Game design hurting Cartel Market sales?

[demotivator]

(...) As it's easy to criticize, here's what would have made way smoother experience and made me willing to buy more packs.

• Until unlocked (CD) all items are stored in a proprietary storage, same would go for further on opened armor crates (or better remove the CD altogether)
  
• At any time a player can click on any locked item to redeem it to his current character (vs the one who bought the crate)
  
• Players can post an item for as long as 7 days
  
• Reposting an item keeps the last posted price.
  
• A check box is added to automatically undercut the cheapest price by a player chosen %
  
• Stock piles prices can be set by unit price and the stack price is calculated automatically
  
• Search now either automatically removes tags that aren't accepted or now accept them
  
• You can use wildcards in search
  
• (Optional) There's now a real Auction House system with bidding, and buyout price
  
• (edit) Directly display the 3d items of gear/decos in CM instead of having to always click preview
  

 

No. It's perfectly fine the way it is.

 

By the way not sure how you manage to get issues with storage when we have a 80 slots inventory, a 5 bay cargo (both multiplied by X characters) plus a 5 bay Legacy storage. Seriously what the heck are you keeping with you that opening one crate is an issue? A few stims, a couple of toys, maybe a different gear don't take 60 slots...

Edited September 20, 2014 by demotivator

[Storm-Cutter]

880 slots. - which is enough for every pack in the hypercrate to have 36 items in. -Is that not enough? no?

 

BTW the reason that there is a timer on most cartel items is to discourage fraud. - Stolen Credit cards being used to buy 100s of Cartel items then cash in the items and launder the money via gold-sellers. We should be grateful there isn't a 4-week lockout. Learn patience young Padawan!

Edited September 20, 2014 by Storm-Cutter

[aeterno]

Sure is. If they had an appearance tab for easy appearance changing they'd prolly sell a lot more outfits for instance.

[Exquisitr]

Seems fine the way it is IMO... In fact it is better than other games AH. But maybe that's just me,

I've played several MMOs and the GTN is by far the worst AH I've used.

[Deewe]

I call BS on that... pretty much anything that's put up on the GTN for 500 or less is bought by someone somewhere.

Didn't even sell the soccoro weapons for 5 creds lately

 

Not so much "we hate change" as "these changes are nice and all, but not worth the time and effort it would take to implement them, there are other things that are more important".

So, for example, you'd rather have to always fix the search function than have a working one?

 

Or have to calculate by hand how much you're going to sell a stack of mats because the system doesn't do this by itself.

 

 

No. It's perfectly fine the way it is.

 

By the way not sure how you manage to get issues with storage when we have a 80 slots inventory, a 5 bay cargo (both multiplied by X characters) plus a 5 bay Legacy storage. Seriously what the heck are you keeping with you that opening one crate is an issue? A few stims, a couple of toys, maybe a different gear don't take 60 slots...

Perfect? You got to be kidding me!

 

First read below:

I've played several MMOs and the GTN is by far the worst AH I've used.

 

Then not everyone has 5 bays on his characters, even less empty ones.

 

I hope you are not asking people to buy said bay to be able to buy and manage the associated mess coming with Cartel Market packs? Because from a business perspective that's just stupid.

 

 

880 slots. - which is enough for every pack in the hypercrate to have 36 items in. -Is that not enough? no?

 

BTW the reason that there is a timer on most cartel items is to discourage fraud. - Stolen Credit cards being used to buy 100s of Cartel items then cash in the items and launder the money via gold-sellers. We should be grateful there isn't a 4-week lockout. Learn patience young Padawan!

You missed the point where I mentioned to be able to at least use the items on alts.

 

Then there are certainly ways to make it so the timer is lifted for players who have been using the same credit card for X time or have a verified credit card. Although I agree in that case it would need quite a bunch of back-end work

Edited September 20, 2014 by Deewe

[OddballEasyEight]

Didn't even sell the soccoro weapons for 5 creds lately

 

Sold mine for 350 credits each ('cept the lightsabers, those are actually something people want, unlike those ugly blasters)

 

So, for example, you'd rather have to always fix the search function than have a working one?

 

Or have to calculate by hand how much you're going to sell a stack of mats because the system doesn't do this by itself.

 

Oh, now you're not even paying attention.

Did I say I'd rather always have to fix the search function than have one that eeh... fixes whatever you mean by "fix" (I assume the 3 letter word minimum here)?

No I didn't.

 

However, I consider it to be a minor inconvenience that would take up more time and effort from the devs side than it's worth, and that time and effort could be spent on much better things.

