Guild Wars 2

John Smith.4610:

Let’s calm down a bit, this isn’t getting us far. Instead let me ask this.
Here are the assumptions that I’m operating under for this question:
1. You feel that PvE and TP have difference levels of gold earning
2. You feel that PvE and TP should have the same level of gold earning

What would be your plan for implementing a reward system that would achieve what you desire, given the constraint that you may not get rid of the trading post?

Well, the easiest to implement would be to cap the number of items you can have for sale or bid on.

Another way would be to make all items that you buy from the TP account bound. Perhaps with a 12hour buy-back-guarantee option, altough that would be harder to implement.

But Anet will never allow this. Anet makes money from the extreem high prices on the TP, by selling gold to rich people through gems. It is not in the interest of Anet to limit high prices made by these TP abusers, at the contrary.

What would be your plan for implementing a reward system that would achieve what you desire, given the constraint that you may not get rid of the trading post?

I don’t think there’s a good way to change the reward system without breaking stuff. I DO think that better controls could be added to the TP to reduce the profit potential. The same sort of things that have been suggested for the real stock market but would never be implemented for political reasons. Have additional taxes for certain goods. Have additional taxes for high volume trading. Have additional taxes for higher value trades.

Basically, you’re the economist. Look into the way that people are currently making money through no activity other than trading, converting gold into more gold, Make those practices distinctly less profitable by adding taxes that negate the existing profit margins.

all they need to do is increase the drops by just a little and everything will even out

Munkee.3542:

There’s a difference between entitlement and ridiculous. The fact is precursors are ridiculous and the only people who disagree are those who have a legendary(ies) or those who are cornering the precursor market.

That is not a fact.

I disagree. I have no legendary. I have not cornered the precursor market (never owned one).

Your opinion (not fact) is that the price of some precursors are ridiculous. I do not share that opinion. It is only about vanity. It is like buying expensive clothes in real life. You can buy a designer jeans for 2.000 Euro. But here is the kicker: You can cover your legs also with a jeans for 50 Euro or below. And it warms and protect your valuable lower body parts as well as the expensive one.

That said: there are skins for weapons out there which are not that expensive and also quite beautiful. For greatswords: the corrupted skins, vision of the mists, volcanus… And they have the additional advantage, that they don’t produce these ridiculous foot steps which reminds me of worm egg yolk.

That is not a fact.

I disagree. I have no legendary. I have not cornered the precursor market (never owned one).

Your opinion (not fact) is that the price of some precursors are ridiculous. I do not share that opinion. It is only about vanity. It is like buying expensive clothes in real life. You can buy a designer jeans for 2.000 Euro. But here is the kicker: You can cover your legs also with a jeans for 50 Euro or below. And it warms and protect your valuable lower body parts as well as the expensive one.

That said: there are skins for weapons out there which are not that expensive and also quite beautiful. For greatswords: the corrupted skins, vision of the mists, volcanus… And they have the additional advantage, that they don’t produce these ridiculous foot steps which reminds me of worm egg yolk.

Now you’re just being contrary. Can we all just agree that a lot more players would like to have precursors than that currently have them?

For the love of all that is sacred and holy, give us that “scavenger” hunt already!

with an item as rare and as NEEDED as the precursers this kinda thing is needed.

But i ask one question,

how many unique sellers are there for precursors, and what is the ratio to total precursors on the market?

i hear day in and day out that its being controlled by just a few extremely wealthy people.

John Smith.4610:

Let’s calm down a bit, this isn’t getting us far. Instead let me ask this.
Here are the assumptions that I’m operating under for this question:
1. You feel that PvE and TP have difference levels of gold earning
2. You feel that PvE and TP should have the same level of gold earning

I subscribe to those assumptions as well. Let me tell you a bit about myself. I’m an almost exclusively PvE player, who has been playing consistently since August 25. I enjoy not only dungeons, but also to go around the world exploring and finding new events and stuff.

For the last few months, I’ve been running CoF path 1 around three times each day (enough to go through an omnom bar), and that’s how I’ve earned most of the ~ 290g that I’ve been able to save. I’ve never made any extravagant purchases, but I’m thinking of buying cultural tier 3 armor for my beautiful female norn warrior.

Legendaries? Yes, I’d like very much to have 1 or 2 in the distant future. Juggernaut, for example, sure looks great, but the precursor alone costs double the entirety of my lifetime earnings. Maybe it’ll drop off a random spider somewhere eventually, but this doesn’t look like a reliable plan to obtain one. On the other hand, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to save enough to buy it from the TP through my usual playing habits either.

John Smith.4610:

What would be your plan for implementing a reward system that would achieve what you desire, given the constraint that you may not get rid of the trading post?

John, quite frankly, I don’t know how to answer your question. I know little about game design or virtual economies, so I’m not going to try to argue with you about economics or reward systems. All I can do is to give you my perspective and tell you about what it feels like to play the game from my experience.

