A Corrupt Market

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Posted by: Endrance.1680

Endrance.1680

During the first 3 months of launch GW2 experienced a huge botting problem. This is no secret. During this time the bots flooded the economy dramatically increasing the price of gems. While the staff did a great job of smashing all the bots, they never removed all of the gold produced by the bots from the game. Why haven’t they done so? With gems being literally worth more than the American dollar, people are spending a lot of real world cash on gems to then convert them into in game gold or spending them in the gem store for upgrades. What does this mean? This means a consistent flood of money for ArenaNet. There’s nothing wrong with them making cash, that’s what the industry is all about, but it does seem unfair that the players are the ones having to bite the bullet for the damage caused by the bots. There are two simple options to correct this problem that ArenaNet has failed to take. One. They could devalue the gems by gifting each player a set amount of gems. The players would then flood the market with the gems and bring down the value of them giving the players the fair market that they deserve. This would mean less money for ArenaNet of course. The other option is a total reset of the economy. Again this would decrease the cash flowing into the pockets of ArenaNet but isn’t it only fair? Why should we have to continue to suffer an inflated economy when it’s clearly not our fault? It’s a shame.

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Posted by: Anchoku.8142

Anchoku.8142

I think you are misinterpreting the situation. Like many other players on this forum, you are alarmed by the increasing trend in gold-to-gems exchange. However, botting is not the only way to make thousands of gold and gems in this game.

Arenanet will adjust the gem supply and exchange rate based upon the company’s need to take in real money. To do this, they use a pool system where one factor on the exchange rate is player demand for gold exchange.

That exchange removes gold from the system and converts it to gems, which are mostly just consumed for account bound items. The substantial exchange fee and mystic toilet should deter currency speculation.

Where people often make their gold now, aside from standard game rewards, is from the trading post. Small volume items with reasonable demand, for example, can be manipulated in price simply by purchasing all stock below a target price. This drives up price by removing competitive supply. As long as demand is sufficient at the target price, players can continue purchasing lower cost stock and reselling at the target price. This method is a bit trickier than it sounds because of the BLTC listing and sales fees, though, and the risk the target price will erode demand until the speculator is overwhelmed by the burden of excess supply.

Similarly, a player can make low-ball offers to quickly remove heavily discounted supply and keep market prices stable.

There are many who also speculate in futures. There was a flurry of chatter and some demand for eggs prior to the end of the year holidays because some felt there would be an egg-related recipe that would drastically increase consumption of that commodity. It did not happen. Now, the discussion is on ectoplasm speculation.

The BLTC’s trading post is the source of many player’s fortunes. I call it the TP mini-game. Arenanet’s challenge is to figure out how to get those players to purchase gems with real money and ensure there is no gold-selling going on so that casual or newer players are not disenfranchised by the exchange rate. The rate should be low enough to entice, but not so low as to make the purchase of gems with real money a terrible deal (which to me it is, by the way, given the content available) and not so high as to drive players away from gem purchases.

Personally, I believe the solution is to make a new currency that is not convertible back and forth with gold and offer premium skins and new content like an area expansion for sale using real money only. That will level the playing ground and take the TP mini-game and gold-selling out of the equation for all content denominated in the new currency. Players can still play with the trading post and farm as much as they like for crafting, exchange, and whatnot.

(edited by Anchoku.8142)

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Posted by: Arganthium.5638

Arganthium.5638

Err, I think you’ve got something wrong here. First of all, I find it difficult to believe that ANet didn’t slash the money supply to shreds when they took down all of those bots- I’m sure they deleted the accounts, thereby deleting all of the gold and supplies reaped by those bots.

On top of that, ANet also has the TP as a very convenient gold sink. It lets them take out an insane amount of gold (if necessary) from the economy to combat inflation caused by bots, increased money supply by selling to merchants, and so forth.

Thief|Mesmer|
Theorycrafter

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Posted by: Ursan.7846

Ursan.7846

With gems being literally worth more than the American dollar

I chuckled at this. Is the American dollar also worth more than the Japanese yen? Is the Euro worth more than the American dollar?

(PS, this is what exchange rates are for!)

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Posted by: Darlgon.9273

Darlgon.9273

Err, I think you’ve got something wrong here. First of all, I find it difficult to believe that ANet didn’t slash the money supply to shreds when they took down all of those bots- I’m sure they deleted the accounts, thereby deleting all of the gold and supplies reaped by those bots.

