I didn't think of more transaction slots. That would work too. So would anything else that increases efficiency.
Quote:
Mobs in this game respawn, they cost nothing to be born and grow, there is no 'inf' cost to their making. However in defeating them, along with other drops, there is an inf reward.|
Originally Posted by Smurphy
The ratio of inf to items (or currency to goods) is called a price index. Tracking a price index is how inflation is tracked. Flippers run items through the market twice. This double market action causes two market fees to be paid.
Playing the game produces Inf and Items. Flipping only reduces Inf. |
When we try and make the in-game economy 'fit' the real world one we can lose sight of the fact that there is potentially infinite influence irrespective of inflation. (that's a lot of inf words)
TBC - Damn this forum no allowing me to post a 3rd paragraph!
Your point about double market fees paid by the 're-seller' is always factored in by the 'flipper' otherwise their flipping activities would be about as useful as this thread. The flipper never pays the bills for these double transactions however I suspect they indirectly earn more inf/min than anyone else in the game.
Quote:
No. That's no different than the real world. In the real world services and even some goods are simply a factor of time. They are infinite in the same way Inf and items are infinite. The City of Heroes economy fits overly simplistic economic examples found everywhere specifically because City of Heroes economy is incredibly simplistic.|
Originally Posted by Guffy
Mobs in this game respawn, they cost nothing to be born and grow, there is no 'inf' cost to their making. However in defeating them, along with other drops, there is an inf reward.
When we try and make the in-game economy 'fit' the real world one we can lose sight of the fact that there is potentially infinite influence irrespective of inflation. (that's a lot of inf words) |
Quote:
| Your point about double market fees paid by the 're-seller' is always factored in by the 'flipper' otherwise their flipping activities would be about as useful as this thread. The flipper never pays the bills for these double transactions however I suspect they indirectly earn more inf/min than anyone else in the game. |
Quote:
| I suspect they indirectly earn more inf/min than anyone else in the game. |
Quote:
I don't know if 'flipping the markets' was ever the intension of the devs upon their implementation, my opinion in this thread is 'not'. Therefore 'more players' with their greater demand would change prices for the 'intended' reason. Not that the devs let us visit their intentions that often.
|
Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
More players also means more set IOs needed to fill slots. Unless they are fully IO'd out level 50's all new players and new toons will increase demand by the same amount (actually more since drop tables are weighted rather than balanced) they increase production.
|
Regulating an open market? What are you... a democrat? Sayeth the DC Flipping Lobby, leave the flippers be.
I'm Godlike and I approved this message.
Debt is temporary, prestige is forever
My Screenies and Videos :: My Toon List
I don't think you understand the affect flippers have on prices.
Flippers profit when prices fluctuate over 10% around Equilibrium Price. Translation: Flippers only make money when prices regularly go "up and down" and when prices are not stable. Flippers cannot raise prices above Equilibrium Price for a sustained period of time while retaining a profit. Translation: if I bought Luck charms for 1 Billion Inf and tried to sell them for more no one would buy my Luck Charms.
Flippers don't raise prices above where prices are naturally going without flippers. I am more than happy to give you Inf and instruct you on how to do an experiment on the market to verify this is true. You can do it at MY expense.
I hope I never take for granted the fact that the sandwich I'm about to buy wasn't made then bought by the retailer and sold onto me for 50,000% profit, minus their huge 10% opperating costs
Sandwich makes use these two graphs and not the one I posted above.
*EDIT* These new forums are fun. Want me to explain those graphs and tell you why and how the sandwich maker uses them
Quote:
I love the chart - thank-you.|
Originally Posted by Smurphy
Translation: if I bought Luck charms for 1 Billion Inf and tried to sell them for more no one would buy my Luck Charms.
|
I was under the impression that 'flippers' bought all current stock of one thing then sold it very slowly at an ever increasing profit. My point is community focused and clearly not economically focused.
While I'm sure some flippers try to corner the market (buy out all the stock and sell back at their own premium), no flipper can do that for any extended length of time, and they may end up losing money doing it.
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Smurphy
Sandwich makes use these two graphs and not the one I posted above.
*EDIT* These new forums are fun. Want me to explain those graphs and tell you why and how the sandwich maker uses them |
No need to explain - my BLT sandwich maker clearly used the top one as inspiration
Quote:
For every jerk that does this, there are atleast 7 normal people feeding more of <insert resource name> in to the market at reasonable prices. If you want those, leave an open bid out and be patient, then you keep your money for yourself. Don't want to feed the flippers? DON'T PAY THEIR OUTRAGEOUS PRICES! The market will fix itself once they get bored and run out of idiots to overpay. Nuff said.
|
Originally Posted by Guffy
I love the chart - thank-you.
