So I just want to say first up that I get a great deal of enjoyment playing on the trading post in this game and can spend hours doing it when I have no other goals for the day. I have watched while markets that are required for new content or in demand items get smashed over and over again and have continually wondered if its players with no idea doing it or if it is manipulation on the side of anet, always deciding it must just be players until now. I am now going to give away a market a lot of you probably already know but here goes. On the recent patch where you can craft ascended weapons platinum ore and what they make (darksteel ingots) price started spiking I dabbled in buying platinum and found it was an ok way to make a little silver in the game I was undercut a little but the price stayed stable about 4 silver 30 copper per ingot this was about 5 days ago. all the ingots on the market were selling like crazy and the price soon hit 5 silver 80 copper and showed no sign of slowing demand is still high. The price for platinum was also spiking which is good for those who enjoy gathering it makes you reasonable silver as well. This price stayed steady for probably 1/2 a day then out of no-where someone who must be insane or tinfoil hat (anet) started placing ingots on the TP at 4 silver 50 copper it cost as much to make the things as they were selling it for. For hours I watched this wall built in the market over 1 silver below the lowest other point about 1000 ingots at a time as soon as the wall was breached and reached “normal” again another wall same amount of ingots same price was placed. my instinct is no-one could be that silly the amount of silver you make is simply not worth anyones time to craft. this has happened in so many "big " markets that are required items over the last month or so that it cannot be co-incidence and I can understand undercutting prices but this is crazy and without profit/reason to do so.Now there are 1000’s of the ingots between 4.30 and 4.50 (the wall so mission accomplished whoever has done this but its disappointing as it now costs more to make an ingot than to buy one so who would do that ? ask yourself….
My theory anet creates a wall in the market to encourage players to undercut and lower prices (no-one did because it was simply losing money to do so) this continued for 2 days same price massive amounts. But the effect creates listings above the the wall to gradually undercut each other and close the gap (ie price went from 5.80-5.20 in 2days behind the wall) making it eventually continuous listings if its not anet filling in the gap. Now if this is the case I understand the logic in doing so as it keeps costs down but this is supposed to be a player driven game where if supply outweighs demand its cheaper and the opposite when its in low supply forcing prices up.
As it costs money to list items on the TP if this is happening it is costing everyone listing at “the current price” a lot of silver as they either have to cancel and relist or wait a hell of a long time to sell and imo this is in no way fair.
I would like to know if this is how anet is running the tp and I will save both my time and money and also if others have had this experience. The silver is not so much an issue for me I get a kick out of exploring new markets and when they take off its awesome but when I see this happening over and over its disappointing to say the least I feel like I wasted my time.
If you want to lower prices try cayenne pepper it was 20 copper 3 months ago now its over 5 silver where was the brakes there?
TLDR:- is anet manipulating the trading post that’s supposed to be player driven?
