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Feedback Request - Margin trading and accurate market UI

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Archeras Umangiar
Lowlife.
Snuffed Out
#641 - 2014-04-25 16:59:18 UTC
more filters fonctions would be great, and a specific viewable history for the actual selected item in the orders tab,

and please for the love of god, improve margin trading via corporation wallet
Cyniac
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#642 - 2014-04-25 17:55:51 UTC  |  Edited by: Cyniac
Apologies if this has already been suggested ... don't have the luxury of reading through all the comments.

The problem with margin trading which is exploited by the margin trading scam is based on the fact that the market displays a buy order which seems legitimate that then turns out to have no funds behind it - leaving the young trader holding a very highly overpriced set of esoteric junk.

One solution which should not significantly affect legitimate margin trading but which would make the margin trading scam impossible is to modify the way buy orders are displayed by only displaying the amount of goods which are actually covered by the wallet balance of the buyer.

Example:

I have four buy orders for minerals

Wallet balance: 150 million isk

Buy orders:

100 million isk of tritanium
100 million isk of pyrite
100 million isk of mexallon
100 million isk of isogen

At this stage I have enough cash in my wallet to fully cover all my buy orders so they are all fully displayed.

50 million isk of tritanium is sold to me so the situation is as follows:

Wallet Balance: 100 million ISK

Buy orders:

50 million isk of tritanium
100 million isk of pyrite
100 million isk of mexallon
100 million isk of isogen

As I still have enough cash in my wallet to fill the biggest buy order, they are all fully displayed. Now someone comes along and sells me 50 million isk of isogen

Buy orders:

Wallet balance 50 million ISK

Buy orders:
50 million isk of tritanium
100 million isk of pyrite -> but displays 50 million isk because of wallet balance
100 million isk of mexallon -> but displayes 50 million isk because of wallet balance
50 million isk of isogen

Even though I still have two buy orders worth 100 million isk, because my wallet balance is only 50 million isk the system displays buy orders as if they were of only 50 million isk.

Now lets go for broke. Another 50 million isk of tritanium is sold to me.

At this stage the tritanium buy order has been filled and is cancelled and I have a wallet balance of 0 ISK which results in:

Wallet Balance: 0 ISK

Buy orders:
100 million isk of pyrite -> Not displayed (empty wallet)
100 million isk of mexallon -> Not displayed (empty wallet)
50 million isk of isogen -> Not displayed (empty wallet)

Even though the buy orders still exist - they are not visible and thus no one can be scammed - however lets say I had a contract which sold for 70 million ISK. So now people can once again see my orders some fully some partially as follows:

Wallet Balance: 70 million ISK

Buy orders:
100 million isk of pyrite -> buy displays 70 million ISK (limited wallet balance)
100 million isk of mexallon -> buy displays 70 million ISK (limited wallet balance)
50 million isk of isogen

I hope that illustrates the concept - by displaying in buy orders only the amount of goods that can be covered by the effective wallet balance of a player it makes the scam impossible while maintaining the legitimate use of margin trading.

At this point someone might ask about server loads etc - that's a legitimate concern but honestly for this to work effectively the wallet balances and displays would not even have to be refreshed in real-time. It's enough to check periodically (say every 15 minutes) and maybe when an order is sold to.
Gizznitt Malikite
Agony Unleashed
Agony Empire
#643 - 2014-04-25 18:21:13 UTC
Cyniac wrote:
.....


I've been following this thread pretty closely, and your exact suggestion hasn't been proposed. It is an interesting idea.

However, it will also create a lot of extraneous checking. Anytime your wallet changes, all market orders must be updated to show appropriate volumes available. This is computationally expensive when we're refering to tens of thousands of players with hundreds of buy orders and constantly changing wallets.

A much simpler, more direct "solution" that you probably missed is to add a 'verify order' function.

See a buy order that you want to sell to: Right click, and select verify order. This will check the buyers wallet and if they don't have enough funds to meet the minimum buy order, the order is cancelled. This tool should cost isk (say 1m isk) to verify an order, but it leaves margin trades as they are, and allows players to police themselves (which is the best of all worlds).


Note: Education is still necessary. All players should be informed in the tutorials that Buy orders are NOT guaranteed.
Vincent Athena
Photosynth
#644 - 2014-04-25 18:34:42 UTC
I was thinking about this and an odd thought crossed my mind. It concerns this statement:

"This isn't about scamming or whether or not it's okay for people to trick other people, which is obviously extremely EVE and we have no problem with. The issue here is that the client (via the market interface) is essentially lying to the player by showing an order which can't actually be filled."

Lets take two cases.

1) A market order that cannot be filled.
2) A message in chat. "Send me ISK and I will double it and send it back."

