Guild Wars 2

It is to ANet’s real-world economic advantage to keep those whales spending money, which means it is to their advantage to allow for players to earn extremely large amounts of disposable in-game currency so that whales have customers for their gems.

I still haven’t seen any evidence that gem→gold is a significant part of their business model, and until I do, I’ll continue to believe the more plausible scenario which is that gems→gem store is where most of their cashflow comes from and that buying gold with gems is more of a sideline thing. Even if it is overall a major part of their business, I imagine that it would be more widely distributed than the typical “whale” phenomenon, with many players buying small amounts of gold with their gems, rather than few players buying huge amounts of gold.

First and foremost, it’s a strawman argument. The issue we’re pointing out is that stripping comments of their posters muddles the conversation, regardless of which thread one is trying to follow, and your response is to call us “self-absorbed”? That’s just fallacious, and it’s particularly galling since you’ve been quick to point out strawmen arguments when used against you.

I’m not “stripping” anything from anything, I’m just not typing in poster data when I copy/paste.

Players with massive incomes, on the other hand, can afford to buy out the gem store because really, what else is there to do when you have 20,000 gold just sitting around?

And yet players like Wanze say that they don’t spend a lot on those things, they just convert their wealth into more wealth recursively until they hit some sort of wallet overflow error and crash the servers, I suppose.

Statements about another’s intentions are not easily falsifiable, but whether a given action was rude or not is quite a bit more so.

For the record, both would be entirely subjective. It might be tricky to prove that someone intends to be rude, but it’s actually impossible to prove that someone’s actions are rude.

Its actually positive for poor and middle class players, if basic mats rise in price becasue they can easily farm them and therefore get more value for their loot.

That entirely depends on what those players actually want or do. If they want to farm base materials to sell on the markets, then you’d be right, it would work out for them. If they don’t do that, then they see no benefit from that situation, and if they wanted to have the items that are unreasonably expensive, then they are harmed by those items being unreasonably expensive. your entire “it’s good for the poor” analysis rests on the concept that they don’t deserve to have nice things, and thus should feel happy that while they can’t have the things they actually want, they should be happy they’re able to pick at the table scraps of the well off. How very generous of you.

Also, I think it’s important to keep in mind that the GW2 economy is very different from the real-world economy in a few important ways. First, there are no inherent impediments that can prevent any individual from bootstrapping themselves into the aristocracy. There are no industry connections you need to foster, no legal system you need to navigate, no racial or gender prejudice which might make finding a well-paying job more difficult, no sudden medical or legal disasters that might wipe out your savings, no need to balance your desire to invest against your need to eat and pay the bills.

All true, although since those elements are in place, there are also no limits on the “aristocracy” themselves, they just keep accelerating and accelerating without end, so catching up becomes unlikely. The game lacks many of the breaks on income growth, but also lacks many of the checks on inequality, like progressive income tax.

I’m not interested in how Ohoni is attempting to conduct him/herself. I’m simply irritated at the conduct itself. S/he has made the decision to prioritize making an inane philosophical point that has nothing to do with the conversation at the cost of conversational clarity. Regardless of why the decision was made, I find the conduct itself intolerable, and I’m evidently not the only one.

I can’t assume your motives, but I somehow doubt you would find my formatting so objectionable if you did not also find the content of it so objectionable. I tend to view this as a sideshow that comes up any time people feel they are losing the primary discussion.

Do you think just because i am a good trader that my listings sell faster than yours?

No, but that because you have so much surplus, you can deal in very high volumes and diversified positions, so that if some things fail, others will succeed, if some things take forever, others will pay off in the short term, and over all you will tend to make more than you lose, which is not necessarily the case for someone just throwing in whatever he happens to come across. Further, I assume that you have some idea of what the market is like when you invest in it, and have some clue as to where it is likely to go in the future, and are not merely assuming that every item in the game will double or triple in value.

So how are my odds better than everybody elses?

Because you have 55K of items sitting on the TP collecting dust, when most people have never had even 10% of that in their possession, much less had the elbow room to gamble with it.

How do you measure it?

I guess you must have a pretty good idea about it somewhere hidden in your head, that you just failed to tell us yet, on how to define profits form the tp, if your intend is to nerf it or tax players more, who make more profit.

I would say profit would be the amount of gold you receive as the result of a transaction. If you list, and sell an item for 10g, you would currently pocket 8.5g from that sale. That would be your profit. That would be the amount used to calculate what added income tax, if necessary, would be needed. It would be calculated at the point the purchase is completed, and removed from the amount you receive when you cash out at the TP.

Now, you might come back with “but I have my own costs, I had to buy those items for 7g, so I actually only made 1.5g on the transaction,” well that’s your own business. If the progressive tax adds up to more than that 1.5g, making that transaction unprofitable to you, then that’s probably not a transaction you should be making.

But the not getting fleeced part is easy. It is also valuable and beneficial to all of the players. A lot of players seem to buy at the ask and sell at the bid. This is extremely foolish. It is pretty much the only way to guarantee you do get fleeced.

And yet if those players didn’t do that, then the flippers could never make any money off of it. The flipper’s success requires those players’ ignorance. That’s why better tools to educate the consumers is a major factor in this, to let them know how they could still get everything they’re looking for at a better rate.

Ohoni.6057:

First and foremost, it’s a strawman argument. The issue we’re pointing out is that stripping comments of their posters muddles the conversation, regardless of which thread one is trying to follow, and your response is to call us “self-absorbed”? That’s just fallacious, and it’s particularly galling since you’ve been quick to point out strawmen arguments when used against you.

I’m not “stripping” anything from anything, I’m just not typing in poster data when I copy/paste.

Its not only common netiquette but also common courtesy in real life, sometimes even legally required, to provide a source, when you quote someone.

It simply takes statements other people made out of context and prohibits readers of your post to double check the source.

Its disrespectful and doesnt really help you to get your points across.

You dont have to type in poster data, you can just copy/paste it along with the quote.

Its very simple and your reluctance to do so makes it look like you dont want to provide context on purpose.

Lynne.8416:

Wanze.8410:

Lynne.8416:

Wanze.8410:

Its so laughable that you think there is much skill involved in listing your loot for a higher price.

Its basic math, just multiply the current value of your loot on the tp by 2 or 3, list it at that price and wait until it sells. Thats all there is to it.
Boom, you make as much as a trader.

The only issue I have really is…because of all this increasing prices on the TP.. and everyone trying to make the most amount of gold, eventually EVERYTHING is going to be way over priced and out of the hands of the poor and middle class players.

For example: Anton’s Boot Blade is valued (worth) 2s 64c by Anet (wiki) and is currently selling on the TP for more than 34 gold. That is way overpriced and for some players this could be out of reach.

Once you get into precursor and legendary weapons…that are selling at astronomical prices all because people are trying to make money off the TP. Not necessarily to buy something pricey, but because they wish to amass gold in the game.

So basically the “poor” will never acquire anything pricey, because by the time they make 100g, the price will have moved up to be 300g. Which I find rather sad.

The vendor value Anet sets has very little to do with the value the players set for the item.
The increased prices on the tp are due to additional demand, as the player base as a whole is destroying alot of mats atm to craft stuff or upgrade guild halls, etc.
Its actually positive for poor and middle class players, if basic mats rise in price becasue they can easily farm them and therefore get more value for their loot.
In addition to that, most valuable items that have been traded for over 100g before hot and have no function as a requirement to gain other items, have fallen in value since HoT.

I was actually referring to the fact that the poor will always be poor. Because they are not “farming” or “playing the TP” to make gold. They are just out there playing “their” particular part of the game (say PvP or WvW or mapping/exploring).

The rich will always find a way to be rich (as even when they go “broke” they know how to amass gold quickly). Some people play the game to amass gold because that is what THEY enjoy and they tend to control the price of items on the TP as they can afford to buy out the low and sell high.
Not saying it’s wrong, it’s just how life works.

The poor will always be poor because even without farming or playing the TP there are ways to make money in this game if people actually bother to research and inform themselves.
The poor will be poor because they’re lazy – while in the real world that is often not the case in this world – where all characters and all accounts are created equal it is the quality and effort of each player alone that enables him to accumulate wealth in game.

And if all that fails even a very small sum of real life money can be spent in order to obtain a decent amount of gold – which if invested well and coupled with let’s say 1 hour of play per day can pay off in the long run.

Hence why people work hard all day to relax and not do the same in their spare time.

Sicarius.4639:

Hence why people work hard all day to relax and not do the same in their spare time.

There is nothing wrong with relaxing, if you want to and can afford it.
But there is something wrong when you demand to be rewarded for relaxing at the same rate as someone who is working.

Its not only common netiquette but also common courtesy in real life, sometimes even legally required, to provide a source, when you quote someone.

The source is implicit, it’s somewhere up thread, which you should have already read before you got to my post. If I source something from outside this thread, there will be a link.

It simply takes statements other people made out of context and prohibits readers of your post to double check the source.

Its disrespectful and doesnt really help you to get your points across.

You dont have to type in poster data, you can just copy/paste it along with the quote.

Its very simple and your reluctance to do so makes it look like you dont want to provide context on purpose.

You see what I mean about people using this as a sideshow when they feel they’re on their back foot in the primary line of discussion? I mean, you didn’t even address the actual topic at all.

The poor will always be poor because even without farming or playing the TP there are ways to make money in this game if people actually bother to research and inform themselves.

But not efficiently. The ways to make money without using the TP or farming specific areas are so inefficient that even if a player diligently pursues them 8-12 hours per day, every day, they would never catch up to those who spend only an hour or two per day playing efficiently.

where all characters and all accounts are created equal it is the quality and effort of each player alone that enables him to accumulate wealth in game.

That’s not entirely true. While the basics of each account are created equal, accounts created earlier than others have more opportunities to exploit loopholes before they get patched or nerfed, and then take that money and roll it into some other venture. The longer you’ve been playing, the more opportunities you’ve had to gain an advantage. This is bit similar to an aristocracy as played out over generations, in that anyone born in the middle of a medieval period could theoretically distinguish himself and earn his way into the aristocracy, those who have already been in the aristocracy for generations are much more capable of staying there and further advancing their station with far less effort.

There is nothing wrong with relaxing, if you want to and can afford it.
But there is something wrong when you demand to be rewarded for relaxing at the same rate as someone who is working.

Not when you’re playing a game.

Ohoni.6057:

I can’t assume your motives, but I somehow doubt you would find my formatting so objectionable if you did not also find the content of it so objectionable.

I find your argumentation style frustrating, and the disregard of basic netiquette exacerbates that. I assure you I would bring it up in any thread where it seemed to be an ongoing issue, though to be honest I can’t remember anyone else so belligerently refusing to make the conversation easier to follow.

Ohoni.6057:

I tend to view this as a sideshow that comes up any time people feel they are losing the primary discussion.

Aaaaand I’m done. This is the fallacy fallacy — that is, you’re implicitly accusing me of committing a non sequitur because I supposedly can’t come up with an argument, because clearly the only reason anyone would every be annoyed at a lack of basic netiquette would be if they have nothing else to say. You’re being intellectually dishonest and I have no interest in debating with you any more. I wish you luck in the future.

Ohoni.6057:

How do you measure it?

I guess you must have a pretty good idea about it somewhere hidden in your head, that you just failed to tell us yet, on how to define profits form the tp, if your intend is to nerf it or tax players more, who make more profit.

I would say profit would be the amount of gold you receive as the result of a transaction. If you list, and sell an item for 10g, you would currently pocket 8.5g from that sale. That would be your profit. That would be the amount used to calculate what added income tax, if necessary, would be needed. It would be calculated at the point the purchase is completed, and removed from the amount you receive when you cash out at the TP.

Now, you might come back with “but I have my own costs, I had to buy those items for 7g, so I actually only made 1.5g on the transaction,” well that’s your own business. If the progressive tax adds up to more than that 1.5g, making that transaction unprofitable to you, then that’s probably not a transaction you should be making.

Aha, so you basically want to penalize people with a higher tax, if they pick up more gold from the tp than a certain amount per day you deem to be too much.

I will tell you why this will completely fail its purpose:

Because it doesnt only penalyze your target group but also the very players you are trying to protect.

Lets say this daily limit is 50g, if i sell stuff on the tp for more than that between 2 daily resets, i have to pay an additional fee.

First of all, it would penalize players, who get a lucky drop that is worth more than 50g, just because they got lucky.
Then there is average joe, who logs in for an your or two every, does some map completion, a meta event, maybe some festival content or some fractals. He doesnt get much loot but whatever he gets and doesnt need, he lists at lowest listing price. But for two weeks, he seemed to have terrible luck. He doesnt know why because he doesnt bother to research the market but somehow all the stuff he lists, seems to constantly lose value. But after two weeks, he gets lucky, something to do with a new patch from Anet or so, he gets told. He doesnt really understands it but he doesnt care. He is happy because out of a sudden all the loot he listed and didnt sell, is being sold within a day.
Boom, 100g in the tp. But unfortunately, he gets penalized for it.

The next day, a great new item goes into the gem store, which he wants to buy gems with gold for, so he checks his material storage for stuff he doesnt need to raise some funds. He sells it on the tp for a value of 150g and again has to pay extra fees, just because he wants to use the trading post.

And it wont diminish my profits in the long run either.

If i buy an item for 20g and would normally sell it once the price is at 60g, i would just wait until it is at 65g, to pay the extra fee.

You also fail to see that all the gold i earn and reinvest into new buy orders, is directly redistributed to other players.
If i put in a lower buy order because my profits are less, someone will get less gold for his loot.

I dont see how this helps anybody or contributes to a more balanced economy in general.

^
What Wanze said.

That extra tax for extra gold in one day would hit non flippers like me who prefer to keep all my mats until I have a lot, post all of them that I want to sell at once and the next day I’ll have maybe 100 gold in the trading post. By your scheme I would have to pay extra for that selling of my mats in bulk.

That’s a new low. Trying to force someone to post how you like…….How would you like others to infringe the same upon you?

