Guild Wars 2

eithinan.9841:

phys.7689:

Yea, basically the general philosophy of a bltc player, going by this sub forum, is about using the market to get as much as they can from everyone else. It is seen as a given that the bltc is pvp, and those that dont know how to play should be exploited for the benefit of those that do.

This is your personal opinion on this subject from your perspective of what drives other players. The bltc is a player driven free market with a 15% tax. Nothing more, nothing less. The “TP barons” simply use publicly available 3rd party tools and information to make good decisions. No exploitation necessary, Or more to the point noone is exploiting anyone not letting themselves be exploited. People want the fast gold for mats or they crafted a ton of things to level and want to quickly recoup their cost. Without people choosing to sell to buy order then there is no market for TP flipping or any of the other nefarious activities these ultra wealthy players participate in.

I mean after 2 years of the TP being the same dont you think people would have realized by now they can make more gold by listing an item to sell then selling it directly to purchase order? When I click sell item, it comes up with 2 easy to read prices. Its just as easy to click the higher of them…

What you say illustrates my point.
As i said you believe its essentially a dog eat dog world, if you allow someone to profit while you suffer, its your own fault.
“Or more to the point noone is exploiting anyone not letting themselves be exploited.”

now im just saying its a different philosophy than the rest of the game, who can say who is right and who is wrong, going by the sub forum in general, i would guess many vocal people take a social dawarnism stance here.

its an accurate description of the general philosophy that many people here promote, and probably believe in, from what you just said, its not too far from how you see things.

Now, im not making the value judgement on it, im just stating that the observations, opinions, and ideas presented here, are consistent with a social darwinism philosophy, or with a belief in the overall economy being more important than how the individual reacts with it.

Yea, basically the general philosophy of a bltc player, going by this sub forum, is about using the market to get as much as they can from everyone else. It is seen as a given that the bltc is pvp, and those that dont know how to play should be exploited for the benefit of those that do.

another philosophy that you see commonly, that essentially that the people exist to serve the economy, not vice versa, many things are in place for the benefit of economic whole, at the cost of the economic individual, and this is rightfully so.
you see it with many justifications on a macro level, that on a mico level, suck. Like creating huge item sinks for in demand items, that have players needing to amass something like 7200 of an item, or 10000 of another item. Or designs that make the TP the primary method of obtaining anything, for the purpose of a gold sink, etc. Essentially the players purpose is just to grease the economic machines, with little concern to how such changes interact with the individual.

Its a very different philosophy than other parts of the game. But how they really think about the situation, it makes sense the economy is designed that way, because thats what they believe in, acceptable losses, simulations, each person really is just a point of data in a model, so why would they be overlly concerned about how the individual feels? At the end of the day the fact that peoples behavior patterns are a certain way means they are happy right? They still consume?

Early on(first few months), some friends and i were discussing the economy/tp, and how it feels unsatisfying, unrewarding etc. And being the one who had most interacted with the TP, and analyzed it, I was like, its really well designed from a technical standpoint, but it is not a good experience interacting with it.

Ayrilana.1396:

phys.7689:

It makes sense from an economic surplus point of view, it doesnt make sense game design wise, its also a temporary solution. It creates a spiky solution.

A temporary solution? According to whom? You? They knew full well what they were doing when they increase the number of scraps to 3 per bolt and 100 bolts per thread.

phys.7689:

from a gameplay perspective, and micro perspective, its unreasonable to expect players to gather 300 silks a day, for more days, than any other crafting discipline/item.
Also the means of aquisition is not direct. You just have to kill a lot of high level stuff. The only way to realistically do this, and it not be super grindy, or annoying is to do something else for gold, and buy it from the TP.

It’s generally more efficient to farm the gold rather than the item itself. Just look at the T6 fine materials for legendaries. Players just earn gold at a far greater rate than acquiring specific items. It’s also only about 6.5 gold to craft a thread. There are many ways players can obtain this much gold in under an hour.

Malganis.7468:

We understand supply and demand and the need to remove the vast quantities of silk from the trading post.

However, what we are complaining about is why it requires 100 bolts of silk to make damask, while the leather and metal equivalents only require 50.

I suggest that you look at the overall impact that this would have across the board if it was dropped to 50.

its temporary, because as people get their ascended, or opt out the price of silk/etc slowly goes back down.

the thing that kept mithril/wood, above vendor price is mostly precursor crafting, essentially silk would need a renewable sink in high demand, eventually people get their ascended and just stop using vast amounts of silk.

the fact that its more effecient to farm gold than farm an item, is imo a flaw in the economy. but thats another story.

no one can tell the overall impact if it was dropped to 50, people can make educated guesses, but the reality is you dont really know till you go live. I think there are a great many items in this economy that are not performing to expectations.

Being that this is the case, i think its more important to make it satisfying from a game play perspective.

i think the key difference between you and other players, is you grind more easily, many people feel 6.5 gold a day is excessive, and many people dont want to give so much of their play sessions gains away(for like a month), just to get best in slot.

keep in mind 6.5 gold while grinding gold is 1-2 hours of gold farming for the average player. if they like things like jump puzzles, fractals, exploration, wvw, hard dungeon paths, story dungeons, guild missions, they will make substantially less.

Ayrilana.1396:

You’d be surprised about how many people don’t know supply and demand which is why I always bring it up when the issue points towards not knowing about it.

There was a huge surplus of silk prior to last December to the point that people just sold them to vendors. Anet decided to give some value to these and increase the requirement for bolts and for the T7 bolt. Demand is high because silk is used in everything.

Unlike ore, you cannot reliable farm cloth. You can farm enemies for drops that may contain scraps but that’s not going to be the same as ore which you could just farm nodes. Leather is only used for three classes and has little use outside of that. Ore would be the same if it wasn’t use for legendary/ascended weapons, special event items (e.g. back items), and so on.

This is why I brought up the demand and supply. You were making an argument and it seemed you had not thought though into exactly why prices are where they are. There will always be an imbalance between the three crafts because or what their components are used for and how to obtain such components.

As far as T6 fine materials, I’m getting them just fine. You have to think about where they drop, and what they drop from, so you can get them reliably. You can go to Orr and farm events with everyone there as the risen all drop bags that contain the chance for those components. I will mention that just farming the gold to buy them off the TP is usually less time consuming as gold is far easier to obtain.

Now if you’re wondering if this was a mistake, and they didn’t realize the impact of raising the silk requirements that much, refer to the following post from an Anet employee who manages the economy.

John Smith.4610:

We design in some volatility and some stability (silk wasn’t an accident ).

It was intentional. Due to the high demand for cloth, I suggest you think of the overall impact of decreasing the requirements for for creating damask. You’ll increase demand and raise prices of the lowered tiered cloth as a result.

The last thing that I want to bring up is that it is considerably cheaper to craft damask by putting in buy orders for all of the components. Check out gw2spidy and watch the graph to see what the current trend of prices are as they fluctuate by the time of day and where in the week we are.

Here’s another explanation from a poster who is well versed in the economics of this game.

Wanze.8410:

The ratios of cloth/metal/leather being used by each armor profession have been there before ascended crafting got introduced. I understand that light armor classes feel shafted by its current implementation but for about a year they were able to craft light rare and exotic armor for a way cheaper price than heavy armor users could craft theirs because silk/gossamer was way cheaper than mithril/orichalcum.

Cutting the bolt of silk requirements from 100 to 50 wouldnt neccessarily fix this dilemma. It would shortly cut 4g from the overall price but that would result in more people crafting bolts of damask, which would add demand for Wool, Cotton and Linen as well, which all would rise in price. Right now people are willing to 15g per bolt of damask, and they will be willing to pay 15g per bolt of damask after you half the costs for silk. The added value would come from the t2-4 mats.
I think the requirement of 100 bolts of silk (compared to 50 mithril ingots for example) is more a testament of the ratio, new silk is introduced to the economy compared to t2-4 cloth.
Apart from ascended crafting, silk has very little sinks, while mithril has because it is used by 5 professions and also has a huge sink by crafting rare weapons to forge into precursors.

It makes sense from an economic surplus point of view, it doesnt make sense game design wise, its also a temporary solution. It creates a spiky solution.

from a gameplay perspective, and micro perspective, its unreasonable to expect players to gather 300 silks a day, for more days, than any other crafting discipline/item.
Also the means of aquisition is not direct. You just have to kill a lot of high level stuff. The only way to realistically do this, and it not be super grindy, or annoying is to do something else for gold, and buy it from the TP.

