Guild Wars 2

… what would happen?

The TP is also quite an efficient gold sink right now, at least if go by the absolute amount of money which is taking out of the game.

Right now we have a 15% tax on every sale, yet item flipping is still very profitable because prices fluctuate far more than these 15%. I can only guess the numbers, but I expect that most items actually get sold twice before being consumed so this makes an effective tax as high as 30% of the average price on each item.

Lowering the taxtes would probably destabilize the market even further, increasing margins for TP traders and causing even larger price fluctuations.

But what would happen in the opposite direction?
I’m talking about taxes in the size of a total of 30% per transaction.

First of all, item flipping would become pointless on most items which are available in high quantities. You can’t expect to cover the price-gap of 30% between purchase and sale. Total sales would therefor go down by an significant factor.

This wouldn’t hinder the function as a goldsink though:
The supply and demand for items stay the same so sales can’t lower by more than factor 2, expecting no more than one flip per item. Therefor the total amount of gold which is taken out of the game stays essentially the same or it might even go up a little, considering that not all items are flipped because the initial price already aimed high enough.

So what else?
With item flipping reduced, market prices would stabilize. Slight fluctuations are inevitable, yet the amplitude would lower by an significant amount. This affects both daily fluctuations as well as fluctuations caused by long term speculation because both are encouraged by the fact that the expected cut would exceed the taxes.

What do I make this numbers based on?
It’s simple: Observation. A few years ago i had myself the chance to lead an online game with an community of a few thousand players over the course of 3 years. The market had the same issues as the one in GW2. It originally was limited to player2player trades only and the economy was quite stable with huge local differences, yet rather stable prices in each subeconomy. But when i decided to open the market, prices started to fluctuate heavily thanks to a small group of players who did the same as in GW2, they speculated and managed to accumulate health by an almost exponential factor (still limited by the TOTAL volume of the market, but far from any reasonable limit). A tax of 15% was my first attempt back then, but it wasn’t sufficient, players would still try speculate over longer terms. At last a tax in the range of 25-30% has shown to be sufficient to counter price fluctuations by preventing speculations by users who don’t act as a (at least potential) sink for the item.

It was not before that point, when it was finally possible to balance the game based on the REAL price of several items on the market in comparison to others without the disturbance of artificial, not necessarily intended, fluctuations.

Another side effect: Playing the market now had an natural limit on the profit you could make by doing that which lead to an much more evenly spread distribution of wealth which also lead to an stabilization of the worth of the currency. This meant, that is was actually possible to offer benefits for ingame currency without the omnipresent danger of a handful of players who would be able to abuse it big style.

No.

This would punish people who do not play the TP too much, and put their goals further out of reach.

No, 15% is high enough and does the job as gold sink perfectly now. 30% will achieve nothing but discouraging players to use TP.

@xxxzavulonxxx.8413
You clearly don’t understand the effects. Either that or you haven’t read the text at all.

The effect on players who don’t play the TP is minimal, you are already affected by players who flip the items YOU sold and force you to pay higher prices later on – for the same item! The 30% are already in place (it’s actually even more on some items, more like 40-50%, the remaining 10% are margin for the TP players), but you are not the one in control of this price increase. Also many players have set their goals a little too high, they are aiming for items which are available in a very limited quantity only. The price of those items however is dictated by the top percentile of the users which managed to accumulate wealth which exceeds any reasonable limit. You will therefor NEVER be able to reach your goal as long as those players are able to make new gold FASTER than you can.

Exterminans.9723:

You clearly don’t understand the effects. Either that or you haven’t read the text at all.

The effect on players who don’t play the TP is minimal, you are already affected by players who flip the items YOU sold and force you to pay higher prices later on – for the same item! Also many players have set their goals a little too high, they are aiming for items which are available in a very limited quantity only. The price of those items however is dictated by the top percentile of the users which managed to accumulate wealth which exceeds any reasonable limit. You will therefor NEVER be able to reach your goal as long as those players are able to make new gold FASTER than you can.

You are quite wrong…

There are no player shops in this game. People have to use the TP to sell their goods. So some people with little money would make 70s on 1g instead of 85s on 1g. That’s incredibly harmful to the average player.

