Anet, what are you doing? [Rare Materials Trader]

hahman14

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Jul 2005

The Dark Faith

R/N

I say that they change this whole changing prices every few hours to changing the prices do to supply and demand once every week. There that could probably help. Instead of it being 8k at a trader one minute then 3 hours later its 14k, it should stay the same until the next week, where the game gathers up all the data and reevaluates the prices.

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Dazzler

Dazzler

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: May 2005

E/Me

This is what I have learned from graphing trader prices.

For most items, the trader maintains a set percentage spread between the buy and sell price of the item. This percentage is different for different items.

Here are some examples:

Dye Trader
Black Dye: Bid = 79% +/- 1% of Ask price
Silver Dye: Bid = 74% +/- 1% of Ask price

Rare Material Trader
Obsidian Shard: Bid = 79% +/- 1% of Ask price
Linen: Bid = 68% +/- 1% of Ask price
Parchment is an interesting case. It's spread is always an absolute 100g and is not a percentage. So Bid = Ask - 100

Material Trader (buys in lots of 10)
Rare material prices at the material trader are linked to the rare material trader based on the bid price. In general, RareMaterialBidPrice = (MaterialBidPrice / 10) rounded to nearest multiple of 5. So, when the Material Bid price is 676 - 724, the Rare Bid Price will be 70.
I didn't track too much here, but here is Parchment:
Bid = 75% +/- 1% of Ask price

NOTES & EXCEPTIONS
Each item has a floor for the Ask price below which it will not go. The Bid price also has a floor, but it is much lower. If prices fall too much, then the bid/ask spreads will get out of whack due to the floors.
The rare material trader seems to have a floor of Bid=20, Ask=150.
The material trader seems to have floor of Bid=200, Ask=??

Sometimes the price just goes nuts. The Bid price will be like 800 for 10 parchments, and then a second later it will be 200. Then it will jump back up. This could either be a bug in the system, or an intentional "price correction action" by the code, or it could be someone just dumped a crapload of product at the trader and then someone else just bought it all.

Anyway, those are my observations, maybe they will help you fit the pattern.

MSecorsky

MSecorsky

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Jun 2005

So Cal

The Sinister Vanguard

Me/

The regular material trader yesterday at Droknar's was offering 100g for 10 leather squares. Not 15 feet away, the rare material trader was paying over 1200 for the same.

Go figure.

Makes you wonder why the regular material trader didn't sell his excess to the rare one.

Ishamael Sedai

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: May 2005

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kashrlyyk
Something is fishy! The trader sells an item for 10k, so the demand is very high. But he is only willing to pay 100g to the person, who gives him his supply? He wants to sell an item for 10k and only pays 100g for it ?

maybe the trader is tired of buying them. as for me i have a lot of items i would like selling at 10k and only buy for 100g .

Mariena Feladon

Mariena Feladon

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: May 2005

Netherlands

Silhouette Stars [sil]

Mo/N

Obsidian Shard. 100g.

Galatea

Galatea

Core Guru

Join Date: Feb 2005

The Drifters [DRFT]

E/Me

Sereng:
It increases the perceived need to farm because in order to purchase an ecto for 11 platinum, you'd first.. need 11 platinum. In order to get that quickly, you'd have to farm.. but if rare items are only selling for 100 gold, you must then farm a lot and longer in order to raise the 11 platinum to buy the item you really need.

Dazzler

Dazzler

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: May 2005

E/Me

Shards are selling for 3.409 at this instant, btw