Guild Wars 2

Your understanding on economics is flawed.

The only reason for me to use P2P is to avoid transaction cost. But now that I need to spend time to advertise my stuffs, I’ll rather just pay the cost and let the TP sort it out. It an item sells for 1g in TP, the max profit difference I can make from P2P is the savings of 15s…which I don’t really care. It tax applies for P2P, even less reason to go through the hassle.

I think some people actually thinks this will allow them to sell at a higher price…. or are just blaming the TP for not being able to make money.

Putting a time constrain will remove clutter…but won’t magically makes you sell for higher price. Trash item is still worth trash value. You can post it at a higher value, but will anyone actually buys it? The +1c price for trash item is at equilibrium…cost price +1. The cost price here being vendor price. That’s the equilibrium for a perfectly competitive market.

If everyone only wants to buy and no one wants to sell, what do you think will happen to the price? Price will go up again. What you’re seeing for trash items is the opposite…everyone has every reason to sell it but not to buy it.

The reason many people calling for change is that they think it will allow them to sell their trash loot at a higher price. Yes, but the question is will anyone buy it? You can get 10 blue in 1 hour…guess what…so is the other 2 million players playing the game. What makes your blue more special than mine?

These changes in mechanism will not change the fundamentals on how economic works. Putting an expiry (which I’m actually ok for) will make it harder for the less economically inclined player to make a higher profit as they do not know how to properly price their goods, and are now given a time constrain. They’ll probably price it even lower in order to avoid re-posting. Not able to sell on the field will only remove the cluttering in TP…it doesn’t suddenly makes me to want your item more and willing to pay more than vendor+1c for it.

I’m glad the TP works this way. Was able to buy a full set of rare lv80 armor for less than 1G.

I tried WvW for the first time….don’t think it’s too hard to not die….

tufy.7859:

Shael.4703:

1. Remove the “match the lowest seller” and replace it with “current average price for the past 24 hours”
   1. The average price of the item takes into account all the prices of the item that is listed for the past 24 hours. Every 24 hours, the average price is recomputed.

I would advise against this, as such average price calculations are highly susceptible to market manipulations and tend to end badly, as anyone who played EvE this last year will tell you. In fact, with EvE, it ended up with devs manually readjusting the value to stabilize the situation.

It’s not just in EVE, also in the stock market. That’s why any self respecting stock trader don’t use that. It is meaning less in the sense that it gives the mean value when the clearing price is at 1 extreme end. Moving average on the clearing price however is interesting…but it will probably be misunderstood by a lot of players and then we’ll see another complain post like this.

Agenteusa.6380
Trading post is a place where trade takes place…isn’t that what’s happening there? It’s fine if you refuse to use it for whatever reasons…but anyone that uses TP to make money like me can tell you it’s far from dead. It is the reason that I log in only for 1 hr for the last few days without adventuring and still able to make gold.

I too sell my trash loot on vendor and I agree it is cluttering the market…so what? the Mats market and high level rare/exotic item market is pretty active.

highest buyer/lowest seller is a convenience tool. I use it to sell junks that I don’t really care how much I make from it because no matter how much it sells, I still make profit since it’s a drop. How does it ruins the TP? Noobs will probably misunderstand it…but that’s their problem for not understanding the game before they play…I couldn’t care less about that as they’ll always find something to complain. You think all these will magically allow your trash loot to sell at a higher price? To who? You don’t set the price for an item, but you don’t determine if it sells…the buyer does. Understand this and you’ll see the folly in your arguments.

@RaCio
I always undercut it I want to sell my stuffs fast…as long as the net profit is still within my pre-calculated margin. If I think I can sell it at a higher price than the lowest seller overnight, I’ll put it at a higher price.

I’m guessing that you think a free price drop will stop people from undercutting and encourage people to be more clever pricing their sales? Well…by not allowing a price drop, it is already encouraging you to be clever on your pricing…that’s why ppl undercut to make sure it sells. As for undercutting, it won’t stop that. If I put it at 50c, the lowest price, then you come in and undercut me at 49c, what I can do is using the free price drop to under cut you at 48, then you will undercut me at 47. It could actually creates more variation in the price…though a true trader won’t be bothered by these “white noise” as we call it since it doesn’t affect the real underlying value of the item at that point of time.

no its not. You can’t blame someone for selling something that you want to buy at a high price much like you can’t blame someone for selling something you want to sell at low price.

Dunning Kruger effect…From the view of poor players, It’s always never their fault…and they mostly think they are better than what they are…hence it must be the class or something else.

