Markets: Display Best Bid/Offer prices for WW/BM items

The part I don't understand about your argument is why the seller would go to the trouble of trying to make an off-market sale when he could simply list the item on the market for the price he wants to sell it at. If he can find a buyer off-market willing to pay his asking price, then surely he can find one far more easily on the market? Why would a complicated, time-consuming, server-locked transaction be preferable to taking 10 seconds to list the item on the market for the price he wants, and then waiting for the next buy-it-nao bidder to come along on any one of 15 servers?

Your argument seems to require the assumption that either a) there would be a mechanism in place with prevents the seller listing higher than the current highest bidder, and/or b) no buy-it-nao bidders will come to the market looking for what they want, and/or c) there exists a substantial pool of people will to pay more off-market than they would be for the same item listed on the market.

Or are you talking only about the price-capped IOs? In that case, off-market sales will happen in exactly the same way under either system, and it's also a rather extreme edge case.

The question isn't whether it is hard or not, nor whether it is complicated or not. The question is why. Why would you trade off the market as opposed to using the market? Specifically, why would displaying the best bid and best list price cause players to trade off market? No, you have not answered this question yet.

*EDIT* Maybe there are some misunderstandings at work. I made a picture of what I am thinking this suggestion means.



Is this what we are talking about?

Yes.

Proposed system is much more "poor seller with shiny" friendly than existent. Please note, CoX market functions in such way that it ALWAYS gives advantage to seller by making buyer pay full bid price (buyer never gets price improvement). So, even if seller puts something for sale very cheap and there is high price bid on such item, seller will get the full bid price.

Now, current "blind" system forces that "poor seller" either to GAMBLE or to stay away from market until he has enough inf to list his item at his price. Conversely, proposed system will remove that GAMBLE element by letting "poor seller" know what price he can get for his shiny and will allow to make informed decision whether to list it or to stay away from market.

I've explained several times, you have chosen to ignore it.

you see that 265m sale? that is what the seller is going to want to get. you see that highest bid of 175m? guess where the sale is going? off market. you have now just shown why this is not a good idea. thank you for doing our work for us.

The situation you described would not occur. Remember in every transaction there are two parties: a buyer and a seller. There is no reason why the bid of 175M would go off market. The bidder of 175M would need to find someone willing to sell at 175M. Why would a player be willing to sell off market at 175M but not on the market for 175M? The transaction at 175M could easily be facilitated via the market.

I thought I had provided reasoning and counter-examples to all of your points. I will now make an attempt to go through all your posts again, read all of your reasons why this suggestion is problematic, and address them one by one.

I fail to comprehend how this "screws over that seller." A seller listed his item for that price. The seller's act of listing his item for that price is the seller saying "I am willing to accept this price."

This statement is not true. Under the original poster's suggestion a seller could get the value of the item he posted. The seller would simply have to look at the current "best bid" price and see if it was acceptable. If that bid price was acceptable the seller could list the item for any amount, for example 1, and the item would sell to that current highest bidder.

This "see the highest current bid" and sell if you want to is the key difference between the current system and a system that displays highest bid and lowest list amounts. I explained, with a decision tree, the differences in this post and there is further elaboration on the issue in this post. The summary of the posts are in the current system a seller who is unable to afford list prices has to gamble when he sells his item. He doesn't know if the current highest bid is high or low. If the system is changed to display the highest bid the seller can know for sure that he will sell his item for the price he wants despite listing it for a small amount.

Your first post contained 3 points: 1) Defeats the purpose of highest bid going to lowest sale, 2) screws over sellers, 3) screws over players who can't afford list fees.

1) Incorrect. A seller can still list his item very low and know he will receive the highest current bid... thus low sale going to high bid.
2) Incorrect. A seller can set any list price he chooses. The act of setting a list price means the price is acceptable to the seller.
3) Incorrect. A seller who can't afford list fees can view the highest current bid and can accept it.

