Guild Wars 2

But you get charged 1-4 silver every time you change location and rarely make that back. There’s just no positive return for doing anything long term in the game.

Then clearly you are doing something wrong if you cannot make that back.

Because of the egalatarian approach to information symmetry [all people know all prices in the market as it is global] it stands to reason that over time profit margins will be squeezed to a ~15% price difference from the highest buy order X to the lowest sell order Y.

To profit, you must find the items where X > 1.15Y and that is what Zak and No Walking have done. However, this will be difficult in a buyer’s market where supply vastly outweighs demand so instead of being a producer in this market be a supplier.

If you don’t want to be a supplier then you are in for rough times, sorry.

Zak.8274:

No, it means I will lose one of the niches that I will leak as an example. Which I can deal with. However I would appreciate a more informed market.

While unnecessary I see your cause and it is a noble one. Many thanks.

Trimanir.8571:

Step to make crafting viable.

-Make random drop armor and weapon white only (replace with crafting drops)
-Keep blue/green/yellow for quest reward/crafting/special vendors(Karma/Dungeon Token/PVP Token)
-Crafting is made viable.
-Make an in game mechanic for where you don’t pay vendored component when researching (so crafting in your leveling range has an edge)

This will only happen if their design philosophy was to make crafting that competitive and from my understanding they did not.

Most games do not but there is perhaps a different perspective on this I am unaware of.

I cannot profit off of Jewelry at the moment. I was disappointed, admittedly, because I really enjoy crafting for profit but I also enjoy a whole host of other things so I stopped leveling my Jewelry to craft for profit because not enough people are demanding the rarest Jewelry. When that picks up I’ll be ready but in the mean time I’m doing something else instead.

Ethics.4519:

I think there are two fixes. Obviously the first one is to increase the drop rate of FCMs. It’s ridiculous, and the more you try to farm the lower the drop rate goes, which requires you to farm more, which lowers the drop rate more (Anybody see a cycle?)

The other one that I haven’t seen mentioned (I didn’t read ALL the comments) is to increase the stats of crafted materials. Right now most people are getting their gear from drops. My toon leveled up way faster than my crafting did so I’m level 80 making level 30 armor. Talk about a freakin waste.

I absolutely love crafting and the crafting system that ANet has, but there has to be something down about this drop rate.

If this thread hadn’t noticed by now, ANet’s system encourages exploration. The anti-farm code encourages changing location. So you know what I do. I go exploring and I kill, destroy, farm and maim everything I feel like doing this to.

I recently liquidated all the collectibles I had gathered and didn’t need from 0-80. Some I WILL need one day but I want gold to have a cushion in case something is needed… and it netted me almost 7g.

This game is clearly not designed to have you stand in the same spot for a certain length of time and try to chase after one specific materials with a material amount of success past that length of time.

Stop treating this like every other MMO and expand your minds – go explore. If you want to talk about ANet stating this would be a new MMO experience then respond as if it is true, because it is.

jwburks.9735:

I’ve said this before, but I’ll go ahead and say it again. I’ve been leveling my crafting with my level, to keep up. Sure, it isn’t what most people do, but it’s logical. Make your own gear, as you go. But if you do this, you’ll be punished for it. Severely. At first you only need 18 fine ingredients to make 6 pieces of armor, but every time you hit the (master) level of that tier, it jumps to 48 instead of 18. Add to that what you need for your weapons (8 ingredients per weapon, some classes get off light if they use mostly two-handed weapons, but still…). It takes 96 for my thief. After going through this a few times, I wanted to shoot myself in the face and die, and never see Guild Wars 2 again. The mindless killing things over and over again to gather these things up takes many, many hours. It’s the worst part of the game, by far, and it makes me sick to my stomach.

You aren’t being punished for playing this way. You are seeing the inevitably results of an economy where the rare materials are… well, rare.

EricGORE.7896:

I think some people are missing what the actual concern is here. It’s not about rushing to 400 and capping just so we can get our completionist jollies off (well, maybe it’s that for a select few), but for most it’s about actually being able to utilize the gear we craft and efficiently keep our professions on par with our character level.

Right now it’s too grindy, and the fine crafting materials required for anything are way out of line. On top of that, it’s not like we can go and flip these items for a profit, they are strictly for our own use (or others if we feel gracious enough), and that is why it’s so frustrating. I could see these being hard items to craft if I could turn around and get double or triple the value, and that should probably be the case for level 80 items, items that have some staying power, but not blues that we’re probably just going to use as stepping stones until we can craft better stuff.

I mean, if we can’t have gear progression through our crafts while we’re leveling, then what is the point? I guess that would mean leveling professions is just a time sink until we get to 400 where we can finally have access to worthy end-game items. Doesn’t that go against ANets end-game pitch entirely though? What happened to the entire game being the end-game?

I don’t mean to banter on and on, I really love this game so far. To me, this game has improved so much of the typical MMO grindiness, and that’s what I love about it most. That’s also why I’m so confused that crafting doesn’t fit the mold. It’s not fun, it’s frustrating mostly. Why should it be so difficult to craft basic leveling gear? Again, if we were crafting high demand end-game gear, the difficulty would make sense, but as it stands, the output doesn’t match the time or money input, and that is the issue.

If you REALLY, REALLY have to “grind” out there for your rare items, then go mine copper, sell it for 20c a pop and then buy your rare materials you cannot afford – this will ensure you can keep crafting yourself gear as you wish.

If you increase the drop rate for the rarer materials then you are having a much wider impact on the economy because this in turn affects all other prices up the supply chain. I do not feel this is the solution.

If anything they could reduce the requirement of some of the materials for some recipes but I don’t have enough data to say why they would want to make this change.

Specteral.9740:

I agree it has gotten ridiculous. Vanilla Bean which is used in everything and is a Chef(25) crafting mater is going for 75-100c (1s) each? That’s more then a lot of the level 300 – 400 ingredients?

I can understand why they would take items off karma and make them drop items but when the drops items don’t drop, how are we supposed to craft anything and make money other than grinding? (Not going to happen.)

