Guild Wars 2

Tom Gore.4035:

Wanze.8410:

Tom Gore.4035:

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

Now, is this the case with silk? who knows, but we cant find out, because we cant adjust the supply.

We cant find out by adjusting supply but its not neccessary because Anet can.
They have all the metrics, of how much silk scraps and weaving threads get created per day, how much gets destroyed and how much get bought and sold at which price point.

So in the case that falling silk prices and rising silk supply dont result in added demand for damask, there is not need to further devalue it.

according to most capitalist theory, and they could be wrong, but this is the common belief,
One entity is generally considered to be inferior to the market itself at finding the right price points for items.
Complaints are generally that such an entity would be less responsive, more rigid, and have effected by concerns outside of the price of the specific good itself.

im sure economists have debated this many times, i dont think there is a 100% right answer for all situations, but in this situation i see it like this.
for a long time, anets numbers had us oversupplying silk to the point it became valueless
as a solution to that problem, Ascendeds item requirements, created a bunch of new problems, like proffesion progression inequality, an apparently high feeling of grind, increased farming activity etc.

i feel like the single entity is not currently as effecient at finding these sweet spots as many claim a more free market to be.

i generally find that items that have targetable means of supply tend to have their price more closely aligned with a value that people feel comfortable buying, supplying and selling them

i dont think we are there for silk, or leather.

But we have been oversupplying silk for months now and just because silk is not at your sweet spot, doesnt mean its not at a sweet spot for everybody else.

The oversupplying is already over. Supply is going down and price is going up ever since Wintersday is over. What is your solution now? Introduce another festival to bring another temporary supply for silk? Or MAYBE it’s time to introduce a permanent solution? Eh?

I would opt for another temporary or timegated solution, like an item that consumes dragonite and gives out silk.

The latter I would be all over about, no doubt.

But it would again be just a temporary solution. After the initial rush of extra dragonite turned into extra silk would be gone, the problem would come back.

Are you sure you’re not opposed to getting a steady, controllable supply of silk just because the current fluctuating oversupply/undersupply makes it easier for you to make money on the TP?

actually dragonite isnt time gated, you can get infinitely, which means it would be renewable and viable

However, that means he doesnt have problem with silk being targetable, just the specific means using nodes.

Why are you specifically opposed to nodes wanze?

Tom Gore.4035:

Fixing their mistake of requiring 100 bolts of silk instead the standard 50 would obviously help some.

This, so much this. Not only is silk the hardest of the mats to reliably gather, but it also takes double the amount of it for some reason.

Wanze.8410:

[…]

Most activities in game reward you with silk drops from bags, salvage items, containers etc. They also reward you with extra karma, gold and other currencies that you can use to obtain cloth.

So you can basically play any way you want and will be rewarded with silk in many ways, most of them optional, yet you call it a grind.

Most of the drops you’ll get will be on your level. So that means mostly silk for level 80. This does not happen with nodes. In an area with lots of iron nodes, you’ll get lots of iron from them as you play, while you’ll get mostly mithril from enemy drops.

Packaged goods are exclusive to sentient enemies (enemy factions and tribal creatures), and even though most of them have some cloth, they have tons of other possible drops, and cloth doesn’t have any higher chance to drop from those.

So, on top of getting very little cloth unless you specifically go farm ‘wave’ events that spawn lots of enemies, and most of it will be of your level range, ans those from enemies are negligible.

If enemy camps had cloth nodes in them, you’ll be able to get some extra cloth to compensate for that.

Since enemy drops are unreliable, and there’s not a single guaranteed source of these basic material, getting them will always be a grind. You’ll just repeat things until you get enough coin to buy them, or spend even more time repeating things until they finally drop for you.

If you really want iron and don’t have the time to get it from drops nor the coin to buy it from others, all you have to do is head to brisban and mine a little in the northwest corner. Ding, half a stack of iron just from there. Something that would take over 5 hours to get by salvaging salvageable materials or opening bags from enemies, in less than 5 minutes.

