Guild Wars 2

laokoko.7403:

I like to know how you balance trading post since the profit can go from negative big number to a really large positive big numver.

If you’re not being sarcastic, first idea that came to mind is make end products (NOT anything that could be crafted further) account-bound on purchase as if you’d equipped them.
Second idea: Make exotic gear less rare.

Sure, they have their flaws, but that’s the idea of an idea; a sketch to be worked out.

I honestly don’t see why they couldn’t have done this instead great post very interesting discussion. I don’t really do anything on the high roller side so this was very informative to read about.

laokoko.7403:

I like to know how you balance trading post since the profit can go from negative big number to a really large positive big numver.

I’ve already put out a theorized solution to it. A few pages back.

Borghal.1635:

Fenrir.3609:

Except it hasn’t.

When someone points out exactly why different systems can and do have different potential gains is specific areas. Countering that with"but they should all give the same gold, the game is not competitive!" is not a very good argument to make. At all.

Oh nobody is disagreeing with you that they can and do have different potential gains. No need to argue for that :-) It’s just that some of us believes it is against the philosophy of the game to allow for large differences, and this argument is especially about the fact that one of them seems dominant, one that isn’t even gameplay in the first place. And for reasons that have been stated over and over again. I just summed it up my last post, in fact, but you conveniently dodged that.

The argument is also not that “the game is not competitive” because as it stands, yes it is. But it shouldn’t be unless you want it to. If the game invites you to go do PvE with friends, you -as a new unaware player- don’t expect to fiercely compete with others. That’s the core point and unless you believe that everyone should be forced into competing, there is really nothing to dismiss that with. The argument is less of economics and more of deign philosophy.

I’d really appreciate it, since you’re already taking time to reply, if you replied to everything.

First of all, by comparing rewards of different playstyles, you make the game competitive towards yourself, thats your choice, but dont complain about competition then. For me, the TP is my core gameplay so how can you state that it isnt? Nearly every player interacts with it and some make better choices than others.
You still claim that average profits made on the tp per hour are higher than other game modes, which is simply not true. The average tp player doesnt make more gold with the tp than with other activities, propably even less considering the TP doesnt create gold.
Basically each point of karma values at 1 copper atm, bloodstone dust more than 10c, a skillpoint at least 50s up to 3g. I dont see those rewards factored into the equation, when comparing different playstyles. I dont get those rewards on the tp but they are needed in order to craft endgame rewards, so how does my ability to extract more gold from the tp make me earn those endgame rewards at a faster pace?

Lydia Solace.1348:

I honestly don’t see why they couldn’t have done this instead great post very interesting discussion. I don’t really do anything on the high roller side so this was very informative to read about.

Haha, Thanks. At least not “All Is Vain!”. Glad some people take some positives out of this topic.

Fenrir.3609:

phys.7689:

im going to stop you right here, there is nothing inherent to TP merchanting versus say for example boss fighting that means one should give you more than the other.

Currently, there quite obviously is as I have pointed out a tiring amount of times now and there has been no evidence given to suggest that needs to change outside of “muh feelings!”.

why not make it possible to get rewarded in ways that dont unbalance the macro economy

etc.

I’ve already said I would give rewards to highly skilled participants in pve/pve and I would certainly love to see high risk, high skill requirement gameplay added.

Still, you would be unable to “balance” gold gain in and of itself because of the fundamental difference in the core mechanics of the two systems (which I can’t believe people don’t grasp in all honesty). But then, that wouldn’t bother you right as you are not after gold gain, as long as you could get the elite items as a reward for doing the elite content.

as long as i can progress and have goals attainable by playing and getting good at whatever playstyle im into, im fine and dandy.
And while i might not win tournaments, i would rather pay a gold entrance fee for a chance at the pot, because that entertains me.

Id rather fight a boss who kills people and takes 10 per person per group wiped, gladly paying because it makes it more thrilling. (and its optional)

rather get account bound awards like SAB skins and Fractal skins, because it gives me reasons to do certain types of content

dont really care about cash, just happens that GW2 decided to focus the reward gain on high end things in the game on cash.

Borghal.1635:

laokoko.7403:

I like to know how you balance trading post since the profit can go from negative big number to a really large positive big numver.

If you’re not being sarcastic, first idea that came to mind is make end products (NOT anything that could be crafted further) account-bound on purchase as if you’d equipped them.
Second idea: Make exotic gear less rare.
Sure, they have their flaws, but that’s the idea of an idea; a sketch to be worked out.

