Cross-sever influence transfer?
By
13th_Stranger,
Posted on: 2007-03-08 09:32 in The Market and Inventions
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Just to bring us back on point, early in this thread it was stated by someone who "may or may not" have "insider" "information" about "code" "currently" "on test" from a "friend" or "something" that in fact you not only see the asking price, but you also who the seller is.
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That's all and good, but it's based on the assumption that things had changed very recently on Test from how originally planned. But then Positron jumped into the thread and reinforced that, no, you don't get to choose which one you buy, you get the one listed for the lowest price, which puts things right back in line for interceptions of the transfers to happen.
MA Arc - Gnomish Madness - #30204 - A short, silly little story.
Ms. Tempest - Lvl 50 Storm/Elec Def (577 badges)
Maiden Dark - Lvl 50 Dark/Dark Corr
Moonlight Maiden - Lvl 50 Warshade
Sister Leortha - Lvl 50 Emp/Rad Def
Puffball - Lvl 50 Inv/SS Tank
Triumph Server
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Just to bring us back on point, early in this thread it was stated by someone who "may or may not" have "insider" "information" about "code" "currently" "on test" from a "friend" or "something" that in fact you not only see the asking price, but also who the seller is.
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Given what Positron said in this thread it doesn't sound like this information is accurate.
But it's MY sadistic mechanical monster and I'm here to make sure it knows it. - Girl Genius
List of Invention Guides
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Player A1 puts up a Level 12 TO for 5,000,000 inf.
Player B1 puts up the same Level 12 TO for 1,000 inf.
Player A2 (trying to transfer funds) offers to buy that level 12 TO for 5,000,000 inf.
Since player B1 wants less, and is obviously trying to move his items faster, his "for sale" is processed first, so he ends up with 5,000,000 inf (minus fees).
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Sounds like Final Fantasy XI's Auction House all around (my favorite auction system in any MMO so far)
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Actually it doesn't matter if it can be seen or not, the odds of someone being able to find the enhancement/salvage needed to match your within the ~3 minutes it'll take to do a transfer, especially if done off-peak hours after I9's lost its shinyness, is virtually zero. Which is pretty much the same odds as someone just by random coincidence putting up the item you offered a buy order for.
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The people in another thread who have detailed out how to likely intercept transfers would use one of two solutions. Either they only look for listings of odd TOs that they alreayd have in their inventory. It only takes a moment to look and, if they see a listing for a lvl 3 Flight TO, and already happen to have such in their inventory, then it only takes a few moments to list their own to try to intercept. That's the key. They are not seeing what you have listed and then going looking for the match, they are watching for you to list what they already have.
The other option, assuming that you have not listed the odd-ball TO for a very high price, is for them to simply buy it themselves and relist it, waiting for the large transfer to hit them instead of the alt.
MA Arc - Gnomish Madness - #30204 - A short, silly little story.
Ms. Tempest - Lvl 50 Storm/Elec Def (577 badges)
Maiden Dark - Lvl 50 Dark/Dark Corr
Moonlight Maiden - Lvl 50 Warshade
Sister Leortha - Lvl 50 Emp/Rad Def
Puffball - Lvl 50 Inv/SS Tank
Triumph Server
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Actually it doesn't matter if it can be seen or not, the odds of someone being able to find the enhancement/salvage needed to match your within the ~3 minutes it'll take to do a transfer, especially if done off-peak hours after I9's lost its shinyness, is virtually zero. Which is pretty much the same odds as someone just by random coincidence putting up the item you offered a buy order for.
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The people in another thread who have detailed out how to likely intercept transfers would use one of two solutions. Either they only look for listings of odd TOs that they alreayd have in their inventory. It only takes a moment to look and, if they see a listing for a lvl 3 Flight TO, and already happen to have such in their inventory, then it only takes a few moments to list their own to try to intercept. That's the key. They are not seeing what you have listed and then going looking for the match, they are watching for you to list what they already have.