You can say all you want to keep silk expensive so you can make a profit from your farming at the expense of the players that want to get something done. That’s won’t change the truth that there’s a problem to be solved here.

phys.7689:

Tom Gore.4035:

Wanze.8410:

Tom Gore.4035:

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

Now, is this the case with silk? who knows, but we cant find out, because we cant adjust the supply.

We cant find out by adjusting supply but its not neccessary because Anet can.
They have all the metrics, of how much silk scraps and weaving threads get created per day, how much gets destroyed and how much get bought and sold at which price point.

So in the case that falling silk prices and rising silk supply dont result in added demand for damask, there is not need to further devalue it.

according to most capitalist theory, and they could be wrong, but this is the common belief,
One entity is generally considered to be inferior to the market itself at finding the right price points for items.
Complaints are generally that such an entity would be less responsive, more rigid, and have effected by concerns outside of the price of the specific good itself.

im sure economists have debated this many times, i dont think there is a 100% right answer for all situations, but in this situation i see it like this.
for a long time, anets numbers had us oversupplying silk to the point it became valueless
as a solution to that problem, Ascendeds item requirements, created a bunch of new problems, like proffesion progression inequality, an apparently high feeling of grind, increased farming activity etc.

i feel like the single entity is not currently as effecient at finding these sweet spots as many claim a more free market to be.

i generally find that items that have targetable means of supply tend to have their price more closely aligned with a value that people feel comfortable buying, supplying and selling them

i dont think we are there for silk, or leather.

But we have been oversupplying silk for months now and just because silk is not at your sweet spot, doesnt mean its not at a sweet spot for everybody else.

The oversupplying is already over. Supply is going down and price is going up ever since Wintersday is over. What is your solution now? Introduce another festival to bring another temporary supply for silk? Or MAYBE it’s time to introduce a permanent solution? Eh?

I would opt for another temporary or timegated solution, like an item that consumes dragonite and gives out silk.

The latter I would be all over about, no doubt.

But it would again be just a temporary solution. After the initial rush of extra dragonite turned into extra silk would be gone, the problem would come back.

Are you sure you’re not opposed to getting a steady, controllable supply of silk just because the current fluctuating oversupply/undersupply makes it easier for you to make money on the TP?

actually dragonite isnt time gated, you can get infinitely, which means it would be renewable and viable

However, that means he doesnt have problem with silk being targetable, just the specific means using nodes.

Why are you specifically opposed to nodes wanze?

Dragonite isnt timegated but the gifts from mawdrey/gift of gratitude are (3-5 per day).

I am opposed to nodes because i dont see a reason for implementing them. I agree that the price for silk might have been too high half a year ago but they adjusted that and the price lost 40% gradually. That means, if they wanted to, they could implement more indirect sources of silk, if they wanted to chop another 40% off the value.

Implementing nodes will most certainly result in a price crash, which is never good for the economy and the general player base.
I asked before you guys prefer a price crash rather than a gradual decline but didnt get an answer.

There would not be such crash.

There would be a steady decline until it’s normalized at the low prices all basic materials should have. As less people may buy,but some will still buy since they will still prefer getting gold then buying it.

What matters is that those who do not prefer that method would have an alternative.

phys.7689:

Wanze.8410:

Manoa.5897:

However, prices can be a good indication of whether an oversupply or undersupply exists, since price is a reflection of the relationship between supply and demand. When you have 4 ascended mats and the price of 1 of those mats is a clear outlyer that is well above the prices of the other 3 mats, there are pretty good odds that an undersupply exists.

The cause of the undersupply may be on the supply side of the equation (no reliable way to obtain the stuff used to create the ascended mat), or on the demand side (ANet requiring more stuff to create the ascended mat compared to the other ascended mats). Or…it can be both (which I think is the case).

