Weekly Discussion 81: The Player-Market

[arthurh35353]

That should have resulted in low quantities and high bids.

[DSorrow]

1 hour ago, arthurh35353 said:

That should have resulted in low quantities and high bids.

A lot of people deliberately turn other less sought after items into LotG +Rech because they sell quickly for a consistently high price. This results in high (absolute) quantities of both supply and demand.

[arthurh35353]

It sounds like it should be bucketed so it can't be price manipulated like salvage has been.

[Take One]

1 minute ago, arthurh35353 said:

It sounds like it should be bucketed so it can't be price manipulated like salvage has been.

If the influence cost gets too high anyone can buy the same enhancement with merits, at a fixed cost.

[arthurh35353]

14 minutes ago, Take One said:

If the influence cost gets too high anyone can buy the same enhancement with merits, at a fixed cost.

And yet for some reason there are 1400 not being sold to the 3500 bidders...

[Hew]

Even if lotg +rech is being manipulated, which I am very confident it is not, I think you are missing _scale_.

 

Heavy marketeers will dump 1000's of items for sale onto the market, and just dont care if it doesn't sell today, or tomorrow, or 5 weeks for now. EVENTUALLY, it will sell. These same people run sometimes up to 100s (yes, that is correct number) of marketing characters. If you assume such a person has 100 level 50 marketing chars listing at any given time ~1/2 of their capacity, that is 100k postings on the ah.

 

These same people are going to be engaging in buy low, sell high, and if shit doesnt sell (which it will.... EVENTUALLY), no loss to them because hey, they can slot it! And they arent just buy low, sell high. They are also convertering at the same time to produce more valuable assets. And these converterings are not what you probably thinking. In mass marketing like this, just converting an uncommon to a rare nets you as much as 700k profit on a 200k or less buy. 100 such postings nets you 70 mill. That leaves 99000 of their other postings to buy things.

 

These mass marketers, mass producers, REALLY exist. I know some of them. The concerted marketing you think you see really isn't there, because market forces really squash that, and mass marketers make LOTS and LOTS of inf with very little effort, once they get started.

[Take One]

5 minutes ago, arthurh35353 said:

And yet for some reason there are 1400 not being sold to the 3500 bidders...

Because when someone buys an enhancement with merits and uses it for themselves, as uneconomical as that is, it doesn't affect the number of enhancements for sale on the market or their price.

[arthurh35353]

46 minutes ago, Hew said:

These mass marketers, mass producers, REALLY exist. I know some of them. The concerted marketing you think you see really isn't there, because market forces really squash that, and mass marketers make LOTS and LOTS of inf with very little effort, once they get started.

Is that actually a reason to not bucket the LotG's here though? We know for a fact that if the developers running the game want to, they could put 100,000 for sale at 5 million while having the auction house buy anything under 1-3,000,000 instantly with unlimited funds.

[DSorrow]

1 hour ago, arthurh35353 said:

And yet for some reason there are 1400 not being sold to the 3500 bidders...

I'd be willing to bet a good bunch of influence that a significant number of those bids are well under the going market value of LotGs. Some of them are probably extremely old and have been left there at a point in time where the going rate was lower. Some of them are opportunistic low balls by people who are willing to wait to save a million or two. I do the latter on items like LotGs, winter IOs, purples and ATOs with my excess influence, either my influence stays saved in a bid or I score a stack of very useful enhancements at a low price, it's a win either way.

 

28 minutes ago, arthurh35353 said:

Is that actually a reason to not bucket the LotG's here though? We know for a fact that if the developers running the game want to, they could put 100,000 for sale at 5 million while having the auction house buy anything under 1-3,000,000 instantly with unlimited funds.

They could, but dumping bucket loads of LotG +Rechs into the market at an arbitrary price would most likely be a pretty big disruption. Without speculating further about the possible impacts of something like that, I don't think there's any reason at all to have the devs generate them into the market given that there's already a big supply with multiple ways to get them outside the market, too.

[Grouchybeast]

2 hours ago, arthurh35353 said:

Is that actually a reason to not bucket the LotG's here though? We know for a fact that if the developers running the game want to, they could put 100,000 for sale at 5 million while having the auction house buy anything under 1-3,000,000 instantly with unlimited funds.

