OOTP Developments Forums - View Single Post - Market Manipulation Info from Discord Chat

LeeD · 07-02-2024, 08:29 PM

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.

07-02-2024, 08:29 PM	#4
LeeD All Star Reserve Join Date: Jan 2022 Posts: 625	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.