@Wind
You don’t say…now I’m considering rolling an ele alt for the challenge after my midterm is over. Oh, look up Dunning–Kruger effect. It describes the phenomenon you described pretty well…in a scientific way.

ShawnBuzu.8045:

This isn’t about the fundamentals of marketing. This is about the disadvantages of spending time on the market while your current aspiring armour set or weaponry pass you by as you become over levelled. Player income and the prices set on gear are not proportional as they should. Even karma, but I need not write a book for that subject.

Do you mean fundamentals of market of marketing? It’s 2 very different thing. The price of gear on market depends on the supply of gears from various source (crafting, karma gear, drop) and the income level. It is very naive if you think price of gear will remain static if you increase world wide income (just look at Australia in the past 20 years).

In any MMO, you have to spend time and effort to get stuffs…I’ll bet even in hello kitty island adventure. In the context of cultural set, just think of it as an endgame thing. It is meant to be hard to get… just so hardcore players can get it and make you jump up and down in jealousy. Don’t set too high a goal and blame others for you not being able to achieve it.

Well…it will clear given enough time…if they know they can’t sell it at +1c, they’ll eventually just vendor it. TP being cluttered by unsold item doesn’t have an impact on the real value of the item.

And yes, I’m more of a free market guy, to I don’t see the need for floor.

COD would just allow a different kind of scam to happen. Op, you have my sympathy…at least you’re not blaming others for that.

You’re right in that many didn’t realize there was a 10% sales tax, and I myself find doing so inefficient. That’s probably the major factor why people are selling at a lost.

I’m trying to determine what motivates op to make this post. I don’t think it’s to educate people on the sales tax. I think it’s more that he thinks ppl selling at a loss is preventing him for selling his items at a higher price.

In an economy with 2 million participants, it is significantly harder for any gold seller to move the market and exploit it. Conspiracy theorist here fails to see that. Also, you don’t magically determine how much an item will sell for…they buyer does when there is competition (2million other people) and an excess of supply. The combined factor of too many gear drop, karma gears, too many people crafting, everyone able to loot a body, and multiply that by 2 million players in the same market is the reason most gears are worthless, crafted or drops. Changing the TP in anyway won’t change the fact that a trash item is a trash item.

Removing the price floor on TP would only means that price of gear might drop lower to a certain point than a vendor price. Only people wanting to clear their bag space on the field for whatever reason will do that and they have to decide how much are they willing to lose in profit from doing so. That opens up the opportunity for players near the TP to buy it up and sells it to vendor at a profit. Also, you don’t lose money selling drops…you just earn a reduced profit for posting at price floor.

All arguments asking to change the TP that I’ve seen stems from a lack of/misguided fundamental understanding on how an economy works.

That’s an interesting description on preventing inflation. As what others had pointed out, I think this game has quite a number of gold sink mechanism in place. In particular, gem exchange is an interesting mechanism. They could just adjust the exchange rate or make special offers to suck the gold out of the economy any time. Or, they could easily introduce ultra expansive crafting ingredients needed for legendary items (not sure if it’s already there). This is one game that I’m not all too worried about inflation as they obviously designed the game with that in mind too.

I’m glad that I got 3 rare and 2 uncommon from opening 10 dye. It’s like playing CCG.

Often the whiners are the ones that makes the most noise, but that doesn’t necessarily represents the voice of the majority.

I think we need more post like this to reinforce the idea that they are doing a great job and most changes that whiners suggest aren’t necessary. I do not want this to be another SWG.

reminds me of my lotro healer.

LOL… then don’t sell it at such a high price if you’re not comfortable with people undercutting you. If there’s a demand for your item, it will sell regardless. If it doesn’t, it simply means you’ve priced it too high. If you’re worried about losing out on listing fee, be more conservative about pricing your item with market demand in mind. I will under sell 1c if I want to get it sold quick. I’ll put it several steps above the lowest price if I’m leaving it over night (I sleep during US prime time, and is active during US down time). Spend the time figuring out a strategy that works or ask for advice rather than crying for change to suit you.

It’s always a buyer’s market when there’s excess supply and competition. You also left out:
-do not know how to corner the market in a large market
-does not take into fact that they are also buying thing cheap

I blame this on the small market of other MMO. That kind off indoctrinate players to trade in a certain way to make money and gets so fixated on it that most can’t adapt to a newer and more efficient system. Those that understands the fundamentals of trading however, will have no problem at all.

@Mario Lemieux.9107
Didn’t saw your post earlier. Thanks for the appreciation. Reason I’m doing this is that I see this as a system that benefits the player population as a whole. I’m fortunate to be educated in economics&investments to understand the significance and logic behind it, and thought that it would benefit the players to share it seeing that too many have an incorrect/misguided view on the whole thing.

