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LeMoog

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Posts posted by LeMoog

  1. Whilst I disagree with the need for any external "trading" site where you cannot actually trade I will suggest that those that use it to influence the real market are going to be dead set against change.

    If DE implemented a steam type trade system where offline players could still be traded with then fair enough but since there is a lot of resistance to change from I suggest those that use the external sites to influence sellers then any external site is going to be yet one more biased/gamed opinion to the detriment of WF players.

     

    I personally wanted tracking of all traded items in game so I could see if "corrupted profiles" were down to hacking but again there has been a lot of resistance.

    There is a lot that could be done to improve how trade in WF works but external sites are not on the list, they benefit only the site owner and the advertising agencies that use them. I can understand you wanting access to DE's data for resale  but I personally would prefer DE to be benefitting from external advertisers rather than you

     

  2. On 2019-06-28 at 12:31 AM, LordDagon said:

    I don’t believe anyone, even new players, are automatically entitled to the best position. Getting the best price for something takes effort. No individual player can control the collective market value of an item, but everyone can certainly control what they are willing to pay. The value of virtual items is merely opinion that fluctuates with supply and demand. Simply asking for more than the market value of something, or even a group of people working together to increase the market value of a rare item, doesn’t constitute as a dupe/cheat in my opinion. A simple internet search is all it takes to get an idea of current market values. Even a new player can do that much. I don’t have sympathy for those that feel cheated because they made the choice to buy something without bothering to look it up, even if they are new. Feeling cheated and being cheated are very different things, and feeling cheated is a personal problem. However, that is my opinion on the issue, and I will leave it at that.

    It is however the feeling of being cheated that makes for bad feeling and hence toxicity, whilst you say it is not a real thing I say I have seen it daily

     

  3. 4 hours ago, LordDagon said:

    Sorry, but I think feelings of being cheated is a personal problem, rather then an issue with trade. Feeling cheated, in this case, means there is a disconnect between what you believe something is worth, and what you actually paid. Whether or not you sell/buy something at market value is completely up to you. Whether or not something is a good value is a decision you must make for yourself. If I can’t get the price I want for something, I won’t sell it. If I can’t buy for the price I want, I don’t buy it. If an item is selling for more plat than I think my time is worth, I will grind it out and obtain the item myself. Even if a group was able to corner the market for a specific item, they won’t be able to sell it for more than what people are willing to pay. For example, I don’t consider Legendary Fusion Cores a good value at the current price. Like every item on the market in this game, they aren’t a necessity. So, I don’t buy them. But if someone else did, then had buyer’s remorse, that is all on them. I don’t ever feel cheated because I don’t pay more than what I think something is worth.

    Right… So, this is a free to play game. The entire business model is built around obtaining new customers and creating a desire to spend money. Mastery Rank, planet locks, Foundry timers, blueprint resources, and standing limits are all artificial barriers created by DE that they charge money to bypass. New customers spend money on things that save time or are hard to obtain unless you are experienced. End game customers are enticed to buy status and vanity items. So yes, making money on new customers is literally the whole point and the game is heavily skewed that way. $20 for a starter pack and $140 for prime access. That 2K Riven mod for sale in the market does nothing but feed the system that generates income for DE. I am not saying this is a bad thing, since it is what allows the game to be free. But DE is more than happy to sell a $140 prime access package to you every time a new prime comes out. I think it is fair to say, higher market prices just create more demand and more opportunity for DE to generate income. The system works as intended, and I am fine with it as it is. However, if you want DE to consider a change, then you would have more luck if it benefited both the players and DE.

    The bottom 3/4 of your  post is OFC correct however feeling cheated is a natural response to being obviously duped or excluded from the best position for reasons beyond your control.

    You can with experience, see everything in this game as being freely availible given enough time but that will not be the case for newer people. As to it being a personal problem then only if you surrounded by people without empathy but regardless it is indeed a real and natural response to abuse of trust, implied or otherwise

     

  4. 1 hour ago, LordDagon said:

    As I see it, the current trade system is working as intended. If I choose to trade, I may pay high if I want something immediately. If I want a deal, I will hang around and wait for it. And if I need “cash” quickly I might sell something cheap to come up with funds. Because of these things, there is also room for players to flip items to fund their game. Truth is, some people have more time than cash, while others have more cash than time. And some people are simply frugal and like high end items for the game, without having to spend a lot of real money. Nobody is forced to play this game, buy items, sell items, or participate in the economy at all. If I sell low, and someone else takes that same item and makes a killing off of it, good for them. I chose not to spend the time to find the highest buyer. The system allows more frugal or less fortunate individuals to exchange time for plat. Whether that is grinding or working to flip items, the currency is time. And this makes plat items accessible to a wider player base than simply selling everything for a set amount of real currency. And while some people use the market to generate plat, others will be enticed to buy plat to obtain items that they don’t want to grind for, which helps fund the game.

    I know perfectly well that if I want to move something instantly, selling it below market value is the way to do it. And if someone else buys that item, and takes the time to find someone willing to pay a premium, why would that upset me? And if I want to buy something without waiting, putting out or accepting an offer above market value is the way to do it. I don’t feel bad about people’s laziness. People that don’t research, want instant gratification, or don’t know how to haggle is not my concern. I am willing to accept the consequences of instant gratification, but sadly others blame the system rather than accept responsibility.

