Guild Wars 2

[i]"Net profit, also referred to as the bottom line, net income, or net earnings is a measure of the profitability of a venture after accounting for all costs. In a survey of nearly 200 senior marketing managers, 91% responded that they found the "net profit" metric very useful. (1) In accounting, net profit is equal to the gross profit minus overheads minus interest payable for a given time period (usually: accounting period)"

"In simplistic terms, net profit is the money left over after paying all the expenses of an endeavor."[/i]

- taken from Wikipedia

So... Anet obviously didn’t talk to any of those 200 senior marketing managers when they decided to remove the net profit amount from the TP when selling an item.

Yay... we now get to see all the hidden fees... yes, that is a plus... but it really is poor design to show the profit BEFORE fees, and make the seller calculate the net profit themselves.

I know others have pointed it out before, but I was hoping there was just some information missing, and wanted to see it in action when the patch hit...
Sadly, they really did go with the bad decision to remove net profit.

Please give us the net profit and don’t make us have to calculate it ourselves.

I agree. I think it’s a mistake for Anet to assume that people know how to add and subtract properly.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I agree. I think it’s a mistake for Anet to assume that people know how to add and subtract properly.

^^This.

Its an outrage and wouldnt have happened with Evon on the Council.

Indeed! This is a game, not real life. Basic math shouldn’t apply in a fantasy setting. So next time Evon’s name in on the ballot, be sure to vote for him!

Evon is best charr!

the fact they recognize it needed changing is a plus. and they do show more important stuff now. but it’s not complete. Ideally it would look like this:

sell [250] of xyz for [1g23s45c] each:
Total: 308g62s50c
Listing Fee: 15g43s13c
Final Sale Tax: 30g86s25c
Expected Profit: 262g33s12c

before, they had just the listing fee and expected return (total - final sale tax)
now they have all but the expected profit
maybe the next update they’ll have all of them?

The problem is that there are several numbers they ought to post and it’s hard to setup the UI so it’s unambiguous and unobtrusive.

• Item Price
• Quantity
• Total Value of Sale
• Listing Fee
• Sales Tax
• Gross Profit (the amount that will actually show up in your collections box, = Value – Tax)
• Net Profit (the amount of profit, after all fees are accounted for, assuming listing only once, = Gross Profit – Listing Fee = Value – Tax – Fee)

Most people’s eyes glaze over looking at more than three numbers so ANet keeps erring on the side of too few. I think they should post them all and then work on tweaking/retweaking until it’s easy for the majority of the community.

I also want the net price back. The problem isn’t that I don’t know how to subtract. The problem is that I’m usually in a hurry between battles and don’t want to take the time. The new TP was supposed to make selling easier and faster, not slower.

I think there should be a toggle between the fees and the gross and net profits. Click on the fees and it switches to profits, click again back to fees. Remember which on was displayed last and default to that. Everyone’s happy, minimal information displayed at once, user choice between the two pairs.

Mystic.5934:

the fact they recognize it needed changing is a plus. and they do show more important stuff now. but it’s not complete. Ideally it would look like this:

sell ²⁵⁰ of xyz for [1g23s45c] each:
Total: 308g62s50c
Listing Fee: 15g43s13c
Final Sale Tax: 30g86s25c
Expected Profit: 262g33s12c

before, they had just the listing fee and expected return (total – final sale tax)
now they have all but the expected profit
maybe the next update they’ll have all of them?

Lol.

People complained about expected profit not showing all fees. Anet took that to mean, we weren’t happy to have expected profit calculated for us.

=.=;

Taygus.4571:

Mystic.5934:

the fact they recognize it needed changing is a plus. and they do show more important stuff now. but it’s not complete. Ideally it would look like this:

sell ²⁵⁰ of xyz for [1g23s45c] each:
Total: 308g62s50c
Listing Fee: 15g43s13c
Final Sale Tax: 30g86s25c
Expected Profit: 262g33s12c

before, they had just the listing fee and expected return (total – final sale tax)
now they have all but the expected profit
maybe the next update they’ll have all of them?

Lol.

People complained about expected profit not showing all fees. Anet took that to mean, we weren’t happy to have expected profit calculated for us.

=.=;

Who weren’t happy? I was perfectly happy, i don’t have time to waste calculating something they showed me previously.

