Auction House fees: is there any point?

[Glacier Peak]

3 minutes ago, Shenanigunner said:

 

As, in the end, am I. Changing this wouldn't change the game a bit. But I find the strenuous defenses of it (especially those in chat yesterday) on a par with a pitched argument over the length of Ms. Liberty's skirt... hilariously reactive/nonsensical.

 

I'm good with what, #4 — just being immersive/realish.

Yeah, same page. Not an issue for me, but I bet if you have a big enough net you could catch a boatload of fish* who would argue to their doom that it needs to be this way or that. It's the internet 🙃 

Edited January 28, 2021 by Glacier Peak
*Poor euphemism usage

[Luminara]

Inf* sinks aren't there to directly control inflation by themselves.  They're there to act in concert with other inflationary control measures to maintain a healthy economy.   All of the measures  working together - the salvage seeding and pooling on the market, the auto-attuning done by the market, converters, inf* sinks of all types - do the job.  Remove one and you alter how the control functions, but more importantly, you affect different groups of people in different ways.  Some people don't use the market well.  Some people don't use converters at all.  Some people only purchase crafted IOs, never craft them for themselves.  Every part of the inflationary control system affects everyone, and in different ways, but the overall result is to keep inflation from affecting any one group significantly.

 

Because we have multiple overlapping methods of controlling inflation, no-one is punished for "not doin' it right".

[Heraclea]

2 hours ago, Shenanigunner said:

1. It prevents users from using AH for storage.

FWIW I routinely use the AH for storage.  So long as you are in an open zone you can call it up and store stuff in it, and no fee will be charged unless you post a sale price.  

[UltraAlt]

35 minutes ago, Shenanigunner said:

..with this being the other assumption, that I personally must have had my tender toesies tromped to even think such a thing.

 

Nope. Simply never been big on the IO/market/bag-Inf end of the game. I sell what I find, happy to get more than 5k for anything, haven't bought anything but a few respec recipes.

 

My interest is entirely... theoretical/common sense. But I apologize for poking anyone's sore spot.

 

Sorry. Didn't mean to poke your sore spot.

My apologizes.

[Shenanigunner]

17 minutes ago, Luminara said:

Because we have multiple overlapping methods of controlling inflation, no-one is punished for "not doin' it right".

 

I honestly can't decide whether your answer is sober, accurate description or a technical note on how warp drive works... that is, maybe that's a logical explanation in-game, but pure fanwank from a higher viewpoint.

 

I'm not convinced that the CoH economy is complicated or vital enough to need a Fed to make policies. 🙂 But if it makes the whole system more... believable, instead of just Monopoly™ money, sure.

[wjrasmussen]

The OP hasn't made a convincing sales pitch.   So, no change imo.

[Shenanigunner]

8 minutes ago, wjrasmussen said:

The OP hasn't made a convincing sales pitch.   So, no change imo.

 

As my pitch wasn't for a change, and said so... 🙂

[wjrasmussen]

14 minutes ago, Shenanigunner said:

 

As my pitch wasn't for a change, and said so... 🙂

sure it wasn't.

[Shenanigunner]

1 minute ago, wjrasmussen said:

sure it wasn't.

 

Ah, but wait until you find out my real secret motivation... then you'll be sorry! Bwah-ha-hahhh!

 

In the meantime, I suggest reading it on a bigger screen. 🙂

[srmalloy]

3 hours ago, Shenanigunner said:

It prevents users from using AH for storage.

Not at all. You pay a fee to the AH when you list something for sale; you can fill up your entire AH limit with stored items and not pay anything.

[AboveTheChemist]

Just a PSA for those using the AH for storage: There is a rare bug that causes the AH to assign sale prices to unintended items in the stored tab. In my case, clearing my stored tab of all but the item I intend to sell has kept the issue from recurring.

[Shenanigunner]

37 minutes ago, srmalloy said:

Not at all. You pay a fee to the AH when you list something for sale; you can fill up your entire AH limit with stored items and not pay anything.

 

Thanks for the correction. I was quoting something from yesterday's chat; how very surprising it was wrong. 🙂

 

I guess you'd have to be stuffed to the gills to exceed base storage + personal vault storage + toon capacity and use the AH... but it's nothing I've ever messed with.

[gamingglen]

1 hour ago, wjrasmussen said:

The OP hasn't made a convincing sales pitch.   So, no change imo.

He's trolling.

[Shred Monkey]

-- It deflates the economy by removing Inf. 

 

Not entirely accurate.  It serves as an influence sink.  It sets a rate at which influence is removed from the economy.  This, balanced against the drop rate to influence earned ratio, (which is how they can manipulate supply of both goods and currency) will cause an economy to be stable.  If you change the rate, we will see inflation or deflation before you get a new point of stabilization.  If you remove the influence sink completely, we'll have infinite spiraling inflation.

 

--It prevents users from using AH for storage.

 

Totally wrong... you can drop stuff in AH for free.  No need to list it and pay money.  Maybe they meant influence storage.  But the mail system is a more convenient option for that.