I can understand the concern that many players have on TP…but those concern only stems from the benefit of an individual looking only at isolated component of the market without considering how they interact interact with other components and the benefit of the population as a whole. I do not expect to change the view of stubborn believers in their own theory build without any fundamental understanding of how an economy works…but it is more for players like you who comes in with an open mind admitting that there are things that you’re good at, and there are things you’re not.

@Arciel
Hehe…I’m slightly better than you…work 1 job and doing masters, and a gf staying with me. Yeah, it’s a long term goal…but people just want to get it in an instant and is jealous of others who got it. Maybe it’s what drives the hardcore to actually get those kind of thing in 2 week…just to make the average player jealous.

Think of it another way…it is to reward players who can figure out a way to earn gold more effectively than 99% of the players, or a player willing to spend time to get it, or both. I won’t judge how much time a person spends on a computer…those not playing computer games could easily judge you who maybe play 10 hours a week as wasting time on something useless as well. If the player can derive some value out of it, then so be it weather its 10 hours or 100 hours per week. More often than not, it is jealousy talking when you call another player who have something that you don’t of having no life or no achievement in real life.

Any market with sufficient competition will be a buyer’s market. We call it Price Taker in economics. Personally, I never use the “quick sell” “quick buy” button. I browse the selling and buying price and volume before I make my decision.

Many isn’t aware of the sales tax, so you may be losing money just by pressing quick buy and quick sell if you do not keep an account of your investment profits.

Changes in displayed information won’t change the fundamentals of supply/demand…but omission of information or inclusion of easily manipulated/meaningless information (like average price) could give rise to speculation and manipulating the market for profit because amateurs will rely on that (much like how they rely on quick sell/buy), but pros will be able to extract the omitted info for an advantage, or manipulate meaningless info to trick the amateurs.

how are you losing money? Did you pay to buy the trash loot at vendor price in the first place?

removing the ability to sell anywhere won’t change a thing, trash will be trash. The only reason you can sell for so much is because the beta economy is significantly smaller than what it is now. GW2 economy has a closer resemblance to real world economy than most other games (except EVE). If you’re not familiar with investing or running a business in the real world, chances are you won’t be making big money in GW2 either.

GW2 TP is the only mechanism aside form EVE-online who’s environment closely resembles that of a perfect competition. Pick up any economics textbook and you’ll understand that this is a good thing, and the proposed changes will not change anything. If I can understand this, then the economist under A-net’s employment will definitely understand it and won’t change anything.

Trash will sell for trash. You don’t magically earn more profit for selling it more expansive…someone else has to be willing to pay for it. You, the seller is a price taker in this market. Not allowing people to post on TP on the road won’t change that. How much will you pay for a piece of wet tissue paper? Or a jar of dust? I want to sell it at 10 dollars…will you buy it?

Timed post won’t change anything either. It will just make players more conservative in their pricing, so they will more likely to price it lower to make sure it sells before it expires.

I’ll have to agree with Sulmith Greysin.5124. The problem is that you want a system that you can exploit the inefficiency…so that you can sell for higher. The person buying have to pay more for that. That is no different than people selling dye for 4g. The TP hinders speculation. That’s why what you did in wow or other game doesn’t work here anymore. It is still possible to make profit from trading, you just need to have a fundamental understanding on how supply and demand works, and the application of that knowledge rather than just quoting it from wiki.

That’s the whole point…it’s suppose to be an end game objective where you spend ridiculous amount of time to obtain it, much like legendary item. It is unique for someone who manage to get it because not many people can afford it…same reason why someone would want to buy a luxury car/watch…it’s for show. If everyone can afford it, then it’s no longer unique/special.

All the things that can be accomplished from P2P trading can also be acomplished with TP, in a more efficient way. Think about this, having both P2P and TP. You won’t magically be able to sell higher (I’ll bet that’s what some thinks) because if the TP is cheaper, buyers will go there. Also, why waste time haggling when you know the price in TP is the cheapest? If you want to sell cheaper, just drop it in TP and it’ll sell. You don’t have to spam WTS or WTB. In the end, P2P will have very limited usage because it is so inefficient. I do agree on 1 point though, that purely relying on TP removes the social aspect of trading. There is also an advantage with P2P, which is seller can sell to avoid transaction cost. I feel that this advantage has only very situational usefulness considering the effort it involves in trying to manually sell something. Say if only 1% of the transaction happens in P2P, why would dev want to spend time and effort to implement that? Plus, you’ll have to deal with the complaints on scams and such.

TP is also another mechanism to siphon money out of the system, controlling inflation, but I don’t think putting in P2P will change much of that given that little people will use it.

