how would you revamp the entire economy and reward structure?
By
BBQ_Pork,
Posted on: 2010-09-15 16:03 in The Market and Inventions
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This. Flippers make their profits off the people who choose to pay a premium for the convenience of not waiting for an item. Anyone who's willing to wait can get it at the lower price.
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Originally Posted by Dr_Ohm
Here's an interesting one. They could have gotten the flipper's price, if that's what they'd bid. You know they could have been had it at that price, because the flipper got his. Marketeers have no special status that gives them market priority. Their bid is just as likely to fill as the flipper's is. They could even have 100% guaranteed you would get it, by bidding flipper low price +1, which would have the added benefit of denying the flipper a sale, given that you don't like what they do.
You could even bid lower than the flipper's low price, and still get stuff, if you were willing to wait a little bit longer. Remember, flippers can't bid too low, as they need turnover. You can wait a bit longer. |
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If there was no demand there would be no supply shortly there after. If every single player had a set of 5 luck of the gamblers for ever character slot they have - people would simply stop trying to sell them because no one would want to buy them.|
Originally Posted by EmperorSteele
And who said i was being lazy or whining? My net worth in-game is close to 3 billion inf, so i can afford things, however I'm simply confused by the idea that people here posit that buying stuff and selling it for more keeps prices down. It seems to rely on "stabilizing supply" which "stabilizes prices", but the fact is if people who wanted to use stuff could get it for the price that a flipper or manipulator got it at, then no one would have to pay more than that cost, thus there'd be no further demand, thus the costs would be stable, and lower.
Now, Goat came in with an example I can sort of understand: badgers who unintentionally screw with market prices trying to get their badges. However, to assume that badgers are the sole cause of item destruction, and as a result price inflation due to lack of supply, would be laughable. And i noticed that so far everyone's been discussing salvage. What about RESPEC RECIPES? Y'know, those things Smurphy made zillions of inf on by flipping? Or Purples? Maybe prices wouldn't be so high if everyone who wanted to equip them could have bought them by now, but were denied when someone else bought and re-listed. On the theme of the thread, i'd make all items "locked" on the -second- character to own it. So you could have something drop and sell it, but the character who bought it or had it given to them couldn't get rid of it, short of destroying it. There'd probably end up being some hoarding (oooh, what if i need this eventually?!) but i doubt that'd do any more to raise prices than what flippers and manipulators do already. |
Salvage is most likely the highest volume item on the market - while pvp IOs, purples and respec recipes are the lowest due to extreme rarity. What this means is that the rarer something is the more it will be effected by inflation and manipulation.
Others have refereed to supply as a river, but the ultra rare items are more like a safely guarded tap. Those that get the supply have much more control over the cost because there is less competition. Combine that with the natural inflation in an MMO and prices on such items will likely increase over time.
Prices on normal rarity items will vary wildly but flippers normalize them by competing for sales. If I have that rare salvage you want and so does Fulmens, who will you buy from ? Me listing at 1,999,999 or Fulmens listing at 1,499,999 ? The general value of a rare salvage hovers around 2 million influence - players expect to pay that much because the salvages sell at that price often enough to reinforce that price point.
When you decide to buy the salvage for 2 million you will buy Fulmens salvage and not mine because he listed it lower than I did. You could have gotten the salvage for 1.5m and saved 500k. The trick here is - did you bother to try ? Did you care about saving 500k ?
The more people that care about how much they pay - the more likely it is we could see prices come down. The problem is people can make 100m a day with almost no effort, and so they dont care to save 500k - so they bid 2 million on the rare salvage when they could have gotten it at 1.5 instead.
This laziness lets players sell at 2 million consistently because that is what buyers have decided they are willing to pay.
I am an ebil markeeter and will steal your moneiz ...correction stole your moneiz. I support keeping the poor down because it is impossible to make moneiz in this game.
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I'd make it so whining about it on the forums docked all your characters a level.|
Originally Posted by OPTICAL_ILLUSION
if you were given the opportunity by the devs to revamp all things economy and reward related how would you do it?
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That's pretty much all I'd change.
