Greedy Goblin

Sunday, December 6, 2015

Weekend minipost: The easiest profit that I hate the most

Yep, someone didn't count the zeros again and netted me 900M profit. Still, I hate that CCP has so little care about trade that they still couldn't fix this. I'm pretty sure that it would be a half an hour to make sure that such cases the sell price would be the highest buy order. Since 73% of the people use trade when he logs in (much more than those who join fleets, do missions or PvP), this feature should get much more attention.

19 comments:

Amarr-Zon said...

A couple days ago I got a PLEX for 123 million because the seller forgot a digit.
So, fully agree that CCP should do something about it...

Familiar Enemy said...

Hell to the NO! Your feeling guilty about someone else's haste to get their isk? If selling something so expensive, then verifying the zeros falls on them. Greed is still greed even if you mix it with stupid! Stop feeling guilty about being the first buy and tell them to file a ticket!

Anonymous said...

If CCP did something about it though, it would drastically reduce the risk of trading. Trade risk needs to be increased, not decreased.

Diana Olympos said...

Showing thousands separator when entering the number would help without modifying market rules

Ben said...

Ha, last night I lost 111 mil from a lost zero as well. Was thinking the same thing about using the highest buy order. I can see some people complaining about 'dumbing down' the game, but bad UI != actual difficulty. It's just stupid that this can happen.

Unknown said...

Absolutely agreed...

And to those that would oppose this saying "Eve would become Hello Kitty Online" I say that I do not see how preventing mis-entering a price in a complex spreadsheet type UI is good for the game. It can in fact ruin a casual or recent player enough to make them quit the game for good.

Having them lose a ship on an ALOD-like is fine, having them losing millions of ISK on a typo is just silly.

Anonymous said...

I agree with this, a few weeks back I bought 12 RF Long points for like 18mil each, I think I made around 2.1bil profit xD

Gevlon said...

I'm not feeling guilty. I would send him the 900M if I would. I'm feeling stupid for getting ISK for nothing.

Mistypes aren't "risk" or "difficulty". These should come with decisions, not with mistypes. Imagine that guns would be hard-coded into F1, F3-F9 while F2 would be instant self-destruct. Would that add to PvP experience?

Elizabeth Norn said...

@ Anonymous 11:14: Pure trading is a nearly zero-sum game, almost 100% of one person's loss is someone else's gain (minus taxes and fees). There is already substantial risk in trading from game mechanics changes, doctrine changes and manipulation by other players. Of course the profits outweigh the risks substantially, but how could that be done? Why do you think trading requires more risk and how would you suggest that it is implemented?

@ Gevlon: Don't you remember how one of the biggest fights was started? Someone accidentally clicking jump instead of bridge ;).

Anonymous said...

Guilty?

He's not Altruistic Goblin.

I think the big issue is that in real life there are multiple checks and balances to such things so they are usually picked up.

Ie. The cashier at the implant store would realise that the store manager entered the wrong price.

You would think that with all of the other technology in game that without any sort of oversight the market system should flag any unusual orders outside of your typical trading patterns to pickup the slack for the lack of checks and balances.

Provi Miner said...

Frack that, its your isk you are responsible to make sure you got the right zero's not some UI, not some program, not some code. When dealing with billions you dam well better be sure I am counting zeros before I hit buy or sell. you pay and extra 90% on a $1 item you notice it long after that fact, you pay an extra 10% on a 1 million dollar item you notice it before you sign the papers. that's real and I see no reason to change the way ever works.

Gevlon said...

@Provi Miner: how about an "instant self destruct" function mapped to every second key on the keyboard? It's your ship, it's your responsibility to not press those keys.

It IS the responsibility of the UI (programmer) that the intention of the player is transmitted to the program.

Amarr-Zon said...

@Diana Olympos (06 December, 2015 12:33):
Yes, something simple as that should do it!

But, in the case of my example (someone sold a PLEX for 123 million), I think there was a message popping up to the seller if he really wants to sell for way less than the average (don't want to try it myself just to be sure ;-) ).
If this message popped up, it's clearly his fault not reading what the game is telling him. So: no refund ;-)

Anonymous said...

"Mistypes aren't "risk" or "difficulty". These should come with decisions, not with mistypes. Imagine that guns would be hard-coded into F1, F3-F9 while F2 would be instant self-destruct. Would that add to PvP experience?"
But there is no decision difficulty, so if they removed the ability to make mistakes through messing up your orders, then trading would be risk free. As it is, you have to be very careful as a single digit could cost a fortune. If they just made it so you'd be mostly saved, it would be far too easy. You get all of your isk through very low risk activites, so i know you support them, but there should be serious risks involved in all isk making activities, especially one as high income as trading.

Anonymous said...

there is a message popping up of you buy or sell far below average price. if you mark it, that you dont want to recieve that message, its your fault.

this message safed me several times from this errors. if it pops up, just doublecheck.

Anonymous said...

Morons will be morons. There needn't be anything more than a warning that you are selling below the highest buy-out price.
I don't see why the buyer should get such a fabulous bargain though. The station auto-broker should match the two orders, give the seller the low price they requested, charge the buyer for the buyout that they listed and pocket the difference for the station owner.

Gevlon said...

Mistypes don't give risk to trading, as what one trader loses the other wins. The problem with it is that the winner did nothing for it, he just got lucky out of the blue.

The warning box saves you from forgetting a digit. Typing 100M instead of 200M flies under it.

Amarr-Zon said...

In my opinion the most mistakes happen, because the seller mistypes while placing a sell-order.
For the other case (seller just want to sell to existing buy-orders) the highest buy-order is set as default when one starts the sell-dialog.
With this in mind, I think the warning is enough. And I'd like to see such addition like mentioned by Diana Olympos, so one can see easily in which area the typed price is.

The other example (typing 100 million instead of 200) is not that simple.
How should the game decide, if there is a possible mistake? Which price should be used to compare to (average, min-sell, max-buy)? Which time span (current, last month, last year)? What if there are no buy- or sell-orders, currently or at all? How to handle the often existing very-low-price-buy-orders (they're lowering the average)? And so on...

Anonymous said...

It may be that CCP is not altering it on purpose. I found a possible reason by coincidence:
I once got a few hundred mil by one such mistake once. The other party contacted me, kindly asked for his ISK and explained that he could not afford to pay for the game. So he chain-started trial accounts and since you cannot transfer ISK from a trial account, he tried to transfer it via an expensive item trade that he thought no-one but his old trial character would accept, thus the ISK would go to his new trial character. My own, cheaper sell order interfered, and I sold my cheaper item for his much higher price. So effectively, this mechanism safeguards against some ISK transfers between trial accounts via such rigged market trades. It would probably not catch such rigged sales in some back-water system where no one else is interfering, but for many inexperienced players who try that thing for the first time it probably still comes as a big surprise. And the experienced ones who have figured out how-to, it is probably only a smell step towards playing for free via bought PLEX.