Don't be Ebil.

[Profit]

The problems of the market of yesteryear should be minimal as none of us are starting the market with billions of influence already on hand. That should naturally help keep inflation low. I know in the old days groups of marketeers would actively work to combat certain bad practices (ie if someone bought all of one set of salvage and reposted at triple price, and marketeers noticed, they would dump their salvage stores on the market at normal price to combat this tactic) and we need to get that going again.

 

Having said that, Don't be Ebil. You can still make a profit selling numinas for 10 mil instead of 100 mil. Maybe we can agree on some goals for marketeers in this new age, something like,

 

Keep prices reasonable, none of this winterlord baby sell the purple for 500 mil like we saw in the before time.

Keep the market stocked.

Help the less market savvy to get builds completed or get stuff sold.

 

The market, and farming, are as much a part of this game as pvp/base building/AE writing/PVE missions/RP and deserve to be treated with the same respect as do the people enjoying these activities. As marketeers, it is our job to help insure the health and success of the economy, help players complete their new favorite build, and keep things reasonable.

 

So don't be ebil.

[Solvernia]

joke's on you, i intentionally crashed the price of enhancement converters by telling everyone they could make huge profit by selling them in bulk, and now i get to buy boatloads of cheap converters

 

market manipulation is fun

[Garthamatic]

Nice premise, but a free market economy self regulates.

 

I've heard it described as financial PvP, which is pretty accurate.

 

The changes with seeding the market with salvage is already synthetically altering the market dynamic. Nobody is gouging anyone on Luck Charms or rare salvage anymore (also due to market changes in how salvage is handled).

 

Same with recipes and enchancements, since those level adjust on the market, as well.

 

Fortune favors the prepared. Want a fully IO'd build? Learn the market, learn crafting, understand basic economics... It's not rocket science.  People who are savvy and can generate influence via market sales will be able to afford better builds.

 

Think of it as a reward for people who put in the time and effort to realize their dreams.  Anyone can do it, it's a level playing field for success. We all have the same access and starting point.

[Jon]

I mean I don't see the market ever becoming as inflated as it was on live. They seeded the salvage market, PvP IOs now drop in regular content so they're more common, and every IO is accessible through merit rewards (which are also easier to get than on live). I think there is definitely a ceiling to how high prices can get now, which is a good thing for everyone.

[Shinobu]

 

In addition, all same-type salvage pulls from a single pool, so common salvage like Luck Charm is not going to be more expensive than any other common salvage, or have less supply.  You cannot corner the market on salvage.

 

Converters make it difficult to corner the market on any particular IO because you can convert from different IOs to get what you want.  Very Rare / Purple IOs will always be rare, but nothing's going to be so rare that it sells for ridiculous amounts of in-game currency.

[Adeon Hawkwood]

Keep prices reasonable, none of this winterlord baby sell the purple for 500 mil like we saw in the before time.

This isn't actually something that we the players can control. The prices are fundamentally set by supply and demand. If you want to keep prices low then encourage the homecoming team to keep the supply of items high and avoid doing things that will increase inflation. The prices of things like purples on live was high because there were relatively few of them relative to the number of people who wanted them. There wasn't a shadowy cartel manipulating them.

 

Keep the market stocked.

Well this one depends on everyone. If you want stuff on the market  then list it. Even junk. Enhancement converters are super cheap so most of the current supply of enhancements are there because someone took the time to buy cheap recipes and then converted them into more valuable enhancements. This is why most of the desirable rare enhancements are selling for about 7-10million each, that's high enough that it's profitable for people to convert them but low enough that there aren't to many people getting into the action.

 

EDIT: I'll add an example here. Early on I was converting PBAoE enhancements. I'd buy Cleaving Blow and Multi-Strike recipes convert them into Scirroco's Dervish and Obliterations and sell those. The thing is lots of people are doing that now so the profit has shrunk and I've moved on. But you'll notice that the prices of the enhancements have come down and the prices of the recipes I was buying have gone up both of which are good things for casual players.

 

Also, don't forget flippers. Flipping tends to be good for keeping a supply of items on the market. It brings up the price floor and lowers the price ceiling but also helps to ensure that the market doesn't run out.

 

Help the less market savvy to get builds completed or get stuff sold.

Well I've seen plenty of people offering advice on converting merits into inf for the first part and flippers generally help with the second since they raise the price floor for an item so sellers get a better price.

 

So overall it looks like we're two for three but the first one isn't really in our control.

 

Finally I'll add that marketeers aren't actually evil. In general having people flipping, crafting and converting is good for the market. It helps to keep the prices at a more stable level than they would otherwise be and ensures a steady supply of items that might otherwise be subject to feast or famine. Now I'll admit we don't do this out of the goodness of our hearts we do it because we want top notch builds for our characters and this is the easiest way to get that but there isn't a shadowy cartel controlling the market. For one thing it would be impossible to actually control the price of an item over an extended period. Bump it up a bit in the short term, maybe, although that tends to be caused by a lack of marketeers more than anything else.

 

Now if you'll excuse me I'm late for a meeting. Where are my top hat and monocle?

