Guild Wars 2

What would happen if they put the 15% on the backend, with a 5% penalty to remove an item and a 1% re-listing fee? I would think at one point you’d want to at least incentivize moving items that are listed far above the current price point anyway.

Wanze.8410:

moronwmachinegun.3815:

One way to solve it is to add a steady progress component to the RNG factor of getting a precursor (or “bad-streak breaking” as Essence Snow pointed out). Here’s a proposed solution:

Zommoros and/or champ chests reward players with same RNG items plus an account-bound “precursor treasure map scrap” – once 1,000 have been received (suggest taking median of tries to get precursor and double/triple it – Do not make it random, or at least guarantee a minimum number of scraps with a chance at more) – players make it into a precursor treasure map and earns the repeatable Precursor Map Earner achievement. Each tier up causes scrap drop rate to drop (tier 0 and 1 is 100%, tier 2+ can start being <100% to allow for 2 legendaries per account). Treasure map leads to multiple locations across Tyria with interaction icons to choose which precursor player wants to earn. Suggest using existing low-encounter out-of-the way champions and/or making it a player-startable champion map fight (similar to soon-to-arrive guild-based world champ start fights) with a special reward chest for assisting players that also has a chance at a precursor – higher than a normal champ chest by 2x or something similar, so people are encouraged to help, but not so high as to cause players to not try farming normal champs for one. This would help foster community and guilds working together to help each other earn a legendary. An alternative would be to use instances, with the player alone or in a party, but I like the idea of the whole server/map working together.

T6 mats price would endure a shock, but since their drop rates are far higher and easier for the average player to understand, the market won’t degenerate into the higher price – higher demand market we have now since players would easily be able to farm those mats. Plus as the pent-up demand for legendaries decreases and account-bound legendaries are released, their prices will recover.

Totally off topic because it wouldnt change anything on:
gold/gem exchange rates
prices for other shinies (greatsaw skin, mjölnir, mini karka, permanent contracts)

You are proposing a solution to a completely different problem.
I guess you only read a couple of posts and saw someone complaining about precursor prices and thought to chip in…

Agreed, the only way to “fix” precursors is to give a way to earn them outside RNG. It’s going to happen anet knows there is a problem with legendaries being “mostly” based on being lucky.

I was using gem/exchange as an indicator of the few claims that more people are turning cash into gold, which isn’t the case unless the gem exchange is bugged.

Wanze.8410:

munkiman.3068:

My problem really boils down to the imbalance of TP profit making over other aspects of the game, we went off in many directions trying to say that. I still think the listing fee should just be a transaction fee tagged to the backend of the sale, that would at least help out the average player understand it better and afford to list his high ticket item easier. If you want to keep the fee in place so people can lose out on a listing, make it a penalty for removing. Some things could certainly be clearer.

I also think merchants could show what the buy price is on the tp, so people would be more clear on what the value of an item is. Little changes like that could go a long way.

I certainly don’t think the TP is fundamentally broken. And i certainly can’t prove wealth disparity hurts that game, but i’m pretty sure it doesn’t make the game better.

Honestly, most of my daily profits doesnt come from flipping, it comes from altering items. Crafting, salvaging, opening lootbags. I think those activities can be deemed regular gameplay. Of course, i have to utilize the TP to make those profits but so do champ trainers.

If I wanted to, i could make profits on the TP with solely crafting (and i dont mean crafting rare greatswords while multiboxing with 8 accounts) which you would deem unreasonably high.

But crafting is definately regular gameplay, but anyways, as the potential profits are to high, are we gonna limit that as well in the future?

I’m all for crafting for profit, but i’d love to see you prove you’re making more in crafting than trading. I’m not sure how you would do it though without giving away your secret. I know personally i’ve made so much off cooking, while flipping cooking mats profits are so much higher. I have all 400-500 crafting, i’ve tried to turn ascended crafts and it worked well in the short term, but now it’s kinda a dead market, for profit anyway.

Wanze.8410:

munkiman.3068:

The last time Dusk has available for 600g on buy order was in August last year, June for lowest listing at 600g.

Deducting 15% fees and taxes from 925g he gets 786g back for a profit of 186g which is basically 1g profit per day. That Baron doesnt deserve his title.
And what influence did his business have on the overall price inflation of Dusk?

John released data 7 months ago that showed that about 25 dusks are traded every day, so between his purchase and sale, more than 4700 dusks were traded.

Market influence of Speculators = 0

It was 675 less than a month ago, so about 28g a day. On a good day, assuming you sell everything an average player is probably doing about 15g-20g a play session tops. Min/max farming is more on par with pretty high profit potentials, but then again we are only talking one item on the TP that probably doesn’t get flipped very often.

My problem really boils down to the imbalance of TP profit making over other aspects of the game, we went off in many directions trying to say that. I still think the listing fee should just be a transaction fee tagged to the backend of the sale, that would at least help out the average player understand it better and afford to list his high ticket item easier. If you want to keep the fee in place so people can lose out on a listing, make it a penalty for removing. Some things could certainly be clearer.

I also think merchants could show what the buy price is on the tp, so people would be more clear on what the value of an item is. Little changes like that could go a long way.

