The economy takes a hit, I'm not happy

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.

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!

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?

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

$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.

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.

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...

Absolutely spot on! Well done.

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.

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....

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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

Ensign's post gets my [thumbsup]

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.

Really ... so can you beat the game with pre-searing starting armor and weapon as a warrior?

What, can't you??? n00b!

(Please read the intended joke into this.)

I don't even bother salvaging runes anymore, I got one last night and the merchant offered my 275g for the unsalvaged armor, and the rune merchant offered me 25 gold for the salvaged rune. I promptly sold my expert salvage kit and the armor.

you make a good point(s)....

I for one would be interested, even if just out of pure curiousity, to know a little more about the dynamic that is codified (if at all) between buy and sell. Something a bit more substantial than the quote from Gaille that I read, which was a very simplistic explanation. I don't need lines and lines of code, but a bit more than "it's capitalism!!' might be nice.

Because, after a bit of reflection, without it all we are left with are suppositions.

The economy is perfectly stable after the update. For a measuring stick, look at the ectoplasms and obsidian shards. You don't see globs of ectoplasm being sold for 20k per glob anymore. It is very stable now, 10k each and nothing more. For obsidian shards, 3k each is a final and fixed price.

I'd prefer lines and lines of code

hydrak you must have not been paying any atention to prices.

Shards and ectoplama was not even at 1 plat per piece, then Anet nerfed UW and Fissure drops, prices spiked because it became a rare material (expecialy in Europe).

Traders prices reflected it, they gone up but with this update it got worst because people stop selling to the trader, people sell then in trade and get a killing out of it.

Lets look at something that is NOT a incredible rare material for rish people.

10 fur squares right now are at 2 951 gp, sure people can farm charr hides but really how many lv 8s can farm Charrs?

So I can just go farm then with a lv20 and get 50 hides (not hard at all) but guess who is going to buy then ... not the trader that gives a fraction of his selling price but the "out of searing" characters that have no way of paying such high prices or farm for then, I can sell each at 200 gp and make a nice clean profit.

yea i noticed i'v been gettin lesss for my runes at the trader too.
so i jus sell them (usualy unsalvaged) to any merchant.

farming charr hides is meant to be hard. my lvl 8's can do it no problem. dont kno wut ur complain about here. hell my lvl 6 can do it too with a few friends.

It becames boring since you start to get more and more char carvings that charr hides since the map remenbers how many times you been there and "adapts" (nerf) drops.

Runes did not really changed, when the trader was implemented most drop to their lowest price (25 gp) since ninors are easy to come by and besides some exceptions major and superiors HP hit is too much to be considered as a option, people just unload then on the trader.

Stable for whom? The players with all the gold? What HAS happened is that GREED has taken over the item trading economy. Sit anywhere and watch what is being sold and the absurd prices. Also notice there are few if any buyers for the simplest of weapons, even with max damage. Why? Because it looks to me like a bunch of newer players have abandoned the game. Because of the economy? Hard to tell, but watching a +29HP sword pommel being sold for 90K makes my stomach turn.

I spent an hour with a pre character today and noticed that there were only 19 American districts in Ascalon, 19. Super hot day in July, I don't think this generation is outside playing stick ball. But I did notice that there were over 90K players in D2, way more than the normal 48-60K day or night.

A lot of factors seem to be driving players away now. Way to early in the life of an on line game. The model of GW allows on the fly updates that generally work to the betterment of the game.

But the last few seem to have screwed the pooch.

From my observations, current algorithm is actually unstable. Since it doesn't raise the buying price anywhere near enough to match the increasing selling price, people don't sell (but perhaps still buy). The restricted supply then causes the selling price to be higher, and with a higher price players are even less unwilling to sell at a stupidly low price. So, the trader is starving because its optimized to take advantage of stupid idiots who sell either two low, or buy way way too high. I don't see the selling prices coming down _ever_ with this algorithm, and I don't see the buying prices going up. It also looks like the trader isn't willing to take a loss when it makes a stupid purchasing decision. In real-life traders take losses all the time when the supply/demand changes; by having the trader lock themselves out of a market because they won't take a loss, is rather dumb. If a trader bough X for 100, and can't sell it for that, it will lower the price till it can sell, and then remember not to buy for much higher than that in the short-term. Anyway, a serious fix is needed. The current code does not take micro-economics into account.

