Curse

Drakron · Jul 18, 2005, 02:13 AM // 02:13

The safeguard is aceptable trader prices.

A few moments ago silver dye was being sold by the trader about 800 gp and guess what was his buying price?

1 gp.

The profit margin of traders is huge in many cases being well over 100%, players are simply NOT going to sell something for a fraction of its market price because the trader is the one setting the market price.

The profit margin of the trader must be correct so it never be over 25%, in Arena Net was thinking that with making materials almost worthless to farm they forget anyone that farms for materials have no problem with using the trade channel to sell over the merchant, he makes a profit and worst it drives the prices higher.

generik · Jul 18, 2005, 02:22 AM // 02:22

Why can't ANET just *EAT* the ebay problem and be done with it, it will always happen no matter what, stop punishing legitimate users!

The more nerfs they put in, the more attractive buying gold becomes. How hard is it to drill that idea into their heads!

PhineasToke · Jul 18, 2005, 02:24 AM // 02:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Drakron

The safeguard is aceptable trader prices.

A few moments ago silver dye was being sold by the trader about 800 gp and guess what was his buying price?

1 gp.

The profit margin of traders is huge in many cases being well over 100%, players are simply NOT going to sell something for a fraction of its market price because the trader is the one setting the market price.

The profit margin of the trader must be correct so it never be over 25%, in Arena Net was thinking that with making materials almost worthless to farm they forget anyone that farms for materials have no problem with using the trade channel to sell over the merchant, he makes a profit and worst it drives the prices higher.

At this very moment, 10 fur squares from Healy in Ascalon is 7236 (thats right) and Menth will give you 108 for one.

Did someone at AN get drunk while "fixing" the economy?

Drakron · Jul 18, 2005, 02:30 AM // 02:30

I rather they fixed the ecomony that give us two maps we will finish in less that a week.

viet · Jul 18, 2005, 02:36 AM // 02:36

$10
for 100k ebay. u can be modest by not farming at all & jus doin the quests. i'l use that $10 to pay my cable & phone bill. or buy my gf an ice cream!
i bought the best armor for my monk, some dyes, eternal shield, chaos ax, dragon swords & stil hav 6k left over. she's in thunderhead atm.

back when fur was rare. & charr hides wer goin for rediculous $, that was fun!
it'd be kind of funny if u go to a shop in ascalon & want to by an expert salvage kit & u hear "sorry kid, we'r out atm." then u hav to go to another town or trade channel.

i bought the xpansion for warcraft3. boy was i disapointed! if GWs wants to stay on top, they better do whats best & not giv into 12yr olds whining.

Kishin · Jul 18, 2005, 05:37 AM // 05:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by PhineasToke

At this very moment, 10 fur squares from Healy in Ascalon is 7236 (thats right) and Menth will give you 108 for one.

Did someone at AN get drunk while "fixing" the economy?

Well, there's another problem there, and that there needs to be more reliable sources of Fur Squares other than killing 50 charr and turning their hides in to the collector in Ascalon. Much as I enjoy killing the entire tar pit from the top of its rim with a long range bow to help my warrior buddies, its not really what I'd like to be doing with GW time.

PhineasToke · Jul 18, 2005, 03:03 PM // 15:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kishin

Well, there's another problem there, and that there needs to be more reliable sources of Fur Squares other than killing 50 charr and turning their hides in to the collector in Ascalon. Much as I enjoy killing the entire tar pit from the top of its rim with a long range bow to help my warrior buddies, its not really what I'd like to be doing with GW time.

Great point, and I use the pit specifically to get the hides not only for fur for my armor but for others. And the gold infusion was always welcome. But now, I might as well go back up into the desert and sit on a dune since that is as productive as pharming.

Algren Cole · Jul 18, 2005, 03:10 PM // 15:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nasenbluten

and where are you ascended? rofl, Gl trying to play the game through and not farming and get some decent armor.