What would it change, if we make precursors AC on purchase? It was mentioned and explained many times, even by Devs, that it would change nothing at the price of them because prices are driven by supply and demand of the general player base.
And how is exotic gear rare/expensive? It takes about 5-10 hours to fully gear a character in exotics.
And both changes, if they were implemented, would change nothing of the way and magnitude, tp merchants make their gold.

phys.7689:

Fenrir.3609:

phys.7689:

im going to stop you right here, there is nothing inherent to TP merchanting versus say for example boss fighting that means one should give you more than the other.

Currently, there quite obviously is as I have pointed out a tiring amount of times now and there has been no evidence given to suggest that needs to change outside of “muh feelings!”.

why not make it possible to get rewarded in ways that dont unbalance the macro economy

etc.

I’ve already said I would give rewards to highly skilled participants in pve/pve and I would certainly love to see high risk, high skill requirement gameplay added.

Still, you would be unable to “balance” gold gain in and of itself because of the fundamental difference in the core mechanics of the two systems (which I can’t believe people don’t grasp in all honesty). But then, that wouldn’t bother you right as you are not after gold gain, as long as you could get the elite items as a reward for doing the elite content.

as long as i can progress and have goals attainable by playing and getting good at whatever playstyle im into, im fine and dandy.
And while i might not win tournaments, i would rather pay a gold entrance fee for a chance at the pot, because that entertains me.

Id rather fight a boss who kills people and takes 10 per person per group wiped, gladly paying because it makes it more thrilling. (and its optional)

rather get account bound awards like SAB skins and Fractal skins, because it gives me reasons to do certain types of content

dont really care about cash, just happens that GW2 decided to focus the reward gain on high end things in the game on cash.

Fenrir and me both acknowledged this to be a good idea but it has absolutely nothing to do with nerfing the tp. Its completely off topic and I dont know why you keep bringing it up as an argument to nerf the tp.

Wanze.8410:

Borghal.1635:

laokoko.7403:

I like to know how you balance trading post since the profit can go from negative big number to a really large positive big numver.

If you’re not being sarcastic, first idea that came to mind is make end products (NOT anything that could be crafted further) account-bound on purchase as if you’d equipped them.
Second idea: Make exotic gear less rare.
Sure, they have their flaws, but that’s the idea of an idea; a sketch to be worked out.

What would it change, if we make precursors AC on purchase? It was mentioned and explained many times, even by Devs, that it would change nothing at the price of them because prices are driven by supply and demand of the general player base.
And how is exotic gear rare/expensive? It takes about 5-10 hours to fully gear a character in exotics.
And both changes, if they were implemented, would change nothing of the way and magnitude, tp merchants make their gold.

I think they just want to cut the profit for flippers/investers. So they’ll have miserable gold per hour too.

Wanze.8410:

First of all, by comparing rewards of different playstyles, you make the game competitive towards yourself, thats your choice, but dont complain about competition then.

Sorry, but that just doesn’t make sense. If you want to do something decently in this game, you needs must interact with the TP. The competition lies in the fact that in the end, players want the same things and they compete for them on the TP, because as it is, it still is the most reliable way to get stuff. What I’m getting at is that I think the competition needs to be equalized somewhat. When that one person who just couldn’t get his dream weapon ShinyGoldenSword drop through PvE gives up and decides to try and buy it through the TP, he finds out that through all the hundreds of hours of monster slaying he enjoyed, he made nowhere near the 400 gold the weapon sells for and gets frustrated even more… player dissatisfaction is what I want to avoid here. Disclaimer: numbers entirely fictitious.

Wanze.8410:

For me, the TP is my core gameplay so how can you state that it isnt? Nearly every player interacts with it and some make better choices than others.
You still claim that average profits made on the tp per hour are higher than other game modes, which is simply not true. The average tp player doesnt make more gold with the tp than with other activities, propably even less considering the TP doesnt create gold.

1) For you, sure. For other players? More importantly, for the game designers? I don’t doubt there are players who consider Belcher’s Bluff their core gameplay. Or Keg Brawls. There are RP’ers out there, to them RPing is the core gameplay. BUT, none of these, and I would bet on that, would be considered the kind of gameplay that the game was built around. The TP exists so that players could exchange items in a safe environment, making money on it is a side effect, not the reason it is in the game, hence why it is not a core gameplay element. If that still doesn’t convince you, consider this: the game never nudges you towards using the TP. Yet if you want to play this game, you have no choice but to go beat up bad guys. You get invitations to dungeons. Tutorials for sPvP/WvW (albeit miserable ones). Encouragement to do events, to gather resource, achievements for all the things you can do… and so on. If someone once mistakes the TP for the gem store and they forget about it since they don’t want to spend money now, nothing’s ever going to nudge them to open the TP screen again as opposed to the other activities.

