Guild Wars 2

In the post about free armour repair and trait resets, it says that these costs would be balanced out by lowering loot from champ bags. There’s no way Evon will start paying salary without making money somewhere. And seeing as he runs the bltp, the costs should be recovered there by increasing the tax by 1% instead of from champ bags and other parts of the game. This increase will hardly affect normal transactions in the tp and lower the insane profit made by those that play the tp.

Or they could charge 1 silver to open a champ bag!

[/sarcasm]

It’s still not affecting the actual LOOT drops of the champ bags, just the cash that might fall out of them.

I know a guy who has 300k+ gold atm. Wouldn’t mind seeing him get taxed. :P

Answer these questions first

-how do you define ‘rich’
-how can the game define rich so that it can be properly coded
-how do you expect to close all the loopholes while also making sure the game is not changed significantly?

Why is everyone panicking out by champion bags dropping less money? Don’t worry, if this does nerf champiom farming, someone will find another brainless grind to make gold with.

And to Vol, I think he just wants to increase the TP-fees by 1% for everyone? I’m not sure… All I saw in the post is: "My easy farm might get nerfed… panic!

1. I only wrote rich in the title to grab peoples attention. It will affect everyone but felt mostly by people who play the tp.
2. Again rich is just a word I used in the title. I don’t think it will be too difficult to change the code and add a 1% charge to the 15% total sales tax on the tp (not a programmer so don’t know the actual difficulty in doing this).
3. Please elaborate on loopholes. I can’t see how this would affect the overall game for the casual gamer exploring GW2.

I mostly WvW so this doesn’t affect me in any way since there’s no loot to be had here.

Save silver, lose gold!

No repair cost + less loot for those who win = reward for failure!!

It’s a bad sign when a game starts to reward failure.

Sola.7250:

Save silver, lose gold!

No repair cost + less loot for those who win = reward for failure!!

It’s a bad sign when a game starts to reward failure.

Idk where your getting the basis for making your assumption, but it sounds kittened. BTW, the coin from champ bags was already kitten. So really, its all good.

The coin from champ bags is a big reason why ecto costs 38 silver today instead of 20 silver.

Anet has a good idea of how much gold they are taking out of the economy with the changes. I’m inclined to support them here.

Plus the waypoint changes essentially double your expenses on a death.

Not charging for armor repairs in WvW is a good change.

Sola.7250:

Save silver, lose gold!

No repair cost + less loot for those who win = reward for failure!!

It’s a bad sign when a game starts to reward failure.

It’s a bad sign when players aren’t correctly reading the blogs. Let me ask you, do you ever notice when a champ bag drops money? I’m not talking about the EQUIPMENT OR RESOURCES that comes out of the bag, but the money. You know, cash, moolah, greenbacks, copper, silver, golds, MMMMMMMOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYYYY, whatever you want to call it.

No? Then why would you begin to notice a marginal drop in something that was so inconsequential, you never noticed it unless someone mentioned it?

Out of curiosity, I went and soloed a champ event for the hell of it. 98 copper from completing the event itself. Nothing to write home about, it covers some of the waypoint cost. Opened the exotic chest it dropped, I get a little more than 2.5 silver. Total amount of roughly 3.5 silver. Per champion in a 1-15 area. Out of the chest, I happened to drop an item worth 40s. Now, compared to the actual cash drop, which I wont miss even if they removed it entirely, the value of the items themselves are going to be much higher.

1% increase on tp is 1% increase for all, poor and rich…

players with over 100g wont feel the +5silver cost that comes with 1%increase but players with 10g will…

so my questions is: how does “tax the rich” work if the poor get effected just as well?

PS: Everyone can play the tp….seriously.. everyone

Aidan Savage.2078:

Sola.7250:

Save silver, lose gold!

No repair cost + less loot for those who win = reward for failure!!

It’s a bad sign when a game starts to reward failure.

It’s a bad sign when players aren’t correctly reading the blogs. Let me ask you, do you ever notice when a champ bag drops money? I’m not talking about the EQUIPMENT OR RESOURCES that comes out of the bag, but the money. You know, cash, moolah, greenbacks, copper, silver, golds, MMMMMMMOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYYYY, whatever you want to call it.

No? Then why would you begin to notice a marginal drop in something that was so inconsequential, you never noticed it unless someone mentioned it?

