Guild Wars 2

As a new player, I’ve mostly been impressed with how the TP is implemented. It works pretty well to let people get the gear they want and get rid of stuff they don’t. I like the option of either optimizing my return or achieving “instant gratification”.

One problem with it though is the lack of minimum increments, which leads to micro-sniping that wastes everyone’s time. You decide you want a sword, so you put in an offer for 50 silver, and then six hours later you haven’t gotten your sword, so you look at the item and find a bunch of offers for 50s1c, 50s2c, etc. So you have to cancel your offer and try again.

Same happens with selling.

This is annoying because these aren’t really higher bids for all intents and purposes, they are basically saying “me too, oh, and by the way, me FIRST”. It also provides a huge advantage to people who “play” the TP over those who want to actually use it to exchange items. I admit that I play the TP a bit myself (I find it fun) but even so I’d prefer there were minimum increments, which would cut down on some of the silliness and also force people to think more carefully about what they’re really willing to pay for an item.

You should still be able to say “me too” and match an existing high bid or low offer, but to go higher or lower you should need to have a difference of say, 5%.

(Reminds me of this scene from one of the Game of Thrones books. Spoilers redacted.)

—

“Who will open for this pair?”

“Three hundred,” bid a matron on an antique palanquin. “Four,” called a monstrously fat Yunkishman from the litter where he sprawled like a leviathan.
…
“And one,” said a crone in a violet tokar. The auctioneer gave her a sour look but did not disallow the bid.
…
“Four-fifty,” came the bid. “Four-eighty.”

“Five hundred.”
…
“Eight hundred.”

“And fifty.”

“And one.”
…
“One thousand,” bid the grotesque fat man.

“And one.” The crone again.

If you really need that item to sell fast, sell it to the high buyer, otherwise be prepared to wait. The 5% listing fee locks in those sell offers. If I undercut you by a penny and someone else undercuts me by a penny, we are in the same boat, and neither of us can jump the queue,as it were, without paying another 5% listing fee.

I will undercut others by a penny. I expect the same from other traders. Anything else is simply not marketsmanship.
//Portable Corpse

Isengard bids 5.

If you are having trouble selling items in the time frame you desire at a particular price because of folks undercutting by 1c, either your time frame or your price is wrong. You’re approaching the TP as if it was an AH instead of a commodities market.

If there is demand for what you’re selling at the price you’re asking, it will eventually sell at that price. If there’s enough supply that folks can undercut you for longer than you’re willing to wait for a sale, your price is too high.

You guys are missing the point, which is that the ability to undercut by an insignificant amount simply leads to noise in the marketplace, and a system that, in effect, awards people for being later to offer at a particular price than earlier.

If I offer an item for sale at 7g 43s 99c and someone else offers it at 7g 43s 98c, we are essentially offering it at the same price, but the second seller will go before mine. If 20 other people later jump in at 7g 43s 97c, 7g 43s 96c, etc., my item could sit for days before it moves — even though it’s essentially the same price. The same happens with purchases.

This is why markets generally have mimimum increments.

I agree. The way this system punishes those who offer / list first by making it completely negligible for others to “jump ahead” by offering a single copper more / less is rather irritating.

If someone wants to jump ahead of an existing offer / listing, it should at least cost them something to do so. Otherwise its just rewarding posting later, or getting lucky (if you happen to list / offer at the same time as someone else buys or sells, before you get undercut).

Qaelyn.7612:

You guys are missing the point, which is that the ability to undercut by an insignificant amount simply leads to noise in the marketplace, and a system that, in effect, awards people for being later to offer at a particular price than earlier.

If I offer an item for sale at 7g 43s 99c and someone else offers it at 7g 43s 98c, we are essentially offering it at the same price, but the second seller will go before mine. If 20 other people later jump in at 7g 43s 97c, 7g 43s 96c, etc., my item could sit for days before it moves — even though it’s essentially the same price. The same happens with purchases.

This is why markets generally have mimimum increments.

I think you’re missing my point. The prices are all essentially the same, so if there is more demand than the supply being put on the market, all of those essentially the same price items will sell. If there is more supply than demand, only a portion of those essentially the same price items will sell and the price should be dropping. There might be something to the idea that the price should drop in slightly larger chunks, but I think it’s better to err on the side of more granularity than introduce an artificial price bias.

Pandemoniac.4739:

I think you’re missing my point. The prices are all essentially the same, so if there is more demand than the supply being put on the market, all of those essentially the same price items will sell. If there is more supply than demand, only a portion of those essentially the same price items will sell and the price should be dropping.

They’re all the same, but those who jump in later will sell their items sooner, sometimes MUCH sooner, than those who listed earlier. And because the increment is so small as to be meaningless, there is no way to combat this other than being willing to sell for far less or buy for far more.

Pandemoniac.4739:

There might be something to the idea that the price should drop in slightly larger chunks, but I think it’s better to err on the side of more granularity than introduce an artificial price bias.

There is no “artificial price bias”. If you see an item listed for 9g 50s, you can also list it for 9g 50s. You just can’t list it for 9g 49s 99c.

All functional exchange systems have rules to prevent that sort of nonsense. Either in the form of minimum increments, or through more complex systems that allow automatic increases in bid or sell prices. I suggested the increments because they are simple to implement in a system like GW2’s.

