It becomes impossible to sell an item...

Hi all,

I just wanna share some of my frustration at all the trades that you find in the game...
To set up the background i've been playing for more than 350 hours in the euro region, and had decent trades since approximately one week.

Now whenever i enter a zone, it's all flooded with WTS, WTS, WTS... Duh ! in 100 posts in the trade channel it is near impossible to find someone actually wanting to buy something. People will now hardly buy something that is un-godly and that is if it's gold items of course because blue/purple aren't worth 1 iron ingots.

I'm at the point that whenever my inventory fills with crap (even gold items), i don't bother posting for sell to other players, and gives them in bunch to the NPC trader...

Maybe i'm at the brink of boredom and frustration but i wanted to post it somewhere so people could tell me their thoughts.

BR

i'm just storing all my stuff atm and i'll wait for a better sellin system + i reckon all the prices will continue going up

I've tried selling stuff for LESS than the merchant would give me and still have no luck. Go figure.

Item rarity just isn't that high, value of gold items aren't valued as much as before unless there godly. Before people were willing to pay 2k-5k (which was quite a bit, a while back) for items with gold regardless of what mods they have.

So i'm not the only one to have noticed it that's a relief...

My point is, if nothing has a value now, does this prevents farming ? Indeed, it tends to do the exact opposite, farm, farm farm, sell everything you piled up in your inventory, this is the way to make gold now as you can't expect to make profit out of the gold item you came by doing a mission normally.

Besides, if you don't have any people willing to buy, trading becomes useless which takes a point out of the game (the social part).

I havent touched guildwars in nearly 2 and a half months, still waiting fro sorrows furnace to come! nearly time. it was just as bad the entire time I played as what it sounds it still is now. I have 2 character completely STOCK with items, dont even know what I've got anymore, 1 character has nothing but weapon upgrades LOL. I too think I will play the sorrows furnace thing, and then once again shelf GW until they implement a selling system that is not a total joke, infact its beyond a joke, its by far the most HALF ASSED attempt at a trade system I've ever seen, a 4 year old blind-deaf-dumb kid could come up with a better idea than this!

I dont mean to be a wet blanket, and I agree that the trade system could use some work, but if a 4 yearld blind/deaf/mute kid can come up with something better why is that I haven't heard one suggestion in this thread for something better? Personally, I feel that if it could be set up without being abused I'd like to see an auction house. Another game that I used to play had a pretty cool "consignment" system where players could buy a storefront in cities and it would come complete with an NPC to sell items that they "place in the display" at prices they set. No haggling, no scamming attempts (like the clown that tried to buy a superior vigor rune off me for 75g. instead of the 75p I was askin) if folks dont buy, they dont buy, no time wasted trying to be heard over the WTS spam. It rocked.

Well, honestly it's the majority of seller's fault nobody buys. The impression that there are "Godly" gear is starting to fade away as more people are starting to realize that gear are at a very strict and not to mention attainable cap to the point that your only practical market is those who crave prestige items.

These days the people who overcharge for their wares are greater in number than people who are willing to overpay. You can thank Collector's Items and being able to (eventually) get whatever components you want for yourself.

So, it's an issue of those who can afford "Godly" items probably already have them (not to mention a couple of spares) and those who actually would want to buy them can't afford them.

Unfortunately, I don't think Anet can write a code that can effectively stop people from being greedy jerks in a player based economy. The only thing they can really do is to patch the game in ways that makes them (even more) obsolete or otherwise make their job slightly easier or harder.

I expect the average 'age' of GW players continues to rise and the longer they have played the more likely they already have very good equipment. Such players will only be looking for 'godly' items and perhaps low requirement items their new charcters can use for a couple of days.

The only market for less that 'godly' items are new players who haven't bought EBay gold can so can't afford 'godly'.

For example the only items I desire for my 5 playing characters is a 2% better sword pommel of enchanting and a more godly shield. (If the update brings collectors for the 'missing' PvP items I won't even be needing a shield).

It is a shame that anything less than 'godly' is pretty much worthless, but, I don't see what can be done about it.

There will soon be changes to the GW trading system. I don't know what. Having had so much trouble with the dumb NPC traders I can't see ANet giving us an auction house. I suspect something more along the lines of new locations specifically for trading. Anything which helps to bring buyers and sellers together will help although I suspect doing so will result in reduced prices.

Stop saying 'godly'.
Your pixels are not omnipotent!!

If you're frustrated that nobody wants to buy your gold items - just honestly ask yourself this: If you were on the market for a nice new weapon - (enough to be hanging around LA dist 1) - would you buy a less-than-max or a "pretty good item" or would you hang around a while and see if anything better comes around?

That's why I sell most of my stuff to the merchant or give it away to guildies - then just go back to playing the game. In the long run you'll still make money. Who cares if you could have gotten an extra 2k for that sword? I'd rather be playing the game.