2) Actually, in the case of high-value low-supply stuff, this is more of a problem of rich speculators than anything else. But I digress. I don’t claim there is more profit to be made on the TP. I go by the fact that I have yet to see a farmer/dedicated player state his wealth in the tens of thousands, whereas in this subsection there is no shortage of such people being mentioned.

Wanze.8410:

Basically each point of karma values at 1 copper atm, bloodstone dust more than 10c, a skillpoint at least 50s up to 3g. I dont see those rewards factored into the equation, when comparing different playstyles. I dont get those rewards on the tp but they are needed in order to craft endgame rewards, so how does my ability to extract more gold from the tp make me earn those endgame rewards at a faster pace?

Because it’s all about volume. The speed at which you acquire gold is the real dealbreaker, the rest of the game’s resources is way on the sidelines. For example, you know how many skillpoints you can earn in a timeframe, you know the price isn’t going to change and you don’t need to compete with anyone to get them.

Borghal.1635:

tolunart.2095:

Borghal.1635:

Why should you not? It’s an activity they put in there, not emergent gameplay. It already is being rewarded (via achievments) so there’s really no reasons it couldn’t be reward as much as anything else you can do that the devs put there.

(Though I sincerely doubt the devs expected someone to spend all their ingame time by Keg Brawls. Now dungeoneering/farming open world/sPvP/WvW, I’m fairly sure they did expect.)

Sounds good to me. My wife and I are going to spend the next six hours in Divinity’s Reach, standing near one of the big statues RPing. Give us each 6g/hour for this, plus karma and XP.

RP is a prime example of emergent gameplay, so you kinda missed the point on that one.

On a side note, oh how I’d love some serious RP. But this is not the game for it, now less than ever when RP’ers don’t even have their own server anymore.
Oh poor forgotten Ultima Online, the memories will never fade… :-)

Nope, if you think that everyone should be rewarded equally for the activities they enjoy, that includes standing around talking. Don’t try to weasel out of it, not going to accept that as an excuse. I do not care if you agree or not.

laokoko.7403:

Wanze.8410:

Borghal.1635:

laokoko.7403:

I like to know how you balance trading post since the profit can go from negative big number to a really large positive big numver.

If you’re not being sarcastic, first idea that came to mind is make end products (NOT anything that could be crafted further) account-bound on purchase as if you’d equipped them.
Second idea: Make exotic gear less rare.
Sure, they have their flaws, but that’s the idea of an idea; a sketch to be worked out.

What would it change, if we make precursors AC on purchase? It was mentioned and explained many times, even by Devs, that it would change nothing at the price of them because prices are driven by supply and demand of the general player base.
And how is exotic gear rare/expensive? It takes about 5-10 hours to fully gear a character in exotics.
And both changes, if they were implemented, would change nothing of the way and magnitude, tp merchants make their gold.

I think they just want to cut the profit for flippers/investers. So they’ll have miserable gold per hour too.

Well then better stop thinking and start reading, It has been spelled out so many times it’s not funny. If the goal is to somewhat equalize opportunities, it doesn’t matter which way it goes, right? Nerf the TP, buff the rest of the game, whatever. IF you indeed acknowledge that non-investment gold gain in this game is miserable, then that just proves there is a problem to be solved.

And to Wanze: I think – and that is only my gut feeling – it couldn’t make things worse, at least. Because then you wouldn’t have people trying to buy low, sell high, driving the price even higher.

And some exotics are rare enough to cost well over a 100g. It does have a lot to do with rarity, really. If what you can make in the MF dropped in the open world at a significant rate, prices would go down. Some of those weapons are crazy expensive because of crafting costs. Yes, Infinite Light, I’m looking at you. I see no reason for a 100 000% price disparity only for the looks.

tolunart.2095:

Nope, if you think that everyone should be rewarded equally for the activities they enjoy, that includes standing around talking. Don’t try to weasel out of it, not going to accept that as an excuse. I do not care if you agree or not.

Maybe you should look up what emergent gameplay means before adding more to the discussion. I did link that concept (or rather its’ opposite) directly with the rewards part of my opinion. (But then again you have been on the Internet for 20 years so you must have ran across the term at some point, which leaves me to believe you’re just adding on nonsense for the kicks :P)

Borghal.1635:

Seriously, if everyone had the potential to gain more or less the same amount of money per time, then the only thing differentiating you from the next guy would be how long you play. That is a good thing
If you desired something of high value, all you would have to do is bunker down and farm more than average. There would be no people barring you from getting to that goal because they have much higher profits per time. It wouldn’t be possible.

In a casual game, inasmuch as this one is, reward gain should me more about time spent playing (also real money) than cleverness at finding profitable activities orthogonal to the main focus of the game.