I think the system would benefit from this overall.

Qaelyn.7612:

Pandemoniac.4739:

I think you’re missing my point. The prices are all essentially the same, so if there is more demand than the supply being put on the market, all of those essentially the same price items will sell. If there is more supply than demand, only a portion of those essentially the same price items will sell and the price should be dropping.

They’re all the same, but those who jump in later will sell their items sooner, sometimes MUCH sooner, than those who listed earlier. And because the increment is so small as to be meaningless, there is no way to combat this other than being willing to sell for far less or buy for far more.

Pandemoniac.4739:

There might be something to the idea that the price should drop in slightly larger chunks, but I think it’s better to err on the side of more granularity than introduce an artificial price bias.

There is no “artificial price bias”. If you see an item listed for 9g 50s, you can also list it for 9g 50s. You just can’t list it for 9g 49s 99c.

All functional exchange systems have rules to prevent that sort of nonsense. Either in the form of minimum increments, or through more complex systems that allow automatic increases in bid or sell prices. I suggested the increments because they are simple to implement in a system like GW2’s.

I understand why you think this is a solution even though it isn’t. Without trade data it’s very difficult to see what is actually happening to the price. It is extremely likely if you see a list of folks undercutting your price, that there have been far more sales at prices below their prices that you never saw. Changing how much someone can undercut you by does not change the fact that your price is too high. Wait for the supply and demand to shift and prices to come back up, or lower your price.

Without trade information it’s very easy to assume that the only folks preventing you from selling your item are the ones that you see undercutting you. What you’re not seeing are all the sales made by folks that undercut you by even more than a few copper. Your price is too high for the current market if you can’t sell your item because too many other folks are selling it for less.

no.

the lack of min increments encourages players (well, smart ones) to price accurately.

If you are being undercut by 1c and not selling, well your price is too high (chances are so is the undercut). The volume of trade in this game is quite high (IIRC John Smith posted something in the rage of 140,000 ectos move in a single day), so items that are actually priced right clear pretty fast.

If you want to move fast, price to move fast. If you want good value for your item, price to get good value. Don’t complain that you can’t do both in each and every case.

TL:DR Sell for less if you want to sell quick.

No, this system does not encourage accurate pricing. Exactly the opposite. What happens is something like this…

Item’s lowest current price is, say 10g. I put in an offer for sale at 9.50.

I come back an hour later, and someone else has the item at 9.49.99. He’s essentially selling for the same price as me, but will get the first sale when someone comes to the TP and says “give me one at the lowest current price”.

I can then try to relist at 9.25. And guess what will happen? Someone else will jump in with one at 9.24.99. Ad nauseum.

People who actually try to list at legitimately lower increments get penalized. Snipers get rewarded.

You think that makes for a healthy exchange system? I disagree.

And bringing up ectos shows you really aren’t grasping the problem at all. It’s not an issue with high-volume items with low spreads. It’s an issue with low-volume items with high spreads.

I’m no saint, of course — I use the system myself as well. I just think it would be better for all if people who want to undercut an offer had to actually do it rather than skipping to the front of the line essentially for free.

I would like to see this happen. But considering how little the TP improved since release I doubt it will ever happen.

Qaelyn.7612:

No, this system does not encourage accurate pricing. Exactly the opposite. What happens is something like this…

Item’s lowest current price is, say 10g. I put in an offer for sale at 9.50.

I come back an hour later, and someone else has the item at 9.49.99. He’s essentially selling for the same price as me, but will get the first sale when someone comes to the TP and says “give me one at the lowest current price”.

I can then try to relist at 9.25. And guess what will happen? Someone else will jump in with one at 9.24.99. Ad nauseum.

People who actually try to list at legitimately lower increments get penalized. Snipers get rewarded.

You think that makes for a healthy exchange system? I disagree.

And bringing up ectos shows you really aren’t grasping the problem at all. It’s not an issue with high-volume items with low spreads. It’s an issue with low-volume items with high spreads.

I’m no saint, of course — I use the system myself as well. I just think it would be better for all if people who want to undercut an offer had to actually do it rather than skipping to the front of the line essentially for free.

And if neither of them have sold, at 9.50 and 9.49 then neither of them are the right price and you are both too high. If the price was actually 9.50 then yours will sell quickly and the person who undercut you only left money on the table by going lower (both of them would have sold at 9.50 if that was the market price).

If you want to move, price to move (put it up for 8 or 7g the first time), if you want max value then you need to accept a slower pace… and if you can’t price accurately in the first place (9.5g that never moves) then it’s your fault and you should not be protected from your own foolishness.

Sorry if I sound a little harsh, but you are basically asking the system to be dumbed down to your level because you can’t price items right.

The last 28+ page thread about this EXACT SUBJECT didn’t cover it?

Imperatora.7654:

Sorry if I sound a little harsh, but you are basically asking the system to be dumbed down to your level because you can’t price items right.

No, actually I’m not. Sorry that you can’t understand the point I’m making but that is not it.

The stuff I am selling DOES move — as long as I play the same sorts of games as others do and get lucky. In the case of buying, that means every hour or two cancelling my bid and putting in a new one a few coppers higher. That’s dysfunctional.

