Winter Event and the impact on Winter-Os

[Ukase]

So...the winter event will soon be upon us! 
Adam Smith, economist now long dead, suggested rational self-interest in a free-market economy leads to economic well-being. 

While I don't pretend that the AH is a free-market, given the seeding the devs do, nor am I proposing all players act in rational self-interest (crazy badgers), I do think part of this premise will have an impact in the coming months. 

With the assumption that the sale repeats itself, many of us are going to do our best to act in our best self-interest in an effort to enjoy the meta-game of the AH market. Some of us are going to buy anywhere from 1 to maybe even 10000 or more winter packs when(if?) they go on sale for 10M. 

So what impact will this have on: 
Catalysts
Converters

Boosters
Ability to team for weekly tfs
Unslotters
Rare Salvage (due to brain storm ideas)
and of course, Winter-Os. 

I have no idea what many of you will do. I'm still mulling it over in my head what I will do. I can say that from what I got last year, without selling too many of the Winter-Os and using a fair number of them in my alts, I still came out ahead. Plenty of reward merits allowed me to only team up for tfs when I wanted a notice of the well, as I no longer have a need for reward merits, having so many in my email from them. 

My farmers give me all the catalysts I need, so the ones I get from the pack may get sold, or used on winter-os if it's easier than having the farmer trade them off to my alt. 

Boosters will probably drop a bit in price, too. 

Unslotters...sheesh, I still have over 4000 of these. Guess I should just flood the market with them. 
Rare salvage...thanks (or not) to the seeding, I think no matter what happens prices will never go up over 500k for very long. 

But the big value in the winter packs has always been the winter-Os. They currently range - non-catalyzed - from about 18-23M, depending on when you catch the sale. The superiors are still going for 25-30M, sometimes as high as 35M or as low as 5k. (that I've seen) 

But this sale will be different from last year, I think, in that more players have more inf. I know I do. 
More players will also know about the sale, too. 

So how will they approach this and what impact will it have on Winter-O prices? 

I think for the most part, prices on Winter-O's will drop a bit, as demand will seem to drop as people wait for the sale. Then when the sale hits - most folks will dump their winter-os on the market, trying to recoup investment. Others will stash the O's planning on using them, or waiting for the market to pick back up and make more profit. Last year, prices picked back up, I think it was in May. This year, I expect them to stay lower, longer, but I could be wrong. Others will certainly bid low on these in anticipation of playing a mid-run game and reposting them at a higher price. How low will they go?! 7M? 10M? 

I think they sell for what they sell for now, due to the price of the pack. So, I suspect Entombed will drop to about the same as a kheldian ATO. Blistering Cold will be about the same as a brute ATO. So, 6-10M is my guess...until folks buy them up too fast, then the price creeps up to about 12-15 and it'll stay there, due to uncertainty about how much inventory is stashed in emails out there. Nobody wants to be the guy who has to pull the item of the market because it's not selling, so there's going to be uncertainty for sure. I just wish I could remember how it played out last year. 

I confess, I'm mainly buying them for the Experienced, the Amplifiers and the reward merits. The cats and converters, boosters I can use or sell, doesn't matter. I'll never use a fraction of the tailor tokens, nor the respecs. The windfalls have proven to be glitched in some way as far as 25% more inf goes. 

When making a character, I'm often torn between the very rare for the recharge, or the superior winter-o for the defense. I wonder how many are equally as torn. It's tough to predict what others will do when you have no idea if they think like you. So, I can really take or leave the Winter-Os on all but my farmers. And since farmers bring me purples, and not Winter-Os, it's an easier choice. 

 

Ultimately, I suspect afk-farming will be addressed in some fashion, in some way - without impacting active farming, so the demand for these may drop at some time in the future. But for now, farming is fairly popular, still lucrative and likely to continue. 

So what are your guesses? Use this opportunity to share your insights with us mere mortals who aren't yet in the trillion inf club. Or mis-direct us! Or speak of nerfing regen! 

[Ura Hero]

I'm still being the pessimist, not being convinced that they will go on sale this year.  I mean I'll be happy if they do since I missed out last year, but it just doesn't seem likely.

 

Although I see that Jimmy liked your post while I was typing this so I am probably wrong.

Edited November 17, 2020 by Ura Hero

[Coyotedancer]

I want to build a zen-style fire farmer on my main account to match the one I have on my secondary... That build involves a fair few Winter Os, so I'm hoping the packs do go on sale again.  10m a pop would make me feel a lot less like I'm blowing an absolutely outrageous amount of INF on something I don't really need. 

 

I have zero interest in playing the market with the things... or with anything else, honestly... So I'll leave that to you guys in the tophats-and-monocles crowd.

[Ura Hero]

[Yomo Kimyata]

In my opinion, the devs should absolutely not put Winter Packs on sale for 10mm this year or any year going forward.

In my opinion, the devs absolutely will put Winter Packs on sale for 10mm this year and every year going forward.

