Guild Wars 2

Yes, another precursor topic. But rather than complain about RNG, I thought I’d complain that players should never have been given control over the market for precursors. With a very rare, highly sought after item of importance it was inevitable that the current situation was always going to be the final result: a limited market that super rich players/groups will control, while standard/casual players have little choice but to rely on RNG, as by the time they save up for it it’s gone up in price yet again.

Precursors could have been been sold by a vendor for a flat price, ranging from gold for people good at making it to a large amount of skill points or karma for those who are not. I’m not trying to criticize too much, but it just seems like it was a system destined to fail, that while the GW2 economy and TP runs like a fine oiled machine (rare items are expensive), this particular item and the way it is acquired is keeping players from making their Legendaries for months on end.

The problem with having a flat price for it would be inflation.

100g today is MUUUUCH easier to get than 100g at release.

So unless they actively changed the price based on the current value of gold (which is exactly how the TP works) it wouldn’t really work out that well.

lordkrall.7241:

The problem with having a flat price for it would be inflation.

100g today is MUUUUCH easier to get than 100g at release.

So unless they actively changed the price based on the current value of gold (which is exactly how the TP works) it wouldn’t really work out that well.

Desired precursors prices are not going up at the dame rate as inflation, or earning.

Dusk used to be 80 gold. farmer could make that in 30 hours just npcing crap (if not less) haven’t heard of farming that can make 1500 gold in 30 hours.

Depends on what you mean be “control”. I don’t think any one person or cartel can control the precursor market. Now if you mean control as in only accessible to the very rich, well that’s a problem with supply and that has to do with the devs wanting to give legendary weapons a truly rare status and since precursors are required, they inherit the truly rare status.

With any low supply, high demand item only those with the most money will be able to get it. And as the game drags on the wealth gap increases. And since nobody can really control supply for very long of any one precursor, the prices are what the market can bear, sort of.

I’m of a mind that the various charting sites can’t detect when one is priced significantly less than what we see as the low sale price and is bought almost immediately. Those sites simply don’t sample frequently enough to notice them. So the low sell price we are seeing is the nobody willing to pay price and the actual price is much closer to the high bid.

I’m still waiting for the precursor hunt update :-( did Anet forget about it or something?

I’m starting to think I’ll NEVER have a legendary at this rate.

Behellagh.1468:

Depends on what you mean be “control”. I don’t think any one person or cartel can control the precursor market. Now if you mean control as in only accessible to the very rich, well that’s a problem with supply and that has to do with the devs wanting to give legendary weapons a truly rare status and since precursors are required, they inherit the truly rare status.

With any low supply, high demand item only those with the most money will be able to get it. And as the game drags on the wealth gap increases. And since nobody can really control supply for very long of any one precursor, the prices are what the market can bear, sort of.

I’m of a mind that the various charting sites can’t detect when one is priced significantly less than what we see as the low sale price and is bought almost immediately. Those sites simply don’t sample frequently enough to notice them. So the low sell price we are seeing is the nobody willing to pay price and the actual price is much closer to the high bid.

Essentially the prices of precursors will continue to go out of reach as you say. And man, if they introduce new legendaries with a similar system, those prices would be insane.

But I think the point of his post is, within this system precursors of high demand will always be a problem for people who are below that high earning rate.

phys.7689:

Essentially the prices of precursors will continue to go out of reach as you say. And man, if they introduce new legendaries with a similar system, those prices would be insane.

But I think the point of his post is, within this system precursors of high demand will always be a problem for people who are below that high earning rate.

So then the question is whether that’s right or wrong in the eyes of the devs. Now they may only be concern with maintaining a very rare drop rate and simply let the player’s knife each other on the TP to get one. But on another thread I suggest this RNG reward/TP/gold sink system they have in place simply leads to unconventional play styles and complaints about grinding because the game becomes all about earning the almighty gold piece.

- Why don’t players play in zone X? Well no good gold making opportunities.
- Why did the champ trains come into existence? Well the devs boosted the rewards on champs and it was a quick and easy way to earn rewards.
- Why are dungeon parties so particular about another player’s equipment/trait/skill load out? So they can do the paths as quick as possible to maximize gold per hour.
- Why would a player guest on two servers just to mine T6 mats (pre Megaserver)? To earn gold.

