Guild Wars 2

Search the new rewards added that cannot be purchased via the tp and methods of how to obtain them and you’ll have your answer.

There have always been rewards that couldn’t be purchased on the TP. What you are saying isn’t a new indicator of some paradigm shift … it’s actually reinforcing the whole business model that’s already in place, including how the TP works now.

Essence Snow.3194:

Remember I don’t care about convincing him. How quickly we forget.

Regardless if this is true or not, the door is open for change if people want. JS has set the conditions for that to happen.

Obtena.7952:

That’s why you have the option to get it by buying it in the TP.

Which is only an option if you can keep up with inflation and the lack of supply that continually raises the price. Most in game activities that aren’t hardcore farming, OR flipping the TP, don’t allow you to actually keep up.

Obtena.7952:

You aren’t actually grasping the reason why the TP as it functions is helpful for the player you are describing.

Again, it’s only helpful if you can actually afford the items. That’s been one of my main points.

Obtena.7952:

The irony is that while complaining about the randomness of the drop, you aren’t willing to acknowledge the sure thing of buying from the TP.

Because one of the things I’ve brought up is that the TP is the -only- sure way. Which requires gold. Which not everyone can make at a pace that allows them to keep up and ever reach the item in question.

Aidan Savage.2078:

Essence Snow is a troll, nothing more.

No more than any of you, who have continually failed to provide me a single number, so that I could continue my data finding, in order to bring you your proof that you oh so desire.

A rare and much desired item being expensive isn’t inflation. If anything it demonstrates that there are more people who can afford to buy it than there once was.

Gene Archer.8560:

Obtena.7952:

You aren’t actually grasping the reason why the TP as it functions is helpful for the player you are describing.

Again, it’s only helpful if you can actually afford the items. That’s been one of my main points.

Here’s the major flaw to your point. You can afford to get any item you want, you just don’t want to put in the efforts to be able to afford them. Anyone can be poor. Anyone can be rich. The difference here is one is due to non-effort, and the other is due to serious effort.

To prove to you that this is a fact, I’ll conduct a small experiment on you. Tell me how much Gold you have free, and how much total Karma you have available. If you want, you can PM me a screenshot of your wallet, so no one else can see. Then tell me which item you want to buy the most (only 1). And I’ll tell you how to get it with guaranteed results. Consider this a gift from your friendly neighborhood Penguin.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

To prove to you that this is a fact, I’ll conduct a small experiment on you. Tell me how much Gold you have free,

265

Smooth Penguin.5294:

and how much total Karma you have available.

1,513,309

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Then tell me which item you want to buy the most (only 1).

Dawn

Which unless the numbers have changed, means that 500,000 or so karma is free and loose, as it takes about 1 million karma to obtain the necessary clovers and friends.

If your method is that guaranteed though, feel free to use all the karma and we’ll just go straight to Sunrise as said item. Either way works for me.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

And I’ll tell you how to get it with guaranteed results. Consider this a gift from your friendly neighborhood Penguin.

Here’s your numbers. Have fun.

Gene Archer.8560:

No more than any of you, who have continually failed to provide me a single number, so that I could continue my data finding, in order to bring you your proof that you oh so desire.

Then clearly you’re only interested in numbers that prove yourself right instead of numbers that reinforce the current facts of the game that it’s not hard to make money, and it doesnt require playing only the trade post.

And no, this isnt meant to be trolling either. It’s me being serious because apparently you consistently gloss over the fact I have provided such numbers, twice so far. If you want those numbers, you can dig through this thread for them, because I’m not going to repeat them over and over if the very people asking for them, you, will conveniently ignore them because they hinder or take apart the theory you’re attempting to prove.

Quite frankly I think the only reason JS hasnt closed this thread yet is because he’s finding it amusing to read. It’s like watching people talk about cars or computers, yet you know they know kitten-all about them the moment they open their mouth. Or he has more faith in humanity than I do, and still expects someone to actually come up with something to answer his request.

Speaking of which, anyone want to requote those again? I cant be bothered fishing through 20+ pages if I’m not the one that perceives a problem.

Gene Archer.8560:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

To prove to you that this is a fact, I’ll conduct a small experiment on you. Tell me how much Gold you have free,

265

Smooth Penguin.5294:

and how much total Karma you have available.

1,513,309

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Then tell me which item you want to buy the most (only 1).

Dawn

Which unless the numbers have changed, means that 500,000 or so karma is free and loose, as it takes about 1 million karma to obtain the necessary clovers and friends.

If your method is that guaranteed though, feel free to use all the karma and we’ll just go straight to Sunrise as said item. Either way works for me.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

And I’ll tell you how to get it with guaranteed results. Consider this a gift from your friendly neighborhood Penguin.

Here’s your numbers. Have fun.

Let me crunch my numbers to be sure I give you accurate feedback. I’ll probably have to reply with the results late tonite, or tomorrow.

@ AidanYou provided numbers that involved Orr runs, etc and then selling the items on the TP.

I asked for numbers on flipping.

You did not provide the information I asked for.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I’ll probably have to reply with the results late tonite, or tomorrow.

