Guild Wars 2

mtpelion.4562:

Gibson.4036:

Adventuring and a free market don’t go together. In a free market, using wealth to create more wealth on the trading post is always going to be more rewarding than generating wealth through other means.

If you don’t want to play TradingPostWars 2, you will always have a lower income than if you did.

And the question then becomes: So what?

Well there is the fact that the game isn’t market wars 2.

morrolan.9608:

mtpelion.4562:

Gibson.4036:

Adventuring and a free market don’t go together. In a free market, using wealth to create more wealth on the trading post is always going to be more rewarding than generating wealth through other means.

If you don’t want to play TradingPostWars 2, you will always have a lower income than if you did.

And the question then becomes: So what?

Well there is the fact that the game isn’t market wars 2.

You can’t fight against guilds either, so the whole “snarky renaming of the game” argument is pretty flat.

Fact is, the amount of money I have does not in any way affect your ability to play the game. So the questions remains… so what?

mtpelion.4562:

Fact is, the amount of money I have does not in any way affect your ability to play the game. So the questions remains… so what?

So without the TP you can get what you need, but not necessarily what you want.

So, will it hold players? Or will they be inclined to seek out fantasy fulfillment elsewhere where they can get “luxury” items from fighting monsters, rather than playing markets.

So, “Is it fun?”

mtpelion.4562:

morrolan.9608:

mtpelion.4562:

Gibson.4036:

Adventuring and a free market don’t go together. In a free market, using wealth to create more wealth on the trading post is always going to be more rewarding than generating wealth through other means.

If you don’t want to play TradingPostWars 2, you will always have a lower income than if you did.

And the question then becomes: So what?

Well there is the fact that the game isn’t market wars 2.

You can’t fight against guilds either, so the whole “snarky renaming of the game” argument is pretty flat.

See thats just being disingenuous, I’m sure you realise the point of the nickname.

And you can actually fight against guilds.

LordByron.8369:

Obtena.7952:

Essence Snow.3194:

Again it wouldn’t have to be that extreme at all. Idk why everyone always argues that it does.

I’m still waiting to hear why regulation is even necessary at any level. What is the goal of implementing regulatory measures?

Because the lack of regolation and the use of TP as the only trading system is forcing players in a PVP minigame they DON T WANT to play.

And since this is not market wars 2 that is totally wrong.

Any for of farming have Always been regulated but the TP….
I know that the difference is farming produce gold, and TP doesn t , YET TP produce INFLATION directly on luxury items.

No one is forcing you to play the TP like a game because if you treat it like an NPC vendor, it’s not. If it’s a ‘game’, it’s because the player chooses to play it that way.

TP also doesn’t ‘inflate’ luxury items, just like it doesn’t inflate any other item through the nature of regular, vanilla supply/demand theory. There are examples of luxury goods going down in price even though There is probably a steady but small inflation occurring. Your statements don’t add up to reality.

There are two aspects of the economy.

The first is taking care of unwanted items. 1) Sell them to a vendor; 2) Salvage them for materials; 3) Sell them to another player meaning the TP. I believe the number of items that are dropped by critters are in the 10s if not 100s of thousands a day. Most of them are items that are completely unusable or unwanted to the player it’s dropped on.

It’s my belief that what most players do with this unwanted loot is either salvage them into mats and immediately dump the mats into their collections clearing inventory space or bring up the TP interface and select “sell now”, again to clear it out of their inventory. And it’s that “sell now” action that creates an environment where TP traders can thrive. If there is a market to later sell those items or salvage them for a profit, then it’s the TP traders who are putting in the majority of orders and will compete with each other, raising the price a player will get if they choose “sell now” as long as a profit can be made. And if they are selling them the reverse is true, undercutting each other.

It’s the fact that most players choose to use the TP simply as another vendor, buying and selling at the offered price, that lets those willing to risk their money to make money by acting as merchants by buying goods from players who don’t want them and sell them to players who do. And there is nothing wrong with that.

The second part of the economy is crafting and that is simply broken beyond repair. There are very few items as you level up a crafting skill that is profitable unless you gather all the raw materials yourself. Frequently refined materials are cheaper than the raw variety. Same with sub-assemblies. And that’s because the market is flooded with those items because everyone who is leveling up their crafting ability need to make X of those items simply because they give the most crafting experience at the time. Must “discover” as many recipes as possible even if the result isn’t worth anything. Must craft them until they give me no more crafting experience.

Sure once you get your crafting level up there there may be items you can craft for a nice profit, but they are few and far between. And since most players don’t craft in parallel with their level, they aren’t even capable in making items that are useful or better than items that drop. And due to the crafting flood of items, their are better items for a song on the TP. So crafting isn’t a viable income source. Normally crafting items and a means to sell them to other players go hand in hand but in the case with GW2, crafting isn’t worth doing as a source of income while trading items found by yourself or others (yes TP traders use the general population to do farming for them) is a viable means of income.

As long as critters drop items, then crafting will never flourish as an activity, but it will end up forcing players to participate in it which is against a philosophy that the game provides XP for a variety of player types (except now ascended weapons and armor does push players wanting those items into crafting whether they want to or not).

I understand you didn’t want the “rich” to simply buy up ascended gear, that you wanted them to quest for it so everyone was on somewhat level ground but by soulbinding those items you also took away a class of items that could have made crafting a viable income source. That’s just an aside.

Sorry for the text wall.

Many players don’t like to or don’t have time to participate in raiding, but for most MMOs the best and most exclusive items can only be found in raids. Even in this game there are armor skins you can only get by running dungeons, skins and minis that come from completing Living Story achievements, exclusive items from Tequatl, etc.

Everything on the TP came from some other part of the game, including the gold that is spent. If no one is harvesting, salvaging, looting out in the world, there would be no TP. Nothing on the TP is exclusive, it may be easier or harder to find on your own, but it all came from somewhere else.

There are players throwing around the term “Inflation” because it has a negative connotation to it. Just because they can’t afford to buy an item, doesn’t give them the right to go around spouting fallacies.

mtpelion.4562:

morrolan.9608:

mtpelion.4562:

Gibson.4036:

Adventuring and a free market don’t go together. In a free market, using wealth to create more wealth on the trading post is always going to be more rewarding than generating wealth through other means.

If you don’t want to play TradingPostWars 2, you will always have a lower income than if you did.

And the question then becomes: So what?

Well there is the fact that the game isn’t market wars 2.

You can’t fight against guilds either, so the whole “snarky renaming of the game” argument is pretty flat.

Fact is, the amount of money I have does not in any way affect your ability to play the game. So the questions remains… so what?

Firstly, I don’t agree with your specific stance, but I appreciate the intelligence you’ve used in communicating your point of view. I’ll warn you, I’m clearly with the “misinformed philosopher types, who view economics through a very limited lens that prevents them from seeing how bad their ideas are.”

