Player Features and Ideas Discussion

You said this, then went on to suggest one of the worst and most harmful ideas possible.

If you want simple effective and harmless, then improve the information provided by the UI. Give players a simple message.

"Buyer beware. No orders are guaranteed." Hell you could even add "Single buy orders may not reflect the true value of an item".

Draconian negative wallet balance ideas, should remain a punishment issued for RMT.

This thread drives me a bit nuts as I keep coming back to it and there's a bunch of repetition and a fair few people who don't even understand the fundamental problems involved, plus I hate having to reread everything including my own posts. So I thought I'd try to sum it all just up for my own benefit, but ended up with something maybe worth sharing (although it's gone past summary and become an essay).

If anyone feels unrepresented or misrepresented, I'd be happy to make amendments.


The Mechanics:
Buy orders- these are market instruments advertised to exchange ISK for goods, instigated by the buyer. The buyer must configure the follow options for a buy order: quantity, minimum quantity, bid price per unit, order duration. and range for the buy order. If the order has a duration greater than immediate, the buyer will be charged 100 ISK or 1% the value of the buy order value (whichever is higher) in non-refundable broker fees when the order is confirmed. 100% of the ISK value of the buy order will also be placed in escrow. If the buy order expires, any remaining escrow will be refunded.

Margin Trader skill- this skill decreases the quantity of ISK required in escrow for a buy order. When the buy order is filled by sellers, the escrow will be drained until it is empty, after which the buy order will attempt to take funds directly from the buyer's wallet. If the funds are not available, the sale will fail and the buy order will be automatically removed from the market. To emphasise, if the escrow is gone and the buyer's wallet is empty, buy orders fail at the time someone tries to fill it.

At max skill, 24% of the ISK required for a buy order is put into escrow, so if you created a buy order for 10 items at 10,000 ISK each (a total of 100,000 ISK in value), you would be charged the 1% broker fee (1,000 ISK) and 24,000 ISK would be taken in escrow. This effectively allows a trader to create one or many buy orders that amount to 100/24 ~> 4x their current wallet value- for example, I could create the previous buy order with only 25,000 ISK in my wallet.

The result of the Margin Trader skill is that buy orders may not be fully covered at any one point in time, depending on how much escrow has been drained and the state of the buyer's wallet.

Unfillable buy orders- these occur and deoccur naturally and normally when a Margin Trader's wallet fluctuates for whatever reason (buy/sell orders filling, external income/expenditures). However, it can also be artificially forced by exploiting a number of mechanics. The first method uses the fact that the escrow is drained first: a scammer may purposefully create a large buy order then fill enough of the order with an alt to drain the escrow. At this point, any further filling would require money from the buyer's wallet, which is purposefully left empty. Any attempt to fill the buy order cancels the buy order.

Another method to create an unfillable buy order is using the minimum quantity- by ensuring the minimum quantity exceeds the % covered by escrow, any attempt to fill the order would require an amount from the buyer's wallet, once again left empty. This approach does not require possessing the item in question to drain the escrow.

"Margin Trading" scam- the mechanism of the scam is to create a sell order for an item at an inflated price then convince a mark to purchase that item. This is done by placing a buy order that gives the illusion that an item has a high worth (according to the buy order value) that exceeds that of the sell order. The mark incorrectly assumes that they may profit from purchasing the item to fill the buy order, profiting the difference, but the buy order disappears or is otherwise unfillable, leaving them holding worthless items and bereft the ISK they paid for it.

The scam could be performed by manually cancelling a perfectly valid buy order at the right time (e.g. after the sell order succeeds) or by otherwise convincing the mark that the item has value, but an unfillable buy order is attractive as there's no risk involved on the side of the scammer, although they do incur broker fee costs. The defining feature of the margin trading scam is that it uses niche items with minimal trading history to make it easy to distort the information presented via. the UI (not to mention requiring a lack of competing sensibly-priced buy orders, which would betray the true value of the item). Without the ability to control that information, the scam would not work. Using unfillable buy orders to do this minimises the risk involved as there is no ISK in escrow or accessible for a counter-scammer to access.