I suggest that the trader _not_ show any prices (buying or selling) unless someone requests. In this way, the trader can judge the "demand" for buying and selling, if lots of people are inquiring about the selling price for linen, then it knows it has potential sales in linen if the price was low enough. Over a few hours, it can then lower the price for linen as needed to make a few sales. If the inventory isn't high enough, then it can raise buying price to match. Basically, it should shoot for very small profit till it sets the market price, and then it should increase profit margin till the volume drops.

The trader could also add a 'Counter' button, which works like in real-life. If someone tries to 'Counter' with a price the trader could accept the counter offer -- or, if the person is countering with an offer that is really low, it could simply raise the prices even higher for that particular individual. In real life, a trader deals with someone being a jerk by raising their prices for that jerk... it's a penalty of sorts.

As suggested by Ensign, the algorithm should optimize on the change of net profit , not profit margin itself.

Ditto for me too.

There is an alternative to keeping the newbs and low level characters from making a very rough journey to Tyria's elite. Increase the rarer drops and cut coin drops. An influx of more items on the market will steadily devalue the items that are out there for peer trading and provide more flexibility for people to trade, buy and sell.

I know it's not a perfect solution, but the arguement has been largely about the worthlessness of gold. Think about it: if mobs in the Fissure still only dropped about 5-10gp how quickly would a player be able to save enough for even the 1.5K armor?

What's happened in the game is a catering to a sense of entitlement. "I'm a higher level, therefore I should earn more for less time and effort spent." However justified the reasoning is, if the economy were standardized (ie. you get as much gold off a Hydra as you do a Devourer) it would take longer to achieve the purchasing goals of most players.

This, however, leads to farming which is what ANet wants to avoid in the game, and would be a negative experience for most players. Still...

The truth is, greed drives the economy and ANet has taken steps to neutralize it.
If you play the game often and long enough, you will eventually find all the gear your heart could ever desire.
Those who cannot stomach the idea of expending honest effort will always seek to acquire their desires as cheaply and quickly as possible - which is exactly what drives the previous lootocracy.
Take a quick trip to beacon's perch for a closeup of greed and stupidity united in a common cause.

There are gold sinks for those of us still holding onto our thousands of coins. For the rest, the Droknar's Forge armor is an affordable and serviceable alternative.

Talesin

I'd like to, but the trader appears to be out of stock of those two items. Still.


Yeah, I can see that. With each sale, the sell price goes up. With each buy, the buy price goes down. Both prices likely decay towards each other naturally, but any sale would just kick it back up again, so if the rates of decay are suitibly low you get stuck with the trader catering to the fringe markets. I'd think there'd be something you could do with the new 'request quote' button to figure out price points, but it's a messy problem. All I do know is that the prices have flown to the fringes and it's made a real mess of things.


Sure, and I'm still a bit confused as to why they've made things so rare in a game that's supposed to be about player skill not hours played. People have pharmed out huge amounts of gold, and the response has consistently been to nerf pharming. All that does is widen the gap.

Upgrades are the only really problematic items now, though. Perfect weapons come from collectors (for the most part), and runes are available from the traders (though are a pain to find yourself). Upgrades? It's a tiny market that seriously needs adjusting.


Which is perhaps the problem. Greed is the primary human motivator. Take away people's ability to satisfy their greed, and they stop caring. Greed, as far as the economy is concerned, needs to be encouraged.

Of course, that means they need to make the objects of desire *reasonably obtainable* so people will not lose interest.

Peace,
-CxE

Yes Yes, I admit it. I log on Tuesday and Wednesday early in the morning and buy a BUNCH of materials (hides in particular) and then sell em Friday, Sat, Sun, and Monday night. Yes, I make plenty of money this way.

I don't like this new system, as it has the bad stench of other MMO economy solutions, such as EQ2, ... in it, where you're no longer buying for quality but for availablility.
Especially new players are hit by this, since they won't have the needed funds to support whatever armor they would like to have - remember the fur problem back when the game was released?