It is with respect, I’d like to ask you specifically, why you believe a X day timer on all TP sell orders would be a “bad idea” in this game? The intention is to add a time factor as a top down pressure to move goods through the TP to their intended parties and to curb “player influence” at the top end of the market to avoid having to pay the “tax” to relist their item(s).

It works for most all MMOs who use auction houses… and Ebay. Which is… sort of like the TP, right?

Its probably academic at this point. JS has taken a strong stance behind the TP as it is and seems to want the intended outcome of the current model. Months of grinding does keep players logging in to accomplish a goal and probably helps gem sales too. I’m asking more for clarity rather than accomplishing anything productive.

Guardian.5142:

It is with respect, I’d like to ask you specifically, why you believe a X day timer on all TP sell orders would be a “bad idea” in this game? The intention is to add a time factor as a top down pressure to move goods through the TP to their intended parties and to curb “player influence” at the top end of the market to avoid having to pay the “tax” to relist their item(s).

The last statement sums it up … Why would anyone interested in curbing inflationary measures, advocate AVOIDING taxes and keeping more Gold in circulation.

If the big issue here is paying the tax multiple times, then people need to be listing their goods in a range where they will get sold the first time they list. If you don’t have the patience required to do that because you are undercut, then you need to stop playing the TP and simply sell at the lowest buy order. This isn’t a TP/economy issue … it’s a player one.

Obtena.7952:

Guardian.5142:

It is with respect, I’d like to ask you specifically, why you believe a X day timer on all TP sell orders would be a “bad idea” in this game? The intention is to add a time factor as a top down pressure to move goods through the TP to their intended parties and to curb “player influence” at the top end of the market to avoid having to pay the “tax” to relist their item(s).

The last statement sums it up … Why would anyone interested in curbing inflationary measures, advocate AVOIDING taxes and keeping more Gold in circulation.

If the big issue here is paying the tax multiple times, then people need to be listing their goods in a range where they will get sold the first time they list. If you don’t have the patience required to do that because you are undercut, then you need to stop playing the TP and simply sell at the lowest buy order. This isn’t a TP/economy issue … it’s a player one.

Also, the tax itself is a downward pressure on prices as well as being a gold sink.

I’d rather see the listing fee come out of the profit when filling a buy order (so you don’t have to have gold on hand to sell an item) than a time limit on sell orders. I don’t like having to check my listing every play session. Managing expiring listing like I’ve had to do in auction house MMOs is something that burns me out really quickly. I’d rather make a long term gamble and be able to let it sit there than be forced to do all my pricing for the short term. Why shouldn’t I be able to place a “good until cancelled” limit order?

I don’t understand all the focus on regulation to bring prices down on the TP. Low prices hurt the farmers that are providing the supply. The vast majority of the gold I’ve made didn’t come from gold dropping – it came from selling drops.

Except listing fee is there so the seller is required to put a smidgen of thought into what is a “fair” price for that item.

I have a feeling that a lot of TP “haters” tried to “EARN BIG MONEY AT HOME ON THE TP” and when they couldn’t they assume that those that do are cheating in some way instead of A) don’t be greedy; B) research and C) have a little patience. And since those making money must be cheating then the system is either broken and/or those profiting need to be punished.

I made lots of gold on the TP and I wouldnt mind an automatic cancellation of my sell orders after an extensive time like a couple of months.

John Smith.4610:

I think there are some interesting points here. While I would say GW2 has a fantastic free market style economy, that’s incredibly efficient blah blah blah… It is valid to say, while the economy may be efficient, is a free market economy the best choice for an MMO? There isn’t anyone in the world qualified to give a definitive answer to the question. What I can say is that the free market design that GW2 uses is MUCH more effective than a barter system in keeping players engaged and happy as an aggregate. No system will ever please everyone, but this system works very well from my point of view as a designer and economist and as a person who wants to play a great game, and the statistics that I have access to agree with that.

Please note I don’t mean to imply that other systems aren’t or can’t be effective, I only mean to say that I think the system we have is very well executed and is itself effective.

I feel like the OP was leaning more towards the fact that in order to actually earn enough gold in the game to do anything, you simply must “play” the market.

Every single pve type of “farming” that is introduced/discovered has been gutted and stripped down to hand out the bare bones of rewards. This all leads back to the original statement of the game and “play how you want.” Why should one aspect of the game heavily out reward another aspect of the game? If someone loves playing the market then they can have fun doing so. Or people want to farm to get gold and enjoy it… Well that’s a different story. The time it takes for a single person to farm, say 500g, is atleast 4-5 times longer than it takes someone who’s playing the tp. Why shouldn’t all aspects of the game be as rewarding as the others?

The same goes for the hardcore wvw/pvp players. Granted pvp has never needed gold because they attain(ed) items with glory. But what happens now when glory is taken away and the only way to get items/gear is gold… You implement the ability to buy gifts with glory that sell for a decent profit and give the pvp community the gold they need. As well as reward them with gold on a match win/loss.

It’s obvious the game is pushing for a one world currency, which isn’t a bad thing. But the thing that’s the problem is the ability to make gold in game equally across all aspects.

Let farmers farm.

Let economists crunch.

Let pvp/wvw(the most severely good starved atm) beat each other senseless.

But let them all be as rewarding as the next.

Just my 2 cents. I’m an avid pveer/pvper and I dabble I’m the tp when I can afford it.

John Smith.4610:

I What I can say is that the free market design that GW2 uses is MUCH more effective than a barter system in keeping players engaged and happy as an aggregate.

You have no data to prove this….mostly because its not true….
If you just went in game asking random people what they think of this gaame economy your theory would crumble in seconds….

Gem cost
Cloth cost
Leather cost
precursor cost
etc etc etc

The inflation is worse than ever…
The balance of economy is totally broken with most people struggling and TP flippers having so much gold to waste it on silly experiments….

How you can say its wonderful? maybe standing only in a forum section frequented by players that plays the economy with 1000X rewards then those playing THE MAIN GAME?

LordByron.8369:

John Smith.4610:

I What I can say is that the free market design that GW2 uses is MUCH more effective than a barter system in keeping players engaged and happy as an aggregate.

You have no data to prove this….mostly because its not true….
If you just went in game asking random people what they think of this gaame economy your theory would crumble in seconds….

Gem costv
Cloth cost
Leather cost
precursor cost
etc etc etc

The inflation is worse than ever…
The balance of economy is totally broken with most people struggling and TP flippers having so much gold to waste it on silly experiments….

How you can say its wonderful? maybe standing only in a forum section frequented by players that plays the economy with 1000X rewards then those playing THE MAIN GAME?

Read the quoted text again. John is saying that the TP is much more effective than a barter system at fulfilling the “trading needs” of the majority of the playerbase.