Lol… not exactly. The bots were stomped, true, but I never saw any repercussions to those who 1. bought items from the bots on BLTC (removing those crafting mats/items from the game) which would actually harm honest customers of BLTC and Anet or 2. benefitted from transactions with the bots (think where they put their gold, the gem market, which then actually reduced the price of gems to everyone.) Plus.. smart gold sellers would transfer the gold/mats to other valid accounts and use hacked accounts to farm on. (I remember seeing in EQ where people had bottles of water, worth a copper, listed for 1g to move money from a gold seller to a gold buyer.)

Charrdian, Ashura Mesmer, Norn Ranger, Sylvari Elementalist and Human Magic Engineer

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Posted by: John Smith.4610

John Smith.4610

Next

I think you’re overvaluing what was created by bots during that time period. GW2 is massive (by definition I suppose, but also in reality) what those bots made for a couple of weeks isn’t 1/1000th of the total turn of this economy since launch.

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Posted by: Havana.8625

Havana.8625

I imagine all the profit raised by bots combined can’t compare at all to what people made off the cultural weapon karma bug. People were buy thousands and thousands of exotics for 12 karma each, and just tossing them into the forge at the beginning of the game. Arenanet unbanned them, but couldn’t track every item that was created, or keep tabs on where everyone had sent their fortune. The people that exploited the game early on will always be the wealthiest players in GW2, and no matter what they do, legitimate players won’t ever amass money comparing to those fortunes.

“We don’t need to make gear treadmills”
Colin Johanson on how arenanet measures success.
(Please no gear treadmills, Colin!)

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Posted by: Gasoline.2570

Gasoline.2570

I think you’re overvaluing what was created by bots during that time period. GW2 is massive (by definition I suppose, but also in reality) what those bots made for a couple of weeks isn’t 1/1000th of the total turn of this economy since launch.

Weeks? Those bots were in the game for months. And there still are some left.

Weeks? lol.

The balance team is chained to SPVP, and the PVE team is all about producing carnivals

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Posted by: Ursan.7846

Ursan.7846

Weeks? Those bots were in the game for months. And there still are some left.

Weeks? lol.

I never will understand this strange urge to speak condescendingly to a developer who actually has actual data to back up all his statement.

If you’re gonna question him, at least do it in a respectful way. Because since they have all the data, it’s very possible that they are right. And if you’re rude, you just end up looking silly.

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Posted by: Gasoline.2570

Gasoline.2570

Yeah and I will admit all my memories of those bots are fake. I never saw them months after release in cursed shore defending the pact cannon next to grenth event, ok. Or what about that row of 6 bots with full exotic karma gear running a circle after grenth was done. Never happened. Just my imagination, I guess. OR all those naked female rangers with brown bears all over the place.

Or those random bots appearing next to mining nodes and then disappearing.

My life is a lie! Nothing ever happened for real! Oh my!!!

The balance team is chained to SPVP, and the PVE team is all about producing carnivals

(edited by Gasoline.2570)

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Posted by: Obtena.7952

Obtena.7952

I guess you missed the part where the devs have data and you don’t. Regardless of what you observed, I doubt you have anything that puts it into a scale relevant for the discussion. No one doubts there were botters. The question is how big an impact they had. I’m betting the guys with the data know better than you.

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Posted by: Gasoline.2570

Gasoline.2570

Yes, I will agree. Nothing happened. Many what crazy dreams I have!

The balance team is chained to SPVP, and the PVE team is all about producing carnivals

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Posted by: Ursan.7846

Ursan.7846

Yeah and I will admit all my memories of those bots are fake. I never saw them months after release in cursed shore defending the pact cannon next to grenth event, ok. Or what about that row of 6 bots with full exotic karma gear running a circle after grenth was done. Never happened. Just my imagination, I guess. OR all those naked female rangers with brown bears all over the place.

Or those random bots appearing next to mining nodes and then disappearing.

My life is a lie! Nothing ever happened for real! Oh my!!!

I guess you completely missed the point of my post. It’s okay to question devs, but I find it strange why you’d want to do it in such a condescending manner. You just end up sounding silly.

