Showing Posts For bluemonkey.1762:
When everyone has the goals requiring the same items, the prices for those items will go up.
The solution from your standpoint is to change your goals or learn how to farm effectively.
The solution from Anet’s standpoint is to diversify the routes to a given goal, add goals requiring different materials. Both of which seem they seem to be doing.
Another generally good tip, (from John Smith most recently): have goals & set limits. Decide what kind of profit you want from an item & the kind of losses you will tolerate.
I also wonder why people continue to stick up for this thing? It’s not beneficial to them in any way… At some point you have to wonder about this. i’ve heard a fair share of defense for it, yet even though they don’t like a person presentation (ie calling it unethical or immoral or a scam, etc), most seem to agree that it’s a money grab.
People defend it, despite not liking it, for the same reason that people defend free speech or freedom of association. In principle, they have a right to make their own decisions, no matter how foolish those decisions seem/are. A general theme is: people buying gems with real money supports the game. Therefore the more $$ everyone else puts in, the better the game will be without my personal monetary contribution.
Long gone are the day that a company can tout the benefits of a product without specifying the risk involved with using said product.
Companies do this daily: it’s called advertising.
Specific examples of unstated factors not related to advertising: trans-unsaturated fats: they’ve been added to food for decades, but it wasn’t until the 90s that SOME government decided it was important enough to list separately from unsaturated fats. Companies don’t disclose the risk that you might get Salmonella from eating raw eggs, instead they recommend you cook it before eating it. In fact, it wasn’t until Pepsi & Coke went to court with each other over formulation disputes that “high fructose corn syrup” had to be listed separately from “sugar” in the US. I got thousands more examples to highlight that you don’t know as much as you think you know about the things you buy.
But to stick to the larger question: putting valuables into chests & not posting the odds of receiving any given item is a design decision. They aren’t obligated to tell you and probably won’t. Your very best chance of forcing the issue is with a lawyer and a court case. And while you’re at it, lots of people want to find out the drop rate for the precursors.
If you define this as gambling, and gambling as unethical, so be it—it’s an unethical practice according to your definition. I don’t agree, but that’s the thing about ethics—each person sees things differently. If you truly valued open & honest warning on this point, you’d post your drop frequencies & crate quantity.
There are actually a lot of advantages to the gem→gold rate floating. I have gathered preliminary data to suggest that the widespread buying power of gems has increased relative to gold for some (many) sectors of the economy. Would not be so under a fixed exchange rate, and maybe you don’t like that idea either. I think it’s pretty neat & am interested to see how it unfolds further.
You failed to link your exact finds. Maybe $40 is worth it for 10,000 Karka shell and 20,000 Passion Flowers. Or you failed to value the mobile crafting stations highly enough.
Perhaps you simply failed to value $40 highly enough.
You say the economy is getting worse, in what regard? What is it that you would buy that you cannot?
Four quick tips:
1) Prioritize what you want to buy
2) Don’t aim to be rich for the sake of being rich (unless that is your goal in part 1)
3) Pursue your priorities in the best way possible (ie, if you want more bag space, consider simply buying bigger bags rather than buying a bag slot; if you can’t stand farming in groups, find a solo route and ignore CoF)
4) Seek specific help for specific questions—having priorities will help shape these better.
(edited by bluemonkey.1762)
Company’s must disclose the very nature of their product?!? munkiman, I think you’re confused about what thousands of court cases say: Company secrets stay secret UNLESS there is legal action. Sure they have to list the ingredients, but not all of them (natural flavorings). And even if they happened to, you have no idea where they got those ingredients from (genetic engineered chocolate from corporate farms in Brazil) nor how they might have been processed/combined/etc (flash pasteurized). There is variability in how every product comes off the assembly line—that’s not disclosed in the package (contains 48 upwards of 49 oz of cookies with 30 +/-0.5g of sugar per serving). Besides, consumers barely read the ingredients that are provided, you think they’d read a 10 page document describing it unless & until it nearly kills them?
