Guild Wars 2

Okay so it’s actually another way of playing the game, but you don’t get karma nor exp from it. The fastest way I can explain this is using rules:
1) Don’t spend your money…ever…seriously don’t do it unless you’re making an investment.
2) If you’re flipping for a legendary, don’t spend your money on other skins….ever, nor mats, don’t spend money on mats for it, save your money until you have exactly as much as you need(many like myself Q.Q ‘ed about this on forums and some of my guildies resorted to paying for gems on the last little bit of mats to get theirs).
3) The TP has a tax for posting an Item which is 5% of what youre selling that item/stack of item for, and a tax for that item being sold which is 10% of what you’re selling it for. In total this is a 15% tax so when you sell an item/ a stack of an item, do this: 0.15 x (price you’re selling the item/stack of an item for) – (price you bought the item/stack of item for). This is your profit. It may be small or big depending how many items or stack of items you buy and “re-sell”.
4)Use some websites to help you understand which items to buy and re-sell! Over time, you can analyze the trends that the items you buy and sell have, study some basic economic principles, try to find niches for your markets. I recommend going to www.gw2spidy.com (not my favorite), www.goldwars2.com(my favorite for finding markets), and www.gw2tp.com . You can even use the trading post wiki http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Trading_Post to try and understand the system.
5) If your item is successful for a few days, don’t assume it will be successful for life and order another 50 stacks from your previous 5. A lot of rookies do this and then quit tp flipping because their items haven’t sold in months. What you want to do is you want to find a new market to invest in, and boom more money.
6) Invest with friends! Yeah, many people who have like 18-19k gold, and look like they robbed the tp usually never flip alone, devise a scheme, trade some gold with each other, be smart about it though.
7)remember that not all your investments will be successful, and that you’ll probably at one point you’ll feel that you’re not making gold, what you want to do is remove your buy orders and check how much gold you’ve made, then take that gold and re-order items, this should help cleanse yourself of those thoughts that you’re not succeeding. But don’t remove your selling orders, you’ll lose money, just pull out a calculator for those. Actually never go to your “Items I’m selling” tab, or in fact don’t even look at it. Whether you like it or not eventually those items you have there WILL sell…unless you have a market with an extremely flat flat flat graph line that extends since like 6 months ago. Also, don’t excessively buy 100 stacks of something, take it easy and vary your items from time to time.
8) The reason people never tell you what kind of items they sell is out of two major reasons: 1) they don’t want you making buy orders on their items and outbid them, and 2) the item they tell you today may be obsolete in like 2 days to 2 weeks, no joke. So don’t bother asking anyone for items. Oh and people who say “I get 300 gold a day” are liars, don’t let them troll you. You’ll be surprised at how gullible people are.
9) Make a spreadsheet to keep track of markets you’re investing in, this one is absolutely important, like 100%, this one takes a crazy amount of creativity, and possibly a lot of time. This will save your life, and can remind you of items you used to tp flip which may be flippable at this moment.
10) Don’t make TP flipping your only method of playing the game, do an occasional dungeon, go WvW, do spvp, explore PvE further!I had this Issue where all I wanted to do was give up on dungeoneering because I got so tired of it; so all I did was WvW and TP flip. Eventually I gave in to going back to PvE and doing dungeon runs again but not in excess since I beat the story and all.
I hope I summed it up; I want to say now that after getting sunrise and 500 armor crafting 2 days ago, I had 0 gold 13 silver, 43 copper. Today 51…. so….yeah it works and you can start with just 0 gold. Furthermore, you might probably think you’re hurting the economy at one point, you’re actually making it better, by removing gold from the game and making items more valuable! So don’t think of yourself as a thief; think of yourself as another person robbing the trading post for it’s own good; like taking a bank down the legal way for making your mortgage rates too high.

Good job for people trying to get into this. The diversity of the flip is a good one to keep going on about.

everyone who flip on tp must be ban !
you ppl rise the prises on everything !

how to get gold legally 1:1
1 play the game
2 save gold
3 buy what you want !

sitting in la buying cheap and selling expensive IS NOT THE RIGHT WAY TO GET GOLD !

Svetli.4276:

everyone who flip on tp must be ban !
you ppl rise the prises on everything !

how to get gold legally 1:1
1 play the game
2 save gold
3 buy what you want !

sitting in la buying cheap and selling expensive IS NOT THE RIGHT WAY TO GET GOLD !

But running against walls (dungeons), autoattacking enemies (world bosses) or running in circles (flavor of the month farm area like pavilion or dry top) is the right way to get gold?

yes that is playing the game what a net disain the game for is going on events, dungeons, world bosses !
if the goal of the game was making gold with tp flipping there was just going to be la with 1 npc and all the flipping you can do !

Svetli.4276:

yes that is playing the game what a net disain the game for is going on events, dungeons, world bosses !
if the goal of the game was making gold with tp flipping there was just going to be la with 1 npc and all the flipping you can do !

