Guild Wars 2

Well, most times people here only talk about making money, or complain about people making too much money. Today, I’d like to “flip” that around (pun intended). I think it’s about time to show examples of how the price of certain goods can crash in the blink of an eye.

Everyone here probably already knows about the Ultimate Citizen’s Rescue Bag. There are a couple of things that happened that shocked the market of rare items. 1) Anet lowered the rescue requirement from 1500 to 1200, making it far easier to get. 2) So many people are getting the high-end loot bags, that really rare, discontinued items are dropping more frequently.

How does this affect the market? I’ll use my own personal example. I’ve lost hundreds of Gold from holding onto the Monocle headpieces. Something that was uber rare, and not dropping anymore, tanked from 600+ Gold per, to less than 150 Gold within the span of a few hours while I was asleep. Same thing happened with the Jetpack skin.

So if you think we market players are living large and are untouchable, think again. The bigger risks you take, the more you have to lose. If there were a Tyrian welfare line, I’d be standing in it right now…

The one thing you can never lose in a market crash is your business acumen. You’ll be back on top in no time Smooth!

That’s greed for you. The longer you hold onto items the more of a risk you run that they will drop in price. You could have cashed them in and made a huge profit still, but that little extra greed got the better of you. Happened to me with F&F dyes being back in gem store, sadly no way of knowing they are coming back.

One thing I will say is that it could be predicted rewards would come back at the end of the LS arc., which they have.

I acknowledge you aren’t whinging, but people need to draw a line and sell it at that, so they don’t let their greed get the best.

The thing is, smart investors diversify their portfolio to prevent meltdowns like this. I don’t have time to invest in thousands of low end items with an ROI of a few copper per. It was easier to put faith into single items with high values, since it allowed for profits without mass flipping. Even though we were warned that old items would be offered again, I assumed (big mistake) that they’d be as rare as Precursor on the loot table. But add to that how volatile the market is for these rare niche items, having only ~10 drop out of thousands of bags crashed the prices.

Lesson learned. I’ll no longer be playing in those markets anymore. Hoarding items that only rich players will buy was one of my worst investment ideas. That doesn’t even come close to my losses in Gossamer…

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Lesson learned. I’ll no longer be playing in those markets anymore. Hoarding items that only rich players will buy was one of my worst investment ideas. That doesn’t even come close to my losses in Gossamer…

Its big risk/big reward. Just make it a shorter term investment than you usually would.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

How does this affect the market? I’ll use my own personal example. I’ve lost hundreds of Gold from holding onto the Monocle headpieces. Something that was uber rare, and not dropping anymore, tanked from 600+ Gold per, to less than 150 Gold within the span of a few hours while I was asleep. Same thing happened with the Jetpack skin.

Out of curiosity, how much did you pay for them?

To a degree, it sounds like counting your winning while you’re still sitting at the table – part of that gold was strictly potential earnings.

Looks like someone bought a Monocle on a high note, when buy orders touched about 700g around Feb. 17

You got burnt for holding too long.

The biggest risks have the biggest payouts and the biggest losses.

The best thing to do is diversify. I always keep my investments spread out over at least 6 different things. My payoffs are generally pretty low, but it provides a steady income with the occasional jackpot.

I’ve never lost money, mostly because I buy items near the vendor price when possible, but I have only broken even a few times (stupid gossamer and silk).

And other times I kick myself when I sell too early (stupid ancient bones)

You can’t hold on to investments forever.

Been there, done that. More than once I’m ashamed to say. But oh well, so goes the way of the speculator/investor.

One of my problems is that I don’t keep Excel sheets to track price trends. And I’m too lazy to use Spidy as well. I usually just look at Buy Orders now and then to see how certain item increase. Then I assume things will continue to climb until I need to liquidate my inventory.

I’m still banking on Mini Pet fighting later on. If that doesn’t pan out, I’m bound to lose a lot more money on Rare/Exotic mini investments too. Mini pet prices took a shock a while back, and I got in while prices were down. Set 1 “should” continue to increase in value slowly since they discontinued the Mini Pack Set 1. That’s one less way to obtain them, but you never know.

you scared me! luckily I hadn’t invested in anything those drop.
they do seem to re-release things that get too expensive. perma hair stylist should be next!

The living storys effect the supply of items we can only guess as to what rares items will require or be earned during the next updates. Like when everyone thought gossamer would be needed for ascended armor. People upgraded silk to gossamer in bulk but what surprised everyone was the amount of silk needed. Silk shot up 200% in price :P. Having a basic understanding of supply and demand will help you to make money on the market. The problem is in speculation whats next.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Well, most times people here only talk about making money, or complain about people making too much money. Today, I’d like to “flip” that around (pun intended). I think it’s about time to show examples of how the price of certain goods can crash in the blink of an eye.