It’s only a good thing if you have a lot of free time to devote to the game. You are penalized for having a job (which doesn’t necessarily mean you have lots of cash to spend on the game), a family, other interests… The only people who agree that those who spend 12 hours a day in the game should get 12x more than people who can only play 1 hour a day are people who can play 12 hours a day.

Guess what! The majority of these people buy the box and never spend another penny on the game. They are necessary because they populate the world and give other players incentive to log in and do activities. But they do not support the game, the people who are willing to spend cash on the game support it, and those are the customers that Anet is most interested in pleasing.

Buy gems – convert to gold – buy stuff from the TP is naturally going to be supported more than play all day long – convert gold to gems – buy stuff from the gem store.

Borghal.1635:

tolunart.2095:

Nope, if you think that everyone should be rewarded equally for the activities they enjoy, that includes standing around talking. Don’t try to weasel out of it, not going to accept that as an excuse. I do not care if you agree or not.

Maybe you should look up what emergent gameplay means before adding more to the discussion. I did link that concept (or rather its’ opposite) directly with the rewards part of my opinion. (But then again you have been on the Internet for 20 years so you must have ran across the term at some point, which leaves me to believe you’re just adding on nonsense for the kicks :P)

Your argument is ridiculous and I really, honestly and absolutely do not care what you think.

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

Fenrir.3609:

phys.7689:

im going to stop you right here, there is nothing inherent to TP merchanting versus say for example boss fighting that means one should give you more than the other.

Currently, there quite obviously is as I have pointed out a tiring amount of times now and there has been no evidence given to suggest that needs to change outside of “muh feelings!”.

why not make it possible to get rewarded in ways that dont unbalance the macro economy

etc.

I’ve already said I would give rewards to highly skilled participants in pve/pve and I would certainly love to see high risk, high skill requirement gameplay added.

Still, you would be unable to “balance” gold gain in and of itself because of the fundamental difference in the core mechanics of the two systems (which I can’t believe people don’t grasp in all honesty). But then, that wouldn’t bother you right as you are not after gold gain, as long as you could get the elite items as a reward for doing the elite content.

as long as i can progress and have goals attainable by playing and getting good at whatever playstyle im into, im fine and dandy.
And while i might not win tournaments, i would rather pay a gold entrance fee for a chance at the pot, because that entertains me.

Id rather fight a boss who kills people and takes 10 per person per group wiped, gladly paying because it makes it more thrilling. (and its optional)

rather get account bound awards like SAB skins and Fractal skins, because it gives me reasons to do certain types of content

dont really care about cash, just happens that GW2 decided to focus the reward gain on high end things in the game on cash.

Fenrir and me both acknowledged this to be a good idea but it has absolutely nothing to do with nerfing the tp. Its completely off topic and I dont know why you keep bringing it up as an argument to nerf the tp.

i bring it up because the argument for nerf tp is that

players cant get rewards except via tp because tp rewards based around gold accumulation.
So either they can attempt to bring the gains via TP down, or they can try to make players not mind by giving them ways to achieve things without nerfing the TP.

Essentially i am saying dont nerf the TP, fix the other playstyles possible gains.

To make an analogy to nerfing a class, i would be saying dont nerf that class, improve the other classes because they are under performing.

to which others have said, they cant do it because it would flood the economy, to which i reply do it in ways that do not flood the economy.

Everyone really just wants to have viable playstyles and goals here. They dont have to nerf the TP to achieve this.

The best things would be to create other reward structures, more methods of wealth exchange/risk for various playstyles, as well as increase player understanding of the TP game.

for example, a lot of people dont know when they are losing at the TP, because they think everything they get is free.

If we are going full blast core gameplay on the TP, they could add things like a portfolio.
when you put items into portfolio it tells you their average value from sales over X period of time, max buy and max sell,
when sell and item you craft it tells you the value of the materials involved.
when you sell an item you have salvaged it tells you the value of the possible salvages
when it sees that you are losing money (even if your are gaining it back through drops) it gives/changes your rating.
etc. I mean a lot of people actually think they are coming out ahead sometimes when mathematically they arent really

anyhow whatever things most likely wont change much, the type of things i propose take a lot of work/ui/etc. Just a shame that i have to play the TP to get ahead, back to hustling warez

tolunart.2095:

Buy gems – convert to gold – buy stuff from the TP is naturally going to be supported more than play all day long – convert gold to gems – buy stuff from the gem store.

Guess what? I still have that opinion although I have an average of 1.5 hour per day. It’s the only way to make the game fair to the casual guy, which is this game’s target demographic.