I have the 15K armor jacket(because I like the shorter vest on the druids armor)....other than that I'm at the point in the game where I don't need gold for anything. Am I going to waste my time farming so I can afford fissure armor...absolutely not. it's pointless armor it doesn't increase my stats....so I really don't need it. I am still perplexed as to what all of you need gold for...

mrchu · Jul 18, 2005, 03:26 PM // 15:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Algren Cole

I just see the fissure armor for what it truly is...and not as a "present from anet to those who farm"....It's not a present guys, it has no AC upgrade over the 1.5k armor because it was never intended to be put into the game. The 15K armor and the 100K armor are gold sinks...and a SUPER effective way to make YOU tell arenanet where you are farming....You over farm your spots, this triggers a reaction on their server...they nerf where you are farming....and after you've wasted 100's of hours of your time farming spots and looking for new farming spots you go and spend the 1 million gold on your fissure armor...effectively deleting hundreds of plats from the economy....you've accomplished nothing....great you look different.

Absolutely spot on! Well done.

noblepaladin · Jul 18, 2005, 04:10 PM // 16:10

There are alot of people saying what do you need that armor for? Well basically I finished the entire game in less than a month and I have nothing to do. I want a game with more entertainment value and I don't mind grinding for that 15k armor. However, that fissure armor is completely out of reach, but the 15k set is a fun goal to shoot for. Now that I have the 15k armor (it didn't actually take that long to get), I the next natural thing to go for is fissure, however I am not even going to try to get it since it's so expensive. They need to have goals that have varying difficulty levels (15k set, which in turn is worth about 100k if you take into account for the resources is not too bad of a goal, it can be attained in 20 hours with a modest 5k/hour farming rate, which would keep me busy and having fun for a week or two). However, the Fissure set costs like 2-3 million gold, which translates to 20-30 times longer, an unrealistic goal to shoot for. They need something in the middle, maybe some cool accessories that you can have, maybe making it possible to craft cool looking weapons/offhand items that have the same stats as the trader items but making it quite expensive. The trader long sword looks like crap, maybe they can make some new unique artwork for a craftable (but expensive) sword that looks a little better, but keep the best like the fellblade only droppable for the extremely hardcore people.

With the crumbling market, it makes it painful rather than fun to make money. It is possible to sell materials at the same price as I used to but I have to deal with people, half of them are annoying and immature and the other half scammers. I'd rather have them set the price at 50% of sell price rather than 80% like it used to be and then operate at the standard supply and demand methods rather than have it set as low as 10% of sell price. This forces the player to either just scrap the materials for almost no money at all or deal with annoying people. I want to just unload my stuff and go back to playing, not spamming WTS. If they create an auction house type of thing, then that would be great. Have a player driven market (i.e. players can place materials at any price they want and if it doesn't sell it returns to the player after 3 days or something, same thing with other items) and a trader driven market (which we already have) to keep the player market in check. And the player market can be heavily taxed too to prevent it from being an effective source for money (I am assuming they nerfed the traders to prevent people from making too much money), but remain a place to sell stuff like steel for more than 30g.

Gardavil · Jul 18, 2005, 04:53 PM // 16:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Drakron

The safeguard is aceptable trader prices.

A few moments ago silver dye was being sold by the trader about 800 gp and guess what was his buying price?

1 gp.

The profit margin of traders is huge in many cases being well over 100%, players are simply NOT going to sell something for a fraction of its market price because the trader is the one setting the market price.

The profit margin of the trader must be correct so it never be over 25%, in Arena Net was thinking that with making materials almost worthless to farm they forget anyone that farms for materials have no problem with using the trade channel to sell over the merchant, he makes a profit and worst it drives the prices higher.

I have instituted the following policy just yesterday:

I will buy nothing from the merchants til I believe I (as a character customer ) am getting a good deal.

If that means I will not be able to handle the damage done to me by the mobs near Yak's, then I guess I will stay near Ascalon for a while longer.

At the rate I can aquire gold now (for armor upgrades and runes) and with the rarity of decent weapons drops in the last two weeks, I might get to the desert and Ascension by say, ooh, maybe October?

I wonder if that wasn't part of Anet's reasoning as well...just a thought....

Borealis · Jul 18, 2005, 04:56 PM // 16:56

I've just completely stopped playing, I'll play again when they think about unscrewing whatever they did. Saying they did nothing doesn't fly with me, something was done and it's extremely lame.

