Curse

Aeon221 · Apr 04, 2007, 05:43 AM // 05:43

I'd also recommend any floors/ceilings in the prices of goods be removed.

Here are projected beneficial effects:

-Cheaper materials, dyes, inscriptions and runes, as there would be less incentive to hoard.
-Zero time spent in spamming for the above.
-Traders accurately reflect market price of goods.
-Market more difficult to "game".

Newer players especially would benefit from these changes, as they are generally the ones mass farming and selling materials/dyes. While I understand the RP justification behind having the traders act as market makers (per NASDAQ), and the implicit malus on farmers by enforcing player-player interaction to make sales and preventing them from instantly selling their goods, no benefit accrues to general players from this change. In fact, it assists farmers by forcing higher market prices due to inane transaction costs. The margins from material sales are in general minuscule, and there is little joy in spamming wtb or wts X.

Therefore remove the ceilings, the floors, and the difference between trader buy/sell prices and allow the market to handle things.

If sufficient people are interested, I'd be happy to conduct a survey to discover exactly how much time/money is wasted, complete with multiple linear regression modeling.

edit: Don't cry, this time I'm not going to make fun of you lot.

Not A Fifty Five · Apr 04, 2007, 07:47 AM // 07:47

/signed

Due to the difference all people due is price arbitration anyways. One way I used to make money was buy low/sell high ectos

Market price buy 8k. market price sell 6k

"WTB ectos 6.5k"

"WTS ectos 7.5k"

MithranArkanere · Apr 04, 2007, 11:47 AM // 11:47

Already suggested.... I still remember my answer:
Currently, it seems that each item has a 'maximum' and 'minumum' separate sell(give to the trader) and buy(take from the trader) prices.
For a dye: 10 give, 100 take. That is 100% difference!
So who would sell dyes to the trader if they pay such a pittance!

So I calculated a bit. And I found that if they forget about the 'giving' price and they use the 'taking' price as a base... the right price for 'giving' would be
roughly 20% of the 'taking' prince.
Would you spam for ours in an outpost to sell a dye for 90g when you can get it for 80 in the trader?
Would you wait for people to sell a dye for 90g when you can get it from the trader for 100g?
Well... if someone still do that he has a serious problem!

Since the maximum prices in traders are around 30..50k for Superior vigor runes, 20% would still do the trick:
50000<-->40000
30000<--->24000
This would make more things go to traders... thus reducing the spam a bit.

Along with that, I'll make impossible to sell items with traders to normal merchants if they are not considered when selling to them (if the selling to normal merchants acts like selling to traders, then this is not necessary).

Epinephrine · Apr 04, 2007, 12:04 PM // 12:04

@MithranArkanere: 100 isn't 100% more than 10, nor is 10 100% less than 100. 10 is 90% less than 100, or 10%, and 100 is 900% more than 10, or 1000%. And I think you mean 80%, not 20%.

I agree that the current setup is ludicrous, but the difference between buy/sell prices is there to ensure that there isn't much stock market playing going on. Otherwise one could profit from small changes in value, making it worthwhile to hoard and play stock market.

The gap is however too large - to the point that it pushes buy/sell spamming. I'd be happy with a small difference, but I'm not sure how small it can be to make it worthwhile. Having tried market speculation with the release of Factions (I bought over 500 dyes prior to release, expecting the prices to skyrocket) the buy/sell difference was a killer - sure, the price of dyes more than doubled, I should have made a bunch of money, but the trader price was still only about 10 gold higher than the old purchase price. I'd have had to spam for days to try to liquidate at any profit, I essentially broke even. So if the current difference is to reduce the feasibility of market speculation, it works pretty well.

MithranArkanere · Apr 04, 2007, 01:51 PM // 13:51

Well... currently, anytime an event gives out dyeable hats... I sell the dyes...
I can get tons of money that way, anyway...

I meant 20% difference, that is 100-80=20. But that's not the problem, you get the idea anyways with my examples.

But I think of this idea more of a way to make traders more used and to reduce spam in cities, more than a way to cahnge market.

I never care about the market in no way than making thing cheaper.

Antheus · Apr 04, 2007, 02:28 PM // 14:28

If you remove the difference, you give players unlimited money.

Here's the process.

1) choose a price
2) While current price = chosen price buy item
3) While current price > chose price sell item
4) Go to 2)

This gives you a no-risk no-loss guaranteed profit. It can also be macroed very reliably.

Quote:

If sufficient people are interested, I'd be happy to conduct a survey to discover exactly how much time/money is wasted, complete with multiple linear regression modeling.

Before doing this, take a look at "feedback loop stability", something the proposed system deliberately removes.

Aeon221 · Apr 04, 2007, 03:37 PM // 15:37

@Antheus:

If I'm reading you right (and feel free to elucidate your response, as it was too short and ambiguous for me to be certain), you are assuming a no risk scenario in which an individual forces the market to adjust upward through short buys, and then profits from it.

Your assumption of zero risk is flawed, as this is a perfectly competitive market, and the behavior of other market participants would (or at least should) offset the strategy of the market manipulator. Furthermore, the returns on such a strategy would be minuscule, and the amount of money required to enact it would be fairly massive (based only on anecdotal experience. I tried seeing how much material it took to adjust the price of iron, and gave up after selling about 40 stacks with no change).

However, if you are suggesting speculation in which an individual buys, waits, and then sells to the trader after the prices increase, I'm not sure what the problem is. Speculation always has its risks, and a change in market structure to eliminate transaction costs should in fact lower the gains from such behavior as the market will have a much smaller standard deviation.

Furthermore, the drop in asset valuation should also achieve a pet goal of Anets: reducing liquidity in the market.

EDIT: I'd like to add that the potential for exploitation of a superior system should not count against it. The current system is already easily exploited, but adds significant transaction costs. Lowering these costs also reduces the potential for exploitation.

@MithranArkanere:

You are spewing gibberish. It isn't even sensible gibberish. If you don't agree, at least give a reason other than bad math.

@Not A Fifty Five:

You hit the nail on the head. I'd like to remove arbitration of commodities in order to reduce prices and save time for everyone. The next step would be eliminating arbitrage of weaponry, but I'm saving my ideas on that for a later date.

Fender · Apr 04, 2007, 03:49 PM // 15:49

the difference is there as a gold sink