Guild Wars 2

This suggestion is specifically for the trading post. I have noticed a trend where many times people will be selling an item at a price equal to the items value, and someone will come in and dramatically undercut them. Unfortunately they often do so with enough quantity that there is time for the next person to come in and ‘match lowest seller’.

This results in a downward trend that ends up resulting in the item selling for 1 copper more than the vendor price.

My proposal is to take multiple ‘lowest sellers’ and average them to keep from dramatic drops in the pricing of items. People will still have the luxury of listing at a custom price, but the ‘match lowest seller’ option will no longer be a boon to aid in dramatically dropping prices and doing so very rapidly.

The reason the price trends downwards towards 1 copper above vendor is that there are more people trying to sell it than are willing to buy it. Oversupply always causes the price to fall unless something is distorting market forces.

If demand for an item is high enough, the undercutter will only cause a temporary price dip. Their stock will run out, as will the stock of anyone matching their price, then the price will go back up. Sure, with items worth 10s of silver and 1c undercutting it will take a while, but it will happen.
I know because I saw it happen a lot in Eve Online, which has the same trading system. Like here, there were lots of complaints about people undercutting by the lowest possible amount. The main difference between the economy of Eve and GW2 is that in GW2 once you have an item, you can keep the item forever. So when you get it, demand goes down because once you have something (or a better version) you won’t be wanting it again. The only possible exception is consumables with temporary buffs. If you want the buff, you have to keep buying, so demand stays up.

In Eve Online, everything players produce is a consumable. When your ship blows up, it’s gone for good. As is about half of the fittings/cargo, with the surviving ones lying in space for anyone to loot. Meaning you’re going to need to replace them. The destruction caused by PvP is the driving force behind Eve’s economy.

At most, your suggestion would only slow down this trend. At worst, people exploit your algorithm so that people using the default price will be higher than the price the exploiters are selling stuff for. To the exploiters benefit.

Selling something for 1 copper above vendor doesn’t make any sense, putting the item up for sale cost money which is usually more than that 1 copper you’d make. Meaning all the people putting up items for sale 1 copper above vendor price are really losing money.

At that point you should just vendor it.

I’m not sure why it’s so prevalent.

As it is now, you cannot put up an item for sale below vendor price. But I really think it should automatically take into account the posting fee in that minimum and not let you post at a loss.

Pneumothorax.2964:

Selling something for 1 copper above vendor doesn’t make any sense, putting the item up for sale cost money which is usually more than that 1 copper you’d make. Meaning all the people putting up items for sale 1 copper above vendor price are really losing money.

At that point you should just vendor it.

I’m not sure why it’s so prevalent.

As it is now, you cannot put up an item for sale below vendor price. But I really think it should automatically take into account the posting fee in that minimum and not let you post at a loss.

For cheaper items the posting fee rounds up to 1 copper. If you’re selling them in bulk, then you would be getting more coin before the sale tax. I’d suggest a change to the trading post:
– Make the sales tax mentioned up front for all to see.
– Give a big warning whenever your price would earn you less than vendoring.
– Either remove the block on selling for cheaper and replace it with an “are you sure” warning*, or increase it to the point that you can’t sell something at a price where you would receive less than the vendor price.

*If you’re far from a vendor and have a full inventory, you might be willing to dump stuff for less than vendor when the only other option is to trash it.