Guild Wars 2

No to the FIFO system as it people would clog up the system with large orders that prevent people from getting their orders done as well or would take forever. Effectively making price blocking a tactic.

As for the LIFO system… as far as I know it doesn’t work like that. Because I’ve posted items after people and the numbers are ticking down as people buy 1 or 3 or whatever, the sellers don’t change – but I was the last in. So I don’t get my goods sold.

I’ve actually seen both of these things. I have matched the lowest price and gotten thesale before the other seller, which I actually don’t think is fair. I have also listed and seen the listing go down but it wasn’t my item that sold. So… I have no idea how it works. Some clarification would be good me thinks.

AndrewWaltfeld.4621:

No to the FIFO system as it people would clog up the system with large orders that prevent people from getting their orders done as well or would take forever. Effectively making price blocking a tactic.

-First, I was talking about sales, NOT orders. In any case that’s not true because actually people could if they want make a blocking tactic too, making large orders and cancelling-reordering them as necessary.
Between 2 systems which have pros and cons we have to choose the one who is more convenient to the average “legit” player, and LIFO is more fair than a system which is mainly based on luck (to get your item sold or your order completed before anyone comes after you and lists the same order/sale)

AndrewWaltfeld.4621:

As for the LIFO system… as far as I know it doesn’t work like that. Because I’ve posted items after people and the numbers are ticking down as people buy 1 or 3 or whatever, the sellers don’t change – but I was the last in. So I don’t get my goods sold.

Rhaynne.9467:

I’ve actually seen both of these things. I have matched the lowest price and gotten thesale before the other seller, which I actually don’t think is fair. I have also listed and seen the listing go down but it wasn’t my item that sold. So… I have no idea how it works. Some clarification would be good me thinks.

That happens when many people post items at the same time as you, which isn’t uncommon.
Of course some kind of clarification from an insider would be awesome.

This is a LIFO (Last In, First Out) or “Stack” system which is not fair, because the first person to list an item on a fixed price should be the first to get his item sold on that price-range.

Why? Why should the first to list item get the monopoly on the next buyer?

Let me suggest that it simply “seems” like this should be fairest way in which to conduct business but it isn’t fair at all.

When a buyer comes to purchase they don’t care who listed first only who listed lowest. There is no “value” added to the product by listing it first. So why should the system enforce a mechanism that is completely arbitrary.

The “fairest” mechanism would be to randomize which item the buyer buys at a given price point. Both FIFO and LIFO are not as fair as random, and between the two I would pick LIFO over FIFO every time as it is much harder to game.

As far as I can tell (and based on other users’ experience with their own trades, as well as a post or two from John Smith in this forum), the current system is a glitch and is not actually consistent. Sometimes it seems to be LIFO, especially with small order sizes, but there have been other times when I know my most recent order gets filled after others, because it’s an item that’s moving slowly enough to be able to identify individual orders going through by looking at the prices. Others have experienced this, as well, where 5 orders of 50 each will consistently go through faster than (any part of) one order of 250.

But like I said, the current system is also afaik still glitchy, and not actually what is intended.

A random choice among goods at a particular price is perhaps the best fix, because then if there are already a hundred thousand orders, my new one for 50 will at least start going through before all 100k of the existing ones go through (which would be what happens with FIFO). Really, though, there are pros and cons for any option (LIFO, FIFO, random, small orders first, etc.). Probably someone will post here to complain regardless of what they do.

(That said, it would be nice if there were more transparency, so whatever it is they do we at least know about it.)

A random choice among goods at a particular price is perhaps the best fix, because then if there are already a hundred thousand orders, my new one for 50 will at least start going through before all 100k of the existing ones go through (which would be what happens with FIFO). Really, though, there are pros and cons for any option (LIFO, FIFO, random, small orders first, etc.). Probably someone will post here to complain regardless of what they do.

I’d like queue approach.
Like that:
Let’s say we have 10 sell orders at the same price. And queue of buyer with unknown quantities. First buyer goes to first order, if order is completely buyed out – goes to second and others in line. Next order to last order from which first buyer bought, goes to second buyer.
Also, while queue hasn’t reached 10th seller, there is formed another queue for a new sell orders of that price. When reached 10th seller, queue for new sell orders appends to the end of queue of served sell orders, and after that we start from the first seller in queue(and also create new queue for new sell orders on that price).

That happens when many people post items at the same time as you, which isn’t uncommon.
Of course some kind of clarification from an insider would be awesome.

That would be true…except you know… if there’s only me and 2 other sellers listed. So I toss in my order – I see now three sellers. According to your proposal of what it currently – it means my order should be completed first… but it’s not. When the sellers don’t change before or after, I’m not buying that because this isn’t the first or last time it happened to me. This is on multiple occasions. Yes there is a slight chance another seller could finish his order and another replaces him at same time. It’s entirely possible. However this has happened on multiple occasions where the market itself is not moving along for that to happen.

I think they currently deal with small orders first, so if you drop a stack of 250 on there it won’t move as quickly as someone else’s 50, regardless of which of you was first.

I’m almost positive from my experiments that the market processes small buy or sell orders before large ones, and I suspect it is working as intended. It is the equivalent of the “diminishing returns” found with mob farming, but for marketing.

Thus, the “casual” player who puts their 17 copper ore up after running around the starter zone sees it cleared in a few seconds, and goes on their way, happy. The “marketeer” who puts in 10 orders for max stacks of 250 each waits, making it more tedious to earn gold by flipping large stacks of fast traded items. This fits with the design philosophy of the game, that its hard to earn a lot of gold quickly, but you also don’t need a lot of gold to succeed in it.

A separate question, of course, is how it processes multiple buy/sell orders of the same size. Hopefully that would be FIFO.

Kozai.8269:

I’m almost positive from my experiments that the market processes small buy or sell orders before large ones, and I suspect it is working as intended. It is the equivalent of the “diminishing returns” found with mob farming, but for marketing.

Thus, the “casual” player who puts their 17 copper ore up after running around the starter zone sees it cleared in a few seconds, and goes on their way, happy. The “marketeer” who puts in 10 orders for max stacks of 250 each waits, making it more tedious to earn gold by flipping large stacks of fast traded items. This fits with the design philosophy of the game, that its hard to earn a lot of gold quickly, but you also don’t need a lot of gold to succeed in it.

A separate question, of course, is how it processes multiple buy/sell orders of the same size. Hopefully that would be FIFO.

I completely agree with you. Anyway, some clarification from the staff could get us out of doubt.

This thread is outdated and no longer accurate.

It now operates a FIFO system correctly with no priority given to small orders.