I don’t mind stuff taking a while to sell. I DO mind stuff taking a while to sell because some guy listed the same item for 0.001% less money 5 seconds after I logged off for the night and then 10 other people did the same to him.

There’s a reason why nearly all bidding-type exchange systems use either a minimum increment or some other system to prevent the sort of behavior I’ve described here. And it’s not because you’re smarter than everyone else, but because everyone recognizes that not having minimum increments is a waste of everyone’s time.

if it does move then what exactly is the problem? That someone else left money on the table to sell slightly sooner? If lots of people are undercutting you it is your fault for listing too high (more listings are being created at that price than are being cleared). The situation you describe basically tells me that someone else could have asked the exact same price as you, sold their item at (nearly) the same time you did, and made MORE money than they did by undercutting (which since it was such a small amount likely did not seriously advance their sale time). I hardly consider someone “paying” to sell a few seconds before I do a serious problem, I call that them being bad traders. They could equally complain that you got more than they did by waiting 5 more seconds to sell.

Honestly, you really have no one to blame but yourself on this.

And yes, nearly all bidding exchanges use a min system because there is an actual person running it and humans have limits. No matter how fast a person talks they can’t possibly hope to clear the volume of items in a whole day that the BLTC sees in a single second. Due to physical human limits, minimums are used to arrive at market value quicker, but it doesn’t change market value in any way. “IRL” auction houses also don’t deal in hundreds, or thousands of the exact same item being listed. Christies may have hundreds of bidders, but they don’t have 20,000 identical Monet’s on the block at once with each seller trying to undercut.

Truth be told, the closest real world analogy to what we have with the BLTC is the stock exchange, which not only allows trade with differences of a single penny, but sometimes fractions there of.

TL:DR: Your stuff is moving, someone else is willing to “pay” more to move faster. If you want to move faster than them, you need to pay more than they do by lowering your price. If you think the price you listed for is the right one, take comfort in knowing that someone undercutting you by 1c is leaving money on the table, not making as much profit as you and only selling a few seconds sooner.

An increase in a minimum bid increment could have a sole effect of decreasing the time to reach equilibrium. There’s other possible outcomes, but this is fairly likely from a well implemented version of that. The increment would likely need to be something like 1% or lower (that is, 1s per 1g in existing bid price). The current micro bidding increments are such a massive pain, and serve no positive purpose on items such as rare/exotic weapons for precursor attempts as well as a number of others. I think we can all agree that items like mithril ore don’t require any changes in bid increment. I wouldn’t mind seeing a 0.5% minimum increment (price match still allowed) for bids on all items worth more than say 50s.

As for sell prices, I would be rather displeased if a similar system were implemented for sell prices. Since sale prices already have controls in place to punish constant reposting and undercutting of items (via the posting fee) there’s no meaningful positive impact the change would make.

It only helps reach equilibrium in situations with a small bidding pool. About the only items with volume low enough for such a system to have a positive effect is the legendary market. Even the volume of precusors is too fast for a min increment to be a positive thing.

Imperatora.7654:

It only helps reach equilibrium in situations with a small bidding pool. About the only items with volume low enough for such a system to have a positive effect is the legendary market. Even the volume of precusors is too fast for a min increment to be a positive thing.

Wholeheartedly disagree. The only items that wouldn’t see a benefit are those under 50s and cores/lodes. With exotic daggers alone there’s 17 items which have > 2g profit margin on a flip and another 12 with at least 40s in flip profit. The Soldier’s and Magi’s Pearl Carver have approximately 50% profit margins on flip investments. These items, after about a year of fairly stable prices still haven’t reached a full equilibrium. While the existence of economic profit in these markets is to be expected, items with the volume these have shouldn’t have nearly so large a spread. Preventing 1c increments in bid (for Soldier’s Pearl Carver a 0.5% minimum would be 91c increments, you could even drop that rate to 0.1% for mere 18c increments) would dramatically reduce that spread without having a meaningful impact on the sell price.

To reference back to another thread, these items are Ohoni’s dream market. Because the success rate at filling bids is so low, there’s not enough competition for bids to drive them up to a reasonable level. Flippers require more than a 50% margin because the effort and time investment required to make a successful transaction are so great that it’s more efficient to invest in other items.

/note, “equilibrium” isn’t exactly the word I’m looking for, but I’m sure the majority of the BLTC forum posters understand the concept I’m alluding to
//edit: speeling

Undercutting isn’t a problem if you A ) price attractively to begin with and B ) don’t mind waiting.

If it’s a popular item it’s no big whoop if your’s isn’t bought first, especially if you are talking about a multi gold value item and the undercut is only a copper.

Undercutting on sales by a copper, even on 1000+g items is a nonissue in my book. The 5% listing fee makes this a ‘put your money where your mouth is’ item.

For bids… Tired of someone outbidding you by 1 copper? Then buy from the low seller, or increment from the high buyer by more than a copper. Your competition has price points, same as you.

Syeria.4812:

Imperatora.7654:

It only helps reach equilibrium in situations with a small bidding pool. About the only items with volume low enough for such a system to have a positive effect is the legendary market. Even the volume of precusors is too fast for a min increment to be a positive thing.