Also, buying gold with gems at the current exchange rate is not “supported”. It’s an expensive option on top of the gem store. But really, if you have no time to play because of a job and still have no money to buy stuff ingame, what are you doing in a “pay2lookfancy” game?
And that situation is probably pretty common in GW2 if you’re middle-class or lower what with the silly exchange rates.
“Honey, where did those 100$ go yesterday?”
“Oh, um… I bought this really cool sword, see… It was better than playing for it for 100 hours, right?”

tolunart.2095:

Borghal.1635:

tolunart.2095:

Nope, if you think that everyone should be rewarded equally for the activities they enjoy, that includes standing around talking. Don’t try to weasel out of it, not going to accept that as an excuse. I do not care if you agree or not.

Maybe you should look up what emergent gameplay means before adding more to the discussion. I did link that concept (or rather its’ opposite) directly with the rewards part of my opinion. (But then again you have been on the Internet for 20 years so you must have ran across the term at some point, which leaves me to believe you’re just adding on nonsense for the kicks :P)

Your argument is ridiculous and I really, honestly and absolutely do not care what you think.

I’m not sure you noticed this turned into a game design philosophy discussion a long time ago :-)

Borghal.1635:

laokoko.7403:

I like to know how you balance trading post since the profit can go from negative big number to a really large positive big numver.

If you’re not being sarcastic, first idea that came to mind is make end products (NOT anything that could be crafted further) account-bound on purchase as if you’d equipped them.
Second idea: Make exotic gear less rare.

Sure, they have their flaws, but that’s the idea of an idea; a sketch to be worked out.

Neither of those solve any problems and both introduce new problems. It’s not a sketch to be worked out, they have already been considered and dismissed.

I have an idea to wipe out world hunger: learn to eat rocks. Sure, it has flaws, but it’s an idea to be considered.

Borghal.1635:

tolunart.2095:

Borghal.1635:

tolunart.2095:

Nope, if you think that everyone should be rewarded equally for the activities they enjoy, that includes standing around talking. Don’t try to weasel out of it, not going to accept that as an excuse. I do not care if you agree or not.

Maybe you should look up what emergent gameplay means before adding more to the discussion. I did link that concept (or rather its’ opposite) directly with the rewards part of my opinion. (But then again you have been on the Internet for 20 years so you must have ran across the term at some point, which leaves me to believe you’re just adding on nonsense for the kicks :P)

Your argument is ridiculous and I really, honestly and absolutely do not care what you think.

I’m not sure you noticed this turned into a game design philosophy discussion a long time ago :-)

No, it turned into a confusing mess a long time ago, it was always a design philosophy discussion.

tolunart.2095:

Borghal.1635:

laokoko.7403:

I like to know how you balance trading post since the profit can go from negative big number to a really large positive big numver.

If you’re not being sarcastic, first idea that came to mind is make end products (NOT anything that could be crafted further) account-bound on purchase as if you’d equipped them.
Second idea: Make exotic gear less rare.

Sure, they have their flaws, but that’s the idea of an idea; a sketch to be worked out.

Neither of those solve any problems and both introduce new problems. It’s not a sketch to be worked out, they have already been considered and dismissed.

I have an idea to wipe out world hunger: learn to eat rocks. Sure, it has flaws, but it’s an idea to be considered.

Keep the strawmen in the cornfield, please :P

Borghal.1635:

Also, buying gold with gems at the current exchange rate is not “supported”. It’s an expensive option on top of the gem store. But really, if you have no time to play because of a job and still have no money to buy stuff ingame, what are you doing in a “pay2lookfancy” game?

I created unique looks for 16 characters and the most expensive items I bought were a few cultural tier 1 and 2 skins and (when I had a lot of gold on hand) a couple of dyes like Midnight Fire.

It’s only a problem if you view the “fashion show” as a competition that requires you to outspend everyone else. You can’t “win” this game because eventually someone else will show up with a rare item you can’t get.

I am perfectly happy running around Queensdale with my wife killing champions or tagging the last POI in Sparkfly Fen on a new toon. While wearing armor that I bought from the TP for less than five gold. I don’t need to compare myself to other people to feel good about myself.

When I see the toon next to me wearing dungeon armor (which I haven’t even seen in over a year, that stuff got old fast) and swinging Twilight or shooting unicorns, I’m not impressed at all. I’ve seen the same thing hundreds of times, it’s not a big deal any more.

I’ve seen a lot of people post about having something up for months … Though my OCD would sure love it if those pointless 1c buy and 100g sell orders disappeared :-)

tolunart.2095:

… i like the cheap stuff in the game …

Well I run around content with dungeon equip. Feel appropriate and satisfying since that’s what I do most. NOT THAT IT MATTERS, because we’re talking about the player*base* on average, not you or I.

