how would you revamp the entire economy and reward structure?
By
BBQ_Pork,
Posted on: 2010-09-15 16:03 in The Market and Inventions
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Are you familiar with the stock market terms 'support' and 'resistance'?|
Originally Posted by SargentWild
Just how does buying low and selling high drive prices down? Not sure my math works the same as yours!
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When prices drop, people start to perceive the item (or stock) as a bargain and start buying it. This creates 'support'. It creates a bottom limit for the price movement and drives the price up from there.
Resistance is the opposite. When the price goes up, people start to perceive it as overpriced and time to sell. This creates an upper limit for the price and drives the price down.
Therefore, 'flipping' (whether it's in this game or on the stock market) tends to NARROW the range in which a price fluctuates.
Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project
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But it's not insane! That's what those "commons" are worth -- because they're components in important stuff, or they aren't very common drops. That's normal for markets.
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Originally Posted by Neogumbercules
Me too, but every time I'm trying to make something and I run across the insanity of 20-50k commons, it grinds my gears. Strictly a personal vendetta.
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Except as others have noted, market supply is in a constant state of flux, especially on items like salvage. If there's none today there'll be plenty tomorrow. Heck, if there's none now there'll be some in an hour. You're proposing a scenario where something sells out and is never relisted. Also, if everyone got what they wanted, there'd be no one left to want it, thus demand would go down. True, there'll always be more demand, but there'll always be more supply to accommodate it, also.|
Originally Posted by seebs
It's providing someone who wants it more a chance to get it at all, rather than coming to the market and finding none available.
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| This is how you manage scarcity -- you raise prices until demand drops enough to match supply. That has the additional effect of creating an incentive for people to try to raise supply. If I see that prices on something are temporarily high, I might go take a stack out of a salvage rack and list them... Increasing supply and lowering prices. |
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| No, the person who wanted it enough to pay 175M benefitted, because if someone else had bought it and used it, there wouldn't have been one availabel. |
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| You seem to live in a world in which people named after dolphins have a magical ability to percieve what the current asking prices for something are, and in which you are able to perceive exactly which sales correspond to which specific instances of a given item. |
That item's being flipped, plain and simple. Most of the active bids are ones for ~151, and all the active "for sale" items are hovering around 175M. I can't see any other alternative. And for you guys to pretend this helps other people get what they want is, quite frankly, goofy.
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| Also, you're now being contradictory, because if someone else might have bid a bit more, then that person would have won, and the person who wanted it for 151M would have lost anyway. |
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| Seriously, your entire argument here is, quite frankly, droolingly incoherent. It doesn't even make sense. It doesn't even begin to make sense. With the exception of one or two database techs at ncsoft, no one in the world could possibly have the information you'd need to substantiate these claims, and the claims themselves are such as to inspire the reader to wonder whether you shouldn't be cutting back a bit on the lead content in your diet. |
But that's beside the point. No, see, it takes observation. Of actual data, available to all. The last 5 bids, frequency of sales, fluctuations in prices, number for sale, number bidding (the later two being shockingly stable. Gee, if people are buying all these recipes, where are the new ones coming from if it's supposedly so rare?) You're almost trying to claim that flipping doesn't exist. At least that's what it sounds like. All I'm saying is that flipping keeps items out of the hands of people who want them for cheaper. How's that not make sense, especially since everyone else has admitted that "flipping raises the price floor"?
-STEELE =)
Allied to all sides so that no matter what, I'll come out on top!
Oh, and Crimson demands you play this arc-> Twisted Knives (MA Arc #397769)
Flipping does indeed keep property out of the hands of people who don't want to pay for that property. So to do prices.
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someone used to paying 100 inf for their Circuit Boards would probably have a similar reaction to your plan to charge them 10k.|
Originally Posted by Neogumbercules
Me too, but every time I'm trying to make something and I run across the insanity of 20-50k commons...
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also, there's nothing 'insane' about a few thousand inf for a high demand item.
what's really crazy is sweating over piddly, meaningless little amounts when you've hit the inf cap.
=P
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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no, see, it takes correctly interpreting your observations.
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Originally Posted by EmperorSteele
No, see, it takes observation.
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The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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Since you chose to ignore my previous post, I'll quote you, then show you just how foolish you're being.|
Originally Posted by EmperorSteele
All I'm doing is observing a trend. I see a sale for 151,115,151, i KNOW that's a marketer's trick, buying and listing for non-even amounts. And then there's 4 sales a short time later for much higher? Didn't those other 4 people see the bidding history and try the same amount? They probably did. And they probably bid-crept until they reached a number that was much higher than what they wanted to pay but that finally paid off. Which means 2 things: At the time 151,115,151 won the bid, there were NO HIGHER BIDS, strange for an item with close to 100 bids on it. But then the next 4 people had to bid at least 175M, even though there's 20 more on the market?