Essence Snow.3194:

That’s a new low. Trying to force someone to post how you like…….How would you like others infringe the same upon you?

im not forcing him to do anything. I just informed him that i feel his conduct is disrespectful to give him a chance to change it, if he wishes, so the discussion can get back on topic.
I am not saying that the way he posts is wrong or against any rules.
I just told him that if he disagrees, i will report it, so the mods can solve the issue.

I can keep on posting how he wants, if he thinks thats the best way to continue this discussion.
You cant deny that the whole issue rather derailed his own topic during the last 2 pages.

They weren’t the ones that brought it up! You and the others have pushed it. You then basically threatened them to change the way they are posting or else. That is pathetic.

Essence Snow.3194:

They weren’t the ones that brought it up! You and the others have pushed it. You then basically threatened them to change the way they are posting or else. That is pathetic.

Who do you mean by they and them? I only had issues with one poster regarding his formatting and i wasnt the first one to bring it up. I just agreed to the concerns another poster had about the same issue.

“They” as in the singular pronoun…it’s a gender neutral term for someone, as in idk whether “they” are male or female. The same applies for “them”.

Essence Snow.3194:

“They” as in the singular pronoun…it’s a gender neutral term for someone, as in idk whether “they” are male or female. The same applies for “them”.

Whats the point of using gender neutral singular pronouns?

Essence Snow.3194:

They weren’t the ones that brought it up! You and the others have pushed it. You then basically threatened them to change the way they are posting or else. That is pathetic.

And whats wrong with telling someone that you dont like his behaviour? You seem to do it as well.

If you dont tell them, they dont know that it bothers someone and wont change it.
I dont know if simply reporting him without giving him a chance to change it, is the best solution in order to keep this thread open and continue the discussion on topic and constructive.

He (or they have been) was asked several times by several posters – I asked him/them as well, and concluded that he isn’t that smart so I won’t be wasting my time with him.

Wanze.8410:

Essence Snow.3194:

They weren’t the ones that brought it up! You and the others have pushed it. You then basically threatened them to change the way they are posting or else. That is pathetic.

And whats wrong with telling someone that you dont like his behaviour? You seem to do it as well.

If you dont tell them, they dont know that it bothers someone and wont change it.
I dont know if simply reporting him without giving him a chance to change it, is the best solution in order to keep this thread open and continue the discussion on topic and constructive.

I sure as heck don’t threaten to report you or anyone else for something that’s not against forum rules. They have been posting the same way for years. Why is it now all of a sudden a huge issue? The best way to keep the discussion on track is for y’all to stop derailing the thread.

Ohoni.6057:

If a player in PvP wins more matches because he’s a more skilled player, then fair enough. If he wins more matches because he’s playing the one class out of nine that is objectively far superior to any other class even when played by players of equal skill, then that’s not very fun for players who would prefer to play as the other eight classes, even if they do always have the option of playing the god-class themselves if they like.

We’ve been over this before. You and I are not competing for who can get Dawn first. Yes, the TP is a competition, but the rest of the game isn’t. You can earn what you need for Dawn at whatever rate you want, dependent on what you’re willing to spend your time doing.

Ohoni.6057:

Who says Wanze isn’t working hard? If you’re suggesting that your gameplay takes more skill, or more hard work than him, why not take the easy route and play the TP?

Because this is a game. I work at work, I don’t work in games. I play games to have fun, and I don’t have fun pouring over spreadsheets. I just want to have fun AND be able to afford nice things.

If you just want to relax in GW2, that’s fine. Just don’t relax and then ask for the same things as people who worked.

Ohoni.6057:

I have not been opposed to better UI. Earlier, you said that under your system items would move ‘rapidly towards equilibrium,’ so I asked how that would happen. You now admit that removing TP flippers would slow that movement down and have provided no evidence or reason for why it would move toward equilibrium.

Lol, I didn’t “admit” anything, I was just clarifying the system because you didn’t seem to understand it. Different components serve different purposes.

Prove that those functions would serve those purposes, that they would achieve the goals without counteracting each other, and that they are necessary and that Anet has good reason to consider the whole thing.

Ohoni.6057:

Removing flippers was never intended to help bring equilibrium (nor do I think that it would slow it), that was intended to increase fairness.

I’ll get back to this later, just keep it in mind.

Ohoni.6057:

Fair. You haven’t demonstrated that this would actually happen though.

Fair enough, and I’m not even sure how I would go about doing that. It’s what I think would happen, and it’d be nice if it did, but it might not, and if it doesn’t we would at least be no worse than we are right now. If you have any suggestions as to how to do it better, that’d be great.

Outline what economic forces would cause this. Prove that they would not be counteracted by, say, the removal of flippers overcutting buy orders and undercutting sell orders (I’ll get back to this). Then give evidence-based reasons why this needs to be done and how it would make the game objectively better without fundamentally breaking the economy or other game systems. If you can do that without bringing in your personal opinions and without making unsubstantiated claims, and without gaps that would undermine the whole thing, you will have convinced me, and I will agree with you. I’ve laid out here what will convince me; can you do the same?

Ohoni.6057:

If they now understand what, why would someone ever sell to buy orders or buy from sell orders?

Well, they have to transact a trade somehow, right? I mean nobody benefits from just sitting on the item.

Well, yees, and that’s exactly the flaw that I’m pointing out. The same reasoning that got you to this point would create just such a scenario. But go on.

If a player realizes that he can make more money in a reasonable time by just undercutting sell, then he’ll do so. And another realizes he can still get his product fast by just overcutting buys a bit, then he’ll do that, and the two sides will move closer and closer together, one side more than the other if the balance point is not 50/50, but eventually they’ll be close enough that it doesn’t really matter which they pick so they’ll just buy whatever.

Congratulations, sir, you have just outlined one of the most basic principles of flipping that people have been using for years. In the current economy. With item margins as they are…

Ohoni.6057:

I’ve seen that happen already on some commodities, where the prices get so close together that undercutting the sell order even slightly means that you’re picking up buy orders. The existing UI handles this situation very poorly, btw, they really should allow you to place your buy/sell order for the quantity that you want, even if some portion of that quantity would instantly be fulfilled due to existing buy/sell orders.

So the existing system can cause it, but of course we need this fundamentally different system so that it can happen, right?
/s
I think what it’s doing is not letting you sell more than the buy order is for, so you don’t accidentally sell N of your X items, and end up with a sell order at the former buy order price for X-N of your items. I agree, it’s a little clunky.

Ohoni.6057:

But let’s make sure to not consider the other side, that sellers get less money for their items and/or buyers have to pay more for their items, no, that’s not an effect of what you want to happen. Let’s also not pay attention to how vague ‘significantly’ is.

We could if you like, I really don’t mind. Yes, sometimes sellers would make more than they currently would, but each time they do so, it would be because a buyer would not be paying that higher price. And of course the opposite is true from the other side. Since neither side would have to deal with resellers, the same customers who would be getting worse deals one time would be getting better deals some other time, and it would average out to them getting better deals overall, since there wouldn’t be anyone skimming profit potential off the middle.

That made no sense, so let me give you a hypothetical run-down. Players 1-5 sell item A to trader 11, and players 6-10 buy item A from player 11. Let’s say item A has a 2s-4s buy-sell order spread. Players 1-5 sell to buy order, getting 2s per A. Players 6-10 buy from the sell order, paying 4s. Now, same people, same choices, but player 11 no longer exists. The item now has a 1s99c-4s1c spread because 11’s orders no longer exist. 1-5 sell to the buy order for 1s99c each, and 6-10 buy for 4s1c each. Do you see how it doesn’t ‘even out’ the way you think it does?

Ohoni.6057:

Right now, you can go kill boars in Queensdale, getting items and money from them, sell the items, slowly stockpile money, and eventually have enough money to buy the item you want. It may not be efficient, but you can do it. The only person that wants to remove ways to reach goals is you.

Yes, but currently that method is not balanced against other methods. I think it’s reasonably well balanced against other adventuring activities, low pressure for low reward, but it’s not at all balanced against the TP method. To go back to my building analogy, adventuring would be taking the stairs and hallways, or taking the ramp the long way around, the TP method would be taking a system of powered elevators and moving walkways that will lift you to the destination in a fraction of the time and effort, but it requires you to know the passcode to access it. It’s not a balanced alternative. I’m not necessarily saying remove any alternatives, but any alternatives that exist must be balanced with the other possibilities.

If you think it’s as easy as a passcode, I don’t know what to tell you. Even if we assume it is, it would be closer to giving everyone the first half, and some people go off and search for the second half, while the rest decide they don’t want to. And to add you into this scenario, you chose not to pursue it, but when you see some people starting to figure it out, you yell for them to tell it to you, despite not having done anything for it.

Ohoni.6057:

You can hold that belief as long as you want, not everyone else does and you don’t get to force that belief on everyone.

Sure, but a lot of other people also seem to be complaining about the amount of grind/RNG/gold/etc. involved in certain rewards, maybe enough to care about, I don’t know, but ANet should really try to find that out.

Irrelevant. You might notice that the majority of this thread has been on the topic of demolishing the TP as it stands. We have touched on those those topics, yes, but only as points in the overarching discussion. Not that it matters, saying that a lot of people agree is merely a fallacy (argumentum ad populum, to be exact).

Ohoni.6057:

I’ve said this before: advantages only exist when you are competing for an end goal. You are not in any competition to get a high-end item.

And I’ve said before, you’re entirely wrong on that, because the TP is a competitive landscape in which those who succeed do so only at others’ expense. You can’t make money without someone losing it, if both sides get a fair deal then they just break even on the transaction. Your argument that the economy is not competitive would be true ONLY if prices were fixed, and if I we were only racing towards a fixed gold vale as fast as we each could.

And if you had read what I had said before, you would know that I’m not talking about the economy here, but the game as a whole. I agree, the TP is a competition, but that’s not what I’m talking about.

Ohoni.6057:

You missed the point. People don’t want to farm 5000 mithril, they want to buy it now, and oh look! TP traders will put that sell order supply up.

Yeah, but you don’t need TP traders for that. Where did the TP trader get his 5000 mithril? He got it from other players who were farming for metal, and who got less for their time and effort than the TP trader is going to get from reselling it. So someone comes along and wants 5000 mithril, he doesn’t need the TP trader to list it, because the mithril that trader would have bought and resold would still be sitting right there, just at a lower price.

1. The buy and sell orders were there for any farmer to look at. If anything, the farmer would get slightly more, because the trader would overcut the last buy order.
2. To say that it would be there at a lower price makes no sense unless, between the two versions of events, that player actively made a different choice, in which case you can’t compare the two versions. Additionally, traders keep supply in the market for longer, so the person who buys 500 mithril from him would have otherwise bought up more expensive mithril.

Ohoni.6057:

And the thing is, if it’s impossible to re-sell materials, then let’s say that the sell price does creep up, because less people are listing sell orders. Well in that case, people who actually earned those materials could be making more money, which they actually deserve.

At the converse expense of the buyer, my whole point above.

Ohoni.6057:

Better that they make more than that middlemen make more, right? And if the price goes up, then that encourages more people to farm those mats, more of the mats enter circulation, and the prices come back down again. It would be no less stable than the current system.

Except that those exact same forces are at play right now, but with the additional balance of traders. The trader keeps supply in circulation for longer. That is, mithril sold to a trader will remain as supply on the TP for longer, reducing prices.

Ohoni.6057:

The only way that they would be getting a better deal is if you forced the seller to make a sell order and the buyer to buy it, in which case the buyer is getting a worse deal, or if you forced the buyer to place a buy order and the seller to fill it, in which case the seller is getting a worse deal.

Again, you don’t have to force it. You just need the UI to do a better job of informing the buyer/seller of his options, so that he can make a decision that better suits his needs than he might otherwise make, and by eliminating middlemen, whichever side comes out on top, it’s not a middleman, it’s an actual player, and he might benefit on one transaction and lose out on another, but it would balance out to a net gain over the current options.

Said like a person who believe the ‘middleman’ isn’t even a player. That aside, what I’m saying is that a better deal will always be a bad deal for someone else, no matter what system it is under. I’m also saying that it only ‘balances out’ if a person, at varying times, both uses the sell order for his loot and doesn’t, both uses buy orders for what he wants and doesn’t; in other words, someone who is utterly inconsistent.

Ohoni.6057:

-not doing something because you don’t like it
-complaining that someone else profited because they were fine with doing it
-demanding that they not get that profit because you don’t like that someone else can profit doing something you don’t like
Laziness isn’t quite the right word, but it’s close.

Yeeeah, right up to that last bit. “Laxiness” is pretty far off the mark, “disinterest,” maybe? This is a game, it’s meant to be fun. Players should not have to do things that they don’t enjoy just to remain remotely competitive. Some activities can be more rewarding than others, but they should all be within a fair close min/max level of reward.

No one is forcing you to do it, you don’t have to. Disinterest in the TP? Plenty of options. Interest in the TP? We’ve got one option. Oh, wait, Ohoni got what he wanted. Nope, you’re just screwed.

Ohoni.6057:

We have maybe 3-4 people that have contributed to this thread in favor of your side.

Keep in mind, this is not the only thread discussing related topics. There are plenty of other threads discussing things like the cost of precursor crafting, guild halls, Scribing, etc. It is an issue that a lot of people seem to care about. Again, you can argue “not enough,” but neither of us can say how large the relative populations are.

As I said above, I haven’t seen other threads on demolishing the TP as it stands, which is what this one has been about. The other topics have been points within that overarching discussion, not the actual topic at hand.

Ohoni.6057:

I think that the changes I proposed would benefit more of the players, since relatively few of them benefit from the current model, so whether they actually care about the issue or not isn’t particularly important.

And you have shown no evidence or reason for why I should think that, nor any reason why it should be done.

Ohoni.6057:

But when the thread starts moving fast and you start responding to multiple people who may be saying conflicting things in the same post, it gets messy and hard for people to follow or even realize that Ohoni is responding to the things that they said, especially when they aren’t the first person they respond to.