I am going to attempt to summarize this post into my own words. Please correct me if I am mistaken or if I am misrepresenting your post.

1) Sellers who cannot afford listing prices get "screwed over" and won't list their items on the market.
2) Prices go up because there are less sellers at the market.
3) Items will not be for sale, or they will be hard to find/buy immediately, on the market because there are less sellers at the market.
4) More transactions will occur off market due to the difficulty of using the market.
5) Prices off the market will be 2, 3, 4, times higher than the original prices in the current system.

I have already explained that the first point is incorrect and thus the rest would not follow. Arguendo, if the first did occur the rest would still not occur. I need to first make a seemingly tangential statement that a reader should keep in mind as he evaluates what would occur in such scenarios. The statement is so important I will state it three times in different ways: The displaying of best list and best bid prices would not affect how many items are found by players. In other words, the same amount of players are still finding the same amount of items. The same amount of items still exist.

2) I agree that less players selling their items would cause prices to rise. There is a question of what they do with those items that they do not sell which should be kept in mind as we go over the rest of the points.

3) This statement depends on how many items are actually sold on the market. A rise in prices does not necessarily mean a decrease in availability. For example, at one point in time immediately after the release of Issue 16 respec recipes sold for roughly 70M. Currently, they sell for roughly 200M. At the current time and at the previous time Respec recipes were available for sale. Of course, so many players could refuse to sell their item via the market that finding one for sale at all, at any price, would be impossible.

4) Incorrect. There is no difficulty in using the market. One of the facets of Supply and Demand is "When Supply goes down, Price goes up."



The key things to see in this graph are the words "Initial equilibrium" in blue, on the right, the red words "Supply curve shifts left" in the upper right, and the words "new equilibrium" in red in the center. The most important point is "new equilibrium". Prices will stabilize on the market at their new equilibrium point when there is a decrease in Supply. I will explain, in detail, why this occurs. In the current system prices are generally stable. Players have, at minimum, a general idea of what something is worth. Prices are generally "in the ballpark" of Equilibrium Price. Now we will assume, as your reasoning suggests, that Supply will lower. When there are more items willing to be bought at a price than items willing to be sold at a price that price is considered "below Equilibrium Price." When there is a decrease in Supply more items are willing to be bought at that price than willing to be sold at that price. Buyers will compete for the items available and raise their bids. As Supply decreases price increases. You acknowledge that there will be players willing to pay the prices when you said, I quote, "because there will always be people that have to have something immediately."

Price will continue to rise until there is a price where there are an equal number of items willing to be bought as willing to be sold. This price is the new Equilibrium Price. Sellers can list their items on the market for this price and some buyers will buy their items for this price. Therefore the market is still able to function. Buyers are likely to be able to find items for sale on the market and sellers are able to find willing buyers quickly at a price somewhat close to the last 5 prices.

5) Incorrect. If players are willing to buy and sell off the market they are willing to buy and sell on the market. Bidders will bid up the price on the market until Equilibrium is achieved. I explained how unavailability has occured in City of Heroes and been corrected by rising prices in this post where I discussed Luck of the Gamblers.

This post is difficult to understand out of context. I will translate this post to be "There are PvP IOs that sell for much more than 2 Billion off market." Please let me know if that is an unfair representation of your post.

As I have explained in other posts the fact that some items sell for 2 Billion off market is irrelevant to this discussion. The displaying of the highest bid amount and the lowest list amount creates no changes nor has any affect on these items. These items act in a manner that is no different whether or not this information is displayed. Currently, those items sell for over 2 Billion and the market is unable to properly handle them. If this suggestion was implemented the same would occur.

The seller in this scenario can list the item for a price higher than any of the 200 current outstanding bids. This situation can easily be handled via the market (except where price goes above 2B). This situation is what occured with Luck of the Gamblers, which I explained in a previous post, which I linked to above.

As stated, the fact that a character can only hold 2 Billion is irrelevant.

