Guild Wars 2

Why have all holiday events switched from what was a fairly conservative droprate of items to a massive oversupply?

What is going to be done about the insane glut of items that exist 9 months after the time limited events? Candy corn has remained at 12c all year, and due to the self sustaining vial → ToT → candy cycle it’ll never run out of supply. When halloween is reintroduced the major drop will be worthless if nothing is done. And is this intended? If recipies return items that can be used in a cycle, shouldn’t they be ensured to always return significantly less each time (they certainly don’t need dust added in to destroy any kind of cycling, but they certainly shouldn’t be returning 0.6-1.2 which candy corn is).

22 million tiny snowflakes are sitting on the TP, is this supposed to be healthy? What happens next Wintersday, when people’s inventories were already being spammed with worthless junk when the junk starts off worthless due to the existing glut?

Shouldn’t there be a mechanism to alleviate saturated holiday markets?

Risingashes.8694:

Why have all holiday events switched from what was a fairly conservative droprate of items to a massive oversupply?

What is going to be done about the insane glut of items that exist 9 months after the time limited events? Candy corn has remained at 12c all year, and due to the self sustaining vial -> ToT -> candy cycle it’ll never run out of supply. When halloween is reintroduced the major drop will be worthless if nothing is done. And is this intended? If recipies return items that can be used in a cycle, shouldn’t they be ensured to always return significantly less each time (they certainly don’t need dust added in to destroy any kind of cycling, but they certainly shouldn’t be returning 0.6-1.2 which candy corn is).

22 million tiny snowflakes are sitting on the TP, is this supposed to be healthy? What happens next Wintersday, when people’s inventories were already being spammed with worthless junk when the junk starts off worthless due to the existing glut?

Shouldn’t there be a mechanism to alleviate saturated holiday markets?

I think candy corn was handled rather well, regardless of the massive supply on the tp.
With the introduction of a new big sink with the gobbler they also added year round supply via maize balm during last year. As you said, since then its has been incredible stable in price and i dont see how this is a bad thing because its not at vendor value.
The cheap price makes sure that the gobbler is a great investment for those that bought it and also offers cheap 20 slot bags. The glut of other worthless stuff from t&t bags is another thing though. Most foods and potions are being deleted or sold to vendor, if they have value there.

Snowflakes are abit more screwed up, though, while t4 and t5 flakes have decent sinks , the other 4 dont and especially t1 snowflakes are massing up supply from the gathering tools.

Wanze.8410:

As you said, since then its has been incredible stable in price and i dont see how this is a bad thing because its not at vendor value.

And what happens when the event is rereleased?

We’ve already got a ridiculous glut with technically 0 supply being spawned, only with the ToT cycle.

God knows how much is sitting on alts.

But even if alts are empty, what’ll happen to the price? What value will the candy corn be to people doing the event?

I’m unsure why you think holiday items keeping a constant value is a good thing. They’re supposed to be time limited.

Risingashes.8694:

Wanze.8410:

As you said, since then its has been incredible stable in price and i dont see how this is a bad thing because its not at vendor value.

And what happens when the event is rereleased?

We’ve already got a ridiculous glut with technically 0 supply being spawned, only with the ToT cycle.

God knows how much is sitting on alts.

But even if alts are empty, what’ll happen to the price? What value will the candy corn be to people doing the event?

I’m unsure why you think holiday items keeping a constant value is a good thing. They’re supposed to be time limited.

As long as candy corn still has enough sinks during halloween, I dont think its price has to neccessarily go further down, which isnt even a problem as long as it doesnt go down to vendor value.

Even during past halloweens, the price crashed to a couple of copper every time.
I dont know why you expect to get a silver or so for every candy corn that will drop during halloween.

The conversion to cobs and recipes that use candy corn mitigates that material. We still have 19 million of them for sale but a lot of it is supply priced at or above twice the going rate (around 13.5 million priced above 34 c).

Snowflakes on the other hand have only a few popular uses and dropped in vast quantities as players did those side winter dailies this year. On top of that the shear number of gathering tools that also drop flakes simply compounded the problem. Tiny Snowflakes went from 8.5s with 28K for sale to 5c with 72K for sale in 3 days. And there’s been 11.5 million for sale now. Demand simply wasn’t there. There are over 11 million priced above that 5c price today for sale.

They need to have some kind of bulk snowflake eater. One flake for ice cream or rune or sigil isn’t going to help.

Imagine crafting snowman finisher charges, or a temp mini pet, or a temp snowball mail delivery (thwack! you’ve got mail). I’m spitballing here but you see what I’m getting at, they need to increase demand by some means.

Behellagh.1468:

The conversion to cobs and recipes that use candy corn mitigates that material. We still have 19 million of them for sale but a lot of it is supply priced at or above twice the going rate (around 13.5 million priced above 34 c).

Snowflakes on the other hand have only a few popular uses and dropped in vast quantities as players did those side winter dailies this year. On top of that the shear number of gathering tools that also drop flakes simply compounded the problem. Tiny Snowflakes went from 8.5s with 28K for sale to 5c with 72K for sale in 3 days. And there’s been 11.5 million for sale now. Demand simply wasn’t there. There are over 11 million priced above that 5c price today for sale.

They need to have some kind of bulk snowflake eater. One flake for ice cream or rune or sigil isn’t going to help.

Imagine crafting snowman finisher charges, or a temp mini pet, or a temp snowball mail delivery (thwack! you’ve got mail). I’m spitballing here but you see what I’m getting at, they need to increase demand by some means.

All “Festival Materials”, like candy corn, snowflakes, quartz, sprockets, etc. have seen significant changes to their supply and demand during and between festivals. Some stuff, like candy corn and sprockets have been incredibly stable over months and basically are healthy markets and some, like t1 snowflakes or quartz, which are quite unbalanced atm.

But t1 snowflakes for example dont really pose an economic problem for the moment, so they dont have to push a solution before next wintersday.

Sure, it would be nice, if something you get is usable for something rather then selling it to a vendor or deleting it.

I dont think they would lack ideas for implementing new sinks for that (or adjusting the faucets) but they simply dont have the time to implement them.

Wanze.8410:

But t1 snowflakes for example dont really pose an economic problem for the moment, so they dont have to push a solution before next wintersday.

I suppose this depends on what you deem an economic problem.

Anyone suggesting these are economy breaking issues is a nut (or woefully uninformed) as they are contained issues. The most uncontained is the snowflakes in terms of their effect on speed crafting (snowflakes have made up the majority of 1-400s for most of this year, but really- who cares if craft levelers are given a cheaper option.

There has been a depressive effect on the lower tiers since (unless my brain is missing something) that’s the only major draw. But that only really effects people making alts, and money making isn’t a goal for most of those players (I’d hope).

But supply walls just irk me, and I don’t think they’re good for consumer confidence. Yes, candy crashed last halloween- but that’s an aspect of the issue in and of itself. ANet shouldn’t be dumping items to the point that they become not worth listing, that isn’t ‘fun’ for the player, it turns rewards in to a chore.

Once we hit the next round of events, the oversupply is going to be an issue. Speculators have been the ones keeping the markets from reaching zero, and if speculators have 1 million of whatever left over from one year ago, that they’ve already written off, you’re going to see nearly every market involved with events sit as vendor forever.

I think that 20 slot bags being 3.6 gold is a problem, when the Superior Rune of Holding is 10 gold. I think that the candy corn gobbler giving WvW buffs all-year-round for a few silver when the equivalent costs 135 gems is a problem.

Are they massive problems? No. But it’s clearly not working correctly. And if the devs leave it to the last minute to say “Oh- candy corn is still worthless. What’re we going to do now?” right before Halloween I’m afraid of the haphazard bandaid fix they apply. I’d rather not have candy corn go to 2c, I don’t think anyone would be happy with that outcome (hyperbole, obviously someone is always happy/outraged about everything on rotation, I’m sure there’d be a rooftop party in the middle of a hostile alien invasion).

Risingashes.8694:

Once we hit the next round of events, the oversupply is going to be an issue.

Its only gonna be a problem, if they release the same rewards and droprates as last year, which they have never done.

Just the reintroduction of the gobbler will be a massive sink from players who dont have it yet. Honestly, I a not concerned about candy corn, I am more concerned about all the other halloween items that drop from t&t bags, like nougat centers, plactic fangs and skulls, whose main sink, converting it into the rare mats, gets disabled between festivals, or all the food that drops in such quantities that nobody would ever have to craft them.
The same goes for the nourishments and tonics.

Wintersday is a bit harder to balance because snowflakes come in 6 tiers and will influence the crafting market on all levels as a substitute for other fine mats. T5 mats, which are used to craft rares for the forge, dropped 33% in value, the same value decrease was seen for precursors. That might have been seen as a good change because pres got pretty expensive last year but all the other t5 fine mats represent a good chunk of the average end game loot, which has been devalued throughout the year. The new salvageable fancy wintersday clothes acted as a huge faucet for cloth, silk also lost 33% in value, so it had a huge impact on ascended crafting costs.

John Smith.4610:

Zaxares.5419:

So, John, you mentioned before in the past that during Halloween 2013, you guys “made the sinks too difficult to interact with”. Now that Halloween 2014 is drawing to a close, are you more satisfied with how the sinks have worked for this year?

My personal feeling as a player is “Yes”. Supply has been massively increased, while the sink costs have been lowered, leading to the impression that “grind” has been reduced to a much more manageable level. At the same time, due to the wide variety of stuff that can be bought from the vendors, there’s a much higher chance for any individual player to have something that interests them, resulting in greater participation and thus more overall use of the Halloween mats and the Trading Post (of people buying and selling said mats and goodies).

I’m just curious to know if your internal metrics are bearing my impression out.

I’m very pleased with this year’s Halloween, and I get the general impression that the players agree as well.

Hi John,

I wanted to ask you the same question again about the long term impact of Halloween 9 months after the event was ended. During and shortly after the Event, I would have agreed, it was rather well implemented, considering no new content was added and only reward structures have been adjusted. But now, I am not so sure anymore due to many festival specific mats and consumables being oversupplied and at vendor value.