As for the “broken economy”, I’d have to disagree. I’m a casual player who plays maybe 6-8 hours per week. I don’t farm, run dungeons, or join champ trains. I do dabble with the TP a little, but only clear about 20g per week, as I don’t have the time to devote to research markets and just invest in a few small and safe markets. I have less than 200g and have not completed my first ascended weapon yet, let alone made a start on ascended armor, and IMO the economy is functioning properly and not broken.

The majority of tradeable items have an abundant supply on the market at any time of the day or night, and for a good number of these items there are players willing to buy them. The global scale of the TP means that the volume of trading on most items makes it impossible to manipulate prices for very long, so the prices are a good indication of how an item is valued by the playerbase, and thus "fair ".

LordByron.8369:

etc etc etc

The inflation is worse than ever…

People get so fixated on this, like inflation is a big bag monster destroying lives. It’s not. Since there seems to be a fixation with credentials, I’ll reference a prominent economics blogger – Matt Yglesias.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/05/24/everyone_hates_inflation_because_they_don_t_understand_what_it_is.html

“the most important price in the economy is the price of labor and the price of labor is equal to workers’ incomes, so a general increase in the nominal price level is necessarily a general increase in nominal incomes”

Inflation is only a major problem when prices go up but incomes don’t, as people can afford less. In GW2 this is not the case. Prices for many things have risen because players generate more gold than they used to, from doing things like dungeon runs and champ farms.

Inflation reduces the value of gold, so it is most damaging to players that are holding large amounts of gold. In that respect, the super-rich in this game have much more to worry about from high inflation because their “wealth” is constantly being eroded.

problem is more:
everyone think he deserve everything even for not doing anything for it

TP is fine as it is and with higher prices people get much more gold for there loot when sell

on release copper ore was 3-5 copper now its 43 copper

everything give you more now and you get a lot more money now for same time than you would months ago

problem is only how i said before: everyone think he deserve everything even for not doing anything for it

“we don t want you to grind in order to prepare to have fun”…..

Guardian.5142:

Firstly, I don’t agree with your specific stance, but I appreciate the intelligence you’ve used in communicating your point of view. I’ll warn you, I’m clearly with the “misinformed philosopher types, who view economics through a very limited lens that prevents them from seeing how bad their ideas are.”

It is with respect, I’d like to ask you specifically, why you believe a X day timer on all TP sell orders would be a “bad idea” in this game? The intention is to add a time factor as a top down pressure to move goods through the TP to their intended parties and to curb “player influence” at the top end of the market to avoid having to pay the “tax” to relist their item(s).

It works for most all MMOs who use auction houses… and Ebay. Which is… sort of like the TP, right?

Its probably academic at this point. JS has taken a strong stance behind the TP as it is and seems to want the intended outcome of the current model. Months of grinding does keep players logging in to accomplish a goal and probably helps gem sales too. I’m asking more for clarity rather than accomplishing anything productive.

Firstly, the Trading Post is not an auction house, it is a commodity exchange so it operates differently.

That being said, the biggest reason to avoid time limits is that slow moving items would never get listed. Why would I risk paying the listing fee multiple times for something that may take a LONG time to eventually sell? That hurts me, the guy who got a lucky drop and you, the guy who wants that item that no one is willing to risk listing.

In order for time limits to be a viable option, we’d have to break the market into two exchanges. Keep the current commodity market where you can buy things that stack the same as it is now, then add a second transaction medium that functions like an auction house that only sells items that do not stack (gear, skins, etc.). In the AH, there would be no fee for listing your item, but the fee that happens at the time of the transaction would be increased to 15% (to ensure the sink is in effect in full force).

Vigorato.7951:

LordByron.8369:

etc etc etc

The inflation is worse than ever…

People get so fixated on this, like inflation is a big bag monster destroying lives. It’s not. Since there seems to be a fixation with credentials, I’ll reference a prominent economics blogger – Matt Yglesias.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/05/24/everyone_hates_inflation_because_they_don_t_understand_what_it_is.html

“the most important price in the economy is the price of labor and the price of labor is equal to workers’ incomes, so a general increase in the nominal price level is necessarily a general increase in nominal incomes”

Inflation is only a major problem when prices go up but incomes don’t, as people can afford less. In GW2 this is not the case. Prices for many things have risen because players generate more gold than they used to, from doing things like dungeon runs and champ farms.

Inflation reduces the value of gold, so it is most damaging to players that are holding large amounts of gold. In that respect, the super-rich in this game have much more to worry about from high inflation because their “wealth” is constantly being eroded.

For many, the prices have gone up but their incomes have not.

I make way less gold per hour playing the game than I used to. And that gold buys far less than it used to. That is inflation.

Unless you farmed the zerg LS events like QL and the Scarlet Invasion, you didn’t see a big influx of cash. If you aren’t farming any zerg chains now like world bosses or champ trains, you aren’t seeing a big influx of cash.

If you are just playing different aspects of the game and not running with a zerg or TP trading, the value of your gold has dropped drastically.

LordByron.8369:

“we don t want you to grind in order to prepare to have fun”…..

thats no argument – thats jsut saying “Yes im lazy i want everything for free” like this lil kids in supermarket which rolling with tears in eyes on the floor cause mom dont buy candy

You dont need to grind in this game to can do EVERYTHING – only when you want more than you need you have to grind/work for

Okay back (watching the vip deal had me busy…lol)

Vol my apologies for not understanding your circumventing comment. As we all know sometimes it is hard to fully understand someone via text alone. Anywho, since the issue is rather complex there is no possible way I could come up with a sound proposal. This is due to it not being my job and/or not having any real chance of having any influence on the matter given the hard stance shown. Thus any real time spent by me would be w/o wasted and I have a little more sense than that…I hope.

That said I am willing to throw out ragtag ideas. To entertain one you had asked about the progressive tax. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_tax) Now if we consider excess gold as a luxury ( I don’ see how it cannot be as no one clearly needs it for anything) then adding a progressive tax on it would hopefully foster more competition, more trades, and more gold sunk. The way in which it would do this would be to keep groups of individuals from dominating certain markets. So instead of having 10 individuals buying 60% of a market (given a large market) the tax would make it less profitable for each to obtain more than 1-5% or something. This would allow other traders to enter the market as well, which would push more competition, yet still allow profits. Ofc all numbers here are out of thin air and are only provided as to explain the point.

That aside, there are many things that can be done to rectify the main issue. Increasing drops that aren’t converted into coin while decreasing coin/drops converted into coin, is another way. The magic find alteration was imo brilliant. It killed 2 birds with 1 stone if you will. It ended the mf debacle while decreasing coin entering the economy. If who ever came up with that one was put on making this game more rewarding (with the intent on keeping more of the population happy) I would be elated.

The main goal here is to keep more players happy, to keep more players playing, not to keep a select few happy. If we can do both we are doing something right. If we can keep most happy we are on the right track. If we can only keep the few happy, well then something is amiss. Rewards are a huge aspect of keeping players happy in this genre of game. In general this game has an unrewarding connotation to it for the majority of players. This is something we should be concerned about and actively working on a remedy for.