Out of curiosity, I went and soloed a champ event for the hell of it. 98 copper from completing the event itself. Nothing to write home about, it covers some of the waypoint cost. Opened the exotic chest it dropped, I get a little more than 2.5 silver. Total amount of roughly 3.5 silver. Per champion in a 1-15 area. Out of the chest, I happened to drop an item worth 40s. Now, compared to the actual cash drop, which I wont miss even if they removed it entirely, the value of the items themselves are going to be much higher.

It used to be 8s per chest every time. At 60 chests an hour this was 4.8g per hour just from the coin drops. This chance was nerfed from 100% down to about 50%, giving you about 2.4g/hr just from coin drops. It is a very significant part of the loot provided, but also causing inflation. They are further reducing this in order to cut down on the gold inflation, as they should.

Also OP how do you define rich? wouldn’t increasing TP taxes hurt poor players more? How do you stop players from moving to the GW1 system where money became useless and people traded through mail using high valued items instead?

nekretaal.6485:

The coin from champ bags is a big reason why ecto costs 38 silver today instead of 20 silver.

Anet has a good idea of how much gold they are taking out of the economy with the changes. I’m inclined to support them here.

Plus the waypoint changes essentially double your expenses on a death.

Not charging for armor repairs in WvW is a good change.

I would blame ascended crafting for that. (plus ecto salvaging for luck and crystalline dust)

Lambent.6375:

nekretaal.6485:

The coin from champ bags is a big reason why ecto costs 38 silver today instead of 20 silver.

Anet has a good idea of how much gold they are taking out of the economy with the changes. I’m inclined to support them here.

Plus the waypoint changes essentially double your expenses on a death.

Not charging for armor repairs in WvW is a good change.

I would blame ascendedexotic crafting for that.

5 to 10 ectos per craft with exotics. As little as 2 ectos for ascended.

Vukorep, this will mostly affect the people playing the tp as I have stressed many times. Hypothetically, if someone makes 10g from just playing the tp, they will be taxed the extra 1% whereas if you made 10g by actually playing the game such as dungeons, or farming for actual mats for whatever you want to craft, what you make will not be affected as much.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Aidan Savage.2078:

Sola.7250:

Save silver, lose gold!

No repair cost + less loot for those who win = reward for failure!!

It’s a bad sign when a game starts to reward failure.

It’s a bad sign when players aren’t correctly reading the blogs. Let me ask you, do you ever notice when a champ bag drops money? I’m not talking about the EQUIPMENT OR RESOURCES that comes out of the bag, but the money. You know, cash, moolah, greenbacks, copper, silver, golds, MMMMMMMOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYYYY, whatever you want to call it.

No? Then why would you begin to notice a marginal drop in something that was so inconsequential, you never noticed it unless someone mentioned it?

Out of curiosity, I went and soloed a champ event for the hell of it. 98 copper from completing the event itself. Nothing to write home about, it covers some of the waypoint cost. Opened the exotic chest it dropped, I get a little more than 2.5 silver. Total amount of roughly 3.5 silver. Per champion in a 1-15 area. Out of the chest, I happened to drop an item worth 40s. Now, compared to the actual cash drop, which I wont miss even if they removed it entirely, the value of the items themselves are going to be much higher.

It used to be 8s per chest every time. At 60 chests an hour this was 4.8g per hour just from the coin drops. This chance was nerfed from 100% down to about 50%, giving you about 2.4g/hr just from coin drops. It is a very significant part of the loot provided, but also causing inflation. They are further reducing this in order to cut down on the gold inflation, as they should.

Nah, they didn’t, at least not from my experience, and at most you generally only get 50 chest an hour.

This was a vid made before the first nerf, the inventory went from 174 .44g to 177.32g. It came nowhere close to 4g.

With the changes we’re making that remove some of the systems that take gold out of the economy, we need to make sure the economy remains balanced in terms of gold input as well. We’ll be reducing the amount of raw gold that comes out of champion loot bags and events in an effort to keep the economy balanced and spread out player activity a bit.

Why do you desire to see “rich” people taxed? Most of the rich people get their money from farms like this. If you tax the TP, it will cut into me crafting for profit (keep in mind I’m not rich, I just hit 100 gold yesterday, so I’m not “rich” by in-game standards) which will result in me going to farming. If that’s what happens to me, it’ll happen to everyone else who crafts for profit, which will only increase the amount of farmers using trains. Why is it that you want everyone to have to use the trains to get their money? Champ trains are the worst thing for the economy, not the “rich” who use the TP.