I loathe using the TP. Not only in GW2, but in any other game I’ve played that has an auction house. Sure, I’ll use it when needed, but I think that this game has a wonderful world that is a lot more interesting than the TP. I mean, I’m playing GW2 to do combat, exploring, socializing, rather than slave away at than the slow loading, clunky TP screen. Do you enjoy using the TP? Great, more power to you – but I don’t.

Still, I feel that the only (or vastly more efficient) way to acquire certain items is through the TP. I’m not talking only about precursors, but any other mats for legendaries. Tier 6 materials, lodestones, silver doubloons. Ask anyone and they’ll tell you that it’s better to save gold and buy them from the TP than to go through the trouble of farming them yourself.

As other people have mentioned in this thread, for once we were able to actually farm through combat something efficiently – ectos – but it was shot down immediately. I find it frustrating to rely so much on the TP and to be left behind the inflation curve if you’re not some kind of TP wiz.

Anyway, John, as I said, this isn’t much of a plan for implementing a reward system. This is just my sincere feedback. I’m not sure if it’s important or what you can do with it, but this is all I can give you.

John Smith.4610:

Let’s calm down a bit, this isn’t getting us far. Instead let me ask this.
Here are the assumptions that I’m operating under for this question:
1. You feel that PvE and TP have difference levels of gold earning
2. You feel that PvE and TP should have the same level of gold earning

What would be your plan for implementing a reward system that would achieve what you desire, given the constraint that you may not get rid of the trading post?

I realized that when I read this, I automatically reformated it in my brain before answering it, and that I should probably share that process a little.

The question is really asked from inside the trading post looking out, by a hypothetical person who thinks in terms of gold earning as BEING the the game. I suggest that for people who like staying out in the virtual sun and stabbing things to death to take their loots, “gold earning” is not the end-all be-all of the game in the first place.

1. I feel that PvE and TP have different levels of gold earning – is True

But.

2. I feel that PvE and TP should have the same level of gold earning – is False

What I actually want is~

2. I feel that time spent in PvE and TP should have the similar rates of advancement towards endgame goals.

Most of these goals are cosmetic, so lets look at some of them.

Suppose I want Final Rest for my character – a rare drop skin. Even with timers to make it easier to only hunt the Shadow Beheamoth in periods when it’s likely to spawn and the explosion of Final Rest’s TP price due to speculation, it is still vastly easier to buy it than to acquire it from its one and only drop table. The drop rate revealed by one of your fellow Devs was nothing short of soul crushing for people who would like to earn one through sword swinging rather than coin purse swinging.

Suppose I want Infinite Light – a rare crafted skin. I AM the guy that goes out and farms high-level sparks/air elementals for hours at a time trying to lure Charged Cores out of the RNG. I run CoE when my dungeon-running friends are on. I do fractals all the time. In other words, I do what I’m supposed to (maximizing chances) to actually introduce charged cores/lodestones into the environment. And even with my ‘harvester-only’ relationship with the market as a money-making tool it is still roughly 2x faster for me to buy charged bits than to get them to drop (I have over 50 lodestones now, about 1/3 of them from drops).

Suppose I want a Legendary – the end product of a whole epic journey showing your mastery of all facets of the game (or some similar bit of grotesque over-hype by your director). I’m gathering T6 mats by hand because I’m in no great rush, but anyone here will tell us both that I should just make gold (run the hell out of CoF or AC or play the market) and buy them if time is at all a factor.

So, when I made my suggestions, most of them related to “the way we get paid” for Adventuring. Adventuring for coin is a sucker’s bet all it does is fatten you up to get fleeced at market. I want better chances to make progress towards my goals, not to gain the medium that I then MUST take to the market to move forward.

Until recently, once you turned 80, anything you might want to do, you can do faster by amassing gold, and that in turn incentivized amassing it quickly. I really do appreciate the introduction of the ascended gear tier, as outside of the triforge amulet it actually does decouple an endgame goal from Gold Acquisition. While I’m not pushing hard in fractals beyond the teens I can appreciate there are skins unique to those who do WHICH CANNOT BE BOUGHT. While I’m not in a big guild I can aprove of new guild weapon skins that reflect (and display) that sort of focus in someone’s play and cannot be bought. And eventually, as more of these endgame rewards move out of the trade post and demand getting a bit more virtual sun, I’ll even find strictly coin-based rewards like cultural armor a bit more charming.

But daaaayaam, I hope you guys re-work legendary acquistion for armor slots into something that can’t be massively side-stepped by a wad of gold.

Being that I only need Dusk right now to finish Twilight, I feel like it will take a long time to save up that much money to purchase it on the TP. I believe the precursor should be a challenge – just not in this way.

I ended up doing dungeon runs and fractals just to save money for the T6 material, ectos, and Onyx Cores (converted to Onyx Lodestones). Ectos I don’t really have a problem with compared to the other 2 as they are hard to come by. Precursor it’s either random (random drop or MF) or you spend all your time saving up money.

