Forums » Crafting and Gathering

Crafter's Roundtable: Limits on Selling Items

    • 1785 posts
    January 9, 2019 9:50 PM PST

    For those who haven't seen these before, Crafter's Roundtable threads are something that the stafff at Pantheon Crafters puts together on a regular basis.  We ask questions that are intended to get the community talking, and help VR see what we'd like for crafting in Pantheon.  Now that the holidays are over and we've all (hopefully) recovered, let's get back into some serious topics!  This time, let's dive into how we think the economy of Terminus should work.

     

    The question:

    We don't know how buying and selling will work in Pantheon yet, but the team has said that they are leaning towards the concept of regional markets, as well as allowing players a method to sell while offline.  Today's question is around what limits should be in place in the eventual system.  Limits are potentially important to help insure that people with extreme amounts of time to spend in game aren't able to monopolize the market and drive out other players who might want to participate.   Should sellers be limited in the number of items they can put up for sale at one time, or should the price of those items be capped in some way?  Should sellers be able to travel and post items for sale in different regions, or should they be restricted to just one?  What limits make sense and what would feel too restrictive?

     

    Autherial has been MIA since Christmas Eve - we're pretty sure he got on the naughty list somehow.  Hopefully he finds his way home from the North Pole soon.  In the meantime however, we rounded up the rest of our staff  to get their thoughts on the question.  Check out their opinions, and then post your own below!

     

    From Khaleesi:

    I like the regional concept of selling, certainly this will make market opportunities in different regions for more folks, but it has the downside of limiting buyer base (unless you could buy from anywhere, but that takes away from some of the immersion).  

    As for limits, probably just a limit on number of items for sale will be sufficient.  I think that in particular limiting the crafting professions to one will help this situation. 

    It would certainly be nice to be able to have the quality of items be the drawing factor for buyers - for the folks who are able to adapt to the skill required, travel, and learning needed to make special items, those items may be of high enough prestige that those items (hopefully emblazoned with the maker's mark, and maybe.. city?) will attract players who would be willing to travel across Terminis with the hopes of buying their wares. 

    Another potential boon to selling is the previously discussed job board idea from which any player with sufficient skill could take a contract and would be required to fill it within a certain amount of time.

     

    From Trasak:

    I guess I am in the camp of no hard coded limit on a players ability to sell.  The exact vendor mechanics will have some form of space limitation due to inventory management and likely that will be the prime limiter that will prevent true hording of items.  I guess I am even not against players being able to rent true warehouses to store 100 character inventories worth of items if there is an appropriate capital and continual cost.  This would just encourage a different way to play the game.

    From personal experience it is fairly hard to manipulate the market in a meaningful way over a longer period of time so I would not really worry about it.  Additionally any item that has extremely inordinate values like the Fungi tunic did should be nerfed to be more comparable to other items of similar difficulty to obtain and that developers item creation rights restricted.

     

    From Tragic:

    I like the idea of traveling to each region to buy and sell. I think the best way to curb the flooding of the market would be to limit the amount that can be posted at a time per region. This would allow the ambitious salesman the opportunity to tour the world selling goods. I am not a fan of making things too restrictive; however, I am also not a fan of a globalized auction house.

     

    From Nephele:

    There's a lot of stuff we don't know yet about how buying and selling will work, although VR has said a few times now they want to see regional markets, rather than a single global market.  So, it stands to reason that when you put something up for sale, it will only be visible and purchasable (at least in-game) in the market where you're selling it.

    With that in mind, I'm conflicted.  I'm the sort of crafter who *likes* to build up a virtual storefront - so I want to be able to list a fair amount of goods for sale.  I don't mind paying a listing fee or a tax on the sale to support that.  However, I think that if I could list an unlimited number of items, even it if was only in one region, it would probably be too much.  Knowing myself, over time I'd just keep adding more and more until eventually I didn't even remember everything I had listed - although it would take a while to get to that point.  So for that reason, I think I'd like to see some limits on how many items someone can put up.

    Another thing I'd like to see is a limit on the maximum price of an item.  In several games now I've seen people use their market board listings as storage, where they put stuff up "for sale" at prices of something like 9999999999999 gold.  Obviously, no one's going to buy that item for that price, so they're essentially just getting extra storage by doing that.  I'd prefer not to see that happen in Pantheon, so I feel like reasonable limits on the maximum value that you can list an item for would help.   How much of a limit that should be though, I don't know.  Though, I suppose a scaling listing fee could fix that too - if you put something up for a million gold, expect to pay a fair amount just to list the item for that much.

    Finally, I am really *not* a fan of a "time-out" on item listings.  I loved my vendors in SWG, and kept them stocked with all manner of goodies.  But when they would decide to delist a bunch of their stuff every 30 days it was a severe pain in the butt - especially because most of the time, I was just going to put that stuff back up for the same price it was at before.  So what I think I'd rather see with regards to time is that stuff stays listed indefinitely, as long as the player who listed it is still logging in regularly.  If they stop logging in, eventually their stuff de-lists.

    I could probably write a lot more but I'll try to wrap it up.  I'd like to see things set up so that people don't feel like they need to make alts to get additional selling space, yet also with enough limits so that you don't see a very small number of sellers flooding segments of the market, whether that's globally or within a region.  There's a balancing act involved to be sure.

     

    That's enough from us, now let's hear from everyone else!  What limits do you think make sense in a game like Pantheon?


    This post was edited by Nephele at January 14, 2019 8:40 AM PST
    • 4 posts
    January 9, 2019 11:10 PM PST

    i beleave to maintain a nice balance of buying and selling everything should have a monmental value for buying and selling. no trading or giving away stuff that would stop people from making alts to farm and give to one char or account from another account plus stealing someones account wouldnt help if you cant give things away but had to sell it to others no m atter what . but you could install an ability that could benifit trade classes to still be able to earn coin by making things for others with out selling an item but if they were provided with the items neeeded to make said item. both parties involed would need to accept the deal and hit create item etc. like in everquest wizards made good coin gating people around . i still love this idea but you could still insteal a sever price cap to keep things in check for the economy. ready player one.