While this solution makes sense when you look at it from a macro economic standpoint, it really sucks in the trenches.

Personally i think many people would rather have worthless silk, than have 300 silk per day, 7200 per armor piece required for best in slot, with a cost of 2-3silver

Ayrilana.1396:

DarkSpirit.7046:

Obtena.7952:

Zoxea.9564:

Crafting precursor? In 2013 price of precursor is broken and Colin Johnsson said to: No problem, crafting precusor or others is coming for 2013 because the price is totally broken must be other solutions to obtain a precursor. And where is crafting precursor in 2013? Nowhere. Now we are in 2014 the game is extremely broken. It’s time to repair and keep is word.

He didn’t say price was broken IIRC. If he did, I would love to see it. Frankly, I think they take a different strategy. Instead of making precursors craftable, they introduced Ascended weapons.

Ascended weapons confused the hell out of everyone. How many times have you heard people asking if they should build a legendary or an ascended weapon?

Why does it have to be one or the other? Why can’t ascended weapons naturally progress to a legendary weapon? Instead of exotic precursors it would have made more sense to have ascended precursors. And many people actually want that:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Suggestion-Making-Ascended-Weapons-into-Precursors/first#post4209204

Really? I don’t seem to recall many threads with people asking whether they should craft an ascended or legendary.

ascended and legendaries are competitive in terms of resources.
first of all, you have to remember that ascended requires max level crafting, which in general uses a lot of T5/T6 mats, tons of orichalcum/ancient wood, a great amounts of karma(obsidian shards), laurels(which can be used for t6mats) ectoplasms, once you hit 400+ and tons of gold
many gifts often use many lower teir metals.
for example bolt uses
250 gossamer
250 darksteel
250 mithril
500 orichalcum
250 platinum

the list goes on, but yes, legendary and ascended/crafting 500 use many of the same resources. If you were going for a legendary weapon, it would probably be better to ignore ascended weapons completely, as a legendary weapon gives all stats, and ascended weapons just give one, and they use many of the same resources.

Wanze.8410:

tekfan.3179:

wall of text

The ratios of cloth/metal/leather being used by each armor profession have been there before ascended crafting got introduced. I understand that light armor classes feel shafted by its current implementation but for about a year they were able to craft light rare and exotic armor for a way cheaper price than heavy armor users could craft theirs because silk/gossamer was way cheaper than mithril/orichalcum.

Cutting the bolt of silk requirements from 100 to 50 wouldnt neccessarily fix this dilemma. It would shortly cut 4g from the overall price but that would result in more people crafting bolts of damask, which would add demand for Wool, Cotton and Linen as well, which all would rise in price. Right now people are willing to 15g per bolt of damask, and they will be willing to pay 15g per bolt of damask after you half the costs for silk. The added value would come from the t2-4 mats.
I think the requirement of 100 bolts of silk (compared to 50 mithril ingots for example) is more a testament of the ratio, new silk is introduced to the economy compared to t2-4 cloth.
Apart from ascended crafting, silk has very little sinks, while mithril has because it is used by 5 professions and also has a huge sink by crafting rare weapons to forge into precursors.

this is not neccessarily true, part of the cost is represented will be effected by increased supply, as well as the difficulty of not buying it. With only 50 silks, some would opt out of buying it. 50 silks in a day is annoying but doable, 100 is totally different. The decrease in demand, and increase in supply, would like likely lower the cost

its possible that decreasing the cost, could incentivize new buyers, but its pretty hard to predict that reliably before it happens.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Thinking on this, they really should have gone all out when it came to the trait rework, not a mess like this. The traits SHOULD have unlocked as you play through the game normally depending on what you do and how you play your class (meaning most class traits require specific actions), starting when you unlocked traits for the first time (level 30 in this case). It would turn from the mess it is now into a case of pure brilliance as how you played would equal what you got. Below is an example using just the traits in the Thief Shadow Arts traitline and the Engineer Tools traitline to illustrate how I would make it work.

Shadow Arts
I Master of Deception: Use Deception type skills 30 times.
II Slowed Pulse: Suffer the Bleeding condition 100 times.
III Shadow Protector: Give 100 allies stealth.
IV Shadow’s Embrace: Use Hide in Shadows 20 times.
V Infusion of Shadow: Use stealth 100 times.
VI Cloaked in Shadow: Use Blinding Powder 30 times while in combat.
VII Power Shots: Kill 100 enemies with a Shortbow or Harpoon Gun.
VIII Hidden Thief: Steal while in Stealth 100 times.
IX Leeching Venoms: Use 200 charges of Skelk Venom.
X Patience: Spend a total of 3000 seconds in stealth (meaning over all stealth uses)
XI Shadow’s Rejuvenation: Use Shadow Refuge 200 times.
XII Venomous Aura: Use Venom skills 1000 times.
XIII Resilience of Shadows: Get hit in stealth 1000 times.

Tools
I Always Prepared: Use Med Kit ability Drop Bandages 50 times.
II Static Discharge: Use offensive tool belt skills 30 times.
III Speedy Gadgets: Use gadget skills 50 times.
IV Kit Refinement: Equip an offensive kit 30 times.
V Deployable Turrets: Use 50 turrets (meaning actually throw them out, not their ability after they’re out)
VI Speedy Kits: Equip a kit 100 times.
VII Packaged Stimulants: Use the Med Kit skills 1000 times.
VIII Power Wrench: Use Tool Kit skills 1000 times.
IX Scope: Get 200 criticals with the Pistol and Rifle.
X Leg Mods: Spend 10000 seconds total under chill, cripple, or immobilized statuses (not at the same time, of course)
XI Armor Mods: Get hit over a million times.
XII Adrenal Implant: Dodge 1000 times.
XIII Gadgeteer: Use Gadget skills 500 times.

Things like that. It would be basic for the Adepts, Masters would get a little more specific and tedious, and Grandmaster…hoo boy, that can require some serious work.

I think this is good for the basic traits, but i think specific tasks etc can be good for higher teir stuff.
as you say, for the masters and GMs it would be kind of tedius and grindy.
As charachters reach i would shift it to more specific goal oriented events, it could still be related to the class, but it would be like something your try to do, not grind out.

i think that overall, the grindy method of unlocking should be gold/skill point method, the other method should be more entertaining and goal oriented.

How effecient is the currency exchange, in terms of risk assumed by anet.
essentially, if the currencies were real, would anet be losing money or passing fluctuations in value to the exchangees, remaining mostly untouched, and gaining value/breaking even through the spread.

How does it compare in this respect(this type of effeciency) to a direct exchange system with a tax. (like the TP kinda) from the perspective of anet as a currency exchanger.

what are the advantages and disadvantages of each style over all, from the perpective of a currency exchanger

MatthewMedina.5419:

Hey guys – I can tell you that we have certainly looked at this issue, even as far back as Lost Shores, and it did come down to technical and logistical problems we are, at this time, unable to solve. Jia Shen is correct that our instances do not use separate maps from the open world, so if those maps change because of a larger world story event, like Lion’s Arch being laid to waste for example, then the story instances that take place in those maps will reflect whatever the current state of the world is.

We do have some limited ability to do phased instancing of certain elements within those maps, but not the kind of sweeping large scale terrain changes that result from the major changes we want to make to the world.

Solving this for our existing instances was not as simple as reserving a custom map for every instance, either, as that would entail a significant number of new maps to be generated, which would all need to be downloaded and stored in the DAT. There are hundreds of instances for the personal story, so even compressed that many custom instance maps would add dozens of GB to your DAT. So at the very least, we determined that we couldn’t accomplish this retroactively, but we are certainly still discussing all the implications of this limitation, and how it impacts your experience with our storytelling.

Even though there are hundreds of instances in personal story, they arent 100 different instances, we only have 25 maps, and essentially all of them are happening in the same general time frame.
so you would need 25 maps (if there is a ps in everystory) for essentially all lore that took place on release, and most of season 1.

though honestly you would only need copies for majorly changed areas.

Also for the future, you could start essentially cutting maps for the decided upon zone. that we can actually walk, for story/lore related zones.

but if thats too big a deal, you can sacrifice consistency, for all but the major ones.
I think old lions arch deserves a place in the dats. And it would be good to be able to reference it from a lore point of view, when you are showing the past.

Gregori.5807:

Here is a breakdown of the number of skill points you can earn in game up to level 80 if you do every skill challenge in the game. In comparison, how many skill points you need to have to purchase all traits and every utility except heals and racial.

