Simple fix to the contract system

[Alejandro]

As it is, there's only two options once you have placed a contract: to delete it and abandon the goods or to claim it back (take the gold and the goods). 

 

The problem is that, given that we pay a full sales tax before any item is actually sold (which is preposterous but we'll try to work around it), if somebody undercuts your contract, you're out of luck. You either have to hope that people buy that person's goods and then get to yours or you have to suck up the losses (because you paid the sales tax early), claim the contract (take your goods back) and relist them.

 

I propose that we thus change the contract system from its current "two options" form to a more logical four options.

 

1)Delete the contract. (Delete contract, abandon goods).

 

2)Claim the contract.  (Claims all the gold made so far and recover the goods you have not sold yet).

 

3)Claim the gold.   (Claims the gold made from the sales so far.)

 

4)Edit the contract.  (Set a new, lower price to your goods for sale. You've already been penalized by paying an higher sales tax once, there is no reason for you to be penalized twice. If somebody undercut you by placing a new contract, you should be able to undercut him again without placing a new contract and paying another time a high sales tax on goods you didn't even sell! I should be able to go see the auctioneer and tell him "hey, this is the new price I'd like to ask, thanks").

[Galileus]

I don't think there is a reason to make contracts better. Worse, sure. Like - give priority to live players in the port and only sell to contracts after goods are "sitting" in store for X time.

 

As it is now buying with contracts is way too good compared to actual travel/exploration.

 

As for selling, I also see no reason to make it easier. You decide on the price, you pay the price of your errors if need be. Otherwise it's super easy to try and force a high price and suffer no consequences. You paid the tax once, you can mess around as much as you can. Lower the price, increase and so on. Because there are consequences to the tax, as is now, you actually need to weight your greed and your reason.

[Eggzie]

As for selling, I also see no reason to make it easier.

This is sad. You want the mechanic to stay limited and reduce ease-of-use as well as intuitiveness? Keeping it archaic and hard to use does nothing but scare away players and keep the market side of this game exclusionary. 

[Alejandro]

I don't think there is a reason to make contracts better. Worse, sure. Like - give priority to live players in the port and only sell to contracts after goods are "sitting" in store for X time.

 

As it is now buying with contracts is way too good compared to actual travel/exploration.

 

As for selling, I also see no reason to make it easier. You decide on the price, you pay the price of your errors if need be. Otherwise it's super easy to try and force a high price and suffer no consequences. You paid the tax once, you can mess around as much as you can. Lower the price, increase and so on. Because there are consequences to the tax, as is now, you actually need to weight your greed and your reason.

Unrealistic and nonsensical.

 

If the only trading system between players is to use contracts, contracts should have more options, especially ones that makes sense (like claiming the gold you got from your sales without removing the rest of your goods still on sale (and that you already paid for in taxes!)). As it is, the current contract system implies the use of a middleman. I tell him how much I want of an item or how much I'm willing to take for an item. The fact that I pay a sales tax upfront, before even selling items, is ridiculous. But let's agree to that part. Then, he should be amicable to reducing the value of my goods if I'm asking for it. After all, it's like paying 5 bucks in taxes for an item that you asked 50 bucks for. If you decide to ask 40 instead, you're cutting your profit margin and no one else's.

 

I truly don't understand where you're coming from. This system is probably the most limited trade system I've ever seen across any MMO. I'm proposing a bandaid, at best. Stuff that just falls into common sense category.

[Galileus]

This is sad. You want the mechanic to stay limited and reduce ease-of-use as well as intuitiveness? Keeping it archaic and hard to use does nothing but scare away players and keep the market side of this game exclusionary. 

 

How is it about being hard or easy? I don't get that.

As far as ease of use goes, both solutions are pretty much identical mechanically. They only differ in consequences of the actions.

 

 

Unrealistic and nonsensical.

 

If the only trading system between players is to use contracts, contracts should have more options, especially ones that makes sense (like claiming the gold you got from your sales without removing the rest of your goods still on sale (and that you already paid for in taxes!)). As it is, the current contract system implies the use of a middleman. I tell him how much I want of an item or how much I'm willing to take for an item. The fact that I pay a sales tax upfront, before even selling items, is ridiculous. But let's agree to that part. Then, he should be amicable to reducing the value of my goods if I'm asking for it. After all, it's like paying 5 bucks in taxes for an item that you asked 50 bucks for. If you decide to ask 40 instead, you're cutting your profit margin and no one else's.

 

I truly don't understand where you're coming from. This system is probably the most limited trade system I've ever seen across any MMO. I'm proposing a bandaid, at best. Stuff that just falls into common sense category.