Essence Snow.3194:

The main goal here is to keep more players happy, to keep more players playing, not to keep a select few happy.

But the players who want the TP changed are the select few. You’re creating problems that don’t exist in order to push solutions that don’t work to change the TP into something it’s not to please a few people who are jealous of those who put in the time and effort to understand how the TP works.

JS, who does have access to info about the TP that players don’t have, has already stated that the TP is not being controlled by a select few. That when viewed across the entire player base, the TP is working exactly as intended. This is what “the other side” is trying to get across to you and other complainers, that the TP is not broken and neither is the economy.

Over a year into the game, those who put the time and effort into playing the game build up a bank account that allows them to spend more to get the things they want. No one expects someone to buy the game now and a month or two later they have access to everything veteran players have. MMOs in general just don’t work that way.

This thread has gotten very off topic, probably because the truth is not very fun to talk about.

The point is that the game uses the TP too much, not that there is anything wrong or inefficient about the TP. If you want to talk about the efficiency of the TP then make a thread to do so. The problem is that you can’t reasonably get what you want without the TP. In other games if you want to craft something you can go farm for a week or two for the items you need. To do the same thing in GW2 you either need 6 months of 8 hours a day farming, or 10 minutes on the TP.

If you want top tier items in other games you have to overcome a series of quests, participate in difficult content, or raid. In GW2 if you want top tier items you need to farm gold for a 1000 hours and then buy the item off the TP.

Want to be a commander in WvW? Farm gold, or play the TP.

Want to get that rare skin in the gem store? Farm gold, or play the TP.

Want to get a legendary weapons? Farm gold, AND play the TP.

The problem isn’t that the TP isn’t working or that it is a poor model, the problem is that every aspect of the game now requires you to farm gold and use the TP. You can’t reasonably play the game to get your goals now, you need to just farm gold and buy them off the TP.

In the first few months of the game you could reasonably find farming spots and collect the mats you needed for a legendary or rare skin. Each mat had a different location, and it took a week or two of farming for each mat. Doing that now would take 100x longer minimum.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

This thread has gotten very off topic, probably because the truth is not very fun to talk about.

The point is that the game uses the TP too much, not that there is anything wrong or inefficient about the TP. If you want to talk about the efficiency of the TP then make a thread to do so. The problem is that you can’t reasonably get what you want without the TP. In other games if you want to craft something you can go farm for a week or two for the items you need. To do the same thing in GW2 you either need 6 months of 8 hours a day farming, or 10 minutes on the TP.

If you want top tier items in other games you have to overcome a series of quests, participate in difficult content, or raid. In GW2 if you want top tier items you need to farm gold for a 1000 hours and then buy the item off the TP.

Want to be a commander in WvW? Farm gold, or play the TP.

Want to get that rare skin in the gem store? Farm gold, or play the TP.

Want to get a legendary weapons? Farm gold, AND play the TP.

The problem isn’t that the TP isn’t working or that it is a poor model, the problem is that every aspect of the game now requires you to farm gold and use the TP. You can’t reasonably play the game to get your goals now, you need to just farm gold and buy them off the TP.

In the first few months of the game you could reasonably find farming spots and collect the mats you needed for a legendary or rare skin. Each mat had a different location, and it took a week or two of farming for each mat. Doing that now would take 100x longer minimum.

“Too much” is an opinion.

My opinion is that the game does not utilize the TP enough. There are far too many Account Bound ingredients for my taste.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

The problem isn’t that the TP isn’t working or that it is a poor model, the problem is that every aspect of the game now requires you to farm gold and use the TP. You can’t reasonably play the game to get your goals now, you need to just farm gold and buy them off the TP.

In the first few months of the game you could reasonably find farming spots and collect the mats you needed for a legendary or rare skin. Each mat had a different location, and it took a week or two of farming for each mat. Doing that now would take 100x longer minimum.

This really is the core problem with the game. Not the TP itself.

Essence Snow.3194:

-snip-

As I had described earlier, the progressive tax is good in theory but there are many loopholes that can be taken advantage of. Just like the real world where select corporations move operations to lower-tax countries, traders will look for ways to avoid this progressive tax utilizing the methods I described.

I don’t understand your 2nd point – are you talking about non-gold currencies?

Smooth Penguin.5294:

There are players throwing around the term “Inflation” because it has a negative connotation to it. Just because they can’t afford to buy an item, doesn’t give them the right to go around spouting fallacies.

I argue about inflation and I have plenty of gold so, to me, your point is invalid and inflammatory. I don’t use inflation because it is negative, I use it because it’s really happening.

If nothing else, for those that doubt inflation is in place, go to the root of the economy in the game, gold. For 100 gems, in July of 2013, I could get 2.27 gold, according to spidy. Today I get 5.25. If I wanted to convert gold into gems, it took 3.14 gold to get 100 gems in July of 2013 and it takes 7.27 today.

Take a real look at these numbers and tell me there’s no inflation. Without going to far into math, let’s say the conversion costs have doubled (both directions). So, just talking about gold, what I could “buy” with 3.14 gold a year ago now costs 7.27 from a gem perspective. That’s inflation, my gold lost half it’s value as it takes twice as much to get the same thing than it did 6 months ago.

Let’s look at a normal commodity, iron ore, tier 3, every day usage…blah blah blah. In July it was selling for 40 copper, today it’s selling for 1.31 silver. That’s inflation because the valuation of the money changed and now that commodity reflects that change, it costs three times as much as it did 6 months ago. I know I will get flamed that ascended armor and weapons have increased the demand for iron ore and plenty of other tier 3, 4, and 5 mats as well but in no way does that demand exceed the inflationary costs, how many people have actually crafted to 500? I have in 4 disciplines but I had the mats and the money, it didn’t matter to me. I don’t think that many people did get to ascended in weaponry and even fewer will pursue it into armor.

As far as blue and green items (weapons, trinkets, armor, etc), those have held flat because there is a glut of them due to crafting and drops, the supply ALWAYS outstrips the demand so they are relatively worthless. I believe that’s the real reason ANet built Magic Find, so we, as players, would destroy that over-supply in hopes of getting better drop rates while unknowingly inching those prices up a touch and providing another gold sink.

Inflation is a natural occurrence in ANY economy, virtual or real. A gallon of milk inches up every year, in the US we have an inflation, excluding energy and food, of 3-4% annually. If you count food and energy, it’s probably closer to 10%. That is the way it works.

In closing, I do not think TP players affect this inflation as much as the average user does. The traders are a miniscule part of the transactions and do not impact prices as this thread tends to suggest, IMO.

Cassocaster.4576:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

There are players throwing around the term “Inflation” because it has a negative connotation to it. Just because they can’t afford to buy an item, doesn’t give them the right to go around spouting fallacies.

I argue about inflation and I have plenty of gold so, to me, your point is invalid and inflammatory. I don’t use inflation because it is negative, I use it because it’s really happening.

