Guild Wars 2

if i put an order and someone else puts an order of same value, who gets their item first?

Yes, it uses a FIFO system.

Which is why undercutting drives prices down.

And overcutting drives them up.

Overcutting is something completely different. lol

Not when I’m clearly using it to mean exactly the opposite of undercutting, where one person puts up a buy order for 1c greater than the next one, in an effort to get those items faster.

Yep, undercutting is used to sell items, and “overcutting” is used to post buy orders.

AKA “outbidding”. And both are perfectly legitimate practices. Don’t like undercutting? Consider the position of the buyer. Don’t like outbidding? Consider the position of the seller. But then, I really shouldn’t be trying to convince you guys of this, since I make a lot of my money systematically undercutting and overbidding.

Hippocampus.8470:

And overcutting drives them up.

Over-cutting does -not- drive the price up. The only thing consistent ‘over-cutting’ does in this game, is close the gap.

We’ve been through this. Because there is no penalty for removing a bid, (but there is on removing a sale), buying and selling are -not- equal powers in GW2, and cannot logically be treated as such.

Pie A: Eaters are told they can come up and grab a piece any time they want with no consequences.

Pie: B: Eaters are told that they will get a portion of their finger chopped off when they grab a piece.

At the end of the day, which pie will people have eaten more of?

Thank you, that is all.

Yes, overcutting closes the gap at first (just like undercutting), after which point anyone trying to flip things starts posting their sell listings at a higher price because they can’t make a profit at the existing one.

How exactly do prices for some things go up, if the typical market practices of undercutting and outbidding can only ever drive them down?

Necrollis.4372:

Over-cutting does -not- drive the price up. The only thing consistent ‘over-cutting’ does in this game, is close the gap.

Explain that to me again, will you?
Preferably without chopping off any of my fingers

I thought overcutting was this…
Person 1 puts up a buy-order for 10g.
Person 2 overcuts and puts a buy-order for 11g.
Person 3 now has to beat 11g instead of beating 10g.

So, the price went up from 10g to 11g because of the overcutter person 2, no ?

Sure, there can be a seller that has the item up for 15g. But he is not a factor. He is not bidding against me nor is he selling to me, he doesn’t decide the price that I have to pay, it is the overcutter that decides my price.

If you assume that 100% of players overcut and that the items will still be listed at a higher price when the next player goes to place his order, then yes overcutting drives prices up.

But that’s not necessarily the case. Not everyone places a buy order at the highest price, nor a sell order at the lowest price.

Tallis.5607:

Necrollis.4372:

Over-cutting does -not- drive the price up. The only thing consistent ‘over-cutting’ does in this game, is close the gap.

Explain that to me again, will you?
Preferably without chopping off any of my fingers

LoL, deal. We’ll keep your fingers attached.

Alrighty, so first off, when we look at prices moving one way or the other, we can talk of it in terms of momentum and what effects that momentum.

When a player places a sale listing, they pay a non refundable listing fee. That means unless they want to just throw away money by removing and re-listing, they’re more apt to leave the item up and hope it sells. “This” is the first of two VERY strong rooting forces on the sell wall, that do not exist on the bid wall. The second, is the fact that those who wish to sell and sell faster, are going to do a lot of one thing, undercutting. Those previous listings are rooted in place by a listing fee, and the competition and time in a FIFO system shared by millions of players, does it exactly what it was designed to do. The undercutting takes its toll, and those who lose the lottery of TP placement, will then watch as they are undercut 30 ways from sundown, deciding to either pull out losing their listing fee, or just let it sit and pray lol.

Ok so that’s the sell wall of the spread, lets look at the bid wall.

The bid wall or (or buy wall) of the spread, ‘seems’ like its just the same functioning but opposite side of the margin, right? Wrong. I’ll tell you why. Bids can be cancelled at any time, for any reason with no penalty whatsoever. If you’re being over-cut on an item you really want/need, what do you do? You ‘cancel’ the bid and/or re-bid at a higher price. Round and round we go as you’re in an over cutting war that costs nothing to cancel and re-bid, over and over again, driving the bid wall closer to the sell wall, closing the gap.

