Implement more measures to curve market manipulation.

[crimson72]

Here's how this could be addressed.  At any given time you can only have 10 items posted for sale, and additionally be bidding on 10 items, and can only purchase 50 items per 24hr period, and separately sell 50 items per 24hr period.  This would bottleneck access to the market through limitations that wouldn't discourage a player like me, but it would discourage rampant price manipulation.  People likely wouldn't put up low value items like white and yellow salvage, but others have already stated that the system gets involved in some cases to sell these.  Anyone trying to repost an item that's wildly above the market average for that item should either be denied, or have to pay a really high % posting fee, around 50%+.  It won't look like such a good idea if you're trying to sell an item for 5x more than the average while getting footed for a 50% tax on something that's going to sit for a long time and take up limited posting space.  Anyone caught using multi-boxing or multiple separate accounts to grossly circumvent the limitations should have all their accounts banned.  

Edited May 31, 2023 by crimson72
more info

[ranagrande]

I've never done this before, but... /jranger.

[biostem]

Or... just take part in the content that allows you to earn the resources to directly buy the items you want.  You could, of course, simply bid what you are actually willing to pay for any given item, or pay the "convenience cost" in order to get the item NOW.

[Rudra]

I'm trying to understand the purpose of the OP. The market price is the current price at which items have sold on the AH, and if I understand correctly, well below the limit set by the devs with their seeded items. If something is too expensive for you? Post a request at what you think is the fair value and then wait for it to be purchased. Eventually, the market flux brings the price back down to what others normally expect.

[Psyonico]

Can only pray 10 items at a time? So when I get 6 merits for fighting a GM and try to sell the 18 converters I get out of that and can't?

 

No

 

Just

 

No

[Parabola]

4 hours ago, crimson72 said:

rampant price manipulation

Doesn't exist on this market. The market is actually in a very healthy place, particularly compared to the live market. It may look a bit daunting if you are just starting out but it has been proved over and over again that it is perfectly possible to start out with nothing and easily become wealthy. See the various guides on the subject and the market forum for more info.

 

4 hours ago, crimson72 said:

Here's how this could be addressed. 

Your suggestions wouldn't have the effect you think they would or the result you desire. Limiting volume of sales would just drive prices higher as people would be incentivised to maximize their profit on fewer units and supply would collapse. We already pay posting fees and anyone wildly overvaluing their stock is simply wasting inf, nobody is going to buy at well over market value.

 

Ultimately remember that we are all both suppliers and customers on the market. It has been cleverly set up to incentivise its use and it has checks and balances already built in. It is fairly self regulating and has been surprisingly stable over the life of homecoming even as some players have become richer and richer. If anything certain items like lotg pieces have actually come down in price which shows just how well the balances are working given the capital sloshing around. Learn to use the market - it's working fine.

[crimson72]

^{It's NOT stable.  If so, then explain to me why builds that cost 20m a couple years ago are now in excess of 100m to build?  I'm talking like relatively budget stuff.   Not one person has offered a rational explanation for this.   People fixing the market/prices is the most logical explanation.}  

Edited May 31, 2023 by crimson72

[crimson72]

I'll use an example:

 

 

The level 40 "budget" build.  This would be 100m+ now, if you used the AH to buy the stuff.  There's no way any of you could put that together for anything close to 20m.  

 

Edited May 31, 2023 by crimson72

[crimson72]

4 hours ago, Psyonico said:

Can only pray 10 items at a time? So when I get 6 merits for fighting a GM and try to sell the 18 converters I get out of that and can't?

 

No

 

Just

 

No

 

Wrong.  You sell one block of 10 of them, if it's priced reasonably it should be a near insta-sell.  Then feed the other 8 in there and you just sold them all in a few secs.  My suggestion of doing this is in part to encourage people to put instant sell prices on stuff vs trying to price fix and over charge people looking to buy.  This would make the AH better for pretty much everyone involved except for a small minority of players.  Last I checked, converters were between 60-70k.  The player who puts 10 converters up for 100k is going to be waiting a very long time to sell those, and in the process their 10 slots will be occupied.  Limitations discourage people from doing this, and it's something that would benefit nearly everyone, because nearly everyone would benefit if you can make bids on items for reasonable prices and simply get their items right then and there.  

Edited May 31, 2023 by crimson72

[biostem]

4 minutes ago, crimson72 said:

if it's priced reasonably it should be a near insta-sell

You mean "priced at an amount I am willing to pay".  You want to remove any long-term/delay of gratification strategies from listing on the AH.

 

5 minutes ago, crimson72 said:

My suggestion of doing this is in part to encourage people to put instant sell prices on stuff vs trying to price fix and over charge people looking to buy.

If an item never sells, the person who listed that item never makes any inf.  Obviously there is enough demand for them to, just that it is not in a time frame that is to your liking.  Bid what you think an item is worth, wait to see if it gets fulfilled, and if not, work toward earning the items you want yourself.

