Come all ye haters

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. 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.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.

The market is a pvp environment and 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 which allows manipulation more than blueside). 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. When player A comes back he now has his IO at a total cost of around 2 million influence when considering salvage costs and crafting cost. Player A saved 28 million by being patient.

Player B wants to slot this in his power. Player B makes billions of influence by farming. Player B looks and sees that the crafted IO is currently going at 30 million. Player B bids 31 million and buys the IO. The top price on this IO seems to have increased by 1 million due to player B's impatient nature.

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.

The majority of players are of type B,C, and D. Players A and E are less common. Player E is the type of player that most market haters assume exist in huge numbers. This is not true because of how high supply is on most items available. Player type E cannot function in high supply niches.

Want an example ? Take the crazy salvage manipulators (player type E) - they are the ones that jack prices up on salvage( players C and D do not do this because they know it is futile). What happens ? Salvage prices stay high for a day at most. Why ? Because supply is too high for the manipulator to keep cornering the salvage.

Player type E flourishes on low supply items like purples, respec recipes and pvp IOs. They can more easily corner these niches because there aren't a few thousand people listing lower than they do.

Player types B and E cause prices to go up. Player B does this long term, player E short term.

Player types C and D cause prices to come down from the high value and go up from the low value and therefor prices normalize to a middle value.

Player type A has no effect on prices because this kind of player competes with players C and D for the lowest possible price.

There is another player type, F . These are the kinds of players that fail at the market because they expect to pay low prices without waiting as long as player types A,C or D to get those low prices. These kinds of players either transition to player type B or they avoid the market all together because they feel everything is too expensive because they can't buy RIGHTNAO!!!! at low prices.

This concludes the lesson on how the market works, so remember folks : prices aren't going up that much due to player type E. Long term increases in price are due to player type B. Also not every person that uses the market to for profit is player type E, there are types A, B, C and D to consider and who make up the majority of the market users.

You know, I really wanted to be a hater, but this is so long, I can't stay mad that long.

That, and I'm already ebil.

Funniest part being, marketeers actually destroy more inf , between buying, crafting and listing, then these supposed "Casual Players" :9

I'm a type D (crafter) and made 1.2 billion inf during this month (14 days and change). Type E (ebil) might make more, but when I can reach the inf cap in 20 days, I really don't see the point.

lmfao, brilliant. I am player b for sure and will pay any amount of money for what i want atm cause i want it now now now!!!!! But then im broke lol.

A marvelous post which I fear will be wasted on those who should derive the greatest benefit from its wisdom.

i´m player a-d depending on mood

A for stuff to slot, D to make inf for me.

I've been all of the above at different points.

Can I be Player Type G?

I kinda do a mix of all of these, except I do not try to buy multiples of anything for resale.

I'm savvy enough to know to check crated IO cost vs. Recipe cost, taking into account whether I have the salvage or will need to go bid on it, and taking into account my personal calculation of what my time is worth (not an in-game Inf calculation, but rather real world calculation of whether I would enjoy buying it nao vs waiting more).

I truly think this is the real "casual *informed* player" at least as far as the Market is concerned.

All too often "casual player" is defined by someone at the beginning of their rant as not terribly bright, which irks me no end.

A casual player to me is someone who has less time to play the game than others and therefor such a player doesn't have much, if any time to spend farming influence via some method. Instead casual players would farm merits and AE tickets. These kinds of players generally fall into type F because they are not accustomed to using the market and probably have less influence than other types of players. They would generally think "oh god this stuff is so expensive I'll never afford it " . The market haters are generally also in type F, though as some have admitted are actually in type E.

As for type G, I'd say no - that falls into a subcategory of type A and B combined. Instead of consistently doing A or B behavior you make an active decision to do one vs the other.

OK - I'm pretty much fine with that.

I do think that there is a "casual informed player" subset out there, who understands how the Market works but chooses not to play in it very much.

I also think there are "casual players" who don't farm anything at all, not even Merits & AE Tickets. Those players come to the Market, see it as expensive, and then decide not to participate. Those players then go back to what they were previously doing - playing the game thru story arcs or papers/scanners or whatever else they found "fun".

Sometimes this game is only about blasting thru foes without thought of rewards other than stress relief.

I find that I am an A when I start a new character (I bid low for my level 50s, and just wait for them to fill, since I've got some time to kill).

When I'm near 50, have a large amount of money stored up, and have good prospects on making more I turn into a B.

When I waste all my money and need to refill the bank, I become a D.

At 50, I cycle between B and D, with some A thrown in for luxury IOs.

I'm a type D. I look for 'niches' and interpose myself between people who just want to sell those recipes quickly and empty their slots, and those others who haven't the time or patience to get those recipes and the corresponding salvage and do it themselves. When the niche goes cold, I make a note of it for another time and move on. I am able to get a reasonable margin for doing this, and through volume, I make enough influence/infamy to outfit my own toons pretty well without resorting to farming.

Occasionally, I 'buy it nao', but only for select items where the 'nao' price is tiny compared to my market throughput.

I'd flip shamelessly too, if I was much good at it. Flippers correct marketing mistakes others make, by snatching up their woefully underpriced offerings and relisting them at prices more appropriate for the supply and demand of the item.

I hoard a little influence and infamy too -- I have a few billionaire toons. I'm not ashamed of this either, because by effectively taking those billions out of circulation, I help keep prices down through limiting the money supply. Inflation is, of course, just too much influence or infamy chasing too few salvages/recipes/etc.

Great post from the OP, overall. And even if the people who should read it don't, it helps me explain to in-game friends how the market works, and why I'm not ashamed of making a profit there.

If any casual player need inf, holler. I can make u billions in AE with tix. I've done it for a few. Can PL you at the same time.