Why should you care whether I’m responding to you? Do you not care what your fellow posters have to say? You only want feedback on the things you’ve said? That’s pretty self-absorbed. It shouldn’t matter who I’m replying to, it should only matter what I’m replying to, regardless of who said it.

The two things were separate points, and I think you know that. Stop conflating the two. The point is that, with the name, you can just click to see the source post, figure out who you’re responding to, etc. It’s basic etiquette to include them, and makes things rather annoying to follow if you don’t. The only reason I know who you’re responding to is that I’m writing half of it.

Ohoni.6057:

Not to mention, this forum will link to the direct post. So that if the person who quotes crops out parts, other readers can click on the link and get the permanent link to the quoted post for more context if necessary. Since, Ohoni doesn’t do that AND crops out parts of the posts pretty much all of the time, context can be lost. This holds especially true for threads that move quickly.

Whenever I have to look up the context of a comment, I do a quick word search for a relatively unique phrase, that usually turns it up.

Again, it’s rather annoying, much easier to do with the name there, and is just a pointless inconvenience for readers.

Ohoni.6057:

So, you want to make a player who has almost no investment in the game, just finished leveling their first character, to be just as well off and just as capable of getting high-end stuff as someone who has spent hundreds if not thousands of hours gathering materials (in this case gold).

No, that’s not what I said (you really do seem to have a habit of that, don’t you). You would need to progress towards the goal, you just shouldn’t be able to use gold to shortcut the process. I mean, you can have millions of karma, that doesn’t mean that you are owed the right to buy every legendary component for karma if you like.

No one is talking about being ‘owed’ anything. Again, this is your opinion, I’m sure you can fill in the rest yourself. Beyond that, you’ve missed my point, which was that you are invalidating the time and investment of players pointlessly. Well, not pointlessly, it achieves one thing: making everyone else play as you do.

Ohoni.6057:

Again, you may think that any given thing should be true. That is your opinion and you are entitled to it. You don’t get to force everyone else to think and play with the your opinion.

You say some variation of this point a lot, and you seem to think that you’re actually challenging something I said. Of course this is all my opinion, and of course I can’t force it on anyone. That’s never been in doubt. I just believe that it would be in the best interests of the game, anyone is free to disagree on that and I’ve never portrayed it as otherwise.

All of your arguments for your beliefs boil down to two things:
(1) just your opinion
(2) a claim but no evidence
An opinion is not an argument, as you use it. A claim is one, but relies on your ability to substantiate it. What I am saying is that your opinion is not a reason for a position.

Ohoni.6057:

With the amount of this thread spent on your feelings, one would think that it is. Anway, you’re not quite right: In almost ever ripoff in human history, the victim’s knowledge of the value and uses of the item was inaccurate. No one is concealing the uses of an item, but in fact you can ‘/wiki Item Name’ as a chat command to find the wiki’s documentation of its uses. Thus, for it to be a ripoff, they must have an inaccurate understanding of the item’s value. So please, go ahead and argue that the prices that items are bought and sold at aren’t accurate.

Yes, but you have to look that item up via outside sources. In most land scams, people always have the option of tracking down documentation on that land, getting it privately assayed, consulting locals about potential future uses for it, whatever, but that doesn’t mean that the scammed has no obligation to be honest in the first place. Just because you can scam someone, and they could have avoided it, doesn’t mean you’re justified in doing so.

You missed my point, I was saying that no one is hiding recipes for an item so they can buy it from you cheap. Adding a way to show every recipe for every item in-game would be pointless, redundant, and large. Just imagine mousing over an Iron Ingot to see the entire screen overflowing with recipes for this iron armor piece, thar iron weapon part. The wiki documents it concisely and efficiently.

Ohoni.6057:

And all I’m asking for is that you stop conflating the TP with the rest of the game.

I would be happy to do so just as soon as items/gold bought or sold on the TP can no longer be used anywhere else in the game. So long as items/gold that pass through the TP CAN be used in other aspects of the game, the TP is a part of the game, and you cannot rationally argue otherwise.

The first half has nothing to do with what I said, lol. I’m not arguing the TP isn’t part of the game, it very much is. I’m arguing that the properties of other parts, or even the sum, are not always comparable to other parts.

Ohoni.6057:

What you want is to be able to do whatever you want, however non-goal-oriented it may be, and end up with the same result as, say, Wanze, who has been focused on getting one specific thing to the best of his ability, knowledge, and research.

I wouldn’t go that broad with it. I wouldn’t say that farming moas, for example, should be as profitable.

The exact same logic and reasoning can be used to justify that.

Ohoni.6057:

But I think this is a pretty big game, with a LOT of things to do in it, and to argue that NONE of those activities should be even 1/10th as rewarding as TP flipping is a bit irrational.

And I think you don’t understand what I said earlier about comparability, or what Smooth and Wanze have been saying about that in this whole thread. Not that I’m surprised.

Ohoni.6057:

The miners rarely made money because they were chasing a dream-story that didn’t exist, at least not as they thought it did. The shop owners made money because they provided what people wanted when there were a LOT of people that wanted those items. Basic supply and demand. I don’t see your argument.

Really? Because you seem to have nailed the GW2 economy.

Point me to the people that are chasing money from a source that doesn’t exist, or doesn’t exist in great enough quantities for it to be possible.

Ohoni.6057:

Its basic math, just multiply the current value of your loot on the tp by 2 or 3, list it at that price and wait until it sells. Thats all there is to it.
Boom, you make as much as a trader.

And if it never sells because you gambled at a price that never gets reached? I do have at least a few orders on the TP that I’ve let ride for a year or more. Not everyone has the disposable income to tie up significant amounts for months on end without returns.

And he is willing to tie up that money for that long. And you would consider that no more valuable than opening chests in the Silverwastes. I would say that I fail to see your logic, but I can’t tell if there even is logic here.

Ohoni.6057:

You only see the benefits of a perceived high reward that traders seem to get in your opinion and want it for your playstyle as well.
You completely disregard the risks involved.
Once other reward structures get similar penalties applied to them, we can talk about buffing rewards.

There are certainly ways to greatly reduce risk from the sort of “yolo” tactic you suggest. There are much safer bets to make with plenty strong returns, so long as you take the time to research and have the tools available to do so.

Read that last clause a few times to yourself. Again.

Ohoni.6057:

If typical gameplay doesn’t involve enough “risk” to justify the sort of rewards the TP offers, I’d be fine with some sort of “self gambling” system, where a player could bet a certain amount of gold that he could complete an encounter without dying, or with only a fixed number of lives, and only if he beats the spread does he take home the prize. I don’t know that I’d want to gamble on the performance of others, there already enough of that just in time wasted when an event wipes.

Or you can accept that there are fundamental differences and stop making false equivalencies.

Ohoni.6057:

It’s not like normal play is entirely without risk. Sure, you aren’t gambling money, you aren’t putting gold up front that you stand to lose, but you are always gambling time, and time is money.

And yet, for you, time isn’t the issue with precursors, it’s money. Oh wait, you just agreed that time is money. Huh.

Ohoni.6057:

Your argument that its too hard for the average player to list it at a higher value and expect it to sell at a certain time is completely moot because the trader has to take the same risk.

Yes, but WITH BETTER ODDS. Do you watch John Oliver? He did a piece a couple weeks back on that online sports gambling thing, where they advertise that players make millions of dollars a week at it. And some do. But the ones that do are the ones with massive spreadsheets and algorithms that track player performance, weather, etc., allowing them to lose some, but win many more and come out ahead. Sure, a random guy can just “yolo” it and maybe his picks win and he makes money, but his chances of success are way lower.

Do you understand basic statistics? Or why their win-loss rate might be higher because they spent time to assure that? Imagine that you make a guess, then roll a 20-sided die 10 times each day. What you are saying is that it is unfair that he doesn’t win very often for the sole reason that someone else is doing the same thing hundreds if not thousands of times per day after looking into common flaws for this kind of die and manufacturer, and has spent time examining the die to see what imbalances it has.

Ohoni.6057:

A player that knows what he’s doing isn’t taking much risk at all, really. Oh, he might take a risk on a few transactions, and lose on them, but he’d win on more than he loses and come out ahead.

And you clearly don’t even know what you’re talking about. Or how much goes into trying to reduce risk. Or why winning on risks makes you come out ahead.

Ohoni.6057:

Would you ever really gamble so much of your wealth on a risky move that it would actually wipe you out? Or do you just make high risk plays with a tiny fraction of your net worth, and mostly make plays that you’re fairly certain will pay out?

No, but that’s common sense. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, as they say. Now, would you mind telling me what any of this has to do with any of the discussion? Or at least try to justify why it isn’t a red herring.

Ohoni.6057:

You can claim as much as you want that profits on the tp are basically the same than rewards from Anet. They arent.

I acknowledge the same difference that you acknowledge, that is not the difference between our positions. The difference is that I also understand that you acquiring gold, wherever you acquire it from, is still you acquiring gold, and it’s ANet’s responsibility to keep those systems in balance with all others. If they allow players to earn gold by taking it from other players, then it is their responsibility to make sure that this method is in balance with the other methods of a player acquiring gold.

Correct, you do acknowledge the difference. And then go on to completely ignore it.

Lynne.8416:

Wanze.8410:

Its so laughable that you think there is much skill involved in listing your loot for a higher price.

Its basic math, just multiply the current value of your loot on the tp by 2 or 3, list it at that price and wait until it sells. Thats all there is to it.
Boom, you make as much as a trader.

The only issue I have really is…because of all this increasing prices on the TP.. and everyone trying to make the most amount of gold, eventually EVERYTHING is going to be way over priced and out of the hands of the poor and middle class players.

For example: Anton’s Boot Blade is valued (worth) 2s 64c by Anet (wiki) and is currently selling on the TP for more than 34 gold. That is way overpriced and for some players this could be out of reach.

Vendor value is irrelevant, and has been for a long time on almost everything rare or greater. Comparing it to TP prices doesn’t even make sense.

Lynne.8416:

Once you get into precursor and legendary weapons…that are selling at astronomical prices all because people are trying to make money off the TP. Not necessarily to buy something pricey, but because they wish to amass gold in the game.

No, they sell for astronomical prices because they are very rare and very useful, so there’s little supply and large demand. Commenting on the economy without understanding supply and demand is rather futile.

Lynne.8416:

So basically the “poor” will never acquire anything pricey, because by the time they make 100g, the price will have moved up to be 300g. Which I find rather sad.

No. In this system, there is nothing preventing the poor from going out and doing any number of things to get quite a bit of money. The reason they are poor and will remain there is because they don’t want to do something about it.

Lynne.8416:

Wanze.8410:

The vendor value Anet sets has very little to do with the value the players set for the item.
The increased prices on the tp are due to additional demand, as the player base as a whole is destroying alot of mats atm to craft stuff or upgrade guild halls, etc.
Its actually positive for poor and middle class players, if basic mats rise in price becasue they can easily farm them and therefore get more value for their loot.
In addition to that, most valuable items that have been traded for over 100g before hot and have no function as a requirement to gain other items, have fallen in value since HoT.

I was actually referring to the fact that the poor will always be poor. Because they are not “farming” or “playing the TP” to make gold. They are just out there playing “their” particular part of the game (say PvP or WvW or mapping/exploring).

Yes, they made choices about how they wanted to spend their time, and those choices have results.

Lynne.8416:

The rich will always find a way to be rich (as even when they go “broke” they know how to amass gold quickly). Some people play the game to amass gold because that is what THEY enjoy and they tend to control the price of items on the TP as they can afford to buy out the low and sell high.
Not saying it’s wrong, it’s just how life works.

The rich will either still be able to do what got them there, or will find the next thing that will keep them there. Why will they have this and the poor don’t? The rich made the choice to spend their time pursuing gold.

Ohoni.6057:

Its not only common netiquette but also common courtesy in real life, sometimes even legally required, to provide a source, when you quote someone.

The source is implicit, it’s somewhere up thread, which you should have already read before you got to my post. If I source something from outside this thread, there will be a link.

It’s basic, useful formatting; it’s not hard to use, and not using it is rather disrespectful. As I think I said earlier, I wasn’t going to bring it up because then you’d level the accusations that, well, you’ve leveled at the people who brought it up, and that would probably lead to a general derailment. Now that this point has been brought up, I agree.

Ohoni.6057:

It simply takes statements other people made out of context and prohibits readers of your post to double check the source.

Its disrespectful and doesnt really help you to get your points across.

You dont have to type in poster data, you can just copy/paste it along with the quote.

Its very simple and your reluctance to do so makes it look like you dont want to provide context on purpose.

You see what I mean about people using this as a sideshow when they feel they’re on their back foot in the primary line of discussion? I mean, you didn’t even address the actual topic at all.

I think this person (I’d say who, but there’s no name) was reading through the thread, and found your lack of etiquette so infuriating that s/he felt the need to post. Also, ad hominems are unbecoming. S/he stated that they found your formatting disrespectful, and you respond by saying that this person only said that because s/he was losing; do you see what I mean?

Ohoni.6057:

where all characters and all accounts are created equal it is the quality and effort of each player alone that enables him to accumulate wealth in game.

That’s not entirely true. While the basics of each account are created equal, accounts created earlier than others have more opportunities to exploit loopholes before they get patched or nerfed, and then take that money and roll it into some other venture. The longer you’ve been playing, the more opportunities you’ve had to gain an advantage. This is bit similar to an aristocracy as played out over generations, in that anyone born in the middle of a medieval period could theoretically distinguish himself and earn his way into the aristocracy, those who have already been in the aristocracy for generations are much more capable of staying there and further advancing their station with far less effort.

This is true regardless of the TP, regardless of pretty much any of the things talked about in this thread. So I ask: your point?

Essence Snow.3194:

It’s not how they have been conducting his/herself. It’s how y’all feel he or she is conducting themselves. They have said multiple times they are not doing it to insult or offend anyone. In fact it’s the opposite. The self-absorbed comment I would assume is there as a reflection of that.