I encourage any and every person who comes to this forum complaining about flippers and how they are ruining the salvage market to attempt to do so themselves.
I will give anyone who wishes to try and ruin a common salvage - by any means they have listed above - 15 million inf to do just that.
If it is indeed a profitable as these people claim it is, in mere hours they should at least double that 15 mil. This means they will be able to price fix that salvage indefinitely.
I dare you to try. Anyone up for it?
Btw, Alchemical Silver has 1600 for sale right this instant. My 15 mil will only allow you to bid 50k across your 20 slots and still have 5 mil left over for listing fees.
According to the crabby folks, this is more than enough to "buy all of the cheap supply" that they don't have access to because of evil flippers.
Incidentally, let's note right now that it will take you at least 8 characters just to purchase every last Alchemical Silver (right now!). Then you will need to dedicate at least 4 to keeping the supply bottled up, at which point you will most likely need at least 4 to continue selling the ones you're purchasing.
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You start buying at 50k. You sell at 100k. 2x mark up.
To "protect" your investment, you're going to have to raise that 50k to at least 100k to purchase all of the ones listed by people who are not you. However, you can then list at 150k. Once you have established the 150k mark, you will need to up your bids to 150k, and list them at 200k. Continue with this until people will no longer buy your salvage. I estimate that if you work REALLY hard at it, you can push this number towards 500k before enough people give up.
15 million. Yes, I will PAY you to try and do what you think people are doing. Go for it! Also, you can keep all of the money you make at it!
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You heard it here first, Misaligned is the new Smurphy.
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Originally Posted by Misaligned
I encourage any and every person who comes to this forum complaining about flippers and how they are ruining the salvage market to attempt to do so themselves.
I will give anyone who wishes to try and ruin a common salvage - by any means they have listed above - 15 million inf to do just that. |
Heh. Smurphy laid down a challenge similar to the one you propose a while ago, at a time when marketeer-haters were more prevalent and vocal than they seem to be now. If I recall correctly he actually promised to do the work himself, with his own funds, and all anyone had to do was give him a set of instructions of how to manipulate market prices and make a profit.
Did anyone ever actually take him up on that, market foum regulars? I don't recall that they did.
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How can anyone buy out the entire inventory plus all incoming commons?|
Originally Posted by EmperorSteele
I still don't see how buying something for X, then selling it for 2X, keeps prices DOWN. You've just DOUBLED the ASKING price.
Now, that won't stop people from bidding high. But it DOES stop people from having to bid above 2X just to get what they want if they only wanted it for X. Also, regarding supply, bidding low on something and getting it is taking supply out of the market. You just deprived someone else of getting the item for that price who intended to use it. Then you relist it out of their price range. How is that keeping prices low? |
No one can control supply. New stuff will keep coming in. You guys keep making the same mistake of acting like there are a finite number of things for sale all the time. There is quite the opposite. Always an increasing amount of items generated by drops coming into the market.
This isn't real life where the manufacturers can lock down incoming supply. It is an MMO where killing a critter creates drops out of thin air.
total kick to the gut
This is like having Ra's Al Ghul show up at your birthday party.
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you're wrong.
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Originally Posted by EmperorSteele
On the theme of the thread, i'd make all items "locked" on the -second- character to own it. So you could have something drop and sell it, but the character who bought it or had it given to them couldn't get rid of it, short of destroying it. There'd probably end up being some hoarding (oooh, what if i need this eventually?!) but i doubt that'd do any more to raise prices than what flippers and manipulators do already.
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The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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This is surreal. The fact is, there aren't enough.|
Originally Posted by EmperorSteele
And i noticed that so far everyone's been discussing salvage. What about RESPEC RECIPES? Y'know, those things Smurphy made zillions of inf on by flipping? Or Purples? Maybe prices wouldn't be so high if everyone who wanted to equip them could have bought them by now, but were denied when someone else bought and re-listed.
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Have you ever lived in a place where there were price caps? Because I have. And what you get is weeks and weeks during which no one can buy any of something at all.
There is not enough supply. If there were "enough" supply, purples would be common, not rare.