Champ trains are probably the single largest source of raw materials on the trade post. Guess what’s driving the cost of the materials you buy when crafting? Yep, you guessed it, the champ train.

Aidan Savage.2078:

Lambent.6375:

nekretaal.6485:

The coin from champ bags is a big reason why ecto costs 38 silver today instead of 20 silver.

Anet has a good idea of how much gold they are taking out of the economy with the changes. I’m inclined to support them here.

Plus the waypoint changes essentially double your expenses on a death.

Not charging for armor repairs in WvW is a good change.

I would blame ascendedexotic crafting for that.

5 to 10 ectos per craft with exotics. As little as 2 ectos for ascended.

I was included the fact that people have to use exotics to level up from 400-500. On top of people who didn’t bother with crafting until it became a requirement for ascended gear, which jumped up demand for t6 and ecto even more.

I want to know why I can’t write off my donations from the Donation Drive during Winter’s Day.

nekretaal.6485:

The coin from champ bags is a big reason why ecto costs 38 silver today instead of 20 silver.

I crafted my first Vision of the Myst in November or December 2012 .. and do you know what the ecto price was that time ? 36-37 silver.

And why can’t you stop these Champtrain threads, when there aren’t even more that much trains running. The last 2 weeks i was on 7 EU Server where i only for a short while saw one with maybe 4-5 people in Frostgorge. Heck i can’t even do my 60 monthly champions it seems.

Beldin.5498:

Heck i can’t even do my 60 monthly champions it seems.

Weeniedale. Or some dungeons. I did the first leveling up another character instead of using my main.

Beldin.5498:

nekretaal.6485:

The coin from champ bags is a big reason why ecto costs 38 silver today instead of 20 silver.

I crafted my first Vision of the Myst in November or December 2012 .. and do you know what the ecto price was that time ? 36-37 silver.

And why can’t you stop these Champtrain threads, when there aren’t even more that much trains running. The last 2 weeks i was on 7 EU Server where i only for a short while saw one with maybe 4-5 people in Frostgorge. Heck i can’t even do my 60 monthly champions it seems.

You are mixing different market forces:

http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/19721

The price spiked very briefly at the end of November 2012 when they first introduced fractals and Ascended gear (250 ectos for each backpack upgrade)

It then settled back down to 25s for a while due to the snowflake exploit.

At the end of February the patch revamped AC, added in new event scaling, and lowered the credit threshold for loot, causing the price to plummet back down to an average of 20s for the next 6 months.

It wasn’t until the Queen’s jublie patch which introduced champ bags and flooded the game with gold that prices jumped up back to 36s.

Vol.7601:

Answer these questions first

-how do you define ‘rich’
-how can the game define rich so that it can be properly coded
-how do you expect to close all the loopholes while also making sure the game is not changed significantly?

Furthermore, what could ANet even do to stop me from having multiple accounts to circumvent such ‘rich’ specifiers?

Naevius.3185:

Please fill out form 1040T(yria).

Step 1. Enter total gold income:
…

Hurry, you only have until April 15th! (Tax day!)

Rising Dusk.2408:

Vol.7601:

Answer these questions first

-how do you define ‘rich’
-how can the game define rich so that it can be properly coded
-how do you expect to close all the loopholes while also making sure the game is not changed significantly?

Furthermore, what could ANet even do to stop me from having multiple accounts to circumvent such ‘rich’ specifiers?

Or from investing in a GW2 equivalent of gold bullion, like ectos? If the game impacted me based on how much gold I had, there’s definitely nothing stopping me from buying a stack or three of ectos to “hide” my real cash supply.

Sola.7250:

Save silver, lose gold!

No repair cost + less loot for those who win = reward for failure!!

It’s a bad sign when a game starts to reward failure.

Yes, because removing the horrendously penalizing 10s every other week armor repair cost is now somehow a reward for failing. Could you be more dramatic?

You spend more on one master salvage kit purchase than repairs in a two week period.

Time to find some other argument as to why no repair costs is a bad thing, because the reward for failing is about a dumb as it gets. Now if players were being paid silver when they repair their armor, yes that would be a reward for failing. Or if you got more loot for failed events, that would be a reward for failing.