Take your time. If it helps, I generally have about 2 – 3 hours to actually play the game, depending on when I have to go into work.

Gene Archer.8560:

So then tell me how much you make in two hours when you flip.

I can give you all the data you want after that, but I need that number. Unsure of the number? Give me what you feel is a safe assumption/estimate of that number. If you flip, you’ll have a better idea of that number than I will.

So tell me, already.

The average return of flipping 2 hours is 5g, please continue with your arguement.
If you think the 5g is a figure too low, please prove otherwise.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Gene Archer.8560:

Obtena.7952:

You aren’t actually grasping the reason why the TP as it functions is helpful for the player you are describing.

Again, it’s only helpful if you can actually afford the items. That’s been one of my main points.

Here’s the major flaw to your point. You can afford to get any item you want, you just don’t want to put in the efforts to be able to afford them. Anyone can be poor. Anyone can be rich. The difference here is one is due to non-effort, and the other is due to serious effort.

To prove to you that this is a fact, I’ll conduct a small experiment on you. Tell me how much Gold you have free, and how much total Karma you have available. If you want, you can PM me a screenshot of your wallet, so no one else can see. Then tell me which item you want to buy the most (only 1). And I’ll tell you how to get it with guaranteed results. Consider this a gift from your friendly neighborhood Penguin.

the problem is, yes you can get a legendary through effort, the problem is the type of effort you have to put in, not the amount.

Lets say i said lets start up a basketball league, and to incentivize people to play, i give out rewards to people, now lets say i make it so that the best way to get the rewards in my league is to sell people tickets to the game.

…. why is the best salesman the winner of the basketball league?

I can make enough money via farming/gambling/TP flipping to get a legendary. Its just really not very fun to do so. I made two in the forge, i flipped, gambled, traded, champion trained, karma trained, etc to make enough money/items to gamble it in the forge. I then once i got the precursor did it some more to make the items.

Im not that stupid, i did what the game rewarded to acheive the goals. Problem was? its extremely unfun. I ran spreadsheets, did tests, gambled to see what puts out the most consistent moneys. When i grew bored or had to wait, i ran with trains to get money.
But I had way more time than many people do, and i did things other people may not have the math skills to attempt, or the patience to sift through data, i gambled on numerous small gambles, and gambled on the big gambles of the forge.

So how do you get the best items, and get the endgame goals? Fight the most difficult content? Do the thing that people of tyria need most? Finish the most difficult jumping puzzles fast as possible? Help the most other players?
nope.

I do the easiest activities with the most effecient gold rate, and i look for ineffecienies in the market to make the most profit possible. Yes i can do it. No its not the only way that one should be able to succeed in an adventure game.

I also recognize that the entire reward structure tends to be built around the economy rather than logical gameplay goals. This means the game reward systems will always suffer with the economy.

perfect example is silk, and the halloween recipes.

So the with that type design structure, the wealth disparities start to give lower earned values compared to your time.

Gene Archer.8560:

So then tell me how much you make in two hours when you flip.
.

0% to 25% usually.

Wanze.8410:

The average return of flipping 2 hours is 5g, please continue with your arguement.
If you think the 5g is a figure too low, please prove otherwise.

Everything else, as I mentioned, pays out 2g per 2 hours, generally speaking.

Flipping pays out 5g.

There is a wealth disparity.

Those people that only ever get 2g cannot keep up with those who can get 5g. Higher end items will be priced at the rate of what those making 5g can make. This leaves the rest out of the loop, unable to ever catch up, if flipping is not an option for them, as prices increase with inflation/demand but the rate at which they make gold does not.

Beyond that, these activities just took a nerf. So now it’s more like ~1g, while flippers still make 5g. The disparity will now increase.

There is now a clear and distinct advantage to flipping over doing anything else in the game.

Balance is something game devs strive for. There is now an imbalance in the game. Therefore TP profits need to be brought in line with other activities in order to reach balance again, -or- those activities need to be brought back in line with flipping.

If inflation arises because of bringing activities up, then instead increase the rate at which items drop. If that would cause a problem, then instead implement a progressive tax, if that causes too many problems, then instead implement rewards across more currencies. If for some inane reason that isn’t an option, then set a max limit to how much gold the wallet can keep and have all other gold spill over into an escrow service.

tolunart.2095:

0% to 25% usually.

% tells me nothing, and you kittening know this. If all you want to do is play coy, then stop responding to me and in fact, stop responding to this thread in general.

You want actual discussion? Tell me how much kittening gold that is.

If all you wanna do is troll? Then stop demanding proof, because you are being just as useless as you think Snow is.

How many Dawns can one player use? Yes, there are players with multiple legendaries, and maybe there’s a player out there with a Dawn each for his warrior, guardian and mesmer toons. But whether it’s crafting mats or legendaries, eventually each player gets what he wants and drops out of the competition to get it.

Being rich doesn’t matter if there’s nothing you want to buy, and selling expensive stuff doesn’t matter if there’s no one buying.

