market variations

[Nyghtmaire]

Influence only has relative value in relation what it can get you. In @Ukase’s blaster ATO example, the value of influence is significantly less than on Homecoming, albeit with the caveat of (presumably) increasing the difficulty of acquiring IOs for any planned build. Suspicion: the value of merits increases with the ability to purchase desired recipes (with the assumption that merits are similarly easy to come by). Regardless, influence quickly becomes meaningless when a player can acquire whatever is needed for a specific character without significant effort. Anything above that is for the joy of the meta game - and big number is better than little numbers.

 

Caveat 1 - I don’t play on Thunderspy.

Caveat 2 - Stuck on Amtrak with only whiskey for food.

Caveat 3 - Thanks to @Yomo Kimyata, I’ve amassed another half a billion since @Snarky started this thread.

[MoonSheep]

the “Buy It Nao™” price has always been higher than the average long-bid price ever since the AH was released

 

on an alt i made bids a few months ago for around 500 rare IO recipes in total. every single one purchased now sells for either half the amount i bought it for, or the same amount

 

along with salvage prices going down, things on the AH appear to be getting cheaper across the board

[Bionic_Flea]

21 hours ago, Snarky said:

i know business.  i know math.  i know when i am getting screwed just by looking at it.

You know nothing, John Snowflake!

 

[Snarky]

54 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

You know nothing, John Snowflake!

 

I know redheads are dangerous 

 

I know John Snow falls for reeeeeeallly violent women

[Yomo Kimyata]

20 hours ago, Ukase said:

For whatever reason, you return to the game after a departure, and you still have your stockpiles of inf. But where will you turn for the very rare or the avalanche that you need? You may certainly exchange merits for them...if you had some before you left. And suddenly, you look to the AH and ...there's no inventory! Other players came along and bought them, and nobody replenished the supply. After all, it's a ghost-town, right? 
 

 

Don't cry for me, Sergeant Tina!  Thanks to fungibility, pooling, merits, and converters, even if I were the only Yomo in Yomoville, I'd be able to come up with everything I needed with the sole exception of HOs/DSOs (and even then, I'd probably be able to fast solo my way through a LOT of Aeon SFs, but that would be wicked tedious).  In fact, being alone would make it much easier to transform items through the /AH (like setting levels or swapping between attuned/non-attuned). 

 

On 12/22/2022 at 8:02 PM, Snarky said:

 

now i see it in the few regular money making i/o  it consists of this phenomenon  try to buy one of these "pretty good" I/Os at 3 million.  No luck.  Try to sell one at 4 million.  no luck.  Bids show they are selling for 2 million.  but you can never buy one at that price.  There is still a little profit in the same old I/os but the profit is lower.  and the games are written all over the bid history.

 

Someone (and I suspect a SG or Cartel...has discovered how to mass farm the market and they are putting the F to U  (and me)  

 

 

To your first point, you're trying to buy low and sell high.  So is everyone else!  You need more patience and perhaps need to keep an eye on that niche.

 

To your second point, mass farming the market is easy -- always has been.  But there's not enough demand from end users to justify it.  I mean, you can buy a hundred Cleaving Blows a day and turn them all into LotG +rechs.  It's probably not particularly efficient (and you're far better off cracking them into a wide variety of goods) but picking up a few hundred thousand converters isn't all that difficult (although tedious).

 

Let me give you a concrete example that might address some of your concerns.

 

Sudden Acceleration KB to KD.  Some people find these very useful (personally, I generally use the Avalanche proc or the OF proc, but if you are dealing with something like Lightning Clap which doesn't take melee aoE or universal damage it works).  Last 5 history probably shows something with a low of about 2mm and a high of 5-6mm.  The low is from someone making one of these and selling it at 5 inf and hitting the highest outstanding bid.  Maybe that is a flipper; maybe it's just someone trying to buy it on the cheap, but the trade prints because someone wanted to sell it nao.  The high is probably either someone reaching for it, because there aren't a lot for sale, so they bought it nao.  Why aren't there a lot for sale?  Because I don't really care enough about it to put a bunch for sale, and if I am going to put a bunch for sale, it will be at some ridiculous high price because I'm not doing this just to make you feel better.

