Guild Wars 2

Hi, with the new patch, every single item’s availability is misleading.

The count for each item now only reflects the first 20 cheapest prices on the market. We cannot see the prices and supply of the items listed beyond these 20 prices. Also, as an avid trading post player, I find that this hinders analysis of the supply and price of the item.

Since we are hidden from the information of higher valued posts, it is significantly more difficult to merchant without the knowledge of the prices beyond the 20 cheapest listed prices. This is a great inconvenience and will greatly downgrade the quality of the TP.

All I have to say is:

Gw2spidy

Hi,

The buy (orders) and sell listings show only the top 20 values
- I believe people may not yet understand the effect that this will have on the market and the potential manipulation that could result..

Item 1: Unable to buy > 20 of an item.
When items are listed at sell Qty of x1 from a price of 1 copper to 20 copper (Qty: 20).
e.g. 1×1c, 1×2c, 1×3c, 1×4c, 1×5c, 1×6c, 1×7c, 1×8c …

You can now only put in a buy order of the maximum available that is being displayed on the screen at that time.
In this case a maximum of 20 items.

I understand this as an extreme example, but looking at items which are regularly listed as individual items (e.g. Lodestones for weapon crafting) this can be frustrating if you need 100-250 of these and have to complete multiple buy orders at a lower price to complete your needs. There are many items where it would be completely normal to buy a stack (250) and use this item during normal game-play. This change has increased the time required to purchase a stack and made it more complex in having to work out the total price paid for the stack if < 250 are available within the top 20 listings.
With items with lots of small quantity prices it also then becomes difficult to ensure that you have enough gold to complete your purchase of the required quantity.

Item 2: Market Demand (un-quantifiable)
It is now a lot easier for a market trader to raise prices and force things upwards by listing 30 different buy order values.
This then will hide the normal buy listing price at lower quantity’s and where the true demand price should be.

Item 3: Market Sell Price (Up-Swings)
It is now easy for a market trader (speculator) to force a hidden and sudden price rise, by buying all of that item and listing ~30 at a low price (<50 copper) with the rest of that item at unattainable prices (> 20 silver). Other players will not notice the upswing in price until it is too late, and crafting these items in response to demand (to lower prices) will be too late.
Good examples of these types of items include: armours/weapons/skins – where now the market trading speculator will have the upper hand.

It is often possible to notice if someone is attempting to manipulate a market through sell listings.
The price spikes will become much higher and more erratic if people cannot see beyond the last 20 items.

There are many items which are currently listed with many low value price points at a low quantity – with the bulk of these items placed at a much higher value.
Example of these include: Egg (33c -> 90c), ecto (low quantity buy/sell orders at ~29silver – where a larger bulk sell order is listed at 40silver) – much of this information is now hidden as the trading post no longer displays information beyond the top 20 values.

Answers like use gw2spidy – are unreliable, as the prices are updated on a 10 min frequency (or greater) during which large market swings frequently occur and reset to a much lower price point.
I know of individuals who watch that if an item has been sold at a higher price point will relist a few at much lower price points to ensure that gw2spidy does not record a higher price point for that item and ensures that the trend of that item remains at an artificially low point.

Why do they do this?
So they can buy more of that item at a below-market price to ensure that they get a good-deal for items they use on a regular basis.

I can understand why ANET may have performed this drastic change – to ensure performance of the trading post is manageable and consistent.
How this drastic change will affect the market – people will slowly understand and see in the long run.

Best Regards,
D

when there are buy orders for charged lodestones at 1 each with 1c intervals and you want to sell to them, it’s been my experience you have to do it one at a time. just fulfilling buy orders, I’m not talking about sell orders.
example:
1 buy order for 5 at 3,00,32
1 buy order for 4 at 3,00,31
1 buy order for 6 at 3,00,30
1 buy order for 9 at 3,00,29

I had 20 and wanted to instant-sell them. what ended up was that it fulfilled the 5 at 3,00,32 then listed a sell order for 15 at 3,00,32.

Not an economist but is the gist of this that it will be harder to manipulate the tp prices upwards? If so I’m glad.

it sounds like the gist is that you can’t monitor market prices as effectively or buy huge quantities at a time.

Goatjugsoup.8637:

Not an economist but is the gist of this that it will be harder to manipulate the tp prices upwards? If so I’m glad.

That is not the only aspect of this. When you are more aware of the nature of the price and supply of an item, you are able to properly invest into it using the buy orders and be able to hold onto them for whatever period of time you deem worthy.

It is much more difficult to know when and where to invest if we only have access to the information of 20 of the prices.

Mystic.5934:

it sounds like the gist is that you can’t monitor market prices as effectively or buy huge quantities at a time.

This summarizes my point above tersely. Monitoring the market also allows for wise investment. By seeing only 20 of the prices, it is more difficult to do this.

It simply does not make sense to limit the information of a market to the users.

Was this change unannounced?

It seems that some people can take advantage of this actually.

So basically it hinders market flipping so average folks like me won’t need to pay outragerous price for people who buy out the TP and relist items several times higher?

Thank you Anet!

laokoko.7403:

So basically it hinders market flipping so average folks like me won’t need to pay outragerous price for people who buy out the TP and relist items several times higher?

Thank you Anet!

Market flipping is still possible, and you are right that it is more difficult to do so without the information.

However, someone who is able to flip the market like that would already have huge sums of money, and would also be risking a huge portion of their wealth. I have not once seen an item that was flipped and stayed flipped for more than half a day without showing signs adjusting back to it’s normal price drastically. It is simply not profitable unless if you’re already rich yourself; and even so, there are huge risks involved. This is because the amount of suppliers simply overwhelm the market (every single player of every single server is part of the market. In other games, server markets are usually separated).

Have you ever seen any of this relisting of prices of items to be several times higher among T6 items or superior runes? It usually takes a single person to purchase thousands for the T6 items, and hundreds for the superior runes in order to do this, and you usually cannot sell it all for the price that you’ll list it for afterwards, since people will undercut you.

You also have to pay the 15% fee on top of that, forcing you to have a significantly larger margin of risk. The result of this is that you’d have to sell at a point that is higher than 15% of the original price that will have a good enough profit margin in order to justify what you did.

There seems to be a GW2 culture around the scary figure of someone manipulating the market, but this isn’t so.

The market isn’t being manipulated as hard as you guys make it out to be. It simply isn’t profitable most of the time, and usually involves too many risks due to the amount of suppliers and the amount needed to buy in order to manipulate the market.

This Is Important!
The 20 viewing cap limits the ability to invest wisely. This means having a certain item and knowing when to sell it. It’s easier to scope out the nature of an item, and whether or not the price will be able to continue to rise in price. It would also be easier to be able to predict how long the item will remain stagnant in price, and when it may change. You know more about your risks in holding onto an item to sell later. You would also know more about the item before you sell it.

The 20 viewing limit is hindering the entire investment community.