The other major bone to pick I have is Vanilla Bean’s off of Herb Seedlings. I have been harvesting Herb Seedlings for the last couple days in several of the starting areas and have only gotten 4 vanilla beans 1 time.

Part of the problem is they have like 10 different materials dropping off Herb Seedlings. I get Garlic, Peppercorn, Thyme … everything under the sun except Vanilla Bean.

So I went from being able to make 35s in an hour to 10 copper. Thanks, but no thanks. -.-

They’ve basically tried to fix one mechanic and severely broken another. I am terribly disappointed. =(

Hopefully at some point the prices on the crafted goods will rise and we can actually make money again but demand will also drop so there will be less money to be made.

So stop trying to farm beans, farm something else that makes you far more money and purchase them. Problem solved.

Rainshine.5493:

Imo the problem isn’t even the low drop rate of blue crafting mats. It’s not even the fact that even as a cook, I have butter coming out of my ears.

It’s the fact that SO MUCH blue and green gear drops out in the world. Cut that back, and crafted items actually gain some value.

You are still going to have a massive amount of people crafting to level and cheapening the value of your goods so you’ve solved nothing unfortunately.

Wazabi.1439:

Is the drop rate bad…or is it just because so many people are crafting right now? I do agree about the butter thing though…but complaining just because you can’t get what you want? They increase the drop rate, price of mats goes down, and even further when most are done with crafting. How are you gonna handle that?

Anything in life rewards creativity, this game is no different. Crafting is already so easy as it is in this game to max. The most efficient way to grind for mats are usually not immediately obvious…most just take the obvious route without spending much time to think about optimizing their action. Of course it’s always easier to just complaint and hope dev will spoon feed you.

One of the few here that truly gets it.

Feywray.4351:

cont

I dinged level 62 today. I started out at level 59 yesterday. So in two days, I’ve farmed 3 high levels on noob exp. or basically HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of exp in noob’s land Queensdale, JUST to grind out the mats for the second tier of armorsmithing, and as you can see, I’m not even half done yet. (This doesn’t include the levels I ground out farming the copper for the first tier.) If this was a fresh toon, I would have easily spent the first 20 levels grinding out these mats, if not more. So this tells me two things. One, there’s no way in hell you’re going to keep your profession up to speed with your character level. Even if all you did was grind mats and learn new recipies, I still don’t think you could do it. So the only reason you have to learn a tradeskill is for the benefit of gearing up a later toon, or because of the gear you’re able to make at 80. Since I haven’t concerned myself much yet with what’s at level 80, idk if that to be true or not. Second, learning your professions is a MASSIVE grind. FAR more of a grind than it ever was in WoW. At least in WoW, you could ‘shortcut’ the skillups just by learning basic recipes and making the easiest items, and worry about getting all the fluff recipes at the end. Since you always had to wait to get to the next zone before you could farm the mats you needed for the gear level you were going to be while in that zone, your gear always lagged about 10 levels behind you. But at least you still had enough time to run around and do quests, dungeons etc. Here, I don’t see you keeping it anywhere NEAR your level, and you definitely wouldn’t have time to do anything else other than grind and craft. So yes, the tradeskills are nothing but one big massive grindfest.

That’s because you have absolutely no concept of opportunity cost.

Why does everyone in this thread seem to insist upon the fact that the only way you can get what you need is by grinding mobs for it? shakes head

You have to understand that if you want to level while you craft AS THE GAME IS RELEASED then you are going to have a rather interesting time doing so without costing you more in the long run.

They specifically stated that we should get rid of the highest buyer function. That is an absolutely terrible idea. :P

I think they should include an option to change the default to highest buyer or lowest seller however.

I’m glad we see eye-to-eye on this.

Maxster.4521:

zaerk.2305:

If you remove the 5% posting fee then people with more time can just continually 1c you, making it far worst trying to sell anything.

Also yes it should be first in, first out. I don’t know how aNet could make such a mistake.

That’s not true.
And for lowering price for free(or small fixed fee).
Let’s say, that you’ve been undercuuted by 1c by 10 people. That means that you sell item 10th in order.
If you’re could lower price without losing 5%, you undercut them all by 1c. Then some of them undercuts you. But you sell item not 10th in order, but 5th.
Not everyone sits on tp all the time, actually that’s an exception.
So, probability of selling item in set amount of time goes up.

That’s what [he] said. :P

Cub Discus Gig.2176:

As an under cutter I find it unacceptable so…..

…. add an option to change the listing price of your item (DOWN only) without loosing the listing fee. Problem solved simples….

All that you have changed is the final price of the product, not undercutting. People will still undercut you because they can move their prices down just as effectively as you can. The difference is overall not as much money is spent on price discovery so overall you are going to inflate prices and lose whatever profit you would have had anyway.

Not going to work as you had envisioned.

KwwB.3895:

Just take yourself for example. Say you find an lvl 80 exotic weapon while playing (or you craft one). You go to the trading post and see that there are 200 of this weapon for sell, with 90% being within 10s of each other.

Stop right there. That’s all you need to know. 200 of an exotic weapon? Don’t expect to profit off of it – it’s clearly not clearly quickly. Salvage it using a rare or black lion kit, get the sigil if you managed to get it and move on. You might even get an ecto out of the deal! Woot!

So to make it sell you post anywhere from 1c-10s off the cheapest.

You only need to undercut by 1c. You are losing a potential ~9s profit otherwise and that is just silly to chop your arm off like that to be “reasonable”.

Do you get upset? Maybe, maybe not. Do you get upset when it happens to 90% of your items. Probably. So what do you do next time? Post it for 15s, 20s, 50s? under the bottom price to make sure you don’t get screwed again. Probably. Take this x100 and you have items crash in price real quick which then = less potential revenue for ANet which is bad for the players.

Of course you get upset. You didn’t realize initially it wasn’t going to sell because of the oversupply. Woops. Live and learn, particularly when it’s more cost-effective for you to salvage or vendor something versus expecting to profit by putting it on the TP.

KwwB.3895:

Esrever.8613:

Well I think having the 5% commitment is a good thing since it makes people more incline to think before they post an item. It allows people to actually buy something for highest buying price instead of everything being dumped as high as people feel like.

