Guild Wars 2

I keep a low level character (21-35) running a quick 9 chest run in Queensdale and Wayfarer Foothills ISO low level cloth/leather mats and the occasional silver doubloon. For a week now I’ve seen a noticible increase in silver doubloon drop rate and a corresponding slow drop in the price. From about 1-2 per week to close to 1 per day. Not the abrupt overnight halving that occurred in flax back in December, but if the drop rate holds I’d guess when this character reaches 35 it will be the end of that farming, if it even lasts that long.

I really never understood the price drop in flax, as the drop rate of it remained steady. It must have been something on the “used in” recipes or items.

Flax was used to upgrade guild halls. There was a huge rush to do this fast. Most of the guilds have finished that and no longer need flax, so the demand is much lower.

I haven’t noticed any change in silver doubloons myself. You probably don’t have enough of a sample to draw any definite conclusions.

I think flax also dropped partly because JS made his update on the economy post and basically told everyone

“There’s a metric kittenton of flax on the market, its only expensive because you guys are willing to pay a ridiculously high price for it for no reason.”

50-60 chests isn’t really enough to establish whether there’s been a drop rate change. For starters, you’re not altogether sure if your usual, weekly drop rate is 1:63 or 2:63 (and my memory is that not all the 9 chests in the queensdale run include the chance of doubloons/marks). “Close to one per day” is also hard to compare.

But let’s say it’s 1.5 per 60 chests typically and recently up to 5 per week. The chance of getting 5+ doubloons if the ‘true’ drop rate is 0.025:1 is about 1.7%. In other words, if you’ve been doing your runs for 2 years (104 weeks), it would be quite reasonable to get 5/week a few times.

RNG runs in streaks. The only way to be sure that there’s an actual change (rather than a perceived change) is to count rigrously. Keep track of all your runs for a couple of months and confirm that there’s actually a change for you.

Then you can publish that data and compare notes with others.

For what it’s worth, my routine includes about 12 chances for doubloons/day. Some days I get none; some I get 6-7. That hasn’t seemed to change recently.

You could always take those lowlevel gems & crest and MF them…. It increases your doubloon haul.

Flax dropped in price because additional things started dropping flax seeds. That is a pretty simple increase in supply. For example I have seen them drop from the mobs that you kill during the Itzel hunting event. The drop rate isn’t high but the number of mobs spawned can be very high and those events occur extremely frequently.

The price of silver doubloons have dropped but there doesn’t seem to be any major change to the supply on the TP.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

50-60 chests isn’t really enough to establish whether there’s been a drop rate change. For starters, you’re not altogether sure if your usual, weekly drop rate is 1:63 or 2:63 (and my memory is that not all the 9 chests in the queensdale run include the chance of doubloons/marks). “Close to one per day” is also hard to compare.

But let’s say it’s 1.5 per 60 chests typically and recently up to 5 per week. The chance of getting 5+ doubloons if the ‘true’ drop rate is 0.025:1 is about 1.7%. In other words, if you’ve been doing your runs for 2 years (104 weeks), it would be quite reasonable to get 5/week a few times.

I understand statistics to a fare the well, and would not have even written on such thin data except I also noticed prices dropping (anecdotally). I then went to the website that plots them over time, and sure enough, there it was, on an unarguable decline. I’d not base anything on my own slope, but that (spidy website) data integrates (via the TP) a lot of collectors, including both of us. So I thought to check with others on here.

Similarly, I see your data as thin also, as you do, but if you think not much has changed, you might check the plotted prices. I don’t do that often, and had not since flax dropped to half overnight back a couple of months back. The argument for doubloons now would be it’s only been a week, but might bear watching.

We are also in a tough time to tease out what’s happening. ANET is attempting to lower prices across the board, against unknown targets, and with seemingly random methodolody. Then the population is wildly swinging due to holidays, new content, new content getting finished, etc. So is it an ANET change somewhere in the supply line, or just less gathers or less users showing up week to week? Quien sabe?

Khisanth.2948:

Flax dropped in price because additional things started dropping flax seeds. That is a pretty simple increase in supply. For example I have seen them drop from the mobs that you kill during the Itzel hunting event. The drop rate isn’t high but the number of mobs spawned can be very high and those events occur extremely frequently.

Ah, yes. You are right. I was going on my one camped collector who was still in the range night to night. (the others went back to useful work). But you are right. I’ve found single flax items in my nightly bags dump, and since I’d would collect a node if I ran past it, I’d not recognize it as out of norm.

I don’t keep logs but do pick up when I go to sell flax and it’s suddenly 4-5 silver and it was 11-12 silver the night before. Perhaps a glitch, since it came with the Winterday’s patch, but a month later it persisted. Referring myself to Spidy, I found the drop almost overnight in the plot, something I have a hard time putting a model on. I guess thin market, massive immediate oversupply, followed by folks dropping out of collecting it as a waste of time, so stablized out where it is now. The same thing happened to quartz crystals, btw.

Not that it means anything at all, but I found a Silver Doubloon in my inventory yesterday; something that rarely happens outside by dedicated L21 parked JP character.

I was surprised.

Could be a bug, like the L80 Boost one; stranger things have happened. =)

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Not that it means anything at all, but I found a Silver Doubloon in my inventory yesterday; something that rarely happens outside by dedicated L21 parked JP character.

