The current state of the market - thoughts?

[Ukase]

I have begun to rethink my "identity" as a marketer in this game. I am in the process of somewhat of a challenge character, who can accept no help from any of my alts, or anyone else, and has to make its way to Billion, while outfitting the build with the usual PvP uniques, the ATOs, the new Universal Damage set which I quite like the bonuses on, and whatever else I might deem appropriate. 

 

I do this routinely to help me keep an eye on the market, as lately I've not been logging in and buying a lot of recipes just to craft, convert and sell. And..it could be my experiences as of late are why. 

Numina Regen/recovery....this normally gets about 2.5-3M. The population has dropped about 10% for whatever reason on the usual peak times. Now, that could be just normalizing after an influx of newer players - which I'm still seeing, and Summer being over. I have no control over that, so I can't worry about it. Yet, I've a number of these that typically sell over night, and it's been two nights, they've not sold. 

So, someone is undercutting my listing price and/or demand for them has dropped. 

Even the perf shifter +end that used to go for 3m guaranteed, are now just getting 2.5-2.6. 
So, things are definitely cheaper. Which means I'm even richer, as I have more buying power. But, I am missing that little endorphin rush of seeing something that I invested in (crafting cost + opportunity cost of salvage & converters) give me a nice ROI. The investments for me are on average 1.5M, and the return is generally 3-4M. But I'm not seeing that lately. The ones that used to sell for 3 now sell for 2.5. The ones that used to sell for 2 are selling for 1.5. 

Is it that much competition in the space? The volume of crafting these days to generate inf of any decent sized stack is a lot more than it used to be. 
I'm glad I made my inf years ago. It's much harder now to earn that billion than it used to be. Mind you, with the cheaper prices, I think if you bought 1B of items last year, this year, you'd only need 800m. (discounting the provocation D-Sync). 

Curious as to what you folks are seeing. 

[lemming]

I don't do a heck of a lot of marketing, but I occasionally buy some enhancements and sell the odd higher value enh.   That has shown me that the prices have been steadily going down practically with everything though for anything useful 2-3m is still where most enhancements seem to be.

I tend to sell extra large inspirations, and when I decommission a character, I tend to sell a bunch of supers.  Those have all fallen in value as well.

 

While the population hasn't really changed a lot, we have a higher percentage of people that know what they're doing,  more that already have their chars outfitted, and generating stuff they don't need.

 

At least that's my take on it.

[Yomo Kimyata]

4 hours ago, Ukase said:

It's much harder now to earn that billion than it used to be

 

Yup.  

 

I think this is classic microeconomics -- lots less demand and lots more supply.  Let's look at something like Steadfast Protection +def.  Every character should find a spot to put this, in my opinion.  Not only is it easy to make one of these for yourself for under a mm, it is also easy to make several hundreds or thousands of them for under a mm.  First off, it feels like there are a lot fewer new characters being made, and those that are being made seem to be made by people who already have everything set aside.  Secondly, I've seen a bunch of liquidation, and I've been doing a lot of it myself.  Generally, if I want to sell, say, Miracle +recovery, I'll do it in a block of 30 to 50 and come back at some point in the future.  Nowadays, I'm seeing people create large quantities, like hundreds, and unless I want to wait out for all those to clear the market, I'll need to undercut for my block of 30 to 50.

 

I look at four meta markets nowadays, and they all suck.  Winter Os used to be fun and lucrative, but why in the world are you going to pay 25mm for an Avalanche A/D when you can buy a winter pack and get one or more WOs that you can reroll into what you need for cheaper.  I'm guessing that those sophisticated enough to use WOs are also at this time sophisticated enough to either buy packs or use merits.

 

ATOs are also a disaster, but I think that's more due to the fact that some people finally posting large quantities of their holdings at fixed prices.  Being able to arbitrage across AT types used to be very fun and profitable, and now is pretty much like a supermarket where you buy what you want off the shelves for 8mm.  PvPs are also seeing this, and I suspect that there are a number of people (and I think you are one of them) are also liquidating their vast holdings at 8mm or so.  Every now and again, you get demand to spike up so that people use up the supply and you get some price increases, but generally you can get any PvP IO you want at 8mm or less.

 

And then there is the uncommon/rare IO market.  I made most of my inf from creating factories for various parts of the market, but others have as well and they are dumping.  

 

It's a buyer's paradise and that probably won't ever change.

[Ukase]

4 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

(and I think you are one of them)

Yes and no. I've to a lot of characters that are dormant. I haven't played them in literally years. I log in - look at their builds, and I honestly wonder how they got through Maria Jenkin's arc. I'm seeing things that ....well, they boggle the mind. 

Case in point below: 

 

Spoiler

I mean, it's totally beside the point of my post, but this is my first 50 on HC. A sentinel. I played this, had fun with it, got to t-4 in multiple Destinies ...all BEFORE the number crunchers burst my bubble to tell me how poor the damage was. I guess it had been so long since I played, I never noticed. That, and I'm prone to be obtuse. 

