Should prices be capped in the AH?
By
Airhammer,
Posted on: 2010-11-26 09:42 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=241464|
Originally Posted by Days_
Also, Fourspeed. You are right, it does sound terribly counter-intuitive and I would be interested in hearing the argument about flippers being stabilizers ( a quick search revealed nothing to me, but I am not entirely certain what I should be searching for).
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Here's a good one!
Try the market subforum for various flippers discussions.
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Let's just pretend that, left alone, Boresights would sell for 250,000 inf. This means there's obviously a hot market for Boresights and people really want them for them to be selling at 250k. If they cap them at the AH for 100,000 inf then any Boresights put on the AH will disappear immediately. This is something folks would pay 2.5x that price so any legitimate ones will be snatched up immediately. So now you still have people wanting Boresights and none on the market so what do people do? They stand by Wentworths in AP or Steel Canyon broadcasting "WTB Boresights 150k each PST!!!" over and over. And you think "I can sell my Boresight for a capped 100k (less fees) at WW or sell it to this guy directly for a cool 150k." Kind of a no-brainer, huh? And the next guy who has money to burn says "I'll buy them for 200k each!" and "I'll buy them for 250k each!" and now you're right back to where you started.|
Originally Posted by Days_
For example, if, rather than a blanket cap, there was a specific cap on common salvage of, say, 100,000. Forgetting any possible technical difficulties in implementing this for the moment; would that really create a black black market outside of the black market?
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Obviously not every item is coveted enough to go over the hypothetical 100,000 cap in the first place so Demonic Blood Samples would continue selling for 1,000 or 10,000 or 25,000 at WW's as usual. But anything that's already being pushed over that level won't magically go down due to a market cap -- you'll just ensure that those items never get listed on the market because it's an instant loss.
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I don't see that happening though as, in order for it to happen, it would require someone to be broadcasting at every AH and BM all the time. I certainly wouldn't be able to be bothered standing by an AH broadcasting just on the off chance that someone would happen past with one and could be bothered to sell them to me in a private transaction. Or am I missing something? |
Originally Posted by Jophiel
Let's just pretend that, left alone, Boresights would sell for 250,000 inf. This means there's obviously a hot market for Boresights and people really want them for them to be selling at 250k. If they cap them at the AH for 100,000 inf then any Boresights put on the AH will disappear immediately. This is something folks would pay 2.5x that price so any legitimate ones will be snatched up immediately. So now you still have people wanting Boresights and none on the market so what do people do? They stand by Wentworths in AP or Steel Canyon broadcasting "WTB Boresights 150k each PST!!!" over and over. And you think "I can sell my Boresight for a capped 100k (less fees) at WW or sell it to this guy directly for a cool 150k." Kind of a no-brainer, huh? And the next guy who has money to burn says "I'll buy them for 200k each!" and "I'll buy them for 250k each!" and now you're right back to where you started.
Obviously not every item is coveted enough to go over the hypothetical 100,000 cap in the first place so Demonic Blood Samples would continue selling for 1,000 or 10,000 or 25,000 at WW's as usual. But anything that's already being pushed over that level won't magically go down due to a market cap -- you'll just ensure that those items never get listed on the market because it's an instant loss. |
I also don't see why the boresights would disappear. If the demand already strips the supply then the only thing that would change would be the price which would, in this case, probably stay at the cap.
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It's not the item that matters. It's the perceived value of the item in relation|
Originally Posted by Days_
I
I would like to know whether people think that anyone would go to such lengths for more every day items? For example, if, rather than a blanket cap, there was a specific cap on common salvage of, say, 100,000. Forgetting any possible technical difficulties in implementing this for the moment; would that really create a black black market outside of the black market? |
to any implemented cap for it...
So, with the current data cap of 2B, do a lot of folks trade, say, damage IOs
off the market? Probably not... There's no real reason to (except for ducking
the 10% fee, which, at that price, isn't very much).
On the other hand, the 3% Glad Armor's perceived value is well above that cap, and
consequently it is traded off-market quite often.
So, if you were going to implement caps by category, ie. salvage, PvPIOs,
purples, what have you, the effect would be the same - based on the ratio
of perceived value of the item to its category cap.
If the cap is really low -- say 5-10K for common salvage, you'd get a different
problem - most folks would probably just delete it - the time involved to
list on the market isn't worth the amount you'd get from the sale.
You can already see this by looking at TOs/DOs/SOs on the market today
(none of these are plentiful, or good sellers on the market).
In short, capping the market, any way you slice it, won't provide the benefit
that most "casual players" hope it would.
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| Also, Fourspeed. You are right, it does sound terribly counter-intuitive and I would be interested in hearing the argument about flippers being stabilizers ( a quick search revealed nothing to me, but I am not entirely certain what I should be searching for). |
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http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=241464 Here's a good one!