[crimson72]

1 minute ago, biostem said:

You mean "priced at an amount I am willing to pay".  You want to remove any long-term/delay of gratification strategies from listing on the AH.

Correct.  This would benefit nearly everyone.  

[ranagrande]

13 minutes ago, crimson72 said:

I'll use an example:

 

 

The level 40 "budget" build.  This would be 100m+ now, if you used the AH to buy the stuff.  There's no way any of you could put that together for anything close to 20m.  

 

Sure you can.  You just can't get them immediately.  The trick is to place a bid for the amount you're willing to pay and then wait for one to be sold to you.  It'll take a while.

 

That's the tradeoff:. Do you want to save time or inf?

[crimson72]

I've had bids up for 5+ days on some items at what I assumed were reasonable prices that others paid according to the log.  If there's a way to pull up a longer term log, like average price paid for a given item over the period of a year for example, I haven't figured out how to access that.  I would gladly pay the yearly median price for any given item without any complaints.  

Edited May 31, 2023 by crimson72

[crimson72]

32 minutes ago, biostem said:

You mean "priced at an amount I am willing to pay".  You want to remove any long-term/delay of gratification strategies from listing on the AH.

It seems to be commonly agreed by most reasonable people that as long as people find a way to play the game and enjoy themselves in a way that doesn't negatively impact the enjoyment of others, that's fine.  But when you have people intentionally putting stuff up at wildly insane prices in hopes to over charge people who expect to pay average prices and get it relatively quickly, then I'd argue the ones doing that are negatively impacting the game of others, therefore measures should be in place to strongly penalize this.  

[Rudra]

37 minutes ago, crimson72 said:

I've had bids up for 5+ days on some items at what I assumed were reasonable prices that others paid according to the log.

It happens. I've had bids up for a couple weeks before they were filled. If you post a bid at what the current rate shows and it doesn't fill? That just means other bids got it and the remaining posts are listed above your offer. Eventually more people post at the listed current rate or less and the bid gets filled.

 

10 minutes ago, crimson72 said:

It seems to be commonly agreed by most reasonable people that as long as people find a way to play the game and enjoy themselves in a way that doesn't negatively impact the enjoyment of others, that's fine.  But when you have people intentionally putting stuff up at wildly insane prices in hopes to over charge people who expect to pay average prices and get it relatively quickly, then I'd argue the ones doing that are negatively impacting the game of others, therefore measures should be in place to strongly penalize this.  

And if they post too high above the current listed rate, their posts don't get bought unless someone is in such a rush to get something and have inf' to burn that they bid wildly high.

 

Those who want to put in the effort to game the market are going to. The OP will punish those who don't game the market far worse than it will handicap those who do. Because the ones who do will simply look at how the market has been changed, realize they can now charge even more because the supply has gone down, and invest the time to figure out just how much more they can get other players to pay for the reduced availability.

[crimson72]

13 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Those who want to put in the effort to game the market are going to. The OP will punish those who don't game the market far worse than it will handicap those who do. Because the ones who do will simply look at how the market has been changed, realize they can now charge even more because the supply has gone down, and invest the time to figure out just how much more they can get other players to pay for the reduced availability.

Ok, you make a reasonable point.  I'm merely offering suggestions to raise talking points about this, and there are things that can be implemented to improve this for nearly everyone.  Maybe limiting the maximum number of items you can sell or buy in a day isn't a good idea for reasons that you've stated, but I think huge taxes on items that greatly exceed the average price, as well as some stricter limitations on posting and bidding (possibly higher than what I suggested) still seems sensible to me.  

[Parabola]

Those measures are already in place. If someone has listed something at an insane price they have paid a fee to do it and (here's the important bit) you can just not buy it. It's that simple. The way to not pay over the odds for things is to not pay over the odds for things. Source it another way. Buy something else and convert it. Buy the recipe and craft it (attuning if desired). There are costs involved in converters etc but if the stock is priced so outrageously it will be worth it.

 

It's actually very difficult to manipulate the market because of the above. When people have tried it they have mostly lost inf as others have simply increased supply to undercut them leaving them with stock they can't sell. There are a couple of areas where items are less fungible such as winter IOs and these are expensive but they are also effectively capped by the fixed cost of the packs.

[crimson72]

How about ignore some of the other stuff I suggested, and let's focus on higher % taxes for erroneously priced items? 

 

I'll use an example.  A luck of the gambler defense/recharge 7.5% typically goes for around 6m, no?  Let's just say that's the average price for that item.  Now, someone shows up and posts a 12m tag on it, they have to put up 50% instead of 10%, or 6 million just to post it.  Meaning nobody would realistically ever put up an item for double the going market rate.  And people attempting to do this could be given some sort of notification.  

 

Also, I think information about the average price paid for a given item over a longer period than the last 5 sales of the item should be given to the player.  It's a better context as to what the true average price might be.  For all I know the last 5 items sold are lowball, or extraordinarily high, and I've got no info to help me know the difference.  

