Idiots manipulating market

[Omega-202]

10 minutes ago, arcane said:

The fact that people are willing to call each other dicks over someone paying a nickel for what’s worth a penny is where I take issue with this thread. You can earn said nickel faster than you can even type dick in this game.

 

3 minutes ago, arcane said:

Obviously - thread is full of them

 

So, as you rightfully point out, the marginal profits that this admited manipulator would be making is minimal.  "Nickels for pennies".

 

Then if not profit motive, why else would they do this?  The next most likely options are that they're jerks/trolls or they see themselves as the pettiest version of the Fed in existence.  So they're either trolling or a moron with some sort of powertrip.  

 

Either way, the thread title fits.  They exist, they are manipulating and they are an idiot.  

[Andreah]

We're probably now also seeing The Streisand Effect, too.

[TheZag]

If it were someone being malicious,  then this thread is exactly what they want and they are loving every second.  Probably the fastest way to get things back to normal would be to hide this thread.

[arcane]

Just now, Omega-202 said:

 

 

So, as you rightfully point out, the marginal profits that this admited manipulator would be making is minimal.  "Nickels for pennies".

 

Then if not profit motive, why else would they do this?  The next most likely options are that they're jerks/trolls or they see themselves as the pettiest version of the Fed in existence.  So they're either trolling or a moron with some sort of powertrip.  

 

Either way, the thread title fits.  They exist, they are manipulating and they are an idiot.  

Yeah “jerk”, “troll”, “idiot” - not helping me see your side.

 

I raise my own bids sometimes because I need the purchases to go through. Sometimes someone else wants their purchases to go through just as badly and I get boxed out so I raise my bids again.

 

Point is, put a few buy-it-nao guys like me in a room and I just don’t see how we can rule out the possibility that this is one big accident. My bids are still high because I still need the salvage. This doesn’t make me or anyone else an idiot or an abuser or a dick. Though other aspects of my personality may.

[Andreah]

We will also get hoarders trying to buy up yellow salvage because that's what they do whenever prices rise for any reason -- jump on and hoard before it's too late.

[Omega-202]

2 minutes ago, arcane said:

Yeah “jerk”, “troll”, “idiot” - not helping me see your side.

Don't like the facts, attack the messenger.  Fine.

 

I'm done, @TheZag is right.  Whoever got us to this point got what they wanted and arguing about it is pointless.  They'll get bored and things will bottom out again in a month or so.  

 

Glad at least we got proof that its happening, sad some don't want to believe it.  Thanks to Troo for sacrifing inf and time to prove it.  

[Icono04]

33 minutes ago, arcane said:

Obviously - thread is full of them

Not only that, but my in-depth research (see full list of sources below) indicates that all of us are a$$holes from time to time, without even realizing we are doing it.

 

I base this conclusion on this: https://www.somethingawful.com/news/do-better/

[EmperorSteele]

...SomethingAwful still exists? Huh.

 

TIL.

[The_Warpact]

All I know is make more inf off of you guys than I do on my three farmers.

 

Thank you for your hard earned imaginary money!

 

You may now proceed back to your corner and cry some more. 

 

Muahaha!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was in jest, if you took it seriously then you are getting mad at a video game.....c'mon.

[Yomo Kimyata]

Listen, I don't really know exactly what is going on here.  And frankly, it's not very important to me other than as an intellectual exercise.

 

BUT, if someone or someones *is* making a market 10k bid // 20k offer (which will certainly make money), the way to stop it is not to buy out all the supply under 100k.  All that does is raise the price for people who are "buying it now" from 20k to 100k.  

 

I would cut their margins until it becomes unprofitable.  One way to do that is to raise the bid level, (which maybe was the intent of buying out all the supply?)  But that raises prices even further.  I'd lower the offer, and that's what I've been doing personally with my drops.  Undercut them by posting your salvage at 19,999, or 10,001, or whatever level keeps it from instantly transacting to the floor.  