    Yes, the trade system allows trades and if that is the only thing that matters then fine but after all these years then I suggest it might be time to improve it, it doesn't have to be the solution I propose but DE have already changed the system to reduce annoying spam and to help the CAPS haters why not for equality.

     

    As to nudging people into "acceptable" behaviour there is in WF just as much as there is in every other game, most people want to play without toxic players being able to ruin the pleasure of involvement for the majority. If I find that I cannot trade unless it is to a group that have cooped trade then personally I find that annoying, others may love it but given human nature most people do not like to think they have been cheated.

    As to instant gratification then yes, it is the drive to obtain items that makes them buy plat with real money rather than obtaining it themselves via play but since one point that I was trying to deal with was the abuse of newer players  those who find obtaining parts themselves harder, have few of the items anyway and do not know how much an item should be sold for then it is fair to say resellers have more impact on newer players that old. Where the older player is mainly going to be impacted is when they attempt to sell and find that the price is effectively fixed so that resellers can make a profit when they may not actually have that item themselves.

    Something as simple as extending the existing "[item]" system to sales so if you do not have it then you cannot post a selling offer in trade it would get rid of a lot of spam and effect zero legitimate sellers, you could also extend this to the buyers such that only players who have less than the amount required to craft everything with one resource can post they want to buy more. If players want to make more than  one of an item  for different builds then surely that are going to be advanced enough to obtain the parts themselves.

    Trade is far from perfect and after all this time perhaps it would be worth DE's investment in cleaning it up, I for one didn't care about ALL CAPS trade posts, I saw it as a form of insanity that uppercase was infuriating, to me it is just text. When it got changed it impacted me negatively since I use capslock for crouch and my case changes all the time in game so why not a change for the benefit of normal people this time

  5. 1 hour ago, (PS4)guzmantt1977 said:

    That's the idea. 

    Also VPNs shouldn't change the devices internal MAC addresses, I'm counting on the game itself being able to check on that from within the device for identification purposes.

    I included that because I know that sometimes relatives play in the same household, but for players using multiple alts on a single device, trading off to a friend before getting it back on the alt, it should flag the sequence of trades, and multiple times would be pretty blatant. Beyond that, if someone really wants to obfuscate their transactions, you won't stop them. 

    The problem I envision, is that it'll be a right pain in the rear to track and store the additional data on each tradable item. 

     

    Personally I figure it's not really worth it. 

    mac addresses can be changeable in windows or by reflashing the nic but I understand what you mean i.e. using machine identifiable data.

     I have never tried but I would presume that warframe would run in a VM sufficient for chat and if people are determined to cheat any system then they will, since the OS and virtual hardware  are encapsulated then mac address within VM is irrelevant. DE will have invested time and resources in tying some of them down but the fact is wintel in inherently insecure and not every vulnerability can have a cure/mitigation thus  you have to just live with them. 

     

  6. On 2019-06-25 at 2:17 AM, (PS4)guzmantt1977 said:

    Check and track the IP/mac address if they appear more than twice (once as buyer and once as seller) on an item that raises a red flag on the players involved. Multiple flags means that the players trade history gets investigated by a human. 

    Trading, reselling, buying for a friend, none of those get flagged under this system, as none of those are a problem. 

    You seem to have an issue with resellers which is your issue and nobody else's. 

    if they were not using VPN  to mask their alts then they wouldn't be able to trade between accounts either?

  7. On 2019-06-24 at 9:49 PM, As4500 said:

    Also what this person says

    You say you do not care if someone profits off your back and if true then fair enough, perhaps your items sell for such small amounts that the  profit from someone reselling on in equally insignificant and so the profit is equal to your benefit of having the plat earlier?

    One  point I raised  was that since the trade is swamped with resellers then selling a item you personally earned is actually harder now that it was before the epidemic, so would also not mind if the item you just sold was resold to your friend for 500p more than you received?

  8. 1 minute ago, (PS4)guzmantt1977 said:

    So much of what you have to say is blatantly wrong. Much of it is plainly nonsensical, that if you weren't so invested in your proposal you'd be able to see it instantly. 

    There are many people who are pointing out what is wrong and explaining the errors. Not all are greedy traders trying to take advantage of the ignorant. I'm not a reseller and most of my purchases are prime junk for the ducats. But I'd be lying if I said that I didn't get full sets that way, and I have used that to give newbs I have played with Primes that they didn't yet have, for free. 

    Your proposed "solution" will prevent me from being able to do that, and that's beyond ridiculous. I see that others have said much the same thing. 

    You may not be negatively affected by the proposed changes, but others will, so no thanks. From my point of view, your proposal sucks. 

    fair enough come up with a better one, without knowing where your feel I am in error then it is hard for me to convince you that your are wrong

  9. 4 minutes ago, Ascarith said:

    I legitimately don't think I understand what you mean when you use certain terms. Sometimes you use terms interchangeably and I'm not even sure what the basic problem we're tackling is anymore. Your original post was about "alts," but now we're discussing "brokers," but it really sounds like you have a problem with all "resellers."

