Market Manipulation Info from Discord Chat

[Big_Red_Machine]

On Discord yesterday a user there named "XXX, if you want the username reach out" stated that he intentionally will bid up in the auction house for players he does not want just to drive the price up for players trying to get cards and then bail out. That seems like market manipulation to me which is something I think is not desired in PT. Just passing along as I'm not sure if OOTP reps monitor the chats. The game is so good and so much fun and someone doing this and openly admitting it does not seem right.

[Kushiel]

You lost me. Bid up what in the Card Shop? How do you do that?

[PunishedF2P]

Originally Posted by Big_Red_Machine

On Discord yesterday a user there named "XXX, if you want the username reach out" stated that he intentionally will bid up in the auction house for players he does not want just to drive the price up for players trying to get cards and then bail out. That seems like market manipulation to me which is something I think is not desired in PT. Just passing along as I'm not sure if OOTP reps monitor the chats. The game is so good and so much fun and someone doing this and openly admitting it does not seem right.

Nah, seems fine to me.

If he has a buy order in to raise the price up, someone could fill that buy-order before the other guy gets to put in the higher one - it's a pretty big risk, and if he wants to risk that to 'drive up the price' - by all means. I don't see a problem with it. That's a poor strategy long-term, lmao.

[LeeD]

The smart manipulation strategy is to place buy orders for 60-70% of L10, acquire and hold cards, then relist for 125-150% of L10 when there are no current sellers. It would include over-bidding to a degree as long as the buy bid is still expected to bring back more in sale value. This requires a spreadsheet-like knowledge (or an actual spreadsheet) of the card set cross-referenced with the mission structure, which always has actual bottlenecks (not particularly useful for card flippers) and bottlenecks waiting to happen (where the card flipper wants to operate). It obviously works best with uncommon cards, where supply won't quickly increase to offset the acquisition of many copies by one player.

This is, BTW, the reason that there is inflationary pressure on those uncommon cards and the reasoning behind both the ten-card limit and the 10% sales tax. Without both of these, the problem would be far worse. As is, it's still a problem with no clear solution due to sticky prices.

Look at the card prices by mission and try to explain why Bronze card X is selling for 160 PP, while Bronze card Y can be had for 40 PP. Supply is theoretically equal (same chance to pull both when opening packs), demand is theoretically equal (both are part of one mission and both are about equally useful as cards), so the prices should also theoretically be equal...but aren't. Why? Because card X has a higher L10, for whatever reason it exists (usually random happenstance in the days immediately following mission drop, but sometimes due to manipulation, and sometimes due to blatant cheating where a player overpaid in order to move PP between two accounts). Most players aren't particularly picky about paying L10 price or something near it regardless of why that L10 exists, so cards that are overvalued tend to remain so until the mission involved is far off into the rear-view mirror and supply overwhelmingly exceeds demand.

Rarity. Bottlenecks. Inflationary pressures. Sticky prices. The hedge fund manager types love this. It's right up their alley...and there's really nothing that could be done to stop it, short of forced sales of duplicate cards, which would have a long list of unintended consequences.

[Big_Red_Machine]

Here is the quote from the person. "I love bidding wars and driving the price through the roof and then playing out at the last second so the other person overspends and I never really wanted the card anyway. I call it chicken bidding". If you are on Discord it's in the buy and sell cards section. Ridiculous Person should be banned for this behavior. Also, I'm fine with people trying to get the most out of there cards for selling price. But this behavior isn't that.

[Hwilensky]

but there is no real bidding...so I dont follow what this person is doing or trying to accomplish...what is he manipulating?

[HRBaker]

Originally Posted by Hwilensky

but there is no real bidding...so I dont follow what this person is doing or trying to accomplish...what is he manipulating?

I'm guessing that the Discord post was from back (old) when we had an auction house - before the card shop. In the current environment, there's no way listing a player for a high price drives up anything unless someone actually buys him, and there's no "back out" as he put it.

[HRBaker]

accidental double post

[Big_Red_Machine]

It was from 3 days ago.

[quizkid]

So do.not participate in bidding wars, easy solution. There are easier ways to manipulate the card shop than this, I would not even put this in the top 5.

