Guild Wars 2

I would like to see the Trading Post changed so that items are not able to be sold for one copper above the price that NPCs buy the item from players. It makes no logical sense why people would sell items for one copper above the npc price when it costs 4-6 copper just to list the item.

A friend of mine pointed out that if their inventory is full and they want to create space that they may list items for the lowest price in order to clear inventory.

While this makes sense, the TP should not allow the price to be so close to the NPC Arenanet has recognized the problems with oversupply of certain items and the low price. It is the TP mechanic that is the problem.

This will be a contentious issue, but I maintain that there should also be an additional fee that players should pay in order to list an item at a lower price than the currently advertised price. This is commonly referred to as lowballing. In normal trade as ‘dumping’ and is widely publicized as an unfair trade practice.

The lowballer fee should be 50% more than the current listing cost to list the item. It should also warn that player that their fee is higher because they want to sell their item(s) at a lower price than currently advertised.

Getting undercut on a item is part of the trade. There never should be a penalty on undercutting someone’s price above them.

There is a floor on the trading post now. That is vendor value. If someone wants to lose 15% on there items. That’s there choice.

It’s not part of the trade, whatever that means. It is an unfair practice by people who want to sell their item faster than other people by selling at a lower price. It does happen in most MMOs, but that doesn not mean that it is not possible to enact changes in order to change people’s behavior. We’re also not talking about usurious fees, just a warning to players that they are undercutting their fellow players and must pay a premium to do so. For example, let’s say that you want to sell your stick of butter for 29 copper and the listing fee is 4 copper. Unfortunately that is below the lowest price that anyone is selling, therefore you must pay 6 copper to list the item at 29 copper.

I’d really like to see selling history, but that would probably be too large of a load for their server to handle.

It’s just my opinion and a suggestion.

You might want to look at the difference between there and their.

Its unfair for PersonA to sell something significantly cheaper than PersonB so people will buy PersonA’s item first? Get out of here. That kind of attitude just screams “I want to make millions but people won’t pay the prices I demand”.

^^ Now you see why we have this problem.

First, there is no location in the game that is so far from a vendor that selling items at a loss (below vendor price) should ever be necessary. Every karma heart will buy your junk as will every repair person. So unless you’re running around with 4-slot leather bags or are simply too lazy to manage the contents of your pockets, I cannot understand why you so desperately need to clear up your bags.

We must also consider that this behavior causes masterworks to become essentially worthless junk — the absolute lowest level of gear anyone should have in any slot. If that was the intention, what is the point of having two lower rarity levels?

As for undercutting, let’s all make sure we’re on the same page here. It irks me when people say “supply and demand!” as if that in any way applied to this scenario. To be clear, increasing the supply of a big-ticket item by one unit does not require dropping a substantial amount off the going price. I see it all the time; 33.50, 33.37, 33.35 — this is fine. But then some yahoo comes along and lists one for 20. Why? Are you stupid?

If the margin is great enough to make up for the TP fees then I’ll buy it up and re-list it at a sane price. But often the margin is not great enough, and all you can do is wonder what they were thinking.

It would be terribly interesting to see a cross-section of the people who engage in these behaviors and the people who complain that waypoint fees are too high, or that their level 80 is always broke.

I disagree with the OP’s suggestion. The main issue with pricing on the Trading Post is an issue of supply and demand. While the TP mechanics do encourage listing for low prices to get fast sales, the reason the prices are so drastically low is because there is huge supply, and very little demand.

By making it so that listing an item for the minimum allowable price would result in a loss to the seller compared to selling to an NPC merchant, the system encourages selling to merchants instead of selling on the TP. This effectively reduces the supply on the TP and can potentially allow the item’s TP price to stabilize. If a player chooses to sell on the TP anyway, and take that loss, it effectively acts as a money sink because of the loss in both low price, plus list price, plus TP commission.