    I assume there's going to be a lot of overlap in these definitions, but to clarify, can you define:

    • Who or what is a "broker?"
    • Who or what is a "reseller?"
    • Who or what is a "flipper?"
    • Who or what is an "alt?"
    • Who or what is an "agent?"

    Your post regarding "brokers" sounds as though you have a problem with bots buying low and selling high. I wouldn't really say that's what a broker does.

    A broker doesn't buy from sellers at a low price and resell to buyers to make a profit. That would be more characteristic of a normal trader. A broker brings a prospective seller together with a prospective buyer. If the seller agrees to sell to the buyer, then and only then does the broker get the commission. The broker doesn't generate supply, nor does the broker take supply out of circulation. The broker makes it easier to match supply to demand. 

    So in your definition of the broker they do not trade with either party? how then can they facilitate trade when either of the primaries are offline

  10. 6 hours ago, DoomFruit said:

    The solution there is not to prevent trading multiple times, but so that any trade after the first will just be giving the item away with no option to get anything in return.

    that will remove reselling, allow friends to collect items for a friend but creates a potential issue where all the supply is trapped, DE could increase supply but it would require more monitoring than  the solution I offered.

    I am not saying it doesn't fit better than my own, mine also requires increased monitoring

  11. 3 hours ago, LordDagon said:

    Talk about a solution that is much worse than the supposed “problem”. No, thank you. I only use one account and think this idea is terrible. I couldn’t care less if someone has multiple accounts. It is a trivial issue. It in no way keeps me from enjoying the game. I like being able to resell items for plat as well. And love or hate it, DE chose to go with an open player-based economy, and everything that entails. If it wasn’t what they wanted, they would simply put everything on the market with a set price tag and be done with it. As for the ethical debate and toxicity… lol You need to get some perspective. It’s not like we are talking about reselling food/water rations to the starving or the cure to cancer with a price tag only the elite few can afford. If DE closed the door on Warframe tomorrow, these items would vanish. Poof! This is a market for virtual items. These things are so far from a necessity that it isn’t even funny. So, what if someone pays more than market value for a virtual toy? The ONLY value these luxury items have is in what people are WILLING to pay. And DE charges up to $140 for a mere handful of their virtual toys. Ethos? Toxicity? RL? This is a game. It is meant to be entertainment.

    There is no open player-based community and as to why the trade is like it is rather than say like steam's then I would guess that it was down to IP  or  other priorities at the time and no real focus since due to those profiting off the existing system poo-pooing any forum threads that suggest a change.

    The solution I offered was aimed at addressing two issues which I met, alt-accounts and reselling. After taking another look at the existing trade thread and hearing from others in the forum and in chat I came to the conclusion that warframe trading had been co-opted and that everyone else's price was limited by the same and that finally enough players felt the same way.

    If you are happy with things as they are and you do not care about the impact it is having then fair enough but if you do then by all means come up with a better solution, I personally would like to see a steam like trade system where offline item holders could sell in their sleep as but this has repeatedly been suggested and poo-pooed by those that feel nothing for those that they profit off. There is a lot of talk about community but the type of community where grifters are unchecked is bled to death  and the toxic nature of the community always seeks to escape into other areas as the saying goes "if you lie down with dogs then you are going to get fleas" and no one who has played WF for period cannot have helped but meet toxic players in every interface of the game.

    If you enjoy living in the mire then fine, knock yourself out but for my part I would like to believe that the majority of players, including those that never use the forum, would like a breath of fresh air and that means removing the poison as you come across it. I have tried to do my part what are you doing to help?

  12. 7 hours ago, Keylan118 said:

    This logic is mind-boggling. How game mechanics work has nothing to do with the ideals of the faction you play. Gameplay over aesthetics. It'd be nice if the two meshed well, but they certainly don't need to and putting aesthetics or themes over gameplay is the antithesis of games. Additionally, people selling high and buying low is how economies work. It has nothing to do with monopolies because it's what every trader does. However, the buying low isn't always in pure monetary value and is instead sometimes in time and effort. The best trades are ones where both people come out of it feeling like they profited (and never losing that feeling). This is how I trade. I sell low because I don't want to shop around for a buyer, which means most of my buyers are generally other traders who will be selling my stuff for higher prices later, but sometimes lucky individuals who actually need/want to use what I'm selling. I'm benefiting because I get rid of my junk quick, and they're benefiting because they can make a profit.

    If your idea was put into practice, prices would immediately go up. I can no longer afford to sell low, because the amount of time it would take for me to find a buyer inconveniences me more than the plat is worth at the current price, so I raise my prices. Everyone that traded with me suddenly has to obtain what they want to sell through gameplay rather than buying low and selling high. Selling high and buying low is, however, more efficient. Those who dislike farming suddenly have to farm to get plat, which means they now have to do something they don't enjoy. They consider their efforts to be more costly than the previous efforts of simply buying off others, meaning they raise the price to make the effort worthwhile.