The other option, assuming that you have not listed the odd-ball TO for a very high price, is for them to simply buy it themselves and relist it, waiting for the large transfer to hit them instead of the alt.
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You only got 10 holding slots, the odds of having anything are about none (thousands of possibilities remember).
And the other option...uh, what? All that accomplishes is doing the transfer for them, with the risk that they might notice and never bother buying it from you since they already got their cash.
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Just to bring us back on point, early in this thread it was stated by someone who "may or may not" have "insider" "information" about "code" "currently" "on test" from a "friend" or "something" that in fact you not only see the asking price, but also who the seller is.
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Given what Positron said in this thread it doesn't sound like this information is accurate.
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He may have been just showing the risk inherent in doing transfers in the system as it was designed. Clearly the devs are paying attention to our threads regarding inf transfers here, and they can easily modify the system to account for it.
I do realize the irony of putting my trust in someone named Super_Villain, however. 
Agua Man lvl 48 Water/Electric Blaster
"To die hating NCSoft for shutting down City of Heroes, that was Freedom."
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Player A1 puts up a Level 12 TO for 5,000,000 inf.
Player B1 puts up the same Level 12 TO for 1,000 inf.
Player A2 (trying to transfer funds) offers to buy that level 12 TO for 5,000,000 inf.
Since player B1 wants less, and is obviously trying to move his items faster, his "for sale" is processed first, so he ends up with 5,000,000 inf (minus fees).
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Wait a minute. If you don't see the sell price offered by the people who put up the items that you want to buy, then why would Person A1 offer such a high value? According to the consignment system he gets what is OFFERED, not what is ASKED, so he might as well do this:
Player A1 puts up a Level 12 TO for 1 inf.
Player B1 puts up the same Level 12 TO for 1000 Inf.
Player A2 offers to buy a Level 12 TO, for 5,000,000 Inf. Player A1 gets the sale, since he asked the least amount.
Now, it's still possible that Player B2 can come along and buy Player A1's TO for 2 inf, before Player A2 can. But since he cannot SEE that the offered sell price is only 1 inf, why would he offer such a low price? There is still a potential for griefing (he could put in a request for a Level 12 TO for 2 inf and see if anyone takes it) but it's buyer side, not seller side.
I'm not sure why people are reacting to this so violently. The purpose of the consignment system is not to transfer influence between servers, it's to sell items.
By giving the transaction to the character with the lowest asking price, the system encourages listing items with lower prices. For the intended purpose of selling items, this is the best deal for buyers.
It's no knock against this system that it doesn't offer a foolproof way to transfer influence to your alts.
Some time ago I read that you are limited to a small number of sales at a time. Is that still operative? If so, the scam of listing every trainer at an asking price of 1 inf wouldn't allow you to intercept cross-server inf transfers.
I've got more than 30 alts, and I'm not troubled by the way this works. Remember, the devs are people too. By constantly cussing them out and insulting their intelligence you're not endearing yourselves to them. Cogent analysis, helpful suggestions and humor will make them much more receptive to your ideas than declaring them fools.
Lighten up, people.
So I go to a server that I never use, create 12 random characters and work them until I can fill up all their enhancement slots, Insp, slots, and some random salvage. Then I offer all items up for sale for a low price. With all the servers we have there might be enough people trying to set up an influence swap that I'll get a few hits. Over a period of time I might build up enough influence that I would run the risk of transfering it back to my playable characters. If I lose, I only lost the time it took to set this up.
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By giving the transaction to the character with the lowest asking price, the system encourages listing items with lower prices. For the intended purpose of selling items, this is the best deal for buyers.
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I think you mean this is the best deal for the sellers. The buyers get the shaft because they can't see the asking price, and they pay exactly what they offered if it is higher than the asking price. If you got it at the asking price when you overbid, that would be a good deal for the buyers.
Agua Man lvl 48 Water/Electric Blaster
"To die hating NCSoft for shutting down City of Heroes, that was Freedom."