Doing anything outside of the TP in this game creates gold and items out of thin air. If you’re farming mats then you make more money when the price of the mats goes up. If your running dungeons and using the tokens to buy rares that you salvage for ectos, the amount of money you get goes up as the price of ectos goes up.

If prices go up it means that the number of people paying those prices is going up. Anet has no control over whether someone is willing to throw more money at Dawn than you are. Eventually the people with more money than you will get their Dawn and while they do you will get more money. One day you will be the one throwing the most money at Dawn and you will get it. How soon this happens is up to you, not Anet.

Gene Archer.8560:

tolunart.2095:

0% to 25% usually.

% tells me nothing, and you kittening know this. If all you want to do is play coy, then stop responding to me and in fact, stop responding to this thread in general.

You want actual discussion? Tell me how much kittening gold that is.

If all you wanna do is troll? Then stop demanding proof, because you are being just as useless as you think Snow is.

There is no other answer.

The reward for killing the Shadow Behemoth or finishing a specific dungeon path is generally the same, aside from the occasional lucky drop (my best SB kill was worth about 600 gold). Flipping depends entirely upon the amount of money you put into it, whether you guessed the correct price the market would accept, and what the difference between buy and sell prices happens to be.

If I set the wrong price and don’t sell the items, I make 0 gold.

If I do sell the items (and it’s not necessarily within two hours, but I don’t think I’ve ever spent more than that per day on the TP) then the items I’ve flipped are generally around a 20% profit after fees, give or take 5%.

I’m not a hardcore flipper. In fact I haven’t listed an item for sale in over two months, so I don’t know what is happening with the TP right now. But when I did I started by doing the world boss events and selling the rares until I got about 50 gold to invest. On a good day I made 10 gold profit, until eventually I was investing about 300 gold per day (60g profit). By the time I got to 500g or so I stopped and spent most of it gearing up alts and levelling them by crafting.

This was mostly last fall/winter. If I were interested in gathering as much coin as possible, by now I’d have reached the point where I could probably spend 2000g per day to make 400g profit, but that would take a lot more than two hours a day and would bore me to tears. So I probably wouldn’t be doing that, but rather investing in long-term profit items like weapon skins or something.

Success for me is generally about 50/50 because I don’t put a lot of extra time into researching the markets. So cut the numbers in half and you get the average profit/day, divide that by 12 and you get the figure for a particular 2-hour period. So personally I made anywhere from 42s to 2.5g in two hours. Impressive, huh?

Gene Archer.8560:

Wanze.8410:

The average return of flipping 2 hours is 5g, please continue with your arguement.
If you think the 5g is a figure too low, please prove otherwise.

Everything else, as I mentioned, pays out 2g per 2 hours, generally speaking.

Flipping pays out 5g.

There is a wealth disparity.

Those people that only ever get 2g cannot keep up with those who can get 5g. Higher end items will be priced at the rate of what those making 5g can make. This leaves the rest out of the loop, unable to ever catch up, if flipping is not an option for them, as prices increase with inflation/demand but the rate at which they make gold does not.
There is now a clear and distinct advantage to flipping over doing anything else in the game.

They also cannot keep up with the people that play twice the hours every day and do the same events like them.
They also cannot keep up with those that work an extra hour at their job and use their overtime pay to convert 800 gems into 70g.
They also cannot keep up with those that run more than 1 dungeon per hour.
Wealth disparity exists in this game because its quite clear not every single player has the same amount of gold.
Reducing trading post profits will not eliminate wealth disparity.
Extremely rich players dont influence market prices significantly because they still act as 1 consumer.

Gene Archer.8560:

If all you wanna do is troll? Then stop demanding proof, because you are being just as useless as you think Snow is.

I’m just repeating what JS asked for – you don’t need to show numbers because none of us have them. What you need to do is demonstrate how to determine whether there is a problem and JS can plug in the numbers and see if there is some merit to your claims.

The TP was designed to quickly and efficiently move money and items between players. Those who understand how the system works will naturally have a better experience than those who don’t. Much like speed-running a dungeon goes better when everyone knows the fights, and bringing along someone who doesn’t know the dungeon can result in the entire party wiping until people quit and get nothing for their efforts.

tolunart.2095:

There is no other answer.

There is an answer in gold total. Take a specific amount of gold to use for flipping. Use it to flip. Make sure you have no other gold or items waiting for you at the TP before you do this. After flipping, on average, how much gold have you made for being successful?

Is it 10 gold? Is it 20? Is it 100?

I can tell you approximately how much gold can be made with a given game activity, and have done so.

If you are unable to do the same for flipping, you have no right to demand proof when you are incapable of even answering something as simple as: “How much gold do you make in a general time period from flipping”

You should at least be able to make a safe assumption.

I just did. I have no interest in whether you approve or not.

Gene Archer.8560:

tolunart.2095:

There is no other answer.

There is an answer in gold total. Take a specific amount of gold to use for flipping. Use it to flip. Make sure you have no other gold or items waiting for you at the TP before you do this. After flipping, on average, how much gold have you made for being successful?

Is it 10 gold? Is it 20? Is it 100?

