Bad economy can kill the game just as easily as content droughts.

Title^. Everything being dirt cheap doesnt help players find incentives or long term goals which would keep them engaged in the game. Instead its making their inevitable "break" from the game come even faster.

Idk what uv been doing since pof but stop it before everything costs like 20g and nobody will have a reason to play.

If everything is cheap then it balances out - you earn less gold but you need less to get the things you want.

Maybe I'm the exception but I still have a very long list of goals I want to complete, including various items I want. I just recently finished the luminescent armour set (finally). I'm currently doing the precursor collection for The Lover because it didn't exist when I made my Dreamer. I still need to choose and obtain skins for a few characters and finish getting Marauder's stats for my thief, there's some collections I want to finish and my mini pet collection is an on-going project.

Here's how I believe it works:As long as players keep farming for stuff, and sell them, they become cheaper. At some point there will likely be an equillibrium where less players find it worth while to farm, and so supply will start to diminish and prices go up again. When that happens players will eventually start farming again, and a new cycle begins.

With prices still dropping it seems to me that players are still finding it worth while to do some farming.

OP, what do you mean by "everything being dirt cheap"? If you're talking about TP prices, that's a supply and demand thing. Something that used to sell for 20s now sells for 10s because people who buy them will only pay 10s now. ANet's role in this is making those mats drop more, or give people less reason to want to buy those mats. In case of increased drop rate, if you were getting 100 leather drops per hour at 20s each, and now 200 leather per hour at 10s each, you're still earning the same gold per hour. Maybe there is also an influx of new players who don't buy mats or keep their own mats to craft but would rather sell everything to make some gold first. Rich old players leaving the game with still a ton of gold on their accounts which they would have used to buy the mats for legendaries or something if they hadn't left. Just speculations thou.

TLDR: TP prices are just a supply demand balance. Cheap prices are actually a sign of a healthy economy.

I'm doing alright on the trading post flipping. On average if you want to make a lot of money from it you're going to be looking at roughly 200+ items to be flipping.

Keep in mind that single skins or dyes, etc, that sell for more than 1000g are not any healthier for the economy than things dropping too low. Over-inflation is just as bad as over-deflation... sometimes you need to bring things back down. Because mats have come down in price, things are cheaper to make... but that also means that a lot of farms, which relied on the sales of mats, are less profitable. It's only an actual problem when the same farms yield the exact same rewards, but the prices still keep coming down. That is not the case here, at least not yet. The most profitable farm, Silverwastes RIBA, has dropped from about 40g per hour to about 20g per hour, which is about the same drop as the mats themselves. We're still fine.

Let's take a specific example that doesn't relate to any of the often-critiqued farms: Exclusive Dyes. These used to be a fun thing to get and a great birthday present option and now ... they aren't anything special anymore. So this is great news for people who just like unlocking dyes, because it now costs 50-100 gold to unlock an entire set, but it's horrible news for people who used to buy the kits, only unlocked dyes via birthday gifts, liked getting them via BL chests, or even the much maligned investors.

It's not necessarily "bad" or "good" for the game, because there are lots of different players. But it's less fun to get an exclusive dye kit now than it used to be, because its drops are no longer that interesting.

@zealex.9410 is suggesting that this is generally true for most of the game now: sure, stuff is affordable now, for more people, but special drops are a big part of what drives people to play often... and the game lacks those now. To be fair, there are still the super rare infusions and grindable desert & legendary skins, but those remain out of reach of most people. The point is: on a day-to-day basis, there's not a lot of surprises in the loot. It's all mostly vendor trash (with some more valuable than other loot).

Some numbers:

• Currently there are 26 exclusive dyes that can be instantly bought for under 10 gold.
• Six of the dye sets can be acquired in their entirety for under 75 gold.
• The only 'special' dyes remaining are from the newest three kits, none of which are available as Birthday presents or the BL chests.

@Danikat.8537 said:If everything is cheap then it balances out - you earn less gold but you need less to get the things you want.