Regardless, I find it also silly how you jump onto the “Couple of weeks” statement John made. He isn’t saying bots only existed for couple of weeks, he’s just saying the damage they did in “couple of weeks” is dwarfed by the rest of the game economy. Heck the damage they did in a couple of month (6/1000th if your “couple” is 4 weeks and 1/1000th is earned in a "couple of week) is still insignificant.

And on that note, yea I trust Devs over my own memory. They have the data, I don’t.

Yes, I will agree. Nothing happened. Many what crazy dreams I have!

No one is saying that. Who are you agreeing with?

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Posted by: Endrance.1680

Endrance.1680

It was three months not just a couple of weeks and while I understand that the devs have data I find it suspect that and economy can increase 100% in a months time. They did more damage than what we are told. I understand exchange rates as I live in a foreign country from my own at the moment. Glad to bring you a laugh sir.

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Posted by: Cymatoperior.5942

Cymatoperior.5942

I think you’re overvaluing what was created by bots during that time period. GW2 is massive (by definition I suppose, but also in reality) what those bots made for a couple of weeks isn’t 1/1000th of the total turn of this economy since launch.

Massive? If it is that massive it wont take 2 days for my buy orders to be filled for exotic gear for my new warrior. Sure a lot of people bought the game. But also a lot of people did not continue playing the game after 2 weeks from buying it. None of my real life friends who bought the game are still playing it and I am all alone…

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Posted by: Ursan.7846

Ursan.7846

Massive? If it is that massive it wont take 2 days for my buy orders to be filled for exotic gear for my new warrior. Sure a lot of people bought the game. But also a lot of people did not continue playing the game after 2 weeks from buying it. None of my real life friends who bought the game are still playing it and I am all alone…

Did buy orders higher than yours get posted?

Anyways, John Smith told us that about 10 each of Dusk/Dawns sell each day.

We’re talking the rarest and most coveted precursors in the game. I’d say the game economy’s pretty big.

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Posted by: Endrance.1680

Endrance.1680

There is no doubt that the economy is huge. It’s massive to say the least. I don’t know why you’re playing alone Cymatoperior. Game traffic is through the roof. I should probably clarify that the purpose of this thread was not to slam ANet by any means. I’ve been playing GW since 2007 and am a huge Anet/GW fan. I just believe that the economy was greatly influenced, and still is, by a botting problem, that ANet successfully jumped on and corrected, that caused the economy to become what it is today.

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Posted by: Cymatoperior.5942

Cymatoperior.5942

Massive? If it is that massive it wont take 2 days for my buy orders to be filled for exotic gear for my new warrior. Sure a lot of people bought the game. But also a lot of people did not continue playing the game after 2 weeks from buying it. None of my real life friends who bought the game are still playing it and I am all alone…

Did buy orders higher than yours get posted?

Anyways, John Smith told us that about 10 each of Dusk/Dawns sell each day.

We’re talking the rarest and most coveted precursors in the game. I’d say the game economy’s pretty big.

I dont know but im sure there will be people who post higher buy orders. But what I meant is that if it were that massive the buying and selling would fluctuate faster for my orders to be filled. I did post the highest buy price before logging off.

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Posted by: John Smith.4610

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John Smith.4610

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I dont know but im sure there will be people who post higher buy orders. But what I meant is that if it were that massive the buying and selling would fluctuate faster for my orders to be filled. I did post the highest buy price before logging off.

I think you should stop and think about this a little bit, and then come back with another response.

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Posted by: Endrance.1680

Endrance.1680

Cymatoperior, you lost with me with that last post. What are you trying to say? I don’t think that was it…

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Posted by: chucky.4798

chucky.4798

First, sry for the google translate

The gem is the soul of this game (very fragile part). It greatly depends on this, that the game is successful or not. The gem is directly linked to the market. Therefore, the market is very fragile. Care must be changes in the market.

I think significant changes should be made in the market:
- Limit the number of items can be sold (5-10 selling slot, 5 is the minimum, 2 with new guild upgrade, +1-3 if you have 1-3 lvl80 character)
- Auto decrease mechanism (every 24 hours the items’ price will decrease with 1%
- Lower limit for all items
- Fix price for some item
- You can not sell, lower/higher than the average price + – 5%
- Decrase drop rate (blue, green, rare)
- Rebuild craft system: new weapons/armors/consumables with very unique visual effects, party buff-s, etc. (I have a lot of ideas about this, but it is not part of the topic.)
- New recipes (ingedients: the cheapests materials)
- Temporary new recipes in the Mystic Forge (remove 10 000
items and very cheap blue/green items )

