What to do about Market Blockers?
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2011-03-16 10:40 in The Market and Inventions
Or you can have a bind that takes a screenshot with the UI and leaves it turned off when you're done.
bind ctrl+sysrq "screenshotui 1$$screenshot$$screenshotui 0"
Assuming you haven't changed anything else, the PrintScreen button (which is actually called sysrq) will take a shot WITHOUT the UI and Ctrl-SysRq will take a shot WITH the UI.
Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project
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No one will ever control anything in the market. Prices will do what they will. Have fun trying though.
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Originally Posted by Berzerker_NA
Alright I'm having a problem. My screenshots so far don't show the market window. Is there a trick to taking a screenshot that shows my market window? I've just been pushing the "Print Screen" button. I know other people take screenshots all the time that show all of the numbers and everything.
So far there's probably nothing of importance I've missed that won't repeat itself so I can document it again. I just need to figure out how to get it to work right. I just wish I had a screen shot of the original number of offers before I began trying to clear them out. I'm going to use Yomo_Kimyata's definitions from here out. I meant to say that there were approximately 2700 offers out when I started, and I snatched up about 1400 of them with bids under 3000 inf. There were between 1200 and 1300 left after the first night. The number has been dwindling since then as genuine bidders buy out the more expensive stuff. Meanwhile, I clear out all the low offers. That's fine with me. I've been filling up my buy slots with offers under the vendor price. So far I've carried over 200 of them over to the vendor to make room to set up more low offers. The 3000 is not less than the vendor price. The vendor price is 1000. I just did that as a one time thing to clear them out, and I post short-lived bids at that price when I log on just to make sure they're still cleared out. All my standing bids are much lower than 1k. I agree. This is actually the best solution. I started a second experiment seeing if that would work, and it did work very well. I have a toon assigned to buy human blood samples at 1000 and sell them at 20,000. It's not a huge profit for me, but it prevents anyone else from being able to raise the price above 20,000. I'd set it even lower, but I'm mostly just trying to safeguard the price so it doesn't reach absurd levels like 200,000 like it's been doing from time to time over the last few weeks. If everyone who's feeling civic minded would choose a type of salvage, and assign a toon to safeguarding it, the problem I'm all concerned about would probably go away. I still find I've made about a million inf every time I log onto that toon. It's small potatoes, but I'm certainly not losing money. |
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Exsccccccccelent!!! [twiddles thumbs]
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Originally Posted by Berzerker_NA
I'm going to use Yomo_Kimyata's definitions from here out.
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Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a *real* useful invention. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolog...t-sarcasm.html
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Maybe, maybe not. But we have someone willing to test their assumptions. Let's see what Berserker comes up with. I'm already proud of him/her for the mature way they have handled everything from the get go.
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Originally Posted by Sharker Quint 1
No one will ever control anything in the market. Prices will do what they will. Have fun trying though.
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Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a *real* useful invention. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolog...t-sarcasm.html
Be sure you factor into your two types of Buyers, buyers like me. I always bid at least 259 for common salavage with no bidders and 1159 for uncommon salavage with no bidders.
I do this specifcally to buy up the cheap stuff for more than vendor offers just so that people who bother holding salvage I need make more than if they vended.
I appreciate someone making sure that when I need a kinetic weapon or a mathamatic proof I can find one.
I have no idea what effect this would have if everyone did it and frankly don't care. I am only responsible for my actions. It seems right to me so that's what I do.
I tried Fulmen's experiment at buffering salvage and I found it took too much time away from bopping bad guys in the nose and decided to just reward people who list when I can.
I hope the OP comes back to this thread. I'd like to know his results.
Ok, screen shots are in the works. I've taken them, but now I have to figure out how to post them, and I'm just lazy. I know there are sites that will host that stuff.
So far experiment #1 (Crashing the market) has made no progress in a week's time. I was crashing Temporal Sands. I managed to drop the number of offers from 2700 to 1050 during the first three days, but it hasn't budged all week since then. It's about 1150 now, but 100 of those are my offers at 10,000. (None have sold at that price yet.)
I was buying them at 500, and I netted about 600 of them at that price, but I decided to move the price up to 1001 a couple days ago because other buyers were adapting to my price. Vendor price is 1000 inf. So far I have refused to pay more than 3000 to buy up the existing supply.