In a global economy anyone dumping as high as they feel like doesn’t harm anything. Obviously the item won’t sell because there are dozens, hundreds, thousands, or more of that item with people competitively trying to sell.

Charging people for trying to sell items at a reasonable price (what most players would do) with the high likelihood of getting undercut and their items not selling (potentially forever) and then losing money if they take it off does harm the economy.

What harms you personally is not understanding that having more supply than demand drives down prices and that having an expectation of making profit in said economy is going to result in losses.

You have to find other ways of making money right now.

Wazabi.1439:

John smith noted that it the LIFO was not intended. They are fixing it. That contributes to undercutting. My arguments on the timed posting stands. If the whole reason is so that you are punished less for your mistake, I would say no. Mistakes should be punished. Other games had fostered a weird way of thinking on how a market works by babysitting them…I think that needs to stop. The adaptation skills of playing a game has diminished to the point that many player ask for changes for anything that doesn’t go their way.

Speculation activities is negatively related to the cost of doing so. A higher cost of selling will discourage such activities by making it harder to make a profit. So no to zero fees. If they want to put in a tax for buy orders, be my guest. I can adapt.

I didn’t know there was a LIFO bug.kittenthat sucks.

KwwB.3895:

There is also a MAJOR problem with how the trading post fulfills trades.

I can confirm both of these MAJOR problems. They are the same concept just changing buying and selling.

When you put in a purchase order for any item. If you post at the same price as the highest current purchase order YOUR order will be fulfilled FIRST, not LAST as one would expect.

Same with selling. If you post something for say 2gold, and it has been on the trading post for 2 days. If someone else comes along and posts the same item at 2gold THEIR item will sell first, even though yours has been on the trading post for TWO DAYS!!!!!

It should be first in first out, not last in first out. Ludicrous!

It is FIFO. Where’s the proof of this?

EDIT: Turns out there is a bug.

**Edit to put my suggestion up first…
I suggest that the 5% posting fee remain. But after a set amount of time that ANet decides on (I suggest 2-5days) you can get your posting fee back so your items are not up on the trading post forever with people undercutting by 1copper.
Discuss.

You will still get undercut. This will reduce some frustration for the more patient folk but the impatient folk are still going to complain about undercutting because they do not want to wait 2-5 days.

I do not think the system needs to change; I think people need to adjust to the system.

Maxster.4521:

Dishconnected.8360:

Maxster.4521:

Dishconnected.8360:

Maxster.4521:

Dishconnected.8360:

As i said, markets in MMO is a model. And, as a model, they should contribute to a game elements, not to a real world theories. These are completely artificial markets, and in game.
5% listing tax, in a ideal model, affects no one. As is 10% sale tax. Speculants and crafters gets slightly less profits, but profits nonetheless. Buy and sell orders just adjusts to that 15% margin.
But, with inability to change sell order without a great loss of a profit, hurts crafters, and does nothing to speculants, so they get an advantage. Why? Because speculants have a lot more purchase power(and ways to increase purchase power) than crafters, for obvious reasons. While crafter sits with his money on tp, unable to sell, and unable to change order without losing already small profit; speculant can just work with another 10-15 positions.

Maxster, the game just came out and there is incredible competition to sell crafted goods.

Tell me again why you expected to profit from that?

And it will stay that way. And not because of competition, but because there is almost no demand for blue and green items. Competion != selling item for a price lower, than components, from which item is crafted.
There is no adequate reason, why crafting designed to be a money sink, when there is another, a lot more profitable way, like TP speculations.

Pray tell, in what MMO have you been able to profit always from lower-tier items that are of limited use while leveling?

I’ll give you a hint – it probably involved tiered PvP and twinking. :P

EvE
SWTOR, bekittenthat thing.

Wait one month and come back to the thread then. :o)

You’re implying that GW2 is dying, or that market will stabilize and crafting became profitable? or what?

Market is dying. LOL. I’m surprised you didn’t say “F2P in one month!”

The market will eventually stabilize and there may or may not be opportunities for profit in crafting. Ultimately the profitability is going to be determined by Anet’s development solutions and what they intend for it but as it stands it’s a buyer’s market so all you CAN do is wait or move into a different segment.

Valid points, some not.

lefteye.7890:

The ridiculous part is that I am sure there’s plenty of 1c cutters that are losing money.

I’m sure there are but you are never going to stop that.

lefteye.7890:

Example: the trinket market. At the moment the profit (sell value minus the average cost of the ingredients) is so narrow that if you happen to have to change the price of your goods ONCE then you are already losing money. Still, idiots are 1c-undercutting all the time and AS A RESULT of that other idiots 1c-undercut them over and over. As a result the smart*** that undercut now has to reprice his/her item or he won’t make a sale at all, but by losing 5% on it the profit is gone. And that is if he/she has to reprice it only once. Don’t get me started about having to reprice it twice or more.
To recap: profit in the trinket market at the moment is about 15-25 silver a piece. REPRICING is about 12-13 silver each time. See the problem?

Yes. You expect to profit in an economy with a glut of supply. I understand it may be frustrating but you can only respond to the way that it is until it changes or hold on to your inventory until the profit margin is acceptable enough for you to take the risk.

Point being, when the profit is narrow people should stop “competing” and be a little more patient.

Hahaha. Your problem with human nature is the problem here. In a perfect world this would happen but the reality is that people sell for reasons other than making profit. That may frustrate you but there are valid reasons for doing so.

As producers we could settle on a price and just have stuff pile up at that price, and sooner or later it would get sold. The contant undercutting is not hurting me, it is hurting EVERYBODY (except the buyers, of course), including and especially that person that feels smart just because by going 1c lower the lowest price he/she will MAYBE make a quick sale. Or most likely will lose money.

Eventually the price will settle somewhere but the supply has to clear out of the system and until it does you will experience razor thin profit margins. You have no choice but to be patient yourself or move into a different market. It’s a buyer’s market. If I craft a bunch of kitten and I want my money back, I’m going to undercut by 1c if I stand to make a bit of profit off of it; if I don’t, I’m going to vendor it. Not everyone’s motivation is profit right now, plain and simple.