I certainly don’t think the TP is fundamentally broken. And i certainly can’t prove wealth disparity hurts that game, but i’m pretty sure it doesn’t make the game better.

Wanze.8410:

First of all, JS provided plenty of data here and there, maybe not enough for your satisfaction but he is simply not allowed to release data at will just to prove to you that your claims are false. He stated over and over again, that the data he has at his disposal, dont support your claim. Why dont you want to believe him? What incentive would he have to lie to you?

If the gem exchange is out of reach for casual players, its a very good thing for Anet because it forces them to buy more gems will real money, its their business model.
This divides the casual player into 2 groups, those that spend money on the game and those that dont. The cash spending casuals are their main source of income, while those that dont spend money, are just important to them because they warrant a better game environment for the cash players while popultating Tyria.

I would argue that even TP Barons that throw gold into the gem exchange are good for Anet. By raising the ratio, they make buying gems with real money more attractive because they add more value to each gem purchased and they make it harder for the casuals to get gem store items without paying real money, converting casuals that dont spend money on the game into casuals that do.
This might sound unfair to you but casual or average players, that dont spend money on the game after the initial purchase are not entitled to get luxury items or gem store items via gold at the same pace as casuals that spend real money.

And BTW, the difference in listing fee for selling Dusk to the highest bidder or adding to the lowest listing is between 3-5g at the moment…

While of this is well and good thinking, JS could simply be wrong or have a different take on what i think a balanced economy looks like. There have been quite a few mistakes that were claimed (see certain drop tables), i wouldn’t fault people for being mistaken.

The continued inflation of the gem exchange isn’t as good as you make it sound. While i don’t think it’s currently out of reach, i do worry it will continue to climb while income of the average player stays about the same. I think that’s a valid concern to have. While you may think it’s good to continue to inflate, people that don’t have disposable income, aren’t going to magically have it because the exchange rate is amazing. A big incentive to play GW2 is the fact that people don’t have to spend money each month on it, which is counter to thinking people will just magically spend money because gems get them more gold. Right now it’s good for me, since i can and do spend money for gold, but it doesn’t incentivize me to spend more money.

Your Dusk example is what i would call a long term investment, that person selling at 925, could have easily bought it at 600. It’s not a fast flip thing most of the time.

tolunart.2095:

munkiman.3068:

I already stated that it’s silly to refer to virtual items as luxury goods.

I would say that all virtual items are luxury goods. Players are typically provided with gear upgrades through playing the game as quest rewards and drops as well as the ability to craft their own gear or purchase items from karma vendors. The vast majority of PvE content can be done in basic gear and gear is largely irrelevant for PvP. Wanting BiS gear or rare skins is purely a function of vanity and bragging rights and not a necessity.

Which makes stating one type of virtual good is a luxury good a pretty silly thing, if “all virtual items are luxury goods”. Food for thought i guess.

Schizo.1375:

Then where are precursors coming from? Just because you did not get one yet doesn’t mean other’s haven’t been lucky or put more dedication towards getting one.

Look at it this way. How many of those precursors are being crafted into legendaries and sold for even more profit by TPbarons? How many of them are simply being exchanged for wealth by TP barons? Buy low, because players either want instant cash or can’t afford the high listing fee or simply don’t care about crafting a legendary, then sell it high to some min/max farmer or another TP baron that decided he wanted to craft a legendary. Just because JS can show that unique buyers are buying them, doesn’t show anything about what is being done with them. We aren’t talking about high volume items here.

And i have gotten a precursor (Tooth of Frostfang), so there’s that. I’m giving mine away in a contest, mostly since i think the economy is jacked up. I have pretty much all i need to craft it though. I’m not advocating a change because i feel cheated or can’t attain a legendary, but i’ve already stated i’m not your average player and that i pour a good chunk of my disposable income into the game. I’m advocating a change because i think it could be better and that far too many people (including JS) use RW examples to make statements about a video game economy to prove some obtuse point. I’m not saying JS is a bad economist or that he’s lying, i have no proof of either. I just think there are flaws that could be improved and it’s worth looking into.

Wanze.8410:

Is this the data ou are referring to? Because it states the opposite of what you just said:

John Smith.4610:

2. I know you said it already, but I’ll restate, that prices of high end goods aren’t being controlled.
3. The prices of high end goods are VERY close, if not exactly the same, to what they would be without any “TP Barons” wanting those items. There’s too much velocity for individual rich people to influence the supply/demand equation all that much, which is the only control they have if they aren’t manipulating prices.

And as people resorted again to referring to luxury items as an arguement/proof of how wealth disparity negatively influences the game, please read Johns first post in this topic again:

John Smith.4610:

It’s possible I’ve missed it and I apologize if that’s true, but I haven’t seen any evidence or even a correct hypothesis that a group of the rich can negatively effect your gameplay experience. I think a clear set of ideas would help me understand and respond to the issue.

P.S. Don’t say luxury goods or I will refer you to the first rule of the tautology club.

I already stated that it’s silly to refer to virtual items as luxury goods. The price is dictated by controlled rarity and demand, and has zero to do with quality, cost to produce or actual rarity. All items with artificially inflated prices in video games are not really good examples of luxury goods, they are more like rare commodities. While there are plenty of examples in real world economies of inferior or equally crafted products that are perceived as luxury goods, most of those are products of actual rarity, less so than being simply afforded to the wealthy or demanded by the poor.

