111671-why-would-you-sell-below-vendor-price-cx-rant

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			I have been getting increasingly more frustrated with me server's Commodity Exchange lately. I farm Survivalist and Miner mat for plat when I don't want to deal with dungeons that day, naturally I would try to sell it on the CX. Unfortunately Most of the items I harvest are up for sale below vendor price or above vendor price but the tax makes it worse than vendoring. Who is doing this? it it the overly zealous undercutters or it is some group of jerks actively trying to kill the market? It wouldn't be so bad if I could tell how many were in this range but I do not want to gamble several plat on restoring a market that very well may collapse again. Honestly I think the minimum price should be around 13% above vendor price so you cant lose money by selling on the CX, at least something to make the CX usable.	
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The demand just isn't high enough. Gathering professions are the majorities primary way of making money in the game.
 
AFAIK a measure will be put in to stop people selling below vendor price, but that won't put your goods above vendor price, it would put them at it.
 
Demand needs to outweigh supply for your goods to be worth anything.	
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The demand just isn't high enough. 
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This.
And I will never understand why people get upset about the fact. It's literally free, zero effort money for you.
What's to hate? Just buy the stuff until it stops being profitable, then let the undercutting morons do their thing again.
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This.
And I will never understand why people get upset about the fact. It's literally free, zero effort money for you.
What's to hate? Just buy the stuff until it stops being profitable, then let the undercutting morons do their thing again.
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Well they could also be controlling the market, they put a few pieces, (enough) to control the price when u post up yours they purchase it and repeat getting more mats to sell and control the AH/CX.
I sort of just figured it out because a few pieces are really low for what they really worth.
Just had to think wait this is a purple item but good slots... whats wrong with this picture, oh look more of the same item around the same price... You go and post your lovely piece of gear and boom all of a sudden it's purchased? mmhmm	
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Well they could also be controlling the market, they put a few pieces, (enough) to control the price when u post up yours they purchase it and repeat getting more mats to sell and control the AH/CX. I sort of just figured it out because a few pieces are really low for what they really worth. Just had to think wait this is a purple item but good slots... whats wrong with this picture, oh look more of the same item around the same price... You go and post your lovely piece of gear and boom all of a sudden it's purchased? mmhmm
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Yeah, but would they want to be "controlling" the market so nobody can make money off it including themself?
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Jesus H. Christ.
 
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"	
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No, it has nothing to do with controlling the market that's a fallacy because if that statement was true then players would not need to sell below vendor price, they could just simply sell way below market value. But I think those who selling below vendor price are...
 
Gold Farmers.
 
The people selling below vendor price are your gold farmers. The reason why they do this instead of selling it to vendor themselves is prevent massive inflation. Of course the inflation could occur from the players selling their materials which they do, however, players partake in pve or pvp activities which case causes gold to leave the economy where as a gold farmer would constantly create gold with none of it leaving the economy if they were to sell to vendors.
 
Gold farmers have a vest interest for the currency of the game to be valuable. If, let's say 20 plat were capable of buying the average player X items today and was sold for $20, but after a few weeks of inflation, takes 40 plat to purchase those same X items then the value of plat has gone down. This means gold farmers will have to spend more time farming 40 plat in order to sell it for the same price of $20.
 
Hope that makes sense. 
 
Edit: Hmm think i may reserve this write up for a future blog entry :).
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You two, want to buy some tinfoil?
 
The gold farm guy is not selling his crap below the vendor cost, he is not as stupid as your average MMO player.	
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I remember reading this somewhere on the forum. But if that is the case shouldn't Carbine do something about that? Leaving it like that would just enable the Gold Scammers to further their agenda. I just wish buying out the entire market to reset it wasnt the only option.
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How are you going to stop it? You just can't stop gold farmers in this type of MMO game. Every Themepark MMO has them and they will never go away as long as there's a market to sell gold (which will always be the case). Banning gold farmers is not the solution either because they will just keep coming.
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The only way I can think to solve this issue is to put a minimum sale price so that you will at least break even with the sales tax. Even that would result a mass of unselling bulk at that minimum point. Unfortunately it seems that this games economy is just too slow to sell most goods.
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Putting a minimum price will do more harm than good. Players would then be forced to vendor everything as many would not wish to wait on their goods being sold. if players do sell everything (and I do mean everything) to vendors because they don't want to wait then inflation could set in. Plus gold farmers will most definitely sell their materials to vendors which would help with the inflation issue..
 