I can tell you approximately how much gold can be made with a given game activity, and have done so.

If you are unable to do the same for flipping, you have no right to demand proof when you are incapable of even answering something as simple as: “How much gold do you make in a general time period from flipping”

You should at least be able to make a safe assumption.

But we are not arguing that flipping gives out too much profit, YOU are.
How can you argue that flipping gives out too much profit, if you dont even know how much they make?

You are making assumptions and base your arguements on it. It doesnt work that way.
For your calculations of making gold in pve, you take events that are on the low end of the earning curve and compare them to the high end of an earning curve of another activity.

I know people that tried flipping, burned their fingers and lost gold.
Does that mean that you should pay to do events now?

tolunart.2095:

What you need to do is demonstrate how to determine whether there is a problem and JS can plug in the numbers and see if there is some merit to your claims.

I already did this. It was ignored outright. And I don’t mean JS said “I put in the numbers, there’s no problem”

I mean he never even responded.

I have done what was requested of me, in several forms and several different times now. I’ve been summarily ignored each time while continuing to have proof demanded of me.

I’ve done the why, the how, and even suggested solutions. I’ve done it all.

I am fairly sick and tired of being given the run around despite being one of the ones actually trying to take this seriously. I have hit my limit, because it’s just the same things happening as last time. I’ll take part in Smooth’s little experiment since the good outweighs the bad in it even if he’s proven right, but I’m done with everything else if I’m only going to be ignored while still having “proof” demanded of me.

Wanze.8410:

Reducing trading post profits will not eliminate wealth disparity.

It will bring it more in line, however.

Wanze.8410:

Extremely rich players dont influence market prices significantly because they still act as 1 consumer.

They still influence them -because- they are rich, however.

Gene Archer.8560:

I already did this. It was ignored outright. And I don’t mean JS said “I put in the numbers, there’s no problem”

I didn’t see it. Well, to be honest I saw you start to do it and drop it in the middle, then complain about how you can’t do it without numbers. I just gave you numbers, so finish already.

tolunart.2095:

Success for me is generally about 50/50 because I don’t put a lot of extra time into researching the markets. So cut the numbers in half and you get the average profit/day, divide that by 12 and you get the figure for a particular 2-hour period. So personally I made anywhere from 42s to 2.5g in two hours. Impressive, huh?

And besides that the average profit being made on the TP across the whole player base is -15%. Thats right, a loss of 15% from 5% listing fee and 10% sales tax.

If i buy item A from player B for 1s today, he gains 85 copper and i lose 1s.
A week later, i sell item A back to player B for 2s, i gain 1.7s and he loses 2s.
I might have made 70c profit but player B lost 1.15 silver.
If he kept his item, nothing would have changed in terms of wealth disparity.
But he chose to pay a premium for me to store that item.

I would even argue that the average loss on the TP is more than 15% because you have to add all those listing fees from the items on the tp that havent sold yet or got unlisted.

Wanze.8410:

But we are not arguing that flipping gives out too much profit, YOU are.
How can you argue that flipping gives out too much profit, if you dont even know how much they make?

I can safely assume since one of the answers that always crops up in threads about “How does I gold?” is “Learn how to flip”.

People wouldn’t recommend flipping so kitten much if it didn’t pay out.

I just don’t have the general number of how much it pays out. And I only asked for it because it was a metric I needed. And it was asked of me what metric I needed.

Wanze.8410:

For your calculations of making gold in pve, you take events that are on the low end of the earning curve

Because those are the things the average/casual player does with their time, generally speaking.

Wanze.8410:

and compare them to the high end of an earning curve of another activity.

Champ trains just got nerfed hardcore. Dungeons just got nerfed to one chest a day. World Bosses are even nerfed because they’re scheduled, now, which means how long a person has to play is how many bosses they can actually take on to get their 1 guaranteed rare. The Orr temples are now harder to get into because of contested waypoints on megaservers.

And on top of that, everything had its difficulty raised, thus increasing the risk. Or if nothing else, hit pools were raised, which still induces the chance of failure due to lack of damage.

The trading post is the only thing to not take a hit.

Wanze.8410:

I know people that tried flipping, burned their fingers and lost gold.
Does that mean that you should pay to do events now?

You do pay to do events now. It’s called the waypoint system. One generally misses an event unless they are there ahead of time, and even then, depending on the location of the event, running is in no way feasible.

Waypoints and map completion for said waypoints are the entry cost for events.

Gene Archer.8560:

Wanze.8410:

Reducing trading post profits will not eliminate wealth disparity.

It will bring it more in line, however.

Wanze.8410:

Extremely rich players dont influence market prices significantly because they still act as 1 consumer.

They still influence them -because- they are rich, however.

Please tell me how reducing trading post profits brings wealth disparity more in line, if there are many other sources for wealth disparity, for example buying gold with gems, more time investment in general and engaging in more rewarding game content than other players.

Personally, i am what you would consider rich in game. However, i never bought a precursor and only used 1 Colossus, which i got from the mystic forge, to craft Juggernaut, in over 6k hours of gametime.