In both cases what I see is there due to the action of a player.
In both cases what I see is text in a window.
In both cases that text is presented to me by the client.
In both cases what I see is a lie.

Why is one case acceptable and the other not?

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Axe Coldon
#645 - 2014-04-25 20:15:01 UTC
I too would like to remove the margin trading scam. As it looks legitimate. That is the hardest scam to explain to new people. They don't get that something like that would be allowed. I always have to tell them more then once, "you don't get it, they don't have the money to fulfill the buy order. It will fail when you try to sell to it.

I would be for removing margin trading all together if a good fix can't be found.

I think you should make the person liable for the short fall and if he can't ban him.

No trees were killed in the sending of this message. However, a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.
Talon Creed
The Last Hope
#646 - 2014-04-25 20:36:48 UTC
Is this really a broken mechanic? Its been around for years and as a trader on many toons that use this in a legitimate manner.

Its clear that a number of people have been burnt. There are some age old sayings in real life and in EVE.


  • Risk vs Reward

  • If something is too good to be true it usually is


People are being scammed because they are making a judgment call purchasing something moving it to another location and trying to sell it and its back firing on them.

The bottom line here is that players are making poor decisions. The harsh reality is this, tough luck learn from your mistakes.

CCP please leave it as it is, EVE is a harsh cruel environment if you want all fluffiness EVE is not for you.
Cyniac
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#647 - 2014-04-25 22:08:14 UTC
Gizznitt Malikite wrote:
I've been following this thread pretty closely, and your exact suggestion hasn't been proposed. It is an interesting idea.


Thanks for the heads up - good to know at least all that typing threw a new concept into the discussion.

Gizznitt Malikite wrote:
However, it will also create a lot of extraneous checking. Anytime your wallet changes, all market orders must be updated to show appropriate volumes available. This is computationally expensive when we're refering to tens of thousands of players with hundreds of buy orders and constantly changing wallets.


Yup - though I generally leave the question of just how much of a load this would create to the folks who handle that - at times somethings can be surprisingly simple. Like I mentioned it would be enough if this was checked/updated on a periodic rather than a continual basis (say every 15 minutes) because it would still make margin trading scams fail. (It would have at most 15 minutes in which to happen and generally the scams would take longer)

The verify order solutoin you mentioned - I had seen some variations on it (I did go through the first ten pages of comments) but it seems to be a bit redundant in the sense that people who are aware of the verify order system would probably already be market savvy and unlikely to fall for the margin trading scam, while people who would not know their way around the market would still fall for the scams. So rather than becoming a tool to prevent margin trading scams it would be a tool to verify the orders, probably those of competitors (nothing wrong with that though.)
Gizznitt Malikite
Agony Unleashed
Agony Empire
#648 - 2014-04-25 22:19:11 UTC
Cyniac wrote:

The verify order solutoin you mentioned - I had seen some variations on it (I did go through the first ten pages of comments) but it seems to be a bit redundant in the sense that people who are aware of the verify order system would probably already be market savvy and unlikely to fall for the margin trading scam, while people who would not know their way around the market would still fall for the scams. So rather than becoming a tool to prevent margin trading scams it would be a tool to verify the orders, probably those of competitors (nothing wrong with that though.)


How long does a margin trade scam buy order remain "available" when they spam local and someone can cancel the order with a 'Verify order" check.

A buy order for 100m isk will have 750k in brokers fees that get lost, so this essentially allows you to hammer the margin trade scammer with repeated broker fees as they have to continualy setup the orders again.
Erik Sokarad
Republic University
Minmatar Republic
#649 - 2014-04-25 22:47:49 UTC
to stop the margin trading scam, all you really need to do is require escrow to be at least equal to the minimum buy order. so if the minimum buy order is 100 units, then you need to cover at least that much with escrow. the normal traders are not hurt, and the economy can move forward without worrying about that little detail.

Julian Huxley
Solomon Bank and Trading Co.
#650 - 2014-04-25 23:06:18 UTC  |  Edited by: Julian Huxley
The proposed solution of requiring enough isk to fill the minimum quantity does not stop margin scams, not at all. If anything, it makes margin scams harder to distinguish from legitimate buy orders.

You can either get rid of the skill entirely, and **** off anyone who trades and devastate market liquidity. Or you can do a change like the one I suggested, and make margin scams harder to identify. Or you can go full tard and create an isk printing mechanic. As long as there is a way for me to have less isk than the sum of an order, I can utilize that.
Scion Lex
United Mining and Hauling Inc
The Initiative.
#651 - 2014-04-25 23:14:59 UTC
tl;dl per usual

Fine them. It's that simple. If they are willing to burn a character slot in order to margin scam let them.