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Player A1 puts up a Level 12 TO for 5,000,000 inf.
Player B1 puts up the same Level 12 TO for 1,000 inf.
Player A2 (trying to transfer funds) offers to buy that level 12 TO for 5,000,000 inf.
Since player B1 wants less, and is obviously trying to move his items faster, his "for sale" is processed first, so he ends up with 5,000,000 inf (minus fees).
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Player C see's player A1 put an item for sale at 5,000,000 and suspects that he is trying to transfer funds.
Player C places Level 12 TO for 999 inf.
Player A2 (trying to transfer funds) offers to buy that level 12 TO for 5,000,000 inf.
Since player C wants less and to screw over player A1, his "for Sale" is processed so he ends up making 4,999,001 inf profit (minus fees).
Remember guys and gals its a game if someone kills you when you are grabbing a badge you do not die in real life. - Beef_Cake
Favorite i9 post:
Lady_Sadako: Devs: have you actually taken down the new Hami?
Positron: We never defeated the old one.
ir0x0r: Weak!
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By giving the transaction to the character with the lowest asking price, the system encourages listing items with lower prices. For the intended purpose of selling items, this is the best deal for buyers.
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I think you mean this is the best deal for the sellers. The buyers get the shaft because they can't see the asking price, and they pay exactly what they offered if it is higher than the asking price. If you got it at the asking price when you overbid, that would be a good deal for the buyers.
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Seems to be setup just like FFXI's auction houses. The usual method was to look up the going price(same thing here)of what you wanted. Then you'd start bidding below that, bidding higher and higher until you hit the cheapest seller's price. No overbidding nessecary.
Yeah, bit of a flaw with this system.
Theoretically, person (or persons, more likely) could assume total control of your market by flooding your market with enhancements of all stripes and types and levels all set to sell at one influence each, ensuring they're always going to be bought first.
Of course, this is assuming that some people are actually going to be stupid enough (IE: economically "honest") to set an enhancement at what they think it's worth instead of always at 1 Influence, in the hopes of making any influence at all off what has traditionally not been that rare a resource.
You've created the perpetual low-balling machine, Positron, and I salute you.
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Player A1 puts up a Level 12 TO for 5,000,000 inf.
Player B1 puts up the same Level 12 TO for 1,000 inf.
Player A2 (trying to transfer funds) offers to buy that level 12 TO for 5,000,000 inf.
Since player B1 wants less, and is obviously trying to move his items faster, his "for sale" is processed first, so he ends up with 5,000,000 inf (minus fees).
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Player C see's player A1 put an item for sale at 5,000,000 and suspects that he is trying to transfer funds.
Player C places Level 12 TO for 999 inf.
Player A2 (trying to transfer funds) offers to buy that level 12 TO for 5,000,000 inf.
Since player C wants less and to screw over player A1, his "for Sale" is processed so he ends up making 4,999,001 inf profit (minus fees).
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But player C can't see that player A put it up for 5.000.000, he just sees that player A has a Level 12 TO for sale.
Now, he can try to post his lvl 12 TO at 999, in the hope that player A has a higher price set. Or he can try offering to buy the TO for 1000, to see if it's priced higher. Therin lies the posibility of it being priced at eg. 1, so player C loses 999 (not much I know).
Or player A could check how many TO's of the kind he's trying to use to transfer and if he sees another has popped up for sale he can simply abort, or try offering 1000-10000 inf first to see if someone is trying to scam him.
Honestly, the way this system looks to be set up, unless you're unlucky enough to confirm the offer in the same second someone puts another enh for sale at a lower price, just using simple caution should get you past all scams.
"The best thing about being a robot duplicate of Lord Nemesis is, well... Everything."
So......basically, we don't ever need to worry about the economy going crazy, since the people who list items for cheap will be the ones getting all the sales regardless if they are big or small.