Lets start with the good things:
Candy Corn is incredibly stable ever since Halloween and i dont expect it to raise another 100% or so in value, like between other Halloween events. I think thats due to the new big sinks that have been introduced, the Gobbler, which was a great addition (but probably completely erased boosters as gem sinks) and 20 slot bags for cobs.

Adding very rare drops to the loot table of T&T bags, like the minis, Poly-Trinkets, charged quartz, t6 fine mats, some recipes and maize balm was a good move as well because it keeps opening them interesting throughout the year and making them available through the home instance node and maize balm farming made sure that their availability is secured throughout the year. After all, less limited time rewards were something the player base asked for before LS season 2.

I went ahead and opened 1000 T&T bags just now, here is what i got and what i did with it, including my evaluation of it being a good drop or not:

• 10.6k candy corn, traded for 10 cobs, listed on the tp for 14.7g after taxes, 35% of the overall value of the 1000 bags – desired drop
• About 1.1k each skulls, fangs and nougat, sold to vendor for about 13.5G, 33% of the overall value, heavily oversupplied – Due to the high vendor value and volume a desired drop but heavily oversupplied with over 8 million each on the tp and no viable sinks except vendor
• about 90 each crystalized nougats, sharpening skulls and pumpkin oil, sold for 1.75g to vendor, less than 2% of the overall value, heavily oversupplied and an undesired drop
• a combined 350 of the 6 different food items, 4 of them destroyed because traded for 2c on tp and no vendor value, Spicy pumpkin cookies and glazed peach tart listed for a profit of 30s – undesired drops
• 30 maize balm, listed for 2g after taxes, 5% of overall value – desired drop
• 10 each spider, halloween, candy corn and slaying potions/tonics, 25 bottles of batwing brew, all destroyed, oversupplied on no demand on tp – undesired drops
• I got 2 recipes which sold for a few silver, but some recipes can be sold for a couple of gold – desired drops
• 1 old pillowcase, a couple of copper, undesired drop

Account bound mats: Toilet paper and egg bundles or ok, either use them or delete them, essence of luck is a nice drop but becomes undesired once you reach 300% account mf. Shards, dust and dragonite is a nice drop if you need it but undesired if you already have too much of it. In general, I wouldnt have put them into t&t bags and wintersday gifts anyways because it defeats their initial purpose of making sure that people complete some content in order to craft ascended gear, now you can indirectly buy them on the tp.

Granted, i didnt get any highly desireable drops, like the minis, expensive recipes, trinkets, t6 mats or endless tonics but the amount of items i simply vendor or delete is too high in my opinion.

Especially the food items, nourishments, maize balm, tonics and potions shouldnt be on the loot table at their current rates because not only are most of them oversupplied and have no demand, it also completely renders crafting them useless because they are available on the tp aplenty way below crafting value, which again completely destroys crafting sinks for materials like candy corn, nougat, plastic fangs and skulls.

I wish, i could get Bunny Ears in the gem store.

Edit: Sorry, wrong thread

Ah, the old “oops, I accidentally bumped my own thread” trick.

Mr Smith is silent
I guess he is working on something big
Can u describe how far you are involved in HoT?

I decided to revive this thread but not with its original intent as John hasnt really posted here in a while and opened up a new topic in the HoT forums, where you can ask questions, so head over there, if you are looking for a dev answer:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Economy-Questions-Repost/first

For those that know me, know that I am usually very active on topics centered around the game economy and there are quite some new ones since the economic blog post yesterday.

I got a little bored of posting the same stuff in three different topics so I will use this thread as a personal blog for the next couple of weeks to provide my point of view of anything related to the game economy before and after HoT release and hope for some constructive discussion.

If you have a question around these topics and would like my opinion on it, feel free to ask.

I would like to start with a more philosophical/ethical question about an issue that has been brought up repeatedly since launch and also again since yesterday.

Many players find it unfair or unethical that some traders buy up huge amounts of stock in order to relist it at a higher price and lure in a good profit.

For a current example lets take unrefined t5 leather, a material that has seen heavy movement in the last 24 hours.

Lets assume, I bought up 10k t5 leather for a price of 20c and immediately relisted it at 1s.

Many people claim that this kind of action is market manipulation and should be regulated in some way or another.

But what about the SW farmer, who farmed 10k thick leather in the last 3 months and instead of selling it to the vendor, continously listed it at 1s?

Is his action more ethical than mine?

Behellagh.1468:

The conversion to cobs and recipes that use candy corn mitigates that material. We still have 19 million of them for sale but a lot of it is supply priced at or above twice the going rate (around 13.5 million priced above 34 c).

Snowflakes on the other hand have only a few popular uses and dropped in vast quantities as players did those side winter dailies this year. On top of that the shear number of gathering tools that also drop flakes simply compounded the problem. Tiny Snowflakes went from 8.5s with 28K for sale to 5c with 72K for sale in 3 days. And there’s been 11.5 million for sale now. Demand simply wasn’t there. There are over 11 million priced above that 5c price today for sale.

They need to have some kind of bulk snowflake eater. One flake for ice cream or rune or sigil isn’t going to help.

Imagine crafting snowman finisher charges, or a temp mini pet, or a temp snowball mail delivery (thwack! you’ve got mail). I’m spitballing here but you see what I’m getting at, they need to increase demand by some means.

No, they don’t need a flake eater. What they need is people to realise some drops/items are worthless and destroy them, rather than dream of some way in which the item they stockpiled hoping to make a killing reselling will ever move off the floor.

Wanze.8410:

Lets assume, I bought up 10k t5 leather for a price of 20c and immediately relisted it at 1s.

Many people claim that this kind of action is market manipulation and should be regulated in some way or another.

But what about the SW farmer, who farmed 10k thick leather in the last 3 months and instead of selling it to the vendor, continously listed it at 1s?

Is his action more ethical than mine?

I don’t think there are any ethics behind seller’s actions, personally.

People are free to list at whatever they want. A price hike has its risks- you can list at a considerably crazy price if you want, but it won’t mean anything if it doesn’t sell… and you’ll just be out of pocket.

Maybe it’s a naive view, but I think that for very common items the market is self-regulating. Transactions are so frequent that you’d have to do some serious work to alter the price. If you list high to push the price you’ll just be undercut and very few will try and follow your lead. If you sell low you’ll just be bought up fast and nobody would notice otherwise.

Controlling/playing the market is far more possible with goods that have very few sell listings, of course. Rare items such as these aren’t necessity items (often just rare and flashy skins), so under these circumstances I definitely don’t think there’s much argument in regards to ethics.

Ethically I think there’d be a problem if people were being prevented from playing the game in a reasonable way because of market flipping/playing the market. For instance, if there was a very significant hike in cloth and leather, it could impact on newer players’ ability to craft armour for themselves. I believe this would require A-net to intervene and alter the acquisition of these materials so that it’s not a struggle for players finding their feet.

Using leather is not a typical example of why people are salty about commodity flipping.

For high-volume, readily available goods, commodity adjustments are very healthy. Flipping reduces gold fluidity via trading fees, raises prices for sellers (making the gold sink better), and makes the market more competitive.
As someone who typically provides materials for the market, I reap the benefits of upward shifts.

Where people get salty is market manipulations on rare items. There is no other acquisition for them (which ANet should address), and the forced scarcity puts a ridiculous value on them. Even for items with a .0001% drop rate (looking at you, named Exotics…), their value can become absurd.

And that’s where flipping starts to become “The Great Evil” of the economy. (Tongue-in-cheek, of course. :P) It starts a chain of gold-grinding to get these ludicrously priced items, which adds liquidity to the economy. And with those high-priced items, it also consolidates wealth into a small subset of the population.

As for ethics? I’m certainly not against someone doing work for profit. That’s everyday business. But as with any business, there needs to be more consideration for one’s impact than just raising his bottom line.

Behellagh.1468:

The conversion to cobs and recipes that use candy corn mitigates that material. We still have 19 million of them for sale but a lot of it is supply priced at or above twice the going rate (around 13.5 million priced above 34 c).

Snowflakes on the other hand have only a few popular uses and dropped in vast quantities as players did those side winter dailies this year. On top of that the shear number of gathering tools that also drop flakes simply compounded the problem. Tiny Snowflakes went from 8.5s with 28K for sale to 5c with 72K for sale in 3 days. And there’s been 11.5 million for sale now. Demand simply wasn’t there. There are over 11 million priced above that 5c price today for sale.

They need to have some kind of bulk snowflake eater. One flake for ice cream or rune or sigil isn’t going to help.

Imagine crafting snowman finisher charges, or a temp mini pet, or a temp snowball mail delivery (thwack! you’ve got mail). I’m spitballing here but you see what I’m getting at, they need to increase demand by some means.

On the positive side snowflakes being very cheap means that the cost of crafting from 400 to 500 goes down drastically as instead of using up powerful venom sacs and bones (mats needed for legendary crafting and sell for quite a bit) you can simply level up with snowflakes. As the armor that gets crafted from it is under a gold you could salvage them with a black lion kit for ectos and dark matters and even buy more giver’s exotic armor for just that purpose.

Rauderi.8706:

Using leather is not a typical example of why people are salty about commodity flipping.

For high-volume, readily available goods, commodity adjustments are very healthy. Flipping reduces gold fluidity via trading fees, raises prices for sellers (making the gold sink better), and makes the market more competitive.
As someone who typically provides materials for the market, I reap the benefits of upward shifts.

Where people get salty is market manipulations on rare items. There is no other acquisition for them (which ANet should address), and the forced scarcity puts a ridiculous value on them. Even for items with a .0001% drop rate (looking at you, named Exotics…), their value can become absurd.

And that’s where flipping starts to become “The Great Evil” of the economy. (Tongue-in-cheek, of course. :P) It starts a chain of gold-grinding to get these ludicrously priced items, which adds liquidity to the economy. And with those high-priced items, it also consolidates wealth into a small subset of the population.