    • 768 posts
    January 10, 2019 7:10 AM PST

    Apologize for (already a decreased) wall of text. I fear, https://www.pantheoncrafters.com/ had the full extent of my reply. 

    Broker fee

    Selling items, if not directly to players, should come at a cost. Let players think before they use this system. It makes sense, that selling offline for example will cost you extra. This extra factor might increase the quality of items that make it onto the offline markets. And that’s beneficial for everyone. Items that don’t make it on the market, will get salvaged, destroyed or sold to npcs and thereby vanish from the world, making it an indirect item/trash sink. Which is again a positive thing. Allow players the opportunity to go for direct sales, without the use of npcs. Stimulating pc to pc sales will increase community interaction and a true connection to players. This could be a very strong pillar for this game. You’ll get to know players that are selling to you locally. You might encounter them later on in other regions and they might play the markets in a similar fashion. Pc to pc sales allow for solo players to sell out and cash in directly without too much fuss. If those players just drop it all into a vendor box, they will lose that small window to interact with other players. Which is ok if they choose to and are willing to pay that little fee to “upkeep” npc-services.

    Allowing items on local markets might have a lower fee than putting items on a global market. When interacting with the broker system, there might be two options. Place locally or globally. The local markets will tax less, downside it that other players in other regions will not be able to view and buy it. It’s cheaper for you and thus safer choice to place that item here, but there is less chance of selling it as you’ll reach fewer players. Or put it on global market with higher taxes. Your personal upkeep is higher, you might lose more money but at least more players can view your stock. However, if items do not sell on a timely manner, the benefit of placing it on global markets will be gone since you’re paying more on upkeep fees then you’d eventually have gained from selling the item.

    Regional item value

    Local items = local prices… foreign items have a lowered price value…mainly because the npc’s of that region are less interested in it, it might also be less useful. You don’t need woollen mitts in the Khäga Sands. Or perhaps npc- dwarves just favour items relating to them or their native origin and are not willing to spend more when buying other items from players. Not every npc on Terminus is willing to pay the same amount of money for a certain item.

    Reuse timer on item placement

    A timer on items on the broker would feel a bit off. Just make sure you let players pay taxes on using this 3th party /npc sales design and that should be sufficient.

    Scaled taxation

    Something I’ld like to add.. How about as the level of items goes up. The taxes go up in a sensible manner. So the taxes on level 10 items are lower than on level 40 items. The reasons are obvious (and I already have a wall of text). If needed I’ll explain in a reply.

    Meaningful broker use: a lot of time vs less time

    Region markets could be flooded by a farming player, decreasing the value of the item or the value of the experience of trying to sell items. When a new/low level player found some nice and they decide they want to sell it, a farming player flooding the market with this item, could ruin the experience for this new player. To prevent that from happening, one could restrict the amount of items being placed correlating to the item ID. So that farming player might have 20 legendary swords, but the broker system only allows him to sell 1 at a time. The farming player could bypass this by going to other regionally markets and selling that same legendary sword over there as well. (The tax on distance suggestion could already solve this issue.) So now the farmer is flooding all markets with his farmed items. Prices drop, people lose interest or find the broker system less valuable to spend time using it themselves. If the item ID restriction is globally, you’ll find that farmers will lose interest in this playstyle all together as most of their loot becomes trash. (mind you, they could still work the market through direct sales to players.)

    Item ID restriction

    How about a time restriction based on the item ID. So a player is able to put that Legendary sword on broker, but ones it’s sold, they can place that same item ID on the broker again, after a certain time has passed. So low quality items can get back on sale quicker in comparison to high quality or even rare items. That could solve some of the flooding actors. But could ruin it for farming as a playstyle.

    Taxing and benefits based on items sold

    That brings me to flooding the markets with low quality trash. In a sense the prices will work that out themselves. But perhaps the restriction could come from a different angle here. Based on the number of total items sold by a player, the taxes would increase. So one player might sell a lot of items but as time goes on, the taxes might become too much for him and will motivate him to work a different market or create another style that does not impact the broker system. (perhaps he’ll decide to auction using direct contact with players. Which is a good thing.) This tax system might not seem positively stimulating, but it could go hand in hand with faction bonuses/boosts. So that player who’s selling a lot, paying an increasing amount of taxes (based on his high amount of items sold), could gain other in game economic benefits or fluffy content. Some benefits that are reserved for indeed those devoted salesmen. By doing so, you’re rewarding them to be so active in the game, but at the same time you’re allowing a money sink at that player.

    • 127 posts
    January 10, 2019 1:24 PM PST

    Not going to beat around the bush... I really don't like the concept of auction houses. They should not form the basis for the in-game economy in any case. Direct player to player trades should be the primary way to deal in high value items, always.

    One possible way to accomplish this even if auction houses do exist is to tax sales there significantly. Like, say, 30% at least, because actually sticking around town to peddle your wares and find a buyer takes time and time is money. Make it any cheaper and it's just more profitable to take the hit and go out adventuring instead. In other games, this tax is far too low.

    Another method would be to only allow materials and components to be sold in auction houses, whereas completed products require direct interaction between players. This seems alright too, especially because most of the gathering skills are more associated with adventuring than crafting (you're expected to collect materials from nodes and scavenge from environments you explore). And folks dealing in large quantities of materials and selling them over trade chat would make it harder to find the more interesting items that are on offer.