What you’re saying is just wrong.

“Tax the Rich” always results in “Tax the Poor” because the rich will simply push those new costs down to the consumers (the ones who recently have taken to calling themselves the “99%”).

People who want to “tax the rich” simply don’t understand how economies work.

mtpelion.4562:

“Tax the Rich” always results in “Tax the Poor” because the rich will simply push those new costs down to the consumers (the ones who recently have taken to calling themselves the “99%”).

People who want to “tax the rich” simply don’t understand how economies work.

I’ll be honest.. I don’t really know how the GW2 economy works which is partly why I created this post to get some feedback. Is it better to increase the gold sink or decrease the influx of gold into the game (tax the tp over slight champ bag nerf)? How would adding a 1% tax to the tp change the game economy? Will it be enough to significantly alter prices of goods listed on the tp? I don’t play the tp so maybe someone who knows this economy better can chime in. Maybe I should change the title because people seem to go crazy when the word tax is mentioned.

Minato.5294:

I’ll be honest.. I don’t really know how the GW2 economy works which is partly why I created this post to get some feedback. Is it better to increase the gold sink or decrease the influx of gold into the game (tax the tp over slight champ bag nerf)? How would adding a 1% tax to the tp change the game economy? Will it be enough to significantly alter prices of goods listed on the tp? I don’t play the tp so maybe someone who knows this economy better can chime in. Maybe I should change the title because people seem to go crazy when the word tax is mentioned.

Basically, while the TP tycoons may be sitting on fat stacks of coin, they get that coin from everyone who buys things. If you increase the cost of the transaction (i.e., increasing the tax), the guy who is selling (the “rich”) is simply going to raise his prices and the guy who is buying (the “poor”) is going to wind up spending even more money to get the same thing.

The reason they are targeting the champion bags is because that is passive income. You aren’t doing it for the gold, the gold is just an added, inflationary, bonus. By nipping that flow of “unearned” gold, they can stem inflation without seriously impacting the people who are targeting gold with their playstyle.

mtpelion.4562:

Minato.5294:

I’ll be honest.. I don’t really know how the GW2 economy works which is partly why I created this post to get some feedback. Is it better to increase the gold sink or decrease the influx of gold into the game (tax the tp over slight champ bag nerf)? How would adding a 1% tax to the tp change the game economy? Will it be enough to significantly alter prices of goods listed on the tp? I don’t play the tp so maybe someone who knows this economy better can chime in. Maybe I should change the title because people seem to go crazy when the word tax is mentioned.

Basically, while the TP tycoons may be sitting on fat stacks of coin, they get that coin from everyone who buys things. If you increase the cost of the transaction (i.e., increasing the tax), the guy who is selling (the “rich”) is simply going to raise his prices and the guy who is buying (the “poor”) is going to wind up spending even more money to get the same thing.

The reason they are targeting the champion bags is because that is passive income. You aren’t doing it for the gold, the gold is just an added, inflationary, bonus. By nipping that flow of “unearned” gold, they can stem inflation without seriously impacting the people who are targeting gold with their playstyle.

A 1% tax increase will hardly make a flipper change the sell order price. They mostly make a profit by gaining the difference between buy orders+tax and sell orders and normally the sell orders are well above buy orders+tax for a profit to be made. Once the market for that item hits an equilibrium is where everyone might lose some silver when the sell order nears the price of buy order+tax (which I think is affected more by supply and demand than people who play the TP). This will affect flippers who gain hundreds to thousands of gold flipping these items until they reach equilibrium and less so other players who make a few purchases for their needs.

Minato.5294:

mtpelion.4562:

Minato.5294:

I’ll be honest.. I don’t really know how the GW2 economy works which is partly why I created this post to get some feedback. Is it better to increase the gold sink or decrease the influx of gold into the game (tax the tp over slight champ bag nerf)? How would adding a 1% tax to the tp change the game economy? Will it be enough to significantly alter prices of goods listed on the tp? I don’t play the tp so maybe someone who knows this economy better can chime in. Maybe I should change the title because people seem to go crazy when the word tax is mentioned.

Basically, while the TP tycoons may be sitting on fat stacks of coin, they get that coin from everyone who buys things. If you increase the cost of the transaction (i.e., increasing the tax), the guy who is selling (the “rich”) is simply going to raise his prices and the guy who is buying (the “poor”) is going to wind up spending even more money to get the same thing.