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There are currently 29 Respec Recipes for sale. Right this instant.
There are 179 bids.
What are those 29 listed at? I could tell you by bid creeping them and buying them all out, but frankly, they're most, if not all are listed at 151,111,150 or higher. How do I know this? Because the 2 guys who paid 180mil for them AFTER the 151,111,150 was purchased would have gotten them for 151,111,150 when they copied that guy's bid.
Next, let's just take a second here to think really hard about this. There are not a finite amount of these things sitting there. They come in, they go out. There is no in-game limiter saying "only 30 of these can exist at one time - ever. Anywhere". The 151,111,150 could have just as easily been someone who's been sitting on the high bid for a while and Joe Schmo listed his for 17,500,000 when he missed a 0. I did that yesterday. Missed a zero on a sale. It cost me a lot (in relative terms). You have no idea what-so-ever which recipe that person bought, when they bought it, or who they sold it to. Your speculation is not founded in reality any more than me speculating that all of this is actually YOU in an underhanded attempt to somehow cause dissension.
Now, let's go back and address something else for you - another assumption you made, took to be the gospel truth, and now have shoved your foot so far into your mouth that you are dangerously close to swallowing your boxers:
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| All I'm doing is observing a trend. I see a sale for 151,115,151, i KNOW that's a marketer's trick, buying and listing for non-even amounts. |
What did I learn from that? To be careful when placing bids. I also learned to bid like this:
1,123,123
15,123,123
7,123,123
You know why? It makes me 99% less likely to add an extra number to my bids. I did that looooooooooong before I made enough inf to buy you, your children, and your dog.
That is not a "trick" only marketeers use. Tons of people do this. You'd know this - unless of course you are too inept to watch the sales on a piece of common salvage? How many do you see go out for an even number? Maybe 2%? Hell, I'll give you 10%. So in your words, anything without an even bid is being purchased by a flipper? So what... the flippers are buying 90% of the stuff from... flippers? Makes perfect sense to me that with a population of 50k people playing that the vast majority of transactions are now conducted by flippers.
Now, to address something else for you, because you're really not getting this:
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| And they probably bid-crept until they reached a number that was much higher than what they wanted to pay but that finally paid off. |
Second - WTF are you smoking?! Paid more than they wanted to pay... well DUH! I want everything for free. Reality sucks though, so I get over it.
Third - WTF are you smoking?! If they "didn't want to pay that much for it" why on God's green Earth did they continue to bid... for something that can be earned for exactly 0 inf!!! 0!!! Not millions. Not even thousands. 0!!! Respec trials take no more than 45 min with a horrible team. But they continued to bid on an item that isn't even "required". They continued to bid and somehow got suckered by a flipper, and not some random dude who said "holy #$^&! Look at that! I can sell my respec recipe for 170 million!!!" No no... it must be evil flippers.
Forth - WTF are you smoking? Using Respec Recipes to make your point? Could you maybe use a costume piece? Its actually LESS useless than a Respec Recipe.
Here's the dirty little secret you seem to have missed on Respec recipes - you know who buys the vast majority of these? Rich people. Rich people who are doing one of the following:
a) Stripping a toon to send the enhancements to another toon
b) Stripping enhancements off of a toon because they want to sell those enhancements to people like you
c) Stripping their toon to delete it to make something new.
There is almost no other reason to use a respec recipe. You can do a trial and get one any time you'd like. The recipes are there for the people who want to respec over and over and over to remove enhancements.
Honestly, I just wish those things took their very own salvage. I might actually invest the time and energy into dominating that. I mean if someone feels that 45 min of their time is worth 180 mil... wth do you think they'd be willing to pay for the rare salvage to make it?! Now that would be sweet!
Id re-balance the rewards. No more Rare salvage for crap bonuses(tempest ranged).....also no more great bonuses (crushing impacts i see you) for crap salvage. You know, Balance.....that word that Castle uses alot but has no idea what it actually means.
Pick the level of your random merit roll. You sorta worked for it, spend it how you want
Less merit vendors. No real impact, theres just too many of them.
Slight drop rate increase in the 20-40 range with a slight drop rate decrease in the 41-50 range.
No auction in Atlas or Mercy. Why are these here?
More Inf Sinks.....betting on Monkey Fight club is on!
Id change the sets so they dropped the same way generic Io recipes drop (ie levels 10,15,20 etc) there isnt much of a difference in game terms between a lvl 25 and 26 recipe...although some that is the breakpoint they use different salvage. Short term it will make things a bit too easy to make inf on......but long term it simplifies things.