I don’t care if they think they’re not being insulting — I’m insulted by it. My words are MINE. They are not generic quoted text and there are reasons attribution is required in any serious academic discourse, not least of which is so the interested reader can verify them. I’ve long since stopped directly responding to that poster for EXACTLY that reason.

Astralporing.1957:

Nike.2631:

The Trading Post is economic PvP. There are minds on the other end of every transaction. Make an effort not to get fleeced. It’s good practice for everyone.

Yeah, it’s PvP, but unlike WvW or sPvP this one is forced – an equivalent to open world PvP in a game where most players are strictly pve ones. This is the main reason why it’s so succesful.

I can’t say I agree that its “forced”. Its convenient but what exactly can you not do given enough time and personal harvesting/farming? There’s a couple of festival items it gives you a second chance at if you failed to hunt it down yourself during the limited window, but beyond that?

Nike.2631:

Essence Snow.3194:

It’s not how they have been conducting his/herself. It’s how y’all feel he or she is conducting themselves. They have said multiple times they are not doing it to insult or offend anyone. In fact it’s the opposite. The self-absorbed comment I would assume is there as a reflection of that.

I don’t care if they think they’re not being insulting — I’m insulted by it. My words are MINE. They are not generic quoted text and there are reasons attribution is required in any serious academic discourse, not least of which is so the interested reader can verify them. I’ve long since stopped directly responding to that poster for EXACTLY that reason.

And I am highly insulted by y’all badgering them over it when it hasn’t been an issue for years. So if being insulted by something is justification for someone else to stop doing something….by all means please stop.

I don’t badger them, I just don’t respond. I commented on it once months ago, they ignored me, it became mutual. And you sure as heck don’t get to declare “it hasn’t been an issue for years” when it’s obviously an issue even now. Personally I kind of like knowing other people find it as offensive as I do.

If you’re not part of the group harassing them about it…I apologize to you.

No worries. If anything I’m amazed these threads go on as long as the do…

Most of what’s getting thrown around here isn’t about game design, because games intrinsically offer better and worse paths to accomplish a goal. It’s more discussing how to put better fluffy padding on the inside of a skinner box where outcome is entirely divorced from technique × effort. Time is all that matters in a skinner box. And while I appreciate that MMOs secretly want to be skinner boxes, I prefer for it to be less obvious .

Harper, I still don’t care.

Aaaaand I’m done. This is the fallacy fallacy — that is, you’re implicitly accusing me of committing a non sequitur because I supposedly can’t come up with an argument, because clearly the only reason anyone would every be annoyed at a lack of basic netiquette would be if they have nothing else to say. You’re being intellectually dishonest and I have no interest in debating with you any more. I wish you luck in the future.

And yet. . . not one word about the topic itself in your post. Methinks you doth protest too much.

Aha, so you basically want to penalize people with a higher tax, if they pick up more gold from the tp than a certain amount per day you deem to be too much.

I will tell you why this will completely fail its purpose:

Because it doesnt only penalyze your target group but also the very players you are trying to protect.

Lets say this daily limit is 50g, if i sell stuff on the tp for more than that between 2 daily resets, i have to pay an additional fee.

It would be a longer scale DR than that. It wouldn’t be a hard daily cap, it would be something that you would accumulate over time. Take in 50g in one day, nothing would happen. Take it in two days, maybe still nothing. Take the same amount each of three days, maybe a 1% added difference. Go a few more days with minimal profits, and it would go away again. Make 50g per day for the next few days though, and it might go up to 2%. Average 1000g per month, and you’d have a steadily climbing rate, make very little for a long time but make a few big sales, it would balance out. They could even weight it against large one-time sales, so that selling a Precursor for 600g would have less of an impact on raising the DR than selling 50g in various random items each day for twelve days.

It would be designed to be forgiving of single item spikes, forgiving of bursts of trading with long gaps in between, but penalizing for a consistent history of activity. Does that make more sense to you?

If i buy an item for 20g and would normally sell it once the price is at 60g, i would just wait until it is at 65g, to pay the extra fee.

But what if it never hits 65g? And if it would hit 65g, then why would you sell it at 60g in the first place? Did you not want that other 5g if you didn’t have to pay off your fees? Keep in mind, just because a high volume trader might need that extra 5g to pay off his costs, doesn’t mean that the market would automatically cut him that slack. Other traders would be able to list it at 60g and still make their full profit, because they are less active traders.

If i put in a lower buy order because my profits are less, someone will get less gold for his loot.

Nah. If you put in a lower buy order to protect your profits, then someone else will just overcut your low order. The customer still gets his price, he just does it without you.

We’ve been over this before. You and I are not competing for who can get Dawn first. Yes, the TP is a competition, but the rest of the game isn’t. You can earn what you need for Dawn at whatever rate you want, dependent on what you’re willing to spend your time doing.

But, the market is still competitive. It’s not about who gets the Dawn first, it’s about who has the gold to buy Dawn first. The faster you accumulate the money you need, the better a deal you’re likely to get. Yes, the price falls from time to time, but if you don’t have the gold in hand to capitalize on those periods then you can’t take advantage of them. It isn’t even a direct competition over the same item, trying to craft The Legend yourself, for example, puts you into competition with people crafting Nevermore, Guild Halls, etc.

If you just want to relax in GW2, that’s fine. Just don’t relax and then ask for the same things as people who worked.

I don’t believe that treating it as “work” should be a supported playstyle. I mean, people should be able to do it if they want, they just shouldn’t feel entitled to superior rewards for doing so.

If a player realizes that he can make more money in a reasonable time by just undercutting sell, then he’ll do so. And another realizes he can still get his product fast by just overcutting buys a bit, then he’ll do that, and the two sides will move closer and closer together, one side more than the other if the balance point is not 50/50, but eventually they’ll be close enough that it doesn’t really matter which they pick so they’ll just buy whatever.

Congratulations, sir, you have just outlined one of the most basic principles of flipping that people have been using for years. In the current economy. With item margins as they are…

Right, but my point is that the average player doesn’t realize these things, because the tools are not there to make it easy. It requires making trial sales, checking price histories and volumes on outside sites, things like that. My point is that a more comprehensive UI element would make these facts obvious to the average player in a way that the current UI does not, so that they would realize the better options available to them, rather than only a smaller subset of the population being aware of these systems, and an even smaller subset of that one understanding exactly how to best make use of the principles.

If more people are actively participating in this system, actively undercutting each other, then prices are more likely to move together, but again, if it doesn’t, that’s fine, at least it would give people the best possible shot at it.

So the existing system can cause it, but of course we need this fundamentally different system so that it can happen, right?

Again, the point of the system is not to bring prices closer to equilibrium. That is just a side effect that I believe will result, and you can disagree if you like, I won’t argue it. That’s not the point though, the point of it is to make these tools more available to the disinterested trader, the ones that currently make bad decisions when they could make better ones while still getting all the benefits of their current choices. It’s to democratize the TP.

I think what it’s doing is not letting you sell more than the buy order is for, so you don’t accidentally sell N of your X items, and end up with a sell order at the former buy order price for X-N of your items. I agree, it’s a little clunky.

Yes, basically the way the current system works is, if someone is asking for 25 items at 30s, and another is asking for 20 at 31s and the sell price is 32s, then you can list 50 items at 32s, or you can list 20 at 31s, but you cannot list 50 for 31s without first clearing that top buy order out. Now, you’d likely want to post it at higher than that anyways in most cases, but it’s still a nuisance. You should be able to post your 50 at 31s, it would instantly process the 20 asked for, and then leave the other 30 up as a sell order.

That made no sense, so let me give you a hypothetical run-down. Players 1-5 sell item A to trader 11, and players 6-10 buy item A from player 11. Let’s say item A has a 2s-4s buy-sell order spread. Players 1-5 sell to buy order, getting 2s per A. Players 6-10 buy from the sell order, paying 4s. Now, same people, same choices, but player 11 no longer exists. The item now has a 1s99c-4s1c spread because 11’s orders no longer exist. 1-5 sell to the buy order for 1s99c each, and 6-10 buy for 4s1c each. Do you see how it doesn’t ‘even out’ the way you think it does?

But the thing is, there are real people who want those items, and will compete to get them. Pure traders are not some invaluable resource. Yes, if the first group clears out the buy orders, the buy price would drop to the next tier available, but some other player would come along who wants that item, and would overcut that order, and we’d be back to the original price or higher. If real people did not want that item, then it wouldn’t be profitable for traders to be involved in that market in the first place.

And again, you say “group A” and “group B,” but real players are neither pure buyers or sellers, they buy what they need and sell what they don’t, so the average player will be buying as often as he sells. So maybe those in group A get an advantage over group B in one trade, but then the opposite would tend to happen in a different trade and it balances out over time. The distinction from the current system is that that “balancing out” factor currently applies mostly to the trader’s profit margins.

Irrelevant. You might notice that the majority of this thread has been on the topic of demolishing the TP as it stands.

The points surrounding the TP are only relevant in how they interact with the gold economy, and how that gold economy allows players to shortcut various other goals. It’s all interconnected.

Not that it matters, saying that a lot of people agree is merely a fallacy (argumentum ad populum, to be exact).

I’m well aware, as is implying that the opposing side does not have popular support. I do my best to claim only that I know some portion of the population agrees with my position, because of direct responses to that effect, and that I believe that no matter how many people support my position, it would ultimately work out to the majority’s benefit regardless.

1. The buy and sell orders were there for any farmer to look at. If anything, the farmer would get slightly more, because the trader would overcut the last buy order.

Perhaps, although as I’ve said, I think a better detailed UI would help him to make better choices in that regard. But let’s say that the farmer does make less gold for his mithril, that would occur to the benefit of another actual player who needed that mithril to make things. He would have gotten a better deal, and that’s good. And then later on, the mithril farmer would need to buy something, and he would get a better deal on that. it would balance out, but either way, the “good deal” is going to one of two players that are actually playing the game, not to the trader playing the margins in between them.

Additionally, traders keep supply in the market for longer, so the person who buys 500 mithril from him would have otherwise bought up more expensive mithril.

They only do this by hoarding materials when they are cheap, and reselling them when they are more expensive. If they could not do this, then the items would just stay on the market at the lower price consistently, and people who needed those materials to craft would get a good deal, until such time as the cheaper mats got depleted, then the prices would climb again and make them more profitable to farm. That’s basically no different than it works now, except that the entirety of the profits/savings goes to the actual players, not to the traders.

At the converse expense of the buyer, my whole point above.

Yes, exactly.

Except that those exact same forces are at play right now, but with the additional balance of traders. The trader keeps supply in circulation for longer. That is, mithril sold to a trader will remain as supply on the TP for longer, reducing prices.

See above.

No one is forcing you to do it, you don’t have to.

True, but also irrelevant. It’s like saying “Yes, this one class is ten times as powerful as any other, but you don’t have to play it, you can play one of the other ones if you enjoy that more.” It’s just silly. If one choice is seriously unbalanced, then it is unfair to those who prefer other choices. That’s why you need them to be all in balance, and can’t resolve a balance dispute with “well, you can always roll a [Class X] if you want.”

Adding a way to show every recipe for every item in-game would be pointless, redundant, and large. Just imagine mousing over an Iron Ingot to see the entire screen overflowing with recipes for this iron armor piece, thar iron weapon part. The wiki documents it concisely and efficiently.

I don’t think that would be an effective way for it to work, but perhaps it could show a few of the most profitable recipes that you could make with it. There are already 3rd party sites that do this.

And I think you don’t understand what I said earlier about comparability, or what Smooth and Wanze have been saying about that in this whole thread. Not that I’m surprised.

Oh, I’m aware of the prevailing view among the TP aficionados that TP profits cannot be compared to content rewards, which is terribly convenient since it absolves their own favorite profit method from having to be balanced against other people’s favorite profit methods, I just fundamentally disagree with them on that. I fully understand that they cannot raise content rewards to TP profit levels because of inflation, but I think it’s perfectly possible to figure out ways to cut into the TP profit margins to bring them in balance with content rewards, just as you wouldn’t want to raise every other class to “god class” levels as it would trivialize content, but you coudl nerf the god class back down to average level.

Point me to the people that are chasing money from a source that doesn’t exist, or doesn’t exist in great enough quantities for it to be possible.

There are plenty of activities in the game that won’t reward even a fraction of the gold that can be earned by abusing the TP.

It’s not like normal play is entirely without risk. Sure, you aren’t gambling money, you aren’t putting gold up front that you stand to lose, but you are always gambling time, and time is money.

And yet, for you, time isn’t the issue with precursors, it’s money. Oh wait, you just agreed that time is money. Huh.

. . . yes, I just said that. The whole issue is how TP players can make much more money with much less investment of their own time, and then convert that into reduced time in acquiring cool things.

Do you understand basic statistics? Or why their win-loss rate might be higher because they spent time to assure that? Imagine that you make a guess, then roll a 20-sided die 10 times each day. What you are saying is that it is unfair that he doesn’t win very often for the sole reason that someone else is doing the same thing hundreds if not thousands of times per day after looking into common flaws for this kind of die and manufacturer, and has spent time examining the die to see what imbalances it has.

I’m saying that it’s a system that does not work out to the advantage of the overwhelming majority of players, and any well designed system in the game should be designed to work out for most, if not all players.

No, but that’s common sense. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, as they say. Now, would you mind telling me what any of this has to do with any of the discussion? Or at least try to justify why it isn’t a red herring.

Because the point is, taking educated risks that tend to win more often than they lose is not actual risk, it’s only true risk if you’re very likely to lose more over the long term than you are to win. That’s true of most actual gambling, the house usually does win, it is far less true for the TP, for those who know what they’re doing.

No, they sell for astronomical prices because they are very rare and very useful, so there’s little supply and large demand. Commenting on the economy without understanding supply and demand is rather futile.

So is blaming supply and demand for the price of things, when ANet has total control over both factors and have it within their power to shift the value of either at their whims.

I don’t care if they think they’re not being insulting — I’m insulted by it. My words are MINE. They are not generic quoted text and there are reasons attribution is required in any serious academic discourse, not least of which is so the interested reader can verify them. I’ve long since stopped directly responding to that poster for EXACTLY that reason.