Why should I be penalized for not playing the TP?

Why can’t there be multiple ways to get a precursor other than a scavenger hunt? Just promote stuff that you have in game already:

• Fractals – There is a higher possible chance to get precursor weapons from the daily chest in lvl 30+ fractals OR you use a fractal weapon skin, a gift of ascension, globs, and fractal relics to create a precursor for people who enjoy that mechanic. Provides incentive to push for higher level fractals.

• Dungeons – 4 different gifts of [insert dungeons here] give you the precursor weapon from the mystic forge OR a weapon from a dungeon (in this case greatsword) and 3 different gifts of [insert dungeons here]. You get 1 lodestone along with the 60 tokens

• Crafting – Throw in a crafting recipe (costs 10 gold?) that you can get that uses lodestones and T6 crafting materials (step up from the box [insert armor name here] but below gifts used in legendary)

• Guild Missions – Higher amount of guild mission tokens + globs for a precursor. (Guild mission weekly chest already provides that chance for ascended accessories and precursor)

• Laurels – Not sure on this system. Higher amount of laurels + globs, but a chance of it dropping as a reward for completing the daily or monthly. Guaranteed yellow for completing besides laurel token and 5 silver?

• WvW – A crazy high amount of battle tokens since the chance of a drop exists already from the loot bags and a certain level in WXP. Promotes the World v World option and people who enjoy WvW

• sPvP – Not sure on this since I am not familiar with the mechanic on how to get skins there

• TP – Price may drop a little, but the people who enjoy flipping or playing the market can still purchase it with their gold.

• General PvE (World Boss Chests) – Already a chance for a precursor from them, but guaranteed yellow for a chance at ectos does help. Step in the right direction in my opinion.

Now there is a chance that this may be part of the scavenger hunt already, but at least it adds variety in getting the precursor you want; still has a high price in the TP due to the amount of tokens or effort it takes to get.

It’s pretty much widely agreed that precursors are complete bullkitten. I can understand all the material gathering for the gifts and whatnot, and for most of us it’s a -huge- pain. But then you hit the precursor brick wall.

If anyone has played DAoC and is aware of champion weapons, they’d know that this would be a much better system of earning your precursor. For those who don’t know, it’s just a semi-lengthy quest chain.

Dungeons and Fractals should have the best rewards, end of story.

The World Events can literally be completed by you press 1 once and then alt tabbing out, that’s fine and all but why do these give better rewards than playing actual difficult content?

Rising Dusk.2408:

The focus should be on improving PvE rewards so that people feel actually rewarded doing tough content.

I completely agree. As Ursan also noted, the value of these proposed solutions is that they address the underlying issue with the market right now, which is that top-tier materials are too scarce. People don’t need gold for its own sake, they need it to buy stuff they need to make the items they want, so gold/hr isn’t nearly as important as value/hr.

Another aspect of the current reward system that you brought up is the imbalance across activities. The fact that the boss DEs are swarmed right now is proof that their value/time is significantly higher than any other activity, and overriding players’ personal preferences for game activities. I won’t go into how I think we can better balance DE rewards as that is a subject for another thread, but I agree that rewards in other areas of the game need boosting to make them on par. I’m not sure that rares should become the default unit of reward for all types of game content, though. A good way to make sure player trading still occurs through the TP is to distribute goods that everybody needs in different avenues.

Let’s say everybody needs apples and pears. If we give everybody apples for every activity, then they become worthless, and players have no way to leverage their apples into the pears that they also need. But if we give apples for doing DEs and pears for doing dungeons, then players that like doing DEs can trade their apples to players that like doing dungeons for pears. To that end, I really like your suggestion of rewarding cores for doing dungeons. We could also increase the yield of T6 mats from dungeons/fractals, which would alleviate the current scarcity a bit, while adding value to those activities.

why not just make them personal rewards.

like in higher level fractals you get account bound exotics.

why not run precursors like that.
You have to do a bunch of very difficult pve content and can then “buy/craft” the ACCOUNT BOUND precursor that way, with either gifts of dungeons or by spending fractal relics or anything of the sort.

By making them instantly account bound, you don’t have to worry about them saturating the market, and still lets people who DO amass huge amount of gold be able to buy there own.

Why do people think that a change to make items account bound on purchase would result in lower prices?

Ensign.2189:

Why do people think that a change to make items account bound on purchase would result in lower prices?

No flipping of precursors. The price would be much lower than it is right now.

Geikamir.6329:

No flipping of precursors. The price would be much lower than it is right now.

How does flipping lead to higher prices?

I’d argue that the act of flipping increases the volume of transactions and helps keep the prices of the precursor stable and actually help buffer it against price spikes.

Ursan.7846:

Geikamir.6329:

No flipping of precursors. The price would be much lower than it is right now.

How does flipping lead to higher prices?

I’d argue that the act of flipping increases the volume of transactions and helps keep the prices of the precursor stable and actually help buffer it against price spikes.