    Furthermore, prices go up for another reason. The basic principle behind a lot of economics. Supply and demand. You have decreased supply severely. Any item traded once is now permanently out of the economy. If I trade ten ayatans, they're now all non-existent in terms of the larger economy. The best someone can do with them is make something look nice or turn them into endo for mods. Any items you trade in a day can literally never be traded again. That's a lot of 'wealth' destroyed.

    So, supply has gone way down and demand has remained the same. Those who acquire things have raised their prices in order to make things more worthwhile. This devalues platinum. More platinum is required to trade with other players than previously. This means the amount of platinum I get for X money is now worth less. This means less people will buy platinum because it's simply 'not worth it'. Less platinum gets traded around because less people buy platinum to put into the system. Platinum becomes rarer, meaning people now have two options. Buy platinum, or wait for a trade. F2P players get shafted, and now horde platinum they acquire through trading to purchase things they can't properly farm, like slots. Even less platinum is now traded. On and on it goes. This is called a recession.

    Resellers make finding the right buyer easier. See my above paragraphs. I find a buyer for convenience, they find a buyer for profit; we all come out feeling better for it. Sure, more people would buy a thing if the price was lower. This, however, is opposite for sellers. The higher the price, the more people willing to farm item and sell it. If the price of an item magically went down in the economy, less people would sell it and thus people willing to buy it at said price still wouldn't get the item.

    If the buyer and seller are both online then sure, they can find each other better with less resellers. However, I'm not always at the fruit stand advertising my wares. I like to play the game, not play Trading Simulator 2019. Resellers are the people that will be trading more often than the likes of me, so I sell to them. They're not even really 'resellers'. You're framing them wrong. I'm the producer, they're the grocery store, and some end user is the shopper. I make and sell to the store because it's more convenient then me trying to sell on my own, and they buy from me because they don't have to farm which makes it feel more convenient for them. Everybody wins.

    Making trades one-time per item would only increase toxicity. People get mean during a recession. I'd, honestly, be more likely to try to scam people if your suggestion was implemented because the amount of platinum I get would never really be worth the time required to find a buyer, in my opinion. I never feel like I'm winning with my trades anymore. I've lost convenience, and I've lost profit with that convenience. I can't farm X items, I have to spend the time instead yelling into trade chat or advertising elsewhere. Time isn't money, it's more valuable than that.

    You assume everyone is a noob when they go to trade. Most people aren't. Most people play the game and have been doing so for a while. Warframe's playerbase is largely one of veterans. The Warframe market site alleviates a lot of the perceived problems you have with the current system. It's a lot harder for someone to just buy up all the things with platinum and raise the price. Besides, with how economies work and supply/demand, if I buy up all of X and increase the price that doesn't increase demand. People won't want to buy my thing at this higher price. I make less money. I lower the price to make more money. Things go back to the way they were. Let's say I increase the price and people are still willing to pay. That's not a bad thing then. I make profit, I feel happy. They get their thing, they feel happy. Just because you consider something too expensive doesn't mean it is. If people are willing to pay and I am willing to sell, it should be a good transaction. Now, in the real world, this ideal is marred with necessities that people have to get no matter what. I need to sell to get food. This means I have to sell lower than I otherwise would, sometimes to the point of insufficient nourishment. Warframe has no such problems.

    You consider them buying low and selling high as duping others. This is a stupid idea. If this was true, I would be one of the ones duped. I don't feel duped yet none of their actions are 'hidden' or remain outside my knowledge; if I was duped and I know what they did I should feel duped. However, I feel quite happy knowing we both benefited from the trade.

    Also, don't present your idea as the only option. There are many options, and one of them is keeping trading as is. You may not like it, but many people don't like many things that are generally good. No system is perfect, but there is not necessarily a better alternative. I do concede that an in-game system akin to the warframe market site would be better, but that's been suggested plenty of times before to little effect.

    I am not married to any single method so long as the result is to remove brokers/resellers unfair influence upon the whole market, by fair I am referring to what any other single player can do.

    People talk about the importance of a freemarket but the reality is that the market is already biased simply because each single player has to compete with a group who have a shared agenda. A single player must sleep occasionally and he can only post once per time limit in the trade thread. A group can post at least as many times as their are members. Thus the market is not currently free and if a free market really means anything to you  have to agree that this needs to change

  13. 19 hours ago, Ascarith said:

    Some people do not have time (or patience, or resources, or knowledge, or connections) to find the right buyer/seller. The broker adds value by making possible transactions that would otherwise never occur, and the commission a broker makes compensates them for the time and effort of cultivating the right resources, knowledge and/or connections to make sure that transaction goes through. 

    Supply is finite i.e there is only so many of each tradable item currently in circulation, more brokers do not increase supply and if they are full time brokers (24/7 via agents or bots) then actually playing the game to obtain the parts for themselves takes up far less of their time than if they were not focusing on reselling i.e. less trading time for everyone else.