Here is where I think most folks stop seeing this momentum for what it is. When players go to sell their item, they don’t typically look at what people have bids up for, as this is usually lower than the current sale listing. Let’s say in the span of 2 hours, the bid wall on item X moved from 12copper, to 14 copper, as a result of over-cutting. The ONLY way, this over cutting would be driving the price UP, is if those players who came in listing their items for sale, listed them at 2copper HIGHER than the current sell wall. But I assure you, the majority of players are not going to do that. Why would you place an item for sale at higher than the current sell offer, when that would put you WAY behind in a FIFO system, severely reducing your chances of selling quicker? Players know that that the longer an item stays listed, the odds of being undercut by 2million + players increases exponentially. So, obviously, most are going to either place their items for sale, stacking it on the current lowest sell price, OR, they’re going to undercut. This is a powerful force on the sell wall, and it has a downward momentum, that vastly overpowers the no-cost, low risk ability to bid/cancel bids on the bid wall.

It comes down to which walls of the spread contain which force. Undercutting is downward momentum. Over-cutting is upward momentum. So, the determining factor of which direction the trend moves, is going to rest in which of those forces have more power. And, before we even talk about supply and demand factors, we’ve got to first discuss how the laws of supply function in this case, differ quite clearly from demand function. Because there is a non-refundable listing fee on placing sale orders and a strong desire on the part of the players to get their items sold as quickly as they can without being undercut, there is -clearly- a vastly superior power in the downward momentum of the sell wall.

If any of you have gotten in a bid war over an item/s you really needed/wanted, you know exactly what I’m talking about. You’ll watch, cancel, bid, watch, cancel, bid, watch, cancel, and bid again, until you win that item, and it won’t cost you anything but time and determination. However, if you go to sell that same item, you are more times than NOT going to list your item for higher then the current lowest seller. No, you’re probably going to either stack your item on the lowest sell offer, or you’re going to undercut. Meanwhile, all the over-cutting that was done on bidding, (and is possibly still being done), keeps the prices consistently moving to the break-even line.

Behold, le gap, closeth.

Overcutting closes the gap until eventually the prices do rise. Once the gap is closed, the buyers have no choice but to start digging into the sell orders, thus removing the lowest sell orders and causing the item’s worth to increase.

Undercutting drives the sell prices down until sellers have no choice but to satisfy the buy orders, thus removing those orders and causing the item’s worth to decrease.

The posting fee for Sell orders actually helps prevent prices from falling as quickly, since as you said yourself, players are less hesitant to remove & repost their sell orders.

Since buy orders do not have a fee, the upward pressure is stronger since players are less hesitant to repost their orders.

Working as intended.

Even if the asymmetry does by itself put a universally negative pressure on prices, it quite clearly isn’t the only or even the dominant force in the market. The simple fact that some things go up in price means that this negative pressure must sometimes be countered by other market forces. As such, I suspect the most it can do is result in a lower stable equilibrium price for things than would exist if the buying and selling positions were more symmetrical.

Icey.6045:

Undercutting drives the sell prices down until sellers have no choice but to satisfy the buy orders, thus removing those orders and causing the item’s worth to decrease.

The posting fee for Sell orders actually helps prevent prices from falling as quickly, since as you said yourself, players are less hesitant to remove & repost their sell orders.

Since buy orders do not have a fee, the upward pressure is stronger since players are less hesitant to repost their orders.

Working as intended.

I fail to see how a fee for selling, which locks sale orders in place, prevents prices from falling. If anything, it holds the current offers where they are, forcing new listings to be undercut listings. To me, that is a relatively obvious downward pressure.

Also keep in mind, that on bulk items traded (especially those needed for crafting), a HUGE portion of volume is controlled, in bulk, by flippers. When the gap closes, these individuals are going to move to other profitable areas, pulling out their bids on the item that is no longer profitable flipping. When those bids are removed, this also, drives the price downward.

Furthermore, when this happens on ores, wood, cloth, leather (and other high demand/high traded crafting items), it will eventually affect the entire market.

So, we can just keep ignoring the rising number of frustrated players coming in here by the day, that are finding it increasingly difficult to do ANYTHING on the tradepost. As long as it’s working as intended, that’s all that matters, right? Frankly, I’d rather pay a monthly fee, than get screwed by a stacked deck that forces me to spend real $ for gems. But maybe I’m just insane like that.

At any rate, I’m not trying to be a jerk about any of this. I’ve just been online gaming since the days of Baldur’s Gate. I’ve seen what happens to MMOs when a gaming company ignores what its players are trying to tell them. I want to see ArenaNet fix this before it’s too late. When the player-base gives up and starts bleeding into other games by the thousands, all the forum discussion in the world isn’t going to stop it.

That’s all really.