 

Let's go over it:

 

- This is NOT the only trading system. There is a tax-free p2p trade.

- In real life you do pay upfront for selling anything or buying anything through a pre-made market infrastructure. This is irrelevant though.

- In game the tax is one - a gold sink (gold is introduced in unlimited amounts through "pay 4 damage" and thus needs to be removed as well)

- In game the tax is two - a insurance about players not spamming the marketplace and thinking about what they put up for sale.

- I wouldn't mind an option to change the price, but I would prefer people to be taxed for it as well. That would make offers more sticky.

- I wouldn't mind a "change tax" to be lower than "creation tax".

- I am without an opinion about picking up the gold from a sale before the sale ends. I like how sticky sales are.

 

I wouldn't like to see two crafters "bidding" their sales lower and lower to race for sales. Once they put something to sale it's there. Stick with it. If you're free to lower the price all you want, you can very easily crash the system.

[Alejandro]

How is it about being hard or easy? I don't get that.

As far as ease of use goes, both solutions are pretty much identical mechanically. They only differ in consequences of the actions.

 

 

 

Let's go over it:

 

- This is NOT the only trading system. There is a tax-free p2p trade.

- In real life you do pay upfront for selling anything or buying anything through a pre-made market infrastructure. This is irrelevant though.

- In game the tax is one - a gold sink (gold is introduced in unlimited amounts through "pay 4 damage" and thus needs to be removed as well)

- In game the tax is two - a insurance about players not spamming the marketplace and thinking about what they put up for sale.

- I wouldn't mind an option to change the price, but I would prefer people to be taxed for it as well. That would make offers more sticky.

- I wouldn't mind a "change tax" to be lower than "creation tax".

- I am without an opinion about picking up the gold from a sale before the sale ends. I like how sticky sales are.

 

I wouldn't like to see two crafters "bidding" their sales lower and lower to race for sales. Once they put something to sale it's there. Stick with it. If you're free to lower the price all you want, you can very easily crash the system.

-P2P trade system works when we have a small population. Right now, it's more of a complement and certainly not meant to be the only trading option. Otherwise, you'll see port/nation chat flooded with "WTS 200 coal". I'm definitely not in favour of spam.

-In real life, you don't pay upfront as a seller. Companies pay taxes after a fiscal year. Not before they actually put up goods for sale. Would you imagine GM paying taxes at full for the 2.5m cars produced this year, before even selling them?

-I'm not opposed to the tax system. That's not what my suggestion is about. I'm actually asking to keep the tax as it is. You put up a contract, you pay for the taxes. 

-It doesn't make sense to be taxed twice for the same goods. We should be able to edit the prices in a contract to make them more competitive if somebody else comes by and lists stuff at a price lower than yours. You wouldn't make a company pay twice just because it decides to lower its prices to follow a nearby competitor.

-We should be able to pick up gold from a sale at any point without it destroying the contract. Again, the system is highly unrealistic and nonsensical.

 

 

A game shouldn't be made hard by how clunky and ineffective its UI and design are. EVE is still a hard, cutthroat game despite having a working trade system. By the way, as it stands, what we have is exactly what you described. Anybody is free to come behind me and list at a lower price than I did, even though at the moment I listed my wares, they were at a competitive price. I shouldn't be punished twice, first by not being able to sell my wares and second by having paid upfront a high sales tax. It simply doesn't make sense.

 

Either make the contracts stick but put the tax after the sale is completed or allow us to adjust the contracts (as would be logical) and claim gold as it sells (provided you are in port).

Edited January 27, 2016 by Alejandro

[Galileus]

What you asking for is going to directly lead to "bidding wars" where two or more sellers can indefinitely make small changes to their price trying to one-up the other sellers.

 

Also, sorry, but saying "make sales stick but pay tax AFTER" is nonsense. How are you going to force offers to stick if there is no consequence for putting offers up until only AFTER they are complete?

[Alejandro]

What you asking for is going to directly lead to "bidding wars" where two or more sellers can indefinitely make small changes to their price trying to one-up the other sellers.

 

Also, sorry, but saying "make sales stick but pay tax AFTER" is nonsense. How are you going to force offers to stick if there is no consequence for putting offers up until only AFTER they are complete?

1)Essentially, you'll have bidding wars and people will benefit from lower prices, up until one side decides it's cutting too much into his profit margin. Essentially, capitalism? This is already happening, just with a clunky mechanism in place, one that doesn't make any sense whatsoever and penalizes the seller who comes in early.

 

2)Easy. You put the taxation on transactions. Somebody buys from my coal at 50 a piece. I put up 50 pieces and sell 10 pieces, so 500 gold. The tax is 10%. Right now, the current mechanism would have me pay a 250g tax. The logical step would be to put the taxes on the transactions. At 10%, when I come to take my gold, it'd give 450 gold and keep 50 gold as taxes. 

