I made a really dumb mistake the other day that cost me tens of thousands of currants. I own up to doing dumb things regularly, but this one stung pretty badly. Though it is entirely my own fault for being careless, a game's design interface should help reduce or eliminate the chances of players 'hurting' themselves.
I'd like to propose four suggestions for improvement. I love the game and I can always recoup the currants, but new players may leave if they lose everything when a good design could have prevented it.
1: Consider making buying in bulk "opt in" instead of "opt out". It is far better for a user to accidentally sell a single item of something than to sell all of something. The vendors do this correctly by initially assuming you only want to sell 1 of something and provide a "max" button for users who need it. The auction, however, assumes users want to sell things by the stack.
2: Consider removing default prices from auctions. Rarely are the default prices even close to how the items are valued, and their presence allows users to mistakenly sell for that amount when they wish to sell for a different amount. Requiring users to always enter their own price eliminates this problem.
3: Expensive items should have small stacks. Gemstones are a perfect example of the right way to do this, as the more expensive stones have smaller stacks. Highly-valuable items (2000c ?) should sell like powders- only one a time, if at all.
4: Consider allowing the option for seller to 'Confirm' if the seller is online when someone tries to buy. This confirmation would display the item, the amount being sold, and the sale price. It would give sellers more control over who buys their items, and allow mis-auctioned items to be retrieved before being swept up by auction-bots.
It's my opinion that implementing any one of these would greatly improve user experiences with the auctions and possibly result in higher player retention rate. The last thing glitch needs is more public rage-quitting in the forums.
I'd love any feedback from players or staff :)