If nothing else, for those that doubt inflation is in place, go to the root of the economy in the game, gold. For 100 gems, in July of 2013, I could get 2.27 gold, according to spidy. Today I get 5.25. If I wanted to convert gold into gems, it took 3.14 gold to get 100 gems in July of 2013 and it takes 7.27 today.

Take a real look at these numbers and tell me there’s no inflation. Without going to far into math, let’s say the conversion costs have doubled (both directions). So, just talking about gold, what I could “buy” with 3.14 gold a year ago now costs 7.27 from a gem perspective. That’s inflation, my gold lost half it’s value as it takes twice as much to get the same thing than it did 6 months ago.

Let’s look at a normal commodity, iron ore, tier 3, every day usage…blah blah blah. In July it was selling for 40 copper, today it’s selling for 1.31 silver. That’s inflation because the valuation of the money changed and now that commodity reflects that change, it costs three times as much as it did 6 months ago. I know I will get flamed that ascended armor and weapons have increased the demand for iron ore and plenty of other tier 3, 4, and 5 mats as well but in no way does that demand exceed the inflationary costs, how many people have actually crafted to 500? I have in 4 disciplines but I had the mats and the money, it didn’t matter to me. I don’t think that many people did get to ascended in weaponry and even fewer will pursue it into armor.

As far as blue and green items (weapons, trinkets, armor, etc), those have held flat because there is a glut of them due to crafting and drops, the supply ALWAYS outstrips the demand so they are relatively worthless. I believe that’s the real reason ANet built Magic Find, so we, as players, would destroy that over-supply in hopes of getting better drop rates while unknowingly inching those prices up a touch and providing another gold sink.

Inflation is a natural occurrence in ANY economy, virtual or real. A gallon of milk inches up every year, in the US we have an inflation, excluding energy and food, of 3-4% annually. If you count food and energy, it’s probably closer to 10%. That is the way it works.

In closing, I do not think TP players affect this inflation as much as the average user does. The traders are a miniscule part of the transactions and do not impact prices as this thread tends to suggest, IMO.

The two commodities you are describing are a result of demand-pull inflation. Iron ore rose because of ascended weapons. Gems rose because, well, there is a huge demand for gems everytime something new comes out.

In my amateur economic opinion, demand-pull inflation isn’t really an issue. You have a great example here in silk. For over a year it was worthless. But thanks to increased demand, it actually has some value.

Monetary inflation is the type that needs to be kept an eye on, and I don’t think we have the tools to judge whether or not it is at an unacceptable rate. We would need a CPI which would take significant time to extract from TP sites.

tolunart.2095:

Essence Snow.3194:

The main goal here is to keep more players happy, to keep more players playing, not to keep a select few happy.

But the players who want the TP changed are the select few. You’re creating problems that don’t exist in order to push solutions that don’t work to change the TP into something it’s not to please a few people who are jealous of those who put in the time and effort to understand how the TP works.

JS, who does have access to info about the TP that players don’t have, has already stated that the TP is not being controlled by a select few. That when viewed across the entire player base, the TP is working exactly as intended. This is what “the other side” is trying to get across to you and other complainers, that the TP is not broken and neither is the economy.

Over a year into the game, those who put the time and effort into playing the game build up a bank account that allows them to spend more to get the things they want. No one expects someone to buy the game now and a month or two later they have access to everything veteran players have. MMOs in general just don’t work that way.

The problem is there. Its to balance the economy rewards via game play have been restricted to a point where the only viable option is turning to the tp.

By select few, I was referring to traders in general.

JS has the number on the economy yes. I’m sure he won’t give us a informative write up like earlier in the games life quite frankly b/c it would be rather shocking to most.

Essence Snow.3194:

Essence Snow.3194:

-snip-

As I had described earlier, the progressive tax is good in theory but there are many loopholes that can be taken advantage of. Just like the real world where select corporations move operations to lower-tax countries, traders will look for ways to avoid this progressive tax utilizing the methods I described.

I don’t understand your 2nd point – are you talking about non-gold currencies?

So b/c they might try to avoid it we shouldn’t try it? Wouldn’t that be like not putting in rules b/c some ppl will break them?

The second point if you will was more of a secondary suggestion. Reducing coin drops and drops converted to coin so as to increase drops which are not converted to coin.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

This thread has gotten very off topic, probably because the truth is not very fun to talk about.

The point is that the game uses the TP too much, not that there is anything wrong or inefficient about the TP. If you want to talk about the efficiency of the TP then make a thread to do so. The problem is that you can’t reasonably get what you want without the TP. In other games if you want to craft something you can go farm for a week or two for the items you need. To do the same thing in GW2 you either need 6 months of 8 hours a day farming, or 10 minutes on the TP.

I understand your point and I think you’re right that this can’t be fixed by putting restrictions on the TP. I think there’s another group of folks arguing a different point about the bourgeoisie taking advantage of the proletariat that’s muddying the waters a bit.

The game was designed so that every item in it is a commodity unlike some other games where gear has random attributes (not all “Swords of Doom” are created equal in those games). In that environment, it will always be more efficient to buy most materials and items. The generation of the supply is distributed across the entire playerbase, so if any one player could get everything they needed on their own, the entire economy would be over-supplied. The necessity of the TP is built into the game design and I don’t see any way that you could change that without destroying the game as it is now.

I love the lootsplosion games, but they drop a lot of loot because you have to sort through a lot of useless junk before the RNG gods smile and drop you something with a set of attributes you can really use.

My favorite system in terms of “fun” and not necessarily economic efficiency was Star Wars Galaxies. Almost every item was created by players for players from player gathered resources. Players could choose the “trader” class and once you reach a certain level you could set up a shop with robot vendors to sell your goods and accept offers from other players. There was a bazaar terminal where players that weren’t traders could sell and buy, and the traders could list their shops on their as well. It was a system that worked for the day traders, the crafters, the harvesters, and the folks that enjoyed building a business. It sort of left the folks that wanted to farm for awesome drops out in the cold though. It was a kinder, gentler EVE Online from what I gather.

Mad Rasputin.7809:

Vigorato.7951:

LordByron.8369:

etc etc etc

The inflation is worse than ever…

People get so fixated on this, like inflation is a big bag monster destroying lives. It’s not. Since there seems to be a fixation with credentials, I’ll reference a prominent economics blogger – Matt Yglesias.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/05/24/everyone_hates_inflation_because_they_don_t_understand_what_it_is.html

“the most important price in the economy is the price of labor and the price of labor is equal to workers’ incomes, so a general increase in the nominal price level is necessarily a general increase in nominal incomes”

Inflation is only a major problem when prices go up but incomes don’t, as people can afford less. In GW2 this is not the case. Prices for many things have risen because players generate more gold than they used to, from doing things like dungeon runs and champ farms.