Thats. . . kind of sad. I mean, it doesn’t bother me any, if you don’t want to talk to me, but it’s really sad that you can feel this way about the value of your own words, and you have my condolences. It must be very hard to live with.

Ohoni.6057:

Right, but my point is that the average player doesn’t realize these things, because the tools are not there to make it easy.

Ohoni.6057:

the point of it is to make these tools more available to the disinterested trader, the ones that currently make bad decisions when they could make better ones while still getting all the benefits of their current choices. It’s to democratize the TP.

This just doesn’t make any sense on a fundamental level. You’re doing things for people who are not interested. Yes, their ignorance affects the market, but there is no barrier to entry for removing that ignorance.

It’s absolutely bizarre that this is your point. gw2spidy and the wiki are right there, and they’re free to use. Anyone who is interested in them can very, very easily find them. The rest is economic sense, which frankly, is an element of skill and should be preserved.

I’ve also gotta wonder… If ANet can boil down asset management and investment into a set of UI tools, what the hell are they doing making a video game

DeShadowWolf.6854:

No. In this system, there is nothing preventing the poor from going out and doing any number of things to get quite a bit of money. The reason they are poor and will remain there is because they don’t want to do something about it.

No.

The problem is that that “something” they have to do is far too limited to one thing, in terms of gold per hour.

In this case, mainly, the TP.

It’s the equivalent of making people IRL play the stock market, or only earn $0.30 per hour being a soldier, or a teacher, or a nurse…..or even a doctor.

Even in this currently unfair world, in that way, that is still NOT the case.

People can do other things than being a stockbroker and still be fairly comfortable.

…and thank God that is the case, as you stockbroker types need all those professions (and FAR more) to keep you and your families alive and thriving.

FAR more than they need you, in fact.

…and if people get very rich, via whatever they do, they are taxed more highly.

Which is how it should be.

Economies still function and in fact, the only time they generally stop functioning properly, is when people’s wages are held down and they are encouraged to live on too much credit, to try to make up the difference.

That is how the real world works and yet, apparently, that wouldn’t be possible in a game?

I know this is a non-sub game, so Anet may think they have additional reasons for keeping most people poor; but, it is still a bad business move to make the only way of making decent money, gambling on the TP.

Because, most of their customers don’t want to have to do that very much, if at all.

I don’t want to get into a discussion with you, as I haven’t liked your attitude throughout this thread, at all, frankly and I’ve had more than enough on my plate already, attempting (and failing) to get through to Harper and Smooth Penguin.

But, this needed to be said.

This just doesn’t make any sense on a fundamental level. You’re doing things for people who are not interested. Yes, their ignorance affects the market, but there is no barrier to entry for removing that ignorance.

People aren’t disinterested in getting the best bang for their buck, they’re disinterested in going through the hassle of learning how to do that. If you say “do you want 3g or 4g?” None of them will say “3g please!” But if you say “would you like 3g now or 4g at some point in the future, possibly never?” Many would say, “whatever, give me the 3g.” But then if you say “would you like 3g now (when you’re logging out for the night), or 4g by the time you log in tomorrow, almost guaranteed,” most players would switch back to 4g. That needs to be better communicated to them.

It’s absolutely bizarre that this is your point. gw2spidy and the wiki are right there, and they’re free to use. Anyone who is interested in them can very, very easily find them. The rest is economic sense, which frankly, is an element of skill and should be preserved.

Yes, but it requires leaving the game client, and that information is only useful to you if you know what you’re meant to do with it. It helps people who understand the markets to determine a reasonable target point, it does absolutely nothing for players that don’t understand what the wavy lines mean and what future they predict.

I’ve also gotta wonder… If ANet can boil down asset management and investment into a set of UI tools, what the hell are they doing making a video game

Did you ever see the movie “Trading Places?” It really does help if you have 100% perfect vision of future moves. I don’t expect them to actually have accurate long term advice, or 100% perfect prediction on how long it would take something to sell, but they can at least clearly display what the recent average going rate was for an item actually moving on either side of the balance.

Ohoni.6057:

But not efficiently. The ways to make money without using the TP or farming specific areas are so inefficient that even if a player diligently pursues them 8-12 hours per day, every day, they would never catch up to those who spend only an hour or two per day playing efficiently.

They are efficient – depends on how you quantify efficiency but for example crafting ascended insignias (among other time gated crafts) can net you quite a bit of profit. And you don’t have to learn any economic tricks or watch the market or whatnot. Just log in – do your daily craft – sell the stuff and move on.

Daily crafting can get you 5 gold or more per day depending on how well you optimize and how many mats you have to buy.

Ohoni.6057:

That’s not entirely true. While the basics of each account are created equal, accounts created earlier than others have more opportunities to exploit loopholes before they get patched or nerfed, and then take that money and roll it into some other venture. The longer you’ve been playing, the more opportunities you’ve had to gain an advantage. This is bit similar to an aristocracy as played out over generations, in that anyone born in the middle of a medieval period could theoretically distinguish himself and earn his way into the aristocracy, those who have already been in the aristocracy for generations are much more capable of staying there and further advancing their station with far less effort.

On the other hand accounts created later had the opportunity to purchase HoT and receive the core game that we originally spent 60$ on for free.
There are advantages and disadvantages to everything.
Having the game early comes with both good and bad parts.
Exploits aren’t something that you can predict and honestly it should be the developers who properly test their game.

The longer you’ve been playing, the more opportunities you’ve had to gain an advantage.

You can look at it another way – when the game first came out there was very little information on what to do and how to be effective – people had no clue about the game.
A player making an account today can find SO many resources guiding them in every aspect of the game – from builds to world completion to farming and collections.
That’s a comfort that you don’t have when you buy the game early.

And even when you start the game early – nobody tells you what’s good and what works – you have to look for it yourself. Sometime that can result in massive wastes of resources – I know – I tried different builds at the very beginning of the game when exotic wasn’t exactly cheap. That’s money I could have saved if someone had written a guide and I could’ve just read what works best.

For each thing you gain you lose something, and for each thing lost you gain something else.

This is bit similar to an aristocracy as played out over generations, in that anyone born in the middle of a medieval period could theoretically distinguish himself and earn his way into the aristocracy, those who have already been in the aristocracy for generations are much more capable of staying there and further advancing their station with far less effort.

Except your example is a real life situation – where things are incomparably more complex and the difference between non-aristocracy(na) and aristocracy(a) in terms of what you would have to do to change your status from na to a is much more difficult than what you have to do in GW2 in order to achieve a “rich status”.

Are you seriously comparing rising through the ranks of society in one of humanity’s most difficult periods to making money in an online game?

GW2 has no hard caps on how far you can go in terms of getting money – the system is equal for all- in those periods there were a lot of hard caps. Think about it – i’m sure you know at least some history.

Methods and means in this game are equal to all – the desire to use them is not.

Essence Snow.3194:

That’s a new low. Trying to force someone to post how you like…….How would you like others to infringe the same upon you?

Are you Ohoni’s back-up?

Tigaseye.2047:

Harper, I still don’t care.

That’s ok I still love you

Tigaseye.2047:

People can do other things than being a stockbroker and still be fairly comfortable.

And people can do other things than farm the TP in this game and make money – it’s really not hard.

I don’t particularly “play the TP” – Best thing I do is I buy things ( skins, items) that are event-related and then wait for the price to go up. It’s not rocket science. I don’t have a method, graphs, or a standardized approach like Wanze.

I don’t have cash like him either – but I’ve been making enough to get most if not all the stuff I want in the game.

There is a middle ground between totally casual “what is this TP thing I don’t even” and " super excel profits simulator v9.99". I’m in that middle ground – it is not hard at all to achieve.

Because, most of their customers don’t want to have to do that very much, if at all.

Most of their customers don’t even know money is being made on the TP in the quantities we’re discussing here.
Most of their customers don’t even know how to play their own class properly.

I think that if most of their customers were so outraged and upset with the TP thing – they’d be all over the forums – but most of them don’t even know the forums exist.

Ohoni.6057:

People aren’t disinterested in getting the best bang for their buck, they’re disinterested in going through the hassle of learning how to do that.

They’re the same thing.

If someone is genuinely interested in how to make the most money for their items, they will go and learn how to make the most money.

Ohoni.6057:

If you say “do you want 3g or 4g?” None of them will say “3g please!” But if you say “would you like 3g now or 4g at some point in the future, possibly never?” Many would say, “whatever, give me the 3g.” But then if you say “would you like 3g now (when you’re logging out for the night), or 4g by the time you log in tomorrow, almost guaranteed,” most players would switch back to 4g. That needs to be better communicated to them.

Why are you assuming that people aren’t experimenting with the game’s market systems? If someone’s interested in understanding how the buy/sell functions work they’ll experiment with them. It’s not a 3-4g investment to experiment with that.

You’re assuming that people are not valuing their time correctly. Maybe they are, and you’re just assuming that they are selling to buy orders or buying from sell orders because they are incompetent, rather than that they have made a tacit evaluation of whether their time, effort and personal enjoyment is better spent immediately rather than delaying it.

Ohoni.6057:

Yes, but it requires leaving the game client

Okay, so instead of having metabattle, Anet should just tell you what the good builds are in game.
Instead of having the wiki, ANet should smother every tooltip, item and screen with information.
Instead of having the forums, we should be having this discussion ingame.
Instead of using Twitch to do their esports and community livestreams, they should develop the software to do it in-client.

It’s an MMO. You have to leave the client sometime.

Ohoni.6057:

, and that information is only useful to you if you know what you’re meant to do with it.

Doesn’t take a genius to figure it out.

Ohoni.6057:

It helps people who understand the markets to determine a reasonable target point, it does absolutely nothing for players that don’t understand what the wavy lines mean and what future they predict.

Then maybe those people should learn to understand the market and understand what the wavy lines mean and what future they predict.

Again, marketplay is an element of skill. The tools are available for them to learn what to do. There is no barrier of entry beyond your own time and effort and no reason that they can’t just GIT GUD.

Ohoni.6057:

We’ve been over this before. You and I are not competing for who can get Dawn first. Yes, the TP is a competition, but the rest of the game isn’t. You can earn what you need for Dawn at whatever rate you want, dependent on what you’re willing to spend your time doing.

But, the market is still competitive. It’s not about who gets the Dawn first, it’s about who has the gold to buy Dawn first. The faster you accumulate the money you need, the better a deal you’re likely to get. Yes, the price falls from time to time, but if you don’t have the gold in hand to capitalize on those periods then you can’t take advantage of them. It isn’t even a direct competition over the same item, trying to craft The Legend yourself, for example, puts you into competition with people crafting Nevermore, Guild Halls, etc.

Funny how you argue with a strawman after I point out it’s made of straw. I even agreed in the part you quoted with the market being competitive. But I’m not arguing about the market, I’m arguing about the game in general. And you would know that, if you actually read what I’ve said.

Ohoni.6057:

If you just want to relax in GW2, that’s fine. Just don’t relax and then ask for the same things as people who worked.

I don’t believe that treating it as “work” should be a supported playstyle. I mean, people should be able to do it if they want, they just shouldn’t feel entitled to superior rewards for doing so.

Straight from the horse’s mouth.
By that logic, a kid playing on a playground should be making minimum wage. After all, you shouldn’t be entitled to better rewards for working than playing? Nevermind the fact that this is just based on your personal beliefs. All I can say is that your beliefs here make no sense.

Ohoni.6057:

If a player realizes that he can make more money in a reasonable time by just undercutting sell, then he’ll do so. And another realizes he can still get his product fast by just overcutting buys a bit, then he’ll do that, and the two sides will move closer and closer together, one side more than the other if the balance point is not 50/50, but eventually they’ll be close enough that it doesn’t really matter which they pick so they’ll just buy whatever.

Congratulations, sir, you have just outlined one of the most basic principles of flipping that people have been using for years. In the current economy. With item margins as they are…

Right, but my point is that the average player doesn’t realize these things, because the tools are not there to make it easy. It requires making trial sales, checking price histories and volumes on outside sites, things like that.

It requires none of those. All it requires is knowing that the TP is FIFO (first in first out). The rest of it logically follows from there. I can’t think of a good way to express it on the UI, but if Anet can, then by all means, do it.

Ohoni.6057:

So the existing system can cause it, but of course we need this fundamentally different system so that it can happen, right?

Again, the point of the system is not to bring prices closer to equilibrium. That is just a side effect that I believe will result, and you can disagree if you like, I won’t argue it. That’s not the point though, the point of it is to make these tools more available to the disinterested trader, the ones that currently make bad decisions when they could make better ones while still getting all the benefits of their current choices. It’s to democratize the TP.

You claimed it would happen, so I asked why and what would cause it. Still haven’t gotten a good answer. That said, traders create more demand and effectively create more supply by keeping items in the market. Those are stabilizing effects, reducing the potential for volatility, and thus getting closer to the equilibrium.

Ohoni.6057:

~snip~ You should be able to post your 50 at 31s, it would instantly process the 20 asked for, and then leave the other 30 up as a sell order.

It’s meant to not allow people to do that unwittingly, so they don’t accidentally create sell orders like that. Y’know, more control for the player. If you want to list at the former buy order, you can still do that.

Ohoni.6057:

That made no sense, so let me give you a hypothetical run-down. Players 1-5 sell item A to trader 11, and players 6-10 buy item A from player 11. Let’s say item A has a 2s-4s buy-sell order spread. Players 1-5 sell to buy order, getting 2s per A. Players 6-10 buy from the sell order, paying 4s. Now, same people, same choices, but player 11 no longer exists. The item now has a 1s99c-4s1c spread because 11’s orders no longer exist. 1-5 sell to the buy order for 1s99c each, and 6-10 buy for 4s1c each. Do you see how it doesn’t ‘even out’ the way you think it does?

But the thing is, there are real people who want those items, and will compete to get them. Pure traders are not some invaluable resource. Yes, if the first group clears out the buy orders, the buy price would drop to the next tier available, but some other player would come along who wants that item, and would overcut that order, and we’d be back to the original price or higher. If real people did not want that item, then it wouldn’t be profitable for traders to be involved in that market in the first place.

