Need a reality check (Unslotters just sitting)

[Story Archer]

I read someone say in a recent post that 750 million 'is just chump change for most of us'... I don't know who 'us' is, but that sure ain't me. I've never seen that kind of money.

 

About a month ago I cashed in some reward merits hoping to make some influence so I could start outfitting my new Tanker, and I put 100 Unslotters into the market place, listed for 90K a piece. At the time they seemed to be going fro about 100K, so I figured they'd sell pretty quick. Since then - again, a month - I haven't sold any of them. Not one. I've never had anything reasonably-priced sit for this long on the market and the funny thing is that every time I look in (almost daily) the bidding history is still all 100K.

 

I just wanted a reality check, to make sure that my posted stuff isn't sitting in some kind of glitch-limbo. I don't want to eat the money I spent on the listing fee, but I just can't figure out what's going on.

[Zect]

It's me; I'm the culprit behind your financial woes. I recently listed to sell a bunch at 80k each.

 

Most buyers see 100k in the sale history and just input a bid to buy for 100k. The AH awards the bid to the lowest sell price. If you list to sell at 90k, and I list at 80k, I win because my price is lower.

 

But I don't get 80k, I get 100k (before taxes), which is what the buyer agreed to pay. If the buyer accidentally held down 0 too long, and input 100 million instead, I would get 100 million pre-tax.

 

So, my suggestion is you list at 70k instead. But what I, the trillionaire marketeer for whom 750 million is chump change, am not telling you, is that I have a bunch (i.e. several thousand) of bids up for 71k. When you list to sell at 70k, the AH first looks to see if anyone has a buy order up for at least 70k. If there is not, then your item sits in consignment, and the AH waits until someone is willing to buy for at least that much - see the logic above.

 

But since I have a buy order out for 71k, your item is immediately sold to me (unless someone's offering more, of course, and I'm happy to wait them out). The result is you get 71k pre-tax, I get unslotters, then I list at 80k and sell to people bidding 100k. I win. You lose. How about a nice little game of chess instead?

[Andreah]

Whenever I need to sell a lot of something, I test the waters first. Instead of listing 200 stacks of ten, I list ten stacks of 1, with list prices spread out.

 

For example, in the OP's case of Unslotters, I might list one each at 50k, 55k, 60k, 65k, 70k, 75k, 80k, 85k, 90k, and 95k.  Then I'll wait a while. I'll see which ones sell instantly, which ones sell in a few hours, and which ones sell overnight, and which ones don't sell for as long as I can stand to wait.

 

Sure, a couple might sell for a low price I don't like, but now I have an idea about what I can expect -- that's worth it to me.

 

Then, armed with some knowledge that's more specific and useful than the auction history, I can post my hundreds of stacks to sell. And even then, I might pace them out in more modest batches, and repeat my test now and then, since other people might be trying to move their inventory too, and if we're going to trade off undercutting each other, I don't want a lot of my listings to be stuck unsold each time around.

[Yomo Kimyata]

Welcome to Market PvP(lol)!

[UltraAlt]

8 hours ago, Story Archer said:

I just wanted a reality check, to make sure that my posted stuff isn't sitting in some kind of glitch-limbo. I don't want to eat the money I spent on the listing fee, but I just can't figure out what's going on.

 

I'm going to say that sometimes stuff does get stuck in limbo, but this won't happen to everything that you post or bid on.

Say you posted 100 slotters in stacks of 10 each.

You might see those stacks sell at different rated. If you have stacks that have less than 5 left and you still have some that are 9 or 10 - mixed in with the one with 4-5 left -, then I personally decide that those 9-10 remaining stacks are glitched in some way and relist them. That being said, I see this more on the purchase side than on the selling side.

 

But Yomo is correct ...

 

51 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

Welcome to Market PvP(lol)!

 

The Auction House is the best PVP in City of Heroes.

 

 

 

[Lunar Ronin]

1 minute ago, UltraAlt said:

The Auction House is the best PVP in City of Heroes.

 

Immediately followed by forum PvP.

[Ukase]

8 hours ago, Story Archer said:

I read someone say in a recent post that 750 million 'is just chump change for most of us'... I don't know who 'us' is, but that sure ain't me.

I'm pretty sure that was me who said that. And it really is a tiny amount compared to the stacks many of us have. And when I say "us", I'm referring to those who frequent the market forum to share what they know (usually strategically - in the sense that they've taught you everything you know about the market, but not everything they know) and share some insights or some tips/tricks/blunders. 

And, if you read through this forum carefully, (and are capable of learning) and are willing to invest the time, in short order, you'll realize I'm right. It's next to nothing. And the best part, it's not real cash. So, you can give it away, and while you can't deduct it on your taxes, you can feel like you've helped someone in some sense. 