The reason they are targeting the champion bags is because that is passive income. You aren’t doing it for the gold, the gold is just an added, inflationary, bonus. By nipping that flow of “unearned” gold, they can stem inflation without seriously impacting the people who are targeting gold with their playstyle.

A 1% tax increase will hardly make a flipper change the sell order price. They mostly make a profit by gaining the difference between buy orders+tax and sell orders and normally the sell orders are well above buy orders+tax for a profit to be made. Once the market for that item hits an equilibrium is where everyone might lose some silver when the sell order nears the price of buy order+tax (which I think is affected more by supply and demand than people who play the TP). This will affect flippers who gain hundreds to thousands of gold flipping these items until they reach equilibrium and less so other players who make a few purchases for their needs.

Professional TP players factor in the 15% tax into their profit margins. So if you were to make it 16%, that just means we’ll just increase the cost we sell at to account for the extra tax. Pretty simple. The rich will stay rich, and the poor will have to pay more for the same goods they desire.

One of the reason why a TP player would make less money at any point is due to things like Supply, Demand, and his competition on the market. If I undercut someone else’s prices, and start a Price War, taxes would only determine how low someone will go before they back out.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Minato.5294:

mtpelion.4562:

Minato.5294:

I’ll be honest.. I don’t really know how the GW2 economy works which is partly why I created this post to get some feedback. Is it better to increase the gold sink or decrease the influx of gold into the game (tax the tp over slight champ bag nerf)? How would adding a 1% tax to the tp change the game economy? Will it be enough to significantly alter prices of goods listed on the tp? I don’t play the tp so maybe someone who knows this economy better can chime in. Maybe I should change the title because people seem to go crazy when the word tax is mentioned.

Basically, while the TP tycoons may be sitting on fat stacks of coin, they get that coin from everyone who buys things. If you increase the cost of the transaction (i.e., increasing the tax), the guy who is selling (the “rich”) is simply going to raise his prices and the guy who is buying (the “poor”) is going to wind up spending even more money to get the same thing.

The reason they are targeting the champion bags is because that is passive income. You aren’t doing it for the gold, the gold is just an added, inflationary, bonus. By nipping that flow of “unearned” gold, they can stem inflation without seriously impacting the people who are targeting gold with their playstyle.

A 1% tax increase will hardly make a flipper change the sell order price. They mostly make a profit by gaining the difference between buy orders+tax and sell orders and normally the sell orders are well above buy orders+tax for a profit to be made. Once the market for that item hits an equilibrium is where everyone might lose some silver when the sell order nears the price of buy order+tax (which I think is affected more by supply and demand than people who play the TP). This will affect flippers who gain hundreds to thousands of gold flipping these items until they reach equilibrium and less so other players who make a few purchases for their needs.

Professional TP players factor in the 15% tax into their profit margins. So if you were to make it 16%, that just means we’ll just increase the cost we sell at to account for the extra tax. Pretty simple. The rich will stay rich, and the poor will have to pay more for the same goods they desire.

One of the reason why a TP player would make less money at any point is due to things like Supply, Demand, and his competition on the market. If I undercut someone else’s prices, and start a Price War, taxes would only determine how low someone will go before they back out.

This was kind of my point though. Factors like supply, demand, and competition will always exist in the market. But the more you play the TP for gold, the more this tax drains your income. Lets say a typical player who wants a 10g item will now have to pay 10g 1s because of this tax. A person who plays the TP and flips this item might sell 10 of these items in a day make 100g from this item but now has to pay an extra 1g. This isn’t a way to balance those with low income and high income but a drain for the economy that affects those who play the TP more over those who play every other aspect of the game.

Minato.5294:

This was kind of my point though. Factors like supply, demand, and competition will always exist in the market. But the more you play the TP for gold, the more this tax drains your income. Lets say a typical player who wants a 10g item will now have to pay 10g 1s because of this tax. A person who plays the TP and flips this item might sell 10 of these items in a day make 100g from this item but now has to pay an extra 1g. This isn’t a way to balance those with low income and high income but a drain for the economy that affects those who play the TP more over those who play every other aspect of the game.