Anyway, that's just personal preference, but I just had a weird merchant/material trader experience.
10 piles of wood cost me 150g
The material trader offers me 50g for 13.
The merchant offers me 52g for 13.

If the trader would buy for the same amount as he sells it, then we wouldn't have any kind of raw material ressource hogging issues anymore, plus everyone could make enough gold by selling them to the trader.

All these current economy issues are a huge hit on the gameplay fun - at least for me -, as it's no longer about doing quests & missions together, but getting item x and ressource y in the least amount of time, to either sell it at rediculous prices or horde it to dump at the trader later on, when the market is screaming for them.

Just staying in Lions Arch or Ascalon City makes one double check if you're playing Guild Wars or Hanse...

I never said I was GOOD at this game, only that I like it and will continue to play it. It wouldn't be the first time I was accused of doing something horribly wrong. I do not yet have a level 20 character, only a level 12, and a level 10. I have no idea of how good the drops are past the Shiverpeaks, I know only of the areas of post Searing Ascalon.

All I am saying is this....I have only been playing this game since June, and even I have noticed a difference in that short time.....it is harder now to get good weapon drops, and the gold I used to make from the traders is twindling away. Just as I was starting to figure how to take advantage of the markets to make a good profit, the markets get changed.

One must do what one must do.........adapt and overcome.

My first time through the game, I had no problems buying 1.5k armor. I wasn't even terribly worried about saving up the materials. I had done no farming. I just walked in, bought about 20 cloths from the material trader, bought the armor, and had about 2k remaining.

My second time through the game, I ended up having to borrow about a bit from the bank. Not a huge amount, and I had gone through the game faster, picking up less in the way of stuff, so I wasn’t too concerned.

My third time through the game, I ended up having borrow about 5k from myself, and ended up buying nearly half of the hides I would need.

My fourth time through the game, admittedly the fastest time through (I didn’t do about half of the missions, preferring to walk through the countryside, and the only quests I did were the skills quests), I haven’t even bothered to buy my 1.5k armor. For that matter, I didn’t even buy the Oasis armor. I don’t have the leather I’d need, and I’m not willing to spend the money to get the leather.

A month after getting the game, I had 135k in my bank. That wouldn’t be nearly so high except that I was lucky enough to get some Superior Runes that I sold for good prices (for me). After two and a half months, I have 12k in my bank. That’s after buying three sets of 15k armor and minor runes to go with my armor when I didn’t already have the runes. I’ve never bought any item from another player. Armor, Skills and Runes (all the Runes I buy are minor) are all that I ever spend money on. As a casual player, I’m finding that I’m hard pressed to get anything. Missions and regular areas just don’t drop very well any more, and my ability to get basic items is suffering. Yes, I could spend six hours farming and get the gold I need. But I’d rather be playing the game. I don’t really care for getting a perfect sword or enough black dye to get that perfect shade. And when it comes right down to it, I don’t really need the 15k armor. But I would like to know that I’ll have enough money to get the 1.5k armor when I get that far.

Well, another problem I have with all of this is. There will always be people willing to put in hours getting more money and more "stuff" (be it items, runes etc). farmers will be farmers. The fact is that I just see a problem telling people how they should play the game. As for how it will ruin the economy, i don't get. The merchants should base the transactions on supply and demand, taking into accont the frequency of a materials occurance. Basically, It should be running a business. self interest is what drives the economy. I think the merch system may at most need a little correction about the pricing, but it is not the end of tyria here. Quitting over this I don't understand either. There are no shortage of materials if you are willing to take a salvage kit and do it yourself. One can easily make the iron needed for the armours. Then sell what you dont need to salvage (quest rewards are great for that) for the money. There is a time investment...much like all businesses run out of homes you are just going to have to put some time into it. But, Having done that with my first couple characters, it is not so much time it is unreasonable. People seem to complain about finishing the game too quickly and not having money. Maybe they finished too quickly...run some of the quests....i used to make 200g off of some of the resales on the rewards. And most of the materials for my armour were attained through the scope of the quest. Or even better, get the collector armour....it only requires 4-5 worth of an item that is common in the area and the armour is comperable (or as in the wilderness area) somewhat better than is being sold. Hell, even use the crafters to make rare materials it is much cheaper in many cases.