~Total skill points needed to unlock all utilities that are NOT. racial or healing: 134

~Total skill points needed to purchase all traits:
Adept: 60
Master: 100
Grandmaster: 100
Grandmaster final: 100
Total: 360

~Skill points available from skill challenges:
Below level 30: 79
Between 30 and 60: 43
Between 60 and 80: 39
in WvW: 13
Total: 174

~Skill points available from the leveling process (to 80): 75. Add skill challenges to the 75: 249.

~Amount of skill points needed above and beyond number you earn:
111.
(my wife did the work, I formatted it)

did you guys also count elites?

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

mtpelion.4562:

phys.7689:

if you define rewards as something newly created in the game world sure, but i think its clear that he is talking about gaining items of value. to which one can say a tp player of moderate success will be able to obtain (should they choose) a lot more items of value in the same time frame, as a player of similar success level in another playtype.

Right, because the TP guy isn’t creating anything, he’s simply trading things. Creating things has to be limited in order to keep the game economy in check. Trading things can’t be limited without harming the economy as a whole.

We keep getting this same circle, if we are talking about changing the game, to balance the value gained through different activities, then the old rule,
PVE creates gold/items that flood the market, is not necessarily going to be the case.
for example:

• Competitive dungeon runs, pay 20 silver to pot to enter, top 5% keep split the winnings (dungeons graded on deaths/speed/non respawning enemies killed)
• Competitive jumping puzzle challenges, pay in, do 4 specific jumping puzzles in a row as fast as you can
• mercenary system, and associated dynamic events. people can pay players to do certain tasks, if they succeed, player gets the dynamic event specific rewards, mercs get paid. (think like resource caravans that give you ascended account bound items if you succeed, and some other goodies)
• who wants to be a millionaire, lore edition, winner take all lore trivia games, with titles, and an entrance fee. (it probably wouldnt be presented as a game show, but thats essentially what it is)
• then there is the simple answer, more account bound rewards reward/systems

the world can grow and change, just because right now, pve rewards are tailored a certain way doesnt mean it has to be that way, or that it will always be that way.

I would have no problem with this being implemented as it creates no gold or other rewards but only shifts it from player to player and basically awards players for their skill.

But once again you bury your suggestion on the 3rd page of a thread that has to do with the tp, which is completely unrelated and off topic.

see, these are possible solutions to a problem that the TP has more potential to gain value, however, one can only have/test/evaluate/refine solutions, if one has identified and defined the problem. The OP believes the difference in value gained through TP play is a problem, but many here, do not.

I am sure there are many other ways/ideas angles that can solve these issues, but first one has to identify what the problem statement is
http://www.ceptara.com/blog/how-to-write-problem-statement

its an engineering concept also linked to the scientific method.

Zaxares.5419:

Only insofar as more people buying gems with gold drives up the exchange rate, which then makes it more appealing for people like me to buy gems with cash and sell them to you guys. In that sense, it may increase the amount of people buying gems with cash, but it’s STILL the people paying cash that are actually paying ANet’s wages and expenses. The people buying gems with gold are still not contributing anything extra to ANet’s coffers.

On an unrelated note, the exchange rate hit 100 gems for 9.6 gold yesterday. Sooooo close! That Emperor title is almost within reach now!

ehh i could explain it, but i did that for pages the other day. I ll just say it really isnt in anets best interest to over incentivize direct gem buying, it servers a purpose, but they profit the most when the whole circle is going on, and they are selling the most items by any means.
essentially increasing the overall demand for gems is more important than increasing the demand for gems bought directly from anet.

if you want an explanation pm me, if think im crazy, ignore me.

mtpelion.4562:

phys.7689:

if you define rewards as something newly created in the game world sure, but i think its clear that he is talking about gaining items of value. to which one can say a tp player of moderate success will be able to obtain (should they choose) a lot more items of value in the same time frame, as a player of similar success level in another playtype.

Right, because the TP guy isn’t creating anything, he’s simply trading things. Creating things has to be limited in order to keep the game economy in check. Trading things can’t be limited without harming the economy as a whole.

We keep getting this same circle, if we are talking about changing the game, to balance the value gained through different activities, then the old rule,
PVE creates gold/items that flood the market, is not necessarily going to be the case.
for example:

• Competitive dungeon runs, pay 20 silver to pot to enter, top 5% keep split the winnings (dungeons graded on deaths/speed/non respawning enemies killed)
• Competitive jumping puzzle challenges, pay in, do 4 specific jumping puzzles in a row as fast as you can
• mercenary system, and associated dynamic events. people can pay players to do certain tasks, if they succeed, player gets the dynamic event specific rewards, mercs get paid. (think like resource caravans that give you ascended account bound items if you succeed, and some other goodies)
• who wants to be a millionaire, lore edition, winner take all lore trivia games, with titles, and an entrance fee. (it probably wouldnt be presented as a game show, but thats essentially what it is)
• then there is the simple answer, more account bound rewards reward/systems

the world can grow and change, just because right now, pve rewards are tailored a certain way doesnt mean it has to be that way, or that it will always be that way.

see problem here is, nothing really special about paying with cash. anet makes more money when people pay with gold because items created through gem->gold->gem->store item cost more money for the same items.

mtpelion.4562:

ProtoGunner.4953:

While TP-flipping is a way to play the game, I just have one problem: that playing the actual game is far far far far far far far far far far far far far far far less rewarding. I mean the comparison is kittening ridiculous. 1 hour of TP can net you hundreds of gold while 1 hour of actual gameplay (a dungeon, doing a couple of world bosses) nets you maybe 2 gold.

Just make the game more rewarding, maybe with just stuff, TP flippers cannot get. Like more skins that you CAN’T BUY IN THE GODkitten TP LIKE A kittenING LEGENDARY!!!!

I’d argue that the TP provides no rewards whatsoever. It allows you to trade your rewards with other players for their rewards.

if you define rewards as something newly created in the game world sure, but i think its clear that he is talking about gaining items of value. to which one can say a tp player of moderate success will be able to obtain (should they choose) a lot more items of value in the same time frame, as a player of similar success level in another playtype.

mtpelion.4562:

phys.7689:

mtpelion.4562:

phys.7689:

griffinrook has unique rewards?

Achievement points.

achievement points are ok, but i dont think they feel particularly rewarding for most people. I would say achievement points are more about keeping track of what you have and havent done in the game, rather than rewarding you.

How is that any different from a unique skin though? They both reflect a virtual recognition of virtual accomplishment. Sure, AP may not be the showiest form of reward, but those chests pay off nicely when you add them up.

well, the fact that it isnt showy, is actually a factor. It is a game where they wanted people to chase cosmetics, I mean i think you could put titles on the list of rewards, but achievement points dont really enhance your charachters visuals/options/convenience/give money.
Even counting the points from achievements, jumping puzzles category gives less points than tradesman which is generally linked to gold earning potential(fashion is mostly gold as well). They also have more titles

But ehh, i really dont think achievement points should be a main factor in reward design, they really are just markers of what you have done, and not done. And while the chests dont suck, no one achievement or achievement group is that big a factor to achieving chests.

mtpelion.4562:

phys.7689:

griffinrook has unique rewards?

Achievement points.

achievement points are ok, but i dont think they feel particularly rewarding for most people. I would say achievement points are more about keeping track of what you have and havent done in the game, rather than rewarding you.

hmm is that a revival? or just a last stand?

hmm they seem to start things and then abandon them for long periods.
i mean guild missions was supposed to be an expandable system
dynamic events, havent really evolved much (in fact most of the best ones we have access to were here on ship)
haven seen a dungeon in a long time
personal story/branching paths died

i mean some things always get left behind, but it does seem to be a pattern

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

Wanze.8410:

Lothirieth.3408:

Nah, flipping isn’t the problem. The reward structure in which so many things cost vast amounts of money instead of being able to do challenging content to earn a drop is the problem.

Thats because the TP is the most challenging content.

How would we measure the tp challenge versus say fractals 50? Also at what profit level does the TP become challenging? What about tp versus spvp? jumping puzzles? i find griffinrook run chest harder to do than tp merchanting (with bomb)

All that content you mentioned gives out unique rewards that are not available on the TP.

griffinrook has unique rewards?

anyway the question is more that, how does that compare difficulty wise.
what level of mastery amounts to what type of earnings (in general)

like, for the sake of getting numbers how would you rate earning 20 gold per day on the TP if you have say 200 gold in terms of challenge.
What else would you say is difficult?