That’s just off the top of my currently aching head. So between precursors and the almost pathological need to get stuff from the Gem Shop for free. Earning gold ASAP has shaped how players play and how they react to the game. I’ll bet that the root to most of the “GW2 is grindy” threads is because players feel the need to do content that delivers the most gold in the shortest amount of time, regardless if they like doing that content or not. It’s no longer about exploring a new world and fighting the good fight against the dragons but earning enough gold to get a precursor and free stuff from the Gem Shop.

I wonder how many players are trying to get their first legendary? I know most of the hardcore friends of mine have the legendary they want. Lf less hardcore players are grinding for them the supply of rare weapons has decreased, instead of the demand for them increasing. An increase in the price of rares has the same effect on precursor prices.

Precursor demand maintains the price floor for other things. Without expensive precursors, exotic weapons become worthless. Ecto drops in price. Rares drop in price to match the new low ecto prices. The items in the economy are interlinked, and the precursors are the linchpin that holds it together. People already complain that the loot system in the game is bad since drops have no value, the drops would have significantly less value if precursor prices crashed.

I don’t see anything wrong with current prices. It’s at equilibrium price – a price that both sellers and buyers are willing to meet at.

I understand your vendor suggestion, but at what point are we going to put our foot down and not bring everything to vendors? Why not lodestones? Why not T6 mats? Why don’t we just put everything that’s on the TP and put it on a vendor?

Because gold sinks.

I don’t think these players are trying to control anything. They are trying to make more gold. In the meantime they buy a lot of items from others all the while a lot of gold is taken out of the circulation.

It would be fun to see what would happen if absolutely no one would use the mystic forge for a week. Would this result in more open world pre-cursor drops?

The core problem that I would like to see addressed is that the relative effort (and expense) of obtaining a legendary should be about the same for each player. If I see a person with the GWAMM title from GW1, for example, I know what was involved in getting it and, furthermore, I know that the effort was about the same for anyone wearing the title. It doesn’t bother me that the title is relatively commonplace. It is simply a marker to me for the loyalty and effort that that person put into his/her gameplay.

Some people argue that legendaries must remain a scarce item and thus relatively few people should have them. I argue against that. I feel that the only thing they should represent is the effort and tenacity expended to obtain them. If, over time, more and more people have them, I have absolutely no problem with that.

Anet could, if they wanted to make a weapon truly scarse, create unique legendary weapons that only drop from the world. These would be incredibly rare and expensive, but at least people would be spared the misery of trying to get lucky in the MF.

It is the same for each player. If you average it over all the players. Everyone likes to talk about how “unfair” it is that the precursor is solely based on RNG.. I bet if they got one as a loot drop today they’d be a lot quieter about the prices.

lordkrall.7241:

The problem with having a flat price for it would be inflation.

100g today is MUUUUCH easier to get than 100g at release.

So unless they actively changed the price based on the current value of gold (which is exactly how the TP works) it wouldn’t really work out that well.

I am no expert in the game economy, but NPC vendors selling precursors for fixed price (as suggested above) sounds like a huge gold sink to me, which could help maintaining the value of gold and fight the inflation.
Yes, I do agree inflation exists and has to be taken into account, I highly doubt, however, inflation changed the value of gold so much that precursor cost changed by many hundreds of gold within a few weeks. The OP definitely has a point, I see player action in that.
No matter what you say or what you think… what is happening to precursors in the game is very unnatural. Since I am no expert in economics, I cannot really suggest how to fix it, I am absolutely sure, though, a fix is necessary. If upsetting few rich TP barons is the only cost of accommodating much huger playerbase, then I am willing to pay that cost.

Tarasicodissa.7084:

… I am no expert in economics.

Tarasicodissa.7084:

… what is happening to precursors in the game is very unnatural.

Tarasicodissa.7084:

I am absolutely sure, though, a fix is necessary..

