Price lists?

[Fatalplus]

I've just started getting into the auction house and trying to buy IOs for my toon.  Is there a place that shows the typical or average price for certain IOs?  I feel like I've got a lot of things as bids but nothing that sells outright.  I don't want to over bid, as Inf is tight, but I want to give a fair market value for IOs I need.

[Obus Form]

There are no direct lists in this forum.

 

We just talk about it, here/there.

 

Best thing for you is to concentrate on any 1 or 2 markets/IOs to monitor and understand its pricing habits.  Those habits will apply to other IOs that are high sellers, low sellers, seasonal (release of electric affinity), or rare (ATOs, Winters, Purples, PVP uniques, LOTG recharge 7.5)

[AboveTheChemist]

There is not a reference site, as far as I know. The last 5 listing is the only real window into the prices, but prices typically fluctuate depending on time of day and day of week, and some listings are outright bugged and can show the wrong prices.

 

Generally speaking, the amount you'll pay is inversely proportional to the amount of patience you are willing to exhibit. I tend to bid a bit low and expect it to take a week or two for bids to fill. Any that haven't filled in a week, I'll bump the bids up incrementally. I've been keeping records since last summer, though, so my system is a bit finer-tuned now. If that sounds like too long to wait, then you'll need to adjust prices up accordingly.

 

For the auction house, I think the term 'fair market value' means different things to different people. In my experience, the auction house will yield the best inf gains/savings when you pit your patience against the impatience of other users. This applies to both buying and selling. Sellers list items at the lowest price they are willing to accept for them, and impatient sellers list for lower prices hoping for quicker sales. This can work to the advantage of the patient buyer who bids low, but of course if a higher bid seems more fair then there is nothing wrong with that either.

[Mr. Vee]

If your concern is 'fair market value' you can always just bid creep. Most folks put things up for the minimum they're willing to get. If i had to arbitrarily guess at a starting bid that'd ensure profit for the seller i'd think 500k for crafted crap (converter fodder), 1 mil for crafted useful but not highly sought (tstrikes, gaussians, perf shifter, e.g.), 2 mil for sought after but not premium (resist or heal sets, e.g.), 3 mil for premium. (uniques, defense, e.g.). Purples, pvps, winters and ATOs the bid history is usually a good indicator. Note these could be higher than what you might get it for if you're patient or lucky or weren't concerned with being that guy who bids 1 inf. Then just creep til you get it if you want it now or leave a bid where you feel comfortable and wait.

[Yomo Kimyata]

I posted this in another thread:  

 

On 3/30/2020 at 6:52 PM, Yomo Kimyata said:

But what is a reasonable price to post?

 

[screws in monocle and begins to monologue...]

 

People seem to be uncomfortable in choosing the "right" price to post their offerings.  I think part of that is that dumping is instant and easy, versus choosing a price is more work and may take a little time.  I think the other part of that is that people are afraid of posting too high and eventually having to eat the 5% posting fee.  If it's the latter, my rule of thumb is to let my offer sit for a week before I repost at a lower price.  5% is a drop in the bucket versus getting on with your life.  Shrug your shoulders and move on.

 

I think there are four basic categories of offers.  In order from fastest to slowest (and from lowest price to highest price):

 

1.  Sell it NAO.  As long as there is a bid outstanding, you are guaranteed to sell your item instantly if you offer it at 1.  A lot of people offer their items at 5, in order to make sure that they at least break even on listing fees.  Speed:  instant, so long as there is a bid outstanding.  The problem is that you have no idea what that bid is.  If you sell something NAO, you need to make your peace with the idea that you may sell it at the price you listed it for.  

 

2.  Sell it NEXT.  This is a method you can use when you want to be the very next person to sell to a "real" bidder.  If you are able to figure out what the highest outstanding bid is, then you offer at a level that is just above that level.  Example:  last 5 trades are:  10mm, 9mm, 10mm, 5mm, 8mm.  That's not a lot of information.  There is a "low" bid that got filled.  If I wanted to be the next seller, I'd offer it at just over 5mm.  That way, I'm not feeding the lowball bidder, but I should capture the first real bid that comes in.  I call this being the lowest outstanding offer (LOO).  Speed: generally pretty quick.  You are relying on a "real" bid coming in, but you don't know when that will be.  In my experience, I'd expect that to trade in minutes to hours, depending on the item,

 

3.  Sell it SOON(tm).  This is what I use for most of my sales.  I try to capture the high end of the range, but I want to sell it within a day or so.  In the example given above, we see that there are buyers at 10mm, but fishers at 9mm and 8mm, and lowballs at 5mm.  I'd like to sell to some of those 10mm bidders, but if I offer at 10mm, I'm going to lose out to anyone who offers less than 10mm.  In this case, I would probably offer at something just over 9mm.  Speed:  generally less than a day.  Almost always by the next time I log in that character (I alt a lot).

