Guild Wars 2

Most people that are paying attention to crafting materials for high-end gear (mainly t6 mats, and ectos) have noticed a substantial increase.

Globs are nearing doubling their price almost a month ago, and as Ulion pointed out the supply is decreasing and every time it appears that it may level out, it begins to jump again.

Prices for pretty much all tier 6 mats are all now between 400%-600% from a month ago, all continue to show rises (except for Ancient Bone) -source.

I want to say that it appears like things are leveling off but it’s still a bit too early. With these increases the time/cost spent on obtaining mats not just for legendaries, but crafted exotics, and even leveling crafting itself has dramatically increased. It was already not profitable to craft, leveling itself is a massive gold-sink, and most exotics (barring rare skins) are selling for a substantial loss.

Disclaimer: I have fared well with getting to 400 crafting on several alts mostly by using existing mats I gathered, but I have put around ~900 hours into the game and leveled up four 80’s, I don’t think it’s reasonable to assume that the majority of the playerbase can meet that commitment. My advice on crafting is relatively invalidated anymore because of the costs now.

I tried searching for dev posts, or anything that would indicate that this in fact is where they want the market headed. Or that they are working on balancing (what now seems extreme to most of us that played during the first few months). Does anyone have anything I may have missed? Do they have plans to increase drop-rates on high-end items?

If not, I (and I’m sure many others) would appreciate an official dev comment on the current state of the market, what the end-goal is as far as the time:gold ratio, and what’s considered reasonable for the majority of the playerbase.

edit: Yes, I realize bot’s banned were a substantial part of this, but it’s now encroaching near a month since the big wave, and as stipulated above, prices are continuing to rise.

After going back through about 6 pages of posts, I found several related threads with no dev comments on the situation.

Tier 6 thread
Ecto thread
Ecto thread
Inflation thread
Ecto thread
Ecto thread

Shortly after the banwave, John posted the following:

We’ve received a large amount of feedback about Legendaries becoming unreachable. This is actually a topic we’ve been tracking for quite some time. To ease your minds I am here to say that it’s something we’ve been watching and we’ve been listening to your feedback. You can expect to begin to see changes addressing the issue starting with our next build.

There was a temporary influx on precursors because of the Lost Shores event, but most of these have already returned to the leveling off price they were before the event.

Has anything else come of this? Or are we just screwed if we didn’t have enough money to pick them up at the time?

John Smith.4610:

The lost shores event was not the only modification to precursors.

We’re tracking the changing economy. The changed prices come from a lack of supply relative to demand, not from a substantial increase in inflation (this is apparent when you look at the TP as a whole bundle of good rather than just a few items).

How can the economy not have sustained natural amounts of ‘substantial inflation’?

Hour 0 ; Money Supply = 0
Month 4; Money Supply = A lot bigger than 0

The money supply which grew exponentially should have produced ‘substantial inflation’.

I do not have Anets figure about money in circulation and the GW2’s CPI.. etc.. to really get a firm grasp on these things. Has the money supply stopped growing at a large rate now?

Even if the precursors would be free the cost of legendary is much higher now than it was before the Lost Shores event with the skyrocketing tp material prices

Part of the problem has to be the loot bug/nerf, whatever it may be, that is making it almost impossible for us to get the mats and/or rares to turn into ecto’s. I just hit 80 two weeks ago with my first character and, considering drop rates + prices at the TP, it has been a thoroughly disapointing experience.

Get the drop rate fixed and perhaps the economy will follow suit.

Drop rate thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Change-in-loot-parameters-or-a-bug-Merged/page/8#post892394

We can also track some of this via http://gw2spidy.com:

• For unID dyes and ectos (among others), the number of buy orders has stayed relatively stable since mid-October.
• The number of sell orders (for those same items) has dropped.

That means (sometimes drastically) higher prices.

It doesn’t tell us why the supply dropped: only ANet has enough data to tell us if it’s the removal of bots, a drop-rate reduction (i.e. fewer going into backpacks), people farming different things (with lower drop rates for these items), people hoarding in anticipation of need (i.e. saving dyes for Gift of Color), or something else.

Which is what I was aiming for a response on with this post.

As far as ecto’s droprate, I’ve actually noticed a vast increase in my own farming/supply because of fractals. Yet prices still rise, which indicates that there is clearly far more demand. Which I guess makes sense, with requirements for Legendaries, rare Exotics, infusing Rings, new Backpieces, infusing Backpieces, and infusions themselves.

I have my own theory, which is based on my personal experience: the RNG/chance to salvage Ecto from rares was reduced. Prior to Lost Shores, I was getting an Ecto on every single salvage (100% for over 50 salvages) using a Black Lion Salvage Kit.

Now, it’s more like 70%. This would explain why the price has nearly doubled.

John Smith.4610:

The changed prices come from a lack of supply relative to demand, not from a substantial increase in inflation (this is apparent when you look at the TP as a whole bundle of good rather than just a few items).

Yes, but ectos aren’t just another type of goods, they are required to make exotics.

Price spikes on these items hurt players where it matters, in their gear. Not in something cosmetic that you ‘can do without’, like dye, but in their gear.

You may reason that it is ‘the market’, but the end-result is the same for the players: a doubled price.

Result: new 80s can simply not afford things anymore.

This is hurting the game, in my opinion.