TP is part of the game too, ..anet could’ve removed the tp if they wanted. They have an economist. Flipping is a way to play GW2 as well,

whether you like it or not.

Hm, buy low, sell high. Doesn’t exactly need a tl;dr. :P

Also, #6 could result in a ban in some games. I think the economist here isn’t as worried about that and has said as such, but you definitely do that at your own risk. Most game economies don’t take kindly to cartels.

So if you’re gonna flip, remember it’s a 15% slap in the face in both directions!

I’ll add a couple, might be related to previous points. Basically you need to develop a deep understanding of a particular market:

1. Try to understand how many of a particular item move in a day (this will likely vary weeekday vs. weekend). Whether crafting or flipping – start by making/buying then listing 5, then 25, and increase as the market will bear.

2. The websites are great tools, but the single time point calculations of profit that they are rarely useful for long. Look at weekly and longer trends, cycles, etc. In many cases it makes sense to buy on tues, wed or thurs and sell on the weekend.

3. Sometimes you need to just eat the loss and move on. If the market is “broken” – i.e. an update or something completely nuked the market, just relist/dump and put the money to work elsewhere. No sense tying up 50g in capital for 4 months to avoid a 2g loss when you can make much more by having that money liquid again.

Taygus.4571:

Svetli.4276:

yes that is playing the game what a net disain the game for is going on events, dungeons, world bosses !
if the goal of the game was making gold with tp flipping there was just going to be la with 1 npc and all the flipping you can do !

TP is part of the game too, ..anet could’ve removed the tp if they wanted. They have an economist. Flipping is a way to play GW2 as well,

whether you like it or not.

tp YES
abusing it to gain wealth NO
tp flipping is abuse of the game SO NO IT MUST NOT BE PART OF THE GAME !
buy and sell timer will fix that

Svetli.4276:

Taygus.4571:

Svetli.4276:

yes that is playing the game what a net disain the game for is going on events, dungeons, world bosses !
if the goal of the game was making gold with tp flipping there was just going to be la with 1 npc and all the flipping you can do !

TP is part of the game too, ..anet could’ve removed the tp if they wanted. They have an economist. Flipping is a way to play GW2 as well,

whether you like it or not.

tp YES
abusing it to gain wealth NO
tp flipping is abuse of the game SO NO IT MUST NOT BE PART OF THE GAME !
buy and sell timer will fix that

It is not abuse lol. The TP and flipping is intended and actually helps the economy.

omg NO it is NOT just cuz a net do not punish ppl do not make it legal o_o
tp flipping is GAME ABUSE ! IT HAVE NOTING TO DO PLAYING THE GAME !

jesus

Svetli.4276:

omg NO it is NOT just cuz a net do not punish ppl do not make it legal o_o
tp flipping is GAME ABUSE ! IT HAVE NOTING TO DO PLAYING THE GAME !

jesus

Prove it.

Here’s my proof:

John Smith.4610:

Flippers increase liquidity and bring prices closer to equilibrium, almost always lowering prices and providing preferences to other players. I see no reason why anyone would want to stop that.

John Smith.4610:

Here is my stance on this subject:
The TP is part of Tyria and is a part of the game. Spending your time learning to interact with it is a fine way to play the game if that’s what you enjoy. It has ups and downs (including no exp, karma, achievements).

The amount of money to be made on the TP is finite. There is no way it can’t be, the TP only ever sinks money, it never creates it. The TP offers convenience to trade outside of equilibrium pricing, and if a player decides to step in and take the time and effort to consume that trade and push the trade into equilibrium, that is great for the economy. It pushed prices towards equilibrium, provides a service to those who want convenience and sinks money all at the same time.

Trading takes skill, and lots of it, it cannot be argued otherwise and here is why. Because the profit is so limited, the profit has to be split between all the people effectively trading. The lower the skill cap, the more people trading effectively, the less profit individuals make until there’s no longer a real market. If one argues that there is money to be made, then you are arguing that skill is involved.

Notice how he encourages flipping?

Svetli.4276:

omg NO it is NOT just cuz a net do not punish ppl do not make it legal o_o
tp flipping is GAME ABUSE ! IT HAVE NOTING TO DO PLAYING THE GAME !

jesus

First reading this, and then reading your signature, is one of the best ironies I’ve found so far on these forums.

It does seem anti-intuitive to think that buy low, sell high “lowers” prices, but I do see the point about equilibrium.

Buying out the low material to sell it for a higher price means that there is room again for new materials to enter the market at higher prices as well, via undercutting. This gives producers (material farmers, etc) actual value for what they enter into the market.

The raise in price also helps siphon gold out of the economy to keep it more stable. TP flippers have to suck up a huge fee just to buy, list, and earn on their investments. If it’s not at least a 30% increase, it’s probably not worth doing at all. Which means they have to invest in highly volatile materials.
…and my brain went from gold sinks to farming guiding gameplay and..

Yeah, it’s a complex topic, one that the game’s economist has a pretty firm grasp of.