Wanze.8410:

Lothirieth.3408:

Nah, flipping isn’t the problem. The reward structure in which so many things cost vast amounts of money instead of being able to do challenging content to earn a drop is the problem.

Thats because the TP is the most challenging content.

How would we measure the tp challenge versus say fractals 50? Also at what profit level does the TP become challenging? What about tp versus spvp? jumping puzzles? i find griffinrook run chest harder to do than tp merchanting (with bomb)

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

Behellagh.1468:

phys you are overestimating how long it takes to fill or sell a stack of orders even on high volume items. Sure you can interleave multiple items so there is always a stack ready to be posted but then you aren’t doing anything else other than camp on the TP. What works when trying to flip one item isn’t necessarily scalable across many.

Also a great many items that have a high volume, aren’t profitable at all flipping. Gathered or farmed materials that have a high supply volume are all losses when you take the 15% fee/tax into account. And those that have a reasonable spread are crafted mats which cost more to make than the cost of raw materials so it’s more profitable if you gathered the raw mats yourself to sell them rather than craft and sell the finish good. If nobody is selling, flippers don’t have a supply of them that they can get stacks of “quickly” to turn around.

ahh, you are mistaking me, the purpose of that post wasnt to say people really make that type of money, it was to show that the time spent actually inputing data into the TP isnt the cap/limit or main factor for deciding how much you can make.

As the other poster said, the main limit on profits is velocity of sales, available capital, and the amount of market ineffeciency.

Point being you can make a lot of money with simple buy/sell orders without having to update them more than once a day. Sure, you can make more money by actively playing the market, adapting to whats going on in that instant, etc. but thats the difference from making 5% a day and making 50% a day.

notice, if you have 1000 gold making 5% a day in 20 minutes(of actual work inputting buy/sell orders), thats way more than any one else can make in 20 minutes of actual work. (and more than most players make in a day)

You are picking cherries here.
I can also say that the guy, who got a precursor drop, only had to kill 1 mob for it which took a couple of seconds. And he didnt have to invest 1000g before killing that mob.

well i was speaking of average trades, most times, your gonna aim for at least 8% per flip.
to make 5% isnt really being daring as far as flipping goes. and there is a lot of items with that type of spread.
just glancing at items less than or equal to 1 silver with a margin of 10 or greater, i see a lot, and some of them are often traded items. I wont mention the names in case some peoples have a market for them.

and thats on the cheap low profit per click side, honestly as you get more money, you would look for greater cost items which give you more per click (if your goal is to make the most money with one set of trades per day)
Anyhow, the point is, tp earning is primarily effected by velocity, start up capital, and what ineffeciencies you can find, whereas farming is generally pretty directly correlated to time invested.

and im not talking about the master flippers, or the guys who spend all day on the TP here, your average safe, low risk flipper can make 5% a day very easily. Now im not saying that is nothing, i have very little desire to play the TP unless i have a direct goal at the time, and i dont really enjoy it even when im doing it (well picking up gold is nice, but ehhh) spending 30 minutes each day to manage 1000 gold to get 50 more gold, when i have no need for it?
ehhh i wouldnt even bother, so apparently 30 min is too long for me, but problem is, when it comes time to obtain something of value(that is related to the TP), a guy with the TP skillset/playstyle is going to get anything that is of value faster than anyone with a similar level of expertise in any other playtype. Not only that, but people who can earn that type of money will be the ones most high end goods will be marketed to (until they have had their fill)

Behellagh.1468:

phys you are overestimating how long it takes to fill or sell a stack of orders even on high volume items. Sure you can interleave multiple items so there is always a stack ready to be posted but then you aren’t doing anything else other than camp on the TP. What works when trying to flip one item isn’t necessarily scalable across many.

Also a great many items that have a high volume, aren’t profitable at all flipping. Gathered or farmed materials that have a high supply volume are all losses when you take the 15% fee/tax into account. And those that have a reasonable spread are crafted mats which cost more to make than the cost of raw materials so it’s more profitable if you gathered the raw mats yourself to sell them rather than craft and sell the finish good. If nobody is selling, flippers don’t have a supply of them that they can get stacks of “quickly” to turn around.

ahh, you are mistaking me, the purpose of that post wasnt to say people really make that type of money, it was to show that the time spent actually inputing data into the TP isnt the cap/limit or main factor for deciding how much you can make.

As the other poster said, the main limit on profits is velocity of sales, available capital, and the amount of market ineffeciency.

Point being you can make a lot of money with simple buy/sell orders without having to update them more than once a day. Sure, you can make more money by actively playing the market, adapting to whats going on in that instant, etc. but thats the difference from making 5% a day and making 50% a day.

notice, if you have 1000 gold making 5% a day in 20 minutes(of actual work inputting buy/sell orders), thats way more than any one else can make in 20 minutes of actual work. (and more than most players make in a day)

Smooth Penguin.5294:

phys.7689:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

phys.7689:

you are once again confusing monetary value, with money. Monetary value is before an item is sold, it is the agreed upon worth of said item right now. Once i sell it, i dont have an item of monetary value, i have actual money.

for example the monetary value of gold(real life), right now, in US dollars is 1294$ per oz. Tommorow it may be different, even if i dont sell that gold, it currently as of this moment has a monetary value of 1294$, that value is not realized until i sell it, but that is its current value.

If someone gives me an oz of gold for a painting, i can say i got the an item with a monetary value of 1294$, i cant say i got 1294$ until i sell that gold, but i did in fact gain value.

i also can say i was paid
and i can say that that customer gave me something of value, specifically monetary value.

you can think of monetary value as the expected price, or the agreed upon price for an item.

Monetary Value: Noun – the property of having material worth (often indicated by the amount of money something would bring if sold)

Gold (real life) has monetary value. If you buy an ounce of Gold, you still have something of monetary value. I think this is where Nerelith is making the mistake in her arguments. Gold in game is not the same as Gold in real life, even though the same word is being used. So if A = Gold (real life) and B = money, then A = B.

Your painting in and of itself has no value. If you find someone willing to pay for it, then it has monetary value. The person who bought the painting now has something they value, but there is no monetary value until he’s able to find another person to buy it off of him.

The service Anet sells, the “entertainment” has monetary value to them and NCSoft. When they sell you their service or entertainment, you receive in game credits that have no monetary value. You paid for the privilege of accessing exclusive content.

from an economic standpoint there is no difference between gold and a painting other than the fact people have a much more concrete idea of what someone is willing to pay for it from moment to moment.

once again you are confusing monetary value with actual money. The monetary value is the expected price based on what people are in general willing to pay for it. Right now, my house has a monetary value, based on its condition age and location. a Paul cezanne painting has a current monetary value of 279 million (although at the time of sale it was 259 million)

the key here is that things have an expected value, how much people are willing to pay for said item. Thats really what monetary value is, it is how much people are willing to pay for an item.

If my painting is being sold every day multiple times for 1000 dollars, one would say it has a monetary value of 1000 dollars. i gold in gw2 is being traded 1000s of times per day at 14 cents per 1 gold, one can say gold currently has a monetary value of 14 cents.

people are willing to pay 14 cents for gold right now based on how much arenanet has sold gold yesterday,today and the day before(whenever), even moment to moment they recalculate its value.
http://www.gw2spidy.com/gem
That is about as accurate a monetary value as you can get.

I could say the shoe I’m wearing has monetary value if someone is willing to buy it. But you have to find someone willing to pay for my shoe. This is different from real life Gold, which you will find no shortage of people willing to buy it.

Gold in game is a virtual currency that has no monetary value. No one buys Gold with real money, except the ones breaking the ToS when dealing with RMT companies. In game, you can get Gold in exchange for Gems, neither of which has monetary value. Gems, which are in-game credits, have no worth, as per the User Agreement.

buying gems to turn it into gold is effectively buying gold.

much like if i have to turn my american dollars into yen to buy a new anime, i effectively bought the anime.

or if i have to buy 1500 microsoft points to buy a game. No the game was not given to me for free, i bought it,
no the game is not worthless because it sold for microsoft points, it has a monetary value through microsoft points.

Sube Dai.8496:

Because warriors are boring? And unless you are doing dungeons with hardcore speed runners it doesn’t matter if you kill things 0.5s quicker?

And because you wvw, or pvp?