I've never bought an unslotter. This is why:

 

 

And that's just one of a few accounts that have bought winter packs and hero/villain packs. 

Anytime I read someone talking about how they need these, I am always willing to give them away, if I can bring myself to take them out of the email. One     at      a    time. 
Very tedious. That's why I haven't listed them myself. 

I use them every so often - like to take out attuned pvps from a character that just dinged 50, and replace them with level 50 equivalents, rather than do a respec. 

 

 

[Andreah]

Same problem, and I do sometimes spend my idle time clicking to claim things one ... at ... a ... time. x.x

 

If there was a way to claim 5, or 10, at a time. Say, by holding down shift or control while clicking, I'd sell more.

 

[lemming]

Yea, the claim items one at a time is tedious.   And I have maybe 1/10 the number.   I'll sometimes just throw a merit away because I don't feel like clicking a few times...

[Story Archer]

2 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

 

I'm going to say that sometimes stuff does get stuck in limbo, but this won't happen to everything that you post or bid on.

Say you posted 100 slotters in stacks of 10 each.

You might see those stacks sell at different rated. If you have stacks that have less than 5 left and you still have some that are 9 or 10 - mixed in with the one with 4-5 left -, then I personally decide that those 9-10 remaining stacks are glitched in some way and relist them. That being said, I see this more on the purchase side than on the selling side.

 

That's the thing - what you describe has always been my experience. I'd understand it if I had only sold half of them and it was all mixed up as to how many from which stack, and I understand that the market fluctuates and some items listed at a higher price may have to wait for the market to 'come around again' before they are sold... but I literally haven't sold ONE. Not one, in a month of them all sitting there, with literally every purchase I ever see higher than what I'm listing them for. I understand that there are a sort of priorities that determine the order in which similarly priced items that are available get sold... but none? In a month? 

 

I'm willing to accept that they might have been a glitch or something, I'm just loathe to eat the listing fee (and pay another one) to find out and, more importantly, if there are some forces at work here that I don't understand, I want to learn what they are.

 

I get that this is relative chump change for most people, but I'm trying to understand why the functionality that I have grown used to seems to have suddenly stopped working in this case.

[Intrinsic]

I'll find out.  IME if it doesn't sell in a day or so, then the price is probably too high (outside of a occasional price spike). 

 

The last 5 indicates that the floor is pretty low.

 

[Yomo Kimyata]

4 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

The Auction House is the best PVP in City of Heroes.

 

I've considered writing a market pvp(lol) guide, but I realize I always think that I'm winning it, and that may not really be the case.

 

3 hours ago, lemming said:

Yea, the claim items one at a time is tedious.   And I have maybe 1/10 the number.   I'll sometimes just throw a merit away because I don't feel like clicking a few times...

 

I only claim unslotters from my Character Items now on characters that need them.  I was able to pull off a handful of thousands before they put the governor on, but now I just don't feel like spending a few seconds to extract one unslotter.  Ugh.

[Andreah]

5 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

I only claim unslotters from my Character Items now on characters that need them.  I was able to pull off a handful of thousands before they put the governor on, but now I just don't feel like spending a few seconds to extract one unslotter.  Ugh.

If you can claim one Unslotter per second (seems to be right about the limit), and sell for 80k after fees, then that's 80000 Inf/Unslotter * 3600 Unslotters/hour or 288 Million Inf per hour for clicking. 

 

Eeesh, I still don't want to do it.

[Maelwys]

Edited April 7 by Maelwys

[Yomo Kimyata]

On 4/5/2024 at 12:15 PM, Story Archer said:

I'm willing to accept that they might have been a glitch or something, I'm just loathe to eat the listing fee (and pay another one) to find out and, more importantly, if there are some forces at work here that I don't understand, I want to learn what they are.

 

This is always possible, but I think in this case unlikely.  You said earlier that every time you looked, trades occurred higher than your listing price.  I'm willing to bet a fair amount of real money that as long as you have been listing them, someone else has been offering them more cheaply.  As for the last 5 trades, it is very easy to buy five items at 100k which paints the tape.

 

You would be well served to spend a few minutes and find out what the lowest outstanding offer and the highest outstanding bid is.  The former takes a bit of bid creeping, which most people are loathe to do.  The latter just means offering one at 1 inf.

[Glacier Peak]

1 hour ago, Maelwys said:

Just script the mouseclicks using GlovePie or something similar - set it going before you go to work/sleep/whatever then come back later.

 

(I occasionally use a simple repeating Glovepie macro to trigger a sequence of preset keyboard keypresses at various intervals whenever I'm AFK farming. It beats having to rely on just the one built-in yellow autofire circle...)

Just a heads up if you aren't aware...