I think its more the price evolution which is a good indicator of oversupply and undersupply, not the price compared to different items. I find it hard to believe that silk or damask is undersupplied when supply on the tp has been growing continously for 5 months and prices dropped.

the relation ship of supply demand, and price is not always a simple one.
Some times you would make more, by charging less, but you can only do that if the supply can match that.

lets say your price point on a apples is 5 dollars, it sells consistently but slowly, and you slowly build up an excess of apples. you sell 1000 apples a month and build up a surplus of 100 apples a month
you say man i am making too many apples i keep wasting apples
now you could look at that and say, cutting the price to 4 dollars, yeah i might sell more apples, but i would only make 4400 dollars

but it turns out that when you dropped the price to 4 dollars, a bunch more people become interested in apples, an apple pop tart factory can now afford to makea decent profit buying your apples, they now want 1000 more apples if the price is 4 dollars.

but you cant make 1000 more apples, so you are actually undersupplied, and your 5 dollar price actually makes you less money than you could make, if you could only produce 1000 more apples per month.

Now, is this the case with silk? who knows, but we cant find out, because we cant adjust the supply.

I will say ascended is failing at its goal of being something people enjoy doing as an endgame activity, many people are opting out, and dont feel rewarded doing it. I just stopped one day after being like 4/6 or maybe 5/6 armor peices for leather because the daily craft made me want to choke a *!@). I dont even entertain the notion that i would bother on my mesmer.

the point of that is, i think the current costs, in time/money are not such that they are at the right price point. Especially when you realize, that the real point of ascended isnt even to make gold, its to be something that people want to do once they reach endgame.

back to the apple analogy for a second, anets goal with ascended can be likened to the goal of getting people hooked on apples. The current supply of silk is not one that gets people hooked on apples

This is probably one of the best explanations of the concept of “pent-up demand” that I’ve ever seen.

Also, I crave apples.

Behellagh.1468:

Which is why I posted as I did. All you had in your post at the time was what was quoted. I was confused by the meaning of the ?.

I edited the ? pretty much immediately after I saw it. You were extremely quick on the response.

I then thought about it and decided to do an additional edit to add clarification (and of course, got carried away with myself ).

Personally I think Damask is the only ascended crafting mat that is currently where it should be. Anet’s original goals were for ascended mats to be time gated high level crafting items that could be used to generate money for high level crafters.

Damask is currently the only ascended item that is fulfilling that original goal. The leather you actually lose money making, and the metal is essentially break even. Damask is the only one that can be crafted for a profit and has a high value associated with its high level.

Hopefully they fix leather one of these days. T5 leather has been severely oversupplied since launch, to the point that people mostly just sell stacks of it to the vendor.

Well, im done with this thread as it mostly went off topic towards a rng discussion anyways and we have a seperate thread for that.

I guess the OP´s question has been answered sufficiently.

No ascended item is crafted for profit.

Everything ascended is sinks. Sinks for laurels, sinks for coin, sinks for materials. As soon as you have the ascende in your hands, you lost all you spend on it forever.

If anyone is making coin more out anyone making ascended than someone else making, let’s say legendaries or mystic forge exotics, then that’s to be fixed. Ascended should sink wealth only. Not produce it for anyone.

MithranArkanere.8957:

No ascended item is crafted for profit.

Everything ascended is sinks. Sinks for laurels, sinks for coin, sinks for materials. As soon as you have the ascende in your hands, you lost all you spend on it forever.

If anyone is making coin more out anyone making ascended than someone else making, let’s say legendaries or mystic forge exotics, then that’s to be fixed. Ascended should sink wealth only. Not produce it for anyone.

I’ve made a lot of gold crafting time-gated ascended items and selling them over the time since they’ve been released.

Ayrilana.1396:

[…]

I’ve made a lot of gold crafting time-gated ascended items and selling them over the time since they’ve been released.

Those should have been account bound.

And now that we are at it, legendaries too.

MithranArkanere.8957:

Ayrilana.1396:

[…]

I’ve made a lot of gold crafting time-gated ascended items and selling them over the time since they’ve been released.

Those should have been account bound.

And now that we are at it, legendaries too.

That’s your opinion. However, if you were around at the time ascended armor was released then you would know that this profit for those items was actually intended.