    A third possible method is a hard cap on the list price (i.e. you can't list a price above 999 gold, while the better and more rare items would usually sell for thousands). This has a slight disadvantage where lower level crafters can't really engage in the art of peddling because the items they would have to sell can still more efficiently be sold in an auction house. So they are not eased into direct player to player trading.

     

    For people who don't want to spend the time playing an auction house or peddling wares on trade chat, I feel like it'd be great if vendors offered a fairer price for once. Instead of paying like 10% of the items value and selling items for 200%, shifting the values towards 67% and 133% would turn vendors into extremely localized auctioneers. And it could be profitable for traders to just browse vendor shops for stuff they can resell and for crafters to get materials.

    This is probably also one of the better ways to make regional markets a reality. By increasing the price vendors pay for your goods or reducing the price at which they sell, Pantheon could simulate which items are in demand in which areas. To avoid excessive clutter in vendor stores, the shop's stock could reset every few hours so any unsold items get flushed out of the economy. They could also be given a maximum budget with which they'll take items off players (which gets reset at the same time their stock gets reset), so once a certain merchant is out of money players would have to vendor their junk elsewhere.

    Letting vendors play an actual role in the economy like this has my preference over auction houses where everything is centralized.

     

    Finally, to facilitate direct player to player trades, I do love the idea of a bulletin board where people can list items they're seeking/selling along with their name as contact information.


    This post was edited by Kaeldorn at January 10, 2019 1:33 PM PST
    • 2419 posts
    January 11, 2019 9:36 AM PST

    I take a laisse faire approach to the marketplace with respect to 1)how many items you can sell at any given time; 2) the limit on inventory space of NPC merchants (unlimited); and 3) how quickly or often a player can post an item for sale.

    If a player is looking for maximum convenience in selling his/her wares, using an NPC broker that has associated fees would be the optimal choice.  The higher you list an item, the higher the transactional fee incurred.  This fee should take into account the 1)asking price; 2) the length of time the NPC is to keep the item listed/searchable in the regional market; and 3) the faction standing of the player with the local NPC merchants guild (*see note below).

    If players are wanting to maximize their profit potential, then selling directly should be the optimal solution as it cuts out the NPC transactional fees.  I suspect that the average player will take a balanced approach whereby mass-market items would be brokered while unique/highly desired items are direct marketed.  You probably wouldn't want to spend time trying to direct market 200 Dwarf Meat Pies but you might want to take the time when trying to sell Granth's Axe of Mutilation, a rare drop off a rare named.

    As the different continents are a critical part of this regional design, the mundane items that drop in those areas should have some role to play in other regions.  A region where wolves on common would necessarily have a lower asking price by NPCs in that area.  By contrast an NPC merchant on another continent where wolves do not exist would show a higher asking price.  Players can take it upon themselves to watch the regional NPC merchants to see what mundane items are in demand in various areas and buy/sell accordingly.  Thus you might buy out the wolf pelts from an NPC in one area because you know that you can resell them to another NPC on another continent and make a profit at least worth the time to get from A to B.

    *I bring faction into the equation so that it limits players from using level 1 throw-away alts to move items to regional brokers.  Each regional market broker(s) should be part of a faction which has a default state that precludes just using the brokers without first 'earning' the right to use their services.  The brokers would have a series of tasks/quests that would need to be completed before players can use their services.  Such tasks would not be completable by a level 1 character.   I'm assuming that the regional markets will exist near some city (Thronefast, for example) so player races naturally KOS to Thronefast would first need to 'faction-up' just to gain access to the area then 'faction-up' with the NPC brokers.  This does give an advantage to the local player population but not one wholly insurmountable by KOS races.

    • 768 posts
    January 12, 2019 1:14 AM PST

    Vandraad said:

    As the different continents are a critical part of this regional design, the mundane items that drop in those areas should have some role to play in other regions.  A region where wolves on common would necessarily have a lower asking price by NPCs in that area.  By contrast an NPC merchant on another continent where wolves do not exist would show a higher asking price.  Players can take it upon themselves to watch the regional NPC merchants to see what mundane items are in demand in various areas and buy/sell accordingly.  Thus you might buy out the wolf pelts from an NPC in one area because you know that you can resell them to another NPC on another continent and make a profit at least worth the time to get from A to B.

    *I bring faction into the equation so that it limits players from using level 1 throw-away alts to move items to regional brokers.  Each regional market broker(s) should be part of a faction which has a default state that precludes just using the brokers without first 'earning' the right to use their services.  The brokers would have a series of tasks/quests that would need to be completed before players can use their services.  Such tasks would not be completable by a level 1 character.   I'm assuming that the regional markets will exist near some city (Thronefast, for example) so player races naturally KOS to Thronefast would first need to 'faction-up' just to gain access to the area then 'faction-up' with the NPC brokers.  This does give an advantage to the local player population but not one wholly insurmountable by KOS races.

    If prices for wolfskin would be higher elsewhere, where wolves are less abundant. Although that makes sense in real life, it might actually cause exploids in the game itself. As farmers could clean out wolf country and travel to that higher value region. In real life you're resources might not be so endless as is the case in a game with respawns. Also, if you'ld prevent this farmstyle by manipulating the respawn time of wolves, you'ld impact other players as wel. Which is something that would need careful consideration if that's a good thing or something they want to avoid. If you'ld increase the respawn, so that wolf country can not be cleaned out by farmers, you'ld actually allow for a cashproduction in the game, that might be not be desired either.  One other solution would be to design prices dropping by the amount of wolfskin offered by players in other regions outside of wolfcountry. This way the prices might be high in the beginning or at times where there are less players going that way, and the price will go down when players flock around the npc. I'm not sure how difficult that would be to design into npc sales.