I’m rich, so I’m not bothered by it, but when you look at the player-base as a whole, this is hurting a group of people that you want to cater for: the players that are on one of the game’s most critical moments, the moment where they often decide to stay or leave: when they hit the max level.

.

I do not know if there is some sort of marketing theory behind these prices. Maybe Anet thinks something like ‘yeah, well, if they want exotics, they can buy gems and turn them into gold’. Maybe Anet makes more money from people that do this then it looses on people that leave because of this.

But my guess is that they loose valuable customers over this.

I think it also has to do with the plinx run nerf. At least on my server, every day there were at least 20 people doing this run over and over pretty much 24×7. With decent MF, I was getting on average 2-3 yellows per run. I was salvaging those for 3-5 ectos. Now? I see about 2-3 yellows per day, not per hr. and I get maybe 1 ecto per those 2-3.

I think it’s a combination of 3 things. Drop rate of yellows decreased, ecto salvage rate from yellows decreased, plinx run nerfed.

xxxzavulonxxx.8413:

How can the economy not have sustained natural amounts of ‘substantial inflation’?

Hour 0 ; Money Supply = 0
Month 4; Money Supply = A lot bigger than 0

Not true. The economy is not a closed system with only gold coming into it, it also has gold leaving it through a variety of sources (repairs, travel, vendor bought goods such as T3 armour), that is the purpose of a gold sink

If gold leaving the system is greater than the gold entering the system*, then it could in theory experience deflation – this isn’t an unreasonable possibility if you have a large number of traders who make the majority of their gold through trading, and then buying expensive vendor goods like T3 clothing, which would take hundreds of gold out of the system per person

This is actually far far greater than it sounds, when you consider gold from selling stuff is simply gold transferred. Gold is only created when people sell to vendors or complete events, and most events don’t give more than a few silver at a time. So a person buying a full set of T3 gear represents thousands of event’s worth of gold leaving the system… now I think on that I can see now why T3 gear is so expensive, it serves as a self regulation system, if gold becomes abundant the chances of people buying the gear increases and thus sucks gold out the system; very clever

*I’m sure economists have a fancy name for all this, chemisty is my field not money, but there’s surprising overlaps in the economy of nature, the economy of man.

Ryuujin.8236:

xxxzavulonxxx.8413:

How can the economy not have sustained natural amounts of ‘substantial inflation’?

Hour 0 ; Money Supply = 0
Month 4; Money Supply = A lot bigger than 0

Not true. The economy is not a closed system with only gold coming into it, it also has gold leaving it through a variety of sources (repairs, travel, vendor bought goods such as T3 armour), that is the purpose of a gold sink

If gold leaving the system is greater than the gold entering the system*, then it could in theory experience deflation – this isn’t an unreasonable possibility if you have a large number of traders who make the majority of their gold through trading, and then buying expensive vendor goods like T3 clothing, which would take hundreds of gold out of the system per person

This is actually far far greater than it sounds, when you consider gold from selling stuff is simply gold transferred. Gold is only created when people sell to vendors or complete events, and most events don’t give more than a few silver at a time. So a person buying a full set of T3 gear represents thousands of event’s worth of gold leaving the system… now I think on that I can see now why T3 gear is so expensive, it serves as a self regulation system, if gold becomes abundant the chances of people buying the gear increases and thus sucks gold out the system; very clever

*I’m sure economists have a fancy name for all this, chemisty is my field not money, but there’s surprising overlaps in the economy of nature, the economy of man.

You did not really rebut anything I said. The money sink in this game still does not offset the growth in the money supply from hour 0 to current times. It is an aggregate issue and not micro issue. You seem to get hung up on micro subjects like money sinks.

xxxzavulonxxx.8413:

You did not really rebut anything I said. The money sink in this game still does not offset the growth in the money supply from hour 0 to current times. It is an aggregate issue and not micro issue. You seem to get hung up on micro subjects like money sinks.

On the contrary, you made a blanket statement that there IS a growth in the money supply on the basis gold is coming into the system.

But as I pointed out, the system has both an input and output, and unless we have data for both in and out, we can’t know for a fact whether the value of gold is rising or falling.

I disproved your statement mathematically

Ryuujin.8236:

On the contrary, you made a blanket statement that there IS a growth in the money supply on the basis gold is coming into the system.

But as I pointed out, the system has both an input and output, and unless we have data for both in and out, we can’t know for a fact whether the value of gold is rising or falling.

I disproved your statement mathematically

It was more inferred than mathematical, but this is besides the point. The point of this post being how/if devs are going to address the rise in prices. The preceeding quote about precursors has fallen short, with the Lost Shores influx gone and the mats themselves for the legendaries increasing 200%-600% more.

That much is seperate from the influx/outflux of total sum of gold. Especially when they average user is not earning much more. (Yes, fractals help, but they are not that significant to the sum of all income/hour)

Ryuujin.8236:

xxxzavulonxxx.8413:

You did not really rebut anything I said. The money sink in this game still does not offset the growth in the money supply from hour 0 to current times. It is an aggregate issue and not micro issue. You seem to get hung up on micro subjects like money sinks.

On the contrary, you made a blanket statement that there IS a growth in the money supply on the basis gold is coming into the system.

But as I pointed out, the system has both an input and output, and unless we have data for both in and out, we can’t know for a fact whether the value of gold is rising or falling.

I disproved your statement mathematically

No you did not. You are not accounting for the fact players displace money sinks.