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Posted by: EdgarMTanaka.7291

EdgarMTanaka.7291

-Limit numbers to be sold: Yes.
-Auto decrease: No!
-Lower limit: Just keep it as low as vendor price.
-Fix Price: Nah.
-You can not sell, lower/higer than avarage: No, that would not make profit worth the time.
-Decrease drop rate: People complain it’s to low already :P
-Rebuild Crafting system: Yes, with unique materials NOT needed for Legendaries and other “Grinding” stuff.
-New recipes: Dunno?
-temp new recipes in mystic forge: Well it’s should be looked over to be more user friendly and not only for the elite (I liked the comendation thingie).

Member of Alpha Swedish Gaming Community – http://www.alphas.se/
Guild Leader of Alpha Sgc [ASGC]

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Posted by: Easlay.3297

Easlay.3297

The BLT is fine ikittennow how move yourself; just as example, i went from 4 gold to 60 in 10 days just putting buy and sell order while i was studying (and my profit was just 2-3 copper per item sold).
If u have no idea of what to do is just your problem from my point of view, but some suggestion read here are funny and nosense at all, like if someone would say “limit each path in dungeon once a day, or they farm too much items/gold”

[OSC] Easlay Koorst – Thief
Sfr

(edited by Easlay.3297)

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Posted by: EdgarMTanaka.7291

EdgarMTanaka.7291

The BLT is fine ikittennow how move yourself; just as example, i went from 4 gold to 60 in 10 days just putting buy and sell order while i was studying (and my profit was just 2-3 copper per item sold).
If u have no idea of what to do is just your problem from my point of view, but some suggestion read here are funny and nosense at all, like if someone would say “limit each path in dungeon once a day, or they farm too much items/gold”

Well imo it’s not all about making a profit, I could also make money on TP if I wan’t to spend my free time doing that.

As I said in my Crafted cheaper than mats thread is that an armor piece shouldn’t be cheaper than the mats required to craft that armor, in other games this works fine or even they don’t even exist at the marketplace so you have to craft them.

The TP is not only to make profit but for other to do some shopping and get stuff.
There is so much weapons., gear, bags, items and more that is worth less than what they cost as vendor price, becouse Players/bots/grinders sell whatever they get at TP for the lowest price possible and even sell them to the ones requesting an item for a few c.

So when I come across a nice rare weopon I wan’t to sell it a TP it costs 5s and there is 8 total at TP … Whatte? Sure I put it up at a higher price but as soon as a bot/grinder/Player get’s a hand on one he/she is on a hurry to get rid of it from the bag and sells it for the lowest possible or at requested price.

Since you can sell how many items you like, you can sell it wherever you are, there is no expire time on the items people don’t care what they post the stuff for, ieher to expensive or to cheap.

I am possibly wrong, but this is what I think atm.

Member of Alpha Swedish Gaming Community – http://www.alphas.se/
Guild Leader of Alpha Sgc [ASGC]

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Posted by: Easlay.3297

Easlay.3297

but that’s not a problem linked to maths, but to players wanna make gold asap; can you blame them? nope, is their choice after all to get less money but immediatly instead wait for get some more.
For crafted items, players are those that decide the price to be lower than craft maths, not some1 else
Honestly don’t know what Anet should do about this; u can’t change a whole game feature because ppl behaviour; limit stocks to sell would increase price of low cost maths since u need lot of them but will have lower supply (plus drop more often than high tier maths)

[OSC] Easlay Koorst – Thief
Sfr

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Posted by: Svarty.8019

Svarty.8019

The people that exploited the game early on will always be the wealthiest players in GW2, and no matter what they do, legitimate players won’t ever amass money comparing to those fortunes.

This game reflects the real world far too accurately for my tastes.

Nobody at Anet loves WvW like Grouch loved PvP. That’s what we need, a WvW Grouch, but taller.

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Posted by: Wayfinder.8452

Wayfinder.8452

First, sry for the google translate

The gem is the soul of this game (very fragile part). It greatly depends on this, that the game is successful or not. The gem is directly linked to the market. Therefore, the market is very fragile. Care must be changes in the market.

