Guild Wars 2

My friend just mentioned a very good point about the posting fee. If there is no posting fee, the TP will become a giant bank.

The reason for that is the ability to post from anywhere. So it is already for some, bank cell, which you pay for.

Can someone summarise why it is a bad idea to remove the posting fee?

The only reason I see is to prevent it becoming a bank. They can fix that by keeping it in your bank inventory when it’s on the market.

The problem with the posting fee isn’t that there is undercutting, but that you can’t undercut them (without losing 5%); there isn’t enough undercutting. The market will eventually be at equilibrium either way, but why have this extra complication when you could do without it?

I don’t understand the argument about someone having more time. If they undercut you and you aren’t there to undercut them, that’s fine because you were selling at the lowest price you were willing to anyway. If you weren’t, then it’s the risk you take for the chance at getting a higher profit than the market rate.

I guess it comes down to buyer competition and seller competition. If a buyer is willing to pay 100 and the seller is willing to sell for 50, it should be sold at 75, not 50 (seller competition) or 100 (buyer competition).

Off-topic, but the biggest problem with the market is that it doesn’t say anywhere that there will be a 10% tax. Don’t you think that is very important information?

so, what i’m getting is: OP made a bunch of money before people started hitting 80 and maxing their crafts. now that more people have their crafts maxed, prices have begun to fall and OP has been trapped into a position he can’t get out of without taking a loss

as mentioned earlier in this thread, prices will simply continue to keep dropping and – as long as mat prices don’t spike – the best case scenario will result in a big fat profit of 0 for your crafted items if this change is implemented

the TP is designed as a gold sink. i admit that i am not perfect and have lost money before to the listing fee, but so what? by listing you have accepted the risk that you will lose the listing fee. withdrawing your sell order and losing that listing should not make you feel ‘bad’. isn’t the most important rule to any trader to not become emotionally attached to their positions? if you continue losing money it simply means that you need to find a new market

cancel your sale, take the hit, move on

@Error
probably people are accustomed to making easy money on other trading mechanism in other game in a much smaller market…so admitting that they failed at making money in this game is somewhat a blow to their ego that they rather blame it on the mechanics?

@mana
The listing fee is exactly the mechanism that puts some risk into trading…in that it makes it hard to speculate. For a purely honest trader, they will post their sale at a price which they think is reasonable, at the minimum that they are willing to sell. However, being the greedy human being that we are, we always try to maximize our profit….why sell at the reservation price (minimum) when people are willing to pay more for it? Thus we post it at a selling price higher than our reservation price. The minute we do this, we are speculating that the value of the item is higher than our reservation price. Off course… other game doesn’t have a listing fee attached, so there’s no risk of losing anything if you’re wrong. In all, we’re all speculators weather you admit it or not. But some are better at speculating than others.

the TP is designed as a gold sink.

Wait! What?

Reason for eventual drop of price lies not with listing fee, but with themepark game itself.

2 Wazabi.1439

The listing fee is exactly the mechanism that puts some risk into trading…in that it makes it hard to speculate.

I don’t see how it’s a risk, and how it’s making harder to speculate.
The first thing i did after learned about listing fee and hidden sale tax – changed strategy.
It(listing fee and inability to lower price) might somewhat slowed increase in purchase power, but that’s all about it. Unless you count change of strategy as “making it harder”.
Instead of selecting few positions and constantly monitoring them(changing price and other things) you just taking more positions and paying less attention for individual order. Actually, that strategy is better in any circumstances.
Also, inability to change(lower) price of sell order, punishes crafters. Because they just can’t easily add more positions.

First, let me admit that I browsed the posts here and did not read them all. I am also posting my opinion so please no freakouts.

I would like to see the 15% fee gone. It’s not going to break the game and is going to make us a bit more gold. It will also help with the spam of people selling in ’’map’’ because selling this way means they don’t have to pay the 15% fee.

It sounds to me like you played the market game and lost.

You predicted that the market for level 80 goods would stay flat. You also didn’t diversify your holdings and focused only on these level 80 goods. You were wrong and you did nothing to hedge your bets or maintain any liquidity. You are clearly unfamiliar both with MMOs and with market games, and that is okay. This is your learning moment.

