Why not just add a store system?

[(PSN)AyinDygra]

On 2019-09-09 at 3:35 AM, Jiminez_Burial said:

DE have stated on multiple occasions that they want the trading in their game to be active, for people to converse with people and negotiate prices.

I never negotiate ... it's either buy-it-now priced, or I ignore. And I won't haggle prices for items I'm selling either. Wouldn't make a shred of difference if it were an in-game market listing with buy-out prices compared to how I use it. All this system does is inconvenience people who have to go through all the trouble of meeting up in-game with the slow and tedious trading process.

In other words, what DE wants isn't what they've got. (at least with me, and probably many others.) (this is the same stupid argument GGG and their PoE try to use, with the same failed results - it's so good that they have to reset the economy every 3-4 months and make everyone start fresh,*eye-roll*)

I've played MANY MANY online games, I even ran a MUD for a while (yes, I go that far back). And you know what? AH's are a good thing. I've never seen a game "ruined" by an Auction House (there were likely much larger contributing factors that an AH simply amplified, placing blame on the AH, wrongly.)

DE has several safeguards that make things even better for their little market than others. For one, trades are done through the premium currency, not an unlimited in-game currency like credits or gold (which inflates like crazy and is what RealMoneyTraders used to exploit, selling that in-game currency for real money) That's simply not possible in Warframe, because sales are not done in Credits. (the Index would have been the death of the economy if it were the case.)

DE limits trades per day with Mastery Rank. This creates a floor in people's minds, of what they're willing to post for sale each day. Do you list a bunch of cheap 1-plat prime relics that people only want to exchange for ducats, or sell the valuable rare axi prime relic that is worth more? How much are those per-day trades worth to you? People aren't going to be listing their entire inventories... because there's a daily limit.

I could go on (and likely will have to elaborate or bring out other points), but for now... those things alone, from my point of view as both a buyer and seller, make me want an AH, and I don't think it's because I think I'll be rich with an AH... it'll just make it convenient to buy or sell stuff in-game without going to a 3rd party website to facilitate something that should be handled in-house.

(DE also has some of the biggest plat sinks in the world with cosmetics and slots, so the whole "mudflation" thing people talk about happening... isn't gonna be happening.)

Edited September 12, 2019 by (PS4)AyinDygra

[TheKazz91]

So when people are bring in real world economics in this discussion and using that to postulate on what the effects of this would you not factoring in one key fundemental difference. That is what is the modivation that drives that economy? When it really comes down it it the main modivation that drives the majority of a real world economy is primarily survival. What do you buy food? Because you will die if you don't. Why do you buy a house? Because you have a much higher risk of dying of exposure if you don't. Why do you buy a car? Because you need to it get to work so you can pay for food.

Another key difference between real world economies and the Warframe economy is that in the real world cheap items are disposable and items that have some amount of permanence are orders of magnitude more expensive than disposable items.

Disposable goods that people are very motivated to buy are the key to having this sort of self regulating economy where prices stay relatively stable. This isn't the case in Warframe nothing is disposable there are semi desposable goods in Warframe like sculptures for endo, lenses, and ummm well basically those two. Where you get them you use them and now you don't have them so if you want more you have to go get more. How ever unlike something like food you still maintain the benefits of having had that thing at some point. There even for these sorts of things there is a finite amount of Endo you need to Max every mod even you wanted to have 1 copy of every mod at every rank there is still a finite amount of Endo you need to achieve that. You cannot however go to your local Applebee's and order so much food that you will not need to eat ever again and even if you could most people would still choose to because it tastes good (assuming you like Applebee's I guess.) Point is as soon as you get to a point where there is nothing of value in that economy that a given group of people want or need they stop adding to the GDP of that economic system and become a sink for that that value. Now anything they get they can put up for sale get plat but never add any amount of plat back into that system if you get a significant portion of players to that point and yes prices will drop well below reasonable levels as more and more people get to that point and become unwilling to pay someone else for anything because they simply have everything they can possibly get out of that system. 

[FrostDragoon]

8 hours ago, Skyfire151 said:

You're right that a free market is elegant and efficient and self-regulating and all that stuff - and if we introduce it to Warframe, it will elegantly and efficiently cause prices to tank.

You're right. Everything of any value in every MMO always costs 1 of the the lowest common currency... oh, wait. That's completely wrong. Again, because you're looking at only one dimension.

[FrostDragoon]

5 hours ago, (PS4)AyinDygra said:

I never negotiate ... it's either buy-it-now priced, or I ignore. And I won't haggle prices for items I'm selling either.

This.

This is why what DE "wants" and how trading actually is are entirely different things. How about what the players want?