I think significant changes should be made in the market:
- Limit the number of items can be sold (5-10 selling slot, 5 is the minimum, 2 with new guild upgrade, +1-3 if you have 1-3 lvl80 character)
- Auto decrease mechanism (every 24 hours the items’ price will decrease with 1%
- Lower limit for all items
- Fix price for some item
- You can not sell, lower/higher than the average price + – 5%
- Decrase drop rate (blue, green, rare)
- Rebuild craft system: new weapons/armors/consumables with very unique visual effects, party buff-s, etc. (I have a lot of ideas about this, but it is not part of the topic.)
- New recipes (ingedients: the cheapests materials)
- Temporary new recipes in the Mystic Forge (remove 10 000
items and very cheap blue/green items )

You do realize this will only serve to bunker the game in its currenct community right ?
Decreased drop rates will only dissatisfy the casual community.
Limiting items sold on the TP is even worse. The lower number of items on the TP you might see in the moment is probably due to items being sold constantly or slow when talking about exotics given that non precursor exotics in the cheap spectrum are bought by casual players with limited gold in their pocket. It is only when items actually stop selling that we should all worry because this means the game is bleeding players and would allow easier control over item prices. A stale market is a really bad thing in any scenario.
At this point more recipes will only water down the game content even more given that it’s already flooded with a ridiculous amount of token and currency types.

The man who can wield the power of this sword can summon to him an army
more deadly than any that walks this earth. Put aside the Ranger.
Become who you were born to be. I give hope to men. I keep none for myself.

(edited by Wayfinder.8452)

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Posted by: Pandemoniac.4739

Pandemoniac.4739

As I said in my Crafted cheaper than mats thread is that an armor piece shouldn’t be cheaper than the mats required to craft that armor, in other games this works fine or even they don’t even exist at the marketplace so you have to craft them.

Why shouldn’t a specific item be less expensive than materials that could be used to create any number of things? My husband just crafted his way from 25 to 75. He sold the things he made to recover some of the costs of buying the materials, but he didn’t care if he made a profit on items because he had already gotten some value out of them from the XP he gained by creating them.

GW2’s crafting has significant differences from crafting in other games. Everyone can gather crafting materials and lots of materials are gathered just by regular play. Everyone can do all of the crafts. Crafting and gathering gives a significant amount of XP, and is part of the dailies.

When you craft something in GW2, you don’t add much value to the materials you crafted it from. In some ways you actually make the materials less valuable, because you turn them into a specific item that appeals to fewer people than all the possible items that could be made from them, and they can’t be used to level up any more. It just isn’t that difficult to make the items for yourself, so most of the profit comes from providing convenience.

I’ve had better luck selling insignia and inscriptions than selling items made from them. A single insignia can be made into 18 different things (6 pieces of light, medium, or heavy armor) and I know a lot of folks that buy materials to give to their guild mates to get something specific crafted. The market is larger than it would be for say medium shoulders crafted from that insignia.

Don’t ever think you know what’s right for the other person.
He might start thinking he knows what’s right for you.
—Paul Williams

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Posted by: Vol.5241

Vol.5241

I think you’re overvaluing what was created by bots during that time period. GW2 is massive (by definition I suppose, but also in reality) what those bots made for a couple of weeks isn’t 1/1000th of the total turn of this economy since launch.

Massive? If it is that massive it wont take 2 days for my buy orders to be filled for exotic gear for my new warrior. Sure a lot of people bought the game. But also a lot of people did not continue playing the game after 2 weeks from buying it. None of my real life friends who bought the game are still playing it and I am all alone…

You make it sound like exotic gear is a commodity. People very rarely buy/sell exotics in high enough frequency. for you to fulfill your buy order.

It’s a different story with commodities like t5/t6 and globs.

[Permabanned on Forums]
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Posted by: Aye.8392

Aye.8392

With gems being literally worth more than the American dollar, people are spending a lot of real world cash on gems to then convert them into in game gold or spending them in the gem store for upgrades.

I’m sorry, but I quit when I read this statement. There is no way I can take the rest of the topic/complaint or suggestion for a fix seriously.

www.AlchemyIncorporated.net
Sorrows Furnace

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Posted by: Endrance.1680

Endrance.1680

That’s fine. It’s what they want. Sweep it under the rug.

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Posted by: Endrance.1680

Endrance.1680

56 Gold right now for 4,000 gems. 50 USD for 4000 gems. This was the point. But don’t take it seriously.

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Posted by: Mourningcry.9428

Mourningcry.9428

56 Gold right now for 4,000 gems. 50 USD for 4000 gems. This was the point. But don’t take it seriously.

I may be obtuse, but I don’t see your point.