Rauderi.8706:

It does seem anti-intuitive to think that buy low, sell high “lowers” prices, but I do see the point about equilibrium.

Buying out the low material to sell it for a higher price means that there is room again for new materials to enter the market at higher prices as well, via undercutting. This gives producers (material farmers, etc) actual value for what they enter into the market.

The raise in price also helps siphon gold out of the economy to keep it more stable. TP flippers have to suck up a huge fee just to buy, list, and earn on their investments. If it’s not at least a 30% increase, it’s probably not worth doing at all. Which means they have to invest in highly volatile materials.
…and my brain went from gold sinks to farming guiding gameplay and..

Yeah, it’s a complex topic, one that the game’s economist has a pretty firm grasp of.

This only applies to impatient buyers/sellers. For those utilizing buy orders and sell offers it increases prices on buy orders and decreases prices on sell offers.

mtpelion.4562:

I mean, you’re a farmer, right? That means that you DIRECTLY BENEFIT from flippers EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

Why would you want to cut your own hands off?

Please elaborate on this further.

Svetli.4276:

everyone who flip on tp must be ban !
you ppl rise the prises on everything !

how to get gold legally 1:1
1 play the game
2 save gold
3 buy what you want !

sitting in la buying cheap and selling expensive IS NOT THE RIGHT WAY TO GET GOLD !

People who play the game should be banned. (Sarcasm. Not serious at all.)When you complete a dungeon, clear a map, finish an event, etc. gold is introduced to the economy resulting in inflation. Every time we flip, 15% of the money disappears. TP flippers are undoing the damage you are doing to the economy.

TP Flipping helps the game, it’s the biggest drain on gold in the game. 15% on every transaction and no money is created it’s only destroyed. This is what stabilizes the games prices. Dungeons are the opposite. Doing a dungeon creates gold but doesn’t really destroy any (waypoint and food/oil costs are negligible losses).

So really we dungeon runners/open world farmers/whatever should be thanking the TP flippers for constantly throwing money out of the economy as well as creating constant transactions to more accurately pinpoint the true market value of goods.

The prices don’t raise because of TP flippers, some markets may be cornered and manipulated by the extremely wealthy but overall TP flippers don’t raise prices, the increase in demand and stagnation in supply is what causes increases in prices, that and a slow and steady inflation within the game thanks to things like dungeons.

All that said, I find it far more entertaining to dungeon run or kill stuff in general than playing the spreadsheet game and the TP, so I don’t flip

Essence Snow.3194:

mtpelion.4562:

I mean, you’re a farmer, right? That means that you DIRECTLY BENEFIT from flippers EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

Why would you want to cut your own hands off?

Please elaborate on this further.

Flippers place buy orders. Other Flippers place higher buy orders in order to be “first in line” to buy.

Farmers get items that have buy orders out for them. Farmers fill buy orders.

Ergo, Flippers compete with each other for the highest buy order which means that they are increasing the amount that Farmers get when filling buy orders.

Essence Snow.3194:

This only applies to impatient buyers/sellers. For those utilizing buy orders and sell offers it increases prices on buy orders and decreases prices on sell offers.

True, true. That does allow for a wider margin of error.
I’m more of a producer. Many alts means I hang out in midtier zones that sell pretty well on the market.

mtpelion.4562:

Essence Snow.3194:

mtpelion.4562:

I mean, you’re a farmer, right? That means that you DIRECTLY BENEFIT from flippers EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

Why would you want to cut your own hands off?

Please elaborate on this further.

Flippers place buy orders. Other Flippers place higher buy orders in order to be “first in line” to buy.

Farmers get items that have buy orders out for them. Farmers fill buy orders.

Ergo, Flippers compete with each other for the highest buy order which means that they are increasing the amount that Farmers get when filling buy orders.

Flippers place sell orders to move their goods that they bought with buy orders. Other Flippers place lower sell orders in order to be “first in line” to sell.

Farmers get items that can be listed to sell. Patient farmers place sell orders.

Ergo, Flippers compete with each other for the lowest sell order which means that they are decreasing the amount that Farmers get when they sell their things.

I’m not against flipping at all, but just pointing out that what flippers do is more to move prices closer to the 15% spread (or less). They are selling liquidity to impatient people who want to buy/sell now. “Pure” flipping won’t really shift the market to overall higher prices.

thehipone.6812:

Flippers place sell orders to move their goods that they bought with buy orders. Other Flippers place lower sell orders in order to be “first in line” to sell.

Farmers get items that can be listed to sell. Patient farmers place sell orders.

Ergo, Flippers compete with each other for the lowest sell order which means that they are decreasing the amount that Farmers get when they sell their things.

I’m not against flipping at all, but just pointing out that what flippers do is more to move prices closer to the 15% spread (or less). They are selling liquidity to impatient people who want to buy/sell now. “Pure” flipping won’t really shift the market to overall higher prices.