Quote

DE limits trades per day with Mastery Rank. This creates a floor in people's minds, of what they're willing to post for sale each day. Do you list a bunch of cheap 1-plat prime relics that people only want to exchange for ducats, or sell the valuable rare axi prime relic that is worth more? How much are those per-day trades worth to you? People aren't going to be listing their entire inventories... because there's a daily limit.

They can also limit the space on your market--as many MMOs do--to like 10 slots, or # = MR, or something similar. This is why I don't buy a single word of the anti-AH argument--same fallacies, lies, and mistakes made in other games that need an AH and don't have one (like Path of Exile).

Edited September 12, 2019 by FrostDragoon

[Skyfire151]

26 minutes ago, FrostDragoon said:

You're right. Everything of any value in every MMO always costs 1 of the the lowest common currency... oh, wait. That's completely wrong. Again, because you're looking at only one dimension.

Putting words into someone else's mouth and then 'disproving' the stuff you made up is called a straw-man argument, and is one of the more common forms of a bad argument. Somewhat ironic from someone accusing the other side of 'fallacies, lies and mistakes'...

I have never claimed that everything would cost 1 plat. In fact, I explicitly said in my first post that there would be things that hold some or all of their value:

11 hours ago, Skyfire151 said:

High-ranking Arcanes would probably still actually be worth something (but I expect anything that drops from the Teralyst would be at least cheap, if not close to worthless), as would god-roll or meta-weapon Rivens, but that's pretty much it. Baro's items would keep some value, but probably not nearly as much as they're worth now

So with that said, I see no point in my continuing this discussion. Feel free to have the last word if you like.

Edited September 12, 2019 by Skyfire151

[FrostDragoon]

56 minutes ago, Skyfire151 said:

Putting words into someone else's mouth

Paraphrasing via hyperbole, but go ahead and take it literally if you like. That seems more intelligent to me too (/sarcasm).

Your essential argument is that it will tank the prices of most goods. Fact is, there are dozens of other factors that come into play which keep that from being as much of a problem as you might think. If you don't want to further the discussion by providing an argument of worth instead of the same tired ones that nobody buys in the first place, I'll accept your concession.

[Avienas]

10 hours ago, Skyfire151 said:

Unless there's a barrier-to-entry somewhere, then a proper free market will lower prices. That's what they do. For that matter, that's exactly what everyone praises it for in the real world: making the economy more efficient and therefore raising people's standard of living by dropping prices. It's the non-free markets with significant external interference that are famous for having high prices on goods.

Most barrier to entries tend to be Tax fees & limit on how many goods you can put up at a time if we want to be blunt on the most basic of ways to bar abuse of a market board in warframe. Vindictus for example has a extra % of cost to put up goods for longer periods of time, Final fantasy 14 takes a small chunk of say 5~15% of your profit from a sale depending on which locations you are putting your market up, Tree of Savior was a bad game honestly but it restricted how many items you could put up at a time (1 if you were a free 2player) and then restricted you from collecting the earnings till several hours to a few days later.

Never the less, the entire thing with warframe is everything inside it, is just digital consumable goods and obviously everything has ZERO value to begin with, till someone actually shows a want for it, this is why i can melt 50+ hammer shot mods for endo without a care, if i have no one wanting to buy them, why should i even hoarde the stuff? Warframe`s market chat has no real urgency to have demand except finding whenever someone gives the HALP for a buy/sell good, but since its in a stagnated mess that is flooded with spammers of riven mods, troll text and so on with it not being in a clean and organized manner, most just further lost the interest to put up HALP for said goods.

At the very least, D.E. needs to expand the chat tabs or create sub-chat channels for things like market chat that are dedicated to Riven mods, Arcanes, Prime parts, Non-Prime Weapons, Mods and Misc. items. Sure that sounds like a hassle, but i would like to think everyone would greatly benefit to just having to do an extra 1 to 5 clicks and can market chat what they are specifically wanting to deal with, the only real hassle would be the minor appearances of troll text and d.e. could easily train bots to auto boot players into a different chat channel and re-direct them to the correct one whenever they post about items not related to that chat channel.

Because if everyone wants to groan about a market board, then d.e. could do the same action they did with the filter system and simply open up more specific market chat channels which will greatly up organization, still require players to do the same GRIND of finding buyers/sellers but they do not need to wade thru the usual text junk people keep spouting. Too bad it likely will not stop mis-spelling idjits from by-passing the auto bot, so it might be helpful if they FIX THE REPORT SYSTEM to allow when say 8 or more people report a player spamming messages in the incorrect chat channel, it could take action to give warning about what they are doing and if they continue to get reported by other players then the initial ones who reported them, they would get market chat banned for about an hour.

