the beds of influence, in their mansions build of influence, wipe themselves with influence, and go swimming in their influence rather than use all of it to wreck everyone else’s fun. 

Edited December 17, 2020 by Saikochoro

[Saikochoro]

4 minutes ago, gameboy1234 said:

I'd like to see the median, the mode and two standard deviations for the last 30 days, updated once per day.  That'll help with being able to determine where prices really are at.  Then the same thing for the last six months, updated once per month.  Not too hard on the server, and really useful for players.

While I do like the double blind system since it gives an element of strategy to marketing, I am on board with more data being made available to help players. 

[Hedgefund]

3 minutes ago, gameboy1234 said:

I'd like to see the median, the mode and two standard deviations for the last 30 days, updated once per day.  That'll help with being able to determine where prices really are at.  Then the same thing for the last six months, updated once per month.  Not too hard on the server, and really useful for players.

YES!  I'm 100% with you.  I wanted to include a request for some measure of volatility (SD) but thought I'd start off small... 

[Yomo Kimyata]

23 minutes ago, Saikochoro said:

I’m only going to share my opinion on some of your points. 
 

 

I very much appreciate your comments.  I certainly didn't expect very many of my suggestions to be popular...

 

One thing I'd like to ask, on a side bar, is about market manipulation.  I see very little of it, but I'm wondering if you are seeing things I don't, or just if we have different definitions for it.  For example, I would consider buying all of something, then relisting it 50% higher as market manipulation.  Something like Red Fortune recipe prices being "higher than they should be for what they do" doesn't count as market manipulation, as they are almost certainly being converted to LotG for a profit.  In that case, their value as ingredients trumps their usefulness as a set.

 

The reason I ask this is that I feel that it's a real bugaboo to a lot of people, myself included, but I don't see very much of it, and when it does show up, supply and/or demand comes into play to rectify it rather quickly.  I'm just checking to see if my assumption is correct that this is fear of manipulation talking rather than actual observation of manipulation.

[Hew]

Ive seen it manipulated, but it gets squashed by market forces usually within 24-48 hours...

 

Really, there is little reason to say the market is broke, when a level 1 character can bring in millions of in with a very short playthrough that level 1 ae arc where it is all spawns of 1 boss (or eb) that ANYONE can take down,e ven trollers, and roll in 700+ tickets and buy (w/ tickets) and sell (on ah) rare salvage.

[Saikochoro]

36 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

I very much appreciate your comments.  I certainly didn't expect very many of my suggestions to be popular...

 

One thing I'd like to ask, on a side bar, is about market manipulation.  I see very little of it, but I'm wondering if you are seeing things I don't, or just if we have different definitions for it.  For example, I would consider buying all of something, then relisting it 50% higher as market manipulation.  Something like Red Fortune recipe prices being "higher than they should be for what they do" doesn't count as market manipulation, as they are almost certainly being converted to LotG for a profit.  In that case, their value as ingredients trumps their usefulness as a set.

 

The reason I ask this is that I feel that it's a real bugaboo to a lot of people, myself included, but I don't see very much of it, and when it does show up, supply and/or demand comes into play to rectify it rather quickly.  I'm just checking to see if my assumption is correct that this is fear of manipulation talking rather than actual observation of manipulation.

Definition of market manipulation is an absolutely fair question as I’m sure there are a ton of different definitions.  Yes, you are correct that it is fear of actual monopolistic price setting rather than observed manipulation. Price setting may be a better term than market manipulation.  I don’t see this happening because it basically can’t reliably happen because of how the market is set up. 
 

I think there is a grey area between market manipulation and “normal” market functions. Flipping is the best example to use here. 
 

I remember going into an example about flipping a while back using colt pythons as an example. I personally don’t really like the practice, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think it was a normal market practice. Regardless of my adverse opinions on flipping, I still consider it to be a normal and acceptable market practice. Flipping rewards patience and knowledge, but is not indicative of actual price setting power. 
 

What I fear is actually corning the market, starving the competition, and then setting an atrociously high price once you gain control.  So instead of flipping for 50% more you are now selling those red fortunes for 15 or 20m because you CONTROL the price. This is more of what I’m getting at when I say market manipulation. Converters, seeding, and merits basically make this impossible currently. However, if one or all three of those are nerfed enough, this sort of manipulation becomes possible. 

Edited December 17, 2020 by Saikochoro

[arthurh35353]

And yet I'm pretty sure that LotG global recharge is being manipulated, 1400 for sale and 3500 for bids yet most other enhancements only have a few hundred for sale. 

Wonder what would happen if all bids over 14 days just auto reverted.

Edited December 18, 2020 by arthurh35353