For example, demand for Dusk isn’t going to drop as more people become poorer and can’t afford it, it’ll drop because it’s become more common. While you can technically call it a luxury good, it’s a pretty bad example of one.

Wanze.8410:

munkiman.3068:

Fenrir.3609:

munkiman.3068:

2 years is far too long for what i would consider an above average player.

It took me less than two months of pve to earn the gold to buy Dusk and make Twilight and I know plenty of players with multiple legendaries bought via gold derived from pve.

Perhaps if your wife had take the time to learn to maximise her gold gain from pve (there are guides on this forum and all over the web as to how to do that) then she would have made several legendaries in that two year time span.

And yet again, people keep calling this your “average” player… It’s clearly not.

This topic is still about the rights and wrongs about making lots of profit on the TP.
People complained that those people can buy luxury items at a faster pace.

In this example, people who dont make lots of gold are referred to as “average”.
Fenrir just said that its possible for players to get legendaries without playing the tp.
Of course, in most cases the TP will be utilized to buy items that you cant be bothered farming, but we are not discussing the utility of it.

The argument is the the average player has control over the costs of “luxury goods”, that they dictate the market, which is false, even based on the basic data we do have. The average player is not getting precursors as drops and selling them at high prices (most likely more are selling to the lower buy order, if anything). Nor is your average player buying them up. I’m saying your average player is playing the game and is indeed being impacted by not only high end items, but all items in the economy as it inflates. That and the TP “problems” have a lot to do with it. JS says no, but provides no data as to why that’s not the case. If TP barons can take advantage of the average player who’s not well informed, partially do to the interface of the TP, partially due to other game related factors like drop rates and earning potential outside the market and minimally due to just not being saavy, there is a problem.

You can see from the gem exchange that things could be improved, simply based on the fact that more gold is being pumped into the system then cash. If 500 TP Barons toss thousands of gold at gems, it does slowly move that market out of reach for the average player that is not spending cash. Which is not only bad for ANet, it’s bad for the players. I have no data to back up that’s any substantial thing that’s happening though, but if the wealthy top 1% TP Baron is tossing off the gem exchange, there is a problem.

Mostly, your average player, doesn’t max/min their earning potential, and most likely can’t even afford the listing fee for say Dusk at the high sell price (especially if your an average player is trying to make BiS gear), there is a problem.

Inflation really isn’t a problem, so much as wealth disparity is, it seems to me.

Schizo.1375:

munkiman.3068:

Wanze.8410:

munkiman.3068:

For example, my wife got a lucky roll in the mystic toilet and i supplemented a bunch for her legendary. If nether of those happened, she’d still be scrimping and saving to buy a pre by doing all world bosses, some dungeons and the orr temple runs almost daily for mats and gold. She’d still be months away from being able to afford it and shes played since launch. 2 years is far too long for what i would consider an above average player.

All of which could be substituted for a few month of conservative trading on the TP. If you think that’s good for the game, the players or the economy, you’re outta your mind.

Well, apparantly, she got a drop from the MF, so whats your point?

That’s all you took out of what i said?

You have the data that would indicate it’s not your “average” player that’s moving precursors around. You also have the data that people aren’t buy gold with cash moreso than the inverse. Yet the thought is somehow still that the opposite is true. The point being the balance isn’t there and that there is a problem that could be improved, not only for ANet, but also the players.

We have data that NO ONE is moving precursors around. Also your data about gems shows the price of gold per gem rising and thats all it shows. Its certainly implied that more people are buying gems with gold causing the price to rise, probably because of recent sales. But it does NOT show how many people are buying gems with cash, we cannot determine this. But if anything its certainly looking better for people to buy gems to sell for gold.

You can indeed determine that more players are not trading cash bought gems into gold, even moreso, you can determine they aren’t paying cash for gem shop purchases either. The only other factor is that people are hoarding gems not doing either with them, that factor is something we don’t have data on.

Fenrir.3609:

munkiman.3068:

2 years is far too long for what i would consider an above average player.

It took me less than two months of pve to earn the gold to buy Dusk and make Twilight and I know plenty of players with multiple legendaries bought via gold derived from pve.

Perhaps if your wife had take the time to learn to maximise her gold gain from pve (there are guides on this forum and all over the web as to how to do that) then she would have made several legendaries in that two year time span.

And yet again, people keep calling this your “average” player… It’s clearly not.

Wanze.8410:

munkiman.3068:

For example, my wife got a lucky roll in the mystic toilet and i supplemented a bunch for her legendary. If nether of those happened, she’d still be scrimping and saving to buy a pre by doing all world bosses, some dungeons and the orr temple runs almost daily for mats and gold. She’d still be months away from being able to afford it and shes played since launch. 2 years is far too long for what i would consider an above average player.

All of which could be substituted for a few month of conservative trading on the TP. If you think that’s good for the game, the players or the economy, you’re outta your mind.

Well, apparantly, she got a drop from the MF, so whats your point?

That’s all you took out of what i said?