Now...allow me to redirect your attention to an actual issue; The Shares System

Thank you.
Adunh Slavy
#652 - 2014-04-25 23:54:33 UTC  |  Edited by: Adunh Slavy
Why does margin trading even exist? (and yes, I have it trained to level five too) Here we have a skill where some magical omnipresent NPC can snatch ISK from wallets all over the galaxy and enforce a rule.

Margin trading in effect, though convoluted and a bit esoteric, creates a distortion on the time preference for capital. This is a realm where players should have influence, not NPCs.

Provide variable term loan contracts that are capable of long or short term, spanning days to a year, flexible, negotiable, with or with out coupon, and resalable to third parties.

Get the NPCs out of the capital markets and let players run it.

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.  - William Pitt
Golda Quark
Science and Trade Institute
Caldari State
#653 - 2014-04-26 06:31:36 UTC
As soon as a buy order fails once, due to the buyer not having the funds for the transaction, the buy order should expire.

If I desperately need a million widgets, I could place a buy order at several hubs for a million, and leave enough in my wallet to pay for a million. If anyone tried to sell me more after a million had been sold to me, my empty wallet would cause the transaction to fail and the order to expire, so it no longer appeared on the market.

First Rule of Aquisition: Once you have their money, never give it back.
Jessica Danikov
Network Danikov
#654 - 2014-04-26 07:22:20 UTC
Forcing buy orders to be 'valid' does not stop the scam. I can put a sell order up in Jita for item X and a corresponding buy order up in Amarr, then pull the buy order when the sell goes through, leaving them out of pocket holding a worthless item.

The only way to hold buy orders to account is to have a way to realize them ahead of efforts to fulfil them. I'll reiterate my previous suggestion- people should be able to convert buy orders into contracts, which effectively puts the buyer's funds up in escrow until the contract is completed, preventing them from being able to whisk the isk away when the scam is completed, but also forcing a speculative seller to put up contract costs and have a reasonable expectation of being able to fill the order (or incur costs for not doing so).
McBorsk
Multispace Technologies Inc
#655 - 2014-04-26 11:49:59 UTC
Those who bite on these scams are only victims of their own greed.
Macs Mayhem
Bunyip Trading
#656 - 2014-04-26 12:19:55 UTC
CCP Rise wrote:
The solution we proposed to the CSM initially was based around the idea that if you didn't have enough money in your wallet to back an order, that order would be cancelled.


I vote for this solution. Its simple. The adverse problems cited by CCP Rise are relatively minor in my opinion.
Cyniac
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#657 - 2014-04-26 20:55:22 UTC
Gizznitt Malikite wrote:
How long does a margin trade scam buy order remain "available" when they spam local and someone can cancel the order with a 'Verify order" check.

A buy order for 100m isk will have 750k in brokers fees that get lost, so this essentially allows you to hammer the margin trade scammer with repeated broker fees as they have to continualy setup the orders again.


Interesting. I've never seen margin scams spammed on local - I though that was more the "here is a pretty order which I cancel (manually) the moment you buy the overprized junk to fill it."

Yes, if people are spamming local with margin scams the verify order check which cancels the buy order would work well. I guess it's just in my experience that's now how margin scams seem to work.

(As an aside... I am very much torn on this one as I do find messing with margin scammers to be quite entertaining!)
w3ak3stl1nk
Hedion University
#658 - 2014-04-27 00:17:41 UTC  |  Edited by: w3ak3stl1nk
I think buy order should complete with buyer going to negative funds if not enough money available. Never mind that is exploitable. Phantom budgeting which is the what the skill is based on is the same as Enron budgeting. Very risky concept indeed.

Is that my two cents or yours?
Eiken Song
Special Assault Unit
Pandemic Horde
#659 - 2014-04-27 07:55:44 UTC
Give a "magin trade order" simple a other color in the market browser.
HeXxploiT
Doomheim
#660 - 2014-04-28 17:06:42 UTC  |  Edited by: HeXxploiT
I always thought that the easiest fix would be as follows. If i have a buy order in for 500mil, i only have 200mil in my wallet and the order goes through my wallet will automatically go to minus 300mil. On top of that another possibility could be that all other buy orders are automatically cancelled once one order fails.

At any rate as much as I love utilizing the margin trading feature ccp's definition of margin trading doesn't even come close to what real world margin trading actually is. Why they chose to use the word 'margin" in the first place is beyond me. In the real world if you trade on margin and you don't come through guess what you lose your pants and your car and maybe even your house if that's what it takes to pay off the purchase. There are severe consequences to real world margin trading. It's high risk vs high reward.
In eve it's currently no risk vs high reward.

Years ago I had a back & forth with GM Ochlavita on this subject and that persons viewpoint was essentially that the game was not supposed to reflect real world mechanics. I've always disagreed with that notion and believed that it should reflect as such especially with something as important as economics.