Please explain to me, how I influenced precursor prices.

Gene Archer.8560:

Because those are the things the average/casual player does with their time, generally speaking.

Casuals also spend much of their time standing around LA (or, well, they used to, dunno where they go now) chatting with their friends. This pays out 0 gold per hour.

If you have a goal (such as “I want Dawn”) you aren’t going to get there by being casual about it. No one’s going to walk up to you after spending 300 hours standing around LA chatting and say “I see you here every day, here’s Dawn.”

If you want to play with the big boys, then learn how to play the game the way they play. No one is going to nerf PvP because you don’t want to learn how to play it, and no one is going to gut the TP because you don’t want to make money.

Also, my experiences as a “casual TP flipper” offer about the same rewards as my experiences as a casual PvE player. I therefore propose that a hardcore PvE player (such as those who speedrun dungeons and such) make about as much as the hardcore TP flippers. Neither offers drastically better results, just different paths to the same goals.

tolunart.2095:

I didn’t see it. Well, to be honest I saw you start to do it and drop it in the middle, then complain about how you can’t do it without numbers. I just gave you numbers, so finish already.

Already finished. It’s up above. Also explained all the how stuff in a far earlier post.

I’ve done my requirements. It’s time for JS to step up.

Wanze.8410:

And besides that the average profit being made on the TP across the whole player base is -15%. Thats right, a loss of 15% from 5% listing fee and 10% sales tax.

You wouldn’t flip if all you made was a loss every time.

Anyway, like I said. I did what was requested of me. JS is the only one whose comment matters from this point forward in regards to my info gathering.

I’ll communicate with Smooth because I agreed to his experiment, but I’m done with the rest of you. You all can have fun with Ohoni and Essence and phys.

Gene Archer.8560:

Waypoints and map completion for said waypoints are the entry cost for events.

The entry costs for making 5s profit after taxes on a 5% profit margin is 1g.
How much do you pay for waypoints?
Events have clear parameters for success. If the Boss dies in the allotted timeframe, you get your reward.
There is no allotted timeframe for rewards on the tp and no clear parameters for success that can be influenced by yourself.

Gene Archer.8560:

Anyway, like I said. I did what was requested of me. JS is the only one whose comment matters from this point forward in regards to my info gathering.

Well, i guess you missed it:

John Smith.4610:

The prices of high end goods are VERY close, if not exactly the same, to what they would be without any “TP Barons” wanting those items. There’s too much velocity for individual rich people to influence the supply/demand equation all that much, which is the only control they have if they aren’t manipulating prices.

Gene Archer.8560:

Already finished. It’s up above. Also explained all the how stuff in a far earlier post.

I’ve done my requirements. It’s time for JS to step up.

What? You asked for numbers and when I gave them to you, you ignored me. Did you respond to anything after the first line of my post? As follows:

tolunart.2095:

There is no other answer.

The reward for killing the Shadow Behemoth or finishing a specific dungeon path is generally the same, aside from the occasional lucky drop (my best SB kill was worth about 600 gold). Flipping depends entirely upon the amount of money you put into it, whether you guessed the correct price the market would accept, and what the difference between buy and sell prices happens to be.

If I set the wrong price and don’t sell the items, I make 0 gold.

If I do sell the items (and it’s not necessarily within two hours, but I don’t think I’ve ever spent more than that per day on the TP) then the items I’ve flipped are generally around a 20% profit after fees, give or take 5%.

I’m not a hardcore flipper. In fact I haven’t listed an item for sale in over two months, so I don’t know what is happening with the TP right now. But when I did I started by doing the world boss events and selling the rares until I got about 50 gold to invest. On a good day I made 10 gold profit, until eventually I was investing about 300 gold per day (60g profit). By the time I got to 500g or so I stopped and spent most of it gearing up alts and levelling them by crafting.

This was mostly last fall/winter. If I were interested in gathering as much coin as possible, by now I’d have reached the point where I could probably spend 2000g per day to make 400g profit, but that would take a lot more than two hours a day and would bore me to tears. So I probably wouldn’t be doing that, but rather investing in long-term profit items like weapon skins or something.

Success for me is generally about 50/50 because I don’t put a lot of extra time into researching the markets. So cut the numbers in half and you get the average profit/day, divide that by 12 and you get the figure for a particular 2-hour period. So personally I made anywhere from 42s to 2.5g in two hours. Impressive, huh?

Not to steer the thread off course again, but i’m going to state RNG isn’t a bad thing at all. It’s really more that Guild Wars 2 creates value based on RNG for just about everything. This actually doesn’t help the economy or the player feel rewarded very well. The mini Liadri the Concealing Dark, i would consider rare and valuable, but since it’s not tradable and it wasn’t locked behind RNG, it’s actual just a prestige thing. Quite a few things i would actually consider valuable are that way too, simply prestige items.

If players had more options than just RNG to win valuable tradable items, i’m not even sure we would even have this thread to being with. People could do their desired stuff and win something of high value. That’s really what it comes down too.