You have the data that would indicate it’s not your “average” player that’s moving precursors around. You also have the data that people aren’t buy gold with cash moreso than the inverse. Yet the thought is somehow still that the opposite is true. The point being the balance isn’t there and that there is a problem that could be improved, not only for ANet, but also the players.

The data we have access to is the gold to gem conversion. You can clearly see that more is being converted from gold to gems. I’d argue that there are (i could dig up some videos) a smaller number of rich that are gobbling up gems in large quantities. Where a larger group are buying 400-800 gems on occasion in gold. But, there are definitely not enough people converting cash to gems to gold to stop the prices from climbing.

People keep using “average”. I know A LOT of players and their playing habits. By a lot i mean 100’s. I also know how most of the people that have legendaries got them. I can tell you for an absolute fact that most of them got them via pure luck and substituting their income with cash and/or had friends and guildies help out. Of the few i know that didn’t and that have multiple legendaries did it playing the TP. By far however there are not that many that have legendaries. Some because they don’t care about them but mostly because it would take them too long to earn enough.

For example, my wife got a lucky roll in the mystic toilet and i supplemented a bunch for her legendary. If nether of those happened, she’d still be scrimping and saving to buy a pre by doing all world bosses, some dungeons and the orr temple runs almost daily for mats and gold. She’d still be months away from being able to afford it and shes played since launch. 2 years is far too long for what i would consider an above average player.

All of which could be substituted for a few month of conservative trading on the TP. If you think that’s good for the game, the players or the economy, you’re outta your mind.

The problem: The earning potential for flipping goods on the TP is higher than any other activity. Anyone that takes some time to investigate it can see it for themselves.

People here have brought up the question, if that’s the case, why doesn’t everyone else do it? The same reason people don’t run dungeons or champ farm or PvP/WvW or any other activity they don’t care about.

It really has nothing to do with being evil…
Putting a cooldown doesn’t affect anyone other than the person looking to flip. You can do anything you want with your iron ore scenario other than put it back into the TP. If you wanted to craft it into ingots and sell the ingots, you could. Speculation isn’t as problematic since it’s a bigger risk over a longer period of time. The cooldown would basically be to slow down the rate of income. It’s just an idea.

The second part is that vendors have the same function only they actually buy your item at the buy price listed in the TP, acting as agents instead of just taking the item. For items that don’t have buy offers on the TP, you’d just sell it for the base price and remove it from the game, just like it is now.

tolunart.2095:

Gene Archer: good start.

Now, as a hypothetical situation, let’s say that the hot new item on the TP is the silk quaggan hat. They sell well, and a lot of people are crafting/finding hats and selling them to buy orders for a quick buck. The savvy TP players are placing buy orders and turning around and flipping them to sell orders for a total 100g/hour profit.

But there isn’t just one person making 100g/hour. Five people are flipping, and each make 20g/hour. Five more people realize there’s money to be made and start competing with the flippers. Buy prices go up, sale prices go down, and ten people are splitting 80g/hour for a decent 8g/hour profit.

Then someone tweets “silk quaggan hats are HOT” and a hundred people are now involved, and the resulting competition lowers the profit to 50g/hour or .5g/hour for each person involved.

Then players realize the hats look pretty stupid and demand for them dries up. Half of the 100 flippers end up with a large number of hats they can’t even give away and lose money.

This is the way the TP works. Profits depend on how many people are buying, and how many people are selling. When there are more sellers, the amount of money each person makes will diminish. When people stop buying, you could end up selling at a loss just to be able to reinvest that money in something else.

So, if you want to cut the profits each individual makes on the TP, get more people involved in selling directly through sell orders to maximize their profits instead of filling buy orders for quick money, and get more people to buy the things they want through buy orders to save money instead of buying sell orders for instant gratification. Doing either or both of these things will greatly diminish the potential for flippers to make a profit.

I actually offered a couple suggestions for this.
1) put in a cooldown timer on products recently bought to be resold.
2) Have merchants become agents of the TP and pass the product to the buyer and the money to the seller. This way people would be more informed to know what an item is worth on the TP.

While it’s very simple to dump your goods into the TP, i certainly wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if there were a good chunk of players that simply just merchant stuff that has more value on the TP.

John Smith.4610:

DavidSev.6978:

Here what I want from the stats: I want to know how many players flip stuff, and what percentage of trades that is.

Doesn’t need to be an accurate figure, just a ball-park will do.

As to how to get that… It’s too late for me to properly engage my brain but I’m thinking get a month moving average of every players buys and sells for each item, and compare the variance between the number brought and sold. A flipper will be selling a similar number to what they brought, and a “normal” player will have most items being either mostly brought or mostly sold.

And then break it down by market. (EG T1 mats, dyes, weapons, etc)

If flippers only count for a few percent of trades, then who cares. If they are 90% then it’s a very important issue. A figure could be interesting though.

Interesting, but meaningless unless you’re interested in the GW2 playerbase’s personal preferences.

Enough with this. The data is actually there already. Would you say there are people with what anyone would consider an average player are holding are have earned an extreme amount of gold? If so, how did they earn that gold? was it farming for months or was it outright moving product on the TP? I’d be surprised if you could prove that TP trading isn’t earning even the upper .001% a crap load of cash in a fairly short period of time. If so, you have a problem.

