Admittedly this is a bit of a stupid post but I needed to vent a little.
It sure would be nice if we got an update to help address this! That minimum of 3-significant figures idea for new orders would probably help a lot.
Anyway, the venting part below, don’t take it too seriously:
Isn’t it kinda rude to come into an order book and post an order that’s just .01 better in a high price market? IN PARTICULAR when you’re only doing it to cut in front of a tiny order, and you’re posting some huge 1,000 item order that’s probably not going to be filled any time soon? This is the digital equivilent of intentionally cutting in line!
I’m talking about a whale stomping on a (usually) newer player’s order, forcing them to repost if they want it to fill any time soon, when they could have just as easily posted .01 lower (same price as the small order) and just waited for that tiny order to fill. Situations where even at large quantities you’re only talking a puny difference in profits compared to your total order size. Wow I earn 10 CIS more! I’m pretty sure it wasn’t that 10 CIS that made the difference there. I mean can’t you just wait in line like a civilized capitalist? I mean it actually takes MORE effort to be rude here doesn’t it?
Whenever I have a chance to “cut” in front of another order which is far smaller than mine (assuming it doesn’t alter the math significantly) I usually post at the same value as the smaller order, so the one that was there first (I think) still gets to be first. Isn’t that the courteous thing to do? Ya jerks?
I once put in a sell order for 5 items at a price that was 10 CIS higher than the previous sell order. After I checked back 1 hour later someone who put in a sell order in for 1000 items at 0.01 CIS less than mine. I just immediately cancelled the sell order and just bought the 5 items straight from a sell order for 200 CIS more.
I think the system did have something in place so that it would be less likely to have undercutting wars. But I’m not sure what is was exactly. I just know that reposting a small order will costs a lot less than reposting a big order due to fees.
Yeah I’ve done the same out of frustration a few times too. Usually I just repost with a significant (but still close) price difference and that works out.
The game does have a limit on how many times you can cancel orders over some period (a day or something). I hit that limit once mostly out of being too casual about tweaking offers, rather than a “bidding war”. But that’s only going to address two people roleplaying trading bots trying to .01 up the other. I’m not sure I see the big issue with that (hey, it’s their time, they’ll figure out they’re wasting it eventually), except I guess it does wreak a little havok on the rest of us.
True and I usually do that when time is an issue as long as the spread isn’t huge.
But is time really an issue to the person putting up 1000 things for sale .01 cheaper than a tiny order that’s just 10 or 50 items? A new player might really need that 10 COF where the guy buying 500 of them a shot is probably not going to benefit much, if at all, from those first 10 COF.
No. But why would a new player care about that? It’s the new player that can abuse this fact, because the big boy is not selling to bids, the bids are higher. So the new player gets his money instantly, and more of it because the bids are still there.
Yes they shouldn’t care about the (lack of) price difference either. I’m also saying it’s about the timing, as you said above, and the fact that it’s much easier to fill a small order than a large one.
Selling to bids may not be a great option if the spread is large. I was ranting on a somewhat specific situation (that nontheless still occurs pretty often in my experience).
I mean it’s not a huge deal either, just annoying.
I suppose I could boil the whole thing down to this.
Sell order (offer) placed at 110.00
A new sell order comes in at 109.99
I mean come on. I understand why people do it. But that’s not really a “better price”, it’s the same damn price effectively. You just cut in line ahead of the guy who was there first! I mean at least keep it to 3 sig figs difference or something. Now if it’s a tiny quantity it’s not as bad, but if it’s a large one, I think I’m going to have to consider that rude behavior. lol
It’s like stinking in public. Yeah it’s legal, sure it saves the stinker time never taking a bath. But don’t do it.
Everyone here is right, this has been a topic of discussion for a long time, including devlog #346 not too long ago where this was explicitly brought up.
tl;dr yes, we need dynamic tick-size adjustments on the markets.
I talk about it here, others have talked at length as well:
Generally speaking as the game has aged, I personally just get lazier with the orders. The size I trade at is so big, someone frontrunning me with some small quantity just doesn’t matter. Generally speaking, other large traders seem to be of the same way. We’re not really micromanaging unless it’s that one really important thing.
Oh I thought I was the only one. It was getting awkward.