And it’s an indisputable fact that the stuff that is expensive is designed to be the stuff people strive for the most. It just has to be that way otherwise they wouldn’t plan on it to make them $$$. And since it is designed that way, most players will indeed fall for the bait. Well, it’s not really bait. It’s designed to appeal to a lot of people, so you can’t blame them.

Point is, if you’re playing a game, you want to relax. You don’t want to get frustrated that you can’t reach the carrot the game is dangling in front of you. You want realism in games, go play
Candy Crush!

tolunart.2095:

it’s not a big deal any more.

See? That’s how I feel too. But people don’t, since the prices would reflect that :- /
Oh and also it’s a matter of variety. In heavy armors, pre-60 stuff is crap. You don’t want to be seen walking in that, unless you’re RPing a very poor man. Forget dungeon armors and skins and you’re left with precious little variety. Seeing everyone in Draconic gets rather old very fast too :-(

Borghal.1635:

And to Wanze: I think – and that is only my gut feeling – it couldn’t make things worse, at least. Because then you wouldn’t have people trying to buy low, sell high, driving the price even higher.

Flipping lowers prices. Imagine Wanze and I are both trying to sell Dawn, and each have bought one to sell. I list mine at 1000g and he undercuts me for 950. So I cancel the listing and relist for 900, he does the same for 850. Etc, down to 500g before someone comes along and buys it. The buyer got a deal, and we wasted the fees relisting to compete to sell first.

If you can only farm items, then sell them and the buyer is stuck with an item he can’t sell, then you buy from whatever price the seller wants. It would make things worse for buyers because sellers face less competition.

Borghal.1635:

2) Actually, in the case of high-value low-supply stuff, this is more of a problem of rich speculators than anything else. But I digress. I don’t claim there is more profit to be made on the TP. I go by the fact that I have yet to see a farmer/dedicated player state his wealth in the tens of thousands, whereas in this subsection there is no shortage of such people being mentioned.

Wanze.8410:

Basically each point of karma values at 1 copper atm, bloodstone dust more than 10c, a skillpoint at least 50s up to 3g. I dont see those rewards factored into the equation, when comparing different playstyles. I dont get those rewards on the tp but they are needed in order to craft endgame rewards, so how does my ability to extract more gold from the tp make me earn those endgame rewards at a faster pace?

Because it’s all about volume. The speed at which you acquire gold is the real dealbreaker, the rest of the game’s resources is way on the sidelines. For example, you know how many skillpoints you can earn in a timeframe, you know the price isn’t going to change and you don’t need to compete with anyone to get them.

2) If you are looking at the gold at hand, there is no disparity between me and other players. I dont think i ever had more than 700g at once. Most of my account value lies in items i dont need/consume. There also might be a misconception about how account wealth is calculated. I might have 500+ listings on the tp, worth 20k gold, but if i sell it to the highest bidder right now, i might just get 8k gold for it. I mentioned that i make between 1-3g profit per skillpoint, which goes into my account wealth. I know people who accumulated 4 or 5 times more skillpoints than me in game but they either use it to unlock skills for alts or dont use them at all. But those people usually dont account for their 1-2k skillpoints they have available or spent unlocking all skills on 5+ alts as account wealth. I put gold i use to buy influence to build up my guild bank as account wealth, do you account for the influence you earn with activities outside the tp? How much account value do you put on a character that you leveled to 80 by playing the game? How much do you value one that has been crafted to lvl 80?
Estimating Account value (and the rate of acquiring it) is a wobbly business. And if you look at my (estimated) account wealth compared to hours played, its quite in line with other accounts, considering all types of wealth. I am below 10g/hour and considering the time I spend doing research while not playing the game, it will be closer 5g than 10g per hour. The big difference is that i consume far less (contrary to your assumptions) than the average player. I only ever played one character, one class. Some people might never have owned more than 100g but thats just because they keep spending their earnings and i dont.

Borghal.1635:

tolunart.2095:

it’s not a big deal any more.

See? That’s how I feel too. But people don’t, since the prices would reflect that :- /
Oh and also it’s a matter of variety. In heavy armors, pre-60 stuff is crap. You don’t want to be seen walking in that, unless you’re RPing a very poor man. Forget dungeon armors and skins and you’re left with precious little variety. Seeing everyone in Draconic gets rather old very fast too :-(

I lean towards medium wearers, my most played toons are rangers and thieves. But for heavy I absolutely love the HOM skins and the Vigil heavy armors, as well as this Roman Gladiator type helmet with a feathery crest on it, I think it’s a low level karma piece. Draconic armor is just ugly. Before I actually learned how to make some gold in the game, most of my armor skins came from low level karma vendors or cost vendor + 1c on the TP.