Please don’t bother with “average player” descriptions or “TP Baron” ones, you know what’s what more than we do.

william dj.6953:

@munkiman.3068, Do I think someone can make what some would say is a shameful amount of gold working the tp. Absolutely. I know this for a fact. Having multiple accounts and made more than I will most likely ever spend. It would never cross my mind to say exactly how much gold I have. imo it is no ones business. But then I’m not one who must have every shiny out there.

My single biggest problem with the complaints about tp barons is. They don’t deserve it. For someone to know this to be a fact. They must first know how much time, effort, hours or learning the tp how much gold was lost in the process. The fact is they do not. They continue to make claims based on nothing more than assumption. Then attempt to pass it off as complete and all knowing facts. When in fact, by making claims about barons imo they are essentially lying.

then we have to deal with words like fairness. Which all I want to say is fair shmair, lifes not fair get used to it. and lets be honest, we may not like it. But that is the way it is.
words like, equal to. first one would have to know what to add from the other side to be able to even find what is “equal to”. Since no one knows the numbers from the other side, how can they even use that word in their argument?

About the ori node. If the ori node was bugged and you farmed it for 24 hours certainly I would say it was an exploit. If anet put one in the game made it accessible to everyone (like the tp) I would say absolutely not.

Every process in this game comes with downfalls/pitfallls. learning how to trade effectively does take some effort but i will say, you don’t need to be a genius to earn money faster than any other rate of actually plying the game allows. buy low sell high, period, it’s an unregulated market. You’ll make mistakes, but those mistakes far outweigh any gains you would ultimately earn.

I completely agree with the fact that an aggressive competitive market would solve 99.9% of the “problems” that TP barons can and do cause in certain situation (please don’t beat this dead horse). However, it really doesn’t matter. The bottom line is that with maybe a few hours (if you have 0 idea of the market and how it works) can easily, practically risk free, earn far more money than simple playing the content, there is a problem. A pretty drastic one at that.

Take my endless ori example or even the more realistic snowflake one. I can produce ecto all day long (or ori). For next to no more effort than i made 50s (effort in this case = time) just turning bags. Again if the naysayers dont see this as a problem, then i got nothing.

Schizo.1375:

munkiman.3068:

If i know i can easily afford to buy everything i need to make myself a killing selling a legendary, would you even remotely think i’d be worried that the average player is paying a much higher amount of their earnings to do the same? Also realize, the pre is a large part of the cost as well as what we have 0 control over, things like clovers and icy runestones. Would a pre be that much gold if there weren’t regular buyers/traders of it?

I think you need to view the post that Wanze made a couple pages back. It has data that shows there aren’t wealthy people that are trading in legendaries to make a killing. Or precursors.

Edit: Here https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/Increasing-trading-post-tax/3881379

Sorry, i’m not saying anything of the sort. First, TP barrons don’t play the high risk high reward game very often unless they know they have a pretty sure thing. It’s dumb to even consider that a) a flipper wants to kill his own lucrative income by thinking they can corner a market and b) that high-risk flips are a staple of any successful flippers game. No, quite the opposite, players are most likely selling off to buy orders for a couple reasons. 1) they don’t have enough in the listing fee to sell it off at a higher price and 2) they want instant gratification. I’m only using high ticket items as a gauge of income, either from the average player or the TP baron.

My example i posted earlier of how high the gem to gold rate continues to climb shows a couple things. 1) that there are a significant few player able to gobble up gems with gold and 2) even in small amounts the average player is still willing to do the conversion for new stuffs. But realize, i feel it a combo of both. I could even possibly link a video of a player with 1000’s of gold that bought BL keys, just because he could open 100’s of chests.

In a game that is controlled by a developer has this sort of drastic disparity between the rich and the poor in such a short time, cannot see a problem with that, i really don’t know what to say.

Schizo.1375:

munkiman.3068:

Do you honestly believe that there would even be one for sale for 2000 gold (or even 1000g) if there weren’t people with enough earning potential to pay that price in a reasonable amount of time?

I do think so considering the amount of materials that go into crafting it and how much those materials cost. Have you seen the breakdown of one of those things?
http://www.bravevesperia.com/

The breakdown of cost of a group of crafting materials is also a factor, but realize that the wealthy really don’t care, they don’t need to. If i know i can easily afford to buy everything i need to make myself a killing selling a legendary, would you even remotely think i’d be worried that the average player is paying a much higher amount of their earnings to do the same? Also realize, the pre is a large part of the cost as well as what we have 0 control over, things like clovers and icy runestones. Would a pre be that much gold if there weren’t regular buyers/traders of it? Of course there is supply and demand to include in the entire equation, but an unregulated market typically shows price variants at extreme levels which help keep the rich, rich. Buy low, sell high.

william dj.6953:

any proof showing tp players hurt the economy. Even one little itty bitty tiny piece of PROOF.

