Player Features and Ideas Discussion

After posting this idea on the following thread (https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=908204#post908204) I wanted to make just another discussion thread in the right forum.

As you know there is a brokers fee for setting up a new order.
This fee goes (depending on skills) from 0.75% of the total order value (no skills) down to 0.1875% (full skills)

So when you set up an order worth 100 million ISK your borker will take 188k ISK for advertising and setting up your order.

And now for any normal player the annoying part starts. You get undercut by another player by 0.01 ISK.

Modifying an order always cost 100 ISK (the lowest possible fee, because modifications are calculated on the modification value), which in Eve is plainly nothing. For killing a single frigate you would be able to modify hundreds of orders without end.

Obviously no human player has the nerv to do that for more than an hour per day at best. So probably bots profit the most from this sort of trade war, because they dont mind undercutting orders by 0.01 ISK every 5 minutes without end.

So my proposal now is:
Instead of using the modification value of the order for calculating the modification fee from your broker, Eve should use the total value of the order you want to modify for calculating the fee.

To make it more reasonable I would lower the fee for modifying an order to a minimum of 0.1% with full skills.

Example:
You have set up an order worth 100 million ISK.
You want to increase the order price to 100.000.000,01 ISK.
As it stands now you would pay 100 ISK for modifying the order (lowest possible calculated on 0,01 ISK).
With the change you would pay 0.1% of the order value (100 million ISK), which is 100.000 ISK.

Such a change would stop these stupid 0.01 ISK trade wars and result in more reasonable planning of pricing, way more trade across regions and markets and more focus on advertising your goods.

Waiting for input.

P.S. And the best thing it will be minimal programming effort for the Devs (can be done almost over night) and will make trading so much more fun.

Ah thanks for the graph, made a correction immediately.

Numbers arent that important to me. Most full-time traders have maximum skills and standing, so I think its crucial to find the most reasonable percentage for a character with best skills and standing first and from that on increase the fee for characters with imperfect prerequisities.

0.1% was just a number, but I think its quite okay. Considering a plex costs about 480 million ISK, you would pay roughly 500.000 ISK to change your own price, doesnt hurt much, but also you wont do it just to be 0.01 ISK over or under another players order for a short time.
You will rather think "What price is good for me and my potential customers so I will sell that damn plex and wont have to change the order again, because that will cost me additional ISK and reduce my income"

0.01% feels a bit low, considering that would only be 50.000 ISK fee for modifying a plex. And plex are already quite expansive.

Thinking this a bit more:

If someone would update price every 5 minutes, then 0.01% would become 2.88% over 24 hours and 0.1% would become 28.8%.

Depending on profit margins, 0.01% could still allow quite aggressive 0.01 ISKing while 0.1% would definitely make one think more about when to update.

So 0.1% would definitely be more "interesting" change. Especially considering that traders with non-optimal skills/standings would pay even more.

That wouldn't work.

I could just update my order 1% to "wrong" direction, then 5 minutes later update to be just below you.

i.e.: I have 100,000 ISK sell order, you make 99,999 ISK sell order. I update my order to 101,000 ISK and then 5 minutes later I update to 99,998 ISK.

Would be even easier with 2 orders. A is lowest, B is 1% away. If someone makes better order I swap them: B is updated to be best, A is updated to be 1% from best order.

i.e.: I have 100,000 ISK sell order and 101,000 ISK sell order. You make 99,999 ISK sell order. I update my 2nd order to 99,998 ISK and my 1st order to 101,000 ISK.

Would love the change. :)

It would still be very static and with a fixed fee you just change the numbers. For an order of several hundred million 10k for example is nothing. Besides the need to double adjust orders to stay competitive will only benefit the bots once again. More clickfest.

How about this:

Modifying a market order costs the exact same as relisting. Add a new skill, "Market Manipulation" or whatever. Each level of Market Manipulation reduces the cost of modifying market orders by 15%.

At level 5, relisting costs 25% of the original list price.

This idea is not to hurt trade, but to make it more enjoyable. The percentage suggestions arent fixed numbers, so if you feel they are too high make a lower suggestion and explain why it fits.

Im sure you agree the situation nowadays only benefits bots, that can adjust hundreds of orders within seconds and undergo any players offer by 0.01 ISK every five minutes for practically no charge (100 ISK really means nothing).
Such a game mechanic doesnt encourage trade and espacially not across regions. It just discourages players who try to enter a market with 0.01 ISK wars going on.
For a human player such a thing is totally dumb in my opinion.

This idea will only encourage bots . . .

The most effective way to operate with that market rule is to create small orders and re-list when your order sells.

Bots are very good at doing this, humans are not . . .


Suppose you want to list 100 units at 1 Million per unit.

Bots will counter by selling up a sell order for 1 unit a .01isk below you. As soon as that order sells they relist.

If you want to update your order to be the lowest it will cost you 100x what it costs the bot to move their order.


Perhaps we should just scream and shout until CCP does the minimal amount of work it would take to identify trading bots based on usage pattern.


-FM

But that way it would reduce botts number of market slots that it can use for different products.
So one bott could operate of few times less products or botter would need to make more botts to do the same job.
So, or there would be few times smaller number of bott orders or CCP would get more money for same job that botts make. (win/win situation)

I support this idea.