I don't understand what the problem is that you're trying to solve, here.

 

People make a lot of LotG+rech because they know it's a popular IO with high turnover.  People bid for a lot of LotG+rech because they're used in a lot of builds.   There's a huge supply of LotG available at very reasonable Buy It Now prices for anyone who wants them.  The players are generating the supply by their own efforts without the devs having to spend any time at all watching or balancing the market.  Everything is working as intended, and much, much better than it did on live.

 

If supply gets too high and prices fall too far, then people doing converter roulette will just switch to making another IO instead.  Again, WAI.

 

ETA:  Actually, I think you might be confusing bucketing with seeding.  Bucketing is when items will be automatically converted from one to another by the AH, e.g. a listed level 35 Thunderstrike Acc/Dam will be used to fill a bid for an Attuned Thunderstrike Acc/Dam (if the bid and offer prices are right).  Seeding is when the devs put a supply of an item onto the AH, e.g. salvage or Winter Packs.

 

(And I don't know if the AH can autobuy items.  That isn't a function that it has active at the moment, anyway.)

 

2 hours ago, DSorrow said:

Some of them are opportunistic low balls by people who are willing to wait to save a million or two. I do the latter on items like LotGs, winter IOs, purples and ATOs with my excess influence, either my influence stays saved in a bid or I score a stack of very useful enhancements at a low price, it's a win either way.

 I do that, too, with super low-ball bids on big ticket items.  I saves me from losing a bunch of inf when using the market, and occasionally I /ah on a character and get a lovely surprise.  (I've always worked on the principle that I'd rather come back to the game after a break and discover I've overpaid for some LotG I can actually use, than find out level 53 SOs have become a thing!)

Edited December 18, 2020 by Grouchybeast

[Mr. Vee]

2 hours ago, arthurh35353 said:

And yet for some reason there are 1400 not being sold to the 3500 bidders...

There was a recent price drop in them that seems to be holding. I know I have a bunch unsold at what used to be instant sell prices below the 7 million they'd typically go for. They've been sitting there for a while now. There've been other drops previously so there could be really old ones up at 8 or 10 million as well. 

[lokpyrite]

Fix the bug where when you try to post something it doesn't 

[Ura Hero]

9 hours ago, arthurh35353 said:

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.

 

Part of what is missing here is that if you put up a bid or an item and then log out it stays on the market. 

 

So what happens if someone has bids or items and logs out and doesn't ever come back?

 

The bids/items just hang out there taking up space.  Unless of course they happen to fill.  Which is unlikely if they are priced out of the current range.  

 

Should there be a expiry time for bids/items?  Maybe, but I don't see it as a huge problem other than mucking up the display and giving a false sense of Market Cap.

[Hew]

People would murder you if you automatically took items off the AH that didnt sell within x days/months/years.

 

Why? 

 

They spent hard earned inf to list the damn thing to start with. You pay to list, you pay to collect.

 

There really seems to be an effort by a few here to fix a problem that doesnt exist.

 

2 BILLION inf panacea procs anyone?

 

Yeah, I think it is SO good here, that people are acting in complete disregard to what the market was like on live, and even after converters and RMT buy it on the marketplace they added at the end.

 

I don't like marketing. I use it as a tool occasionally, and I understand (and sometimes partake in) market pvp. But for the people that engage in market pvp, THANK YOU, because YOU marketeers make it possible for ME to get what I need with just a little effort.

 

The idea that there should be bids for things with only 0 for sale is pretty absurd. Unfilled bids tell you what the market will bear, and you list accordingly.

[mcdoogss]

3 hours ago, arthurh35353 said:

It sounds like it should be bucketed so it can't be price manipulated like salvage has been.

The price is stable though on LOTG.  If there is deliberate 'manipulation' its not affecting much

Edited December 18, 2020 by mcdoogss

[Hew]

Just now, mcdoogss said:

The price is stable though

Yes. And even swings in the price are never much, because downward market forces.

