Guild Wars 2

I’ve been on other sites and games with inflation problems. There has been no way to effectively equalize all users. Every goldsink that is implemented will punish the poor worse than the more wealthy.

MRA.4758:

John Smith.4610:

An increase in the tax rate would simply get passed on to consumers, with a little bit being absorbed by sellers. It would not be an effective tax on the rich.

Ok, that sounds reasonable.

But please allow me ask: According to your (or everybody else’s) professional expertise, what would be “an effective tax on the rich” that would help to fight the dire income inequality within the game? Or is this social inequality among player characters something we just have to accept as set in stone?

~MRA

DarkSpirit.7046:

[…]

Rare items with high prices are not the most important issue. It’s all they do in average.

There’s people keeping programs doing calculations for them to see how they can make the most profit without actually playing the game.
They are not even doing that work themselves.

For example, sometimes people craft stuff, and then they get a surplus of items like dowels.
Resellers will do things like buying as much as they can of entire stocks, and put a bit back cheap to lure people into selling low, then rebuy again everything and sell it back again high.
More than one person may do that, but since they do mostly the same, the result is the same for others.

It’s a lot of small things joining together to suck money from lots of people into their accounts.

Someone with a calculator in town should never make more profit than someone out there, saving the world, yet the ones making the highest numbers are the ones doing the least.

Unless they are lying when they brag, they earn more than the fastest dungeon speed clearers and fractal runners.

That should change. The ones making the big bucks must be the ones killing the big, fat ugly bosses that can kill you practically by looking at you.

As for equalizing wealth, the only way is earning caps, limiting what people can get in the first place. Like in the Chinese version. Play more than X hours a day, and you no longer get currencies, and you’ll better do something else, like taking a break or RP or PvP or WvW, just socialize, or get achievements or something that isn’t playing for moneys.

Of course, not many people would like that. They want continuous rewards with continuous play, and that will always divide players between those that play more and those that play less.

Gene Archer.8560:

I have devalued nothing. If work and effort are the defining characteristics for the value and prestige of Legendaries, then they currently have neither value nor prestige because all of the work and effort can be completely bypassed by using a credit card to get a Legendary off the TP.

If work and effort are to be defining characteristics for the value of an item, that item cannot be sellable on the TP, or gems bought with money cannot be turned into gold, because it renders the ideas of work and effort meaningless.

An item’s value is not about work and effort. An item’s value is what someone is willing to pay for it. Work and effort might apply to sentimental value but are only one portion of the price in coin of the item.

Ohoni.6057:

Bind on Purchase. Done.

Here is the long explanation of why that is a terrible idea.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/Block-second-hand-sales

Schizo.1375:

An item’s value is not about work and effort. An item’s value is what someone is willing to pay for it.

Then there’s nothing wrong with just handing them out. Glad we agree.

Gene Archer.8560:

Schizo.1375:

An item’s value is not about work and effort. An item’s value is what someone is willing to pay for it.

Then there’s nothing wrong with just handing them out. Glad we agree.

Except for the fact that everything in the game becomes worthless, everyone has everything, everyone gets bored, everyone stops playing, game gets shut down due to lack of funds. And I like GW2 and Anet and John Smith so I’d rather they not lose their jobs. So no, we aren’t in agreement and I’m sorry that I can’t convince you otherwise.

Schizo.1375:

Gene Archer.8560:

Schizo.1375:

An item’s value is not about work and effort. An item’s value is what someone is willing to pay for it.

Then there’s nothing wrong with just handing them out. Glad we agree.

Except for the fact that everything in the game becomes worthless, everyone has everything, everyone gets bored, everyone stops playing, game gets shut down due to lack of funds. And I like GW2 and Anet and John Smith so I’d rather they not lose their jobs. So no, we aren’t in agreement and I’m sorry that I can’t convince you otherwise.

Best way to express that affinity is to let him do his job.

If I really wanted to do something to make things more affordable for the average player, I’d just crank up drop rates to 11. Players would not pay 2 gold for Charged Lodestones if every Air Elemental Champ had a guaranteed drop of 1 and the market gets flooded with them. At the same time, make all rare/expensive skins obtainable by account bound tokens, so you’d be exempt from RNG for things like Precursors.

Of course, this would result in a game where nobody feels “special” because every casual player could eventually get a Legendary with, say, 3 – 6 months of play. I would have no problem playing a game like this, because I really don’t care what other players look like or what they’re using, but it would probably drive away a lot of players, and that’s something ANet cannot afford to do.

Gene Archer.8560:

Oh, I see now. I misread. See, I took what you were saying at an actually logical slant. That is: Anet would just make every skin and armor available in a set up like the wardrobe or pvp locker and just give every item to every player so they could choose their own look.

But what you actually meant was an incredibly dumb system in which Anet would have a game where only one type of armor and weapon existed. All wrapped up, yet again, in that guilt by association argument.

Keep using that guilt by association, man. I’m sure it’ll stop being a fallacy if you use it enough times.

First of all, if ArenaNet is not receiving extra payments from us as you have proposed getting rid of gems, then you can’t expect them to keep as many staff employed to work on the game as they have now. This would include fewer artists and developers.
And there would be fewer incentives for them to come up with new and innovative armor.