As for ethics? I’m certainly not against someone doing work for profit. That’s everyday business. But as with any business, there needs to be more consideration for one’s impact than just raising his bottom line.

I could give you a scenario for a rare item as well.

Take BL skins for example. Whats the different impact to the market from a trader, who gets 5 skins on buy order for 75g when they come out and relists them for 300g and a player who has 5 tickets and exchanges them for 5 new BL skins and also lists them for 300g instead of selling to the highest bid of 75g?

John, why was paying for armor repairs removed? was that not a good sink for extra gold?

Wanze.8410:

Take BL skins for example. Whats the different impact to the market from a trader, who gets 5 skins on buy order for 75g when they come out and relists them for 300g and a player who has 5 tickets and exchanges them for 5 new BL skins and also lists them for 300g instead of selling to the highest bid of 75g?

Financially? Economically? Little difference beyond the process. Which also assumes the basic state of overinflated prices already existing at, per the example 301g.

Ethically? The flipper is buying up stock from demand at, say 74g, for someone who would presumably use it, rather than shuffle money around. Sure, free market principles apply, but it’s someone with a ton more money bullying another person’s place in line, and he doesn’t even use the items for their intended purpose.
But that’s the “I got mine” attitude that grates on the community.

Brostrodon.1657:

John, why was paying for armor repairs removed? was that not a good sink for extra gold?

Lorewise, it wasnt John Smith, who was responsible for that change.
We can thank the hero of the common tyrian, Evon Gnashblade, for that awesome change, who decided to pay for your broken armor.

Here is, what John had to say about it in his blogpost for the April 2014 feature pack:

“Despite his recent defeat in the Captain’s Council elections, Evon Gnashblade has magnanimously decided to put all of Tyria’s experts in armor repair on salary. That’s right: the day is fast approaching when you will never again have to pay for another repair! Explore and experiment all across Tyria with no cost to repair your armor damaged in trial and battle. We feel the time penalty to return and repair accomplishes our goal enough to not need a secondary cost that punishes newer and less experienced players the most.”

So it was mostly a design decision.

In the same update, they also removed fees for switching your traits with the reasoning that it hinders experimentation with new builds. To offset the lost gold sinks, they nerfed coin drops from champ bags.

Wether their original intention was to nerf champ bags as a gold faucet or remove the gold penalties for armor repair and trait resets, I dont know.

Here is the link ot the full blog post:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/say-goodbye-to-armor-repair-costs-and-hello-to-free-trait-resets/

API TRADING APPS

One thing I would like to discuss are trading apps that use the games item and account api. Since the beginning of the year, Anet implemented alot of new api endpoints, which apps can use to offer certain features and services. In recent months, alot of new websites were created that utilize those new api endpoints. Besides some features that arent related to trading or the economy, like sharing your build or look easily, there are some new ones that focus on trading and the economy.

For most of my trading info, i have been using gw2tp for the last year, gw2spidy had its uses for crafting or checking which recipe gives the highest profit for a certain mat but both websites havent been updated in functionality for a long time and some interesting new websites popped up in the last couple of months. Most of them are still in beta, which is understandable as Anet keeps adding new api endpoints every couple of weeks and will keep doing so for the next couple of months. One api endpoint im looking forward to is the guild api, which will be released with HoT or shortly after. Because it will enable me to calculate the value of all the stuff in my guild vaults. I did that once over a year ago the old fashioned way and it took me a little over 12 hours to add everything up. And at that time I only had 3 personal guild vaults, now i have access to 8 over 3 accounts. So a task, which would probably take me 50 hours right now, can be done within a minute, anytime i want.

If you want to know more about the api in general or want to see a list of available apps that utilize the api, check the subforum:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/community/api

If you never checked it out, you might be pleasantly surprised that most of the threads on the front page have a red tag and it has a CDI going since the start of the year.

2 new websites that offer great new economic ressources and trade-focussed services are gw2shinies and gw2bltc.

Both offer the usual item databases and trading info on all items, just like spidy and gw2tp but also alot of other tools to analyze trading data or how to spend your account bound currencies most profitable.

You can also register a free account with both websites to utilize some of the new account specific api endpoints.

Some features you can access without being logged into the game:

• Calculation and display of materials in your material storage, bank and inventory
• display your wallet
• display your wardrobe
• display unlocked dyes
• display your trading history in the last 90 days sortable by time, item, volume,value…
• calculate and display all your listings and buy orders, sortable
• calculate and display your flipping history, sortable
• calculate your paid taxes

New features are being added regularly on both sides and its worth keeping an eye on them. But as both are still in beta, expect some hick ups.

When i post on these forums I often get confronted with the claim that I am just trying to hawk my investments to other people in order to maximize my profit.

I agree that some of my posts do have that effect, the price of some items i invested in rose in value, after i talked about it on the forums.

But my ability to raise prizes by posting about it usually is never the reason why i invested in that item in the first place.

I invested in it for some other reason and would expect a good profit, even if I wouldnt talk about it. If I talk about a certain item or market I invested in, its usually not because i want to raise its price (even though i have to admit its a welcome side effect for the most part) but because i want to participate in a discussion about it.

Whenever someone decides to follow my lead and invest in the same item that i just talked about, he almost certainly will see a lower ROI over time than me, while mine gets bigger with everyone hopping on the hype train.

So its basically impossible for me to show people how to be as successful as me by just telling them in what to invest.

Thats why i have to try to teach them, how to find profitable markets or items themselves and which economic forces they should consider.
For that I will try a different approach. I will post screenshots of the top 10-15 items in my flipping, selling and purchasing history of the last 90 days (provided by gw2bltc) and tell you a little bit about every item on it.

Thank you for keeping this thread alive by posting on it. I always find your economic thoughts most interesting. Flipping isn’t something I do, but it’s still useful information (especially when I get into a debate on the forum about the trading post).

FLIPPING HISTORY TOP 12

A short explainer on what you are looking at in the attachment.

Flipping is a widely used term and its definition depends on personal opinion.
This summary uses data of all my purchases and sales within the last 90 days.

• # Items declares the number of identical items, that i purchased and sold within the last 90 days – that was 29k
• Gross Sales declares the value of all those 29k items before fees and taxes – that was 14k gold
• Listing and Exchange Fees (15%) self explainatory – 2.1k gold
• Total cost declares the amount of gold i paid for those items – 8-3k
• Total Profit declares the amount of profit i made out of those trades – 3.7k, thats 41,1g per day
• Profit %: the profit margin in percent – its 45% and quite high for me atm

My top 12 are sorted by profit, the last column.

additional info provided for the history results are quantity, average purchase price, average sales price and profit margin in %.

Some sidenotes:

This summary doesnt cover all my profits because it cant track speculative investments that i bought more than 90 days before selling them. But if I would have to hazard a guess, I would say that those trades make up for the mayority of my profits and arent neccesarily included in this list. Some of them you will see in the purchase and sales history though, which i intend to post later on.
I already mentioned that my profit % of 45% was quite high for my standards. Thats because some of the items in my top 12 have been very succesful. Some of you might be wondering why some of the profit % of those items are so ridicously high compared to the 45% overall figure. Thats because it also calculates negative flips, which happen, if you invest in the wrong market and at some point try to cut your losses and sometimes its a vault in data collection.

Here is an example:

4 months ago I bought a stack of items for 10s and relisted them for 1g. 80 days ago, the price rose to 1.5g lowest listing and 1.2g buy order. In the process, i sold my stack for 1g and this transaction gets clocked by the summary. I then decide to buy another stack of the item at 1.5g because i think the price will keep rising in the future, which is also clocked by the summary. Today, I still hold on to this stack of items and its price rose to 10g. While i had a huge profit margin on the first flipped stack and can expect the same profit margin, if i would sell the stack i am holding onto right now, the summary just registered a stack bought at 1.5g and a stack sold for 1g within the last 90 days and this item would probably be on the bottom of my summary. When I am done with my top 12, maybe i will comment my bottom 12.

• #1 Ghastly Grinning Shield Skin

Bought for 1111g and sold for 2350g, a profit margin of 80% or 889g.

Considering the length of the flip, this was a very sweet deal. I got it 2 days ago on buy order and posted and sold it today via listing.

BL and other rare or limited skins arent my most favourite market but after this trade i can hardly claim that this market cant be profitable. my personal history with skin trading isnt very extensive and I dont think I am in the top 10 traders on that market.
For me its just boring and predictable and one of the markets that is more prone to so called market manipulation.

In the last couple of years i had some moderate activity in timely limited skins, like the halloween 2012 shoulder and the 3 cheaper weapon skins (rifle, dagger,sword) or weapon and shoulder skins from the southsun release. But i dont think that their prices would have developed much different, if i wouldnt have participated on those markets.

Until recently, I never was involved in trading the expensive 2012 halloween skins (staff, gs, sh) in order to make a profit. I bought the gs skin about a year or so ago for a little less than 1k gold via direct purchase and i bought it for personal use.

I really like the gs skin and use it alot for the steam punk look on my charr warrior and think i made a good purchase for 1k gold, even if its price would plummet below that during this halloween. But i wouldnt pay 3-4k gold for it now, even though i could afford it because i think they are overpriced.

I am not very interested in the other 2 skins personally because i dont run staff or shield regularly to even warrant a 1k gold purchase. With the halloween season drawing near, chatter about reintroduction of those skins made its rounds and especially the shield had taken a fast dip in value. I dont think this halloween will put too much new supply out and i dont know if it might even be account bound.

In recents weeks i started clearing out my guild vaults in order to prepare for HoT release, so i had more cash on hand than i used to. Instead of investing in my usual items, which are plenty and cost me about 30 minutes to update, i decided to put in a buy order for the shield around 1k on saturday. I updated my bid several times on sunday up to 1111g. That one got filled on monday morning and i kept it for a day in order to figure out whether it would make more sense to sell it now or after halloween.
On Tuesday, the new blog posts came up about the economic changes, which triggered alot opportunities for investment and i was short on gold.