I know this is not going to change, humans are… well.. humans. Bit if common sense could prevail for once, people would just understand that the profit margin on some goods is too low to let those money go into that 5% sink just to pat your back and tell yourself in the mirror that you are such a cool seller. It’s not worth it.

Man, lose the attitude. Not everyone is motivated the same way you are. You are making a flawed assumption, common to economics – humans are NOT rational actors and they will do things that while they may not make sense to you they still affect you and your choice is to respond to their irrationality, not try and control it.

The challenge here is NOT to make a few sales, it is to make a profit in a confused market with huge, preemptive taxes.

Indeed it is. Have you found it yet?

And yes, once again, the problem is NOT the 1c cutting. It is the 5% to reprice stuff. Competition would be really fun and healthier without that anticipated 5%. But since we have it, everyone should rush less and think more.

Longer-term you will come out more profitable than then. In the meantime producers have to find another niche.

I went into Jewelry thinking dollar signs and I came out disappointed so I switched directions to find another way – it’s really all you can do.

Maxster.4521:

Dishconnected.8360:

Maxster.4521:

Dishconnected.8360:

As i said, markets in MMO is a model. And, as a model, they should contribute to a game elements, not to a real world theories. These are completely artificial markets, and in game.
5% listing tax, in a ideal model, affects no one. As is 10% sale tax. Speculants and crafters gets slightly less profits, but profits nonetheless. Buy and sell orders just adjusts to that 15% margin.
But, with inability to change sell order without a great loss of a profit, hurts crafters, and does nothing to speculants, so they get an advantage. Why? Because speculants have a lot more purchase power(and ways to increase purchase power) than crafters, for obvious reasons. While crafter sits with his money on tp, unable to sell, and unable to change order without losing already small profit; speculant can just work with another 10-15 positions.

Maxster, the game just came out and there is incredible competition to sell crafted goods.

Tell me again why you expected to profit from that?

And it will stay that way. And not because of competition, but because there is almost no demand for blue and green items. Competion != selling item for a price lower, than components, from which item is crafted.
There is no adequate reason, why crafting designed to be a money sink, when there is another, a lot more profitable way, like TP speculations.

Pray tell, in what MMO have you been able to profit always from lower-tier items that are of limited use while leveling?

I’ll give you a hint – it probably involved tiered PvP and twinking. :P

EvE
SWTOR, bekittenthat thing.

Wait one month and come back to the thread then. :o)

Cub Discus Gig.2176:

The problem isnt the undercutting it’s the fact you cannot compete with it without relisting your items and incurring a large penalty.

Just give people thekittenoption to change the price of listed items DOWN only so they can compete, which will nullify undercutting. Currently the Trading Post works on a last in first out system, even if they keep saying it doesnt. Who ever posts their item last gets first sale for no real price difference.

Simple fix tbh.

Wrong. It’s FIFO and unless you have data to back up your claim there is no reason to accept your conclusion as valid. Recant your statement or admit you don’t know how it truly works.

Before you come back stating that you can undercut by 1c and therefore be “first” in line… when you undercut by 1c and 5 people come in behind you at the same price, yours will get sold first at that price assuming you are not undercut by another 1c. It’s still FIFO.

Also, your solution will not nullify undercutting. It will make it easier for you to make profit because then you only have to take the 5% listing fee into account once.

KwwB.3895:

Wazabi.1439:

Jealousy and failure to admit that you are bad at something are quite often the hidden motivation that drives any cries for changes.

Now that I see this post from Wazabi I’ve classified him as a troll. He is trolling my thread that has somewhat to do with this as well.

Remember people. Wazabi = Troll

He’s half-correct.

He probably meant envy but the emotional factors remain the same for why people whine on the forums:

1. They want what other people have and they want it now so they post trying to change the system because
2. They aren’t successful making money and in their frustration don’t realize they need to adapt to the system [learn, improve, get better, not suck at trading] and not vice versa.

Maxster.4521:

Dishconnected.8360:

As i said, markets in MMO is a model. And, as a model, they should contribute to a game elements, not to a real world theories. These are completely artificial markets, and in game.
5% listing tax, in a ideal model, affects no one. As is 10% sale tax. Speculants and crafters gets slightly less profits, but profits nonetheless. Buy and sell orders just adjusts to that 15% margin.
But, with inability to change sell order without a great loss of a profit, hurts crafters, and does nothing to speculants, so they get an advantage. Why? Because speculants have a lot more purchase power(and ways to increase purchase power) than crafters, for obvious reasons. While crafter sits with his money on tp, unable to sell, and unable to change order without losing already small profit; speculant can just work with another 10-15 positions.

Maxster, the game just came out and there is incredible competition to sell crafted goods.

Tell me again why you expected to profit from that?

And it will stay that way. And not because of competition, but because there is almost no demand for blue and green items. Competion != selling item for a price lower, than components, from which item is crafted.
There is no adequate reason, why crafting designed to be a money sink, when there is another, a lot more profitable way, like TP speculations.

Pray tell, in what MMO have you been able to profit always from lower-tier items that are of limited use while leveling?

I’ll give you a hint – it probably involved tiered PvP and twinking. :P

I named my black bear:

“Token Black Bear”

HAHA
Nice.

Jungle Spider – Also Known As Peter
Bear – Poohs Evil Twin Gus

:o)

For the buyer, always the buyer. There will never ever be a time that this market becomes a sellers market. There will never ever be a time that there will be incentive for crafting. That makes crafting an obsolete part of the game, might as well remove it.

Wrong. As Wazabi mentioned it only requires one area where the supply is less than the demand. It’s finding it. This game isn’t not static – more items will be introduced, new content, new demand… as it stands, yes, overall it is a buyer’s market… wait for the overabundance of supply to get reduced.

Your solution is extreme and not going to happen. What do you think would help make you less frustrated at this system?