 

Code of Conduct:

1. Do not cheat or abuse exploits
   1. If you find an exploit please report it to a member of staff immediately
   2. This includes the use of scripts and programs to automate gameplay
   3. This includes trying to deceive or otherwise cheat other players for your own gain

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/code-of-conduct/

[Andreah]

3 hours ago, Glacier Peak said:

Just a heads up if you aren't aware...

 

Code of Conduct:

1. Do not cheat or abuse exploits
   1. If you find an exploit please report it to a member of staff immediately
   2. This includes the use of scripts and programs to automate gameplay
   3. This includes trying to deceive or otherwise cheat other players for your own gain

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/code-of-conduct/

I'll reiterate, don't self-snitch! See "CLR Bruce Rivers" on Youtube! 

 

Most everyone knows about macros and such, and we don't use them because we agreed not to when we accepted following the code of conduct as a condition to play here.

[Haijinx]

On 4/5/2024 at 9:59 AM, Lunar Ronin said:

 

Immediately followed by forum PvP.

I think Terminix is beating all on that one.

[Maelwys]

10 hours ago, Glacier Peak said:

Just a heads up if you aren't aware...
 

Code of Conduct:

1. Do not cheat or abuse exploits
   1.  
   2. This includes the use of scripts and programs to automate gameplay

Repeatedly claiming hundreds of emailed items counts as "gameplay"?

Fiiiiiiiine... have edited the OP.
(and as a disclaimer for Big Brother - I'm all for "no botting"; some PUGs are bad enough whenever there's a human behind the wheel of the toon...)
 

[Zect]

Just to be clear, I do not actually think of winning or losing at the market, or view it as a form of pvp, even though there are clearly elements of competition. One would hope that a business transaction is at least somewhat mutually beneficial, or you just have economic coercion. My intent is to offer a hypothesis for what's happening to OP and at the same time satirize what the experience of using the AH feels like for some who are unused to it: a game with seemingly arbitrary rules where it feels like the only way to "win" is not to play.

 

The whole conceit of a blind auction system is that you bid what you really think the item is worth. In practice, as implemented in the context of coh, I think it just gives rise to an information asymmetry that some players are more well-equipped to take advantage of - and I'm aware I am firmly in this camp. The idea smacks of Emmert-era Cryptic thinking: if you can't see the numbers, you won't worry about the numbers. As a trillionaire marketeer, I am very much in favor of a revamped market that simply displays all bids and offers openly.

 

P.S. I also do not believe in the concept of forum pvp. I know most forumites are very hung up on who gets the last word in, who can get more kudos and likes and whatnots, who can fire off more witty ripostes, etc... all that is vanity. It's egotism. In a discussion it never matters who is right; it only matters what is right.

[Ukase]

2 hours ago, Zect said:

As a trillionaire marketeer

Shhh...don't let that get out. The pleas for donations will go up!

[Intrinsic]

On 4/5/2024 at 11:48 AM, Intrinsic said:

I'll find out.  IME if it doesn't sell in a day or so, then the price is probably too high (outside of a occasional price spike). 

 

The last 5 indicates that the floor is pretty low.

 

Update: two days later, still no sale.

 

 

I popped in on the character a few times over the last couple of days.  Checking the last five, I did see some sales at 90-100K, but I also frequently saw 60-80K.  Also, there are a lot of unslotters for sale.  That's likely putting downward pressure on the price.

 

Sorry OP, but I don't think it's a glitch.  A 90K listing price is just too high right now.

[TheSpiritFox]

On 4/5/2024 at 1:52 PM, Yomo Kimyata said:

 

I've considered writing a market pvp(lol) guide, but I realize I always think that I'm winning it, and that may not really be the case.

 

 

Please dont. Rares/uncommons are already oversaturated. You explain to people the details of like how flipping works and how to play the long game and exactly how market transactions can be taken advantage of and get 10x the number of people placing lowball bids to how it works now and you will destroy the market.  Converter crafting being spread far and wide is bad enough at the moment, the last thing we need is people widespread embracing the idea of getting money out of the market without generating new product to sell on it. 

[Intrinsic]

2 hours ago, TheSpiritFox said:

get 10x the number of people placing lowball bids to how it works now and you will destroy the market.

 

Having a massive increase in market participation is pretty much the opposite of destroying the market.  More competition is good for the market as a whole, even as it squeezes profits for  crafters and middlemen.

[TheSpiritFox]

2 minutes ago, Intrinsic said:

 

Having a massive increase in market participation is pretty much the opposite of destroying the market.  More competition is good for the market as a whole, even as it squeezes profits for  crafters and middlemen.

 

Having a massive increase in one side, or a massive increase in only middlemen, would not be a balanced addition. You can't say a massive increase in supply side only wouldnt devastate any economy at least temporarily