Prices spike all the time when buyers spot a chance to create a false scarcity and increase price by lowering supply.

Without chance for profit, those large spikes are much less frequent. The price stays lower for longer.

Geikamir.6329:

Prices spike all the time when buyers spot a chance to create a false scarcity and increase price by lowering supply.

Without chance for profit, those large spikes are much less frequent. The price stays lower for longer.

How are we defining “flipping” here. I’m talking about placing buy orders and then placing sell orders.

Ursan.7846:

Geikamir.6329:

Prices spike all the time when buyers spot a chance to create a false scarcity and increase price by lowering supply.

Without chance for profit, those large spikes are much less frequent. The price stays lower for longer.

How are we defining “flipping” here. I’m talking about placing buy orders and then placing sell orders.

I mean, buying out and reselling for higher.

Also I should note that this would work directly in conjunction with having alternative ways to get precursors. Combined, these would make them much cheaper and in closer relation to each other price-wise.

Geikamir.6329:

I mean, buying out and reselling for higher.

Hmm. Perhaps, but I’m not fully sure if that really causes “higher” prices. In the past, there was considerable debate on whether the prices of Dawn/Dusk are “monopolized.” in the sense that people theoretically would buy it and re-list it for higher prices. John Smith provided data that pretty much tosses aside the notion that they can be “monopolized.”

I think the biggest lesson here is that due to the size of the economy and the playerbase, most prices you see on the TP, even the incredibly high ones, are dictated by market supply and demand. Removing the ability to buy out and re-list sell orders probably will have minimal impact on prices.

If precursors are account bound on aquire, the “poor sap” that gets the wrong one for his characters would truely be a poor sap. Now at least they can sell the wrong one and purchase the one they want. This is true for all items and I think is one of the resons the Trading Post is so necessary. Currently all mobs have an equal chance at dropping items in your level range (if I understand the loot system correctly.) You don’t kill shatterer for a chance at “epic sword of awesome.” This goes back to phys’ posts earlier about intentional drops. I really like that word, intentional. I always felt there was something different about gw2’s loot system but couldn’t put a name to it. In other mmo’s you have specific mobs that drop specific items. They are intentional. Here we have mobs drop everything, so you have to have a method of converting what you get into what you want. I don’t dislike our system, in fact I find it a nice change. I can do what I want and still work towards the fat loot that I want.

Rebort.6295:

If precursors are account bound on aquire, the “poor sap” that gets the wrong one for his characters would truely be a poor sap. Now at least they can sell the wrong one and purchase the one they want. This is true for all items and I think is one of the resons the Trading Post is so necessary. Currently all mobs have an equal chance at dropping items in your level range (if I understand the loot system correctly.) You don’t kill shatterer for a chance at “epic sword of awesome.” This goes back to phys’ posts earlier about intentional drops. I really like that word, intentional. I always felt there was something different about gw2’s loot system but couldn’t put a name to it. In other mmo’s you have specific mobs that drop specific items. They are intentional. Here we have mobs drop everything, so you have to have a method of converting what you get into what you want. I don’t dislike our system, in fact I find it a nice change. I can do what I want and still work towards the fat loot that I want.

The precursor would drop or come out of the forge as Bind on Equip until it’s put on the TP. Then it get’s transformed into Bind on Acquire.

Hegel.9182:

I loathe using the TP. Not only in GW2, but in any other game I’ve played that has an auction house. Sure, I’ll use it when needed, but I think that this game has a wonderful world that is a lot more interesting than the TP. I mean, I’m playing GW2 to do combat, exploring, socializing, rather than slave away at than the slow loading, clunky TP screen. Do you enjoy using the TP? Great, more power to you – but I don’t.

Still, I feel that the only (or vastly more efficient) way to acquire certain items is through the TP. I’m not talking only about precursors, but any other mats for legendaries. Tier 6 materials, lodestones, silver doubloons. Ask anyone and they’ll tell you that it’s better to save gold and buy them from the TP than to go through the trouble of farming them yourself.

As other people have mentioned in this thread, for once we were able to actually farm through combat something efficiently – ectos – but it was shot down immediately. I find it frustrating to rely so much on the TP and to be left behind the inflation curve if you’re not some kind of TP wiz.

This is precisely how I feel. I just saw the precursor I want double in price. There were two available.. now suddently 15 but at much higher prices.

I feel like I’m fighting a losing battle right now. I feel like I’ll never be able to achieve what I’m working towards all because I don’t play the market. I have to say that is completely wrong in my opinion. I should be able to work towards rewards by actually playing the game, not the economy.

Honestly, I’m getting really frustrated and irritated by how much I have to obsess over making money in this game to get the cooler stuff. It’s the complete opposite of my experiences in other MMOs. In those, I earned stuff from beating a hard dungeon or raid and never had to worry about money in order to get the shinies. For me Auction Houses have always been a shortcut if I was feeling too lazy to go out and get my own materials. Often I wasn’t. I’m the sort that would rather go out and get things for myself rather than paying someone else.