Yes, sell order amounts go down due to flipping (and due to non-flippers such as farmers who list sell orders), however unless a farmer focuses on a single market enough to know the liquidity, volume, and frequency, they are going to be more likely to fill buy orders for the sure thing.

You are correct, overall prices will not go up, but buy order prices will and that is the bread and butter of the farming economy.

mtpelion.4562:

thehipone.6812:

Flippers place sell orders to move their goods that they bought with buy orders. Other Flippers place lower sell orders in order to be “first in line” to sell.

Farmers get items that can be listed to sell. Patient farmers place sell orders.

Ergo, Flippers compete with each other for the lowest sell order which means that they are decreasing the amount that Farmers get when they sell their things.

I’m not against flipping at all, but just pointing out that what flippers do is more to move prices closer to the 15% spread (or less). They are selling liquidity to impatient people who want to buy/sell now. “Pure” flipping won’t really shift the market to overall higher prices.

Yes, sell order amounts go down due to flipping (and due to non-flippers such as farmers who list sell orders), however unless a farmer focuses on a single market enough to know the liquidity, volume, and frequency, they are going to be more likely to fill buy orders for the sure thing.

You are correct, overall prices will not go up, but buy order prices will and that is the bread and butter of the farming economy.

I think that’s a rather large assumption to say that farmers are mainly relying on selling to buy offers.

Essence Snow.3194:

I think that’s a rather large assumption to say that farmers are mainly relying on selling to buy offers.

Disagree. Farmers typically aren’t putting in the kind of research into velocity and volume that a flipper does as that represents time that they are NOT farming. Sure, there are people who mix their strategies or who work with the same market enough to know a safe place to list their goods where they know it will sell, but the majority of players don’t put that much time or thought into their TP activity and are therefore going to use the default setting which is to fill a buy order.

It is safe to do so, and if they were putting in the time and effort necessary to mitigate the risk involved with using sell orders, they would probably have transitioned over to flipping once they realized how much more profitable it is compared to farming.

That leaves one to assume that most farmers are filling orders rather than listing items.

Svetli.4276:

abusing it to gain wealth NO
tp flipping is abuse of the game SO NO IT MUST NOT BE PART OF THE GAME !
buy and sell timer will fix that

• Who defines it as abuse?
• Who defines what is ok and not ok to do to “gain wealth”?
• Who defines what is part of the game?

I think the answer to all of the above is ANET and they haven’t put a buy / sell timer in the game (nor ANY restrictions on TP use….18 months after release), so I’m going to take that as an indication you are simply wrong in all your assumptions.

Perhaps they DO need to come up with a method to thwart automated (BOT) trading, but I’m not sure how they do that.

Basically those players that buy and sell directly, profit from lower prices due to flippers.
People who place buy orders and sell listings dont profit from lower prices because they are in competition with flippers as they do the exact same thing.

Essence Snow.3194:

Rauderi.8706:

It does seem anti-intuitive to think that buy low, sell high “lowers” prices, but I do see the point about equilibrium.

Buying out the low material to sell it for a higher price means that there is room again for new materials to enter the market at higher prices as well, via undercutting. This gives producers (material farmers, etc) actual value for what they enter into the market.

The raise in price also helps siphon gold out of the economy to keep it more stable. TP flippers have to suck up a huge fee just to buy, list, and earn on their investments. If it’s not at least a 30% increase, it’s probably not worth doing at all. Which means they have to invest in highly volatile materials.
…and my brain went from gold sinks to farming guiding gameplay and..

Yeah, it’s a complex topic, one that the game’s economist has a pretty firm grasp of.

This only applies to impatient buyers/sellers. For those utilizing buy orders and sell offers it increases prices on buy orders and decreases prices on sell offers.

Isn’t this the definition of “reaching equilibrium”? Sell offers go down, buy orders go up, and they reach a balance point somewhere in the middle.

mtpelion.4562:

Essence Snow.3194:

I think that’s a rather large assumption to say that farmers are mainly relying on selling to buy offers.

Disagree. Farmers typically aren’t putting in the kind of research into velocity and volume that a flipper does as that represents time that they are NOT farming. Sure, there are people who mix their strategies or who work with the same market enough to know a safe place to list their goods where they know it will sell, but the majority of players don’t put that much time or thought into their TP activity and are therefore going to use the default setting which is to fill a buy order.

It is safe to do so, and if they were putting in the time and effort necessary to mitigate the risk involved with using sell orders, they would probably have transitioned over to flipping once they realized how much more profitable it is compared to farming.

That leaves one to assume that most farmers are filling orders rather than listing items.

Almost every farmable items has such velocity that simply listing an item 1c less than the lowest sell listing will result in a rather speedy sale. Not only that but most farmers are farming for a reason. Selling to buy orders is counterproductive to the reason they farming.

The only research one needs for listing such items is to price their listings according to market trends to maximize profits.<—this is what flippers do (at least decent ones)

I would gamble to say that most buy orders being filled are likely filled by those just amassing items via secondary intentions.

