Guild Wars 2

There are people, whom I shall not name, who are benefiting from this hype by selling products and services that are suppose to help you win the TP game, if you pay them a subscription with real money.

Many people seem to think that playing the TP is the fastest way to get rich but that is not true. Playing the game itself is the fastest way to get rich. For example, cof path 1 can be done in under 10 mins to net 2-4 golds based on luck + tokens as well as the odd 50-60 silver from other parts of the dungeon.

Nowadays more and more people are spending time playing the TP, undercutting and overbidding one another reducing profits and taking up your time to monitor your investments. Profits are becoming hard to earn on the TP as more people compete and many previously viable markets are now decimated.

In the past, it was much easier to earn gold from the TP but as more people move in, playing the TP is just not as viable as playing dungeons nowadays.

Or are you trying to cool the flipping market to reduce its competitiveness and give yourself more control of it? (tongue firmly in cheek :p)

I bet the developer responsible for the TP is creaming his or her pants in sheer Randian delight as they watch those people you speak of “call” and direct the market on items (because surely it is they who are making the huge profits from flipping).

I’d like to see you find another dungeon/path that is as lucrative as CoF1.

There isn’t one.

TP is the name of the game.

kiwiburner.2186:

Or are you trying to cool the flipping market to reduce its competitiveness and give yourself more control of it? (tongue firmly in cheek :p)

I bet the developer responsible for the TP is creaming his or her pants in sheer Randian delight as they watch those people you speak of “call” and direct the market on items (because surely it is they who are making the huge profits from flipping).

The market is not as profitable as it used to be due to all the undercutting that is going on. Sometimes I find myself to be making just 1 copper per transaction and I also see people selling at ridiculous prices that would result in a huge net loss given the max offer price then, due to intense undercutting.

People should take a step back and reflect on the other areas of the game that can earn them better rewards than just flipping and playing the TP all day trying to undercut/overbid everyone.

Oglaf.1074:

I’d like to see you find another dungeon/path that is as lucrative as CoF1.

There isn’t one.

TP is the name of the game.

There are others that are also relatively easy like CoF2, HotW 1, and CoE 1. Running CoF 1 and 2, CoE 1, and HotW 1 would net you 240 tokens in maybe 2 hours played, which gives you 8 rare armors.

Relatively easy, yes. But not as quick. And lets be frank, the tokens are not the reason why people run CoF1. Its for the completion silver.

Oglaf.1074:

Relatively easy, yes. But not as quick. And lets be frank, the tokens are not the reason why people run CoF1. Its for the completion silver.

Not really, many people salvage the rares for ectos which has a nice value nowadays.

DarkSpirit.7046:

….I also see people selling at ridiculous prices that would result in a huge net loss given the max offer price then, due to intense undercutting.

Yeah, I do that on purpose. See, folks that are clever enough to TP flip (That is, anyone that can multiply by .85 and perform subtraction.) but prefer to play the real game get item drops. When they notice a ridiculous spread between the offer and sell price of the item they obtained, sometimes they’ll calculate where it stops being profitable for you flippers. Then they post right near that amount. Why?

So you’ll buy me out and I never have to deal with re-posting until we get to the true equilibrium. That lets me go back to the real game faster and, more likely than not, with more money than if I had only undercut once.

Example:
Buy Price: 40s
Sell Price 1g

You break even at 47s 6c
I post at 60.

It’ll sell because you want to flip. It’s an almost risk-free transaction on my part. The nature of flippers is easy to exploit.

Oh, and the added bit that I know it annoys people – that’s good too.

Thank you SteepledHat, because of the stuff you sell I’ve been able to turn a 25% profit. Please carry on, all my alts need gearing.

Great! If you want to spend your leisure time doing boring and repetitive activities more power to you.

I’m gonna go back to playing. I’m sure I’ll see you ingame eventually… but if you keep staring at the TP all the time, I imagine you’ll be on the floor for most of it.

I spend less than 1% of my game time staring at the TP. It took me a few hours to develop the spreadsheets that calculate what I should craft, but nowadays I just need to get the mat prices and finished product. I don’t normally flip items, not because I got anything against it but because I find it boring and not very financially rewarding. I do all that and still manage do do several events a day, do the daily in pve and pvp and get a few levels for the alt i’m playing that particular day.
What aspect of the game am I missing out do to my dealings with the TP??