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I have a small question. Do you actually ever sell anything on the market yourself? |
Originally Posted by EmperorSteele
that is if sellers were more willing to be altruistic instead of greedy...
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As a seller, how can the purchase price of an item possibly be the result of my greed when I list an item for say 7.5 million and buyers purchase that item for 15 million? I didn't make them pay that price. That's the price the buyer offered. As a seller, I can't MAKE the buyer pay any particular amount.
People pay what they think something is worth, based on whatever their own individual criteria are. The fact that your criteria are different, doesn't mean there is anything unfair about the system.
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Very good!|
Originally Posted by EmperorSteele
Except as others have noted, market supply is in a constant state of flux, especially on items like salvage. If there's none today there'll be plenty tomorrow. Heck, if there's none now there'll be some in an hour.
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And the same is true of supply at a given price.
Your claim was specifically that the flippers were preventing someone from getting something:
1. Right away.
2. At a cheap price.
And you've now conceded the key point -- in the absence of flippers, it's just as possible that someone can't get something right away.
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| You're proposing a scenario where something sells out and is never relisted. |
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| Also, if everyone got what they wanted, there'd be no one left to want it, thus demand would go down. True, there'll always be more demand, but there'll always be more supply to accommodate it, also. |
The amount of demand is in part a function of the price.
If Alchemical Silver is 50k, fewer people want it than would want it at 10k. At a price lower than where the market ends up, there wouldn't be enough, and it would sell out. At a price higher than where the market ends up, there'd be extra, and it would accumulate until people lowered their asking prices.
The point is, there is not enough alchemical silver, ever, for everyone who wants it even a little tiny bit to get it. So there's only enough for some people to get it. That can be random chance or rationing systems, or it can be market forces setting a price at which there's enough alchemical silver to fill the demand from people willing to pay that much.
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| No, you manage scarcity by providing more and making sure everyone gets what they desire at a price they are amenable to! True, this doesn't work in the real world as there are physical limits to how much of something can be physically created and shipped, but in-game, we have ~50,000 players doing missions and getting drops. I dunno how many actively participate in the market, but it's gotta be enough to get everyone what they want... that is if sellers were more willing to be altruistic instead of greedy... |
Yes, we have a ton of people doing missions and getting drops. That's why common salvage which isn't used in very interesting recipes, or which has a high drop rate, sells for 1-10 inf hundreds or thousands of times a day. But, with all those people, there isn't enough of the things that are expensive to meet the demand there would be for them at 500inf or even 10k inf. So the price rises until demand is met.
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| Not if he could have had it for 150 Million, or less. I don't call paying more than he would have had to without the flipper's interference "benefiting". |
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| All I'm doing is observing a trend. I see a sale for 151,115,151, i KNOW that's a marketer's trick, buying and listing for non-even amounts. |
When I want salvage, I bid x123. That's if I want to use it to craft. You're just making up crazy stuff here. Seriously, if you keep up with this, you'll be showing genuine diagnostic criteria for clinical paranoia. You are imagining patterns because you don't have enough data to draw evidence-based conclusions.
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| And then there's 4 sales a short time later for much higher? |
No flipping involved, just the broad spread of asking prices.
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| Didn't those other 4 people see the bidding history and try the same amount? They probably did. And they probably bid-crept until they reached a number that was much higher than what they wanted to pay but that finally paid off. |
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| Which means 2 things: At the time 151,115,151 won the bid, there were NO HIGHER BIDS, strange for an item with close to 100 bids on it. |
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| But then the next 4 people had to bid at least 175M, even though there's 20 more on the market? |
Come on, think this through! If the totally unevidenced flipper is in fact able to sell this salvage for 175M, that means that none of the other 20 listed were at that low a price.
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| That item's being flipped, plain and simple. |
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| Most of the active bids are ones for ~151, and all the active "for sale" items are hovering around 175M. I can't see any other alternative. And for you guys to pretend this helps other people get what they want is, quite frankly, goofy. |
We even gave you a concrete, real-world, test case. Someone picked a salvage that was in poor supply with prices all over the map, devoted a couple of slots to bidding at a lowish value and selling at a highish value, and what happened? Why, supply increased dramatically and prices stabilized.
Every economic theory that has ever actually predicted real-world results would predict this. It is the only outcome that makes sense. We've explained the process, and the closest you can come to a response is to make up incredibly strange theories, declare that only a physically impossible thing can explain perfectly ordinary data, and then admit once that your entire theory falls apart in a multi-seller market.
