Curse

Hakaido · Jul 25, 2005, 05:32 PM // 17:32

I don't care what the so called 'reasoning' is...

The economy in this game obviously wasn't thought out. Or it was poorly implimented. The reason it hasn't been fixed? Who knows... too lazy, don't care... or figure the game is so good people will keep playing it.. screwed up economy and all.

Just me... but in these types of games it seems like the normal process (and it's fun) that you start of low and useless... ya work at buildiing your character up so you can fight mobs with better and better drops...
Then when you actually do find that rare or uncommon item or weapon you can take it to town and expect a good selling price for it. A price that makes you feel like the hard work has a payoff.

Really is a bit of a 'FUN-killer' when you finally kill that level 28 boss after a hard fought battle.... and as your prize .... gold armor.... sweeT! ok so I expert salvage it with my salvage kit that cost $400.... woohooo A rune!
I should be able to take that town now and sell it for...... oh.... a whole 25 gold..... that makes sense... woopeee....... and your left sitting there thinking .... so 'whats the point'

Kershent · Jul 25, 2005, 05:41 PM // 17:41

Noble, don't just read the last couple posts before posting.

Hakaido, the problem isn't that it's poorly impleneted or bugged. It's actually very well implemented. Traders are extremely smart. The problem is that it was never explained, so nobody knows that they should hold onto steel until it's selling for more than 40g. The last system, when it was at 40g, it would stay at 40g. Now, in 12 hours, it could be up to 160g. Things fluctuate, and people havn't realized that yet, so they're selling when the trader is giving them pocket change, so the prices don't rise.

Saerden · Jul 25, 2005, 06:05 PM // 18:05

So your saying that offering 100g for a shard is well thought out... i say its a bug.

If this is intentional, the person designing it needs an award ... for staying alive despite unbearable stupidity.

Lets find prove.

Has anyone seen prices of ca. 10% of the price the trader is selling for, but ABOVE min value? Most rare materials are either 15, 30, or 100 gold each. I think shards are 100g too.

Please post the lowest buy/sell ratio you can find, but only if the sell price is higher then the min value (if your not sure, try selling to a merchant. its 25 for runes, thats why sup mesmer runes go for 25 to the trader... )

Lorelei · Jul 25, 2005, 06:06 PM // 18:06

They should allow us to bargain with the trader

Xonic · Jul 25, 2005, 06:30 PM // 18:30

My guess is, ANet is trying tp prevent trader farming. By setting the sell price way high, it prevents people from buying from trader when it's cheap, and sell back when they offer good price and make profit out of it.

imagine the bot army farming traders....

Kershent · Jul 25, 2005, 06:48 PM // 18:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saerden

So your saying that offering 100g for a shard is well thought out... i say its a bug.

If this is intentional, the person designing it needs an award ... for staying alive despite unbearable stupidity.

Lets find prove.

Has anyone seen prices of ca. 10% of the price the trader is selling for, but ABOVE min value? Most rare materials are either 15, 30, or 100 gold each. I think shards are 100g too.

Please post the lowest buy/sell ratio you can find, but only if the sell price is higher then the min value (if your not sure, try selling to a merchant. its 25 for runes, thats why sup mesmer runes go for 25 to the trader... )

No, Saerden, I never said that was well thought out. If you'd take a look at one of my previous posts (as in actually reading the thread before joining the discussion), you'll see that I tried to answer the ecto/shard price oddities.

And the buy/sell ratio is irrelevant. The trader's buy price and sell price are on two different supply/demand relationships. If nobody is selling to him, he ups his buy price. If nobody is buying from him, he drops is sell price. Vice versa is true for both.

The problem here is that nobody realizes this, so they see something for 15g, i.e. linen, and sell because they don't realize the price is low because people are selling to him. They think nobody's buying, so nobody will ever buy, so he's going to keep the price there. Because of that confusion, everyone sells to him for 15g, so he never has to raise his buy price to get more linen.

Christ people, I've explained this several times in this thread. READ FIRST!

EDIT: This is to prevent a double-post. Just thought I'd let everyone know that I sent Anet an e-mail, asking if they could look into a possible botter controlling trade. Gaile replied (I was shocked to get a reply from the big woman herself), saying that she talked to one of the programmers, and that this was a real possibility, and that they'd look into it.

noblepaladin · Jul 27, 2005, 02:39 AM // 02:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kershent

No, Saerden, I never said that was well thought out. If you'd
take a look at one of my previous posts (as in actually reading the thread
before joining the discussion), you'll see that I tried to answer the
ecto/shard price oddities.

And the buy/sell ratio is irrelevant. The trader's buy price and sell price are
on two different supply/demand relationships. If nobody is selling to him, he
ups his buy price. If nobody is buying from him, he drops is sell price. Vice
versa is true for both.