     

    Faction is another great idea to implement when we're talking about access to broker mechanics. This suggestion ties in neatly with this thread https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/9771/crafting-harvesting-pc-hirelings . One remark concerning factionrequirements, it however puts a big restrain on new players or low players in general. This could feel like their being tunneled all in the same direction. "you want to sell on broker? Follow this path and you'll get access. Not high enough in level, go level up and come back." This is risky, unless you design some "restricted/temporary/one time-period/ 1 per account / only" option where new players get an introduction into the broker system. 

    A broker and offline selling could have a minimum cap. Where the character needs to be level X or have X amount of cash to access broker mechanics. By that time players might already have use direct sales to sell their wares. In a way you're stimulating the player to prefer direct sales instead of this 3rd party/offline sale. 

    Another idea would be that when the player logs on, they can choose which of their regional markets they want to open. So if they have items being sold in 5 regions, they might only be able to open up 3 during their time online. This could have a more subtle impact with prevention of globalizing farming strategies. There would always be other markets where other players would be the best deal, if you see what I mean. Global broker (if that excists) would be enabled when a character loggs off and the offline sale would be enabled. When the character logs back on, the regional markets open up and offline sales is closed. Global broker (again if it's allowed together with offline sales) could be allowed both offline as when online. I'ld perhaps favour the idea of only having offline sales and regional markets when online. 

    What do you say, Vandraad?

    • 2419 posts
    January 13, 2019 5:16 PM PST

    Barin999 said:

    If prices for wolfskin would be higher elsewhere, where wolves are less abundant. Although that makes sense in real life, it might actually cause exploids in the game itself. As farmers could clean out wolf country and travel to that higher value region. In real life you're resources might not be so endless as is the case in a game with respawns. Also, if you'ld prevent this farmstyle by manipulating the respawn time of wolves, you'ld impact other players as wel. Which is something that would need careful consideration if that's a good thing or something they want to avoid. If you'ld increase the respawn, so that wolf country can not be cleaned out by farmers, you'ld actually allow for a cashproduction in the game, that might be not be desired either.  One other solution would be to design prices dropping by the amount of wolfskin offered by players in other regions outside of wolfcountry. This way the prices might be high in the beginning or at times where there are less players going that way, and the price will go down when players flock around the npc. I'm not sure how difficult that would be to design into npc sales.

    This is where I bring up dynamic pricing whereby NPCs will dynamically adjust both their sale and buy prices based upon supply and demand.  Sure, you bring over a load of wolf skins the vendor will be very happy to buy the first couple at a good price, but quickly starts lowering its buy price until it is paying the same or less than what NPCs in the area where the wolves live pay for skins.  Same goes for player attempting to mass-purchase NPC stocks.  The first few they will sell at low prices but because the demand is rising, they dynamically start raising their pricing.

    Barin999 said:

    Faction is another great idea to implement when we're talking about access to broker mechanics. This suggestion ties in neatly with this thread https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/9771/crafting-harvesting-pc-hirelings . One remark concerning factionrequirements, it however puts a big restrain on new players or low players in general. This could feel like their being tunneled all in the same direction. "you want to sell on broker? Follow this path and you'll get access. Not high enough in level, go level up and come back." This is risky, unless you design some "restricted/temporary/one time-period/ 1 per account / only" option where new players get an introduction into the broker system. 

    I think this is only a short-term penalty if you're wanting to sell outside of your starting area.  I would design it such that players, through the normal course of leveling up through the frst handful of levels would naturally increase their standings high enough to use the local brokers.  It is only when they want to move to new markets that they need to put in more effort. 

    But with faction there is one thing of which I am a huge proponent:  Not all factions can be raised.  I would stay that a Skar should never be able to raise factions with the Elves high enough to ever walk through their city or use their merchants/brokers.  But to offset this limitation you implement black-markets.  In hidden tunnels/underground hideouts there would be those markets where brokers with less scruples about with whom they conduct business would operate.  The price for using these brokers is higher than the 'normal' brokers.  After all, you're not welcomed in the city above so you're paying for this service.

    Barin999 said:

    A broker and offline selling could have a minimum cap. Where the character needs to be level X or have X amount of cash to access broker mechanics. By that time players might already have use direct sales to sell their wares. In a way you're stimulating the player to prefer direct sales instead of this 3rd party/offline sale. 

    Another idea would be that when the player logs on, they can choose which of their regional markets they want to open. So if they have items being sold in 5 regions, they might only be able to open up 3 during their time online. This could have a more subtle impact with prevention of globalizing farming strategies. There would always be other markets where other players would be the best deal, if you see what I mean. Global broker (if that excists) would be enabled when a character loggs off and the offline sale would be enabled. When the character logs back on, the regional markets open up and offline sales is closed. Global broker (again if it's allowed together with offline sales) could be allowed both offline as when online. I'ld perhaps favour the idea of only having offline sales and regional markets when online. 

    What do you say, Vandraad?

    Having a minimum level (say level 10) isn't a bad idea for using brokers for selling.  There should be no minimum for buying. Either way though, there should be some faction work needed before you can use them in either capacity.

    I would strongly disagree with 'action from a distance' where you can access regional markets when not being physically present. No activity should be allowed without you being physically present.

    • 768 posts
    January 13, 2019 11:59 PM PST

    Vandraad said:

    I would strongly disagree with 'action from a distance' where you can access regional markets when not being physically present. No activity should be allowed without you being physically present.

    Physically present online? Or within the region where you are selling? Or even in town itself?

    As I placed my swords on the broker in Wilds End, I travel to Skyhold. Will my sales be halted? Or am I not able to cash in and do I need to travel back to Wilds End to retreive my earnings?

    That's an impactful suggestion you're making here. Interesting, it would influence many things ingame. (one would be: players would be required to travel back and forth a lot, which could be a good/bad thing)

    And how do you see this working out with the dev's already suggesting an offline selling mechanism?