Quote

Ducat conversion is not much of a safety feature - Baro goods are valuable because of the cost of prime junk, not the other way round. If prime junk prices drop, that puts downward pressure on those Baro goods. If 15 ducats is 1 plat, then most Baro items should cost roughly 20-40 plat. That's where I'd expect them to settle, and it's what, maybe 20% of current values?

Honestly The Ducat Ratio value died off just as much as the syndicate mod ones. For a long time syndicate augment mods were worth 10 plat, at a value of 25k points. Under this notion a long time ago, people used to sell 100k weapons for 40 plat and 125k weapons for 45~50 plat. But now its devolved into 20~25 or get off my fudging PM box logic. 

Same applied to baro weapons/riven mods but even when baro is not around and likely will not cycle the goods back in for up to 6 to 12 weeks later, people will still demand those primed mods/variant weapons/electric mods for very VEEEEERY low values, when instead of being worth 15~20 plat for a primed mod, the value should be 50~80, when the 3 values are all in place namely:

• Can the item be obtained in game currently or will it be a very long while till said item can become available? No i am not talking about relics owned by players, since most likely will care little on selling vaulted relics or not really pay attention if they have vaulted relics. Not many like to keep inventory of everything they own and likely will just melt them for traces & forma bp, before realizing they were a vaulted good, since its not exactly listed they are a vaulted relic at that point in time.
• Is the item demanded asked to be in a higher rank form then its base value? Seriously if you ask for a max mod that can go up to rank 10, expect to pay an extra deal of plat compared to buying it at clean rank, otherwise you should bugger off, get your hands on a clean one and farm the endo you need to max it instead.
• Are any additional steps necessary to farm for it then straight up do X objective? If the item has a low % drop rate, require converting alot of other goods into a currency to buy said item and you need to get said item during a very short time window, it should ESPECIALLY be expected to cost a good chunk of value, especially if its not in a buyable rotation at the moment. Same especially applies to goods that can only be obtained in one specific method and requires alot of setup to effectively `farm` for it to just drop once in all the grind that could end up taking many maaaany hours of non-stop farm. Especially if you want to cry about paying someone to carry you thru rotation C spamming for Ephemera in ESO or something along those lines.

Quote

You're right that a free market is elegant and efficient and self-regulating and all that stuff - and if we introduce it to Warframe, it will elegantly and efficiently cause prices to tank.

You can review my first point, if everyone wants to keep MOANING that value is just going to get worst when value is already so bad that some people can`t even get 1 platium for a single prime junk part, without people demanding 6 parts for 3~4 plat, then its already in a bad enough place as it is. So: D.E. Should just split up market chat into a sub-channels for particular goods so its 4 to 6 different channels so people can seek more specifically want they want then rely on the train-wreck we call the filter system that is getting degraded further and further as each month passes by.

 

• Or Just at the very least split it up into 3 chat channels, one for buying, one for selling, one for trading goods for goods to get things start.

Edited September 12, 2019 by Avienas

[FrostDragoon]

While I agree that extra tabs devoted to at least Rivens and non-Prime parts/mods would be an improvement, chat-based trade has always been an utter dumpster fire of a concept. It really just needs to go. Put in a proper market system instead. They work better, more people enjoy them, and they have a way of self-regulating prices in a way that barter-based systems simply can't/don't.

[Avienas]

2 hours ago, FrostDragoon said:

While I agree that extra tabs devoted to at least Rivens and non-Prime parts/mods would be an improvement, chat-based trade has always been an utter dumpster fire of a concept. It really just needs to go. Put in a proper market system instead. They work better, more people enjoy them, and they have a way of self-regulating prices in a way that barter-based systems simply can't/don't.

I have probably been ranting for a actual market system in place for likely over a year, not really keeping track. Only reason i would compromise a multi-tab system at this point is cause too many poop-wads want to think everything is completely fine, if they cannot compromise for a multi-tab system and want to complain that would make it too hard, despite all the marketing stream being in one tab is already a mess, which was SOMEWHAT bearable pre-riven mod era...well they are just doing the same argument as violent video games cause murder: 

Basically where both sides are acting like religious zealots trying to bicker between eachother without both sides putting the full effort to explain their angles. When they should be moving on instead, find a middle ground and get on with it, so people stop wasting time bickering on what needs to occur. Either something needs to happen or just abandon the entire thing then continue to bicker about it.