The game doesn't really have an economy. A game's economy is dependent on the crafting system. If crafting goods are not being sold then that means the crafting materials are not either and the CX market is mostly use for crafting materials. Simply put there is no demand for final products such as gear and consumables therefore, there will be no demand for materials either.
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but given that this is a themepark MMO, I just don't see that happening. Thus why crafting sucks in themepark mmos.
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Mostly nice post, but this? Nah.
There have been many good suggestions to make crafted stuff be in demand more. They just haven't been implemented.
Let's hope the future will change that.
This is not a conceptual problem of themepark MMOs but a failure to innovate from the norm of themeparks.
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Mostly nice post, but this? Nah.
There have been many good suggestions to make crafted stuff be in demand more. They just haven't been implemented.
Let's hope the future will change that.
This is not a conceptual problem of themepark MMOs but a failure to innovate from the norm of themeparks.
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The problem is you can't have a themepark MMO game where crafting is superior or on par with raid gear. 
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I read the suggestions but they don't fix the problems. The problem is you can't have a themepark MMO game where crafting is superior or on par with raid gear. I stated various reason why but basically one will always supersede the other.
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Hm? Which suggestions did you read then? Because the ones I read directly explained how this can happen.
 
Example: Raid level crafted gear that only raiders can wear (like you can only buy EG vendor items after accomplishing certain things).
Example: Items that use BoP materials from raids and materials from normal PvE.
 
How exactly does one supersede the other in these two scenarios? I think there were more ideas, but these are the two solutions I remember liking best.
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are the items you craft BoP as well? 
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Of course they are. And depending on the materials from regular PvE that are required, the impact on the market could be major (e.g. raid tier weapon X is crafted with 2x raid material Y, and 50, 80, or even 100 each of gathering materials ABC).
 
Also come on: Only refuting the scenario to which you have a retort while ignoring the other one? You're better than that. ;)
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Plus this will definitely force everyone to be a crafter and most likely a gatherer as well which will result in a small or no change when it comes to supply and demand. 
 
Why? They can just keep raiding instead and hope for good drops. Some people just don't like crafting. How is this forcing them into it any more than current systems force players?  :huh:
 
There are various reasons why crafting just isn't that great in themepark MMOs. 
 
Okay, but we were (at least as far as I'm concerned) strictly discussing the value of crafting materials (or lack thereof). And these suggestions are a viable fix. Material sinks work. Have you checked material prices in Guild Wars 2 after the ascended crafting system dropped? Not saying that system doesn't have its own problems, but the fact is, materials rose far, far above vendor value, even many of the widely available ones.
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Plus this will definitely force everyone to be a crafter and most likely a gatherer as well which will result in a small or no change when it comes to supply and demand. 
 
Why? They can just keep raiding instead and hope for good drops. Some people just don't like crafting. How is this forcing them into it any more than current systems force players?  :huh:
 
There are various reasons why crafting just isn't that great in themepark MMOs. 
 
Okay, but we were (at least as far as I'm concerned) strictly discussing the value of crafting materials (or lack thereof). And these suggestions are a viable fix. Material sinks work. Have you checked material prices in Guild Wars 2 after the ascended crafting system dropped? Not saying that system doesn't have its own problems, but the fact is, materials rose far, far above vendor value, even many of the widely available ones.
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Meh, I think you're dismissing things with "it wouldn't work" a little too easily.
Maybe you got more experience in the field than me (I mean you got the blog and all) but... you're not really convincing me with arguments here. :P
 
About everyone being forced to pick up their own BiS craft: How about no?
Pre-raid BiS gear comes from crafting in Wildstar right now (unintentionally, but it does). Is everyone picking up all the crafts that provide these items? No. They can't even, because no one has that many level 50s with expert crafting research. Many have picked dual gatherer instead, which contributes to the low material costs. Forcing them to ditch at least one gatherer skill to craft (even if it would happen, which I don't think) would actually improve the situation. Seriously weak argument, sorry...  :huh:
 
And no, not "only a few people" would have access to the crafted gear in my imbuement solution, everyone would have access. Just not everyone would be able to unlock its full potential.
 