Wholeheartedly disagree. The only items that wouldn’t see a benefit are those under 50s and cores/lodes. With exotic daggers alone there’s 17 items which have > 2g profit margin on a flip and another 12 with at least 40s in flip profit. The Soldier’s and Magi’s Pearl Carver have approximately 50% profit margins on flip investments. These items, after about a year of fairly stable prices still haven’t reached a full equilibrium. While the existence of economic profit in these markets is to be expected, items with the volume these have shouldn’t have nearly so large a spread. Preventing 1c increments in bid (for Soldier’s Pearl Carver a 0.5% minimum would be 91c increments, you could even drop that rate to 0.1% for mere 18c increments) would dramatically reduce that spread without having a meaningful impact on the sell price.

So, it would make sense to only put the minimum increment on items where the lowest ask is above some threshold?

I’m not really clear on exactly how it would work. How would the minimum increment effect folks that are not undercutting? How would the minimum increment be determined? Would we have to add a closing and opening prices or would the increment change based on the lowest ask?

If I have something valuable enough to spend the time pricing it correctly, I almost never price it below the lowest ask. I price somewhere in the median between the undercutters and the next highest cluster and wait for the market to go back up (I’m a long term kind of girl and I don’t like messing with my auctions every day). I’m guessing I could only set a price in an increment of some percentage of the lowest ask?

Yamagawa.5941:

Undercutting on sales by a copper, even on 1000+g items is a nonissue in my book. The 5% listing fee makes this a ‘put your money where your mouth is’ item.

For bids… Tired of someone outbidding you by 1 copper? Then buy from the low seller, or increment from the high buyer by more than a copper. Your competition has price points, same as you.

I completely agree on the sale portion, but for the bidding I wouldn’t just look at it as a convenience factor. Look at level 80 exotic weapons. A large spread doesn’t do anyone any good in that market. It hurts sellers who want to instant sell. It hurts buyers who want to place a buy order for their use of the weapon later. Orders are successfully filled without being 1c overbid so infrequently that not even flippers see a benefit from the spread. The volume in the market simply isn’t high enough to pressure the bid price up to the equilibrium level it would eventually reach in theory.

Personally, I don’t have any problem with leaving the market functioning how it currently does. It is more than “good enough” how it is. However, at least from a theory standpoint, I’d definitely argue that implementing this would improve the market. Ultimately, bid prices on low volume items will always lag because there’s no equivalent cost or penalty for bad bids while bad asks are properly penalized by the posting fee.

Pandemoniac.4739:

Syeria.4812:

Imperatora.7654:

It only helps reach equilibrium in situations with a small bidding pool. About the only items with volume low enough for such a system to have a positive effect is the legendary market. Even the volume of precusors is too fast for a min increment to be a positive thing.

Wholeheartedly disagree. The only items that wouldn’t see a benefit are those under 50s and cores/lodes. With exotic daggers alone there’s 17 items which have > 2g profit margin on a flip and another 12 with at least 40s in flip profit. The Soldier’s and Magi’s Pearl Carver have approximately 50% profit margins on flip investments. These items, after about a year of fairly stable prices still haven’t reached a full equilibrium. While the existence of economic profit in these markets is to be expected, items with the volume these have shouldn’t have nearly so large a spread. Preventing 1c increments in bid (for Soldier’s Pearl Carver a 0.5% minimum would be 91c increments, you could even drop that rate to 0.1% for mere 18c increments) would dramatically reduce that spread without having a meaningful impact on the sell price.

So, it would make sense to only put the minimum increment on items where the lowest ask is above some threshold?

I’m not really clear on exactly how it would work. How would the minimum increment effect folks that are not undercutting? How would the minimum increment be determined? Would we have to add a closing and opening prices or would the increment change based on the lowest ask?

If I have something valuable enough to spend the time pricing it correctly, I almost never price it below the lowest ask. I price somewhere in the median between the undercutters and the next highest cluster and wait for the market to go back up (I’m a long term kind of girl and I don’t like messing with my auctions every day). I’m guessing I could only set a price in an increment of some percentage of the lowest ask?

As far as my imagining of this, it wouldn’t affect asks, only bids. Asks already have a system in place that achieves the same goal via the posting fee. In my version, bids would have a minimum increment for overbidding of some percent (let’s say 0.5% for the moment) whenever the current highest bid is over some threshold (let’s say 50s). New bids then could be placed at any price under the current bid, equal to the current bid, or more than 1.005 times the current bid. If the current bid is 60s, new bids can be less than or equal to 60s or greater than or equal to 60.3s.

So if we take an item that’s currently a bid of 1g50s and ask of 2g20s (heavily rounded, but the current prices for the 80 exotic Malefacterym). If there’s a couple people trying to minimally overcut the current high bid and this results in 20 total rebids, under the current system the outcome would be a bid of 1g50s20c and ask of 2g20s for a spread of 69.8s (flip profit of 58.8s). Compare this with the proposed minimum bid increment of 0.5% situation. The outcome would be a bid of 1g65s73c and ask of 2g20s for a spread of 54.27s (flip profit of 43.27s). After 60 rebids, you end up with 1g50s60c versus 2g2s33c. Obviously this sort of change would reduce the frequency of rebids (as there’s more of a cost in rebidding, and therefore less net incentive to overcut) so that’s not quite a fair direct comparison. But it’s still useful for conveying the sort of impact this would have. The increment helps people who want to insta sell their items. The reduced incentive to overcut helps those who want to bid-buy the item for use actually manage to acquire the item, and it helps the flippers or other investors to actually successfully place orders.