The Problem:
As stated by CCP Rise, there is no direct desire to prevent scamming by deception over the value of an item. Instead the concern is that unfillable orders appearing on the market is unfairly deceptive.

Things to be taken into consideration with solutions to this issue- undermining trust in the market and making legitimate market activity seem 'shady'. Making the market harder to use. Affecting legitimate non-malicious uses of the Margin Trading skill. Performance of the server when performing regular market operations.

Finally, you get my own opinion on all this and which I feel would solve the problem best- I'd be happy to defend any individual points further and evolve my opinion if you can convince me otherwise.

Evaluation - Failures:
The Decorator Solution- not entirely without merit, but it undermines faith in the market by making certain market orders more trustworthy. Could seriously impact genuine traders as people become suspicious of their buy orders for no good reason. Ultimately fails to prevent 'fake' buy orders, just insinuates that a certain class of buy orders should be suspect.

The Guaranteed Solution- fundamentally undermines the function of Margin Trading- it's normal to have unfilled or unfillable orders at times.

The Minimum Guaranteed Solution- while it solves the problem of scammers using minimum buy quantity to easily create unfillable orders right off the bat, they may still manipulate orders to become unfillable through other means. An inconvenience to scammers at best.

The Information/Tutorial Solution- trying to spin the problem as not a problem/someone else's problem doesn't solve the problem (but I appreciate the out-of-the-box goal-shifting thinking). Also, this is addressing the scam more than the deception.

The Obliteration Solution- not understanding why Margin Trading is useful and generalizing that because you don't use it or see use in it, it is useless and can be discarded is narrow-minded and selfish. You're like Alexander solving the Gordian Knot- people who think you're a big deal will paint you as a clever lateral thinker, but really it's more like "winning" at chess by flipping the board (NSFW, relevant: http://oglaf.com/automaton/).

The (My name is my) Reputation Solutions- ratings can be gamed and it unfairly penalises new players to the market.

The Debt Solution- atrociously difficult to hold debts in EVE to account with disposable alts, easily exploited to create ISK from nothing.

The Lock-Step Solution- stymies the escrow draining exploit, but fundamentally changes the behaviour of Margin Trading that reduces the effectiveness of genuine traders (results in a 'ghost' escrow that resides in your wallet).

The Probe Solution- has merit, but allows for hostile traders/griefers to attack buy orders to force punitive amounts of broker fees.

The Punitive Solution- unfairly punishes genuine traders for a situation that is outside of their control and normal.

The Details Solution- potentially database intensive and could be used to betray a player's financial details.

The Bonding Solution- solves the scam more than the problem at hand.

Evaluation - Candidates:
The Override Solution- this doesn't solve the problem at hand per se, but it does highlight an awfully big oversight in Margin Trading- once you have the skill, you are forced to use it, so even if you want to set aside 100% escrow for certain purchases you consider essential, you cannot.

Solving this would require 2 new controls on the UI. In simple view, a checkbox that says 'Use Margin Trading skill' that toggles between 100% and minimum escrow. In the advanced view, replace the checkbox with a % escrow input box that accepts figures anywhere in the range.

The Magician/Illusion/Relisting Solutions- I listed relisting here as it's a similar solution very close to the mark, just too granular to be flexible. Adjusting visibility is what will really solve the problem and stop the market lying. They key difference between genuine market traders and scammers is the attitude towards 'fake' buy orders (e.g. ones that are unfillable). A scammer is interested in the fake buy order being maximally visible in order to perpetuate false information. A genuine trader is actually not interested in their orders being visible once they become unfillable as people may attempt to fill them, forcing the order to cancel and costing them broker fees to relist. Worse still, they may have sell orders that later complete and provide the funds that could have filled the buy order, if only it had occurred later.