But I think your real point is that warriors are OP in pve which is true. ANet should do something about that…

warriors are boring is my best answer as well.

Gaebriel.3754:

Maybe I have a supreme tolerance for soppy romance, since I don’t find Kas and Jory annoying or drawn out in the slightest. For me, the weakest character from the companions is Braham. Admittedly that’s mostly because he’s young and has a weird emo hairstyle. If we have a Norn with us, I’d rather have a gruff stereotypical one with a beard that turns into a bear at frequent intervals!

braham is really bad as well, but he doesnt bother me much because he rarely speaks, and when he does, its generally short.

i wish belinda had gotten possessed by the tree and killed kasmeer.
that woulda had some interesting results.

they are pretty hammy and annoying in general. Similarly people tend to get annoyed with any couple they have to spend a lot of time with, and the mostly tell each other how much they like each other/miss each other and love each other constantly.

this is why they even have an idiom,
http://english-idiom-usage.blogspot.com/2013/01/idiom-9-get-room.html

i do understand some people love that type of thing, which is why i suggest those types of exchanges be something you opt into, you can decide if your specific charachter likes snooping on other peoples business.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

phys.7689:

you are once again confusing monetary value, with money. Monetary value is before an item is sold, it is the agreed upon worth of said item right now. Once i sell it, i dont have an item of monetary value, i have actual money.

for example the monetary value of gold(real life), right now, in US dollars is 1294$ per oz. Tommorow it may be different, even if i dont sell that gold, it currently as of this moment has a monetary value of 1294$, that value is not realized until i sell it, but that is its current value.

If someone gives me an oz of gold for a painting, i can say i got the an item with a monetary value of 1294$, i cant say i got 1294$ until i sell that gold, but i did in fact gain value.

i also can say i was paid
and i can say that that customer gave me something of value, specifically monetary value.

you can think of monetary value as the expected price, or the agreed upon price for an item.

Monetary Value: Noun – the property of having material worth (often indicated by the amount of money something would bring if sold)

Gold (real life) has monetary value. If you buy an ounce of Gold, you still have something of monetary value. I think this is where Nerelith is making the mistake in her arguments. Gold in game is not the same as Gold in real life, even though the same word is being used. So if A = Gold (real life) and B = money, then A = B.

Your painting in and of itself has no value. If you find someone willing to pay for it, then it has monetary value. The person who bought the painting now has something they value, but there is no monetary value until he’s able to find another person to buy it off of him.

The service Anet sells, the “entertainment” has monetary value to them and NCSoft. When they sell you their service or entertainment, you receive in game credits that have no monetary value. You paid for the privilege of accessing exclusive content.

from an economic standpoint there is no difference between gold and a painting other than the fact people have a much more concrete idea of what someone is willing to pay for it from moment to moment.

once again you are confusing monetary value with actual money. The monetary value is the expected price based on what people are in general willing to pay for it. Right now, my house has a monetary value, based on its condition age and location. a Paul cezanne painting has a current monetary value of 279 million (although at the time of sale it was 259 million)

the key here is that things have an expected value, how much people are willing to pay for said item. Thats really what monetary value is, it is how much people are willing to pay for an item.

If my painting is being sold every day multiple times for 1000 dollars, one would say it has a monetary value of 1000 dollars. i gold in gw2 is being traded 1000s of times per day at 14 cents per 1 gold, one can say gold currently has a monetary value of 14 cents.

people are willing to pay 14 cents for gold right now based on how much arenanet has sold gold yesterday,today and the day before(whenever), even moment to moment they recalculate its value.
http://www.gw2spidy.com/gem
That is about as accurate a monetary value as you can get.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

phys.7689:

mtpelion.4562:

Nerelith.7360:

Not true. I disagree.

It is true, which means you disagree with reality. Or are you making a statement “not true” and then disagreeing with yourself and thus agreeing with me?

ArenaNet has monetized gems. They offer the gem to gold exchange and gem store in order to incentivize players to purchase gems. They only make money when players buy gems.

Any other statement to the contrary by you is blatantly wrong.

Of course anet only gets cash when they get cash
monetary value is not cash

what they get from players who sell gold is something of monetary value, what they get from people who buy gems is cash.

you can pay some one in things other than money, generally these things have monetary value.

lets say i go to a different country, and the people there trade me silver in exchange for my drawings. Silver has monetary value, it is not money. However it cannot be debated that they have paid me. I have not given them drawings for free, i gave it to them for silver.

Notice silver is not cash. I can trade it for cash, but it is not cash. I dont actually make cash, until i go to the silver exchange and change my silver for cash. However, i gained monetary value the moment i traded my drawings for silver.

based on how much silver i was able to charge for my drawings, i can then figure out the monetary value of my drawings in cash, even though i at no point sold a drawing for cash.
i can figure out how much cash, my drawings are worth, which is the monetary value of my drawings, So yes, for anyone asking me, i make money from selling drawings, I could say i make money from selling silver, but that is only giving them a tiny piece of the picture. The actual economic force driving my business is the value of my drawings, because how many drawings i can get silver for, determines how much money i make.

Monetary Value: Noun – the property of having material worth (often indicated by the amount of money something would bring if sold)

Your paintings would fall in this category if you sold it. There is no monetary value for the buyer once he owns it, until he can find someone willing to pay for it.

Gems have no monetary value. Neither does Gold. Anet’s service, which is what they truly sell you, has monetary value (to Anet) up until the point where they receive the cash from the player. After the money is exchanged, the Gems you receive have 0 value to them.

you are once again confusing monetary value, with money. Monetary value is before an item is sold, it is the agreed upon worth of said item right now. Once i sell it, i dont have an item of monetary value, i have actual money.

for example the monetary value of gold(real life), right now, in US dollars is 1294$ per oz. Tommorow it may be different, even if i dont sell that gold, it currently as of this moment has a monetary value of 1294$, that value is not realized until i sell it, but that is its current value.

If someone gives me an oz of gold for a painting, i can say i got the an item with a monetary value of 1294$, i cant say i got 1294$ until i sell that gold, but i did in fact gain value.

i also can say i was paid
and i can say that that customer gave me something of value, specifically monetary value.

you can think of monetary value as the expected price, or the agreed upon price for an item.

mtpelion.4562:

Nerelith.7360:

Not true. I disagree.

It is true, which means you disagree with reality. Or are you making a statement “not true” and then disagreeing with yourself and thus agreeing with me?

ArenaNet has monetized gems. They offer the gem to gold exchange and gem store in order to incentivize players to purchase gems. They only make money when players buy gems.

Any other statement to the contrary by you is blatantly wrong.

Of course anet only gets cash when they get cash
monetary value is not cash

what they get from players who sell gold is something of monetary value, what they get from people who buy gems is cash.

you can pay some one in things other than money, generally these things have monetary value.

lets say i go to a different country, and the people there trade me silver in exchange for my drawings. Silver has monetary value, it is not money. However it cannot be debated that they have paid me. I have not given them drawings for free, i gave it to them for silver.

Notice silver is not cash. I can trade it for cash, but it is not cash. I dont actually make cash, until i go to the silver exchange and change my silver for cash. However, i gained monetary value the moment i traded my drawings for silver.

based on how much silver i was able to charge for my drawings, i can then figure out the monetary value of my drawings in cash, even though i at no point sold a drawing for cash.
i can figure out how much cash, my drawings are worth, which is the monetary value of my drawings, So yes, for anyone asking me, i make money from selling drawings, I could say i make money from selling silver, but that is only giving them a tiny piece of the picture. The actual economic force driving my business is the value of my drawings, because how many drawings i can get silver for, determines how much money i make.

eithinan.9841:

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

lets say the items buy order is 1 silver, making a 250 buy order and making a 250 sell order takes about, 40 seconds? if you are slow?
thats 40 seconds of actual work that will yield 25 silver in 40 seconds. that beats any farm i know of in terms of work-profit ratio, with virtually no risk. (before buy order is filled, you have zero risk, after you post sell, your risk is only 5% of total costs, and but going in at 10% when the spread is 15%, you almost ensure that risk will never be realized)

Or,
Now you could say hmmm thats too much work, let me pick one item, that takes less time to post because its a single item, lets say its now 25 seconds of TP work to buy and sell it. and get 45 silver for 25 seconds of work

how about you go back to the 250 stacks, with an item with a 4 silver swing and make 10 gold per stack in 40 seconds.