Inflation reduces the value of gold, so it is most damaging to players that are holding large amounts of gold. In that respect, the super-rich in this game have much more to worry about from high inflation because their “wealth” is constantly being eroded.

For many, the prices have gone up but their incomes have not.

I make way less gold per hour playing the game than I used to. And that gold buys far less than it used to. That is inflation.

Unless you farmed the zerg LS events like QL and the Scarlet Invasion, you didn’t see a big influx of cash. If you aren’t farming any zerg chains now like world bosses or champ trains, you aren’t seeing a big influx of cash.

If you are just playing different aspects of the game and not running with a zerg or TP trading, the value of your gold has dropped drastically.

None of us (except JS) can say definitely that incomes have gone up or down. You say down, my own experience is quite the opposite, and I certainly don’t spend time farming Invasions or champ trains. The critical factor is which has risen faster – general prices or income? And I see little evidence that the former (excluding some select items like silk due a spike in demand )has massively outstripped the latter.

Essence Snow.3194:

tolunart.2095:

Essence Snow.3194:

The main goal here is to keep more players happy, to keep more players playing, not to keep a select few happy.

But the players who want the TP changed are the select few. You’re creating problems that don’t exist in order to push solutions that don’t work to change the TP into something it’s not to please a few people who are jealous of those who put in the time and effort to understand how the TP works.

JS, who does have access to info about the TP that players don’t have, has already stated that the TP is not being controlled by a select few. That when viewed across the entire player base, the TP is working exactly as intended. This is what “the other side” is trying to get across to you and other complainers, that the TP is not broken and neither is the economy.

Over a year into the game, those who put the time and effort into playing the game build up a bank account that allows them to spend more to get the things they want. No one expects someone to buy the game now and a month or two later they have access to everything veteran players have. MMOs in general just don’t work that way.

The problem is there. Its to balance the economy rewards via game play have been restricted to a point where the only viable option is turning to the tp.

By select few, I was referring to traders in general.

JS has the number on the economy yes. I’m sure he won’t give us a informative write up like earlier in the games life quite frankly b/c it would be rather shocking to most.

Essence Snow.3194:

Essence Snow.3194:

-snip-

As I had described earlier, the progressive tax is good in theory but there are many loopholes that can be taken advantage of. Just like the real world where select corporations move operations to lower-tax countries, traders will look for ways to avoid this progressive tax utilizing the methods I described.

I don’t understand your 2nd point – are you talking about non-gold currencies?

So b/c they might try to avoid it we shouldn’t try it? Wouldn’t that be like not putting in rules b/c some ppl will break them?

The second point if you will was more of a secondary suggestion. Reducing coin drops and drops converted to coin so as to increase drops which are not converted to coin.

No, it’s like spending months setting up a system that is doomed to fail at the start. You have to plan these things and account for all the exploits that can be made. Otherwise, you end up with useless, time-consuming regulations that failed it’s purpose. And what do we do with failed regulations?

So for your 2nd point, you would like drops that cannot be cashed out? Account bound currencies?

That may work at face value but that creates problems for players who do not like farming and will have to resort to that in order to reach their goals.

At least with the current barter system, we have the option to do everything ourselves but also exchange our unwanted goods for wanted ones.

Vol.7601:

No, it’s like spending months setting up a system that is doomed to fail at the start. You have to plan these things and account for all the exploits that can be made. Otherwise, you end up with useless, time-consuming regulations that failed it’s purpose. And what do we do with failed regulations?

So for your 2nd point, you would like drops that cannot be cashed out? Account bound currencies?

That may work at face value but that creates problems for players who do not like farming and will have to resort to that in order to reach their goals.

At least with the current barter system, we have the option to do everything ourselves but also exchange our unwanted goods for wanted ones.

To me it kinda the same as them closing exploits. Players will find a way around them so why do they keep closing them if they are doomed to fail?

Drops that are not likely to be cashed out yes, not necessarily drops that cannot be cashed out. This would have to be carefully balanced as it would be necessary to keep values above vendor or else it would be self defeating. So not to the far right nor the far left, a balancing act would be needed.

What we have now is the opposite. Players that would rather go out and gather things by themselves aren’t realistically left with that option for the most part. Drop rates are too low or random, requirements are too high, and restrictions such as dr are in effect. For a lot of objectives, the only option is gaining gold then buying off the tp. The discrepancy between the two is so large that the former is again not realistic. Much like how someone could walk across the US, but realistically it’s not really an option when your objective is to get to the other side and cars, planes, and trains are there.

Trading on the TP is so incredibly effective because people use programs or “scripts” to do their work for them. It seems the majority of the “TP traders” uses TP notifiers, TP autobidders, and programs that will calculate the most profitable thing to craft at any given time. That’s the real elephant in the room that no one dares to discuss. Whole markets are off-limits because there’s simply no point bidding against a script who will automatically outbid you 30 seconds later.

Trading wouldn’t be half as effective as it is now without those third party tools to automate player interaction with the TP. It’s exacerbated by the fact that Anet doesn’t act against it and has remained absolutely silent on it during the last 10 months. In fact, automating your TP behavior is treated completely normal; a whole section of the official forum is dedicated to people helping eachother to write such scripts. For a “soft” example, see here.

Essence Snow.3194:

Drop rates are too low or random, requirements are too high, and restrictions such as dr are in effect. For a lot of objectives, the only option is gaining gold then buying off the tp. The discrepancy between the two is so large that the former is again not realistic.

Yes, that’s why the game relies too much in the TP. Since I don’t like farming nor playing the TP, I’m limited in what I can do.

But it was not always like this, at the beginning of the game I had multiple choices that I could use, from karma to crafting to TP. Many of these options are now obsolete because now we only have crafting with materials that can only be bought out of the TP.

I’ve seen mentioned a few times that the people complain because they want everything now without effort; while there may be people that think like this, I’m not sure that this is really the case for most of us, I think it goes more on the direction that if I have a goal, I want to be able to achieve it without farming (in the shape of champ trains or speed clears) or playing the TP.

And yes, the TP is great for the game, it works wonders, it is super easy to use and I love that I can buy/sell stuff from anywhere in the world. And as I said in the first post, it is good for the community.

But for me, the player, I don’t care about the others, I don’t care if somebody has a bazillion gold. I do care about what I can do with the time I have to enjoy the game, and what I can do, any goal that I can think off right now can only be achieved using the TP or farming. I don’t want to be limited by something that I don’t like. I’m playing a MMORPG, I want to play with my friends, I want to enjoy the story (btw, I love Scarlet, thanks), I want to have fun with all the awesome things that this game had to offer, like dynamic events, guild missions, difficult dungeons, build design… these are the things that I want to see evolving, and not just new weapons and armors used to get rid of the excess of materials on the TP.