And yes you would be correct. And not the first to suggest that. And I am certain will not be the last.

while i cannot provide any telling data, it’s not that “TP barons” hurt the economy, it’s the fact that you can become a TP Baron in the first place. While i’m not saying they do hurt my playtime in anyway, they do, in numbers, impact the market, they would have to, if you look at it logically. I’m going to use legendaries again as an example only since it’s the highest ticket item in the game. Do you honestly believe that there would even be one for sale for 2000 gold (or even 1000g) if there weren’t people with enough earning potential to pay that price in a reasonable amount of time? If you knew you could make yourself what it cost to buy a legendary in in maybe 2-3 weeks of aggressive trading, while other it took months or even years, that you wouldn’t bat an eye over an outright purchase? If i know i can make oodles of money doing something whats that money really worth to me?

If i found an endless Ori node and farmed it @ 4s a second for 24 hours straight, would you consider that an exploit?

I have 0 problems with traders that make it a practice to earn gold moving product around in the TP, i do have a problem with it being as lucrative as it is. It’s basically an unregulated global system that, if even a minor amount of patience can net an interested, invested player a pretty extreme amount of gold, i see that as a problem.

Please stop with the rl stuff. Wage inequality when it comes to rl issues has a far higher impact than anything you’ll ever find in a video game. Income inequality ruins societies, it’s historically proven time and again.

What proof do people actually need? I made 50s just opening heavy bags for about 5 minutes of my time and i only did a stack at buy now prices, i could easily triple that with buy offers and a couple extra minutes of my time. There are plenty of avenues in the market that could earn you 500g in a week, i’ve seen it done. My point is purely that the TP is the best game in town for amassing gold. There are plenty of video and guides that say the same thing, i’ve watched a player friend of mine get 1200ish gold in less than 2 weeks. It’s hardly unheard of.

When CoF was found to be a high earner while skipping most of the fights, it was changed. While many of you think it’s difficult and high risk, i assure you it’s not. Even a moderate flipper can conservatively earn more gold than any other avenue in the game.

Some sort of regulation should be in place to slow down the earning potential of a flip. Perhaps a cool-down on when you can resell an item back into the TP after buying up stock?

That actually might help to quell the dismay people have in undercutting that’s going on in the other popular thread.

Conski Deshan.2057:

munkiman.3068:

The problem specifically is, (and it’s been said at least a dozen times) is that the currently unregulated TP allows a player (without much skill mind you) to earn a fairly large pool of gold in a fairly short period of time. That it is completely out of whack from any other way of earning gold in any other avenue of the game (while you sleep even!). No matter how you slice it, it’s an exploit that needs to be fixed.

If it’s not clear as to why that’s a problem, i have no idea how to tell anyone more plainly then the basic fact that if even 1% of the population can afford to outright buy a legendary in a fairly short period of time, that’s a pretty unfair advantage over the other 99%.

The only saving grace to all this is that you can convert gems to gold, but even then, 500-600 bucks is a pretty steep price for a virtual item.

The legendary weapons were designed to be an item for the 1% the issue would be more that the wrong 1% has super easy access to them (i.e TP flippers as opposed to highly skilled players).

And your post actually highlights the differences in player opinions on different aspects because I don’t consider being able to outright buy with real money a legendary a saving grace but rather a large flaw in a game system, where top rewards would ideally only be obtainable through actual advanced game-play.

You can use anything you want as a measuring stick for how out of whack the TP is, it doesn’t have to be a legendary, take crafting to 500, take BiS ascended armor, take any shiny skin. Regardless, you’re literally limiting content to a small pool of players. I really dislike the fact that JS uses luxury goods when talking about a virtual item that’s basically content that is out of reach to most of the player base. It’s seems pretty separated from the concepts used for the rest of the game.

Take the TP out of the game and see how quickly things balance out, you wouldn’t have the richest players basically being able to afford high priced items, they’d not be able to earn enough to pay for them in any sort of reasonable time frame. I’m not suggesting that as a solution, i’m just thinking out loud.

The problem specifically is, (and it’s been said at least a dozen times) is that the currently unregulated TP allows a player (without much skill mind you) to earn a fairly large pool of gold in a fairly short period of time. That it is completely out of whack from any other way of earning gold in any other avenue of the game (while you sleep even!). No matter how you slice it, it’s an exploit that needs to be fixed.

If it’s not clear as to why that’s a problem, i have no idea how to tell anyone more plainly then the basic fact that if even 1% of the population can afford to outright buy a legendary in a fairly short period of time, that’s a pretty unfair advantage over the other 99%.

The only saving grace to all this is that you can convert gems to gold, but even then, 500-600 bucks is a pretty steep price for a virtual item.

Server: http://northernshiverpeaks.org

Race: Asura are my favorite, quirky and interesting

Profession: If you go heavy, i’d go guardian

Aidan Savage.2078:

It still wouldnt change anything that’s a “problem” now. Crap items that get vendored are still crap items whether it’s sold to a vendor or to a player. I myself dont bother selling items to a merchant. If it’s not rare, or obviously worth something, it gets salvaged. However, that doesnt fix the perceived problem that started this thread.