But that's not what I'm proposing in the OP. I'm proposing a simple bandaid on this broken, clunky and, frankly, unworkable system. Give us the option to take our gold once a sale has been made without removing our entire contract of goods AND give us the possibility to edit the price of our goods towards a lower price if we sell and a higher price if we buy. The economy benefits.

Edited January 27, 2016 by Alejandro

[Galileus]

You have not addressed my problems at all.

 

You're wrong. Right now you cannot have bidding wars, because each time you change price, you pay taxes. You cannot sit there and go -1 price just so that YOUR offer is shown on top. Well, you can, but there are consequences. You need to pay if you want to rethink your offer and one-up other sellers.

 

Paying the tax only off of the goods sold, after the fact - IS the problem. I have no idea how can you present it as the solution to it?

[Alejandro]

You have not addressed my problems at all.

 

You're wrong. Right now you cannot have bidding wars, because each time you change price, you pay taxes. You cannot sit there and go -1 price just so that YOUR offer is shown on top. Well, you can, but there are consequences. You need to pay if you want to rethink your offer and one-up other sellers.

 

Paying the tax only off of the goods sold, after the fact - IS the problem. I have no idea how can you present it as the solution to it?

How are you reading it as the solution when it's not even something I breached in my OP? I literally didn't touch the taxation system at all. Also, it's definitely possible to have bidding wars at the moment, as there is no information about the quantity of goods sold at a given price. 

So if Seller A comes up and puts up 1600 Iron pieces at 50 a piece, Seller B can come and put up 20 at 49. Then Seller B can wait until Seller A - who has no idea how many goods were put up at 49 - decides to remove his current contract to relist at 48. Seller B then undercut him again.

 

Or hell, I can simply put stacks of 20 non stop to undercut people. Somebody should be able to adjust/lower the price of what he wants to sell, since he has already paid taxes for it at a higher price anyway. If anything, that person is only reducing his own margin of profits. I don't understand what you don't understand here. I'm simply saying Seller A shouldn't be penalized because Seller B came right after him and put up goods for 1 gold lower. 

 

Like, how is this non-understandable or complicated to you? I don't get it. It's like you think we can't have bidding wars (which we already have, anyway) and that bidding wars would be terrible (they wouldn't, they would lower the prices and costs).

Edited January 28, 2016 by Alejandro

[Ray Berti]

A fleshed out contracts system would be hugely helpful to have a stronger economy. EVE Online does contracts very well and it helps create more diverse and varied market gameplay. I like this idea.

[Galileus]

So if Seller A comes up and puts up 1600 Iron pieces at 50 a piece, Seller B can come and put up 20 at 49. Then Seller B can wait until Seller A - who has no idea how many goods were put up at 49 - decides to remove his current contract to relist at 48. Seller B then undercut him again.

 

Seller B ends up selling 20 iron at 49g and Seller A ends up selling 980 iron at 50g.

Indeed, such a wonderful trick...

 

Your argumentation is invalid, as it assumes buyers buy one piece at a time, which is obviously false.

 

 

bidding wars would be terrible (they wouldn't, they would lower the prices and costs).

 

Bidding wars promote passive gameplay where you have to sit at the port and actively bid to be able to sell anything, because other active sellers have the ability to undercut you as long as they want without consequences. It would lead to disappearance of profit margins and lead to complete shut-out of more casual players from trading - as trading would be limited to people willing to take active part in placing bets.

[Alejandro]

Seller B ends up selling 20 iron at 49g and Seller A ends up selling 980 iron at 50g.

Indeed, such a wonderful trick...

 

Your argumentation is invalid, as it assumes buyers buy one piece at a time, which is obviously false.

 

 

 

Bidding wars promote passive gameplay where you have to sit at the port and actively bid to be able to sell anything, because other active sellers have the ability to undercut you as long as they want without consequences. It would lead to disappearance of profit margins and lead to complete shut-out of more casual players from trading - as trading would be limited to people willing to take active part in placing bets.

I put up 20. Fine, make it 1500. Why would Seller A, who placed his bid five minutes before Seller B, be penalized with goods that won't sell for the day simply because he placed his bid five minutes prior? He's active, he should be able to undercut.

 

Also, your argument is invalid. EVE, and many other sandbox games, have economies who work, despite people being able to undercut each other. You're also not considering the fees. It wouldn't necessarily lead to bidding wars until oblivion. It wouldn't simply lead to a normalization of prices across given areas. And yes, it'd reward people who are active.

 

That's how sandbox games are supposed to be. 

