Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Mechanic that will mitigate (but not eliminate) the issue:

At all times, the SCC attempts to maintain an escrow that is equal to the larger of:
- largest single minimum buy order
- total buy orders * margin trading %

As such, any single buy order can be covered. At this point, the SSC attempts to "correct" the amount in escrow. If it cannot, all buy orders are suspended (alternatively, buy orders are suspended, largest first, until the condition can be met).

To un-suspend the buy orders, the capsuleer must top up his/her wallet then authorise escrow payment on the "orders" page, plus a 2% tax on this amount.


Notes:
- I apply this to minimum buy order rather than total, as total can be worked around by creating multiple single item orders.
- This will ensure that a single buy order can always be completed. It won't prevent multi-item scams, nor manual removal of buy orders.


Given the facility for escrow management, the following additional features could be enabled:
- deposit to escrow - manually adds cash to escrow above the minimum
- withdraw from escrow - withdraw surplus cash from escrow
- cancelled / expired buy orders would deposit to escrow rather than the wallet directly
- suspend orders: suspends all buy orders. There is only a minimal fee to reactivate them if the escrow is above the minimum.

Seems reasonable to me.


There will still be opportunities for similar scams. High minimum volume on a high-priced buy order for a rare item works, as do buy orders in inaccessible stations. Manipulation of the market history for a low-volume item by repeatedly selling to yourself will still be possible. It may be a little more work for the scammer, or a little bit riskier, but there will always be ways to fleece a sucker by using his own greed against him.

I like the "fillableUnits" field for orders. I'm not crazy about the "minimum ISK required" field as I will explain...


There are so many things that change a player's wallet, that I think triggering all this processing every time there is a wallet change may be too resource-intensive. I think a better idea would be to use the margin/escrow balance as a pool of funds to cover any possible buy order. By so doing, "fillableUnits" would only need to be calculated when there is a change to the margin/escrow balance, or when a buy order is created, filled, or canceled. The way I envision it working is that the minimum margin/escrow balance would normally equal or exceed the amount needed to fill the player's single largest buy order (price x total quantity). In the event the escrow balance falls below this amount and wallet funds aren't available to adjust it, "fillableUnits" of buy orders would be adjusted so that no single buy order (price x fillableUnits) exceeds the margin/escrow.


I'm not a fan of marking orders as it complicates the market for non-traders. I prefer hiding orders that are not fillable (fillableUnits=0), and showing only the fillable quantity for orders that are partially fillable.


Rather than recomputing minimum ISK required, I would prefer recomputing minimum margin/escrow required, and doing one of two things based on available ISK. If there is enough ISK, adjust the margin/escrow balance, and set fillableUnits of each order to the total quantity of the order. If there is not enough ISK to meet the minimum margin/escrow rule, adjust fillableUnits of buy orders as necessary so that every one of them is fillable (any single order, not all at once).

I am aware that I have not addressed triggering the recalculation and adjustment of margin/escrow and buy order fillableUnits each time the wallet balance increases. I do not know enough about the back-end processing to know what is feasible and what would be crippling. There could be a player flag for "Low Escrow" that is set whenever the margin/escrow balance is low (and fillableUnits of one or more buy orders is below total quantity). If this flag is set, an increase in wallet balance could then trigger a readjustment of escrow.

By pooling margin/escrow among all buy orders, we could avoid the current situation of a low wallet balance causing some buy orders to fail even when there is plenty of ISK in escrow (but tied to other buy orders).

I like how you attribute the fact that the game Interface is lying to you, to "lack of player dilligence".

So is it that you hate new traders and want to prevent them from making significant profits, or that you like seeing infinite fountains of magically created ISK?


If you don't like the prices, work to reduce demand or to increase supply.




The game is telling you that there is an offer to buy X units of Y item at Z price. That is all it is telling you.

You are assuming that that means it's telling you that there will be an offer to buy X units of Y item at Z price when you want to sell to it.

Your assumption is the reason you think you're being lied to. Not checking your assumptions against reality is called "failure to exercise due diligence."

Show me where CCP Rise claimed to be infalliable. He's making the same assumption you're making. No matter who's making the assumption, the assumption does not match reality.

Of course, he's in a position to change reality to match his assumptions, but that invites the question of why CCP should start guaranteeing the availability of buy orders.

You can trust every piece of information the interface actually gives you. The problem is that many people think that it's giving them more information than it actually is (i.e. they make assumptions).



Yep, that's every nullsec gate before you jump through it. The game doesn't tell you. So if someone started posting "The game's lying to me; it let me jump through a gate into a bubble and I lost my ship when I assumed the gate wouldn't let me jump into a bubble" would you be here pushing for a "bubbled gate indicator" or a ban on bubbling gates?

Cant we get an updated CSM / CCP view by now?

I favour my suggestion of Trebor's (which is similar to a couple of others) as it:
- doesn't require checking the wallet until an inbound buy transaction occurs
- prevents people draining their own escrow of ISK
- clarifies the escrow mechanics

(Careby touches on some of these issues also)

Actually, the bubbled gate equvivalent to the misinforming tradewindow would be that you a) couldnt see the bubble on D-scan, b) couldnt see it using probes, c) couldnt even see it from a perch above the gate. The only way to discover the bubble would be to warp directly into it, and suffer the consequenses doing so.

But, luckily enough, the issue here is not wheter or not CCP thinks the margin trading skill in the context of buyorders are dysfunctional and should be changed. They DO, wheter you like it or not. The question in this thread is how, not if.