 

4.  Sell it SPENDY.  I almost never use this method unless there are less than five of the item in question currently offered, and I don't judge that there will be a lot of supply in the near future.  Given the example last 5 trades, and assuming zero items for offer, I'd offer somewhere north of 10mm.  How far north depends on the item.  Speed:  totally depends.  You could post at 12mm and sell for 15mm in minutes, or 10 more could come in for offer at under 10mm, and you could potentially be sitting on your offer for a long time.

 

If you have to sell right now, you are being held hostage to whatever bids are already out there.  If you can want minutes/hours/days, then you have a lot more power in realizing higher sales prices.

That's for selling.  Here's the equivalent for buying:

 

1.  Buy it NAO.  Even this requires a little effort, since you have to bid at least as high as what someone is offering at, and if there are no offers, you are out of luck.  Generally, just look at the last 5 and bid something well above the high end of the range.  This is what keeps the Miracle proc market humming.  In the example of last 5 trades:  10mm, 9mm, 10mm, 5mm, 8mm, I'd say a buy it NAO price would be at or above the high end of that range.

 

2.  Buy it almost NAO, aka bid creeping.  I suggest that if you really don't care what price you pay, start your bidding at 1mm and increase by 1mm until you get it.  If you are even more patient, then estimate where the offers might be and cut your bid increments to 100,000.  In the example given, I'd start at 10mm.

 

3.  Buy it VERY SOON(tm).  There is very little difference between this and #4.  You want to catch the next reasonable offer, but you understand that the next reasonable offer might not be someone blowing out their inventory.  In this case, I'd bid somewhere in the 7-9mm range; you are not trying be the lowball bid, but if someone comes in and offers at a "reasonable" price you will be well situated.  And if someone dumps you will be first in line.

 

4.  Buy it SOON(tm).  You want to be the highest outstanding bid, so when someone comes in and dumps their inventory at 5 inf, you are beating out the previous outstanding bid.  In this case, bid something just above 5mm.

 

5.  Buy it LATER.  You really don't know if 5mm is the highest outstanding bid or not, just that it traded there.  If you put in a lower bid, you may get lucky and if there is enough product offered then any higher bids will get filled and unless new bids come in, you may eventually get filled.  Put something in the 3-5mm range and hope, but don't hold your breath.

[Mr. Vee]

You sure you're not trying to drum up business Yomo? 😜 I always instantly get miracle unique for 5 million and random change if my 4 million bid fails. 

[Gremlin]

On 4/16/2020 at 4:42 PM, Fatalplus said:

I don't want to over bid, as Inf is tight, but I want to give a fair market value for IOs I need.

Sellers specify the minimum price that they're prepared to accept. Nobody can pay less than that. Consequently, it's difficult to say that a low price is "unfair" in any way.

 

There's no automated data collection or long term stats for the market. It's difficult to create a price list by hand because prices change all the time. They're affected by random noise, flavour of the month builds, releases, inflation etc.

 

You can't guarantee that you'll never over bid but you can bid low on average. A very rough rule of thumb is that IOs occasionally sell for half the average price and often sell for 3/4 of the average. Prices are usually about 25% higher at the weekend and then drop on Monday and Tuesday.

 

The Ebil Marketeer's solution is to make so much money by trading that you no longer need to worry about the prices of things you actually slot. 🙂

 

[Yomo Kimyata]

3 hours ago, Veelectric Boogaloo said:

You sure you're not trying to drum up business Yomo? 😜 I always instantly get miracle unique for 5 million and random change if my 4 million bid fails. 

That was a sly nod to Sir Elton Munkilord.  When the display bug is in force, people see a last 5 that generally runs in the 15-17mm range.  I'll always sell you one at 5mm, but I'm happier to sell them for 15-17mm.

 

EDIT:  case in point

 

Edited April 17, 2020 by Yomo Kimyata

[Yomo Kimyata]

1 hour ago, Gremlin said:

Prices are usually about 25% higher at the weekend and then drop on Monday and Tuesday.

 

🙂

 

I've noticed that one or more people tend to do a lot of crafting on Sunday nights.  A LOT.  I think that's what causes the drop in prices in the early part of the week, since those bulk posts seem to be at pretty low prices.

[Mr. Vee]

Yeah back when i was still doing the converter game i'd list miracles for 3 and they'd routinely display bug themselves into 12-15 sales. I kinda felt bad about it but not our fault if folks just auto-bid the last displayed.

[Yomo Kimyata]

21 minutes ago, Veelectric Boogaloo said:

 I kinda felt bad about it but not our fault if folks just auto-bid the last displayed.