So i decided today to list it for 2350g, halfway between highest bid and lowest listing and it sold within a couple of hours. If I wouldnt have been short on cash when the news hit, I would have probably held on to it because i would expect to be able to sell it for 3k gold within the next month or 4k gold within the next 3.

• # 2+3 Parrot and Raven Mail Carrier

I flipped a stack of both also within a very short time and a hefty profit margin of 1100% and 500%. I think i bought them in July or August and sold them when someone bought out supplies at the start of september. Its a good example of how i made lots of profit off another investor. The price spike from the buy out didnt last very long and prices have been down close to 10s, so alot less than i paid for mine. The Raven mail carrier saw some demand in the last 2 days, since a new Raven themed legendary staff was announced.

In the summer, Anet didnt really update the gem store anymore on a weekly basis but when they started again, the BLTC chests and key acquisition have seen frequent updates. Since then I started trading more in items that drop from BL chests. There are many events that can trigger an opening spree of chests form the player base, for example updated loot tables with new items or key sales.

During those waves alot of undesired drops from the chests enter the market, for example the mail carriers, minis, backpack skins, dyes. Those items see a sudden drop in value and i made a good profit by putting in new buy orders and relisting them 2 weeks later, once prices settle again .

• # 4 Heavy Bag of Coins

This is a very interesting item because its current value and traffic is mindboggling.
As you can see, i flipped 10 of those in the last 90 days, buying for 25g and selling for 47g for a profit of 55% and 143g.

For those who dont know this item, a little history. The Heavy Bag of coins was originally on the loot table for black lion chests but was removed at the start of last year. When opened, it drops coin ranging from 80c to 1.5g, so the current value is way overpriced. But with all limited items, it gets traded, mostly between traders, i would guess. If you put in a buy order for an item like this, all you can speculate on is that you will find another speculator, who is willing to pay a higher price for it with the goal to sell it for an even higher price.

I think on average, i have to update my buy order 20-30 times until one gets filled. Its not great profit like the first three items but a decent return for the amount of work needed.

• #5 Ghostly Spineguard

For a long time, this has been the only tradeable rare/exotic backpiece with dire stats, which could explain its high price. It drops from the AC dungeon and frozen maw chest and at very low rates. However, since Lunar New year, there is another option with the Lucky Great Ram Lantern, which even is exotic and also offers dire stats. That one costs around 15g, so its a little cheaper than the ghostly spineguard and offers better stats. Why people still buy the ghostly spineguard at current prices is a mystery to me, my guess is they just dont do their research and pay a premium for it.

But just like the Heavy bag of coins, it has a low turnover but still a decent profit for the work required.

Just like with other dungeon specific rewards (usually trinkets) supply can suddenly drop quite rapidly. Wether this is because ANet is fiddling around with its drop chances, they get bugged or the mayority of supply is generated by bots, which usually get banned in waves, I dont know.

• #6 Electro Lemon Dye

Again a lucky short term flip, bought for 55g and sold for 200g, while prices came tumbling down when they got reintroduced.

• #7+9 Cavaliers and Soldier Spineguard

I have quite a bit of back items on my frequent flipper list, with a profit margin around 50%, they offer a decent ROI and usually have a turnover within 7 days.
As already mentioned, I dont really flip that much to make a profit, so i dont always have buy orders for these items up, usually only if I am lacking other investment opportunites and have too much gold on hand.

Those Spineguards are fractal drops and their exotic versions are account bound and not tradeable. With a highest bid a little over ecto value, fractal runners are happy to sell it to buy orders and they see decent demand from players who purchase their first back piece, once they hit lvl 80.

• #8 Platinum Doubloons

I dont really flip plat doubloons on purpose as they are more of an investment thing for me. They cant be target farmed atm and they have seen additional demand, when boon duration got taken off the trait line boni, so people have to use bountiful nourishments to buff it or slot doubloons directly. I also expect Anet to introduce new recipes to buff your boon duration with HoT and I guess Plat Doubloons will be an ingredient.

Usually, when i invest in items, i keep most of my stock in my vault and only list a small amount of them on the tp in a price range i might consider listing my stored stocks for, so i get a notice, once they sell, in my trading history.

So the 650 plat doubloons i bought for 23s and sold for 39s for 55% profit are a byproduct of that practice.

• #10 Mini Twisted Nightmare

Many people dont know that this mini is part of one of the few mf recipes for minis that dont have the usual rng outcome.

If you forge it with 3 other Twisted Minis from set 2, reaver, mender and horror, you will get one of the three exotic steam minis back (so a little rng is involved), which arent obtainable via any other means.

Usually i make my profit by putting in buy orders for the 4 twisted minis, forging them and selling the exotic mini i get out of the mf. But just like dyes, mail carriers etc, there were a couple of supply surges in recent weeks from bl chests and i was able to fetch a couple at a low price of 13g. When the price went back up to 27g a week later, I decided to list some because i needed some gold and was out of twisted horrors to forge them.

• #11 Essence of Time

Just like Platinum Doubloons, this is more of an investment than a flipping item for me, even though it has a good profit margin. I usually have a stack listed to get notified, once it sells. RIght now, it only has a very small sink, the eternal sands focus, and i expect anet to introduce new recipes with it in HoT. There are plenty of other traders in this market, so once in a while, some stock gets bought out and i make some decent coin from my notifier stack in the listings.

Flipping 12 stacks might seem alot to some people but I have plenty more in storage and its just 5g profit per stack atm, so nothing to get too excited about

• #12 White gold Dye

Another flipping opportunity I took advantage off that was triggered by gem store temporary gem store releases.

But the low buy order price wasnt triggered by general supply of dyes from Chests but mostly by the reintroduction of special dye kits.
This item is on the drop table of Taimis Dye Kit, which also offers the until then pricy electro dyes. When it got reintroduced, alot of people opened Taimis dye kits in order to get electro dyes. White gold dye, just like the other rare, masterwork and fine dyes also on the the loot table of that kit, flooded on the market and while most people concentrated on the electro dyes, I snatched up the other dyes for low buy orders.

SALES HISTORY TOP 12

I sold 97k individual items in the last 90 days for an overall value of 35k gold, paying 5.25k gold in fees and taxes.

These are the items that generated the most gold:

• #1 Charged Sheets of Ambrite

I sold a little more than 10 stacks for an average of a little over 1g, so this tops the list with 2859g in sales.

In the past, i have been posting many times in discussions surrounding the quartz market, so i wont tell you too much here. If you are interested in more info, check out my thread from July:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/The-Quartz-Chrystal-Drought/first

The reason why Sheets of charged ambrite arent seen in the top12 of my flipping history even though they have been a very profitable investment for me until now, i already explained in the introduction of the flipping history.
Most of those sheets I already sold i bought more than 3 months ago, at the start of the year for 10-20 silver.

• #2 Ghastly Grinning Shield

Already covered in flipping history

• #3+4 Recipes for zealot insignia and inscription

In the past, I have been heavily involved in trading limited recipes of all kinds and i made lots of gold with it. So the sum of the last 90 days is just peanuts.

Zealot/keeper recipes are probably the worst recipe implementation Anet made to date, with celestial recipes during the first and 2nd bazaar a close 2nd.

But with LS season 2 last year, Anet went away from limited rewards and started reintroducing items, at least temporarily, that werent available. With the announcement of HoT at the beginning of the year, I started to slowly sell my stock of limited recipe sheets. I actually expected some to be re-released in spring but that didnt happen. So I already sold most of my stock longer than 90 days ago and it isnt in this report. I bought most of them for 1-2 gold last year. While the price for the inscription recipe has been more or less stable around 10g, the insignia took off again to over 100g, after Anet introduced stat swap recipes for ascended gear. But by then, i already had sold most of my stock. But i wont complain about a 1000% profit margin.
I expect those recipes to become available again with HoT, so I stopped investing in them but I already was wrong with that prediction in spring.

• #5 The Legend

Until now, I was only active on the precursor market as a supplier, I never bought a single one but forged about 40 and sold them, expect the 2 i crafted into leggies for personal use.
Most of my forging was done during last year Halloween and Wintersday, when t5 mats became rediciously cheap and made forging on a larger scale quite profitable. During those times, it usually took me a day to forge a pre on average (takes lots of refining mithril and elder wood) and made a couple of hundred gold profit on each one.
I still keep my eye on the t5 market and put in some buy orders, when prices drop for one reason or another, craft some weapons and throw them in the forge. But this was my only pre i forged in the last three months and it actually took me quite some tries so i didnt really make any profit from it.

• #6 Superior Rune of Antitoxin
  Most of my stock of this item is very old, acquired last spring, when I salvaged them off Air filtration devices that dropped during the LA Invasion of Scarlet. I got those basically for free, as the salvaged ectos were enough to cover my costs but it was also directly available for a couple of silver on the tp at that time.
  Considering the current price of 2g, this has been a great investment, even though its still traded more than 60% under current crafting costs of 5.5g per rune, so prices might go up even more in the future.

• #6 Deathly Pauldron Skin

As already mentioned, I dont trade too much in expensive limited skins, even though I probably traded the most in the 9 halloween shoulder skins from 2012. But that was back in 2013 while all of them cost far less than 100g. During wintersday, ANet released the grenth hood and the character on the blog post had the deathly shoulderpads skin, which sparked a huge price spike. But by then, I had already stopped trading with them becasause the market was too slow for me.

Later on, I purchased a Deathly Bulls Pauldron skin for my warrior and a couple of months back decided to get the Deathly Pauldron skin as well for myself. If I remember correctly, i put in a buy order for around 300g at that time. But i didnt realize that i put in 2 buy orders by accident and both filled over night. So l listed one for sale and got a good price for it.