How is all of this somehow a themepark problem? I have now demonstrated how crafted gear can be raid tier without devaluing raid content. That was the only argument you had why it can't work. Everything else you're arguing now would be just as big a problem in any non-themepark game.	
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First off BoE crafted gear from raids just won't happen because it wiill undermine pve.
 
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And by the way, the solution you initially ignored would result in BoE crafting, not BoP.
Because even if you sold the items, only people who did the content could actually use them.
 
You could actually also (I just came up with this) utilize the existent imbuement system for great effect.
Make aspiring raiders buy pre-raid BiS gear that upgrades itself to raid tier as they finish raid content.
Big market for items like that in a game like Wildstar.
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Meh, I think you're dismissing things with "it wouldn't work" a little too easily.
Maybe you got more experience in the field than me (I mean you got the blog and all) but... you're not really convincing me with arguments here. :P
 
About everyone being forced to pick up their own BiS craft: How about no?
Pre-raid BiS gear comes from crafting in Wildstar right now (unintentionally, but it does). Is everyone picking up all the crafts that provide these items? No. They can't even, because no one has that many level 50s with expert crafting research. Many have picked dual gatherer instead, which contributes to the low material costs. Forcing them to ditch at least one gatherer skill to craft (even if it would happen, which I don't think) would actually improve the situation. Seriously weak argument, sorry...  :huh:
 
And no, not "only a few people" would have access to the crafted gear in my imbuement solution, everyone would have access. Just not everyone would be able to unlock its full potential.
 
How is all of this somehow a themepark problem? I have now demonstrated how crafted gear can be raid tier without devaluing raid content. That was the only argument you had why it can't work. Everything else you're arguing now would be just as big a problem in any non-themepark game.
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While I am not 100% convinced that it was sabatoge, something has to be wrong when 135 of 140 Starshards were in the dead zone of price.
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Gold Sellers don't pull the carpet out from under you on the CX/AH. That would be stupid on their end. They have quotas to make. Gold Sellers are far from what some sites/news people display them as. I've seen them described as bums on the street who are "paid" to play a game. They farm all day, they do not have to live on the streets. This isn't anywhere near true.
They research the market everyday to find what is selling and not, and then they exploit the *cupcake*out of it.
The sad thing is, in this game, the market really isn't there. So stuff just gets NPCed.
 
A goldseller group (usually just one mega group, they just make smaller "businesses") actually would help stabilize a game economy. Right now people are buying stuff under NPC market, and selling to NPCs. GS are probably doing this as well. Or they are taking a small cut and re-posting the item back on the CX/AH.
 
The AH is a land full for money to be made. Go to the Decor section, and I almost grantee you will find decor at one price (lets say 5g for 1) and then find MANY (stack) at the same price. A *cupcake*up. Instead of breaking the stack down to sell in singles, they sold a bunch at the low price, and a goof that they didn't set the starting bid. I bid on these things all the time. Buy 5+ at NPC price for 1. If I NPC, I make profit. If the item is actually selling on the AH, I split the stack and re-list.
 
I can do this, so just think what a GS group can do. They have lots of more currency to play around with. A GS would set a price, and then his/her job for however long s/he is being paid would be to watch for huge undercuts. Buy these, and re-list.
The Undercutter makes money, but the next person to come along has to buy at the GS price. At a massive scale, the GS always make money in the end.
 
Think back to the start of WS, and the porting bots. I bet a large portion of them bots, the mats being gathered, were NOT being sold on the CX. I bet most were just being NPCed dump to rack in platinum.
(I had a guildie who's account was hacked early on. He finally got it back, and to his lucky-ass surprise this guy using the toon had not mailed over materials/currency to the big "bank" character.  He basically came back to his toon and had well over 100p and STACKS of ore and material. Lucky *cupcake*.) 
 