It’s funny that the people you see with legendaries are the people who area also sporting full T3 cultural armor dyed in abyss and celestial. This game is most rewarding to those who are day traders BY FAR. I feel the gap is far too wide and that you, Mr. Smith, are a bit out of touch with those of us who want very little to do with the economical side of the game given you find it so interesting (at least I assume so since it’s a career you’ve pursued :P ). I just want to play and earn stuff. I want that scavenger hunt. I want drop rates of t6 mats and lodestones to be a bit more forgiving. I want to earn my way to achievements without the entire process being so money focused. I know legendaries were meant to be more rare, but at this rate, I’m not sure I can ever attain it even though I play quite a lot.

Currently items are removed from circulation (lowering supply) when they are equipped. With the bind on purchase system supply is lowered on purchase. Ostensibly each purchase that lowered supply would also lower demand (you bought the one you want.) Wouldn’t this have a net zero affect on the price? What would it do to the amount of gold removed from the economy?

Rebort.6295:

Currently items are removed from circulation (lowering supply) when they are equipped. With the bind on purchase system supply is lowered on purchase. Ostensibly each purchase that lowered supply would also lower demand (you bought the one you want.) Wouldn’t this have a net zero affect on the price? What would it do to the amount of gold removed from the economy?

Binding precursors on purchase would only affect 1 group of people adversely, people that flip them for profit. If would have no effect for everyone else except to keep prices stabilized or possibly bring them lower.

Though the true benefits of such a system would occur most when introducing new items. It keeps the price lower for longer, only rising due to legitimate inflation and not via spikes caused by market speculation. As John has stated, the in-game market has experienced very little true inflation. This system would let such high-ticket items better mirror that.

If precursors are account bound on aquire, the “poor sap” that gets the wrong one for his characters would truely be a poor sap. Now at least they can sell the wrong one and purchase the one they want.

It could work.

So long as Precursors are RNG, they should definitely NEVER be Bind on Pick-up. I would truly hate to be “lucky” enough to pick u a precursor for a weapon I’d never use. If, on the other hand, there were any sort of alternate method of gaining them, one in which you could pick whichever precursor you wanted, then I could definitely see them as being BoP, to prevent people farming the method of gaining them and then reselling them for cash.

If they implemented a system where you could gain special tokens somehow, and then trade them in for a specific precursor, then that could work.

Geikamir.6329:

Rebort.6295:

Currently items are removed from circulation (lowering supply) when they are equipped. With the bind on purchase system supply is lowered on purchase. Ostensibly each purchase that lowered supply would also lower demand (you bought the one you want.) Wouldn’t this have a net zero affect on the price? What would it do to the amount of gold removed from the economy?

Binding precursors on purchase would only affect 1 group of people adversely, people that flip them for profit. If would have no effect for everyone else except to keep prices stabilized or possibly bring them lower.

Though the true benefits of such a system would occur most when introducing new items. It keeps the price lower for longer, only rising due to legitimate inflation and not via spikes caused by market speculation. As John has stated, the in-game market has experienced very little true inflation. This system would let such high-ticket items better mirror that.

I think it’s a little short sighted to say it would “only affect 1 group of people adversely” or otherwise. Also, what about the lack of all the gold leaving the economy from the “flippers.” If it happens as often as some people propose, wouldn’t it be a significant amount of gold not leaving the economy?

Whenever there is a shift in the fundamentals of a market, there is a corresponding shift in the price levels in the market. Depending on the supply and demand dynamics of the market, there is a time lag over which the price shifts to its new point. Sometimes it happens very quickly – see the price spike of ecto after the announced change – but more often it happens slowly.

People speculating on items tends to drive the price to its new equilibrium faster.

On the whole this is a good thing. In the case of precursor prices being driven up to their actual long run value, yes, it means you had to get on the boat earlier to get your underpriced precursor. It also means people getting precursors now are able to sell them for their actual value. The fact that inefficiencies in the market are driven out so quickly is a good thing; items tend to be priced appropriately, and you can confidently sell and buy at listed values and expect to be getting a good deal.

The biggest issue I have with the economy is that far, far too many items are bind on acquire. High end valuable rewards keep being introduced, but are kept off the market. Consequently, money keeps chasing the same things. Precursor demand is so high because, well, what else are you going to spend big piles of money on? Once you have your exotics it all goes into precursors, (charged) lodestones and ectos/T6 mats.

Ensign.2189:

The biggest issue I have with the economy is that far, far too many items are bind on acquire. High end valuable rewards keep being introduced, but are kept off the market. Consequently, money keeps chasing the same things. Precursor demand is so high because, well, what else are you going to spend big piles of money on? Once you have your exotics it all goes into precursors, (charged) lodestones and ectos/T6 mats.

the items are bind on aquire because they game is already too heavily gold wars at level 80+ They want to build endgame content that rewards people for playing the game, not cof speed runs, farming 3 events for hours upon hours, or playing monopoly mad men the videogame.

