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Commision free vendor: possible economy unbalance?

Discussion in 'Release 23 Feedback' started by Phiedrus Oliva, Nov 10, 2015.

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  1. Phiedrus Oliva

    Phiedrus Oliva Avatar

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    I'm on my first days here, so please forgive me if I miss something.

    I wanted to sell something, and saw there is a public vendor. So I listed my stuff, and agreed with a commision for the vendor. I see now what the 'commision free vendor' is, which is given as a pledge reward.

    Now, whenever someone places stuff for sale, they have a clear advantage over the rest. I see it is reasonable to an extent. Pledge tiers indeed deserve some advantages. But the way this one is implemented, could maybe unbalance the player driven economy. People will always buy from the cheaper seller. You will find location of cheapest sellers in the forums once we get a steady economy. It always happens. And 'normal' sellers, affected by commision, won't be able to compete in the market.

    What I suggest: Instead of selling without commision, let the reward skip the commision when buying. Like the local authority absorbes it, for example. They still have quite an advantage, and the game will remain balanced. Every crafter will stand a chance selling stuff.
     
  2. Katrina Bekers

    Katrina Bekers Localization Team

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    I'm pretty sure the Public Vendors will be in extremely visible, easily reachable places. Like in front of main market squares, near public crafting pavilions, etc. - like they are now, after all.

    While player owned vendors may be hidden in less visible places, and become a sub-market (location market?) on their own.

    I don't know if public vendors will actually be in Episodes, or are just a stopgap for pre-launch. I can foresee "famous vendors" putting for sale flyers and ads on the public vendors, and then their stuff in a POT, or in their lots far from plain sight.
     
  3. Earl Atogrim von Draken

    Earl Atogrim von Draken Avatar

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    Why? I honestly can't see the misbalance.
     
  4. Phiedrus Oliva

    Phiedrus Oliva Avatar

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    If I can set my margin to be equal or lower to the vendor commision, the sellers affected by commision cannot compete.

    Yes, these vendors depend on the location, but those locations will quikcly become famous. City wide, they will have no competency. Nearby cities will also be influenced. If you spread them, you quicly have a world wide commision free vendor sellers that will control the economy. Either you have a commision free vendor, or you will only sell the cheap stuff, now worth they trip to go elsewhere.

    Well maybe it's not big trouble, as I said I am new to the game and I may be missing a wider scope that makes this irrelevant. In fact, I hope so.
     
  5. Katrina Bekers

    Katrina Bekers Localization Team

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    I can tell you that the convenience of finding stuff for sale easily/quickly/comfortably close to where you usually hang out will FAR outshadow any better-price consideration.

    Source: Jita.
     
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  6. Earl Atogrim von Draken

    Earl Atogrim von Draken Avatar

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    Ah I see I see.
    Yes, that's true.
    But mind you two things: 1.) we (like in: People with this kind of vendors) can't produce everything.
    2.) people are lazy. Pay more or waste time on walking? The usual decision will be to pay more.

    But like I always say if it comes to micro management issues like this: You don't have to worry about this one vendor. Not even about 100 of them. You have to worry about the 500+ members guilds out there. They are the market makers.
     
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  7. Elwyn

    Elwyn Avatar

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    This.

    While I think the 10% fee is a bit high (I'm used to FFXI where the fee is a base+1%, though it was like 1.5% in the city where everybody hung out back in the day), the advantage of people knowing where the public vendor is, and knowing you can see 200-ish items all at once, can't be underestimated.

    A private vendor likely won't even be seen (unloaded from the scene) more than about 2 houses away. Even if you're along a major street, people may not even bother to stop and look. And forget it if you're too far from the entrance unless someone knows where to look. I learned a few releases ago to stick to the Owl's Head and Ardoris public vendors if I wanted stuff to sell. (For a while in R20/R21, Solania had some action, but it's just too out of the way.) If people are intentionally looking for your vendor because they saw it mentioned somewhere, they can get pointed to it from the Town Crier.

    What it does allow is putting up a lot of low-margin stuff, even selling at random junk at NPC-buy prices, or putting up large amounts of crafted stuff (where you literally become a shop). They can hold up to 50 items, vs 5 items per person on a public vendor.

    There is also an absolute number of items that a public vendor can hold, which has been a problem in Owl's Head recently, with people listing multiple copies of junk that probably doesn't have a use in the game yet. I even had to buy someone's rusty sword so that I could list something with a 4-digit price. (Effectively my listing fee was increased by 85 gold, but it was also worth 2-3 ores worth of scrap.) So maybe the 10% is a good idea just to keep the junk down. And he had to pay 19 just to list that junk to get 66 gold back, a complete waste when you only have five slots, and then have to walk all to the back of Owl's Head to get the money!

    I still haven't seen how to get a private vendor other than via a pledge level. I understand that non-pledge vendors will require rent just like non-pledge lot deeds, but when you can get them, they should even things up a bit against pledge vendors.
     
    Last edited: Nov 10, 2015
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  8. Miracle Dragon

    Miracle Dragon Legend of the Hearth

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    It's an interesting point, and I'll be interested to see how this plays out. I could see it going either way.
     
