Guild Wars 2

once again ANet changed something fundamentally and an item lost over 50% of it’s value.

how often do we have to expect such radical changes? should we generally cancel all buy orders before patchdays? (I know I will, just to be sure)

ANet once stated they envision the BLTP to simulate a real economy with ups and downs through supply and demand. then they completely change the game every few patches. the crystalline dust had a VERY stable price for the last few months. it was arguably high of course but thats because it’s a rare drop.
now if ANet had intended to drive the price down to 15s, they could’ve doubled the loot chance. over the next few weeks the economy would’ve gradually adjusted as it should be.
making ectos salvagable was a knee-jerk reaction to a stable situation. the incredibly fast drop of the dust prices shows how wrong of a decision this was (at least, if a realistic economy is still their goal).

while me losing some gold due to low buy orders which turned into massively overpriced buy orders was the trigger for writing, I can handle the losses (I now have the 250 I need, even at a higher price), it wasn’t that bad. I’m more concerned about the BLTP in the future.

right now they give players the illusion of a real market and then play god whenever they want to. adjusting drop rates has proven to be a relatively fair and slow process which gives people time to react. a 50% drop within less than 1 hour is not quite enough time to react except of course for a few lucky people (especially those few who knew about the change before the patchnotes were officially out, traces of them can be seen on gw2spidy).

precursors have been relatively stable in the last few weeks. should we expect them to suddenly jump up/down when ANet has another whim like this? how can we ever trust the market as long as they play around so much?

tldr because already two people seemed to have missed the point completely:
prices should change slowly for a healthy economy to be able to exist. changes in supply/demand should come gradually, not within the few minutes it takes for a patch to come into effect. creating new recipes/uses for materials should be VERY carefully thought through instead of dropping the equivalent of a nuke into a stable market to see how it changes.

I hope you realize “real” markets are subject to fluctuations too.

i.e. harddrive prices skyrocketing due to floods in thailand, oil prices jumping due to unrest in Iran.

if not through patches, how will these things be changed? crystalline dust actually hit the point of zero sell listings a couple weeks ago. it’s a needed commodity.

Ursan.7846:

I hope you realize “real” markets are subject to fluctuations too.

i.e. harddrive prices skyrocketing due to floods in thailand, oil prices jumping due to unrest in Iran.

of course. I fail to see the point though, as I specifically mentioned adjusting the droprate to facilitate a change in the direction they want (I know, my example of doubling the droprate would make a bigger change than 50% in the long run, it’s a simplification for the sake of the argument).

or to use your example: the floods in thailand changed the harddisk prices over the course of a year, with the biggest change after a few weeks. retailers didn’t even change their prices until they ran out of stock, which took several weeks (I bought 4 disks three or four weeks after the flood while the prices were still low). that’s exactly my point, the prices changed due to changing circumstances, but not within an hour, they gradually adjusted. for a similar effect as ANet just created, in the real world we would’ve had to have global catastrophe, i.e. a pandemic. and even then I can’t imagine any product halving or doubling its price within a few hours.

Mystic.5934:

if not through patches, how will these things be changed? crystalline dust actually hit the point of zero sell listings a couple weeks ago. it’s a needed commodity.

well. I don’t know how to answer your question. I’ve proposed a change in the droprate (which they nerfed in jan or so) – obviously you didn’t read so far. I’ve added a tldr in case it was too much text for some people.

take a loot at the minipets. it´s very “funny” .

Mystic.5934:

if not through patches, how will these things be changed? crystalline dust actually hit the point of zero sell listings a couple weeks ago. it’s a needed commodity.

Anet could have easily rolled back some of the changes they did to Orr to get farmers back there.

Oranisagu.3706:

the crystalline dust had a VERY stable price for the last few months.

No it didn’t. In the last month it went from 25s to 38s. Don’t make up facts to support your case.

The price got too high thus making crafted armor and weapons more expensive than ANet anticipated so they lowered it.

And if you don’t think this kind of intervention doesn’t mirror the ‘real world’ you have no idea how economies work.

Arenanet is very sorry for all the inconvenience it caused to people who were selling Crystalline Dust for profit. It was thoughtless of them to make a rare item easier to get for people who do not spend hours a day in Orr, without considering the fact that Dust-selling is the only way to earn good gold in this game.