 

Oh and btw, if you sell 1 item for something, the game then automatically calculates how much a stack of it is if you put that up directly after the 1 item.

I do this all the time when I don't have my phone handy to calculate. I just put 1 of the items up for sale for say 10.000 and then slap the rest of the stack on there and the game will calculate it automatically for me.

[Deewe]

Sold mine for 350 credits each ('cept the lightsabers, those are actually something people want, unlike those ugly blasters)

Lucky you!

 

Got like 10 of them and even noobs didnt' want them for free. I ended trashing them

Oh, now you're not even paying attention.

Did I say I'd rather always have to fix the search function than have one that eeh... fixes whatever you mean by "fix" (I assume the 3 letter word minimum here)?

No I didn't.

 

However, I consider it to be a minor inconvenience that would take up more time and effort from the devs side than it's worth, and that time and effort could be spent on much better things.

For people that using the GTN having a fully functional search is more important than say a new FP.

 

In a regular day I do maybe a hundred searches on the GTN versus I might do once the new FP.

Personally I'd go for the search, but then we both know it take way less to have a full functional search than create a new FP.

 

Also I would be very happy to get a sort -u or a select distinct function as going through dozens pages of the same items is a waste of time.

 

 

 

Oh and btw, if you sell 1 item for something, the game then automatically calculates how much a stack of it is if you put that up directly after the 1 item.

I do this all the time when I don't have my phone handy to calculate. I just put 1 of the items up for sale for say 10.000 and then slap the rest of the stack on there and the game will calculate it automatically for me.

Now you're talking, thanks for the hint.

 

Although, I find it unacceptable people have to use 3rd partly accessories or mitigation tricks to post stuff on the GTN. It's simply bad design.

[CKNORTH]

What amazes me is when ideas to improve the game come up, so many people say, "oh no, we don't need that, it is fine the way it is..."

 

Boy, there sure are a lot of people who must hate change...

 

It's not that we don't like change it's more of why fix something that isn't broken?...

[Desolaytore]

You lost me at the auto undercut option.

[Deewe]

You lost me at the auto undercut option.

Key word: optional.

[Heal-To-Full]

It was a good idea.

What I personally think would be the best GTN improvements without changing it fundamentally:

 

* When you look for items, the GTN will only show 1 listing per item type, the one with the lowest price. A button on ever item can be clicked to show the rest of the listings.

This is especially useful if you are e.g. browsing the Mounts category - hide all the hundreds of redundant mounts.

 

* When posting items for sale, the auto-suggest price will be the current lowest price on the item. If there are none, ideally I'd like it to give the last price one sold at, but that may be too much to ask.

 

* All stackable items can be shift-clicked, like on a vendor, to buy part of a stack. While removing the incentive for bulk purchases, it also removes the need to split stacks into a hundred listings.

[OddballEasyEight]

 

For people that using the GTN having a fully functional search is more important than say a new FP.

 

In a regular day I do maybe a hundred searches on the GTN versus I might do once the new FP.

Personally I'd go for the search, but then we both know it take way less to have a full functional search than create a new FP.

 

Also I would be very happy to get a sort -u or a select distinct function as going through dozens pages of the same items is a waste of time.

 

 

See, that's the clincher... YOU spend alot of time on the GTN, so YOU think those changes are worth more than say a new flashpoint.

But I am highly doubtful that the majority of players agree with you.

I do believe most would like a "better" GTN.

But I also believe that most would consider that pretty low on the list of things this game needs.

[DawnAskham]

It was a good idea.

What I personally think would be the best GTN improvements without changing it fundamentally:

 

* When you look for items, the GTN will only show 1 listing per item type, the one with the lowest price. A button on ever item can be clicked to show the rest of the listings.

This is especially useful if you are e.g. browsing the Mounts category - hide all the hundreds of redundant mounts.

 

* When posting items for sale, the auto-suggest price will be the current lowest price on the item. If there are none, ideally I'd like it to give the last price one sold at, but that may be too much to ask.

 

* All stackable items can be shift-clicked, like on a vendor, to buy part of a stack. While removing the incentive for bulk purchases, it also removes the need to split stacks into a hundred listings.

 

Adding filters or better sorts so that the lowest priced item always appears first would be an improvement, not sure I want it to automatically hide all others, though that could be an option.

 

Auto suggest should not be changed in any way. If people are too lazy to search or keep up with pricing, that is their own problem. The GTN should NOT hand hold people. They could remove auto suggest completely so people are at least more likely to look up current prices than assume the system knows best.