The fact that there is even a mechanism to go from Gold to Gems is a boon to the player base. If it went to 100G for 10gems, that’d still offer more options to the player base then to solely offer a pure cash to gems option.

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Posted by: Endrance.1680

Endrance.1680

The point is that there are going to be people who can’t earn that much gold because as ArenaNet stated, this is to be a casual game right? It’s for everyone but if you want to enjoy this end game content you need the gold. So since you can’t earn it in game buy it with your card. Eternity costs 2300 gold in the BLTP. So if you were to trade gems you bought with your card for enough gold to buy this sword, your’re spending about 2300 USD. 50USD will get you 4000 gems. If you convert those 4000 gems into gold you’re only getting about 56 gold. So real world cash, Eternity is worth over 2000 USD

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Posted by: Mourningcry.9428

Mourningcry.9428

The point is that there are going to be people who can’t earn that much gold because as ArenaNet stated, this is to be a casual game right? It’s for everyone but if you want to enjoy this end game content you need the gold. So since you can’t earn it in game buy it with your card. Eternity costs 2300 gold in the BLTP. So if you were to trade gems you bought with your card for enough gold to buy this sword, your’re spending about 2300 USD. 50USD will get you 4000 gems. If you convert those 4000 gems into gold you’re only getting about 56 gold. So real world cash, Eternity is worth over 2000 USD

Ah… ok… Thanks for elaborating.

Well, just as a side note, the conversion of Gold to Gems, does not equal the Gems to Gold rate… I think it’s closer to 1.5gold per 100gems… but still, I get the point.

Not going to comment on TP being the gateway to end game content (which you’re equating to Legendaries), as it’s been discussed at length elsewhere. Suffice to say, the TP is not the sole means to a Legendary, rather just one means. And Legendaries are by no means requried for any game content outside of cosmetics.

Edited for formatting.

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Posted by: Iruwen.3164

Iruwen.3164

Suffice to say, the TP is not the sole means to a Legendary, rather just one means.

So you’re going to throw something from four to maybe several hundred exotics into the mystic forge for a chance to get a precursor and farm the materials yourself? I can show you how many lodestones and so on I got after 250 hours of PvE, good luck farming them all. There’s a reason those materials are expensive.

Iruwen Evillan, Human Mesmer on Drakkar Lake

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Posted by: Vol.5241

Vol.5241

Suffice to say, the TP is not the sole means to a Legendary, rather just one means.

So you’re going to throw something from four to maybe several hundred exotics into the mystic forge for a chance to get a precursor and farm the materials yourself? I can show you how many lodestones and so on I got after 250 hours of PvE, good luck farming them all. There’s a reason those materials are expensive.

You shouldn’t be farming lodestones in the first place.

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Posted by: Rouven.7409

Rouven.7409

You shouldn’t be farming lodestones in the first place.

Can you elaborate what you mean by that?

“Whose Kitten is this?” – “It’s a Charr baby.”
“Whose Charr is this?”- “Ted’s.”
“Who’s Ted?”- “Ted’s dead, baby. Ted’s dead.”

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Posted by: Iruwen.3164

Iruwen.3164

Suffice to say, the TP is not the sole means to a Legendary, rather just one means.

So you’re going to throw something from four to maybe several hundred exotics into the mystic forge for a chance to get a precursor and farm the materials yourself? I can show you how many lodestones and so on I got after 250 hours of PvE, good luck farming them all. There’s a reason those materials are expensive.

You shouldn’t be farming lodestones in the first place.

That’s what I just said.

Iruwen Evillan, Human Mesmer on Drakkar Lake

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Posted by: Vol.5241

Vol.5241

You shouldn’t be farming lodestones in the first place.

Can you elaborate what you mean by that?

Lodestone farming is horribly inefficient. The mobs that you get lodes from are never clustered and most often widely spaced out, so you’ll be killing stuff one at a time.

Better to grind out events (e.g. shelt/pen before the nerf) and make good gold to buy lodestones outright.

However, you should also keep an eye on the core market as more often than not it saves you considerable money.

Early on I remember watching fools try and corner the lodestone market to limit supply. They totally forgot about the core market.