That having been said, the others are correct when they say this can AND DOES happen in real life. The price of a commodity can rise drastically if its source suffers some sort of disaster (natural or otherwise) that brings production to a near or complete halt. Conversely, the discovery of a new source of a rare good can drop its price greatly – and the discovery of something that does the same thing, but better, can cause the old good to become nearly worthless. All in a very short time period.

And this doesn’t even have to be a result of supply and demand. This CAN be artificially induced – governments have passed legislatures regulating upper limits to which prices can be made, if a market for a necessary item becomes so competitive that consumers cannot pay the prices being asked. (Profitmongering on food stores during a famine, for example.)

As these are completely fictitious items bought with fictitious currency*, trying to make prices based on the rises and falls of such a market sounds very much like speculative venturing to me, and that has proven twice that it is perfectly capable of falling very fast. In recent(-ish) years, we had the “dot-com crash”, where people learned the hard way that investing into Internet business ventures is NOT a “sure thing”. But more famously, the entire stock market had the famous crash of 1929, which crippled the global economy for years afterward. (Yes, global: crashes hit both the U.S. market AND the European markets at nearly the same time, and the combined effects shook the financial world.) Similar to the modern, online crash, the people of the 1920s were firm in the belief that the high values in the stock market were a “sure thing”, and that they would only continue to rise, and rise, and rise.

• (Never mind the fact that the fictitious currency can be indirectly bought with real currency; the GW2 economy is not, itself, based on real currency, but on in-game gold, because that gold cannot be turned BACK into real money, ever.)

Fundamentally, this is not one whit different from people who play the Trading Post. It’s more of a speculative commodities market than a stock exchange, but the fundamental principles are the same for both (especially since these commodities are not “real”).

Arenanet has said from the beginning that they have someone whose JOB is to keep an eye on the game’s economy. If they feel that an item is becoming too highly priced for its in-game purpose (or too low!), they will introduce measures to adjust it. As things go, I think that it’s better they introduce it with a method like “ectos salvage for dust now” than to simply change the numbers directly (OK, everyone, half price on all Crystalline Dust entries).

Personally I feel that patches should freeze the trading of related items for a few days. Give people a chance to see the change and adjust, instead of those who are at work/elsewhere during the day getting free money for so many patches.

Brave Sir Ryan.1240:

Personally I feel that patches should freeze the trading of related items for a few days. Give people a chance to see the change and adjust, instead of those who are at work/elsewhere during the day getting free money for so many patches.

This is such a bad idea. Freezing the dust and ecto markets for 1 or 2 days would be a huge inconvenience for the general playerbase. Yes some people make profits during the small window of opportunity post-patch, but good for them. (And no, I’m not one of them).

Personally I feel that patches should freeze the trading of related items for a few days. Give people a chance to see the change and adjust,

HOW is it supposed to change and adjust if trading is frozen? The changes in prices are because supply and demand are fluctuating, something that the game determines based on how many people want to buy (demand) or sell (supply).

And that’s not even the big problem. The BIG problem is that it means, for two days, people who could really use some Ectos or Dust won’t be able to buy them. Just because OTHER people want to keep profiting.

It gives people a chance to get their buy or sell order out. People have no way of knowing when they go away for the day that a patch will drop the price of an item buy half.

But the people logging in know. They know and they will take your buy order anyway as the price crashes. Those who are on at the time profit – look at precursors when new effects for legendaries went into patch notes. People had stuff listed for like 40g that was worth 6x that later that day.

There is no perfect solution, but they clearly need to do a better job here.

Guys…don’t lose sight of what really caused this to happen.

Anet steered itself slightly off course when it nerfed orr farming.

It’s better to have a knee-jerk reaction to get back on the road than to continue and fall off of it.

No…..Dust was not stable. It was increasing relatively fast, and would have continued to increase fast due to high demand and a much slower influx.