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when you get people that clearly don't understand it, but adamantly insist
the way they think it works is fact, and are equally certain that the people
who actually do utilize the technique every day, are wrong (or evil, malicious
liars, depending on the level of vehemence expressed).
For the sake of this thread, I'll leave it alone, since flipping has no actual
relevance to the topic at hand here...
Regards,
4
I've been rich, and I've been poor. Rich is definitely better.
Light is faster than sound - that's why some people look smart until they speak.
For every seller who leaves the market dirty stinkin' rich,
there's a buyer who leaves the market dirty stinkin' IOed. - Obitus.
/idle thought.
is the ability to hold as many items as we do, a part of the problem?
i appreciate elastic supply and demand issues, but it also allows for a significant level of hoarding. perhaps limiting the market slot capacity to 5 instead of 10, and reducing sg bin storage could be beneficial.
/idle thought alert.
Kittens give Morbo gas.
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i don't see how. As it is i'll tend to run out of room during missions and just delete stuff i consider less valuable to make room for new drops. Further reducing my capacity will just reduce the amount i bring to the market.
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Originally Posted by spice_weasel
/idle thought.
is the ability to hold as many items as we do, a part of the problem? i appreciate elastic supply and demand issues, but it also allows for a significant level of hoarding. perhaps limiting the market slot capacity to 5 instead of 10, and reducing sg bin storage could be beneficial. /idle thought alert. |
Dr. Todt's theme.
i make stuff...
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Not really. There's only a couple that see "constant" use so there's no reason to stand outside the WW in King's Row for example. Steel Canyon is popular because it's right near the university so if you're working on crafting badges or something that's a good place to go. Furthermore, once I know that the guys offering to buy my common salvage hang out in SC, why drop it for less money in Talos?|
Originally Posted by Days_
I don't see that happening though as, in order for it to happen, it would require someone to be broadcasting at every AH and BM all the time.
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Way back in the day in another fantasy based MMORPG that pre-dates CoH, there was no auction house. Players wound up creating de facto auction zones based on what was convenient and other players would go there because that's where the action was. It didn't stop anyone from offering to buy/sell stuff in a dungeon six zones over but the real business still took place in these "player auction" areas.
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| I also don't see why the Boresights would disappear. If the demand already strips the supply then the only thing that would change would be the price which would, in this case, probably stay at the cap. |
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This. |
Originally Posted by DSorrow
They are already capped. At 2 billion.
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Why do people keep saying, no caps? We already have a cap.
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
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I've got space issues as is just trying to sell the stuff I gather in normal gameplay on the market, even less space would mean I'd just vendor way more things.
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Originally Posted by spice_weasel
/idle thought.
is the ability to hold as many items as we do, a part of the problem? i appreciate elastic supply and demand issues, but it also allows for a significant level of hoarding. perhaps limiting the market slot capacity to 5 instead of 10, and reducing sg bin storage could be beneficial. /idle thought alert. |
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We have a price cap already- 2b inf.|
Originally Posted by Scarlet Shocker
I've been mulling this around in my head as an idea but I'm not sure how it would or could work - and I can see great benefits and I can see huge pitfalls too - maybe.
But I'm no economist and I'm not sure if I've covered all the bases. At this stage I'm not even sure if I know what the bases are so there are big gaps in my knowledge But it occurred to me that there's a discussion that's worth having here, and just seeing what other opinions are - what benefits and what disadvantages would it give? |
It is instructive to consider how the few items 'worth' more than 2b react to this artificial restraint.
Now extrapolate that behavior down to whatever arbitrary number you decide is "fair".
As an avowed marketeer I fully support price caps- it would vastly increase my profits.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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sg storage already got big time slashed awhile ago from 2500 items per bin to 30 items per bin, most lvl 50 toons can hold almost 2 sg bins worth of items, and if you have all the bonues, then lvl 50 toons can hold 80 (85 with vet badge for 5 more slots), which is nearing 3 sg bins worth, and you can only have max of 18 bins in base|
Originally Posted by spice_weasel
/idle thought.
is the ability to hold as many items as we do, a part of the problem? i appreciate elastic supply and demand issues, but it also allows for a significant level of hoarding. perhaps limiting the market slot capacity to 5 instead of 10, and reducing sg bin storage could be beneficial. /idle thought alert. |
this is also not taking into account the toons vault which is also lvl 50 which can give a single lvl 50 toon about 130 salvage storage which is a little over 4 sg bins
on another note i agree with the others, if i run out of room, i just delete the trash (temp powers, costume recipes, generic recipes, stacks of common salvage, anything else thats filling my inventory preventing drops), i basically completely ignore SOs at lvl 50
i wish they would at least increase salvage sg bins to be consistent with the other 2 types of storage bins so you dont have to have 18 bins of salvage to be useful
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You know that, I know that, lots of forum-goers know that, but lots of new players don't know that. So it would add useful functionality.