Maybe I'm the exception but I still have a very long list of goals I want to complete, including various items I want. I just recently finished the luminescent armour set (finally). I'm currently doing the precursor collection for The Lover because it didn't exist when I made my Dreamer. I still need to choose and obtain skins for a few characters and finish getting Marauder's stats for my thief, there's some collections I want to finish and my mini pet collection is an on-going project.

Gold i earn in fractal didnt really go down.

@"Boulder.3589" said:OP, what do you mean by "everything being dirt cheap"? If you're talking about TP prices, that's a supply and demand thing. Something that used to sell for 20s now sells for 10s because people who buy them will only pay 10s now. ANet's role in this is making those mats drop more, or give people less reason to want to buy those mats. In case of increased drop rate, if you were getting 100 leather drops per hour at 20s each, and now 200 leather per hour at 10s each, you're still earning the same gold per hour. Maybe there is also an influx of new players who don't buy mats or keep their own mats to craft but would rather sell everything to make some gold first. Rich old players leaving the game with still a ton of gold on their accounts which they would have used to buy the mats for legendaries or something if they hadn't left. Just speculations thou.

TLDR: TP prices are just a supply demand balance. Cheap prices are actually a sign of a healthy economy.

Tp is overloaded with mats to the point when it will hardly ever recover unless they add massive sinks. Gw2 also NEEDS to have high priced items because endgame is basically working towards aquiring nice looking goldsinks the less goldsink there are the less things for ppl to go for the less incentive to log in.

@"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:Let's take a specific example that doesn't relate to any of the often-critiqued farms: Exclusive Dyes. These used to be a fun thing to get and a great birthday present option and now ... they aren't anything special anymore. So this is great news for people who just like unlocking dyes, because it now costs 50-100 gold to unlock an entire set, but it's horrible news for people who used to buy the kits, only unlocked dyes via birthday gifts, liked getting them via BL chests, or even the much maligned investors.

It's not necessarily "bad" or "good" for the game, because there are lots of different players. But it's less fun to get an exclusive dye kit now than it used to be, because its drops are no longer that interesting.

@zealex.9410 is suggesting that this is generally true for most of the game now: sure, stuff is affordable now, for more people, but special drops are a big part of what drives people to play often... and the game lacks those now. To be fair, there are still the super rare infusions and grindable desert & legendary skins, but those remain out of reach of most people. The point is: on a day-to-day basis, there's not a lot of surprises in the loot. It's all mostly vendor trash (with some more valuable than other loot).

---

Some numbers:

• Currently there are 26 exclusive dyes that can be instantly bought for under 10 gold.
• Six of the dye sets can be acquired in their entirety for under 75 gold.
• The only 'special' dyes remaining are from the newest three kits, none of which are available as Birthday presents or the BL chests.

The same s1 chests being in the blc doesnt help either. Alot of 1 time rewards that had big values and ppl would consider them long term goals now worth a fraction of their original price. Black lion skins as well getting dirt cheap since they pushed them to rare(or uncommon i dont remember)

I'm all for anet doing something about farmers, especially at seasonal events, but content droughts are way worse since a lot of people don't really care about the economy.

@"Stand The Wall.6987" said:I'm all for anet doing something about farmers, especially at seasonal events, but content droughts are way worse since a lot of people don't really care about the economy.

"Doing something about farmers" yes they need to not keep chopping the prices of the items the farmers farm for.

As normal, the thread shows a distinct lack of understanding of how the economy works. Things being 'dirt cheap' actually puts things into your hands FASTER, whether you farm gold to buy and build, or whether you farm mats yourself ... or some combination that most people fit into. how that deters people from long term goals, is beyond me; if anything, it allows players to make MORE long term goals.

@"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:Let's take a specific example that doesn't relate to any of the often-critiqued farms: Exclusive Dyes. These used to be a fun thing to get and a great birthday present option and now ... they aren't anything special anymore. So this is great news for people who just like unlocking dyes, because it now costs 50-100 gold to unlock an entire set, but it's horrible news for people who used to buy the kits, only unlocked dyes via birthday gifts, liked getting them via BL chests, or even the much maligned investors.