• #7 Opal Orbs

Compared to most other orbs who mostly sit close to vendor value, Opal Orbs have a decent demand, since the introduction of assassins stats and make it a slightly cheaper alternative to ruby orbs which are used in many dps builds. It also has decent demand in legendary crafting as it is needed for the bifrost and dreamer.
Most of my orbs i salvage off green dungeon trinkets, which gives me a couple of silver profit per salvage, depending on daily prices. Sometimes i was able to make 1-2 silver profit transmogrifying them when t5 dust was cheap.
My profit margin on on this one is probably very low, maybe 25% but i can make 1-2 gold per day, if I want for a couple of minutes work.

• #8+12 Mail Carriers

Already covered in flipping history

• #9-11 Sprocket Trinket Recipes

Those are the recipes for zealot trinkets, so similar story as the insignia and inscription recipes at #2 and 3 with the difference that ascended trinkets of this stat arent available.

The dont have the same demand as the insignia and inscription recipes and it feels like there arent many traders beside be anymore and their stock is quite low with only a handful available on the tp. I still got stock of those and decided to hold on to it, to see if prices go even higher, once stock runs out.

I’ve got no head for profit. That said, I’m glad to see some things I predicted being worth something also on your radar.

Sariel V.7024:

I’ve got no head for profit. That said, I’m glad to see some things I predicted being worth something also on your radar.

I guess you chose not to invest in them, then. It happens alot to me, that i think i should buy something but then i dont.

On Monday I was about to make a post about how i expect most materials to at least rise 50-100% at some point or another in the next 6 weeks at least once, wether due to speculation before HoT or changed reward systems and demand after HoT.

I didnt post it on Monday because i wanted to buy a stack of each material i had in mind and relist it for either 50% or 100% more to see how accurate my prediction would be and thought I do it Tuesday.

But John Smith posted first and i got busy with other things. This morning, I would already have sold at least 15 mats of those i had in mind, probably some more now.

John Smith.4610:

blakkrskyrr.7413:

JS, do you ever think you are one of the Tyrian gods when it comes to the economy? The amount of insane changes to the game over the last 2 years in terms of economy is, to me, bewildering. Prices of goods have fluctuated astronomically since the game released. How many of these changes were you guys aware would occur when implementing updates to the game such as: changing weapon skins (and some other skin types) to BoE, rich orichalcum vein add/removal, introduction of ascended gear and ascended crafting (especially the crafting. balance of goods is ridiculous. 100 silk bolt >> 50 mithril bars is frakking ridiculous, not to mention linen and cotton. leather also is pretty much worth as much as the dirt beneath our feet), the mystic toilet (several guild members seem to be extremely lucky getting 2 dusks or zaps within 20 rares in the toilet whereas most, included myself, have dumped hundreds upon thousands over time in the toilet and have received not one). the economy is almost, if not more so, frustrating as the economy was in WoW between vanilla and the release of BC.

I’m not entirely sure what you’re asking, but I’m going to make an attempt.
Prices of some goods have fluctuates in accordance with new content, new players or changes we’ve made, but overall the Tyrian economy is incredibly stable.

It’s really rare that the price of any major good fluctuates in a way we didn’t design or expect (it has happened, I think I spoke about it before in another thread). That doesn’t mean I think all good prices are where they should be or always will be, it means that we pay attention and make what changes we feel confident in.

The mystic forge itself plays a role in the economy, but the nature of the distribution of goods from it is another topic entirely (literally, it should be on the first two pages of this forum or so).

If this doesn’t answer what you were asking, follow up and I’ll try to answer more specifically.

I hope you guys do not get to fixated on the economy alone. It’s good to have a good economy but it’s more important to have a fun game!

We have seen some some releases / updates in the past where it looks like the content was purely balanced around the economy, taking away much of the fun. A good example was the Mordremoth’s invasion event we had recently.

It was grindy content (while there where some nice mechanics hidden in it) with a reward system that looked like is was the result of a economy calculator. That resulted in dull (and grindy) content, but it was not a lot of fun.

Same we do now see with the dungeon changes. Dungeons get grinded for gold but of all the grind in this game (mainly champion chest grind, Silverwaste, EotM, Word-bosses and dungeons) at the very least the dungeon one is the most interesting content, at least it has a some coordination and tactics.

Honestly, the other content is so brainlessly that it should give you a notification “Warning: Doing this content for any considerable time, might cause irreversible brain damage.”. Yeah a bid of a exaggeration, but you know exactly what I mean.

Now what get the nerf.. dungeons? According to some because of how dungeons work vs those other grinds whats makes dungeons a possible ‘problem’ for the economy while those other grinds don’t have that problem so much.

Well that’s a bad reason because economy is now more important then engaging game-play.

Same with the 100.000 currencies this game has. I understand it from an economy viewpoint as you are basically creating multiple small economies that are easier to control, and even if one of them would fail, it only touches that small part. But any currency is another currency grind what is by far the least engaging form of game-play (grinding currency).

If you want gold (or any currency) to have less inflation, instead of trying to nerf any way to earn gold that might mess with the economy (like dungeons) you should try to make gold less important. There are to many items you can now only buy with gold (that includes the gem-store.. that might even be one of the main aspects). Make more of those items direct account-bound rewards from specific content. Then you create an overall more engaging and better rewarding type of game-play without hurting the economy.

So please, don’t be to fixated on the economy, we have already seen to many bad changes come from it and this game being so grindy and having all those currency’s seems to be is a part of that.

HoT seems to make some steps in the right direction, while on the other had it also includes even more currency’s to grind.. many currencies might be a good way to control the economy, but it also creates dull grindy content.

So again, please don’t be to fixated on the economy!

Devata.6589:

John Smith.4610:

blakkrskyrr.7413:

JS, do you ever think you are one of the Tyrian gods when it comes to the economy? The amount of insane changes to the game over the last 2 years in terms of economy is, to me, bewildering. Prices of goods have fluctuated astronomically since the game released. How many of these changes were you guys aware would occur when implementing updates to the game such as: changing weapon skins (and some other skin types) to BoE, rich orichalcum vein add/removal, introduction of ascended gear and ascended crafting (especially the crafting. balance of goods is ridiculous. 100 silk bolt >> 50 mithril bars is frakking ridiculous, not to mention linen and cotton. leather also is pretty much worth as much as the dirt beneath our feet), the mystic toilet (several guild members seem to be extremely lucky getting 2 dusks or zaps within 20 rares in the toilet whereas most, included myself, have dumped hundreds upon thousands over time in the toilet and have received not one). the economy is almost, if not more so, frustrating as the economy was in WoW between vanilla and the release of BC.

I’m not entirely sure what you’re asking, but I’m going to make an attempt.
Prices of some goods have fluctuates in accordance with new content, new players or changes we’ve made, but overall the Tyrian economy is incredibly stable.

It’s really rare that the price of any major good fluctuates in a way we didn’t design or expect (it has happened, I think I spoke about it before in another thread). That doesn’t mean I think all good prices are where they should be or always will be, it means that we pay attention and make what changes we feel confident in.

The mystic forge itself plays a role in the economy, but the nature of the distribution of goods from it is another topic entirely (literally, it should be on the first two pages of this forum or so).

If this doesn’t answer what you were asking, follow up and I’ll try to answer more specifically.

I hope you guys do not get to fixated on the economy alone. It’s good to have a good economy but it’s more important to have a fun game!

We have seen some some releases / updates in the past where it looks like the content was purely balanced around the economy, taking away much of the fun. A good example was the Mordremoth’s invasion event we had recently.

It was grindy content (while there where some nice mechanics hidden in it) with a reward system that looked like is was the result of a economy calculator. That resulted in dull (and grindy) content, but it was not a lot of fun.

Same we do now see with the dungeon changes. Dungeons get grinded for gold but of all the grind in this game (mainly champion chest grind, Silverwaste, EotM, Word-bosses and dungeons) at the very least the dungeon one is the most interesting content, at least it has a some coordination and tactics.

Honestly, the other content is so brainlessly that it should give you a notification “Warning: Doing this content for any considerable time, might cause irreversible brain damage.”. Yeah a bid of a exaggeration, but you know exactly what I mean.

Now what get the nerf.. dungeons? According to some because of how dungeons work vs those other grinds whats makes dungeons a possible ‘problem’ for the economy while those other grinds don’t have that problem so much.

Well that’s a bad reason because economy is now more important then engaging game-play.

Same with the 100.000 currencies this game has. I understand it from an economy viewpoint as you are basically creating multiple small economies that are easier to control, and even if one of them would fail, it only touches that small part. But any currency is another currency grind what is by far the least engaging form of game-play (grinding currency).

If you want gold (or any currency) to have less inflation, instead of trying to nerf any way to earn gold that might mess with the economy (like dungeons) you should try to make gold less important. There are to many items you can now only buy with gold (that includes the gem-store.. that might even be one of the main aspects). Make more of those items direct account-bound rewards from specific content. Then you create an overall more engaging and better rewarding type of game-play without hurting the economy.

So please, don’t be to fixated on the economy, we have already seen to many bad changes come from it and this game being so grindy and having all those currency’s seems to be is a part of that.

HoT seems to make some steps in the right direction, while on the other had it also includes even more currency’s to grind.. many currencies might be a good way to control the economy, but it also creates dull grindy content.

So again, please don’t be to fixated on the economy!

They are fixated as much on the economy instead of fun gameplay as players are fixated on the rewards rather than the fun of the content provided.

Wanze.8410:

Devata.6589:

John Smith.4610:

blakkrskyrr.7413:

JS, do you ever think you are one of the Tyrian gods when it comes to the economy? The amount of insane changes to the game over the last 2 years in terms of economy is, to me, bewildering. Prices of goods have fluctuated astronomically since the game released. How many of these changes were you guys aware would occur when implementing updates to the game such as: changing weapon skins (and some other skin types) to BoE, rich orichalcum vein add/removal, introduction of ascended gear and ascended crafting (especially the crafting. balance of goods is ridiculous. 100 silk bolt >> 50 mithril bars is frakking ridiculous, not to mention linen and cotton. leather also is pretty much worth as much as the dirt beneath our feet), the mystic toilet (several guild members seem to be extremely lucky getting 2 dusks or zaps within 20 rares in the toilet whereas most, included myself, have dumped hundreds upon thousands over time in the toilet and have received not one). the economy is almost, if not more so, frustrating as the economy was in WoW between vanilla and the release of BC.

