Guild Wars 2

I was trying to buy and resell items when I noticed very odd behavior. Either the quantities of items ordered and listed are not being displayed properly, or there are invisible minimum limits set for the buy and sell values.

I was attempting to purchase a few thousand of an item for1s99c and resell them for 5s05c. Ahead of my 1s99c order was another order for just 23 of the item at 2s25c. I sold 23 of the item to the buy order in an attempt to eliminate it from being in front of my order, but the buy order for 23 at 2s25c remained. I bought a handful more of the item and again attempted to fill the order of 23 items, but it still remained. Intrigued, I bought over 1500 of the item off the Trading Post and fed them all, 23 at a time, into that order, and still it remained. So I cancelled my order at 1s99c and just relisted it at 2s26c.

Then I decided to buy a handful of the item that were listed around 4s90c and relist them cheaper in order to facilitate the filling of my buy order. But I found that I was unable to list the item for less than 3s50c, lest it be purchased immediately. I was able to list them at 3s50c, but anything I listed at 3s49c or less was purchased immediately, regardless of quantity. If I listed 1 at 3s49c, it was instantly bought. If I listed 10 at 3s49c, they were instantly bought. And by “instantly”, I mean that when I pressed the List Items button, coins were deposited in my Delivery window before the item window in the Trading Post refreshed. Meanwhile, none of the items I had listed at 3s50c had sold. There is no way there were players out there instantly purchasing the exact quantity of the item I was listing, every time I listed a random quantity at any price below 3s50c.

Something is awry, whether it’s a quantity display bug and/or something that’s artificially manipulating and controlling market values on items.

A part of the intended design (weird though it might be) is that the TP prioritizes “how soon” over “how many”. I think that ‘feature’ alone explains your experience (see below).

The only way I’ve found to handle it: buy up current stock (at whatever price I’m willing to pay) and then make a buy order for the remaining (doing the math in my head or via calc.exe). It’s annoying, although I have met people who prefer it this way (since it minimizes the time they spend on the TP — go figure).

Say you want to buy 250 of an item at 1 silver:

• If there are 200 at 1 silver and 50 at 1.5 silver, you’ll get those 250. Immediate result.
• If there are 200 at 1 silver at 50 at 1.99 silver, you’ll get all of those. Again, an immediate result.
• If there are none available at one silver, you can place an order for 250. No immediate result possible.

These results would also change if someone else is asking for the same item at the same price.

Hope that helps.

I’ve been flipping items on the TP for over a year using my own custom Excel spreadsheets. I know the mechanics of the TP. What I’ve explained is not at all what you’re talking about. The TP is not functioning properly or it’s being artificially manipulated.