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| On the theme of the thread, i'd make all items "locked" on the -second- character to own it. So you could have something drop and sell it, but the character who bought it or had it given to them couldn't get rid of it, short of destroying it. There'd probably end up being some hoarding (oooh, what if i need this eventually?!) but i doubt that'd do any more to raise prices than what flippers and manipulators do already. |
What you propose would utterly destroy the market. We'd be lucky to see 1% of the traffic we do now, because it would be crazy to sell stuff you might someday want. People would be basically obliged to make personal SG bases to store their own salvage; a SG with more than two or three members would be non-viable, and not having your own base would be a cripppling disadvantage.
I feel like I'm watching someone declare that, if the government just banned pornography, there'd be less alcoholism, because that is exactly how markets work.
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How about someone declaring that if the government banned alcohol no one would drink?|
Originally Posted by seebs
I feel like I'm watching someone declare that, if the government just banned pornography, there'd be less alcoholism, because that is exactly how markets work.
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I'm sure we all know how THAT attempt turned out.
Culex's resistance guide
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Pretty much.|
Originally Posted by Pitho
How about someone declaring that if the government banned alcohol no one would drink?
I'm sure we all know how THAT attempt turned out. |
If you cap prices, you drive things OFF the market -- because it's stupid to sell something on the market for 15M if you know you could get a private buyer for 150M. So there's even LESS stuff available. Don't believe me? Go buy some PVP IOs on the market.
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What are all these logical arguments based on reality doing in a thread like this?|
Originally Posted by seebs
Pretty much.
If you cap prices, you drive things OFF the market -- because it's stupid to sell something on the market for 15M if you know you could get a private buyer for 150M. So there's even LESS stuff available. Don't believe me? Go buy some PVP IOs on the market. |
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Originally Posted by EmperorSteele
On the theme of the thread, i'd make all items "locked" on the -second- character to own it. So you could have something drop and sell it, but the character who bought it or had it given to them couldn't get rid of it, short of destroying it. There'd probably end up being some hoarding (oooh, what if i need this eventually?!) but i doubt that'd do any more to raise prices than what flippers and manipulators do already.
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This kind of change would kill the supply of many things in three ways.
1) People wouldn't post rares for sale in case they might need one themselves. If they kept them, at least they could *once* move it to another character after respeccing. Basically the lifeline of an item is cut drastically. Prices rise dramatically.
2) What would the point in keeping enhancements after respecs be? Most of the rare items people have are bought from WW because it's just absurd to expect getting those on your own via drops and rolls within a timeframe that is shorter than the average human life (ok, I kid). I'd say most of the people playing this game couldn't stand playing a single character long enough to get all of the stuff their dream build needs via drops. This way, if you have leftover rares from your respec, they never re-enter the supply chain. Again, prices rise.
3) No more flippers around keeping the price at a steady maximum. Prices rise again!
Unless you're completely impervious to empirical evidence and logical arguments, the thread has demonstrated time and time again how flippers drive prices down, even if they aren't keeping them bottomed. They provide demand which in turn produces supply. I don't know about you, but I'm deleting all my rare/uncommon recipes that have a sales history of less than 1mil a piece and 0 people bidding. If there was even one person bidding, I'd post them, likely at 1 inf to clear market and inventory space fast.
This is also why the prices of certain pieces of common salvage fluctuate wildly between "nothing" and "omgbbq". If many people who are able to provide these items in large quantities (people who can decimate a lot of enemies fast = people with good builds) see "0 bidding / 100 for sale" they delete or vendor these items instead of putting them up for sale so that their market space isn't clogged up. Then some other people show up and buy the few of the remaining salvage so that only the high priced ones remain. Now, in order to get your piece of salvage you'd have to pay many times more than what a flipper would have been happy with.
- @DSorrow - alts on Union and Freedom mostly -
Currently playing as Castigation on Freedom
My Katana/Inv Guide
Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either. -Einstein
EmperorSteele said
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I'm still trying to get my head around this. | Maybe prices wouldn't be so high if everyone who wanted to equip [respec recipes] could have bought them by now, but were denied when someone else bought and re-listed. |
A flipper is someone who doesn't change the number for sale, only the price point. Can we agree on that, EmperorSteele? They buy something and put it back up for resale immediately.