[Big_Red_Machine]

However, it screws players who don't have much PP and the user is wrong in doing so. It's sad if someone does what I stated above. Also, it is not about it being in the Top 5. It is about a user trying to screw novice players out of players. Ridiculous.

[HRBaker]

As has been said above, there is no "real" bidding. A player is posted for a specific price and the buyer decides whether to buy or not. Example;

Joe Doe is listed for 20,000 pp. Buyer either buys at 20k or passes, or maybe offers 17k to see if the Seller will take that. If Joe Doe is listed at 100,000 pp and Buyer buys at that price, it's on him - not the seller.

The only thing if affects is the L10 price, which is why it should really be an L20 price.

If the Discord post was as recent as stated, I can't help but think the poster simply didn't know what he was talking about, or he's blowing smoke to create drama.

[Kushiel]

Originally Posted by HRBaker

If the Discord post was as recent as stated, I can't help but think the poster simply didn't know what he was talking about, or he's blowing smoke to create drama.

Blown smoke by an idiot sounds like the answer.

[Big_Red_Machine]

If someone states they did that they should be banned banned banned banned banned banned banned. Becuase they are childish.

[Big_Red_Machine]

If ootp didn't do something about this it's wrong. I hope they did. I don't care what yall say bout it. Nobody should do what this person did and even if they "were blowing smoke" they should be banned. Plain and simple. Otherwise yall are promoting unfair practices.

[HRBaker]

Originally Posted by Big_Red_Machine

If ootp didn't do something about this it's wrong. I hope they did. I don't care what yall say bout it. Nobody should do what this person did and even if they "were blowing smoke" they should be banned. Plain and simple. Otherwise yall are promoting unfair practices.

I think you are totally missing the point. What he said he is doing... he simply CAN'T DO! The system doesn't work that way. You can't bid-up a price when there is only one price listed. It's the "sticker price". Pay it or pass it up.

I can't explain it any better than that.

[MrAudit]

Originally Posted by HRBaker

I think you are totally missing the point. What he said he is doing... he simply CAN'T DO! The system doesn't work that way. You can't bid-up a price when there is only one price listed. It's the "sticker price". Pay it or pass it up.

I can't explain it any better than that.

This absolutely can and does happen. It is more apparent when there is only 1 copy of a card for sale. People can artificially increase demand with alts by placing buy orders on the card, and hoping the top buyer increased their order.

If the other buyer increases his buy order, they do it again, and again until it stops, remove the buy order and sell it.

[biggerme]

Originally Posted by MrAudit

This absolutely can and does happen. It is more apparent when there is only 1 copy of a card for sale. People can artificially increase demand with alts by placing buy orders on the card, and hoping the top buyer increased their order.

If the other buyer increases his buy order, they do it again, and again until it stops, remove the buy order and sell it.

Sounds like a whole lot of effort with very little returns, you need cards that are in hundreds of K range to make it worthwhile and that is quite a risky proposition.
So high risk low reward market strategy?

[LeeD]

Originally Posted by MrAudit

This absolutely can and does happen. It is more apparent when there is only 1 copy of a card for sale. People can artificially increase demand with alts by placing buy orders on the card, and hoping the top buyer increased their order.

If the other buyer increases his buy order, they do it again, and again until it stops, remove the buy order and sell it.

Yes, I've seen this happen as well. It's somewhat risky for the seller if someone else jumps in and fills the false buy order, but they can always relist it and take no loss or only a small loss. Generally, if there's a way to manipulate the card shop then at least a few sharpies have figured it out.

[HRBaker]

Originally Posted by biggerme

Sounds like a whole lot of effort with very little returns, you need cards that are in hundreds of K range to make it worthwhile and that is quite a risky proposition.
So high risk low reward market strategy?

^THIS!

AND, the game already protects against "bids/offers" from teams from the same serial number, so the player has to have two copies of OOTP.

Even if the card is listed for 100,000 pp, and the bid up amounts to 10% or 10k, after the tax the "extra profit" is only 8k. When you consider how few 100,000 player cards we get, it seems like a ton of work to get a small benefit.... selling duplicate Twitch cards will get you more than that.