I’d rather this thread not derail if it can be helped, and focus on the original points to help encourage discussion and maybe get more specific dev feedback. So if you two could let it go, it would be appreciated.

John Smith.4610:

The lost shores event was not the only modification to precursors.

We’re tracking the changing economy. The changed prices come from a lack of supply relative to demand, not from a substantial increase in inflation (this is apparent when you look at the TP as a whole bundle of good rather than just a few items).

Does this mean you are looking at ways to bring up the supply to meet the demand, or are you waiting it out a bit more to see what happens?

The economy has gone through a bunch of macro shocks in the last month. We had the big bot ban that sharply reduced the supplies of easily bot farmed materials, the introduction of increased dungeon rewards dumping more raw gold into the economy, the opening of FotM which has its own new basket of goods, and a bunch of new high end recipes juicing demand. All of these are working together to move towards a new equilibrium.

Due to the way the game sinks money (the 15% TP tax) the game does not have a long run inflation trend. Early in the game we saw price levels rise as the economy started to shake off start up liquidity constraints; now, with a lot of that behind us, changes in aggregate price level will be due to changes in farming patterns (for example, if people switch from farming Orr, which kicks out a lot of goods, to farming dungeons, which provide a lot less goods but a lot more raw cash, you’d expect to see a one-time rise in the price level to reflect that change) or exogenic shocks to output from content changes.

These transitions are not instantaneous however, and with play patterns constantly changing it’s not going to hit an equilibrium, well, ever. Right now it’s really about watching the pieces move around and making sure none of them do anything unexpected.

I hope Anet understands this just pushes players away right?

Each day of this i have less and less need to play, why would i want to waste my life grinding for nothing to please some companies data finding when i can play other games and be happy.

When i leave so does my wallet guys…

So, curious: Is there an optimal market rate the Econ team wants to see? Like a baseline for how much a Legendary should cost, or a projection for expected inflation that you’re attempting to hold stable?

Thanks for the attention John. There seems to be a lot of concern about the rise of prices in the T6 mats and ectos causing inflation in the price of rares and other crafted materials. I, for one, am happy to see a sure way to make money from these materials. It was miserable back when everything was selling for just over vendor value. Now those who enjoy slaughtering mobs by the 100’s rather than playing the market actually have a chance at making money. I can go smash through Frostgorge Sound and make money killing pretty much every mob there b/c of the abundance of T5 and T6 mats that drop. It is a nice alternative to playing the market or doing the Orr events.

The thing with markets is that there is never a flat stable period of time. There will always be times of stagnation (drop nerfs/hotfixes). There will always be times of surges (i.e. Karka chest). There are many factors that will influence the price of goods, be it in the real world, or here in the game.

One of the factors to the increase in demand is that, as the games gets older, more and more players get wealth. The hardcore players may have gotten gold faster (and got their Legendaries), but that was a small percentage of the total population. Now consider the majority of players who are finally catching up. They have Gold to spend, and with that Gold, they want to craft Exotics or Legendaries. So as the Supply topped off, and Demand now exceeds it, it explains the price of goods increasing.

The problem to this is not all players may have caught up in personal wealth. So these players are now suffering as they fall behind. They probably want to buy Ectos too, but simply can’t afford it. So then the game becomes “un-fun”, since their goals to get higher level gear seem further away (almost unattainable).

None of this is Anet’s fault. This is the way the market works. But were Anet to take too much drastic actions to artificially flood the economy with more high tier drops, this can cause lots of problems for the market. It’ll make the “poor” players happy, since they can afford more as the prices drop, but the “upper class” players are the ones with the money already. This is where speculation kicks in, with the “upper class” players buying up all the cheap goods, holding into them until the market spikes back up. This would then create a bigger wealth gap, since the rich will get richer, and the poor will be disheartened.

To add to this problem, I assume a lot of GW2 players aren’t familiar with dynamic markets within games (or real life). When they see prices spike, they will blame the game and want to quit. Once they realize markets fluctuate, and if they have a little patience, they’ll see a drop in all prices. I mean, if a majority of players reach a level where they’re happy, and stop buying high tier goods, Supply will naturally outpace Demand.

I don’t envy the econ Devs at Anet. They have to balance the needs of all players, while taking into consideration the economy as a whole. But we players are the ones responsible for high demand of goodies. So we should stop wondering about market stability, and just be happy we can swing our swords.

I am essentially constantly broke in my GW2 account as I am trying to get my characters equipped with Exotic armor. Lately the prices for Ecto and T6 are climbing signifigantly DAILY. Each single item takes 5 ecto and 5 T6, plus raw materials which are not cheap. You pretty much HAVE to buy these things, because they just don’t drop without a TON of farming, which means you need to farm to earn gold to buy them. That means DAILY, the farming requirements are going UP.

I am just a casual player with a few hours a day to spend and I am wondering what ANet’s intent is on how much time I need to spend farming to equip all exotic?

It’s not to bad now, other than the extremely limited number of farming locations. Without an LFG feature, I can’t even farm while I am waiting to find a group. Frostgorge is the ONE reasonably diverse area, we NEED some more. Ore gets old SO quickly with almost nothing but Risen.

John Smith.4610:

Celestea.4105:

John Smith.4610:

The lost shores event was not the only modification to precursors.

We’re tracking the changing economy. The changed prices come from a lack of supply relative to demand, not from a substantial increase in inflation (this is apparent when you look at the TP as a whole bundle of good rather than just a few items).