Even now anything expensive comes from a vendor and thus is immune to the effects of inflation, it’s the same price now that it was at launch. I don’t need ascended stats, either the gear under the skin is rare or exotic.

tolunart.2095:

Borghal.1635:

And to Wanze: I think – and that is only my gut feeling – it couldn’t make things worse, at least. Because then you wouldn’t have people trying to buy low, sell high, driving the price even higher.

Flipping lowers prices. Imagine Wanze and I are both trying to sell Dawn, and each have bought one to sell. I list mine at 1000g and he undercuts me for 950. So I cancel the listing and relist for 900, he does the same for 850. Etc, down to 500g before someone comes along and buys it. The buyer got a deal, and we wasted the fees relisting to compete to sell first.

If you can only farm items, then sell them and the buyer is stuck with an item he can’t sell, then you buy from whatever price the seller wants. It would make things worse for buyers because sellers face less competition.

wanze would just leave it there, taking a 100+ gold paycut to beat your price should only be done in dire circumstances

do people complain about flipping in the rift forum too?

Borghal.1635:

And it’s an indisputable fact that the stuff that is expensive is designed to be the stuff people strive for the most. It just has to be that way otherwise they wouldn’t plan on it to make them $$$. And since it is designed that way, most players will indeed fall for the bait. Well, it’s not really bait. It’s designed to appeal to a lot of people, so you can’t blame them.

Point is, if you’re playing a game, you want to relax. You don’t want to get frustrated that you can’t reach the carrot the game is dangling in front of you. You want realism in games, go play
Candy Crush!

Yes, MMOs were designed to encourage and exploit these tendencies, which is why I always played single player games until relatively recently. I got into MMOs the day Rift was released, I think it was March 1, 2011.

In a single player game, people pass around cheat codes, for example in Skyrim you can edit the game so your character has anything you want. The company makes money on box sales and DLC, not subs. WoW is sub-based and makes money by resetting the gear every so often so your character is never “finished.”

GW2 doesn’t reset gear, exotic/ascended is for the most part optional content for min/maxers, you can enjoy the game without them. Because they don’t need to keep people subbed, they need to continue introducing reasons to spend money on the gem shop, and a big part of that is changing the style of your character.

I just choose not to participate in the GW2 Fashion Show, if I buy something it’s because I like it, not because other people have it or want it.

phys.7689:

wanze would just leave it there, taking a 100+ gold paycut to beat your price should only be done in dire circumstances

An example off the top of my head, not an actual occurance. In reality nearly any market has anywhere from 1 to 1000 flippers active at any time, unless you are the first to discover the market’s potential someone is listing items for less than you.

laokoko.7403:

do people complain about flipping in the rift forum too?

Probably, it’s been a year or two since I played it, but when I was on the forums I talked about how I made money there, too.

I’m still surprised this thread is still seeing the light of day. Normally if a thread get’s driven off-topic this badly, and I mean so far off-topic it’s not even relevant to JS’s last request (which wasnt necessarily related to the original topic in the first place), they get locked and trashbinned in a heartbeat.

JS has been making a fortune selling popcorn.

tolunart.2095:

phys.7689:

wanze would just leave it there, taking a 100+ gold paycut to beat your price should only be done in dire circumstances

An example off the top of my head, not an actual occurance. In reality nearly any market has anywhere from 1 to 1000 flippers active at any time, unless you are the first to discover the market’s potential someone is listing items for less than you.

Wrong, no prudent TP merchants are undercutting. What a silly speculation. You can tell that by wanze example alone. He’ll let it sit till it sells, he can afford to.

I also think that undercutting on such expensive stock is gonna hurt a lot in the long run. You’re more or less sure it will sell, so if you don’t need the money nao, you won’t waste more by undercutting.

munkiman.3068:

tolunart.2095:

phys.7689:

wanze would just leave it there, taking a 100+ gold paycut to beat your price should only be done in dire circumstances

An example off the top of my head, not an actual occurance. In reality nearly any market has anywhere from 1 to 1000 flippers active at any time, unless you are the first to discover the market’s potential someone is listing items for less than you.

Wrong, no prudent TP merchants are undercutting. What a silly speculation. You can tell that by wanze example alone. He’ll let it sit till it sells, he can afford to.

I would never trade in precursors in the first place because its NOT very profitable in the long run. Its a myth that people get rich by that. Regular people just see the price increase of 100-200g and think somebody but stupidly rich by that. Its not happening people. Nobody that knows what he is doing on the tp, invests into precursors or other high value items. The profit margins are just not there. If I wanted to make 100% on Dusk for example (which sells for 1000g now) I must have bought it 15 months ago for 500g. If I would have spent 500g to buy a stack of each common and fine crafting mat, i would have made more than 500% profit on average in shorter time.