The only other solution to fix the price would have been to reset p-path.

since quite a few people seem to completely miss my point, I’ll state it again in bold:
I think SUDDEN changes in price caused by enormous changes are bad for the economy. I think it’s better to gradually let the prices adjust by slightly altering supply

I’m in no way against any changes making crystalline dust cheaper, I’m all in favour. the METHOD they used seems completely unreasonable though. I really hope this got clear now so we can all stop discussing how bad the high price of crystalline dust was – it was, I already agreed from the start, no need to argue ;-)

the stable, as in not fluctuating, prices of crystalline dust showed the supply was too low, thus the demand and price rose steadily. adjusting the supply again would result in a healthy decrease of the price over time which is more natural and it would also allow people other than traders to react. how often does a real world commodity suddenly become half or double as expensive within 2 hours? this behaviour is in no way a mirror of real world economy

Cain.1278:

No it didn’t. In the last month it went from 25s to 38s. Don’t make up facts to support your case.
…
And if you don’t think this kind of intervention doesn’t mirror the ‘real world’ you have no idea how economies work.

http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/24277
exactly. they changed their price over a long period of time when demand got higher. this IS stable. I never claimed it was stagnant, I said it to be stable, meaning no sudden fluctuations with no reason. supply was low so prices steadily rose, that’s natural and expected, didn’t think I had to point it out. sorry if we understand these terms differently, no need to start trolling and accuse me of making up facts.

@Duke Darkwood – didn’t even read the tl;dr, right? =) I was never selling the stuff, gods no, I was trying to get 250. I’ve got it, don’t need anymore until I attempt another legendary. and the losses were only about 15 gold, so no big deal, as I wrote, just the trigger to start thinking about it. your sarcasm is a nice touch, but it would be more effective if it weren’t completely off the point making your whole post kinda unbelievable ;-)
I did read it though (wouldn’t want to to look ignorant). your point about government changing/limiting prices is very well actually. though I think there’s a difference. governments don’t decide overnight to limit a price with no warning whatsoever. if a gov steps in, it’s usually common knowledge something is amiss and an intervention is needed and coming. we knew dust prices were to high, but so were ecto prices for a long time. they increased the drops of yellow items which gradually brought the ecto prices down. imho a very good solution, the change was fast enough but not immediate, people had time to react, retract buy orders etc. now we had a pretty much identical situation with one item being too low in supply. and instead of reacting in a similar manner they went completely overboard. thus, I repeat: I’m against their method this time, not against adjustements in general. the whole point of this post is to see if others prefer such random interventions with no way of knowing how/when they’ll change the economy or if they’d prefer reliable and subtle adjustements like me.

Brave Sir Ryan.1240:

Personally I feel that patches should freeze the trading of related items for a few days. Give people a chance to see the change and adjust, instead of those who are at work/elsewhere during the day getting free money for so many patches.

I like the idea, though freezes would be an inconvenience as well I’m afraid. I’d prefer they cancel/stall all outstanding buy/sell orders affected by this and reimburse the listing fee since their playing around the market shouldn’t cost players. the same is achieved as in a freeze – people can decide whether or not to place their orders again, in their own time, but doesn’t limit everybody for two days.

crunchyraisin.6054:

Guys…don’t lose sight of what really caused this to happen.

Anet steered itself slightly off course when it nerfed orr farming.

It’s better to have a knee-jerk reaction to get back on the road than to continue and fall off of it.

No…..Dust was not stable. It was increasing relatively fast, and would have continued to increase fast due to high demand and a much slower influx.

The only other solution to fix the price would have been to reset p-path.

wow, 3rd time I’m trying to add this. long story short: high-lvl mats in lowlvl areas would’ve been a solution, just like they already added lvl-appropriate item drops. plinx isn’t the only event in the whole world and it’s good they nerfed that rather stupid chain a bit – they just didn’t give any alternatives, which of course was naive.

Duke Darkwood.4237:

and the discovery of something that does the same thing, but better, can cause the old good to become nearly worthless. All in a very short time period.

My grandfather had a wind chime that was made of joint replacement/repair parts that cost thousands of dollars each – rendered practically worthless once a better method using different parts was approved.

And while most of it seems to be artificial, don’t forget how volatile the fuel market can be when a refinery is taken offline for whatever reason.

Rajani Isa.6294:

Duke Darkwood.4237:

and the discovery of something that does the same thing, but better, can cause the old good to become nearly worthless. All in a very short time period.

My grandfather had a wind chime that was made of joint replacement/repair parts that cost thousands of dollars each – rendered practically worthless once a better method using different parts was approved.

