If you're going to outbid on the trading post, it should be by a minimum of 5%

I keep getting into wars over individual pennies with other trading post users. It's not fun, but it's necessary if you expect to execute a trade on anything that has low trade volume. I understand letting people outbid each other, but you should have to do it by a minimum of a certain percentage, say between 1% and 5%, because then it indicates that you're genuinely interested in paying more or accepting less, and you're not just trying to screw up other users and trade for effectively the same price.

I've been playing since launch and love your game. Please keep up the good work.

Free market, deal with it. It's close enough to a real market that economists have used MMO markets in actual research studies.

Unhelpful.

This is a problem. If your goal is 'free market simulator' then great. Let people spend all day futzing with the market. If your goal is fun, this is bad, and my proposed solution is extremely unintrusive.

I'm curious, what's the reason for your objection? Are you someone who enjoys fighting over pennies on the market?

Then DONT go by copper yourself I never deal that way with lesser volume things; because I know someone will just up by one copper with me, and I will jsut lose gold reposting. Id rather lose a few gold outright with a lower bid than play the penny game.

Now that I think about it, you actually will often have this sort of thing in real markets. If I'm not mistaken, ebay will force you to outbid by a certain amount. Maybe your average commodity/stock market site won't have this issue, but they will give access to trading APIs, so people can automate their trading. You can't expect someone's tolerance for tedium to dictate the price of your stock one penny at a time. That would be a terrible thing to do to the economy of your market, as we see in Guild Wars 2.

@EriskRedLemur.7153 said:Then DONT go by copper

Copper pieces, not copper ore.

Also my suggestion would almost certainly not affect copper ore. Even raising the price one or two copper is a substantial percentage, which means it would pass. Most users wouldn't notice a thing, because they're not going to high ticket items and raising the price by a penny with no intention of actually paying more, just to jump the queue.

@Mercury.9784 said:Unhelpful.

This is a problem. If your goal is 'free market simulator' then great. Let people spend all day futzing with the market. If your goal is fun, this is bad, and my proposed solution is extremely unintrusive.

I'm curious, what's the reason for your objection? Are you someone who enjoys fighting over pennies on the market?

The goal of the market has never been fun. Also, if someone is willing to sell me an item for less than you, who am i a consumer to turn them down ?

@TexZero.7910 said:The goal of the market has never been fun.

Can someone from ANet confirm please?

@Mercury.9784 said:

@TexZero.7910 said:The goal of the market has never been fun.

Pretty sure the goal of the market is to sell goods from player to player, not fun. Hence why it's a Trading Post. Money being exchanged for goods and services, not fun.

@TexZero.7910 said:...if someone is willing to sell me an item for less than you, who am i a consumer to turn them down ?

That's fine. I'm not putting any blame on someone who accepts the order. By all means, accept an additional 0.0001% on a high ticket item, if that floats your boat. The problem comes when you actually reward players who are willing to outbid by pennies for hours. These people get substantially tangible benefits for doing something that is tedious and annoying. And what's worse, depending on the item, there are people who will put in an order unaware that it's virtually impossible that it will ever be filled unless they come back every ten minutes to fight with somebody over the price.

I imagine ArenaNet prefers not to have that sort of thing in their game.

Imagine someone entering into a real brick and mortor auction house and engaging in the same behavior. No matter what the bid, they put in an additional one cent, and then two people spend literally hours doing that until eventually we finally reach someone's limit.

Obviously the auction house would (and almost certainly they all do) have a minimum increased bid, so that we avoid that nonsense.

I still remain curious why anyone would object to this. If I'm interpreting correctly, nobody disagrees that this is unpleasant, but they just want me to 'man up' and deal with it and have a bad time because... screw me, I guess?

Oh no! Someone offered/accepted a better deal than what I gave! What am I to do but demand the system be changed so that I either win in all circumstances or the people I am competing against be controlled even though I am engaging in the same behavior as they are!

@Mercury.9784 said:

@TexZero.7910 said:...if someone is willing to sell me an item for less than you, who am i a consumer to turn them down ?

Instead you want to moan about market manipulation and mark-ups, when you are engaging in such a thing by setting a listing price right ?

@UnbentMars.9126 said:Oh no! Someone offered/accepted a better deal than what I gave! What am I to do but demand the system be changed so that I either win in all circumstances or the people I am competing against be controlled even though I am engaging in the same behavior as they are!

I'm not demanding anything. I'm pointing out a problem. Nobody in this thread, so far, has disagreed that it's a problem. They've just told me to stop crying about it, and (audaciously!) that it's not meant to be fun and I shouldn't expect it to be fun.

I look forward to hearing from a dev.