[Permabanned on Forums]
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Posted by: Draygo.9473

Draygo.9473

cut because 5000 words

well lets address these:
-Limit the number of items can be sold (5-10 selling slot, 5 is the minimum, +2 with new guild upgrade, +1-3 if you have 1-3 lvl80 character)
Did you even think before suggesting this? As a regular player I have something on the order of 20-30 sell/buy orders on the market when I want to sell stuff. For example when I hit my bank I tend to sell all my T1 and T2 mats often just matching lowest seller. This creates a ton of buy orders that wont last long on the TP. Often these items go quickly but it can take 5-10 mins for most of the orders to clear.
With this restirction in place you will be hampering MY ability to sell stuff. I will have to wait 5-10 minutes to put up more sell orders, or I would have to sell to lowest buyer, which would actually create more openings for tp flippers to make money, because it will drive the buy orders down from people like me looking for a quick TP post. The bigger the gap between the buy and sell order is what creates chances for TP traders to make money. Artificially limiting the amount of sell orders or buy orders a player can have will HURT the market.

-Auto decrease mechanism (every 24 hours the items’ price will decrease with 1%
Another case of not thinking. So you will intentionally kill the market on items that dont move quickly? What this will do is prevent players from putting sell orders up on items with very little movement. Imagine if you decide to sell sunrise, and you put it up on the market. Lets say this item doesnt sell for three days. You lost 3%. That 3% is a huge chunk of change. What this will do is prevent these players from putting sunrise on the market directly, instead they will post to 3rd party sites saying that they have sunrise and want to sell at X amount. When they find a buyer they put it on the TP on that amount then the buyer will buy it, thus circumventing this worthless idea.
The TP already has a good marker on what people are willing to pay for for items, you dont need any artificial mechinism to ‘control’ it.

-Lower limit for all items
I have no idea what you mean by this.

-Fix price for some item
No idea what the point of this is. The reason the market exists is so you can sell and buy goods. If you post a good for a lower price it will sell quickly, if you post for a higher price it may take longer to sell. By fixing the price that means I have no guarentee when my item will sell. If i am looking to dump an item quickly so i can buy something else this will be a very bad thing. Lets say there are 3,000,000 mithril on the market, and I put my 250 I harvested on the market in your system. It might take up to 3 days for me to get the money. And for items with lower demand and high supply I may NEVER get the money. Another bad idea.

-You can not sell, lower/higher than the average price + – 5%
Oh hey, something more easily manipulated than the current system. Take any item with a low volume and I can personally inflate the average price easily. Now that its ‘locked in’ at the higher price I can cash out, while i’m cashing out I am fixing that price even further. Another bad idea.

-Decrase drop rate (blue, green, rare) Its not a bad idea in a market sense, it is a bad idea that everyone will complain. This is a video game, sometimes oversupply of certain things is ok.

-Rebuild craft system: new weapons/armors/consumables with very unique visual effects, party buff-s, etc. (I have a lot of ideas about this, but it is not part of the topic.)
Hey a good idea! Finally! This is a proper way to increase the demand on goods, by putting things in the game that players want to get!

-New recipes (ingedients: the cheapests materials)
Another decent idea! With more recipes you introduce more natural demands.

-Temporary new recipes in the Mystic Forge (remove 10 000+ items and very cheap blue/green items )
This has been done before. I dont think its a good idea unless there is a vast oversupply of a crafting material. Green items already can be forged into rares and salvaged into ectos for a profit when the ecto price exceeds ~29 silver. Personally I think the merchant price on greens is simply to high, if that was dropped to 50c it could allow the market to correct. But dropping the price will cause issues with the players as people will get 50% of the money merching these items. It will also cause a decrease in the price of rares and ecto as the price to produce a rare from a green will also drop. By holding the minimum price high Anet ensures that rares and ecto price will remain around ~29 silver +/-15%.

Delarme
Apathy Inc [Ai]

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Posted by: Mourningcry.9428

Mourningcry.9428

Suffice to say, the TP is not the sole means to a Legendary, rather just one means.

So you’re going to throw something from four to maybe several hundred exotics into the mystic forge for a chance to get a precursor and farm the materials yourself? I can show you how many lodestones and so on I got after 250 hours of PvE, good luck farming them all. There’s a reason those materials are expensive.

I never suggested any course of action. That’s always been up to the individual player. I only stated that the TP is one other option to acquire items.