Everyone here probably already knows about the Ultimate Citizen’s Rescue Bag. There are a couple of things that happened that shocked the market of rare items. 1) Anet lowered the rescue requirement from 1500 to 1200, making it far easier to get. 2) So many people are getting the high-end loot bags, that really rare, discontinued items are dropping more frequently.

How does this affect the market? I’ll use my own personal example. I’ve lost hundreds of Gold from holding onto the Monocle headpieces. Something that was uber rare, and not dropping anymore, tanked from 600+ Gold per, to less than 150 Gold within the span of a few hours while I was asleep. Same thing happened with the Jetpack skin.

So if you think we market players are living large and are untouchable, think again. The bigger risks you take, the more you have to lose. If there were a Tyrian welfare line, I’d be standing in it right now…

Uh… Overreact much?

You still have multiple Monocles worth (by your own admission) 150 gold each.

You should know, by now, that they’re bound to re-use implemented skins and such.

It’s much less work to re-use a skin than design something entirely new.

See: Any limited-time Gem Store item that makes brief reappearances every now and then… Like dyes.

It’s like stocks in real-life. You never can tell when they’re going to drop.
Holding on to them is a risk. You can either win or lose.
Knowing when to sell is key.

Expecting an entirely new set of rewards for saving Lion’s Arch was your folly.

In Smooth Penguin’s defense they’ve gone back on this post which one could have possibly assumed they wouldn’t do.

ColinJohanson.2394:

As for the jet pack, those specific rewards are intended as limited rewards you can only earn during that time, thus making them valuable. It wouldn’t be fair to the people who did earn jet packs for us to bring them back, and suddenly undercut their value entirely.

Indeed Minos. I vastly underestimated the farm/drop rates. Another mistake was actually seeing the price drop, but then went to sleep, thinking it wouldn’t crash so much so quickly.

I knew special dyes would come back now and then, so I shouldn’t have been surprised unique LS items would come back too. But my assumptions were based on the fact that once the LS ended, there’s no way it would return, thus the items would be exceedingly rare. Now that we see how Anet can instantly put old items back in, it changes everything. Amateur market players like myself can learn a lot from this.

Side note – I almost made a similar mistake with the Mini Wurm Head. I considered flipping 1 or 2 of those, since they only drop on kills. But then I realized how quickly the Great Wurm event would reach farm status with the Elite groups.

Edit – Jack, that makes me sad.

Edit 2 – BTW, I count potential earnings as losses as well, since I had the opportunity to sell, but sat on my hands. I do that because 90% of my Gold isn’t liquid. I keep no cash in my Guild Bank, as some other players smartly do.

Lets take a different look at this. These rare items have a monetary value for sure. But what about the rarity for being part of that event? Why re-release it? Is there a point to owning these items when AN will simply re-release it in another patch down the road?

Sure many of these were locked behind RNG, and any new player with lots of gold could come along and buy them, but there is a smaller finite amount of them. You don’t see a ton of player running around with a monocle or jetpack. While you still don’t see this at large you do see more of them, at the very least for sale.

I am more bummed about that then anything else.

Wait, are you saying those citizen bags are dropping limited time items that were currently no longer available? If so, wtf anet?

Disclaimer: I have no investments like Penguin had.

cranked.3812:

Wait, are you saying those citizen bags are dropping limited time items that were currently no longer available? If so, wtf anet?

Disclaimer: I have no investments like Penguin had.

I didn’t have as much as others, but I’ve been losing a lot lately. Here’s the link to the rewards table. Both Monocle and Jetpack are in it.

Edit – Mini Firestorm is there too

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ultimate_Citizen%27s_Rescue_Bag

But I think it is about Anet bringing back event stuff. Which they didn’t do it before. Besides sentinel recipe, that’s the only thing I can think of. (well there’s the quartz too, and dye… ) And I think the dev post something in the line they won’t bring event items back which give people’s impression they won’t.

Besides I think most people didnt’ bought monocle at 600 to invest. They probably bought it at 20 gold and hold on too long.

I actually lost thousand of gold from investing in zealots recipe.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

One of my problems is that I don’t keep Excel sheets to track price trends. And I’m too lazy to use Spidy as well. I usually just look at Buy Orders now and then to see how certain item increase. Then I assume things will continue to climb until I need to liquidate my inventory.