    Since it is unlikely and unwanted for brokers to hold the complete supply (monopoly) then there needs to be a balance, this currently being in the form of people unwilling to stock brokers and those aware that the demand is due to increase (DE announcements). It has been said that these brokers are aware of what all tenno need, which I take to mean they are monitoring all the trade threads in each region through something along the lines of webget. With all these brokers I would suggest that there is a increased cost to DE to maintaining the extra (number of regions * the number of monitoring brokers on each chat server).  What we are talking about is an unfair advantage compared with a occasional trader. If we were all to follow suit and each monitor every trade thread then the chat servers would likely need to be upgraded given how often they fall over as things stand, perhaps the reason they currently fall over is because DE didn't anticipate the extra load that brokers put on the infrastructure to exist.

    Brokers need for max profit that everyone else who has the required item to sell to them for X, this being the max market price (at time of resale) minus their commision, they may take less than maximum commision for quicker sales but they will OFC want to take to maximum that the market will take.

     

    Now lets look at the market, I will  divide it into 3 groups, those who keep up with DE announcements( A) , those that do not care but watch a single market alone for their pricing(B) and those that have not a clue(C), this is a simple model and I am sure it doesn't include everyone playing. All of these groups will sell at whatever they think people will buy at with reductions based upon their own need to trade. 

    So firstly pricing for a period where item is not currently in demand, group A will be selling off excess stock and waiting for the next opportunity to cash in, groups  B and C will be watching the market between games to see if there is anything that they have that they can sell for enough to be worth bothering with or selling what they can because they need plat themselves. The prices here are the lowest for everyone since no one is targeting anything and the price is down to seller's needs.

    Next lets look at the price of an item that is going to be vaulted or item's supply is generally low, group A is buying at X , they are flooding the trade thread with offers to buy they may even have posted a bogus low price on one of the external pricing sites with an alt that they leave logged out so the item doesn't get sold. Group A might then use this to try to persuade group C and some of group B to part with their stock at a price lower than they might have got if they waited.Group A will continue to buy as the supply in trade from B and C dwindles until supply dries up or price is higher than max X at which point the price hovers around X with A buying when they can. Price here is <X and the trade threads are flooded by the brokers their agents and more than likely the same monitoring tool anyone not a broker is going to have much less chance of being noticed than the previous mode and since they are just one person then without agents or monitor they are not going to be operating 24/7 so in effect group A has taken virtual control of trade chat with a cost born by DE and groups B&C missed sales. Whilst the price might be lower than the broker's expected selling price they as a group have more exposure so anyone attempting to sell at greater than  X will be ignored or missed.

    Lastly item has been vaulted, group A will start selling once price is acceptable, since market is again flooded by brokers B  might make as sale occasionally if below  brokers expected  or if a member of B or C is getting in on the action but for most part brokers remain in control of the price, it is possibel that another bogus price is posted externally to improve their bargaining position.

    So in the above modes brokers effectively control the market in 2 out of 3 states, if everyone used their tools then the chances are the trade thread woulds fall over and require further investment by DE.

    As to the external "trade websites" they are a misnomer unless trade can only occur off the DE servers i.e. the external site is holds the item and sells it ingame via a bot, I have suggest  just one way that they can be gamed in order to unfairly influence the trading price of warframe items.

     

    So in summary I disagree with the premise that broker benefit anyone but themselves, they create a hidden cost to DE and every PC from non-DE trade site would be attempted fraud in the real world. They add nothing to the free supply that determines pricing and the whole of trade is heavily influenced by the brokers who via their own bots or agents  control the market and not to the benefit of either buyers or sellers unless they too are brokers. no normal player can compete with brokers in terms of market presence since they have to sleep. Some say that they are a benefit because not all players are online enough to trade fairly without brokers but I say the cost to everyone else including DE far outweighs any benefit these few players gain. 

    I have offered one way to deal with this problem but there are OFC many others, ideally DE would make a steam like market that allows for trading when item holders are offline with a nice chart showing the range of prices transparent to everyone but if we can't have that then a compromise is necessary since anyone without the broker's resources has much less chance of trading at all let alone fairly.

    Here is a few pointers to the non-brokers 

    To get the best selling price for an item then you need to keep up with the game news and you need to know how to sell, be polite but firm and remember that without your item the brokers would go broke

    Thus there is no free market in warframe and the brokers are to blame. monitoring bots are not players if they are in use then it would be up  to DE to remove them and their creators but since you the reader now know they exist then you can see for yourself just how much of the trade thread is full of their spam and decide if they are deserving of your trade.

    Remember there is no such thing as thrash items as no one would want them, anyone going to the trouble of posting their want clearly has either a use for it and or knows something you may not, why not wait and see what happens or if you sell then make it small amounts as the people who want to profit off you do not want to run out of trades

    If you are told an external PC sites have an item for less than you are selling for then why is the buyer attempting to buy from you, simply because that item either doesn't exist or cannot actually be purchased.

     

  14. 7 minutes ago, LeMoog said:

    I have no problems with players earning plat from selling what they have earned but to taking advantage of other players lack of knowledge is toxic and I would suggest spills over into other areas of the game.

    I do have a problem when they are allowed to buy up all of an item in demand and then raise the price even though I am more likely to get my own item, I also have a problem with the trade thread being flooded by them and their agents so honest traders are rolled off the screen.