 

Stackable items being sold SHOULD NOT allow buying partial stacks. I am posting a stack because I want to sell a stack. Find one the size you need, or buy a large stack and repost what you don't need.

 

I would love, however, the ability to set a sell price and then post items based on stack size with the GTN calculating total price instead of the way we have to post today calculating the total price of a stack before posting.

Edited September 20, 2014 by DawnAskham

[Heal-To-Full]

Adding filters or better sorts so that the lowest priced item always appears first would be an improvement, not sure I want it to automatically hide all others, though that could be an option.

What's the purpose of even displaying other listings?

It clutters the display for mounts, decorations, etc.

If you're doing market research, it could do a line before the listing in small text: "11 other listings, click to display".

 

...buy a large stack and repost what you don't need.

Do you like a time sink for the purpose of a time sink?

 

Letting players sell and buy arbitrary quantities is about a lot more than who wants to sell what. You could post 1000 of an item for sale, someone buy 175 of it, or you post 110, someone else posts 65, and the customer automatically gets both - it's how real-life commodity trading works. There can be 100 listings of 10 to 50 barrels of oil each, one can select to buy 90 barrels, and a real-life trading system will automatically buy enough of the offers, starting from the cheapest, to make up 90 barrels.

 

No reason, other than intentional time sink, to make a MMO trading system less convenient than real-life trading.

[branmakmuffin]

I've played several MMOs and the GTN is by far the worst AH I've used.

Aside from the fact that it's not an auction system, it's pretty much the same as the AHs of the other MMOs I have played.

Edited September 20, 2014 by branmakmuffin

[Deewe]

It was a good idea.

What I personally think would be the best GTN improvements without changing it fundamentally:

 

 

* When you look for items, the GTN will only show 1 listing per item type, the one with the lowest price. A button on ever item can be clicked to show the rest of the listings.

This is especially useful if you are e.g. browsing the Mounts category - hide all the hundreds of redundant mounts.

 

Adding filters or better sorts so that the lowest priced item always appears first would be an improvement, not sure I want it to automatically hide all others, though that could be an option.

 

 

What's the purpose of even displaying other listings?

It clutters the display for mounts, decorations, etc.

If you're doing market research, it could do a line before the listing in small text: "11 other listings, click to display".

Only seeing the least expensive price is helpful when buying or browsing for existing items.

 

Having the number of the same items being sold next to it tells you if it's a common item or not.

 

Now being able to expand the list of an item tells you the price range and the trend for the price.

 

 

 

* When posting items for sale, the auto-suggest price will be the current lowest price on the item. If there are none, ideally I'd like it to give the last price one sold at, but that may be too much to ask.

 

* All stackable items can be shift-clicked, like on a vendor, to buy part of a stack. While removing the incentive for bulk purchases, it also removes the need to split stacks into a hundred listings.

 

Auto suggest should not be changed in any way. If people are too lazy to search or keep up with pricing, that is their own problem. The GTN should NOT hand hold people. They could remove auto suggest completely so people are at least more likely to look up current prices than assume the system knows best.

Convenience =/= lazyness.

 

 

 

 

Stackable items being sold SHOULD NOT allow buying partial stacks. I am posting a stack because I want to sell a stack. Find one the size you need, or buy a large stack and repost what you don't need.

 

I would love, however, the ability to set a sell price and then post items based on stack size with the GTN calculating total price instead of the way we have to post today calculating the total price of a stack before posting.

 

Letting players sell and buy arbitrary quantities is about a lot more than who wants to sell what. You could post 1000 of an item for sale, someone buy 175 of it, or you post 110, someone else posts 65, and the customer automatically gets both - it's how real-life commodity trading works. There can be 100 listings of 10 to 50 barrels of oil each, one can select to buy 90 barrels, and a real-life trading system will automatically buy enough of the offers, starting from the cheapest, to make up 90 barrels.

 

No reason, other than intentional time sink, to make a MMO trading system less convenient than real-life trading.

I'd say by obliging players to buy a stack you are either loosing sales or being obliged to post in smaller quantities and as such have more management to do than otherwise.

 

Then I'm not sure making the system not convenient is a time sink. It's more an oversight than anything else. In short the system, while not convenient, works and players don't voice their opinions enough against it so the producer doesn't really having it improved at all.

[Arkerus]

Aside from the fact that it's not an auction system, it's pretty much the same as the AHs of the other MMOs I have played.