I was surprised.

Could be a bug, like the L80 Boost one; stranger things have happened. =)

That is not so strange. Silver Doubloons are part of the map bonus rotation. It is available on a map every week. If you have done at least 10 events in Gendarran Fields since Thursday reset then you would have one. Completing JPs also count as events.

They also drop from the ascended material eaters.

Nope, no events in Gendarran. I just got it off a mob.

Michael.9403:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

50-60 chests isn’t really enough to establish whether there’s been a drop rate change. For starters, you’re not altogether sure if your usual, weekly drop rate is 1:63 or 2:63 (and my memory is that not all the 9 chests in the queensdale run include the chance of doubloons/marks). “Close to one per day” is also hard to compare.

But let’s say it’s 1.5 per 60 chests typically and recently up to 5 per week. The chance of getting 5+ doubloons if the ‘true’ drop rate is 0.025:1 is about 1.7%. In other words, if you’ve been doing your runs for 2 years (104 weeks), it would be quite reasonable to get 5/week a few times.

I understand statistics to a fare the well, and would not have even written on such thin data except I also noticed prices dropping (anecdotally). I then went to the website that plots them over time, and sure enough, there it was, on an unarguable decline. I’d not base anything on my own slope, but that (spidy website) data integrates (via the TP) a lot of collectors, including both of us. So I thought to check with others on here.

Similarly, I see your data as thin also, as you do, but if you think not much has changed, you might check the plotted prices. I don’t do that often, and had not since flax dropped to half overnight back a couple of months back. The argument for doubloons now would be it’s only been a week, but might bear watching.

We are also in a tough time to tease out what’s happening. ANET is attempting to lower prices across the board, against unknown targets, and with seemingly random methodolody. Then the population is wildly swinging due to holidays, new content, new content getting finished, etc. So is it an ANET change somewhere in the supply line, or just less gathers or less users showing up week to week? Quien sabe?

Look at the supply: it hasn’t changed much, certainly not enough to drive prices down that much. On Feb 1, prices were roughly 1g 50 silver on 6100 supply against a 5900 demand. After the update, on Feb 24, the price dropped to roughly 1g 30, for a 5000 supply against a 6000 demand.

If you look at gw2bltc.com, you’ll also see that the number of doubloons traded spiked briefly from roughly a hundred or so per reporting period to (briefly) a few hundred in the same period. All such trends seem to be ending.

It looks to me as if someone came back to the game, needed some gold, and sold a couple of stacks of hoarded and also that some people dropped their buy orders a lot. And the market has responded appropriately, before establishing a new equilibrium.

So, sure it’s possible that something changed. I still prefer my speculation to be backed up with some actual data, e.g. the specific number of chests versus a specific number of doubloons.

And it looks like whatever happened was temporary, as prices have gone up again and supply is dropping (it will take time for demand to build up again).

A few days ago, a youtuber posted video how to get easy Silver doubloons (mystic forge of correct tier gems). Then they spiked down. Now the spike effect is mostly gone.

Edit: typo, Platinum should have been silver. Sorrie @ Justine

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

A few days ago, a youtuber posted video how to get easy Platinum doubloons (mystic forge of correct tier gems). Then they spiked down. Now the spike effect is mostly gone.

People have been doing that for along time. It was almost not even worth doing 6 months ago when I got juggernaut because of the price on those stones and the time burnt clicking.

Oh not sure if you meant silver or platinum oops.

A large factor in flax price drop is probably the scribe recipes being gutted.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

A few days ago, a youtuber posted video how to get easy Silver doubloons (mystic forge of correct tier gems). Then they spiked down. Now the spike effect is mostly gone.

Edit: typo, Platinum should have been silver. Sorrie @ Justine

I sell a couple silver doubloons almost every day and saw the prices suddenly go down and was wondering about the abrupt drop. ThIs explanation makes sense. Like the WoodenPotatoes video which single handedly crashed the hard wood log prices for a short time by posting a farming run route. People see or are reminded of a way to get something and bandwagon on it, dropping prices with a sudden new supply.

Justine.6351:

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

A few days ago, a youtuber posted video how to get easy Platinum doubloons (mystic forge of correct tier gems). Then they spiked down. Now the spike effect is mostly gone.

People have been doing that for along time. It was almost not even worth doing 6 months ago when I got juggernaut because of the price on those stones and the time burnt clicking.

Oh not sure if you meant silver or platinum oops.

A large factor in flax price drop is probably the scribe recipes being gutted.

Scribing was bottlenecked too much by pigments and resonating sliver/shards/etc. to have to worry about flax.

Nightfury is also a major consumer of linseed oil but that requires mystic coins and hardened leather. -_-

I’m surprised more people don’t go to Ember Bay to farm them; Skritt stashes have a pretty high chance to drop a random doubloon.

Slashmeehup.1495:

I’m surprised more people don’t go to Ember Bay to farm them; Skritt stashes have a pretty high chance to drop a random doubloon.

Too much effort. You need to get the petrified wood to buy the contracts then you need to get to the stashes which are sometimes in very inconvenient locations. You also have to remember the locations of all the stashes unless you are using some sort of overlay to show their location.