Hrmmmmm, I can’t quite put my finger on it, but something’s off about these statements…

The precursor market cannot be manipulated. The velocity is too great for people to manipulate it. This has been proven several times by Anet. If you check the price history, you’ll see where the large changes in price occurred and can then check what happened around that time. November 2012 and April 2014 are a couple good instances to look at.

Andred.1087:

It is the same for each player. If you average it over all the players. Everyone likes to talk about how “unfair” it is that the precursor is solely based on RNG.. I bet if they got one as a loot drop today they’d be a lot quieter about the prices.

Sure, everyone walks around with that same 0.07% chance (or whatever it is) of getting a precursor from the MF. But that is a far different thing than what I am talking about. I want to remove the volatility completely by removing all non-determinism in the pursuit of a legendary weapon.

There is a mechanism for removing the randomness in the acquisition of a precursor, it’s called buying it on the TP.

In fact, the premium you pay to avoid the randomness of the mystic forge has been dropping steadily since shortly after the game came out. A year ago, you easily had to pay a 30+% premium to buy a precursor directly over gambling it; now it is more like 15%.

The spike in prices reflect the fact that people are no longer farming precursors the way they used to be. You would expect the price of them to surge on any other item if people systematically stopped farming it, and it’s no different here.

I swear that this game’s economy really makes me question the extent to which people respond to incentives.

So, the price is of a precursor is 5 times what it used to be, but that price is “much fairer” than when it was 300g?

ThePainTrain.8601:

Tarasicodissa.7084:

… I am no expert in economics.

Tarasicodissa.7084:

… what is happening to precursors in the game is very unnatural.

Tarasicodissa.7084:

I am absolutely sure, though, a fix is necessary..

Hrmmmmm, I can’t quite put my finger on it, but something’s off about these statements…

“It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a ‘dismal science.’ But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance.” -Murray Rothbard

Phibes.4128:

So, the price is of a precursor is 5 times what it used to be, but that price is “much fairer” than when it was 300g?

It certainly is easier to acquire 1500 gold now than it was a month after the game came out.

People used to farm cursed shore for precursors, and the price of a precursor reflected the output of X hours of farming.

Today, a precursor is cheaper than it was a year, year and a half ago, in the sense that if it used to cost X hours of cursed shore farming output, it now costs around 0.9*X hours of cursed shore farming output.

Cursed shore farming is still available as a method of acquiring precursors, yet the population there is not anything like it used to be. People interested in farming a precursor would presumably be doing something that gets them one even faster. Except they aren’t.

The question is why. Why are players more willing to throw 1400, 1500 gold at a high demand precursor than spend the time farming one up?

Has not John and many others on this forum argued several time that there is no inflation since release, and precursor increased cost is only based on supply and demand.

Either they are right, and having a flat price would not had been unfair, or they are wrong, and the game is suffering from inflation.

Belorn.2659:

Has not John and many others on this forum argued several time that there is no inflation since release, and precursor increased cost is only based on supply and demand.

Either they are right, and having a flat price would not had been unfair, or they are wrong, and the game is suffering from inflation.

I don’t think John Smith said that there was no inflation — rather he said that the inflation he tracked doesn’t really track the gem <→ gold exchange rate. And they’ve deliberately made changes which altered economics in a way that would have caused the basket of goods which he uses to track inflation to change prices.

There’s some good discussion in a recent thread — an example post from JS which touches on measuring inflation: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/I-have-a-question-about-the-economy/first#post4216795

Using precursors to measure inflation doesn’t make a lot of sense — most of what’s bought and sold aren’t precursors; and if you do so you have to account for things like how the wardrobe change made legendary skins more valuable (a demand shock is not the same thing as inflation, though it may be followed by a temporary or permanent increase in prices).

I don’t want to argue about inflation. But if you don’t think Anet purposely makes the game more tolerable at the start, and gradually make it more grindy so they can boost sales, I think you are a fool.

That is what every gem shop game do. At the beginning they just try to get people hook to the game. When people are hook, they make adjustment so more people are willing to spend real money. Obviously going too far might backfire, since they’ll loss too many players.

phys.7689:

Desired precursors prices are not going up at the dame rate as inflation, or earning.

