Price Fluctuations and Setting Reserves

[Balodoth]

Would it be possible to impliment a system by which we can change the reserve price of an item already on auction without removing it from the auction?

Often prices can rapidly fluctuate on items, and the seller may find himself with an auction slot filled with an item he know will not sell. At this point he can choose to remove it, run to the mog house to retrieve it, and put it back on auction at a new price point, or he can let it sit until time expires to see if maybe the price comes back up. All this can be rather frustrating. How much easier it would be to monitor and adjust items at the auction house.

On S-E's side of things, it could actually end up easier on their system and provide other desirable benefits. For instance, when an item leaves the auction house, it requires an accompanying adjustment to the database of available items. Ideally this would be through purchase, but when not through this method, multiple consequences ensue. The delivery box system is affected, more traffic is created in trips to the mog houses, and the auction house again deals with adding an item. Compare this with merely adjusting the price point of the item.

In addition to the saved work on both the player's and server's sides, consider the impact on the economy. Being able to lower the price stimulates the economy. There may be times when the price is increased (e.g. The reserve was set at 100K when the player meant 1 mil.), but these would be few and far between and would still be for reasonable prices. In other words exchanges of gil would slightly increase, meaning more purchasing power for more players further stimulating the economy. Assuming a small fee was imposed for changing the price more gil could be drawn from the economy, which in turn helps to stabilize inflation. Being a smaller fee than the usual charge for that price point (remember the end date wouldn't change) makes an alteration less of a stigma and encourages dynamic pricing.

And since we're on the subject, submitting an item to the auction house is somewhat redundant. If we could please streamline this so that I don't have to confirm and reconfirm the price and the fee, it would be much appreciated.

[Caspian]

Would it be possible to impliment a system by which we can change the reserve price of an item already on auction without removing it from the auction?

Often prices can rapidly fluctuate on items, and the seller may find himself with an auction slot filled with an item he know will not sell. At this point he can choose to remove it, run to the mog house to retrieve it, and put it back on auction at a new price point, or he can let it sit until time expires to see if maybe the price comes back up. All this can be rather frustrating. How much easier it would be to monitor and adjust items at the auction house.

On S-E's side of things, it could actually end up easier on their system and provide other desirable benefits. For instance, when an item leaves the auction house, it requires an accompanying adjustment to the database of available items. Ideally this would be through purchase, but when not through this method, multiple consequences ensue. The delivery box system is affected, more traffic is created in trips to the mog houses, and the auction house again deals with adding an item. Compare this with merely adjusting the price point of the item.

In addition to the saved work on both the player's and server's sides, consider the impact on the economy. Being able to lower the price stimulates the economy. There may be times when the price is increased (e.g. The reserve was set at 100K when the player meant 1 mil.), but these would be few and far between and would still be for reasonable prices. In other words exchanges of gil would slightly increase, meaning more purchasing power for more players further stimulating the economy. Assuming a small fee was imposed for changing the price more gil could be drawn from the economy, which in turn helps to stabilize inflation. Being a smaller fee than the usual charge for that price point (remember the end date wouldn't change) makes an alteration less of a stigma and encourages dynamic pricing.

And since we're on the subject, submitting an item to the auction house is somewhat redundant. If we could please streamline this so that I don't have to confirm and reconfirm the price and the fee, it would be much appreciated.

Does it make you go get your item from the MH when you manually remove it from auction? Whenever I do it, it just goes into my inventory.
That said, I wouldn't mind seeing being able to adjust the price on the fly, rather than removing it and putting it back up again.
The 'streamlining' and removing the all the confirmation screens would most likely make it even easier for people to put a 10m item up for 1m, or bid too much on the wrong item, etc. Its still gonna happen regardless, but with all the confirmations, it does help to cut down on some.

[tdh]

When you go to the AH, and decide to remove an item, it goes into your inventory. It doesn't get sent back to your /deliverybox. Only goes back there if it doesn't sell.

I wouldn't mind being able to adjust an item like that, but the AH is the only gil sink in the game. It's the only way to get gil out of the players hands really. I mean we've gotten around the taxes in Bazaar with Rolanberry Fields, or we trade items. S-E needs a way to get gil out of our hands, and this is currently the only way to do so.

I give it my "hellz yeah" but I just don't see it happening.

[Balodoth]

You are correct. I apologize for not covering all my details. You can probably guess I haven't removed an item from auction for some time. I'm one of those people who hedge my bets on the price to jump back up. . . or I'm away from the game for a few days anyway.

What I was trying to point out is that a smaller fee to adjust the price makes it more acceptable to players who often count on the selling point to return before their time is up. I've known other players, not just myself, to decide not to put an item back up on auction if it doesn't sell. For players such as this, the benefits of dynamic changes becomes more attractive. And for players who have little problem with this, they in turn will find a 2nd or 3rd alteration to their asking price to be more attractive. I'm not saying exactly what the price difference would be--it could be half or it could be that city's percentage without the flat fee. What it might lose through discount it would make up for in volume. By way of analogy, the current system is similar to alienware selling premium PC's at premium prices. The markup is the revenue. I'm proposing a system more along the lines of Dell. The markup is minimal, but their volume dwarfs Alienware. Where Alienware may make $100 per overclocked PC, Dell makes $10 per normal PC but sells 20 times as much. (Note: These numbers are not factual but meant to illustrate the respective business models.) In an auctionhouse setting, if the system were to make an average 100 gil less per change, it would only require a minimal increase in frequency to make up that loss. And with a dynamic system that sets the fee based on the variance from starting price and time left in the auction, frequency could be greatly affected.