Does this mean you are looking at ways to bring up the supply to meet the demand, or are you waiting it out a bit more to see what happens?

None of the processes are black and white. What I can say is that making decisions (or assumptions) without a complete understanding of everything involved would be a mistake. When dealing with large economies, small changes can have huge effects, it’s important to understand the effect of any changes on the game as a whole in both the short and long run.

xxxzavulonxxx.8413:

Ryuujin.8236:

xxxzavulonxxx.8413:

You did not really rebut anything I said. The money sink in this game still does not offset the growth in the money supply from hour 0 to current times. It is an aggregate issue and not micro issue. You seem to get hung up on micro subjects like money sinks.

On the contrary, you made a blanket statement that there IS a growth in the money supply on the basis gold is coming into the system.

But as I pointed out, the system has both an input and output, and unless we have data for both in and out, we can’t know for a fact whether the value of gold is rising or falling.

I disproved your statement mathematically

No you did not. You are not accounting for the fact players displace money sinks.

You are confused here. Money sinks are not specifically a micro or macro issue. You discuss sink as a micro issue individually to players, or you can discuss them as an aggregate. Either way players do not displace money sinks.

Yes, we really do displace money sinks as I can prove.

As a farmer I am mainly look for T6 mats right now. If I happen to get T5 and maybe a karka shell, it would be 35s worth of stuff. In that time I need to get white/blue/green items and useless that has a coin value of > 5.25s to generate new coins that aren’t taken away from the 15% TP tax. This is often the case. The white/blue/green items and useless junks people sell to NPCs (mostly because they dont sell or sell for a loss in the TP) actually displace your TP tax.

Microeconomics is not so much about individuals as it is business firms. The TP tax has the greatest effect on TP traders rather than farmers, as I have outlined above. So, you have to look at it differently for different player types. Admittedly it does have some aggregate effects. However, it does not stop the money supply from growing when people generate new wealth.

xxxzavulonxxx.8413:

John Smith.4610:

Celestea.4105:

John Smith.4610:

The lost shores event was not the only modification to precursors.

We’re tracking the changing economy. The changed prices come from a lack of supply relative to demand, not from a substantial increase in inflation (this is apparent when you look at the TP as a whole bundle of good rather than just a few items).

Does this mean you are looking at ways to bring up the supply to meet the demand, or are you waiting it out a bit more to see what happens?

None of the processes are black and white. What I can say is that making decisions (or assumptions) without a complete understanding of everything involved would be a mistake. When dealing with large economies, small changes can have huge effects, it’s important to understand the effect of any changes on the game as a whole in both the short and long run.

xxxzavulonxxx.8413:

Ryuujin.8236:

xxxzavulonxxx.8413:

You did not really rebut anything I said. The money sink in this game still does not offset the growth in the money supply from hour 0 to current times. It is an aggregate issue and not micro issue. You seem to get hung up on micro subjects like money sinks.

On the contrary, you made a blanket statement that there IS a growth in the money supply on the basis gold is coming into the system.

But as I pointed out, the system has both an input and output, and unless we have data for both in and out, we can’t know for a fact whether the value of gold is rising or falling.

I disproved your statement mathematically

No you did not. You are not accounting for the fact players displace money sinks.

You are confused here. Money sinks are not specifically a micro or macro issue. You discuss sink as a micro issue individually to players, or you can discuss them as an aggregate. Either way players do not displace money sinks.

Yes, we really do displace money sinks as I can prove.

As a farmer I am mainly look for T6 mats right now. If I happen to get T5 and maybe a karka shell, it would be 35s worth of stuff. In that time I need to get white/blue/green items and useless that has a coin value of > 5.25s to generate new coins that aren’t taken away from the 15% TP tax. This is often the case. The white/blue/green items and useless junks people sell to NPCs (mostly because they dont sell or sell for a loss in the TP) actually displace your TP tax.

Microeconomics is not so much about individuals as it is business firms. The TP tax has the greatest effect on TP traders rather than farmers, as I have outlined above. So, you have to look at it differently for different player types. Admittedly it does have some aggregate effects. However, it does not stop the money supply from growing when people generate new wealth.

And this is why I suggested a system that doesn’t care what kind of player you are.
Economics needs an approach that is based on variables that are dictated through established averages that don’t differentiate between TP traders or farmers.

This ensures there are less factors in a complex system where things can go wrong.
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” – Leonardo da Vinci

John Smith.4610:

I cannot go too far into our process, but we often set goals; in an expanding market though there is a split between preventative and reactionary measures. If you read my last blog you may remember one of my favorite aphorisms, "Certainty is the mother of quiet and repose, and uncertainty the cause of variance and contentions.”

Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties, In these matters the only certainty is that there is nothing certain. This is one hell of a gamble, especially when you consider that the vast majority of people involved in this complex in game economy are not students of economics nor do they understand the consequences of monopolization and their closest interpretation of Sherman would be a tank. You sir may gamble the future of this economy based on your machinations but at the end of the day many ordinary people could well be your undoing.
Some, no most are here to play the game not to play the market. To continue down this path will most assuredly cost your company many of their real life resources at which time an economist will be the last person they need. Consider that while you’re playing economic dungeon master.

My favorite aphorism: Transparency builds understanding that leads to trust. (Pedra circa 2012).