And gold gained from the TP is not newly minted gold.

this idea kill tp flipper and manipulator but better for normal player

This seems like a moral argument founded in the incorrect idea the flipping destabilizes the market.

When someone puts in a buy order higher than the lowest buy order and then later puts a sell order up that’s lower than the lowest sell order, this reduces fluctuation. Flipping does not cause chaos in market prices. Changes in supply and demand do that.

Honestly, it seems like 50% of the posters on this board are impassioned people with utterly misguided ideas about how money works.

The increased tax would just be added or passed through to the new cost of the item and transferred to the new buyers.

It would just increase the costs to everyone buying stuff on the TP.

Not a good idea.

I have another question….where does this tax money go? Vanishes? Goes in printing gem cards that can be transferred into gold?

You may believe it’s better for the normal player, but it will actually be detrimental for the game.

Players that buy/sell regularly will still do so, but pass on the extra 15% of fees on to their customers. Also, it will most likely lead more players to more risky forms of trading that are not supported by ArenaNet (i.e. trading through the mail system). It will most likely also make players turn to other forms of trading that are strictly against the EULA, like eBay and gold sellers.

If people can’t sell their goods because prices are too high, they’ll stop farming, because what’s the point? If you can’t sell your goods, you can’t make money. If you can’t make money, you can’t buy anything. If you can’t buy anything, how are you supposed to gear your character? If you can’t gear your character, how are you going to progress?

The 15% fees as they are now are perfectly fine and serve as an amazing gold sink to keep inflation in check. Every time an item is listed on the trading post, or purchased by a buyer, money is removed from the economy.

As for this combatting “flippers”….it won’t really do much. “Flippers” will still flip and still make money. The prices of the items that those people trade in are pretty steady.

It sounds like you’re most concerned with the high value, low supply items. A higher tax on the Trading Post will only make those items MORE expensive, because the people “manipulating” (if that’s even what’s going on) those items will just jack the price up more.

Again….15% is fine. No need to change it.

The tax money vanishes. You have gold sources (like loot or event rewards) and you have gold sinks (like harvesting tools, waypoints, TP taxes, repair costs). As long as they even out, the amount of gold in circulation stays stable.

The increased tax would just be added or passed through to the new cost of the item and transferred to the new buyers.

If it was so simple… Actually there are more than just two persons in that example. You don’t only have the producer and the consumer, but also 1-2 traders in the middle. They will make sure that there is an increase in price before the item reaches the final consumer. So even if the taxes are only 15% PER SALE now, doesn’t mean that the price only increases by 15%. It’s actually more close to 35-40% right now. If the tax was 30% in the first place, that would be effectively less because reselling items isn’t worthwhile any more.

Players that buy/sell regularly will still do so, but pass on the extra 15% of fees on to their customers.

Actually, they wouldn’t. If they did, it would be 30% more, not 15%. That means total fees of 60% of the average sale price which exceeds their possible margin by far. The increased taxes actually prevents flipping while having also having an positive effect on the price of any item which gets flipped right now.

Raise the tax and it just means manipulators will just have to raise the price that little bit more to make just as much money. Meaning in the end the average player still gets kittened over.

Again, it doesn’t work like that from their point of view. Prices will always fluctuate somewhere in the range of 75%-125%, but more is very unlikely and difficult to achieve. The higher the desired amount of fluctuation the unlikelier it gets.

And thats where the taxes hit in. With taxes of 15% per sale, the price needs to increase by factor 1.4 before you can sell. With a fee of 30% per sale, the prices would have to increase by the factor 2.5 before you can make any margin on reselling items! A factor of 1.4 can be reached on base of daily or weekly fluctuation, a factor of 2.5 however not.

That means TP players are no longer able to manipulate the market. They just won’t be able any more.

When someone puts in a buy order higher than the lowest buy order and then later puts a sell order up that’s lower than the lowest sell order, this reduces fluctuation. Flipping does not cause chaos in market prices. Changes in supply and demand do that.