 

Luck charms for LOTS of money anyone, because used by so much and farmed by level fixed noobs? And because they don't drop off high level mobs?

 

Salvage bucketing fixed a completely unrelated problem.

[thunderforce]

21 minutes ago, Hew said:

People would murder you if you automatically took items off the AH that didnt sell within x days/months/years.

They spent hard earned inf to list the damn thing to start with. You pay to list, you pay to collect.

If the time period is long - months, not days - they've probably forgotten about it (and/or the game).

 

(But I agree there's a lot of nonexistent problems being fixed here. To my mind, the problems are the noob trap of the Merit Vendor, the lack of data, and the bugs.)

[tidge]

I am very glad so many folks jumped on the "LotG Def/+Recharge segment is being manipulated" crowd.

 

I don't market in that niche, but I often visit it... and I see no signs of manipulation relative to the utility of that piece. The only times that I have observed anything with a passing semblance of manipulation in that sector are the times when I see beaucoup bids on other Defense set pieces (e.g. Red Fortune or Reactive Defenses) or even other 'unloved' Luck of the Gambler pieces because those can be converted into the LotG +recharge piece (easier than other pieces). BUT...

 

...this is indistinguishable from just supply/demand, because there is a demand for pieces to convert them into something else (with a nigher value). Intent can only be divined not proved, but I can easily believe (but not prove) that the intent behind many of the bids on those pieces are either:

• bargain shoppers (e.g. maybe I can get one for cheap), or
• folks willing to invest converters to flip within the set/type to try make a profit.

How much profit could someone make? Each spin of the converter wheel (within a set) is roughly 210KInf (based on historical market prices for converters) or roughly 1MInf for 5 spins (in a set)... Paging Dr. Poisson... Dr. Fine... Dr. Howard... The Average Defensive IO pieces have roughly got this conversion price baked into their current market prices. In other words, it is reasonable to guess that there could be several thousand bids for LoTG +recharge at under 3MInf, because it would be possible to (eventually) make a profit on them... but this wouldn't be signs of market manipulation, it would be a sign that there is a market for those pieces.

 

If I am being frugal and I see an IO piece I want and the sale price in the AH looks "inflated" to me I will do the following instead:

• Buy the available recipe, if the price is less than the extra cost of crafting and ingredients (and catalyst, if player is catalyst-poor)
• Buy another (crafted) piece that can be 'rolled' into the piece I want (if I can save more than 2 MInf this way, it's almost a no-brainer)

Both of these options are available because of the current AH policies. A market manipulator would have to overcome the seeded items, the merit-converter ceiling, and invest in almost every area of the market (because of fungibility and converters) to close these avenues.

[Hew]

5 minutes ago, tidge said:

 

 

...this is indistinguishable from just supply/demand, because there is a demand for pieces to convert them into something else (with a nigher value). Intent can only be divined not proved, but I can easily believe (but not prove) that the intent behind many of the bids on those pieces are either:

• bargain shoppers (e.g. maybe I can get one for cheap), or
• folks willing to invest converters to flip within the set/type to try make a profit.

....

 

If I am being frugal and I see an IO piece I want and the sale price in the AH looks "inflated" to me I will do the following instead:

• Buy the available recipe, if the price is less than the extra cost of crafting and ingredients (and catalyst, if player is catalyst-poor)
• Buy another (crafted) piece that can be 'rolled' into the piece I want (if I can save more than 2 MInf this way, it's almost a no-brainer)

Both of these options are available because of the current AH policies. A market manipulator would have to overcome the seeded items, the merit-converter ceiling, and invest in almost every area of the market (because of fungibility and converters) to close these avenues.

This is me in many many many ways. Hah! Bargain shopper all the way. Someone sent me 25mil I have to send back (I sloooowly accumulated enough to repay them, while buying/marketeering/slotting at the same time)

[Yomo Kimyata]

Anyone could easily put in 1,000 bids at 5 inf each, or offer 1,000 items at 100mm each (although they would eat the posting fee).  That doesn't have any effect on the transaction level.  

[Hew]

Yeah, people really do list things for 1 inf sometimes.

