Which Auction & Market History improvements would you like?

A recent Poll in this forum found that Auction & Market History was the #1 interface that players want overhauled/improved, with almost 40% of participants in the Poll voting for it. (That poll can be found in this thread: Which User Interface should MindArk overhaul next? please vote if you haven't already)

So as a follow-up Poll, I would like to ask what specific improvements you would like to see made to the current Auction & Market History. In order to compile a comprehensive list, I went through the Suggestions/WishList section all the way back to 2016 and identified what seems to be the 20 most repeated and popular features that players have asked for over time and put them all in this Poll so that you could vote on which ones you think really need to be implemented in the Auction system overhaul.


In this Poll, you can choose as many features as you want, you are not limited to just 1 choice. There is no time limit for voting in this Poll. Here are the choices, along with links to threads where these ideas were mentioned:

1. Allow decimals instead of the current 1 PED increment for Startbid and Buyout. It can be especially annoying when creating an auction for a stackable item to try to figure out what quantity to auction in order to get the desired Markup.
https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/...-not-being-able-to-choose-stackable-MU-freely

2. Remove Auction fee to list: there would still be a fee when something sells. This would promote availability of rare, expensive items on the auction since listing them would cost nothing. As it is, listing an expensive unlimited weapon or amp can cost the seller 50 PED, with no guarantee of actually selling the item.
https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/...-not-being-able-to-choose-stackable-MU-freely
https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/showthread.php?287967-My-Version-16-Wishlist

3. Create an 'Exchange' for mats & resources: Stackables could be handled in an exchange fashion where you add your quantity in and set a price. People buying can set how much they want to buy and their max price and it will buy that amount from the pool, starting with the cheapest and then up to your maximum, if available. That way there is no more need for undercutting wars, price fixing on small stacks, overbuying more than they need or overpaying by mistake. EVE Online comes to mind as an MMO which uses this type of system.
https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/showthread.php?306265-MAGA-Make-the-Auction-Great-Again

4. Get rid of the 5 minute extension: Auctions would end at the time they are set to end and would no longer reset to 5 minutes with each bid. The idea is to solve the "let's spend the next 6 hours adding 1 ped to the price when there is less than a minute left", where one person is just hoping the other has to leave or drops connection so they can win the auction.
https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/showthread.php?306265-MAGA-Make-the-Auction-Great-Again

5. Increased Auction slots: let everybody have a larger number of listing slots. 30 is just too limiting.
https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/showthread.php?306265-MAGA-Make-the-Auction-Great-Again
https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/showthread.php?298961-Wishlist-More-auction-slots!

6. Search orders too: add a search function for 'Available Orders', rather then having to navigate the almost 700 pages of items to find the one you wish to place an order on.
https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/showthread.php?306265-MAGA-Make-the-Auction-Great-Again

7. Copy Item Link: make it possible to grab item links from the 'Available Orders' page.
https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/showthread.php?306265-MAGA-Make-the-Auction-Great-Again

8. Portable Auction tool: add Portable Auction house tools just like the Portable TT and Portable Repair.
https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/showthread.php?302956-Give-auction-house-some-love
https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/showthread.php?306265-MAGA-Make-the-Auction-Great-Again

9. Fix the 90% warning feature: the 90% difference in markup warning needs to be fixed. Right now it pops up when it shouldn't and is completely pointless as it's not preventing people from listing 1000 AUD's for 70 PED total.
https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/showthread.php?306265-MAGA-Make-the-Auction-Great-Again

10. Add "Favorited" or "Watched" listings: so you can quickly navigate to those Auctions you want to keep an eye on.
https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/showthread.php?284524-Watch-auction-item

11. Email Notifications: add an option for external email notifications when you are outbid or win an auction so players get an alert if they want to when not logged in. This would be brilliant for MA because it's also a great way to get people to log in more often. They get the email and they log in to adjust their bid and while they are in there why not do a quick hunt?
https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/showthread.php?306265-MAGA-Make-the-Auction-Great-Again