I’m actually quite baffled by what they choose as account bound items versus tradable. Which may be an entirely different topic, but i don’t think you have so much “over-the-top” claims about the economy or how the TP players are ruining the play for the rest of us.

Gene Archer.8560:

I can safely assume since one of the answers that always crops up in threads about “How does I gold?” is “Learn how to flip”.

People wouldn’t recommend flipping so kitten much if it didn’t pay out.

People bring up flipping because most of them believe the stories about how easy and risk free it is. They are simply repeating what they heard.

They believe the talk from players that all it takes is 10 minutes posting bids and sales and within a day you would be rolling in the gold. And when it turns out to be harder than picking the item with the highest profit according to GW2Spidy and longer than a day or two then they start to believe that those who are making a bit of money are doing something tricky, manipulating the TP to their benefit. It becomes a conspiracy theory. And we get threads like this.

tolunart.2095:

What? You asked for numbers and when I gave them to you, you ignored me.

Wanze gave me numbers first. I used them. I formulated the data. I have both data and the “how”. I’ve done what was asked by JS.

Wanze.8410:

-snip-

Which still says nothing of wealth disparity. Which I did the info on. Which I supplied a “how” to.

I did what JS wanted. The rest is on him. I’ll continue when he responds to my posts.

(Except in the case of Smooth, who I will continue to respond to as I have agreed to his experiment, but I will only be discussing the experiment with him)

This is my last response to the two of you.

munkiman.3068:

Not to steer the thread off course again, but i’m going to state RNG isn’t a bad thing at all. It’s really more that Guild Wars 2 creates value based on RNG for just about everything. This actually doesn’t help the economy or the player feel rewarded very well. The mini Liadri the Concealing Dark, i would consider rare and valuable, but since it’s not tradable and it wasn’t locked behind RNG, it’s actual just a prestige thing. Quite a few things i would actually consider valuable are that way too, simply prestige items.

If players had more options than just RNG to win valuable tradable items, i’m not even sure we would even have this thread to being with. People could do their desired stuff and win something of high value. That’s really what it comes down too.

I’m actually quite baffled by what they choose as account bound items versus tradable. Which may be an entirely different topic, but i don’t think you have so much “over-the-top” claims about the economy or how the TP players are ruining the play for the rest of us.

Yeah, GW2 went through some significant changes in design philosophy from pre-release to now. It seems to have been envisioned as a casual-friendly game where the experience was more important than the rewards, which is why activities like exploration and crafting are major sources of XP and PvP is not dependent on gear.

But it was flooded with more traditional MMO players at launch, who demanded the things they were familiar with, including loot. The most glaring example is the Legendary Weapon, their system looks good in theory but doesn’t work as well when the hardcores see it as the only real endgame goal, and therefore the only thing in the game that matters.

If precursors were bind on pickup, they would lead to a lot of disappointed players. At launch there were no claim ticket vendors, and I don’t even think they had account bound set up in the game yet. So the toon that picked up the precursor would be stuck with it. Even if it was account bound, what about a player who only is interested in his warrior who finds a staff precursor? What should be a major event is just a disappointment.

So they set up a system where you can essentially trade one precursor for another, by selling the one you don’t want to someone who wants it. It’s an efficient and elegant system, but it falls apart when too many people chase too few precursors. The situation wasn’t helped when an early bug allowed players to buy weapons from certain karma vendors at a deep discount then forge them into precursors for quick cash.

It’s safe to say that they have regretted their decisions for the last year and a half, but once done the situation cannot be undone. If it were so easy to implement a better system they would have done so already. I think it will come along eventually, but no system is going to be perfect and players are experts at finding and exploiting the paths of least resistance. So there will always be someone with more or better stuff than you, and there will always be people calling for these things to be taken away from them or given to everyone else.

It’s just a matter of perspective. If you insist the glass is half empty, no one will be able to convince you that it’s really half full.

Gene Archer.8560:

tolunart.2095:

What? You asked for numbers and when I gave them to you, you ignored me.

Wanze gave me numbers first. I used them. I formulated the data. I have both data and the “how”. I’ve done what was asked by JS.

I must have missed that, all I’ve seen from you is proof you have no idea what you’re talking about.

people who say they make only 2.5g to 5 gold an hour n the TP are being disengenous. I have used the tp/merchanting even my crappy schemes with low profit and guaranteed gains turn about 6g an hour. of course things change, but there are always new ineffeciencies to work with. and i dont even buy low/sell high very often because im impatient, so i could be making more money.

i just think its a bad mechanic that the best way to achieve progression goals is to play merchant/grinder. I mean at least grinding is linear and regulated.

Also i have noticed that very little in game feels rewarding, anet has said this before, the problem is economy wise they dont want the game rewarding. They dont scale back World events because people feel too rewarded, they scale it back because they think the economy needs less production.