Said it before, will probably get to say it again: guildwars doesn't have inflation, guildwars have mudflation. Guildwars doesn't lack gold sinks, guildwars lacks item sink.

this thread doesn't prove mudflation. We don't know how long the OP is sitting in a channel selling things, we don't know if he whispers people looking to buy what he has, and whether he uses other ways to sell stuff (like the boards here).

Also, what is he selling? And where? And what are his prices?

For all we know the items are overpriced, they aren't godly, and the seller is only spending five minutes in a trade or chat channel.

People have to understand selling things is not that easy. I've been doing it all my life in some aspect.

And here are two easy solutions that don't require anything that the game doesn't already provide.

1. someone create a website where people can post stuff they are selling and buying.

2. Hold auctions in-game. How do you do this? Easy. Create a guild and get a hall. Then everytime you hold one you add the participants to the guild. Why do this? So you can use your guild hall as an auction hall.

Your essentially using the game's mechanics to create your 'shop'. And you advertise ahead of time what your gonna sell, and when to meet.

About that area where its only for trade. They could create deeper trade searches, like super specific. For instance, you could browse only sword pommels of fortitude +25 and up, and teh respective sellers would sell in that channel. It would cut down on sellers and buyers time spent into finding right items. Sure, there would be lots of ppl who would find ways to screw it up, but thats pretty much happened to rest of game too.

they really have to make a "vendor" option, that way you can just leave your account on and go do something else.

i havent really played more than a month. but i know what u mean about prices dropping. the first time i stepped into lions arch ppl were buying gold weapons for 10k and stuff now ur lucky to get 3.5k if its not the best. and another thing WHATS RONG WITH A WEAPON BEING 1 OFF FROM MAX!!! i think that its smarter to buy things that r 1 off of max because a Chaos axe that is 6-28 is like 3k or sumthin... I got my Chaos axe for 1k just because it was 6-27. i mean is 1 Hp really going to make a huge difference?

oh and i would like to add: it took me 25 minutes to find my Chaos axe, but it took me 2 days to find the componets that i was looking for and i went threw 4 buyers who tried to sell me a barbed axe haft for 15k

fudge the auction system, a vendor system is better... having a auction system would make it so any lazy bugger can find a good deal while a vendor system would encourage bargain hunting. either way, anets gotta do something.

I once gave away shit for free. Sometimes I even had to reply trice or something for anyone to respond.

Sanji pretty much nailed it there.

There are a couple of issues with the selling/exchange of "Godly" items, and people in LA are on the rise in an ever competitive market, but there are some real problems with selling good weapons:

1. There is no real guide to the value of a weapon. - Currently, the only in-game guide to the value of a weapon is the merchant price, which is typically lousy. A few attempts to consolidate and estimate weapon upgrades has been made (The sticky for weapon mod baseline values, for instance)m but nothing for the weapons themselves.

2. All that glitters is not godly - I've been in LA in a buying mood, and been overwhelmed on the trade and public chats with "WTS, WTS, WTS" for "Max Godly this" and "Perfect ub3r that", for prices from 50k to 300k+20 ectos. Having looked at some of these items though, some are not even worth 10k. Swords with high req., low damage baselines and crap mods are NOT worth 50k just because the text is in gold writing. In spite of this, people seem to forget this, and when you point these failings out, they say "But it's GOLD!".

3. Everyone is expecting to buy a gold crystalline sword with 15>50 & +30 health for 10k. - That's pretty self-explanatory, and makes me wonder. I would say at any one time, that at least 60% of the vendors of gold items are selling at stupid prices, while some have a stab at offering a decent price for a good weapon, for the simple reason that they just want to carry on with the game, and not spend hours stuck in LA. The problem that they have is that even if they offer at rock bottom prices, everyone who looks usually leaves because it's not "Perfect" (I've had someone turn down a gold raven staff I was selling with +28 health for 10k, because it wasn't +30!)


The solutions to these problems are simple. The auction house in -game would be a useful guide and source of decently priced weapons for all, but it is going to need careful thought in implementing it.

The other one is just to make players aware that there is no such thing as the "Perfect Godly item", that gold max damage weapons deal the same damage as ordinary max dmg weapons, and that if a weapon's upgrade doesn't suit you, buy a mod for it.

Finally, (and this will be useful to the many frustrated gamers who do not want to stand around offering weapons in LA), increase the merchant pricing for rare drops. If they're supposed to be rare, then why can they be sold to the merchant for the same price as blue dye? Make it so the merchant buys a gold item for 1k-10k depending on the weapon and its mods, so that people who want to make a quick sale and get on with the game can do so, instead of spending hours trying to sell that "Good but not perfect" gold sword to an indifferent and heaving market in LA.