 

Why doesn't someone else put a bunch up for sale at low prices?  I mean, it's ridiculously easy to make them.  Buy a bunch of Kinetic Crash recipes at level 21 (or any level 21-49, I use 26).  Convert once by KB and you either have a Sudden Acceleration or a Force Feedback.  You've got a 1/12 chance of it being a SA proc.  If it's a different SA, you can convert in set until you get the proc (on average, that will take 5 conversions or 15 converters), or you can just convert by rare to something else.  If it's a FF and it's a proc, you can sell it.  If it's a FF and not a proc you can convert by KB again and have a 50-50 shot of getting an SA.  Or you can rare roulette it.  The point is, it costs under 100k to buy the recipe, salvage, and craft it, and then on average maybe 1mm to convert it into this item.  You could make a thousand a day and list them at 1mm and still probably make a tiny profit.  (Well, on the ones you sell.  I'd guess you could probably expect to sell maybe 10-20 a day to end users.)  Me?  I don't really need a profit at all anymore, but I'm sure as Joey Jo-Jo Junior Shabadoo not going to work for a tiny one.  So it's a liquidity issue, a buy/sell it nao issue, and a "I really don't understand converters or the /AH process, or I just don't care" issue.

[tidge]

I am not now, nor have ever been, a "market whale"... simply because I have not needed to be one. My roster's wallet has been mostly "steady state, with profits" for almost two years now. I see some peculiar market variations from time to time, but the ones I notice look more like efforts to lose inf rather than accumulate inf. Recently (last month, and again just this week): It appears that (effectively overnight) there are 40K outstanding bids on common salvage for ~500 to 800 Inf. It takes a LOT of effort to put in that many outstanding bids! Even trying to maximize such an effort requires creating a LOT of fresh characters and claiming Inf (presumably already in email).

 

This behavior looks pretty much like someone doing it for the lulz, or has a peculiar theory based on the Live market ("They are after me Lucky Charms!").  I don't think it is someone going after crafting badges or flipping/vendoring, as I dumped a LOT of recipes on the market for 1 inf, including common level 25, 30, 45, 50 these simply did not sell at a rate I'd expect for crafting/vendoring to get badges. I grok that these recipes can be bought at a workbench... but it is always cheaper to buy them off the market. I don't think it is part of a "classic" marketing strategy, because Enhancement Converter prices remain low. It's converter roulette that both makes the market work AND provides the ability to ignore the market (with catalysts).

[lemming]

One thing I've been doing has been outfitting the alts that still don't have full sets in everything.  After going thru all the various recipes, etc... I wind up with a bunch of enh that aren't quite what I need, so I start converting.  Often, I'll wind up with an enh that isn't useful to me, but I know I can sell it and probably buy one of the ones I actually need.

 

By this method, I've been collecting up a decent amount of influence and have more or less "finished" characters.  I also noticed I had way more emails with influence, so blew a billion on Superpacks.  Never doing that again, that was tedious...

[BlackSpectre]

Wow! Look at Nevermelting Ice! That salvage piece is a COMMON piece of salvage that should be going for no more than 250 inf! You can't get one for less than 3,000!

 

Looking at how many are up for sale... almost 11 MILLION of them. Number of bids is 42,000. That's about 260 times (or 26,000%) more selling than buying! Something really does seem amiss here... with that many selling, and so few buying, the price should be bottomed out at 100 inf.

 

Edited December 24, 2022 by BlackSpectre

[tidge]

A new player may not know these things:

 

The salvage markets were seeded. 42K bids (it was closer to 50K a few hours ago, but I've been dumping commons) is unusually high. Even during periods of crafting/converting it is more likely to see 4K outstanding bids on uncommon salvage.

 

The salvage market is fungible, by rarity. It is impossible to corner the market on any particular salvage type.

 

To put the silliness of this effort into perspective: If a player wanted to try to set a flip-point on common salvage at 1K inf (*1, why?) it would take (only) 50M inf to place 50K bids. This is a nigh-trivial amount of inf for a level 50, even for a non-farming player. It's almost easier to accumulate 50 Minf (for an average level 50) than it is to simply claim and delete 50K salvage from the AH. (*2)

 

(*1) The seeded price of commons is higher than 1K. A level 50 SO vendors (on average) for ~15K. A level 50 common IO vendors (on average) for 100K. Common salvage drops are still common, so there will never be a "shortage" of them... the worst that this player could do is reduce the mass fungibility of the items, at which point the devs would probably simply re-seed the market (if they didn't prefer the Inf sink).

 

(*2) Driving up the price of common salvage past the seed point (and holding it there) would almost certainly just encourage players (who crave specific common salvage) to farm Inf, which will have the side effect of farming common salvage as well.