If you never attempted to research the answer to your question outside of reading the sunstone crate description, maybe you should start. If you opened crates—post your results: otherwise, you’re contributing to the very problem you’re complaining about.
mirifrost, you danced around the subject my reply to pick at details: your reply is entirely premised on the notion that most people see it your way and would use gold (rather than cash) to buy these things. You may represent the bulk of the community, you may not. And if there’s a small player base buying the bulk of the gem store items, guess what? The developers will continue to cater to that group primarily and mostly ignore your objections.
I agree, it’s ridiculous to pay 8g for a revive orb. How about $2.25? Or how about: they just needed a random drop to fill a BLC? On the off chance that someone said, “Oooh, shiny, I want some more” well, the gem store provides that possibility directly for things that aren’t uber-rare. Warning to the key buyers: the possibility to get a swim speed buff has displaced some probability of getting a magic find or karma boost (lucky you!).
Likely the developers don’t want to “break the game” by offering anything too good or too permanent. Playing it safe allows them to see what people will do with it & whether it’s a line of development worth exploring (no need to guess or predict—they will have the data to demonstrate)
For the rarer items, they have established an excellent marketing model: limited availability. It forces people who want something to immediately purchase it or lose the opportunity. My guess is they have already developed a whole line of products for the summer & fall—most of which will be available for 4-6 weeks and then removed. Also note, the gem store prices aren’t “random”: the developers put a fixed cost in gems to buy the items. The only thing random about it is the gold equivalent. Don’t like it? Don’t buy it.
To answer the question you posed at the end of the original post: I don’t buy anything at the gem store. I have neither interest nor $$ nor gold to spend on cosmetic (useless) luxury (overpriced) items. But I remain open to the possibility that SOMEONE completely different from us might buy these things.
mirifrost, you’re projecting your own experiences & feelings onto the entire game which is faulty logic. Sure you don’t buy boosts, but maybe there is steady boost sales. You might not want to pay cash for gems; but that might happen on a regular basis. You literally have no basis or evidence for your assertions.
You even admit yourself that the boosts have little benefit. So how is that a violation of gw2 anti-pay2win philosophy? Remember little benefit does not mean useless. Using them is a nice little boost, a small contribution for a short time. It’s like eating food or drinking an elixir, except it fills a different “slot”.
Specifically, armor repair kits have a potentially irreplaceable function in fractals and WvW—repairing may not be available “in the field” without abandoning your group or starting over. For the completely responsible & skilled player in guild groups, probably not necessary. For a casual running with lots of PUGs who forgot to repair at the start of the fractal level, priceless. Please provide some links showing where self-rez orbs won the day for a group in your favorite situation and describe why that’s unbalanced or unsavory.
Turns out I had the same problem…also turns out that Divinity’s Reach doesn’t show up on the quick overview and that’s where my 2 vistas were.
Did anyone ever open a chest and actually get NOTHING? You all spent your hard earned gold (oh, you spent cash, hmmm) to buy a key & got SOMETHING when you opened the chest. If you don’t like what you get when you open a chest, stop buying keys & opening chests. Well, actually please do—that way I don’t have to pay cash to keep playing. Thank you all for pitching in enough cash to cover my share!! See you all in two months when they unveil the next RNG chest drop!
As luck would have it, I haven’t seen a key in 3 months, got two in the last two weeks. Now if only there was a way to craft BLC keys instead….
Next week all you all should each buy 100 lottery tickets…and then complain to the store manager that you didn’t win & how you never win despite always playing which entitles you to win at least some of the time.
1. You could also get into a friendly guild.
2. Earn their trust & friendship.
3. Explain what you would like and ask if they would help you achieve your goals.
Another thing to think about is how much wealth is stored in the collectibles tab. In WoW, I rarely had 200 of any commodity unless I was actively making something or playing a market. Now I’ve got >2000 ore & bar sitting in the bank, taking up virtually no space; it could be currency anytime I decide to cash out or get around to more crafting. While leveling my first toon, I routinely sold my unused mats as I gathered them so I could comfortably buy the things I wanted.
Except people could easily have reached 40 laurels a couple of days ago… I’m sitting on 32 after missing a few dailies and I haven’t even finished the monthly yet, so what’s so special about today?
You have to consider that the majority of players baught their ascended amulett as soon as they could (there were no accessories available at that time). Today is the day all those players got the 40 laurels required for the accessory.