As I have explained above a seller who cannot afford list fees can look at the current highest bid and post an item for sale at any low amount and receive, in payment, whatever is the current highest bid. Also, sellers who can't afford listing fees under the current system are also burdened with choice of whether to list low or not. As I have explained above, and in a previous post with a decision tree, which I linked to above, a seller who cannot afford high listing fees struggles in the current system as well. These sellers who cannot afford high listing fees would still use the market because they can know when using the market is financially beneficial to them.

I have not addressed several of your other posts and have also not addressed some segments of some of your posts. If you would like me to address them please provide me a link to them and please point out the exact statements which you would like to address.

I believe I have adequately demonstrated that this suggestion:
1) Does not cause transactions to go off market
2) Does not eliminate the concept of "highest bid to lowest sell"
3) Does not hinder sellers who cannot afford high list fees in greater manner than they are hindered now.
4) Does not cause prices to rise due to decreased supply

As you surely know I am not able to easily understand many topics. If you are going to respond or refute any of my points please attempt to include as many examples using hypothetical City of Heroes market situations, statistics, data, and logic as possible. Including these elements would help me understand the points you are conveying.

*EDIT* Added my opinion on suggestion.
I would also like to add that I am apathetic to whether this suggestion is implemented or not. It would neither help nor hinder my personal market usage nor do I believe it would significantly help nor hinder the player base. The question of whether this should be implemented mostly hinges on how much you think the market should function like a store verse how much you like the concept of the market being a mini-game.

Not seeing why the seller wouldn't just list it for the 260M and hope another player comes along and bids more, any seller should be able to figure out he isn't going to get the highest price in the last 5 unless he's willing to wait and he certainly isn't going to find someone willing to over pay be 65M just for the privilege of trading off the market. The only change is the seller now knows what price he has to undercut and the buyer knows what bid he needs to beat to get the sale made now.

My objection to the suggestion is not that it makes the market more like a store because it doesn't, it will simply make player's regard it more as a store (and maybe change prices a bit for those who do regard ti that way).

I think that devs implemented a double blind auction system for the market because they recognized that a store style auction house (such as the one in WoW) greatly favors marketeers. If you want to get good deals with a store style system then you need to spend time camping the auction house instead of playing the game. With a double blind system you can get good deals while engaging in other activities (either playing the game or off doing things in real life).

Adding a visible BBO to the market interface encourages people to regard it more as a store and less as a consignment house which in turn means they end up paying more for items than they should. I have no problem with adding more information to the interface (even if it probably would decrease my profits) but lets add information that attempts to educate players as to the nature of prices on the auction house rather than information that encourages them to use it in a way that results in them getting poor prices. My recommendation is to add more time data, a high/low prices for the last 24 hours and week would probably be a good starting point, not perfect by any means but a good place to start.

I have a large amount of trouble understanding your logic. Here are some concepts I thought I read in your post that I find contradictory, baffling or strange.

1) It's not more like a store, but players will think of it like a store.

This statement simply befuddles me. I don't understand the relevance of this statement. Why does it matter what players think of the store? How do their thoughts actually make any concrete effects?

2) It's not more like a store, but in a store-like system you have to spend more time at the market to find deals.

Why did you say anything that has to do with a store-like system if you said it's not a store-like system?

3) It would be harder to find deals, but easier for marketeers.

My understanding of marketeering is to buy low and sell high. "Easier to find deals" to me means "easier to buy low." Not displaying the lowest list price means "easier to sell high". Thus, in the current system it is easier to buy low and easier to sell high. Yet, displaying information would make it harder to find deals and easier for marketeers?!

4) It's not more like a store, but players will pay more.

Some players will pay more. Some players will pay less. Prices won't spike as high nor will they fall as low. This stability will occur because players will know when and when not to list for 1 and players will know how to not overbid.

5) Showing the price players would get encourages players to get a worse price.

This statement completely stumps me. By learning more about the market and prices a player is hindered?

It is one of those things that can seem contradictory, I'll go though your points and try to clarify.