Dusk used to be 80 gold. farmer could make that in 30 hours just npcing crap (if not less) haven’t heard of farming that can make 1500 gold in 30 hours.

lol, Dusk was that price when the game 1st came out. You really can’t use it for comparison considering at the time no one knew the rarity and the value hadn’t stabilized yet. 1 month after it came out it was at 370g, no one had any gold the day the game came out either. Everything was very low priced then, so your drops were worth way less, vastly lowing your money making potential. The only thing that’s been constant is the merchant’s sell value, good luck making 80g selling your greens and blues in 30 hours.

Curse Drew.8679:

phys.7689:

Desired precursors prices are not going up at the dame rate as inflation, or earning.

Dusk used to be 80 gold. farmer could make that in 30 hours just npcing crap (if not less) haven’t heard of farming that can make 1500 gold in 30 hours.

lol, Dusk was that price when the game 1st came out. You really can’t use it for comparison considering at the time no one knew the rarity and the value hadn’t stabilized yet. 1 month after it came out it was at 370g, no one had any gold the day the game came out either. Everything was very low priced then, so your drops were worth way less, vastly lowing your money making potential. The only thing that’s been constant is the merchant’s sell value, good luck making 80g selling your greens and blues in 30 hours.

my friend bought it then, and my other frend opted out in order to farm for human teir 3. ( big mistake) so yeah 100 gold wasnt unattainable. even at 370 G a month in, at 4 gold an hour, thats 92.5 hours. 1500/92.5= 16 gold an hour, who makes that from regular farming?right before karka event i was gonna get zap for 200ish gold, and now its 1400.

fact is precursors have gone up greater than inflation and earning potential (non tp) Because precursor price is dependent on how much the richest people who want the item are willing to pay, due its supply, and that segment of the population earns/buys gold faster than other segments.

interestingly enough, buying dusk with real money is almost twice as cheap as it was nov 12.

the buying power of those who buy gold from anet has drastically improved, way beyond earning potential(from farming) and inflation.

essentialy wealth disparity between the aristocrats and the middle/lower classes has grown which means precursors will be expensive, and this is AFTER two years of the richest/most desiring people haven buying them. Imagine their prices if non of the richest/most desiring people had them yet?

even at 1 entering the tp per hour, i would put its value at 2.5k-3k initially.

And the anti-flippers come out of the wood work.

Players can try to control it but they can’t for long. Draining supply and then posting one at some massive markup just makes players sitting on precursors to pony them up on the market, undercutting the initial low sell. So what ends up happening is an uptick over the regular supply rate as players choose to dump any they have in inventory. Successive under cuts quickly brings the price back down to near where it was before the attempted manipulation.

A player would need 100K+ in gold to try to control supply for a few days, otherwise the price collapses. But the forum gets inundated by threads like this everytime it’s tried.

phys.7689:

my friend bought it then, and my other frend opted out in order to farm for human teir 3. ( big mistake) so yeah 100 gold wasnt unattainable. even at 370 G a month in, at 4 gold an hour, thats 92.5 hours. 1500/92.5= 16 gold an hour, who makes that from regular farming?right before karka event i was gonna get zap for 200ish gold, and now its 1400.

fact is precursors have gone up greater than inflation and earning potential (non tp) Because precursor price is dependent on how much the richest people who want the item are willing to pay, due its supply, and that segment of the population earns/buys gold faster than other segments.

interestingly enough, buying dusk with real money is almost twice as cheap as it was nov 12.

the buying power of those who buy gold from anet has drastically improved, way beyond earning potential(from farming) and inflation.

essentialy wealth disparity between the aristocrats and the middle/lower classes has grown which means precursors will be expensive, and this is AFTER two years of the richest/most desiring people haven buying them. Imagine their prices if non of the richest/most desiring people had them yet?

even at 1 entering the tp per hour, i would put its value at 2.5k-3k initially.

Money is way easier to earn now, drops are worth a lot more. Making 4 gold an hour after the 1st month is equal to making 16g an hour today. Both are unlikely.