Crimson_1190 · Jul 18, 2005, 05:32 PM // 17:32

I don't get a lot of this. My first time through....second time and third time through I never had a problem making money enough for armour. My first character got two gold drops and 3 purples in what was supposed to be the golden age of gold items. As far as I see it, people are jumping the gun. Every system needs time to reach a point of stability. Due to the recent changes the market is oscillating between high and low prices. Not that I claim to be an economist (rather I deal with Filter and impulse resp. stability instead) Are you sure what your seeing isn't in some way the transient response? When they turned the market loose, I sold all my fur for 429 a piece and so did alot of other people, thus dropping the price to 10 gp. then I watched as the market over the next couple days recovered until the price was at almost 200. Things will sell for what the market will bare. a relative shortage in one resource will raise the prices, and a glut in another will lower it. A lot of times I salvage items for the resources and use those for my new armour. I do not buy from the merchants, I merely sell off what I dont need. Over the course of 3 missions (Divinity coast--->Arura Glade) I made about 3000 gold just from selling the common items and gold (coins not items). One does not need to really farm to get the 7.5 k armour.
My only point with this long speel is to give the systems time, I think it will level off when the supply and demand curves meet. The recent changes in the scheme have only introduced a transient and prices will level out.

for those signal processors out there: It is much like when X(n)->h(n)= y(n) where X(n) is some periodic function with a unit step. as N gets large the system will converge to the same value as if the input was purly a periodic function.

sleazeh · Jul 18, 2005, 05:50 PM // 17:50

To use the example of the silver dye prices referred to above:

Over the last number of weeks, more and more people have been buying silver dye as it was "somewhat" unique yet well below the cost of black dye. As a direct consequence of an increased demand, the prices that the dye merchants charge for a high demand item rise accordingly. If everyone started buying green dye, then the same phenomenon would occur, and presumably the price for silver dye would drop, as the AI merchants attempt to "move their stock" of silver dye.
As more people are crafting upper end armours, more people buy things like steel and fur squares. Exactly as you would do if you were a materials merchant, the price is set at the highest price point that still evidences a willingness to buy. If no-one bought the steel or fur based on the current price point, the price would come down until an equilibrium was found between the highest price and the most number of willing buyers.
Just as all players, businesses, governments, etc. attempt to do, they buy low and sell high, with the price of high end items set at an intersection of product demand and price.
Not long ago, Superior Vigors were 100k or more. With more people either finding their own, or unlocking them through PvP, the global demand of that item has decreased. Assuming that demand remains constant, the price you receive for selling to the trader is a factor of how much they need the item. In the case of superior vigors, or steel or fur, if the merchants are selling more than they are taking in, then the price to sell to them will rise in an effort to encourage more people to sell that item. If there is a glut of minor vigor runes, or wood planks, you cant expect to receive as much from the merchant for selling them. If no-one buys wood planks, or minor vigors because they are quite capable of finding their own supply, then the merchant won't give you any money for them.
Saying that isn't "fair" is rather irrelevant, given that this is the model the merchant trading system is based on.
If no one wanted black dye, or steel, or fur, they'd be cheap. It's that simple. If no-one was buying them, they'd be cheaper, until the price was such that people started buying them again.

Now, whether this is the "right" system for GW, or an enjoyable or rewarding one, is a completely separate debate.

If the premise is that the AI merchants are out to "make a buck", they are doing so in exactly the same way you would were you in their shoes. From that perspective, it's performing as designed.

Drakron · Jul 18, 2005, 05:55 PM // 17:55

Not a economist as well.

In the real world economies we have goverment involvement so the nation economy remains somewhat stable.

In Guilds Wars that does not happen, the "supply-demand" model is a basic model that does not funtion unless there is a buch of checks to make sure things dont get out of hand.

Lets look at dye for example, ANet made its botton price to be 1 gp but its market price is at least 100 gp so the bottom price does not reflect the lowest market price.

Problem is that trading is a huge anoyance for the players, if we want a fair deal we cannot turn to the trader since he is ripping people off, worst is that the traders sould be the primary market with the players being the secondary market.