    I have yet to hear of anything they do that is a actually a benefit to anyone but themselves, I do hear a lot of the BS mystique about how they are smart and sophisticated and an asset but the fact remains that without people to cheat they would be out of business and in reality cheating people doesn't actually require much brain as most people are trusting until they get burned.

    I would be quite happy if as you suggest the middlemen had their own thread (call it B ark) and the could live off each other but OFC that will never happen as they rely upon duping others to obtain what they hope to sell. I would be quite happy with a steam like trade where all prices are visible to everyone and you can trade offline then players can see for themselves what price range is selling but whilst it has been asked for many times over the years it never happened 

     

  15. 2 hours ago, Ferliando said:

    A bit confused here. So in short, you didn't like middleman because they earn more than you should be, so you propose that.. *sorry* "horrible" suggestion?

     

    I dunno, I don't really like them too much either, but I can see how they help other people to earn something others cannot/hard to earn. How they can help others? Well I guess you and the middleman(s) could have different channels/chat server right? Also, I guess you WILL NEVER know what each of every tennos need in each seconds, so why you must dislike middleman that much? Besides, who knows some of the things you got there came from middleman, if you knew which item came from middleman, would you return the thingy, demand a refund, and ask the real seller? Well at least for me, it IS such a hassle 🤣

    I have no problems with players earning plat from selling what they have earned but to taking advantage of other players lack of knowledge is toxic and I would suggest spills over into other areas of the game.

    I do have a problem when they are allowed to buy up all of an item in demand and then raise the price even though I am more likely to get my own item, I also have a problem with the trade thread being flooded by them and their agents so honest traders are rolled off the screen.

    I have yet to hear of anything they do that is a actually a benefit to anyone but themselves, I do hear a lot of the BS mystique about how they are smart and sophisticated and an asset but the fact remains that without people to cheat they would be out of business and in reality cheating people doesn't actually require much brain as most people are trusting until they get burned.

    I would be quite happy if as you suggest the middlemen had their own thread (call it B ark) and the could live off each other but OFC that will never happen as they rely upon duping others to obtain what they hope to sell.

     

    as to working out if I ever bought from a reseller, I would not, a deal once made is honoured again not something I have seen from every player and I do not need to guess why.

    If you do not like the method I propose then come up with another that removes the toxic element from the game and makes trading a lasting pleasure for everyone and I will support it. Get rid of trade being screw them before they screw you and I will be happy along with everyone else who doesn't have to wade through the mire to use trade.

  16. 2 hours ago, ArcaneTitan said:

    Just want to add my two cents even though I'm sure these things have been said already.

    There are going to be some bad eggs that take advantage of people. That shouldn't ruin it for everyone though. 

    I saw you make a point about inexperienced players being taken advantage of, but I would argue that it is part of the experience. You gotta have a few experiences like that to learn. I remember my first sale was a soon-to-be vaulted item and the buyer told me after he bought that it would be worth more later. It's not the buyers fault if you don't do your research. It's been two years since then and I still occasionally make some bad deals. You gotta be cautious, aware, and learn from your experiences. 

    The people who really like the game are (generally) the kind of players that are going to engage with the game outside of it. It's near impossible to play/learn the game without doing so and that includes the trading economy. 

    Your suggestion would break the trading economy just to punish a miniscule percentage of players.

    I understand your point and agree I too went through the exact same situation the result was that I had to assume everyone was out to cheat me, that is the reality of my trade beginnings and it can only be called toxic.

    Now imagine if instead your first attempts at trade were met with honesty and a fair price, would you not agree that it would make for friendlier and more enjoyable trading and play, would you not also follow suit.

    I know "be nice to each other" is a cliche but most people do not play games to feel bad or cheated and that is what is happening every time a player realises they have been burned. The cost of abusing your peers is that they will abuse others, if you show respect then it is returned and if you rip people off they will do the same, so when the mod complains of DE being ripped off by people buying plat and then taking the money back then you have to wonder if perhaps the villain is just doing exactly what they learned ingame.

    I understand that there are cultures that value this toxic behaviour but from what I have seen their members cannot wait to escape to somewhere more like what I am trying to promote.

     

    In summary toxic behaviour is not a good thing and if allowed to grow unchecked then the result is everyone trying to cheat everyone else in and out of the game.

  17. 1 hour ago, Ascarith said:

    Some people do not have time (or patience, or resources, or knowledge, or connections) to find the right buyer/seller. The broker adds value by making possible transactions that would otherwise never occur, and the commission a broker makes compensates them for the time and effort of cultivating the right resources, knowledge and/or connections to make sure that transaction goes through. 

    If there were less resellers and their agents then perhaps finding the right buyer/seller would be less of a problem, if you look in the earlier threads there was a poster here complaining of exactly this, along with the fact that there is only one actual market means that if buyer and seller are online and looking then they are IMHO more likely to find each other than as things stand now. the "broker" you refer to has a purpose in the real world where there are many markets but since there is only one then I would  say what benefit a RL broker affords is absent in warframe.

  18. 2 hours ago, Letter13 said:

    Thread cleaned a bit, moved to the correct subforum and title has been edited to reflect the discussion occurring.