 

My argument for the former is too much supply in the hands of too few.  I was blindsided (by my own blindness) when the packs went on sale last year.  That was where I had put my excess inf bids because I didn't trust that the devs wouldn't introduce lvl 53 Hami-Os (*duh Duh DUH*) and I figured that If I bought something at a 60% discount I could probably figure out a way to make inf out of it.  I accidentally bought *thousands* of them.  

 

So I started paring down my exposure, and guess what?  I made a $#@$-ton of inf off of them, starting from day one.

 

The "markets" seem to have set rough values for ATOs and Winter-Os at 80% of the cost of the pack, which jibes well with my rough observation that I tend to get about 1.2 IOs per pack in bulk.  It's the "other stuff" that determines your profit.

 

Winter-O packs give way too much "other stuff".  Despite the fact that prices on the other stuff has dropped a lot, even if prices remained at 10mm forever, smart money would buy the Winter Packs because they (anecdotally I admit, but it's very clear to me) provide more "other stuff" than ATOs.  This keeps the rich richer, in my opinion, and I don't see that as a particularly healthy thing for the game.  The rich in this simplified game are absurdly rich.  It seems to me that the only thing stopping ridiculous market shenanigans is good will.  And that will hurt the casual gamer.  HC seems to bend over backwards for the casual gamer, and yet I think that putting Winter Packs on sale will hurt the casual gamer in the AH in both the short and the long term.

 

But they will put them on sale, because for every ebil marketer who buys a few thousand packs, there will be one dewy-eyed "newbie" who will moan how unfair it is that they can't buy a single pack at discounted prices. 

 

My two inf.

[Yomo Kimyata]

A healthier winter gift would be to grant 1-5 free Winter Packs to every account.

[Ukase]

1 minute ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

A healthier winter gift would be to grant 1-5 free Winter Packs to every account.

I completely agree with you. Have you made a suggestion yet? 

Ya gotta figure Jimmy would give it some thought. 

[Troyusrex]

On 11/17/2020 at 5:43 PM, Yomo Kimyata said:

  I was blindsided (by my own blindness) when the packs went on sale last year. 

I happened to log on early the day these went on sale last year, realized what it meant, bought a ton of winter packs and sold them Winter-Os for big bucks. I made at least 10 billion off of it, but I wasn't sure they'd sell for enough to cover the costs and thought I might lose it all. What a day! 

 

 

Edited November 19, 2020 by Troyusrex

[macskull]

On 11/17/2020 at 5:43 PM, Yomo Kimyata said:

It seems to me that the only thing stopping ridiculous market shenanigans is good will.

And seeding the market with salvage, and bucketing of salvage by rarity, and the conversion system, and bucketing of recipes and enhancements by level/type, and so on... The resources are there for anyone to make inf on the market if they choose to use them.

Edited November 22, 2020 by macskull

[Myrmidon]

I am currently waiting to burn hundreds of millions of Influence on these things for my own use. If the discount doesn’t go through, I’ll just buy them in the Market and leave that Influence in circulation.

Either way, it will still be a Fold Space paradise.😁

[tidge]

To be honest: for my character concepts and build desires the Winter set pieces are almost never added to my builds. I suppose if I was specifically looking for Fire/Cold Resistance/Defense or for some Ice-support from the procs I would feel differently. I have a couple of builds where I included a Winter set for some positional defense, but aside from the Universal Travel -Slow piece I rarely consider using them.

[Grindingsucks]

I don't buy them, so I have no opinion, honestly.  I mean, I DO have strong opinions about the market in general, just not this one specific thing.  Is it even something that affects a lot of people that use the market?

[Luminara]

On 11/17/2020 at 1:06 PM, Ukase said:

Adam Smith, economist now long dead, suggested rational self-interest in a free-market economy leads to economic well-being.

 

John Nash carried it further in showing that self interest in cooperation with group interest produced better results for the person and the group.  Perhaps marketeer collaboration on winter pack purchasing and item sales could provide some improvement to the economy.  Or, at least, some interesting data resulting from the experiment.

 

On 11/17/2020 at 5:43 PM, Yomo Kimyata said:

sale for 10mm

 

How much inf* is in a millimeter?

[Ukase]

12 hours ago, Grindingsucks said:

I don't buy them, so I have no opinion, honestly.  I mean, I DO have strong opinions about the market in general, just not this one specific thing.  Is it even something that affects a lot of people that use the market?

That's really the purpose of this post. What impact will it have? The number of converters in the AH is almost double what it was 2 weeks ago. Someone with a ton of reward merits is liquidating for the anticipated sale, perhaps. It will increase the amount of converting, as the larger supply makes for more competition, driving the price down a bit. This increases the number of IOs for sale that are in demand. It drives those prices down as players compete with market pvp. 