It's not necessarily "bad" or "good" for the game, because there are lots of different players. But it's less fun to get an exclusive dye kit now than it used to be, because its drops are no longer that interesting.

@zealex.9410 is suggesting that this is generally true for most of the game now: sure, stuff is affordable now, for more people, but special drops are a big part of what drives people to play often... and the game lacks those now. To be fair, there are still the super rare infusions and grindable desert & legendary skins, but those remain out of reach of most people. The point is: on a day-to-day basis, there's not a lot of surprises in the loot. It's all mostly vendor trash (with some more valuable than other loot).

---

Some numbers:

• Currently there are 26 exclusive dyes that can be instantly bought for under 10 gold.
• Six of the dye sets can be acquired in their entirety for under 75 gold.
• The only 'special' dyes remaining are from the newest three kits, none of which are available as Birthday presents or the BL chests.

This is a BLC problem. I guess there have been marketing reasons to bring a lot of items one category down, but the prices some things have sunked to are quite depressing. It's much more common to get a shiny out of a BLC, but also there are high chances that shiny will be worth a laughable amount of gold.IDK, overpriced weapon skins used to get down to about 50g when included as rare drops, which seems a fair price tbh. They are still pretty much Gemstore items after all, originally going for a black lion ticket in most cases (which is by the way a much rarer drop now with all the shit competing in the same category)., and pure gemstore weapon skins go for 100+ gold thorugh conversion.I can hardly see the point of listing those as uncommon, so they end up being sold for less than 10g each. In fact, the most common black lion ticket source right now is to straight buy the whole uncommon BL weapon set off the TP.Same goes for dyes. Used to be in uncommon, and now are common drops, and since most of them are not that demanded anyway, end up being worth a few coins.

Honestly, having been here for five years I laugh at anyone who says that things are becoming too cheap. In the first fews years of the game you could buy even the most expensive items in the game for a few gold, and most people thought having 50 silver was an accomplishment.

The thing is that everything is relative, what seems cheap now is very expensive to players just coming to the game and with max-level players having years of build up of gold, materials, magic find, etc. they often forget just how expensive everything really is to some fresh level 80 just trying to obtain their first set of exotic armor. In the long run we have to consider what is best for new players; that is the game's health, not us veterans.

The addition of economic stimuli like material boxes from PoF (and Istan in particular), is very important down the road, and as more legendaries and other gold and material sinks are added for max-level players, the T6/T7 econemy will balance itself back out without destablising the lower tiers.

The only real issue with the econemy right now is that some things are too cheap and have absolutely no value to anyone.

@"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:Let's take a specific example that doesn't relate to any of the often-critiqued farms: Exclusive Dyes. These used to be a fun thing to get and a great birthday present option and now ... they aren't anything special anymore. So this is great news for people who just like unlocking dyes, because it now costs 50-100 gold to unlock an entire set, but it's horrible news for people who used to buy the kits, only unlocked dyes via birthday gifts, liked getting them via BL chests, or even the much maligned investors.

It's not necessarily "bad" or "good" for the game, because there are lots of different players. But it's less fun to get an exclusive dye kit now than it used to be, because its drops are no longer that interesting.

@"zealex.9410" is suggesting that this is generally true for most of the game now: sure, stuff is affordable now, for more people, but special drops are a big part of what drives people to play often... and the game lacks those now. To be fair, there are still the super rare infusions and grindable desert & legendary skins, but those remain out of reach of most people. The point is: on a day-to-day basis, there's not a lot of surprises in the loot. It's all mostly vendor trash (with some more valuable than other loot).