Cool breakdown on how it works. Sounds like a lot of work, haha. I applaud the skill and patience of the people who can do this well.

I don’t understand people being bothered by it, unless they are jealous. As far as I can tell, you have thoroughly earned it if you profit a lot off of this – perhaps earned it more so than us folks who dink around faceroll world bosses and event farming.

Labjax.2465:

Cool breakdown on how it works. Sounds like a lot of work, haha. I applaud the skill and patience of the people who can do this well.

I don’t understand people being bothered by it, unless they are jealous. As far as I can tell, you have thoroughly earned it if you profit a lot off of this – perhaps earned it more so than us folks who dink around faceroll world bosses and event farming.

I agree, it’s a good beginner’s start to market trading. gj OP!
I would add some info about speculating and investing in limited-time items.

most people are bothered by it because they see it as: if this person is making gold, that gold is coming from somewhere, and since I’m not making gold, it must be coming from me.

Raven Twospirit.9342:

Isn’t this the definition of “reaching equilibrium”? Sell offers go down, buy orders go up, and they reach a balance point somewhere in the middle.

Easy to check…..look at the delta between lowest sell and highest buy…the closer they are, the more balance that market is (and the less attractive to “flip” in it). That does NOT mean that particular market is not potentially a good longer term investment (but there would need to be some “circumstances” to do some significant future price changes to make it one).

You should NEVER sell an item without first looking at the BUY orders…..get in a habit of first selecting BUY FROM BLTP whenever you review an item to sell.

Uhh for those who are ranting about TP flippers , I didn’t exactly highlight all the benefits of TP flipping, but do note that if you have played other mmos where there is an auction house/trade broker, a lot of the people do in fact trade for gold, but by doing it discreetly. Furthermore, there is nothing bad at all about TP Flipping, you should acknowledge that more than half the players are using this to make gold and that it actually does benefit the economy.

Brother Grimm.5176:

Svetli.4276:

abusing it to gain wealth NO
tp flipping is abuse of the game SO NO IT MUST NOT BE PART OF THE GAME !
buy and sell timer will fix that

• Who defines it as abuse?
• Who defines what is ok and not ok to do to “gain wealth”?
• Who defines what is part of the game?

I think the answer to all of the above is ANET and they haven’t put a buy / sell timer in the game (nor ANY restrictions on TP use….18 months after release), so I’m going to take that as an indication you are simply wrong in all your assumptions.

Perhaps they DO need to come up with a method to thwart automated (BOT) trading, but I’m not sure how they do that.

I remember checking his post history and saw something a long the lines of him saying that flipping is bannable in WoW. He’s applying that to this game.

Edit: Here’s the post I was referring to

Svetli.4276:

in wow you get ban for flipping items
here you get a f medal

Essence Snow.3194:

Rauderi.8706:

It does seem anti-intuitive to think that buy low, sell high “lowers” prices, but I do see the point about equilibrium.

Buying out the low material to sell it for a higher price means that there is room again for new materials to enter the market at higher prices as well, via undercutting. This gives producers (material farmers, etc) actual value for what they enter into the market.
…

This only applies to impatient buyers/sellers. For those utilizing buy orders and sell offers it increases prices on buy orders and decreases prices on sell offers.

While technically true, if you believe that the equilibrium price is a fair price, then the people who put in buy orders below the equilibrium price were trying to find sellers who are willing to sell the item at a price that’s less than a fair price. Similarly for sellers above the equilibrium price.

So by flipping in a market which hasn’t reached equilibrium (15% or less spread), you make the market fairer for those who buy or sell to the current sell or buy offers — and take some of the (implied) profit those who were willing to wait could have received. On balance, I think this improves fairness.

Ayrilana.1396:

Brother Grimm.5176:

Svetli.4276:

abusing it to gain wealth NO
tp flipping is abuse of the game SO NO IT MUST NOT BE PART OF THE GAME !
buy and sell timer will fix that

• Who defines it as abuse?
• Who defines what is ok and not ok to do to “gain wealth”?
• Who defines what is part of the game?

I think the answer to all of the above is ANET and they haven’t put a buy / sell timer in the game (nor ANY restrictions on TP use….18 months after release), so I’m going to take that as an indication you are simply wrong in all your assumptions.

Perhaps they DO need to come up with a method to thwart automated (BOT) trading, but I’m not sure how they do that.

I remember checking his post history and saw something a long the lines of him saying that flipping is bannable in WoW. He’s applying that to this game.

Edit: Here’s the post I was referring to

Svetli.4276:

in wow you get ban for flipping items
here you get a f medal

Which actually isn’t true since there are current flipping threads on their forum. Most likely any bans was due to market manipulation and not flipping but I can understand that some see no difference between the two.

Mystic.5934:

most people are bothered by it because they see it as: if this person is making gold, that gold is coming from somewhere, and since I’m not making gold, it must be coming from me.