There is nothing magical about your “process” nor is it hard to fathom once one realizes what you mean when you use the word “economy”. Your economy is a closed system wherein you control all input and all outputs. In the real world that isn’t the definition of economy so therein lies part of the problem…most people misinterpret your meaning. Ultimately, your economy has but one purpose; incentivise as many customers as possible to visit your RMT store to spend real dollars on gems and gold. If ANYTHING seems to be impacting that in the wrong direction, ArenaNet takes immediate action to correct it. You close gold farming loopholes, you reduce the drop rate of desirable commodities, etc. I get that you are in business to make money, I really get it and I commend you.

But here’s the problem, when ArenaNet consistently takes IMMEDIATE action to fix game issues that affect YOUR economy and yet seems to show little interest in fixing major game issues for us, we start to lose faith and that leads to a bad place. It could be argued that the very long lead time to fix the blocking issues with “The Gates of Arah” are intentional actions because they could lead to a positive outcome in your economy. It’s been blocked for over a week on Anvil Rock. There’s a dichotomy there and unless someone explains it, you leave us to draw our own conclusions.

I won’t mind Ecto and T6 prices coming down if it means Charged Lodestone prices will come down too.

But if Lodestones are going to keep being 2.5g each, I’d rather have expensive ecto so that once I have all the ecto I need, I can actually make money off them. Lodestones really need a supply buff.

what does “displacing money sinks” mean? o.O

How the economy currently shifts

Example 1

Suppose I wanted to craft “Volcanus”, the most expensive non-legendary item. I could now go and start farming 350 molten lodestones. This requires X amount of time. (never mind the 500 dungeon tokens, those are a freebie while farming the 350 lodestones)

Alternatively, I could try and farm money to buy molten lodestones, requiring Y amount of time.

Y will only be smaller X for as long as there are enough players getting molten lodestone drops who then seemingly oversupply the market.

If you ever tried to farm 350 molten lodestones, then you know just how mad this endeavor is, resulting in Y being the more attainable goal. This puts a lot of pressure on the prices. One month, Y seems like a reasonable goal in terms of playing time, the next month it seems crazy. Market balance is only achieved once Y is just as crazy as X. That is what balance means.

This economic balance in GW2’s economy can only be achieved by rising prices. A normal economic response of raising production is not an option.

In the end, getting Volcanus will be mad either way. Sure, there is the argument, of the weapon not being supposed to be for everybody. There is however the problem of motivating players with a goal such as attaining Volcanus. High end items also serve as motivation, the famous carrot on a stick. But if the stick is a three mile polearm and the carrot is a barely visible dot on the horizon, the whole idea of this type of player motivation drops off.

ArenaNet seemed to have acknowledged this with the release of their recent statements and the “middle ground” items level of ascended items. Not that this is the type of middle ground as defined by anybody with a 9-5 job.

Example 2

Another example of the economic shift is the Mystic Coin. A player earn one coin per day. Not every player does his daily achievements. Why would they, a coin costs 5 silver (formerly1), and anybody can farm that in 60 seconds. While the gameplay attributes the mystic coin a value of 24h, the players attribute a value of 60s. You can already see where this is heading, it is the ‘dungeon reward token’ discussion all over again.

There is no denying that the behavior of the average player has changed dramatically, either due to banning of bots, players quitting, or moving to another stage of their character’s natural progression. In any event, the days of oversupplied materials are over. Players will no longer sell rares for cheap, they will try to get the pie in the sky precursor themselves. Since it is way easier to produce gold, than to produce the items/materials you really want, the prices will continue to rise for as long as there is no clear cut way to reach your goals by means of gameplay.

After reading the patchnotes of the 15th:

“The drop rarity of Rare and Exotic weapons from certain places in the world (champions, veterans, and players in WvW) has been increased. Rares and Exotics should be much more likely to drop and every champion should be guaranteed to drop loot. This was to ensure that world loot drops were not a significantly worse way of acquiring rare and exotic items than crafting and running dungeons.”

I was epecting the price of ecto to drop, and the prices of rares with them.

Of course then ascended gear was found to require ecto to craft in the forge, so there was a fresh demand for it.

Has the new demand for ecto outstripped the new higher supply from the increased drops?

Also worth considering: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Change-in-loot-parameters-or-a-bug-Merged/page/2#post838169
I as well have noticed that rares drop a lot less frequently, especially in cursed shore, and champions are not all dropping loot as stated, so the increase in rares hasn’t happened.

In the AMA Chris answered this question:

Q: Magic find and just drops in general (with or without MF gear) seems to have been greatly altered
to a minimum. Also, in the most recent patch it was noted that Veterans/Champions should always drop
something at least, irregardless of what quality. Is the system working as you intended since the update or are
there most definitely problems with it as it stands? Also, if it is ‘working as planned’ why the huge change in
drops? Coupled with diminishing rewards it is hard to farm legitly and almost points the player to the Cash
Shop instead of relying on self-reliance. Thanks in advance!

A: So yep you are right this is the question i have been likely dodging the most? The reason being is that it requires
investigation. Vet and Champs should give good loot and there are a number of reports on perceived decrease in the
frequency of drops. I will be discussing this in depth with the Production and Design team tomorrow and we will
hopefully have more info soon.

So in fact, had the rare drop increase happened, would we be seeing a lot more supply and lower prices even with the new demand ascended has caused?