I think it might to some extent. If vendors showed actual value of buy orders, more people would be aware of the actual value of an item. Although i have no data to back this up, i would think there are quite a few people that either rarely check the TP or even know how it works. I would say there are even more that don’t even check buy orders prices before they go on a buying spree for crafting and just accept the price that’s listed in the sell orders. I think more common knowledge of the actually buy price of an item would make people think twice before paying the much larger discrepancies of many items. The undercutting between low buy and high sell prices would be a lot tighter, i would think. It’s speculative on my part, but it might be something “fairly” easy to implement and might make the market a bit more stable. I’m no expert though.

Aidan Savage.2078:

munkiman.3068:

I think you should convert all merchants to BL trading post representative which will buy your goods at best buy offer and pass it off to the seller (minus the fee) if you really want a more robust, more equalized market. So many people just merch things anyway unless there is some significant gap in TP to justify selling it that way. Plus it saves new players from selling off extremely high valued items at vendor value. (which i wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if that didn’t happen regularly). Obviously things that can’t be listed or traded (porus bones and such) would just sell at regular value.

You then could actually toy around more too with some of these concepts (FIFO, average values, 1% undercuts, etc). Since it would actually be a QoL improvement for a lot of players.

The problem with this is that the value of an item on the trade post MUST be higher than the merchant’s value by such a price that the 15% fee does not drive the value below that point. That’s why there’s certain items that you NEVER see buy orders for: their sell price is so low that it’s already zero profit compared to merchant cost.

All items would still have a minimum value, just as they do now. The items would just get removed from the economy, just like they do now.

Schizo.1375:

Without the numbers that Anet most certainly won’t provide to us we can’t know which makes them more money. However I have given you reasons how they do make money off this. And we have both agreed that they do in fact make money off of this. The only way to make money off of this is by making hard to make gold in game. If they don’t make it hard, there is no money to be made here and there is no point in putting in the feature. They are a business. Everything they do is perfectly analyzed to make them money. All you have said is, that’s wrong because I don’t think its true. Please come up with any reason why there is a possibility this is wrong.

http://www.gw2spidy.com/gem
Look at the conversion rate history, that really should be enough to show that there are more transactions of Gold to Gems than the inverse. It also shows to some extent the wealth of the community. I can probably find several videos of people with 1000’s of gold buying gems to open 100’s of Black lion chests or some other such thing. I really don’t think there is a majority that buys gems with cash that anet is trying to keep the population poor to sell more gems to convert. I really do think there are FAR more people with under 100g than over. The economy really does “feel” unbalanced.

I think you should convert all merchants to BL trading post representative which will buy your goods at best buy offer and pass it off to the seller (minus the fee) if you really want a more robust, more equalized market. So many people just merch things anyway unless there is some significant gap in TP to justify selling it that way. Plus it saves new players from selling off extremely high valued items at vendor value. (which i wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if that didn’t happen regularly). Obviously things that can’t be listed or traded (porus bones and such) would just sell at regular value.

You then could actually toy around more too with some of these concepts (FIFO, average values, 1% undercuts, etc). Since it would actually be a QoL improvement for a lot of players.

Fenrir.3609:

Those alternatives btw, can and do earn massive amounts of gold, as has been pointed out time after time after time again. People can and do make masses of gold from pve, they can and do buy (multiple legendaries) and have gold coming out of their ears. Moreover they are doing as such making constant and consistent gains with zero risk and all the whilst getting other stuff like SP’s, AP, Tokens, badges, Karma and xp.

There is no way (as i do/have done both investing and “farming”) that any other activity in game even comes close to money you can make in TP profits for the same amount of time invested. The closest thing was CoF farming which got shutdown and it wasn’t even that close.

I don’t subscribe to the rich ruining the market idea, but there is a very clear difference in TP dabbling and playing any of the content. It’s not wrong either that it’s that way, but i’m pretty sure his point was that drastic difference in earning gold.

I still think the market is going to burst for a bit then settle post April 15th. Which should bring it more in line with just playing the content. Least that’s my hope anyway.

I’m really not sure what they could say here. They’ve pretty much stated that the schedule thing is subject to change and i’m assuming the TBD item on the list is prolly slotted for Mordy. I’m with everyone basically opposed to the change, in at least the schedule.

I’m there with many of you, the economy is out of whack, but I would be willing to bet all my gold that it’s not due to rich flippers, it’s due to increase demand while supply stays pretty much the same.

I will also argue that anet is actually doing something about it and in very big ways. With the intro of the wardrobe system, the account bound dye system and the introduction of ascended gear prior, they’ve literally made the economy a more level playing field. It’s going to take time to see a significant change, but this conversation will more than likely be moot in a matter of months.

I’ll also say that my disposable income will net me more gold in the game than any other activity. 1 hour at my job will always yield my far more profit than any other activity and if anything, I take that gold and pass it off to lucky players that win contests i hold for various server activities i promote. “Rich” players are often doing the same thing as i am, giving a lot of it away.

JCROY.5730:

Pie Flavor.1647:

JCROY.5730:

Pie Flavor.1647:

JCROY.5730:

Just for my info..why is having a legendary so important? Is it just the achievement? Is it the changeable stats? The looks?
As for the upper reasons, speaking for myself:
Achievement: I couldn’t care less
Changeable stats: Great…since it most of the time players choose to have assassin or berserker..and does it really hit that much harder then ascended/exotic?
Looks: I have greenies with better looks then the legendaries..but thats a matter of taste

So again..why is this so important?

human achievement is always relative to what others have acheived, also known as “bragging rights”

If everyone had a legendary, nobody would be making one. I reckon only 1% of the playerbase has a legendary, and that’s why people find it so important to have one, it’s the prestige, it’s the exclusivity.

