Flipper

[MTeague]

For the record, I don't mean this guy: 

 

 

No, I mean the term "AH Flipper". 

What exactly do you file under that category?

And what about it do you think is objectionable/not?

 

And, I know, I know, I'm a dreamer and a lunatic, but let's try to keep this free of invective and vitriol.

 

Category 1:  Buy something on Auction House.  Post the EXACT SAME THING to the Auction House, at a higher price. 

• This I can understand people being angry at.  "Now, I have to pay more. I could have bought it at the original price, but you wanted to be a middleman, and really what benefit does the community gain by you being such a middleman and taking an extra "cut" of the price it could have been?"
• However, an argument (rationalization?) can be made that now the same item is going through TWO auction house transactions, and therefore at least twice at much influence is being drained from the economy, which helps cut down on long-term-inflation.  
• Unless someone is bragging about doing exactly this, it's next to impossible to know it happens, because of course you have no idea who bought what from whom, or who acquired what as a drop vs acquired by the auction house.

 

Category 2:  Buy crafted set IO's on Auction House.  Convert them.  Post the converted result to the Auction House. 

• I don't object to the seller selling the converted result.  They bought some basic ingredients, used some of their own resources to turn it into something else that is a more sought-after product.
• Not unlike buying a house/building that has been condemned, fixing it up, and selling the result.
  • Now I do get, that even that can be touchy.  
  • in the real world, there can be concerns over not finding housing you can afford if the cheap places are all converted to something upscale.
  • In CoH terms, maybe I really *WANTED* to use Serendipity or Reactive Armor sets, but I can't because they're all snapped up and converted to LotG or to Unbreakable Guard's.  Or maybe I actually WANTED a full set of Gladiator's Net.  But other people are buying them and converting them to Panacea's and Shield Walls and Gladiator's Armor and such.

 

Category 3:  Buy recipe's and salvage.  Craft yellows, and some oranges.  Convert them.  Post the converted result to Auction House.

• In many ways identical to category 2.  but some may consider this "different" on some level so I wanted to split this out. 

 

Others Categories???

 

I don't really object to any of the above.  In part because I can use Converters to change most anything into most anything, and I'll get quite a few dropped recipies on any given night.  I'm not thrilled with category 1 and I don't do it.... but every bit of influence consumed by auction house fees is a bit of influence taken out of the economy, and that helps fight inflation.  I just personally like to feel like I have added value, and I can't quite bring myself to justify it to myself. 

 

I HAVE sometimes engaged in Category 2.

I'll do Category 3 a couple times a week.

 

If you consider this "bad", why?  What would you say if not some random stranger, but a friend was doing it?

[Troo]

I've done all three.

 

Category 3: This one likely contributes the most to the game/community.

• I'll do this with drops and cheap purchased recipes. The yellow salvage price spike of 2020 was annoying and ended my bulk crafting efforts.
• Tip: Quickfoot recipes can be bought cheap in middle level range for crafting & converting. Guaranteed to convert first time to a rare (Celerity) (sell the stealth convert the rest)

 

Category 2: This is the easiest one, once someone is familiar with the market and has a decent bankroll to work with.

• A majority of sales I target are for around 2M and I focus on volume while minimizing the number of converters used.
• I do tend to keep the good globals lotg, chance for build up, +reg, +end, etc
• Tip: Adjusted Targeting enhancements can be bought cheap. Guaranteed to convert first time to a rare (Gaussian's) (just sell these)

 

Category 1: This is the one that makes me feel a bit shady.

• Since some know the price ranges and that folks try to minimize market fees, we can put out lots of low bids and check back in a week.
• Then turn around and post them at a higher price point = decent profit. Buy for 255,000 and sell for 2,000,000.
• Tip: PLEASE don't sell your purples for 1 or 100 to avoid the market fees. We have cheap bids out there even if it looks safe, it's not.

 

Additionally, we should be able to convert Hamidon Enhancements (HamiOs, HOs, awesome sauce, proc enablers..). Just saying someone should take up the torch on this.

Edited June 20, 2020 by Troo

[0th Power]

I don’t have a problem with any.  I usually do #3 and sometimes 2.  But I don’t have a problem with #1, especially because with patience anyone can buy at the flipper’s buy price. 
 

also, I’d love for HOs to be convertible.  And that’s not just because I have a bunch of cheap ones in base storage...