However, instead of learning, you ask for no penalty for your mistake, or a penalty that you can wait out trivially.

That’s not much of a game, then, is it?

Part of the market game is the very real possibility of being completely wiped out if you screw it up. It’s not like other parts of the MMO, where you can never hurt yourself too badly or lose too much progress.

Rule One of the Market Game: Never bet more than you can afford to lose.

Rule Two of the Market Game: Buy low, sell high.

Rules 3 and beyond are a trade secret. Available to the highest bidder, naturally.

Rule One of the Market Game: Never bet more than you can afford to lose.

Reminds me of the First Rule of EvE – never fly a ship you can’t afford to lose.

Maxster.4521:

Rule One of the Market Game: Never bet more than you can afford to lose.

Reminds me of the First Rule of EvE – never fly a ship you can’t afford to lose.

EVE is about profit. You cannot opt out of the EVE market. It is the same rule.

Sparkie.3465:

Maxster.4521:

Rule One of the Market Game: Never bet more than you can afford to lose.

Reminds me of the First Rule of EvE – never fly a ship you can’t afford to lose.

EVE is about profit. You cannot opt out of the EVE market. It is the same rule.

Nah, EvE is about killing in lowsec :P And profit is only to compensate losses and advance to new ways of killing.

I know that it’s the same rule. And obvious, that this rule is not for themepark “hardcore” players.

Maxster.4521:

the TP is designed as a gold sink.

Wait! What?

Reason for eventual drop of price lies not with listing fee, but with themepark game itself.

wait! what?

nowhere did i say that the eventual drop of prices is due to listing fee. i am merely saying that tp taking 15% removes gold from the game

Error.4980:

Maxster.4521:

the TP is designed as a gold sink.

Wait! What?

Reason for eventual drop of price lies not with listing fee, but with themepark game itself.

wait! what?

nowhere did i say that the eventual drop of prices is due to listing fee. i am merely saying that tp taking 15% removes gold from the game

Nvm, just wrongly structured post. Part for reason in unrelated to quote.

Maybe we have different definiton of gold sink. Compare crafting designed as unprofitable, and TP, which is actually very profitable.

Maxster.4521:

Error.4980:

Maxster.4521:

the TP is designed as a gold sink.

Wait! What?

Reason for eventual drop of price lies not with listing fee, but with themepark game itself.

wait! what?

nowhere did i say that the eventual drop of prices is due to listing fee. i am merely saying that tp taking 15% removes gold from the game

Nvm, just wrongly structured post. Part for reason in unrelated to quote.

Maybe we have different definiton of gold sink. Compare crafting designed as unprofitable, and TP, which is actually very profitable.

now that i think about if i’m not sure if maybe i don’t have the right word. ex. tp to me is a gold sink because the game is taking a fee and that fee vanishes…but i guess the other gold sink is, as you said, something deliberately made for people to throw money into

@maxter

I don’t see how it’s a risk, and how it’s making harder to speculate.

When there’s no listing fee, you can put up an item for sale. If it doesn’t sell, you don’t loose anything…hence no risk (depending on how you look at it…there is actually still risk in holding the item).

When there is a listing fee, the 5% listing fee that you’ve paid is the risk you’ve taken to post the item. If it doesn’t sell, you lose it, resulting in a net lost.

The risk with removing the posting fee or being able to change already posted orders, although the 2-5 day timer the OP suggested is an idea I like, is that the game is liable to become like EVE where you can micro adjust every order on a regular basis which means you need to become a full time trader to actually live off the trading post, the purpose of a fee like that is to prevent fluid price changes, which is also where bots start to shine, and you will never beat a bot at undercutting (although it does leave some interesting options open for playing the market, if you look at some of the tricks eve players have pulled over the years).

I think we need an auction house aswell because I like the double option (buyout price and minimum sell price, combined with bidding) and it also gives you a reasonable chance to profit without having to micromanage orders.