I was under the impression that 'flippers' bought all current stock of one thing then sold it very slowly at an ever increasing profit. My point is community focused and clearly not economically focused. |
Debt is temporary, prestige is forever
My Screenies and Videos :: My Toon List
Quote:
Don't they then move onto another item?
|
Originally Posted by Fleeting_Whisper
While I'm sure some flippers try to corner the market (buy out all the stock and sell back at their own premium), no flipper can do that for any extended length of time, and they may end up losing money doing it.
|
And lose more money trying it, sure 
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
Quote:
I'll explain the first graph I posted. |
Originally Posted by Guffy
Don't they then move onto another item?
|
As price goes up more items are willing and able to be sold. That's the red S Supply graph that rises as it goes to the right. As price goes down more items are willing and able to be bought. That's the blue D Demand graph that goes down as it goes to the right. Where they cross is Equilibrium Price. That's where Supply equals Demand. That's where prices naturally go. Supply and Demand are always changing. Thus, Equilibrium Price is always changing. It's hard to pin down.
When a flipper tries to raise prices above the Equilibrium Price he or she is not guaranteed profits. Place a horizontal line on the graph anywhere above the Equilibrium Price. Any price like one of these prices (the line you may make) is a price where more items want to be sold than bought. Some sellers aren't going to sell their item. They make no money. Flippers that buy stuff and don't sell stuff don't make money. Flippers who try to raise prices above Equilibrium Price don't always make money.
Quote:
I bow to the power of both the graph and the pie chart(cos it reminds me of food).
|
Originally Posted by Smurphy
I'll explain the first graph I posted.
|
Quote:
When the devs created the market in I9 they knew that there would be "Market PvP" (that was their words infact) and they posted that it was both intended and expected.|
Originally Posted by Guffy
I don't know if 'flipping the markets' was ever the intension of the devs upon their implementation, my opinion in this thread is 'not'. Therefore 'more players' with their greater demand would change prices for the 'intended' reason. Not that the devs let us visit their intentions that often.
|
Getting back your idea though I want to bring up some things that you may not have considered the ramifications of.
Your idea is to limit flipping however it could stifle crafting as well. How do you handle the following situations?
1) A player receives a recipe as a drop and while playing they also receive, as drops, all the salvage they need to craft it. Crafting it results in a new product and all the pieces were received as drops so it counts as dropped and can be sold?
2) A player purchases a recipe and purchases all the salvage required to make it. Crafting it results in a new product and all the pieces were purchased so it counts as traded and can't be sold?
3) A player receives a recipe as a drop but not one or more pieces of salvage required to craft it and they buy those pieces (this could apply to the recipe as well if they received one or more pieces of the required salvage as drops). Crafting it results in a new product which category does it belong in?
4) What about enhancemnts purchased at stores? Can they be traded?
5) This brings up common recipes. These can be gotten as drops, purchased from the crafting tables, and memorized so that they aren't even required. How do you handle crafting of commons? I know for certain that common crafted enhancements were flipped during 2XP weekend. Memorizing commons allows the field crafter to produce common enhancements cheaper than someone that doesn't have them memorized can produce them. The field crafter can make enhancements for much less than it costs a non-field crafter to make them. The field crafter can offer them on the market for more than it cost to make them, but for less than it would cost someone who isn't interested in crafting to produce them. The field crafter makes a profit, the player uninterested in crafting gets a common IO cheaper than they could have produce it themselves (I've made over 1.5 billion influence since I9 on this alone and several hundred players have gotten enhancements cheaper than they could have made them for themselves. I would not have been able to help anyone in this way if I couldn't buy salvage to craft for sale commons and had to get all the salvage myself as drops with my field crafter). Crafting and field crafter is dev intended behavior otherwise there would be no market categories for crafted enhancements whether they be commons, uncommons, or rares and there would be no associated badges with field crafter nor the portable work bench.
6) Typos when purchasing. What do you do about the player that accidentally purchased 2 Enchanted Imperviums when they only wanted 1 (I've done that before, that market slider doesn't work properly you know). Should they be stuck with that second EI and unable to resell it, especially if another player needs it to craft their IO?
7) Respecing out of enhancement sets. How do you handle situations where powers are buffed or nerfed? A player respecs out of a nerfed power or drops a marginal power to pick up the buffed one. What about the IOs or HamiOs they slotted in that power? Unable to trade it if they bought it? Able to trade it even thought they bought it because of the respec? (If so you give the flipper the safety valve they need to get around your restriction(s) if not then you potentially harm many more non-flippers). If they can't trade it when they have no use for it what happens to the player that wants it but there aren't any?