Furthermore, since everyone would be getting the SAME set of armor for free, then everyone would be wearing the best-looking armor that they have available, that which is also available to everyone else. This turns it into a uniform.

MithranArkanere.8957:

DarkSpirit.7046:

[…]

Rare items with high prices are not the most important issue. It’s all they do in average.

There’s people keeping programs doing calculations for them to see how they can make the most profit without actually playing the game.
They are not even doing that work themselves.

For example, sometimes people craft stuff, and then they get a surplus of items like dowels.
Resellers will do things like buying as much as they can of entire stocks, and put a bit back cheap to lure people into selling low, then rebuy again everything and sell it back again high.
More than one person may do that, but since they do mostly the same, the result is the same for others.

It’s a lot of small things joining together to suck money from lots of people into their accounts.

Someone with a calculator in town should never make more profit than someone out there, saving the world, yet the ones making the highest numbers are the ones doing the least.

Unless they are lying when they brag, they earn more than the fastest dungeon speed clearers and fractal runners.

That should change. The ones making the big bucks must be the ones killing the big, fat ugly bosses that can kill you practically by looking at you.

As for equalizing wealth, the only way is earning caps, limiting what people can get in the first place. Like in the Chinese version. Play more than X hours a day, and you no longer get currencies, and you’ll better do something else, like taking a break or RP or PvP or WvW, just socialize, or get achievements or something that isn’t playing for moneys.

Of course, not many people would like that. They want continuous rewards with continuous play, and that will always divide players between those that play more and those that play less.

That is called using your brains and your skills to the max to earn gold. There is nothing wrong with that, in fact, such behavior should be encouraged because not enough people have been using their brains or have the motivation to learn new and useful skills for themselves nowadays. They rather fry their minds with brainless forms of entertainment, wasting their time away. The mind is like a muscle, use it or lose it.

Is there any reason why I have learnt to use a calculator and others can never learn to use one? Of course not. Then why complain that others can use a calculator but you can’t because you haven’t worked at it.

Furthermore, except for the legendaries, the most powerful items in the game cannot be bought with gold and has to be earned through spending time playing in the game.

I prefer to live in a world (virtual or otherwise) that rewards smarts and hard work, not a socialistic world where everybody is treated equally no matter how much they work.

DarkSpirit.7046:

First of all, if ArenaNet is not receiving extra payments from us as you have proposed getting rid of gems, then you can’t expect them to keep as many staff employed to work on the game as they have now. This would include fewer artists and developers.
And there would be fewer incentives for them to come up with new and innovative armor.

They barely come up with new and innovative armors as it is. The few they do? Right into the gem shop! So, frankly? No love lost.

DarkSpirit.7046:

Furthermore, since everyone would be getting the SAME set of armor for free

No, everyone would be getting every set of armor that currently exists in the game. But you won’t acknowledge that because it means you have to stop using your guilt by association to make prison and communist comparisons for the sake of the negative tones those things evoke.

Keep going though. You’re making Rush Limbaugh proud. He’ll love you, yet.

DarkSpirit.7046:

in fact, such behavior should be encouraged because not enough people have been using their brains or have the motivation to learn new and useful skills for themselves nowadays. They rather fry their minds with brainless forms of entertainment, wasting their time away.

It’s called wanting to relax after being at work and slaving away at a desk/stove/fryer/wood cutting machine/insert profession here. It’s called downtime. It’s what games and movies are for.

You want more work? Go pick up extra jobs. Don’t turn our games into jobs for your bullcrap laden, romanticized, workaholic ideals.

DarkSpirit.7046:

I prefer to live in a world (virtual or otherwise) that rewards smarts and hard work, not a socialistic world where everybody is treated equally no matter how much they work.

The world you prefer to live in is rife with poverty and suffering. Good to know you obviously support poverty and suffering. (See? I can use guilt by association, too)

Gene Archer.8560:

It’s called wanting to relax after being at work and slaving away at a desk/stove/fryer/wood cutting machine/insert profession here. It’s called downtime. It’s what games and movies are for.

You want more work? Go pick up extra jobs. Don’t turn our games into jobs for your bullcrap laden, romanticized, workaholic ideals.

DarkSpirit.7046:

I prefer to live in a world (virtual or otherwise) that rewards smarts and hard work, not a socialistic world where everybody is treated equally no matter how much they work.

The world you prefer to live in is rife with poverty and suffering. Good to know you obviously support poverty and suffering. (See? I can use guilt by association, too)

There is not much relaxation for me, I am taking on two jobs so that my family and I can get a better life and so that I can improve myself by learning new skills even though I am almost fifty years old.

Except for a few exceptions, there are mainly 2 types of people that I know. Those who work hard for their dreams and those who are too lazy to work for what they want. The latter usually ask for handouts from others and from the government because they can’t rely on themselves and always need the first group of people to carry them through life. In this case, the government in the game being ArenaNet.

DarkSpirit.7046:

There is not much relaxation for me, I am taking on two jobs so that my family and I can get a better life and so that I can improve myself by learning new skills even though I am almost fifty years old.