 

There's literally an infinite amount of yellow salvage in this game that drops from the sky (or the pockets of Carnies, but I digress) but that comes over time.  I'll be perfectly honest, I've *always* been buying lots of yellow salvage for crafting and the price I've been using recently is 11,115.  That is not an instabuy, and I'm fine with that.  I've also been selling the yellow salvage I get as drops at a slightly higher price (certainly under 20k), and that is not an instasell.  But either way I make all my purchases and sales in pretty short order -- certainly within a day.

 

Dumping yellow salvage at 5 inf for an instasell is probably not going to help anything.

 

As always, YMMV

 

 

 

[Yomo Kimyata]

Also:

 

 

[Intrinsic]

On 6/16/2022 at 3:29 PM, Shred Monkey said:

I confess, I haven't followed this discussion at all.  But since I clicked on the topic and got sucked and I thought about how I would do this if I were the type of guy who does this stuff.  (I'm not that kind of guy, but I like a good puzzle)

 

He's what I'd do:

 

1. Download a bot program that replicates clicks on the screen.  (I've never done it for CoH, but I've done it in other games).

2. Teach script A to bid a hair over 10K  for 10 yellow salvage.  Teach script B to get purchases from the AH.  And teach Script C program to delete my salvage.

3. Set up a timer to trigger script B, then C, then A every 15 minutes or so (I'll would tweak the time later).

4. Start with a 10 stacks of bids as a buffer, start the timer, and go AFK.

 

If I felt real nasty, I'd also have a 2nd account for afk farming inf and mailing it to the 1st account, then and add script D to collect the inf I mailed myself.   I've also never AFK farmed, but I wouldn't be surprised if one farmer could keep up with the yellow salvage market.

 

 

 

 

 

That's way too complicated.  I'd simply create a burner account and roll a few level 1 characters.  Email over some inf from my main account, and replicate a bunch of buy orders for one of the yellow salvage items.  That's it, done.  I wouldn't even bother to collect the bought salvage.   If all the buy orders are filled and I want to keep going, just roll some more characters.  Not going to run out of character slots anytime soon.

 

It's not about making a profit.  There are much better ways to make inf.  It's about the lulz.

 

This was nearly impossible on the retail servers by the way.  Low-level characters had much fewer trade slots, and I think F2P accounts couldn't even sell on the AH.  Also, putting all uncommon salvage into a single bucket make it much simpler to buy out the entire category.  The QoL improvements on Homecoming, while nice overall, have made it much easier to wreck certain segments of the market.

Edited June 17, 2022 by Intrinsic

[Ironblade]

17 hours ago, MoonSheep said:

i logged on last night and tried manipulating the price of alchemical gold to see if the prices could be influenced to a significant degree - i was quickly 160M inf down and didn’t seem to make much of a difference on that one item (didn’t want to waste too much inf on an experiment)

 

if someone is trying to manipulate the price of all uncommon salvage they will be having to invest 10’s of billions into doing it

You're aware that the salvage is 'bucketed' by rarity, right?

So, you weren't trying to manipulate the price of one item - because you can't.  You were trying to manipulate the price of all uncommon salvage.

[ForeverLaxx]

6 hours ago, EmperorSteele said:

...SomethingAwful still exists? Huh.

 

TIL.

"Exist" is a pretty strong word for what SA became. I never went there, but I do know its history and I suggest just leaving it at this revelation that it's still around.

[MoonSheep]

5 hours ago, Ironblade said:

You're aware that the salvage is 'bucketed' by rarity, right?

So, you weren't trying to manipulate the price of one item - because you can't.  You were trying to manipulate the price of all uncommon salvage.

 

haha yeah i quickly realised that, RIP some inf

[Zappalina]

On 6/16/2022 at 8:17 PM, Snarky said:

after re reading the last page i begin to suspect 1 of 2 things are happening

 

1) i am trying to dialogue with the bottom 50% of the population in terms of understanding things

2) i am being trolled in an effort to get a response

 

since the last time i was rebuked by a GM i took a 6 month break from CoH I am going to stop posting on all the boards for a while.

 

some rejoice, some mourn, most go on wondering wtf

 

anyways, i am a busy old vampire with little energy to educate and/or be vexed.