    This post was edited by Barin999 at January 14, 2019 12:00 AM PST
    • 124 posts
    January 14, 2019 3:57 AM PST

    This is a good discussion and question, and i will add my 2cents over my experiences with multiple games. (sorry for the mess in write up)

    I will be making the only assumption that there will be regional markets, other than that assume no limitations.

    Since we will be having regional area's to sell, there should also be regional materials that can only be traded / sold at those markets via offline methods. Offline methods should only be presented to players in other region's via a 'town scrier', meaning there is atleast a 2 - 3 hour delay in the communication, if this functions should appear at all. Offline methods should be limited, but if this is slot or item count i cannot determin. For example a problem i had in EQ2 at the start was that for crafting a LOT of subcombines were needed to create an item, which in turn was a subcombine for some (one / thing) else (i was a chemist . . .) and this posed a problem. If i would have a limit of 20 items, i could put up for sale 5 dropped items with a stack count of 1, and 15 with a stack count of 100. So instead i would like to suggest a 'weight' item. For so you can put up a total amount of items that equal a certain 'weigh'. ore's being 0.1 weight a stack, where a fungi tunic would be 5 weigh. This makes you think about what you want to put up for sale.

    When putting raw resources up for sale, i'd love an additional mechanic being a local auction house, similar to the mechanic used in 'Life is Feudal'. But instead of it being an auction house, i more or less want it to be a storage / bank for 1 npc trader, where you can get 'rid' of your crafting resources, but where crafters can buy those resources at a fixed fee. This in turn will also support community not tossing those resources when accidentally getting them and 'diminish' the need for spawn camping for resources.

    This also might open up the option to sell when online, either hiring a stall or creating something of the sorts like aion did with the /store function. This would in turn create more space for you to sell items, but you would be excluded from broadcast information options and thus only be viewed locally via a vendor board where people could look up the items being sold. As this also opens up options to /auction much like the EC tunnel did in EQ1, and increase the immersion. 

    When offline selling, i'm in big favor of it costing a fee, EQ2 kept a 10% fee of the projected sale price, which i think is a good fee, as it will scale with the items put up for sale. I do not like offline buying, meaning you can offer up contracts for others to fulfill while you are offline. The buyer should at all times be online when completing a purchase and be physically present at the local market to actually buy the item(s).

    Travelling to get the items sold in a region to me is mandatory, just like you need to go to a certain region to actually get the items. This only makes sence to me.

    I do not believe that certain resources should be readily available from vendor NPC's that also have a drop variant. For example the batwings in EC and later all the ingredients for grobbs liquidised meats being available in shadow haven. Either one or the other and not both (with humanoids as exception, that can occasionally drop something related to their profession).

     

    When i think more about it, ill add more to this list.


    This post was edited by decarsul at January 14, 2019 6:11 AM PST
    • 2419 posts
    January 14, 2019 7:35 AM PST

    Barin999 said:

    Vandraad said:

    I would strongly disagree with 'action from a distance' where you can access regional markets when not being physically present. No activity should be allowed without you being physically present.

    Physically present online? Or within the region where you are selling? Or even in town itself?

    As I placed my swords on the broker in Wilds End, I travel to Skyhold. Will my sales be halted? Or am I not able to cash in and do I need to travel back to Wilds End to retreive my earnings?

    That's an impactful suggestion you're making here. Interesting, it would influence many things ingame. (one would be: players would be required to travel back and forth a lot, which could be a good/bad thing)

    And how do you see this working out with the dev's already suggesting an offline selling mechanism?

    By 'action at a distance' I mean that if you want to put in item on the regional market, you must physicall go to that market, egage with the NPC broker and put the item up for sale for X amount of time.  If you then wish to change anything about that sale (increase/decrease price/duration) you must go back to that broker and make those changes.  The sale will remain active for the duration you set and if it expires without being sold you again need to return to the broker to retrieve your items and the same goes for if the item is sold. Collecting your money means you need to go to the broker.

    Offline selling just means that when an item is place up for sale with a broker, the event remains active for the duration set.  You don't need to be online or physically present during the event.

    • 768 posts
    January 14, 2019 10:59 PM PST

    Vandraad said:

    Offline selling just means that when an item is place up for sale with a broker, the event remains active for the duration set.  You don't need to be online or physically present during the event.

    I meant, how do you see the combination of offline selling and your suggestion of local sales and cash in, work out in Pantheon. Let's say I'm relogging to an alt. Would I be selling offline or would you rather see the broker system being account based. So no matter what alt I'm playing, my broker will remain online selling. Or in other scenario, if you're required to relog or camp to self, does it go straight to offline selling and does your broker stop selling "online"? Or do you need to take cancel the offline sales when you're logging in? 

    Would offline sales have a delay on cash in? 

    The suggestion of going back to your regional broker to cash in, although I like it as wel, would mean that player will need to run back and forth to check on their broker every so often. So this would implicate that there is a large enough inventory to put items on sale. If it was not, and you're restricted to 20 items at each regional broker. Players will need to check in even more often. Allowing a large inventory broker, could again leave the door open to farmers or floods on the market.

    Here's another remark or question for you then. Let's say you've earned 20g's but you waited for a long while to cash in, would that broker start to 'claim' money over time? So if you don't return often enough or quick enough you wouldn't have 20g's anymore, but 15g's. 

    How would one be alerted that items have been sold in their regional broker? Would there be a limited timespan to retreive your earnings? If I'm some distance away and I can't check in on my regional brokers from my current location, I could be returning to see nothing is sold at all and I would have wasted quite some time travelling back and forth.

    If players are allowed to have regional brokers all over the place. That could again turn into an inventory stash where they might lose overview due to the pure amount of different brokers and items they are selling. I can imagine over the timespan of one year, I'ld have brokers all over the place. Some of which I haven't visited in ages, that would actually make the a useless (underused/misused) feature. How would you design it so keep it meaningful? 