Except the thing with legendary is the same with precursors. You get a precursor you don’t want or can use, your choice is to craft it into a legendary and sell that or sell the precursor. Did the economics during the first 6 months of the game make popular legendary weapons more profitable than just selling the precursor?

Maybe that was the thought involved in making legendary weapons not account bound on creation. That crafting legendary weapons could be a viable way to earn gold.

pdavis.8031:

Bernie: while I agree with much of what you said, the supply not meeting the demand isn’t exactly correct. As of now, according to gw2spidy, silk is sitting at 722,130 supply and demand at 614,942. Thats a supply of +107,189. The supply is enough to meet the demand. Silk isn’t even priced on the TP to make it unobtainable either. What the chief complaint is that it costs more and takes longer.

In the end people just want it now instead of a few days later. That’s what it all boils down to.

The demand reported by gwspidy is in terms of buy orders. It’s not straight demand. It represents the number of players who are willing to buy silk, just not at the listed prices. Note that it also shows the demand of thick leather as being 0. That doesn’t mean no one’s buying leather; it means that no one feels the need to counter-offer because at 9 copper apiece, you can buy a full stack of of leather for the price of 10 silk scraps. Your numbers indicate that there are 614,942 players who want to buy silk but are not satisified with the prices being offered.

With that in mind, let me clarify my original statement. The supply of silk is 722,130 while the supply of thick leather is at 16,302,299. Let that sink in for a moment: 16 million leather for sale vs < 1 million silk for sale. The supply of cheap silk doesn’t meet the demand for it. The minute a player posts silk for auction at the outrageous price of 2 silver each it’s gone. Even though over 600K players are priced out of the silk right now, there are enough players with deep pockets to keep the price high. Leather, on the other hand, is so plentiful that players are constantly forced to lower their prices in order to sell within reasonable time frames.

Wanze.8410:

Well, im done with this thread as it mostly went off topic towards a rng discussion anyways and we have a seperate thread for that.

I guess the OP´s question has been answered sufficiently.

its not really a rng discussion, its more about player controlled supply versus developer controlled supply,
and also the structure of ascended crafting, and how it effects demand,

though it has veered to the hows and whys, rather than the direct questions of should he buy or sell.
regardless of the difference of opinions, i feel the conversation has brought up some things worth discussing, exposed some different idealogies and solutions.

For example, from you, i get the vibe that you believe the primary focus of the economy should be to remain stable, even when that stability doesnt directly serve a positive purpose for the users in some respects.

Essentially i gather (though i may be wrong) you believe that maintaining stable values that slowly adjust create a better environment on the whole, than an extremely responsive system.

i dont really think however that silk nodes would crash the silk market, unless the market is in a bubble state right now, where silks value doesnt represent its real value.

it would go down some, but a lot of people would still pay, not to have to go get nodes themselves, just fewer people. When the price drops below the point its worth it to get, people will stop supplying it.

games i have played where items are created primarily through intention rarely have items that are below vendor value.

I guess the other possible fear of direct systems, is that for some items there would be no supply, because they have very limited value, so people would have to gather them themselves, but generally such items dont really belong in the player trading world anyway, and should probably be npc items.

First there isn’t 600K players, it’s 600K units with bids, there is maybe 5-6K orders for silk and who knows how many players made those orders since each order is a maximum of one 250 unit stack. With 29 to 44 stacks of silk scraps for each full set of ascended armor that’ll be only 115-210 players.

Also 90K units/900 orders at under 10c; 158K units/1200 orders with bids 1s and under. They hadn’t been under 10c within hours of ascended armor recipes becoming public and under 1s within a few days. That was 14 months ago. So left over bids or wishful thinking?

Just clarifying, 600K units being bid on doesn’t mean players or are realistic bids for even the last year. Similar on the for sale side with loads of units above 4s. At least there the excuse is it’ll cost more coin to relist them at a more realistic price or that you are using this as a paid storage locker for 5% of price listed.