12. Show avatar names on Orders: some players would like to see who they are selling to on the auction. Allow people to see the names of those buying and allow them to choose who they sell to rather then the system deciding for them.
https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/...ements-to-1-ped-(or-more)-instead-of-0-01-ped

13. Re-think unreadable Market Histories e.g. >999999%: it can be tricky to decipher what the actual sales have been when dealing with numbers in the hundreds of thousands of percent, for example Strongboxes and Fruits. Sure, traders will take the time and figure it out, but many new players are daunted and often end up having to ask someone to be sure.
https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/showthread.php?301715-Strongboxes-should-show-MU-in-TT

14. Split up Market History by planet: Damage Enhancers might sell for three hundred something percent on Caly, but what do they usually sell for on Ark or RT? It's not possible to tell with the current Market History graph.
https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/showthread.php?285543-Planet-specific-markup-information
https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/showthread.php?287967-My-Version-16-Wishlist

15. Time delay listings: give the seller 5-10 minutes to cancel his listing before it goes live on the Auction House, in case he/she made a mistake, e.g. listing 10 CLDs for 1,920 PEDs instead of 19,200.
https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/showthread.php?287627-Make-orders-pay-the-offered-price
https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/showthread.php?282300-Fixing-Auction

16. Show items available in Shops: add a section where all items available in shops are shown, along with price info and shop location. Make it searchable and user friendly. You'd still have to visit the shop to get the item.
https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/showthread.php?286403-Shops-malls-inventory-search-list
https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/...make-malls-and-players-shops-worthwhile-again
https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/showthread.php?183282-Shop-directory
https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/showthread.php?281035-New-retail-item-finder!
https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/showthread.php?302956-Give-auction-house-some-love

17. When not sold, make the Auction extendable: extend your Auction 1 more week for a reduced fee (paramenters can't be changed if extended).
https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/showthread.php?302956-Give-auction-house-some-love

18. Auction Memberships, for example: Adj/Imp/Mod/Aug/Perf memberships, prices 50/100/200/500/1000 PED (yearly), reduced auction fees 10/20/30/40/50%, extra auction days (+1/2/3/4/5), extra auction slots(+5/10/15/20/25), etc...
https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/showthread.php?302956-Give-auction-house-some-love

19. External API for Auction data: provide external API data via website so external auction apps & tools can be developed by third parties for the community.
https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/showthread.php?287967-My-Version-16-Wishlist

20. New search filters: e.g. SIB weapons, items with specific buffs, maxed weapons, DPS, efficiency, etc ...
https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/showthread.php?282117-Extend-search-options-in-auction
https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/showthread.php?301950-Search-by-DPS-interval-in-auction


Feedbacks welcomed of course but please realize, none of these are MY suggestions, all I have done is try to compile this information from other people's threads on this Forum. I just figure having all of these in one place for people to review could be of benefit to everyone.

Please take the time and vote on these features and let's see what the Community wants!

Cheers o/

Legends

Nice job, that is a pretty comprehensive list..

One suggestion I would like to add that I didnt see (and the one I would like the most short of maybe the individual planet mu%) is this:

A "go to my listing feature" - I want to be able to check my offers and from there easily head to their respective listings to see where my listings stack up against the other offers from other players without having to initiate a manual search to see what's up..

I think you missed one which was auction bid limits. I.e. you set the maximum you want to bid on a specific item (similar to order but not the same) and it bids incrementally up by 1 ped up to your max limit bid. I made a post about this before and shared a link to it below.

https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/...imit-(Quality-of-Life-enhancement)&highlight=

Stefan 008 Bond said:

Nice job, that is a pretty comprehensive list..

One suggestion I would like to add that I didnt see (and the one I would like the most short of maybe the individual planet mu%) is this:

A "go to my listing feature" - I want to be able to check my offers and from there easily head to their respective listings to see where my listings stack up against the other offers from other players without having to initiate a manual search to see what's up..

Click to expand...