From this perspective it is clear that the only people with an interest in unfillable buy orders being visible at all are scammers. Genuine traders would be ecstatic to have uncovered orders hidden (not cancelled) and save them having to relist/babysit their buy orders.

The actual mechanics of it would be fairly simple- when the market checks for a buy order, it must consult the buyer's wallet and adjust the advertised quantity of the buy order in accordance to what the escrow + wallet can cover. If the value falls below the minimum quantity or less than one unit, the buy order is hidden entirely. If you attempt to fill a buy order based on stale information that is partially/no longer covered, it will succeed partially/fail harmlessly without cancelling the order but result in the order no longer being visible.

Thus, buy orders can only expire due to duration. As a result, all buy orders on the market are as guaranteed as they're going to be (there's always edge cases of someone getting in there before you) and as a side effect, scams no longer work risk free. Margin Traders may continue to create long-running or a wide variety of buy orders, but those orders will only ever advertise up to the maximum current potential of their wallet.

The Bonding Solution- allow (partial) buy orders to be bonded into a sell contract[/quote]

I think that's mine. Thank you for listing it.

I like the title although its more like Collateral.

You wanna make components and need to buy lots of nanotransistors.
You got no isk to cover the amount you wan to buy.
So you put up Tritanium that you have (but are not using at the moment) as collateral.

I don't understand why you said it fixes the scam *more* than the problem.

The problem is accurate reflection of buy orders. That was my incentive..not "solving" the scam.

I would have settled for 'complicated'

Anyway please don't get confused with the extra step that's involved because of having trained the margin trading skill.

In trying to solve this, assume that people will use the skill to its fullest extent. Simply put, I only have 24 billion isk. I place a buy order to buy 20 billion Tritanium at 5.00 isk per unit. What happens when Mittani rolls a hauler and dumps 20 billion Trit on me. Does he get paid? What does he get? What should he get?

The whole point of margin trading is to be able to have buy orders be temporarily unfillable. The two big examplar use-cases are thus:

I want a large volume of a commodity I expect to be filled gradually (anything from Nightmare BPCs to minerals at cut-rate prices). I can make an extra-large buy order and ensure my wallet consistently has enough cash to cover the rate at which I acquire the commodity rather than the entire size of the order up front- on any given day, I only have enough cash to cover a fraction of the order relative to that rate. Without margin trading I would have to babysit my market orders excessively in accordance with the liquid cash I have on hand and would have to tie it all up in advance of the entire value I wished to acquire.

I want to acquire a variety of rare items that have no guarantee of turning up any time soon. Using margin trading, I can offer to buy all of them without having the cash to buy them all simultaneously and can worry about liquidating assets to fill any further procurement only when one succeeds. Without margin trading, I must either advertise without putting up cash via alternate channels or bet all my liquid cash on which item will turn up next. If I bet wrong, I will lose out in broker fees retrieving my money from escrow.

The point is, the uncovered portion is held 'in reserve' as a convenience to me, the placer of the order, minimizing order thrash and unnecessary taxes because some guy picked the wrong time to test my buy order. The covered portion is made visible to others only, maximising the chance that my offer is genuine. The uncovered portion is never made public, which is what is causing disinformation on the market (especially when my entire order is uncovered).

Re: Scamming (not the point of the fix), you're absolutely right that there's still a loophole for scamming based on volume, but it's far more risky. Firstly, with regards to deceptive buy orders, we've solved it a little in the sense that at least one of the buy orders must be fillable for the buy orders to be visible. With that in mind, the scammer is now vulnerable to a counter-scam- if I happen to have made it my business collecting unique worthless objects to target margin scammers and happen to have the right item, I may freely fill one of his guaranteed orders at an inflated and walk off with a large portion of the scammer's money.



