What do you think would happen in the marketplace if you had to change the per item price of your market order by a minimum of .5%? One of the things that always bothered me about industry is selling my own merchandise. Of course I had to monitor my orders regularly and beat everyones price. Sometimes by .01 isk. It doesn’t really make sense that we’re able to do that, or that people would always go for the lowest priced item, even if they were only saving .01 isk on items that cost millions of isk. It is human nature I suppose.
So what happens if the minimum price adjustment is .5%? People would put up new orders that beat the current orders by .01 isk for sure. But when you beat their price it would be a significant change. This exchange of price adjustments would only go on for so long before one party decides to stop.
I should have prefaced this by saying that this is just “an idea”. I’m not supporting this idea by claiming it as the perfect solution. The constant .01 isking in the market is a silly thing that I think we should all admit.
I think what he’s trying to say is that it’s annoying as hell that people are always beating your price by .01 ISK and you need to readjust your price multiple times a day to make sure it actually sells, esp. in high-volume systems like Jita. It’s worth considering if there should be a mechanism to prevent, discourage, or penalize that kind of behavior. Examples: require a new order to be a minimum percentage different from an existing order, or have the market “hide” orders of the same/similar price bracket so when you purchase an item the transaction is done on a first-come-first-served basis. (I’m not advocating these ideas just bringing them up for discussion.)
I know Runescape implemented similar controls over 10 years ago and they worked fantastic to prevent these very issues.
Then maybe OP isn’t cut out for station trading in Jita.
I don’t see why the game needs to change just because he’s annoyed at something. If it’s gamebreaking issue, maybe, but just being annoyed? Come on.
Have to agree with Scoots. OP is annoyed that someone beats him by a small amount. So what? That’s called “being outplayed.” It’s not a bug.
If that sort of thing bugs you, don’t be a trader. Or don’t trade in high-volume hubs like Jita. Or maybe find one of those traders and arrange to sell to them directly at some compromise price between the buy/sell for the hub.
My trading alt would be happy to talk with you about buying your output directly. Message me in-game and I’ll put you in touch with him.
Interesting proposal. I know most people seem to be saying it doesn’t change anything but it does.
First, I’d like to point out that market orders are always provided by the lowest seller. If your best friend is selling an item for 1,000 ISK and there’s another seller in the station listing it at 999.99 ISK, it’s actually impossible to buy from your friend. Even if you place a 1,000 ISK buy order that money goes to the lowest seller and not your friend. This is why cutting someone by 0.01 ISK works. It’s literally impossible to sell if someone has you beaten even by 0.01 ISK.
OP is right. When selling an item for millions of ISK, that 0.01 ISK undercut is insignificant but it prevents you from selling. In a busy system you’ll end up with dozens of people adjusting their sell orders by fractions of an ISK because of the mechanics of buy/sell orders. Buyers can’t buy a more expensive listing even if they wanted to. Essentially, the seller who spends the most time updating their sell orders wins. The costs associated with constantly micromanaging sell orders is insignificant, only the time spent doing it matters.
So what would this rule change? It creates an ISK cost for constant undercutting. On a 1 mil ISK item you’d have to undercut by 5,000 ISK. Now if you want to be lowest seller you actually have to be willing to lose potential profit in the name of a quick sale instead of just being about who can babysit their orders the most.
Of course this would probably tank markets since a lot of players just want a sale. Alternatively you can achieve the goal by having a percentage based broker’s fee for price changes. It still adds a cost to micromanage orders while preventing steep market dives. Instead you’ll just get naive players going broke paying broker’s fees.
One could argue that OP should just “stop being a wuss and tough it out”. Life isn’t fair, deal with it, blah blah blah. A valid point to be sure. @Scoots_Choco is not wrong in his sentiments. To a large extent many others and I agree with him.
Here is where I disagree with him and align myself more with OP and @Nysta_Miityew: Just because the current system is realistic in its cut-throat nature and works just the way it is without change (“not broken = no fixes”) doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement or at least debate for innovation, however fruitful or unyielding it may be.
On this particular issue, there is no perfect solution that will either address it completely or satisfy everyone - we will always disagree on how this should be addressed, if at all. However, if steps could be taken to prevent, discourage, or penalize this behavior to a significant enough extent that makes marketing more fair and less tedious, I think that would be both an overall improvement and even an increased challenge for all those involved.