Thanks, spent all night on this, hopefully it's of some use. Yeah navigation in general in the current Auction House interface is clunky at best, I'm sure that it would be totally overhauled, even if only so as to implement some of these other improvements that people have been asking for.

Hypnotyk said:

I think you missed one which was auction bid limits. I.e. you set the maximum you want to bid on a specific item (similar to order but not the same) and it bids incrementally up by 1 ped up to your max limit bid. I made a post about this before and shared a link to it below.

Click to expand...

Hi Hypnotyk, yes I remember reading that, I believe you and Angel O2 Mercer were arguing back and forth about it. I don't want to start that argument in this thread but it already works that way in the current auction house. If you set an Order on an item that you already have a bid on, it will function in that exact way you mentioned, but I agree that this is not well known and maybe it's a bug... In the end though, I had a limit of 20 items in the poll and there were a few other things I would have liked to add but could not.

Cheers o/

Legends

Why do people want more auction slots? aren't the MUs low enough yet? xD

Sales / Markup history per planet rather than universe wide

Rgds

Ace

Voting results so far are pretty interesting I think. It's plain to see that simple functionality issues such as like being able to search the Orders section or being able to Copy Item Link from the Orders section as well resonate with a lot of people and I can see why. These are simple functionality issues that we all expect should be available, and yet they are not and it's can sometimes be quite frustrating. Splitting up the Market History data by planet is another popular one.

The one that surprises me a bit is "Fix the 90% warning feature", so far, only 4 people (about 26% of voters at this point) have voted for that one. I would have thought that almost everyone would have agreed that this feature is not working as intended and needed fixing, but I guess the majority of voters are either not aware that it is not functioning properly, or simply don't care.

Keep them votes coming, let's find out what the community wants!

Cheers o/

Legends

Legends said:

3. Create an 'Exchange' for mats & resources: Stackables could be handled in an exchange fashion where you add your quantity in and set a price. People buying can set how much they want to buy and their max price and it will buy that amount from the pool, starting with the cheapest and then up to your maximum, if available. That way there is no more need for undercutting wars, price fixing on small stacks, overbuying more than they need or overpaying by mistake. EVE Online comes to mind as an MMO which uses this type of system.
https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/showthread.php?306265-MAGA-Make-the-Auction-Great-Again

Click to expand...

Thats an feature I would like to have for shops, where you just type the amount of a stack you want to buy and then get exactly that amount from the stock.
For auctions I see this not optimal as normally the comon miner/hunter want to sell his complete stock.
Could be very anoying if you have left 10 of this and 5 of that.
For traders it might be very good, but for traders there is shops.
In combination with a shoping directory this feature would be awesome for shops.

Legends said:

1. Allow decimals instead of the current 1 PED increment for Startbid and Buyout. It can be especially annoying when creating an auction for a stackable item to try to figure out what quantity to auction in order to get the desired Markup.
https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/...-not-being-able-to-choose-stackable-MU-freely

4. Get rid of the 5 minute extension: Auctions would end at the time they are set to end and would no longer reset to 5 minutes with each bid. The idea is to solve the "let's spend the next 6 hours adding 1 ped to the price when there is less than a minute left", where one person is just hoping the other has to leave or drops connection so they can win the auction.
https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/showthread.php?306265-MAGA-Make-the-Auction-Great-Again

19. External API for Auction data: provide external API data via website so external auction apps & tools can be developed by third parties for the community.
https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/showthread.php?287967-My-Version-16-Wishlist

Click to expand...

Hope you can see the problem if this 3 things will be implemented in combination.
Nobody could get anything decent at a good price anymore, as resellers auction sniper bots would always outbid you in the last second by just 1 pec.

No API to support auction boting!
I am strictly against external API !

GoNi said:

Thats an feature I would like to have for shops, where you just type the amount of a stack you want to buy and then get exactly that amount from the stock.
For auctions I see this not optimal as normally the comon miner/hunter want to sell his complete stock.
Could be very anoying if you have left 10 of this and 5 of that.
For traders it might be very good, but for traders there is shops.
In combination with a shoping directory this feature would be awesome for shops.