I’m still banking on Mini Pet fighting later on. If that doesn’t pan out, I’m bound to lose a lot more money on Rare/Exotic mini investments too. Mini pet prices took a shock a while back, and I got in while prices were down. Set 1 “should” continue to increase in value slowly since they discontinued the Mini Pack Set 1. That’s one less way to obtain them, but you never know.

Mini´s just got another considerable dump in price last week due to the free mini pack in the gem store, most blue and green ones lost about 40% value.

On topic:

I also lost some potential profits, mostly in recipes. But then again, i was quick enough to react with the iron/steel/dust spikes and also some other opportunities (which are still there so i wont specify) that i got well on top. Some of my items in the vault lost value but for that i made some good and quick profits, leaving me with more gold on hand.

Even though i disagree with rereleasing old living story skins and minis I think in general, Anet did a good job with introducing some mat sinks (leather/dust) and rebalancing some markets (cloth), with this update.

You can mystic forge set 1 using set 2 right? I think that’s what people said. I really don’t see how set 1 will increase in price if that’s the case.

There are a bunch of event mini, tonics etc, and the trend is they don’t increase the price. I dont’ understand if that’s the case, why set 1 will increase in price. The only event mini that increase in price is the southsun kasmeer. But I really think that’s just people like to watch girl in bathing suit.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/lwd/The-Historian-for-people-who-missed-content/first#post2233820

ColinJohanson.2394:

Any updates to the fractals will need to include additional update to the reward systems as well, agreed.

As for the jet pack, those specific rewards are intended as limited rewards you can only earn during that time, thus making them valuable. It wouldn’t be fair to the people who did earn jet packs for us to bring them back, and suddenly undercut their value entirely.

And yeah that F&F dungeon updated for size would make a good fractal wouldn’kitten =)

It kinda suprised me they suddenly bring them back and crash the market with such a high droprate. Good thing I am not a trade and did not invest…
On the other side Anet keeps reducing the value of my minipet collection, so I stopped buying gems with real money in return (which I used to spend on said minis).

Wanze.8410:

Even though i disagree with rereleasing old living story skins and minis I think in general, Anet did a good job with introducing some mat sinks (leather/dust) and rebalancing some markets (cloth), with this update.

I agree. From a non-investor standpoint, it was a great idea to bring back these items for players, and to have some mats drop from loot bags. But Anet did say some stuff wasn’t coming back, and they did anyway. That kind of stuff sticks to you, so it’s even more of a gamble to speculate on “discontinued” or “limited time” items.

laokoko.7403:

You can mystic forge set 1 using set 2 right? I think that’s what people said. I really don’t see how set 1 will increase in price if that’s the case.

There are a bunch of event mini, tonics etc, and the trend is they don’t increase the price. I dont’ understand if that’s the case, why set 1 will increase in price. The only event mini that increase in price is the southsun kasmeer. But I really think that’s just people like to watch girl in bathing suit.

One of the methods was deleted, but yes you can still Forge Set 1 from Set 2. It’s all random, so while Set 2 values dropped a lot, Set 1’s drop didn’t hit as hard. As for rarity, the more mini sets they release, the larger the pool becomes for Forging. Right now, any mini thrown into Zomorros will give either Set 1 or Set 2 minis. Next time, it’ll be Set 1, 2, or 3. Then Set 1, 2, 3, or 4. Without a constant Mini Set 1 pack in the Gem Store, RNG will make it harder to get older minis.

While I’m personally very pleased that ANet did decide to re-release the skins, I have to admit that it caught me by surprise too. Colin was so adamant that they wouldn’t re-release the old skins. I wouldn’t have thought they’d change their minds on it. I think this should serve as a warning to anybody’s who’s investing in the original Halloween weapon skins too; best to unload them before Halloween returns this year. You never know…

Define “high droprate?” I’ve opened at least 7 Ultimate Bags iirc (well, at least 5. I haven’t been tracking them, I just get a lot of 1200 wins). In all of them, -one- had 10 dragon coffers, and those had only zhaitaffy and fireworks in them. I understand we’re talking over a large number of players, but in absolute terms how many more such high-end limited items are now on the TP that weren’t before? If it’s, say, ten more, I don’t call that high at all, not over the number of people rolling the RNG dice.

I prob lost about 3k gold worth of value from multiple investments that were rereleased (some skins but mainly recipies) in the bags.

I’m not mad though, i knew the risk when i bought the stuff that this could happen. I think they will go back up some after the events over, as long as they aren’t constantly rereleasing old skins & other limited edition items.

It kinda ruins my faith in the whole temporary content market, who knows which items they will decide to rerelease and which will stay limited. Are they going to drop Greatsaw swords next holloween?