And while most of it seems to be artificial, don’t forget how volatile the fuel market can be when a refinery is taken offline for whatever reason.

in a very short time period
please be specific as to this short period of time. was it 1 hour? or even 5? maybe a day?
I’m guessing it was weeks, maybe even months and it wasn’t actually a short period of time?
we’re talking about a price drop of 50% within 2 hours here in this thread. that is a really short period of time.
though if you take your scenario and compare it to the proposed adjustment of the droprate (the effects of which we have seen in other items and can easily and probably correctly guess), you can see some similarities. prices would change by the same margin, but over a longer period of time, just as they would in a real-world economy.

fuel markets aren’t that volatile where I live. when did you last see a doubling in price? at most I see about 10% fluctuation around the base price (which steadily climbs over the years) due to shortages etc. I know gas prices are a lot cheaper in america (and by extension other countries) so you might feel those fluctuations more, I don’t know but still doubt it’s in the same range as a 50% change within hours.

Oranisagu.3706:

Cain.1278:

No it didn’t. In the last month it went from 25s to 38s. Don’t make up facts to support your case.
…
And if you don’t think this kind of intervention doesn’t mirror the ‘real world’ you have no idea how economies work.

http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/24277
exactly. they changed their price over a long period of time when demand got higher. this IS stable.

In that case, I’m sure you can explain how the demand got higher around May 25th…

What I’m seeing is that various sources of T6 dust have undergone changes in the past month/months (for good reason, imo, but that’s another discussion) which has shook up the supply chain (supply, not demand). As a natural reaction, the price settled at a new stable point, which is ok. Problem here is a lot of things in the economy are linked through transmutation and crafting, and T6 dust takes up a central point in that. As such, the new price point of T6 dust effectively invalidated majority of the transmutation recipes and decoupled T5 from T6 and core from lodestone prices. Obviously, this is not what they want and thus it was addressed (again, imo, rightly so).

TL;DR T6 dust is too important for the economy to leave it at 39ish silver.

The market correction was much needed; ectos were becoming worthless, while crystalline dust (Which is important to the game) lacked supply to meet even the basic demands of the economy. Now the two are effectively linked

I actually made a fairly big loss (~10g) due to this fix; there’ll always be winners and losers when a change comes around, but even I recognise that this change was needed

Ryuujin.8236:

I actually made a fairly big loss (~10g)

Sorry, but I giggled a bit here.

missing the point
please, I really like the feedback, but so far only one person seems to have ready my post and has talked about the method of changing the prices, all others seem fixated on whether or not dust was too expensive – arguing with me even though I agreed from the start that I thought them to be too high. I really think the price itself is a topic for another discussion. I created this thread to discuss the method they used to bring the prices down, whether it was a good choice or what the alternatives are.

so again:
do you want to see the same methodology being used in future patches.
i.e. for charged lodestones? just force a price drop of 50% on them by any means necessary like with t6 dust? maybe by adding a recipe which forges 2 plat doubloons and some stuff into a charged lodestone? or would you rather they added more supply through drops so the price would steadily decrease because the demands can be met?

Arvid.3829:

In that case, I’m sure you can explain how the demand got higher around May 25th…
…
TL;DR T6 dust is too important for the economy to leave it at 39ish silver.

didn’t want to ignore your question, even though it’s rather off topic.
I have a few ideas as to why the prices climbed a bit around the end of may, a few are:

• holiday on thursday and lots of people take the friday off as well. more people playing, thinking about legendaries, placing buy orders. seeing it rise, placing even more orders before it gets too high. I myself placed a few buy orders during this time just because I had more time to think about it more than during workdays where I just do my dailies and a dungeon or two.
• a new patch was outstanding and nobody knew what effects it would bring. highest fluctuation of prices are always around patchdays because of speculations before and reaction to patchnotes afterwards.
• southsun farming increased precursor supply and I can only assume more people started looking into legendaries (I’ve heard quite a lot of people saying they’ll only look into it after they get the precursor, as it wouldn’t make sense before). if this is in fact what happened, we would start to see the effects in a few weeks (people getting more precursors than they want for themselves and start selling them), but they removed the instigator chains already, so unfortunately there’s no real way of proving/disproving this. I’m not sure the new events drop quite as well as the instigator chains, though the karka queen chest now can be looted more than once daily.

these were off the top of my head, I’m sure there are numerous reasons why prices change, all of which are irrelevant to the discussion at hand. if you look at the curve on gw2spidy for a bit of a larger timeframe you see how steadily the price rises. sometime it takes a little jump, but overall the average is very stable and rises steadily in the last few months. that’s the stability I was referring to. not stagnancy, stable as in predictable. even a sin() curve is stable, as it’s predictable. if anybody want’s to discuss the meaning of stability with me, feel free to send a pm.