But since traders are a monopoly, there is simply no competition, each and every one sets the price.

Now the problem is that they set price is based on their own trades, not in the competition (players) prices so as people turn more and more to the secondary market (players) the traders see less movement, its simply not ecomonical for the players to use the traders any more.

One could argue that prices would go down since players would dump their salvage materials on then but that is not reflected at all in selling prices, they have a huge profit margin on all items, a margin no sane people would have unless they hold a monopoly.

I think its about time ArenaNet stop playing ecomonists and start to make a fair system for the people that play the game, this trader model is a disaster.

Crimson_1190 · Jul 18, 2005, 06:18 PM // 18:18

Technically the supply and demand model is a check. Atleast from what I remember over some econ courses. Under the most basic model, when it gets out of hand either way, people acting in their own self interest will either buy or sell depending on what suits them and profit from the change. This will bring it back into order. Involvement in price floors and ceilings is what screws with the market more. What I would be for is a tweaking in the price of materials that can be made. Not all of them though, but the idea is if the price is too high, do it yourself. get the materials and make them....now a dye manufacturer would be interesting...hell, they already have scroll makers (found one out by that port city near droknars)

hehe, Laissez faire economics... personally i think things will even out over time like fur did. as for the dye mark up, work in a theater sometime... buy candy for 50 cents and then turn around and sell it for 2 bucks (this comment courtesy of a friend of mine).

rwt2006 · Jul 18, 2005, 06:36 PM // 18:36

Uh btw buying things on ebay is against your agreement, and there is a good chance if caught then you will have your account banned.

Ensign · Jul 18, 2005, 06:39 PM // 18:39

I have not seen the code behind the traders and don't know what algorithms they're using to figure out the buy and sell prices. What I can tell, though, is that the buy and sell prices are determined independently. That is, it sets prices as high as it can to sell what it has, then sets its buy price as low as it can get away with to still make that inventory back up - so that, over time, the inventory of the bot doesn't change but money has been made.

I think that this is an ideal model, except that it pays no regards to throughput.

Basically there's no true equilibrium point for either buy or sell prices that reflect the 'actual' value of an item - just linked pairs of prices that'll give steady resales. From any given equilibrium point, you could raise the sell point and still get sales (from those who were willing to pay more), and drop the buy offer (and pick up those who just want to get the item out of inventory, cash be damned) and still have the number of buys and sells match up, even if there are less of them. Similarly, you could raise the buy price and consequently lower the sell price, and see a much higher turnover of inventory even if, again, the rates matched up.

So the issue as near as I can tell is that the bots do not take turnover into account, at least as much as they need to. This results in some of the ridiculous scenarios listed here, like the trader buying ectoplasm for 1k but selling it for 20k or whatever. How many people are willing to pay 20k for a glob? Not many. How many sell a glob for 1k? Only the foolish. Not a lot of action at that differential on either side, so the rates match up and the bot is happy. But the bot is *useless* from a player's perspective, because the differential is so ridiculous and as a result he's usually out of stock.

If the bots are going to remain useful they have to not just program for balanced buy and sell rates, but for *high throughput*. Your average trader needs to feel that he's getting a good deal either buying or selling, and that simply is not going to happen when the prices are set for the fringe. Turnover is good. It oftentimes results in pulling more money out of the economy as well - sucking out 1k from each of 10 sales is preferable to pulling 5k out of one sale. Besides, the whole point of the bots is for people to be able to buy and sell commodity items without having to yell in town if they want a reasonable price - so figure out why they's strayed from that purpose and get the fix in.

Peace,
-CxE

Algren Cole · Jul 18, 2005, 06:47 PM // 18:47

Ensign's post gets my [thumbsup]

Third Quarter · Jul 18, 2005, 06:54 PM // 18:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gardavil

I have instituted the following policy just yesterday:

I will buy nothing from the merchants til I believe I (as a character customer ) am getting a good deal.

If that means I will not be able to handle the damage done to me by the mobs near Yak's, then I guess I will stay near Ascalon for a while longer.

I can honestly say that my equipment has never once made any real impact on success or failure.

If you need to farm for better weapons or armour, you are doing something horribly wrong.