I’m not entirely sure what you’re asking, but I’m going to make an attempt.
Prices of some goods have fluctuates in accordance with new content, new players or changes we’ve made, but overall the Tyrian economy is incredibly stable.

It’s really rare that the price of any major good fluctuates in a way we didn’t design or expect (it has happened, I think I spoke about it before in another thread). That doesn’t mean I think all good prices are where they should be or always will be, it means that we pay attention and make what changes we feel confident in.

The mystic forge itself plays a role in the economy, but the nature of the distribution of goods from it is another topic entirely (literally, it should be on the first two pages of this forum or so).

If this doesn’t answer what you were asking, follow up and I’ll try to answer more specifically.

I hope you guys do not get to fixated on the economy alone. It’s good to have a good economy but it’s more important to have a fun game!

We have seen some some releases / updates in the past where it looks like the content was purely balanced around the economy, taking away much of the fun. A good example was the Mordremoth’s invasion event we had recently.

It was grindy content (while there where some nice mechanics hidden in it) with a reward system that looked like is was the result of a economy calculator. That resulted in dull (and grindy) content, but it was not a lot of fun.

Same we do now see with the dungeon changes. Dungeons get grinded for gold but of all the grind in this game (mainly champion chest grind, Silverwaste, EotM, Word-bosses and dungeons) at the very least the dungeon one is the most interesting content, at least it has a some coordination and tactics.

Honestly, the other content is so brainlessly that it should give you a notification “Warning: Doing this content for any considerable time, might cause irreversible brain damage.”. Yeah a bid of a exaggeration, but you know exactly what I mean.

Now what get the nerf.. dungeons? According to some because of how dungeons work vs those other grinds whats makes dungeons a possible ‘problem’ for the economy while those other grinds don’t have that problem so much.

Well that’s a bad reason because economy is now more important then engaging game-play.

Same with the 100.000 currencies this game has. I understand it from an economy viewpoint as you are basically creating multiple small economies that are easier to control, and even if one of them would fail, it only touches that small part. But any currency is another currency grind what is by far the least engaging form of game-play (grinding currency).

If you want gold (or any currency) to have less inflation, instead of trying to nerf any way to earn gold that might mess with the economy (like dungeons) you should try to make gold less important. There are to many items you can now only buy with gold (that includes the gem-store.. that might even be one of the main aspects). Make more of those items direct account-bound rewards from specific content. Then you create an overall more engaging and better rewarding type of game-play without hurting the economy.

So please, don’t be to fixated on the economy, we have already seen to many bad changes come from it and this game being so grindy and having all those currency’s seems to be is a part of that.

HoT seems to make some steps in the right direction, while on the other had it also includes even more currency’s to grind.. many currencies might be a good way to control the economy, but it also creates dull grindy content.

So again, please don’t be to fixated on the economy!

They are fixated as much on the economy instead of fun gameplay as players are fixated on the rewards rather than the fun of the content provided.

Maybe, and players being fixated on rewards is not really a problem, them being to fixated to much on the economy is.

This is an MMORPG, that is a type a game that for a big part indeed is reward-driven, especially the PVE part. It’s the nature of the game because it revolves a lot of repeatable PvE / AI content.
Then rewards are what keeps it engaging for many people.

Your average single player game you also only play a few times.
MMORRPG PVE does provides similar (but co-op) content so then rewards are there to keep you playing for more then those few times.

If people where not reward-focused the PvE part of MMORPG’s might not even be a thing for them. Most of the the people who are not reward-driven are those who come, play a few months till they complete everything and leave.

Not sure how your point is relevant to my post but you got an answer anyway.. as a reward for your contribution.

No problem with people being reward focused, it’s the nature of the game.

I think its funny people are claiming there has never been an mmorpg to repl on mats and trades, there are a few much older mmorpgs that did this and the most recent one is ryzom, I also think wurm does this as well and wurm is an mmorpg with nothing but crafting, and im not entirely sure but wasnt swg kind of like a hybrid of this?

In everquest 1 days before the bazaar you had to trade items or money, and it worked out.

Ryou.2398:

I think its funny people are claiming there has never been an mmorpg to reply on mats and trades, there are a few much older mmorpgs that did this and the most recent one is ryzom, I also think wurm does this as well and wurm is an mmorpg with nothing but crafting, and im not entirely sure but wasnt swg kind of like a hybrid of this?

In everquest 1 days before the bazaar you had to trade items or money, and it worked out.

On the notion of mats. What I see in GW2 is that many (while not all) T6 mats are pretty hard and grindy to get.

This might also be true in some other MMORPG but in my experience (the other MMORPS I players) they highest tier mats where not hard to get at all. The highest tier just did mean you had to be in the highest level maps to get them.

The items you crafted using those mats where hard not because the mats where hard to get but 1: Because they were the highest level items, so you first had to level your craft up and 2: It usually required one item, like a recipe or basically a precursor that was hard to get.

So the rarity came from this one item, not the mats, and that one item usually had a pretty direct approach of getting it (for example, it dropped from one specific boss).

That is imho also the best way to do it.. It reduces the grind for the mats, and every item you craft requires another recipe / precursor what sends you to another part of the world / other content to collect it.

Then on the notion of requiring trading. Here you have a similar problem. Why are you required to trade? Because apparently it’s close to impossible to really directly get the item you are really after. Maybe because you can only buy it with some currency (like gem-store items) or because it’s a very rare general drop (drops in many places but with a very low-drop-rate). So now you are again required to grind for something you do not want (something that is junk for you (or a currency itself, but that does that not involve trading)) to sell it to somebody who wants it, to then buy the item you want.

So the way it’s implemented also this creates the most boring type of grind there is.

So both examples help to create grind, and if there is anything we need less of, it’s this type of grind.

It might be great ways to control the economy, but it’s not great for the game-play.

Devata.6589:

Ryou.2398:

I think its funny people are claiming there has never been an mmorpg to reply on mats and trades, there are a few much older mmorpgs that did this and the most recent one is ryzom, I also think wurm does this as well and wurm is an mmorpg with nothing but crafting, and im not entirely sure but wasnt swg kind of like a hybrid of this?

In everquest 1 days before the bazaar you had to trade items or money, and it worked out.

On the notion of mats. What I see in GW2 is that many (while not all) T6 mats are pretty hard and grindy to get.

This might also be true in some other MMORPG but in my experience (the other MMORPS I players) they highest tier mats where not hard to get at all. The highest tier just did mean you had to be in the highest level maps to get them.

The items you crafted using those mats where hard not because the mats where hard to get but 1: Because they were the highest level items, so you first had to level your craft up and 2: It usually required one item, like a recipe or basically a precursor that was hard to get.

So the rarity came from this one item, not the mats, and that one item usually had a pretty direct approach of getting it (for example, it dropped from one specific boss).

That is imho also the best way to do it.. It reduces the grind for the mats, and every item you craft requires another recipe / precursor what sends you to another part of the world / other content to collect it.

Then on the notion of requiring trading. Here you have a similar problem. Why are you required to trade? Because apparently it’s close to impossible to really directly get the item you are really after. Maybe because you can only buy it with some currency (like gem-store items) or because it’s a very rare general drop (drops in many places but with a very low-drop-rate). So now you are again required to grind for something you do not want (something that is junk for you (or a currency itself, but that does that not involve trading)) to sell it to somebody who wants it, to then buy the item you want.

So the way it’s implemented also this creates the most boring type of grind there is.

So both examples help to create grind, and if there is anything we need less of, it’s this type of grind.

It might be great ways to control the economy, but it’s not great for the game-play.

Well, GW2 and the TP give the the opportunity to intead of grinding, play whatever content you like and use its rewards to get closer to the goal of acquiring whatever you want (as long as its tradeable).

Wanze.8410:

Devata.6589:

Ryou.2398:

I think its funny people are claiming there has never been an mmorpg to reply on mats and trades, there are a few much older mmorpgs that did this and the most recent one is ryzom, I also think wurm does this as well and wurm is an mmorpg with nothing but crafting, and im not entirely sure but wasnt swg kind of like a hybrid of this?

In everquest 1 days before the bazaar you had to trade items or money, and it worked out.

On the notion of mats. What I see in GW2 is that many (while not all) T6 mats are pretty hard and grindy to get.

This might also be true in some other MMORPG but in my experience (the other MMORPS I players) they highest tier mats where not hard to get at all. The highest tier just did mean you had to be in the highest level maps to get them.

The items you crafted using those mats where hard not because the mats where hard to get but 1: Because they were the highest level items, so you first had to level your craft up and 2: It usually required one item, like a recipe or basically a precursor that was hard to get.

So the rarity came from this one item, not the mats, and that one item usually had a pretty direct approach of getting it (for example, it dropped from one specific boss).

That is imho also the best way to do it.. It reduces the grind for the mats, and every item you craft requires another recipe / precursor what sends you to another part of the world / other content to collect it.

Then on the notion of requiring trading. Here you have a similar problem. Why are you required to trade? Because apparently it’s close to impossible to really directly get the item you are really after. Maybe because you can only buy it with some currency (like gem-store items) or because it’s a very rare general drop (drops in many places but with a very low-drop-rate). So now you are again required to grind for something you do not want (something that is junk for you (or a currency itself, but that does that not involve trading)) to sell it to somebody who wants it, to then buy the item you want.

So the way it’s implemented also this creates the most boring type of grind there is.

So both examples help to create grind, and if there is anything we need less of, it’s this type of grind.

It might be great ways to control the economy, but it’s not great for the game-play.

Well, GW2 and the TP give the the opportunity to intead of grinding, play whatever content you like and use its rewards to get closer to the goal of acquiring whatever you want (as long as its tradeable).