Personally, I find it refreshing to see TP pricing so relatively low. This allows new players to still be able to get decent gear. While this is of little concern at the present, as the game ages and inflation takes hold (as it naturally will), the TP system as it currently is will help to ensure that new players 5 years down the line can still afford decent gear, and will be able to financially compete for gear successfully even against established players with lots of in-game coin. This will help reduce the pressure that new players will feel to try and buy in-game coin, and thus reduce the instances of players buying from gold brokers in violation of the EULA.

In my opinion, the TP system should not be changed at all, but drop rates should be adjusted to help address over-supply.

" disagree with the OP’s suggestion. The main issue with pricing on the Trading Post is an issue of supply and demand. "

LOL! That didn’t take long.

To be clear, increasing the supply of a big ticket item by one unit is not a legitimate S&D based reason to drive the value down by leaps and bounds. The price should not go from 30 to 20 just because you added one to the supply pile.

TravisTrout.6803:

" disagree with the OP’s suggestion. The main issue with pricing on the Trading Post is an issue of supply and demand. "

LOL! That didn’t take long.

To be clear, increasing the supply of a big ticket item by one unit is not a legitimate S&D based reason to drive the value down by leaps and bounds. The price should not go from 30 to 20 just because you added one to the supply pile.

Adding one more unit of supply may not be justification for a lower price in itself, that is true, but if supply was lower and demand was higher, the price would naturally be higher, even with undercutting. Additionally, keep in mind that true demand prices are the lowball prices you see from “orders”, and there is nothing that requires people to list prices at the lowest price, or even the 10th lowest price. I’ve a made a fair amount of profit on the TP by buying items at an “order” price and reselling at an “instant purchase” price. I never pay the highest order price, but people always sell to me anyway, and I never list at the lowest price, but my items always end up being purchased within a few days.

The reason prices tend to drop is because people want to sell their items fast. When order prices and seller prices are nearly identical, as they are for a large number of items, especially crafting materials, you will stop seeing prices dropping. Unfortunately, because the in-game supply for items is so high right now, that almost always means that both order prices and list prices will generally drop down to NPC merchant value, and then stabilize.

I agree that it is not only an issue of supply and demand, as it is also an issue of instant gratification and generalized impatience. Nevertheless, you cannot ignore the supply and demand aspect, as it is fundamental to free market economics, including in-game economics. There are other factors that make things more complex, but supply and demand are major and significant factors that you cannot simply throw out the window.

“…significant factors that you cannot simply throw out the window.”

I can when the supply has changed by only 1 unit, which is the only scenario I commented on. In that case I can throw them right out the window, I can feel good about it as they hurtle toward the ground, and I can find satisfaction in the sound of their impact.

“Supply and demand” is all well and good, but the figures are starting to get loopy. The attached (and cropped) screenshot is what the Trading Post looks like to a player on the Anvil Rock server as of about 15 minutes ago.

I’ll have to try that longer-term listing strategy, Drake Phoenix. Right now I look at the lowest seller and if it’s not a lot higher than the vendor price, I’m vending. I do wish the listing would warn about that 15% as it’s not obvious at all that you will be losing even more beyond the listing price. Besides, I’m not a numbers person as a rule, I can’t quickly look and see if I’ll end up with less than vendor price earned even knowing the 15% is coming.

Also as others have posted, bids below vendor price shouldn’t be possible (unless it -is- possible to sell to those bidders? I dunno, I’m not a big market trader in any MMO ever).

Once they add Preview I’ll use the TP a ton more, I am sure.

And AveryFarman, another non-obvious thing, it doesn’t matter what server you are on. The TP is game-wide.

TravisTrout.6803:

I see it all the time; 33.50, 33.37, 33.35 — this is fine. But then some yahoo comes along and lists one for 20. Why? Are you stupid?

Maybe I only need 20, and in my opinion it shouldn’t be worth more than 25, so even though my 20 is intentionally low, it isn’t so low as you “insist” it is. Too bad.