    Also, just as a reminder, if you see anyone using alt accounts in order to circumvent riven capacity or trading caps, please report this user (and their alt(s)) to support. The use of alternate accounts to circumvent any sort of in game limit is a violation of the Terms of Use Agreement for the game and can result in all associated accounts being banned from the game.

     

    As for being on-topic, I am inclined to disagree with a lot of the suggested changes... preventing items from being traded more than once would very negatively affect the trading economy. It would drive up prices and, as a result, likely increase the amount of platinum fraud far beyond what is occurring now (i.e. when a player buys a massive amount of platinum with real money, trades the platinum away, then performs a chargeback on their credit card). Not to mention resellers, who are operating within the rules, would lose out on valuable business.

    There are players in Warframe who take on roles akin to professional art and antiquity dealers--they are players who have contacts and veritable networks of information to help them find specific items and facilitate their sale and purchase. Player A (the buyer) who wants a specific items tells player B (the broker), player B uses their information network and contacts to track down player C (the seller) who has the item player A wants (but who player A does not have the contacts, time or resources to find themselves). Player B then purchases the item from player C to then sell to player A, usually with some % commission added on top of the price they paid to player C. This is not a violation of the rules, and it is not indicative of abuse of alt accounts. Preventing resale of items would effectively kill all of the efforts of player B (and those like them) in setting up and establishing such information networks... these networks are valuable resources and somewhat necessary for some of the bigger ticket items that can be sold, it's a 'reputable network' for the purchase and sale of items that go for the tens of thousands of platinum.

    Thank you for joining the discussion, can I ask if your comments here are your own or DE's with regard to the value of resellers and their effect upon prices?

     

    I ask as I cannot see how, with a single market, that a middleman would benefit anyone but themselves.

    To my mind they are always going to sell for more than they  purchased an item so if they were buying at the current market price then surely their selling for more acts to increase the price rather than lower it. If on the other hand they buy for below the current price then what profit they make is at the expense of the seller making for a ephemeral drop in the current price until they sell the item assuming the demand remains. If on the gripping hand they hoard the item forcing the price up and given how much they are making off being middlemen they can keep buying low until the demand far outstrips the supply and then they can sell for less? no I am sorry I cannot see them as goodness

    If they did not exist then I would suggest little change to the market price of anything. You talk about networks of contacts as being a plus, are you saying that for these contacts the price is different to the official trade thread? perhaps they all profit together? how would I get to join this elite group of individuals who all profit or is my real recourse not to be profited off is via not trading at all

    I agree this is not against DE's TOS but given my experience I would suggest that a large percentage of the posts in the trade thread are made by resellers and their agents/promoters as discussed earlier in this thread and that to my mind is akin to SPAM which I believe is not allowed. Given this to be true then removal  of resellers would in actuality reduce trade "SPAM" and allow the majority non-elite group members to profit off their own wares without having to pay a levy to the self appointed trade taxers

    As to the buying of plat and then fraudiently getting your money back I do not see how that relates to this discussion, unless you are referring to the general ideas of cheating others and believing you are owed something for nothing, I for one do not condone this in any form and was in  actuality the very reason for this thread, I am glad we agree on this atleast

  19. 2 minutes ago, hallelion said:

    To weigh in on this:

    From what I have read, the OP is offering a solution that:

    1. Tries to restrict trading to the point of "well you didn't earned it from playing, so you can't trade it again"

    2. Focuses on alt accounts made for reselling items they got, one way or another

    3. It assumes that it's in DE's best interests to limit their playerbase's freedoms to do anything they want with the items they have in their possession, regardless of where they got it

    4. It assumes that players who are "gifted items" are indebted to the giver and as such, should act regarding these items on the basis of such

    I have problems with how the topic is approached (point 2) and discussed (from further replies of the OP). By only focusing on only one segment of the playerbase, any suggestions to restrict it is just wishing ill on the other segments who have other motives that might be more legitimate that what is being discussed.

    If a lower MR player (which I won't assume if alt or not, it's not our business to know) gets an item, it's theirs. They can do whatever they want with it, charity be damned. Although I myself would personally respect such actions (was gifted a primed set before, and have built-rushed the same items out of respect) and want those I give to use it well, I can't assume that everyone would behave in the same way. All that we could do is to hope that they benefit from it, in which, if selling it for plat is beneficial, then so be it.

    Here's a different perspective, instead of focusing on "stopping alt accounts", why not just promote "legitimate trading with all accounts, with no assumptions if main or not"?

    Here's an alternative solution:

    1. Instead of outright restricting trades of a particular item once traded, put them on a "temporary timer", minimum of a week, maximum of a month (should depend on the type of item, and the MR of the receiving account). This would not immediately deter unwanted trade behavior, but it ensures that such actors are barred from quickly performing their plans at the soonest.

    2. To address "sharing items between friends", why not implement a "clan stash box" that allows clanmates (who are usually friends) to leave items for specific members so that they could share items without waiting for each to be both online. To prevent abuse, have it so that shared items cannot be put up for trades by anyone except the primary owner of the item.

    3. Any plat earned from trading will be put into a "temporary timer" as well (should be based on the MR of both accounts, as well as the amount earned), restricting usage to the market until such time expires. This also doesn't deter unwanted behavior, but can delay such.