The better option is to have a bazaar like zone (area) in each city, in which players can stand as merchants (or hire NPC ones), set prices on their items and just wait for buyers to come along, browse their wares then buy (Everquest style). That way nobody would want to overprice items cuz there will be other sellers, in addition to a vendors/items specific search system.
People can go afk while selling, or even better: if you could just hire an NPC merchant that would stand and sell items for you at your set prices, you could go play missions. We could have a real economy setup.

So all we are left with is either completely max stats items that would sell for billions (like the cystalline) or very good almost max stats items that wouldn't sell... Come on, what's a +2 health gonna change anyway ? it's more than nonsense that it will grant a real advantage in battle.

As i see, all those max damage/very nice mods hardly sell higher than 400 Gold at the shop thought they are stated as rare... Let's face it, introduce some real cash boost at NPC for gold items, make it so they would buy at least 1k, up to 4-5 k depending on the mods. Then, make the NPC sell back those items at decent prices (like 500 % of what they bought it).

my character manages quite well with a 14-25, +1 zealous, +1 marksmanship bow that not gold or anything (although would like better zealous bit, just can not find any) so you really do not need a max damage, golden uber weapon of godly parameters to complete the game! The only time that you would need the foresaid weapon is if they brought in a 1 v 1 arena as this game is more about teamwork when your out doing mission etc

True. On the other hand, I wasn't basing my opinion on this thread, but on my own attempts at selling things, and how that has changed since the first week after release.

A week after release, an item which was just one point below max damage was quite valuable, now it's unsellable unless you drop to near merchant prices and spam wts for half an hour in a dozen different districts.

Why? Well, I think we'll all agree it's not because people don't have money. Everyone and their grandmother could afford to spend 2-3K on a new weapon if they wanted to. IMO it's obvious it's because everyone already got max or near max weapons, and don't need to buy another one. The only items in high demand are the perfect max ones, and the ones of prestige types (stormbows etc) because those are the only ones the market isn't already saturated with.

And that is mudflation.

One might argue whether this is undesirable or not, of course. It's not obviously bad that everyone's got decent gear.

Question to all: would you like to see a Weapons, Foci, and Upgrades trader?

yes

Aye, on that Numa Pompilius, this has to be at the top of my wish list ..

Pax

...just like I said....

I'm all for that!

there is nothing you can do to stop mudflation. Perhaps selling weapons is the wrong career choice in the game, the market was bound to dry up at some point. GW is not designed for a merchant profession. Not saying it's bad or anything, just that the code and mechanics do not support the viability of a long term career in it in the game.

Arturo is exactly right.

For a power farmer/seller, Guild Wars is horrible because it does not provide them with a market that is driven by hard to obtain rare items, so the inequity that they thrive in simply does not exist. Sure, there are haves and have nots, but the seperation isn't that one has viable gear and the other doesn't, rather, the seperation is that the "Haves" perform slightly better and have somewhat of a unique appearance.

Of course, whether viable endgame Armor and Weapons being easy to obtain is gamebreaking to you is one of those things that decides if you should play Guild Wars or just stick to more traditional RPGs.

yup works really nice i can just leave guildwars on all night, until someone buys my items

Just about everyone has at least one farming level character by now also. Last piece of gear I bought from a player was when I first left pre-searing, then with websites now that practically show where every collector is and what they have and what they want for the items, no need to buy anything from players anymore. I noticed the hording of monk runes stopped pretty fast after the protective bond nerfing. haha Other than upgrades now, there's nothing else I 'need' for my character. 15k armor isn't a necessity so I'm hording my money for whatever comes in the expansion and who knows maybe even then I'll have no need to spend it other than skill points. There's a lot of areas that are farmable for most characters without having to rely on UW and it gives more variety so it's not the same ole same ole day in and day out.

The only game where an economy will continue to prosper is a game where things deterioate like DAOC has. I always had good income in that game from start to finish.
deterioating equipment would be a kewl addition to the game and of course a nice money sync.

EQ2 was going to have it, but, I guess enough people whinned about it that they dumped it before release. And Everquest had enough expansions and super elite new items in each one to keep the economy going in that game. Has to be one or the other though, this one just doesn't have enough different types and better weapons. Eventually everyone is going to have the same thing in this one. Stuff just comes too easily excluding "vanity" items.

And 9pts isn't worth the price of a superior vigor rune over a major vigor rune (pretty common). 9 more hps would go in one swipe, one cast one drain in less time than you can blink your eyes. Superior absorption is questionable as well. 1 more point of dmg reduction isn't that great either when you are getting pounded for 50pts a pop or degened at a very fast rate.

Like was said in another thread, many things including upgrades don't make that much of a difference, mostly cosmetics with only a few upgrades valuable. HP's over Armor? Iffy at most which is better. 100k for +30 hps though is a bit rediculous. One hit or a few seconds of degen. Defy Pain and Endure pain are a better value. It's rare I can say in a battle in which I died "gee if I had just 30 more hps I woulda won", very rare.