SteepledHat.1345:

DarkSpirit.7046:

….I also see people selling at ridiculous prices that would result in a huge net loss given the max offer price then, due to intense undercutting.

Yeah, I do that on purpose. See, folks that are clever enough to TP flip (That is, anyone that can multiply by .85 and perform subtraction.) but prefer to play the real game get item drops. When they notice a ridiculous spread between the offer and sell price of the item they obtained, sometimes they’ll calculate where it stops being profitable for you flippers. Then they post right near that amount. Why?

So you’ll buy me out and I never have to deal with re-posting until we get to the true equilibrium. That lets me go back to the real game faster and, more likely than not, with more money than if I had only undercut once.

Example:
Buy Price: 40s
Sell Price 1g

You break even at 47s 6c
I post at 60.

It’ll sell because you want to flip. It’s an almost risk-free transaction on my part. The nature of flippers is easy to exploit.

Oh, and the added bit that I know it annoys people – that’s good too.

If you sell your items at 60s, I would buy them all instantly then re-sell them at 1g (i.e. the next min sale unit price), gaining 25s per unit, after TP taxes, which is about 42% profit for me.

Lmao, it took you a few hours to develop the spreadsheets.

I’m done. This is just too funny.

SteepledHat.1345:

Lmao, it took you a few hours to develop the spreadsheets.

I’m done. This is just too funny.

I don’t use spreadsheets. Scripts and programs are so much more flexible and I have one that analyzes such sales for me, on all my sell orders, in case someone plans to undercut me at such ridiculous prices.

And that’s what I would be using if I had the skill to program such a thing. As my skill only allows me to use old fashioned math and spreadsheets that’s what I use.
If you undercut so drastically just to prove a point against the “evil” flippers, surely you must have realised by now that the task you set yourself to is like trying to drain an ocean with a bucket. By all means carry on if it makes you feel happy.

By creating a system where one aspect of the game is completely so far ahead of the others in making money ANET has driven the masses to the TP. I have never seen a game so reliant on people having to play the TP to make money as this one. The DR on farming, on top of the the newly found kill credit bug (that has been around for who knows how long) has made it so that in order to make any sort of decent money (considering 2-4g is nothing in this market, as well has how much profit people are making from the TP in comparison) you *have* to play the TP. Every other game I have played there has been multiple ways to make good money, from collecting rate items, to farming, crafting, and playing the TP. The loot bugs and DR effect a whole lot more than just individual bank rolls.

To the OP you didn’t specify how often you would make 2-4g on COF p1, but from someone that farms it, it kitten sure isn’t 2-4g per run, considering myself and most every other person I have farmer it with, usually come out of that path with a few greens some blues and maybe it you are lucky a rare or 2. Molten cores don’t sell for anything, and the lodestones pale in comparison to the others (I know it’s because there is a surplus). If you are trying to say 2-4g specify the time ratio, because you are mot making that in each run, but even that pales in comparison to the TP earnings.

I’ll put it this way, I can only make 50 gold a day farming. Another guy is making 100+ gold a day doing TP while farming.

From what he told me, it’s not easy to make money from TP. You really are indeed only making 5-10% profit on every sale. “But” the catch is if you have 500 gold or 1000 gold, 5-10% of that is quite a bit of money. Which I suppose doesn’t help because if I have that much money, I’d have everything I want already.

Hey OP, someone has been under cutting you a ton and yoi have finally posted your frustrations.

Why being a day trader sucks.

Vinny.6924:

Hey OP, someone has been under cutting you a ton and yoi have finally posted your frustrations.

Why being a day trader sucks.

Actually I have grown to love the undercutting because it teaches me a lot of things about the TP and how people trade. That in turn helps me to refine my program and makes it better.

Yesterday I managed to profit from 2 instances where some people tried to undercut my sales at ridiculously low prices. Now I wish people would do that to me more often.

I undercut all day long. I don’t have the time or patience to play the TP so I’ll just play the game and sell certain things as I go. I typically net somewhere around 10g a day, which is fine by me as I gave up ever seeing a precursor once it became obvious they weren’t really meant to be obtained by regular players. One day I’ll be able to purchase one, but I’m far from hovering on the edge of my seat for that day to come.