[MunkiLord]

Fourth type of "flipper" are the ones that know which enhancements are impacted by the display bug and focus on those. Hint: Miracle unique 

[Yomo Kimyata]

2 hours ago, MTeague said:

 

 

Category 1:  Buy something on Auction House.  Post the EXACT SAME THING to the Auction House, at a higher price. 

• This I can understand people being angry at.  "Now, I have to pay more. I could have bought it at the original price, but you wanted to be a middleman, and really what benefit does the community gain by you being such a middleman and taking an extra "cut" of the price it could have been?"
• However, an argument (rationalization?) can be made that now the same item is going through TWO auction house transactions, and therefore at least twice at much influence is being drained from the economy, which helps cut down on long-term-inflation.  
• Unless someone is bragging about doing exactly this, it's next to impossible to know it happens, because of course you have no idea who bought what from whom, or who acquired what as a drop vs acquired by the auction house.

 

 

I do all three of these (I used to do Munkilord's 4th and I may again).  Specifically about #1, I suspect that there is a big difference between buying all the inventory at whatever price they are listed at and reposting higher, and putting in a lot of bids on the low end and then reposting them later at a market rate.  

 

Real world example from earlier today.  I just levelled a few alts to 17, which is kind of my favorite level.  That's when you add the Miracle, the Perf Shifter, the Kinetic Combats, and (wait for it) the Entropic Chaos.  I love the EC set.  I've been trying to make it a thing since before fetch was a thing.  So I put in bids x10 on each of the pieces at 1,005,000.  I know that eventually I will own all of them there.  So I'll slot the ones I need and put the extras for sale at, say, 2mm.  I also know that eventually I will sell all of them there.  My profit is small, but based on how the AH works and because (and this is important) most people want to buy or sell right away rather than be patient, I feel very confident that it'll work out ok for me.

 

Compare this to me saying, huh, there are 22 EC A/D offered.  That's not a lot.  Why don't I buy them all up and relist them at 5mm?  You can certainly do that, but it is very unlikely that you will sell many or even any of them.  This is because converters have made all IOs topologically equivalent.  You can always buy the proc and convert it to an A/D.  You can buy a Ruin and convert it.  There is a level of uncertainty, but you cannot stop more supply from entering the market.  There is no way to prohibit that.

 

My first example I do every day in every item that I have interest in on the AH.  I even buy Winter Packs at 20mm and resell them at 24,999,999.  (not bloody many, I'll tell you).  My second example was done on Live all the time, and to the HC team's credit, they put in measures to help prevent that from happening now.  I wouldn't even try since there will always be undersellers.

 

I cannot and will not apologize for buying things for 5 inf, then selling the exact same item for 3mm.  I did exactly this with a bunch of attuned IOs that I put in a 5inf bid for 10 in order to get past the pricing bug.  Months later, I find I bought them because at some point 5 inf was the best bid, and someone chose to sell their item at 5 inf.

 

 

[EmmySky]

Ok here is what I do.

 

Buy 2 Aegis something or other.  Forget I put 2 in the how many field and buy 2 Armaggedon 5 piece sets.  Discover my mistake when slotting because I am daft and didnt notice it when I got them from AH.  Set extras for sale in AH for 100 and promptly dispose of about 10m inf per enh for a 50m total loss.

 

You need a category for daft fools.

[MunkiLord]

1 hour ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

I do all three of these (I used to do Munkilord's 4th and I may again). 

This one is my favorite because I sell Miracles all the time, so when the bug hits I don't have to do anything different and they sell for a much higher price. Worst case for me is you or someone else jumps in and buys mine just above my minimum and they all sell extremely fast. 

 

Also I noticed the bug this evening. 

[MTeague]

1 hour ago, EmmySky said:

Ok here is what I do.

 

Buy 2 Aegis something or other.  Forget I put 2 in the how many field and buy 2 Armaggedon 5 piece sets.  Discover my mistake when slotting because I am daft and didnt notice it when I got them from AH.  Set extras for sale in AH for 100 and promptly dispose of about 10m inf per enh for a 50m total loss.

 

You need a category for daft fools.

LOL, that's great.  🙂   Personally, I'd probably hang onto the extra Argameddon's.  Sooner or later you'll have another character to slot them into.  But I feel your pain on the "Wait, quantity is still WHAT?" after clicking "Make Offer".

[SuperPlyx]

Flipping E's and stacking Inf

[Greycat]

2 and 3 I don' tmind.

1... ehhhhh. 1 is shady to me.