I can only repeat again and again, like a broken record:
I always agreed dust was too expensive and had to be brought down. I disapprove of the method used, seeing as they were able to change prizes just as effectively but way less invasive in other cases (ectos being the prime example).

Zumy.6318:

Ryuujin.8236:

I actually made a fairly big loss (~10g)

Sorry, but I giggled a bit here.

To Joe Plumber anyway – 10g is barely a scratch on my daily profit margin, but you can still buy quite a bit of nice stuff on the CS for 10g :p

Oranisagu.3706:

Arvid.3829:

In that case, I’m sure you can explain how the demand got higher around May 25th…
…
TL;DR T6 dust is too important for the economy to leave it at 39ish silver.

didn’t want to ignore your question, even though it’s rather off topic.

Well, you claim that the T6 dust price has always been governed by demand and that the rising price is a natural occurence over time. So I pointed to May 25th which initiated the transition from one pretty much fixed price point (25ish silver for over a month) to another pretty much fixed price point (38ish silver for 2 weeks up until the yesterday’s patch). This transition happened over the course of one week and is, by far, the fastest rise in T6 dust price since launch (+13 silver or 50% increase in said week). I have a really hard time believing this due to a ‘natural evolution of demand over time’. I also fail to see how that was off-topic, as it very much relates to what you claim.

Let me preface this with saying I bought 2 stacks of crystalline dust to finish my gifts of fortune a couple weeks ago when the dust was at 34s.. but …Seriously? Welcome to the world of guild wars… patches dramatically change things and it will always be like that and has always been like that since even before gw2. If you’re new to the whole guild wars franchise I can understand why this is frustrating, but anyone that has been around for a while should have seen this coming, there was no way they were going to let one of the most used t6 materials stay at 40s… they did the same thing when they needed to balance out ectos with all those additional rare drops and as an added bonus this whole thing is helping to stabilize the ecto price as well since that had been getting a little abnormally low. And they were able to do it in less than an hour.. kudos to your efficiency anet.

(sits and patiently waits for them to target charged lodestone prices next)

Deal with it. I lost more than you and I ain’t kittening about it.

Magnus Steelgrave.6580:

Let me preface this with saying I bought 2 stacks of crystalline dust to finish my gifts of fortune a couple weeks ago when the dust was at 34s.. but …Seriously? Welcome to the world of guild wars… patches dramatically change things and it will always be like that and has always been like that since even before gw2. If you’re new to the whole guild wars franchise I can understand why this is frustrating, but anyone that has been around for a while should have seen this coming, there was no way they were going to let one of the most used t6 materials stay at 40s… they did the same thing when they needed to balance out ectos with all those additional rare drops and as an added bonus this whole thing is helping to stabilize the ecto price as well since that had been getting a little abnormally low. And they were able to do it in less than an hour.. kudos to your efficiency anet.

(sits and patiently waits for them to target charged lodestone prices next)

it’s not about this being frustrating (thought I made it clear that’s not the case) nor about that patches do change the prices (that’s a given), but more about the dramatically part you mentioned. of course it was clear something would be done.

I gather you think it’s best ANet influences prices like this? like ripping of a bandaid, better fast than slow?

if they really want to be able to influence the market so fast and dramatically, wouldn’t it be better to just set fix prices for everything? they’d have the absolute control they obviously want and wouldn’t trick people into thinking the market followed real world examples. the supply of items would still be an indicator whether the price was too high or low (no supply means the price is too low or there’s too little supply). flippers of course would lose their source of income, I can’t pretend that I wouldn’t like that as well.

The issue with price fixing is it’d be the same as a freeze. If a good should be worth 1g but is fixed at 2g, few would buy. I agree the freezes probably aren’t the best solution.

After reflection, I think it would be good to drop hints to set expectations. Colin recently commented on alternate methods for acquisition of lodestones by the end of the summer. That’s not super specific, but enough to know I shouldn’t be investing in them and that something is coming soon. Maybe something more specific (like early July hinting stronger about it or something) would help ease the market in the right direction.

Brave Sir Ryan.1240:

The issue with price fixing is it’d be the same as a freeze. If a good should be worth 1g but is fixed at 2g, few would buy. I agree the freezes probably aren’t the best solution.