@Mercury.9784 said:

@TexZero.7910 said:...if someone is willing to sell me an item for less than you, who am i a consumer to turn them down ?

Your example is already in the game; the TP has a minimum increased bid, 1 copper

Dont you get taxed every time you list something? I would think you would lose money just changing the price of something if your only going to change the price by a copper or 2.

@TexZero.7910 said:Instead you want to moan about market manipulation and mark-ups, when you are engaging in such a thing by setting a listing price right ?

Let's look at it this way. What reason could they possibly have to not change it? You havn't shown any interest in providing one. Nobody is here to demand or to moan. In fact, it seems most people are here to belittle and demean someone with a genuine concern.

You seem to believe it's the same person or persons outbidding you. There are thousands, tens of thousands of players using the Trading Posts. I'm sure many, such as myself, bid by one copper. Thus, bid prices will change. If you are that worried, that you will take down bids over such a small amount, maybe the Trading Post isn't for you?

@Mercury.9784 said:

@UnbentMars.9126 said:Oh no! Someone offered/accepted a better deal than what I gave! What am I to do but demand the system be changed so that I either win in all circumstances or the people I am competing against be controlled even though I am engaging in the same behavior as they are!

Market simulation is not a function of a game, if you want that then go play monopoly or something, therefore you expecting it/desiring it to be fun is ridiculous. And if no one else here is disagreeing it's a problem, let me be the first:

People outbidding others is not a problem. It's a function of the way the TP, human behavior, and markets in general work.

Also, you are wanting something to change given how you made this post, claimed other methods should supercede the one that's been in place since the inception of the game, and expect a dev to chime in about it (spoiler, the likelihood that they will is super low and even if they do don't expect any change to be made)

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:You seem to believe it's the same person or persons outbidding you. There are thousands, tens of thousands of players using the Trading Posts. I'm sure many, such as myself, bid by one copper. Thus, bid prices will change. If you are that worried, that you will take down bids over such a small amount, maybe the Trading Post isn't for you?

In some cases that is the situation in my experience. I've bid on an unusual item and gotten outbid for a penny for 20 orders, and then I would do the same for my order, and then get outbid by exactly 20 orders again, etc. For high-volume items you're right, of course, but for low volume items (which is what you expect from higher ticket items where the percentage will matter) it can easily be a bidding war between individuals.

I would have been happy to simply wait in a queue behind the top bidder, but I feel compelled by the design of the system to play dirty just like everyone else.

I feel especially bad for people who don't know that there are shark bidders lying in wait and checking every one of their orders in order to increase by a penny, because they may have no idea why their particular trades never execute.

I keep getting into wars over individual pennies with other trading post user

And I don’t. I post it then I leave it. Eventually it will sell for the price I posted it for, usually within a few days. If it never sells (weeks to momths) then obviously I posted too high. Don’t be getting into trade wars. Give it time to sell.

@UnbentMars.9126 said:

@Mercury.9784 said:Market simulation is not a function of a game, if you want that then go play monopoly or something, therefore you expecting it/desiring it to be fun is ridiculous. And if no one else here is disagreeing it's a problem, let me be the first:

I actually made that exact same point earlier in the thread. I mentioned that if you can sacrifice a little 'it's like a real market' for a significant increase in friendliness and fun, you should do it.

However, when I made my point, I didn't make it with a derisive and hostile "go play another game" attitude.

@Just a flesh wound.3589 said:

I keep getting into wars over individual pennies with other trading post user

Yeah. That's fine for high-volume items.

Although it seems you're referring to selling, which has a built in protection of a listing fee. Can't fight over pennies then. But buy orders don't have that protection. People are free to fight over pennies. I brought up an analogy earlier that I still think fits well. If this behavior happened in a real action house, where you would occasionally get a small number of people outbidding by one penny for hours, they would swiftly implement a 'minimum increased bid' rule. I think Guild Wars 2 should have something like that, too.

Prices would skyrocket, bad idea. The reason real world auction houses do this is because they make a commission on the sale, the BLTC's profit margin should not be our primary concern.

It's seemed to work for the game and its economy for 5+ years; I doubt the Devs are looking to change it. Especially, since few seem to have the same issue with it as you, if this thread is any indication.

Still, good luck.

@Coulter.2315 said:Prices would skyrocket, bad idea. The reason real world auction houses do this is because they make a commission on the sale, the BLTC's profit margin should not be our primary concern.

I don't think you understand my suggestion if you think it would make prices skyrocket.

Also my primary concern is people being able to drop into the interface without knowing much about it, place an order, and receive their item, without having to struggle with outbidding people, or worse, to not be aware of the problem and simply become frustrated at how orders never seem to execute.