Syeria.4812:

The increment helps people who want to insta sell their items. The reduced incentive to overcut helps those who want to bid-buy the item for use actually manage to acquire the item, and it helps the flippers or other investors to actually successfully place orders.

I see now – I got a bit of tunnel vision with the argument about folks undercutting the ask. I don’t bid-buy items very often.

Syeria.4812:

I completely agree on the sale portion, but for the bidding I wouldn’t just look at it as a convenience factor. Look at level 80 exotic weapons. A large spread doesn’t do anyone any good in that market. It hurts sellers who want to instant sell. It hurts buyers who want to place a buy order for their use of the weapon later. Orders are successfully filled without being 1c overbid so infrequently that not even flippers see a benefit from the spread. The volume in the market simply isn’t high enough to pressure the bid price up to the equilibrium level it would eventually reach in theory.

Sorry, but what you just described is due to a difference in value between buyers and sellers. This is 100% due to market perception and has nothing to do with min increments. If the perception of value is closer to the middle of the split then the bids will quickly adjust to there (as there is no MAX increment).

If buyers think it is worth Xg and sellers think it is worth a lot more (Yg), adding min bid increments will not change this perception of value. You will still have buys clustered at X and sells clustered at Y.

Min bid increments can actually make the problem worse if the min is too large. Nobody likes to lose money, and if the “established” buy or sell price is steady, no one wants to post a "worse: bid (lower sell price, higher buy bid). This can cause the bids to build up (at Xg and Yg) and take even longer to clear.

Imperatora.7654:

Syeria.4812:

I completely agree on the sale portion, but for the bidding I wouldn’t just look at it as a convenience factor. Look at level 80 exotic weapons. A large spread doesn’t do anyone any good in that market. It hurts sellers who want to instant sell. It hurts buyers who want to place a buy order for their use of the weapon later. Orders are successfully filled without being 1c overbid so infrequently that not even flippers see a benefit from the spread. The volume in the market simply isn’t high enough to pressure the bid price up to the equilibrium level it would eventually reach in theory.

Sorry, but what you just described is due to a difference in value between buyers and sellers. This is 100% due to market perception and has nothing to do with min increments. If the perception of value is closer to the middle of the split then the bids will quickly adjust to there (as there is no MAX increment).

In other words you’re saying you just have no idea how markets work?

If a market is experiencing economic profit, it’s not operating at high efficiency, and could be improved. If the gap were small enough that only accounting profits (and not economic ones) existed, it would be operating at equilibrium. The gap is due 100% to insufficient market velocity to attain equilibrium. This has absolutely nothing to do with “perception.” Do you think markets just magically start at their efficient end point?

As for the remainder of your post, I would have thought you’d be able to make it 3 sentences without contradicting yourself, but I guess I was mistaken.

Imperatora.7654:

Min bid increments can actually make the problem worse if the min is too large. Nobody likes to lose money, and if the “established” buy or sell price is steady, no one wants to post a "worse: bid (lower sell price, higher buy bid). This can cause the bids to build up (at Xg and Yg) and take even longer to clear.

I don’t understand this point. It seems like you’re assuming that the only buyers and sellers on the market are traders. I don’t lose money when I bid-buy – I get something I want for a price I’m willing to pay. If the spread is really small, I’ll probably take the lowest ask instead of putting up a bid, because the immediate transaction has more value than the extra cost. In the same way, if the spread is small enough and the price is right, I’ll fill the highest bid.

I agree that most of the problem is the lack of cost for posting buy offers. If you had to cough up a non-refundable 5% to offer to buy something, the nonsense would mostly disappear.

I am much more a TP buyer than seller. I’ve tried to figure out a way to buy something that isn’t the low-sell because I do get annoyed by the 1 c undercuts, but the intuitive answer of clicking the check box next to the price I want to pay doesn’t work. Sometimes I’d rather pay a fair price than the lowest price, to give the money to someone who priced reasonably. My previous MMO listed who was selling (which I do -not- advocate, I like the anonymity of the BLC so personalities don’t get involved) and you could pick which offer to buy as you wished.

Syeria.4812:

Imperatora.7654:

Syeria.4812:

I completely agree on the sale portion, but for the bidding I wouldn’t just look at it as a convenience factor. Look at level 80 exotic weapons. A large spread doesn’t do anyone any good in that market. It hurts sellers who want to instant sell. It hurts buyers who want to place a buy order for their use of the weapon later. Orders are successfully filled without being 1c overbid so infrequently that not even flippers see a benefit from the spread. The volume in the market simply isn’t high enough to pressure the bid price up to the equilibrium level it would eventually reach in theory.

Sorry, but what you just described is due to a difference in value between buyers and sellers. This is 100% due to market perception and has nothing to do with min increments. If the perception of value is closer to the middle of the split then the bids will quickly adjust to there (as there is no MAX increment).