 

--Many incoherent replies to the effect of "What, you've never used EBay, you [moron | newb | drunken fool | time waster]?"

 

Yeah... lazy answers at best, ignorant answers most likely.

 

--It's an immersion thing that makes it feel real.

 

I don't think this was the intent.  From what I've seen of the Dev's actions and occasional posts, they understood the importance an influence sink quite well.

 

 

[Greycat]

There has to be *something* to destroy inf. There are only so many costumes to change.

[Ironblade]

3 hours ago, loyalreader said:

I'm baffled by the responses to the OP's question, and especially the antipathy towards it. OP, you are correct - there is no point to the fees. Full stop. It's completely arbitrary and doesn't really serve any purpose in the current game economy.

This is completely wrong, as the next post I have quoted indicates.  The fee keeps the market more liquid by preventing sellers from trying to extract the maximum possible value from each sale.  The fee existed from day one of the AH for this very reason and the reason is still applicable today.

 

4 hours ago, DSorrow said:

There's also a point about increasing market liquidity. Because there's a cost attached to posting an item for sale, there's a financial risk of losing profits if you post it too high and have to re-list which encourages people to post things at prices where the are more or less guaranteed to be sold. Without the cost, I imagine the liquidity of some items might be pretty bad because there would be no penalty for failing to fish for the high end of a price range.

 

Edited January 28, 2021 by Ironblade

[Galaxy Brain]

What if we all bought out white salvage right before they short, causing a squeeze?

[Glacier Peak]

6 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

What if we all bought out white salvage right before they short, causing a squeeze?

It would stop the game... 🤫 🤑 🤣

[macskull]

5 hours ago, Shenanigunner said:

and the economy has become massively inflated since Live

You have a very odd definition of "inflation." Unless you meant the economy was massively inflated back on live? I'd agree with that premise at least - a single purple enhancement back on live could cost as much as an entire build costs now, and I routinely sold certain PvP IOs off the market for 3-4 billion inf each.

 

Inflation hasn't been happening here because The Powers That Be have been careful to curb it as they find it practical - reduced merit costs, seeded salvage and super packs, bucketing, removal of double inf while exemplared, P2W vendors, etc. AH fees are a small part of it and while they may not do much on their own to keep the market reasonable they do work together with the other means of curbing it.

[Saikochoro]

I’m kind of wondering why this is even up for debate. 
 

The fee removes influence from the system. With how many people market and some to a fairly high volume the amount of influence removed I would venture to say is quite substantial. Of course it is not as much as the influence moved, but it isn’t supposed to be.

 

Influence is constantly generated by playing the game (especially farming). I would posit that the market fee is one of the biggest influence sinks in the game to help combat the endless influence generation.  IOs are constantly moving on the market and each one takes a cut out of the economy. 
 

The fee is not hurting anyone and is beneficial to the health of the in game economy. I see no reason to change it or worse remove it. 

Edited January 28, 2021 by Saikochoro

[SwitchFade]

Oh snap...

 

Did someone just make a thread about an economic function?!

 

Does everyone really want to go down the economics path with me.... After the xp/info thread?!

 

Because, everyone knows I'll go there... I ain't skurr'd 🤪🤪🤪🤪💯💯💯

[Shenanigunner]

I'm puzzled at the number of posters who seem to think Inf is forever, and doesn't disappear back down the hole for vendor enhancements and then pretty much die forever as part of each build. I don't see that any great number of players strip value out of one build to make the next, etc.

 

How much Inf does the slotting of, say, a well-buffed 50+3 represent? And in general, when does that valuta ever come back into the system?

 

[SwitchFade]

2 minutes ago, Shenanigunner said:

I'm puzzled at the number of posters who seem to think Inf is forever, and doesn't disappear back down the hole for vendor enhancements and then pretty much die forever as part of each build. I don't see that any great number of players strip value out of one build to make the next, etc.

 

How much Inf does the slotting of, say, a well-buffed 50+3 represent? And in general, when does that valuta ever come back into the system?

 

*Twitch, spasm*

 

Do we REALLY want to open the economics can of worms lecture? It tends to make everyone get angsty...

[Shenanigunner]

1 minute ago, SwitchFade said:

Do we REALLY want to open the economics can of worms lecture? It tends to make everyone get angsty...

 

You're coming along a little late to tell me that. 🙂

 

I am used to RW participants getting all spazzy when I poke at their personal economics. I didn't think this would be so tetchy but yesterday's seizures in chat should have clued me...

[Parabola]

11 minutes ago, SwitchFade said:

Oh snap...

 

Did someone just make a thread about an economic function?!

 

Does everyone really want to go down the economics path with me.... After the xp/info thread?!

 

Because, everyone knows I'll go there... I ain't skurr'd 🤪🤪🤪🤪💯💯💯

We've got a thread on game balance and now this one on the market. We just need someone to open a new one demanding the removal of the aggro cap and we can melt the forums.