Auction House Question

[JCServant]

Salutations.  I was having a conversation with a friend, who expressed concern about others who might corner the market...basically buying all of something up and reselling it at a significantly higher rate.  Out of curiosity, is this something against the rules and are there repercussions for doing so? I know in other MMOs I played it was something treated quite seriously.  Thanks!

[Snarky]

…,   So, you want to corner the market on a item.   Wait, you were just asking for a friend.  

[tidge]

5 hours ago, JCServant said:

Salutations.  I was having a conversation with a friend, who expressed concern about others who might corner the market...basically buying all of something up and reselling it at a significantly higher rate.  Out of curiosity, is this something against the rules and are there repercussions for doing so? I know in other MMOs I played it was something treated quite seriously.  Thanks!

 

As everything drops, and 98% of items on the market are fungible (directly through the market, or via other mechanism,s in-game), the HC market is highly resistant to such attempts.

 

What you are describing is "flipping" which used to be a thing on Live, but won't work for most items because of the way the auction house bins items behind the scenes.

 

There are primarily only two area where your "friend" can possibly effect the market, neither will make them any substantial amount of Inf:

 

1) Every so often, someone (probably a farmer) decides to buy up as much yellow salvage as they can... inflating the price to about 10K inf each. All salvage is seeded and fungible, but yellow is very widely used and has a slightly worse drop rate compared to how useful it is. However... it still drops, and it will be trivial for other players to make Inf off of your "friend".

 

2) It is possible to 'squeeze' the price of an item, such that almost everyone sells the item to you and buys the item from you. Because of alternate means of getting almost all items, and the vig, I don't see this as a particularly exciting or profitable compared to what others would make by just dumping stuff for your 'friend' to buy.

[Maelwys]

6 hours ago, JCServant said:

Salutations.  I was having a conversation with a friend, who expressed concern about others who might corner the market...basically buying all of something up and reselling it at a significantly higher rate.  Out of curiosity, is this something against the rules and are there repercussions for doing so? I know in other MMOs I played it was something treated quite seriously.  Thanks!

(i) It's not against the rules, no.

(ii) There are (many) people who treat the market as a form of PVP. Getting accused of being an "Evil Marketeer" can often be treated as a badge of honour.

(iii) I'd advise reading some of the threads in the Marketting subforum. Because none of what you're worried about is actually a problem.
The short version is that the state of the market is very healthy, and the prices are good for both buyers and sellers as long as you have a tiny bit of patience.

Because of how supply works here there is very little chance for anyone to actually corner a market. All the "good" IOs and salvage have a chance to drop practically everywhere, and you have a chance to get them via converters too. Hamidon-Origin enhancements are gated behind certain bits of content, but it's popular content and the drops are random, so there's a constant supply of new HOs entering the market. And due to the percentage-based commission taken by the AH; prices tend to trend downwards.

Therefore really the most that folk with absolutely massive wallets can accomplish is to buy up all of the currently available copies of a specific item; and place "bid" orders waiting for more to arrive. This can temporarily drive up the price of individual items... but all a non-marketeer has to do is bid one inf higher then them ("I wanna buy it now!") and their bid will take priority... or they can choose to wait ("Patience is a virtue!") for supply to outstrip the number of bids and drive the price back down again... or they can choose to farm/redeem/craft/convert the item by themselves.

So the prices of specific items can be "manipulated" but not outright "controlled". And the marketeers know this... which means you end up with "Marketeers" skimming a decent bit of profit; but prices and supply are kept fairly steady + the market remains healthy.

Likewise, "Farmers" keep the supply up.
And some of us take great delight in annoying certain marketeers by listing everything we get for 1 inf (because it's fun and it's not real money and we're all rolling in it)
 

It's also worth pointing out that it's typically these same people who go out of their way to earn inf via farming/marketeering/whutever who are the most generous at giving new players handouts. Because again... it's a game and it's not real money. And (rather surprisingly!) it turns out there's more than enough for everyone to get a decent share.
 

Edited 8 hours ago by Maelwys

[Glacier Peak]

What!

 

A thread about marketeering and no mention of @Snarky donation fund?! 

[MoonSheep]

50 minutes ago, Maelwys said:

.Therefore really the most that folk with absolutely massive wallets can accomplish is to buy up all of the currently available copies of a specific item; and place "bid" orders waiting for more to arrive. This can temporarily drive up the price of individual items... but all a non-marketeer has to do is bid one inf higher then them ("I wanna buy it now!") and their bid will take priority... or they can choose to wait ("Patience is a virtue!") for supply to outstrip the number of bids and drive the price back down again... or they can choose to farm/redeem/craft/convert the item by themselves.