And you would think that large/mid traders wouldn’t bother putting in the .99 to get ahead of these tiny orders (like I was railing about in the OP) … well, some do. lol
As stated before, I’m in the philosophical camp of having as few structural limitations as possible: just allow 0.01 price increments. If “the markets” don’t like that, there is nothing stopping players from posting orders with larger increments. Why do you want to force increments? It feels like regulatory capture
Allowing 0.01 increments also side-steps the endless debates of, if you you are going to do some sort of larger increment, what should it be?
The goal here is to make a pleasant gaming experience for players, not to fulfil some kind of ideological principle. If the majority of players would be happier with specific tick sizes, then that’s the only justification they need.
Whether or not it’s a wise use of developer time to implement them is a different question. I’m inclined to suspect that adding new features would be more valuable.
I watched a GDC while ago, About adding mechanics to make player happier, something they will have hidden effects that can lower total enjoyably of the game, this might be the case.
adding a mechanic to artificial inflation to ticks size might make the market more unstable, if price keeps fluctuating then this might disencourage player using the market. And further in encourage play to play self sustainable.
I think if people flip the market more which will close the spread, then people who don’t want to deal with 0.01 can just sell to buy order and people who like.
Remember the “problem” I was railing on about here was mostly a convenience/annoyance thing.
If you bid for 5 BSE at a price 1400.00 and someone comes in and bids 1400.01 for 50 BSE - I mean, how are we supposed to feel about that? You didn’t offer a better price. You were just there later than the other guy and you’ve cut in line for essentially the same price. And worse, the amount you’re ordering is enough that it might seriously delay the first guy’s order from filling. That doesn’t feel at least slightly rude to anyone?
I, for one, choose to feel superficially morally superior by posting a slightly better order. lol
As for tick sizes and keeping the books from looking like something the cat threw up, I don’t see how reducing some of the ridiculous granuliarity the order books allow is limiting at all, because it’s not a meaningful restriction to the trader.
Whether it’s worth addressing tick sizes with dev time, I won’t judge that. Not every change is some big deal that will block more meaningful changes. There’s no pressing need to clear out old orders from the books - just prevent new ones which don’t meet some criteria. Heck it could even be a simple client side UI enforced tick size (I realize it would be haxxable to get around it if someone was really determined, but who cares about such edge cases). If we never ask for small fixes because “there might be more important things”, lots of small quality of life problems will never get fixed, even if they’re easy.
At least post at the same price (1400) so that the first order fills first, was my original point. Which is not really a point because this was just a rant. Okay, fine, I’ll show myself out now.
It is not the responsibility of another other party to be “nice” to your orders. It is a market, not a gentlemen’s club. The best price wins.
If you don’t want someone to offer below or “cut” you, set your price low enough that no one in the market wants to offer, then you’ll get filled almost immediately. You don’t need extra rules.
There is already a dearth of active players, Making more rules because you think it’s “rude” would just stifle the market. Especially with a small player count currently.
When a lot of players are asking for something, you have to be pretty sure of your position in order to say “If we implemented this, you wouldn’t like the results, so we’re not going to do it for your own good.”
Given how many players have expressed that they would like this change, and the number of different arguments in favour of it, I don’t think you can be this confident.
If you are talking simple game mechanics, yes I would agree with you but… here we are talking about a real market with simulated goods.
Yes as a whole it is a game, but if you strip away the space theme and simulated goods (DW, BHP, RAT) and replaced with actual stocks, commodities, foreign exchange that had real world value, the market portion of PRUN would still work because it is a means to facilitate exchange.
Having a majority opinion does not make that opinion correct.
Not everyone is being rude because they post an offer or bid .01 above/below yours.
Lets say a player has a large volume order to place on the market (let’s say PE!) but has tight profit margins because of currently expensive inputs to make the PE. They calc an acceptable profit and place that order which is .01 below a smaller order. They are not being rude, they just want their returns to stay in the green.
Now, you if make a rule that forces a player to place an order at a price THEY DO NOT WANT TO PLACE, that order entry rule could potentially force them to make a loss on that trade, which is NOT FUN.
If TIME is more valuable to you, place your order closer to the bid/REQUESTS or sell it on the bid/REQUESTS. If the return on investment is more valuable to you, place it on the OFFERS stack at the price you desire and vice versa. Of course your price must be reasonable.
In a market with real goods, the bid/ask spread (current best prices) changes all the time, and it’s not because the participants are “being rude” haha.