My problem isn’t the fact that someone else takes a loss. I could give 2 kitten. What bothers me is that their decision to be impatient and sell immediately, EVEN when their reason is so they don’t have to go to a person to do it meaning they don’t need the money anytime soon, they still put the item up for an extremely reduced price, causing everyone else who clicks “Lowest seller” to immediately start selling at that extremely reduced rate, and then that becomes the new price of that item.

If it’s too low those prices will get gobbled up quick-like and then the price will settle again.

That is NOT the real value of the item even though people are willing to sell for that much.

If it sells for that much that is the REAL value of it, personal opinions notwithstanding.

I have a ton of iron to get rid of, I dont believe at all that its only worth 5 copper, but im going to get rid of it anyway at 5 copper because it wont sell otherwise. Not a single person can possibly believe that iron, a more valuable metal than copper, is worth less than that.

It is in this paradigm so you have to shift your thinking. It is frustrating to not understand the system at first but you’ll get there in time once your anger subsides.

I don’t care if I have to put something up for a day, but waiting several weeks to months for the market to balance out is ridiculous. They should have some sort of economic education before being allowed to participate or something… Same for the internet. Stupid people just bug me ><

So wait a second. You argue that people’s impatience is unacceptable because it causes you grief because you cannot make profit… but then argue that is acceptable for YOU to be impatient… because you do not think they are as educated as you are.

Sounds really fair of you [/sarcasm].

PS: I don’t argue the fact you can find items to play and profit off of for a bit, I have 5 gold because I find those every now and then. But there shouldn’t just be 1 item that sometimes works and then you have to fine another. Every master and higher craft item should sell at mats+fees and still give the crafter a profit.

Why? Because you demand it? In this virtual economy pray tell, why is this mandatory? Why must every single item be sold at a profit?

Would that be to make your life easier? Keep in mind, I enjoy crafting for a profit but right now crafting is NOT profitable. I did the math and overall it required too much micromanaging on my part so I said kitten it and now I use crafting as a means to an end – leveling faster when I am impatient and hey, maybe I get a useful item in the process, who knows?

Be fair in your expectations.

Y u mad its vydia.6324:

Try harder or quit the market? Really? Go gather 20 Mushrooms and make any profit. “Try hard”. I’ve got 500 mushrooms in my bank right now and I could really use your knowledge. You can craft them into something better if you wish. Try to tell me that it’s worth the time you take to gather Mushrooms instead of doing absolutely anything else in game.

I didn’t say anything about not making money. I make loads, I have simply been using every penny it to buy gems. Gems for the Gem God.

It’s pretty obvious that if you gathered 500 mushrooms expecting to profit off of it you are either extremely patient or incredibly naive.

I’m still unsure why this thread has progressed a serious discussion about what is wrong with the TP but I certainly hope it has given nvidia some insight as to what is right about it.

Mat prices in game are a result of the limiting features of the crafting system. Many games you can make at least basic items from just raw materials, here you need specials to make anything useful. This causes raw materials to be much more abundant than needed and prices stay at very low rates. As the player base levels, and raw material farming subsides, prices will stabilize. Prices of Blood, Scales, etc on the other hand have made a steady climb in price (except t1 which are currently flooded). A slight reduction in special requirements (2,6,12 instead of 3,8,15) would help this. Also, at least 1 set of gear at each tier that doesn’t require specials with lesser stats might help bridging some of the gaps. Or an all new recipe that uses a large quantity of materials to make something custom. Not the mystic forge lotto that requires tier 7 rare to trade in tier 1 materials.

I am under the impression you can take lower mats and convert them into higher mats, thereby creating the very effect you are looking for.

I’m also under the impression that this is not cost-effective but I do not have the math to back that assertion up right now, so take it as food for thought and not fact.

Also under the impression that you cannot purchase those sell orders that are less than vendor cost.

As i said, markets in MMO is a model. And, as a model, they should contribute to a game elements, not to a real world theories. These are completely artificial markets, and in game.
5% listing tax, in a ideal model, affects no one. As is 10% sale tax. Speculants and crafters gets slightly less profits, but profits nonetheless. Buy and sell orders just adjusts to that 15% margin.
But, with inability to change sell order without a great loss of a profit, hurts crafters, and does nothing to speculants, so they get an advantage. Why? Because speculants have a lot more purchase power(and ways to increase purchase power) than crafters, for obvious reasons. While crafter sits with his money on tp, unable to sell, and unable to change order without losing already small profit; speculant can just work with another 10-15 positions.

Maxster, the game just came out and there is incredible competition to sell crafted goods.

Tell me again why you expected to profit from that?

Is server transferring to mine bannable? Someone mentioned it was not and I have yet to find a response.

Let’s say I want to sell something, right? The price on the TP after searching doesn’t give me enough data to know if I’m getting hosed or not at that price. So here is what I do.

I open the TP, open my inventory, right-click on the item and click “buy more”. The screen that pops up shows me the current sales and then I can click on custom order to see the price difference between the highest buy order and the lowest sell order and then go from there.

I only use the Sell Items tab in TP when I already know I’m selling the majority of my inventory and I know all the prices or I don’t care what the prices are, I just want to get rid of the items.

Does this work for you?

I was under the impression that while it was being sold for less than vendor no one could purchase it so it rendered the entire discussion theoretical in exercise.

Perhaps that is incorrect. Can anyone validate this for me?

To the point Wazabi made – ANet is trying to level the playing field in the TP because let’s face it – if this were truly a free-market the noobs would get eaten alive and it would not only ruin their MMO experience but it would ruin ANet’s revenue stream, reputation and gaming experience as well.

It’s in everyone’s best interest to have SOME checks in play against ignorance… but only minimal. I am ALL for them doing everything they can to alleviate scamming and hacking and botting at the expense of other people… but if I can make more profit than you by getting in on the good deals early, I’m going to.

The botting scripts are becoming more efficient.

However, this doesnt’ work with GW2 model because as it stands, players aren’t intended to have loads of extra gold.

How did you arrive at this conclusion, Gopher?

One of the biggest problems for people trying to make money on the TP are people who list items for insignificantly lower prices than the previous low in order to get their item sold first.
On higher-end items, that 1c difference is completely and utterly meaningless, no one will even bat an eye at the difference, but it still gets the cheaper one sold first.