So there is always this war between good game design, and good economy design.

good game design?
after you get to fractal 10 every day you have a 30ish percent chance to get a best in slot ring. If you go 10 days without success you can select one. If you are good at fractals, every 10 levels you progress gives you an extra chance to attempt a ring per day.

why is this good?
1) clear goal
2) greater benefits the better you get at it, but not unlimited or unattainable
3) initial investment is large, but becomes easier the further you go
4)rewards you for playing relatively well designed content

now good economy design, is probably ascended gear.
1)uses up mass quantities of basic materials
2)gives many non high level materials value
3)can be traded.

problem is gameplay wise it sucks.
gather 100s and 100s of items in weak zones probably requiring 3-5 hours of gathering per piece needed per day.

but at least you can work towards it slowly if you choose to.

for some things there isnt a good option to earn something.

Behellagh.1468:

People bring up flipping because most of them believe the stories about how easy and risk free it is. They are simply repeating what they heard.

I challenge you to find a person who loss more than they gain in their GW2 flipping life.

I lost 1000 gold from keeper’s recipe because Anet totally kept their promise about not re releasing limited event item. But the price is climbing back. So I didnt’ loss that much. And I obviously made much more than I gain from investing in limited event item.

laokoko.7403:

Behellagh.1468:

People bring up flipping because most of them believe the stories about how easy and risk free it is. They are simply repeating what they heard.

I challenge you to find a person who loss more than they gain in their GW2 flipping life.

Anyone who thought it was easy money, bought a bunch of overhyped items and found they couldn’t sell them except at a huge loss.

With millions of accounts, over the life of the game this has happened a lot more than a few times. I don’t need to prove it to anyone, JS has the data that shows this.

Re: wealth disparity

There is a huge disparity between the least rewarding activity in the game (standing around chatting with your friends) and the most rewarding activity (dungeon speed runs). Does this mean that every activity should be reduced to the lowest possible reward? Then no loot would ever drop from any activity.

You get out of the game what you put into it. If you spend time and effort learning how to play the game as you want to play it, you will be rewarded accordingly. Not all rewards are currency-based.

tolunart.2095:

laokoko.7403:

Behellagh.1468:

People bring up flipping because most of them believe the stories about how easy and risk free it is. They are simply repeating what they heard.

I challenge you to find a person who loss more than they gain in their GW2 flipping life.

Anyone who thought it was easy money, bought a bunch of overhyped items and found they couldn’t sell them except at a huge loss.

With millions of accounts, over the life of the game this has happened a lot more than a few times. I don’t need to prove it to anyone, JS has the data that shows this.

I actually bought a few overhyped items. the price did drop, I just wait for it to climb back again.

I think it’s the part, people keep saying there is risk investing. Like a few of the TP Baron on this forum saying like they loss thousands of gold investing, and obviously they are not poor because we call them TP Baron.

ya I understand John Smith trying to prove people lost money flipping unidentified dyes last time. Which obviously isn’t even what people trying to prove. People trying to prove the very few who get the information faster than others make quite a huge sum of money. I remember there are like 30 people onlines in my guild that time, about 3 people make a few hundred gold from the dye information in a few minutes either flipping unidentified dyes, or crafting, or walnuts. The people who came late lost money.

laokoko.7403:

tolunart.2095:

laokoko.7403:

Behellagh.1468:

People bring up flipping because most of them believe the stories about how easy and risk free it is. They are simply repeating what they heard.

I challenge you to find a person who loss more than they gain in their GW2 flipping life.

Anyone who thought it was easy money, bought a bunch of overhyped items and found they couldn’t sell them except at a huge loss.

With millions of accounts, over the life of the game this has happened a lot more than a few times. I don’t need to prove it to anyone, JS has the data that shows this.

I actually bought a few overhyped items. the price did drop, I just wait for it to climb back again.

I think it’s the part, people keep saying there is risk investing. Like a few of the TP Baron on this forum saying like they loss thousands of gold investing, and obviously they are not poor because we call them TP Baron.

ya I understand John Smith trying to prove people lost money flipping unidentified dyes last time. Which obviously isn’t even what people trying to prove. People trying to prove the very few who get the information faster than others make quite a huge sum of money. I remember there are like 30 people onlines in my guild that time, about 3 people make a few hundred gold from the dye information in a few minutes either flipping unidentified dyes, or crafting, or walnuts. The people who came late lost money.

So you answered your own question. What’s the problem?

Not everyone has the patience of intelligence to succeed on the TP. I’m not that great at dodging and PvP tournaments. I don’t have the right to demand these things be eliminated to suit my preferences, likewise the TP.

tolunart.2095:

So you answered your own question. What’s the problem?

I’m just saying in the long run almost no one lost money investing. Which is most people’s counter argument to TP flipping.

People come up and say there is risk investing. Some of it even from TP Barons. Oh sure you lost 1000 investing. And you gained 100k. The risk is so big(sarcasm)…

My point is the risk is really small in compare to the gain.

And the issue with the unidentified dye isn’t about flipping. It is about people getting information faster having an advantage. Weather it’s 1 hour advantage or 5 minutes advantage dont’ matter.

Only 3 people out of 30 in my guild can cash in because they received information just a few minutes faster.

laokoko.7403:

tolunart.2095:

So you answered your own question. What’s the problem?

I’m just saying in the long run almost no one lost money investing. Which is most people’s counter argument to TP flipping.