Given all these factor, it’s better to just rely in TP. You fail to provide sufficient justification to put in 2 system and obviously only considered that from a personal standpoint.

Kinda makes you wish people actually pays attention at econ101 huh?

Nice. Thanks for the info

You have no idea how economics work and the idea of perfect competition and price taker. You can increase mat price but competition would mean yours won’t sell unless demand is sufficiently high. You will eventually be forced to sell at the price where people are willing to pay…you can set the price, but you don’t decide if someone will buy at that price.

People usually don’t salvage blue items because the mats that they get is less valuable than selling it to vendor. If you haven’t figure that out by now, and from how stubborn your attitude is on a subject that you obviously not very good at, and your qq, i’m sorry…I don’t think you have what it takes to make big money in the market.

play how you want to play. Loving it.

qq…I can’t make money in TP. qq…I can’t profit from crafting. qq….too much market competition….

say in some other game, you have 1 mill…how much does the average weapon cost? Here, you have less money, but you can get cheap items from TP. As for getting rich, possible…but not too many will be have the knowledge, skill, dedication and patience to do it. You think you’re rich in other MMO? You may have 1 mill but still be the average…you just think you’re rich. Here, you may have only 1g but so does the average people. There’s only a very small fraction that gets rich from TP, same in other games too.

some people just can’t get used to the revolutionary mechanism

sigh….every time something doesn’t work in a way a person wants, they come here and QQ to demand change without thinking through the consequences.

So op thinks its ok for farmers to exploit that as long as op gets what he wants. He’ll probably then make another thread complaining about farmers…or that his mats can’t sell for kitten.

I originally come from an asian country where the US currency is 3 times as strong as mine…so maybe they should lower it for my home country to be fair? Also, since everything needs to be “fair”, then the price should be adjusted by the Purchasing Power Parity of different country then?

Like I say, it’s probably due to some regional trade policy thing. I don’t think a company would prefer to trade in different currency as it adds complication and currency risk.

wow….I don’t see you post often dark…but when you do….wow.

It’s a “they took our job” argument. People are just not happy that someone else is able to provide the same thing at less…then they will turn around and complain the same item is too expansive if this didn’t happen.

same reason why Aussies have to pay more for most game compared to US. Probably due to trade agreements and/or something else. Why does it even bother you?

glad to see majority of the player gets the point.

Now what illgot is doing is increasing his wealth relative to other players, improving his purchasing power through a combination of investments, and reducing the cost of operating/running his toons, and more effective use of trash gear…which is simple but yet many fail to grasp or accept.

@Shawn: 10s/hr is a hypothetical number made up by me to illustrate an example. If you’re level 80 like me, yes, that’s not enough to cover wp expanses….but then….for each 3 hour session, I only use wp twice, and I’ve never bought any gears or mats from TP except for the 2.5g spent to lv my artificer from 325-400 since I don’t have any high tier mats. Also, I saw the direction the market is heading, and made a conscious decision to push my crafting skill beyond where the crowd is at to avoid competing with them for mats. In sum, you find ways to adapt…

A: no, its different.

If money drop increases, say from 10s/hr to 100s/hr it increases for everyone. If you can’t afford to compete a crafting mat selling at say 1s per piece right now when you’re earning 10s/hr, what makes you think you can compete when everyone else when everyone is also earning at 100s/hr? Your purchasing power remains the same.
Crafting has never been easy in most MMO…this one is actually one of the easier ones.
If you want to increase your purchasing power, you’ll have to do something different that the average player is doing, increase your income/hr proportionately higher than the average player.

Comparing money from different MMO is like comparing apples to oranges.

just farm at a different spot?

@Nerelith.7360
LOL…I think there’s some confusion. I totally agree on your view on making money in this game. The mechanism makes it harder, but it is still possible. That’s what I’m trying to say. Shows that I’m not very good at expressing myself with words.

Mets =crafting materials…probably should spell it mats…my bad

confirm on the 0 transaction cost buy order.

yeah, 10% sales tax. Plus your 5% non refundable listing fee…that comes to a total cost of 15% for every item you sell.

grab a train of mob towards him, and then go invis.

This is basically what I did:
1. pick an item that is selling slightly above 1s. make sure you have nothing else selling on the market.
2. sell if for 1s, you’ll notice that 5c is deducted as listing fee, that is non refundable
3. when someone buys the item, go to the pickup screen, you should be able to see only 90c.

Thus total cost of transaction is 5% listing fee + 10% sales tax on the selling price. So if you want to buy and sell off the market, make sure the spread is more than 15% of your intended selling price to make a profit.