So the prices of specific items can be "manipulated" but not outright "controlled". 

 

very true from my experience. i spent around 150m a few years ago as an experiment to try and control a specific item but it was futile within around 1 day and was a massive net loss

 

the behind the scenes programming that an invention recipe or enhancement of any level are all placed into the same bin seems to create a mechanic whereby influencing the market for personal gain doesn’t seem to work

[JCServant]

3 hours ago, Snarky said:

…,   So, you want to corner the market on a item.   Wait, you were just asking for a friend.  

LOL. No...I play the market in other ways. I have YouTube videos on it (they're easy to find).  But when I told this SG member that I 'play the market', he got upset. He went on to describe what I would call 'cornering the market,' and how he felt it was being done to artificially raise prices in certain areas (like Hammies).  That's not what I do or encourage. But in that conversation, I recall that it was against WoW's terms, and I heard that people got banned for it. I was wondering how that shakes out on COH:H.  

[JCServant]

1 hour ago, Maelwys said:

(iii) I'd advise reading some of the threads in the Marketting subforum. Because none of what you're worried about is actually a problem.
The short version is that the state of the market is very healthy, and the prices are good for both buyers and sellers as long as you have a tiny bit of patience.

Likewise, "Farmers" keep the supply up.
And some of us take great delight in annoying certain marketeers by listing everything we get for 1 inf (because it's fun and it's not real money and we're all rolling in it)
 

 

Oh, I'm not terribly worried. I'm pretty casual, and have always been able to find or craft what I want without an issue. This SG member is a LOT more hard care than I'll ever get, lol.  When  you that much INF, I guess you see things us commoners do not! 😄  And yeah, this was an interesting thread. Thank you!

Edited 7 hours ago by JCServant

[JCServant]

Thank you for the replies, guys! I have learned something new today!!  

[Snarky]

50 minutes ago, JCServant said:

LOL. No...I play the market in other ways. I have YouTube videos on it (they're easy to find).  But when I told this SG member that I 'play the market', he got upset. He went on to describe what I would call 'cornering the market,' and how he felt it was being done to artificially raise prices in certain areas (like Hammies).  That's not what I do or encourage. But in that conversation, I recall that it was against WoW's terms, and I heard that people got banned for it. I was wondering how that shakes out on COH:H.  

Cool. Everyone plays for different reasons.  I have my theme and activities.  But, I am really horrid at making inf. 
 

If you want to help you can donate to @Snarky.  

[Skyhawke]

2 hours ago, Glacier Peak said:

What!

 

A thread about marketeering and no mention of @Snarky donation fund?! 

 

37 minutes ago, Snarky said:

If you want to help you can donate to @Snarky.  

 

Wow, Bloody Mary and Beetlejuice wait to be mentioned 3 times before their summoning. 😅

[lemming]

40 minutes ago, Skyhawke said:

Wow, Bloody Mary and Beetlejuice wait to be mentioned 3 times before their summoning. 😅

That's because @Snarky is much more responsive with service, ensuring that your donations go to the correct fund.

[Jacke]

Because of what @Maelwys posted and other things, it's almost impossible to corner items on City's Auction House.

• Large amounts of drops that Players post on the Auction House.
• Many items can be bought for Merits, which puts an upper limit on AH prices.
• Many items are binned together with similar items and can be interconverted within the AH.
• Many items (primarily Invention Salvage) are seeded into the AH at a price, prevent the trading price of those items from going above that seeded price.

 

 

[Arbegla]

As others have stated, its basically impossible to corner the market on anything of value for very long. I recently found something that wasn't even listed (0 for sale) on the market, put in a few bids, waited a few hours, and got that item once it became available. 

 

Due to converters dropping like regular drops, its possible to convert anything you get into what you need, and impossible to corner anything for very long.

 

For example, I craft all of my drops, and sell the crafted enhancement at 1 inf just because I don't care about money, and I've made over 600 million inf in the course of a few game sessions. This is even buying up some salvage at 'buy it now' prices. Inf just rains from the sky in COH:H and aside from Snarky, people will hand it out without even being asked a lot of the time.

[Ukase]

There is one area of the market that I feel needs some attention. There's a few items that if players like myself and a few others were motivated, we could indeed temporarily cause problems. 
 