But then you’re fundamentally changing the scenario; we have to apply that to both of them. Let’s assume in both cases that 3 players under or overcut the trader’s orders. In which case we’re back to the original end, except the numbers are 3c higher, no other relevant differences.

Ohoni.6057:

And again, you say “group A” and “group B,” but real players are neither pure buyers or sellers, they buy what they need and sell what they don’t, so the average player will be buying as often as he sells. So maybe those in group A get an advantage over group B in one trade, but then the opposite would tend to happen in a different trade and it balances out over time. The distinction from the current system is that that “balancing out” factor currently applies mostly to the trader’s profit margins.

You still don’t seem to understand this, so let me run through another scenario. Players A and B want item 1 and have item 2, C and D have 1 and want 2. Player A sells 2 to D’s buy order, and B lists 2, which C buys. Thus B and D have demonstrated an understand of it, and got the ‘better deal.’ So, scoreboard for ‘balance’: A: 0, B: 1, C: 0,1. Now we do item 1, with people using the same understanding; that is, they are being consistent. A buys D’s sell order, and C sells to B’s buy order. Now, the scoreboard is: A: 0, B: 2, C: 0, 0. The only way that this would balance to 1 apiece is if, on item 1 (second example), B buys from C’s sell order (B not using what he knew in item 2, C using new knowledge) and D sells to A’s buy order (A knowing new things and D not using what he knew). In other words, by being inconsistent just so that it is balanced.

Ohoni.6057:

Irrelevant. You might notice that the majority of this thread has been on the topic of demolishing the TP as it stands.

The points surrounding the TP are only relevant in how they interact with the gold economy, and how that gold economy allows players to shortcut various other goals. It’s all interconnected.

These other threads are not arguing for what you want. They have not, as far as I have seen, been about the TP traders at all. I acknowledged that they were broached in our discussion, but prices of high-demand mats =/= traders should not earn money as they do. They are apples and oranges.

Ohoni.6057:

But let’s say that the farmer does make less gold for his mithril, that would occur to the benefit of another actual player who needed that mithril to make things. He would have gotten a better deal, and that’s good. And then later on, the mithril farmer would need to buy something, and he would get a better deal on that. it would balance out, but either way, the “good deal” is going to one of two players that are actually playing the game, not to the trader playing the margins in between them.

See above examples as to why saying it would ‘balance out’ makes no sense. And being a TP trader is playing the game, whether or not you like it.

Ohoni.6057:

Additionally, traders keep supply in the market for longer, so the person who buys 500 mithril from him would have otherwise bought up more expensive mithril.

They only do this by hoarding materials when they are cheap, and reselling them when they are more expensive.

No, they do this by selling things that otherwise would have left the market in the hands of someone who, say, was crafting a greatsword. No matter when or at what price.

Ohoni.6057:

If they could not do this, then the items would just stay on the market at the lower price consistently, and people who needed those materials to craft would get a good deal, until such time as the cheaper mats got depleted, then the prices would climb again and make them more profitable to farm. That’s basically no different than it works now, except that the entirety of the profits/savings goes to the actual players, not to the traders.

Spoken like a person who thinks the TP isn’t part of the game. The whole ‘lower price consistently’ thing makes no sense. Price spikes, like the ones on asc mats recently, occur because of the demand of the general playerbase. Ironically, traders keep the price lower a bit longer by keeping supply in circulation a little more. And yes, when it does rise, the mats go up, and become more farmable. Not that that matters, since the kind of player you’re arguing for is unwilling to do anything for the sake of their gold count.

Ohoni.6057:

No one is forcing you to do it, you don’t have to.

True, but also irrelevant. It’s like saying “Yes, this one class is ten times as powerful as any other, but you don’t have to play it, you can play one of the other ones if you enjoy that more.” It’s just silly. If one choice is seriously unbalanced, then it is unfair to those who prefer other choices. That’s why you need them to be all in balance, and can’t resolve a balance dispute with “well, you can always roll a [Class X] if you want.”

We’ve been over this before. The unbalanced class you argue over is so problematic because of competitive situations. You and I are not competing for gold count.

Ohoni.6057:

Oh, I’m aware of the prevailing view among the TP aficionados that TP profits cannot be compared to content rewards, which is terribly convenient since it absolves their own favorite profit method from having to be balanced against other people’s favorite profit methods, I just fundamentally disagree with them on that.

Ironic, because I’m not even a ‘TP aficionado.’ I have at most dabbled in it.

Ohoni.6057:

Point me to the people that are chasing money from a source that doesn’t exist, or doesn’t exist in great enough quantities for it to be possible.

There are plenty of activities in the game that won’t reward even a fraction of the gold that can be earned by abusing the TP.

And the people? Y’know, what I was actually asking about?

Ohoni.6057:

And yet, for you, time isn’t the issue with precursors, it’s money. Oh wait, you just agreed that time is money. Huh.

. . . yes, I just said that. The whole issue is how TP players can make much more money with much less investment of their own time, and then convert that into reduced time in acquiring cool things.

Except that you don’t care how fast other people get things. Oh wait, you said you do. Oh wait, you said it’s a matter of degree. I can’t tell, all three things were said about the exact same items. shrug

Ohoni.6057:

Do you understand basic statistics? Or why their win-loss rate might be higher because they spent time to assure that? Imagine that you make a guess, then roll a 20-sided die 10 times each day. What you are saying is that it is unfair that he doesn’t win very often for the sole reason that someone else is doing the same thing hundreds if not thousands of times per day after looking into common flaws for this kind of die and manufacturer, and has spent time examining the die to see what imbalances it has.

I’m saying that it’s a system that does not work out to the advantage of the overwhelming majority of players, and any well designed system in the game should be designed to work out for most, if not all players.

Going to actually address what I said? Or even address the same topic as the content you’re quoting? Not, mind you, that I’m surprised.

Ohoni.6057:

No, but that’s common sense. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, as they say. Now, would you mind telling me what any of this has to do with any of the discussion? Or at least try to justify why it isn’t a red herring.

Because the point is, taking educated risks that tend to win more often than they lose is not actual risk, it’s only true risk if you’re very likely to lose more over the long term than you are to win. That’s true of most actual gambling, the house usually does win, it is far less true for the TP, for those who know what they’re doing.

Ah, I do love entertaining No True Risk fallacies. Because only true risks have a 99% chance to lose!
/s
Seriously, any trading is a risk. Some risks are higher than others, but they are all cases of risk. They all have the potential to lose money. Stop trying to No True Scotsman your way out of this fact.

Ohoni.6057:

No, they sell for astronomical prices because they are very rare and very useful, so there’s little supply and large demand. Commenting on the economy without understanding supply and demand is rather futile.

So is blaming supply and demand for the price of things, when ANet has total control over both factors and have it within their power to shift the value of either at their whims.

I’m not blaming, I’m stating facts; this is an observed phenomenon. And if Anet had such a problem with those prices, they would have done something. And really, at this point they can only affect supply.

Tigaseye.2047:

DeShadowWolf.6854:

No. In this system, there is nothing preventing the poor from going out and doing any number of things to get quite a bit of money. The reason they are poor and will remain there is because they don’t want to do something about it.

No.

The problem is that that “something” they have to do is far too limited to one thing, in terms of gold per hour.

In this case, mainly, the TP.

I find it ironic that the only people who downplay any other way to get gold are the oly people that want it eliminated. Well, less ironic and more agenda-pushing. But at least you have the courtesy to format you’re quotes.

Tigaseye.2047:

It’s the equivalent of making people IRL play the stock market, or only earn $0.30 per hour being a soldier, or a teacher, or a nurse…..or even a doctor.

Source for those stats? Where is this ratio coming from and what is it based on? All I see is hyperbole and apples-to-oranges false comparison.

Tigaseye.2047:

People can do other things than being a stockbroker and still be fairly comfortable.

The GW2 standard of living is ~3g. You don’t have to have tons of money to experience the vast majority of that game.

Tigaseye.2047:

…and thank God that is the case, as you stockbroker types need all those professions (and FAR more) to keep you and your families alive and thriving.

FAR more than they need you, in fact.

Lol. Cute.

Tigaseye.2047:

That is how the real world works and yet, apparently, that wouldn’t be possible in a game?

And yet, aren’t you the people that want to relax, to not be thinking of the game as the real world with all its concerns and needs? I will say this: the real world rewards work with money, not relaxation. That much has carried over.

Ohoni.6057:

This just doesn’t make any sense on a fundamental level. You’re doing things for people who are not interested. Yes, their ignorance affects the market, but there is no barrier to entry for removing that ignorance.

People aren’t disinterested in getting the best bang for their buck, they’re disinterested in going through the hassle of learning how to do that.

Interest spurs action, disinterest, or not enough, spurs inaction. If they had a real interest to do so, they would take actions to do it.

Ohoni.6057:

If you say “do you want 3g or 4g?” None of them will say “3g please!” But if you say “would you like 3g now or 4g at some point in the future, possibly never?”

We both know how it works. So where is this strawman of the system coming from? Or are you saying that when people see a system, they assume it’s dysfunctional?

Ohoni.6057:

It’s absolutely bizarre that this is your point. gw2spidy and the wiki are right there, and they’re free to use. Anyone who is interested in them can very, very easily find them. The rest is economic sense, which frankly, is an element of skill and should be preserved.

Yes, but it requires leaving the game client, and that information is only useful to you if you know what you’re meant to do with it. It helps people who understand the markets to determine a reasonable target point, it does absolutely nothing for players that don’t understand what the wavy lines mean and what future they predict.

Should this be in the game client? An icon on the top to open Dulfy in-game? A chat channel called ‘Forums?’ The logic just makes no sense here.

Postulate #1: Far more players are selling to buy orders and buying from sell orders because they want the convenience than because they’re ignorant. Look at all the reactions in the threads complaining about TP flood control. Players have too much crap to sell and don’t want to take the time to look at the price and think on each one. Do I have any more facts to offer in support of this contention? No, but neither does the OP have any facts to support his contention.

Postulate #2: Without middlemen driving buy and sell a wee bit closer together, such players would likely make a little less on at least some sales, and spend a little more on at least some buys. Some one is always going to lose out if someone else does a bit better, and it’s likely to be the above demographic if the OP got his way. Well, aren’t they choosing not to use the TP to their advantage? Yep, and so is the player who chooses to remain ignorant.

Postulate #3: I worked as a teacher back in the 80’s. The only way to teach people who don’t want to learn is to shove things down their throat. Usually that doesn’t even work, but it’s about all a game designer could do. For the game to “teach” players to better use the TP, the teaching tips would thus have to be very overt. How will this affect players negatively? The interface would likely be seen as more cluttered and confusing, with the info in the way, and this would impact their convenience. Look at all the complaints about the level-up pop-up boxes. Many players do not like the game shoving more stuff into their face.

They are efficient – depends on how you quantify efficiency but for example crafting ascended insignias (among other time gated crafts) can net you quite a bit of profit. And you don’t have to learn any economic tricks or watch the market or whatnot. Just log in – do your daily craft – sell the stuff and move on.

To a point, although it does require you to max out one or more crafting lines, which has a high base expense (more than many accounts have ever acquired). It also means that if you want to make something that uses those materials, you won’t have them to use. And even this is largely playing the TP, knowing that there is a market on the TP for these goods, it is not just something you can just do.

On the other hand accounts created later had the opportunity to purchase HoT and receive the core game that we originally spent 60$ on for free.

Yeah, but that’s been well paid for in the actual gameplay over the time, it doesn’t need to be justified in earning potential.

A player making an account today can find SO many resources guiding them in every aspect of the game – from builds to world completion to farming and collections.

True, but. . . the real money to be made is not in the stuff that have already been heavily worked out. I mean, you can make slight margins on some of those, but never as much as if you’d caught onto them earlier. The real huge profit margins come from grabbing onto a market before anyone else does (although this is higher risk). I really do wish that the devs did a better job of clearly telegraphing future moves, so that players can safely plan for the future rather than guessing.

Most of their customers don’t even know money is being made on the TP in the quantities we’re discussing here.

Perhaps, but they do know that things they want are selling for hundreds and thousands of gold, and then “how do I get to there?”

I think that if most of their customers were so outraged and upset with the TP thing – they’d be all over the forums – but most of them don’t even know the forums exist.

And I think this argument misses the point. I don’t think that all that many people are outraged at the TP, but more because they don’t realize that they are outraged at the TP. They have feelings of decentralized enui, from seeing objectives that they want, but that seem well out of their reach, and not understanding how or why that is. For most problems that exist in this world, very few people truly understand the problem, and few people even understand that there really is a problem, but lots of people suffer from the impacts of the problem, and are upset by those impacts, even if they have no idea how to express that or look at the big picture involved.

They’re the same thing.

If someone is genuinely interested in how to make the most money for their items, they will go and learn how to make the most money.

But for the purposes of this discussion, it’s an irrelevant distinction, because the goal is to give those “disinterested participants” equivalent profits to market traders.

Why are you assuming that people aren’t experimenting with the game’s market systems? If someone’s interested in understanding how the buy/sell functions work they’ll experiment with them. It’s not a 3-4g investment to experiment with that.

Some are, most don’t. If most did, it would be impossible for flippers to ever turn a profit because they would have too much competition and too few rubes.

Okay, so instead of having metabattle, Anet should just tell you what the good builds are in game.

Yes, or more ideally, ALL builds should be good builds. Making a good build shouldn’t be complicated, it should just be about using the abilities that seem fun to you, and that should work out. If abilities are designed to be used in a specific configuration, then that configuration should be made perfectly obvious. One of the few things the constant trait overhauls got right is that the next system does have at least some consistency of a traitline where if you just pick the abilities left to right, they tend to synergize pretty well. They could do a better job of that though in some trait lines, and maybe highlight the intended play style for a given line.

Instead of having the wiki, ANet should smother every tooltip, item and screen with information.

