Are there "Price Buster" angels?

I remember not too long ago, within the last 2 months, level 50 efficacy adaptor recipes and enhancements skyrocketed like crazy. The enhancements were averaging something like 20 million, and both the recipes and enhancements were rare. Well, that put a damper on me buying any. (just not into paying crazy prices for stuff not really worth that much.)

Then one day I logged in, and there were over 50 enhancements for sale for each type, and they were going for 2-3 million. Did some benevolant billionaire get pissed and bust the overinflated price by outbuying the guy controlling the market and post them cheap?

Or maybe the guy controlling the prices got bored and moved on? But the fact that suddenly there's a whole bunch for sale that weren't listed makes me suspicious. I've seen this a number of times on various sets.

We should make a society of benevolent watchers for this, if one doesn't already exist! But we really need a good bartering system for white salvage to help the noobs and lowbies get what they need.

Maybe some other sellers saw the niche and decided to get in on the action and that increased supply did something to the price?

Or maybe a lot of people stopped playing their 50s over the last month and a half or so because they had a reason to be rolling and playing new lowbie characters instead, so demand dropped?

With the advent of villain and hero merits, supply now outweighs demand on many sets. You still have your LoTG and Numina procs, but for the most part prices have been going down on the market.

Philantropy doesn't exactly pay for itself - someone that rich would have likely *gotten* rich on flipping in the first place.

I sometimes craft up common IOs by the dozen and put them up at just over cost. That always ends with my character much richer and the going price of the IO completely unaffected.

I used to craft Efficacy Adapters for quite some time. Initially, I just went with the flow for pricing. The prices occasionally skyrocketed, and I'd think "whee - riches galore!" However, as I continued and checked weekly profits, I noticed profits were much, much lower when prices fluctuated, even though it seemed like I should be making more. Why? Well (obvious in retrospect) it's because the prices also went back down, so I'd be stuck with these now over-priced buggers, having to relist them, which would take a day of profits from me. The entire point of Eff. Adapt's is that you can buy and sell FAST, making a tidy profit off the sheer volume of sales.

After a couple months of this, I quit thinking of myself as a victim of 'The Market', and set my own prices (this was a quantum leap in thinking, trust me!). This had NOTHING to do with what anyone else was doing - it was to keep prices consistent and reasonable for those buying my stuff, thus keeping the sales moving rapidly. So regardless of what the recipes were going for, I listed my stuff to sell for 5 million. Period. Didn't take long for recipe prices to stabilize, and all of us making 'em were turning over nice profits, and - more importantly - consistent profits. I crafted 10 at a time, twice a day, and could have done more, but I was doing this on like 15 toons (different recipes) and there was a limit to how much time I was going to sink into it.

Something like Eff. Adapt's might occasionally soar in price due to a very temporary dearth of them up for sale. This might last a few days, continuing because most people consider the "long-term prices" to be only what the last 7 sales were. However, nothing that is dropped as commonly as these are are EVER going to stay inflated. They can't. They drop like crazy.

Are you all excited because you made an extra 20 mil when the prices inflated? Are you checking the profits weekly? Did you notice you lost 80 mil right after that, because you lost a day plus of sales? Rather than look at "profits of the moment," I'd strongly - STRONGLY - recommend anyone crafting any uncommons to set a reasonable price and stick to it. The profits are MUCH higher.

I doubt there was "a guy controlling the market", I suspect prices were just high for a while. You may find this hard to believe, but when prices are too high, some people won't buy -- which can cause supply to increase.

Another factor is the merged market.

Contrary to the "DOOM" forecasts, the merge is pooling supply (Hero + Villain + Praetorian),
so, for most things, supply is going (or has gone) up with corresponding drops
in prices.

The addition of H/V merits as an alternate method for obtaining said shinies
is also reducing demand pressures, once again leading toward lowering
price trends.

If server loads are any real indicator, GR coaxed back an influx of players,
also leading to increased supply, and lower prices.

Now that I17/I18 have been live for a couple months, and the general insanity
during any major release is subsiding, we're starting to see simple market forces
do their thing.

Suppy & Demand really do run the show...


Regards,
4

If a particular crafted IO is very high, but the recipes are much cheaper, I jump on that and craft and sell at slightly under the going rate. If others are doing the same, it drives the price down.

So, the answer is most likely that the recipes for those IOs were probably flooding the market a bit.

Sometimes prices go up... and sometimes they come down... I think its the nature of the market