Guess what? You all, myself included, already payed your $60. Anet is not like other MMO devs that have to worry about subscription base. If you want to leave, LEAVE. THEY DONT CARE. If they really did care about the player base, they would be transparent with how they are handling the game.

Have fun spending endless hours farming so you can have your legendary items that you cant sell to anyone once new items are released.

Poor Leno.3582:

Guess what? You all, myself included, already payed your $60. Anet is not like other MMO devs that have to worry about subscription base. If you want to leave, LEAVE. THEY DONT CARE. If they really did care about the player base, they would be transparent with how they are handling the game.

Have fun spending endless hours farming so you can have your legendary items that you cant sell to anyone once new items are released.

ANet has said that Legendary items will always be best in slot. Once you get a legendary is should be at the top tier always, regardless of what that top tier is. It’s exotics that will be obsoleted by ascended over the next year (fuzzy ground there with infused slots vs regular upgrade slots).

ANet obviously cares about the players. I just don’t think they have been able to execute a lot of things very well yet (holiday events are an exception so far). So their caring is a moot point, it gets negated by the trouble they have translating it into effective action. Hopefully that gets addressed as they build in more support functionality, non-leveling activities, etc.

I find it fascinating that Anet takes the economics of their marketplace so seriously. It adds a really interesting dimension to the game.

Of course, I’m more the “kill things, take their stuff then sell it” sort. But I love the fact that some people are essentially playing financiers, rather than adventurers.

FourthVariety.5463:

High end items also serve as motivation, the famous carrot on a stick. But if the stick is a three mile polearm and the carrot is a barely visible dot on the horizon, the whole idea of this type of player motivation drops off.

You seem to forget one that you can buy any legendary off the TP with gold. And how do you get gold the fastest? Buy buying gems from Anet.

That weapon you see three-miles-away is a money-maker for Anet, plain and simple: players will pay dollars to get it.

Next to no-one will farm 350 lodestones. People buy them off TP. With money they got from gems. Gems they bought from Anet. With dollars.

I would 100% agree with you that this is a unattainable carrot on a stick. But it is not, it is a carrot very specificaly designed by Anet to make money.

And, quite frankly, I can’t say I disagree. If some lonely rich boy wants to use daddy’s credit card because he wants to have a glowing weapon, well, who am I to disagree? Or if some crazy woman doesn’t mind ploinking down 350 dollars to shoot rainbows out of her bow, well, let her.

Bottom line: legendary weapons are not unattainable at all, you just got to pay Anet money.

I think the problem is the way how Ascended gears are introduced.

If you think about it, Ascended gears are the next tier in term of progression, meaning it’s the next “regular” gear like Mithril/Orichalcum. By regular I mean it’s not a fancy looking, unique or named Exotic like the Foefire weapons or something like that. It’s something I believe that eventually every play will have as the next gears after exotic.

Yet, it’s treated as if it’s a special type of gears out of the normal curve. For the next “stat” gears, the cost should not be nowhere it is right now. Consider:

Exotic: 5 Ecto, 30 T6 base mats, 15 T6 fine mat.

The ascended piece should have been something like this per: 15→20 Ecto, 50→80 T6 base mats, 30→50 T6 fine mat, 1 Vial of Essence.

But no, it has to uses some ubsurd amount of mats while for some reason completely ignore the base like Ori/Acient/leather. This creates a big, unbalance and unjustifiable shock to the market and directly effect the lower tier as well. Why 50 ecto, why 250 T6? Why some of those not offset by a certain amount Oricalchum or Ancient Wood? I can not see those number anything else but market manipulation on Anet part, for what reason I don’t know, but I can say for certain it’s badly handled.

It will be understandable if Ascended is the next unique item like Foefire, Vocalnus, Corrupted set, something that you want because they’re special, not because you need. But ascended gears, again, is the next “stat” gear, and it’s something you “must” have in order to access certain content in the games. And for that, the mats requirement and its effect on the market I believe is un-acceptable.

Hello there,
me and my Guildmates noticed some thinks too concerning the impact of drops to the prices in the Tradingpost. And we all come to the conclusion: this is not what we were promised, i am looking at the manifest: "this is just boring grind and we don´t want people to grind.

Maybe we were misleading or just misunderstanding. We came mostly from WoW, because of the boring grind there and the mechanics that force u to log in every day, spend most of the time in game to at least be competitive. We hoped to find a Game were u can get the best stats “easily” and just have a longtime goal in cosmetics. But since we noticed (to get to the starting point) that drop rates decreased rapidly, it is clear to us that we won´t get to “max stats easily”…. in neither way. Not Crafting nor farming. There is no way such as the one we thought there would be, like “come online and play when and as long as you want”. We don´t get the mats to do crafting, nor enough drops to buy what we don´t find (we noticed that we even find less with magicfind bonus). So there is not much left of our first euphoria to play a game that honors “just play the game”.

I can understand IF that was intended to be a way to make botting less successfull in terms of goldearning and selling. But this would hurt the legit farmers a lot more, especially the ones with little time to spend. In this case, there would have been a much better solution: to make droprate depending on time spend per day. Let´s call it “dynamic droprate modification”. And isn´t “dynamic” one of the main features of the design philosophy behind Guildwars2?