I guess that 1% playerbase is in my guild…LOL

1% of 2 million players is around 20,000 players.

does your guild have 20,000 players?

Almost…LOL
No, but statistics of 1% don’t apply to my guild…We have around 200+ active members and I am sure at least 20 of them own a legendary..or even more then one.

I only know 2 people that have legendaries from dropped or forged pre-c. The rest were bought off the TP. I know a lot of people with legendaries or more than one.

TBD is Mordremoth, ofc….

Mono.7320:

Mono.7320:

munkiman.3068:

The bug in final rest that caused it not to drop for 9 months :P If there is any weighting in favor, it’s going to be a bug (or at least called one).

you think that RNG is bugged?

Ha, no. I was just saying that if there was a weighted system behind why certain people have crummy drops while others have already received 6 or more precursors, it would come down to been called a bug. One that has been overlooked for 2 years. I’m not being serious about it.

The bug in final rest that caused it not to drop for 9 months :P If there is any weighting in favor, it’s going to be a bug (or at least called one).

SonOfJacob.7396:

Right, but if it was a reward at 10k, you’d have gotten 2…unless they simply removed the RNG portion.

Right. This is actually one of the best suggestions for pre-c earning. Not just because i hit 10k already, but because it does take a lot of effort to get to 10k, far more then any scavenger hunt they could dream up and actually implement.

SonOfJacob.7396:

Anyone suggested a precursor automatically at every 10k achievement points? At that point, it’s fair to conclude a player has done enough to warrant a precursor. Based on the latest Leaderboards, that means the highest achievers would just have gotten their second, and be at least another four months to their third. It would lower prices, but wouldn’t necessarily severely increase Legendaries in the game (don’t forget all the freakin’ mats required).

https://leaderboards.guildwars2.com/en/na/achievements

Oddly enough, i got Tooth of Frostfang the day i dinged 10k…

After over 3k hours i finally got a pre, tooth of frostfang, off a random mob drop in fractals. My wife got lucky in the forge as well. So it does happen.

I’m on the bandwagon for loathing this idea. It feels like it’s going to just be one big mess and in all honesty, i like my server being separate. Simply removing the guesting limit and making it simple to join players on other servers through the party UI would really be all that anyone would really want or need. I’m really not a happy camper with this change.

bumpity bump bump

Tasty Pudding.3764:

munkiman.3068:

• Add a world boss UI that will take you to a specific world boss when it’s up, regardless of server.

I enjoy the almost random spawn timers. I’d much rather see a UI in game instead of going to a website to find a boss spawn or open dungeon.

I don’t think this is how ANet ever intended this to work. People seem to love the world boss train, but I don’t think that ANet wanted that to be how the game was played.

In all seriousness, the champ train is much more lucrative and they seem to be fine with that. Besides you still can’t get more than one of the same world boss a day anyway. Having that system would just make it easier for people to do it.

Here are my concerns with this…

• Server Pride – NSP has really built the entire community on the pride of accomplishments, both in PvE and PvP. The megaserver idea pulls that apart quite a bit within PvE.
• Restricting timers – I know personally i would miss out on a lot of regular world boss fights in general.

Overall i think you could have accomplished ease of play across servers by.

• Removing guesting limitations entirely
• Use the “Join in” option for x-server joining, similar to dungeons now or make the transition invisible.
• Add a world boss UI that will take you to a specific world boss when it’s up, regardless of server.

I enjoy the almost random spawn timers. I’d much rather see a UI in game instead of going to a website to find a boss spawn or open dungeon. I’d rather not see server communities become less important. Overall i think the solution you are proposing needing to be tweaked quite a bit to reduce complication and keep server still relevant for PvE content.

It’s only 125 Laurels… That’s really not that bad. Buy em up now though on the TP, they’ll prolly sky rocket in price.

The NSP of last season has become a great, organized force. There is a big focus on community and competitive play. Having a bit more organized numbers would be a HUGE factor for us when facing servers like HoD. Our community is booming, strong and successful, win or lose, you can’t go wrong making the move to NSP.

Pretty sure these changes will work better with the changes they are also making to rune, gear and the like. Might want to take a more wait and see approach, than a reactive, based on limit knowledge one.

I’m extremely proud of NSP. A great last couple weeks of great organization in both WvW and PvE and just a general feeling of community. So much so, that we’ve implemented a full time shoutcast (NSPRadio). It’s pretty new and we are still sorting it out, but it’s been fun to get it up and going. It’s 128k right now, but we might have to lower it depending how popular it is. Lot’s of people on NSP getting involved in all sorts of ways. It’s a great time to be a part of the NSP community!

If you want give it a listen http://northernshiverpeaks.org:8000/stream.m3u

Not sure if the attached screen shot helps give you a sense of our WvW play. Granted this is taken at 8:15 am and obviously doesn’t include cross voip players and people not using voip or are in other channels, roaming.

Bumpity, cause you really need to look into NSP!