And you want more work. So get another job. Stop trying to turn a game into a job. Stop trying to make a game mimic a job. Stop trying to take away other people’s relaxation just because you don’t have room for it.

DarkSpirit.7046:

Except for a few exceptions, there are mainly 2 types of people that I know. Those who work hard for their dreams and those who are too lazy to work for what they want.

And except for a few exceptions, I know various types of people who can’t be placed into such shallow, old-world categories that completely ignore the nuances of people and the modern world.

DarkSpirit.7046:

The latter usually ask for handouts from others and from the government because they can’t rely on themselves. In this case, the government in the game being ArenaNet.

And this is a game. So what if people ask for or are given handouts? This isn’t the real world. There is no need to treat it as such.

Gene Archer.8560:

And this is a game. So what if people ask for or are given handouts? This isn’t the real world. There is no need to treat it as such.

Then you are ignoring the efforts that those of us have put in to learn the market and those who have put in the effort to farm and acquired more gold than the rest. Those who have worked harder in the game deserve to stay ahead!

DarkSpirit.7046:

Then you are ignoring the efforts that those of us have put in to learn the market and those who have put in the effort to farm and acquired more gold than the rest.

And you ignore the efforts of those running the events, slaying the bosses, doing the quests, and playing the actual game by keeping rewards so unrewarding, while TP flippers who are playing a glorified market simulator get to make far more gold. If the efforts of farmers and flippers matter, than the efforts of people who actually play the kitten game matter as well, and they should be rewarded just as much, if not more so, since they’re actually playing the game.

So long as you ignore the efforts of everyone but flippers, I will gladly ignore the efforts of flippers. Especially if the game becomes more fun and welcoming by ignoring those efforts.

DarkSpirit.7046:

Those who have worked harder in the game deserve to stay ahead!

Flippers deserve nothing when they don’t even play the game.

Catastrophic failure of carefully constructed economy. Done.

You want to make an omelet, you’ve got to break a few eggs.

I am glad you did not design this game. If you had, I’m fairly sure that fewer people would be playing it, as you’re optimizing for something other than fun or reward.

That’s ridiculous. The majority of people who play this game do not benefit from the TP farmers, I’m sure a more balance economy would drive some people away, but far far from the majority.

The answer to your first question is no, that would be boring. The answer to your second question is a little more complex. I can flip items and make more than 5 gold for 2 hours investment, but I would rather speed run AC p1-3 for an equal amount of gold but less time invested. Working the TP involves patience and the willingness to suspend your desire for instant gratification. For example, I sold out of my cheap elonian leathers when the spinal blades came out because the price spiked. I then rebought the amount I needed a while later at a much cheaper price.

That’s a complex way of not answering the question. Obviously I didn’t mean “do you spend 2 hours and then get 5g more by the end of that time,” I get that the market doesn’t work that routinely. Let me put it another way, If you spent an average total of two hours per day working TP-based projects, would you expect to make, on average, more than 35g per week? 150g per month? 1825g per year? I’m saying, on average, would you agree that skillful TP manipulation results in far higher returns than spending the same time playing the normal game content?

The Problem you have is that you keep saying you can’t do something. I am saying that playing the TP is like everything else in life. If you apply yourself you can figure out how to make gold off it. But you may not be as good as the next person, such is life. Learn it now and you may be a little more prepared for real life.

More importantly, I shouldn’t have to. This game is not billed as a stock market simulator, it is an action adventure game. Players should not have to master the economic models of the trading post in order to make the same returns on time invested. The action-adventure gameplay should provide returns equivalent to someone who plays the markets effectively. That is not an unreasonable expectation.

JUST playing open world (no dungeons, no fractals, no pvp, no wvw, no TP flipping, no champ trains, and not even world boss farming), you should easily be able to make 4-5 gold per hour with dropped material sales, harvests, and salvages.

Nope, doesn’t work that way. It’d be nice if it did though.

Gene Archer.8560:

DarkSpirit.7046:

Then you are ignoring the efforts that those of us have put in to learn the market and those who have put in the effort to farm and acquired more gold than the rest.

And you ignore the efforts of those running the events, slaying the bosses, doing the quests, and playing the actual game by keeping rewards so unrewarding, while TP flippers who are playing a glorified market simulator get to make far more gold. If the efforts of farmers and flippers matter, than the efforts of people who actually play the kitten game matter as well, and they should be rewarded just as much, if not more so, since they’re actually playing the game.

So long as you ignore the efforts of everyone but flippers, I will gladly ignore the efforts of flippers. Especially if the game becomes more fun and welcoming by ignoring those efforts.

DarkSpirit.7046:

Those who have worked harder in the game deserve to stay ahead!

Flippers deserve nothing when they don’t even play the game.

And you do get rewarded, by playing the game, you get account-bound materials to make the most powerful armor, weapons, and trinkets in the game. These cannot even be bought regardless of how much gold you have. Therefore, the ones with the gold would always be weaker than the ones who play the game, unless the ones with the gold also play the game, of course.

Flippers serve the convenience of people who prefer to sell the items immediately for instant gold rather than place them as sell orders.

Asking for handouts is just lame and shows that you are a lazy kitten who don’t respect the efforts that people have put in to get ahead.

Ohoni.6057:

Catastrophic failure of carefully constructed economy. Done.