But we're in a multi-seller market. The entire market is merged. And because of that, all this crazy talk about flippers controlling market prices on common salvage is just that -- crazy talk.
I'm done trying to explain this to you. If you ever suddenly feel like learning about the world instead of making up crazy stuff and declaring that it is what's true and all the textbooks and research results are wrong, you go ahead and do that. I'm not waiting around for you to suddenly realize that the real world exists and has whatever properties it has whether or not you can wrap your head around the complexities. *plonk*
Guys, time to put on your aluminium foil hats because the flippers are out there watching you!
Anyways, as someone who has never had any interest in economics and never studied it, I'd like to say a few things about all this...
- Flippers drive prices down.
This concept is not really that hard to understand, and I'll explain it to you as I understand it. First of all we'll have to establish two entities: Production and Consumption. For Production to give us supply, Consumption has to give us demand. There is no point in supplying the market with large amounts of any item if there is no demand. When a flipper enters the scene and starts flipping something, say, Alchemical Silvers, he is going to put out a large number of bids, thus creating demand and a bottom price for Alchemical Silvers. Production now has an incentive to start supplying. However, when the supply gets larger and larger, it is hard for a single flipper to manage all those items and a few bids are going to slip by to patient people.
A price cap is formed also by the flipper. He has to value his product at a price people are willing to pay and also at a price that can compete with other sellers. It has to be low enough that his stock sells first: if no one is willing to pay that price or someone else's stock sells first, the flipper gets zero income.
What happens exactly is that the bottom price of the item is pushed slightly up, and I think this is what you (EmperorSteele) don't like. People can no longer get all the Alchemical Silvers they want for a bottom price, but they are now protected from price surges that sometimes happen (remember salvage during the AE craze?). I would call all this flipping stuff paying a premium to the flipper for protecting the price of the salvage from surging, much like paying a premium for crafted IOs just because someone else crafted them for you. Someone out there is doing you a service, and as is common practice, you pay for that service.
- Quickly and cheaply are often two mutual things.
ES said earlier in a post that a flipper who buys the Respec Recipe for 151mil prevents the other people from getting it quickly and cheaply, and instead they have to pay 175mil for it. I'd like to point out that the flipper might have got it cheap, but 99% of the time they don't get their stock quickly. Again, by getting your product RIGHT NOW, you're paying a premium. Much like in real life, if you order something and have it brought to you by the fastest mail service, you'll be paying more than what you would have to, had you just been patient.
- The price people pay is a price they think is fair. Always.
This I think is completely self-evident. There is no outside force compelling you to pay that much for the item, you can always leave a bid and wait. Of course, if your bid is way lower than the value of the item perceived by the community, it is unlikely that you'll get it any time soon. However, if you want the recipe fast, you bid the current perceived value, which you think (maybe even subconsciously, if nothing else) is fair because you just typed it there with your own fingers without someone else making you do it.
As a real-life economy hater, it feels so wrong typing all this...
- @DSorrow - alts on Union and Freedom mostly -
Currently playing as Castigation on Freedom
My Katana/Inv Guide
Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either. -Einstein
Okay, concrete example time. I wanted a Scientific Theory. Last few buys were at pretty large numbers.
So.
About 1850 listed, about 600 bidding. I bid-walked and found that there wasn't a single one under about 90k, and 101k was my first successful bid. Now, that's 1800 of them HIGHER than about 90k. But wait! I just posted a bid at 1500 x10. And so far two have gotten purchased in about 5 minutes.
What this means:
There are 1800 scientific theories up with asking prices over 90k.
There are 600 bids up at under 1500.
This is why you see such insane fluctuations. If someone lists at a low price, they get a low price -- if I weren't bidding, they'd get under 1500. If someone wants to buy, though, they have to pay a high price or be willing to wait a couple of minutes.
This has nothing to do with the "flippers" buying items and marking them up. It has to do with a lot of people who saw scientific theories going for ridiculous prices over the weekend and listing theirs at ridiculous prices too in order to make money.
Now, let's take this situation, where things are running from 1k to 100k. Last five purchases: 5,001, 100,000, 33,333, 40,000, 1,500.
Let's say I start flipping. I log in someone who has a bunch of slots open. And I bid 5,000 each on scientific theories -- meaning I drive out all the people bidding 1,500 for a while. And then I list them at... well, what would I list them at? I'd probably pick 75k because that'd be definitely under the price of ANY of the existing ones (remember, I have bid 90k and gotten no sale), so anyone who bids 75k and up gets mine.