You were playing then, so you know gold was much harder to get. I made my 1st gold as i reached lvl 80, i remember reading a recent thread where a new player had 28g when he reached lvl 80. I really do feel gold was 4 times harder to earn back then. I don’t see how you could of played then, and not feel the same way.

I’m not saying it was impossible, not any more impossible then it is today. You’re just exaggerating how easy it was to get while the precursor market just started, and people didn’t know the rarity.

Curse Drew.8679:

phys.7689:

my friend bought it then, and my other frend opted out in order to farm for human teir 3. ( big mistake) so yeah 100 gold wasnt unattainable. even at 370 G a month in, at 4 gold an hour, thats 92.5 hours. 1500/92.5= 16 gold an hour, who makes that from regular farming?right before karka event i was gonna get zap for 200ish gold, and now its 1400.

fact is precursors have gone up greater than inflation and earning potential (non tp) Because precursor price is dependent on how much the richest people who want the item are willing to pay, due its supply, and that segment of the population earns/buys gold faster than other segments.

interestingly enough, buying dusk with real money is almost twice as cheap as it was nov 12.

the buying power of those who buy gold from anet has drastically improved, way beyond earning potential(from farming) and inflation.

essentialy wealth disparity between the aristocrats and the middle/lower classes has grown which means precursors will be expensive, and this is AFTER two years of the richest/most desiring people haven buying them. Imagine their prices if non of the richest/most desiring people had them yet?

even at 1 entering the tp per hour, i would put its value at 2.5k-3k initially.

Money is way easier to earn now, drops are worth a lot more. Making 4 gold an hour after the 1st month is equal to making 16g an hour today. Both are unlikely.

You were playing then, so you know gold was much harder to get. I made my 1st gold as i reached lvl 80, i remember reading a recent thread where a new player had 28g when he reached lvl 80. I really do feel gold was 4 times harder to earn back then. I don’t see how you could of played then, and not feel the same way.

I’m not saying it was impossible, not any more impossible then it is today. You’re just exaggerating how easy it was to get while the precursor market just started, and people didn’t know the rarity.

i just told you that it was not, 4 gold an hour can be made STRICTLY from selling to NPC. You seem to forget gold earning was nerfed numerous times. You used to be able to get 4 gold an hour farming in orr, selling blues/greens to npcs. My friend who got 100 gold in a week for his teir 3 cultural items sold powerful blood. I made just as much if not more, but i burned it leveling all crafts to max.

you keep saying that it used to be harder, which is true, but it wasnt that much harder. The old ORR event farming circles used to be incredibly profitable. back before some enemies gave nothing and plinx was put on a half hour cool down. Just from selling to the npc, raw crap items, people used to get substantial money. I honestly dont think earning from regular farming has gone up much considering inflation.

just to be clear, i dont think there is any regular farming method that gives you 16 gold an hour, i havent done the math in the last few months, but prices dont seem to have changed that drastically, best you could get was about 8-10 gold an hour, If any one has any info on 16 gold per hour from farming id be interested to hear it.

november was not when the precursor market just started, and i redid those numbers using your own number pf 370 gold. the game came out in august, november was 2-3 months in, and people were already mass farming to get them.
not to mention while dusk was 370, other precursors were like 200.

@phys

Orr was nerfed to bring it into balance with the rest of the game. For those of us who were’nt farming Orr all day, we had a rougher start. Atleast you got to take advantage of it before it was nerfed, which gave you a better start then most players. Just because it would of been easier for you to buy a precursor before Anet nerfed your farming spot, to me it seems like precursors are about the same amount of gold/effort. I played some the penn/shelter, but was more focused on other things.

Game came out Aug 28, and Dusk was upto 336g on Oct 8th, that’s less then a month and a half of time. Your’re right, I looked at the value wrong where dusk started to stabilize. But still using a value of 80g when dusk 1st hit the market, is a bad way to compare it’s affordability today.

laokoko.7403:

I don’t want to argue about inflation. But if you don’t think Anet purposely makes the game more tolerable at the start, and gradually make it more grindy so they can boost sales, I think you are a fool.