Hope you can see the problem if this 3 things will be implemented in combination.
Nobody could get anything decent at a good price anymore, as resellers auction sniper bots would always outbid you in the last second by just 1 pec.

No API to support auction boting!
I am strictly against external API !

Click to expand...

That is some very good feedbacks GoNi, thank you.

Perhaps the API data should only contain expired auctions information, that way it couldn't be used the way you said it could be used.

But nice Market History graphs could be derived from it and this could be useful to everyone.

Please vote if you haven't already

Auction improvements should always be weighed against the negative impact they have on shops.

Spawn said:

Auction improvements should always be weighed against the negative impact they have on shops.

Click to expand...

Yes I agree, as a shop owner myself, I am weary of certain changes that might be made to the Auction House fees for example, when I voted in this poll, I did not vote to get rid of the listing fee, as I think this would pretty much make shops pointless to own.

But MA will need to create some new and interesting features for shops as well. I like the idea that was proposed earlier in this thread about allowing shop customers to buy the exact quantity they need from a stack in a shop. Another feature I would really love to see added in shops is the ability to sell a complete armor set or outfit together, as opposed to having to set a price on the individual items.

Need an "all of the above" option.

I really like the idea of auction memberships, but I think it should be bundled together in a general subscription category for Entropia.

By general subscription category I mean something like this....

Bronze package: $5/month

Silver package: $10/month

Gold Package: $20/month

Platinum package: $50/month

Each package would give various features like increased storage and auction capacity, etc. and the monthly fee would be "reimbursed" through pills, HDNA, ammo, and other webshop content.
The idea would simply be to generate a system in which regular depositing is rewarded by giving features which give a subtle edge without giving a completely unfair advantage.

I vote for UI. Proper filters and stuff that makes the existing AH much better to use.

I believe part of the AH design is to make a minimal barrier so you can't make it a true one stop shop. There needs to be incentive so you have to decide whether what your're selling is better for AH, try spending some time trading in person/on forums, or to invest in a shop.

The distinction between the 3 must be very very clear.

Spawn said:

Auction improvements should always be weighed against the negative impact they have on shops.

Click to expand...

nah, shops and apartments should just be made 'fully functional' again...

mastermesh said:

nah, shops and apartments should just be made 'fully functional' again...

Click to expand...

I call it BUGUSER - 65k item points in display area is obviously a bug.

Captain Jack said:

I really like the idea of auction memberships, but I think it should be bundled together in a general subscription category for Entropia.

By general subscription category I mean something like this....

Bronze package: $5/month

Silver package: $10/month

Gold Package: $20/month

Platinum package: $50/month

Each package would give various features like increased storage and auction capacity, etc. and the monthly fee would be "reimbursed" through pills, HDNA, ammo, and other webshop content.
The idea would simply be to generate a system in which regular depositing is rewarded by giving features which give a subtle edge without giving a completely unfair advantage.

Click to expand...

Nice idea. Or maybe MA just gives you a membership level based on the aggregate amount you have deposited over the last 12 months. Example, if you have deposited over $200, you get the first level, over $500, the second level, etc... And that would entitle you to all sort of benefits in the game, like the ones mentioned in the auction for example.

Legends said:

Yes I agree, as a shop owner myself, I am weary of certain changes that might be made to the Auction House fees for example, when I voted in this poll, I did not vote to get rid of the listing fee, as I think this would pretty much make shops pointless to own.

Click to expand...

Therefore I voted for remove listing fee and show shop items (giving a waypoint instead of the bidding interface). Those two measures should absolutely go together. Shops lack in-game discovery options, and I always found it unfair that you can compare auction prices when browsing items in a shop, but not the other way around. The value in owning a shop would still be that the tax is lower and the number of slots higher, but I wouldn't mind if shop prices dropped a little and inactive speculators sitting on real estate got driven out this way.

No. 9 is a bug and not a feature request. It has been reported multiple times and nothing happened, like with so many.