[Ura Hero]

9 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

Anyone could easily put in 1,000 bids at 5 inf each, or offer 1,000 items at 100mm each (although they would eat the posting fee).  That doesn't have any effect on the transaction level.  

 

Exactly my point.  All it does is confuse the perceived market cap.  You might get lucky and get a LoTG for 5 inf, but it is extremely unlikely.  I would be willing to bet there are bids for that amount out there though.  And in the other direction someone has likely posted some for 100mm because; "It might sell and I'll make a fortune."  OR they are parking something they might use later and are willing to eat the fees instead of just leaving it in the ready to post bucket.

[Ura Hero]

3 minutes ago, Hew said:

Yeah, people really do list things for 1 inf sometimes.

 

I list my white and yellow salvage for 1 inf all the time.  It's not worth typing more characters and I don't like vendoring it.

[Grouchybeast]

19 minutes ago, tidge said:

I don't market in that niche, but I often visit it... and I see no signs of manipulation relative to the utility of that piece. The only times that I have observed anything with a passing semblance of manipulation in that sector are the times when I see beaucoup bids on other Defense set pieces (e.g. Red Fortune or Reactive Defenses) or even other 'unloved' Luck of the Gambler pieces because those can be converted into the LotG +recharge piece (easier than other pieces). BUT...

Some people have very, very broad definitions of 'market manipulation', and sometimes they seem to include literally everything that makes a profit on the market.

 

Like, I don't go into the corner shop in my village and accuse them of market manipulation because they bought tins of baked beans from the wholesalers and are now selling them to me at a profit.  (And for more than I could get them at the supermarket, too, just because it's easier for me to walk a couple of minutes to the village shop than it to drive to the supermarket!  The nerve of it!)  I know I could cook my own baked beans, but it's just so much easier to buy them, even though it would be cheaper.  And probably tastier.  Molasses and salt pork are hard to find here, anyway.

 

...I think this analogy has lost its way a bit, sorry.

 

Just now, Ura Hero said:

 

I list my white and yellow salvage for 1 inf all the time.  It's not worth typing more characters and I don't like vendoring it.

I list it all so the cheapest it can sell is vendor price + listing fee, but then at the same time I'm too lazy to converter roulette PVP recipe drops, because I'm both inf wise AND inf foolish. 

 

As they used to says on the old Market forums, this game literally rains inf, you only need to hold out a bucket and catch some.  And we can thank the HC market changes for the fact that we all need MUCH smaller buckets than we did on live.

 

p.s. Devs, I love you all, please fix the last 5 display bugs.

[Saikochoro]

7 hours ago, DSorrow said:

I'd be willing to bet a good bunch of influence that a significant number of those bids are well under the going market value of LotGs. Some of them are probably extremely old and have been left there at a point in time where the going rate was lower. Some of them are opportunistic low balls by people who are willing to wait to save a million or two.

 

They could, but dumping bucket loads of LotG +Rechs into the market at an arbitrary price would most likely be a pretty big disruption.

Snippet for brevity. 
 

I always put in lowball bids on all of my builds enhancements. I buy my build at level 2-3 or whenever I have enough market slots. That’s gives me a lot of room for patience to wait on my bids, especially for my purples.  I usually bid a fair bit lower than the going rate on LOTG and usually get at least 3 of the 5 at the lower rate by the time I need them. If the bids have filled by the time I need them, then I will use a more “reasonable” bid that will purchase the remaining ones within a day.

 

I am especially aggressive in my bidding for purples because I don’t need them until I’m level 50. I have saved over 75m on purples alone in one build by being patient. I used to always use but now prices. Since I started low balling and being patient my builds are usually 100-140m cheaper than they were before. 
 

I agree that LOTG + rech isn’t at an unreasonable price at the moment. It is one the most highly traded items on the market and thus I think normal market focuses will influence it appropriately.  It is bought and traded to such a degree that market forces will squash attempts at price setting pretty quickly. 

 

The moral of the story is that patience saves tons of influence. Put your bids in ahead of time people. Those 6m LOTGs become less than 5m when you are willing to wait.  It makes sense that there are more bids than offers for such a hot item.