I had the “feeling bad” part surgically removed.

[Troo]

On 4/16/2020 at 8:42 AM, Fatalplus said:

I've just started getting into the auction house and trying to buy IOs for my toon.  Is there a place that shows the typical or average price for certain IOs?  I feel like I've got a lot of things as bids but nothing that sells outright.  I don't want to over bid, as Inf is tight, but I want to give a fair market value for IOs I need.

Someone might suggest buying recipes and crafting what you need as a less expensive way to go.

[Yomo Kimyata]

30 minutes ago, Troo said:

Someone might suggest buying recipes and crafting what you need as a less expensive way to go.

Well, it depends on what you are looking to do.  Let's take LotG 7.5% for an example.  Right now the lowest bid in the last 5 for recipes is 7.006.001, which is repeated, so I would guess that's the HOB.  You could bid 7.006.002 and wait until you bought one (only 35 are offered, and it would probably take over 8mm to buy it now).  Then you could buy 2 rare salvage, 1 uncommon, 2 common and craft at level 25.  Let's call that total cost of 8.5-9mm.

 

Or you could insta-buy an attuned IO for 7mm.  (That's the price at this moment, but generally ranges from 6-8mm).

 

If I wanted an attuned 7.5%, which I do occasionally, I would put in bids for one of the less used of the LotG set, like the E/R.  I'd bid maybe just over 4mm.  Then when I bought it, I'd spend on average 15 converters to make it into the 7.5%.  Now, depending on your faith on averages, you might want to do this with a block of 10, and sell the spares.

 

It all depends.  I know that's a terrible and unhelpful answer to give, but unfortunately it's true.  

 

 

[Gremlin]

1 hour ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

guess that's the HOB

What does HOB stand for?

[Yomo Kimyata]

6 hours ago, Gremlin said:

What does HOB stand for?

Highest outstanding bid.  That's the next transaction spot when someone comes in as a low seller.  The counterpart is LOO (lowest outstanding offer), which is the first transaction spot when a high bidder enters the system.

[Mr. Vee]

Hob & Loo was also a 90's point and click game starring two adorable gnomes.

[UltraAlt]

On 4/17/2020 at 3:20 PM, Gremlin said:

The Ebil Marketeer's solution is to make so much money by trading that you no longer need to worry about the prices of things you actually slot. 🙂

 

[cronus]

2 year old necro

[Without_Pause]

On 4/17/2020 at 4:41 PM, Yomo Kimyata said:

I've noticed that one or more people tend to do a lot of crafting on Sunday nights.  A LOT.  I think that's what causes the drop in prices in the early part of the week, since those bulk posts seem to be at pretty low prices.

I wonder how much that is from people coming back from the weekend. 

[Sakai]

I have always assumed the weekend price spikes are due to the influx of players wanting it nao.  When the weekdays arrive the patient players and the "price correction regulators" are able to purchase for more reasonable rates.  Patience is a virtue. 

 

 

[Without_Pause]

On 4/16/2020 at 2:12 PM, AboveTheChemist said:

There is not a reference site, as far as I know. The last 5 listing is the only real window into the prices, but prices typically fluctuate depending on time of day and day of week, and some listings are outright bugged and can show the wrong prices.

There's a few things which could be added if I were HC, but until the market code is fixed, it isn't worth much. I added another example of the pricing bug today to the linked thread. I know it is a volunteer group, but 2.5+ years is quite some time to allow this to linger.

[Ukase]

I know what we can do - if you folks want to list the item, I'll tell you what I think is a fair price for it. 

For example: 

Every Obliteration IO is worth 2-3M. 
Every Unbreakable Guard and Aegis are worth 2-4M 
Every purple is to be hoarded, never sold. 
 

[SuperPlyx]

16 hours ago, Without_Pause said:

2.5+ years is quite some time to allow this to linger.

Or maybe that's an indication of just how bad the code is.

[Ura Hero]

3 hours ago, SuperPlyx said:

Or maybe that's an indication of just how bad the code is.

 

It's pretty bad.  As has been said multiple times, the original devs hated relational databases.  So much stuff is in flat files it's not funny.  There is a lot of the game that needs a full rewrite to actually fix the underlying issues.  That takes time when you only have a few people and the code is a bowl of dropped spaghetti in the first place.

[Without_Pause]

1 hour ago, Ura Hero said:

 

It's pretty bad.  As has been said multiple times, the original devs hated relational databases.  So much stuff is in flat files it's not funny.  There is a lot of the game that needs a full rewrite to actually fix the underlying issues.  That takes time when you only have a few people and the code is a bowl of dropped spaghetti in the first place.

Didn't they use Excel instead of an actual DB?