You want to make an omelet, you’ve got to break a few eggs.

Closer to “I want to make an omelet, so I’m going to burn down the kitchen because, hey heat + eggs = omelet, right?”. Just because it sounds good in theory (if you don’t think about the long-term consequences for more than five seconds) and fits into your worldview of “this is how it SHOULD be” doesn’t mean it’s a good idea by any stretch of the imagination.

MRA.4758:

John Smith.4610:

An increase in the tax rate would simply get passed on to consumers, with a little bit being absorbed by sellers. It would not be an effective tax on the rich.

Ok, that sounds reasonable.

But please allow me ask: According to your (or everybody else’s) professional expertise, what would be “an effective tax on the rich” that would help to fight the dire income inequality within the game? Or is this social inequality among player characters something we just have to accept as set in stone?

~MRA

What’s the point of taxing the rich, other than to punish success? Shall we force a downgrade on all players of level 80, or maybe just those with ascended gear. It seems to me that the only reason you want to tax people is because you are jealous of their success and that you want Anet, to be your instrument of vengeance.

DarcShriek.5829:

MRA.4758:

John Smith.4610:

An increase in the tax rate would simply get passed on to consumers, with a little bit being absorbed by sellers. It would not be an effective tax on the rich.

Ok, that sounds reasonable.

But please allow me ask: According to your (or everybody else’s) professional expertise, what would be “an effective tax on the rich” that would help to fight the dire income inequality within the game? Or is this social inequality among player characters something we just have to accept as set in stone?

~MRA

What’s the point of taxing the rich, other than to punish success? Shall we force a downgrade on all players of level 80, or maybe just those with ascended gear. It seems to me that the only reason you want to tax people is because you are jealous of their success and that you want Anet, to be your instrument of vengeance.

No – if you haven’t picked up on it, these are the people in real life who make these same ridiculous arguments. They’d be ecstatic if tomorrow, Anet announced all gear will be Anet’s property, will be nerfed to the average of all their respective stats, and doled out as Anet sees fit.

Art imitates life.

KarateKid.5648:

No – if you haven’t picked up on it, these are the people in real life who make these same ridiculous arguments. They’d be ecstatic if tomorrow, Anet announced all gear will be Anet’s property, will be nerfed to the average of all their respective stats, and doled out as Anet sees fit.

Art imitates life.

So that makes you the guys who in real life go on about hard work and success, but when anyone dares mention increasing minimum wage, throw a fit, because god forbid the unwashed masses make money.

Sounds about right.

Gene Archer.8560:

DarkSpirit.7046:

And you do get rewarded, by playing the game, you get account-bound materials to make the most powerful armor and weapons in the game. These cannot even be bought regardless of how much gold you have. Therefore, the ones with the gold would always be weaker than the ones who play the game, unless the ones with the gold also play the game, of course.

Great, and for those that have no use for account bound materials? For those who don’t craft? What reward is there, then? Are you really trying to suggest that ascended materials is some kind of proper compensation when everything else in the game is literally bought with gold?

Don’t make me kittening laugh.

DarkSpirit.7046:

Flippers serve the convenience of people who prefer to sell the items immediately for instant gold rather than place them as sell orders.

No, no. That would still exist even without flippers. Don’t even try to make flippers seem necessary. They aren’t.

DarkSpirit.7046:

Asking for handouts is just lame and shows that you are a lazy kitten who don’t respect the efforts that people have put in to get ahead.

Says the guy that doesn’t respect the efforts of people who actually play the game rather than a market simulator.

And again, I will remind you, this is a kittening game. Take your real world work ethic, take your old-world views, take your Rush Limbaugh uber conservatism, and kindly shove them where the sun don’t shine.

If I have never played the game then where do my ascended items come from? They can never be bought.

Obviously, you who don’t craft would not have one because you have not experienced all aspects of the game. So that is your own fault for choosing not to craft. Whereas I am playing whatever aspect is necessary to get what I want. That is the difference between do-ers and people who rather sit-on-their-butts-and-complain-waiting-for-handouts. You just don’t deserve them.

Closer to “I want to make an omelet, so I’m going to burn down the kitchen because, hey heat + eggs = omelet, right?”. Just because it sounds good in theory (if you don’t think about the long-term consequences for more than five seconds) and fits into your worldview of “this is how it SHOULD be” doesn’t mean it’s a good idea by any stretch of the imagination.

Sure, not just because, but yeah, all things considered it’d be a huge improvement. It would definitely ruin certain games people are currently playing on the market, but that’s the point of it in the first place.

If I have never played the game then where do my ascended items come from? They can never be bought.

Ascended items can’t be bought, but they can be crafted, and crafting them requires wheelbarrows full of gold, on top of a piiiiinch of mats you need to get by running world events and world chests. I have about 60-80 total stacks of Ascended mats, but they are all completely worthless without the gold needed for the other components.

If each piece of Ascended armor required 10K Bloodstone Dust and 10K Dragonite Ore and 500 Empyrials then I would have some sympathy for the poor TP farms having to go out into the world like us vagrants, but since it requires much more investment of time to earn the gold for Ascended gear via PvE methods than it does to earn the actual account-bound mats, no, zero sympathy.