Txema.7859:

Taygus.4571:

Mystic.5934:

the fact they recognize it needed changing is a plus. and they do show more important stuff now. but it’s not complete. Ideally it would look like this:

sell ²⁵⁰ of xyz for [1g23s45c] each:
Total: 308g62s50c
Listing Fee: 15g43s13c
Final Sale Tax: 30g86s25c
Expected Profit: 262g33s12c

before, they had just the listing fee and expected return (total – final sale tax)
now they have all but the expected profit
maybe the next update they’ll have all of them?

Lol.

People complained about expected profit not showing all fees. Anet took that to mean, we weren’t happy to have expected profit calculated for us.

=.=;

Who weren’t happy? I was perfectly happy, i don’t have time to waste calculating something they showed me previously.

the projected profit was incorrect.
rather than anet fixing it to be correct, they chose to just show both fees. What people wanted was the projected profit to be correct.
hence why I said

“anet took that to mean we ".

anet mis understood us, no surprise there.

I’ve always said they used the wrong word, profit, when they meant payment or whatever word to best describe the amount of coin waiting for pickup once the sale goes through. But because they used profit there was a groundswell of players wanting both the posting fee and and sales tax taken into account.

The only things I need to know when doing a listing:

How much money will it take up front? The listing fee.
How much money will I earn? Expected profit.
If the game wants to be nice enough to tell me the taxes too, that’s fine, but it’s not relevant information compared to what a seller should know at a quick glance.

But people complained that the projected profit was wrong. Others thought it was alright. The compromise is they just list the fees and it’s up to the user. Now that you can’t list items at prices where it would have been better to sell to a vendor, it doesn’t matter to me anymore. I don’t set my per price on a stack so I get X when they are sold. I set my per price based on the current items being sold and the bids.

Behellagh.1468:

Now that you can’t list items at prices where it would have been better to sell to a vendor, it doesn’t matter to me anymore.

True! I appreciate that change. No more 16c runes sitting about. While I wish they could get rid of the below-minimum buy offers, (or did they?) JS mentioned that it might be more trouble than it’s worth to execute that.

Ok when I heard the changes to the TP and they indicated that they would now show all fees, took it as they would add that information, but not at the expense of removing information. Sure its not hard to do the math, but this seems more like someone commented out a piece of code by accident versus, no this was the design plan.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I agree. I think it’s a mistake for Anet to assume that people know how to add and subtract properly.

Not really the point is it, it’s a quality of life issue, if i am selling a couple items i have no problems calculating the net profit but if i ‘m selling 10 or more items for example, i will be wasting time calculating every transaction when i could be doing something more interesting, like playing the game, just because they couldn’t be bothered to add the simplest math calculation.
I’m no dev but how difficult can it be to code A-B-C=D and then display the result.

While I get the “you should be able to add and subtract for this value…”, answers, I’m kind of baffled as to WHY it would be so difficult to add another number that gives you a net return value? I’m not trying to be mean, but from my few uses of the new interface, it’s very good EXCEPT that it is missing what is likely the most crucial number any trader needs…..totally baffling to me.

I’d really like to hear from a Dev whether this “decision” was intentional or simply an oversight?

If it was an oversight, can we expect a change at some point? (or at least give us an in-game calculator).

If it was intentional, can someone please enlighten us as to WHY? You are giving us the numbers that SHOW how much the 15% trade fee is, I’m not sure how the lack of a net profit value will harm anything.

Very confused at this oversight / kitten of a very good (IMO) change to the TP.

Wanze.8410:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I agree. I think it’s a mistake for Anet to assume that people know how to add and subtract properly.

^^This.

Its an outrage and wouldnt have happened with Evon on the Council.

Do you guys ever have any gripes with what anet does? I’m concerned that you would defend them even for doing something like banning you.

Obviously, math is easy. The point is, they overhauled the entire interface and didn’t add the most obvious thing when it’s as simple as a subtraction problem. Why wouldn’t they add it? Was it an oversight as asked above? Why not have the one piece of info that would make the most sense? Coding math has got to be the simplest thing to do, right?

It is completely outrageous that they’ve removed net profit. It is clearly the most relevant piece of information that, as a seller, sometimes offloading your inventory into the TP in a hurry to make space for more loot, you do not have this information at your fingertips.

The breakdown of fees is a nice to have, but it’s far from essential.

To all the people being patronising about others’ ability to add and subtract, that is a pretty poor veil for poor game design.

I am glad to see it confirmed that it’s been taken out of the game because I thought I was going blind/insane. I mean it still makes 0 sense that they’ve done this.