The fact that undercutting frustrates TP players is just a bonus.

Is there an abbreviation/acronym guide posted somewhere on the forums because I don’t know, pardon I’m still new here, what the frak CoF1 is referring to.

Citadel of flame; path 1

They’re talking about a specific dungeon path since each dungeon has generally three paths for explorable mode and one for story mode.

Folk.2093:

Citadel of flame; path 1

They’re talking about a specific dungeon path since each dungeon has generally three paths for explorable mode and one for story mode.

Thanks, I eventually puzzled it out with the wiki looking at the names of the dungeons and other high level events.

You don’t have to pick between playing the TP and playing the game.

Sure you’ll make more flipping on the TP if you’re babysitting your orders vs just putting in your orders and moving on, but it’s still completely profitable to check on things once or twice a day and then play normally.

After all, you can put a buy order in from anywhere. When stuff hits your pickup box it doesn’t need to be put back up asap.

TP is the end game here…

Want to be the “True Master of Tyria”? all you need is gold.

There is none end game or prestige that can’t be bought, except for Fractal weapons and ascended jewels.

The market will be broken until they make all items sellable only once on the TP. You get item X as a drop (or gather the material), if you need it use it. If you do not need it, or can’t even use it (wrong weapon or armor for your class), sell it on the TP. Whoever buys it must “need it” or why else buy it, right?

They should make it so when an item is bought from the TP it is now an account bound item.

We really don’t need people manipulating the market and breaking the economy in the exact same fashion as they have done in the real world.

Ubi.4136:

We really don’t need people manipulating the market and breaking the economy in the exact same fashion as they have done in the real world.

You’re right, manipulation is bad thing. But it’s a good thing that it isn’t happening in this game.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

You’re right, manipulation is bad thing. But it’s a good thing that it isn’t happening in this game.

Eeeeh. I’d dispute that.

“Manipulation” definitely happens in this game. I define it as players buying/selling large amount of items and the prices of it goes up due to sell orders being bought up. But all manipulation does in this game is to drive prices faster to the “equilibrium” where supply/demand meets. It’s incredibly hard, if not impossible, to buy up all sell orders and re-list them again for profit.

Think about it for a sec. Say you have item A, and below are the sell listings.

10 for 10s
10 for 11s
10 for 12s.

So say if you buy out 10 for 10s. The lowest sell price is not 11s. Even if you re-list them, you’re not making a profit.

Say you buy 20 then, 10 for 10s and 10 for 11s. You’re still not making any profit if you sell these 20 at the higher sell order. Even though selling it at 12s covers the tax for the stuff you buy at 10s, you’ve still bought half your goods at 11s, so you lose money (Do the calculations, you lose 6s overall.)

And I think that’s what people miss when they see jumps in sell orders on Spidy.com. Just because the sell order is listed at 10s and suddenly jumps to 20s, that doesn’t mean all the sell listing was bought at 10s. No, it was bought at 10, 11, 12….whatever sell orders it had in between. Hence if you re-list it all at 20s, you’re losing money.

TL;DR Manipulation happens, but profiting from it is near impossible.

Ursan.7846:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

You’re right, manipulation is bad thing. But it’s a good thing that it isn’t happening in this game.

Eeeeh. I’d dispute that.

“Manipulation” definitely happens in this game. I define it as players buying/selling large amount of items and the prices of it goes up due to sell orders being bought up. But all manipulation does in this game is to drive prices faster to the “equilibrium” where supply/demand meets. It’s incredibly hard, if not impossible, to buy up all sell orders and re-list them again for profit.

Think about it for a sec. Say you have item A, and below are the sell listings.

10 for 10s
10 for 11s
10 for 12s.

So say if you buy out 10 for 10s. The lowest sell price is not 11s. Even if you re-list them, you’re not making a profit.

Say you buy 20 then, 10 for 10s and 10 for 11s. You’re still not making any profit if you sell these 20 at the higher sell order. Even though selling it at 12s covers the tax for the stuff you buy at 10s, you’ve still bought half your goods at 11s, so you lose money (Do the calculations, you lose 6s overall.)