So yeah. profit per time invested, even if you go with lazy man, i want most money with least effort one flip per item/stack per day, you still get paid way more per time invested than any farm method in the game.

The problem with your example is that its not spammable and consistent. Sure, you might be able to make 50s within 40sec of work but that doesnt mean that you can do that every 40 seconds, 90 times in an hour.

Lol you realize all these word problems he throws out there are simply to deflect and troll. I stopped reading his post when he made up a bunch of new made up numbers.

these numbers werent made up, they were pulled from gw2spidy and reduced(to give the opposing view point the benefit of the doubt). because you dont know at what point in the price range you are when just look at prices in one instance.

Your first mistake is to stop learning based on your on preconcieved notions, the point is to illustrate mathematically what something really is, rather than assume what you think it is going to be.

you make huge errors based on vague incomplete understandings when you say things like
he spends a lot of time setting up things on the TP.
what does a lot mean?
how does a lot compare relative to something else?

not quantifying what alot means, and comparing it to something else that is not quantified, and then making a big statement to the effect that they are roughly the same.

that is not science, or mathematics, or understanding, or useful models/tools.

so what you are saying is, you like to say something, with no numbers, no logic, no true comparison, without showing where you got your information, and some how believe that is more solid, and real than actual mathematics based on numbers that are current and recorded, with illustration of the math/logic/reasoning behind the statements?

but hey, reason isnt for everybody, rock on.

it kinda makes sense, makes em look like their hair is on fire, i guess its more for the evil flame dudes, honestly a fun hair style though