To be honest, the listing fee is fine and prevents speculation as is already mentioned above by many posters. Having to make up for a 15% price difference (listing fee + cut) makes it harder to buy items in bulk and listing them again at a slightly higher price. At least in the case that there are no sudden price gaps and substantial amounts of items are on the market.

Furthermore, there will always be undercutters and this will drive prices to the ‘reservation price’ mentioned earlier. This price is largely determined by supply and demand and this is really where the economy fails in this game in my opinion.

It’s easy to see that there is no market for blue items; their supply is unlimited as they drop plenty and are crafted often. Most importantly, they are never taken out of the world unless sold or salvaged. Demand for blue items will therefore always remain low.

Masterwork, Rare and Exotic items are in a slightly better position due to being Bind on Equip. However, for Masterwork items the demand will probably also be rather low as they are not a huge upgrade from an equivalent blue item.

In the end, I guess there will only be a market for Rare and Exotic items and the associated crafting materials. Oh and possibly consumables if they are going to be more or less required to beat certain content.

@Above: There’s already a system of bidding using buy orders. However, there’s no time limit as is custom with regular Auction Houses.

To be honest, the listing fee is fine and prevents speculation as is already mentioned above by many posters. Having to make up for a 15% price difference (listing fee + cut) makes it harder to buy items in bulk and listing them again at a slightly higher price. At least in the case that there are no sudden price gaps and substantial amounts of items are on the market.

It does not prevent, just make it slightly harder. 15% price difference will remain as minimal margin between buy and sell orders. From where, do you think, comes majority of the buy orders(and sell orders), especially with unprofitable crafting?

Well 15% is pretty steep, so no preventing it was worded a bit strong but it became a lot harder indeed. I’m not sure why you think the 15% will be the margin between buy and sell orders. If I remember correctly, one still pays a fee and cut even when fulfilling a buy order, but now I’m not 100% sure…

It should at least be the margin between sell orders and vendor prices, even though that is currently not the case. This could be due to the fact that the 10% cut is listed nowhere in the UI, which is a big mistake on ArenaNet’s part in my opinion. The 5% listing fee is shown, however, but I have no idea why people ignore it. Could be ill understanding of the concept or related to inventory management and the ease of selling stuff on the spot. Or perhaps a preference for selling an item to someone who uses it rather than to a vendor… Who knows…

Not sure how to read that last line. Crafting is something you should primarily do for your own items and the convenience of being able to make the gear you want (with the stats you like best). Crafting was never meant to be profitable, except perhaps at the highest levels. Then again, leveling crafting literally takes no effort and thus the rewards should reflect that. You already gain a bulk of XP leveling a crafting discipline, why should it also be economically profitable on top of that?

Morrar.1764:

Well 15% is pretty steep, so no preventing it was worded a bit strong but it became a lot harder indeed. I’m not sure why you think the 15% will be the margin between buy and sell orders. If I remember correctly, one still pays a fee and cut even when fulfilling a buy order, but now I’m not 100% sure…

Not the one who posted the buy order.

It should at least be the margin between sell orders and vendor prices, even though that is currently not the case. This could be due to the fact that the 10% cut is listed nowhere in the UI, which is a big mistake on ArenaNet’s part in my opinion. The 5% listing fee is shown, however, but I have no idea why people ignore it. Could be ill understanding of the concept or related to inventory management and the ease of selling stuff on the spot. Or perhaps a preference for selling an item to someone who uses it rather than to a vendor… Who knows…
Not sure how to read that last line. Crafting is something you should primarily do for your own items and the convenience of being able to make the gear you want (with the stats you like best). Crafting was never meant to be profitable, except perhaps at the highest levels. Then again, leveling crafting literally takes no effort and thus the rewards should reflect that. You already gain a bulk of XP leveling a crafting discipline, why should it also be economically profitable on top of that?