No, the reason flipping is disliked by people is that it is a form of PvP where the flippers are making their gold by ganking TP noobs. It has no effect on me since I always use my own buy/sell orders, but flippers are only able to make their gold because new/ignorant players don’t know how to use the TP properly. It has nothing to do with knowing the market, being compensated for the service of providing liquidity, or impatient buyers/sellers. The TP would operate efficiently without any flippers. That is the whole point of having a game-wide TP in the first place.

Tasty Pudding.3764:

The TP would operate efficiently without any flippers. That is the whole point of having a game-wide TP in the first place.

If that were true, then flippers couldn’t exist because the efficient market would have no room for flipping.

Tasty Pudding.3764:

Mystic.5934:

most people are bothered by it because they see it as: if this person is making gold, that gold is coming from somewhere, and since I’m not making gold, it must be coming from me.

No, the reason flipping is disliked by people is that it is a form of PvP where the flippers are making their gold by ganking TP noobs. It has no effect on me since I always use my own buy/sell orders, but flippers are only able to make their gold because new/ignorant players don’t know how to use the TP properly. It has nothing to do with knowing the market, being compensated for the service of providing liquidity, or impatient buyers/sellers. The TP would operate efficiently without any flippers. That is the whole point of having a game-wide TP in the first place.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/How-to-Flip-on-the-Trading-Post-guide/first#post4282644

Tasty Pudding.3764:

Mystic.5934:

most people are bothered by it because they see it as: if this person is making gold, that gold is coming from somewhere, and since I’m not making gold, it must be coming from me.

No, the reason flipping is disliked by people is that it is a form of PvP where the flippers are making their gold by ganking TP noobs. It has no effect on me since I always use my own buy/sell orders, but flippers are only able to make their gold because new/ignorant players don’t know how to use the TP properly. It has nothing to do with knowing the market, being compensated for the service of providing liquidity, or impatient buyers/sellers. The TP would operate efficiently without any flippers. That is the whole point of having a game-wide TP in the first place.

So people hate on TP flippers because they are competition for them?
It seems absurd to think the vast majority of TP users are new/ignorant players. Impatient; sure. But not new and certainly not ignorant of how it works.
TP flippers do make their profit off the impatience of others, by taking the waiting time onto themselves, and getting paid to wait.
You just said you place orders on the TP, so that would make you a TP flipper. It might not be the same items, but if you are placing buy orders and sell listing for things, you are doing exactly what TP flippers are doing. TP flippers buy with buy orders and sell with sell listings and bring the two closer. How many items that you interact with on the TP does that not happen to? TP flippers will never place a buy order and a sell listing – it’s always one or the other. At any one time, they are either raising the buy order price (like you do when buying stuff), or reducing the sell listing price (like you do when selling stuff). The end result of both is price equilibrium.
I guess that does go back to the first point about competition.
It would be pretty funny if they banned all the TP flippers, because that would be everyone who ever both placed buy orders and sell listings. The only way not to be banned would be to pick one and stick with it. hehe: half the players can only place buy orders and sell to other buy orders, the other half can only place sell listings and buy from other sell listings.

mtpelion.4562:

Tasty Pudding.3764:

The TP would operate efficiently without any flippers. That is the whole point of having a game-wide TP in the first place.

If that were true, then flippers couldn’t exist because the efficient market would have no room for flipping.

It is just as efficient with or without flippers. Adding flippers does not remove the inefficiency caused by players not using buy/sell orders because they don’t know any better. Flippers do increase efficiency and liquidity in games that do not have a TP, such as GW1, where people have to stand around and spam trade chat for hours in order to make trades. Flippers are truly creating a market in those cases by instantly offering to buy at wholesale and sell at retail for players that don’t want to make the effort and they deserve to be compensated for that service. This is not the case when a TP is available. The effort required to trade on the TP is essentially zero, so flippers offer nothing of value. Flippers are just middlemen in a trade that would have happened anyway without any extra effort.

Tasty Pudding.3764:

mtpelion.4562:

Tasty Pudding.3764:

The TP would operate efficiently without any flippers. That is the whole point of having a game-wide TP in the first place.

If that were true, then flippers couldn’t exist because the efficient market would have no room for flipping.

It is just as efficient with or without flippers. Adding flippers does not remove the inefficiency caused by players not using buy/sell orders because they don’t know any better. Flippers do increase efficiency and liquidity in games that do not have a TP, such as GW1, where people have to stand around and spam trade chat for hours in order to make trades. Flippers are truly creating a market in those cases by instantly offering to buy at wholesale and sell at retail for players that don’t want to make the effort and they deserve to be compensated for that service. This is not the case when a TP is available. The effort required to trade on the TP is essentially zero, so flippers offer nothing of value. Flippers are just middlemen in a trade that would have happened anyway without any extra effort.