This surprises me because it was the least important for me. I price items to sell not on what’s waiting for me in pickup but on the state of prices of buy orders and high bids. I’ll get what I’ll get at that price. I trust that they can figure out the tax. The bid fee is important but 90% of # of items x price per, whatever.

Why is it that I get the impression that no one who actually plays this game was asked to test this new TP before it went live?

If I wrote a spreadsheet for a client and gave him a sub total and 2 values to subtract but not the GRAND total, what would his likely response be? What POSSIBLE defense could I have? Didn’t want to use another cell? Figured it would be good math practice? Just wasn’t up to actually finishing the project?

Would, “it’s easy math, dude….get a calculator.”, be the proper response to him?

I give Anet the benefit of the doubt in 98% of the issues, but this one is just could not have been something any tester would have missed (again, giving them the benefit of the doubt).

To be honest, I just want to know if the designer of the Trade window is incompetent, screwing with us, or there is some hidden agenda here (beyond providing every player with math homework on every Sell Order).

Again, just dumbfounded and hoping someone at Anet is not too embarrassed to answer….

What would you use the net profit value for ?

TP flipping: To flip well, you need some automated tool to process the current trading post market and point you to best items to flip today. If it doesn’t already take the TP fees into account, it’s going to give you wrong answers and point you to unprofitable flips.
Buy stuff, do stuff to it, sell output: Again, your spreadsheet will need to account for TP fees to produce an output you find useful.
Craft with drops you got from the world: Here your spreadsheet doesn’t need to account for fees to be useful, as if crafting increases the list price of the output compared to the input, it’s worth doing. But it should be easy enough to add to your spreadsheet.

Vendor vs TPing a drop: Before the patch it was possible to list items for a price that got you less gold than vendoring it would. So you needed an accurate profit value to know if you should vendor or TP. But the update also included this:

Minimum buy and sell prices are now vendor value + 15%.

After some in game checking, the patch note is inaccurate. The minimum price is really the price where selling on the TP gets you the same amount as if you sold it to a vendor. Making it impossible to list it at a price where you get less than vendor value.

When I get a drop that I want to sell, I don’t care how much it’s worth. Only that I’m getting the most out of it. Which means I try to sell for 1c below lowest seller, if it lists at that price I sell it on the TP, otherwise I vendor it. With the minimum allowed price where it is now, I don’t need the TP to do the full calculation.

People always screw up the notion of multiplying the price by x% instead of dividing by 100 – x%. It’s better to just say you can’t short change yourself Vs a vendor.

If you are a serious flipper, you weren’t relying on “projected profit” on the old TP but breaking out a calculator, spreadsheet or going to a 3rd party site like gw2tp where true profit and spreads are calculated every few minutes.

skepticck.9714:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I agree. I think it’s a mistake for Anet to assume that people know how to add and subtract properly.

Not really the point is it, it’s a quality of life issue, if i am selling a couple items i have no problems calculating the net profit but if i ‘m selling 10 or more items for example, i will be wasting time calculating every transaction when i could be doing something more interesting, like playing the game, just because they couldn’t be bothered to add the simplest math calculation.
I’m no dev but how difficult can it be to code A-B-C=D and then display the result.

I wonder myself if these smug, condescending people are for real or anet employees. See too many in game too in some denial that the game has any faults (MUST be the user not having a good machine or a bad connection etc). Well it’s not an incentive to improve services when people act like such doormats and even mock people that have genuine complaints.

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073:

What would you use the net profit value for ?

To quickly see the difference between what I’m selling the item for and what I can expect back. I get this is NOT a tool major flippers or even those that sell stacks of items regularllly will use, but the casual user of the TP needs to be considered in this deign change as well, right?

All the complaints here are about how the changes (mostly For the casual TP user) are not well suited for the major TP flipper/trader and I get there is a laundry list of things that need to be done to accomidate these high traffic users. Is it so horrific for ONE field to be added for the casual trader?

Jeez, you guys would think we are asking them to plot a multidimensional integral rather than put in a field that subtracts a few numbers and DISPLAYS the results…..

I don’t need the TP to do the full calculation.

But what would be the reason for NOT going the final step in a mile long trek?

…..(MUST be the user not having a good machine or a bad connection etc). …..

Your point is valid, but your inclusion of a totally unrelated issue has no relevance in this discussion. Your connection issues ARE 98% likely to be NOT an Anet caused one (or EVERYONE would be having them).