I have made suggestions that the drop rates of certain hamidon origin enhancements be re-visited, and no idea if that will garner any action or not. 

Look here:

 

So, I'm pretty sure there was a time when these were selling for over 1 billion. I suspect that at least a couple of them still are. 
But suppose someone with deep pockets wanted to make a killing? The price of these, on the low side has been 225M. And that was just one. I figure it was placed by someone who got lucky and didn't have the inf to sell it for more, or it was a mistake in the list price. No idea. But the others that sold when that did went for 275M. 

If you're someone who hates to combine the enhancements: 

 

If you're someone that likes to take the risk on combining, and losing the enhancement into thin air: 

I'm not going to cut and paste each level of these. You folks can look for yourselves. 
There's 37 on the AH right now. 
It is more than feasible for me to buy them all, right now. Then what does the next player do when they want/need them? Slap in two boosted accuracies until someone finally lists them for sale? 

I imagine some players are just using 2 level 50+5 accuracies, or 1 50+5 acc and 1 50+5 recharge. Or some combo like that. Maybe they 4 slot it, with 2 of each, and dropping 2 slots from somewhere else. No idea. 

But this could happen. And the end result would be someone like Yomo who has a hundred or so stashed in their base who drop them for sale at some heinous price in his attempt to fill an obvious need. Or, maybe I relist them from the 325M to 450M, just to see if I can get it. Yes, I'd lose 45M just from the AH fee, but I'd still make 80M. And then, someone like Yomo says, "That's too much, I got these slow and patiently at 260M, I'll relist at 380M, and after fees, he makes 82M profit. 

Trust me, I'd have to sell a lot of enhancements to net 80M. It's about 3 hours of passive farming, if I don't count the drops. 

And it's risky, right? I have no way of knowing who has what in their bases, nor how they'll respond. Nor does the AH tell me if the item was earned and listed, or listed, bought, re-listed at a higher price, etc. All I can see is the item itself. 

Now, most folks who earn these love getting them. It's a nice pay day. And a level 35 on an Aeon SF can earn these. I wish I knew what the drop rate was. It's got to be about 1/25 though. Because I doubt I've run Aeon 25 times since it was created, and I've gotten one. (flawed logic, I am sure) 

I think it's right to be concerned, but ultimately, the market will straighten things out. And the player that tries to gobble them all up, will likely have to wait a very long time to recoup their investment, if they ever recoup it. We never know if something like the drop rate for something like this is on the agenda to be changed. It would take someone seriously interested and bored with a lot of free time to go through the Aeon SF and tabulate if the drop rate changed. Not even sure the folks in beta would be hip to a change like that. Not in that group, so no idea how much is discussed openly. 

Myself, I'm not worried about it. But I'm a scaredy cat investor. No way am I risking that much inf to make more when I don't need the inf and I'd rather have the enhancements. 

Strangely, I could make use of all those enhancements. The market really should have about 300 in stock so folks can get what they want without paying a gazillion inf. 
I've got some builds where the provocations cost more than the rest of the entire build. 

[Troo]

5 hours ago, Maelwys said:

being an "Evil Marketeer" can often be treated as a badge of honour.

 

"Ebil" 

 

Come on!!

 

fyi - The Council of Ebil meets on the fifth Thursday of the month with updates as to the bestest method of infamy acquisition.

Edited 2 hours ago by Troo

[tidge]

I know that the appeal of the Provocation is the Accuracy/Recharge, but let me say it is a real pisser that there isn't a Threat set that includes a Threat/Accuracy piece.

[Arbegla]

6 minutes ago, tidge said:

I know that the appeal of the Provocation is the Accuracy/Recharge, but let me say it is a real pisser that there isn't a Threat set that includes a Threat/Accuracy piece.

 

Isn't this because most* threat affecting powers are autohit? 

[tidge]

7 minutes ago, Arbegla said:

 

Isn't this because most* threat affecting powers are autohit? 

 

There are quite a few that are not; and Threat was reworked by Homecoming, so it isn't as if they don't know how the Threat powers work.

[knightowl - Pinnacle serve]

Do 'ebil marketeers' self-declare, or are they 'outed' by someone behind the scenes after filtering and sifting thousands of transactions?

[Troo]

1 minute ago, knightowl - Pinnacle serve said:

Do 'ebil marketeers' self-declare, or are they 'outed' by someone behind the scenes after filtering and sifting thousands of transactions?

 

Show up to the meeting and 'donate' one capped infamy to the group to be 'disposed of'.