Honestly, there’s already been a bunch of threads of people complaining about the new market changes, and I don’t really feel like having to start this conversation back at zero. So, I’m just going to say,
Sigh, I just read more of what you posted
Okay, I liked to .01 isk. I used it to great affect in regional market hubs (i.e. oursalaert, clellinon) to crush the fight out of other traders. Like, I didn’t have to .01 isk war all day every day, I just had to do it long enough for my competition to give up. And quite frankly, I considered it a sign that I was doing it right when people would message me asking if I was a bot. I mean, nothing makes a person give up faster than feeling like they are competing with a program that will never get tired or give up.
Of course, the problem with that is that while people thinking I was a bot was good for me, it was terrible for the game. Moreover, even if they knew I wasn’t a bot, I’m still willing to bet that most players have no desire to sit around updating market orders. Like, I doubt most people would consider this fun gameplay. You know what I’m saying?
So what does this change accomplish? Well, it not only makes using a market bot not worth the risk, which will reduce actual botting, but it also will likely go a long way towards reducing the belief that market botting is more prevalent than it actually is. Moreover, it changes the game so that profitability is more dependent on pricing and location choices, rather than on how much you’re willing to brute force your market orders to the top position.
Now, is this the best way to do it? Meh, I think it’s better for the game than the old system was, but I would have rather gone another route. The problem with my idea, however, is that it would have completely overhauled industry and trade, ended up influencing balance and the meta, and required a butt ton of development resources as a result. So that’s why I never mentioned it. Now it’s possible that there could be a better solution that doesn’t require ridiculous amounts of dev time, but so far every solution offered by the players have had problems of their own. For example, check out this suggestion which was posted about the same time as yours.
Okay, let’s take a look at some of your specific points.
Get out of here. Industrialists already pass production and market costs onto the customers, so why would they stop now? Now, increased prices may reduce consumer spending, but as long as ships keep going boom, people will keep buying stuff. Moreover, the less profit there is in an activity, the less people who do it. This provides a positive feedback loop in industry, because we have a player driven economy, which has prices dictated by supply and demand. So, if you’re truly and industrialist, chill. Everything will be alright. And if you’re a station trader trying to use industrialist as a shield against criticism, you can go pack sand.
Speaking of which, there are some big losers here, and they’re the station traders. Quite honestly, however, I don’t have much sympathy for them. Without getting into it, I do think that some provide a valuable service, but many are just forcefully injecting themselves as middle men so that they can take a cut (and some are just straight up blue fookers). I mean, if you can make money doing it, then good for you. But don’t come in arguing that it’s bad for the game because you can no longer continue to take the same cut of the pie without actually providing any service or product.
I agree. But perceptions of widespread botting can drive people away in droves.
Once again, this is an absurd statement. I mean, it’s so bad that you hurt your overall argument by making it.
Will do nothing to discourage botting, and is easily circumvented by training up additional market alts. FYI, you can currently get around the 5min limit by creating more market orders of smaller stacks. Thus, you can make sure that you always have at least one market order that is ready to update.
This won’t fix anything. People do bot on omega accounts.
Once again, it’s easily circumvented by creating alts. It’s just going to make people accuse CCP of making a shameless cash grab, give more ammo to the players who complain you need alts to compete and be successful, and not actually fix anything.
So, you’re asking that people be forced to train longer just to get things back to the status quo?
Anyway, you can still make a profit, you’re just going to have to adjust your strategy. You can:
- sell with higher margins out of less busy stations
- sell with lower margins out of busier stations
- sell out of upwell structures to reduce your market fees (but increase the risk of lost market fees and having to move your stuff or pay asset safety if the structure is attacked)
- get the security of an NPC station, but pay increased fees as a result.
In summation, adapt or die (or, I guess, come up with a solution that can actually hold water).
I can’t believe I wrote this wall of text after all the other comments I made in other threads. I’m going to start asking ISD’s to start shutting down these threads for redundancy after this one.