Ideally money would act as a means for trading time spent and aquiring things you may like to have but dont want to get yourself, however with the current systems the money hunting is the best way to achieve anything anyone is selling.

This means if they want to make the over all world more rewarding, they cant make everything about money, because that just gets people doing only the highest money earning activities

Vinny.6924:

Entitlement again.

Its a skin, you won’t die if you don’t have it.

Its a very long term goal.

Wait for the scavenger hunt.

Quit.

Seems like you dont know about the exploit months ago.

Makes the precursor a reward from a huge mission chain which takes lots of time and makes it account bound. Player still needs to buy mats from tp or farm them, but the precursor part becomes something that can be remember and actually means something epic but not just about gold.

Rebort.6295:

Geikamir.6329:

Rebort.6295:

Currently items are removed from circulation (lowering supply) when they are equipped. With the bind on purchase system supply is lowered on purchase. Ostensibly each purchase that lowered supply would also lower demand (you bought the one you want.) Wouldn’t this have a net zero affect on the price? What would it do to the amount of gold removed from the economy?

Binding precursors on purchase would only affect 1 group of people adversely, people that flip them for profit. If would have no effect for everyone else except to keep prices stabilized or possibly bring them lower.

Though the true benefits of such a system would occur most when introducing new items. It keeps the price lower for longer, only rising due to legitimate inflation and not via spikes caused by market speculation. As John has stated, the in-game market has experienced very little true inflation. This system would let such high-ticket items better mirror that.

I think it’s a little short sighted to say it would “only affect 1 group of people adversely” or otherwise. Also, what about the lack of all the gold leaving the economy from the “flippers.” If it happens as often as some people propose, wouldn’t it be a significant amount of gold not leaving the economy?

What do you mean leaving the economy? The money is transferred between players not destroyed.

And if you are talking about the tax, then this would have such a microscopic effect on the total amount of gold taken out of the game via tax that’s it’s not even worth mentioning. Millions of transactions are made every day on the TP.

I am of course talking about the transaction fees from flipping. 15% of a 600+g item is not insignificant. If this happens enough to increase prices as you claim, it should be worth mentioning. I’m not convinced a lack of flipping would lead to lower prices. It would reduce the time it takes for an item to reach equilibrium (a number that is constantly changing btw.) So if a shift up in the equilibrium price happens, the price would remain lower for longer but it would eventually reach where it should be. Higher velocity insures fewer transactions take place away from the equilibrium price.

Rebort.6295:

I am of course talking about the transaction fees from flipping. 15% of a 600+g item is not insignificant. If this happens enough to increase prices as you claim, it should be worth mentioning. I’m not convinced a lack of flipping would lead to lower prices. It would reduce the time it takes for an item to reach equilibrium (a number that is constantly changing btw.) So if a shift up in the equilibrium price happens, the price would remain lower for longer but it would eventually reach where it should be. Higher velocity insures fewer transactions take place away from the equilibrium price.

flipping in game or in real world isnt usually a sign of equilibrium. They really have nothing to do with each other. Sure on one side you have the businessman buying something below value and selling it at value, but on the otherside you have situations where the value of the item is no longer its value in the actual world, but the percieved value as a stock, or commodity, or whatever. At that point flipping represents not the value of the item, but more of a game of hot potato amongst businessmen/gamblers to see who can profit the most before the bottom drops out.

regardless of the whole flipping debate, the real problem is 2 fold
1) the descrepancy between the most wealthy and the average players wealth continues to grow
2) The most effecient way to get almost any item is to buy it on the tp

these two together mean, the people with the most money also have the most effecient means of aquiring items, and also that regular players cannot compete with them in terms of buying power.

This means that for someone not hunting money anything that is desired is out of reach, and if you try to get it outside of the TP , you feel like you are wasting your time.

phys.7689:

Rebort.6295:

I am of course talking about the transaction fees from flipping. 15% of a 600+g item is not insignificant. If this happens enough to increase prices as you claim, it should be worth mentioning. I’m not convinced a lack of flipping would lead to lower prices. It would reduce the time it takes for an item to reach equilibrium (a number that is constantly changing btw.) So if a shift up in the equilibrium price happens, the price would remain lower for longer but it would eventually reach where it should be. Higher velocity insures fewer transactions take place away from the equilibrium price.

flipping in game or in real world isnt usually a sign of equilibrium. They really have nothing to do with each other. Sure on one side you have the businessman buying something below value and selling it at value, but on the otherside you have situations where the value of the item is no longer its value in the actual world, but the percieved value as a stock, or commodity, or whatever. At that point flipping represents not the value of the item, but more of a game of hot potato amongst businessmen/gamblers to see who can profit the most before the bottom drops out.

regardless of the whole flipping debate, the real problem is 2 fold
1) the descrepancy between the most wealthy and the average players wealth continues to grow
2) The most effecient way to get almost any item is to buy it on the tp

these two together mean, the people with the most money also have the most effecient means of aquiring items, and also that regular players cannot compete with them in terms of buying power.