What effect does my flipping have on prices? Let's work this out. I'm buying a ton of things, and I'm listing them for noticably less than any of the ones currently on the market. So suddenly, unless people just randomly type six-digit numbers, I'm driving that peak price down from 100k to 75k. And, on the other end, I'm eliminating the annoyance of listing stuff that's been selling for 100k and getting less than 1% of it. So if I do that with a ton of market slots, I create an effective price cap -- it will be pointless to try to ask for more than 75k, because I'll always have lower prices than you, so I'll sell first. And I create a price floor -- you are guaranteed to get at least 5k for anything you list.
Now what happens when another flipper comes along? He has to bid a bit over 5k, and list at a bit under 75k.
And a while later, you have a much more stable market, with flippers pushing the low and high end prices together. And, a bit later, the people who really just want to sell their stuff take down their 100k+ asking prices and relist at something inside the range.
Net result: Instead of scientific theories being a random guess anywhere from 1k to 100k, you get stable prices closer to 20-50k. Lower if we somehow mysteriously end up with enough of them on the market.
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Yet you're arguing that flippers make it impossible for Joe Casual to obtain anything. How do you reconcile these two statements? Joe Casual has just as much chance as Ebil Flipper to get the next item up for sale - in fact, he just has to bid 1 inf higher than Ebil Flipper and he'll cut into Flipper's supply. Why isn't he doing that?|
Originally Posted by EmperorSteele
Except as others have noted, market supply is in a constant state of flux, especially on items like salvage. If there's none today there'll be plenty tomorrow. Heck, if there's none now there'll be some in an hour.
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Originally Posted by EmperorSteele
No, you manage scarcity by providing more and making sure everyone gets what they desire at a price they are amenable to!
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Originally Posted by EmperorSteele
I dunno how many actively participate in the market, but it's gotta be enough to get everyone what they want... that is if sellers were more willing to be altruistic instead of greedy...
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Originally Posted by EmperorSteele
Not if he could have had it for 150 Million, or less. I don't call paying more than he would have had to without the flipper's interference "benefiting".
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Originally Posted by EmperorSteele
All I'm doing is observing a trend. I see a sale for 151,115,151, i KNOW that's a marketer's trick, buying and listing for non-even amounts.
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Originally Posted by EmperorSteele
And then there's 4 sales a short time later for much higher? Didn't those other 4 people see the bidding history and try the same amount? They probably did.
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Originally Posted by EmperorSteele
And they probably bid-crept until they reached a number that was much higher than what they wanted to pay but that finally paid off.
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Originally Posted by EmperorSteele
Which means 2 things: At the time 151,115,151 won the bid, there were NO HIGHER BIDS, strange for an item with close to 100 bids on it. But then the next 4 people had to bid at least 175M, even though there's 20 more on the market?
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Originally Posted by EmperorSteele
That item's being flipped, plain and simple. Most of the active bids are ones for ~151, and all the active "for sale" items are hovering around 175M. I can't see any other alternative.
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Originally Posted by EmperorSteele
Gee, if people are buying all these recipes, where are the new ones coming from if it's supposedly so rare?
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Originally Posted by EmperorSteele
All I'm saying is that flipping keeps items out of the hands of people who want them for cheaper.
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There any room left on this dogpile?
EmperorSteele said, way up on the last page:
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So wait. Someone sold a respec for 151M, a price they were willing to take. |
Sure... they raise it out of the range of the people who have the most complaints against the market already. They prevent the market from working for people who want things quickly and cheaply. Quote:
180M 155M 175M 175M ~151M (all today) Why can't everyone get it for 151? Because some silly person bought it and relisted it for 175M. The flipper prevented someone else from getting that particular, specific recipe at that lower price. How's that doing the market any good? The only person befitting is the flipper. Even the original seller got shafted, because someone else might have bid a bit more instead of the bare minimum. __________________ -STEELE =) |
Someone else bought a respec for 175M, a price they were willing to pay.
Anyone could have looked at that last 5, put in a bid at 152M, and waited.
Four people didn't.
It's starting to sound like you're angry that other people are willing to outbid you.
By the way: You're quite sure that flippers control the prices. Last week eradication quads (crafted) were selling for 80M. This morning they're selling for 20M. Does that sound like anyone's controlling anything? [I note in passing that the price of the recipe has not changed from the 4-10M range. ]
I also note in passing the following:
About a month ago Going Rogue launched, with a freespec included. It seems to take most people about a month (3-6 weeks, say) to get characters to level 50. [I base this on the spike in purple prices.] Many people have used their freespec up either at 50, or on the way.
... The freespecs which depressed recipe prices are running out.