Gene Archer.8560:

DarkSpirit.7046:

If I have never played the game then where do my ascended items come from? They can never be bought.

Is my argument that hard to understand? Let me dumb it down for your old brain. I understand that it probably moves slower, given your age.

If you are doing events, you are playing the game.
If you are flipping, you are not playing the game.
During those times you are playing the game, by doing events, you should be far more rewarded than when you are flipping.

So, either flipping needs to, in some way, be brought down to the levels that every other activity has been nerfed to, or those activities need to be brought up in reward structure to be on par with or exceed flipping.

DarkSpirit.7046:

Obviously, you who don’t craft would not have one because you have not experienced all aspects of the game.

And not experiencing every single aspect of the game should preclude me from rewards that I can actually use because…?

DarkSpirit.7046:

So that is your own fault for choosing not to craft.

Why should my reward for doing content only be crafting, as opposed to flippers who get rewarded gold and the ability to afford everything in the game, including some ascended items?

Why should not playing the game be rewarded more than actually playing the game. Answer me that.

DarkSpirit.7046:

Whereas I am playing whatever aspect is necessary to get what I want.

Except for when you flip. Because you aren’t playing the game when you’re flipping.

DarkSpirit.7046:

That is the difference between do-ers and people who rather sit-on-their-butts-and-complain.

Yes yes. Go on Rush. Tell me more about how the muslims are destroying the country.

DarkSpirit.7046:

You just don’t deserve them.

And flippers deserve nothing when they flip.

So are you saying that if I have ever flipped on the TP, I can never ever be playing the game, and therefore do not deserve anything? Do you know how ridiculous that sounds?

In your brain there are only the evil flippers and the good people who play the game but you never thought that flippers can also play the game even more so than most people. Time to be more open-minded, most things are not black and white in this world.

John Smith.4610:

An increase in the tax rate would simply get passed on to consumers, with a little bit being absorbed by sellers. It would not be an effective tax on the rich.

More taxes = more risk.
Speculation currently lacks risk that is why everyone is speculating…..

What about removing the 5+10% tax on selling and going for a straight 15% on listing?

TP needs LOT more risk.

LordByron.8369:

John Smith.4610:

An increase in the tax rate would simply get passed on to consumers, with a little bit being absorbed by sellers. It would not be an effective tax on the rich.

More taxes = more risk.
Speculation currently lacks risk that is why everyone is speculating…..

What about removing the 5+10% tax on selling and going for a straight 15% on listing?

TP needs LOT more risk.

This will encourage the average player even more to sell directly.

I also agree fully with you that flipping shouldnt offer any rewards. Personally, i played the TP for thousands of hours and i never got a single copper or anything else as a reward, so i dont know what you complain about. I made plenty of profit though.

I am sure, i dont have to tell you the difference between reward and profit, do I?

Gene Archer.8560:

DarkSpirit.7046:

So are you saying that if I have ever flipped on the TP, I can never ever be playing the game, and therefore do not deserve anything?

No, and if you have any reading comprehension whatsoever, you should realize that’s not what I mean. I don’t know how to possibly dumb this down any further for your old brain, but I will try.

When you’re playing the game, you deserve rewards.
When you’re flipping, you don’t.

So if you do events for an hour, and then flip for an hour, you deserve rewards for the hour spent actually playing the game, which would be the events, but not for the hour spent flipping, because that was an hour not spent playing the game.

I don’t know how to make this any more clear to you. I really kittening don’t.

In that case, it doesn’t matter if you are flipping or not, since flipping does not get rewarded so nothing’s changed. The only thing that would change your reward is playing the game.

Since I have played all aspects of the game, including crafting, I deserve to get ascended items while you are picky on what you like to play so you don’t deserve to get them. If you don’t like flipping, you don’t have to, since it is one of the poorest form of investment anyway.

If you don’t like people flipping then it is easy to get rid of them, just don’t sell instantly but create sell orders instead. Similarly, with buys. This would narrow the spread between the min sale and max offer prices to make flipping unprofitable.

The players who sell or buy instantly are the ones who sacrificed long term profit for instant gain. This then gives the flippers the opportunity to take a share of that longer term profit.

LordByron.8369:

John Smith.4610:

An increase in the tax rate would simply get passed on to consumers, with a little bit being absorbed by sellers. It would not be an effective tax on the rich.

More taxes = more risk.
Speculation currently lacks risk that is why everyone is speculating…..

What about removing the 5+10% tax on selling and going for a straight 15% on listing?

TP needs LOT more risk.

Not sure you understand what the term “speculation” means.

People only remember what happens when a speculator is right. No one remembers when a speculator losses hundreds of Gold.

LordByron.8369:

John Smith.4610:

An increase in the tax rate would simply get passed on to consumers, with a little bit being absorbed by sellers. It would not be an effective tax on the rich.

More taxes = more risk.
Speculation currently lacks risk that is why everyone is speculating…..

What about removing the 5+10% tax on selling and going for a straight 15% on listing?

TP needs LOT more risk.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

LordByron.8369:

John Smith.4610:

An increase in the tax rate would simply get passed on to consumers, with a little bit being absorbed by sellers. It would not be an effective tax on the rich.