I beg to differ; I remember back in late 2012 when Mithril ore was like 12 copper, or so, then a bunch of new players began to flip on the trading post, thus a steady and abundant increase in pricing, and more money for sold items. If there were no TP flippers, you would only get paid 10 copper for something like a scale, whereas with flippers, you would end up getting paid 60 copper for a scale. This is due to the removal of gold from the game through sell orders, thus engaging in a competitive market. So in reality, the game’s economy will never be inflated as long as the economy remains with TP flippers. It’s not a perfect world of course, but it is most definitely not cheating, and I doubt you’ll see it’s genuine freedom of strategy.

Tasty Pudding.3764:

It is just as efficient with or without flippers. Adding flippers does not remove the inefficiency caused by players not using buy/sell orders because they don’t know any better. Flippers do increase efficiency and liquidity in games that do not have a TP, such as GW1, where people have to stand around and spam trade chat for hours in order to make trades. Flippers are truly creating a market in those cases by instantly offering to buy at wholesale and sell at retail for players that don’t want to make the effort and they deserve to be compensated for that service. This is not the case when a TP is available. The effort required to trade on the TP is essentially zero, so flippers offer nothing of value. Flippers are just middlemen in a trade that would have happened anyway without any extra effort.

Efficient markets are those that are at equilibrium price.
Moving a market to equilibrium price requires trading activity.
Fast markets reach equilibrium price quickly because they have a high volume of trades occurring.
Slow markets are inefficient because they don’t have enough volume of trades to quickly move the price to equilibrium.
Flippers target slow markets and improve their efficiency by increasing the volume of trades, thus helping a market reach equilibrium more quickly than if it relied exclusively on utilization trades.

Ergo, flippers target inefficient markets and by doing so turn them into efficient markets.

Edit for further illustration:

Assume we have an item, the Super Awesome Thing. This has dropped for Player A. Player A doesn’t want it, so he lists it for sale. There aren’t any others available for sale, so he asks 10g for it. Player B wants a Super Awesome Thing, but he doesn’t want to spend 10g so he offers 1g for it.

Now we have a market with very low volume and a huge price spread (i.e. an inefficient market).

When the flippers find this market, they will begin to place buy orders starting at 1g00s01c and relisting the ones that are sold to them for 9g99s99c. As more flippers engage, they will each offer a higher amount to buy and a lower amount to sell. This means that people who sell now are getting more coins and people who buy now are getting a cheaper option. This will continue until they reach the equilibrium price (the 15% gap around which players are willing to buy/sell) at which point the market becomes efficient and flippers can no longer exist as the profit margin is gone.

mtpelion.4562:

Flippers target slow markets and improve their efficiency by increasing the volume of trades, thus helping a market reach equilibrium more quickly than if it relied exclusively on utilization trades.

And here is what is false in your argument. Flippers at most double the volume of sales that would have otherwise occurred. They are not creating a thriving market out of thin air. Flippers avoid truly slow markets like the plague.

Tasty Pudding.3764:

mtpelion.4562:

Flippers target slow markets and improve their efficiency by increasing the volume of trades, thus helping a market reach equilibrium more quickly than if it relied exclusively on utilization trades.

And here is what is false in your argument. Flippers at most double the volume of sales that would have otherwise occurred. They are not creating a thriving market out of thin air. Flippers avoid truly slow markets like the plague.

Quote me where I said they create a thriving market.
Go ahead.

I’ll wait.

…

Tasty Pudding.3764:

mtpelion.4562:

Flippers target slow markets and improve their efficiency by increasing the volume of trades, thus helping a market reach equilibrium more quickly than if it relied exclusively on utilization trades.

And here is what is false in your argument. Flippers at most double the volume of sales that would have otherwise occurred. They are not creating a thriving market out of thin air. Flippers avoid truly slow markets like the plague.

The possibilities include more than black and white (1) healthy market in equilibrium versus (2) dead market where items are never bought or sold.

And most markets are more active than you realize.

As a random example — I sometimes put in buy orders for crafted jewelry — mostly for salvage. But if there’s a big spread between buy and sell orders, I’ll list them somewhere in between (more than 1c under the current low sell, since I think that’s inefficient and I’m too likely to be undercut — these are slow markets). Generally these sell for a good spread, though low total profits compared with time.

When the spread isn’t large enough, I don’t bother with this — I just salvage (that was my intent, and it’s good enough). But if the spread is large enough (1-2s per item), I’ll re-list — which brings in some profit.

(For the record: when I’m doing that, I usually do have buy and sell listings at the same time.)

Most markets which aren’t in equilibrium are like that — when they move far enough from equilibrium, there’s some incentive for flippers, who will spend some time extracting profit from the inefficiency — and in the process move prices towards equilibrium.

If ANet had designed markets with automated market makers, flippers wouldn’t be necessary. But they choose to leave this open for players … which does make trading (and the economy as a whole) more interesting.

mtpelion.4562:

When the flippers find this market, they will begin to place buy orders starting at 1g00s01c and relisting the ones that are sold to them for 9g99s99c. As more flippers engage, they will each offer a higher amount to buy and a lower amount to sell. This means that people who sell now are getting more coins and people who buy now are getting a cheaper option. This will continue until they reach the equilibrium price (the 15% gap around which players are willing to buy/sell) at which point the market becomes efficient and flippers can no longer exist as the profit margin is gone.