Donari.5237:

Define “high droprate?” I’ve opened at least 7 Ultimate Bags iirc (well, at least 5. I haven’t been tracking them, I just get a lot of 1200 wins). In all of them, -one- had 10 dragon coffers, and those had only zhaitaffy and fireworks in them. I understand we’re talking over a large number of players, but in absolute terms how many more such high-end limited items are now on the TP that weren’t before? If it’s, say, ten more, I don’t call that high at all, not over the number of people rolling the RNG dice.

It’s quite a niche market. I don’t think there are that many people willing to pay thousand of gold for a pair of glasses. And for people that want the item badly, they already bought it when it’s cheap. So a few more will kill the market.

Besides, I think it’s about killing the faith that item won’t be release again.

If I want an exclusive dye, instead of buying from the trading post now, I’ll just keep telling myself “just wait for the next sell”.

@Smooth Penguin: Looks like you’ll need to work your way up again.

Just apply the same logic that got you the money in the first place. I’m a high volume trader so a few recent changes have made me ridiculously wealthy, but niche investments will always offer the highest predictable returns over the long run.

As to your original topic (which everyone seems to of ignored to sprout personal grievances or bragging, me included):

(1) Mithril and Elder: I got in to salvaging in a fairly big way in the recent mat spike, and found my way to 80 items once I figured out how ludicrously high their trade volume is compared to other levels. So I stockpiled a lot of mithril and elder when they were around 60c. Lost a fair bit from that since I’d convinced myself the luck made ‘breaking even’ worth it.

(2) Toxic Hybrids: Made the incorrect assumption that the chest would disappear after the tower fell.

(3) Set 1 Minis: So ANet decides to announce the end of set 1’s. I knew prices would crash a bit due to overspeculation. But what I didn’t realise was that ANet would flood the market with forgable rares at never-before-seen volumes.

I’m sure it hurts now, and I for one am happy to hear trading war stories, but don’t fret too much about it. The TP is rife with opportunity and the prices of unique and desirable items will inevitably rise to previous heights as new entrants smell profits.

Once this event is over those prices will climb right back up again. Just look at housing in the real market, lol.

The market, though it currently has more people with particular items looking to make a quick profit, is hardly saturated. And those items will be bought, some people will save money, but these items are not regular open world drops. Sooner or later they will climb in price again, I can guarantee it.

laokoko.7403:

You can mystic forge set 1 using set 2 right? I think that’s what people said. I really don’t see how set 1 will increase in price if that’s the case.

There are a bunch of event mini, tonics etc, and the trend is they don’t increase the price. I dont’ understand if that’s the case, why set 1 will increase in price. The only event mini that increase in price is the southsun kasmeer. But I really think that’s just people like to watch girl in bathing suit.

There are other good minis too like the original southsun set http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/37206

when this event is over, they’ll probably have another event that has a chance to drop halloween, wintersday, and bazaar skins. I don’t like being surprised. It makes me curl into fetal and stop long-term investing. It looks like the prices aren’t going below the original price, but there is no point in holding onto these items for a profit if a profit never comes.

I have a funny feeling that Jade weapons will be making a come back soon too. Either as discounted ticket or more Jade Ticket drops. Those items have been slowly increasing in value. With the game, they have every right to make adjustments as they see fit, so you can’t be mad at Colin for saying one thing, and back tracking.

The only smart investment currently is in T6 mats. New Legendary weapons and maybe even armor will cause these prices to skyrocket. I’m counting on Precursor armor forging to make some money back. That is… unless they open the flood gates, and increase T6 drop rates.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I have a funny feeling that Jade weapons will be making a come back soon too. Either as discounted ticket or more Jade Ticket drops. Those items have been slowly increasing in value. With the game, they have every right to make adjustments as they see fit, so you can’t be mad at Colin for saying one thing, and back tracking.

The only smart investment currently is in T6 mats. New Legendary weapons and maybe even armor will cause these prices to skyrocket. I’m counting on Precursor armor forging to make some money back. That is… unless they open the flood gates, and increase T6 drop rates.

With the addition of dragon coffers to the citizens bag, they basically already reintroduced jade weapon skins to the economy.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I have a funny feeling that Jade weapons will be making a come back soon too. Either as discounted ticket or more Jade Ticket drops. Those items have been slowly increasing in value. With the game, they have every right to make adjustments as they see fit, so you can’t be mad at Colin for saying one thing, and back tracking.

The only smart investment currently is in T6 mats. New Legendary weapons and maybe even armor will cause these prices to skyrocket. I’m counting on Precursor armor forging to make some money back. That is… unless they open the flood gates, and increase T6 drop rates.