    If my regional broker sold every item I had, but I just don't retreive my cash. Would I still be "paying" that broker for his actions? Or would that npc "reset" after X amount of time has passed, or in general when all items are sold? (this could solve the issue of having too many regional brokers, IF all items are sold ofc)

     


    This post was edited by Barin999 at January 14, 2019 11:11 PM PST
    • 768 posts
    January 14, 2019 11:49 PM PST

    decarsul said:

    *1) So instead i would like to suggest a 'weight' item. For so you can put up a total amount of items that equal a certain 'weigh'. ore's being 0.1 weight a stack, where a fungi tunic would be 5 weigh. This makes you think about what you want to put up for sale.

    *2) I more or less want it to be a storage / bank for 1 npc trader, where you can get 'rid' of your crafting resources, but where crafters can buy those resources at a fixed fee. This in turn will also support community not tossing those resources when accidentally getting them and 'diminish' the need for spawn camping for resources.

    *3) This would in turn create more space for you to sell items, but you would be excluded from broadcast information options and thus only be viewed locally via a vendor board where people could look up the items being sold. As this also opens up options to /auction much like the EC tunnel did in EQ1, and increase the immersion. 

    *1) How would you classify the weight? By the amount of times it's been processed? Raw weighing very low but a sword being heavy? Or by means of use; consumables weigh less then gear? Would my bench-subcomponent weigh less then a pristine hp vial? Would raw items weigh the least, then crafted items and then looted items? If not, how would you differentiate between crafting classes or why would you at all? Would I be able to sell 10 chestpieces with a value of 50 plat each with the same weight as 10 plates of baked ham with the value of 20 gold?

    *2) Why would "less abundant" resources be a bad thing in the game? I get your point of not tossing items. But in the end it would only increase the value of items that do make it on sale. So by allowing this trash-vendor for players, you'ld actually be decreasing the value of items being sold itself. I'ld think you'ld want to set your goal that items in fact become and stay valueable.

    *3) In order for that to work, since this is not going to be an instanced game; The dev's would have to design chat channels in such a fashion that player automatically join in local channels as they traverse the world. And also automatically leave channels where they have become too distant from. What would be the range of those regional auction channels? A town or continent? Is travelling from Thronefast to Wilds End considered two channels away, or just one? Or would a player would have the option to tune into as many channels as they like in order to get things sold?  With the risk/downside of losing that immersive feeling.


    This post was edited by Barin999 at January 14, 2019 11:50 PM PST
    • 124 posts
    January 15, 2019 12:11 AM PST

    Barin999 said:

    *1) How would you classify the weight? By the amount of times it's been processed? Raw weighing very low but a sword being heavy? Or by means of use; consumables weigh less then gear? Would my bench-subcomponent weigh less then a pristine hp vial? Would raw items weigh the least, then crafted items and then looted items? If not, how would you differentiate between crafting classes or why would you at all? Would I be able to sell 10 chestpieces with a value of 50 plat each with the same weight as 10 plates of baked ham with the value of 20 gold?

    *2) Why would "less abundant" resources be a bad thing in the game? I get your point of not tossing items. But in the end it would only increase the value of items that do make it on sale. So by allowing this trash-vendor for players, you'ld actually be decreasing the value of items being sold itself. I'ld think you'ld want to set your goal that items in fact become and stay valueable.

    *3) In order for that to work, since this is not going to be an instanced game; The dev's would have to design chat channels in such a fashion that player automatically join in local channels as they traverse the world. And also automatically leave channels where they have become too distant from. What would be the range of those regional auction channels? A town or continent? Is travelling from Thronefast to Wilds End considered two channels away, or just one? Or would a player would have the option to tune into as many channels as they like in order to get things sold?  With the risk/downside of losing that immersive feeling.

    *1) i do not know exactly, i was just spitting idea's really. I would think a chestplate does not stack where plates of baked ham would stack. so 10 stacks of 10 plates of baked ham should value up to a total of 20 plat to be sold. compared to 10 chestplates at 50 plat each combining to 500plat each. Yeah i can see the discrepancy, but if i would compare that to EQ1 bazaar (yes maybe bad example but its the limited space i'm concerned about) you would see sellers selling hundreds of meals and drinks, but they are generally fast moving consumables, where as the chestplates could be up for sale multiple weeks due to supply and demand. So i'm still thinking that a weight system could work, rare vs common being a good weigh factor? Or you could turn it around. Where you can only have stuff up for sale with a total worth of 100 plat, or a thousand plat. That way the weight comes from the value of the items being sold?

    *2) yep i get it, supply / demand creates a market on its own. I'm just saying that a limited amount of items should always be available. You can ofcourse limit this to tier 1 or tier 2 resources. Regional resources or any mix there off. It should still be player supplied thats a given so if no one sells, there's no stock. But it would give an out to a weigh system or overstock on the 'auction' house systems.

    *3) Yes it would be needed to localize certain channels, and that is exactly what i am looking for. Like shout and say in most games have a limited range, so should the auction channel. The way you say it losing the immersive feeling i beg to differ. Back in the EQ1 days everyone knew (eventually anyway) where the EC tunnel was and that it is the place to be to score deals or find what you're looking for. So i think it would only boast the immersion. As it 'forces' you to look up players and socialize, instead of just having a broker sell it for you without any contact.

    In regards to channels, i do not believe any public channel should be worldwide or even zone wide (depending on scale). Not having instances doens't mean that there is no zones or zone lines. Those could be perfect 'barriers' for certain channels.