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Nerelith.7360:

~~~ snip ~~~

Repeating a fallacy does not make it correct. Please realize that you don’t understand how the Gem Exchange works. We, of the BLTC forums, have been talking about it since day one. Anet has also explained what it is and how it works, thus the reason why we understand what we’re talking about.

The Gem Exchange is a pot. In the pot is Gems and Gold deposited before the game went live. The exchange rate is a formula based on the rations of Gems and Gold. When a player exchanges their Gems or Gold, they get the opposite in return. The pot levels rise and fall, and with it the exchange rates. When the player population is doing too many exchanges of the same type, the formula makes makes it more expensive, thus reducing the incentive to continue. At the same time, the incentive to do the opposite increases by the same rate. The higher the exchange rate goes for Gold -> Gems, that’s proof that there’s a lot more Gold than there are Gems in the balance. Basically the scales are tipped heavily towards one direction.

Going on, Anet/NCSoft profits off of players who continue to make microtransaction purchases. To do this, they pay for Gems with real money. THIS is where the money comes from. This money is put back into the company, as well as pay out dividends to shareholders. Players who just trade in-game Gold for Gems do not add revenue to the company, because they didn’t pay for any microtransaction. They got their Gems for free. This is an intended mechanic. This allows non-paying customers to enjoy the same things as us paying customers. Non-paying customers exchange their time and hard work (which of course has no monetary value) for Gems. Paying customers exchange their real money for Gems (still no monetary value, as per the User Agreement).

the state of the pot does not determine the profit of the system. Its also unlikely the pot is directly based on the gold to gem ratio in the pot, its more likely it is based on the volume of gold compared to the volume of gems traded each day + a buffer that assures that anet is taking minimal risk per day. That determines the rate, then based on that exchange rate decided by anet, anet takes a 34% spread, which they can also change if they feel like it.

keep in mind that the pot will most likely generate excess gold no matter what, since anet keeps some of the gold in the pot for each exchange. this is why the ratio of gold/gems in the pot is not likely the key factor.

Also realize, that if this method was not more profitable and effecient, they would have used a direct trading system, whereby the user directly sells his gems to other players, which would guarantee without a shadow of a doubt, that anet would never take a loss on any trade, and would make money via the fees.

JS has already said that the exchange system they put in place is more effecient and a better system, which for a company means over all, it is more profitable, and better meets their requirements.

you need to understand what the purpose of the exchange system is, it is to allow players to exchange game effort to gems and gems with cash , with anet being a middleman.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Nerelith.7360:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

bloodletting wolf.2837:

I didn’t know that Anet employees could pay bills or buy groceries with in game gold. Who knew.

Unfortunately, there are some who don’t understand how the in-game system works. Because they perceive Gold to have “value”, they incorrectly assume that you can now use this “value” to pay employee salaries, overhead, dividends, etc. At this point, here’s how they see the system:

A = Gold (a virtual currency)
B = Real money (self explanatory)

A = B

Of course this thinking is completely inaccurate.

Just because you misunderstand the concept of economic value, and continue repeating it, doesn’t make it so.

in game gold has economic value. Anet sells it, Anet makes a profit from it’s sale. Anet makes Money from selling gold exactly as Gold sellers make money selling gold.

It seems because they sell you gems for your cash, and then you use gems to buy gold, that you believe falsely that you have not payed real cash for gold.

It is because you have paid Anet real world cash for their in game gold that they sold to you, that they can pay their employees salaries.

yes, Anet buying and selling gold gives in game gold value, which can be then used to pay salaries, and wages, and profits used to disburse to stockholders… just like any other Gold seller makes money from selling Anet’s in game gold against the TOS, Anet also makes Money from selling Gold, except they do it by first selling you gems, which you then use to buy gold.

It seems you still have a hard time understanding this. I hope that you understand it better.

/sigh

I really thought you’d understand the concepts we’ve been explaining all these pages. Anet doesn’t sell Gold. Anet sells Gems. Once in your possession, these Gems have no monetary value. And just because you can exchange Gems for Gold, that doesn’t mean Gold has monetary value as well. They have “personal value”.

And by the way, you cannot take an illegal activity such as selling Gold for real money, and then use such an example to support your arguments.

Edit – I forgot to remind you that when a player exchanges their Gold -> Gems, they are not paying anyone’s salary. The huge flaw here is that you believe Gold = real money. In the real world, that applies fine, as Gold is precious metal that acts as a buffer to inflation. In the game, Anet doesn’t make a single penny when a player exchanges Gold -> Gems. I repeated it twice here so you understand it’s importance. Paying customers like me who makes microtransaction sales is what drives the current revenue stream for NCSoft.

the question is not of the monetary value to you, the user, its a question of monetary value to anet.
anet can make cash off of your gold. thats why it has monetary value.

It is not relevant what I specifically can make, from the perspective of what has value to anet the company.

The fact that i may be in a country where i cant trade silver for US dollars, does not mean silver isnt has no value in US dollars.

To be clear you are mistaking monetary value, with money. No one is saying you can pay your employees with monetary value directly, however you can and do as a company seek to gain things of monetary value, so that you can sell these things of monetary value to pay your employees.

a peice of gold irl is not money, however, if i go to the store, and give them a peice of gold, have i not paid them for the item? did they give me an item for free? are they losing money by giving me the food?

as long as they can trade that gold for money, they are coming out ahead, and are being paid, and i am increasing their profits.

the filter of a gem does not change this, other than assuring that i only get store credit for the item, and cannot myself profit. However be certain that arenanet can and does, pay bills with peoples desire to trade in game time for the monetary value gem store items, and peoples desire to pay real world cash for those other players in game time.

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

lets say the items buy order is 1 silver, making a 250 buy order and making a 250 sell order takes about, 40 seconds? if you are slow?
thats 40 seconds of actual work that will yield 25 silver in 40 seconds. that beats any farm i know of in terms of work-profit ratio, with virtually no risk. (before buy order is filled, you have zero risk, after you post sell, your risk is only 5% of total costs, and but going in at 10% when the spread is 15%, you almost ensure that risk will never be realized)

Or,
Now you could say hmmm thats too much work, let me pick one item, that takes less time to post because its a single item, lets say its now 25 seconds of TP work to buy and sell it. and get 45 silver for 25 seconds of work

how about you go back to the 250 stacks, with an item with a 4 silver swing and make 10 gold per stack in 40 seconds.

So yeah. profit per time invested, even if you go with lazy man, i want most money with least effort one flip per item/stack per day, you still get paid way more per time invested than any farm method in the game.

The problem with your example is that its not spammable and consistent. Sure, you might be able to make 50s within 40sec of work but that doesnt mean that you can do that every 40 seconds, 90 times in an hour.

the point is that if one wants to say that trading is capped by actual time the merchant spends placing buy/sell orders, then we have to look at what that really means, as far as i can see, the cap goes pretty high just with those 3 items, the range was 22 gold an hour to 1140.

essentially i would say the cap due directly to how much time the TP trader spends pressing buttons, is not the thing that limits his earnings in 99% of all cases. It will mostly be decided by the velocity of turn over, and which opportunities he finds.
essentially, no one is hitting the cap on earning on the TP due actual time directly invested listing buy and sell orders.

IDave the Rave.2163:

Wyrden.4713:

ThiBash.5634:

So if you want to wear the adventurer’s goggles and mask together, you cannot just put both on your face? You need a helmet padding and strap too…

…could someone please explain the logic behind this to me? I was raised to believe 1+1=2, but apparently it’s 1+1+padding+strap=2?

I don’t get it…

maybe to hold them together

and there is a way to make 2+2=5 w a certain maths formula (my friend was laughin and showed me some weird vid w a wall of maths of wich i got headache and closed it asap)

As Wyrden says, it could be to hold them together. ThiBash your argument is like saying “Why won’t these two bits of paper stick to each other without glue? 1+1=2, not 1+1+glue=2.”

Is there any way you can provide proof of this 2+2=5 thing Wyrden? Most of the time when I see people post “proof” of things such as that 1=2 it comes down to people using shortcuts they were taught in school without bothering to actually understand what they currently have, so they end up trying to divide things by 0.

its essentially a trick, that takes advantage of a lot of formulas to obscure that they are dividing by zero, which is not actually zero but people often evaluate it that way. 0/0 is any number.

eithinan.9841:

Now you are making up numbers for him. That is a recurring theme in your posts.

refreshing bids is a means of maximizing profits, but even if you dont, as long as your bid is within the 1 day buy sell possibilities, you will make money.

constantly refreshing and turning over more often is the difference between make 5% profit per day, and making 40% profit per day.
but if you are starting out with 1k gold, even the 5% will make you 50 gold in a day. If you are gangsta and flip at high velocity you can make 400.

so really, its not that you are doing no work, but the point is even on the low end, with low velocity lazy profits, once you have enough invested, you can make more money than someone else with even less work.

In fact, if your goal is not so much to get a higher return on investment, and more to get a higher profit per time spent in the TP, the richer you are the better.

i mean break down the math, if an item has a 15% profit margin on buy to sell within one days time, and you try to get in and out at 10% (these are not crazy numbers, and are not impossible to find)

lets say the items buy order is 1 silver, making a 250 buy order and making a 250 sell order takes about, 40 seconds? if you are slow?
thats 40 seconds of actual work that will yield 25 silver in 40 seconds. that beats any farm i know of in terms of work-profit ratio, with virtually no risk. (before buy order is filled, you have zero risk, after you post sell, your risk is only 5% of total costs, and but going in at 10% when the spread is 15%, you almost ensure that risk will never be realized)

Or,
Now you could say hmmm thats too much work, let me pick one item, that takes less time to post because its a single item, lets say its now 25 seconds of TP work to buy and sell it. and get 45 silver for 25 seconds of work

how about you go back to the 250 stacks, with an item with a 4 silver swing and make 10 gold per stack in 40 seconds.

So yeah. profit per time invested, even if you go with lazy man, i want most money with least effort one flip per item/stack per day, you still get paid way more per time invested than any farm method in the game.

bloodletting wolf.2837:

The gems aren’t created out of thin air. I buy gems – I trade them for gold out of a pool. When you trade gold for gems it comes out of a pool. That is the reason that the price of gems-gold has gone up since launch – more people are putting gold into the exchange than buying gems with cash. Don’t fool yourself into thinking you are a paying customer if you don’t buy gems.

if they have a strong well managed exchange system, then they will continue to make money no matter what the exchange rate is. As long as they have consistent flow in and out, the comparative gold/gems ratio in the pool is irrelevant. keep in mind they hold about 34% in every exchange. With an good algorithm, and predictable exchanges per day, (not to mention anet decides the rate)anet will never be the one paying for price fluctuations, the gold/gem users will be.

Even if somehow, anet messes up and loses 34%(keep in mind even airport exchanges are generally around 25%) the value some how, they would just be breaking even on the exchange.
which still is profitable, because they were able to monetize the gold selling customer.

monetary value – the property of having material worth (often indicated by the amount of money something would bring if sold)monetary value – the property of having material worth (often indicated by the amount of money something would bring if sold); “the fluctuating monetary value of gold and silver”; “he puts a high price on his services”; “he couldn’t calculate the cost of the collection”

Obtena.7952:

I think the effect of more information would simply to arm the more savvy marketeers and enable them to make even more gold. True that it would likely drive prices of materials in certain directions faster but for the average guy, they are not more likely to be able to gain wealth any easier on the TP with more info than is already available.

the TP savy people are already doing that stuff.

Things like, how long an item will take to sell at a current price, a rating of if the value asked is low or high based on the lows and highs throughout the day.

the reason people mostly dont bother is because they have no idea how long it takes, what the general value is etc.

For crafted items i would put the gw2spidy like info that shows if it costs more to make or buy, perhaps that info should only be available if you have unlocked that recipe.

Now it wouldnt eliminate people from selling cheap if thats what they want, but i think it would reduce uninformed selling/buying behavior.

