Traders in this game are worse than BestBuy with their markups

I am fed up with the non-existant trade system in this game and these loan shark traders. The markups compared from the price a trader buys something to the price he sells for is often 200%+. I hate spamming just to sell something so I go to the trader and he rapes you on price. So unless you are willing to sell cheap, you are forced to waste time spamming the chat instead of actually playing.

Arenanet pisses me off sometimes.

/signed

At least the tarder should have some inbuilt buy for 10% cheaper or the other way around, sell for 10% more. Wichever the devs like best.

Anet sais Prophecies and Factions is set up more for the casual player in drop rates and other stuff.

BS BS BS

Which casual player would hang around XYZ town/outpost district 1 for hours just to sell 10 granite slabs or anything else? At least material traders should have a better supply/demand engine.

To whoever came up with the current formula for the merchants:
"may i see your economy degree?
can you tell me where you got it?
do you know if the price of getting one is still the same?
did anyone ever suspect that it was a fake?"

maybe your "granite slabs" thing was just a bad example, but if it's not, then that's part of your problem right there. granite slabs, plant fibers, glittering dust, chitin fragments, scales, and even wood are hardly worth anything themselves.

you can use glittering dust to craft tempered glass vials, and those plus plant fibers to make vials of ink. you can use wood to craft into parchment.

chitin fragments have maybe become slightly more valuable because of some localized supply/demand spike for armors, but expect them to dwindle in value again soon. but granite slabs and scales are never going to be worth salvaging for. if you get items that salvage into slabs or scales, just identify it and sell it to the shop. you'll make more money that way.

the basic issue is that you can make steady income on materials, but not all materials are created equal. you have to learn what to salvage and what not to salvage, and some things you won't bother collecting at all. you have to learn which items you should expert salvage vs what items you should regular salvage. iron ingots, steel ingots, tanned hide, fur squares, cloth, these are where the bulk of your money will come from.

You can make OK money selling to the traders but you'll make better money if you save up stacks of 250 and then sell them to other players. I made around 20k selling parchment and steel to players in droknar's one day, and that took around <10 minutes.

eudas