I would say backtracking / breaking promises is a bad business practices. Especially if it comes from the CEO.

Malediktus.9250:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I have a funny feeling that Jade weapons will be making a come back soon too. Either as discounted ticket or more Jade Ticket drops. Those items have been slowly increasing in value. With the game, they have every right to make adjustments as they see fit, so you can’t be mad at Colin for saying one thing, and back tracking.

The only smart investment currently is in T6 mats. New Legendary weapons and maybe even armor will cause these prices to skyrocket. I’m counting on Precursor armor forging to make some money back. That is… unless they open the flood gates, and increase T6 drop rates.

I would say backtracking / breaking promises is a bad business practices. Especially if it comes from the CEO.

Colin’s bosses are NCSoft. If they want the game to go a certain direction, that’s the way it goes. Just like with Cantha…

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I have a funny feeling that Jade weapons will be making a come back soon too. Either as discounted ticket or more Jade Ticket drops. Those items have been slowly increasing in value. With the game, they have every right to make adjustments as they see fit, so you can’t be mad at Colin for saying one thing, and back tracking.

The only smart investment currently is in T6 mats. New Legendary weapons and maybe even armor will cause these prices to skyrocket. I’m counting on Precursor armor forging to make some money back. That is… unless they open the flood gates, and increase T6 drop rates.

Be careful about T6 mats. While it is true the demand for T6 mats will skyrocket with precursor crafting, there will be a limit to it’s price. Keep in mind that Mystic Clover gambling (very lucrative) and laurels can provide a steady stream of additional T6 mats. I myself have 4 million karma and 70 laurels to dump incase T6 mats get to an absurd price. Luckily, I have 2 stacks of each T6 mat so I won’t have to fight over increased prices. If you wish to really take advantage of T6, you will have to sell within 24 hours of the patch before suppliers react.

I would focus a lot more on new legendaries. I’ve been telling this to a lot of people – buy lots of lower-priced cores. SELF DISCLOSURES I increased my investments of 2 stacks of cores to 5 stacks of lower priced cores – Destroyer, Molten, Glacial, Crystal & Corrupted. I also have 3 stacks of Crystal Lodestones and Glacial.

There is a lot of profit to be had for cores since highly-regarded new legendaries may be able to use them. Elements like Onyx and Charged lodestones are not priced the way they are because of supply but because of demand. Come out with another awesome looking Greatsword that uses something like cheap Glacial Lodestones? My 3 stacks of lodestones can jump from 150G to 450G (60s)/ 750G (1G) / 1500G (2G)

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Malediktus.9250:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I have a funny feeling that Jade weapons will be making a come back soon too. Either as discounted ticket or more Jade Ticket drops. Those items have been slowly increasing in value. With the game, they have every right to make adjustments as they see fit, so you can’t be mad at Colin for saying one thing, and back tracking.

The only smart investment currently is in T6 mats. New Legendary weapons and maybe even armor will cause these prices to skyrocket. I’m counting on Precursor armor forging to make some money back. That is… unless they open the flood gates, and increase T6 drop rates.

I would say backtracking / breaking promises is a bad business practices. Especially if it comes from the CEO.

Colin’s bosses are NCSoft. If they want the game to go a certain direction, that’s the way it goes. Just like with Cantha…

I doubt the bosses at Ncsoft even know which items were discontinued.

I doubt the bosses even know what items were released.

My hope is that Colin is too busy building Cantha to have noticed this.

I suppose the players set the price. But the price can be affected up or down base on Anet’s decision.

So there is really no reason to hold onto anything tradeable, or even buy before the price goes up too far, as it will eventually become available again.

This has so taken the wind out of my sails.

To save headaches, I now operate under the assumption that nothing is discontinued.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

To save headaches, I now operate under the assumption that nothing is discontinued.

You didn’t buy the monocle at 600 gold right? I doubt you even loss money. Just loss the opportunity to make money.

Just be happy that the Black Lion Trading Company doesn’t loan money and there aren’t Guild Hall mortgages… we’d probably be seeing foreclosures right now LOL

T6 mats (except one) are way riskier than discontinued event items imo. They are already at a high point from people crafting up leatherworking to make the new backpiece, and when people go back to champ trains they’ll come back down to earth.

Monocles may be down, but keep in mind they were 20g at release, so even now they are 10x original price. And with the tiny supply that is actually flowing, they’ll be back up in no time. Monocles are a major status item given they represent wealth both in real life and in game, meaning the more expensive they get the more they are coveted and the more people are willing to pay.

@Vol, I have been thinking the same thing about cores for several months now and been buying accordingly. Don’t want to miss the boat on it if there is one. Hope its not a canoe.