    This post was edited by decarsul at January 15, 2019 12:19 AM PST
    • 2419 posts
    January 15, 2019 7:44 AM PST

    Barin999 said:

    I meant, how do you see the combination of offline selling and your suggestion of local sales and cash in, work out in Pantheon. Let's say I'm relogging to an alt. Would I be selling offline or would you rather see the broker system being account based. So no matter what alt I'm playing, my broker will remain online selling. Or in other scenario, if you're required to relog or camp to self, does it go straight to offline selling and does your broker stop selling "online"? Or do you need to take cancel the offline sales when you're logging in? 

    I would say that the broker would be a 'once and done' affair in that you hand the broker an item, tell it you want it sold for X gold and to keep it on the market for Y days.  No matter where you are, what account you are on, what alt you are playing, that broker will keep that item on the market for the duration you requested.  These sales would be specific to the character, not the account.  So if you create an alt to sell in some market somewhere, you'll need to use that alt to monitor the broker and retrieve your money with that alt.

    Barin999 said:

    Would offline sales have a delay on cash in? 

    The suggestion of going back to your regional broker to cash in, although I like it as wel, would mean that player will need to run back and forth to check on their broker every so often. So this would implicate that there is a large enough inventory to put items on sale. If it was not, and you're restricted to 20 items at each regional broker. Players will need to check in even more often. Allowing a large inventory broker, could again leave the door open to farmers or floods on the market.

    Here's another remark or question for you then. Let's say you've earned 20g's but you waited for a long while to cash in, would that broker start to 'claim' money over time? So if you don't return often enough or quick enough you wouldn't have 20g's anymore, but 15g's. 

    I would not place any limits or restrictions on when you need to go get your money from the broker as that would just make the whole system too tedious.  If you want your money, you'll go back and get it eventually.

    Barin999 said:

    How would one be alerted that items have been sold in their regional broker? Would there be a limited timespan to retreive your earnings? If I'm some distance away and I can't check in on my regional brokers from my current location, I could be returning to see nothing is sold at all and I would have wasted quite some time travelling back and forth.

    If players are allowed to have regional brokers all over the place. That could again turn into an inventory stash where they might lose overview due to the pure amount of different brokers and items they are selling. I can imagine over the timespan of one year, I'ld have brokers all over the place. Some of which I haven't visited in ages, that would actually make the a useless (underused/misused) feature. How would you design it so keep it meaningful? 

    If my regional broker sold every item I had, but I just don't retreive my cash. Would I still be "paying" that broker for his actions? Or would that npc "reset" after X amount of time has passed, or in general when all items are sold? (this could solve the issue of having too many regional brokers, IF all items are sold ofc)

    I go back to the 'no action at a distance' approach and say if you want to see if your item sold, you go back to the broker and find out.  Just as we're expected to have a non-global banking system, traveling around to your various banks will be required.  If you don't want to deal with stuff scattered all over the world, don't scatter stuff all over the world.  Besides, given the issue of factions, I'm not convinced that an Elf will ever have access to the banks and markets in Skargol nor would a Dark Myr be able to bank in Thronefast.  Basically, convenience can only go so far. There must always be some effort put in by the player.

    • 7 posts
    January 15, 2019 1:32 PM PST

    Here are my thoughts on a few methods.

    PC to PC - This should be left unmoderated for the most part.  If people want to use their time in game to try and sell their stuff, have at it.  

    Set up shop -  Back in Lineage 2 you could set up your own shop.  You could put up a few items for sale.  It was kind of neat going to the market to look for someone selling gear or items you needed.  It could also bog down systems when they had to render 200+ player shops inside a city.  

    NPC run regional sales (Auction house) - I think this ends up being somewhat of a necessity for a varity of reasons, but it doesn't have to be immersion breaking.  Most of the issues can be addressed fairly simply, with out imposing abstract limitations that are immersion breaking.

    Impose a sellers fee (consignment fee).  Start out at like 10% or 20% of your asking price, paid up front.    Put a time limit on how long the posted item will be for sale before being returned to you less the posting fee.  That will keep people from using the market as storage and having a sunset on how long things are posted will make people think harder on their asking prices.  Nothing I hate more as a crafter then waisted money.  The consignment fee could go up based on the number of items you have for sale.   First 10 items are at 10%,   next 10 items are at 20%, so on.   It becomes self limiting as far as the number of items people will put up for sale because they will loose out on profit.  You can't competitivly price said item at 40% tax vs. someone else selling the same item at 10% tax.

    Something like that can also open up all kinds of quest opportunities.  Increase faction influence to get sale slots at 0% tax ( like one extra slot at a time) or a general -1% to consignment fees, extra time listed, so on.  Or cap the number of slots the local acutioneers guild will give you.  Increase faction to get more slots.   There should be some reasonable in game reason for all these things though, not just an artificial 20 item limit for no good reason other then server item management.

    As a side note, somewhat tangential but it does touch on this topic.  Let people have multiple craft classes on the same character.  Immersion wise it is not game breaking and it saves people from having to have 19 alts to be able to cover gathering and crafting.   I think Final Fantasy 14 got that right.  Immersion wise I think it would be a good thing as well.  People can have there go to guy for crafting and harvesting without having to juggle all the different alt names and ****.  Server wise it will just be that many less played characters with inventories taking up space.  

    Other thoughts.   Maybe have NPC retainers you can employ to post stuff on other regional markets.  Again this could be a whole avenue for quests and factioning.  You could limit the number of items they could transport per trip (say 5 or so?)  For a transport fee of course.  In addition to the consignment fee (of course).  But if there is a resource that is only avaliable in one region but is needed for crafts everywhere..... that makes for a high demand resource for harvesters and may make it worth paying an extra 25% (or more).  Or you make the trip yourself and pocket an extra 20%.....  Supply and demand will provide opportunities for people to invest there time to make money, and that now some will play the game.