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
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Actually, you overestimate people's abilities. That IS a trick only marketers use, by virtue of the fact that if someone is doing that, they deserve the title, for better or worse.|
Originally Posted by Misaligned
What did I learn from that? To be careful when placing bids. I also learned to bid like this:
1,123,123 15,123,123 7,123,123 You know why? It makes me 99% less likely to add an extra number to my bids. I did that looooooooooong before I made enough inf to buy you, your children, and your dog. That is not a "trick" only marketeers use. Tons of people do this. You'd know this - unless of course you are too inept to watch the sales on a piece of common salvage? How many do you see go out for an even number? Maybe 2%? Hell, I'll give you 10%. So in your words, anything without an even bid is being purchased by a flipper? So what... the flippers are buying 90% of the stuff from... flippers? Makes perfect sense to me that with a population of 50k people playing that the vast majority of transactions are now conducted by flippers. |
And why do you people keep bringing up salvage? I'm not SAYING ANYTHING about salvage. But for the record, I just looked, and about 90% of the sales i saw were for an even number. So, don't mind me if i doubt your observational and intellectual abilities. I did notice that high-priced items had a higher chance of having an un-even bid number, but for the most part, the majority of bids ended in 0's.
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Now, to address something else for you, because you're really not getting this: People don't bid creep. They just don't. They're sheep. They don't do it. They just don't. Seeing a patern here. Hell - people like me count on that fact. Listing my enhancement at 11mil when they're selling for 20 to ensure mine sells first. I'm counting on the sheep to just blindly bid what the last person bid - and they do. I'm now up to 18 of the same enhancement sold. All listed for 15.3 mil. 16 have sold for 20 mil... cause that's what the last 5 said they sold at! |
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| Second - WTF are you smoking?! Paid more than they wanted to pay... well DUH! I want everything for free. Reality sucks though, so I get over it. |
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| Third - WTF are you smoking?! If they "didn't want to pay that much for it" why on God's green Earth did they continue to bid... for something that can be earned for exactly 0 inf!!! 0!!! Not millions. Not even thousands. 0!!! Respec trials take no more than 45 min with a horrible team. But they continued to bid on an item that isn't even "required". They continued to bid and somehow got suckered by a flipper, and not some random dude who said "holy #$^&! Look at that! I can sell my respec recipe for 170 million!!!" No no... it must be evil flippers. |
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| Forth - WTF are you smoking? Using Respec Recipes to make your point? Could you maybe use a costume piece? Its actually LESS useless than a Respec Recipe. |
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Here's the dirty little secret you seem to have missed on Respec recipes - you know who buys the vast majority of these? Rich people. Rich people who are doing one of the following: a) Stripping a toon to send the enhancements to another toon b) Stripping enhancements off of a toon because they want to sell those enhancements to people like you c) Stripping their toon to delete it to make something new. There is almost no other reason to use a respec recipe. You can do a trial and get one any time you'd like. The recipes are there for the people who want to respec over and over and over to remove enhancements. |
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| Honestly, I just wish those things took their very own salvage. I might actually invest the time and energy into dominating that. I mean if someone feels that 45 min of their time is worth 180 mil... wth do you think they'd be willing to pay for the rare salvage to make it?! Now that would be sweet! |
-STEELE =)
Allied to all sides so that no matter what, I'll come out on top!
Oh, and Crimson demands you play this arc-> Twisted Knives (MA Arc #397769)
I don't think anyone's claiming that there are no flippers, Steele.
We're claiming that flippers can't raise the price above what people are willing to pay. Because we can't. I've left things up for six months in the hope that prices will go back up and they did not. I've put a couple BILLION into buying up stock to try and soak up supply and raise prices, and it didn't work. Twice. (Sometimes I have to learn the lesson more than once.) One of those was even on respec recipes, specifically. I'm sure you'll be happy to hear that I only lost about 20% on my investment.
Canute could not command the tide, and I cannot command the market.
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
Heh, that's what it was sounding like, from what some of these people have been saying.
My beef isn't with higher prices or even flippers, but everyone's flippant attitude that the flippers somehow make everything better for everyone. The flippers are only helping themselves. And while others may see some benefits, it's not like the flippers had those other people in mind when they went about flipping.
..I'm starting to sound like a smurf >_>
-STEELE =)
Allied to all sides so that no matter what, I'll come out on top!
Oh, and Crimson demands you play this arc-> Twisted Knives (MA Arc #397769)
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Raising the price floor benefits sellers and encourages supply.|
Originally Posted by EmperorSteele
My beef isn't with higher prices or even flippers, but everyone's flippant attitude that the flippers somehow make everything better for everyone.
|
Lowering the price ceiling benefits BUY NAO players.
Patient players can still get the salvage at a discount by exercising patience.
On the whole flipping is a benefit to the market ecosystem.