I didn`t know about the announcement but I don`t think it will make that much of a difference. I hope the price will now stabilize around 26-27s instead of dropping further and further. The spike might be caused by a combination of both.
I had 50 as of last night: I miss at least 1-2 dailies/week but I finished the monthly almost a week ago. There’s nothing particularly special about the day; though the price did bounce back up to 32s over the last 36 hours.
You fail to realize that it cost nothing to place a buy order…leaving that loop hole wide open for market manipulation. All you need is the bank roll to do it.
Without market variability, there is no profit—the most obvious reason to manipulate a market. I fail to understand how only buying up large quantities of ectoplasm qualifies as a manipulation. Understandably you are frustrated by the ever changing prices, but that’s normal for these kinds of market. Kindly explain how wanting to cheaply buy vast quantities of a resource qualifies as “illegal”?
A buy order is only an intention—it has to be filled by a willing seller. Apparently the dev team is watching the market, so you can rest assured that the volatility situation is because ecto is popular, not because the gw2 mafia has a corner on the market. You might as well complain that undercutters pay fewer fees.
Here’s a quick test that I recommend to Amun Ra & any others who thinks the market spinning out of control:
simultaneously:
place 1 buy offer for ecto at: 1s, 2s and 3s less than current ‘buy now’ price.
sell 1 glob ecto ea at: 1s, 2s, 3s above the current ‘buy now’ price.
Monitor each purchase or sale at 4hr, 8hr, and 24hr. Which ones are left after 24hrs? What’s the new ‘buy now’ price?
Solution: If you have more than two transactions incomplete at 24hrs, market flipping cannot generate profits.
If one purchased ectoplasm at 25s, how much the markup have to be to turn a profit? What about if purchased at 20s? That’s right folks, our market manipulator has found a way to simultaneously buy at 20s and sell at 25s {or if you like, buy at 25, sell at 30s} completely escaping the notice of all except the most careful detectives! After 2000+ tireless trades, this master of disaster has managed to abscond with how much gold from the innocent casual players, helplessly victimized in the fiscal tornado of terror?
~30g
{Assuming the graph at 2544 is actually a single player and not just a stopping point; the intermediate points are 0; only a single player is involved}
I have a more plausible explanation for the 2544 sale (if it’s real—graph makes it difficult): a guild bank got hacked or otherwise emptied. Back to playing all y’all.
It works fine. Generally what I’ve experienced is getting greens in place of blues. I run side-by-side with my roommates so comparisons at the end of the night are easy—never formally tallied it though. The rare drop rate doesn’t seem to budge, but I mystic forge all the greens for yellows anyhow. It is in this way that I truly benefit from magic find—but I did it by consciously sacrificing survivability {made possible by having a reliable group}
Vol, you’re argument makes no sense:
You rail against the players “vendoring their greens/blues”
and then state 2 posts later:
“Keep in mind that gold sinks are transactions that take gold out of the economy – not items”.
But the very act of vendoring is what makes items=gold. So picking up any item which can be vendored is equivalent to creating gold in the system. Which is why sensible sinks for trade goods=economic sense. People willing to buy extra trade goods on the AH remove currency via TP fees; the trade goods disappear from the system without further economic benefit to the player; raising prices & motivating gatherers (while simultaneously annoying crafters). On the other hand, straight out gold sinks have a more distributed effect on the economy.
The mystic forge can be a gold sink depending on how players choose to interact with it. But maybe more importantly, it creates a limit on the relationship in prices between items of differing quality. For example, as long as lvl 80 greens→yellows at a predictable rate in the mystic forge, the price on the yellows cannot freely float much higher than that of the underlying greens. In this way, the price on individual yellows could be “gamed” higher, but the average price could not be forced higher without raising the average price on the green items across the board. And to do that would require a heck of a lot more money than any cartel is likely to put into it. But what if they did? The less fabulously wealthy sell their greens for gold; spending the gold elsewhere & use Karma/Laurels/Badges to buy rares & exotics.
Besides, if you have so much gold that you don’t know what to do with it, you probably have too much free time. Who’s got 6 characters with 12 legendaries? mmmm didn’t think so. AreaNet has lots of time to figure out what to do about that…
Consumables needs a few separate subcategories:
1. One for food or anything associated with a food buff
2. One for potions or anything associated with a utility buff
3. One for dyes
4. One for recipes (or this could even go into a major category of its own?)
5. One or two for the remaining things: eg. alcohol, tonics, skins, etc.
This would help in many ways to establish more vibrant, accessible market. I myself would buy & use a wider variety of food & utilities if I didn’t need to use a wiki to identify a level appropriate food for the buff I want nor devise clever search strategies to fish out items I really want from an ocean of items I don’t.
Also there appear to be existing subcategories that don’t serve any function or contain any items. Is there a plan for adding these types of items? Or do these items just not get sold? If they aren’t going to be used for the TP, perhaps they should be removed…
(edited by bluemonkey.1762)
I feel that getting a legendary is an optional achievement & should be something that takes a lot of time & resources.
If some are more expensive than others, so be it. On the characters that I’ve played, greatsword has routinely been my favorite weapon. If that’s true for everyone, it makes sense that it should be more expensive. If you want a cheaper legendary, figure out how to build a character around a different weapon. The reward for the path less traveled is therefore cheaper in the end but harder to dedicate oneself to at the start.
Sudden,
I don’t happen to know what the costs of materials are for anything except the items I happen to craft. Anet could help here by increasing the vendor price as mentioned above, but there is also some action you can take to protect yourself as well: offer a buy price of your own.
I’m sure I’m not the only person who has offered custom buy prices on stuff I’m selling. Doing so carries additional expense and risk however it locks out the lowball offers pretty effectively. You stand to lose money if more people sell you bags at 10g than buy them at 12g, but that will also help you decide to abandon the market completely rather than to reform it. You might also find yourself a hidden opportunity for additional money if you manage to routinely fill your buy orders & sell out product.
Also, as non-soulbound bags (or similar items) fill the market, people will eventually outgrow them and/or choose to get a different, specialty bag. As this happens, old bags will reenter the market depressing the sale price away from the crafting price.
I used a very similar build for a long time. I love it! I geared a similiar way, but also gathered equipment for +crit dmg beings my precision & power were high enough to take advantage of it. Definitely by 80, vitality & toughness are necessary (in only as much moderation as needed to live comfortably). I had also switched the mine out for utility goggles—they lend themselves to group play better. Also in group play, I find myself frequently switching out the turret for an additional elixir.
I think the reason that many prices are 1c above vendor price is because people simply aren’t valuing their work. After fees, 1c above vendor price is basically throwing the item away. Most people will eventually realize this, but for now they are mostly just trying to empty their bags to trading post with the least amount of thought. So you’re real question should be, does the game allow you to take advantage of this pricing? Well, sure, to some extent: don’t chop down the trees when you see 5.3 million logs for sale—spend your time mining or gathering food or salvaging or figuring out what you can build with wood.
I suspect that the open-ended nature of this style of auction house is generating an unusually high number of entries that are responsible for it’s continuous downtime. My main concern right now is that trading post will fall over of its own weight once everyone has 100+ different items on the shelves and custom buy offers on 100 more. If this is the case, I would be in favor of splitting the trading posts so that one trading post served a selection of servers rather than all of them. Perhaps, rotating the servers in each trading pool periodically. Or set some limits such as a limited number of open transactions or an expiration time for each transaction to go unfilled.
I’m having a few problems that are annoying:
1) I’ve got a long list of items for sale, but only the first 10 are ever displayed. I know the remaining are all there as they reappear as items are sold or cancelled.
2) Several times today (9/7/12) while searching for items, such as Wool Insignia, the list would indicate 20+hits. But after clicking “next” once or twice, the trading post would error & show no results.
3) Frequently, when I used the auto-fill feature to complete a name in the search engine, it would proceed to crash the interface. Closing & reopening the Trading Post window would restore usability, but I’ve stopped using the auto-fill function as a result.
4) The items I’ve bought using custom purchase requests don’t appear on my buying history. However, items I buy “instantly” do populate the list.
Loving the rest of the game; would love it more if Trading Post was more reliable.