After reflection, I think it would be good to drop hints to set expectations. Colin recently commented on alternate methods for acquisition of lodestones by the end of the summer. That’s not super specific, but enough to know I shouldn’t be investing in them and that something is coming soon. Maybe something more specific (like early July hinting stronger about it or something) would help ease the market in the right direction.

yeah, I really liked this method as well. it’s not clear or soon enough to change the marked completely, but it does make people wary of investing too much right now. I assume even this announcement could drive prices down a bit over the next few weeks. they should wait for the effects of the t6 dust to settle first, as this also affects lodestones.

if they follow up with something like they did with the side-chests for ectos, after the patch prices will gradually fall until they reach an acceptable range. that’s probably the time ANet would revert some of the changes in another patch to stabilize the market (so prices don’t fall forever, like with the side-chest-reduction).

even though it’s just as manipulative, adding new items over time (when people drop it or whatever) feels a lot more natural than just swamping the market with new supply (as ecto>t6 dust is a recipe, there is a HUGE new potential supply around instantly).

It seems like some of you here are very caught up in the GW2 market, perhaps to the point that your perspective is altered. Anet probably makes changes to the game with your average player in mind. Any effects to ‘trade post power players’ is perhaps a secondary thought, but of course they are going to do what they feel is the right thing to do for the core of their game – and that exists largely outside of market trading.

Whenever you invest/speculate you need to understand that there are risks. That’s the whole point about investing.

Just like how in the real world, there will be shocks.

Stone.6751:

It seems like some of you here are very caught up in the GW2 market, perhaps to the point that your perspective is altered. Anet probably makes changes to the game with your average player in mind. Any effects to ‘trade post power players’ is perhaps a secondary thought, but of course they are going to do what they feel is the right thing to do for the core of their game – and that exists largely outside of market trading.

yeah I agree, there have been quite a few traders trying to derail the thread for whatever reason. maybe because they did gain quite a bit thanks to this change and want ANet to keep to this method instead of the slow prices alterations via droprates.
the changes in this instance had an adverse effect on the average players, not on traders, which is why I question the methods they used – personally and selfishly, I’d love it if they changed something to make life harder for traders as they are already making the life of normal players quite a bit harder by artificially driving prices up (I’m just glad I don’t need silver doubloons, then I’d really be frustrated ^^).

@Vol: again, completely off topic. I just though it’s funny how often I see such and similar posts from you on these forums, is that your thing or something? I think it should be pretty clear that I’m no trader/flipper and those who are didn’t complain, because lets face it, they profited quite a bit with this patch. I seem to remember you coming to the ‘rescue’ of traders before though, so I can guess the reasons for your posts.

ArenaNet has said early on that they wanted ectos to be a highly valued item. They were turning out not to be thanks to some changes made API,Guaranteed Exotic, etc… Also T6 dust had a overvalued price due to what happened to Orr. People do not like orr for other reasons.

So to fix both issues they made this patch change. It was not knee jerk. As for them doing the patch. Those paying attention to the “news” and rumors and the way that the population felt could have seen something like this coming. So they should have played the buy and sell orders before the patch to account for that.

Stuff like this happens in real life. Read the signs and read the rumors and react to them before the patch.

Did you guys really think a staple T6 crafting material at 40s is a good thing? To be honest, I don’t know how some people didn’t see this coming. Dust is needed for an insane amount of recipes in comparison to other T6 mats, and was more difficult to farm than other T6 mats. That just doesn’t make sense.

@OP: Even though I profited (by pure luck) quite a bit, I agree completely. Slowly increasing the drop rates or giving incentives for people to head back to Orr would’ve been much better for the markets. But you have to admit, they did fix the ecto and dust problem in one shot, so aside from the lost profits, it isn’t all that bad imo.

I’m not sure if I’m one of the ones being referred to here with the concern about traders, but just in case I’d like to make myself clear. While I am a trader, I do not think ANet should cater to me, and if I gamble and lose that’s 100% okay. It’s the people who don’t have tons of cash that I’m worried about.

Take the 40g precursor I mentioned earlier. Chances are that was just some dude listing a weapon he found. Their item was worth 40g, but worth far far more after the patch (~300g IIRC) and they didn’t have a chance to react. They got screwed. If they had at least a modicum of heads up, even if vague, they might’ve held on to it to see what the patch brought.