But the point you’re missing is that there are players who purchase from the TP because they actually need the item. If you increase the tax, you basically increase the price of items. The “poor” players who don’t know how to efficiently use the TP are the ones who get hurt, not the Professional TP players.

Minato.5294:

In the post about free armour repair and trait resets, it says that these costs would be balanced out by lowering loot from champ bags. There’s no way Evon will start paying salary without making money somewhere. And seeing as he runs the bltp, the costs should be recovered there by increasing the tax by 1% instead of from champ bags and other parts of the game. This increase will hardly affect normal transactions in the tp and lower the insane profit made by those that play the tp.

MSNBC is that a way: —-——————>

I see. So a tax increase will cause TP players to increase the price of items to compensate and players buying take on the cost.

What about a diminishing returns type of tax where for example the first 100g that goes into your TP inbox is normally taxed. The next 100g will incur an additional 0.5% tax and the next 100g will get another 0.5% increase (1% total on that 100g) and so on. This way professional TP players must compete with casual TP players that pay less tax.

Minato.5294:

I see. So a tax increase will cause TP players to increase the price of items to compensate and players buying take on the cost.

What about a diminishing returns type of tax where for example the first 100g that goes into your TP inbox is normally taxed. The next 100g will incur an additional 0.5% tax and the next 100g will get another 0.5% increase (1% total on that 100g) and so on. This way professional TP players must compete with casual TP players that pay less tax.

1) Any increase in taxes will increase the cost of goods overall. The only way for prices to be lower is for Supply to increase, or more aggressive competition between TP players.

2) TP players not only compete with each other, but with the Casual player too. Meaning, they’re efficient with both selling goods, and buying them. To put this into perspective, not only do we undercut other Sell Orders by 1 Copper, but we outbid Buy Orders the same way.

Overall, the current system works fine. There’s a tax on all goods that move through the TP. There’s no real need to increase or decrease the tax, since adjusting drop rates is a better way to control target price points for goods. Now if you brought up this topic just to find a way to punish rich players, the only way to do that is to become a TP player, and increase the competition.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Minato.5294:

I see. So a tax increase will cause TP players to increase the price of items to compensate and players buying take on the cost.

What about a diminishing returns type of tax where for example the first 100g that goes into your TP inbox is normally taxed. The next 100g will incur an additional 0.5% tax and the next 100g will get another 0.5% increase (1% total on that 100g) and so on. This way professional TP players must compete with casual TP players that pay less tax.

1) Any increase in taxes will increase the cost of goods overall. The only way for prices to be lower is for Supply to increase, or more aggressive competition between TP players.

2) TP players not only compete with each other, but with the Casual player too. Meaning, they’re efficient with both selling goods, and buying them. To put this into perspective, not only do we undercut other Sell Orders by 1 Copper, but we outbid Buy Orders the same way.

Overall, the current system works fine. There’s a tax on all goods that move through the TP. There’s no real need to increase or decrease the tax, since adjusting drop rates is a better way to control target price points for goods. Now if you brought up this topic just to find a way to punish rich players, the only way to do that is to become a TP player, and increase the competition.

Seeing as the TP is the most profitable method to make gold by far, I was trying to find a way to slightly decrease the income from this group of people instead of other parts of the game (almost every part of the game has had a nerf at one point or another except the TP and now the champ bags are getting another decrease in gold drop).

I was hesitant posting this topic under this forum subsection because obviously no one in here wants a more difficult time playing the TP.

Minato.5294:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Minato.5294:

I see. So a tax increase will cause TP players to increase the price of items to compensate and players buying take on the cost.

What about a diminishing returns type of tax where for example the first 100g that goes into your TP inbox is normally taxed. The next 100g will incur an additional 0.5% tax and the next 100g will get another 0.5% increase (1% total on that 100g) and so on. This way professional TP players must compete with casual TP players that pay less tax.

1) Any increase in taxes will increase the cost of goods overall. The only way for prices to be lower is for Supply to increase, or more aggressive competition between TP players.

2) TP players not only compete with each other, but with the Casual player too. Meaning, they’re efficient with both selling goods, and buying them. To put this into perspective, not only do we undercut other Sell Orders by 1 Copper, but we outbid Buy Orders the same way.

Overall, the current system works fine. There’s a tax on all goods that move through the TP. There’s no real need to increase or decrease the tax, since adjusting drop rates is a better way to control target price points for goods. Now if you brought up this topic just to find a way to punish rich players, the only way to do that is to become a TP player, and increase the competition.