This means that for someone not hunting money anything that is desired is out of reach, and if you try to get it outside of the TP , you feel like you are wasting your time.

I’m not sure we think equilibrium is the same thing. I would define it as the price where supply meets demand at any given time. I’m no economist, but in my mind it is (without perfect information) an abstraction. Flipping (buy for one price, selling for another) increases the rate a given market gets close to an equilibrium price.

I agree with you on #2 but not entirely on #1. I will try to formulate an agrument in the morning.

To answer John’s question, I think there are two solutions.

1. Soulbound items. Exclusive items you cannot get through the TP; you can only acquire them by playing the content. The guild commendation system is heading in that direction with its new weapons skins. Strictly speaking, this is not an answer to John’s question, but an answer to the community that believes that “playing PvE” should be more rewarding than “playing the TP”.

2. Implementing a fee for placing buy orders, or getting rid of buy orders altogether. Given that I made quite a bit of gold on the TP through buy orders [although I’m in the toddler league compared to most posters here], I wouldn’t like this solution one bit. However, I think it’s the only truthful and logical answer to John’s question.

One comment: people that are angry because the price of globs of ecto rose following the mega boss event change, should realize a very simple fact. Everyone has a certain amount of coin. Some have more, some less, but there is an average out there of the amount that people have. People need to buy a certain amount of “necessities” with the amount of coin they have; vials of powerful blood, globs of ecto, lodestones, and other t6 materials, to make the most wanted items in the game. When ecto becomes more expensive, they suddenly have less coin to spend on vials powerful blood. So, they wait until the price of vials drop. And low and behold, it does, because supply is going to outweigh demand until we find a price that people are willing to pay. So if the price of ecto rises, somewhere else on the TP, the price of another item drops.

Now, perhaps you were making big bucks of the Mega Events. Well, RIP Mega Events, but up next: another profitable way of making a buck in PvE. But why didn’t you take a step back to see how the mega-event changed prices of items sold on the TP, and use that knowledge to your advantage? PvE and the TP are not mutually exclusive, they complement eachother very well, if you take a step back and consider what is happening around you, and consider what it does to the price of items on the TP. You can join the crowd in mindlessly grinding PvE content, or you can use that knowledge – the fact that a crowd is doing certain content because it is the most profitable kind at that moment – to your advantage. And make more than the crowd as a result. In fact, since you always have the TP at your fingertips – even while doing PvE – you can do both at the same time.

I can say the same thing for Charged Lodestones. That’s whats a being a PITA right now. And they cost 3g from the TP. I’m a guardian, not a zerker warrior, nor do I carry zerker gear, I can’t really farm gold all day either in CoF P1. I guess I could buy gems and convert to gold. ANet would be pleased with that. I smile when people suggest that they nerf CoF P1, that will be a day to see all the crying in LA, full of bored zerker warriors LFG.

Anyways, I made a Dusk from the mystic forge. Now, what did I do? That’s right, I went and sold that sucker for 560g on the trading post. Do I feel like a bad person? Nope. What should I do, be a white knight and sell it for 200 – 300g? Why? I needed a Dawn, and they are in the same price range.

Nike.2631:

What I actually want is~

2. I feel that time spent in PvE and TP should have the similar rates of advancement towards endgame goals.

I like this way of putting things, but I’m worried that it isn’t actually possible without seriously overhauling the entire system. The problem is that as long as drops are random and lots of drops are things you don’t want, there needs to be a way to turn the things you don’t want into things you do want. And unless this is going to go via yet another new kind of account bound currency (which seems less than ideal), the way to do that is to sell them, and then we’re back to going via gold.

Maybe the best example of the need for this is fractal skins. Nike writes,

I really do appreciate the introduction of the ascended gear tier, as outside of the triforge amulet it actually does decouple an endgame goal from Gold Acquisition. While I’m not pushing hard in fractals beyond the teens I can appreciate there are skins unique to those who do WHICH CANNOT BE BOUGHT. While I’m not in a big guild I can aprove of new guild weapon skins that reflect (and display) that sort of focus in someone’s play and cannot be bought.

And I really do like the fractal skins. The weapons are cool, the backpiece is cool, that’s all great. And fractal weapon drops are really rare, and that’s great, too. But when your fractal weapon dro kitten omething you don’t want, it sucks. Ascended rings have the same problem, and the “fix” was to just give you a new account bound currency that lets you get the rings you want. This doesn’t fix the underlying problem, though, which is that rare drops, which are supposed to be exciting, end up being completely useless, and you just ignore them while you grind out the currency. I mean, yeah, they could let you buy the fractal weapon skins for 100 pristine relics or something, and it’d be a workaround, but it doesn’t solve the problem.