It’s not chaos, thats a misconception. Yet flipping increases the amplitude of the fluctuations as the (additional) artificial buy orders in phases of oversupply cause the prices to skyrocket to prices which are higher than usual. On the other hand, when the artificial sale offers are placed the prices start to collapse, again faster and further than they would normally do. This may sound paradox, but it actually works this way. Flippers have no stabilizing effect at all, except for raising the prices for items which have completely screwed prices short term.

I’d much rather have a form of “income tax” than the “sales tax” we have now. Increasing the “sales tax” will have more of a negative effect of those will less than it will on those with more.

Actually….I think a better explanation would be to use a real-world example on how greater taxes affect an economy.

I’m going to try and do a VERY broad stroke on this because to go into every single detail would be more than I’m willing to type….and probably MUCH more than many are willing to read.

Let’s make a few assumptions before we begin so that we can at least put players in the correct buckets for comparison.

Assumptions:
There are 3 groups of people: Poor, Average and Rich
Poor = bottom 10% of the player base (Poverty)
Average = middle 80% of the player base (Middle Class)
Rich = top 10% of the player base (Wealthy)

Example:
When a government (in this case ArenaNet) implements higher taxes, everyone is affected. The Poor make the least amount of money and are affect the greatest because the money they have buys less than it did before. The Average players money also buys less, but the affect on their bottom line is lower because they have more money to begin with. As for the Rich, these new taxes do little to them because they have money to lose. The Rich are the ones in control of the prices, so in order to make sure they continue to make money, they will pass on as much of the additional cost provided by these new taxes on to their customers (the Poor and Average players).

While these new taxes take more money out of the economy and cause the profits of the Rich to reduce, the Rich are STILL going to make a profit….at the expense of the Poor and Average player. With these new higher taxes come higher prices on goods. With higher prices on goods, the purchasing power of the money that the Poor and Average have is reduced.

Some people are Rich because they got lucky. Some are Rich because they worked hard. Some people are Poor because they are unlucky. Some are Poor because they’re lazy.

The Trading Post is NOT required to acquire ANYTHING in this game. Everything on the Trading Post was found in the game from a drop or by some other means. EVERYTHING!!!!

What that means is that it is not necessary to buy or sell anything on the Trading Post….it’s just the most convenient way to do so.

If someone doesn’t like the prices of items on the Trading Post, they are NOT required to pay them. The item they desire IS available within the game by other means.

Most of the threads I’m seeing in regard to gimping the Trading Post are being made because players want a certain item and it is currently out of reach for that player due to its price on the Trading Post.

I’m going to use the specific example of Legendaries and their precursors….

Legendaries are NOT for everyone. The precursors for Legendaries are NOT for everyone. If you feel that Legendaries and their precursors are too expensive based on their price on the Trading Post, then perhaps it’s time to find another way to acquire those items. There are other ways. Are you willing to put the work in? I am…and I’m working on it…..SLOWLY!!! A Legendary is supposed to be a “long term” goal.

Gimping the Trading Post by adding MORE taxes will not fix any problems….it will only create new ones….or make the current ones worse than they already are.

This may sound paradox, but it actually works this way

Except it really, really doesn’t. I’ve been playing the market since Beta, I’ve made relatively decent money, and the phenomenon you’re describing doesn’t happen in 99% of the market. There are a few commodities that swing a bit because people who think they know how to play the market speculate in them poorly, but this is a rare exception, not the rule.

Your example aimed on rare items only

And it has yet another flaw, in real world economy all taxes are designed in such way, that the tax on a product sums up over the whole trading process so it is always a constant factor in the final product. That means no matter how many persons trade a product, in the end the taxes will never exceed a certain part of the items value. You also have the concept of supply and demand, whenever there is a shortage of basic goods it will be resolved by increasing production or introducing alternative products. This is not true for luxury products which you used in your example, but it always happens for basic products.

The GW2 trading post doesn’t work like the real world market, the fees are applied on every single sale. You also have little no added value by flipping items. And it’s not the luxury items which suffer price manipulations, it’s the basic items. Basic crafting materials and alike.

I don’t understand why market fluctuations are bad and must be fixed. I thought they are quite normal, in a certain frame. Even big fluctuations.

You’re right.

Good luck getting your idea implemented.