More taxes = more risk.
Speculation currently lacks risk that is why everyone is speculating…..

What about removing the 5+10% tax on selling and going for a straight 15% on listing?

TP needs LOT more risk.

Not sure you understand what the term “speculation” means.

People only remember what happens when a speculator is right. No one remembers when a speculator losses hundreds of Gold.

Forgive me if from day one threads here explains how its incredibly hard to lose money on the TP.
So i won t answer that again….i expect anyone playing the TP to know basics as differentiating and stuff…..

But i think seeing the appearance in mass of TP players to defend their broken business means it could actually be the right idea to heal a bit this absurd economy….

LordByron.8369:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

LordByron.8369:

John Smith.4610:

An increase in the tax rate would simply get passed on to consumers, with a little bit being absorbed by sellers. It would not be an effective tax on the rich.

More taxes = more risk.
Speculation currently lacks risk that is why everyone is speculating…..

What about removing the 5+10% tax on selling and going for a straight 15% on listing?

TP needs LOT more risk.

Not sure you understand what the term “speculation” means.

People only remember what happens when a speculator is right. No one remembers when a speculator losses hundreds of Gold.

Forgive me if from day one threads here explains how its incredibly hard to lose money on the TP.
So i won t answer that again….i expect anyone playing the TP to know basics as differentiating and stuff…..

But i think seeing the appearance in mass of TP players to defend their broken business means it could actually be the right idea to heal a bit this absurd economy….

Most people talk about how they made money on the TP. I’m one of the few that has openly admitted that I made horrible decisions that lead to massive Gold losses. Last month, I was down to ~150 Gold in cash. Luckily some of my long term investments tripled in value, so I made up for a lot of the losses I took.

DarcShriek.5829:

What’s the point of taxing the rich, other than to punish success?

Technically the purpose of taxing the rich is to provide for the wellbeing/stability of the environment in which their wealth exists. We’re way past hard currencies here. If faith in the system collapses, you lose everything — the most progressive tax of all.

Hypothetically, if it came down to flatten out the disparity between the ultra-rich and the median player or watch the game go dark because it it’s bleeding citizens, you can bet they’d install any of the half-dozen subtle progressive gold sinks I can think of.

@penguin
Simple question.
Do you know ANY non supercasual TP player that has not get an income per hour a digit higher than most non TP players?

Its not that even my guild started this stuff because its really easy…

The only reason why we nowaday see some minor risk is because anet is pushing every player to play with the TP.

It may happen that the risk will balance in this way…at that point the game will be so horrible most people will have left already due to the insane inflation (see inflation on ANY useful item paired with deflation of everything else….proof of a broken economy).

LordByron.8369:

@penguin
Simple question.
Do you know ANY non supercasual TP player that has not get an income per hour a digit higher than most non TP players?

Its not that even my guild started this stuff because its really easy…

The only reason why we nowaday see some minor risk is because anet is pushing every player to play with the TP.

It may happen that the risk will balance in this way…at that point the game will be so horrible most people will have left already due to the insane inflation (see inflation on ANY useful item paired with deflation of everything else….proof of a broken economy).

This post. I don’t even……. where do I begin?

LordByron.8369:

@penguin
Simple question.
Do you know ANY non supercasual TP player that has not get an income per hour a digit higher than most non TP players?

Its not that even my guild started this stuff because its really easy…

The only reason why we nowaday see some minor risk is because anet is pushing every player to play with the TP.

It may happen that the risk will balance in this way…at that point the game will be so horrible most people will have left already due to the insane inflation (see inflation on ANY useful item paired with deflation of everything else….proof of a broken economy).

Ummm, how do you personally measure inflation, if you dont have any compelling data on how the general gold rewards per day/player inflated in the same timespan?

Aberrant.6749:

Not sure who this would benefit.

1% increase would just mean flippers drop their buy orders 1% to compensate.

People selling things they got as drops would receive 1% less.

People flipping would still generate the same amount of gold.

John Smith.4610:

An increase in the tax rate would simply get passed on to consumers, with a little bit being absorbed by sellers. It would not be an effective tax on the rich.

I am a master of gw2 econ. John Smith agrees.

Wanze.8410:

Ummm, how do you personally measure inflation, if you dont have any compelling data on how the general gold rewards per day/player inflated in the same timespan?

The cost of any demanded good.
Sigils, runes, silk, precursors, T6, gems and so on….

And as we already discussed you can see most of them raising even when gold production decrease (see after queen jubilee..) and in any case the change in price NEVER reflects actual gold production (stimated because nobody has numbers).

P.S. season 2 WWW means also a gold decrease and lot of more gold sinks….prices are skyrocketing instead.

LordByron.8369:

Wanze.8410:

Ummm, how do you personally measure inflation, if you dont have any compelling data on how the general gold rewards per day/player inflated in the same timespan?

The cost of any demanded good.
Sigils, runes, silk, precursors, T6, gems and so on….

And as we already discussed you can see most of them raising even when gold production decrease (see after queen jubilee..) and in any case the change in price NEVER reflects actual gold production (stimated because nobody has numbers).

P.S. season 2 WWW means also a gold decrease and lot of more gold sinks….prices are skyrocketing instead.