The intent of the consignment is that you do not use it as a store. Instead you place bids and go do something else while waiting for them to fill.

Both of these were simply to establish why a store like market is a bad idea. The current market makes it easier to get deals (since you can leave bids up overnight) this in turn encourages competition and marketeer HATE competition (well, actually our profits hate competition, a lot of us actually enjoy the market PvP that competition brings).

No, prices will still continue to fluctuate at pretty much the same rate. Overall prices might go down a bit but the difference between the high and low prices won't change a whole lot. The price fluctuations aren't caused by a lack of information on the current prices, they are caused by a lack of information on the range of price fluctuations. If the BBO was displayed all that would tell you is what you can currently get for the item, it gives you NO information on what you would get if you let the bid sit overnight (or for a week). The fact is that the BBO is a horrible indicator of the actual market price for most items, it's ok for items like purples where the last 5 already tells you the 24 hour fluctuation rate but for anything else it's horrible.

The problem is that they're learning the wrong thing about market prices. Having a BBO tells them "this is what you have to pay to get this now" instead I want the market to tell them "if you bid this you'll probably get it sometime in the next 48 hours". Having a visible BBOencourages people to engage in activities that are to their detriment (paying BUY IT NAO instead of waiting). In some cases they will still pay the buy it nao price no matter how much information you provide, but I'm sure that many of them simply don't realize that they can get a better price by waiting.

Sure marketeers make profits on the fact that people don't know our exact asking price but that is realistically a very small portion of our profit margin. The main portion of our profit is made from the fact that people either do not know that they can get a better market price by waiting or don't care. I'd much rather focus on educating the people who don't know than trying to help the people who don't care.

Ok Shadow try to follow this. You and I both have the same recipe and it is worth 265 million inf at the CH. I have enough inf on my character to sell my recipe for 265 million, however YOU only have enough influence to sell it for 5 million because the CH won't let you set a sales price if you don't have enough to cover the sales fee.

Along comes Chriffer and he can see the sales prices we have set.

Sales Price
265 million
5 million

Remember in the market the highest bid goes to the lowest seller. Anyone that sets their sales price too high just sits there unsold. So do you honestly think he's going to pay the highest sales price listed? Heck no he's going to see your bid and he's only going to pay 5 million. Final result is that you just got screwed out of 260 million inf.

Forbin, you missing the point.

Under current system, if "poor seller" decides to sell his shiny on market, there are the following possibilities:

1. There is highest outstanding bid for 265M inf on that recipe. He puts his recipe for 5M and gets paid 265M. This is a ideal case: both buyer and seller are happy.
2. There is highest outstanding bid for 10M inf. He puts his recipe for 5M and gets paid 10M. He screwed out of 255M if he hoped to sell it for 265M. Seller is pissed off, buyer is happy.
3. There is highest outstanding bid for 1M inf. He puts his recipe for 5M and leaves it. Couple hours later here comes "BUY IT NAO" guy, sees last sale price of 265M and places bid for that amount. Seller gets paid his 265M. This is near ideal case: both buyer and seller are happy, but seller had to wait for his recipe to sell.
4. There is highest outstanding bid for 1M inf. He puts his recipe for 5M and leaves it. Couple hours later I'm deciding that I need that recipe and and willing to go as high as 100M. So, I'm deciding to bid creep it with 10M increments. I'm putting lowball bid for 1M to see if I can get it at bargain price, nothing. Next my bid will be for 10M and here I am getting this recipe for 10M, screwing seller out of 255M. I'm happy, seller's screwed. BTW, I'm really bidding like this for expensive items I want to buy. I also don't think that my buying behavior is unique in any shape and form, given that "The Market and Inventions" forum has crapload of posts outlining this strategy.

So, to summarize cases listed above, your "poor seller" is screwed in 2 cases out of 4. Worst thing, he doesn't know whether he will be lucky or screwed until it is too late.