In some cases, they could do more, but there is a balance involved. If it’s important to gameplay, then it should be obvious in the UI. If it’s more about lore or something, then that can be in the wiki. You really shouldn’t need the wiki to know how to play while in game, the wiki should be more about collecting info for when you aren’t logged in and want to check something.

Instead of having the forums, we should be having this discussion ingame.

We could, but that would be a bit inefficient, the client is a bit bulky.

Instead of using Twitch to do their esports and community livestreams, they should develop the software to do it in-client.

Yeah, or not do it at all, whichever.

It’s an MMO. You have to leave the client sometime.

Yes, when you’re done for the night, but aside from that, you should never have to.

Then maybe those people should learn to understand the market and understand what the wavy lines mean and what future they predict.

Again, marketplay is an element of skill. The tools are available for them to learn what to do. There is no barrier of entry beyond your own time and effort and no reason that they can’t just GIT GUD.

And again, I continue to insist that the average player should not need to do this in order to profit competitively in an adventure MMO. If they want the market to be a game of high skill, that in and of itself is fine, but the problem is that you can profit from it massively more than from any other activities, it is out of balance, and that should not stand. It should either be something that anyone can do with minimal skill and time invested, or it should be something that people don’t have to do in order to earn those same profits, it can’t be both at once.

By that logic, a kid playing on a playground should be making minimum wage.

Your analogy sort of breaks down when you’re comparing play to work. This is a game, it is ALL play, which is the problem. If there are activities in the game which are like work, and they reward at a much higher level than activities that are pure play, then something has gone horribly wrong. To use your analogy in reverse, it would be if a fortune 500 company based your entire salary on your performance in the intramural ping-pong leagues, rewarding people ostensibly there to work, for playing.

That said, traders create more demand and effectively create more supply by keeping items in the market.

Traders do neither. Traders do not create demand because they don’t actually use the products. Any demand they personally have is only borrowed from their future customers, it is those eventual customers that create the demand. Any supply they influence, they bought off someone else, so they do not create supply either. All they do with either is shift it in time.

This does give the illusion that supply and demand are more stable than they actually are, which is actually detrimental, because it causes the community to be less agile in reacting to actual supply or demand needs. If the market is running low on mithril, and the traders keep topping it off from their stores, then people don’t realize that the actual supply in player hands is decreasing significantly, and don’t start taking steps to correct that trend.

It’s meant to not allow people to do that unwittingly, so they don’t accidentally create sell orders like that. Y’know, more control for the player. If you want to list at the former buy order, you can still do that.

It should be based on the option you click on. If the two listings are at 50.1 and 50.2, if you click on 50.2 and then lower the price by a penny and list the number you want to sell, then it will fill the buy orders and do the rest as a sell order, as you indicated you wanted to do. If you start with the buy order then it would only sell the ones that would sell immediately.

But then you’re fundamentally changing the scenario; we have to apply that to both of them. Let’s assume in both cases that 3 players under or overcut the trader’s orders. In which case we’re back to the original end, except the numbers are 3c higher, no other relevant differences.

I’m just saying, if there is a trader who is willing to undercut the competition at a given price, then there will also be a real player who would do the same. He might not be willing to then undercut the trader’s price further, but he would at least be willing to match him. If there weren’t people willing to at least match the trader’s price then how would the trader hope to turn a profit?

Players A and B want item 1 and have item 2, C and D have 1 and want 2. [ect.] In other words, by being inconsistent just so that it is balanced.

Maybe so, although ideally better UI feedback would make it less likely that players would make bad choices all around. Btu even so, better than the current system, because even if two of the players consistently make good choices, and two of them consistently make bad ones, it’s still actual players of the game that are making the profit margins for those choices, not middlemen who provide no actual value to the equation. If a player gets a better than expected profit off an item he found? Great! If a player gets a better than expect deal on an item that he actually needed? Great!

These other threads are not arguing for what you want. They have not, as far as I have seen, been about the TP traders at all.

No, but correcting some of the issues with the TP would, at least over the long term, greatly lessen a lot of their complaints. They are complaining about their symptoms, I’m complaining about one of the root causes of those symptoms. If someone comes into the doctor’s office talking about chest tightness and shooting pain in their arm, you don’t send them home and say “well good thing he wasn’t complaining about having a heart attack.”

No, they do this by selling things that otherwise would have left the market in the hands of someone who, say, was crafting a greatsword. No matter when or at what price.

No items should ever be completely gone from the market (unless discontinued), and if items do leave, this is a great thing for people to be going after. Now, there is a value to having temporary items be permanently available, but this value should come from ingame methods, not from traders turning a profit. There should be year-round methods of accumulating just about anything, just less efficiently than temporary or seasonal situations.

Price spikes, like the ones on asc mats recently, occur because of the demand of the general playerbase.

Yes, and I might not have mentioned it in this thread yet, but my opinion of those situations is that they are cases of ANet sleep at the wheel. They knew that the things they were adding with HoT would cause spikes in certain markets, and they should have been the ones to correct for that. Any time they add something that will cause a run on resources, they should also add temporary faucets of those resources to account for the increased demand.

Balance the mechanics for the long term, but also balance them in the short term. If the players will demand 100 times the historic levels of Elder Wood, but you can expect this added need to taper off to normal levels within a month or so, then run temporary events or reward structures, advertised as such, that introduce 100 times more Elder Wood into the economy than would normally flow from standard gameplay. This is like having flood control on a river.

Ironic, because I’m not even a ‘TP aficionado.’ I have at most dabbled in it.

But you do seem to like and support how it currently behaves, you are an aficionado whether you personally benefit from that or not.

Seriously, any trading is a risk. Some risks are higher than others, but they are all cases of risk. They all have the potential to lose money. Stop trying to No True Scotsman your way out of this fact.

Individual trades have a risk factor, but over multiple trades the odds tend to be more in your favor than not, so the risk of individual trade can be high, but if you’re investing wisely then your actual risk of long term failure are very low.

I’m not blaming, I’m stating facts; this is an observed phenomenon. And if Anet had such a problem with those prices, they would have done something. And really, at this point they can only affect supply.

No, they can effect supply to, and have. If they adjust the amount of materials needed in a core recipe, then that will change demand. If they add or remove recipes that need that thing, it will change demand. If they make existing uses for that thing more desirable even, say by taking a low-valued stat combination and providing a vital new use for it in the game, that will change demand. They’ve done all these things and more over the course of the game. It isn’t always the most efficient method of tweaking the prices, but it can be in the right circumstances, and furthermore, when they make these changes for reasons outside the economy, they need to consider the inevitable economic impacts and correct for them (ie, if you make something “cooler” and therefore more likely to be in demand, but don’t believe that the price should be much higher than it is, then you need to raise the available supply as well, they often fail at this).

Seriously why so complicated. It’s just a game. You sit at the computer and play for fun. You like to pvp do it, pve do it, raid do it, craft legendaries do it, don’t like to do anything don’t do it. Feel the game is no longer fun quit. There’s no need to come on to the forums with your imaginary supporters (entitled players) to complain that you can’t get something. I quit this game for 2 years and came back for HoT and am having a blast. It’s just a game, no need to try to dig up so much ‘smarty pants’ stuff to try to explain your entitlement. Ohoni you have been complaining since before HoT launched and you’re still here complaining lol, if you are having so much dissatisfaction as you say you are I don’t see why you are still here. No one is forcing you to play you know.

DeShadowWolf.6854:

Source for those stats? Where is this ratio coming from and what is it based on? All I see is hyperbole and apples-to-oranges false comparison.

It’s not a “stat”; it’s an analogy.

That is, roughly, how it feels to do certain things in this game, relative to doing other things.

It’s out of whack, even compared with the unfairness of the real world, in this way.

Lol. Cute.

Is that really all you’ve got to say to that?

Don’t have the nerve to try to deny it, I see.

Amazed you didn’t just tiptoe around that uncomfortable fact, altogether…

Good luck when you and your family, need help from other, kinder, more altruistic people.

They may not be so kind.

Especially if they feel exploited by people like you.

And yet, aren’t you the people that want to relax, to not be thinking of the game as the real world with all its concerns and needs? I will say this: the real world rewards work with money, not relaxation. That much has carried over.

No, I don’t want to “relax” and still get gold.

No point in even buying my char stuff, if I don’t play the game.

I also don’t want to work like a dog, for months, to get what you get in a few days; or be forced to do what you do.

Sitting around on the TP isn’t, in any way, hard work.

It’s just distasteful, bordering on immoral (at times) and boring.

Yes, I would prefer that the game didn’t mirror real life, in that way; but, I realise this is an MMO and so, it is supposed to, to an extent.

As such, it should also mirror the bits of real life that people like you don’t like (like the higher taxes on the rich); as well as the ones you love.

Otherwise, it should really do neither.

Oh and re. real world rewards:

Anyone with any brain at all knows it is not, primarily, about how hard you work; but, far more, about what you do.

You know it, I know it, most (even vaguely bright) children know it…

So, don’t try to pull that “Just work harder.” type of rubbish, with me, Wolf.

Ohoni.6057:

To a point, although it does require you to max out one or more crafting lines, which has a high base expense (more than many accounts have ever acquired). It also means that if you want to make something that uses those materials, you won’t have them to use. And even this is largely playing the TP, knowing that there is a market on the TP for these goods, it is not just something you can just do.

It costs you around 150 gold to max armorcrafting right now – you can check yourself on GW2crafts.

It cost much less before the expansion – but that doesn’t matter. If you optimize and have at least some of the mats any account can easily do this.

100 gold is not hard to make in this game – gathering stuff alone can get you a good amount of gold.

Also what’s the problem with not using the materials for yourself if you plan to sell them? That’s the trade-off.
When damask first released I crafted and sold every day – I postponed my ascended armor by 30 days in order to get the profit I wanted. I didn’t read a specialized book or talked to an expert to tell me to do this. It is common sense.
Something just came out = it is in high demand = sell now for a lot of money and buy it later when the new thing will be done by more people and thus will become cheaper.

Ohoni.6057:

And even this is largely playing the TP, knowing that there is a market on the TP for these goods, it is not just something you can just do.

At which point do you distinguish between knowing the TP and knowing the game?
You don’t need to be an avid TP user to know that things that are new and you can sell will make a lot of profit.
You only need to read the patch notes. Playing the game regularly and keeping up to date with the game will inform you of things that will influence the TP – sure – but at no point are you required to stop playing the game in general and research TP-related things.

Ohoni.6057:

True, but. . . the real money to be made is not in the stuff that have already been heavily worked out. I mean, you can make slight margins on some of those, but never as much as if you’d caught onto them earlier. The real huge profit margins come from grabbing onto a market before anyone else does (although this is higher risk). I really do wish that the devs did a better job of clearly telegraphing future moves, so that players can safely plan for the future rather than guessing.

And while I agree on that I’ll counter with the fact that knowing what to do is much more important than randomly stumbling across something.
There’s no guarantee that if you’re starting early you’ll find those very profitable things. Many farms happened and got nerfed without me even knowing about them – and I usually take an interest in these things.

Being later in the game means you can spend your time much more effectively – being guided by the experience and know-how of others. This will save you a lot of time which in turn can be transformed into gold.

Ohoni.6057:

I really do wish that the devs did a better job of clearly telegraphing future moves, so that players can safely plan for the future rather than guessing.

If they did this the economy would be even more out-of-whack. Imagine the devs saying what items would be required for some super important thing in the future. Then imagine people who already have cash buying them all up then selling them for a lot more.

There’s really no safety – I’ve had my fair share of winning moves and losing ones. I’ve lost and made gold on the TP but I feel you don’t need the developers telling you what to do in order to do well.
There are common sense strategies out there that anyone can use provided they have enough brain power to formulate a coherent thought.

Ohoni.6057:

Perhaps, but they do know that things they want are selling for hundreds and thousands of gold, and then “how do I get to there?”

I’ve had friends in this situation – the solutions are generally broken down into:

1.Learn about the game and how to make money effectively – either via the TP or farming.

2.Whipping out your credit card and buying gems then turning that into gold.

In both cases it’s a win-win. The player either improves as a player and increases his knowledge of the game – enabling him to be better off in the future or at the very least pays a good sum of money to Anet for them to continue supporting and developing the game.

Ohoni.6057:

And I think this argument misses the point. I don’t think that all that many people are outraged at the TP, but more because they don’t realize that they are outraged at the TP.

So if they don’t realize it how is it a pressing matter then?

They have feelings of decentralized enui, from seeing objectives that they want, but that seem well out of their reach, and not understanding how or why that is. For most problems that exist in this world, very few people truly understand the problem, and few people even understand that there really is a problem, but lots of people suffer from the impacts of the problem, and are upset by those impacts, even if they have no idea how to express that or look at the big picture involved.

Their incapacity to fix things for themselves does not mean others have a duty to fix things for them.

Ohoni.6057:

But for the purposes of this discussion, it’s an irrelevant distinction, because the goal is to give those “disinterested participants” equivalent profits to market traders.

So basically let’s give people things they’ve put no effort into obtaining and that they haven’t bothered to learn how to get just because they’re upset that they don’t have them.

Would you also agree to give market traders unique skins that can only be obtained through certain types of content?
Should we give Wanze the PvP Legendary backpiece even if he doesn’t pvp just because he wants it and is unhappy? ( no offense, i don’t know if you pvp, just making a point).

Folks may find it interesting to know that both Marvel Heroes 2015 and Wildstar have systems where you get currency for combative play on a strictly time-gated basis. In both cases this award is delivered in currency directly analogous to gems in this game – the currency you buy in that game with real world money.

In GW2 terms sometimes when you kill a mob you get one gem, then the award goes on an internal cooldown (8 minutes for MH2015, not sure but some number quite similar for WS). After the cooldown is up you have about a 40% chance per critter kill of getting a gem, until you do and the timer starts over. Time spent in a hub does count towards this cooldown, so if you stop to sell loot/do maintenance you frequently get a gem in the first encounter or two after going back out into the field.

