Lohenien

I've played the market since it came out, I've check it almost every single day since issue 9. I know full well prices have been raised in the long term. When I started out in issue 9 ( I've been around since about July 04 but the market was issue 9), I had 8 million influence. I've been a flipper and a crafter the whole time, though I mostly do crafting. I have around 18-20 billion on hand and about that much in IOs on my toons.

The most expensive stuff used to cost 40-50 million ( for lotgs and numinas). Now they run from 60-200 million. Yes, in the long term prices have risen. Fulmens already explained why that happened - people can now create more influence per hour than they used to. The market does not create influence, defeating mobs and selling to vendors does.

Rare salvage used to run 3-5 million for most arcane pieces and 800k-2 million for tech pieces. Now a days they run 800k-2 million for almost all rare salvage. ( By rare salvage I strictly am refering to the level 30+ range that gets heavily used in most mid to high level IOs). What happened ? The price normalized over time with various spikes and dips due to AE coming out. The prices crashed when AE came out because everyone was farming tickets with no per mission cap. Everyone had tons of tickets to gobble up rare salvage - thus there was an abundance of supply at a lower cost than the old 3-5 million mark. Now that people are back to doing various in game things as opposed to being heavily into AE farming, the prices have reached a stable value.

Purples started out in the 30 million range and stayed below 75 million for a long time. Once AE hit, the amount of influence being created skyrocketed. Suddenly people had alot more to spend on these very rare and low supply items. Suddenly people had alot more PLAY MONEY to spend. Because so many people now had ALOT MORE PLAY MONEY they started bidding MORE on these RARE AND SHINY items. Because people started bidding higher, items listed at the old 30-75 million range all sold out and now when people go and see what the items are normally selling at they see the new price that people are willing to pay. Because there is low supply on these VERY RARE AND SHINY items people can infact behave the way you suggest ON THESE VERY RARE AND SHINY items ONLY. This means there are less possible flippers to help lower prices by listing lower due to lack of supply. If the people who would list lower CANT GET THE ITEM OFTEN ENOUGH they can't lower prices by listing lower.

I've made lots of influence on the very sets you listed ( Posi blast, ToD , Obliteration, Kin Combat and Impervium Armor). I can tell you that these sets vary WILDLY over time. One month a piece may sell at 20 million, next month it sells for 5 and the month after that 12. Because they vary so much, they also have spikes in price. Some pieces go up around 100 million, but they fall back down to the 20-50 million mark over a few months.

The original post in this thread was a question - you cannot use a question , an unproven hypothesis to say you have proven your point about market manipulation.

People in this thread responded to the original question with a negative response. This kind of thinking, on most items in the market, DOES NOT WORK. Why ? We have all explained that to you a dozen times - two people selling the same thing are competing for buyers. One person MUST LIST LOWER to CONSISTENTLY get the sale.

This method of competition fails if supply is too low. If supply is low then multiple people can't compete due to not everyone having something to sell. If a buyer HAS to buy from a small amount of potential sellers then at that point they do not have a choice but to pay a higher price. This effects pvp IOs, purples and respec recipes. All other recipes have enough supply to support flippers helping to manage the price. ( addendum - this is only true of all recipes at particular level ranges, oddball levels have a lack of supply problem due to the way the developers have implemented various drop systems).

Now that we've covered the argument point by point, it's time for a lesson on how flipping and crafting effect the price of an IO in the blueside market ( because redside has a horrendous lack of supply). We will first define a few types of players that may be involved.

Player A is a patient buyer - this player will wait for a bid to fill up to a month or more if need be in order to get the IO at the price they want.

Player B is a buy it nao buyer - this player wants everything ASAP and will pay what ever they need to pay to get it ASAP.

Player C is a flipper - this player will list low bids on a crafted IO/recipe and sell the crafted IO/recipe at a higher price than what they paid for it. This kind of player will not craft the recipe, but instead sell the recipe itself at a higher price.

Player D is a crafter - this player will buy recipes and salvage and then sell crafted IOs at a price higher than what it cost to make the IO.

Player E is an evil market manipulator - this player will attempt to sell items at higher than previous 'normal' values in order to make a profit. This kind of player will do things like : buy up all the current supply of an IO/recipe, manipulate the last 5 sold lists, list well above current 'normal' rates.

Players C and D understand that you have to list lower to get more sales so they will not list at the going rate or higher. Instead they will list the items for some price lower than the going rate but higher than what they got it for.

Now that we have defined the players lets give them are field to play on : Pounding Slugfest: Chance for Disorient level 30. This recipe changes price wildly.

Player A wants to slot this in his power. Player A looks and sees that the crafted IO is currently going at 30 million (CURRENTLY GOING). Player A goes and checks the cost of the recipe : 75,00 influence but 0 for sale. Player A puts in a bid at 75,00 and does not look back at it for a week.

Player B wants to slot this in his power. Player b looks and sees that the crafted IO is currently going at 30 million. Player B bids 31 million and buys the IO.

Player C wants to sell this recipe or IO. Player C looks and sees the IO is currently going at 75k for a recipe and 30 million crafted. Player C comes back a week later and now sees the recipes are selling at 2 million and the crafted IO is selling at 13 million. Player C now bids 80k each on 30 recipes and 7 million each on 5 of the crafted IO. Player C comes back a few days later and relists the recipes at 500k each and the IOs at 10 million each.