A way to kill this ridiculous behavior would be to prevent people from listing items for an insignificant amount less than the previous listing (say, 1 or 2 percent).
This would force people that undercut prices in order to cut in line to actually have to notice the loss.

Now all you have done is sped up how fast prices will hit equilibrium so your solution is not a solution for you.

Do you have any other ideas?

…cont…

If a situation in which the TP is filled with junk prime materials that anyone can afford and which completely ruins the reason for gathering materials seems normal to you, you’re wrong.

Clearly you’ve never played an MMO right after release of the original game or an expansion.

I thought you were gathering to craft materials, not sell them on the TP. Now your reasoning shines through the clouds:

You are frustrated you can’t gather and sell your mats.

Welcome to supply glut right after the release of an MMO. Wait it out, you can’t do anything about it except find another means of enjoying yourself. Why not try and max out every single gem collectible you can and then when the prices skyrocket you can sell it and sit on a small fortune?

Y u mad its vydia.6324:

Wow, so many technicalities in your post. You are trying so, so very hard to defend a flawed economy.

I’m trying hard to understand what your issue is because it isn’t clear, concise or seemingly relevant. The forums are awash with people whining so I’m taking it upon myself to rationalize the community.

Understand that most players don’t give a kitten about paying 10c for each piece of wood. That is NOTHING. Selling 1 green to a vendor gets you at least 7 items that cost 10c.

… k…

Asking me if I know the math on drop rates… do you even think before you post? Jesus Christ, of course players find less cloth than ore / wood while playing, because they can’t mine it AND they have to salvage items for it (armors and misc items), AND many players prefer to sell the armors to the vendors for convenience (and sometimes more money). SO HARD to understand. Try harder.

There is no math in this, only opinions.
Here are some facts, though:

True, they cannot mine cloth. However, they can find it in light bags. See your low level centaurs for details. Next.
They [DO NOT HAVE] to salvage items. Ok.
Many players prefer to sell for convenience. Ok, an opinion but this counters your argument that people are using the TP to sell stuff at a loss [which some people do for a convenience]. Please square these two because it doesn’t add up.

You still have not shown the math on drop rates. My point is that you cannot, this is all wild speculation to suit your argument [which I still do not understand. I hope I do at some point.].

Of course there’s faster ways to make bank, especially at higher levels. But to someone leveling their crafts while leveling up as well, there is no reason not to gather. And even if they are lazy as kitten, they can still buy EVERYTHING they need from the TP using only vendored items because hey – everything is still cheap as hell. The only thing that sets you back while leveling a craft is crafting components, which players get anyway even if they don’t gather.

I agree. People do have an incentive to gather, but only if that incentive isn’t stopping them from doing something else. To anyone leveling their craft as they level up – it’s going to cost you more in the long-run but do what you want, it’s your playing time! Someone arguing over pennies earned and lost clearly isn’t taking this into account.

Telling me I need to find better items to sell, LOL. Why?

Because you stated you can only sell them for 1c and that is clearly an incorrect statement.

Why bother when I can afford everything I want to level my crafts?

Just pointing out another flaw in your logic. Your post isn’t constructive, it’s criticism and doesn’t offer any viable alternatives.

There is NOTHING on the AH that interests me, I’m already throwing all my money on Dyes because I don’t give a crap about anything else. I get my armors, weapons, boxes. runes and sigils from my crafting, my friends cook for me because they make so much they don’t give a kitten and even if I lacked jeweling, the 5s fee most people ask for (included myself) wouldn’t mean jack squat if I had to craft them someplace else.

Then why are you concerning yourself with what other people are doing?

The TP is filled with items that people buy for 1c over the vendor price. The sellers are selling them at 3c over the vendor price. It’s a feature of a working economy, isn’t it?

It’s called price equilibrium. If a good is selling at the floor it means it is worth that price or less. If it’s worth less it’s because there either isn’t any demand for that good and it really is worth little value or that there is too much supply although the value will eventually balance out as greater than vendor price such that profits can be realized on those sales.

This economy is working. You have only pointed out a bug that is being fixed.

And to your last point, no one cares how many upgraded gems a jeweler makes. They make just as many as they need to craft jewels / socket. The problem is GEMS dropping for nodes in HUGE amounts that even now fill my collectibles tab and are worth 2c more than the vendor price at TP. I’ve got 30+ of extra gems for every level range after being done with crafting in that range. Yeah, I’ll go buy some off the TP now. Working as intended amirite?

I don’t care either. My explanation was to point out that there will always be more gems on the market than any one single person needs. You can turn all of those lower-tier gems into higher tier gems. It wouldn’t make sense for you to go buy them off the TP because you do not need them. However, someone who does need them will buy them from you.

Thank you John. I was trying to articulate that his post was not being constructive. I welcome people TO post but I’ve had enough of this critical MMO culture.

I’m glad he is passionate about it as well.

Kamikazie.2048:

Once a person acquires a full exotic armor+trinkets+weapons set, there is nothing [I can think of to do with my gold].

I edited your first sentence to be more accurate.

Since this is really all that you are asking for, I’ll tell you:

Go into WvWvW. Purchase 10 siege golems for your team, get in them, walk them into the highest visible point where your enemy can see them without hitting them [unless they shell out for some trebuchets] and then park them there.
Type things like “Your mother was a newt and your father smelt of elderberries!” and “I shall taunt you a second time!”

See, rich people who are bored do really crazy kitten and since you are obviously rich you might as well let the wealth get to your better sense of judgment and have fun with it.

Hoard it until player housing is created. Create an alt called Scrooge McDuck, make your house look like a bank vault and then swim in your virtual currency. Invite your three nephews [or friends] over to play on pogo sticks.

Try to corner the rare materials market. Succeed, double your fortune and then laugh as the prices reach equilibrium. Rinse, recyle, repeat until ANet bans you. You won’t care, though – you were done with the game way before this point anyway.