Under this system, your buy order will only display an offer to buy 24 billion isk = 4.8 billion units of tritanium. Mittens will only dump 4.8 billions of trit on you as your buy order advertises, then burn Jita because there's no other buy orders at a price he likes. The offer for the other 15.2b trit is held in reserve and hidden from the market until more money arrives in your wallet. The beauty of this is that money may arrive there because your Rhea sold, so your buy order magically revives back onto the market when that happens without any work from you. Under the current system, the full order is advertised, is cancelled/only partially filled when someone tries to fill it entirely and you have to re-make the order yourself next time you're online (and pay the broker again).

ok , so what you are saying is that margin trading would essentially be a way to automatically place orders in the market? Something to do more with micromanagement and order/tax costs than actual leverage?

Well...follow me through here please:

Lets say the buy order side looks like this :

Quantity @ Price

1,000 @ 5.03
10,000 @ 5.02 *
100,000 @ 5.01
50,000 @ 5.00
10,000 @ 4.99
1,000,000 @ 4.98 *
100,000 @ 4.97

The orders marked with an asterisk are margin orders (colored perhaps but please don't use red or green!)

That means that if someone gives 1,000 @ 5.03, that order will get filled and disappear.
If someone then gives 10,000 at 5.02, that order gets filled too but there is a chance that another 10,000 or something will appear at 5.02?

What happens if (i am the margin buyer) I get filled for the 10,000 at 5.02, without my sell order having completed (for 1b isk).
My wallet is emptied. (fine)
An hour passes.
my 1b isk completes!
I should get my 90,000 @ 5.02 bid order placed automatically
But the market is now offered at 4.80 and bid at 4.20!!
E.g.

Sell orders

100,000 @ 6.00
50,000 @ 5.05
50,000 @ 5.01
1,000,000 @ 4,80

Buy orders

100,000 @ 4,20
1,000,000 @ 3,80


It should get filled automatically, but where?

EDIT
PS: They can do that with existing functionality, although I am not sure what that is. Do i get filled for 90,000 @ 4,80? for 90,000 @ 5.02 (but taken from the 4,80 offer)? If there was only 10,000 @ 4,80 do i get that, then the 50,000 at 5.01 (but at what prices) and a bid placed as 30,000 @ 5.02?
2ndEDIT I tried to answer both of your posts in one (about the Bonding solution and this). Might have been confusing. Apologies. I've split them up

With the bonding, sure, you can take someone's money hostage (maybe it'll be configurable, maybe it'll be automatically up to the time the buy order would normally expire), but eventually you have to give it back. Because all the buy orders are anonymous, it'd be hard to target anyone maliciously this way. Maybe that is exploitable, I don't know- any ideas, anyone else?

With your orders... same thing happens at that moment as what would normally happen when you create a buy order that can be immediately filled because of sell orders- it fills! Unfortunately, preference goes to the seller in such cases- by offering to buy at that price, the market will match your bid to any and all sellers below your price (as long as you have volume) and match them at your price. This is why you should be careful in placing your buy orders not to type an extra 0!

In your case, it'll offer the best bid first @ 4.80 and buy him your full buy order of 90,000 items paying 5.02 each!

This is not surprising- this is exactly what you offered to do when you made the buy order. If he placed his sell order at that price (because he wasn't looking?) after your buy order appeared on the market, the exact same thing would happen. In fact, the proposed changes don't really affect what happens here at all, apart from the fact your buy order 'appears' when the money does in your wallet.

What would happen in the current system is your full buy order would be visible when the sell order was placed. The sell order would automatically match it, discovered that you cannot fill the order and cancel your order. When you get the 1b ISK, you ordered would be cancelled and nothing would happen.

The new system essentially saves you from that happening. It holds the buy order back in reserve until you have the cash to fill it.

If you have no money, they won't even see your buy order, so they can't act against it.

If your offer is on the market, sure, people can try to undercut you, but obviously they are offering to pay more than you, so they're narrowing their profit margin. Also, if they have 10 buy orders on different things and one of them fills completely, emptying their wallet, their competing buy order would disappear and you would have the best order again.

Sounds like Chribba to me. The Veldspar must flow!

Ahem. Happy to help!