The current state of the CX/AH is player's fault. When you go to sell something, it marks it at NPC price. If the lazy don't bother to reset the price, then we get where we are. Next player comes along, undercuts the 1st. Now it is slightly under NPC price. By the time #10 player comes along, you should be buying it off the CX/AH to sell to NPC to make a small profit back. Can't help that the 11 players after the 1st do not have the brain power to realize what they are doing.
Can only hope they come to the forums and read the threads like this and then go "oh, snap..I'm a tard" and re-think their actions.	
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Gold Sellers don't pull the carpet out from under you on the CX/AH. That would be stupid on their end. They have quotas to make. Gold Sellers are far from what some sites/news people display them as. I've seen them described as bums on the street who are "paid" to play a game. They farm all day, they do not have to live on the streets. This isn't anywhere near true.
They research the market everyday to find what is selling and not, and then they exploit the *cupcake*out of it.
The sad thing is, in this game, the market really isn't there. So stuff just gets NPCed.
 
A goldseller group (usually just one mega group, they just make smaller "businesses") actually would help stabilize a game economy. Right now people are buying stuff under NPC market, and selling to NPCs. GS are probably doing this as well. Or they are taking a small cut and re-posting the item back on the CX/AH.
 
The AH is a land full for money to be made. Go to the Decor section, and I almost grantee you will find decor at one price (lets say 5g for 1) and then find MANY (stack) at the same price. A *cupcake*up. Instead of breaking the stack down to sell in singles, they sold a bunch at the low price, and a goof that they didn't set the starting bid. I bid on these things all the time. Buy 5+ at NPC price for 1. If I NPC, I make profit. If the item is actually selling on the AH, I split the stack and re-list.
 
I can do this, so just think what a GS group can do. They have lots of more currency to play around with. A GS would set a price, and then his/her job for however long s/he is being paid would be to watch for huge undercuts. Buy these, and re-list.
The Undercutter makes money, but the next person to come along has to buy at the GS price. At a massive scale, the GS always make money in the end.
 
Think back to the start of WS, and the porting bots. I bet a large portion of them bots, the mats being gathered, were NOT being sold on the CX. I bet most were just being NPCed dump to rack in platinum.
(I had a guildie who's account was hacked early on. He finally got it back, and to his lucky-ass surprise this guy using the toon had not mailed over materials/currency to the big "bank" character.  He basically came back to his toon and had well over 100p and STACKS of ore and material. Lucky *cupcake*.) 
 
The current state of the CX/AH is player's fault. When you go to sell something, it marks it at NPC price. If the lazy don't bother to reset the price, then we get where we are. Next player comes along, undercuts the 1st. Now it is slightly under NPC price. By the time #10 player comes along, you should be buying it off the CX/AH to sell to NPC to make a small profit back. Can't help that the 11 players after the 1st do not have the brain power to realize what they are doing.
Can only hope they come to the forums and read the threads like this and then go "oh, snap..I'm a tard" and re-think their actions.
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Not in the craft game. If Weapon X sells for 10g, the GS will sell it for 10g, only undercutting slightly until they control the market. If lets say the AH runs out, and someone comes along at sets it for 20g, the GS are not going to drive the price back down. 20g will now be the price. They might name toons, actual "normal names", and play the market, but Weapon X will only return to 10g or lower once something better comes along.
 
Keeping items at a lower price means they have to sell more to make their quota. If they can get that item to go up (usually not in big jumps like I said just above), they do so. Means they get to their quota faster.
 
Not sure if you ever go check GS sites, but normally one is always having a sale. Like I said, it is normally one big company, who then subs in smaller companies. The site having the sale this month with make the most money, and people will think they are getting the better deal. Next month the price may go "back" to it's normal cost, while a different site may have a sale.
 
When the economy goes *cupcake*ing haywire is when the big company decided to dump currency. All the small sites have big saving sales! People buy up the gold, and then they let the market go nuts. Items will sky rocket because their is a demand, and people have the cash. Thing is, the GS have back stock, so as players and the GS drive the price up and up...they just sit and wait. Then you get the new price. Players will make the item to sell, and as long as it isn't a major undercut, the GS will let it go.
 