Right now there are something like 50,000 accounts, maybe a few more, and right now- 10 AM Saturday- there are 20 individual respec recipes for sale.
Doesn't sound to me like "sell them to the people who want them" would make much of a dent in demand, does it?
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
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I'd slightly lower the drop rate of Temp Powers and costume piece recipes. I hate Vendor Trash. |
Originally Posted by OPTICAL_ILLUSION
if you were given the opportunity by the devs to revamp all things economy and reward related how would you do it?
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Just for giggles I'd allow the Random Roll option for 20 Merits to have a very tiny chance of grabbing a Purple Recipe (regardless of character level).
I'd get rid of the Merit Vendor NPCs (and thier ugly costumes) and put thier functionality into the regular vendors.
If this also gets me into the Market UI Adjustment team, I'd add an option to bid on ONE item within a level range up to TEN, in addition to our current ability to bid on up to ten identical items. Some days I only want ONE Proc, but don't care what level it is and don't want to waste more than one Market slot.
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Sure... they raise it out of the range of the people who have the most complaints against the market already. They prevent the market from working for people who want things quickly and cheaply.|
Originally Posted by Fulmens
A flipper is someone who doesn't change the number for sale, only the price point. Can we agree on that, EmperorSteele? They buy something and put it back up for resale immediately. |
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Right now there are something like 50,000 accounts, maybe a few more, and right now- 10 AM Saturday- there are 20 individual respec recipes for sale. Doesn't sound to me like "sell them to the people who want them" would make much of a dent in demand, does it? |
180M
155M
175M
175M
~151M (all today)
Why can't everyone get it for 151? Because some silly person bought it and relisted it for 175M. The flipper prevented someone else from getting that particular, specific recipe at that lower price. How's that doing the market any good? The only person befitting is the flipper. Even the original seller got shafted, because someone else might have bid a bit more instead of the bare minimum.
-STEELE =)
Allied to all sides so that no matter what, I'll come out on top!
Oh, and Crimson demands you play this arc-> Twisted Knives (MA Arc #397769)
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They change how the market works, but I don't think they change it in the way you think they do.|
Originally Posted by EmperorSteele
Sure... they raise it out of the range of the people who have the most complaints against the market already. They prevent the market from working for people who want things quickly and cheaply.
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Imagine that there's no flipping. AS costs 5k or 10k instead of 50k. What happens?
Everyone who wants AS (and there's a lot of them) starts buying AS at those prices. And then... All the AS is gone. Because there's more demand than there is supply. So now the market goes to having no AS at all, and you can leave bids up and hope you get lucky when new ones get listed, but to do that, you have to have your bid be the highest. So you end up with bid prices going up, rapidly, and then after a while bid prices are high, and people start listing at those prices...
And you end up with comparable prices, only they're way, way, more erratic.
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| Why can't everyone get it for 151? |
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| Because some silly person bought it and relisted it for 175M. |
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| The flipper prevented someone else from getting that particular, specific recipe at that lower price. How's that doing the market any good? |
This is how you manage scarcity -- you raise prices until demand drops enough to match supply. That has the additional effect of creating an incentive for people to try to raise supply. If I see that prices on something are temporarily high, I might go take a stack out of a salvage rack and list them... Increasing supply and lowering prices.
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| The only person befitting is the flipper. |
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| Even the original seller got shafted, because someone else might have bid a bit more instead of the bare minimum. |
Also, you're now being contradictory, because if someone else might have bid a bit more, then that person would have won, and the person who wanted it for 151M would have lost anyway.
Seriously, your entire argument here is, quite frankly, droolingly incoherent. It doesn't even make sense. It doesn't even begin to make sense. With the exception of one or two database techs at ncsoft, no one in the world could possibly have the information you'd need to substantiate these claims, and the claims themselves are such as to inspire the reader to wonder whether you shouldn't be cutting back a bit on the lead content in your diet.
You keep making up particular scenarios, without any evidence that they've actually occurred, and then with laser-like precision, you focus on someone who wasn't there, didn't participate, and who may not even exist, and argue that he was "hurt" by the outcome -- even though you can't even establish convincingly that he would have been any better off under different circumstances.