Sadly, since D.E. the ones who have the FINAL SAY in what should occur have not really done any budging about it in all these months besides them saying they were going to build a database of some sort for riven mods after the Semlar incident, clearly it would be better for players to just abandon warframe if they are going to get into religious zealot`ism over bad systems whether its defending it or demanding change must happen. Because soon as someone suggests something to massively improve a game that makes 100% perfect sense, your going to get SOME butt-wads who want to spam out either in troll speak or lazy made excuse arguments on why it should not be changed.

Its quite literally the same Butt-Stool argument like how Loot boxes are gambling yet plenty of greedy companies want to keep saying they aren`t even when you have underaged kids draining bank accounts for absurd drop rate items, likely till D.E. gets more of those shenanigans to show up to set off the disaster alarms, probably in the form of some kid stealing parents credit cards to buy a bunch of platinum to buy a 1000~2000 riven mod off of a player, then its hard to imagine why d.e. has yet to take an actual step to addressing frustrating systems, that especially could force newer players to leave.

Since any new player i would say would get massively intimidated by market chat these days, compared to how it was pre-riven mod era, that they rather switch to a much simpler game that does not have one jump thru so many scary hoops. Since i am sure if i was a much fresher player then i was on warframe these days, i would of likely dropped warframe just as fast as i did on some other f2p games and its likely only because i have gone thru so much on warframe to make me want to stay around and WISH for D.E. to take steps to improve the game, make it really shine and stop letting its frustrating elements constantly drag down how great of a game it has been, for such a long time.

 

TL;DR point: If D.E. doesnt put the effort to do anything or bring to attention in it on any developer streams of sorts, then any feedback discussion is effectively wasted, no matter how much people argue. So for now, all i suggest is people put some HUGE effort out to bring it to D.E.`s attention on streams or some way to REALLY get thar attention or expect them to never address it at all.

Edited September 13, 2019 by Avienas

[JuicyPop]

It's simply that the F2P fantasy would break down as prices would be significantly depressed. It would enable more players to make a small of platinum but almost totally gut the potential for larger gains among savvy players.

In a twist of logic, it's those players that also happen to spend the most on the game and DE would see a net loss in income as they gradually drop off. 

Edited September 13, 2019 by JuicyPop

[JuicyPop]

On 2019-09-11 at 8:40 PM, (PS4)Black-Cat-Jinx said:

Ironically people keep saying that a vending system will drive prices down, demand down, and reduce platinum sales when in reality it will do the total opposite. 

Seriously defend your position that de wants people to have to talk to each other. Do not argue it would drive down prices or reduce plat sales becuase that fails logic checks and lacks basic economic model sense. 

There is a reason vending machines exist, provably people will pay more just to have easy access, instant gratification, and not have to deal with people, it also asks players to step out of a game to exchange a meaningfully irrelevant amount of plat on one mod instead of doing something more important or enjoyable. 

A lot of businesses that have high passer by counts are trying to eliminate vending machines in favor of a store. Because they are making people with more important jobs act as cashiers, these businesses are now suffering economic losses becuase the"cashier" missed a call worth 30 thousand dollars or more annually because they were taking two dollars in cash from a passer by they will never ever see again. Forced human interaction is not a positive business model when it is neither needed nor wanted. 

Range and visibility naturally place a negative pressure on price. Have you never played EVE? The prices in Jita 4-4 are the cheapest by far because it has the largest market of potential buyers. 

It would reduce plat sales because they people that actually buy significant quantities of plat, outside of prime packages, are those that already invest heavily into the trading market. If you lose those players, you lose the sales. 

Edited September 13, 2019 by JuicyPop

[FrostDragoon]

42 minutes ago, JuicyPop said:

It would reduce plat sales because they people that actually buy significant quantities of plat, outside of prime packages, are those that already invest heavily into the trading market.

I'm not sure why people would assume this, let alone keep repeating it as if it's fact. 

Quote

If you lose those players, you lose the sales. 

Why do you think you would lose those players? Riven investment wouldn't go anywhere. Arcanes would still be expensive. Vaulted Primes would still have value. There are plenty of other things too, but the point is that the people who would invest in the market still could/would. Facilitating a better trade system wouldn't push them away, but probably bring more in.

[Althaline]

21 minutes ago, FrostDragoon said:

Vaulted Primes would still have value.

Why do you assume this? Warframe has enough players that at least some of them would have spare vaulted primes, and with the visibility and simplicity of an AH, they would try the age-old tactic of "1 plat lower". This would continue until all prime parts (regardless of their initial rarity) became worth their ducat value and nothing more.

[JuicyPop]

47 minutes ago, FrostDragoon said:

I'm not sure why people would assume this, let alone keep repeating it as if it's fact. 