1 type you missed are the ones that pay the RMT'ers for mega loot.

The OP is a good rundown of what it is at the functional ground level, yep.

The only problem is that there's a mistake in the accreditation of where a lot of type B's get their inf. It isn't the AE, though that does contribute to "the problem".

You can buy inf, as most of our spamboxes inform us 800 times a day if we don't have "Receive Mail from Friends/Global Friends Only" clicked, and you can buy it increasingly cheaply.

The high prices at the market for 'luxury IO's' /would be just fine/ if not for that.

As it his, however, all those high prices are doing is driving type A's and C's and D's to be type B's, 'cause suddenly, they're a mere pittance away from being able to afford to be courtesy of a shady, EULA-breaking inf seller.

I run a relatively small, fun SG on the Virtue server. We've got a pretty massive arrangement of coalitions going, and yeah, we're RPers, but we're also hearty, hale and very active stuff-beaters, mission/TF-runners and farm-mashers.

The latter more because we have to be if we want the goodies, and c'mon, who doesn't want the goodies? Sooner or later, everyone wants the goodies, and for most that's "sooner" than "later".

I, myself, am perfectly happy to ignore purples and PVP IO's altogether. They're not really -that- great, and I can put together a dead-awesome build on any AT red or blueside for about 500-700 mil.

That's cheap. For uncommon/rare IO's and a handful of uniques that add some zip to your miracle whip, that's a great price point, as it's attainable with some modest effort that even the 'casual player' that doesn't know jack about the market or flipping or anything beyond how to sometimes get a decent team going can realistically aspire to.

And I'm happy with that. I've got a couple of purpled out toons that I farmed my /butt/ off to purple out. I'm very happy with them; they're my mainstays and to me, the effort was worth every brain-meltingly dull minute of shoveling inf by the spoonful into the mountain-sized hole required to afford it all.

All the rest of mine that are 50's? They're IO'd out as well, but no purples. They don't really need them, and since I don't buy inf and don't really feel like spending 6-8 weeks solo farming maps to purple them out for no actually meaningful gain on the set bonuses (apart from that purples are exempt from being negated when you're ex'd down, which is dang nice for Ouro missions and TF's), it's not /worth it/.

But then there's them crack dealers--I mean, inf sellers. They'll hook you right up.

I talk to a lot of people in game. Hardcore PVPers, hardcore arc/TF runners, badge hounds, 'casual players' of both the informed and the very much not informed variety, jacks-of-all-trades, GM/AV soloing aspirants.

The list goes on. And I keep hearing the same story.

"If you want to win, you buy inf." Is how that story goes.

And I've seen it, especially-- I repeat /ESPECIALLY/-- in the hardcore PVP crowd, where you don't even exist unless you're tweaked to the hilt on everything that exists and you're slotted just so for PVP only.

Now, I'm not trying to villify hardcore PVPers; far from it. Some of my good buddies are hardcore PVPers that will kick the snot out of things very creatively and always very effectively, and that's cool.

But they've got the highest demand for the best and the shinest, and that makes them a very available market for the inf sellers. And they're not the only ones.

John Doe that doesn't really care if he's got SO's or IO's? Not their target market.

Their target market is everyone that can't afford them fancy IO's and wants to, right now.

Type A's, C's and D's in the above? Oh yeah, I've seen plenty of those types go type B in a big hurry after inexplicably turning up with bottomless pockets, purpling out from nadda in two days flat and mysteriously 'donating' 1-5 mil worth of prestige to their SG for buying it with inf.

I've broken coalitions with inf buyers. I've kicked people right the heck out of my SG for being inf buyers.

But they're not the real problem either. They're just people who took a look (sometimes a long, repeatedly frustrated look) at the ever rising IO prices and caved to the ever-dropping Inf prices advertised in their spamboxes.


-That- is the problem.

And yeah, sure, AE technical exploitation contributes to the problem of there being a glut of inf in general non-inf-buyer circulation, but if you subtract that?

More people have less reason /not/ to buy inf from inf sellers, thus exacerbating the primary problem facilitating type B's turning the market into a circus.

Just to make sure it's said, I'm not disagreeing with the OP; it's a very informative and well written piece.

But this which I'm saying here really does need to be considered as well, 'cause no amount of anything is going to help 'fix' the market's bloated prices until the glut of capital floating around diminishes.

And for 16-20 bucks a pop, it's just too cheap for too many people to pass up at the going prices for 'luxury IO's'.

And that's all I got to say without turning this into more of a novel than it has to be.

Peace out, and good OP.

I'd say a RMT user is essentially a degenerate version of type B. There's nothing in the OP about how people get their off-market money. Any user of all types could be using RMTs, farming, proceeds from Costume Contests, or whatever.

I'm sorry Uruare but you are wrong. Gold sellers do not supply gobs of endless influence to 90% of the population as you seem to think. They are not the cause of inflation.

Try this : grab a 50 and run any kind of farm mission set to +2/8 with no bosses (AE or non AE doesn't matter).

You will get around 2-5 million influence a run. Players can do runs like that in 10 minutes time, hence at a minimum, a farmer could earn 12-30 million an hour. Multiply that by say 1000 players and you have nearly 30 billion an hour being created.

When you have that kind of earning potential on the low end, players will begin to pay more for items simply because they can.

No one has to buy influence - go run AE for 1 hour 1 week, roll bronze level 10-14 and sell your good drops. You will make hundreds of millions a week just doing that.

People that insist they HAVE to buy influence are simply the most lazy among the lazy, and certainly not the majority.

I logged on an old character back in January. I noticed that I hadn't turned mail off on this character yet.

She had about six gold selling e-mails. You could see the price being charged for inf going down as time went.

I don't think that many people buy inf.