So you are just using estimated numbers to prove your point?

I guess you win Guild Wars 2.

Please close this topic.

Ohoni.6057:

Do you average more than 5g earned per day? If so, we have a problem, because I spend more than two hours per day playing the actual game, and I tend to average well less than 5g per day in doing so. I’m not saying that the TP is easy or effortless, I’m saying that it rewards unequally for the effort put in, that the other ingame activities do not reward nearly as much for equal amounts of time and effort.

I average significantly more than 5g from two hours of pve per day whilst also gaining SP’s, AP’s, karma, tokens and having the chance for high value drops/pres. All within the remit of a pretty much zero risk, zero competitive system.

You might make rubbish gold via pve, that doesn’t mean that it is not possible to make a very, very healthy amount of gold via pve with little to no risk and whilst also gaining lots of secondary benefits.

LordByron.8369:

Wanze.8410:

Ummm, how do you personally measure inflation, if you dont have any compelling data on how the general gold rewards per day/player inflated in the same timespan?

The cost of any demanded good.
Sigils, runes, silk, precursors, T6, gems and so on….

And as we already discussed you can see most of them raising even when gold production decrease (see after queen jubilee..) and in any case the change in price NEVER reflects actual gold production (stimated because nobody has numbers).

P.S. season 2 WWW means also a gold decrease and lot of more gold sinks….prices are skyrocketing instead.

How has the utility of each of the items you mentioned performed over time? Except for precursors (no, bro, I don’t even legendary, heheh), it’s gone up for all you mentioned.

Silk is an example of why this was a good thing – I remember just throwing silk away because it didn’t have enough utility to make it actually worth saving (kinda like mithril today).

When utility goes up, the demand does, too… this was not JUST professional-class TP-traders doing this – unless you call the throngs of people flushing sigils down the Mystic Toilet on weekends professional-class traders.

The more I’ve looked, the more I’ve figured out what the utility is… ex: until about 3 weeks ago, I couldn’t fathom WHY people would buy bloody pebbles – they upgrade from garbage into… garbage.

Once I saw the number of Silver Doubloons required to build one of the legendaries, I realized it was not an Illuminati plot. If you wanna blame someone for inflation of certain items, blame the people creating legendaries – THEY set the price, traders react to THEM.

So far, just about everything except junk can be made, forged, or salvaged into something appealing. Find that correlation, and you find the market driver. Once you do, though, beware: someone will jump on the forums hollering “nerf the rich” right about the time you start profiting.

Okay, here’s a question for you flipper-haters:

I personally don’t do much in the flipping department, but I still bring in a decent income by crafting and materials promotion via the mystic forge. These activities remove mats from the game and replace them with more in-demand or useful items. Crafting has a karma investment (in the case of cooking) as I do it in mass quantity. Material promotion involves burning skill points. Both of these currency items can not be acquired without playing the game. Crafting and forging are considered “playing the game” as both show up as daily achievements. That being said, my activities over the course of a day involve standing in DR and placing/cancelling/re-placing bids on goods as buy orders and waiting for stock to roll in, crafting up the items from said stock, and listing the result on the TP at a price that will bring in a profit and still move fast. I typically make more on a daily basis than running dungeons for a lot less effort because I have figured out a working strategy based on what is currently in-demand. This may adjust over time but I have done it before, as my primary activity over Wintersday was salvaging for profit due to the demand for linen. (Salvaging is also considered playing the game – it is even a monthy achievement for April.)

Would you consider this to be an activity that is “playing the game”? ArenaNet certainly seems to think it is. I provide services to those that can’t be bothered to do a little research and do it themselves, and my profit is a laziness tax.

My profit margins are not huge (generally about 2%), but I ENJOY crafting and I find doing it to be fun. I just do it in a much larger scale than the average player, crafting around 600-800 items a day. There are quicker ways to make gold, and it does require research and a decent amount of capital to buy the mats required, but it’s a method that works for me and adds to my personal enjoyment of the game.

Buford.2954:

[…]

You are processing what you buy, and reselling something else.

That’s fine.

What should not be possible is buying stuff with the only intention on selling it again.

Use or sell, not both, and crafting is using.

DarkSpirit.7046:

[…]

You may think that’s being “smart”, but not everyone is smart. Some simply copy what others did. A trained monkey can do differential calculus with a computer. They don’t even have to know what they are doing.

But that is not important.

The thing is, if there’s one single way to make the highest income possible, people who doesn’t do that may be tempted into doing that, to the point that the other things you can do get less and less people.

Do you know why they changed Dungeon rewards? Because there was too many people doing CoF1 repeatedly. PEople trying to do other dungeons had a hard time finding people to do them.
Do you know why they changed world boss rewards? Because people went to the same world bosses over and over and ignored the rest. People ended up alone in some world boss fights.

Right now there’s not many people just messing with the TP, but after they reduce income in the next update, you’ll have people looking for the next “get rich quick” scheme, and google will tell them the bragging stories of these TP meddlers. It wouldn’t be a problem if there was many, because the more people tries to do it, the less it’ll work for all of them, but in the process, they’ll raise prices and mess things up for those that will not do that.