Right now play little makes no progress at all once u hit 80. How much motivating to u think it is to spend your precious, very little time on farming crafting mats when u find maybe one out of 3/8/5/15 you need for one item in one and a half our, when you have only 2 Hours to spend every 2 days? Even the mystic forge isn´t any fun, not the gambling thrillride it should be. It is not “do i get something special out of these 4 items i throw in?”, it is more “should i really throw 4 rare items i farmed for last two weeks and spend almost my last copper to get 4 finished into this Thing?” Most people in that situation hit crafting level 400 and don´t kraft at all anymore i guess, because there is no profit or benefit to them. Not because of the poor goldprofit, more because of the profit in time spend/wasted (if nothing better comes out => make 4 good rares to one even worse).

I hope that is not an anti-botting feature, because it isn´t very well thought out all the way to the end. I just hope it is a huge bug. And to you people at Arenanet: please stick to your manifest and spare us that boring grind. For people with little time it is not motivating, neither farming nor those skyhigh tradingpost prices.

Disclaimer: please excuse my english, it is not my native language.

Vlad Morbius.1759:

John Smith.4610:

I cannot go too far into our process, but we often set goals; in an expanding market though there is a split between preventative and reactionary measures. If you read my last blog you may remember one of my favorite aphorisms, "Certainty is the mother of quiet and repose, and uncertainty the cause of variance and contentions.”

Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties, In these matters the only certainty is that there is nothing certain. This is one hell of a gamble, especially when you consider that the vast majority of people involved in this complex in game economy are not students of economics nor do they understand the consequences of monopolization and their closest interpretation of Sherman would be a tank. You sir may gamble the future of this economy based on your machinations but at the end of the day many ordinary people could well be your undoing.
Some, no most are here to play the game not to play the market. To continue down this path will most assuredly cost your company many of their real life resources at which time an economist will be the last person they need. Consider that while you’re playing economic dungeon master.

I love this post and agree 100%. The out of control ego from most of the Devs who post on these forums is truly mind boggling.

Rylek.4501:

Vlad Morbius.1759:

John Smith.4610:

I cannot go too far into our process, but we often set goals; in an expanding market though there is a split between preventative and reactionary measures. If you read my last blog you may remember one of my favorite aphorisms, "Certainty is the mother of quiet and repose, and uncertainty the cause of variance and contentions.”

Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties, In these matters the only certainty is that there is nothing certain. This is one hell of a gamble, especially when you consider that the vast majority of people involved in this complex in game economy are not students of economics nor do they understand the consequences of monopolization and their closest interpretation of Sherman would be a tank. You sir may gamble the future of this economy based on your machinations but at the end of the day many ordinary people could well be your undoing.
Some, no most are here to play the game not to play the market. To continue down this path will most assuredly cost your company many of their real life resources at which time an economist will be the last person they need. Consider that while you’re playing economic dungeon master.

I love this post and agree 100%. The out of control ego from most of the Devs who post on these forums is truly mind boggling.

Lol, I wonder if Vlad gets infracted more than me…

Rylek.4501:

Vlad Morbius.1759:

Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties, In these matters the only certainty is that there is nothing certain. This is one hell of a gamble, especially when you consider that the vast majority of people involved in this complex in game economy are not students of economics nor do they understand the consequences of monopolization and their closest interpretation of Sherman would be a tank. You sir may gamble the future of this economy based on your machinations but at the end of the day many ordinary people could well be your undoing.
Some, no most are here to play the game not to play the market. To continue down this path will most assuredly cost your company many of their real life resources at which time an economist will be the last person they need. Consider that while you’re playing economic dungeon master.

I love this post and agree 100%. The out of control ego from most of the Devs who post on these forums is truly mind boggling.

What I find mind boggling is the amount of people who believe that ArenaNet is manipulating the economy to “force” people to spend real money on gems in order to buy gold…

Astraea.6075:

Rylek.4501:

Vlad Morbius.1759:

Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties, In these matters the only certainty is that there is nothing certain. This is one hell of a gamble, especially when you consider that the vast majority of people involved in this complex in game economy are not students of economics nor do they understand the consequences of monopolization and their closest interpretation of Sherman would be a tank. You sir may gamble the future of this economy based on your machinations but at the end of the day many ordinary people could well be your undoing.
Some, no most are here to play the game not to play the market. To continue down this path will most assuredly cost your company many of their real life resources at which time an economist will be the last person they need. Consider that while you’re playing economic dungeon master.

I love this post and agree 100%. The out of control ego from most of the Devs who post on these forums is truly mind boggling.

What I find mind boggling is the amount of people who believe that ArenaNet is manipulating the economy to “force” people to spend real money on gems in order to buy gold…

Why is that mind boggling?

In the real world there are people conning folks into buying gold because of supposed hyperinflation that is bound to hit the US any second… and they been doing it for 4 years…

How difficult was it to see that Bots had a huge impact on the economy?

Wouldn’t it make sense if Anet considered something like this:
Number of Bots banned?
The number of hours those Bots played?
Factoring the drop rate while those accounts were active?
Calculating the amount of items that will no longer be entering the economy?

I am honestly considering quitting the game if the Winter event puts an even higher demand on T6 items (including lodes stones, etc.). This is a mismanaged economy.

On a side note, why are the drops in WvW so horrible? It would be a great way to introduce items, especially since it is lacking anything that resembles end game loot.

John Smith.4610:

Celestea.4105:

John Smith.4610:

The lost shores event was not the only modification to precursors.

We’re tracking the changing economy. The changed prices come from a lack of supply relative to demand, not from a substantial increase in inflation (this is apparent when you look at the TP as a whole bundle of good rather than just a few items).