This is simply not true. Your sample of 30 guildies does not counter JS’s survey of the entire game population.

tolunart.2095:

laokoko.7403:

tolunart.2095:

So you answered your own question. What’s the problem?

I’m just saying in the long run almost no one lost money investing. Which is most people’s counter argument to TP flipping.

This is simply not true. Your sample of 30 guildies does not counter JS’s survey of the entire game population.

No, that is not what i’m saying.

Basically JS says, most people lost money over like 10 hour periods or whatever. Which isn’t even the point.

The only people that made money is the people that finished reading the blog faster than anyone else. It’s the people who chase high after those initial people that are lossing money.

People are basically complaining about the few people buying out the 30 silver dye because they get the information first. And JS basically says “you know… many people lost money because they bought dye at 80 silver”. Which don’t even have anything to do with people complaining.

Not that I have a complain about the topic. I think the few that bought out all the iron during the lions’ arch invasion made money the same way even though there is no patch notes. Either way someone will found out the information first and profit from it.

Anet can do nothing about that, it’s human nature at work. People want a quick buck or want to be the first to show off the ascended gear, etc. Those who are prepared to move quickly can give them what they want and make a lot of money.

What JS has said is that “rich players” do not influence the market or make things substantially more difficult for the average player, and that removing them from the TP would not change prices very much. This is reality, and those complaining get caught up in class warfare fantasies and make assumptions that are not true, then state these assumptions as if they were facts in order to prove points that also are not true.

Repeating false statements over and over will not make them true. At this point, pretty much everyone else has given up on trying to make them understand this. I’ve always been too stubborn to know when to quit.

Your premise is wrong. Your data is incomplete. Your conclusions are wrong. This will not change.

tolunart.2095:

Anet can do nothing about that, it’s human nature at work. People want a quick buck or want to be the first to show off the ascended gear, etc. Those who are prepared to move quickly can give them what they want and make a lot of money.

What JS has said is that “rich players” do not influence the market or make things substantially more difficult for the average player, and that removing them from the TP would not change prices very much. This is reality, and those complaining get caught up in class warfare fantasies and make assumptions that are not true, then state these assumptions as if they were facts in order to prove points that also are not true.

Repeating false statements over and over will not make them true. At this point, pretty much everyone else has given up on trying to make them understand this. I’ve always been too stubborn to know when to quit.

Your premise is wrong. Your data is incomplete. Your conclusions are wrong. This will not change.

Individual players…………….key word…individual. As a whole we as the more dedicated players be it traders, dungeon aficionados, mass rl cash converters with out question make things more pricy. Some of us have more impact via being in the driver’s seat.

laokoko.7403:

People are basically complaining about the few people buying out the 30 silver dye because they get the information first. And JS basically says “you know… many people lost money because they bought dye at 80 silver”. Which don’t even have anything to do with people complaining.

What are you even trying to say? Of course it has to do with the complaints. Flipping on the TP carries significant risk, and those who buy near the equilibrium price or who attempt to gain too much profit end up holding the items too long, relisting and losing their initial fees, and/or sell at a loss.

It isn’t just, “I bought 100g worth of stuff and sold for 150g, big profit!” the timing has a lot to do with it. I could sell the same 100g worth for 120g a lot faster, buy more and sell for 140g, and buy more and sell for 160g and make more money in the same period of time. But you have to know what you’re doing and how to predict what will happen to the market in order to do this.

So since 3 times in gw2 history happened an item lost significant value (that will be regain also in this case, and even ignoring the fact it was easy to predict as you can see in many posts in this section), it means TP has significant risk….

There is almost no risk…don t pretend there is because there isn t any unless you are really unexperienced with both economy and this game….

I’ll ask you again.

How many veteran flippers EVER lost significant money?
How often?

The poins is 99% transactions have a low margin that becomes lot of money depending on the gold invested.

Then there are medium risk Investments prepatch that gives 100-500% margin…

And finally few risky Investments that gives 5000+% margin but have 40% risk….

If you differentiate you can t lose money.

tolunart.2095:

laokoko.7403:

People are basically complaining about the few people buying out the 30 silver dye because they get the information first. And JS basically says “you know… many people lost money because they bought dye at 80 silver”. Which don’t even have anything to do with people complaining.

What are you even trying to say? Of course it has to do with the complaints. Flipping on the TP carries significant risk, and those who buy near the equilibrium price or who attempt to gain too much profit end up holding the items too long, relisting and losing their initial fees, and/or sell at a loss.

It isn’t just, “I bought 100g worth of stuff and sold for 150g, big profit!” the timing has a lot to do with it. I could sell the same 100g worth for 120g a lot faster, buy more and sell for 140g, and buy more and sell for 160g and make more money in the same period of time. But you have to know what you’re doing and how to predict what will happen to the market in order to do this.

Because that topic isn’t just about flipping. It’s about “people receiving information faster” have an advantage.

Which is a different subject.

And how about you telling me how much you lost in GW2 flipping life and how much you gained. Unless you are really bad or take too many risk, most likely you gained a lot more than you lost.