[Garthamatic]

Now if you'll excuse me I'm late for a meeting. Where are my top hat and monocle?

 

Here, you can borrow mine...  ;)

[macskull]

I think the most expensive items now are Hami O's, purples, and winter IOs, and even then none of those are anywhere near what they were on live (well, I think some Hami O's are going for more, but that's because there's way less supply and PvP builds love their microfilaments). Oddly enough, I've only done minimal toying with the market and have made off with a good chunk of inf just using converters and offloading what I don't need. Of course, I run enough content every day that I'm sitting on thousands of reward merits already so I can probably fund all my own builds without ever touching the market, but I just find it easier.

[DSorrow]

I don't think there's anything to worry about with the way merits are set up on Homecoming. The most expensive things cost 100 (or 120 including catalysts) merits each which is something you can easily get in 2 hours of gaming without going the most optimal route. If you join a MSR, you'll get those 100 merits in 30 minutes. Because 100 merits can be earned in 30 minutes, the most expensive items should be roughly equal in value to 30 minutes of extremely efficient influence farming and this merits<=>time<=>influence relation effectively sets the cap prices, assuming the players act rationally.

 

Having said that, I was actually pretty surprised how effective the WW was for making money considering all the changes from live, most notably the lack of influence stockpiles and ease of access through merits. In two weeks, I've moved from being a level 30 with ~5 million influence to having my first 50, a full set IO build and somewhere between 1-1.5 billion in cash/inventory/bids without farming or spending a single merit. Those merits are going to come in handy for my next 50 though, because that build is going to utilize some purples and I'm not expecting to have all of my lowball bids filled by the time I get there.

[Alphabet Soup II]

Buying out stock of anything will be incredibly difficult with converters. Honestly converters and the ease at which you can get them fundamentally change the games economy and how to make money on the market. If you spend merits on anything other than converters I think you are making a mistake. 30 converters for 10 merits is such a ridiculously low cost for tremendous power. You really don't have to be clever to figure out how to exploit converters to get what you want or make money. I started playing the market once I accrued 10M and I currently have over 1B, 3 fully IO'd expensive builds, and a SG base full of a stupid number of miracle procs, LOTG +rech, Numina procs, +3% def procs, +5% res procs, and tons of purps and ATOs.

 

Honestly paying 50 merits for a rare IO or 100 merits for a purp, winter piece, or PVP piece is a total waste. You should never spend merits on that stuff. Buy cheap and convert, you will always spend less resources that way. 100 merits is 300 converters, that's so much power and flexibility. Obviously not everyone will want to put in the time or think about how to play efficiently and that's why I can make money so easily.

 

Also prices are effectively capped at 100M because you can buy any piece you want from the merit vendor for a maximum of 100 merits and you can also straight up buy merits for 1M per merit at the same vendor. So market prices are really never going to crest 100M unless people just don't recognize they can literally buy merits.

[Murcielago]

Where's the fun in not being evil?

 

 

[NekoAli]

The most fundamentally flawed thing about this requests is that people who want to manipulate the market to make huge profits not only won't care, they will use it to their own ends. When you have 95% of the population playing nice, it's easier in some ways for the 5% to find ways to manipulate the system. When most everyone is playing by arbitrary rules, those who don't care about rules or fairness have the advantage. Short of someone on the dev team making it their job to oversee the auction system and shutting down any attempts to manipulate it, there is only so much we as players can do.

 

Unfortunately the way the auction house is set up it can be difficult to tell what is an ordinary fair price and what is someone trying to spike the market. Without seeing who did the postings and with only being able to see the last five transactions it can be hard to tell if that popular and useful purple salvage is actually worth the 100,000 it's sold for the last five times, or it's actually a 10,000 inf item someone recently bought out and jacked up the price on. The best that people can do is not buy on impulse. If you know you need an item watch it for a few days and make note what it sells for on average. That's about the only way I know to see if there's a sudden spike and if buying now would be a rip off and you should wait another day or two. The market will always tend to self correct to some degree. With so many people able to use it freely, it's difficult for anyone to manipulate the auctions long term.

[Mr. Vee]

I'm so glad to be back to a double blind market where you can put in bids for things that aren't on sale at the moment that i'll happily take whatever ebil people want to dish out.

[Primantis]

I mean I don't see the market ever becoming as inflated as it was on live. They seeded the salvage market, PvP IOs now drop in regular content so they're more common, and every IO is accessible through merit rewards (which are also easier to get than on live). I think there is definitely a ceiling to how high prices can get now, which is a good thing for everyone.

 

Not to mention, since you can outright buy a Merit for 1 million Inf, there is essentially a soft cap on any recipe prices.

 

Purples should never go for more than 100 million, because you can buy them straight up for that much from the Merit Vendor.

 

Likewise, LotG - Recharge should never go for more than 50 Million.

 

 

Now these prices seem steep. But remember Purples were going for 200-400million on Live, and LotG was 70-100million.

[DSorrow]

The most fundamentally flawed thing about this requests is that people who want to manipulate the market to make huge profits not only won't care, they will use it to their own ends.

