npc public vendor "sell to bank prices"

are the public vendor sell-back prices eventually getting another pass?

I know we should be responsible for taking stuff off a vendor that before it expires and goes back to the bank, but some of the "sell to bank" prices are punishing. could they at least be set to materials cost, or cost minus 10% or at least the min cost if the creosote/salt/wax whatever that it takes to make them?!

being unable to make it in game to remove something I spent 16gp on salt to make before it sells back to bank to 1gp or 5gp is brutal and that's on top of the listing fee.

 

Actually i still think the items that don't sale should just go back to bank.
I still can't fathom why the stuff gets sold to the system at the lowest possible price.

 

Yes I'd love if it would just return the unsold item to player bank once the selling period expires. I think it was for was some exploit reasons this can't happen.

If it has to sell to bank, then I feel the bank price should be based on something real. 1gp for a 250gp recipe card or 5gp for some crafted thing that costs several spools of thread to make is just awful. plus the listing fee? it doesn't even consider the base fuel cost?

I realize many mats are based on player-set pricing, but maybe the system could take the average (median?) price for each raw material sold by players across the system (the day the listing expires ?), then divide that in half to represent npc buy-back. For manufactured items, use their recipe to calc total ((average raw mat/2) +fuel cost)) to calculate the base cost, and make that the bank's buy-back price (only if it is > the player's listed price, otherwise buy it at the player's listed price. )

I don't mind the risk of a little loss if I fail to manage my listings, just not crazy about the near 100% loss like the 1gp buy-backs.

 

And what exploit would that be?

 

I listed a few pieces of gear and a couple COTO's on a public vendor, set my price (1900 or so at the time) and paid the fees. Then after a couple days I was called in to work extra shifts and was not able to get back in game for a few days.

Logged back in to a refund of 1gp in my bank for the COTO's. Have not used public vendors since and will not under this nonsensical system.

 

I don't know exactly....but why wouldn't they just return unsold items to your bank then?

I think since you can fill the public vendors up (they have limited item slots) if there was no cost to list or no risk of loss, then one could effectively turn a public vendor into one's own private vendor by listing items in every slot?

that can still happen - if people list super low cost things and take the small financial hit just to fill up the vendor and prevent competition. I don't know if I'd call it an exploit, rather than maybe a selfish way to play? or a cut-throat business loophole? or a way to make nickels off people trying to clear out a slot for their item? everyone plays differently. one man's exploit is another man's tactic. depends how meta you play I suppose.

 

yes. exactly this.

 

Well that's offtopic but there are players that are offering you to use their tax free vendor.
Maybe that will help you guys with for the moment.

Non the less i think the system neeeds a rework. Badly.

 

But there is a cost (10% + 10gp, which I think is really harsh even without the "sell to bank" thing), and you are only allowed to list a limited number of items (5?) on each public vendor. There was a time when the public vendors were often full and I would have to buy some cheap junk item so that I could list something worth much more. Then they increased the number of slots on each public vendor, and I also stopped using them once I had a somewhat decent location for a private vendor.

 

Putting something for sale on a public vendor is, and should be, a thoughtful process that involves weighing risks. The "sell to bank" price should be less than you'd get from selling to a npc merchant. I love seeing that "sale" message every time I make a successful sale. That's a "win".

I play another game where there is no serious risk to putting items on public vendor and people clog the system using it as a temporary storage space for their loot. I would not want to see that here.

One may reasonably ask if the current risks are too high. They are certainly too high for selling a COTO, but you may sell those to "buy" orders on player vendors. To obtain a reasonable "sell to bank" price for complex crafted goods would require the devs to add some coding and that risks missing some exploitable loophole. It is doable, I'm sure, but would require time they'd probably prefer to spend elsewhere.

The other issue is that making public vendors more useful (less risky) would reduce the probability that you and I would ever throw real money into the game to get a lot, house, and vendor of our own. It seems that Port is still counting on this as their primary revenue stream. Players who already have their own vendors will scream "unfair" to anything which improves public vendors. Some have even advocated loudly for their removal. It is a complex issue.

 

The devs will have to do something, because there are waaaaay too many merchants - most full of poorly priced crap - to bother looking at one at a time. The majority don't offer purchase orders... and those that do offer ridiculously low amounts while selling for >100% more than what they buy for - so they might as well be npc merchants.

It's too depressing right now to list anything or to shop around. I usually just end up logging off after looking at 10 merchants.

P.S. it's like a ghost town in multiplayer these days. Is everyone playing in friends only mode - or is it just the holidays? I feel like I have the whole server to myself.

 

It is not a bad idea. I would advocate to use a median instead of an average. The former represents a real transaction, while the latter is easily manipulated with a small number of outliers, and can be gamed. Imagine that I sold a raw cotton for a huge price to myself, or a somehow affiliated player --- it will move an average upward, while a median will be largely unmoved.

 

The risk of paying 10% and being out that money if your item doesn't sell within a week is already a pretty large risk. Forcing the items for sale to basically be given away if you don't run to the town to cancel the sale is just an unnecessary annoyance that makes no sense. The mechanic to put the items in the bank already exists. The ability to cancel a sale already exists. A fee has already been paid. There's no logical reason why someone shouldn't be able to just tell the vendor to bank the items instead of giving them away or to pay for another week or something.

 

I guess many people don't play often as long some broken mechanics persist. Many people play Archer which is a pain at the moment.

All those "risks" are needful as they force the seller to stay tuned with his process of sales. It might increase quality of listed items instead of quantity of crap. All you need is to look at the vendors you listed things and watch the deadline. Easy peasy.

 

And forcing the seller to stay in tune with the process of their sales does what exactly other than griefing people that are busy or forgetful? If anything, forcing people to manually cancel their sales to avoid their items being given away lowers the quality of items available because people are less likely to list valuable things if they are worried about not being available or forgetting to cancel their listing.

Edit: Even if people do everything right, they can get punished by this mechanic. Someone can carefully document the times of all of their current sales and plan to cancel any unsold items ahead of time. Then they get a text from their friends while they're at work saying they want to go do something, and now that guy either ditches his friends for a video game or loses his stuff for no good reason. That's just dumb and doesn't help anyone.

 

Yeah, sh*t happens.

And in the end it's all just a few pixels.

 

Not if those pixels translate directly into a few days of your (lost) time.

 

All I can hear after reading all this is that waaaaaaa waaaaaaaaa noise from that Debbie downer snl skit

 

I dont think you can max a public vendor without having alot of accounts to do it with because each account can only place like 10 or less items ona public vendor.

While the default values of items dont really reflect thier value, one thing this does do is makes it riskier to sell expensive things.