In other words you’re saying you just have no idea how markets work?

If a market is experiencing economic profit, it’s not operating at high efficiency, and could be improved. If the gap were small enough that only accounting profits (and not economic ones) existed, it would be operating at equilibrium. The gap is due 100% to insufficient market velocity to attain equilibrium. This has absolutely nothing to do with “perception.” Do you think markets just magically start at their efficient end point?

As for the remainder of your post, I would have thought you’d be able to make it 3 sentences without contradicting yourself, but I guess I was mistaken.

Hun, I make MMO economies for a living, I have a feeling I understand economics better than an armchair dev on the internet.

It seems from your posts that you are expecting a buy order market like GW2 to behave in the same way as an exclusively seller driven market like WoW or IRL auction houses. This shows a stark lack of understanding of alternate market types.

Heck, go take a look at the trade data for Eve online (one of the few other games that has a buy order system similar to GW2, only theirs is far more complex with the opportunity for arbitrage but we can get into that another time since you seem to be having a problem with basic utility). Eve’s markets have HUGE opportunity for flipping profit, heck one of my friends does little else and is sitting on billions of ISK.

The BLTC is not some newbee IPO where no one knows its true value, 99% of the items on the market have been there for over a year and most have seen few external changes in value. The market is about as stable as it can possibly hope to be.

You say that the “volume is too low” without providing a shred of evidence, in fact the only evidence we DO have from ANet shows that volume is extremely high for most items. If you want to claim otherwise, sorry but I’m going to need some numbers to show that 1c increments, over a year, are failing to close the gap exclusively due to the fact that they are 1c and not because of player perception of value.

Your argument seems hinged on the assumption that there is exactly one single price for all items and that any deviation from that is an economic sin. You are completely ignoring behavioral economics and focusing exclusively on the standard model (which as been outdated since the 80’s). Human economicus does not, and has never existed. If you fail to account for loss aversion, change state inertia, time value of money and all the other relevant cognitive biases you can never have a good understanding of player behavior.

Wanze.8410:

Isengard bids 5.

hahahaha.. yeah….. i love that…

sneaky saruman…..

azizul.8469:

Wanze.8410:

Isengard bids 5.

hahahaha.. yeah….. i love that…

sneaky saruman…..

I’m a bit ashamed to say I didn’t get that.

Completely agreed with OP.

Outbidding with a negligible increment allows people to essentially bypass the FIFO queue for orders on the TP.

If a buyer or seller wants to buy or sell an item faster than everyone that has placed the order earlier, he needs to be willing to take a loss that is significant relative to the price of the item. 1c on a 10g item is not a significant loss by any measure, and makes a complete joke out of the FIFO order queuing system.

There is simply no reason to adhere to the queue (on any item that costs over a few silvers) by posting an order after the existing ones at a certain price point, because you can simply cut ahead of everyone else for 1c.

Instead of having real productive competitive bidding to quickly drive prices toward equilibrium, we have countless filler orders that are essentially the same price point to potential buyers/sellers, that do nothing except cheat early listers out of their rightful timing in order fulfillment.

Imperatora.7654:

Syeria.4812:

In other words you’re saying you just have no idea how markets work?

If a market is experiencing economic profit, it’s not operating at high efficiency, and could be improved. If the gap were small enough that only accounting profits (and not economic ones) existed, it would be operating at equilibrium. The gap is due 100% to insufficient market velocity to attain equilibrium. This has absolutely nothing to do with “perception.” Do you think markets just magically start at their efficient end point?

As for the remainder of your post, I would have thought you’d be able to make it 3 sentences without contradicting yourself, but I guess I was mistaken.

Hun, I make MMO economies for a living, I have a feeling I understand economics better than an armchair dev on the internet.

Suuuuuuuuure you do, and I’m Warren Buffet. If you really worked in any capacity remotely like the one you describe, I feel incredibly sorry for those who have to suffer through your management.

Imperatora.7654:

It seems from your posts that you are expecting a buy order market like GW2 to behave in the same way as an exclusively seller driven market like WoW or IRL auction houses. This shows a stark lack of understanding of alternate market types.

Beautiful strawman. Why would you even try that tact?

Imperatora.7654:

Heck, go take a look at the trade data for Eve online (one of the few other games that has a buy order system similar to GW2, only theirs is far more complex with the opportunity for arbitrage but we can get into that another time since you seem to be having a problem with basic utility). Eve’s markets have HUGE opportunity for flipping profit, heck one of my friends does little else and is sitting on billions of ISK.

“Go look at trade data which I’ve already admitted has almost no similarity or comparable use because it makes me sound like I might know what I’m talking about.”

Imperatora.7654:

The BLTC is not some newbee IPO where no one knows its true value, 99% of the items on the market have been there for over a year and most have seen few external changes in value. The market is about as stable as it can possibly hope to be.

Did you bother to read any of my posts? These items have not reached a long term equilibrium, and at current volumes would likely never reach them. How do we know this? First you have the presence of consistent economic profits in the market (economic profits, not accounting profits, they’re not even remotely similar). Second you have long run bid behavior. Despite frequent upwards and downwards fluctuations in sell pricing, buy orders have a long term, consistent, level increase. If the market had reached any sort of equilibrium, the only way you could see such a behavior would be if the sell prices exhibited the same or similar behavior.