 

Though I'll admit 1 tends to annoy me most due to some arguments on live where the person bought them low and posted them at "what they're supposed to sell at." To which my reaction is generally "that's not for you to determine." And, frankly, I usually got some fairly irritating responses.

 

Hypothetical example. HC has an event. It results in me getting 10 ATOs just through playing over the course of that week. I can use a few, and I do. I have five left over, no real interest in them or in converting them. (Definitely hypothetical. With all my alts, I can use them, but that's neither here nor there.) I look at the market, they're usually going from 6-10m. All the ATOs have bids sitting there waiting.

 

I decide to list them at 750,000. Why? Well, for me these have no "worth." I did nothing special for them - I played, they dropped. I didn't farm, I didn't have to spend anything to craft them. Besides that, there are obviously people that want them that don't like that price for whatever reason and, what the heck, why not let someone else enjoy them. Maybe it's one of their few characters and they don't play often, I don't know, but I want players to get them for- well, *playing.* What I don't want, and what would annoy me, is someone just getting it because "it shouldn't be that cheap" and just turning around and relisting it at 6-10 million.

 

And no, I'm not kidding about having that exact reason thrown at me. Usually followed by a variant of "the market will decide prices," which ... is somewhat hypocritical, since it didn't just decide that price, someone planning on flipping it did.

 

Now, I'm not saying that's why everyone who does so does it - I'm not psychic and if I were I'd have better things to look into. On live, that conversation (paraphrased) pretty much soured me on people playing the market. (Here, honestly, I don't care. *shrug* Do your thing. Enjoy.) And if I'm being really honest, what irked me most were the people seeming to brag about it more than the action itself. "I made X billion by flipping!" is annoying. "I made X billion by buying, converting and reselling" doesn't, since (a) there's some cost to the person doing it and (b) they're - in theory at least - puttin gtime into figuring out *what* to convert to, so there's a degree of... "earning it," I suppose.

 

But, like I said. Here, I don't care. I've had enough happen IRL that the most ire it gets from me now is a head shake and a "whatever."

[nihilii]

#1 might feel morally shady to most people but in truth, it helps with price discovery and benefits you when you're on the other end of that trade.

 

Logically, the average player should be an equal supplier and consumer of goods on the AH. If he isn't - if, specifically, he buys more stuff from the AH than he supplies - then that means he's generating less drops per inf than the average player, contributing more to inflation (and thus, price hikes).

 

Flipping and farming are correlated in that these two activities have counterintuitive effects. That is, we tend to think of flipping as bad whereas it's actually positive for the economy, and we tend to think of farming as good whereas it's actually hurtful to the economy.

[Heraclea]

I do very little marketing.  When I do, what I do is to craft any yellow recipe that does not need rare salvage, that the Fates have dropped the salvage needed to make it into my lap.  If it's in a disfavored category (mostly sniper and endurance modification) I gamble that into a different uncommon; then I do a category gamble to turn it into a corresponding rare, then rare-class gambles until it lands on something useful.  Most of the usefuls go into the SG kitty.  When I have a glut of a certain IO the surplus goes to the AH. 

 

The hard part is all the level 50 IOs you end up with that you need at level 7.   This is the prime use for me of unslotters and catalysts.  I stockpile those as well and use as needed.  Catalysts are earned by running a couple of 50s until they get their daily catalyst.  Converters and unslotters come from 'odd' reward merits (not a multiple of 20 or 50). 

[Vulpoid]

Related, but unrelated.... Somebody made a mod chest texture of a band logo named Flipper in 2006. Not sure why I kept it.
 

[MTeague]

4 hours ago, Heraclea said:

The hard part is all the level 50 IOs you end up with that you need at level 7.   This is the prime use for me of unslotters and catalysts.  I stockpile those as well and use as needed.  Catalysts are earned by running a couple of 50s until they get their daily catalyst.  Converters and unslotters come from 'odd' reward merits (not a multiple of 20 or 50). 

I have to admit, I rarely use Catalysts to attune anything.  Given the quirk of the market where lvl enhancments of any level share the SAME inventory and pricing as their attuned counterparts, I've gotten into the habit of *craft EVERY recipe that drops for me*  (I have tons of rare salvage from piles of brain storm ideas from superpacks), convert if not already valueable, post it for auction. then buy whatever I actually WANT as an already-attuned-piece.

 

The Catalysts I tend to pile up until an alt dings fifty, and then that alt will withdraw 24-30 catalysts from petty cash to Purpleize ATO's and Winter-O's.