Create an easter egg hunt. People have to find certain materials and then mail them to you as proof they have them. Have prizes for places 1-10. You keep the materials, you give them gold. Smile as you sell all of the goods for profit on the TP despite having paid out 75g to all of the “winners”.

Run an in-game lottery.

Liquidate all of your assets, and bet all of your gold on who wins the current WvWvW. You have to place your bet within 1 minute of knowing the other 2 participants in your server’s match. If you win, you triple your money. If you lose you lose everything.

Every day, at the same time, go to Lion’s Arch, ask insane trivia questions and give gold for right answers.

Am I getting through to you at all?

How would it help the economy, OP?

SookmiNahw.8461:

Thanks for clearing that up. I find the Trade Post UI is a much too deceptive in it’s initial appearances. Would be a lot better to know that on that line is everyone selling for that amount. I guess it was silly of me to not consider that _

Indeed it was.

On the other hand I do feel that the Sales Tax needs to be put in a visible place and that there should be a default minimum at all times, eve if that means players can no longer undercut each other at some point.

I agree about the sales tax. However, setting a default minimum defeats the purpose of having a (somewhat) free market system. The “floor” was set by having vendor prices, which in turn values a whole host of goods across the system. Players will always undercut each other to be first in line to sell and since they designed the TP to be FIFO [first in, first out – first person in line to sell has their good sold first, second person in line… etc…] this is not going to change because they are NOT going to redesign the system if it isn’t broken.

What is your beef with people undercutting each other? Eventually prices find an equilibrium as they are wont to do.

For example, I have a Penetrating Krytan Warhorn of Accuracy in my inventory worth 56c. Lowest seller is selling for 57c and the highest buyer is buying for 19c! There are no words to express how this shouldn’t be allowed.

So vendor it.

And there are words… words such as quality assurance, it slipped by us, process needs to be improved. Bug.

If the Trade Post really is an integral part of the economy, why isn’t this fixed yet? I am unsure what kind of programming would be required here, if it’s just a matter of making the TP see the vendor price and allowing/disallowing the sale/buy of an item when the total profit would equal less than vendor with the sale tax and listing fee. Or if the TP has to reference an entire list of items from the entire game and that has yet to happen.

We’ll never know but the answer to this question is complex beyond words. All we need to know is it’s a bug and they are fixing it.

While in today’s market the price of something relies on the manpower/pay it took plus some kind of generate revenue from the end product. Real life items don’t have a default vendor price. Corn doesn’t come with 2c stamped into it.

Real life items do indeed have a price floor:

http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/real-estate/price-floors-leave-new-yorkers-stuck-apartments-article-1.1047319

Where I’m going with this is that it’s quite clear that an item that vendors for 56c listed for 65c still has a 3c listing fee – in the end the seller would be practically breaking even. Breaking even is one thing, but the item listed at 57c still has a 3c listing fee which puts the sale UNDER vendor worth.

Which causes some currency destruction if it isn’t changed but that is a person’s choice to sell at a loss and it should be allowed. I wouldn’t put it past ANet to have let this go by on purpose because it has a useful benefit to them – combating inflation.

If there’s an invisible sale tax why not add invisible minimums.

It’s only invisible on the TP. I’m fairly certain they are adding this feature. Anyone with software background can tell the TP was poorly designed [someone else coded the module behind it but the TP is an atrocity of a web front-end and it shows].

Obviously the system hasn’t deterred anyone from selling every freaking item on the trade post that they pick up so the least that can be done is to make the seller list for a price that gives at least 1c profit and make the buyer also have to ask a price that provides at least 1c profit. While it’s all just pennies, losing pennies adds up, especially when one uses the Trade Post fairly often – or wants to.

Why must they dictate the price we sell at save to keep the price floor the same across the board? There is no reason to force people to sell or buy at a profit. If you don’t want to lose pennies then vendor it. Other people want to sell stuff at a loss for the convenience so let them. I don’t understand why this matters to you.

Y u mad its vydia.6324:

It was a rhetorical question. Why was the game designed around so many useless items? Right now, the only things that are worth something on the TP are crafting components of all levels. It’s FUN because you get as much as you can while levelling and it’s isn’t quite enough to get you to the next tier, so you have to buy some off TP.

Your post made my pupils dilate.

The game wasn’t designed around so many useless items. So many useless items are a consequence of nothing more than the fact that you are in the beginning stages of an MMO where there will be a tremendous abundance of supply for lower & mid-tier items so their value is going to be effectively be “trash” for quite some time.

There are other things of value on the TP but it sounds like you are saying the only thing useful on the TP to you is crafting mats.

Y u mad its vydia.6324:

The only people buying wood / ore / gems are either trying to sell them for higher prices or simply can’t be asked to gather themselves.

Your assumption is flawed.

Y u mad its vydia.6324:

Hell, it’s clearly less time consuming and buying simply doesn’t cost you much at all. Wood and ore are basically free at the TP. Their new mystic forge recipe added about 3 copper to the price of each (from 4c we went to 7c, no big difference).

What? o.o

Buying costs you what it costs you. This is going to depend on who is getting what so your blanket statement is misleading. Wood and ore are NOT basically free. Basically free means free because free is binary – it either is or isn’t. And since there is a cost, they are not free. Their new recipe immediately added 10c to the price of butter and it settled down to, what, 8c? 9c? If anyone got in on that deal ahead of time with enough volume they made BANK.

Maybe to one person this doesn’t matter but we’re talking about a system, not an individual’s perception of it – these movements are absolutely huge and that was the entire point. It caused the economy to burn through over 2 MILLION SOFT WOOD LOGS in less than 2 hours. That’s not a big deal?!

Cloth is in a good place because many prefer to sell items to vendor for straight money (and convenience) instead of salvaging.

What? I don’t understand.

It’s drop rate is also much smaller which helps a lot. Cloth is where all prime materials for crafting should be: you will have ALMOST enough to craft your next tier of items, while still having to buy a few off the TP. People that are luckier with drops get to sell them when they stop needing them.

What? How do you know the math on drop rates?

Other than that you practically don’t need anything if you gather yourself. And why wouldn’t you gather?