Imperatora.7654:

You say that the “volume is too low” without providing a shred of evidence, in fact the only evidence we DO have from ANet shows that volume is extremely high for most items. If you want to claim otherwise, sorry but I’m going to need some numbers to show that 1c increments, over a year, are failing to close the gap exclusively due to the fact that they are 1c and not because of player perception of value.

Affirming the consequent

Well, that’s just the most egregious problem with this part. You can see above for some of the others.

Imperatora.7654:

Your argument seems hinged on the assumption that there is exactly one single price for all items and that any deviation from that is an economic sin. You are completely ignoring behavioral economics and focusing exclusively on the standard model (which as been outdated since the 80’s). Human economicus does not, and has never existed. If you fail to account for loss aversion, change state inertia, time value of money and all the other relevant cognitive biases you can never have a good understanding of player behavior.

Wow, did it hurt when you spewed that all over your keyboard? I guess if you’re going to try make absurd strawmen, you might as well go all out. You’ve already established your lack of understanding of markets and basic economic concepts such as economic profit, your chances of establishing some sort of argument based on authority is somewhere between the odds of winning the Powerball and a magical dragon materializing to eat the moon.

Kaon.7192:

Completely agreed with OP.

Outbidding with a negligible increment allows people to essentially bypass the FIFO queue for orders on the TP.

If a buyer or seller wants to buy or sell an item faster than everyone that has placed the order earlier, he needs to be willing to take a loss that is significant relative to the price of the item. 1c on a 10g item is not a significant loss by any measure, and makes a complete joke out of the FIFO order queuing system.

There is simply no reason to adhere to the queue (on any item that costs over a few silvers) by posting an order after the existing ones at a certain price point, because you can simply cut ahead of everyone else for 1c.

Instead of having real productive competitive bidding to quickly drive prices toward equilibrium, we have countless filler orders that are essentially the same price point to potential buyers/sellers, that do nothing except cheat early listers out of their rightful timing in order fulfillment.

Thank you. That’s it in a nutshell.

Who cares about FIFO unless multiple players listing the same price. Economic competition isn’t just a buyer and seller haggling over a price, it’s sellers competing among themselves for buyers and vice versa.

Behellagh.1468:

Who cares about FIFO unless multiple players listing the same price. Economic competition isn’t just a buyer and seller haggling over a price, it’s sellers competing among themselves for buyers and vice versa.

I agree. That the minimum increment would be useful to make the competition resolve more quickly is more compelling than the “I was here 1 second ahead of you” argument.

Minimum increment of 1c helps to put your offer in front but not destroy the market at the same time. It is a valid strategy. If someone puts too large an increment, then the market for that item may be destroyed and not be worth it anymore. I don’t like going around destroying market opportunities for everyone else just to brag how rich I am.

If you have the gold, and you really need the item, no one can stop you from putting in a lot more gold and destroying all the competitions. People would probably back off if you put a large enough amount of gold or you can simply buy it instantly. You always have that option.

But if you are just buying one of something then it doesn’t matter, other than you want it cheaper that what it’s currently goes for.

Behellagh.1468:

But if you are just buying one of something then it doesn’t matter, other than you want it cheaper that what it’s currently goes for.

Precisely. If you are playing the market yourself, don’t blame other people for playing the same market. There is suppose to be competition in the marketplace, it is by design.

If you are a serious buyer, you would pay a lot more gold or buy it instantly because you seriously need that item. Otherwise, people who intend to play the TP by flipping, would not want to jeopardize the market for this item by raising the offer price by a large amount because it may not be worth flipping anymore for everyone else. The 1c increment is a strategy to get the item and preserve its value for flipping at the same time.

Having said that, nobody can stop you if you just put in the max buy offer that you are willing to pay for the item at one go either. But then you may be paying more than you could have been, so it is left to your brains to decide on a course of action. This is what makes things interesting because it calls for experience and market strategies.

Some of you continue to miss the point. Nobody is saying that what is happening right now is invalid or whatnot. What I (and others) are saying is that the current system provides a poor incentive and reward structure that discourages constructive bidding.

Obviously anyone can just buy whatever the lowest offer is. The point is those who want to buy for a lower amount right now can essentially say “I will buy it at the same price as the previous high bidder, but I go first before him”. That’s not a smart market mechanism as it discourages competition. It also provides an advantage to people who stand around the TP all day.

Again, by way of example. There’s some item I want, but the lowest offer is currently 20g which I think is too high. The current high offer is, say, 11g. I think that’s too low. So I put in an offer of 12g.

An hour later, some joker has put in an offer of 12.0001g. He didn’t actually make a conscious choice to bid 12g, he just said basically “me too, and me first”. Now I have to cancel my bid and get into a copper-war with this clown.

Or, I can decide to raise my bid to 12.5g. And again, an hour later, some other guy will bid 12.5001g.

