Skill Discussions

He mad? ooooo he mad!
Just buy your crap at a market hub and you wont have this issue.
(Or you could just read the orders properly.)

:) this sounds very reasonable.

Of course I think a week ago I saw a list of 15 to 20 overpriced buy orders on modules worth 10% of what was listed, and of course in local someone spamming wanting to part with the exact same module for 90% of what appeared on buy orders.

The best advice, if it looks like a big payday then it probably is, just not for you. :) #
Don't pay someone else for doing nothing and don't expect the same.

I'd argue that there's a problem when the market is displaying orders that cannot possibly be sold to at all.

In particular, the problem is that those orders can be made to look exactly like a legitimate order.* A new player who doesn't know that the Margin Trading skill exists can come across a scam where they are unable to spot the trap even if they are looking for one. I can't think of a single other scam in EVE which can't be detected by a sufficiently close examination of the items/contract/etc. (Other than the ones that rely on a player outright lying to you, of course...)

What I'd like to see is for the skill to be changed so that all orders still need to be at least partly fillable. Any time the escrow (or escrow plus wallet) doesn't have enough ISK to cover the minimum purchase (I.E. purchase price * minimum quantity), the order should fail preemptively.

This would barely affect anyone using the margin trading skill legitimately - if you're using the margin-trading skill 'as intended', you should be expecting to always have more than enough ISK on hand to buy at least one item, even though you don't have enough ISK to buy all of the items. On the other hand, it means that a margin trading scam can't be set up without being exploitable.

*The primary giveaways are minimum quanities greater than one, buy orders higher than a sell-order at the same station, and spikes on the sales history where the seller cleared his escrow - but neither of those are actually necessary for the scam. They make it more efficient, certainly, but it's perfectly possible to set up the scam so that none apply.

The only "issue" I see with the Margin Trading skill is that you can deplete the escrow to zero (and it's debateable if that's an issue at all).

From the skill description it seems that the minimum level of the escrow is supposed to be 24% of the order value. I'd say depleting the escrow is an example of emergent gameplay and it was a brilliant idea from whoever came up with this first. But it seems unlikely that depleting the escrow to zero was intended when the skill was designed.

A "fix" seems to be simple (at least in theory - no idea how difficult it would be to code it or how much impact it would have on server stress):
Make it so, that the escrow is always at the minimum level. If the escrow falls below the threshold, for example because of a filled order, the system should draw the isk from the wallet of the order owner to refill the escrow to the minimum level; and if there isn't enough isk in the wallet the order fails.
That way you could still set up margin trading scams but would risk some isk doing so. And people who recognize the scam for what it is (and usually that's not so difficult) have a chance to get the isk from the scammer ... if they can do some simple math and have the item(s) needed available.

However, as with all "fixes" you would have to evaluate if the "cost" to fix something is justified by the outcome. The Margin Trading Scam adds some danger to market PvP and forces traders to stay alert. Somehow I think that this is very fitting for this game. And therefor I'm not so sure it would be worth it to spend development time on this just to make it riskier for scammers. At least I would put it very low on the priority list.

First off, there is a big difference between writing a "bad check" a failed buy order. With the bad check, you actually acquire the goods and services you were buying. With a failed buy order, you lose broker fees and gain nothing!

Have you ever ordered drive through only to discover you don't have your wallet? Ever have a prescription filled only to leave it behind because you don't have your insurance card? As long as you don't take possession of the food (aka like eat the food before realizing you can't pay for it), there are very few recourses a business can take against you.

Many businesses deal with "false buy orders" on a regular basis. The majority of times it is accidental, and they eat the cost of prepping the food and hope to sell it to someone else. Sometimes it is malicious (did you ever have unpaid pizza delivered to someone as a prank?), and in these cases the Business owners take steps to avoid future losses.

In EvE, which is purposely dystopic, you too can suffer from "false buy orders". You can also implement good business practices to avoid future losses (like researching the true value of your goods, as well as their sales volume and volatility). And unlike the above scenarios, when the buy order fails, you keep the goods, which are NOT perishable, meaning it is even easier to avoid losses like the above.

In short.... do some research when engaging in trade-for-money, and quit trying to change the market system because your to lazy or incompetent to cope with this simple concept.

Thank you for the entertainment.

Was even better than the 1½ PLEX worth of ISK I took you for (well, it cost you 1.7 PLEX worth but broker fees are expensive so I only got 1.5). Wish I had seen this thread earlier; I've just gone and linked it in four scammer channels.

I'd like to subscribe to your news letter.

Here is an idea CCP will like: Another skill for people to train

A skill that lets someone remotely check if an order has the funds or materials needed to complete the transaction. Each level of the skill increases the distance this can be done at as with the other trading skills.

Problem solved for those with the skill injected and trained to at least lvl1.

Open a market order, click the check button and it says if it's able to be filled or not. If you are out of range, it tells you so and sugsests you train your skill higher.