Well, that's dismisses all those peoples arguments that were worried about an in-game economy taking over.
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Theoretically, person (or persons, more likely) could assume total control of your market by flooding your market with enhancements of all stripes and types and levels all set to sell at one influence each, ensuring they're always going to be bought first.
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The only problem is, he's risking someone ELSE will come along and offer only 2 inf for what he's buying, at which time he gets nothing. By setting a sell price, he's setting the MINIMUM he's willing to take. If that minimum is 1 inf, then there's the possibility you'll get that. I suspect about half the "normal" price is the minimum you'll want to list for, if you want to speed up the sale.
The cross server influence transfer, though, shouldn't be around long enough to be "caught" in this way, though. (And you can check by having your buyer offer 2 inf for something right before your seller offers 1 for it. That should clear any sell orders that low)
Yea, if the market gets flooded, people will just get in the habit of doing test buys at 100 inf, 1k inf, 10k, etc, before they get into serious bids.
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Whats with all the hate? This system whats not ment to allow you to trasfer inf from one of your toons to another. It was for you to sell an item to another player plain and simple.
Now I do hope they add some sort of bank so that I can give inf to my other toons but this current system was never supposed to be used in that way so I didn't expected it to be.
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Well this game was never intended to have loot farming and a economy like this either. Thing change. In this particular case it could have had a benefit for the player base, that was "with in reason" and the devs have once again decided to not "give the players what they want"
If nothing else this auction system should have allowed for direct sales between servers. Where player A got a salvage or whatever on freedom, and player B in his freedom SG wants it for a character he has on Liberty. The sale system should allow for you to approve or disapprove direct sales between players. So player A can put it up for sale and approve or dissapprove an offer to allow for his own deal to have been brokered, again minus the fees but he chooses who he sells to.
I honestly would just wish the devs dropped the entire system at this point, Inventions, the economy everything. Its ruining what was once a nice simple intuititive game experience. Soon were gonna have some [censored] system that is way over complicated like Star wars galaxies was when it first came out.
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By giving the transaction to the character with the lowest asking price, the system encourages listing items with lower prices. For the intended purpose of selling items, this is the best deal for buyers.
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I think you mean this is the best deal for the sellers. The buyers get the shaft because they can't see the asking price, and they pay exactly what they offered if it is higher than the asking price. If you got it at the asking price when you overbid, that would be a good deal for the buyers.
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Seems to be setup just like FFXI's auction houses. The usual method was to look up the going price(same thing here)of what you wanted. Then you'd start bidding below that, bidding higher and higher until you hit the cheapest seller's price. No overbidding nessecary.
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But remember, the going price tracks the what the last 10 buyers paid, not what the sellers offered. In the bizarro world of inf transfers, TOs and random pieces of salvage could be going in the millions every other sale.
Agua Man lvl 48 Water/Electric Blaster
"To die hating NCSoft for shutting down City of Heroes, that was Freedom."
What of those of us trying to transfer the ITEM itself to another one of our characters on another server? Say I get one of the "uniques" that doesn't work on my one character, but would go excellently on my character on another server. If I list it too low, someone else will more than likely snap it up...sure I get the Inf for it, but I'm out a really rare item and either have to find it all over again (which may never happen) or pay whatever exhorbitant amount someone else wants for it. If I set it too high and someone sets one for lower, it's not such a big deal I guess. Inf is easy enough for me to come by, sure I'm out the inf, but I gained the item I was wishing to obtain (while still having the mine up for sale).
Still, this is a system that is too easily exploited.
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Player A1 puts up a Level 12 TO for 5,000,000 inf.
Player B1 puts up the same Level 12 TO for 1,000 inf.
Player A2 (trying to transfer funds) offers to buy that level 12 TO for 5,000,000 inf.
Since player B1 wants less, and is obviously trying to move his items faster, his "for sale" is processed first, so he ends up with 5,000,000 inf (minus fees).