Why do you think you would lose those players? Riven investment wouldn't go anywhere. Arcanes would still be expensive. Vaulted Primes would still have value. There are plenty of other things too, but the point is that the people who would invest in the market still could/would. Facilitating a better trade system wouldn't push them away, but probably bring more in.

I don't assume, I just look to gacha games as a model. The players that do get hooked in by the F2P fancy are enticed to spend and do so inordinately even if it's nowhere near the whale level; it's only the cursory players that rarely check in that can actually stay completely F2P. 

 

Edited September 13, 2019 by JuicyPop

[FrostDragoon]

Warframe isn't a gacha game, and I see no reason to assume that what holds true of the apple holds true for the orange.

[Steel_Rook]

On 2019-09-09 at 11:35 AM, Jiminez_Burial said:

DE have stated on multiple occasions that they want the trading in their game to be active, for people to converse with people and negotiate prices.

Well, I want a pony, but I'm about as likely to get that as DE are to get this particular pipe dream. This sort of medieval bartering system might have worked in the Dark Age of Lineage 2, but it's entirely non-functional in any modern title. If the game doesn't offer a proper Market/Consignment/Auction system, you can expect people to make their own system and automate as much as possible in the process. What we get is Warframe.market - an unsanctioned, self-monitored third party which abstracts all aspects of trade down to just the absolute minimum interaction, which is a copy-pasted text string and the manual trading system. The result is in-game trading that's equal parts slow and irritating, with just enough person-to-person interaction to make me wait for 10 minutes but not enough to remember anyone's name.

DE exhibit the ago-old MMO mentality of trying to foster a community, something I've taken to calling the "Chinese zookepper's approach." Lock two Giant Pandas in a cage, hope for them to mate, except the players are the Giant Pandas in this analogy. It's stupid, it's demeaning and - above all else - it doesn't work. See also: "Do <thing> with friends or clan mates."

 

*edit*
I should note, by the way - my sharp tone isn't aimed at you, but rather at DE's community-building mentality.

Edited September 13, 2019 by Steel_Rook

[FrostDragoon]

Couldn't agree more, Steel_Rook.

[BL4CKN0ISE]

When you actually work, you think about how precious your time is. You're much more concerned with how much you make for that time. When you don't work, you're happy to get a few dollars. 

I get annoyed selling stuff too. That's why I don't waste my time selling stuff too cheap. I'm not leaving my orbiter to sell an item lower than what I think my time is worth. I definitely don't want DE to take that aspect away. 

[FrostDragoon]

No, instead you waste countless hours spamming trade chat for nothing. Awesome.

[Althaline]

4 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

It's stupid, it's demeaning and - above all else - it doesn't work.

You are wrong.

If you actually bothered to interact with the trade system and the people you traded with, you might actually see some interaction in return. As with any interactions, you can only get out as much as you put in. Try actually talking to people rather than AFKing on Warframe.market and you might see some of the community you claim doesn't exist.

[FrostDragoon]

What utter nonsense! Nobody wants to do that. It's not like you can just blame the OP for it either. It's that way because DE doesn't recognize that incentive structure they've created simply doesn't promote that kind of interaction. You can try as you might, but nobody else wants to play that game with you, because you're interfering with their play time and making their trading less efficient.

[0_The_F00l]

I make it a policy to support every suggestion for an auction house of some sort.

[Chappie]

1 hour ago, 0_The_F00l said:

I make it a policy to support every suggestion for an auction house of some sort.

I make it policy to oppose every suggestion for an auction house of some sort.  

[FrostDragoon]

17 minutes ago, Chappie1975 said:

I make it policy to oppose every suggestion for an auction house of some sort.  

People make all kinds of dumb decisions. Yours is akin to poor people voting for tax increases under the false notion that they will get more government benefits from it... but in reality it just means you pay more for basically nothing. That's essentially how this trade system is--arbitrarily made $#!% for bad reasons and under false/backward logic due to irrational fear of AH.

[JuicyPop]

15 minutes ago, FrostDragoon said:

People make all kinds of dumb decisions. Yours is akin to poor people voting for tax increases under the false notion that they will get more government benefits from it... but in reality it just means you pay more for basically nothing. That's essentially how this trade system is--arbitrarily made $#!% for bad reasons and under false/backward logic due to irrational fear of AH.

Except in this case the people that actively benefit from the current system are rightly opposing changes to it. There is no situation with an AH wherein I would make more /hr outside of playing the market full-time. 

edit: If you remove the barriers to entry into a market, you necessarily increase competition/volume. Volume exceeding demand necessarily places a negative pressure on prices. 

Edited September 13, 2019 by JuicyPop