I’m not asking to get rid of ascended items, I’m asking to add more options.
I’m not asking to increase the drop rate of rare materials, they are fine as they are. What I want is new materials rewarded for doing great achievements, account bound so the only value they have is the skill you have to get them.
I’m not asking for free gold. I just want the other currencies that were useful months ago to have the same importance as gold has.

The feeling I have right now is that I have too much of everything, but too little gold. And since gold is the only thing that we can use now I’m afraid of wasting it because the next update may bring something that I want and I won’t be able to get it if I spend too much.

I think adding in better Karma usage options (including better Karma to gold conversion options) would significantly reduce a lot of the “reward” concerns.

John Smith.4610:

I think there are some interesting points here. While I would say GW2 has a fantastic free market style economy, that’s incredibly efficient blah blah blah… It is valid to say, while the economy may be efficient, is a free market economy the best choice for an MMO? There isn’t anyone in the world qualified to give a definitive answer to the question. What I can say is that the free market design that GW2 uses is MUCH more effective than a barter system in keeping players engaged and happy as an aggregate. No system will ever please everyone, but this system works very well from my point of view as a designer and economist and as a person who wants to play a great game, and the statistics that I have access to agree with that.

Please note I don’t mean to imply that other systems aren’t or can’t be effective, I only mean to say that I think the system we have is very well executed and is itself effective.

I do think the system is very effective. The only thing I would pick on is the “efficiency” in the current system. I think time-limited durations would introduce efficiency into sell orders (shifting the market power a bit more towards the buyers). Also a small fee for buy orders would cut down on the current “noise” introduce by flippers.

Example: Spent an hour last night trying to order one Dire Orrian Pistol. Every time I put in a buy order for one pistol, some nub upped it by 1c for an order of 5. It’s clear the only reason that order existed was for flipping (the margin an Dire Orrian Pistols is quite high). This went on and on until I finally made a buy order that ruined his margin (i.e. 85% of the lowest active sell order). You can view this as a functioning free market, or you can view it as “flippers ruining the TP experience”. Symantics, but my experience was frustrating.

EDIT: In my example it was a single player because his old post of 5 items would vanish every time he up’d it by 1c. Either he was watching Dire Orrian Pistols or he had an “app” which alerted him to my higher buy order. I lean towards an app because flippers focus on many different items to remain profitable.

I find your example interesting Juno because in an efficient market you would expect exactly that to happen – prices to rapidly move so that the margin shrinks down close to zero. In that respect, flippers do increase market efficiency.

It’s been touched on by others in this thread but I feel the fact that some feel this ill will towards the TP is more a symptom of the problem than the problem itself. One of my biggest beefs with GW2 since release has been the random nature of drops. Not RNG which I realize has to be in place in a loot game, more specifically I mean loot tables based on location and or enemy type. While in theory it seems like a benefit to have everything dropping everywhere as people can play as they want, it really just leads to other issues primarily reliance on the TP and repeating high efficiency content.

One of the things I liked about the way GW1 handled drops was that things dropped in fairly specific areas. If I wanted something I knew where I could go and eventually get that item as a drop. It may not be easy and it might take 75 runs of the same dungeon to get the item but eventually one could expect to get or see one. In GW2, besides for some crafting materials, there is no way to reliably attempt to get a certain item as a drop.

The other outcome of this leads to supply and demand. If a really cool sword drops in a certain dungeon and people want that sword, they will do the dungeon or buy it on the TP. If the value of that sword goes up high enough due to demand, other people will see this as a farming opportunity. Over time and through increased supply the cost of that sword to others will decrease and will reach an equilibrium point where the time and effort to acquire it is roughly equal to the price people are willing to pay.

In our current setup the value is set on the looks/stats/rarity. And because of this these luxury or valued items only continues to increase in value as players accumlate more wealth.

Players need to be able to make the following decision more often, “Should I farm this myself or buy it on the TP?” As it stands now for a majority of items, the answer is the TP. I would suggest a change or fix to drop handling first to see if that alleviates people’s issues with TP reliance.

JK Arrow.7102:

Players need to be able to make the following decision more often, “Should I farm this myself or buy it on the TP?” As it stands now for a majority of items, the answer is the TP. I would suggest a change or fix to drop handling first to see if that alleviates people’s issues with TP reliance.

You make it sound like this is a problem.

If they increased drop rates, they would have to increase the material requirements throughout the game.

So instead of 100 charged lodestones for the gift, you would require 500 lodestones if the drop rate were changed by a factor of 5.

So you’re really not making a difference since changes would be parallel.

Furthermore, why do we have only two options? Why not a 3rd?
-Should I play the way I want to and sell any excess mats that I don’t want, so that I can purchase the mats that I do want?

Vol.7601:

JK Arrow.7102:

Players need to be able to make the following decision more often, “Should I farm this myself or buy it on the TP?” As it stands now for a majority of items, the answer is the TP. I would suggest a change or fix to drop handling first to see if that alleviates people’s issues with TP reliance.

You make it sound like this is a problem.

If they increased drop rates, they would have to increase the material requirements throughout the game.

So instead of 100 charged lodestones for the gift, you would require 500 lodestones if the drop rate were changed by a factor of 5.

So you’re really not making a difference since changes would be parallel.

Furthermore, why do we have only two options? Why not a 3rd?
-Should I play the way I want to and sell any excess mats that I don’t want, so that I can purchase the mats that I do want?

I’m open to as many options as necessary in order to make it not only possible but also fullfilling to be self sufficient if you want to be.

And I’m not necessarily advocating for increased drop rates on everything. What I’m looking for is rearranging those drops to some sort of organization. If it means that more of a certain item drops because more people are doing the required event/boss/dungeon etc. to make it drop then so be it. But that is different than changing the drop percentage.

JK Arrow.7102:

And I’m not necessarily advocating for increased drop rates on everything. What I’m looking for is rearranging those drops to some sort of organization. If it means that more of a certain item drops because more people are doing the required event/boss/dungeon etc. to make it drop then so be it. But that is different than changing the drop percentage.

So you’re saying that you would like to be able to do more focused farming by having certain mob types or certain areas be more likely to drop particular items than they are now? I did see a post by a dev somewhere indicating that they recognized it was difficult to farm cloth and leather, so there may be changes coming.

My experience trying to scrounge up some chili peppers was that while chili peppers only seemed to drop from harvests in certain areas, it didn’t seem like the chance that they would drop was high enough compared to the stuff you could get in any area. I’d agree that there may be some tweaking that could be done to the loot tables.

I’d like to have some of the rarer underwater weapons, because I really like the underwater portions in Frostgorge, but even exclusively farming underwater mobs didn’t seem to drop a significantly greater number of underwater weapons to throw in the forge. It wasn’t a statistically significant sample of course, but it does seem like something is off. I know, I know, random is random, but it seems like a little less random would be more satisfying.

Pandemoniac.4739:

JK Arrow.7102:

And I’m not necessarily advocating for increased drop rates on everything. What I’m looking for is rearranging those drops to some sort of organization. If it means that more of a certain item drops because more people are doing the required event/boss/dungeon etc. to make it drop then so be it. But that is different than changing the drop percentage.