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Originally Posted by Siolfir
I can completely agree with the usefulness of being able to unload the "vendor trash" at the market, but without the ability to do that I don't see any need to show what a vendor will pay there.
I already know that at a vendor common salvage goes for 250, uncommon goes for 1000, rares go for 5000, set IO recipes go for level * 1000 for uncommons and 2000 for rares, and common IO recipes above level 20 are worth more than at the market - just showing the price a vendor would pay doesn't add any functionality. |
The best and least destructive way to lower prices would be for the devs to increase the drops rates. You wouldn't have to mess with the market that way.
I'm not sure it's really worth doing though.
Excuse ignorant question: What exactly is "flipping" and why is it bad? Is there a short answer to this?
My understanding is that "flippers" like to list stuff for 1 influence. How is this smart? You can get 250 for it at the vendors.... are they trying to manipulate prices by making it appear that some stuff sells for 1 inf, when it actually is worth at least 250 and so maybe others will give up and list it for 1 inf too?
I have no idea.... I do know that back in the days before we could mail ourselves stuff, several of my lowbie villains made a substantial chunk of change [for a lowbie, anyways] by buying this 1-inf stuff and then vendoring it. It took patience but was definitely doable.
I did feel a little guilty about it though 
The problem with the "I'll trick you into selling low" thing is that people like me may base our prices on how many are for sale vs how many are bidding. If there are two of something and 850 people are bidding, that'll raise my price substantially.
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If you establish a cap that's lower than the Market value then you will get more players buying than did at the higher price which reduces availability. Players can no longer get the item as easily as before and so hoard it more often, reducing availability further. Buyers start to get frustrated because they can't get their item as fast as they'd like and start broadcasting in the AH to see if anyone there has the item they want and and are willing to make a better profit. Later, if their frustration gets high enough they'll move on to global channels. Some entrepreneurial players realizes there's a profit to be made and starts buying and hoarding the item to sell. Eventually the new player market is the more convenient way to buy and sell the item. The above scenario will occur if the cap is significantly lower than the Market Price of the item and if cap isn't significantly lower there's really no point in implementing the cap. Bottom line is, there are solutions which are far less problematic.
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Originally Posted by Days_
I feel like chipping in here.
Like others I will say I have no expertise (or even relevant knowledge) so am more than happy to hear why anything I say is inaccurate and any suggestions wouldn't work. I can understand that having an arbitrary blanket cap wouldn't work as people would go outside the AH to sell things but to my mind this would only happen for specific items such as those PvPIO's that people keep bringing up. I would like to know whether people think that anyone would go to such lengths for more every day items? For example, if, rather than a blanket cap, there was a specific cap on common salvage of, say, 100,000. Forgetting any possible technical difficulties in implementing this for the moment; would that really create a black black market outside of the black market? So would there be an argument for a varied cap for different types of items e.g. common/uncommon/rare salvage each having a different cap? |
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short answer, flipping is buying something and re-listing it for a profit.|
Originally Posted by Bad_Influence
Excuse ignorant question: What exactly is "flipping" and why is it bad? Is there a short answer to this?
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for example, I buy up a bunch of stacks of Widget X for 100 inf and list them at 200 inf, although the theory will scale as high up the food chain as you want to go.
this raises the price floor (which encourages people to sell their junk), lowers the price ceiling (flippers have to undercut the high end if they want turnover) and increases overall supply by keeping stuff in circulation.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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Flipping is buying an item at a low price with the intent of selling it at a higher price. It's seen as bad due to the perception that it raises price but all it really does is reduce the range of values the price will vary by.
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Originally Posted by Bad_Influence
Excuse ignorant question: What exactly is "flipping" and why is it bad? Is there a short answer to this?
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Flipping isn't buying for under vendor cost and vendoring - although that's a very restrictive (ie, low profit) way of doing the same thing. At it's most basic, it's simply "buy low, sell high".|
Originally Posted by Bad_Influence
Excuse ignorant question: What exactly is "flipping" and why is it bad? Is there a short answer to this?
My understanding is that "flippers" like to list stuff for 1 influence. How is this smart? You can get 250 for it at the vendors.... are they trying to manipulate prices by making it appear that some stuff sells for 1 inf, when it actually is worth at least 250 and so maybe others will give up and list it for 1 inf too? I have no idea.... I do know that back in the days before we could mail ourselves stuff, several of my lowbie villains made a substantial chunk of change [for a lowbie, anyways] by buying this 1-inf stuff and then vendoring it. It took patience but was definitely doable. I did feel a little guilty about it though The problem with the "I'll trick you into selling low" thing is that people like me may base our prices on how many are for sale vs how many are bidding. If there are two of something and 850 people are bidding, that'll raise my price substantially. |
By just placing low bids on items you don't ever plan on using, then selling them for whatever you can get for them, you can get a good turnaround. I don't do it myself since I tend to only bid on things that I plan on using for my own characters, but if you look at prices of things (particularly the cost of a recipe vs constructed costs) you can probably figure out some good places to start.