Possible next move: Maybe I'll break down and spend more money by buying up stock that's listed above 3000. Maybe I'll go up to 10,000 and see if that breaks me. (It could theoretically cost up 10 million.... which I'd be very lucky to make back.)
Experiment #2 went really well. (Safeguarding the price of Human Blood Samples)
The toon that posted 100 of them at 20,000 each hardly makes any sales. That should mean the price has been staying within that range.
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Could you expound on this? What do you mean by "crashing the market"? Normally I would expect that to be an attempt to drive prices lower, but I didn't think that was what you were trying to prove/figure out. In fact, I thought you were trying to control a market in order to raise prices. I'm a little confused, I guess, so I apologize for any misconceptions.
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Originally Posted by Berzerker_NA
So far experiment #1 (Crashing the market) has made no progress in a week's time. |
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a *real* useful invention. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolog...t-sarcasm.html
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I overpay for salvage on the market as well. I figure if I can't be bothered to list all my common salvage on the market, then the person who can be bothered to do it deserves a little something extra. 1,000,000 for a stack of 5 Runes? Sure, why the hell not?
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Originally Posted by DevilYouKnow
I do this specifcally to buy up the cheap stuff for more than vendor offers just so that people who bother holding salvage I need make more than if they vended.
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Good point. I guess it's the opposite of crashing. |
Originally Posted by Yomo_Kimyata
Could you expound on this? What do you mean by "crashing the market"? Normally I would expect that to be an attempt to drive prices lower, but I didn't think that was what you were trying to prove/figure out. In fact, I thought you were trying to control a market in order to raise prices. I'm a little confused, I guess, so I apologize for any misconceptions.
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Update: Friday evening I decided to take the plunge and spent 4 million inf to clear out all the Temporal sands that had been listed for less than 10,000 inf. That still leaves 300 offers from other sellers. I relisted 210 of them of my own for 10,000 each, and ... to my amazement... I sold 6 of them!!!!!!
So, then I took them back down and relisted them for 12,500. Haven't sold any at that price.
Basically I've spent a total of about 5 million inf so far, and made 54,000 inf back. So the experiment is not going well.
If something changes, I am taking screenshots now and I'll start posting them, but right now it just doesn't seem to be worth the effort. Why do all that just to document a failure?
It's mad science: there are no failures, only exciting and unexpected results!
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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It's not good science to declare "I am doing an experiment to prove that X works in Y way", and then only post the results if the experiment shows X working in Y way.|
Originally Posted by Berzerker_NA
Basically I've spent a total of about 5 million inf so far, and made 54,000 inf back. So the experiment is not going well.
If something changes, I am taking screenshots now and I'll start posting them, but right now it just doesn't seem to be worth the effort. Why do all that just to document a failure? |
Science works by going "I am doing an experiment to find out if X works in Y way", and then publishing the results either way. If the experiment is well-designed, then regardless of the outcome you always have valuable new data on X.
Character index
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That's how the cookie of science crumbles. Still, negative results aren't the same as failures -- supporting or disproving your hypothesis are both interesting and useful outcomes.|
Originally Posted by Berzerker_NA
Basically I've spent a total of about 5 million inf so far, and made 54,000 inf back. So the experiment is not going well.
If something changes, I am taking screenshots now and I'll start posting them, but right now it just doesn't seem to be worth the effort. Why do all that just to document a failure? |
Also, you should definitely keep the screenshots. Then when someone shows up in a few months time to decry the evil market manipulators who are manipulating salvage prices to make piles of inf, you can point them to the thread with actual evidence. Much better than just having a bunch of forum regulars go 'yeah, that probably isn't going to work out too well for you'.
Arc#314490: Zombie Ninja Pirates!
Defiant @Grouchybeast
Death is part of my attack chain.
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I bid 275 and 1200 so that the seller gets the same net profit they'd get if they sold at a vendor -- paying them the 10% fee from the market .|
Originally Posted by DevilYouKnow
Be sure you factor into your two types of Buyers, buyers like me. I always bid at least 259 for common salavage with no bidders and 1159 for uncommon salavage with no bidders.