What is your obsession here with disregarding well-established basic economic principles? Are you maybe a time traveller who comes to us from China during the Cultural Revolution, ready to kill "profiteers" for horrible crimes such as delivering food to people who would like food, and are thus willing to pay you more than the food cost you?
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I'm often amazed at how people can look at the incredibly sparse information provided by the market UI and determine that "flippers" are about their evil games, or that someone is "cornering a market" on a piece of salvage that costs a whopping 50K inf. |
Originally Posted by EmperorSteele
Sure... they raise it out of the range of the people who have the most complaints against the market already. They prevent the market from working for people who want things quickly and cheaply.
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Here's an example of what I mean.
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You're missing the fact that there's over 180 bids, and that the price has climbed from 120 million since last week to a peek of 180 million now. Last 5 as of this post: 180M 155M 175M 175M ~151M (all today) Why can't everyone get it for 151? Because some silly person bought it and relisted it for 175M. The flipper prevented someone else from getting that particular, specific recipe at that lower price. How's that doing the market any good? The only person befitting is the flipper. Even the original seller got shafted, because someone else might have bid a bit more instead of the bare minimum. |
I'm about 95% serious here. I cannot understand how people infer "flipper" from the last five sales. I see prices climbing and I infer "weekend" or I look at bids versus number for sale and reason "rare and/or popular" or I see one sale for 20% less than the rest and I think "lucky buyer."
@EmperorSteele
Do you eat?
Do you grow your own food?
Do you go to the grocery store and buy food?
Do you pay what it actually cost the FARMER (not everyone in between) what it cost him, and not a penny more, for the food you are about to consume?
Do you ever go out to eat?
Do you pay what it actually cost the FARMER (not everyone in between) what it cost him, and not a penny more, for the food you are about to consume?
OMG! The people at the grocery store and the restaurant are EVIL FLIPPERS trying to make a buck off of you! CALL THE GOVERNMENT!!!
Let's flip side this:
Do you have a job?
Do you get paid?
If you do, great! But by your very own reasoning, aren't you f***ing someone, somewhere, out of something?
OMG! You're an evil flipper!!! You're making MONEY - REAL MONEY - by... WAORKING FOR IT!! How DARE you!
Let's just take a hard, serious look at your argument.
FLIPPER BOB wants to flip a respec recipe.
FLIPPER BOB bids 151,000,000 and leaves it there.
FLIPPER BOB is the HIGHEST BIDDER. Therefore, when you go to the market, and you list your respec recipe for 100,000,000, it is sold immediately to FLIPPER BOB because he had the highest outstanding bid.
FLIPPER BOB then re-lists the recipe he JUST OVERPAID YOU FOR for 165 million. (Potential 14mil profit)
Along comes CASUAL PLAYER LARRY. CASUAL PLAYER LARRY can't be bothered to run a respec SF. CASUAL PLAYER LARRY, wants to respec his character because he's a moron and amazingly picked all of the wrong powers. ALL of them. Man, he's stupid.
CASUAL PLAYER LARRY goes to the market, sees that there is a respec recipe for sale and bids 151,000,000 because that's what the last one sold for. You see, we've already established that CASUAL PLAYER LARRY is a moron and couldn't possibly think for himself. He does not win a bid for a recipe because the one for sale is listed at 165,000,000. He doesn't know this, so instead of simply WAITING a few hours, CASUAL PLAYER LARRY decides he needs it NOW! So he cancels his 151,000,000 bid and bids 175,000,000. CASUAL PLAYER LARRY win his bid! And overpaid by 10,000,000. Good job LARRY!
CASUAL PLAYER LARRY has now set a new price point for respec recipes! The next guy who lists one will most likely list it for... 175 mil. THANKS LARRY!
Now - who exactly was "hurt" in this? How exactly was CASUAL PLAYER LARRY screwed? He clearly values the recipe at 175,000,000 or *gasp* HE WOULDN'T F***ING BID THAT MUCH!