I would never assert that the game isn’t grindy; and you can avoid most of the grind by paying money. However, the part of their philosophy that I like is that most of the grind (if you ignore the difference between exotic and ascended gear … which matters, but you can play everything in exotic gear still) is that the grind is for cosmetic items. I’m pretty OK with the idea that you’d have to grind a while, or pay money, to get pretty gear.

laokoko.7403:

That is what every gem shop game do. At the beginning they just try to get people hook to the game. When people are hook, they make adjustment so more people are willing to spend real money. Obviously going too far might backfire, since they’ll loss too many players.

I think you’re misunderstanding part of the psychology of why people spend money — consider the threads with people proudly posting that they’ve never spent money on the gem shop. (Some) people with disposable income will spend money on their hobbies if they’re having fun, and the company offers them something which is appealing (can be cosmetic, can be for convenience, can be something else … just has to have some actual appeal) — even if they can get the item without paying. One way to get people to buy things is to make the game difficult to play without spending money (lots of mobile games do this)…

But here we’re talking about acquiring precursors for legendaries, which are obviously not required to play the game. So I think if you’re using the legendary market to argue that ANet is deliberately making the game difficult to play without spending money, your argument holds no water. If you’re arguing that ANet makes it easier to get some pretty skins if you spend money — you’ll get no argument from me … I’m also not sure why you’d think that a bad thing.

phys.7689:

lordkrall.7241:

The problem with having a flat price for it would be inflation.

100g today is MUUUUCH easier to get than 100g at release.

So unless they actively changed the price based on the current value of gold (which is exactly how the TP works) it wouldn’t really work out that well.

Desired precursors prices are not going up at the dame rate as inflation, or earning.

Dusk used to be 80 gold. farmer could make that in 30 hours just npcing crap (if not less) haven’t heard of farming that can make 1500 gold in 30 hours.

Karka Shell would get you pretty close.

Lady Deedra.3126:

There is a few people who can control the precursor market. It is already being done.

Proof or keep shining your hat…..

Lady Deedra.3126:

Brother Grimm.5176:

Lady Deedra.3126:

There is a few people who can control the precursor market. It is already being done.

Proof or keep shining your hat…..

Your funny. I can personally control 5 of the precursor markets myself. The proof is in my guild bank. If I really want to get nuts with it I can buy every pre on the TP and control it all. Proof is in the amount o gold I have.

You’re funny. You do realize the velocity of sales that are not picked up my gw2spidy? You do realize that you cannot see the number of transactions that take place?

I triple dog dare you to control the precursor market for those you’ve stated that you could for more than 2 weeks.

Prove me wrong. It’ll have to be enough that you cannot pass off the normal fluctuations as caused by you.

No thanks. Ill keep doing what I do. Working really well so far!

Uh huh. Good choice otherwise you would have lost gold trying to manipulate the market.

Theres no way for you to know if I would have lost money. If I buy them all and sell for profit then I don’t lose money per se. All I am doing is tying up my gold in a investment that may or may not pay off. The loss or profit would be determined when the item sells. I will not buy something for 1000g to purposely list for a loss. That would be dumb. I also do not buy or sell anything over a couple gold on the TP. Just no reason too. I have enough people who regularly buy items off me that I don’t need to. I just offer enough of a discount that I am happy and so are they.

So you’re not manipulating the market as you claimed but just doing the basic flipping. That’s a big difference.

I don’t flip at all. I have forged all mine. However if I wanted to, I could say buy all of item X, then list enough 1 copper increments to cover enough of the buy it now as I sit patiently in front of my computer waiting for items to be picked up as they become purchased. Constantly removing buy orders and outbidding myself and other who do the same. This doesn’t take into account how much is being forged, added, found, yadda yadda. What it could do is buy everything that people are willing to sell to the player base via TP. Is it perfect, no. Would it control the TP. No, its not possible. Reading too much into what I said earlier. As far as controlling the TP, that’s really not possible. Should’ve elaborated on what I posted earlier. manipulating is more like it. Probably a better choice of words. Furthermore, I could gather a group of friends to do the same thing. As we all sit patiently waiting for the items to pour in. Grinning the whole time for my 1 copper profit as we relist them. No thanks. I don’t TP flip for the simple reason that I don’t care about the TP. TP flipping seems more like a job then anything I care to log on to do.