Seeing as the TP is the most profitable method to make gold by far, I was trying to find a way to slightly decrease the income from this group of people instead of other parts of the game (almost every part of the game has had a nerf at one point or another except the TP and now the champ bags are getting another decrease in gold drop).

I was hesitant posting this topic under this forum subsection because obviously no one in here wants a more difficult time playing the TP.

I figured that was your reason. But remember this: The Trading Post does not generate Gold, but rather serves to eliminate it via the taxes. Only existing Gold flows through the TP. Because of this, if you want to punish rich players by increasing taxes, you basically punish anyone participating in the economy. Just like in the real world, if you increase taxes on a business, they just pass that increase down, preserving their profit margins.

If a player truly wants to limit the profit of TP players, the only way is to become one of them, and sell the same goods for a cheaper price. However, because the TP is also game wide, spanning all servers NA and EU, there’s no way just one person will make a difference. If you tried to sell goods for cheap to undercut a TP player, your stuff will sell, but unless you have an unlimited supply of the same item, it’ll only take a few seconds for the TP players’ goods to be next on the list. One person can’t keep up with the demand of hundreds of thousands of players, not even barons like Vol or Wanze. It would take a collective of hundreds of players undercutting prices constantly in order to affect the market.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Vol.7601:

Answer these questions first

-how do you define ‘rich’
-how can the game define rich so that it can be properly coded
-how do you expect to close all the loopholes while also making sure the game is not changed significantly?

Furthermore, what could ANet even do to stop me from having multiple accounts to circumvent such ‘rich’ specifiers?

I would hope that someone with a sense of self would see how pathetic something like that would be. That’s pretty bad.

Not sure who this would benefit.

1% increase would just mean flippers drop their buy orders 1% to compensate.

People selling things they got as drops would receive 1% less.

People flipping would still generate the same amount of gold.

Essence Snow.3194:

I would hope that someone with a sense of self would see how pathetic something like that would be. That’s pretty bad.

I’m sure the traders are very concerned about your opinion of them. They’re only laughing on the outside on the way to the bank.

John Smith.4610:

An increase in the tax rate would simply get passed on to consumers, with a little bit being absorbed by sellers. It would not be an effective tax on the rich.

Ok, that sounds reasonable.

But please allow me ask: According to your (or everybody else’s) professional expertise, what would be “an effective tax on the rich” that would help to fight the dire income inequality within the game? Or is this social inequality among player characters something we just have to accept as set in stone?

~MRA

MRA.4758:

But please allow me ask: According to your (or everybody else’s) professional expertise, what would be “an effective tax on the rich” that would help to fight the dire income inequality within the game? Or is this social inequality among player characters something we just have to accept as set in stone?

That is an ideology called socialism that strives to achieve the same ideals as you, but it fails miserably because people are intrinsically different.

If you give everyone the same level pay, then there is no incentive to work harder or smarter than everyone else or to improve yourself compared to everyone else.

MRA.4758:

John Smith.4610:

An increase in the tax rate would simply get passed on to consumers, with a little bit being absorbed by sellers. It would not be an effective tax on the rich.

Ok, that sounds reasonable.

But please allow me ask: According to your (or everybody else’s) professional expertise, what would be “an effective tax on the rich” that would help to fight the dire income inequality within the game? Or is this social inequality among player characters something we just have to accept as set in stone?

~MRA

My answer is why would you need “an effective tax on the rich”?

Hey! Someone plays a lot more than I do and have more stuff, that’s unfair! Is that your point? You ignore those who made their fortunes early with repetitive dungeon speed runs, T6 ore farming or doing the world boss tour on every single character all day. Sure the devs have nerfed those activities because they bring new currency into the game. The TP simply moves it around between players and the fees and taxes are there to siphon a portion of it.

An increase in the tax rate would simply get passed on to consumers, with a little bit being absorbed by sellers. It would not be an effective tax on the rich.

So what would be an effective tax on the rich, and when will it be implemented?

Ohoni.6057:

An increase in the tax rate would simply get passed on to consumers, with a little bit being absorbed by sellers. It would not be an effective tax on the rich.

So what would be an effective tax on the rich, and when will it be implemented?

Why does there need to be an effective tax just for the rich in the first place?