“Use or sell, but never both” is what works best in a game economy. It’s one of the reasons why gear is bound. Prices going bonkers because of reselling is also one of the reasons that got Diablo III’s AH closed. Peope used items they bought to sell higher, then with that gain buy even more expensive items and selling them higher, and repeat the process until they have insane 12 figure prices. Then a new player comes along, and they see those prices, and they see how much they earn playing, and notice the gap that makes them feel that getting items like those is a hopeless and futile endeavor.

Nice to see the usual suspects ganging up as per usual.

MithranArkanere.8957:

Buford.2954:

[…]

You are processing what you buy, and reselling something else.

That’s fine.

What should not be possible is buying stuff with the only intention on selling it again.

Use or sell, not both, and crafting is using.

This makes no sense whatsoever. By buying various loot bags and dumping their contents on the TP, I take an underutilized commodity (bags), apply “labor” (or add value, one could argue), and sell the contents on the TP thereby increasing the supply of those contents. Obviously the seller of the bag didn’t wanna do it, and I did due to profit motive – win-win.

[quote=3866706;KarateKid.5648:….[/quote]

3 reasons why you are wrong

1) Silk revealed a clear insider trading….posted even on the forum…
2) Silk market change was like using a chainsaw for an haircut….did it need an economist?
3) speculators is what made the situation worse removing lot of supply from the market to release it slowly……so demand/offer was manipulated
People posted so proudly your banks full of silk and they plans to capitalize on an aggravated false lack of supply….

but once again whenever you try to touch the most broken part of the game, the TP players hurry to submerge any discussion with hate and sarcasm so they can avoid any discussion…

LordByron.8369:

3 reasons why you are wrong

1) Silk revealed a clear insider trading….posted even on the forum…
2) Silk market change was like using a chainsaw for an haircut….did it need an economist?
3) speculators is what made the situation worse removing lot of supply from the market to release it slowly……so demand/offer was manipulated
People posted so proudly your banks full of silk and they plans to capitalize on an aggravated false lack of supply….

but once again whenever you try to touch the most broken part of the game, the TP players hurry to submerge any discussion with hate and sarcasm so they can avoid any discussion…[/quote]

I certainly hope you’re not referring to my posts re: hate. Sarcasm I’ll accept.

So, by your logic, if I were to start hoarding worthless mithril or copper now gambling that Anet makes a change that made them more valuable in the future, I am conspiring to manipulate the market? What if I lose everything I invested because they don’t?

The insider trading thing was a pure human mistake (in judgement, it’s arguable, but marketing people aren’t “normal” humans and think strangely) – it’s not an integral and designed part of the economy’s mechanics.

MithranArkanere.8957:

Right now there’s not many people just messing with the TP, but after they reduce income in the next update, you’ll have people looking for the next “get rich quick” scheme, and google will tell them the bragging stories of these TP meddlers. It wouldn’t be a problem if there was many, because the more people tries to do it, the less it’ll work for all of them, but in the process, they’ll raise prices and mess things up for those that will not do that.

More players placing buy orders = higher sales prices for farmers (those playing the game, harvesting/salvaging mats and supplying the demand for stuff). More players placing sell orders = lower prices for buyers (more competition lowers prices and eats up the profit margins between buy order/sell order prices).

The more players actively buying and selling a particular item means less profit for those players and better prices for everyone else. The TP is self-correcting, people only make massive amounts of money when there are very few people willing to put in the time and effort and to take the risks involved. More players involved in the TP game means a smaller slice of the pie for each of them. How is this a problem for the game as a whole?

LordByron.8369:

3 reasons why you are wrong

1) Silk revealed a clear insider trading….posted even on the forum…
2) Silk market change was like using a chainsaw for an haircut….did it need an economist?
3) speculators is what made the situation worse removing lot of supply from the market to release it slowly……so demand/offer was manipulated
People posted so proudly your banks full of silk and they plans to capitalize on an aggravated false lack of supply….

but once again whenever you try to touch the most broken part of the game, the TP players hurry to submerge any discussion with hate and sarcasm so they can avoid any discussion…[/quote]

Again, you underestimate the velocity of the market concerning silk. Alot of silk was sucked out of the economy because ordinary players (not speculators) promoted them to gossamer pre patch.

The price of silk was purely driven up by the player base´s consumption, not speculators withholding supply. Consider this:

if 100k people started crafting bolts of gossamer each day after the patch, that would have been a consumption of 30 million scraps. Thats per day. If someone posted his bank with 100 stacks of silk scraps, that would just be 25k and wouldnt even cover 0.1% of the daily demand.

Sure, that guy would have made a hefty profit but it only had a miniscule impact on the price rise of silk in general.

Its really nice to often try to derail posts…yet i explicitly said that the demand was infact really high due to an economy-breaking patch that led to this wonderful situation with SIlk more expensive than gossamer (as people predicted easily when they read patchnotes about ascended crafting…)

Aside that the issue was extremely aggravated and shown a clear sign of insider trading.

Expecially since even john Smith admitted there were suspects of insider tradings.

And once again another proposal.
Can we have similar balancing to the rest of the game?
Why not Diminishing returns on TP?
The more you buy/sell the more taxes you pay….every part of the game has it