Sounds like you don’t actually understand the trading post which makes me very skeptical about your 300+ precursors.

If you wanted to make a 1c profit off of an item in the trading post, you would need to re-list it at 15% +1c (after rounding up, which incorporates the 1c already), to make 1c.

I’m quite sure people would notice and put on their tin hats if all of the precursors at the lowest value (and up to 15% higher) got bought out and then a few more got re-listed. GW2Spidy would show the listings in an update and the tin-hat-folk would come out banging their pots and pans, screaming for justifications.

That is, assuming you have the few thousands of gold to be able to do that without liquidating your assets, in addition to also having a few thousand more gold to be able to post “fake” bids without dropping them too quickly to create faux demand.

I understand how the TP works. Please don’t try to explain to me. Perhaps you could explain to me though how knowledge of how the TP works affects what comes out of the forge for me? You from TC. I got a guild bank on TC I can show you with 40 or so pre’s in it if you would like to see that? Shoot me a message in game. If you aren’t from TC you wont be able to see it sadly.

Actually, I’d have to be in your guild for 3 days to view your bank.

Plus, I don’t particularly care how big your kitten is. How many pres you have is irrelevant to driving the price of pres on the market up. The amount of gold you have is, and if you’re going to liquidate pres to drive the price of pres up, then you’re doing it wrong.

You can view the bank immediately. You just can’t withdraw for 72 hours. I wont comment on how much gold I have as its rather irrelevant. I wont need to liquidate anything. LOLOLOL!

I don’t see how you can control a market when you are forging precursors, all you can control is what price you sell your precursors for. Everyone else who sells precursors will undercut you when they list theirs, so you have no control over precursors price. The more precursors you make, the more supply you’re adding to the market. This doesn’t drive prices higher, if anything it lowers them, because you’re competing with the other sellers.

You really can’t flip precursors either, because most have no profit margin. You could hold a precursors for 6 months, and if the price continues up more then 15% higher then then where you bought it, then you can make a profit, but there are way better markets to make money.

you can gamble for precursor, and there are people gambling for it, so it is hard to “control” the precursor price.

If anyone is to blame you need to blame Anet. They put up highly desirable item and make it very hard to get.

Lady Deedra.3126:

I don’t flip at all. I have forged all mine. However if I wanted to, I could say buy all of item X, then list enough 1 copper increments to cover enough of the buy it now as I sit patiently in front of my computer waiting for items to be picked up as they become purchased. Constantly removing buy orders and outbidding myself and other who do the same. This doesn’t take into account how much is being forged, added, found, yadda yadda. What it could do is buy everything that people are willing to sell to the player base via TP. Is it perfect, no. Would it control the TP. No, its not possible. Reading too much into what I said earlier. As far as controlling the TP, that’s really not possible. Should’ve elaborated on what I posted earlier. manipulating is more like it. Probably a better choice of words. Furthermore, I could gather a group of friends to do the same thing. As we all sit patiently waiting for the items to pour in. Grinning the whole time for my 1 copper profit as we relist them. No thanks. I don’t TP flip for the simple reason that I don’t care about the TP. TP flipping seems more like a job then anything I care to log on to do.

The basic problem with this is that neither supply nor demand are inelastic. You can make sure that you always have the high buy offer, but if you manage to push the trading range up, you’ll decrease demand and increase supply — meaning that you’ll need to accumulate the excess items. If the particular precursor market has a spread of less than 15%, you’re also losing money on each transaction … however much you have, you’ll run out if you use it this way.