Does your “average player” have the gold to buy up every precursor on the market after a patch? No way! That’s a power trader right there. Many thousands of gold shifted here to 1 or more power traders just because they were on at the time of the patch and had the money to do it. Same thing when an item drops – power traders who are on at the time and able to dump their supply first on unwitting buyers guard themselves against huge losses at the expense of those they are dumping on. Again, this could’ve been some poor person who saved all their copper to bid on these items, and when they log in they find they are worth 1/3 of what they paid.

I can (and should) handle if one of my investments go south, but it’s the little guys who get screwed when power traders suddenly receive perfect knowledge after a patch .

ExTribble.7108:

Did you guys really think a staple T6 crafting material at 40s is a good thing? To be honest, I don’t know how some people didn’t see this coming. Dust is needed for an insane amount of recipes in comparison to other T6 mats, and was more difficult to farm than other T6 mats. That just doesn’t make sense.

@OP: Even though I profited (by pure luck) quite a bit, I agree completely. Slowly increasing the drop rates or giving incentives for people to head back to Orr would’ve been much better for the markets. But you have to admit, they did fix the ecto and dust problem in one shot, so aside from the lost profits, it isn’t all that bad imo.

yeah, you’re absolutely right. they did fix both problems in a simple and relatively easy solution – and both prices needed a correction up / down respectively. it was a rather elegant solution I have to admit, I only dislike how suddenly the prices changed because of it (and this was foreseeable for ANet). only people constantly monitoring the market were able to profit from this sudden change. most normal players, those that only use the TP to buy stuff they need got screwed over by overpaying or not being able to dump their supply (if they don’t need it) while the prices were still higher.

also, while a change was technically foreseeable for the players (if one has the inclination to follow rumors about item a typical player doesn’t come into contact that often except when trying for a legendary), we also had some experience how ANet handled it the last few time the wanted prices to change and it was usually a gradual and rather slow process. they set the rules of how economy works and then change them completely by introducing a new way of doing things.

additionally, so far it sometimes has taken them forever to react. take a look at silver doubloons. they have a ridiculously high price currently. is this something new? no, the prices were rising for the last few months with no reaction from ANet whatsoever. how can we start to expect them to correct high/low prices when they only do it for some items and not for others, with different reaction times and different speeds in which they effect this change? it’s like RNG all over again (and judging by these forums, RNG isn’t really a loved mechanic).

However price changes like that happen in the real economy based on pure rumors known by a few people. Case in point when the AP twitter was hacked recently the DOW took a nosedive for a few minutes. Given that is an extreme example but things like that happen all the time on day to day stocks.

anzenketh.3759:

However price changes like that happen in the real economy based on pure rumors known by a few people. Case in point when the AP twitter was hacked recently the DOW took a nosedive for a few minutes. Given that is an extreme example but things like that happen all the time on day to day stocks.

haven’t heard of this event. how much is a nosedive? I assume a large change > 20% as you called it an extreme example? I wasn’t aware of real world examples where prices changed that drastically of a physical good. with stocks it’s of course a completely different story, but lets ignore it for your arguments sake. how long did this change take and how big of an effect did it have?
and now, the more interesting question: was it GOOD for the stock market? (and if so, why?)
ANet controls the market, they control how many rumors they spread, how much they hint at and whether or not they change a droprate or add new recipes linking items and their prices together. unless they get hacked (lets hope not) outside influence is only very minimal (botters of course do influence item prices, which is why after banwaves stuff sometimes gets more expensive).

Oranisagu.3706:

*I think SUDDEN changes in price caused by enormous changes are bad for the economy.

OK, now tell us why … otherwise you have nothing.

Obtena.7952:

Oranisagu.3706:

*I think SUDDEN changes in price caused by enormous changes are bad for the economy.

OK, now tell us why … otherwise you have nothing.

Well see, he lost money from it. Now if Crystal Dust prices rose even more, he wouldn’t be here whining about it.

Myself, I sold when Crystal Dust was unnaturally high, guessing (and turns out rightly so) that the price would drop whether by unexpected patch or people running to Orr to farm it after they got bored from Southsun.

…now if only all of my other guesses were so profitable.

Meh , kitten happens

Personally I hate the idea of making a crafting material salvageable.

Obtena.7952:

Oranisagu.3706:

*I think SUDDEN changes in price caused by enormous changes are bad for the economy.

OK, now tell us why … otherwise you have nothing.