On paper yeah. In reality it means doing anything other than whatever rewards you the best (optimal) basically means you are punishing yourself for doing that (you are getting punished for playing the way you want). And in practice that means (as GW2 proofs) a lot of grind… Not because people like it, but because it’s the most viable way to get to their goals.

To make it a bid worse, that grind also means the prices of items are going up, making the less profitable ways even worse, and with new items coming in all the time, you would only get further and further behind.

So it sounds great on paper, but it’s not how it works in reality.

Not to mention that directly working towards an item is also part of the fun, something many people enjoy.. and that’s something you don’t have with the general grind or “do whatever you want and then buy it”.

Site note: HoT does make some progress here (Precursor crafting, and the ability to more directly farm mats).

Devata.6589:

Ryou.2398:

I think its funny people are claiming there has never been an mmorpg to reply on mats and trades, there are a few much older mmorpgs that did this and the most recent one is ryzom, I also think wurm does this as well and wurm is an mmorpg with nothing but crafting, and im not entirely sure but wasnt swg kind of like a hybrid of this?

In everquest 1 days before the bazaar you had to trade items or money, and it worked out.

On the notion of mats. What I see in GW2 is that many (while not all) T6 mats are pretty hard and grindy to get.

This might also be true in some other MMORPG but in my experience (the other MMORPS I players) they highest tier mats where not hard to get at all. The highest tier just did mean you had to be in the highest level maps to get them.

The items you crafted using those mats where hard not because the mats where hard to get but 1: Because they were the highest level items, so you first had to level your craft up and 2: It usually required one item, like a recipe or basically a precursor that was hard to get.

So the rarity came from this one item, not the mats, and that one item usually had a pretty direct approach of getting it (for example, it dropped from one specific boss).

That is imho also the best way to do it.. It reduces the grind for the mats, and every item you craft requires another recipe / precursor what sends you to another part of the world / other content to collect it.

Then on the notion of requiring trading. Here you have a similar problem. Why are you required to trade? Because apparently it’s close to impossible to really directly get the item you are really after. Maybe because you can only buy it with some currency (like gem-store items) or because it’s a very rare general drop (drops in many places but with a very low-drop-rate). So now you are again required to grind for something you do not want (something that is junk for you (or a currency itself, but that does that not involve trading)) to sell it to somebody who wants it, to then buy the item you want.

So the way it’s implemented also this creates the most boring type of grind there is.

So both examples help to create grind, and if there is anything we need less of, it’s this type of grind.

It might be great ways to control the economy, but it’s not great for the game-play.

Well when you have nothing but mats to grind yea of course its boring but these kinds of mmorpgs is where you craft everything from the hilt to the metals for example, the crafting is allot more immersive in those kinds of mmorpgs, and have other elements to not notice the grind, the point is if they can do it with grind but not make it feel like one it can be a grand experience.

Devata.6589:

Wanze.8410:

Devata.6589:

Ryou.2398:

I think its funny people are claiming there has never been an mmorpg to reply on mats and trades, there are a few much older mmorpgs that did this and the most recent one is ryzom, I also think wurm does this as well and wurm is an mmorpg with nothing but crafting, and im not entirely sure but wasnt swg kind of like a hybrid of this?

In everquest 1 days before the bazaar you had to trade items or money, and it worked out.

On the notion of mats. What I see in GW2 is that many (while not all) T6 mats are pretty hard and grindy to get.

This might also be true in some other MMORPG but in my experience (the other MMORPS I players) they highest tier mats where not hard to get at all. The highest tier just did mean you had to be in the highest level maps to get them.

The items you crafted using those mats where hard not because the mats where hard to get but 1: Because they were the highest level items, so you first had to level your craft up and 2: It usually required one item, like a recipe or basically a precursor that was hard to get.

So the rarity came from this one item, not the mats, and that one item usually had a pretty direct approach of getting it (for example, it dropped from one specific boss).

That is imho also the best way to do it.. It reduces the grind for the mats, and every item you craft requires another recipe / precursor what sends you to another part of the world / other content to collect it.

Then on the notion of requiring trading. Here you have a similar problem. Why are you required to trade? Because apparently it’s close to impossible to really directly get the item you are really after. Maybe because you can only buy it with some currency (like gem-store items) or because it’s a very rare general drop (drops in many places but with a very low-drop-rate). So now you are again required to grind for something you do not want (something that is junk for you (or a currency itself, but that does that not involve trading)) to sell it to somebody who wants it, to then buy the item you want.

So the way it’s implemented also this creates the most boring type of grind there is.

So both examples help to create grind, and if there is anything we need less of, it’s this type of grind.

It might be great ways to control the economy, but it’s not great for the game-play.

Well, GW2 and the TP give the the opportunity to intead of grinding, play whatever content you like and use its rewards to get closer to the goal of acquiring whatever you want (as long as its tradeable).

On paper yeah. In reality it means doing anything other than whatever rewards you the best (optimal) basically means you are punishing yourself for doing that (you are getting punished for playing the way you want). And in practice that means (as GW2 proofs) a lot of grind… Not because people like it, but because it’s the most viable way to get to their goals.

To make it a bid worse, that grind also means the prices of items are going up, making the less profitable ways even worse, and with new items coming in all the time, you would only get further and further behind.

So it sounds great on paper, but it’s not how it works in reality.

Not to mention that directly working towards an item is also part of the fun, something many people enjoy.. and that’s something you don’t have with the general grind or “do whatever you want and then buy it”.

Site note: HoT does make some progress here (Precursor crafting, and the ability to more directly farm mats).

But where we not not talking about this existing without a trade post in the first place? If people want a mat bad enough they will trade something else someone else wants for it its that simple and worked just fine in other mmorpgs.

Ryou.2398:

Devata.6589:

Wanze.8410:

Devata.6589:

Ryou.2398:

I think its funny people are claiming there has never been an mmorpg to reply on mats and trades, there are a few much older mmorpgs that did this and the most recent one is ryzom, I also think wurm does this as well and wurm is an mmorpg with nothing but crafting, and im not entirely sure but wasnt swg kind of like a hybrid of this?

In everquest 1 days before the bazaar you had to trade items or money, and it worked out.

On the notion of mats. What I see in GW2 is that many (while not all) T6 mats are pretty hard and grindy to get.

This might also be true in some other MMORPG but in my experience (the other MMORPS I players) they highest tier mats where not hard to get at all. The highest tier just did mean you had to be in the highest level maps to get them.

The items you crafted using those mats where hard not because the mats where hard to get but 1: Because they were the highest level items, so you first had to level your craft up and 2: It usually required one item, like a recipe or basically a precursor that was hard to get.

So the rarity came from this one item, not the mats, and that one item usually had a pretty direct approach of getting it (for example, it dropped from one specific boss).

That is imho also the best way to do it.. It reduces the grind for the mats, and every item you craft requires another recipe / precursor what sends you to another part of the world / other content to collect it.

Then on the notion of requiring trading. Here you have a similar problem. Why are you required to trade? Because apparently it’s close to impossible to really directly get the item you are really after. Maybe because you can only buy it with some currency (like gem-store items) or because it’s a very rare general drop (drops in many places but with a very low-drop-rate). So now you are again required to grind for something you do not want (something that is junk for you (or a currency itself, but that does that not involve trading)) to sell it to somebody who wants it, to then buy the item you want.

So the way it’s implemented also this creates the most boring type of grind there is.

So both examples help to create grind, and if there is anything we need less of, it’s this type of grind.

It might be great ways to control the economy, but it’s not great for the game-play.

Well, GW2 and the TP give the the opportunity to intead of grinding, play whatever content you like and use its rewards to get closer to the goal of acquiring whatever you want (as long as its tradeable).

On paper yeah. In reality it means doing anything other than whatever rewards you the best (optimal) basically means you are punishing yourself for doing that (you are getting punished for playing the way you want). And in practice that means (as GW2 proofs) a lot of grind… Not because people like it, but because it’s the most viable way to get to their goals.

To make it a bid worse, that grind also means the prices of items are going up, making the less profitable ways even worse, and with new items coming in all the time, you would only get further and further behind.

So it sounds great on paper, but it’s not how it works in reality.

Not to mention that directly working towards an item is also part of the fun, something many people enjoy.. and that’s something you don’t have with the general grind or “do whatever you want and then buy it”.

Site note: HoT does make some progress here (Precursor crafting, and the ability to more directly farm mats).

But where we not not talking about this existing without a trade post in the first place? If people want a mat bad enough they will trade something else someone else wants for it its that simple and worked just fine in other mmorpgs.

I think we all talked about different stuff here during the last 24 hours and I think some discussions already have separate threads open about them, so it might be a better idea to take the discussion about that over there.

Just a short reminder on where i would like this thread to be heading and a little history.
It got nearly 3000 new views since the start of the week and I dont expect anybody to read through over 1000 posts to find out what this thread is about.

I started the thread in the old BLTC Subforum, where usually discussions about the economy, the trading post and the gem store were being held. Its original intent was to create a space where people could ask questions about the economy and John Smith, the Game Economist, was very active in responding. Since then it has been a great ressource of dev responses to commonly asked questions. With the reorganisation of the forums earlier this year, the BLTC subforum got merged with the general discussions forum. Even though the thread got stickied, traffic became very low (why do people never read stickies?) and it was unstickied a couple of weeks ago.
As feedback from JS has also subsided, I plan to use this thread more or less as a personal blog, where I will post some personal opinions about the economy, during the next couple of weeks around HoT release.
If you have any questions about the economy that you would like me to answer or know my opinion about, feel free to post.

Menadena.7482:

Now I am curious. What would you need that many mithril ingots for?

The speed always seems fast to me, especially if you compare it to the RL process it is emulating. Sure, a lot of something takes longer but it normally would.

I intended to post this as a response to a post in a different thread but i went a little off topic, so i decided to post this here for info or discussion.

9k mithril ingots is a laugh.