The only situation in which this is profitable is when you’re anticipating where the market is going — if supply is less than demand, then the market is going up and by anticipating it (buying up supply and holding it) you can make money. But this only works when supply and demand are actually out of balance. Once they’re in balance, basic economics means you’ll lose money each day you attempt to control the trading range — a few people will make panic buys, but most are going to be willing to wait it out, while you give your money to all the other people who get precursor drops.

linuxotaku.4731:

Lady Deedra.3126:

I don’t flip at all. I have forged all mine. However if I wanted to, I could say buy all of item X, then list enough 1 copper increments to cover enough of the buy it now as I sit patiently in front of my computer waiting for items to be picked up as they become purchased. Constantly removing buy orders and outbidding myself and other who do the same. This doesn’t take into account how much is being forged, added, found, yadda yadda. What it could do is buy everything that people are willing to sell to the player base via TP. Is it perfect, no. Would it control the TP. No, its not possible. Reading too much into what I said earlier. As far as controlling the TP, that’s really not possible. Should’ve elaborated on what I posted earlier. manipulating is more like it. Probably a better choice of words. Furthermore, I could gather a group of friends to do the same thing. As we all sit patiently waiting for the items to pour in. Grinning the whole time for my 1 copper profit as we relist them. No thanks. I don’t TP flip for the simple reason that I don’t care about the TP. TP flipping seems more like a job then anything I care to log on to do.

The basic problem with this is that neither supply nor demand are inelastic. You can make sure that you always have the high buy offer, but if you manage to push the trading range up, you’ll decrease demand and increase supply — meaning that you’ll need to accumulate the excess items. If the particular precursor market has a spread of less than 15%, you’re also losing money on each transaction … however much you have, you’ll run out if you use it this way.

The only situation in which this is profitable is when you’re anticipating where the market is going — if supply is less than demand, then the market is going up and by anticipating it (buying up supply and holding it) you can make money. But this only works when supply and demand are actually out of balance. Once they’re in balance, basic economics means you’ll lose money each day you attempt to control the trading range — a few people will make panic buys, but most are going to be willing to wait it out, while you give your money to all the other people who get precursor drops.

well the principle you are saying is that IF its at its true price point, you will not succeed at manipulation no matter how much money you have. However, in the short term, price can effect perception, there are times when you could make money by pushing the envelope. However it is true that money alone wont control the precursor market, and wont control it forever, the longer you push the price, the less likely it is that you will succeed.

That said, manipulation isnt really of strong relevance to the discussion here. By the simple virtue of the systems in place, precursor prices are expensive and will generally move out of reach of people who dont fall into certain playstyles. The real point of the op is, manipulation or not, the current system of precursors leads to what he feels is undesirable outcomes. Seeing as how this thread pops up multiple times a month, its probably not something that other people dont think as well.

Lady Deedra.3126:

Brother Grimm.5176:

Lady Deedra.3126:

There is a few people who can control the precursor market. It is already being done.

Proof or keep shining your hat…..

Your funny. I can personally control 5 of the precursor markets myself. The proof is in my guild bank. If I really want to get nuts with it I can buy every pre on the TP and control it all. Proof is in the amount o gold I have.

I note you removed your “claim” to being able to personally control 5 precursor markets….but it was quoted so let’s take a look at that claim.

Having enough money to buy all of any particular Precursor on the TP does not mean you can control it. You MAY be able to temporarily manipulate the price, but without 100% ownership of the SUPPLY, there is no control.

BTW, I would LOVE to see you try that “buy it all” strategy above, but I think we both know that would be a very high potential for economic disaster. Which means even attempting to manipulate those highly volatile markets is unlikely to be profitable.

This is not just a problem with precursors but one that affects all highly-rare tradeable good.
As soon as a scarcity is detected, people with more gold then you could’ve thought possible, buy them out as a future investment.

So those things are hard to get, not due to challenge, but sheerly due to rolling the dice on an incredibly low number, often with a timer attached when the content expires and no new items can enter the market.
But then what is there to stop someone with 10.000g from buying it at 100g, when he knows he can just sell it in a few months for 500g?

Now people will inevitably defend this behavior by claiming that they are playing by the rules, and this is fun for them. But at the end of the day, this kind of behavior gives a few enjoyment at the expense of frustration of many other players. Sounds almost like griefing…

Its upto arenanet to make sure that such items cannot be hoarded, just by putting a flat limitation on how many you can hold on your account. On some items this limit should be 1. You can reuse the skin anyway, as it gets unlocked. But it will prevent people from stockpiling certain rare (time limited) items, withholding them from the market, for their own profit.