 

Definitely don't know what that guy was talking about. I see no major difference in this "AH" and other games. I have played a ton of MMOs and there is nothing in SWTOR's AH that is significantly different.

 

Yes, there were a ton of QoL issue at first but they fixed most of them.

[branmakmuffin]

Definitely don't know what that guy was talking about. I see no major difference in this "AH" and other games. I have played a ton of MMOs and there is nothing in SWTOR's AH that is significantly different.

 

Yes, there were a ton of QoL issue at first but they fixed most of them.

Yeah, populate search via shift-click and sort by unit price were the biggies, IMO.

[DawnAskham]

What's the purpose of even displaying other listings?

It clutters the display for mounts, decorations, etc.

If you're doing market research, it could do a line before the listing in small text: "11 other listings, click to display".

 

 

Do you like a time sink for the purpose of a time sink?

 

Letting players sell and buy arbitrary quantities is about a lot more than who wants to sell what. You could post 1000 of an item for sale, someone buy 175 of it, or you post 110, someone else posts 65, and the customer automatically gets both - it's how real-life commodity trading works. There can be 100 listings of 10 to 50 barrels of oil each, one can select to buy 90 barrels, and a real-life trading system will automatically buy enough of the offers, starting from the cheapest, to make up 90 barrels.

 

No reason, other than intentional time sink, to make a MMO trading system less convenient than real-life trading.

 

I wouldn't mind the addition of a bid / ask order system for things like raw materials in addition to what we have, but that wasn't what was originally proposed.

 

Simply letting the buyer decide how many of an item to purchase from a stack posted at a consolidated price removes the sellers ability to manage price based on quantity purchased (e.g. bulk discounts / mark-ups for singles).

[Deewe]

I wouldn't mind the addition of a bid / ask order system for things like raw materials in addition to what we have, but that wasn't what was originally proposed.

 

Simply letting the buyer decide how many of an item to purchase from a stack posted at a consolidated price removes the sellers ability to manage price based on quantity purchased (e.g. bulk discounts / mark-ups for singles).

You do have a point, although what I see is most players tend to base their GTN posting price on the cheapest unit price.

 

So while on paper you indeed have a point the reality check proves otherwise, at least on my server.

[Heal-To-Full]

Simply letting the buyer decide how many of an item to purchase from a stack posted at a consolidated price removes the sellers ability to manage price based on quantity purchased (e.g. bulk discounts / mark-ups for singles).

It does, but everything has its price. I would argue that the primary value of this ability is that it simply saves the seller's time, otherwise required to split stacks and post a dozen listings.

 

The buyers splitting their own stacks saves even more of the seller's time.

 

And then with such a system - common in real-life trading - you can do other things that save time. For instance, you can add a checkbox "once undercut" to listing time, that will keep the item on the GTN until it's undercut plus a time of player choice. Can put a red mark next to undercut items in the "sales" list.

You can't do that if the seller manages stack size instead of the buyer, because it's impossible to determine whether the listing has indeed been undercut or if the price difference is due to stack size.

 

Honestly, since the auto-price-repeat feature has been introduced, I don't even do bulk discounts anymore, except for extremely expensive items like frameworks, just use the feature. This ability is of little value, and would have even less value when any need to split stacks is removed - it simply won't be worth the time vs. just right-clicking all my stacks into the GTN window and entering the unit price.

Edited September 20, 2014 by Heal-To-Full

[Avatarless]

Would like to see an addition of Inventory tabs, same as cargo bays have.

 

Give everyone the first tab unlocked then you can buy additional tabs as needed if you're filling up your inventory with cartel stuff.

[Deewe]

Would like to see an addition of Inventory tabs, same as cargo bays have.

 

Give everyone the first tab unlocked then you can buy additional tabs as needed if you're filling up your inventory with cartel stuff.

I'd go with having filters and automatically sorting stuff in different bags, like WoW ArkInventory or more recently WildStar SerenityBags

[LordArtemis]

Aside from the fact that it's not an auction system, it's pretty much the same as the AHs of the other MMOs I have played.

 

I would agree with this. At one time the bugs, lack of price sort and search ability did make this games AH pretty terrible IMO compared to other games on the market, but at this point it is comparable. The only real weakness is the lack of an auction feature.

[Deewe]

I would agree with this. At one time the bugs, lack of price sort and search ability did make this games AH pretty terrible IMO compared to other games on the market, but at this point it is comparable. The only real weakness is the lack of an auction feature.

Not to forget a working search function.