But look at that crappy build! Bad enough I've got attuned and non-attuned, some IOs aren't even 50, and I'm using full sets when I could get a lot more into this build by slotting it with a more experienced eye for frankenslotting. A lot has changed in this game. Heck, I don't even have the aforementioned Miracle unique in this build. 

And I'm not looking for build advice; this character will get it's due attention in about 4 months when I'm ready to work on it. 

But I do miss the days when I could respec, get all the IOs out, list them for 1.7M and get 2 to 3M for most, if not all of the "trash IOs". And I'd save the PvP and Very Rares, ATOs and Winters for another character.

But I have dozens of characters like this that have like..5 pieces of Adjusted Targeting that are going to require a lot of converting...if I deem it worthwhile at the time - to get any kind of value from them. 

As of late, I'm just stashing all these IOs in a 3rd SG base. In the mornings when I know I won't crowd the server with 2 accounts, I'll transfer them to the alt that has the SG and unload them. 

Most of my revenue is coming from influence from defeats in the labyrinth, and the few recipes I do craft that I know I can make an acceptable profit on. I am not sure what I do when that sg fills with 1800 IOs of value between 1 inf and 1.5M inf. Maybe I'll just give them away to low levels in Atlas. I'll worry about it when that time comes. 

 

 

[tidge]

One part of the market that causes my eyebrows to rise is Prismatic Aethers... not so much about the price, it is curious to me that the supply routinely jumps by several thousands, several times a week. I'm not at all surprised these end up in the AH... it is more surprise about the volume of them.

 

 

 

 

[Bananiac]

My observation is in line with what has been said above. I am logging into my marketeer every day and I think the last time I sold something was about a week ago. Which tells me my pricing, which useed to get me regular sales every day, is not competitive anymore.

 

The one thing that still seems somewhat reliable tho is PVPs. Still getting decent prices for the sought-after sets and procs, as far as I am concerned. On the other hand, shopping the recipes has become much more expensive, eating into margins 😞 

 

I am banking on the Halloween event creating new momentum for the market, as it does every year with all the freshly minted 50ies that it churns out.

[Troo]

Oh exceptions, false assumptions, and the fallacy of impatience.. (none of this is meant to offend, just a different perspective)

 

"The population has dropped about 10% for whatever reason" Multi-boxers likely have an outsized impact, so is it really 10%, 3.33%, or most likely somewhere in between? Besides, population ebbs and flows with the calendar as does character creation.

 

Prices: I made my first infamy capped marketer early on; crafting, converting, and selling generally at the asking price of 1.124-1.24M with the usual valuables being more.

Prices since went way up, roller coastered, and most recently have come down. (1B build last year being 800M currently, sure that tracks.. but give it a month)

I'll also point toward the Winter Pack exploit as finally having been mostly flushed from the system. (folks buying hundreds/thousands of these in my opinion did a number on the economics) (Why am I saying exploit? Simple: Too much guaranteed reward for too little effort or risk while not playing and adding little back to the game)

 

------ -- -------

 

A couple days versus a week or so. More patience can be rewarded. (It is good to know folks are noticing something trend wise, so thanks for that)

 

Not in a hurry to sell, not in a hurry to buy.

I've never taken the Reward Merits > Convertors > Cash route (I appreciate those that do). I use Reward Merits for Winters or similar if I'm missing one or two pieces of a build.

Patience can save us 40-60%, sometimes even more. 

Convertors cost me 51-53K. I put in orders for a 100-150 to top off my stash and am willing to wait. 

 

 

 

[Yomo Kimyata]

4 hours ago, Bananiac said:

The one thing that still seems somewhat reliable tho is PVPs. Still getting decent prices for the sought-after sets and procs, as far as I am concerned. On the other hand, shopping the recipes has become much more expensive, eating into margins 😞 

 

This is what is interesting about that market, and I think that there are two main sides to this:

 

1.  Prices of recipes have been rising.  Gosh, has someone found a real use for Gladiator's Javelin?  No, people are buying the recipes en masse, crafting, and converting them to more saleable IOs.  They always have, and they always will.  But there seems to have been some market PvP(lol) amongst those buyers so prices have been rising.  Listen, it will always be more cost efficient for a player to craft their own PvP recipes and either sell and convert, but there has always been a convenience fee, and it's still generally cheaper to buy a recipe on the market and craft it than to buy it crafted.  But that margin has been dropping.

 

2.  I've also noticed that there is a good Samaritan or twelve who periodically lists lots* of useful PvPs at 8mm or so.  When that supply dries up, then prices go higher until the next dump.  Now, to me this is a clear sign that the "right" price for these is something higher than 8mm.  Now where is their supply coming from?  Maybe storage, maybe conversion, but it's consistent.  Is this a white knight marketer?  Well, I don't doubt they think they are, but that would require a lot more listing on their part.  Rather than listing 30 Panacea procs at 8mm, try listing 500 at 9mm and that would probably work really well over all.

[Jacke]

One thing I've noticed is that Rare Salvage is solidly always below 500,000 Inf each.  Sometimes gets to 400,000 Inf.  And the price only moves slowly.