And concerning your interpretation of my playstyle: Why do you think i can afford to let it sit at 100g over actual listing price and wait and others can not?
They can also wait and it doesnt cost them more time or gold than me. If you argue that they need the gold more than me, than you are arguing that they consume more than me, which propably one of the main reasons why i have more gold than them.

Wanze.8410:

munkiman.3068:

tolunart.2095:

phys.7689:

wanze would just leave it there, taking a 100+ gold paycut to beat your price should only be done in dire circumstances

An example off the top of my head, not an actual occurance. In reality nearly any market has anywhere from 1 to 1000 flippers active at any time, unless you are the first to discover the market’s potential someone is listing items for less than you.

Wrong, no prudent TP merchants are undercutting. What a silly speculation. You can tell that by wanze example alone. He’ll let it sit till it sells, he can afford to.

I would never trade in precursors in the first place because its NOT very profitable in the long run. Its a myth that people get rich by that. Regular people just see the price increase of 100-200g and think somebody but stupidly rich by that. Its not happening people. Nobody that knows what he is doing on the tp, invests into precursors or other high value items. The profit margins are just not there. If I wanted to make 100% on Dusk for example (which sells for 1000g now) I must have bought it 15 months ago for 500g. If I would have spent 500g to buy a stack of each common and fine crafting mat, i would have made more than 500% profit on average in shorter time.

And concerning your interpretation of my playstyle: Why do you think i can afford to let it sit at 100g over actual listing price and wait and others can not?
They can also wait and it doesnt cost them more time or gold than me. If you argue that they need the gold more than me, than you are arguing that they consume more than me, which propably one of the main reasons why i have more gold than them.

It goes back to what i said about the average seller. If anything the majority of players that list an item are doing the undercutting, the rest are selling out-right to buy orders. If by saying the process in which TP merchants operate is to undercut each other and as a bonus, lowering the sell prices for consumers, is something that actually happens, then that’s bogus. TP merchants can and do list at higher sell prices, they don’t undercut. Why should they? They know it’ll sell, eventually.

munkiman.3068:

It goes back to what i said about the average seller. If anything the majority of players that list an item are doing the undercutting, the rest are selling out-right to buy orders. If by saying the process in which TP merchants operate is to undercut each other and as a bonus, lowering the sell prices for consumers, is something that actually happens, then that’s bogus. TP merchants can and do list at higher sell prices, they don’t undercut. Why should they? They know it’ll sell, eventually.

That depends entirely upon the individual market, so your claim of “bogus” also applies only to specific individual markets, not to the economy as a whole.

munkiman.3068:

It goes back to what i said about the average seller. If anything the majority of players that list an item are doing the undercutting, the rest are selling out-right to buy orders. If by saying the process in which TP merchants operate is to undercut each other and as a bonus, lowering the sell prices for consumers, is something that actually happens, then that’s bogus. TP merchants can and do list at higher sell prices, they don’t undercut. Why should they? They know it’ll sell, eventually.

Now you´re mixing something up. Flippers and speculators behave differently. Flippers will always undercut by a copper (usually) to get their gold back as fast as possible. Speculators will list at higher prices than the lowest seller because they think demand will outlast supply at some point and my item will sell. We also have to make the conscious choice between more profit and longer listing time or less profit and faster sell.
But you cant generalize that and for every item i decide, based on my market knowledge and how much gold i have on hand atm, how high i will list or undercut it.

Change the example to a group of random flippers selling iron ore and undercutting each other by a copper then. The point of the example is that in almost any part of the TP there will be multiple sellers competing with each other, which is good for buyers. They buy the stock from farmers and other players selling the items they accumulate through playing, and outbid each other to acquire the items quickly. This is good for sellers.

Flippers help speed up the process by which buy and sell prices close the gap between them and whether you are patient or impatient, you end up having similar results whether buying or selling because the prices are closer together.

This is not bogus or open to debate, unless you want to tell JS he doesn’t know anything about the TP he is in charge of.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

We were finally able to push this silly thread to the 2nd page, never to be seen again. And you decide to make an I Quit post in order to necro this thing?

I’m gonna have to bump it just to respond to your PM cause I’m not allowed to PM people anymore, apparently.

Tested what you told me, used ~500k karma. Using the 5 silver basis, numbers suggested that I should have made around 50g assuming I number crunched correctly.

Wound up with ~37g. The forge seems to like spitting karma gear back out at a decent frequency.

I will say that the method in question works, but I dunno how reliable I would say it is since they smashed karma gains in the head with a baseball bat full of rusty nails, and the mystic forge seems rather trollish.

Make of these mumblings what you will.