I wrote 1k word comment but ended up erasing everything by accident. lol. So, this time I’m going to keep it simply.

GW2 trading post seems to have been designed in the model of Monopolistic competition.

Monopolistically competitive markets have the following characteristics:
1) There are many producers and many consumers in the market, and no business has total control over the market price.
2) Consumers perceive that there are non-price differences among the competitors’ products.
3) There are few barriers to entry and exit.
4) Producers have a degree of control over price.

The requirement ‘’…and no business has total control over the market price’’ doesn’t apply to every market sector in the game. What do I mean by this?

Now that part in bold only applies to items and materials that requires short time to obtain and produce. Thanks to there being thousands of competitors in that market sector trying to outbid each other it brings down prices. Think of mithril ore, elder wood log etc. If I give u example in the world we live in, think of super markets selling tomatoes, potatoes and cucumbers. Not much profit there for them because they are easily produced and sold by many other competitors including the owner of that corner shop you hate so much.

However, the same thing cannot be said about items and materials that require many hrs, large initial investment, low drop chance and RNG. For example; in any given time you have maybe less than 10 competitors trying to outbid each other in precursors, permanent contracts and legendary weapons market sectors.
Rivalry between these competitors may at most reduce prices around 10-20 gold but not enough to make actual difference, and besides most of these players are exploiting the system.
Unlike in the economy we live in there are no trading bodies regulating competitors to ensure that everyone is playing on a level field. What do I mean by this? We all know there are more than few players collaborating with each other to make large profits in trading post that could not be possible had they acted on their own. They have essentially made certain market sections such as precursors, legendary weapons, rare permanent contracts their oligopoly market sector.

An oligopoly is a market form in which a market or industry is dominated by a small number of sellers (oligopolists). Oligopolies can result from various forms of collusion which reduce competition and lead to higher prices for consumers.

Overall, flippers are only good for easy acquired items. It does not apply for items and materials that are difficult to acquire.

i am glad to see that there are more ppl who think tp flipping is not the way to play the game : )

Svetli.4276:

i am glad to see that there are more ppl who think tp flipping is not the way to play the game : )

It’s not the way to play the game but it is a way to play the game. It’s been said many times before, without flippers constantly sinking gold into the TP, amongst other forms of gold sinking, and removing it from the game, the regular influx of created money via loot drops, dungeons, event rewards etc would create a massive pool of gold in the economy. If everyone has access to near unlimited amounts of gold, it loses its value and the prices of everything goes up. This is a really simplistic view of things as economics isn’t my strong point.

Real world examples were pre WW2 when the German government kept printing deutschmarks but the large scale availability of money led to hyperinflation. A similar thing happened in Zimbabwe. It got so bad that USD$1 was worth 1 QUADRILLION Zimbabwean dollars. To go out to buy a pair of trousers cost 10billion Zimbabwean dollars. The Zimbabwe government ended up introducing a new currency the NEW Zimbabwean dollar which was the same as the old one just without all the zeros. Turkey did the same with the Lira by lopping off something like 7 zeros from their currency.

Without effective gold sinks in the game, you would see precursors, and everything linked to making a legendary, cost at least double if not triple what the going rate is now.

Azrael.4960:

Svetli.4276:

i am glad to see that there are more ppl who think tp flipping is not the way to play the game : )

It’s not the way to play the game but it is a way to play the game. It’s been said many times before, without flippers constantly sinking gold into the TP, amongst other forms of gold sinking, and removing it from the game, the regular influx of created money via loot drops, dungeons, event rewards etc would create a massive pool of gold in the economy. If everyone has access to near unlimited amounts of gold, it loses its value and the prices of everything goes up. This is a really simplistic view of things as economics isn’t my strong point.

Real world examples were pre WW2 when the German government kept printing deutschmarks but the large scale availability of money led to hyperinflation. A similar thing happened in Zimbabwe. It got so bad that USD$1 was worth 1 QUADRILLION Zimbabwean dollars. To go out to buy a pair of trousers cost 10billion Zimbabwean dollars. The Zimbabwe government ended up introducing a new currency the NEW Zimbabwean dollar which was the same as the old one just without all the zeros. Turkey did the same with the Lira by lopping off something like 7 zeros from their currency.

Without effective gold sinks in the game, you would see precursors, and everything linked to making a legendary, cost at least double if not triple what the going rate is now.

Without flipping the devs would have to be more creative in the reward structure of this game. Create more uses for items, less coin rewards, less vendor trash, etc etc……They control most all of the variables so it’s not really like the real world.

tp is not a gold sink it is gold hoarding !
ppl who flip the moust can aford the expensive precursors or even just buy legendery

gold sink is mf !