Edited May 31, 2023 by crimson72

[Parabola]

But why? No-one is going to buy that lotg at 12m so the existing fee is already a total waste of inf for the seller.

 

I could totally get alongside having some better (and less buggy) recent sale information from the market interface though.

[Herotu]

It's not really possible to manipulate the market unless you're buying everything that's coming in, and that takes ... bots, frankly.

 

  

56 minutes ago, crimson72 said:

I'll use an example.  A luck of the gambler defense/recharge 7.5% typically goes for around 6m, no?  Let's just say that's the average price for that item.  Now, someone shows up and posts a 12m tag on it, they have to put up 50% instead of 10%, or 6 million just to post it.  Meaning nobody would realistically ever put up an item for double the going market rate.  And people attempting to do this could be given some sort of notification.  

Well... here's a little story: I have a bunch of purple enhancements on the AH - a lot of them. They're on there at about 22-25million. That was the going rate a few years ago. I haven't touched them since. 

 

You could argue that items should drop off the AH after a period of time, but I disagree because I'm providing supply. 

Edited May 31, 2023 by Herotu

[SeraphimKensai]

The AH is largely player driven and is the closest thing to a free market economy the game has. To implement the OP's proposed rules would circumvent the very principle of an economy that is player driven.

 

For this reason alone, I have to say a hard no based on the suggestions.

 

The only justification I can presume from their post is that they are frugal and unable to afford to slot their toons as they wish "now".

 

So once again, hard no.

[Akisan]

3 hours ago, crimson72 said:

I'll use an example.  A luck of the gambler defense/recharge 7.5% typically goes for around 6m, no?  Let's just say that's the average price for that item.  Now, someone shows up and posts a 12m tag on it, they have to put up 50% instead of 10%, or 6 million just to post it.  Meaning nobody would realistically ever put up an item for double the going market rate.  And people attempting to do this could be given some sort of notification.

 

We do get a notification for large posting fees (I've turned it off on my end, as it gets really annoying if you sell a bunch of high-end items).  I've also accidentally posted white salvage for 1,500,450 inf before, which put me out 75k per piece.  That seems punishing enough for a mis-type, thank you. (Said mis-type is most common when the AH has input delay, and doesn't clear out the inf value of my previous price)

[UltraAlt]

13 hours ago, crimson72 said:

Here's how this could be addressed.

 

You're just intentionally trying to cause tension in the forums at this point.

[UltraAlt]

7 hours ago, crimson72 said:

But when you have people intentionally putting stuff up at wildly insane prices in hopes to over charge people who expect to pay average prices and get it relatively quickly, then I'd argue the ones doing that are negatively impacting the game of others

 

The Market is the best PVP in City of Heroes.

It alway has been.

[TheZag]

There was 1 time that someone was manipulating the market.  They bought all the yellow salvage and inflated the price from 1500 to 20,000.  It lasted a few days and a few people threw a fit and then it went back to normal.

 

Other than that,  marketeers are actually helping keep the prices stable.  Most of the time they are buying undesirable enhancements and recipes,  crafting and converting them to sets that people want.  So now there is a buyer for the junk that people dont want and a seller of desirable items.  In the process they do make a profit but that doesnt mean they are manipulating the market.  It means they are getting paid for the time resources and risk involved in converting low value items in to high value items.

 

Prices have also slowly risen over time.  This is because as more and more inf is earned through defeating enemies and players become richer,  they are willing to spend more to 'get it now' as opposed to placing a bid and waiting for it to win.  This inflation is caused by all methods of influence earning when the game creates inf out of thin air as a reward for the player.  AE farming is generally considered the fastest method of generating influence but all inf rewards from the system are included.

 

Earning influence through marketeering doesnt generate inf.  It transfers inf between players and takes a percentage of the transaction as a fee and deletes it from the game.  This is one of the few ways that influence is removed from the game and is the main way that any deflation of the economy occurs.  Without marketeers the economy would inflate back to the levels seen on retail servers where white salvage would sell for 125k and a purple enhancement cost 4 billion,  yes 4 billion.  You would have to max out influence on 2 characters and send it to the seller to get a single enhancement.

 

And while current prices dont match up with the budget guide that was referenced from 4 years ago,  its not due to marketeering or anyone trying to manipulate the market.  Its due to the rampant influence generation that occurs from just playing the game.  Its easy to point the finger at AE farmers as the cause of inflation but really all gameplay contributes.  If the devs put penalties in place like those suggested and the marketeers stopped their 'price manipulation' then prices would soar well beyond what they currently are.  Only the ultra rich would be able to afford the high value items because only they would be able to cover the crazy transaction fees.

 

So where some people see price gouging,  i see price stabilization.  The people that want to sell for 2-3x the current market cant because the marketeers keep the supply from dropping.  And i should know,  i tried to manipulate an item once.  I bought all of an enhancement and relisted for a higher price.  Mine didnt sell and the marketeers had the original amount of supply back up by the next day.  I probably lost about 300 million.  So i can say with confidence that the marketeers are providing a valuable service and not gouging anyone.