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To be fair, though, there is an opportunity cost for slots. The value of that cost depends on what the seller would be doing with the slot otherwise. For most non-marketeers the slots are empty once you've got all the stuff you need for that character (mature 50s, for example).
To really make it worth people's while to list salvage you should probably be paying double what the vendors are paying.
Of course, all that is meaningless when supply is crazily high, like it is with most level 50 common salvage. I've seen 20,000 Kinetic Weapons for sale; there's no need to pay anything extra for them.
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My minimum bid, lately, is 20,000. To the extent that I bid creep at all, it's in huge proportional chunks -- 20k to 100k, 100k to 250k, 250k to 500k, etc. If I'm crafting recipes in stacks to sell for a profit, then of course I'm not going to purchase loads of white salvage for half a million a pop, but if I'm buying to craft something for my own use? Yeah, why not?|
Originally Posted by Rodion
I bid 275 and 1200 so that the seller gets the same net profit they'd get if they sold at a vendor -- paying them the 10% fee from the market .
To be fair, though, there is an opportunity cost for slots. The value of that cost depends on what the seller would be doing with the slot otherwise. For most non-marketeers the slots are empty once you've got all the stuff you need for that character (mature 50s, for example). To really make it worth people's while to list salvage you should probably be paying double what the vendors are paying. |
As you say, slots are at a premium, especially -- and perhaps perversely -- for those who are just playing the game in a so-called "normal" way. (Not going to any especial effort to marketeer, not using alts except to sell their own drops.) It's nice to reward people for listing salvage. You have to craft an awful lot before even ludicrously high prices for common salvage will begin to make a noticeable difference to a player with any considerable wealth -- or even for most any player who spends any considerable length of time playing level 50 characters semi-efficiently.
The thing about the market that is most difficult (I think) for some people to grasp is that we're using fake money. That may sound like a painfully obvious point, and on a superficial level, it is painfully obvious -- but what's perhaps less obvious is a natural consequence of that basic truism: There is no firm basis to assume that players on the CoH market are rational actors. If overspending by a factor of 10 or even 100 or 1,000 saves me a minute or two of my coveted game time, then I may very well decide to save the time. The only truly valuable asset on the CoH market is time. The cost of CoH items in pixellated cash is only relevant to the extent that its value correlates with time spent earning it.
And in the case of common salvage, the time we're talking about is almost always vanishingly small. That rule generally holds true whether you're the seller or the buyer. And that's largely to blame for the sometimes wild variance in salvage prices. It ain't conspiracy -- which is by definition a carefully considered process. Quite the opposite.
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Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze
Nice build
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If you need some operating capital to keep going, Berzerker, please feel free to hit me up (send me a tell in-game at @EricNelson, or a PM here, whatever works for you) and I'll be happy to ship you whatever funds you would like so you can keep at it. Science is a harsh mistress, after all, and she needs her shiny baubles! |
Originally Posted by Berzerker_NA
Update: Friday evening I decided to take the plunge and spent 4 million inf to clear out all the Temporal sands that had been listed for less than 10,000 inf. That still leaves 300 offers from other sellers. I relisted 210 of them of my own for 10,000 each, and ... to my amazement... I sold 6 of them!!!!!!
So, then I took them back down and relisted them for 12,500. Haven't sold any at that price. Basically I've spent a total of about 5 million inf so far, and made 54,000 inf back. So the experiment is not going well. If something changes, I am taking screenshots now and I'll start posting them, but right now it just doesn't seem to be worth the effort. Why do all that just to document a failure? |
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StainedGlassScarlet - L50 Spines/Inv Scrapper | Badges: 1,396
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How can you safeguard? All it takes is one buyer bidding 200,000 to make the price 200,000 (which would most likely go to someone listing for under what yours are listed at.)
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Originally Posted by Berzerker_NA
I'd set it even lower, but I'm mostly just trying to safeguard the price so it doesn't reach absurd levels like 200,000 like it's been doing from time to time over the last few weeks.
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It's safeguarding against people being UNABLE to buy at a lower price. Or at least against the first few people being unable to buy at a lower price.
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
Oh. Okay, I get it now. Thanks
[QUOTE=Captain_Karate;3545728]
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