Because you know that you can make 5x as much farming something else, buying your mats on the TP and pocketing the difference?

I never had to buy ores / gems / cloth. I never had to buy runes or sigils. I just feel very disconnected from the TP. If I try to sell things that I don’t personally need, I’d get 1 copper for them. It’s just not worth the effort of taking them out of the bank and putting them on the TP.

And that suits your gameplay. Other people are in a rush and cannot afford to wait to gather the mats themselves.

With regards to it not being worth the effort – then find something that is worth the effort. FYI, nothing sells for 1c on the TP. Nada.

There is 0 interest in items because everyone can gather anything.

No wonder you are disconnected from the TP – you don’t understand the economics of this game! There is > 0 interest in items for anyone who doesn’t wish to gather resources.

And basically, even for jewelers, if they have enough ore through gathering they have more gems than they need. Always. I think the drop rates should be lowered to give them SOME value. 1 gem / item is the way to go, but gems are WAY too common and nobody ever needs to buy them!

A jeweler will always be able to craft more gems than they need, yes. Tweaking drop rates isn’t going to solve this problem because the problem is a result of people leveling their craft and there being too much supply versus demand. Nothing needs to be changed except your patience and understanding.

I see people keep complaining that items sell bellow or at vendor prices. I think the reason for this is that gold is hard to get, and money is deflated to the point that an item’s real value is significantly BELOW the vendor sale price. Obviously the vendor sale price serves as an artificial bottom, or the prices would be way lower.

At some point the bugs will be worked out and this will be impossible but my understanding is that you still cannot purchase the items that were bugged. If true then that means there is a “shadow inventory” out there of items that still need to be sold but are sitting in the TP and are not purchasable, therefore we are unable to ascertain on this end where those goods ultimately wind up.

Mr. Smith, however, CAN ascertain this because he has the raw data on the percentage of these auctions that are sold due to a bug, are removed and then subsequently whether they are resold at an actual greater than vendor cost value, destroyed, salvaged [and then what they should turn into in the aggregate].

That brings up an interesting note – people using this for temporary virtual storage until they get to town. Not a wise move IMO but unlike economics teaches us, I know that there are irrational actors in the system.

Again, [a] reason for this is not enough liquidity (not enough gold in the economy yet).

Fixed that for you.

This should mean you should invest in materials or items now, then sit on them and hope for inflation to kick in. I am actually thinking of doing that with some higher-level materials. Thoughts?

I think you should ensure that the amount of profit you make beats out the loss in purchasing power you will go through when your currency is devalued.

[Edited to add: since the supply is greater than demand right now it stands to reason that the value of said goods will be less than is “intended” – even in WoW after many years certain ranks within the crafting tiers had no supply so the crafted piece was less valuable than the base material to craft it. It stands to reason it will be no different here albeit on a grander scale so the increased price might overall be “less” in GW2 versus that mentioned in WoW.]

John Smith.4610:

I don’t see much evidence of people controlling markets entirely, nor do I see any evidence people are having trouble making money on the TP with some time and effort.

Do you have any specific items you think are being manipulated?

I asked this previously and did not receive a response.

I’ll make this easy:

The answer is “No, I do not have any data.”

It still spawned an interesting discussion, one in which I hope people learned something about this game!

Zeropride,

Let’s hear your solution for that structure, improving randomization of drops and how you intend on doing this in light of the fact that you need to attempt to stop people from automating gameplay [botting].

Your answer will greatly improve this community.

The statement confuses me. Depending on how you define cost. In order to make money in crafting you have to have a “loop that involves creating value for no cost.” What is cost? Does it matter if it is a infinite loop or not? Depending on how you define cost and if it is a infinite loop or not could make all the difference in the world. I don’t think however it matters who is creating the value however.

Let’s revisit the original post so we can address your confusion:

The Guild Wars 2 economy (and virtually every other economy in the same vein) is not designed to have any loop that involves creating value for no cost.

For example, a player discovers a recipe that allows them to craft items from vendor goods for only 50 copper and then sell back the crafted item for 100 copper. The player now has an infinite loop of value gain. If this were working as intended the game’s currency would hyper-inflate very, very quickly as all players swarmed to this recipe to generate gold.

What he is describing is that the person in question does not have to invest anything but time [and a very, very short amount of time compared to regular farming/grinding out in some random zone] to make money. The person doesn’t have to literally spend any copper except the one initial investment to make copper. In his example he is saying that there is no in-game limitation to stop someone from making a ridiculous amount of gold because they only need 50 copper to start the chain off. Pretty soon they have 50s and can purchase a large quantity of items. This process is exponential in growth but runs away from the rest of the population that is growing at a specific rate. IOW: they are making an astronomical amount of money compared to other people because it requires little time, little effort and therefore “no cost”. His statement isnt’ entirely accurate because there is always a cost and speaking about an infinite loop is confusing because there is an upper limit to how fast a person can make money off an exploit they find. But the problem is that people talk and if one person does it, there will be thousands more in suit so the problem effectively becomes “infinite” until they take down the server for an emergency patch.

I believe this is talking recipes that consist of materials solely from merchants (Coin and otherwise) and is mostly talking about the Mystic Forge.

He’s talking about vendor sold items. Their price never changes, it never should change and any typos in their pricing are easily exploitable because they are easily accessible.

However it could it involve items regarding drops? Or a recipe that using 1 item from the merchant and X of 1 type of item from that is only comes from drops? Such as wool or leather scraps.

Only if a person found out a way to get more than what was intended. The point here is that they control the drops, the prices to a certain extent and if anyone goes outside of that control for their own ill-gotten gains it can cause a collapse in the virtual economy and then people still stop playing GW2 in droves and for good reason.

I think that the quote is talking about recipes that use only used items purchased from merchants. Here is my reasoning why. There is a cost involved. The cost is the materials from drops. The materials cost coin or time. Time taken from farming the mats or time taken getting the coin to buy the mats. But then I am not 100% sure. Am I on the right track? Is my interpretation of the wording on the right track?

Yes. The cost is in coin or time. He meant “little cost” as compared to the time it takes to normally make that much.