    • 2419 posts
    January 15, 2019 2:22 PM PST

    Thothmose said:

    Impose a sellers fee (consignment fee).  Start out at like 10% or 20% of your asking price, paid up front.    Put a time limit on how long the posted item will be for sale before being returned to you less the posting fee.  That will keep people from using the market as storage and having a sunset on how long things are posted will make people think harder on their asking prices.  Nothing I hate more as a crafter then waisted money.  The consignment fee could go up based on the number of items you have for sale.   First 10 items are at 10%,   next 10 items are at 20%, so on.   It becomes self limiting as far as the number of items people will put up for sale because they will loose out on profit.  You can't competitivly price said item at 40% tax vs. someone else selling the same item at 10% tax.

    I thing that consignment fees should take into account mulitple variables:

    • What is the faction standing of the seller to the local/regional merchant guild?
    • What is the requested sale price of the item?
    • What is the length of time the item is to be kept on the market?

    By having variables in the fees charged, players can determine (to some degree) what they wish to pay for the convenience of using a broker.  The first variable, faction, is there to benefit those races local to that region but does not prohibit those from other areas from putting forth some effort to minimize that part of the fee.  The second variable can be a flat rate (10% you suggested) and I'm good with that.  The last part then is where the true 'pay for the convenience' comes into play.  Putting an item up for sale for a day should cost less that someone putting that same item up for the same cost but for 7 days.  Think about it from the NPC's point of view: One person is asking him to perform a service for a very short term while another is asking him to devote 7 days to handling that item.  Wouldn't you, if in the shoes of that NPC, also charge more for the longer term of service?

    Someone might think a bit longer about their asking price and the duration of the sale when they see how the fees change.  Is the fee for a higher asking price and long duration offset by the convenience of not having to think about the sale for 7 days letting you go about your adventuring?  Or is asking a lower price and shorter duration increasing your chance of a quick sale?  Options with consequences for each of those choices is important.

    • 168 posts
    January 17, 2019 10:24 AM PST

    Some folks actually play MMOs for the crafting more than the exploring, some only raid and never farm. Some folks enjoy mercantile. The single biggest factor that drove me out from ESO (there were a lot) was the 30 item limit per guild vendor. That was hateful. It forced a person to be a part of multiple guilds (another concept I found loathesome) just to sell a reasonable amount of goods. I am not in favor of my sandbox being bounded. If there are caps on Regional Marketplaces, that is fair enough as long as there are a fairly large number of regional marketplaces. If you are asking for a number, that is impossible to give without knowing drop rates of loot or harvest rates of raw mats.

    If you wish to take this in another direction- segregate raw mats and common loot from rare and epic items. Put a cap on rare/epic items and unlimited on harvestables.

    Lastly, I have heard a reason why some games feel compelled to place daily sales limits: It has to do with gold farmers and bots. I feel that item limits is a band-aid over a less than optimal base economic system.


    This post was edited by Dashed at January 17, 2019 10:29 AM PST
    • 9 posts
    January 27, 2019 10:09 AM PST

    I think there should certainly be a localized system that works with some of the following qualities.

     

    Have vendors sell your stuff for you at a tax, 70% baseline, use alignment/faction/race/weather and many other things as factors to reduce this task but implement diminishing returns such that your tax is never 0%.  Each "tax reduction buff" should be weaker for every tax reduction buff used in the formula.  Also, different vendors should have different taxes for different items.  A swordsmith should have less of a tax for selling swords because well... he knows how to sell swords.  A potion shop should charge higher tax for selling swords since they aren't proficient in selling these items.

    With a robust AI the vendor/broker system can be dynamically changed live and provide inconsistencies that lead to a much more dynamic economy.

    Certain items should weigh less depending on your city of origin, race, and class.  For example humans should be able to mine ore found in their own lands and have an easier time carrying it so they can more easily export it to somewhere else where it would be more valuable.  This would reinforce the local markets vs foreign markets dynamic.

    Lastly, you should be able to speak to vendors about purchasing their established supply lines.  Lets say there is a more remote zone with a raid nearby.  Perhaps the swordsmith in the human town has a supply line relationship with a vendor near the raid.  The idea would be to gain high faction with that vendor, then invest some money with the vendor to purchase the supply line to the vendor near the raid.  Now when you broker your items with that vendor you could also have your items show up in the vendor near the raid.  This would be great for crafters/players who want to target a better localized raid and also provide raiders with a choice.  You will probably get charged a convenience premium for buying near raid which can be nice for long raid times... or you can go back to town to get your stuff, but you don't HAVE to go back to town to get your stuff.

     

    I believe a robust implementation of these ideas would be good.

     

    • 41 posts
    February 3, 2019 5:38 PM PST

    For many people trade is just as much part of the adventure as the kill or is an integral part of their crafting profession.  It's important to make this aspect of the game imersive as well.  The classic EQ trading experience in the EC tunnel or Faymart is unparalleled and that developed naturally by players rather dev design.

    But times have changed.  A player run economy would be ideal except for gold farmers controling the market, although no in game subscription item like krono helps with this a lot.  However the farmers did farm before krono and will again so some type of control should be implemented.

    Regional markets is a good start.  Since farmers won't have just one of whatever item, a workaround to regional markets could be to setup a trader in each area, kind of like a franchise.  I think regional markets can have a limited NPC merchants that sell our goods for a base fee like rental for the space plus a fraction of set price.  Since the number of merchants is limited, there should be a time limit on how long the items are available.

    People obviously still have the option to sell the old fashioned way and keeping in the spirit of adventure and community, there should be some type of incentive for people to setup shop at the markets and absolutely there should not be any global chat channels for people to use to sell things.  I don't think there should be too many markets either, just a couple placed in neutral territory to keep faction issues to a minimum.  

    A final thought, one of my earliest EQ memories was when I was a young Barbarian hunting in Everfrost and High Elf came through selling plate armor.  I thought that was so cool that people just travel the world selling their ****.  That showed me how immersive the game would be regarding adventure and community.