---

Some numbers:

• Currently there are 26 exclusive dyes that can be instantly bought for under 10 gold.
• Six of the dye sets can be acquired in their entirety for under 75 gold.
• The only 'special' dyes remaining are from the newest three kits, none of which are available as Birthday presents or the BL chests.

while I agree, I think the behind-the-scenes issue is that Arenanet is still freight training the "scarcity" thing. There is a growing gap between the price of truly rare items, and everything else. The middle range prices were not that common from the start, and now the disparity is simply growing wider. The end result being that if you want something special, you either have to commit an unhealthy amount of time to the game to grind gold, or buy gems with cash and convert them to gold.Weaker gold value is an intended mechanic with the game economy.

The less gem buying power people have with their gold, the higher the chance that they'll buy gems with cash.

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:Let's take a specific example that doesn't relate to any of the often-critiqued farms: Exclusive Dyes. These used to be a fun thing to get and a great birthday present option and now ... they aren't anything special anymore.The fact that they were a great birthday present option is why their prices on the TP have tanked.

@zealex.9410 said:Title^. Everything being dirt cheap doesnt help players find incentives or long term goals which would keep them engaged in the game. Instead its making their inevitable "break" from the game come even faster.

Idk what uv been doing since pof but stop it before everything costs like 20g and nobody will have a reason to play.

@zealex.9410 said:

@"Boulder.3589" said:OP, what do you mean by "everything being dirt cheap"? If you're talking about TP prices, that's a supply and demand thing. Something that used to sell for 20s now sells for 10s because people who buy them will only pay 10s now. ANet's role in this is making those mats drop more, or give people less reason to want to buy those mats. In case of increased drop rate, if you were getting 100 leather drops per hour at 20s each, and now 200 leather per hour at 10s each, you're still earning the same gold per hour. Maybe there is also an influx of new players who don't buy mats or keep their own mats to craft but would rather sell everything to make some gold first. Rich old players leaving the game with still a ton of gold on their accounts which they would have used to buy the mats for legendaries or something if they hadn't left. Just speculations thou.

TLDR: TP prices are just a supply demand balance. Cheap prices are actually a sign of a healthy economy.

There is nothing wrong with what’s going on. More players are playing and contributing to the economy. You should be grateful that more players are playing this game, because it means more money in Anet’s coffers to create and do stuff for the players.

Seriously, stop niggling about things you don’t understand and making up some emergency scenario about the economy where there isn’t. Also, it’s silly to think the health of this game, and player retention, is dependent on high prices on the TP...

Overpriced products in an auction can kill a game quicker. Wish Rift and Wildstar had taken that lesson to heart.

Overall it's supply and demand. Whatever you are selling that's making you cry about your profit margin, is no longer in demand. So look to see what is.

https://www.gw2bltc.com/

It does not matter the MMO, the end of an expac and the small lul before the next one will always be cheaper prices. So do what I did when I was playing WoW, hold onto crap. I'm sitting on 50 jackal pets just to see if they come back after the event or if they change to something else after. But guess what? Just like WoW, the moment they announce the next part of the living story, or the next expac, people will be willing to buy whatever price to have the best gear going in. That never changes.

@Hyper Cutter.9376 said:

@"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:Let's take a specific example that doesn't relate to any of the often-critiqued farms: Exclusive Dyes. These used to be a fun thing to get and a great birthday present option and now ... they aren't anything special anymore.The fact that they were a great birthday present option is

why

their prices on the TP have tanked.

No. It's not.Birthday presents somewhat prevents the latest most desired dye prices from skyrocketing fast by making them a risky investment to hoard into and definitely can bring prices down cause a sudden lack of demand and hoarders clearing their investments, but the real kicker here are Black Lion Chests.

With the Wintersday patch, exclusive dyes went down one category, from uncommon to common.If we check the prices for one of the latest Dye sets introduced as uncommon drop, Bloodstone Dye Kit, we'll see those are in what it could be called a healthy spot. Prices tanked to their historical minimums, but the market never got truly overflooded. A few months later, prices are similar or moderately below release ones and going up.