Main thing though, just like in the real world a business can price themselves right out of business. When you drop your prices to reasonable levels they sell rather quickly when you try to get 100k or more for something then you've stepped over into the rediculous where many are concerned anymore.

Maybe all these people spending hours trying to sell blue, purple and less than max gold items will realize that no one really wants to buy their stuff? Instead, go back and play and enjoy the game! Sell your blue and purple and less than max gold items to the merchants (I do) for whatever you get for them, and get on with it.

I found this game to be a very pleasant challenge when playing my first character. Now I am finding all the quests and missions to be very easy. And I believe the real reason is that now I, and certainly all the rest in my party, are equipped with weapons that are much better than what the game designers had intended at the current stage of the game. And this is due to how easy it is to buy advanced equipment (or as in my case, to hand it down from a higher level character's find). Too bad, really, I miss the challenge! It would be nice if there was implemented character level requirements for weapons and armor.

Edit: off topic but an afterthought: it saddens me to see so many players with low level characters willing to be run to the next town, or to Droknars to get max protection armor, and willing to buy advanced weapons instead of playing the game as it was naturally designed to be played. I think these people are missing a lot!

I agree with everything coolsti says - nicely put. I love guild wars, but it is rather easy now that my first character can supply all my other characters with all the best collector weapons with just a little light farming.

Simple, add an auction house to the various main areas, inside is the auctioner.

you walk in, talk to him, give him the item(s) you want to sell to players, set your min price, and set a sell-now price, the weapon then stays with the auctioner, you then run off on your merry way waiting for it to be sold or to meet your min price.

1/2 an hour later, you get a system message saying someone has baught-it-now and your gold is waiting at the auctioneer for you to pick up when you so feel like it.

from the buyers point of veiw :

walk into the auction house, talk to the guy and take a look at the items currently on auction. a window pops up with filters (weapon type, damage range, color, attrib, attrib level, modded etc)

each item has no seller written spill about how good it is, just the standard GW item naming you get when you place your cursor over it, it has the icon and mouse-over gives you the full details. you can equip the item (to see what it looks like on your guy) make a bid, and set your max bid or buy it now. that money is then removed from your character and held by the auctioneer until you either win the auction, or lose it.

TADA problem solved, no more spam, no more ripoff's, no more scammers, no more town hopping.

when I dont feel like spending a whole lot on my warrior, I just buy a 13-14% > 50% health weapon and customize it. No one wants to customize their perfect stuff because of resale - but why not customize something that's not perfect? end result is it is more effective than the perfect item that costs 10x more.

Anet has hinted at a market/bazaar system. I welcome it if only just to save me from the utter tedium of spamming my wares on the trade channel for an hour. The prices problem is due to a lack of money sinks in the game, imo.

Yes, Yes, Yes

Sorry to disagree with the OP but I'm glad, collector items are so close to Max Gold etc, and the extreme prices have been turning me off. I find I can get just about anything without having to use human traders. In fact I've given away a lot of stuff including a max damage plain storm bow (to a ranger in need). It's my personal opinion, that's all.

I'm personally highly turned off by Max Gold Goldy X for XXK gold when a -1 off is much more afforadable and since I'm not a die hard PvP not having max doesn't bother me.

Also the cryptic notes about how more changes in the economy is coming with Sorrow's Furnace. Curious as to what changes are going to happen.

I don't think it is worth trying to sell anything but perfect items of desirable types atm.

Mods are worth selling, but they're cheap excepting extremely special ones. A mod trader would be great for availability, as would a wepon/foci trader. For example, I want a bow that gives my damage bonus while in a stance - but that's harder to find, ironically, than a >50%, because people keep the >50% to sell and ditch the while in stance versions. If a trader existed I could get the bow I want As a stats guy I could even help them with the formulae to come up with trader pricing for items - after all, it's actually a complex model, since you have to adjust for the bow type (looks and type), the natural modifier (what gives bonus, and what % bonus for example) as well as mods in the weapon (zealous, sundering...) though the mod prices can be pulled from the mod trader. Given this, the fact is that you'd need to develop model of the effect of the various mods in the different bows - some will be next to worthless, as they simply imitate collectors bows on common bow types, while others will be worth a great deal, as the model is sought after, or at a minimum doesn't appear at a collector. Partialling out the effects of the various factors from each other would be fun, and could make for an interesting system, rather than using formulae that don't actually fit the model, and ending up with an unpalatable system. You could simply allow each price to vary on its own, but I suspect that the number of transactions on a given item might not make it possible - for example, how many Vampiric (3/1) Composite bows of Vigor (+27) with 13% more damage while hexed are actually sold and bought? might not be enough to get an actual price based on those sales alone, so you need some fun math to figure out pricing.

Salvage it.