And I think that’s what people miss when they see jumps in sell orders on Spidy.com. Just because the sell order is listed at 10s and suddenly jumps to 20s, that doesn’t mean all the sell listing was bought at 10s. No, it was bought at 10, 11, 12….whatever sell orders it had in between. Hence if you re-list it all at 20s, you’re losing money.

TL;DR Manipulation happens, but profiting from it is near impossible.

The way I see it, manipulation is a term with negative connotations. I’d rather call it “revenue generating transactions”.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

The way I see it, manipulation is a term with negative connotations. I’d rather call it “revenue generating transactions”.

Positive or negative connotation or not, I wish people would define what they think the term is better. The impression I get from multiple users is that they use this term to mean someone who buys out the supply in an attempt to re-sell and profit. There’s a clear and narrow definition of the motivation.

But there’s other forms of “manipulation” where it’s not all that clear-cut. Sometimes a person just wants to buy 1000000 walnuts. That will spike up the sell orders in spidy. Or someone just sees no sell listings available for precursors, and prices it a lot higher in hopes of getting more gold . Again, you’ll see a spike in spidy. But the motivation isn’t as malevolent as the posters here seem to insinuate.

Ursan.7846:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

The way I see it, manipulation is a term with negative connotations. I’d rather call it “revenue generating transactions”.

Positive or negative connotation or not, I wish people would define what they think the term is better. The impression I get from multiple users is that they use this term to mean someone who buys out the supply in an attempt to re-sell and profit. There’s a clear and narrow definition of the motivation.

But there’s other forms of “manipulation” where it’s not all that clear-cut. Sometimes a person just wants to buy 1000000 walnuts. That will spike up the sell orders in spidy. Or someone just sees no sell listings available for precursors, and prices it a lot higher in hopes of getting more gold . Again, you’ll see a spike in spidy. But the motivation isn’t as malevolent as the posters here seem to insinuate.

I see where you’re coming from. I just wish they would stop tying the term “market manipulation” to their conspiracy theories. It’s hard to have serious discussions in the forums when players post topics akin to saying “Big Foot ate my baby”. The troll in me feels compelled to respond in kind.

Conspiracy theories and tin foil hats is what all the RNG fanbois were saying to everybody that said they seemed to suffer from perma DR. Until Anet posted that it turns out some people are being affected by bugged loot. So, unless you know for a fact one way or the other, and you don’t, you can’t say for sure that they’re not right about market manipulators.

Ubi.4136:

The market will be broken until they make all items sellable only once on the TP. You get item X as a drop (or gather the material), if you need it use it. If you do not need it, or can’t even use it (wrong weapon or armor for your class), sell it on the TP. Whoever buys it must “need it” or why else buy it, right?

They should make it so when an item is bought from the TP it is now an account bound item.

We really don’t need people manipulating the market and breaking the economy in the exact same fashion as they have done in the real world.

This is what Vindictus does, items are only sellable once there (or at least that was the case back when it came out and I played).

It had some good and bad points. I wouldn’t say it really made the game any better overall. Item acquisition wasn’t a focal point in that game though and items didn’t “soulbind” so drawing correlations between the two probably isn’t all that meaningful.

I think overall, GW2 is a little more interesting of a game being able to resell things.

Minion of Vey.4398:

This is what Vindictus does, items are only sellable once there (or at least that was the case back when it came out and I played).

It had some good and bad points. I wouldn’t say it really made the game any better overall. Item acquisition wasn’t a focal point in that game though and items didn’t “soulbind” so drawing correlations between the two probably isn’t all that meaningful.

I think overall, GW2 is a little more interesting of a game being able to resell things.

I dabbled in Vindictus but never really got too much into it. Do you mind telling me more specifically what the good/bad points of that system? I’m curious.

LF2M TP Path 2, fast run

Heard today we get a patch,.. activity on TP will be fun to watch.

Olfinbedwere.5049:

Conspiracy theories and tin foil hats is what all the RNG fanbois were saying to everybody that said they seemed to suffer from perma DR. Until Anet posted that it turns out some people are being affected by bugged loot. So, unless you know for a fact one way or the other, and you don’t, you can’t say for sure that they’re not right about market manipulators.

Ha i didn’t know that. Could you give us the source for this fact please? Seems like i missed their statement on that.