If we look an historical price chart for the Incandescent Dye Kit (an example of a Primordus set dye, now included as common drop in BLC), we'll see prices didn't get affected at all during late August, when it was available as birthday gift for launch accounts.http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/80986There's a big price tank around october 3, with the supplies goes from minimal to moderate. I guess this is caused by the dye kit being included in dragon's watch dye pack (which also included Bloodstone Dye kit), adding to the supply both by itself and by forcing hoarders to clear stock.The real hit, however, takes place when the set gets included as common drop on BLC. Since then, the supply keeps going up (it's already a 3 digit number) and then price is already below the 10g, when it used tobe above 100g at release.

Both BL dye and BL weapon skin market were working perfectly fine prior to that wintersday patch, resetting prices to release level or even below that and preventing extreme hoarding and speculation to some degree.The new model, as much as I like the statuette inclusion, looks far worse. As I said in my previous post, it increases the chance of getting a shiny out of a BLC, but it also devalues most shinies to pretty much junk level.The model also has an extremely annoying intereaction with BLC unique items, filling the uncommon category with plenty of junk and making them harder to get by regular means. It's almost like statuettes, instead of a way to balance unlucky RNG, were the new regular mean to get those items, which pretty much equals to releasing items with truly obsecene gem prices.

@Hyper Cutter.9376 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:Let's take a specific example that doesn't relate to any of the often-critiqued farms: Exclusive Dyes. These used to be a fun thing to get and a great birthday present option and now ... they aren't anything special anymore.The fact that they were a great birthday present option is

why

their prices on the TP have tanked.

Surelly it has nothing to do with dye bei g common drops in blc surely. Dyes have been in bday gifts since before hot and their price didnt drop as much as it has now.

For every rich person it kills the game for, there are probably a dozen poor people who are thrilled. It's not going to kill the game.

I sold a permanent merchant contract last month and I'm now the richest I've ever been in this game. Everything seems cheap now... but I'm sure all is going to be expensive again in a month or so.

There are three different points in here. One is the value of loot, sinks and BLCs.

On the loot side we need a consistent addition of items in loot tables of varied levels of rarity. This create goals for people to either play content to try and get and/or creates demand in the TP as people that acquired can choose to sell and turn a profit from there. This is healthy since it gives people things to work toward and a potential source of income. Nothing wrong with rare and super-rare items in game. If everyone could just have everything than I think all but the WvWer and PvPers would be gone since there would be nothing to work towards. Also if loot drops to no value then that just leaves players with selling items to the NPCs, which if they have items they have to buy from an NPC leaves them upside down in the transaction and the feeling that their time was wasted. Remember its about having fun and chasing shinnies.

On the sink side we always need sinks that are inline with supply of materials to keep things in line with rarity. Home instance nodes to me are a good example of a balance sink requiring zone currency, gathered materials and gold to acquire. I don't think anyone thinks that they will every get any ROI from it but its a good material sink that people will look to collect. Guild halls are another, upgrades there were solid sinks. More guild additions should be considered and provide convenience services to the guilds as well giving people more goals as a guild to achieve. The thing that is missing is ongoing sinks. An example of this is WvW. WvW players that deploy siege have ongoing material sinks to keep the amount of siege they might need in supply. These consumable sinks seems to be under utilized today.

On the point of BLCs and keys. Well this is more a note to ANet. To me and other players that I know who support the game via keys the trend of just adding older BL skins directly in the chests is a bad trend. There was a good balance in having the tickets and scraps and re-offering older items for increased tickets via the vendors was in balance. Now that most skins are moving to worthless because of constant recycling there is no point in picking up keys since there will be no value found in the chests. Again for anyone that does not purchase keys but still want the skin it might seem like a good change since they can acquire them cheap from the TP, but this impacts the funds that might be acquired for game development by people who buy keys today. Lets be honest, BLC chests are gambling and if you move them to always a loss then you lose out on that source of game funding. Just 2 cents from a gambler on this third bit.

@Hannelore.8153 said:The only real issue with the econemy right now is that some things are too cheap and have absolutely no value to anyone.

At the rate things are going pretty soon ectos will be vendor trash.