Does this mean you are looking at ways to bring up the supply to meet the demand, or are you waiting it out a bit more to see what happens?

None of the processes are black and white. What I can say is that making decisions (or assumptions) without a complete understanding of everything involved would be a mistake. When dealing with large economies, small changes can have huge effects, it’s important to understand the effect of any changes on the game as a whole in both the short and long run.

I agree with what you said, but the problem is you guys implemented a new tier of gear which the majority of the player-base will find desirable, without increasing the rate in which players can acquire the ectoplasm and t6 materials necessary to craft these new items.

This in turn has also affected those seeking other items unrelated to ascended items, such as the wonderful looking named exotics which requires multiple stacks of t6 mats to craft.

I feel like making small changes such as giving us the ability to purchase these mats with karma, or within the new dungeon would help alleviate the current situation we are in. I know plenty of people with hundreds of thousands of karma, myself included(470k) and it would be nice to be able to do something with it for a change :P

xxxzavulonxxx.8413:

Astraea.6075:

Rylek.4501:

Vlad Morbius.1759:

Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties, In these matters the only certainty is that there is nothing certain. This is one hell of a gamble, especially when you consider that the vast majority of people involved in this complex in game economy are not students of economics nor do they understand the consequences of monopolization and their closest interpretation of Sherman would be a tank. You sir may gamble the future of this economy based on your machinations but at the end of the day many ordinary people could well be your undoing.
Some, no most are here to play the game not to play the market. To continue down this path will most assuredly cost your company many of their real life resources at which time an economist will be the last person they need. Consider that while you’re playing economic dungeon master.

I love this post and agree 100%. The out of control ego from most of the Devs who post on these forums is truly mind boggling.

What I find mind boggling is the amount of people who believe that ArenaNet is manipulating the economy to “force” people to spend real money on gems in order to buy gold…

Why is that mind boggling?

In the real world there are people conning folks into buying gold because of supposed hyperinflation that is bound to hit the US any second… and they been doing it for 4 years…

Because if it emerged anet was scamming people the damage would be immense. While putting serious effort into a game economy can pay off literally; take a look at EVE, that game’s success is almost entirely down to it’s economy and the developers transparency

Tallis.5607:

John Smith.4610:

The changed prices come from a lack of supply relative to demand, not from a substantial increase in inflation (this is apparent when you look at the TP as a whole bundle of good rather than just a few items).

Yes, but ectos aren’t just another type of goods, they are required to make exotics.

Price spikes on these items hurt players where it matters, in their gear. Not in something cosmetic that you ‘can do without’, like dye, but in their gear.

You may reason that it is ‘the market’, but the end-result is the same for the players: a doubled price.

Result: new 80s can simply not afford things anymore.

This is hurting the game, in my opinion.

I’m rich, so I’m not bothered by it, but when you look at the player-base as a whole, this is hurting a group of people that you want to cater for: the players that are on one of the game’s most critical moments, the moment where they often decide to stay or leave: when they hit the max level.

.

I do not know if there is some sort of marketing theory behind these prices. Maybe Anet thinks something like ‘yeah, well, if they want exotics, they can buy gems and turn them into gold’. Maybe Anet makes more money from people that do this then it looses on people that leave because of this.

But my guess is that they loose valuable customers over this.

I agree.
I play since day 1, I’ve got my gear and I have no problems with it. But I feel sorry for new players.

John Smith.4610:

The lost shores event was not the only modification to precursors.

We’re tracking the changing economy. The changed prices come from a lack of supply relative to demand, not from a substantial increase in inflation (this is apparent when you look at the TP as a whole bundle of good rather than just a few items).

It wasn’t the only modification, but the increased chance of getting them from the forge has proved irrelevant since prices are now worse for the precursors than ever.

Also, I suspected what you just stated about the lack of supply relative to demand. But that’s a problem created by the fact that you guys added new recipes that require huge amounts of the same mats that everything else needed. The huge increase in prices was entirely precipitated by the Devs deciding that everything needs 250 ectos/tier 6 mats to be upgraded/created. It’s making the grid worse than ever, as someone stated very succinctly on the recent reddit AMA. Ascended items can’t act as an in-between for the legendaries when they use all the same items, drive up prices, and thus make getting the legendary even LONGER to take, especially if you try to work on the ascended gear.

Sajuuk.5706:

It wasn’t the only modification, but the increased chance of getting them from the forge has proved irrelevant since prices are now worse for the precursors than ever.

Also, I suspected what you just stated about the lack of supply relative to demand. But that’s a problem created by the fact that you guys added new recipes that require huge amounts of the same mats that everything else needed. The huge increase in prices was entirely precipitated by the Devs deciding that everything needs 250 ectos/tier 6 mats to be upgraded/created. It’s making the grid worse than ever, as someone stated very succinctly on the recent reddit AMA. Ascended items can’t act as an in-between for the legendaries when they use all the same items, drive up prices, and thus make getting the legendary even LONGER to take, especially if you try to work on the ascended gear.

Bolded the bit I’m responding to

This is not true. Look at http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/19721 and you will see the price increase started long before the introduction of ascended gear roughly around 1 November. If you look closer you will see the drop in supply (sell listings) around that time that is probably associated with the mass bot banning, and you will also see a slight increase in demand (buy orders) around November 6th – 8th. There has been no spike in demand caused by the introduction of ascended gear.