I want to make clear, that in my experience this system is not exciting. There is no sense of accomplishment and each gem isn’t loot… It’s the audible ticking of a clock reminding you you’ve been playing a while. But it does uniquely reward getting out of the hubs/cities and mashing buttons as neither game allows you to buy that currency with regular coin.

I don’t particularly have it in for the TP players (other than feeling that there should be a little more variability in the system to make some strategies a little less obvious/reliable). But there is perhaps room to make the adventuring lifestyle feel more well regarded by the world/game/Devs than just having a ton of map-locked currencies in the new zones.

Legendaries are not handouts because they are earned. OP’s logic is invalid.

Ohoni.6057:

They are efficient – depends on how you quantify efficiency but for example crafting ascended insignias (among other time gated crafts) can net you quite a bit of profit. And you don’t have to learn any economic tricks or watch the market or whatnot. Just log in – do your daily craft – sell the stuff and move on.

To a point, although it does require you to max out one or more crafting lines, which has a high base expense (more than many accounts have ever acquired).

GW2Efficiency puts the median for all players at 763g. gw2crafts puts the costs of leveling, say, weaponsmith at ~25g for 0-400 and ~120g for 400-500. 763 > 145. Even the 100-500h median is higher.

Ohoni.6057:

It also means that if you want to make something that uses those materials, you won’t have them to use. And even this is largely playing the TP, knowing that there is a market on the TP for these goods, it is not just something you can just do.

Or basic logic. Look at the top gear, ascended and to a lesser extent legendary. They require ascended mats, and those are timegated so the market can never flood too much. Therefore, there is probably a nice profit margin in making them.

Ohoni.6057:

On the other hand accounts created later had the opportunity to purchase HoT and receive the core game that we originally spent 60$ on for free.

Yeah, but that’s been well paid for in the actual gameplay over the time, it doesn’t need to be justified in earning potential.

Earning potential through early-GW2 is gameplay over the time.

Ohoni.6057:

A player making an account today can find SO many resources guiding them in every aspect of the game – from builds to world completion to farming and collections.

True, but. . . the real money to be made is not in the stuff that have already been heavily worked out. I mean, you can make slight margins on some of those, but never as much as if you’d caught onto them earlier.

I assume you’re talking about the TP, because he clearly isn’t.

Ohoni.6057:

I think that if most of their customers were so outraged and upset with the TP thing – they’d be all over the forums – but most of them don’t even know the forums exist.

And I think this argument misses the point. I don’t think that all that many people are outraged at the TP, but more because they don’t realize that they are outraged at the TP.

So changes should be made because people feel outrage at something when they don’t even know they feel outrage. I don’t even see any sense in what you’re saying.

Ohoni.6057:

They have feelings of decentralized enui, from seeing objectives that they want, but that seem well out of their reach, and not understanding how or why that is.

You can feel anything, that doesn’t change reality, and that doesn’t make you entitled to anything more.

Ohoni.6057:

They’re the same thing.

If someone is genuinely interested in how to make the most money for their items, they will go and learn how to make the most money.

But for the purposes of this discussion, it’s an irrelevant distinction, because the goal is to give those “disinterested participants” equivalent profits to market traders.

So, we should give people who aren’t interested enough to actually do anything more because….that’s how you subjectively think it should be.
See IndigoSundown’s post, it answers this far better than I could.

Ohoni.6057:

Okay, so instead of having metabattle, Anet should just tell you what the good builds are in game.

Yes, or more ideally, ALL builds should be good builds. Making a good build shouldn’t be complicated, it should just be about using the abilities that seem fun to you, and that should work out. If abilities are designed to be used in a specific configuration, then that configuration should be made perfectly obvious. One of the few things the constant trait overhauls got right is that the next system does have at least some consistency of a traitline where if you just pick the abilities left to right, they tend to synergize pretty well. They could do a better job of that though in some trait lines, and maybe highlight the intended play style for a given line.

Instead of having the wiki, ANet should smother every tooltip, item and screen with information.

In some cases, they could do more, but there is a balance involved. If it’s important to gameplay, then it should be obvious in the UI. If it’s more about lore or something, then that can be in the wiki. You really shouldn’t need the wiki to know how to play while in game, the wiki should be more about collecting info for when you aren’t logged in and want to check something.

Instead of having the forums, we should be having this discussion ingame.

We could, but that would be a bit inefficient, the client is a bit bulky.

Instead of using Twitch to do their esports and community livestreams, they should develop the software to do it in-client.

Yeah, or not do it at all, whichever.

It’s an MMO. You have to leave the client sometime.

Yes, when you’re done for the night, but aside from that, you should never have to.

That you think you shouldn’t have to leave the client is only relevant if you can give good, objective reasons why this ought to be the case. As to the rest of it:
/missedthepoint
/didn’tevenincludetheactualargument

Ohoni.6057:

Then maybe those people should learn to understand the market and understand what the wavy lines mean and what future they predict.

Again, marketplay is an element of skill. The tools are available for them to learn what to do. There is no barrier of entry beyond your own time and effort and no reason that they can’t just GIT GUD.

And again, I continue to insist that the average player should not need to do this in order to profit competitively in an adventure MMO.

Therin lies the problem. You think the whole game, including gold count, is a competition. This only exists in your mind. The only ‘profit competitively’ is within the TP and sPvP (i.e. the TP and sPvP is the only competitive profit).

Ohoni.6057:

By that logic, a kid playing on a playground should be making minimum wage.

Your analogy sort of breaks down when you’re comparing play to work.

Precisely, that is exactly what you are doing.

Ohoni.6057:

This is a game, it is ALL play, which is the problem. If there are activities in the game which are like work, and they reward at a much higher level than activities that are pure play, then something has gone horribly wrong.

I’m not sure what to say here. The whiny, opinion-based subjectivity is self-displaying.

Ohoni.6057:

To use your analogy in reverse, it would be if a fortune 500 company based your entire salary on your performance in the intramural ping-pong leagues, rewarding people ostensibly there to work, for playing.

Would you mind explaining how trying to reverse my analogy actually applies anything? The analogy was meant to break down, it’s representing your logic.

Ohoni.6057:

That said, traders create more demand and effectively create more supply by keeping items in the market.

Traders do neither. Traders do not create demand because they don’t actually use the products. Any demand they personally have is only borrowed from their future customers, it is those eventual customers that create the demand. Any supply they influence, they bought off someone else, so they do not create supply either. All they do with either is shift it in time.

Perhaps I should have been more clear. Demand here is just referring to the amount of an item that people want. What the item is used for is irrelevant, what matters is that more of the item is wanted. I don’t know what you mean by borrowing it from future customers. No, they don’t create new supply, but they cycle older supply through again. If they hadn’t added that supply back in, the buyer would have been buying from new supply.

Ohoni.6057:

This does give the illusion that supply and demand are more stable than they actually are, which is actually detrimental, because it causes the community to be less agile in reacting to actual supply or demand needs. If the market is running low on mithril, and the traders keep topping it off from their stores, then people don’t realize that the actual supply in player hands is decreasing significantly, and don’t start taking steps to correct that trend.

First of all, mithril is a pretty fast market, so I doubt several traders unloading their stocks would keep it low for very long. Additionally, sites like gw2spidy track sell and buy order numbers. It’s not like someone could buy up 50,000 mithril and have no one notice.

Ohoni.6057:

It’s meant to not allow people to do that unwittingly, so they don’t accidentally create sell orders like that. Y’know, more control for the player. If you want to list at the former buy order, you can still do that.

It should be based on the option you click on. If the two listings are at 50.1 and 50.2, if you click on 50.2 and then lower the price by a penny and list the number you want to sell, then it will fill the buy orders and do the rest as a sell order, as you indicated you wanted to do. If you start with the buy order then it would only sell the ones that would sell immediately.

That’s a very specific, enigmatic, and frankly pointless addition. I’m sure it could be done, of course, but I don’t think people would understand it and not many would use it. Seems to me to be an addition that would just make the UI harder to understand and confusing to the average player.

Ohoni.6057:

But then you’re fundamentally changing the scenario; we have to apply that to both of them. Let’s assume in both cases that 3 players under or overcut the trader’s orders. In which case we’re back to the original end, except the numbers are 3c higher, no other relevant differences.

I’m just saying, if there is a trader who is willing to undercut the competition at a given price, then there will also be a real player who would do the same. He might not be willing to then undercut the trader’s price further, but he would at least be willing to match him. If there weren’t people willing to at least match the trader’s price then how would the trader hope to turn a profit?

That’s perfectly true, but also irrelevant and not what you were arguing. Not that I can even tell particularly well what this point originally was since you don’t include name links. Well, it was the point of your last argument, not that you even presented anything against my point here, but it has nothing to do with what we were talking about.

Ohoni.6057:

Players A and B want item 1 and have item 2, C and D have 1 and want 2. [ect.] In other words, by being inconsistent just so that it is balanced.

Maybe so, although ideally better UI feedback would make it less likely that players would make bad choices all around.

Sure, give the game better TP UI. But that’s by the by for what I was saying.

Ohoni.6057:

Btu even so, better than the current system, because even if two of the players consistently make good choices, and two of them consistently make bad ones, it’s still actual players of the game that are making the profit margins for those choices, not middlemen who provide no actual value to the equation.

Because everybody knows the TP isn’t part of the game!
/s
I’ve given my hypotheticals in which the middleman, assuming the other players make the same choices, give them better deals than they otherwise would have gotten. Where are yours?

Ohoni.6057:

These other threads are not arguing for what you want. They have not, as far as I have seen, been about the TP traders at all.

No, but correcting some of the issues with the TP would, at least over the long term, greatly lessen a lot of their complaints. They are complaining about their symptoms, I’m complaining about one of the root causes of those symptoms. If someone comes into the doctor’s office talking about chest tightness and shooting pain in their arm, you don’t send them home and say “well good thing he wasn’t complaining about having a heart attack.”

You also wouldn’t look at a bunch of people complaining about chest tightness and shooting pain in the arm and say, “Hmm. We do have a lot of heart attack patients.”

Ohoni.6057:

No, they do this by selling things that otherwise would have left the market in the hands of someone who, say, was crafting a greatsword. No matter when or at what price.

No items should ever be completely gone from the market (unless discontinued), and if items do leave, this is a great thing for people to be going after. Now, there is a value to having temporary items be permanently available, but this value should come from ingame methods, not from traders turning a profit. There should be year-round methods of accumulating just about anything, just less efficiently than temporary or seasonal situations.

When I said ‘left the market,’ I didn’t mean the entirety of that item, I meant that particular set of items. So in my example, a person who buys 500 mithril to make greatswords would have taken that mithril out of the market. But because of the lack of link and the way you cut out my quote, I can’t even tell what I was making this point about.

Ohoni.6057:

Seriously, any trading is a risk. Some risks are higher than others, but they are all cases of risk. They all have the potential to lose money. Stop trying to No True Scotsman your way out of this fact.

Individual trades have a risk factor, but over multiple trades the odds tend to be more in your favor than not, so the risk of individual trade can be high, but if you’re investing wisely then your actual risk of long term failure are very low.

The key word here is wisely. That means that you’ve spent time learning things with the intention of using them specifically to lower risk. Not that you understand how average risks are dependent on the individual risks.

Ohoni.6057:

I’m not blaming, I’m stating facts; this is an observed phenomenon. And if Anet had such a problem with those prices, they would have done something. And really, at this point they can only affect supply.

No, they can effect supply to, and have. If they adjust the amount of materials needed in a core recipe, then that will change demand. If they add or remove recipes that need that thing, it will change demand. If they make existing uses for that thing more desirable even, say by taking a low-valued stat combination and providing a vital new use for it in the game, that will change demand. They’ve done all these things and more over the course of the game.

Keep context. This was on the subject of precursors. Moreover, if you even read what I wrote, you would know that I’m saying they can affect supply, just not demand for this item.

Tigaseye.2047:

DeShadowWolf.6854:

Source for those stats? Where is this ratio coming from and what is it based on? All I see is hyperbole and apples-to-oranges false comparison.

It’s not a “stat”; it’s an analogy.

And it’s a thoroughly baseless analogy, then.

Tigaseye.2047:

That is, roughly, how it feels to do certain things in this game, relative to doing other things.

oh. Oh. So you feel like you don’t want to do other things because they’re worse? That analogy was even more baseless than I thought.

Tigaseye.2047:

Lol. Cute.

Is that really all you’ve got to say to that?

Don’t have the nerve to try to deny it, I see.

I recognize that for things to happen on the TP, there needs to be a certain ‘critical mass’ of players that are active. This is also true of the Silverwastes, non-organized dungeon/fractal runs, etc. And I found it cute that you wanted to compare it to reality.

Tigaseye.2047:

Amazed you didn’t just tiptoe around that uncomfortable fact, altogether…

Good luck when you and your family, need help from other, kinder, more altruistic people.

They may not be so kind.

Because the only caliber of argument you can come up with are vague threats, analogies based only on your feelings, and irrelevancies. The only reason things like this are being said is because you lack an actual point, when all I bring to the table are real arguments.

Tigaseye.2047:

And yet, aren’t you the people that want to relax, to not be thinking of the game as the real world with all its concerns and needs? I will say this: the real world rewards work with money, not relaxation. That much has carried over.

No, I don’t want to “relax” and still get gold.

No point in even buying my char stuff, if I don’t play the game.

If you don’t play the game, I question your choice of posting in this thread. Seems a bit like beating a dead horse.

Tigaseye.2047:

I also don’t want to work like a dog, for months, to get what you get in a few days; or be forced to do what you do.

Sitting around on the TP isn’t, in any way, hard work.

I’m not saying it’s hard, backbreaking work. But compared to the rest of the game, it is more like work.
No one is forcing you to do anything; neither TP stuff, nor ‘working like a dog’ (whatever you think that means). And if you still, after this far into the thread, think it’s “a few days,” then I doubt anything will convince you out of what you think right now.

Tigaseye.2047:

It’s just distasteful, bordering on immoral (at times) and boring.

What you think of something has nothing to do with this thread. If you find it immoral, you don’t have to do it.