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Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle
it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.
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Originally Posted by Brillig
It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.
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For a more specific example, I recently purchased two Apocalypse Damage Recipes(I think that was the recipe anyways) for 310,000,212 inf and turned around and listed them for 400,000,000. Quick 100 million profit on those two(though not as quick as I was hoping).
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Originally Posted by Nethergoat
for example, I buy up a bunch of stacks of Widget X for 100 inf and list them at 200 inf, although the theory will scale as high up the food chain as you want to go.
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i do a sort of flipping on some alts when i'm putting together their builds but i'm not in a hurry. i'll bid on the pieces i want at about 2/3 to 1/2 the average price and place bids on a few more than i need of each item. Then i periodically check my bids on the alt and any excess pieces get relisted somewhere between what i paid and whatever is the average price. Although it's a very slow flipping, sometimes taking over a week, i usually end up at the very least tripling my initial stake in the process of IOing the build. Which is kind of funny when i think about it. Since i have nearly as much value put into the build as well. |
Originally Posted by MunkiLord
For a more specific example, I recently purchased two Apocalypse Damage Recipes(I think that was the recipe anyways) for 310,000,212 inf and turned around and listed them for 400,000,000. Quick 100 million profit on those two(though not as quick as I was hoping).
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Dr. Todt's theme.
i make stuff...
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As mentioned, flipping is the purchase of one or more items at price X |
Originally Posted by Bad_Influence
Excuse ignorant question: What exactly is "flipping" and why is it bad? Is there a short answer to this?
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followed by the immediate re-listing of those same items at higher price Y.
It is "bad" purely due to mis-perception caused by three mistaken premises.
1> It is often confused with cornering which is a specialty sub-case of
flipping, with an entirely different purpose and methodology intended to
take over and control the supply of an item, rather than simply profit on
the item's current volatility.
2> Players mistakenly think flipping raises Price (period). In fact, it only
raises Floor Price (by recycling the bargain items), but it actually reduces
Ceiling Price and squeezes the entire range towards Normal Price over time,
at which point flipping ceases to be profitable for that item.
3> Given a visible rise in Floor Price, it's an easy, and intuitive leap (albeit
mistaken) to assume the flipper is also the cause of the current Ceiling Price.
In actuality, it is the fact that there already IS a distinct gap between
Floor and Ceiling prices that attracted the flipper in the first place.
So, instead of seeing what it really does, which is stabilize prices and
supply over time, it is often mistakenly perceived as a hostile price
manipulation.
Regards,
4
I've been rich, and I've been poor. Rich is definitely better.
Light is faster than sound - that's why some people look smart until they speak.
For every seller who leaves the market dirty stinkin' rich,
there's a buyer who leaves the market dirty stinkin' IOed. - Obitus.
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Like merit vendors and AMerit vendors?|
Originally Posted by Redbone
To my way of thinking, the only way to "reasonably" cap prices on the AH (outside the data cap of 2 billion inf) woudl be an alternate, influence bades, way to acquire everything. It woudl require a series of vendors who act precisely like the current stores who sell the recipes, salvage and inspirations at a specific price.
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Done. Be Happy
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sorta, but in the opposite way than you propose. Being able to hold more thinsg and being able to have more auction slots would make prices drop (I expect) because the value of selling/buying nao would decrease. We all could 'afford' to be more patient and more 'rational'.
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Originally Posted by spice_weasel
/idle thought.
is the ability to hold as many items as we do, a part of the problem? i appreciate elastic supply and demand issues, but it also allows for a significant level of hoarding. perhaps limiting the market slot capacity to 5 instead of 10, and reducing sg bin storage could be beneficial. /idle thought alert. |
I feel like chipping in here.
Like others I will say I have no expertise (or even relevant knowledge) so am more than happy to hear why anything I say is inaccurate and any suggestions wouldn't work.
I can understand that having an arbitrary blanket cap wouldn't work as people would go outside the AH to sell things but to my mind this would only happen for specific items such as those PvPIO's that people keep bringing up.
I would like to know whether people think that anyone would go to such lengths for more every day items?
For example, if, rather than a blanket cap, there was a specific cap on common salvage of, say, 100,000. Forgetting any possible technical difficulties in implementing this for the moment; would that really create a black black market outside of the black market?
So would there be an argument for a varied cap for different types of items e.g. common/uncommon/rare salvage each having a different cap?
Also, Fourspeed. You are right, it does sound terribly counter-intuitive and I would be interested in hearing the argument about flippers being stabilizers ( a quick search revealed nothing to me, but I am not entirely certain what I should be searching for).