8) Sales badges. There are badge hounds that are completely uninterested in the market but MUST have every badge in the game on every toon they have. The easiest way to get those badges is to buy items on the market cheaply and then relist them for one inf. Disallowing this will make getting the market badges not only tedious for the badgers but for those non-flippers that use the market more in the way that you wish to see.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Guffy
More players, playing in teams and not flipping would increase the 'items produced' too ;-)
Also thanks to Fleeting_Whisper - I respect your opinion and your kind way of saying it's a crud idea. |
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Smurphy
Flippers don't cause this problem. There are only so many items being produced. Lowering prices doesn't make more items. There are still the same amount of items being produced then as being produced now. What you want is an increased drop rate. *Edit* An increased drop rate means more items for less work.
|
Drop rates have been reduced by the devs (and in some cases such as Purples/costume recipes and Mission architect, by what content the players have chosen to pursue) since I9. If the devs want to eliminate flipping they should have increased drop rates rather than decrease them.
(There is all ready a thread concerning this in the market forums. Both Smurphy and I have posted there. These posts by me show the pertinent info and numbers concerning dev decrease of drop rates. You should be able to find more info from Smurphy and other players in this thread)
Here
Here
Here
Here
Here
And Here
and they should create more market efficiencies rather than resisting the ideas that would create more efficiencies.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
Quote:
QFT|
Originally Posted by Godlike_NA
For every jerk that does this, there are atleast 7 normal people feeding more of <insert resource name> in to the market at reasonable prices. If you want those, leave an open bid out and be patient, then you keep your money for yourself. Don't want to feed the flippers? DON'T PAY THEIR OUTRAGEOUS PRICES! The market will fix itself once they get bored and run out of idiots to overpay. Nuff said.
|
I flip common salvage. I don't increase the price at all, I just find what it's normally selling for, then place hundreds of bids at one tenth the price. Eventually all the bids fill up, and I resell at the usual price.
Simply: If you have patience, you don't pay high prices.
Where to now?
Check out all my guides and fiction pieces on my blog.
The MFing Warshade | The Last Rule of Tanking | The Got Dam Mastermind
Everything Dark Armor | The Softcap
don'T attempt to read tHis mEssaGe, And believe Me, it is not a codE.
Quote:
Items from the crafting table would go into the 'dropped enhancement tray'. Since an enhancement can't be 'uncrafted' into it's individual parts, and thus sold for parts.|
1) A player receives a recipe as a drop and while playing they also receive, as drops, all the salvage they need to craft it. Crafting it results in a new product and all the pieces were received as drops so it counts as dropped and can be sold? 2) A player purchases a recipe and purchases all the salvage required to make it. Crafting it results in a new product and all the pieces were purchased so it counts as traded and can't be sold? 3) A player receives a recipe as a drop but not one or more pieces of salvage required to craft it and they buy those pieces (this could apply to the recipe as well if they received one or more pieces of the required salvage as drops). Crafting it results in a new product which category does it belong in? |
Quote:
|
4) What about enhancemnts purchased at stores? Can they be traded? 6) Typos when purchasing. What do you do about the player that accidentally purchased 2 Enchanted Imperviums when they only wanted 1 (I've done that before, that market slider doesn't work properly you know). Should they be stuck with that second EI and unable to resell it, especially if another player needs it to craft their IO? 7) Respecing out of enhancement sets. How do you handle situations where powers are buffed or nerfed? A player respecs out of a nerfed power or drops a marginal power to pick up the buffed one. What about the IOs or HamiOs they slotted in that power? Unable to trade it if they bought it? Able to trade it even thought they bought it because of the respec? (If so you give the flipper the safety valve they need to get around your restriction(s) if not then you potentially harm many more non-flippers). If they can't trade it when they have no use for it what happens to the player that wants it but there aren't any? |
Quote:
| 5) This brings up common recipes. These can be gotten as drops, purchased from the crafting tables, and memorized so that they aren't even required. How do you handle crafting of commons? I know for certain that common crafted enhancements were flipped during 2XP weekend. Memorizing commons allows the field crafter to produce common enhancements cheaper than someone that doesn't have them memorized can produce them. The field crafter can make enhancements for much less than it costs a non-field crafter to make them. The field crafter can offer them on the market for more than it cost to make them, but for less than it would cost someone who isn't interested in crafting to produce them. The field crafter makes a profit, the player uninterested in crafting gets a common IO cheaper than they could have produce it themselves (I've made over 1.5 billion influence since I9 on this alone and several hundred players have gotten enhancements cheaper than they could have made them for themselves. I would not have been able to help anyone in this way if I couldn't buy salvage to craft for sale commons and had to get all the salvage myself as drops with my field crafter). Crafting and field crafter is dev intended behavior otherwise there would be no market categories for crafted enhancements whether they be commons, uncommons, or rares and there would be no associated badges with field crafter nor the portable work bench. |
Quote:
| 8) Sales badges. There are badge hounds that are completely uninterested in the market but MUST have every badge in the game on every toon they have. The easiest way to get those badges is to buy items on the market cheaply and then relist them for one inf. Disallowing this will make getting the market badges not only tedious for the badgers but for those non-flippers that use the market more in the way that you wish to see. |
Thank-you so much for reading the original post and trying to understand its complexity, theres an added bonus that this system would give all toons more personal storage, and maybe if your dropped repositories during fighting that they could overflow into the traded free spaces. Obviously it would pay to empty your dropped slots before this happened however at lease theres potential to increase items in the market while leaving drop rates as they are.