Let’s take a look on the resource market. Ore, wood and all that.
Who will buy that? Crafters and traders. Crafting is unprofitable, therefore – used only for leveling. There is mostly no need for crafter-levelling to place buy orders, because you waste your own time waiting for buy order for fill.
So – majority of the buy orders(and obviously sell orders) comes from traders. Traders trading because we are expecting profit, not just because we’re able to. So if there is a buy orders – margin between buy and sell orders will be more than 15%.
Same goes for crafted items. If there is oversupply – there is no buy orders. If there is enough demand – margin between buy and sell orders are lot more(because lower sell rate, than resources) than 15%.
Cause – consequence.

OK, I was talking about items on the market, but obviously we can talk materials too.

I understand where you’re coming from and why a trader would place a buy order 15% under the current lowest sell order. However, sellers will only fill such orders if a) they want to make quick cash b) they expect the price to drop c) there are no other ways to make profit from the item.

Concerning a) people may be willing to give up some profit to get cash at that very moment. However, if vendors are offering that same option it puts a lower limit on buy orders. Both items and materials have vendor prices.

Concerning b) prices are quite stable for materials — it’s not very profitable therefore for traders to bet on materials for making profit. If you look at the price of Copper, for example, you’ll notice that the price is pretty steady, only going down slowly: http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/19697. Indeed the graph also shows the 15% margin as expected, being the 0 profit margin for traders.

Concerning c) the biggest difference between items and materials is the different demand. As I outlined above, the supply of many items will infinitely outgrow the demand. So for items, the vendor price + 15% is pretty much the minimum, selling below that is just outright silly. Materials still have some use for crafting and that’s why the price is still slightly higher than vendor price (also an indication it’s not only traders in the market).

Anyway, I think we mostly agree on why certain margins exist and for which type of items. However, this discussion may not be very relevant for the suggestion of the OP to allow people to withdraw or alter their sell orders. The point of my first post was to show that for items the problem lies more in balancing supply and demand than in the 5% fee or 10% cut.

I understand where you’re coming from and why a trader would place a buy order 15% under the current lowest sell order. However, sellers will only fill such orders if a) they want to make quick cash b) they expect the price to drop c) there are no other ways to make profit from the item.

mostly a), little b) and no c). If there is no way to make profit from item – there will be no buy orders at all.

Concerning a) people may be willing to give up some profit to get cash at that very moment. However, if vendors are offering that same option it puts a lower limit on buy orders. Both items and materials have vendor prices.

That is only in case of oversupply. And if there is oversupply – there will be no buy orders at all. Trading is not charity you know.

Concerning b) prices are quite stable for materials — it’s not very profitable therefore for traders to bet on materials for making profit. If you look at the price of Copper, for example, you’ll notice that the price is pretty steady, only going down slowly: http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/19697. Indeed the graph also shows the 15% margin as expected, being the 0 profit margin for traders.

This is where you are wrong. First, copper ore price are changed from 21-17 to 19-15.
In case of 21-17 there were profit 0.85 c from 1 unit. for 19-15 it is 1.15c from 1 unit. So now trading ore is more profitable.
Why you are wrong? Because for high sell rate – low cost materials “average price” will do you no good. Also, you should look at buy order/sell order overall size, and not just lower higher order. Because for high sell rate values like 100 and even 1000 – is nothing.

Fine materials – there is much more profit than base, like ore.

Concerning c) the biggest difference between items and materials is the different demand. As I outlined above, the supply of many items will infinitely outgrow the demand. So for items, the vendor price + 15% is pretty much the minimum, selling below that is just outright silly. Materials still have some use for crafting and that’s why the price is still slightly higher than vendor price (also an indication it’s not only traders in the market).

When supply infinitely outgrows the demand – there will be no buy orders. That is obvious.

Anyway, I think we mostly agree on why certain margins exist and for which type of items. However, this discussion may not be very relevant for the suggestion of the OP to allow people to withdraw or alter their sell orders. The point of my first post was to show that for items the problem lies more in balancing supply and demand than in the 5% fee or 10% cut.

I’d say that more than 15% margin will be where will be any buy orders. And where lower sell rate(like crafted items which have demand at all) – will be higher margin. And for higher sell rate – will be more close to 15%, but not equal of course.
I’m saying that 15% margin will not affect traders-speculants in any way. What affecting traders and everyone else – supply/demand rate.