And bots can do what a human can not, they can keep on going and going. Maybe only a small amount of the crap they gather hits the CX/AH, but as long as they are gathering they are making money.
If I spent my normal game time farming one day, I could only make maybe 3-4 plat (that is only with 3-4 hours, at the moment I have more time I can play). A bot, or GS team could spend 24 hours. That is 24+p a day doing the same thing I do.
So even if they did not touch the market, they could still make plat in massive amounts.	
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			Have you even passed an ECON class Ari?  Inflation is good if you sell gold. Why am I bothering.	
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Have you even passed an ECON class Ari?  Inflation is good if you sell gold. Why am I bothering.
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 Plus it makes sense if you look at it from a business perspective. Gold sellers are not dumb, often times they're operated under a business by businessmen. Surely they would have figured out and understand that selling to the market is much better than selling to the NPC,even if the market is selling below NPC because less inflation equals less time needed to reach the quota. Because currency rewards from the game does not increase with the rise of inflation. Simply put, farming quests, mobs, or materials, the npc will pay you the same price even if inflation has risen dramatically.
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^ your edit add.
 
Nope to the bold. Why would you sell an item for under NPC price? Now you have to sell another on to make up for the other one, to have to sell another to make up... it just keeps going. NPC it and you get it's base. If the economy says the item is selling over NPC, sell it for more. 
They also work in the Tax cut. So unless the GS are making MORE then NPC selling, they will sell to the NPCs.
They also don't drop trash like a normal person would, that to, even in the smallest amount, is money made from an NPC.
 
See they want inflation on what the plat is worth. Someone without the time to farm, but wants to have money, will break and go to their site and buy the gold. They won't "fall behind" in buy-able gear/runes.
 
It is how the CREDD system is working. Play A could spend a bit more of his RL moeny, and make in-game money. Player B can play the game a lot more the Player A, and make money much faster, but maybe has a hard time paying the sub fee. "B" buys "A"'s time. "A" makes money.
Carbine has basically made a GS service, but set at their liking, for profit.
 
It is why 10p is selling for about $18 right now. It is cheaper to buy from the GS, to buy CREDD. In doing so, the person will still have about 3p left over. Player A could do this, save $2, and get more plat then his credd is worth. Play B gets the bone.
But there is always Player C. The one who hates GS and everything they stand for, so they will buy CREDD and sell it, so Player B keeps on playing.
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You are assuming that the GS are not playing a role in the CX/AH?
 
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So if 20 plat was capable of buying x items for the average in the first month but then in the second month it requires 40 plat to purchase the same x items. This means gold farmers have to farm twice as much because items you farm from npcs (quest, junk items, and etc) does not go up in value. So killing the same monsters over and over again doesn't generate more gold (from each monster that is). 
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			You pay sub fees? Takes a few hours of farming to pay for a month's game time.	
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You pay sub fees? Takes a few hours of farming to pay for a month's game time.
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The demand just isn't high enough. Gathering professions are the majorities primary way of making money in the game.
 
AFAIK a measure will be put in to stop people selling below vendor price, but that won't put your goods above vendor price, it would put them at it.
 
Demand needs to outweigh supply for your goods to be worth anything.
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			Adding to the rant, I saw a bunch of things on sale on the AH today that are listed below the listing fee price. These people are literally selling things for less than it cost to put them up on the AH before the taxes are even factored in. It blows my mind how dumb some people are when it comes to the economy in this game. 	
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With people transferring over the last few days, prices have gone nuts.
CREDD has done what I thought it would do. It dropped like crazy, people bought it up, and now it is at high prices. Either reposts, or people banked, see it is "selling" and are now trying to make plat off it.
Always check decor! I'm still buying things that people didn't split for the base price. 5 for 1, it is a deal!	
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			I don't know if anyone has mentioned this, but the PTR CX has an added warning to address this.  If you do a sell order for to low, a little warning symbol appears at the left end of the price box.  Mousing over it will give a tooltip explaining that the price you entered is below the vendor sale price.  It should address the cases where this happens accidentally.	
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I sell stuff cheap in auction houses for the same reason I used to cast free buffs in the plane of knowledge-money is dumb. There are lots of folks out there who can't afford stuff because they just don't have as much time as they'd need to earn decent dosh. I used to work two jobs full time. I know how that cuts into leisure time so if there's anything I can do to help folks like that out and give something back I'll do it. 
 
Not everyone undercutting is out to screw everyone over.	
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Not everyone undercutting is out to screw everyone over. 
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