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My City Was Gone
Don't want to get into the flipping thing, I thought flippers increased prices until JoJo explained it with charts, I tried it, couldn't raise prices one iota.
Edit: I tried to raise prices on Unearthed Relics (?), one of the uncommon Arcanes. I bought tons and tons of them and relisted them around 130,000 to 210,000 each. They barely ever sold. Most of them sold around 40,000 to 80,000, if I recall and then my stock got resold at close to equilibrium.
Remember, I had only the most basic knowledge of econ when I started my quest to billions...I couldn't increase prices of something trivial...
What I'd like:
PvP IO drop increases. They aren't dropping nearly enough, especially since canny PvPers in Arena avoid getting killed, which reduces chances for drops. People are pretty much getting these from farming, which is pretty sad.
Choice of level from random rolls: If I want the recipe produced at level 36, it comes out at level 36.
Re-examination of Reward Merit prices.
If I can get a Lotg 7.5 for 40,000,000 influence + 100 Reward Merits...or at 200 Reward Merits (?), that's two days of work plus trivial market sales or a week's work or massive TF grinding.
Some procs are too expensive Merit wise...seen the prices on Mako's Bite procs? You can't sell the things. How about Gift 7.5 runspeed? Decent price but worth 2 HVAM? Hmm...
I'm fine with where purple prices are...you get a decent one you can make 300 million + on it.
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I started doing that LONG before I started marketing. Up until I12 or something I basically funded all my characters by farming, but had resorted to ending stuff with x,123,123 or x,512,512 to avoid bidding 10x the amount of inf I wanted to. And also because 1, 2, 3 and 5 are all located so that I can only use my left hand to bid. Later I added this habit to posting items so that I no longer posted them for even amounts, but that, too, was well before I actually started using the market for other things than selling my drops and purchasing stuff I needed.|
Originally Posted by EmperorSteele
Actually, you overestimate people's abilities. That IS a trick only marketers use, by virtue of the fact that if someone is doing that, they deserve the title, for better or worse.
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| And why do you people keep bringing up salvage? I'm not SAYING ANYTHING about salvage. But for the record, I just looked, and about 90% of the sales i saw were for an even number. So, don't mind me if i doubt your observational and intellectual abilities. I did notice that high-priced items had a higher chance of having an un-even bid number, but for the most part, the majority of bids ended in 0's. |
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| Just because YOU don't bid-creep doesn't mean other people don't. But you're right, they do liek to bid what the last few people did. However, in an instance where they can SEE one just sold for 151511515 or whatever, don't you think they would have tried a bid closer to that before going up to 175M? Also, you've contradicted yourself. First you say "Tons" of people are smart enough to bid uneven amounts, but now you're calling them sheep? make up your mind! |
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| So, are you countering this position or not? Hard to tell. |
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| Some people have already done all three trials and used all their vetspecs. And with the announcement of free fitness coming our way, plenty of people want to get their builds in order or at least have an extra respec handy before the tsunami hits. And while you're right in that there could be a few extra people putting in respecs for sale at a high price, what, pray-tell, do you think someone is doing making multiple bids of 151etcetcetc for? Or are you going to tell me that over a hundred different people are making bids at that price point? Are you that dense to pick a fight that you're going to start trolling with an illogical conclusion such as that? |
Oh yeah, and your conclusion can be countered by the conclusion itself. Maybe those people with multiple uneven bids actually want to get a freespec in store for every single character they have?
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| Respec recipes have more perceived value, plus who in their right mind would flip vendor trash? WTD are YOU smoking? |
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| No, it's for vets who've finished the respec trials a long time ago and used all their vetspecs and freespecs, too. It happens, especially since every other issue introduces new power changes. Or are you going to tell me that getting inherent health and stamina (that you'll have to respec into if you already selected them as pool powers) isn't going to have ANY effect on anyone's builds? While true we'll get a freespec with the next issue, some people need to respec more than once to properly move enhancements around, and unless someone has Mids open on another screen, people are bound to make slotting goofs and will need to 'spec all over again. |
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| Not everyone can do a respec trial, but aside from that, yeah, that'd be something fun to see, heh. |
- @DSorrow - alts on Union and Freedom mostly -
Currently playing as Castigation on Freedom
My Katana/Inv Guide
Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either. -Einstein
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No they can't. If they already did all three, you can't get a respec as a reward again. And I've seen a small handful of posters who claim that they can only play at odd hours for short periods of time where getting enough people together and having that sort of time isn't tenable. But on a whole, you'd think plenty of people would have access to respecs in one form or another...|
Originally Posted by DSorrow
Anyone above level 24 can do a respec trial provided that they have around 1.5h to spare just about any evening or afternoon. I cannot fathom a single way of life where you don't have that much leisure time. If you do, but don't want to work to get your respec like everyone else does, no sympathy from me. Under level 24 you shouldn't even need respecs. You have a second build for that.