 

EDIT: I should note that it is not particularly difficult to get specific common salvage types, but it may be easier for some AT than others. The most difficult items will likely be low-level salvage for players that cannot run solo at 0x8 in a given level range... but with set bonuses it is possible to exemplar to that content. As an experiment I was taking an exemplared (at roughly level 30) mastermind (while in Aaron Thiery's blue-side AP arc) into Perez Park to street sweep for boss badges as well as salvage, before I knew better.

 

Edited December 24, 2022 by tidge

[Snarky]

48 minutes ago, BlackSpectre said:

Wow! Look at Nevermelting Ice! That salvage piece is a COMMON piece of salvage that should be going for no more than 250 inf! You can't get one for less than 3,000!

 

Looking at how many are up for sale... almost 11 MILLION of them. Number of bids is 42,000. That's about 260 times (or 26,000%) more selling than buying! Something really does seem amiss here... with that many selling, and so few buying, the price should be bottomed out at 100 inf.

 

I been over bidding on common last two days at 2k a pop.  Only had to wait five minutes once.  Is your computer hooked to the interweb thingamabob?

[Yomo Kimyata]

36 minutes ago, tidge said:

 

 

(*2) Driving up the price of common salvage past the seed point (and holding it there) would almost certainly just encourage players (who crave specific common salvage) to farm Inf, which will have the side effect of farming common salvage as well.

 

 

 

Unless you take out all the seeded salvage at 10k, and I mean every last one of those ten million of them, you're not going to be able to drive prices *higher* than 10k.  Well, at least only for the period of time in which the hamster wheel that is the /AH needs to process those sales.  It's essentially a big spreadsheet.

[momentarygrace]

General question I've wondered, apologies if it's a dumb (or ignorant) one - how do you know what the seeded prices for salvage are?

 

[roleki]

4 hours ago, Snarky said:

I been over bidding on common last two days at 2k a pop.  Only had to wait five minutes once.  Is your computer hooked to the interweb thingamabob?

When you PL your own characters, the doorsitters usually generate a lifetime supply of common/Uncommon salvage.  Just throw 10x or 30x of each of them in the AH (but don't list them) and you'll always have salvage to spare.  

[Yomo Kimyata]

42 minutes ago, momentarygrace said:

General question I've wondered, apologies if it's a dumb (or ignorant) one - how do you know what the seeded prices for salvage are?

 

 

They've told us in threads, but I can't remember exactly where.  Common, uncommon, rare salvage were seeded with ten million pieces at 10,000; 100,000; and 1,000,000 respectively.  Functionally, it's like someone's character owns them and is listing them for sale at that price.

 

I would presume that if, for some reason, people bought all ten million pieces of seeded salvage that the devs would put another ten million for sale.

[Charming Aloof]

Now most of the common salvage is going for 10.000 influence (Including Nevermelting Ice).  This is getting ridiculous the GM's need to get involved set the common salvage to a fixed low price.

[Bionic_Flea]

1 hour ago, Charming Aloof said:

the GM's need to get involved set the common salvage to a fixed low price.

 

I disagree.  This is temporary and transient.

 

I just logged in and prices for uncommon salvage are now 809, the price someone is buying a lot of salvage at.

Edited December 25, 2022 by Bionic_Flea

[Charming Aloof]

I disagree the common prices have gone back up to 10,000 influence.  Something needs to be done.  What if the common prices go up to 100,00 influence or 500,000 or even more.  This will help drive the server population even more as Homecoming has lost a lot of players.

 

[Luminara]

15 minutes ago, Charming Aloof said:

What if the common prices go up to 100,00 influence or 500,000 or even more. 

 

If someone invests 100,000,000,000+ to purchase all 10,000,000 seeded commons at 10,000 apiece plus all player-listed commons, everyone alive has a bout of dementia and forgets that drops, base storage and Brainstorms exist, and the HC team decides not to dump another 10,000,000 seeded commons on the market, thus negating all of the work and time the manipulator put into the attempt to drive the price up to 100,000, that could happen.

 

It's somewhat less likely than my sex life becoming something more than a fantasy, but it could happen.

[Bionic_Flea]

1 hour ago, Charming Aloof said:

the common prices have gone back up to 10,000 influence.

And back to 808 . . .

 

OMG!  The prices fluctuate!

[Snarky]

14 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

And back to 808 . . .

 

OMG!  The prices fluctuate!