So you’re saying that you would like to be able to do more focused farming by having certain mob types or certain areas be more likely to drop particular items than they are now? I did see a post by a dev somewhere indicating that they recognized it was difficult to farm cloth and leather, so there may be changes coming.

My experience trying to scrounge up some chili peppers was that while chili peppers only seemed to drop from harvests in certain areas, it didn’t seem like the chance that they would drop was high enough compared to the stuff you could get in any area. I’d agree that there may be some tweaking that could be done to the loot tables.

I’d like to have some of the rarer underwater weapons, because I really like the underwater portions in Frostgorge, but even exclusively farming underwater mobs didn’t seem to drop a significantly greater number of underwater weapons to throw in the forge. It wasn’t a statistically significant sample of course, but it does seem like something is off. I know, I know, random is random, but it seems like a little less random would be more satisfying.

The Charr starting area seems to be your best bet for Chili Peppers. I used to make a swing there every day.

Pandemoniac.4739:

JK Arrow.7102:

And I’m not necessarily advocating for increased drop rates on everything. What I’m looking for is rearranging those drops to some sort of organization. If it means that more of a certain item drops because more people are doing the required event/boss/dungeon etc. to make it drop then so be it. But that is different than changing the drop percentage.

So you’re saying that you would like to be able to do more focused farming by having certain mob types or certain areas be more likely to drop particular items than they are now? I did see a post by a dev somewhere indicating that they recognized it was difficult to farm cloth and leather, so there may be changes coming.

My experience trying to scrounge up some chili peppers was that while chili peppers only seemed to drop from harvests in certain areas, it didn’t seem like the chance that they would drop was high enough compared to the stuff you could get in any area. I’d agree that there may be some tweaking that could be done to the loot tables.

I’d like to have some of the rarer underwater weapons, because I really like the underwater portions in Frostgorge, but even exclusively farming underwater mobs didn’t seem to drop a significantly greater number of underwater weapons to throw in the forge. It wasn’t a statistically significant sample of course, but it does seem like something is off. I know, I know, random is random, but it seems like a little less random would be more satisfying.

Essentially yes.

Mats are generally laid out in a more organized fashion than items are already. Certain tier mats and harvest nodes are found in corresponding level zones now. Weapons and armor don’t seem to have that organization so you just kill everything so you can sell the drops to buy what you want. The only items I know of off hand that are in specific areas are the few exotics in world boss chests or recipe drops in dungeons.

Edit: I just realized there are some weapons rare tier and below that only drop in certain areas. In general I’m talking more about best in class tier which until recently was exotic tier. I’m not sure why those were handled differently.

mtpelion.4562:

The Charr starting area seems to be your best bet for Chili Peppers. I used to make a swing there every day.

Yep – I’d do the Charr area for chili peppers and the Asura area for vanilla. As a cooking fanatic I really miss the days when dyes were dropping at too high a rate from the herb nodes too

tolunart.2095:

Essence Snow.3194:

The main goal here is to keep more players happy, to keep more players playing, not to keep a select few happy.

But the players who want the TP changed are the select few.

The problem I have with statements about this is that anyone who wants anything done is always the “select few” most people can’t be bothered to care, or if they get upset they leave. The mere fact that someone identifies something they see as a problem and comes here to try to get it changes automatically makes them a “select few”. Heck, probably even coming to the forums is sufficient to make someone one of the “select few”

mtpelion.4562:

Guardian.5142:

Firstly, I don’t agree with your specific stance, but I appreciate the intelligence you’ve used in communicating your point of view. I’ll warn you, I’m clearly with the “misinformed philosopher types, who view economics through a very limited lens that prevents them from seeing how bad their ideas are.”

It is with respect, I’d like to ask you specifically, why you believe a X day timer on all TP sell orders would be a “bad idea” in this game? The intention is to add a time factor as a top down pressure to move goods through the TP to their intended parties and to curb “player influence” at the top end of the market to avoid having to pay the “tax” to relist their item(s).

It works for most all MMOs who use auction houses… and Ebay. Which is… sort of like the TP, right?

Its probably academic at this point. JS has taken a strong stance behind the TP as it is and seems to want the intended outcome of the current model. Months of grinding does keep players logging in to accomplish a goal and probably helps gem sales too. I’m asking more for clarity rather than accomplishing anything productive.

Firstly, the Trading Post is not an auction house, it is a commodity exchange so it operates differently.

That being said, the biggest reason to avoid time limits is that slow moving items would never get listed. Why would I risk paying the listing fee multiple times for something that may take a LONG time to eventually sell? That hurts me, the guy who got a lucky drop and you, the guy who wants that item that no one is willing to risk listing.

In order for time limits to be a viable option, we’d have to break the market into two exchanges. Keep the current commodity market where you can buy things that stack the same as it is now, then add a second transaction medium that functions like an auction house that only sells items that do not stack (gear, skins, etc.). In the AH, there would be no fee for listing your item, but the fee that happens at the time of the transaction would be increased to 15% (to ensure the sink is in effect in full force).

Thank you for your answer. Can you clarify the difference between a commodity exchange and an auction house? You aren’t trading wood for oil here. I think what you are saying is that the way the TP is programmed is geared towards players using it as a commodity market… which follows that the first 100 players put something on at 20c and the next 100 put something on a 19c, with only 50 selling that week 150 would have to relist… and I agree with you that this wouldn’t work well in situations where thousands of items are involved and we’d be relisting constantly with little chance to sell unless many folks just happened to be buying at that time.

I think you have something there with splitting the markets out though. Actually keeping the commodities market and then having an equipment market for any non-stackable items might work. Then you could impose a timer to keep folks from buying everything up and then setting a higher market precedent in order to corner/control the market. Well, it would be harder to anyhow As long as there are rare anythings that cannot be reliably gotten other ways, prices may remain higher.

See, from my point of view, saying the price is regulated by what others are willing to pay is a cop out, much like saying the only reason you aren’t dead right now is because there are too many reasons for the other people out there not to kill you. Or like the only reason you have any money to spend at all is because someone out there hasn’t figured out a way to part you from it legally (or financially) feasibly. This is the power of human nature. The reason we have laws and regulations in modern society is to promote a standard quality of life to control human nature rather than being controlled by it. In gaming terms, that means that the devs regulate the game in such a way that the reason for people playing the game (“fun”) is not undermined by the systems that it employs to support said “fun”. That being said, human nature is like water and laws/regulations are like pipes. We wouldn’t need plumbers if that always worked out the way we planned.

Oh well. Doesn’t matter. As I said, its academic. If JS wants to change the TP, its on him. If I get bored of making trifling amounts of gold, farming in the ways I find enjoyable, there are other games with rewards just as shiny that don’t involve grinding geared towards player controlled goalposts. /shrug