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Wait a minute. If you don't see the sell price offered by the people who put up the items that you want to buy, then why would Person A1 offer such a high value? According to the consignment system he gets what is OFFERED, not what is ASKED, so he might as well do this:
Player A1 puts up a Level 12 TO for 1 inf.
Player B1 puts up the same Level 12 TO for 1000 Inf.
Player A2 offers to buy a Level 12 TO, for 5,000,000 Inf. Player A1 gets the sale, since he asked the least amount.
Now, it's still possible that Player B2 can come along and buy Player A1's TO for 2 inf, before Player A2 can. But since he cannot SEE that the offered sell price is only 1 inf, why would he offer such a low price? There is still a potential for griefing (he could put in a request for a Level 12 TO for 2 inf and see if anyone takes it) but it's buyer side, not seller side.
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And as people start selling stuff for 1inf, or very low prices, people will start biding low prices. Keeping the prices down. You as the seller have to chose, how low am I willing to sell? If I got too high I won't sell first, if I go low, I'll have an easier time selling, but if I go too low, somebody could be bargain hunting making low bids and I'd lose out. So, what is the safest thing to do? go a little lower then the last 10, but not too low. And if you're buying, starting offering low amounts as bids.
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Not an inf transfer but a much more secure way to transer something to yourself/transfer inf.
You can put in a buy request and the first item of that type will get bought by you at the price you specify. So get both alts to the consignment house. Log in with alt A1 and check the system to see if the item you want to use is listed. Ie a level 7 flight TO. You see none listed. So log A1 out and login with A2, this alt then enters a buy order for a level 7 flight TO for 10,000,000. Logout A2 and login A1 now A1 puts the level 7 flight TO into the system for say 50 inf and instantly gets the sale for 10,000,000. Voila your done with much less chance of random intercept.
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It would be possible to intercept this by putting in a sell order to try and catch the buy order. Of course, the best way to check for this potential trap is to put in the buy order first for a more reasonable price and see if anyone bites. If they don't, then there isn't a sell order in the queue. Of course, you can also probably look and see)
Buy orders might be listed, though, but if they follow the same rules as sell orders, they won't list how MUCH they are willing to buy for. So you'll have to fill the order to find out what they were going to pay you. This should make it hard to intercept transfers.
I suppose the ultimate griefer attempt would be to put an item up for an insanely high amount, pretty much what Positron originally posted. THAT order will never be filled, because it's asking too much. So when you put up your order it will be involuntarily completed, and you lose the money. You can counter than by just checking for sell orders, though.
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Still, this is a system that is too easily exploited.
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If you're using a system meant to sell things to transfer items, anything unintended results are not exploits. This isn't a xfer system, it's meant to be used to sell and buy.
Here's an interesting question... if the lowest seller always gets the sale, who gets the purchase with competing "Looking to buy" orders? The one with the highest price?
Example: Player A and Player B both have a LTB order for a piece of rare salvage; A will pay 1 Minf, B will pay 2 Minf.
Player C puts the piece of rare salvage up with a price of 500k. Who gets to purchase the item? I'm thinking it will be B.
Agua Man lvl 48 Water/Electric Blaster
"To die hating NCSoft for shutting down City of Heroes, that was Freedom."
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Ah yes, same idea, just shaves off maybe a minute or so of possible interception time. And the odds of an interceptor seeing it and having the item needed and getting in in there in any method before you've switched is almost null as it is.
Hell, if you have a friend and are really paranoid (but trust the friend, anyways), they could buy it within seconds of it going up and then face-to-face it later.
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Ah but your assuming that you can see a buy request. If you can't or if a buy request can be hidden...
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Actually it doesn't matter if it can be seen or not, the odds of someone being able to find the enhancement/salvage needed to match your within the ~3 minutes it'll take to do a transfer, especially if done off-peak hours after I9's lost its shinyness, is virtually zero. Which is pretty much the same odds as someone just by random coincidence putting up the item you offered a buy order for.