Think about it: Seller A posts the lowest price. Seller B posts his product .5% lower with new mechanics (as an example). Now Seller A has to decide if he wants to undercut his margins by going even lower than that. The stakes are higher since we’re no longer talking pennies here. For cheap items this isn’t a big deal(there is only so low you can go; there already exists a “hard limit” without the need for such mechanics) but for large volumes of pricey items it very well could be. The same is true for all future sellers: >>>if<<< margins are razor thin, do they really want to go that low? With pennies they had that level of control, with the idea we’re proposing they do not. Unfair to them? I don’t think so: the early bird gets the worm, and THAT is a cut-throat reality of the real world that I think is more fair for us to rely on in EVE than the beat-you-by-the-penny game.
Correct. Active players will always beat out non-active players. That strikes me as the way it should work.
Why is that an improvement? You’re just penalizing the active traders to benefit the less-active traders. Why should we want to do that?
Yep.
Neither you nor the OP have even attempted to make the case as to WHY we should increase the cost of “micromanaging” orders. The active trader is already devoting a lot of time. What is the rationale for making it expensive?
I wasn’t attempting to make that point just wanted to show that the market is currently design to reward micromanagement. Whether that’s a bad thing or not is debatable. i agree that the game should reward active players but I also think it’s a little ridiculous that it takes thousands of price changes before a buyer actually sees a significant change.
For example. I believe one person can make a price change once every minute. If two people spend 8 hours undercutting each other by 0.01 ISK at the end of the day the item will now be 9.60 ISk cheaper. And who makes the sale? Depends on the exact minute the order is placed. It’s not really thoughtful or engaging gameplay. No strategy is required. It’s not necessarily a bad thing though.
Economically speaking, prices SHOULD be relatively stable. Wild swings in prices are a sign of a broken market, not a healthy one.
Small correction: once every five minutes.
Yep, there’s a certain randomness to it. That’s part of what makes it a game rather than a job.
Some people like it. Just like some people like PvE, or industry, or hauling. The gameplay is the competition, not the mechanics of what you’re doing.
For instance, market trading is ALWAYS PvP, and thus is always going to be more mentally interesting than, say, mindlessly running Level 2 missions in a Tengu.
That’s not quite true. Knowing when to compete is a strategy. Knowing what to be invested in is a strategy. Knowing who your competition is, and adjusting your actions accordingly, is strategy.
Understood. Thanks for explaining where you’re coming at it from.
That’s a very good point! I recently bought some items with LP and was selling them on the market. Most sold within a few days. Two items haven’t sold yet. The market is too flooded with those items and after undercutting the lowest price by 0.01 ISK I’ll come back soon after to see I have been undercut…by 15 people! I’ve changed the price on it so many times and have since decided it’s not worth the time. My items will sell when they sell, but I’ve noted on my spreedsheet that the item takes forever to move.
I agree with that. It’s splitting hairs to debate over day-trading mechanics. It’s much better off dealing with the big issues.
I’m not the most experienced or devoted trader, but I sell everything I want to sell. Some stuff take seconds to sell, others take days, rarely it takes longer. For me there is no need to change the mechanics.
I tried to make it clear in the original post. That activity of reviewing orders and adjusting prices by .01 isk is not fun (for me). I think if there were a .5% rule or another mechanic that could prevent this there would actually be a better market; A market in which the most efficient seller would sell at the lowest price instead of everyone selling at a price within 3 isk of each other. Undercutting someone else’s price by .01 isk isn’t risking anything and doesn’t engage in any kind of risk/reward thinking. (It’s also not fun)
Do not be discouraged by the hardcore Darwinists of EVE. They feel that that if things are not egregiously bad then they shouldn’t be touched; otherwise it’s okay if your bed sheets are made of sandpaper and your mattress is a bed comprised of thorns.
While their opinions do matter, they don’t usually provide constructive feedback toward formulating possible solutions for the ultimate yay-or-nay moment. It’s totally fine if a proposal ultimately gets shut down, but it does get annoying when the hardcore Darwinists try it shut it down during the brainstorming and prototyping phase. Hang in there! Focus on working with those of us who are trying to help you make things better, not those who are trying to boo you off stage.