The problem here is that nobody realizes this, so they see something for 15g,
i.e. linen, and sell because they don't realize the price is low because people
are selling to him. They think nobody's buying, so nobody will ever buy, so
he's going to keep the price there. Because of that confusion, everyone sells
to him for 15g, so he never has to raise his buy price to get more linen.

Christ people, I've explained this several times in this thread. READ FIRST!

EDIT: This is to prevent a double-post. Just thought I'd let everyone know that
I sent Anet an e-mail, asking if they could look into a possible botter
controlling trade. Gaile replied (I was shocked to get a reply from the big
woman herself), saying that she talked to one of the programmers, and that this
was a real possibility, and that they'd look into it.

I read the entire thread and while your explainations may somewhat work for certain highly traded materials like steel, it doesn't hold up with ectos and shards. Do you honestly believe people are selling them to the trader at constant rates to keep the sell prices at 100g (even though they can very easily sell it at 10000% higher within a few seconds by typing WTS, since the demand for Ecto is incredible now since the trader doesn't carry it)? I seriously doubt there are players who go to UW and FoW regularly and accumlate those items and sell for that low, maybe an occasional noob once a day. I don't recall ever seeing Deldrimor Steel drop and I don't think it can be salvaged... and I doubt anybody would waste time finding the crafter and paying him alot of gold/materials to make a item and sell it for 50g.

Also, assuming that there is a constant supply of stupid people who keep selling Ecto and Shards at 100g to keep the sell price there and the explaination for why there is never any on the market is that a bot keeps buying it all up, then under that logic, since demand is infinite, the price of ectos and shards should have at some point went over 100k and we would have saw some on the market at a unbuyable price (there was a hour where superior absorption was 100k+ in the current patch, so the same should be happening for ectos and shards). The price should be high enough that no bots can afford to keep them off the market by now.

Also, the idea that there are two different supply and demand models for buying and selling is also flawed. Take a look at tanned hide and cloth, they often go over 100g (the max i've seen is about 250g) for 10 pieces selling price. However, given that these materials are very common, there is a constant supply of people selling them to the traders (like you said, most people are not smart enough to wait for good prices), so the price should keep going down until it hits the floor of 30 for 10 pieces, the minimum sell price. Yet for some reason there is a huge variance in the prices of these materials over time. People don't just stop selling and wait til the prices go up to 100+ before they sell again.

If there are actually 2 supply and demand relations for the buy and sell price, then it's pretty easy to see that the only equilibrium point is when players stop buying from the traders and players stop selling to the traders completely, and only deal amongst each other. Because as long as anyone uys, the buying price will go up and as long as anybody sells the selling price goes down. Sadly, this seems to be the case for Ectos and Shards.

Kershent · Jul 27, 2005, 03:29 AM // 03:29

You underestimate laziness, Noble. People with money want to get rid of things in their inventory, and just dump what they have into the trader for pocket change. That's why the trader's buy prices are messed up.

Okay, I shouldn't say "supply/demand," but the very basic understanding of a supply/demand relationship, trader needs X so pays more for it, or trader has too much of X so sells it for less to get rid of a surplus, adequately describes how the traders work now.

As for Ectos/shards not going for 100k, that's one flaw that I found in my theory, but keep in mind that prices might not rise instantly. Bringing up the superior vigor thing is irrelevent, since that was long before the economy suddely changed so much.

Take Linen for example. While it was being bought for 15g, it was selling for 1.4 plat. Nobody bought linen, and the price dropped to about 400 gold. Nobody sold linen to him (this process takes a while because of lazies), and the buy price rose to 90g.

Ectos/shards may very well be rising continuously. It would take someone very diligent to prove it, though, since if the botter theory holds up, they're only on the market for seconds at a time. Maybe I'll try to keep an eye on it.

EternalTempest · Jul 27, 2005, 03:45 AM // 03:45

From what I've seen, the traders where more supply and demand before the patch.

I think Arena.net is artficially trying to control the flow of money but cutting out one the ways that botters and repeat (as in same zone for the same item) farmers have gotten money in the past. I still think that supply and demand factor's in but also think there is something else effecting it.

Also, how "limited" in scope is the supply and demand based. Just that town, a kingdom, the whole world or the whole universe (all three servers). Think of the ways the could be linked all 3 servers of just Crystal desert. Another though, it would not surprise me that favor of the gods has an effect on it to.

It someway it could be a true supply and demand but how (assuming there linked) Europe buying habbits effect American's and Korea's trader prices.

Kershent · Jul 27, 2005, 04:24 AM // 04:24

ET, the traders are divided by counties, nothing more. Prices are the same in every city, but if you look in the international district, there aren't traders, because there's no international economy.