 

Defending this system where we pay high tax upfront, can't take gold without removing the rest of the contract (laughable at best) and cannot do anything once somebody has undercut you but pray people will get to your wares or accept you've just lost 10% of your goods value is close to the definition of insanity, at least economy wise. 

 

My question to you is: do you even trade? I understand some of yall are used to an economy where there was as many ports as there was players active on the game, but we're in a different world now.

Edited January 28, 2016 by Alejandro

[Galileus]

Defending this system where we pay high tax upfront, can't take gold without removing the rest of the contract (laughable at best) and cannot do anything once somebody has undercut you but pray people will get to your wares or accept you've just lost 10% of your goods value is close to the definition of insanity, at least economy wise. 

 

My question to you is: do you even trade?

 

I do not trade insults. I have steam forums for that.

 

I end this discussion at that.

[Lord Snot]

So if Seller A comes up and puts up 1600 Iron pieces at 50 a piece, Seller B can come and put up 20 at 49. Then Seller B can wait until Seller A - who has no idea how many goods were put up at 49 - decides to remove his current contract to relist at 48. Seller B then undercut him again.

 

I'm sorry to say to Galileus that I already done this a number of times. Not because I like to do some sort of bidding wars, but mainly because of the lack of feedback from the store page.

 

When I list for instance Fir Logs to be sold at a price of 80 and it doesn't sell for hours and I check the market and all of an sudden I see it being for sale for 79 I start to wonder how much stock is being sold for 79. The system at the moment gives zero feedback. Let's say I just leveled up and I need that money for that shiny new ship to do more difficult missions I will take that loss of tax and relist the Fir Logs for 78 again. If there was some kind of way to tell that only 20 Fir Logs where listed for that 79 gold I might have just waited until those 20 where sold. There might have been 2000 Fir logs being sold for 79 gold and I could have to wait forever. There is no way to tell, or is there some way that I don't know of?

[Alejandro]

I do not trade insults. I have steam forums for that.

 

I end this discussion at that.

Ah, the mention of the unwashed Steam masses; this forum's version of "we, blue-blooded aristocrats, do not meddle with the peasants".

 

Has been happening for a week now.

Edited January 28, 2016 by Alejandro

[Galileus]

I'm sorry to say to Galileus that I already done this a number of times. Not because I like to do some sort of bidding wars, but mainly because of the lack of feedback from the store page

 

You did what? You put 1500 units on sale for 80 and removed that offer to sale it for 79? And removed that offer to sale for 78? And removed that offer to sale for 77? And removed that offer to sale for 76? And removed that offer to sale for 75?

 

If so, congrats to you, you might want to rethink your business plan.

 

Edited to add a wink, because supposedly this post was a grievous insult without it.

[Eggzie]

First:

I do not trade insults. 

 

Then:

If so, congrats to you, you might want to rethink your business plan.

[Galileus]

First: I do not trade insults. 

 

Then: If so, congrats to you, you might want to rethink your business plan.

 

Are you honestly comparing "your business is bad" to calling someone insane? Especially since by the merit of the post itself it is obvious, I do not honestly believe Lord Snot did what I described?

This post of yours has nothing to do with the topic at hand and it's reason is solely to attack me personally. I will ask you to abstain from posting in this manner.

[Lord Snot]

You did what? You put 1500 units on sale for 80 and removed that offer to sale it for 79? And removed that offer to sale for 78? And removed that offer to sale for 77? And removed that offer to sale for 76? And removed that offer to sale for 75?

 

If so, congrats to you, you might want to rethink your business plan.

 

Edited to add a wink, because supposedly this post was a grievous insult without it.

 

No, no. Like I said in the example; I did alter my price only once, but I did it with multiple items though. My example wasn't to prove you wrong, it was simply stating that maybe it's an idea to somehow show which quantity is being sold for a certain item at a certain price. Maybe my post wasn't clear and I apologize for that. I know it does show how much of a certain item is being sold by the NPC in port, but somehow it doesn't when players put something up.

 

It's quite alright, mate. Without the smiley I wouldn't take any offense. 

 

Anyways, that's my two cents on the subject.

[Galileus]

No problem, we just misunderstood each another. There is no problem with changing prices as is, problem would be there if you could change them ad nauseam without consequences - that was my point

[Quineloe]

It's not a tax, it's a fee. A very, very high one that creates a dramatic entry barrier for selling to players. I don't understand yet why such a severe money sink needs to be in the game. At the early game, it eats most of the profit you make from selling a ship, if not outright put you into the loss range.

People say that in the later game you basically have infinite moneys anyways and don't care about money at all, which I have my doubts about whether that's actually true.