More Winter IOs will hit the market, and the competition is going to be steep. A number will buy the packs and keep the winter-Os. A number will keep them for several months, maybe 6 months waiting for the price to creep upward. Buy a pack for 10M, get one Winter-O, and sell it "cheap" for 11M. a month later, or for 22M six months later. 

Inf spent here is likely going to not be spent on other items. So it will be interesting to see how it plays out. 

We don't know how many people make LotG 7.5% and put them on the market. Suppose some of them stop and focus on winter-Os, where the profit on one would be larger than the entire cost of an LotG? The demand on LotG isn't going to go down. So, supplies decrease, prices of them go up. All manner of things like this "could" happen. 

[tidge]

13 hours ago, Krimson said:

If they go on sale, I'm going to buy like 100 packs then finance my builds through spring. 

If they go on sale, I'll buy a fixed number and leave them unopened... until the time comes when I have a character that wants to make use of Winter sets. Converter roulette will fill ~80% of what I'll need and then I will simply buy the pieces I am missing.

 

This isn't a market area I play in.

[Hew]

Any idea if we will see them on sale?

[Lockpick]

I don't have the inf many of you have.  I play my characters and then switch to an alt when my latest 50 hits my baseline parameters.  One of my baseline parameters is all my 50s should have $100M inf.  I have 18 50s, so will probably take half of that inf and buy winter packs for the IOs.  I have several characters that need winter IOs, but I have been holding off getting them in anticipation of the winter event. 

[Grindingsucks]

4 hours ago, Ukase said:

That's really the purpose of this post. What impact will it have? The number of converters in the AH is almost double what it was 2 weeks ago. Someone with a ton of reward merits is liquidating for the anticipated sale, perhaps. It will increase the amount of converting, as the larger supply makes for more competition, driving the price down a bit. This increases the number of IOs for sale that are in demand. It drives those prices down as players compete with market pvp. 

More Winter IOs will hit the market, and the competition is going to be steep. A number will buy the packs and keep the winter-Os. A number will keep them for several months, maybe 6 months waiting for the price to creep upward. Buy a pack for 10M, get one Winter-O, and sell it "cheap" for 11M. a month later, or for 22M six months later. 

Inf spent here is likely going to not be spent on other items. So it will be interesting to see how it plays out. 

We don't know how many people make LotG 7.5% and put them on the market. Suppose some of them stop and focus on winter-Os, where the profit on one would be larger than the entire cost of an LotG? The demand on LotG isn't going to go down. So, supplies decrease, prices of them go up. All manner of things like this "could" happen. 

Ah, I see.  That certainly puts things in perspective.  Thanks for the clarification.  👍

[Seed22]

So THATS why Winter IOs suddenly dropped to 10mil. Huh, I just figured I was unluckly and logged during a time where people drove the cost down enough with high saturation. Welp, guess I may stockpile em on my farmer and hold em either for future toons or more than likely future sales 

[Hedgefund]

I finally sold the last of my Winter Packs from last year.  I didn't even remember they were still around on any character but it occurred to me to check and lo and behold, there was a stash.  I did manage to sell them all so now I'm at zero.

 

I don't do ANY marketeering but I do jump on easy money for no effort when the opportunity arises so, assuming a sale, I'll repeat last year's tactic of using about 90% of liquidity to buy the packs.  Sell 1/3 when the price returns to 25M.  Open about 1/3.  Keep 1/3 for a rainy day to eventually sell before the next event.

[Ukase]

I anticipate the packs to go on sale this coming Tuesday. I intend to take note of how many are available for sale before the shut down, if I can. I'll be really curious to see how many are bought - and then, when the sale ends - how many go back up for sale for the easy 15M profit ---that may not be realized for a few months. 

[Crysis]

I’m still sitting on well over a hundred unopened Winter Packs from last years’ sale.  I flipped a bunch but then really slowed down my alt-creation-itis after the big AE XP nerfs last spring and so now just use the leftovers to outfit my own toons as needed.

 

I doubt I’ll buy any this year.  No longer Marketeering beyond conversions.

[Ukase]

On 11/28/2020 at 9:16 AM, Crysis said:

I’m still sitting on well over a hundred unopened Winter Packs from last years’ sale.  

If that's the case, you may want to consider flipping the packs back on the AH either before they go on sale, or after the sale ends. Quick 15m profit. 

 

[Yomo Kimyata]

8 hours ago, Ukase said:

If that's the case, you may want to consider flipping the packs back on the AH either before they go on sale, or after the sale ends. Quick 12.5m profit. 

 

Sorry, had to correct that!  NEVER FORGET THE VIG!

 

If they go on sale, I don't see how I can't buy a bunch of them.  At some tipping point, it's possible that so many people will buy them that demand for WOs will be overfilled tenfold.  I mean, I have over 100 alts, most of which are completely tricked out (although most under 50) and I might have a total of 100 individual WOs among them at the absolute most.

[Ukase]

I forgot the fee! Oh my! I am ashamed! 

 

Edited November 30, 2020 by Ukase