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  9. Spoon

    Spoon Avatar

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    Your basic premise is correct. There is an unbalance between commission free vendors and the others. However this is only true when all other things are equal and we are competing only with price.
    That is a very unlikely scenario.
    Instead what we will be competing with is conveniance, profiling, advertising, location, different wares and regions. The control points are there to make sure that there is a (small) barrier between regions and their economies.

    Your reverse free commission idea is too exploitable since it takes very little effort being the buyer while it takes a lot being a seller. So for instance all guilds could suddenly coordinate their purchases through such commission free vendors getting cheaper stuff anywhere everywhere etc.

    Here is the most likely scenario though. Most high pledgers won't use their vendors for the intended purpose, this since the likelyhood of them being high tier crafters is almost as slim as it is for the general public. Most pledgers pledge that high to get the lot deed, not the vendor. However to a crafty crafter getting most of their income through a vendor the commission free will be worth a lot.
    So the most likely scenario gives that very soon after launch crafty crafters will trade/buy those vendors like hot cakes - while most high pledgers will trade them away or use them for grander projects. Which means Guilds and POTs and other such things.

    So what that means is that in the competition between really high level crafters (and their guilds) which already play in a more "all other things being equal" scenario, then having access to such commission free vendors will definately be a competetive edge.
    Which means that people will trade for them, and the higher the stakes the more pledgers will be willing to trade them away, etc.
     
  10. Earl Atogrim von Draken

    Earl Atogrim von Draken Avatar

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    Had a good laugh.

    Very true.
    I, for example, plan to use my vendor for guild members and pot citizens only.
    If I ever get the proper rights on the vendor no body outside of this small group will be able to buy from it.
    I even have a back-up plan if I can't set the vendor rights like that.
     
  11. Spoon

    Spoon Avatar

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    You can place the vendor in a private property. Then set a list of members only club as "guest" permission so that they can enter the private property.
    EDIT - planned functionality - not in game yet.
     
  12. Earl Atogrim von Draken

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    Yeah I was in the same hangout ;-)
    My back-up plan is to use the lot permissions. Sure it's annoying if I have to place every single person on the list but I am going to offer heavy discounts for guild and pot members. So I think it's worth the effort.
     
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  13. Spoon

    Spoon Avatar

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    I've been advocating the ability to add "group lists" functionality, so that we can add a "group" to a Permission list instead of individuals.
    Richard seemed to like it and grasp the full concept but I didn't get the same feeling from other parts of the team I have harassed.
     
  14. Drocis the Devious

    Drocis the Devious Avatar

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    I agree with you that there's an unbalancing effect to the economy here.

    Tax Free Deeds are one thing (that I don't have any problem with because of the way real estate works), but the ability to sell items (using a tax free vendor) without the added cost (assuming you have a good location) is a big deal.

    Tax Free Vendors and Prosperity/Artisan Tools are clearly pay to win in my eyes. But I don't know what the solution would be to change this. I suppose they could give the money back for those items in store credit. That's what I would do to even the playing field.
     
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  15. Moiseyev Trueden

    Moiseyev Trueden Avatar

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    I would love to see the ability to have friends/guild members auto populate in the permissions area. This would save you having to repeatedly mistype my name when getting me setup.

    8^)
     
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  16. Weins201

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    As stated those Vendors out there for everyone to use are not going to be an issue, wait for the vendors like there are now setup next to the lower market are setup buy POWER guilds.

    They are going to set the market.

    The frugal player will shop around -

    And the largest guilds will quickly find the vendors who sell resources cheaper and buy them out ASAP to control the market.

    I give it 2 months after launch for some stability for resources and 6 months for High end items.

    & months in and we will see $ values attacked for bulk resources and high value items.
     
  17. Razimus

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    The personal vendor isn't as powerful as a town auction npc, in fact we don't know much about these auction npcs. Haven't heard anyone mention if they'll even exist at launch how many there will be etc. in UO the vendor moguls have tons of vendors in their yard due to the vendor limit which I assume is very very low it will not be the same, but the vendor mogul of UO is the POT or lot mogul of sota so no I don't see a misbalance, nice attempt at decreasing a promised reward someone saved up 2 years to earn and pledge for though.
     
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  18. Phiedrus Oliva

    Phiedrus Oliva Avatar

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    Not sure if I misunderstood your last sentence.
    But just to be clear, I said in my post that such a pledge has to be well rewarded. If you ask me, I would't mind if they reward double, as long as it doesn't impact the game balance, which is my only concern, and which has been explained in the posts that it will not be (EDIT: it will most likely not be an unbalance factor)
    Not only that, but in my modest comment, I proposed a solution that I think it is also even better for the pledger. Not everyone will be a seller, but most likely everyone will buy, and I suggested the pledge could be changed to skip the commision when buying.
    Bottom line is, I hope nobody thinks I am trying to downgrade anyone else's rewards. That could be, eventually, like throwing stones to my own roof.
     
    Last edited: Nov 11, 2015
  19. StrangerDiamond

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    It's throwing stones in your glass house :)
     
  20. Coolwaters

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    The OP is clearly correct. There is not a single straight-faced argument to counter this basic economic truth. At least not for anyone who's ever taken a macroeconomics course. It basically creates a price subsidy for one or a relative tax for the other.

    I can see why pledge holders would try to marginalize the effect this will have (does have), but the thin veil of logic is fairly easy to see through. It will be a barrier to entry for new players, and not a small one.

    The solution: make those vendors able to be bought for in-game gold.
     
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