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So, why are there over 170 bids for respec recipes?
-STEELE =)
Allied to all sides so that no matter what, I'll come out on top!
Oh, and Crimson demands you play this arc-> Twisted Knives (MA Arc #397769)
Quote:
And once again we can point out how a market without flippers becomes either an extreme crap shoot, or a fixed price system in which you will always pay more than any system which has flippers. |
Originally Posted by EmperorSteele
Heh, that's what it was sounding like, from what some of these people have been saying.
My beef isn't with higher prices or even flippers, but everyone's flippant attitude that the flippers somehow make everything better for everyone. The flippers are only helping themselves. And while others may see some benefits, it's not like the flippers had those other people in mind when they went about flipping. ..I'm starting to sound like a smurf >_> |
To this point, I see all of your arguments hinging on the fact that someone who wants to buy something right this instant cannot get that item for free.
And? How exactly do flippers affect this even one tiny iota?
This is not a locked system. Supply comes in from anyone, supply goes out to anyone. Respec Recipes don't just drop on ITF. Alchemical Silver doesn't just drop from Posi TFs. The ability for everyone to have a shot at everything is exactly what keeps flippers from doing exactly what you claim they're doing - raising prices. The only exceptions to "available to everyone" rule of this game are purples, which require you to kill mobs of a certain level and PvP IOs, which require you to... PvP.
This "flippant attitude" you claim to be seeing is the people of this forum trying to logically dissuade you from your high horse about how flippers are ruining the economy for the casual player.
There are 2 fundamental truths about this game's economy:
1) People have no patience. If you can use that to your advantage, please do.
2) People are sheep. They do what everyone else is doing, regardless of what is best for them. Once again, if you can use this to your advantage, please do.
From those fundamental truths, people have devised the following system:
1 - Bid on items you want to sell. Bid high enough to get some, but low enough that you will have bigger profits.
2 - Sell those items for LESS than what the going rate is. This ensures yours sell first and that you sell more.
Patience gets you the items you want at the price you want. This should be applied across the board when making purchases. If you intend to use, or sell that item, patience is generally key.
Knowing that people are sheep allows you to get 20 million for an IO you list at 11 mil because that is what they are generally selling for.
Patience also comes into play when you understand that some people don't even leave their bid up long enough to let the game process it:
Selling IO X for 15.3 mil.
Normally sells for 20,000,000.
Last 5 sold: 20 mil / 20 mil / 20 mil / 25 mil / 25 mil
Yeah... 2 sold at 25 mil... while I have 5 up for sale at 15.3 mil.
A - Clearly people bid creeping there
B - Clearly evil flippers driving up the price
C - If people were bidding 20 mil... and not leaving the bid up long enough for the game to process it, forcing them to then feel they need to bid higher... how exactly do flippers effect this? In fact, it is these lazy people with zero patience that drove the price up for about 30 minutes last night. Not the flippers.
Quote:
Maybe the bid creepers who exist have put 10 low bids each to ensure they get a freespec for every single one of their characters for I19. Maybe 100 people who don't actually have enough influence on hand currently have posted all of their current influence in hopes of catching one. Maybe 170 people want the recipe, but do not wan't to pay the "evil flipper price", thus proving that flippers don't actually make us pay any more than we want to.
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Originally Posted by EmperorSteele
So, why are there over 170 bids for respec recipes?
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- @DSorrow - alts on Union and Freedom mostly -
Currently playing as Castigation on Freedom
My Katana/Inv Guide
Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either. -Einstein
Quote:
There's 186 bids. And they're selling for 180 million now. Perhaps... just perhaps... all of the evil non-flippers are hoping to get in on the action? Have you ever used a respec recipe? how many? In how many years?|
Originally Posted by EmperorSteele
So, why are there over 170 bids for respec recipes?
|
Why are there 6 outstanding bids for Bat wings?
Why are there 6 outstanding bids for Bone wings?
Why are there 4 outstanding bids for Draconic wings?
Why are there 257 outstanding bids for Rocket boots? There's 155 for sale by the way. A purely cosmetic costume piece...
Why are there 26 outstanding bids on Tech wings?
Why are there 413 outstanding bids on the mid level Temporary Power: Ethereal Shift, when the other 2 (high level and low level) have a combined total of 0 bids? These all provide the exact same power...
Care to speculate about evil flippers invading the costume piece and temp power market?
So 20k-50k is insane, but 10k is the right price?