With displayed BBO I'm proposing, seller will immediately see what he might get from the market, and make completely educated decision whether to put it on market now or hold it until he has enough inf for listing it at hes desired price. There is ABSOLUTELY no way he can be screwed unless he ignores all information given to him, and lists his recipe.

And there is something that you are forgetting. The negative impact that will occur when people choose not to sell their items because they can't afford it.

All those items that would normally have been put on the market would then be gone, put in storage. That means there will be less items available. Which in turn means the ones that are available will be harder to come by, making them rarer and in turn more expensive. Items on the market will get more expensive and harder to buy.

Heh irony... You came into this thread as a "champion" of the rights and wellbeing of "poor sellers" saying that proposed system is going to screw them:

After Chriffer and I in multiple posts showed to you that it isn't the case and current system screws them much more than proposed, you made 180 degree turn, basically saying lets continue to EFF them "poor sellers" for the sake of better supply.

As far as the negative impact of withholding of these items is concerned, at worst, these goods will be delayed to market by few hours, days, weeks (whatever time is necessary for poor guy to make enough inf to list it). And how many of these rare goods are sold by poor guys anyway? During of my 2+ years of playing this game, I had to gamble just once by selling lelvel 12 Regenrative Tissue+ during my 2nd week in the game and listing it for 100K and regretted it right after I clicked "post" button. I didn't know anything about the game, recipes, markets during that time. After that, I never came across the situation where I would compelled to list rare item way below it's going price.

The irony of anyone telling Smurphy to read the market forums makes me giggle. A lot.

@macskull, @Not Mac | XBL: macskull | Steam: macskull | Skype: macskull
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."

Smurphy hasn't posted in this thread. Unless you are implying that Smurphy is posting on a secondary account or has changed his forum name. And if that's the case it means Chriffer is merely trolling the thread because if Criffer=Smurphy then he's been lying about

1. Not knowing how you can use the market as a bank to store influence over 2 billion on a character.
2. That players often do personal trades outside the market. (in fact I think Smurphy is someone that actually offers those services to help players with cross faction inf problems)
3. Not understanding that if fewer items get put up for sale on the market the prices for those items will go up.

Nice try Nord but if a poor player can't afford to competitively place his item up for sale to begin with he still won't be able to place it up for sale when the scarcity of the items cause the prices to skyrocket even higher.

Sales Price - Market Fee
50 million - 2,500,000
75 million - 3,750,000
100 million - 5,000,000
150 million - 7,500,000

And when you get into the uber rare purple IO's the market fees can easily double.




Heck, even tho it would be worth it, I'd have to strip half a dozen characters to scrounge up enough inf to sell one of the uber rare IO recipes for 500 million. The market fee would be 25 million.

1. Character can only hold 2 Billion Inf. There is no denying this fact. This fact is the reason why prices on the market cannot go above 2 Billion. Yes, players can get around this limitation by placing money in alternative places. However, at one time, a character can only hold 2 BIllion Inf. That is what I said. That is what I will continue to say. That is the truth of the matter.
2. I do not question that players can do trade off market. I question the reason that players will do trades off market when they could do the same trades on market.
3. I have explicitly said that "When Supply goes down prices goes up."

I have responded to all of your posts with logic, reason, information, links, graphs, examples, statistics and honest inquiries for you to present your opinion. You have not countered my examples, attempted to understand my points, given your own examples.

How could you accuse me of ignoring your posts?
You are either blatantly wrong, blatantly lying, or blatantly trolling.
I no longer have any respect for your opinion.

Or you just aren't reading what he's written, as he's never said any of the things you listed.

@macskull, @Not Mac | XBL: macskull | Steam: macskull | Skype: macskull
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."

I think what's going to happen is when the item is listed for 5 Million it's going to sell instantly to the current highest bidder who has placed a bid over 5 million. I don't think an item is ever going to sit around at a low amount.

If the item becomes super rare and hard to find aren't lots of people going to be trying to be the highest bidder? So shouldn't there be more bids on the market for sellers to look at?