Letting us forge the rings and skins doesn’t really solve the problem, either. “Woo, I got one fourth of a free random drop!” isn’t the reaction you want people to have when they get their incredibly lucky drop. The only easy fix I can think of is to let the rings, skins, etc. be their own currency. Put in traders that will let people trade in a few skins they don’t want for one they do, or a few lodestones they don’t want for one they do, or whatever, and without the randomness of the forge. But given that they like the forge, I figure they don’t like that option.

http://frederickkaufman.typepad.com/files/the-food-bubble-pdf.pdf
They starve then they farm.

John Smith.4610:

Let’s calm down a bit, this isn’t getting us far. Instead let me ask this.
Here are the assumptions that I’m operating under for this question:
1. You feel that PvE and TP have difference levels of gold earning
2. You feel that PvE and TP should have the same level of gold earning

What would be your plan for implementing a reward system that would achieve what you desire, given the constraint that you may not get rid of the trading post?

Can we change the trading post?

Here’s my thoughts. There could be a single price for an item on the TP separated by some fixed amount (ummm… maybe 30% (foreshadowing)). The price of the item could be set by how many are available at any given time. If more people want to buy the item than sell it, the price goes up, if more people want to sell it than buy it the price goes down.

Exactly like the gems in the gem store.

TooBz.3065:

John Smith.4610:

Let’s calm down a bit, this isn’t getting us far. Instead let me ask this.
Here are the assumptions that I’m operating under for this question:
1. You feel that PvE and TP have difference levels of gold earning
2. You feel that PvE and TP should have the same level of gold earning

What would be your plan for implementing a reward system that would achieve what you desire, given the constraint that you may not get rid of the trading post?

Can we change the trading post?

Here’s my thoughts. There could be a single price for an item on the TP separated by some fixed amount (ummm… maybe 30% (foreshadowing)). The price of the item could be set by how many are available at any given time. If more people want to buy the item than sell it, the price goes up, if more people want to sell it than buy it the price goes down.

Exactly like the gems in the gem store.

But if you take away the ability to set prices, how am I supposed to manipu… err… price my goods for what I want to sell them for? That’s so unfair mate.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

But if you take away the ability to set prices, how am I supposed to manipu… err… price my goods for what I want to sell them for? That’s so unfair mate.

Yeah, I can see that this would be difficult. It also has the problem of requiring Anet to purchase and hold the goods until someone wants to buy them. No more posting and item for sale and waiting for someone to buy it. So in that way it’s not really a market.

bah if tp is the only way you will even try to get a precursor then you deserve the high price. they are only so high because people keep buying them at those high prices. If you got a precursor that wasn’t for a legendary you wanted would you list it at a low price knowing people would buy it for more?
If you can’t honestly say yes then you have no right to complain.

Ioflux.4369:

Amun Ra.6435:

Allisa Wonderland.8192:

Price keeps Legendary…. Legendary. Skill at TP is just as valid as skill at adventuring.

Very true…but both should be equal in the amount of gold you can get for the time put in.

The guy flipping burgers for 12hrs a day 6days a week should not make as much as a surgeon who saves people’s lives working 8hrs a day 5 times a week or a stock broker who’s mastered the art of buy/selling shares.

Agree on the burgers and surgeon. Disagree on the stock broker. Shares are a form of investment, a token of trust to a company you want to support. That’s exactly what shares are about. Imho, a share should be held at least 24h before selling. Day traders are disastrous for healthy corporations because they influence the market price of shares without participating in the company.

I like capitalism, it’s a good system. But shares have a different function than daytrading.

well i made rare 1000 gs and try mystic toiled way it real shut by name mystic toiled soo no wonder the prices are seim and coing up it geting hard and hard to get precurser gs the shot make more chains of drop or geting it in forge becous ad sec it just to kitten low

tonny.7580:

well i made rare 1000 gs and try mystic toiled way it real shut by name mystic toiled soo no wonder the prices are seim and coing up it geting hard and hard to get precurser gs the shot make more chains of drop or geting it in forge becous ad sec it just to kitten low

Yeah well according to most of the data provided by players the average is 2000+ rares = 1 precursor

The hell is that?

nother 1000gs in to the toild soo thad 2000 now and no luck

Hell I picked up dawn for 473g like a month ago. Throw in a bid order and keep grinding gold and who knows, maybe your order will get filled or at the very least, you’ll grind more gold to up your bid.

And throwing gold away into the mystic forge is the worst idea you can do. For every one winner, there is prolly 100 losers. Better off selling all those greatswords and anything else you get and holding the cash. That 2000 greatswords would have been about 800g if you had just made em and sold em. Easily dawn or dusk plus cash to spare.

Somebody is actually seeing those precursors drop that you’re so eager to turn over your life savings to get. Either they drop from the environment a lot more than ya’d think, or someone’s found the sweet spot to make a profit over the long haul for generating them via the forge.

It only takes a few “’nother 1000gs in to the toild soo thad 2000 now and no luck” signs posted around your gold mine to scare off the competition .