 

good night

Sweet dreams & Here take this with you

[tidge]

19 hours ago, Omega-202 said:

To those saying its still absurd to suspect that someone was/is playing games with the yellow market and that this is just natural supply and demand, I ask again: why is this only happening with yellow salvage?  The argument that yellow salvage is some sort of bottle neck or tipping point between supply and demand still rings hollow to me.

 

 

 

[Omega-202]

1 hour ago, tidge said:

 

 

 

 

Read the g-d thread.  Troo stipped the marked bare and showed that there are substantial standing positions to buy and sell at 10k/25k.  Someone IS manipulating the market.  

[tidge]

1 hour ago, Omega-202 said:

 

Read the g-d thread.  Troo stipped the marked bare and showed that there are substantial standing positions to buy and sell at 10k/25k.  Someone IS manipulating the market.  

 

When farmers are dumping all salvage in the market for 1 inf, are you g-d upset that they are manipulating the market?

 

EDIT: My quote of you and the link was to avoid having to repost my specific thoughts from LAST time relevant to the @Omega-202 "hollow-ringing" tipping point specific to yellow salvage. Read that g-d thread.

 

For the TLDR crowd, the tipping point argument is that the ratio of seeded prices (1: 100 : 1000) don't align with the (rarity) ratio of salvage drops (22/28 : 5/28 : 1/28), especially given the high utility of uncommon salvage mosty due to enhancement converters.

 

2xEDIT: To be clear(er): If the seeded market price was set only based on the rate of salvage drops, the ratio of seeded priced for (fungible) salvage would be more like 1 : 9 : 22.

Edited June 18, 2022 by tidge

[roleki]

Pretend for a second there are three general types of 'interests' among CoH players.  On one end of the spectrum, you have hardcore marketeers, and on the other end of the spectrum, you have hardcore farmers; in the middle you have casual gamers arranged from "does some marketeering, just plays content, does some farming."

 

Now, the hardcore farmers and the hardcore marketeers, these are the entrenched people, the people who keep CoH spreadsheets and whatnot - they're not going anywhere.  But the casual gamers in the middle, they're less-committed, more apt to wandering off to the next game or whatever.

 

So say as the playerbase dwindles, you lose some marketeers and some farmers, but you lose far more casual players.  The middle just hollows out, and you're left with marketeers and farmers.  Is it such a stretch to believe that the marketeering that went unnoticed when there was a much larger playerbase would be far more apparent when there's not as many people just using the AH as intended?  

[tidge]

There has definitely been observed elements (and admittance!) of market manipulation(*1) over since the launch of Homecoming... but the manipulation goes both ways (in terms of prices) and malice (or greed, or boredom) isn't necessarily the reason. Uncommon Salvage essentially comes out of nowhere, and the fungibility of salvage (plus seeding, at just about any price) helps what would otherwise be a really uncomfortable marketplace. It's the tremendous utility of uncommon salvage (uncommon, rare, very rare recipes, plus some SG base buffs) that put that category in a unique position of interest.

 

(*1) Semi-recently: take a look at certain "trash" uncommon recipes, as well as certain Hami-O and D-Synchs (blah blah lvl 53s blah blah fishcakes). Periodically, the price of Essence of the Earth has fluctuated wildly, Enhancement converters regularly jump in price.... I've had many "lowball" bids fill, but none in the past several months.

 

Why I can't get excited about 10K Inf prices for uncommon salvage: It takes more converters to turn an otherwise "trash" recipe into something "worth" putting on the market than it takes uncommon salvage, and the average price of converters has jumped by more than 10K Inf.

[JasperStone]

I GOT!!!!

It is economics major doing a summer project ....

[DoctorDitko]

Don't forget about Brainstorms. You get a surplus of those if you play the card packs lottery.

[Sir Myshkin]

8 hours ago, Omega-202 said:

Someone IS manipulating the market.

...and?

[Luminara]

I'm waiting for someone to market the manipulation.  FLIP THE NARRATIVE!  FIGHT THE POWER!  CHEW SOUP!