I’ve stated it a few times already, but John’s answer sums it up pretty well (and I hope people read that a bit more careful than my posts so I won’t have to repeat myself again).

The general philosophy is that too many large shocks to the market causes people to lose faith in that market and they slowly begin leaving due to the instability. In this case though we’re talking about relatively minor shocks pretty rarely; even that being said these changes are good for the economy overall, so a CBA weights positive.

though I believe he foregoes the obvious conclusion in this case: people don’t lose faith in the market, but in ANet because it’s their doing.
I agree a rare event like this isn’t a problem apart from the fact that it sets a completely new precedence.
my question is more: should ANet continue making changes this way, or in a more predictable, subtle manner to create stability (like they did in other cases). was this a one time thing or will we have to assume an equivalent ‘bomb’ be set off for every other item that leaves it’s targeted price range?

Ursan.7846:

I hope you realize “real” markets are subject to fluctuations too.

i.e. harddrive prices skyrocketing due to floods in thailand, oil prices jumping due to unrest in Iran.

Sure, think of a patch as a natural or political disaster. There, everything is fine now.

Oranisagu.3706:

yeah I agree, there have been quite a few traders trying to derail the thread for whatever reason. maybe because they did gain quite a bit thanks to this change and want ANet to keep to this method instead of the slow prices alterations via droprates.

So you are saying that Anet should NEVER introduce a new source of an existing item?

Oranisagu.3706:

anzenketh.3759:

However price changes like that happen in the real economy based on pure rumors known by a few people. Case in point when the AP twitter was hacked recently the DOW took a nosedive for a few minutes. Given that is an extreme example but things like that happen all the time on day to day stocks.

haven’t heard of this event. how much is a nosedive? I assume a large change > 20% as you called it an extreme example? I wasn’t aware of real world examples where prices changed that drastically of a physical good. with stocks it’s of course a completely different story, but lets ignore it for your arguments sake. how long did this change take and how big of an effect did it have?
and now, the more interesting question: was it GOOD for the stock market? (and if so, why?)

Over 1% of the point “value” of the Dow – or 130+ billion USD

most of wealth is retained by market flippers rather than by players…

Things like last patch punish flippers that makes money on players :| so i really hope to see more of that.

I know some devs likes this system but most players hate to farm for people that gains tons of moneys for just an activity that should be marginal….

It’s a supply shock. Stuff like that happens. It shouldn’t happen too often, but in this case it was warranted. Underpriced ectos and overpriced dust undermined the economy more than this patch.

One has to break a few eggs to make an omelet. Too bad you were one of those eggs. You knew you had it coming though.

BilboBaggins.5620:

Personally I hate the idea of making a crafting material salvageable.

This.

Entirely rubs me the wrong way too. If they want to increase dust supply, add more sources of dust or increase the drop rate at the existing sources. If they want to increase the cost of ectos (though I question that would be needed), introduce more recipes that use them.

LordByron.8369:

most of wealth is retained by market flippers rather than by players…

Things like last patch punish flippers that makes money on players :| so i really hope to see more of that.

I can’t see how this patch affected flippers negatively – on the contrary, they profited immensely if they did their ‘job’ right (which means reacting accordingly the minute the patch is up). normal players who checked the market after they spent a few hours exploring the new content got screwed over. sure, a few not so talented traders lost some money, but I’d wager most of the smarter ones got pretty rich thanks to this patch.

marnick.4305:

It’s a supply shock. Stuff like that happens. It shouldn’t happen too often, but in this case it was warranted. Underpriced ectos and overpriced dust undermined the economy more than this patch.

how often should it happen? when is it too often? what’s the difference to the situation we had a few months back when ectos were getting higher and higher in price?
I agree though, a change definitely was warranted, I’m sceptical as to the use of a shock method for something this trivial though. I don’t follow the market enough to know more than the typical few examples, so I again bring up silver doubloons. hasn’t their price reached comical heights yet? and no action whatsoever, for months. yet ectos/dust act up a tiny bit (in comparison, though they did so in a shorter period of time) and suddenly we get this shock.

marnick.4305:

One has to break a few eggs to make an omelet. Too bad you were one of those eggs. You knew you had it coming though.

I have no Idea who you are referring to, but I haven’t smelled any cooking yet – please bring me one of those omelets as well, I’m getting hungry.

I have a hard time profiteering since I’m always at work when the patches roll out.
Like, really.