    4. Implement a "premium trading license" probably 500 plat for a duration of 30 days, where the restrictions of points 1 and 3 are severely reduced, a "verified check" is shown on the player name at the trading screen, and taxes are slightly reduced for both parties. This legitimizes "flippers", but also allows DE to focus their efforts in monitoring trading behavior on those who aren't.

    well thought out but sadly equally likely to be rejected by the abusers as I wasn't kidding about the drive to rip people off however something needs to be done and I would not oppose any action towards that goal

  20. 39 minutes ago, George_PPS said:

    I know exactly what you mean and you are opposing free market. It's not translation either. It's the definition of monopolist. And there are no monopolists in the game for 99.9% items players trade and sell regularly. 
    You have NOT convinced even single one player here why we should not be able to trade freely in the free market. You can keep going but your argument is illogical and damaging to trading. 

    So say the monopolists but the fact is in RL there are laws to deal with monopolies and excessive graft along with additional factors such as taxes,costs and wages and everything else that makes your attempts to bring WF trading in line with RL nonsense especially when you forgot all that is left out of the game economy. 

  21. 1 minute ago, (PS4)Ryfore2 said:

    Alts are already useless unless you buy plat with multiple discounts across the accounts to use on a single account which is against ToS. However the only other way to earn anything extra with alt accounts is to run quick missions with relics that wont get your alts kicked for inactivity but you'd need 2.. 3... or even 4 systems in order for that to work.

    You clearly have more experience with the pitfalls of running alts than I but then again I only have a single account and understand the only legitimate use is to start from scratch without loosing your original account

  22. 6 minutes ago, (PS4)Ryfore2 said:

    Agree completely since the people against grinding constantly for what they want will still opt out of the grind whereas the ones that do grind will hit that grind even less since they know less parts in the market more profit or maybe they'll grind more just to be that one person holding 20 sets to make a killing at that point prices will be over the base frames total value when purchased making it nearly double what it is now for the average prime frame

    There is a difference between excess grind and being ripped off and personally I do not believe they are linked, saying they are is somewhat disengenious.

    If one player has 20 sets of something drop during play then why should they be punished for it, if they sell them to 20 other players who need them then what exactly is wrong with that?

  23. 2 minutes ago, Ascarith said:

    Yes, this system accounts for a basic "nab good deals" scenario and cuts off resellers (albeit in a heavy handed way). Now push your idea further:

    • Player A and Player B are friends.
    • Player B wants [Prime Frame]. Player B owns 3/4 parts of [Prime Frame], missing only [Prime Part]
    • Player A knows Player B wants [Prime Frame]
    • Player B is offline
    • Player C is selling [Prime Frame] set for cheap

    What happens in this situation?

    Player A can buy the whole set. Player A can try to buy just [Prime Part] from Player C. Player A can opt not to buy anything.

    If Player A buys the whole set, Player A is eating a loss because 3/4 of the set become "worthless" after the trade. Under the present trade system, Player A can still resell the unnecessary parts to someone else who might need them.

    If Player A wants to buy just [Prime Part], Player A has to convince Player C to sell just that part. Player C might not want to split up the set because there's less transaction costs associated with selling the full set. Moreover, under a single-trade system, Player C has to actually farm up the missing [Prime Part] to recomplete the set. Under the present trade system, Player C could just buy a replacement.

    If Player A does nothing, sucks for Player B, but nobody is worse off. 

    So essentially your system says that Player A can still be a "philanthropist" but has to do so at a much higher (personal) cost than under the present system. This cost is probably going to cut down on the number of "philanthropists," which is going to be a social cost of changing to a single-trade. We also lose "legitimate" re-sale situations (if you even believe those exist). I would also note that this also takes the 3 prime parts that make up the set out of the market. Given that Player A has no incentive to find Player D, we can probably assume these parts are just dead (or ducats). This gives the "monopolists" more ammunition to jack up prices, since there will be less supply overall. 

    The gain is that people cannot "exploit" other players with certain re-sale transactions. Unclear if the "exploitation" bar moves upwards, though, since lower supply means more justification for higher prices.

    To me, it would seem the costs you are imposing with the single-trade system seem to far outweigh the benefits. You obviously seem to disagree, so I'd be interested to hear why, in addition to any other gains I might not have pointed out.

     

     

     

    last one then:

    trade remains the same but item becomes untradable

    gifting allows for philanthropy with potential for yes more karma by removing plat form circulation

    no point in creating alt for reselling as the item grifted from the ignorant is untradeable or carries a tax sufficently to make practice uneconomic

     

    problem solved, I know it will be unpopular with those that enjoy conning people but quite frankly I  do not see them as much of a benefit as it is no matter the  spiel the fact remains that they feel that the newer members should be taxed for their ignorance.

  24. 3 minutes ago, SebGamez said:

    I love debating with someone who doesn’t  even accept that they are wrong, much less someone who doesn’t consider other people’s ideas.

    Y you guys should make a clan  together, well since the concept has been thoroughly explained to even the TD:LR crowd we can call it a day, thank you everyone for you commenting

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