43 Votes so far....

"Split up Market History by Planet" has the most votes to date, followed with "Copy Item link"

Please vote in this Poll if you haven't already

top 2 options are the top 2 MANDATORY things to make the auction (and by extension, trading in this game!) something that is not equivalent to a dentist appointment.

DECIMALS

and

REMOVAL OF LISTING FEES

-> result: a LOT more items will be listed, prices for buyers will decrease and volume for sellers will massively increase (which for people on planets outside of caly and ark will mean quite a damn lot!)

next to these 2 elements everything else that could be changed is so insignificant it barely is more than a cosmetic change. these 2 FUNDAMENTAL FLAWS cripple the entire trading system of the game! that is way more important than anything else in the game (esp. a camera system nobody wants changed) because it will make meaningful trading available for EVERYONE and not just no-life high rollers who can spam chat all day long!!!!! that is your newbie retention right there, ma!

XX. Make orders always pay maximum price they ordered for. Would remove auction order abuse for deeds. Because atm most of deed orders are done by mistake hunters, they list big quantity orders just incase someone makes mistake.

Atm : you order 100CLD for 1900 each, someone list 100 for 1899 total , seller gets 1899 ped, buyer gets 100 deeds and all the extra peds (close 180k).

New system: you order 100CLD for 1900 each, someone list 100 for 1899 total, seller gets 190 000 as the buyer is willing to pay that much, buyer gets 100 deeds.

Atleast for deeds. (Maybe the system has changed, havent been online much lately)

Please vote if you haven't already

Need more votes in this poll... please vote if you haven't already

Interesting thread - subscribed

Very interesting that split auction history by planet is the most wanted feature so far.

So this poll has passed the 50 votes threshold yesterday. I wanted to save the results at 50 votes so that it's possible to compare later if the percentage remain relatively the same.


Here's the results so far in order of highest number of votes:

24 votes: Split up Market History by planet
23 votes: Copy Item link
22 votes: Portable Auction tool
22 votes: Re-think unreadable Market Histories
21 votes: Add "Favorited" or "Watched" listings
21 votes: Allow Decimals
21 votes: Search Orders too
21 votes: Remove Auction fee to list items
19 votes: Show items available in Shops
19 votes: Increased Auction slots
16 votes: Show Avatar names on Orders
15 votes: When not sold, make the Auction extendable
14 votes: External API for Auction data
13 votes: New Search filters
13 votes: Fix the 90% warning feature
13 votes: Create an 'exchange' for mats and resources
13 votes: Get rid of the 5 minute extension
8 votes: Auction Memberships
7 votes: Email Notifications
3 votes: Time delay listings

Since Auction & Market History is the interface that had the most votes for a priority overhaul in another Poll, I think we should get this Poll up to at least 100 votes so we can get a fair representation of what the players want most.

Also, if you have any other ideas, don't be shy, please post them in this thread

Cheers o/

Legends

Would really like to see if we can get this Poll up to 100 votes so we have a decent representation here

I don't think a lot of people realize how much removing auction fees would kill the market. Everyone would list literally everything they would normally TT, and if they decided they wanted the ped right away they would just cancel the auction and TT what they listed. A high percentage of things like thyroid/ pancreas oil are TTd at the moment, if the same people who want fast ped could just list it for free, you would see a lot of things like 99.9 ped of thyroid oil selling for 100 ped. A lot of the games economy is kept alive just because these people aren't able to get rid of things for cheaper % than the current prices without the auction fee making them lose more than if they sold to the trade terminal. The auction fee also gives a reason for people to hoard ped in the game so that they actually can sell what they get for markup. If this was coupled with allowing decimal places in auction, then the vast majority of stackables would be worthless. Big no from me on that one. If something is needed to help the new players out with auction, just make the fee go down more as the PED amount of the item decreases and allow decimals.

Also I think if an external API is implemented then a lot of these features (more legible auction data, data by planet, etc) could probably be set up in a website that ingests this data. Just my two cents