I was more concerned about the uncommon salvage being manipulated about 6 months ago.  So much so I went and played WoW for a couple months. Over there at least everyone is up front about hating each other.  So frustrating here to have everyone talk about how “normal” things are and everyone is working together.  Then no one wants to address when a person or group is obviously manipulating the system to the detriment of the group. Please.  Do not talk to me about heroes and community. Do something.  At least with the Horde you know you are undead scum everyone hates doomed to die.  
 

O cheers and Happy Holidays!

[Luminara]

45 minutes ago, Luminara said:

If someone invests 100,000,000,000+ to purchase all 10,000,000 seeded commons at 10,000 apiece plus all player-listed commons

 

Expanding on this, it would require at least two accounts, as the maximum bid potential on a single account is 5000*200=1,000,000 transaction slots (and that's presuming the player levels every one of those 5000 characters to 50 to unlock all of the transaction slots, which just isn't going to happen).  Presuming an average of 40,000 player-listed common salvage, that's another 4000 transaction slots necessary.  So, roughly 5578 characters, 180 transaction slots apiece, two accounts.

 

Switching between each of those 5000+ characters would require a minimum of 30 seconds, even with macros for the transactions.  That would be about 47 hours of continuous activity, logging into each character, bidding on 180 stacks of salvage, logging out and logging into the next character.

 

The sum total cost would be 10,000*10*180*5578=100,404,000,000 inf* spent on this attempt to capture the common salvage market, and that is, of course, presuming not a single person notices it and starts dumping common salvage in volume, and all this accomplishes is setting the minimum price at 10,000.  The player then has to go back into those characters, spend another 47 hours logging in and out, to re-list all of the salvage at 100,000 inf* apiece, plus invest another 47 hours and another 5578 characters with bids for 99,999 inf* on common salvage, in order to actually drive the price up to 100,000.

 

We're up to three accounts, 100,404,000,000 inf* plus transaction fees (which increase significantly when the player starts re-listing everything for 100,000 inf*) and continually incoming salvage from players, and 141+ hours, at the bare minimum.  That's about 10 days of continuous logging in and out and making transactions on the market (with a little time each day for eating, bathroom breaks, and 8 hours of sleep).

 

If all of that happens, and no-one sees the common salvage stock dwindling rapidly, no-one goes on a Brainstorm spree and unloads several hundred thousand common salvage, not a single member of the HC team pays any attention or responds to player PMs, then yeah, common salvage could spike up to 100,000 inf* apiece.  Briefly.  I say briefly because I have no doubt that the instant one of the developers did see what happened, they'd log in and dump another 10,000,000 seeded commons, instantly bringing the price back down to 10,000 and leaving the manipulator stuck with 10-11 million pieces of common salvage he/she couldn't sell at the listed 100,000 inf*, resulting in an enormous loss in invested time and inf*.

 

Not happening.  No-one's that dedicated to chaos or control, and even if someone really tried, the incoming salvage and developer attention would make it a pointless and hideously expensive endeavor.

[Snarky]

3 minutes ago, Luminara said:

 

Not happening.  No-one's that dedicated to chaos or control, and even if someone really tried, the incoming salvage and developer attention would make it a pointless and hideously expensive endeavor.

Which is really at heart why I started this thread. Even for a cartel of neurotic motivated OCD types snorting 7 miles of cocaine lines this is a heavy lift.  

 

Now common salvage is currently behaving more or less normally.  As is Uncommon.  But 6 months ago (or so, not researching my own posting dates) I brought up that Uncommon was being manipulated.  And it obviously was.  By either serious marketeers (and or idiots described in above paragraph) OR someone has found a cheat in the AH system.  

 

To be honest my forced research (I am crafting and converting somewhere between 400-500 I/Os) has led me to believe the market is just deflated about 80% from a year ago.  That and Yomo's wise words has pulled me back from the ledge.  (It's okay.  No, I do not turn into a bat.  I'm invulnerable you idiot)

[PLVRIZR]

If you sell common salvage to a vendor, does it go into the Auction House available inventory, or is it just eliminated from the game?

[Snarky]

3 minutes ago, PLVRIZR said:

If you sell common salvage to a vendor, does it go into the Auction House available inventory, or is it just eliminated from the game?

eliminated.  although the AH is seeded with effectively infinite salvage at prices posted in the thread above.  below that high water mark we trade normally.

[MoonSheep]

4 minutes ago, PLVRIZR said:

If you sell common salvage to a vendor, does it go into the Auction House available inventory, or is it just eliminated from the game?

 

it goes to me - thanks for the salvage 👍