The point is that the people with the copper increments aren’t really bidding more. They’re just butting in line. Why people can’t grasp this concept is beyond me, though I’d imagine a lot of the people objecting are in fact the ones that do little but stand around the TP all day…

Qaelyn.7612:

The point is that the people with the copper increments aren’t really bidding more. They’re just butting in line. Why people can’t grasp this concept is beyond me, though I’d imagine a lot of the people objecting are in fact the ones that do little but stand around the TP all day…

Whether the minimum increment is 1c, 1s, 1g or 1%, there are people who will always top your bid by the minimum amount they can. It won’t stop the frustrations, in fact it will cause more frustrations because now instead of rebidding 2c higher you have to rebid 2g higher. Then another 2g when the same bidder tops you again, and again…

If you really want to spend more money needlessly, just buy the lowest sell offer instead. What you are really arguing against is the fact that when you place an offer you have to wait for someone to sell it to you, and this delay gives someone else a chance to get in line ahead of you. The amount of the overbid is irrelevant, it will happen no matter what the minimum increment happens to be.

That is why there are sell offers, the item is already held by the TP and ready for immediate purchase. Otherwise, you bid the maximum you are willing to pay and wait for someone to accept the price.

I think an issue worth considering is that the TP is the only market maker in town. I would have like for players to form markets and allow for people to get better deals than TP if they are willing to put time to find them.

tolunart.2095:

(snip)
If you really want to spend more money needlessly, just buy the lowest sell offer instead. What you are really arguing against is the fact that when you place an offer you have to wait for someone to sell it to you, and this delay gives someone else a chance to get in line ahead of you. The amount of the overbid is irrelevant, it will happen no matter what the minimum increment happens to be.

That is why there are sell offers, the item is already held by the TP and ready for immediate purchase. Otherwise, you bid the maximum you are willing to pay and wait for someone to accept the price.

I was writing up a post that said pretty much the same thing, but you’ve articulated it better.

I do think minimum increments might be worth looking into for other reasons, but overcutting/undercutting isn’t one of them. I wonder if a lot of the angst over prices on the market is because folks do what everyone believes to be the most efficient farm, so certain types of things get oversupplied, instead of looking for unfilled demand in the market. I also wonder if the lack of information on actual sales is impacting how folks are pricing things.

I just sold off two batches of stock from the same company with two different limit orders. One batch I priced to sell quickly (Christmas is coming) and one I priced to sell if the price was right (I would make a decent profit at that price and it could go lower if Congress doesn’t get their act together). They both sold regardless of the intraday volatility, one just took 3 days longer than the other.

If I priced them wrong, they would have never sold, even if they got to within one penny of my limit. I didn’t set the price one penny under the current ask – I set it at the price I thought it would sell within my desired time limits. I don’t see the order book as a queue that folks can cut to the head of – it’s more of a supply/demand indication.

defrule.7236:

I think an issue worth considering is that the TP is the only market maker in town. I would have like for players to form markets and allow for people to get better deals than TP if they are willing to put time to find them.

There was a very good discussion about that in the Guilds as Third-party Trading Channel thread.

It’s a bad idea to divert the market off the TP for several reasons. If you think folks are getting taken advantage of by traders now, it will only get worse when folks have even less idea of what things are really worth. Most of those better deals will be folks getting taken advantage of.

Pandemoniac.4739:

It’s a bad idea to divert the market off the TP for several reasons. If you think folks are getting taken advantage of by traders now, it will only get worse when folks have even less idea of what things are really worth. Most of those better deals will be folks getting taken advantage of.

But it looks pretty good if you’re the one taking advantage. The common thread to these complaints is that the posters are looking at it from a personal point of view – some don’t want to get outbid when looking for a better deal, some don’t like that smart trading can produce better results than killing champions for six hour straight, some don’t want to pay the 15% tax when they sell stuff… and some want to scam other players.

The TP is set up the way it is because of past experiences (the lack of a central trading hub in GW1 and the problems/inefficiencies it caused) and because they believe the decisions they’ve made are best for the game as a whole, not for any particular player. For every player that would gain an advantage if they implemented one of the “suggestions” posted here, there is another who would be at a disadvantage. The devs have a responsibility to the player base as a whole, and are unlikely to be swayed by thinly veiled attempts to gain an advantage for oneself.

Qaelyn.7612:

The point is that the people with the copper increments aren’t really bidding more. They’re just butting in line. Why people can’t grasp this concept is beyond me, though I’d imagine a lot of the people objecting are in fact the ones that do little but stand around the TP all day…

First of all, there is absolutely nothing wrong with people standing around the TP all day. It does not violate the rules of the game and besides, why should any of us dictate how others should spend their time in the game? Just because I don’t like Fractals means that I should stop other people from playing it too? Of course not. Most Chinese people like to eat rice, but you hate rice, therefore all Chinese people have to stop eating rice from now on, for your sake? A tad arrogant don’t you think, Mr dictator?

I just don’t understand why some people always feel the need to “force” the rest of the people to play the game exactly like they do. We are not your clones and we don’t intend to be one. Different people like doing different things, so learn to respect their individualism even if you don’t appreciate what they like.

Second, if you set the increment to a fixed percentage of the min selling price, depending on the spread between the min selling price and max offer price, the more expensive items may stop being worth flipping due to the TP taxes.

Third, even if you set the increment to a fixed percentage of the min selling price, you can still be outbid by someone who stands around the TP all day! For lower priced items, the increment can be so small that we go back a full circle to your argument that the increment is too insignificant.