You want to know the truth? Here's the truth. Plain and simple. I DARE you to prove me wrong:
Salvage X has sold at 100,000 for the last 5 transactions. So guess what?! People *gasp* LIST it for 100,000k. Not evil flippers. Not marketeers. People who don't know any better!
Salvage X get a chunk listed at 1 inf. These are snapped up by someone with patience. They win all of them for 123 inf.
Along comes the same damn guy who listed his for 100,000 yesterday, and he lists them for 123 today because THAT'S WHAT THE LAST 5 SOLD FOR!!
Yet another thing you fail to comprehend:
When EVIL FLIPPER BOB re-lists his enhancements and recipes, he doesn't list them for what they're selling for. He lists them LOWER that what they're selling for. The people bidding just can't be bothered with putting in a bid that is anything other than what the last 5 say.
I've sold the exact same enhancement 12 times today. I'm asking 15.3. All but 1 has sold for 20 mil. ALL BUT ONE! 11 people could have had them for 15.3 mil. Heck, they could have had them for 16mil with almost no effort. Yet they CHOOSE to pay 20,000,000.
All of this crap is inspiring me again. I think I have found a new way to burn some inf. I'll be holding a contest. Offering to pay people money to price fix some salvage for a week. Just 7 days. Just like they claim the "evil flippers" do all day, every day. Look for this contest by Monday folks! I gotta work out some details here 
No one's gonna like my ideas but...
1 increase the influence cap
2 remove all common IO sets from the drop tables (you can buy them at crafting tables)
3 Put common salvage into vendors at the university for 10k a piece.
Taking commons out of the drop tables would have the added benefit of drastically increasing the amount of set IOs that drop and end up on the market. It may also "force" more players into learning and understanding the benefits of using IOs and crafting. It would piss off the people who like to do some vendoring with their lowbies, but most people have sugar daddies these days anyway.
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What's your logic in implementing a massive price hike for nearly every common in the game?|
Originally Posted by Neogumbercules
3 Put common salvage into vendors at the university for 10k a piece.
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Not saying it's a good or bad idea, just curious about why you think it would be an improvement.
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| Taking commons out of the drop tables would have the added benefit of drastically increasing the amount of set IOs that drop and end up on the market. |
I'm no whiz at drop pools, but generics are common and sets are uncommon or rare, right? I don't think it follows that eliminating commons would mean more uncommon and rare drops.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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I've been annoyed at the massive instability of common salvage lately. On top of that, players not wanting to mess with the market and just get some commons slotted up would be able to avoid the market and AE. On some pieces they'd spend more than on the market, less on others.|
Originally Posted by Nethergoat
What's your logic in implementing a massive price hike for nearly every common in the game?
Not saying it's a good or bad idea, just curious about why you think it would be an improvement. |
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How would removing generics increase the drop rate of set IOs? I'm no whiz at drop pools, but generics are common and sets are uncommon or rare, right? I don't think it follows that eliminating commons would mean more uncommon and rare drops. |
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I've been doing a *lot* of crafting lately and I can count the number of times I've paid more than 5555 k*for a common that isn't Alchemical Silver on one hand, and probably 90% of my 5555 k bids insta-fill, or fill while I'm checking on the rest of my shopping list.|
Originally Posted by Neogumbercules
On some pieces they'd spend more than on the market, less on others.
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The vast majority of commons are junk drops. I don't think it serves our friend the Casual Gamer very well to charge them 10k for junk, even if they occasionally have to pay the outrageous fee of 50k(!) for a higher demand item.
*my default bid for commons is 5555 and 9999 for uncommons- I hate re-typing bids for meaningless amounts
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
I probably get 80% of the salvage I get for 500 inf even.
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Me too, but every time I'm trying to make something and I run across the insanity of 20-50k commons, it grinds my gears. Strictly a personal vendetta.|
Originally Posted by seebs
I probably get 80% of the salvage I get for 500 inf even.
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In other news, I just hit the influence cap on my main money machine for the first time
You could even bid lower than the flipper's low price, and still get stuff, if you were willing to wait a little bit longer. Remember, flippers can't bid too low, as they need turnover. You can wait a bit longer.