There were times, when I forged 1 precursor on average per day, crafting my own rare weapons to throw into the forge.
A rare 2h weapon usually takes 18 refined t5 mats, most 1h weapons 17 and you need roughly 2k rares per precursor. Thats an average 35k refined mats per day.

I made an average profit of over 300g per precursor, a good haul for a day of playing GW2.
I would have forged 2 per day but i couldnt because refining took so much time.
But in the end, most of my profit was due to the fact, that i refined so much myself.
Instead of putting in buy orders for mithril, elder wood and t5 fine mats, I also could have put in buy orders or mithril ingots, elder planks, mithril plated dowels, inscriptions and weapon components like blades, hilts, shafts. It might have cost me a little more but i could probably still have made profit with those prices but probably more in the range of 100-200g per forged pre. Most of the time, I even put in buy orders for the crafting materials, when the highest bid wasnt unreasonable but the problem is that the more crafting went into an item (unrefined-refined-dowel/hilt/blade-insignia-weapon) the slower my buy orders would fill. If I would only rely on those buy orders, I wouldnt have been able to craft 2k weapons per day.

Basically any kind of profit made on or through the tp is earned by providing some kind of service or convenience to another player. The top 2 services are providing instant sell options for seller (buy orders) and instant buy options (listings). Most services are just some kind of in game labour (just like farmers do), salvaging, opening loot bags, crafting, forging. Most of my profits are based on doing clicks that most other people dont want to do. I buy up small portions of that labour from other players and complete it in bulk because that way its more efficient. A small example:

Some player gets a random lootbag which is worth 5s on the tp. He doesnt know what the lootbag drops and how high the chances are that whatever he gets will be worth more than 5s. He could do research on the wiki to determine that chance and decide wether its worth the risk to open it. But that takes time and problaby isnt worth it to the player, even if we might get 1-2s more on average from the whatever is in the bag.
Opening the bag also takes time, it might not be much but if he has multiple bags, selling the different drops will also take more clicks on the tp to sell.

Now I put in buy orders for that bag (at 4s) because i done my research and know the average value of the loot drops is 6s. I just wait until I have 1000 of those lootbags and open them altogether. Whatever I get will most likely be much closer to those 6s than whatever someone gets who only opens 5 lootbags.
Thats because its the rare drops that raise the average value of the loot table and I am more likely to get those with a sample size of 1000 compared to a sample size of 5.
And if I can find 200 people who sell me 5 loot bags each, i will spend way less time opening them and listing all the loot they they will have to put in with a combined effort.

Refining or crafting is no different.

Its a service provided, it might not be worth it for someone who just has a couple of mithril, elder and t5 fine mats left over that he wants to get rid of, to run to a crafting station, refine a couple dozen mats, craft some components and weapons and sell them on the tp because he only gets a couple handful of silver more for the crafted weapon but when you craft 2k weapons per day, this small profit adds up.

Edit: Just click on Medanenas name on the top of my quote to get to the original thread.

Another post that i wanted to respond to in another thread but would have gone off topic and derailed it. I will answer to it with the next post due to character limit:

shion.2084:

Wanze.8410:

shion.2084:

Wanze.8410:

shion.2084:

Wanze.8410:

I think its rediculous, if someone complains that he doesnt make as much gold from his loot as i do as a trader because you have the choice to offer your loot for basically any price you want.

Just list it at double or triple the current lowest listing and wait until it sells.

I do the same.

Was this in response to me? If so I can tell you that my complaint wasn’t that I don’t make as much gold from loot as a trader would. I was pointing out the consequences of allowing trading and farming activities on those whom would prefer no to do so.

It wasnt a response, it was a statement, otherwise I would have quoted you.

My appologies then.

You are correct… if they were to make a complaint along those lines it should be that the method you are currently able to use in order to generate wealth disparity is overly effective and unbalancing to the game and thus negatively impacting their game play experience in some of the “end” aspects of the game perhaps?

They might legitimately wish for a combative skill equivalent that could generate these kinds of returns for roughly the same effort invested. (of course then they’d have to be willing to accept riks, such as the old armour repair charges).

How does my wealth unbalance the game and negatively impact their gameplay?

Just because i might have 100 times more gold than other players doesnt mean i consume 100 times more items than the reguar player.

Once I unlocked a skin, i have little need to buy another one, for example, so I am not competing for that skin anymore, even though i could afford to buy 100 of them.

Anything i do or have achieved until now can be done by anybody, who invests as much time as me into it.

If people want to earn lots of dosh with their skills, they can set up competitions for dungeon speed runs, jumping puzzles or pvp tournaments, where everybody chips in with some gold for the winners cash purse.

Most people just have a problem with the fact that they have to invest in order to be able to to earn mad cash and there is a risk of losing it involved.

The issue becomes apparent with items of higher rarity and inelastic supply. Even though you being rich only want 1 precursor, and there are 10 others like you who are wealthy… and there are 2 precursors total…. you get the following situation I’d previously made an example of….

“Case A) 100 Players play the game. Every player has 100G. Total money in the game 10,000.

Someone finds a precursor they can’t use and decide to sell it, only 1 or two exist…. the likely price of that pre that people are going to be willing to spend is not much more than 100G.

In general, rarer goods are going to top out at around 100G in this scenario.

Case B ) You have TP flippers. They are far wealthier than those who’ve been spending the majority of their time playing event/dungeon content (what I’d call the game).

100 Players toatl. 95 players have 10 G. 5 players have 1810 gold. Total money in game 10,000G.

Now one of those guys doing events finds a precursor, there are only 1 or 2…. do you think the price that the market will be willing to buy for will still cap out at 100 G max?

…. What they Don’t mention is that they can make the ones you really want and are very limited in quantity can be made astronomically higher.

TLDR;
Inflation is emphatically NOT only due to gold being added. But also a matter of scarcity of an item and unequal wealth distribution. Among other factors (see the aside)

(edited 2 days ago by shion.2084)

2 days ago

"

shion.2084:

…..

Your theory has several flaws. First of all, the supply of precursors, while its definately a rare and demanded item, isnt as unelastic as you think.

Lets recap where pres have come from since launch ( I know this example will be obsolete, once HoT goes online). For me, there are three main faucets:

• Random Loot Drops
• Target Forging
  *Random Forge Drop

Random Loot Drops cant really be influenced by the player base, I guess their supply is pretty steady compared to player activity. The only way, this droprate can be significantly altered, is more player activity but with that also demand for pres rises.

Random Forge Drops is what i call Average Joe getting a precursor while throwing 4 rares into the forge that he got from the world boss train or even someone who throws as many rares or exotics into the forge until he gets the precursor that he wants for personal use (as this one wont enter the tp)

Target forging is what i call people that forge precursors for the sole purpose of selling them with a profit. I have done this occasionally, having crafted about 40 precursors for resale. I know that compared to the biggest players in this market, my sample size of 40 pres is very low but i guess on average, i forged at least 100 times more precursors than Average Joe.

Of course, different precursors have different demand. For low demand pres, the supply form random loot and forge drops is actually enough to satisfy demand and for high demand pres its not.

That where target forgers come in. Those who do it (at least thats how i done it when i done it), check the average value of the weapons (rare and exotic) of the corresponding pre and the price of the pre. Personally, i cant think of a time when it has been more profitable to throw in exotics (crafted or bought) rather than rares. And rare weapons are crafted with 3 main components, elder wood, mithril and t5 fine mats (including snowflakes, excluding vials of blood and karka shells).

Lets assume, 1 of each precursor drops per day, for underwat erweapons or foci, the demand is only 1 every 2 days, for the legend or a gs, the demand is 2 per day. For the in Prices for in demand pres go up and target forgers start forging.
Once you reached lvl 80, like the mayority of the player base, you wont get around looting elder wood, mithril and t5 fine mats. In fact, those mats will be the foundation of your wealth generated by selling your loot.
And those ressources are being forged into the most demanded precursors, so a scarcity with unreasonable prices cant really happen, as the general player base keeps producing those ressources, unless they all decide to stop playing. Those ressources will always go towards the priciest precursor.
Of course, if profits for forging precursors become too big, demand for t5 mats shoots up as well and so do their prices. But that also benefits the general player, who has demand for buying a precursor, because the average value of its daily loot rises.
These days, you get 250 copper for one mithril ore, one elder wood log and one t5 fine mat used in crafting cheap rares, in July last year, you got 350 copper.
So last year, Average Joe got more for his most common loot drops and therefore could have afforded higher pre prices

shion.2084:

…..

Both your cases probably have been the status quo in the first couple of months, when the game launched and the economy still tried to find equilibrium. But since then, due to its global access, market forces have proven you wrong.
In case A, the probability of someone else wanting that precursor drops with the decision of the finder finding and deciding not to want it. Which means that its price will probably be less than 100g.

Case B has several flaws. First of all, those that made 1.8k gold from flipping and could afford to pay it for a pre are smart enough to know that forging a pre will be much cheaper due to the market forces I tried to explain in my previous post, so they wouldnt put in a buy order (or buy directly) in the first place. And even, if they did, once they got their pre, their demand will tend towards zero, leaving 95 aj´s to determine the value.

I know its an easy excuse for many players to blame rich players for inflated prices and for the most part, I have been what many players consider rich since launch because i trade alot and i am good at it.
And your general issue isnt a new one, it has been brought up repeatedly since launch and I have discussed it many times in the last 3 years. Of course I am biased because I am a big time trader but in the end, I re-evaluated my place in the economy many times and I came to the conclusion that my impact on the economy is just a fracture of many what many people think it is, including myself.
I might have accumulated riches beyond believe of Average Joe, and I am quite vocal about it on the forums but in my 3 years since launch, I came across so many hardcore farmers, players, bots (indirectly) and gold sellers that i came to the conclusion that even if I have the means of bullying markets, I dont do it because in most cases, it isnt profitable and that my impact on the game economy is rather insignificant. Even if I have 100 or 1000 times more gold than AJ, personally I have very little little demand for what what AJ wants and if me and AJ wants it, its him controlling supply, even though he doesnt know it.