Above and beyond the basic principles, other market habits would support this. People who want to make a quick sale would gladly use this. People who need the slot for something else but don't want to lose this sale would use it. People who see frequent sales above their asking price would use this to compete. And because it's quicker and easier than the current system, it fundamentally speeds the pace of the economy. When you consider it, this would actually have a positive effect on consumables. That in turn means that levelling jobs and crafts become inherently easier. At the absolute worst, the rate of inflation is lowered.

As for the redundancies in placing an item on auction, wouldn't it be easier for it to compare the asking price to the going price and flag it for attention if noticeably different? I'm sorry, but I have become so used to the system that with lag I select my options before they show on the screen.

[Ziero]

I don't see this happening, or any use for it to happen. It would take just as much effort to unlist/relist an item as it would to just change it's price mid AH. It's really an unessaccary change. And the reason there are so many confirmation boxes is to help prevent people from over/under listing their items, though even so people still do it.

[Sabaron]

It's a simple change in a database entry--not terribly difficult to code, just pop the price window and adjust ala bazaar. If it were done, however, I would imagine that SE would still charge you a listing fee as this is one of their biggest gilsinks. I wouldn't mind seeing it though, I love interface tweaks that save time, even if implemented to not change the listing fees (which I would expect).

I would also like to see a "Return to Sender: AH" feature that relists the item automagically and assesses, of course, the appropriate fee from the conveninence of your moghouse, but I doubt that's going to happen. ^^

[Vyuru]

I don't really like this idea...

How much easier it would be to monitor and adjust items at the auction house.

So someone who plays way more than I do and can afford to watch what items sell for on the AH can directly influence the prices, lowering them until he sells his first? Yes, they can do that now, but your idea makes it sound like they would have more control over the process.

Alternatively....

What if SE were to make it so that you only had 7 AH slots per account? and not per character?

I know alot of people right now are mass producing things and selling on 4+ mules, it's a little shocking to hear someone complaining that their 35 stacks of whatever didn't sell.

It's even more shocking to hear people with 10 AH mules complaining that their items didn't sell.

I'm not sure what that would do to peoples selling habits on the AH, there wouldn't be as much supply so I would assume that prices would go up, but items would sell faster due to less competition.

I just don't see why SE would put a limit on how many AH spaces you can have per character, then let people who paid more have more AH spaces. I thought they didn't want outside factors like money to influence the game economy.

[Sabaron]

I don't really like this idea...



So someone who plays way more than I do and can afford to watch what items sell for on the AH can directly influence the prices, lowering them until he sells his first? Yes, they can do that now, but your idea makes it sound like they would have more control over the process.

Alternatively....

What if SE were to make it so that you only had 7 AH slots per account? and not per character?

I know alot of people right now are mass producing things and selling on 4+ mules, it's a little shocking to hear someone complaining that their 35 stacks of whatever didn't sell.

It's even more shocking to hear people with 10 AH mules complaining that their items didn't sell.

I'm not sure what that would do to peoples selling habits on the AH, there wouldn't be as much supply so I would assume that prices would go up, but items would sell faster due to less competition.

I just don't see why SE would put a limit on how many AH spaces you can have per character, then let people who paid more have more AH spaces. I thought they didn't want outside factors like money to influence the game economy.

I don't like that idea at all... I use my mules to sell items in different markets. I don't think I've ever make 14 stacks of anything and tried to sell it all at once, and if I did I certainly wouldn't have the audacity to complain about it when it was, in fact, my fault the market dipped in the first place for doing something most unwise. The most I've ever done was probably selling 30 or so individual X-Potions at once while I was skilling up (not all listed at once, mind you, I kept a running stock of 7 and replenished as they were purchased), but they move very quickly. I also use my mules to import/export regional goods. Implementation on a per-account basis is probably also not intrinsic to the game design and would cause a massive change in the dynamics of the economy. Since I started playing, I've noticed that SE is most wary of doing anything "earth-shaking", so I doubt such an idea would sit well. As for trying to compete with people who can "influence the market" by rapidly changing prices, they can still do it, it just takes a few seconds longer. As I suggested the "repricing" should include the requisite AH fee as well to prevent the feature from turning the AH into the floor of the NYSE.

[ValisOfValefor]

What if SE were to make it so that you only had 7 AH slots per account? and not per character?

Well that would screw over poeple like me and my brother who play on different servers now wouldn't it.

[TenchiHawkwing]

Well that would screw over poeple like me and my brother who play on different servers now wouldn't it.

Probably would, but ya know... the rules you agreed to before starting up your character say you aren't supposed to do that. I don't think Square-Enix would care if they screwed you over since you're not even folllowing their rules.