Dont recall the PvP market message from the devs in i9 however probably wasnt paying enough attention, if this is the case then the whole thread is mute as its WAI. Move on, nowt to see here.
Woot gone are my posting length restrictions, more dodgy suggestions coming to a forums near you soon
1. There is no morality with respect to the in-game market. We do not think one player "killing" another player in PvP is immoral, so therefore one player "ripping off" another is not immoral. It is just a game, and the market can be avoided just like PvP zones.
2. Some players enjoy flipping and some enjoy farming. Reducing the ability of these players to participate in the activities they enjoy does not mean that they will suddenly turn into awesome teamies. If you think these flippers and farmers are evil greedy players why do you want to push them into your PUGs?
3. All scarcity in the game is put there artificially by the devs. If you want prices to go down, or availability of certain items to go up, the devs need to change the drop rates. Player behaviour won't do it, because if items are dropping more (or less) frequently than the devs want, they will adjust the game, just as they have done for activities that earn xp more quickly than they want.
4. CoX is five years old. It should be no surprise to anyone that there is a hard core of players that farm/flip etc. It should be no surprise to anyone that it is harder to team than five years ago. New content that attracts new players is what is needed in the game. Meddling with drop/market mechanics is a waste of dev time because it does not bring new players into the game.
5. If buying up all the salvage and then dribbling it back on to the market was profitable, I'd sure as heck do it, but it simply is not profitable. Sure, you can buy 100 items and sell 10 for twice as much as you bought, but you aren't profiting, you are just stockpiling unsaleable items. Trust me on this, I bought all the Luck Charms (see my sig).
6. The way the game is designed, flippers are actually renting out their time, inf and auction slots. I spam bids across multiple recipe levels and relist any I purchase. Another player who does not have the slots or inf or patience to do this can then buy the items I relist.
One of the best ways the devs could increase market efficiency and put flippers out of business is to just SHOW MORE INFO ON PREVIOUS SALES! Seriously, last 5 only? That's retardulous. Eve Online is the extreme opposite end of the spectrum, but it shows every sale for the last 3 months, including daily highs/lows/average. You can change how the info is displayed in several ways and you can change the time frame.
More information = more efficiency. Flippers thrive on knowing the highs and lows of their flipped items and take advantage of people who don't know (or don't care) enough to bid at anything other than the last 5.
Rather than implement some craaaazy new idea limiting resale of items, just fix the market UI to show more price history and I GUARANTEE price fluctuations will smooth out.
Quote:
You might be a little late on this issue as it seems there is no flipping problem, the economics of this game are fine and you do your fellow player a favour when you hold items that they might want in the future for a massive profit (not that anyone has admitted that).|
Originally Posted by Stillhart
One of the best ways the devs could increase market efficiency and put flippers out of business is to just SHOW MORE INFO ON PREVIOUS SALES! Seriously, last 5 only? That's retardulous. Eve Online is the extreme opposite end of the spectrum, but it shows every sale for the last 3 months, including daily highs/lows/average. You can change how the info is displayed in several ways and you can change the time frame.
More information = more efficiency. Flippers thrive on knowing the highs and lows of their flipped items and take advantage of people who don't know (or don't care) enough to bid at anything other than the last 5. Rather than implement some craaaazy new idea limiting resale of items, just fix the market UI to show more price history and I GUARANTEE price fluctuations will smooth out. |
Aside from that I like your idea better.
Also thanks to Fleeting_Whisper - I respect your opinion and your kind way of saying it's a crud idea.
Also @Smurph don't forget that more transaction slots would have at least a visible effect on availability. More slots means more total goods placed up for sales rather than deleted, stored, or forgotten.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson