Guild Wars 2

In most markets I go into these days I do not even care about the prices others are listing their items for anymore. All I care about is my profit margin and I set profit margin goals of 20-22%. If the market is not able to give me this profit, I just get out of that market. If the margin is currently 50-60%, that is a great market for me since all the offers I make will look like xmas sale and sell so fast that I can rinse and repeat right away. Yes, all these people trying to get those 50-60% margins will be mad, but I get my margin goals fast and easy and that is all I care about. That is usually how the market works in real life, anyway.

No disrespect intended to anyone but I often think that the vendor prices for selling items including trash is a little like social security.

It is there for everybody, is designed to enable you to make a start as a brand new player from level 1 upwards, and will cover your basic in game costs as a new player and/or on a new toon.

But……if vendor prices were too generous it would cause inflation this reducing the fungible value of gold per se.

Rift, another MMO game has that issue. Over there there is no need at all to ever use the auction house as you level up, you acquire all the gold you need via vendored items.

Hence the auction house is almost dead, OR has really inflated prices. And there the auction house is limited to one server…….well we all know the problems of a low pop realm…..a dead economy being but one of them.

Even on higher population worlds it can be an issue leveling professions in terms of materials unless you gather items yourself.

For myself I don’t play a game to grind , an action house, a means of exchange, and a healthy economy are necessary to any game of this type

While I can see why some people may believe they’re paying more than they should, it’s completely within ArenaNet’s rights to set gem prices at whatever they want, even including discriminatory pricing based on region.

Others have posted explanations as to why the discrepancy exists and isn’t as large as it appears to be. Ultimately though, if you don’t like the price, don’t pay it.

I offer some insight as to why you occasionally see large undercuts:

One tactic I use from time to time in lower volume markets is to “burn the market”.

When a given item cycle’s profit margin grows too small, and I decide that it is no longer worth the time to work with these items, I will calculate my break-even point.

I’ll then accumulate a mass of the item(s) and list large amounts (relative to the estimated supply) of the item at the break-even point for several days. This is often a very large undercut, as I’m not interested in the profit so much as making sure no one else profits.

What this does is ensure anyone that undercuts me is doing so at a loss, and anyone who tries to sell at a profit will have their items stuck. I will be breaking more or less even.

What do I have to gain from this? The more people I drive away from this market, the better it becomes for me. The entire reason the margin shrinks is others try to profit, raising the demands for the mats/forge requisites/etc. The vigilant market watchers will simply mark their spreadsheets and just keep an eye out. I can do nothing about that. The majority will turn to other markets.

With this, I’m occasionally able to restore higher profitability to certain market lines i’m interested in, once enough people have given up and turned elsewhere.

Certain requirements are:
- Relatively unknown crafting / forging line.
- Medium to low trade volume. The high volume items tend to already swing to their natural equilibrium.

These items are almost exclusively in the middle tier, and are almost always equipment.
Popular things like ectoplasms, crafting materials and such have no way of being suppressed in this way.

About the random drop arguement: i guess you can see it from 2 sides. The first would be that players can actively choose what to farm for and control in a way what they need (which is partly implemented, by t6 mat farming or dungeon farming for cores) but on the other side that would cause the game to feel more grindish.
That’s what they really don’t want. And please stop saying doing dungeons is a grind. They came up with new mechanics fir dungeons that make them different and unique. It’s far superior than the actual grind i.e. kill that monster over and over and over again.

As for the economy: how is a system that is completely player driven bad?? People get rich because they know what they are doing. If you want them to stop being rich you have to either slow the market down (time delays, being able to sell 20 at max,…) which would just be frigging stupid even for the casaul or you could tax the rich and get them completely out of the game.

I just don’t see how the current system is as bad as you claim… and i still have to hear a good reason that persuades me. In addition i can just say it again:

In an economy that supports the freedom of the traders, the sellers and the buyers, there will always be people who get richer than others! That is a given!

Essence Snow.3194

When you say “cost of the tp” are you referring to the tax or the cost of not playing the content?
PS plz for my sake in layman’s terms~cheers

Hi, sorry for delay in response.

For the most part, I’m referring to cost from the perspective of the consumer, not the seller. That being the case, let’s ignore the obvious tax implication. That being said, the key cost to the consumer is the (gold) price of the item acquired.

I think it can also be agreed that any item available on the TP can be acquired through some other means, empirically so, or it wouldn’t be there. And one of the key components inherent in acquiring any item in game can be expressed in terms of time.

At its very core, the TP represents a conversion of one resource (gold), into time. By using the TP, you trade a resource for time. Presumably the time saved can be put to other endeavors in the game that a player prioritizing more than the value of the gold traded.

Even more importantly, the TP offers a set (not fixed) rate of exchange for the item. For example, take acquiring 10 ectos. The cost outside of the TP of acquiring enough rare or better items to salvage into 10 ectos, may be as simple as acquiring 4 rare items in an hour. Or perhaps it could take days. Or you could run a dungeon enough times to acquire enough tokens to buy rares to salvage. Regardless of the method, it’s inherently unclear how long it could take. However, the key point is that for a specific amount of gold you can have those ectos as quickly as you click “buy”. That being the case, the consumer isn’t so much buying those 10 ectos, rather, they are buying the time it would have taken to otherwise acquire those items, which they could have undeniably done in another matter.

Like you mentioned, the other hidden cost of using the TP, and one that may be overlooked, is the cost of not playing the content. However, it’s not entirely a cost in so much as it’s an offset. Rather than using the time required to otherwise acquire those 10 ectos, the player now can devote that time to some other in game content. So, ultimately, it’s just a shift of time spent doing one activity over another.

In the end a player absolutely does not have to use the TP. However, by choosing to do so, they are able to shift the time that would have been required to acquire that item, to another, more preferable, endeavor.

Some of these comments lead in strange directions.

Three months ago, the recipes using powerful blood were the same as today. The market environment has changed. Maybe there are more players crafting T6. Maybe there are fewer botters. Maybe there are a lot fewer players actively farming and gathering. It is not as if the drop rate decreased.

In my view, the increase in cost (gold) for crafting supply is very positive. It means the market is working properly. What I had a problem with in 2012 was the rapid drop in the value of gold in terms of gems compounded by a similar drop in the value of gold denominated items. Those two trends meant sellers were forced to continually lower prices as demand fell short of supply every day. The market is much more stable, now, than it was.

Farm what you need in crafting materials or pay someone else to do it and the trading post to facilitate the transaction.

Essence Snow.3194:

No one is asking for a free lunch…not sure where that came from.

It can be deduced from the point you made that some methods are no longer acceptable. In response to this, I indicated that there is inherently an associated cost to the now “acceptable” methods. If the cost is unacceptable, the method therefore would no longer be a viable option.

With respect to the TP, if the cost of performing transactions there is unacceptable, then that is choice the player voluntarily makes.

To come to any other conclusion, would be to presume that a “free lunch” is being offered, specifically, there would be no “cost” (methaphoric, or literal) to transacting in the “acceptable” method.

Essence Snow.3194:

Mourningcry.9428:

Essence Snow.3194:

Much like how flying is not mandatory to go around the world when one has the option to walk/swim. Yeah walking/swimming will get you there eventually but the difference between the methods is noticeable to the extent to where the latter is really no longer deemed acceptable.

And much like airlines and cruiseships and buses, there’s a cost associated with doing so.

Can’t afford to fly? Take a train.
Can’t afford the train? Take a bus.
Can’t afford a bus? Walk.

Don’t want to walk? Don’t go.

There’s no free lunch. Whether or not an alternative is acceptable is irrelevant if the cost can’t be met or otherwise accounted for.

No one is asking for a free lunch…not sure where that came from.

Folk.2093:

JaironKalach.4938:

Mourningcry.9428:

It’s not rocket science, and it’s not even sarcastic. A player will prioritize what is important to them. Those bemoaning the TP and the perceived unfavorable rising costs are simply dissatisfied that the chosen means to their desired ends are not falling within their own expectations. In other words, they’re not getting their way, so, they’re sad pandas.

I agree with you, and I hate to say this, but…. Isn’t that the point of these forums and of almost every post on them?

“I didn’t like what happened to me in the game. I’m a sad panda.”

“I liked what happened to me in the game. I’m a happy kangaroo.”

So, the question simply becomes one of “Are there enough sad pandas for ANet to feel a change is justified.” Who can tell? If the answer is “Yes”, then the question becomes, “How do we make the sand pandas happy without alienating the happy kangaroos.” And see, this right here, is why most of us would make terrible zoo-keepers.

You sir win this thread.

quality

Mourningcry.9428:

It’s not rocket science, and it’s not even sarcastic. A player will prioritize what is important to them. Those bemoaning the TP and the perceived unfavorable rising costs are simply dissatisfied that the chosen means to their desired ends are not falling within their own expectations. In other words, they’re not getting their way, so, they’re sad pandas.

I agree with you, and I hate to say this, but…. Isn’t that the point of these forums and of almost every post on them?

“I didn’t like what happened to me in the game. I’m a sad panda.”

“I liked what happened to me in the game. I’m a happy kangaroo.”

So, the question simply becomes one of “Are there enough sad pandas for ANet to feel a change is justified.” Who can tell? If the answer is “Yes”, then the question becomes, “How do we make the sand pandas happy without alienating the happy kangaroos.” And see, this right here, is why most of us would make terrible zoo-keepers.

Essence Snow.3194:

Much like how flying is not mandatory to go around the world when one has the option to walk/swim. Yeah walking/swimming will get you there eventually but the difference between the methods is noticeable to the extent to where the latter is really no longer deemed acceptable.

And much like airlines and cruiseships and buses, there’s a cost associated with doing so.

Can’t afford to fly? Take a train.
Can’t afford the train? Take a bus.
Can’t afford a bus? Walk.

Don’t want to walk? Don’t go.

There’s no free lunch. Whether or not an alternative is acceptable is irrelevant if the cost can’t be met or otherwise accounted for.

Folk.2093:

Mourningcry.9428:

Essence Snow.3194:

Syeria.4812:

I’ll reiterate again:

If you or anyone else believes that the economy of the game is causing things to be “unfun” feel free to make that argument. However, you must be prepared to present evidence or logic to support that claim. The burden of proof is upon you.

That’s a baited question though, as “fun or unfun” are subjective and can be dismissed on that basis alone.

Actually, “fun or unfun” are irrelevant with respect to the economy (or rather the mechanics of the TP in specific) as has been stated many times in that no player is at all required to interact with the TP. There isn’t a single item available in the TP that could not be gotten through other means by any player.

The TP facilitates the acquisition, but is absolutely not mandatory for the acquisition.

The choice to make use of this option is entirely voluntary, and if it’s deemed “unfun”, can simply and entirely be avoided.

Yeah…“abosulutely not”…riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight….

…technicalities are for the cool kids!

Actually, rationalization and prioritzation are for the cool kids.

Would rather do a dungeon, or something out of game like, watch a movie, cook a nice dinner, go out to the bar instead of grinding ectos? Then go to the TP to acquire what you would have gotten through other means in game in that same time. Otherwise, come to terms that time is the currency you’re paying instead of TP fees for that acquisitions.

It’s not rocket science, and it’s not even sarcastic. A player will prioritize what is important to them. Those bemoaning the TP and the perceived unfavorable rising costs are simply dissatisfied that the chosen means to their desired ends are not falling within their own expectations. In other words, they’re not getting their way, so, they’re sad pandas.

Ohoni.6057:

The way for them to add value to the crafting markets would be to add items that 1. Are highly useful and desirable, like gear that offers Rare-quality stats at Master-quality costs, or consumables that are awesome, and 2. make them offer ZERO crafting XP. It’s the crafting XP that throws the entire system, because it has people churning out stacks of things that they don’t personally need, which they then dump on the market. For an item to have any significant profit potential, it needs to offer no XP, so that people only make as many as they think they can sell, not stacks and stacks that they’re willing to sell at a loss.

If items are highly useful and desirable, they will initially turn a profit, yes. But as soon as it catches on that it’s turning a profit, people will immediately start doing it. And you will have the same cycle: supply goes up, demand goes down, profits go down.

I did not level huntsman, jeweler, and leatherworker to 400 because of the xp gain. I did this because I wanted to produce the exact gear I wanted at higher levels, without having to rely on what I thought at the time would be a price gouging TP (you can tell which game I had just came from playing). Even though the prices on the TP turned out to be on par with the material cost, it’s still better to possess the profession, as you’re not relying on other people to make the gear you want.

Your final point again refers to the notion that profitable crafting will remain profitable. So once again…. If you make crafting more profitable, everyone will start doing itand you will have the same cycle: supply goes up, demand goes down, profits go down.

Ohoni.6057:

Anything that sells for over 50 times the vendor price is just ridiculous. People that luck out on RNG and get one of these things can make a fortune, people that don’t luck out and need to buy one stand to lose a fortune. It shouldn’t be that random, it should balance out to more of a balanced exchange.

And now we get to the real reason people complain about the economy. They’re not complaining about the economy, or how much profits can come from crafting, no. What they’re really complaining about is their lack of legendaries. If the rare items suddenly became easy to come by everyone would have one. Stop and think about that for a moment. The item that you’ve been hoping for and pining for (that in both the cases of legendaries and lodestone crafted items offer no stat advantages) would suddenly be everywhere. Why would anyone still want them at that point? What kind of market would you have without scarcity?

plasmacutter.2709:

…
I graduated from a top 10 econ program, understood the subject better in my sleep than most of the people nosing the grindstone, and I say this game has a bad economy.

….

here are some examples from a real economy:

So much wrong here…

when aluminum becomes too expensive, auto manufacturers can swap to steel.
Try swapping a crystalline lodestone for a charged one and see how far that gets you.

Horrid example of a substitute, and a profound ignorance of manufacturing.. not even mentioning resourcing, contractual, operational, or even the regulatory costs of “just switching”. With resepct to GW2, one of the main price factors of legendaries (and hence all the subsequent components required to acheive one) is intangible – all exotics of the same stat and item type are legitamate substitues with resepct to performance, only in that the skins are the intangible which commands the degree of price variance between them. And even then, being able to transmute them makes skins an even more universal commodity.

When the price of oil skyrockets, everyone goes out drilling for more. The price of precursors is rocketing out of control, but the horrific drop rate makes volunteering to add to that supply a ludicrous option.

Again, the start up cost is a significant barrier of entry for “everyone” going out and drilling for more" which inhernetly allows for the preclusion of the majority. Fruther the incremental cost of adding a new drill site for an established oil company is vastly different between even established participants much less then the start up cost for a new drilling company.

Likewise, if you have already have a precursor, and are willing to sell it, acquiring the next precursor and repeating the process is much less then someone who doesn’t have one to start with. The barrier of entry to getting that first precursor is the same for everyone.

When you plant crops, you will, barring a horrific natural disaster or outright negligence, be able to reap what you sow. If you go to farm in GW2 you get a backpack full of porous bones.

Wow… And therefore there’s absolutely no need for a commodities market…. by the same logic, eveyone should be a farmer because reaping what you sow would always be profitable, regardless of any methods of production, costs, prices, etc.

This, is a bad economy. So bad it, along with ANet’s insistence on swinging and missing wildly with the nerf club before even making the trait lines of half the professions in the game have the novel concept of “synergy”, discourages me from logging on.

Perhaps the time may be better spent on another degree?

GaiusJuliusCasear.7253:

The problem is every day those possibilities lower. The trouble is to even make a T-3 item is you need to be a dungeon runner. If you don’t like it. You can’t get the materials to make those items.

No, they don’t. These markets are cyclical. One day you can make a profit, the next day the demand shifts, but eventually it comes back around.

If you could make the items from dungeons do you think many people would run dungeons? The point of those items it to reward the player for undertaking a challenge.

GaiusJuliusCasear.7253:

They are competing against other game manufactures including Blizzard. I never thought I would be on the side of WoW or Blizzard, but their economy being split up does work.

If you think the prices for precursors are high now, think of what would happen if each server had it’s own separate economy.

My memory from WoW is a little fuzy but I don’t remember the auction house being the land of milk and honey. The small economy sizes allowed for some pretty ridiculous price gouging. And if you were looking for an item that was truly rare, your chances of finding in the AH for a reasonable price were greatly diminished. This probably worked very well for a producer of goods, which is another reason I doubt the sincerity of claiming GW2 marketplace to be “bad”. Everyone’s argument boils down to “I want it to be easier to make money”.

The problem with this logic is that it assumes money will only be easier for YOU to make. The reality is whatever way you make money easier to come by, you would make money easier to come by for every single player in the game. Supply/Demand curves would be totally unaffected, you’d see a huge inflation bubble and within matter of weeks the prices of goods on the marketplace would be the same proportion of your income as they currently are.

If it was easier to make money from crafting, more people would do it. Supply would skyrocket, demand would plummet. Your profits would quickly dry up. I’ll state it again, this probably already happened to crafted items at some point in the market’s history.

And what exactly are you proposing to do that would make crafting more profitable that would maintain a good supply/demand curve long term? In other words; what could they possibly do to make crafting more profitable that would stay profitable?

Meh… I wonder about this… Not because I’m so great at playing the TP because I know that I’m so terrible at playing the TP. There is so much focus on precursors in these discussions and controlling markets. Mr. Smith is welcome to correct me, but I firmly believe that there is a market that you are missing out on. Simply put, that’s buying goods from and selling goods to people like me. Let me tell you a bit about myself:

I’ve been playing off and on since September. I have one level 80 with a number of exotics… I have a few level 5x alts, and a few lower. I play somewhere between 4-20 hours a week, so I don’t generate a huge amount of cash. I generally recognize something of worth when I see it, but I don’t see it often. I used to use something similar to GW2Spidy to try to play with crafting mats, but I stopped. Now I just sell the suckers for short term gain. When I do see something valuable (such as an Abyss dye), I typically look at in terms of a short term investment. I am willing to liquidate quickly to get cash in my hands for gearing/playing. I am the person out there who is saying “take my money” or “give me money for my goods”. The only tool I use to assess value is the current buy/sell order. I sell at a buy order if it is not ridiculously (<90%) below sell order. Otherwise, I try to find a comfortable place in between. That is, a place where I’m comfortable getting value for my good, and where you’re comfortable getting value for your investment.

So, I challenge you… If you are looking for opportunity, “take advantage” of the significant casual player base. Look for medium price-range items that are going to be accessible to folks whose focus is gearing and funding their game play (WP, etc). Those are going to be your sweet spot for “good deals” and “opportunity.”

I just finished the PvE part of world completion (somewhere around 90% now) and kill a dragon now and then, no farming, no dungeons, not “playing the TP”. Considering what I spent on equipment, travelling and repairs and what I have left now, I made ~100g just by selling crap to the vendor and other items on the TP without putting much effort in it. Doesn’t make me rich, but I can afford anything I need. Except a precursor or all other items for legendaries – which I don’t really “need” and which would require more effort. I still have a load of T6 mats on the bank though. If you’re actually playing the game and gather/chop/mine everything in your way, there’s no way you could end up “poor”. There’s no “bad economy”, just players unwilling to do the math.

Ursan.7846:

M Ham.7509:

In your explanation someone buying Gems and converting them into gold has the potential to increase inflation. The “Precursor” for players adding more gold to the system via Gem purchases is the price of items in the TP.

It would be interesting to to see how much gold is added to the system vs. how much gold is converted to Gems.

Cost-Push Inflation… are Legendaries our Oil Crisis?

M.

You are right, and that is exactly why their Gems/Gold ratio is based on supply/demand. If more people convert Gold into Gems, the exchange rate (gold -> gems) increases.

Seeing as gold -> gem prices have been climbing steadily since launch, I’m pretty confident in saying more gold has been destroyed creating gems than other way around.

Disclaimer – I don’t believe that there is anything inflationary going on, these are just questions to firm up my understanding.

So, the easiest way for ANet to combat inflation is to keep adding desirable items to the gem store, correct? It seems like this is also a good way for them to generate revenue because some folks will convert gold to gems and some folks will just buy gems to get the new items. Doesn’t the gem-gold conversion track the introduction of new items fairly closely?

And I thought the oil crisis (at least in the US) was primarily caused by government interference with the prices to keep them artificially low. I don’t see legendaries as an essential item – I can do everything in the game without having a legendary. I actually can’t think of anything on the TP that I need and can’t afford. There of lots of things I’d like that I can’t afford, but they’re sort of the difference between buying a reliable used car versus a Silver Shadow… they’ll both get me to work, it’s just a matter of style.

plasmacutter.2709:

here are some examples from a real economy:

when aluminum becomes too expensive, auto manufacturers can swap to steel.
Try swapping a crystalline lodestone for a charged one and see how far that gets you.

Comparing apples and oranges to suit your fancy. I’m sure in your top 10 economics program you learned that not all goods can be substituted.

plasmacutter.2709:

When the price of oil skyrockets, everyone goes out drilling for more. The price of precursors is rocketing out of control, but the horrific drop rate makes volunteering to add to that supply a ludicrous option.

When the price of oil skyrockets, oil companies go out drilling for more. People like you and me just sit back and curse the high prices. You’re attempting to argue that everyone should have ready or otherwise equal access to the most expensive/valuable commodity in the game by comparing it to a commodity that the vast majority of people have absolutely no control over, other than what they choose to buy (which collectively is a lot of power, but exactly equal to the power that players have over the price of precursors). Honestly I thought we were done arguing about precursor inflation. When will the inflation end? When players stop buying the product. Again, with the credentials you’re boasting, this shouldn’t be that foreign.

plasmacutter.2709:

When you plant crops, you will, barring a horrific natural disaster or outright negligence, be able to reap what you sow. If you go to farm in GW2 you get a backpack full of porous bones.

How much do you know about farming? Crops can be greatly impacted by the slightest bad weather, and it happens quite frequently. You’re acting like it’s a rare occurance for a farmer to make anything other than the absolute maximum amount of profit for his effort. If your example were a reflection of reality, we’d have a LOT more farmers.

plasmacutter.2709:

They say this is to discourage botting, but bots don’t get tired or bored, humans do.

They have said porous bones drop to discourage botting?

plasmacutter.2709:

This, is a bad economy.

Not convinced, sorry. It seems like people complaining just want everything easy.

I should also expand on the inflation remark – even if they increased the price that the vendor buys your blue item from 50c to 2g, sure, you may think you are richer because you have a ton of gold in your inventory.

But everyone else in the game is richer as well. And so you’re really no better off.

GaiusJuliusCasear.7253:

I will be honest. A good economy makes me want to play. WoW had a good economy depending on the server of course.

I am poor in real life. So why would I want to role play as poor? They need to increase the amount the vendors will buy stuff for. That is a huge problem for me. I know I am waiting to see if another MMO that is coming out will have a better Economy set up. I know the series so I do have a bit more faith in them for making a better Economic model. I know they are trying to get people to buy gems, but it makes me not want to even bother when they come out with an expansion.

You are poor because you don’t know how to make gold, not because of how the system is set up now.

If you ask for higher vendor prices, that increases inflation, meaning your buying power with whatever gold you have is lower than it was before inflation took place.

If I have 100g, and you consider that rich, and then we have inflation go up 100%, then suddenly I’m not so rich anymore. It’s all relative.

I’m not mistaken. These are things I have on exams. I’m aware Austrian and monetarists handle things a bit differently. But in mainstream Econ in colleges, AD can be a contributing factor of inflation.. You aren’t disputing me, you’re disputing an economic school.

To some degree much of this is applicable to gw2. AD pulls prices up if AS cannot keep up. A lot of mats combine and thus affect each other.

Look, if you disagree with the Keynesian school just say so....

We can just agree we handle matters differently.

It would affect the whole TP. Basically if you put in a stac k of ori on a sunday evening for 3.18 silver and you get undercut by 1 copper with 5k ori-ores, you wont sell and as prices drop during the week, you will lose the fees.
Apply this for every mat, every exotic that isnt sold very fast every expensive colour and so on.

In my opinion they should make legendaries 5k gold or more to discourage ppl to get them. Just look at your petition/question. The 0.0001% of the playerbase that is generating 50 threads a day about precursors is egocentric enough to ask for the silliest things just because their greed for a legendary blindfolds them.
Dont take it bad, I am not referring specificly to you, but all this threads about precursors are sickening.

xxxzavulonxxx.8413:

This is wrong on a few levels.

1) Inflation reduces the purchasing power of everyone. Deflation actually expands a person’s purchasing power.

Inflation does not reduce a person’s purchasing power, it reduces a currency’s purchasing power. That’s a very important distinction. To use a Guild Wars 2 example, the effect of inflation of the “coin” currency would cause the coin players hold to lose purchasing power. However, a character that had little or no coin would not see their purchasing power reduced. In fact, inflation in coin could actually increase a person’s purchasing power under very specific circumstances.

xxxzavulonxxx.8413:

3) Market manipulators do not have an infinite amount of market power to keep price levels rising for long periods of time as long as there are suppliers of whatever market they are in. There are other reasons for inflation…

“Market manipulators” have little to no influence over inflation. Really, the only meaningful influence they could directly hold is if their coin holdings are significant enough to impact the average “savings rate” game-wide.

xxxzavulonxxx.8413:

4) Good ole supply and demand has an effect on inflation. When production levels (supply) falls, price levels begin to rise.

People keep coming back to this inaccurate common belief about inflation. Inflation and rising prices are not the same thing. A supply shift is a supply shift. Yes, a downward supply shift will cause an upward movement in price. But this is not inflation. Inflation cannot be determined by looking at any individual good. Rising prices do not necessarily imply inflation is occuring just as falling prices do not imply that deflation is occuring.

Extremely technical economic note:

In the sense that a currency is a representation of the division of all the goods in an economy, a reduction in output (supply) ceteris paribus technically decreases the purchasing power of a currency to the extent that the same quantity of currency is now dividing a smaller quantity of “goods.” However, because of interdependence in the GW2 economy and the constant creation/destruction of currency, it’s essentially impossible for any item’s supply to fall without other economic factors changing. Without full sets of data (which likely exceeds even the data available to Mr. Smith) it’s impossible to calculate exactly how supply shifts in a single item would affect the purchasing power of coin. However, I would be comfortable making the claim that, at least for a few specific items, a reduction in supply would impart more of a deflationary pressure than an inflationary one.

This is a consequence of the best end-game equipment being more accessible via the BLTP than any other part of the game.

How to get the best end-game equipment (or its bottleneck components) in GW2, in descending order of accessibility:

1. BLTP trading
2. Zomoros lottery (low probability)
3. RNG drop during play (extremely low probability)

For as long as it is easier (currently far easier) to get the best end-game equipment by trading rather than actually playing GW2, then this significant (and highly visible) part of the market will be dominated by the machinations of traders rather than active GW2 players.

Roll on the day when, instead of being dominated by trading (or framing+trading) for gold, the path to achieving the best end-game equipment in GW2 is through actual gameplay. (After all that’s what we came here for: a really fun MMORPG. That’s right isn’t it, ArenaNet?)

This program gives an unfair advantage…manually checking 30 buyorders take a while, while people who use this just do other fun stuff, wait for a popup and act on it.
I suspect that’s why this program was made. It’s tedious to check for that many buyorders every 10 minutes.

suggestion for anet;
Add a column on the buyorders page stating green text ‘highest bidder’ or in red text ’you’re not the highest bidder’. That way people won’t have to compete with people running third party crap and you’ve added some much needed functionality to the game.

Some insight.

Necromancing is a journey. It has had its deathly grasp on me since beta. I have played almost every other class, but I keep coming back for more of my Necro.

I’ve rocked full exotic gear of most build types and have gone through highs and lows of the necromancer and its community. I have used and had fun on Lopezirl’s build, Sheobix’s builds, and Nemesis’ builds, and on many variations of other builds. Ascci has been a very valuable asset to the forums as well with his builds. A lot has been woe and despair from others on this forum, but we can be very viable and fun in many facets of the game.

Everyone has their preferred play style.

This all being said, I wanted to give my build and insight on how I feel the necro can shine in a power build from a WvW perspective.

Build : http://tinyurl.com/auzux9q

I run in a 5 man gank group. So this build focuses on charging in quick, using Unholy feast to stack retaliation and begin chilling a targeted enemy. Use spectral grasp to pull target into well of darkness, constantly keeping chills up. Plauge form synergizes well with this build to spam blinds/chill and let others clean up. I used to use dagger/warhorn instead of Axe but dagger felt like I needed to be way too close to keep up attacks. I saw too many miss, miss, miss on my screen with auto attacks. Even tho Axe doesnt give out the raw damage on paper, in practice Axe is far superior. I still see big hits with Ghastly claws of upwards of 5k, 6k on the final hit. USE DS OFTEN AND EARLY!!! every chance it pops up. Dark path is another great chill/ gap closer. We all know DS is our friend. I use it very offensively.

I use full PVT armor and Weapons all slotted with Ruby orbs except my axe using Sup. Sigil of Force. Trinkets are a mix of PVT slotted with ruby orbs as well (Invaders Earings, PVT ascended rings, PVT backslot, and my neckalace will be bezerker ascended when I get laurels).

Food: Master maitence Oil for 6% toughness to precision, and 4% vit to precision.

Curried Butternut Squash soup 100 prec, 10 crit dmg

I have found that balance is key to success in WvW. You need to be able to burst a single target, but you must also have the stats to be able to withstand being attacked by 3 enemies for a short period. Leaning too far in one direction can leave you either hitting like a limp noodle and standing alone while your party gets wiped, or you will be dead in the first 6 seconds of a fight.

Remember we are not a 1v1 win class (although I have 1v1’ed plenty and won a good amount). We synergize with others in the group and we make other players better. We are similar to a guardian, but in a more offensive way. The anti gaurdian if you will.

No matter what spec, there is no 1 spec to rule them all. I love theory crafting, and constructive talk on the forums. So have at it. What are your thoughts on this build?

Hey guys, I’ve been playing Engineer since launch, have multiple hours logged on this profession, tried everything from condition pistols, to 100 nades, to tankcat, to might stack FT, to…well you get the point.

The one unique mechanic I’ve always enjoyed about the Engineer is the static discharge trait and the surprise burst it is capable of. After toying around with Static Discharge builds for a few months I’ve finally come up with a build I really enjoy.

I’m posting this because I would like advice as to where else I can take this, comments on how to refine it, suggestions, criticisms, etc. I don’t profess this to be the end all build and still feel it can be toyed with. So without further adieu:

Traits
0/20/0/20/30

Trait Selection

Firearms
-Increased Range on Rifle
-10 % Damage to Rifle

Alchemy
-Elixir S at 25 percent
-Protection buff for 3 seconds when CC’d

Tools
-Static Discharge
-Speedy Kits
-50 percent endurance regen

Reasoning behind choices

Firearms is pretty self explanatory. I basically take the two traits that have the largest impact on Rifle, range and damage. Cooldown reduction is something I tried for a bit, but I felt that the increased range was too much to give up when chasing people down, defending keeps, general siege, etc. The 10 percent increased damage is something I couldn’t live without so it stays.

Alchemy
Self regulating defense is a lifesaver. There is nothing more annoying to your enemy then having them blow all their cooldowns on a midget engineer. It has a 90 second cooldown but it goes by quick. Just remember, when it’s down take a more cautious approach. Protection Injection is something I debated with a long time over the vigor for five seconds trait. I observed as I was playing that I had plenty of endurance regeneration already with 30 in tools and the 50 percent regeneration trait. Switching to tool kit or med kit mid combat to proc vigor was a little to overwhelming for me so I started playing with out it. I have yet to notice a massive difference and never think, “boy if only I had perma vigor I could survive longer.” Also, 33% damage reduction is nothing to sneeze at when a thief opens up with venom and starts critting you for 4k instead of 8 or 9k.

Tools
Static Discharge is the bread and butter of the build, there is no alternative. Speedy Kits is also very necessary as it gives you perma swiftness while you run around the map. The grandmaster endurance trait seems weak, but it’s always up, and you will notice the difference between 0 percent endurance regen and 50. If you are going the perma vigor route with the alchemy trait then there are several options you can take instead of this one. The retaliation trait is nice against thieves, the power wrench trait is nice for the additional cripple.

Gear
Armor = P/V/T armor head to toe including backpack. Socket everything with Ruby Orbs. I experimented with plenty of different rune types including Scholars, Dolyak, Vampirism, Rock Dog, etc, and found that Orbs end up giving you more stats and you already have PLENTY of tricks to make up for the lack of unique rune bonus. For example, you might see some Mesmer’s run with full centaur not because they WANT to but because they HAVE to if they want any sort of semi-permanent swiftness buff. You’ll probably find more discussion on Orbs on the Warrior forum and how they are better if you are going for Stats over Tricks.

Jewelry = Berserkers socketed with Ruby Jewels. No long winded explanation here.

Weapon = Berserkers Rifle socketed with sigil of air or fire, both are great choices.

With this gear set up you will have ~19.5k hp, 1200 toughness, ~40 crit chance, and above 80 crit dmg (I run with butternut squash soup all the time so It’s 90 for me).

Skills
Med Kit – The best way to keep perma swiftness as it has no stow feature when you press it again. I forget the name but the little potion it drops that gives you swiftness and fury is amazing. It has a condition removal too just in case, but remember it only clears ONE condition. At first this felt clunky as I was so used to just drinking Elixir H, but after a few weeks I couldn’t live without it and could never see myself going back to one of our other two heals.