 

Due to the amount of people playing, the items seeded into the market and effective price caps set by the different currency conversions (1,000,000 inf = 1 merit), it's actually extremely unlikely anyone would actually be able to manipulate the market. At best, you can make money off of impatience: people are willing to pay premiums of several millions just so they avoid crafting enhancements or because they want a specific item right now instead of waiting overnight.

[_NOPE_]

Yup, and I'm one of them. Take advantage of me! Sell it to me RITE NAO!

[DSorrow]

Yup, and I'm one of them. Take advantage of me! Sell it to me RITE NAO!

 

Thank you for your contribution to my inf stockpiles!

 

On a more serious note, I totally understand the mentality because I get the urge to have things right now all the time, but I only allow myself to do that when it's 1-2 enhancements to get a particularly good set bonus (like +7.5% Rech) or if we're talking about the last few enhancements in the build. Other than that, I'll wait because at worst my waiting time is typically 2-3 days. Doing this, I have fully IO'd my first and so far only 50 (perma Hasten, soft cap Ranged/AoE def, all that jazz), stockpiled around 60 ATOs/Purples/LotG +Rech/other uniques for future 50s and gone from <10mil inf to about 1.5 billion in less than three weeks.

[Adeon Hawkwood]

I'm one of those people who is both ebil and impatient. I spend most of my time converting IOs to sell and racking up my inf stockpiles and then when I want to IO a character I'm fine with overpaying (within reason) for enhancements to get them quickly.

[Alphabet Soup II]

Best way to make money is converting. Buy low sell high has never been easier when you can literally buy some junky rare for 10k inf craft and convert it into something 4M+ or better yet buy a crappy enhancement preuilt for 400k and convert it to something 4M+. Converters and the market basically provide you an indirect way to turn merits into INF. It's a basically risk free way to make money. Then as always the more money you have the even easier it becomes to make money. You can literally just buy superpacks in mass and sell the goods and you end up making money with a bit of converting.

[HelloRaptor]

I agree that it probably won't be all THAT big a deal on HC because of the Merit situation. This, though...

 

The prices of things like purples on live was high because there were relatively few of them relative to the number of people who wanted them. There wasn't a shadowy cartel manipulating them.

 

Aahhahahahhahahahaha. You're adorable. ^_^

 

There was, we were, it was some of the most atrociously shitty behavior I've participated in online. From straight up market manipulation to going out and starting rumors related to fake market trends with gullible players, to private forums used to coordinate big pushes one way or another with as many participants as possible.

 

There's a reason it took a coordinated effort by a bunch of rich players to try and push back. ^_^

[Mr. Vee]

Yup, and I'm one of them. Take advantage of me! Sell it to me RITE NAO!

 

I made a full purpled/superiored ATO and winter/all attuned build last night, all buy it nao, leaving my 600+ merits untouched cuz screw crafting. And it was so much nicer my altoholic self will never go back to the miserly way. Enjoy your spoils and give those moustaches a twist for me.

[Robotech_Master]

Another thing to remember is that the market Attunes for free, because it puts Attuned set IOs in the same bucket as every other set IO. The Level 31 Kinetic Combat I gain from upconverting and sell on the market can be an Attuned Kinetic Combat IO when someone else buys it. Which means that buying pre-made is no longer just for the lazy, it's something that smart people who want to avoid paying an extra 4 mil Inf or 20 Reward Merits for a catalyst will do.

 

As long as the market continues to provide this value for free, people will be able to extract value from it. There will always be a market for crafted IOs, whether they're made directly or converted into, because they're cheaper than Attuning yourself. Perhaps this puts a soft-cap on the price of the IO, that being "4 million Inf over the cost of crafting it yourself," but there's still a decent chunk of profit to be made under that cap.

 

I'm more worried about the devs nerfing it and ending the fun than I am about the market crashing under its own weight.

[Mr. Vee]

I can't imagine why they'd nerf something so universally useful. It's not as if it's just benefitting a certain at or set or something.

[MunkiLord]

I'm one of those people who is both ebil and impatient. I spend most of my time converting IOs to sell and racking up my inf stockpiles and then when I want to IO a character I'm fine with overpaying (within reason) for enhancements to get them quickly.

 

Same here.

[MunkiLord]

I agree that it probably won't be all THAT big a deal on HC because of the Merit situation. This, though...

 

The prices of things like purples on live was high because there were relatively few of them relative to the number of people who wanted them. There wasn't a shadowy cartel manipulating them.

 

Aahhahahahhahahahaha. You're adorable. ^_^

 

There was, we were, it was some of the most atrociously shitty behavior I've participated in online. From straight up market manipulation to going out and starting rumors related to fake market trends with gullible players, to private forums used to coordinate big pushes one way or another with as many participants as possible.

 

There's a reason it took a coordinated effort by a bunch of rich players to try and push back. ^_^

 

All it took to beat anyone trying to manipulate the market was patience. Their ability to control or influence prices to any significant degree was 100% dependent on other people's impatience and/or ignorance. The people attempting such things were not nearly as smart as they thought they were.