Player D wants to sell this crafted IO. Player D looks and sees that the crafted IO is currently going at 30 million. Player D comes back a week later and now sees the recipes are selling at 2 million and the crafted IO is selling at 13 million. Player D bids 500k on 10 recipes and comes back a few days later, buys the salvage, crafts the IOs. Now player D knows it cost him 3 million influence to craft the IO AND player D ALSO knows the IO has sold from 13-30 million in previous weeks. Player D decides to list the IO for 8.5 million in an attempt to undercut the other people getting the 13 million influence sales.

Player E wants to sell the crafted IO and make as much as possible doing it. Player D looks and sees the crafted IO is selling at 13 million and the recipe is selling at 50k. Player D then bids 75K on 50 recipes. Player D also buys all the currently available recipes and crafted IOs. Player D comes back a few days later, crafts the IOs and relists them all at 26 million (twice the going rate).

In this situation player E has caused a temporary shortage of supply and a spike in the perceived going rate. Player E is the evil market manipulator that is trying to cause prices to go up in order to make even more profit. Players A,C and D all know that the IO varies in price because they watched it over more than one week's time. Those 3 kinds of players will not buy at player E's prices because they know they can wait longer and get it cheaper because supply on that recipe / IO is high enough to support competition. Player B doesn't care because now he has the IO he wanted. After about a week, Player E will be stuck with 20-60 IOs that are not going to sell very fast because players C and D have both started buying recipes higher than player E did and they are selling lower than player E does.

Because supply is sufficiently high for this IO, player E cannot manipulate it very long without failing.

If this were instead of pvp IO, the supply is much lower and now Player E has bought up much more then the normal level of supply for that IO, so much so that player C and D could not get any. At this point player E is the only person that has any of that IO to list for sale and players A and B both have no choice but to pay player E's prices because players C and D cannot sell items they don't have.

Wrong. Why ? Because when more than one person is trying to sell the same thing - they compete for buyers by offering it at a lower price.

Also in order for people to flip at all, the price has to vary. Therefor anyone can put out a lower bid and get the items for less.

The only time the greed based concept you describe is possible is in two situations : the supply is so low that only a handful of people are selling a given item (purples and pvp IOs for example) or people are lazy and don't try to bid lower ( by try to bid lower I mean placing a lower bid an waiting 1-3 days depending on rarity of the IO).

If you have a constant buy it nao mentality then yes you have no choice to pay lower than what people are offering right this second. The problem is you however, not them. You CAN wait longer and get things for cheaper on almost any IO. If you don't have the patience to wait a little while longer to get your IOs then that is your problem and you shouldn't hate so hard on people that post items for high amounts because you are the one giving in to them.

Also the merit and ticket system was made for lazy whiny people that can't handle the market system. In that way you don't have to farm influence, you can farm merits or tickets instead. One way or the other you have to farm to get the items you want. That is the way MMO loot works, but the funny part is that influence is the easiest of the three things to farm specifically due to the market.

When things are selling high - you can also sell high and therefor obtain the influence to buy the higher priced goods.

It makes perfect sense - if supply is low then a small amount of people can set the price as high as they want because other people have no choice to get it at a lower price. If supply is low and the demand is high the price will be high.

You utterly fail to understand that for any given IO with reasonable supply and with multiple people trying to sell that IO the price could come down if buyers attempt to pay less for the IO instead of just bidding what the last 5 show.

I flip purples from time to time. How do I do it ? I'll bid at say 100 million on a 300-400 million going rate purple. When I relist it I don't list at 400 or 300, instead I'll relist it at 150 - 200. People could save 50% from buying off of me as opposed to other people that are selling at the 300+ mark. That requires people to not be lazy and actually attempt to save money.

Here's the thing : it's play money that is easy to get so why would someone who can make a lot of it bother paying less if they don't care ?

In issue 9 I had 8 million influence total. Now - I have 17 billion or more in liquid assets and probably about that much in slotted IOs on my toons. People have started from 0 influence on a toon and made 1 billion in a month. I can start with a couple million, go farm some AE tickets and get 20-200 million a day no problem. It is really that easy, so why sweat the cost of IOs when I can just put some effort in and get what I want.

There are 3 groups of people when it comes to the market : the haters, the smart and the obscenely rich. The obscenely rich will buy at what ever price because they can. The smart understand how the market functions and therefore can afford to get what they want if they bother to try. Then you've got the haters. They do not comprehend the market - the only thing they understand is that what they want costs more than what they have and therefor they feel wronged. The haters don't like to work for anything and they feel entitled to handouts.

As my man Kat Williams often points out - it's the haters job to hate. I know they don't get it, and that's ok. At least I can say I tried.

player a is selling an IO at 1 million, player b is selling the same IO at 1.5 million. Player C wants to buy the IO so he bids 3 million on the IO to make sure he gets it nao!!!

Player a's IO will get sold to player c while player b has lost out on this sale.

This is how the market functions and this is why you should list lower than the going rate for an IO - the lowest listing is sold to the highest buyer.

You could list IOs all day at 3 million influence and if I come in and list mine at 2,999,999 I will get the sales and you get nothing. To compete with me you have to list at 2,999,998 or lower. Now let's say you instead list at 2,499,999 - people may start buying at 2,500,000 instead of 3 million.

In this way, marketeers and flippers help to lower prices by competing for buyers.