Essentially they would make the choice with information, instead of figuring, i dont know what the value is so i may as well just go with whatever.

Ayrilana.1396:

Two things:

• We should be able to join an active mega server map by IP.
• Where we guest should influence which mega server we go to before our home server is taken into consideration.

on the second one, the devs said that your guested server is the one that is counted

Behellagh.1468:

I think that’s a side effect of telling people that the exchange contains a finite amount of gems and they aren’t created when you buy them with gold.

Buying with cash creates them.
Using them in the Gem Shop destroys them.
The game was launched with a finite amount in the Exchange (more likely a fixed amount per account added to the exchange when the account is opened).

pretty sure he was misinterpreting what the poster was saying, the poster was refering specifically to the gems in the exchange, and that anet was the middleman for two people exchanging gold and gems, which is basically accurate, and essentially the description and the way any currency exchange system works.

Behellagh.1468:

You can’t stop flippers unless you seriously curtail some aspect of the TP which will impact everyone. Examples.

- Limit number of bids you can have. But this can impact salvagers, forgers and crafters. Likely to cause shortages of buyers on the TP in relation to supply flow which could cause prices to fall to vendor + 1c.

- Account bind bought items. Well you better really want that item, or that number of items then. Implementation problem to denote which items came from the TP and which were gathered/rewarded. Remember NPC vendor add coin to the global economy while the TP only removes some while transferring the rest.

Flipping is a direct result of players willing to leave money “on the table” when selling an item as well as their unwillingness to trade time for acquiring an item at a better price. When multiplied by the thousands of transactions done daily it can amount to a fair chunk of change.

A flipper “farms” the player base, using them as his suppliers as well as his consumers, preying on their unwillingness to wait or that any savings from bidding and selling themselves is “meaningless”, to them. In practice there is no way an individual player can be rewarded as much “new” wealth from doing activities in the game Versus being paid to be a smart middleman in the overall game economy.

If you can earn an exceptional amount of money standing at a corner with a tip jar quoting the classics, why is that looked down on? (Yes that’s a reference to The Man with the Twisted Lip).

you dont really need to nerf flipping directly

you can increase the amount of information of use for people selling and buying, and you can also increase the amount of items of value players can get directly

information would lower the amount of money left on the floor, and increasing the amount of value you can obtain through other means of play will make people less focused on value gained through TP play, when they can gain value in other ways.

you can also introduce other means of wealth transference, tied to tasks, competitive bonuses, job orders, tournaments, knowledge, community created events, etc.

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

Bread.7516:

phys.7689:

Bread.7516:

phys.7689:

but this thread is not really about inflation? Did he even mention inflation?

Mat prices, crafting, new players – part of OP’s issues.
Inflation and economics, it’s all connected, who would’ve guessed?!

Otherwise the argument to the concepts of good/bad is a worse topic with no end.

connected is not the same thing.
Essentially his premise is that it is hard for players to be competitive in terms of achieving goals without playing the TP, because its gains are way above other methods of play for a similar time frame.

Inflation is about prices generally going up, if it was caused by inflation, a new or regular player wouldnt have that much issues, because the value of everything would be going up similarly.

inflation most directly effects savings, not earnings versus what you can do with them.

We all know not all jobs pay the same. Why is there a need to be competitive (rate of income between jobs) when all the needs are easily obtained (BiS gear)?

You know, what I’ve never seen? someone defining (or just trying) what a good/bad economy (macro/micro aims) then basing their arguments off that.

BiS gear( how easy it is, is subjective) takes considerably more time for someone to do who doesnt play the TP than someone who does.
first you have to level from 1-500 in crafting, and then you have to buy various materials or hunt them, hunting them actually takes way longer. What may would take me, back when i was playing the TP 4-6 hours? over the course of 1-2 days takes a non tp players 10-16 hours over the course of 2-3 weeks? (and this is after getting to 500 in crafting)

Both, traders and farmers, are capped in their acquisition pace of BiS gear, though, at the same cap, which is Laurels.

i did forget to include laurels, but it doesnt really change the amount of hours played, and its also a one time only cost, (all my light armor users can use the same recipe for beserkers for example.
but lets say that sets the minimum at 5 days instead of 2 days, the cost in hours of play is still 3-5 versus 10-16 (to be clear i was speaking of one piece of crafted ascended armor)
(because i can do dailies while messing around on the TP, or while farming gold to buy the acsended crafted peices.)

but while traders hit the cap from laurels, farmers/dungeoners/etc cap is more determined by how long it takes them to earn 70-100 gold

mtpelion.4562:

phys.7689:

ok, ignoring companies, the point still stands, many individuals can gain more value than merchants can irl through their different abilities. basketball players, inventors, artists, musicians, actors, designers, resource gatherers, transporters, etc. there are many examples of different people gaining more value on an individual basis than merchanting provides.

both traders and non traders get value, traders get it in gold, others get it in items. (and then sometimes turn it into gold)
for example, finding a precursor is gaining value, but it is not necesarrily gaining gold. Getting a ascended box is gaining value, but it is not gaining gold. Getting exotic dungeon armor is gaining value, but it is not gaining gold. finding a rich orichalcum node is gaining value, but is not necessarily gaining gold.

in many real world scenarios, the merchant does not make as much as the producer of the goods.

In terms of value/time, the merchant almost always makes more than the laborer. Luxury markets are an exception, as well as many abstract providers (painters, entertainers, etc.) now that we’ve invented mass media allowing them to quickly distribute their work with very little cost to virtually every human being alive (whereas before a sculptor or painter had to spend hours crafting a single piece which was then sold to a single buyer and a musician had to perform the song many times).

With regard to the Trading Post, we are always talking about currency accrual since every transaction requires currency to happen. The merchant is going to make more value/time than the gatherer/crafter will because the merchant isn’t gathering or crafting, they are efficiently matching up buyers and sellers and collecting a premium for this act.

laborer is only one small subset of the availble jobs.
a man who owns a gold mine is neither a laborer or a merchant, though he can work his own land.
a man who owns and operates a transportation service, is not considered a laborer
a man who own properties and rents space is not considered a merchant or a laborer.

as far as merchants matching buyers and sellers having to be the main money, this is only the case in the current system. Many systems do not have the middleman as being the most profitable facet of business.
in many other systems the producer of the good/service gets more value on average than the merchant/middleman/flipper.
Though i will say, some things were a lot more difficult to produce.

currency is not required for every transaction.
it is not required for transforming items (crafting)
it is not required for obtaining items (hunting/gathering)
it is not even required for trading or giving items (direct trades which i have done with guildies/friends on numerous occaisions)

But see we are getting caught up in debates about what is currently the case again, what things are right now, is interesting, and valuable information, but it doesnt really resolve the question.

Should merchanting have the highest potential of gaining value (not talking about currency alone), when compared with other playstyles in the game?
if so why, if no why not.

just in principle, not as things are.

mtpelion.4562:

phys.7689:

my question wasnt about accruing currency, it was about gaining value, also, merchants, are not always the most profitable forms of business. In fact the two most profitable companies last year were apple an exon mobile, who in our version of the world would be a large gatherer, and a crafter.

Profitability is the ratio between revenue and expenses. It is not the same thing as currency accrual rate (though currency accrual is certainly a part of revenue). In Tyria, Apple and Exxon Mobile would not reflect a gatherer or a crafter, but would rather be a large, organized group of gatherers and crafters who are performing specific sets of actions as part of a large profit generating venture. They also have a large force dedicated to trading the commodities and products (almost no large business exists without touching several vertical supply chain stages). We don’t actually have any cartels like this (at least not publicly recognized ones) in Tyria, so we don’t have a good reflection of these real world corporations in game. In meta speak, the end results are achieved but through the individual actions of gatherers and crafters.

That aside, you are talking about accruing currency as that is the “value” that traders gain (gold).

ok, ignoring companies, the point still stands, many individuals can gain more value than merchants can irl through their different abilities. basketball players, inventors, artists, musicians, actors, designers, resource gatherers, transporters, etc. there are many examples of different people gaining more value on an individual basis than merchanting provides.

both traders and non traders get value, traders get it in gold, others get it in items. (and then sometimes turn it into gold)
for example, finding a precursor is gaining value, but it is not necesarrily gaining gold. Getting a ascended box is gaining value, but it is not gaining gold. Getting exotic dungeon armor is gaining value, but it is not gaining gold. finding a rich orichalcum node is gaining value, but is not necessarily gaining gold.

in many real world scenarios, the merchant does not make as much as the producer of the goods.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Two factors enable flipping:

1. The GW2 economy is based around the TP. Of all the ways to earn gold directly, only dungeons provide amounts that aren’t measured in small to very small increments. The only way to get gold directly from other players is through path-selling or similar endeavors, or trusting enough to trade via mail. It’s no secret that most drops are salvaged and the products either used or TP’d. Rares and exotics (when not also salvaged) provide better revenue if sold on the TP. Further, the TP provides the game’s major gold sink.
2. Player ignorance and/or impatience results in selling low and buying high.

ANet is not going to move the game’s economy away from the TP at this late date. And honestly, do you really think that ignorance and/or impatience are going to vanish anytime soon?

Sure, ANet could regulate flipping by imposing draconian restrictions. However, player ideas of what should provide the best access to gold are just that, player ideas. ANet designed the game so that the best access to gold is through the TP.

IMO Hard coded regulation of the TP isnt the answer to the problem, the best solutions would deal with overall design issues.

As you say, with the system designed as it currently is, the TP is almost always guaranteed to be the best source of gains, unless every body becomes a merchant type player.

Bread.7516:

phys.7689:

Bread.7516:

phys.7689:

but this thread is not really about inflation? Did he even mention inflation?

Mat prices, crafting, new players – part of OP’s issues.
Inflation and economics, it’s all connected, who would’ve guessed?!

Otherwise the argument to the concepts of good/bad is a worse topic with no end.

connected is not the same thing.
Essentially his premise is that it is hard for players to be competitive in terms of achieving goals without playing the TP, because its gains are way above other methods of play for a similar time frame.

Inflation is about prices generally going up, if it was caused by inflation, a new or regular player wouldnt have that much issues, because the value of everything would be going up similarly.

inflation most directly effects savings, not earnings versus what you can do with them.

We all know not all jobs pay the same. Why is there a need to be competitive (rate of income between jobs) when all the needs are easily obtained (BiS gear)?

You know, what I’ve never seen? someone defining (or just trying) what a good/bad economy (macro/micro aims) then basing their arguments off that.

BiS gear( how easy it is, is subjective) takes considerably more time for someone to do who doesnt play the TP than someone who does.
first you have to level from 1-500 in crafting, and then you have to buy various materials or hunt them, hunting them actually takes way longer. What may would take me, back when i was playing the TP 4-6 hours? over the course of 1-2 days takes a non tp players 10-16 hours over the course of 2-3 weeks? (and this is after getting to 500 in crafting)

mtpelion.4562:

phys.7689:

So you say yes, ok, why? without saying that its because merchant profits should be artificially limited, because that is not required to be the case.

It is required to be the case if your goal is to NOT have traders be the most efficient at accruing currency. My goal is to have the economy be efficient, so I said that yes, traders should have better currency accrual rates than laborers.

In any system that contains currency, those who trade will accrue it at a faster rate than those who don’t trade and are paid it for labor. If you raise wages for labor, you exponentially raise currency accrual rates for traders because the traders get their currency from laborers.

The only way to avoid having trading be the most efficient method of accruing currency is to artificially impose restrictions on trading that are detrimental to the entire economy.

my question wasnt about accruing currency, it was about gaining value, also, merchants, are not always the most profitable forms of business. In fact the two most profitable companies last year were apple an exon mobile, who in our version of the world would be a large gatherer, and a crafter.