There’s the Mystic Forge, loot drops or the TP to acquire a precursor. Whichever a player deems to be the most viable should determine their choice. Viable does not mean easy, or quick. If none of those methods are acceptable, or attractive, then that is an individual choice, and should be realized as such.

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Posted by: Rouven.7409

Rouven.7409

Lodestone farming is horribly inefficient. The mobs that you get lodes from are never clustered and most often widely spaced out, so you’ll be killing stuff one at a time.

Better to grind out events (e.g. shelt/pen before the nerf) and make good gold to buy lodestones outright.

(…)

If this is true (only saying that because I can’t speak out of my own experience) then I see two possibilities:

a) Either the current situation is intentional – providing a certain goal that is meant to either take a long time for a casual player – or is meant as a goal to keep people who like to grind happy – nothing wrong with that in itself.

b) It’s not intentional and not truly balanced yet

As it is now it seems to make some players unhappy, because the TP seems to be the only viable way of achieving those items. Anet might want to find a way to translate their goals/intentions better (which will obviously still leave some people “complaining” about it).

Mhh, maybe I’m not thinking this through, could be also a) but not balanced, which is why they offered another way to obtain those items (the jewellery box).

I think overall Anet is on a very good track.

Anyways, thanks for clarifying, it makes it easier to read.

“Whose Kitten is this?” – “It’s a Charr baby.”
“Whose Charr is this?”- “Ted’s.”
“Who’s Ted?”- “Ted’s dead, baby. Ted’s dead.”

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Posted by: GrandmaFunk.3052

GrandmaFunk.3052

…if you want to enjoy this end game content you need the gold. So since you can’t earn it in game buy it with your card.

A: you do not need gold to enjoy content, “endgame” or otherwise.

B: Why can’t you earn it in game, exactly?

GamersWithJobs [GWJ]
Northern Shiverpeaks

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Posted by: Endrance.1680

Endrance.1680

A lot of the content requires you to either pay with card or with gold. Bank slots, inventory slots, Halloween skins and costumes. Yes they corrected that mistake with Wintersday but really, GW should have have been a good indicator of how to run holidays. They didn’t need to go change it.

This is way off track. The originial intent of this forum was to bring attention to the economy and the damage it suffered due to the botting issue that went on much longer than “a couple of weeks”. If that’s the case, let’s see the data. Show us how the bots effected the economy.

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Posted by: Ursan.7846

Ursan.7846

A lot of the content requires you to either pay with card or with gold. Bank slots, inventory slots, Halloween skins and costumes. Yes they corrected that mistake with Wintersday but really, GW should have have been a good indicator of how to run holidays. They didn’t need to go change it.

Forgive me, but your definition of “content” really differs. I see “content” as something to do in the game, not stuff you can have. And I can do everything in this game in my blues and greens.

This is way off track. The originial intent of this forum was to bring attention to the economy and the damage it suffered due to the botting issue that went on much longer than “a couple of weeks”. If that’s the case, let’s see the data. Show us how the bots effected the economy.

Well, John Smith did give us a number (not even 1/1000th) so it really comes down to whether you believe him or not.

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Posted by: Endrance.1680

Endrance.1680

So a dev by the name John Smith throws out 1/1000th and that’s enough for you? That’s good. It’s not for me. They track everything so let us see some real proof as to the claims.

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Posted by: Ursan.7846

Ursan.7846

So a dev by the name John Smith throws out 1/1000th and that’s enough for you? That’s good. It’s not for me. They track everything so let us see some real proof as to the claims.

Well yea. Of course. He’s a dev, he has the data. I’m really confused at your thought process though. Do you think he’s lying?

If he is, then he can easily make up “real proof” as well. What’s to stop you from claiming they aren’t real numbers? If you don’t trust him, no matter what he does is going to convince you otherwise. So you might as well stop this McCarthy-style witch hunt now.

Do you believe him, but just think the 1/1000th is not precise enough? Even as a ballpark estimate, it’s good enough evidence to prove his point: that it’s impact on the economy is insignificant.

Either way, he’s never going to give you anything that will confirm your beliefs.

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Posted by: Endrance.1680

Endrance.1680

I guess that’s what they pay these forum police devs to do. Mislead.

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Posted by: Ursan.7846

Ursan.7846

I guess that’s what they pay these forum police devs to do. Mislead.

Just like how those climate scientists are being paid to mislead people into believing global warming right?