Price fixing in Market Mystic Coins

[Nurgle.6597]

There are indeed people manipulating the markets and something should be done. There's a wp video (

) where these people openly talk about what they do, hearing that they have millions of gold manipulating the market while I'm just playing the game normally and never had more that 1k gold in my 6 years of play time was sickening. Made the whole game seem pointless to me, the rich only get richer while the rest of us play in the mud (just like in real life).

[Ayrilana.1396]

So if WP says it then it must be true?

I’m not going to watch a drawn out two hour video but i want to point out some things which are NOT market manipulation:

• Using the gap between buy and sell listings to make a profit
• Speculating that the price of an item may go up and hoarding those items for when that time comes
• Seeing that a certain item is now required for a recipe and buying them up while they’re still undervalued to then flip them when the price inevitably increases to reflect their new value

Edit 2:

I've sold five stacks of mystic coins at 2.2G each within the past 24 hours at staggered intervals (I only have one listing up at a time). Each stack sold within 10 minutes. There's a very high velocity of sales going on at the existing price. Clearly there are a large number of people that are willing to pay the current price. With the amount of coins that enter the TP and get sold, I'm pretty sure that it would be extremely difficult for someone to try and price fix them. If the price was too high, wouldn't sell listings be piling up with each listing being underbid?

[Sobx.1758]

@"Nurgle.6597" said:There are indeed people manipulating the markets and something should be done. There's a wp video (vid) where these people openly talk about what they do, hearing that they have millions of gold manipulating the market while I'm just playing the game normally and never had more that 1k gold in my 6 years of play time was sickening. Made the whole game seem pointless to me, the rich only get richer while the rest of us play in the mud (just like in real life).

Not watching a 2h vid, but putting that aside: how EXACTLY does it make it pointless for you to play the game? You can't stand someone "having more than you" so much that the mere thought of that makes you regret playing the game? It doesn't exactly affect you. If it does, explain how.As a side note, you don't need to manipulate anything to get 1k++ gold.

[Obtena.7952]

@"Nurgle.6597" said:There are indeed people manipulating the markets and something should be done. There's a wp video (

) where these people openly talk about what they do, hearing that they have millions of gold manipulating the market while I'm just playing the game normally and never had more that 1k gold in my 6 years of play time was sickening. Made the whole game seem pointless to me, the rich only get richer while the rest of us play in the mud (just like in real life).

That doesn't make sense though ... those people are manipulating the MC market to make MC's increase to 2 gold over the course of 8 years? If that's the case, they suck REALLY bad at market manipulation.

[Seera.5916]

@"Nurgle.6597" said:There are indeed people manipulating the markets and something should be done. There's a wp video (

) where these people openly talk about what they do, hearing that they have millions of gold manipulating the market while I'm just playing the game normally and never had more that 1k gold in my 6 years of play time was sickening. Made the whole game seem pointless to me, the rich only get richer while the rest of us play in the mud (just like in real life).

That's a video on gold farming.

If you've been playing for years and consistently gold farm, you're going to be wealthy in game and have loads of mystic coins.

Mystic coins have trended up in cost slowly over the years so it's not out of the question that a player would hoard the Mystic coins that they do receive knowing that the gold they'll get from it will increase significantly over the long term. Key word there is long term.

Players like Wooden Potatoes took a gamble that the mystic coin would significantly increase in price over the life of the game and invested in mystic coins by holding onto the ones that they sold and possibly buying some when prices dipped over the years.

That's not market manipulation. That's getting lucky with an investment.

Wooden Potatoes could have easily made a bad investment and ANet could have flooded the game with mystic coins and severely lowered the price that players are willing to spend on them.

The trading post covers both EU and NA. It's too large for any market of with the supply level of mystic coins to be able to be manipulated.

[Mike Ditka.2531]

no reason to be an sjw and cry about "price gouging". What's next? Tears about those who undercut? The only way you can get back at those who "manipulate the market" is to farm your own stuff, like you're supposed to do in an MMORPG.

[Cuks.8241]

I've watched that video when it was published and it has nothing to do with market manipulation, it is a farming video. It's a very drawn out video that can be summarized in know your market, don't sell basic mats rather convert them (craft, mystic toilet) into the goods that have the largest added value (for example legendaries). If you do that spirit shards, gifts of exploration and such become a bottleneck and give tips on how to farm and acquire them.It also says that the best way is to play what you like to play so you don't burn yourself out and work together as a community to craft items with the largest added value. Which means if there is a guy that likes to do exploration and has lot's of gifts of exploration and there is a guy who like to farm mats they can work together and add value to their farm. This is the furthest of any manipulation possible.I think it also gives a perspective on how much gold the richest have and it even mentions that one of those people is not able to affect prices on TP long term.

All you guys are just spewing this term "market manipulation" without any explanation. If you are unable to get 1k gold over years of playing, this has nothing to do with market manipulation. it just means you are doing it wrong if that is your goal. I've never farmed for gold in this game, made legendaries and have full material storage and a few k gold excess just naturally. Don't really care about it.

Also this.

@Ayrilana.1396 said:I’m not going to watch a drawn out two hour video but i want to point out some things which are NOT market manipulation:

• Using the gap between buy and sell listings to make a profit
• Speculating that the price of an item may go up and hoarding those items for when that time comes
• Seeing that a certain item is now required for a recipe and buying them up while they’re still undervalued to then flip them when the price inevitably increases to reflect their new value

Selling high and buying low is not market manipulation. It is common sense.

[Jwake.7013]

People acting like they don't have the same access to the TP and info of it as everyone else does. If you put in the same amount of effort they do you'll get the same back, if that sounds boring or you just don't want to, that's fine, just stop complaining when people make gold off of it after you've looped dragonfall for the 100th time and are bored of it but aren't nearly as rich as they are.

Also having gold for the sake of having gold is kinda meaningless, at least to me. Ok so I'm rich, now what? (I"m talking in a video game). I think someone at 2k gold can be just as happy as someone at 200k gold, if they both have everything they aiming to buy, then there really is no difference. All just depends on what your goals are and also having long term goals that take a while to get in an mmo is the opposite of a bad thing.

[Cuks.8241]

@"Jwake.7013" said:Also having gold for the sake of having gold is kinda meaningless, at least to me. Ok so I'm rich, now what? (I"m talking in a video game).Well, this goes just as well in real life.

[realviizz.4982]

To those people saying that there is no such thing as "price manipulation" as it's a player driven market: There is over 400k buy offers placed for mystic coins at exactly 2g. 200k+ at 2g 5c and over 80k at 2g10c to simply prevent them from dropping below those points at any time. If it was not meant to keep prices above those threshholds, why would every other price point above and below feature a max of 500 orders?Edit: I saw someone else mentioned that exact problem before :) Just that there is now an extra 200k buy offers at the 2g5c threshhold.

[Cyninja.2954]

@"realviizz.4982" said:To those people saying that there is no such thing as "price manipulation" as it's a player driven market: There is over 400k buy offers placed for mystic coins at exactly 2g. 200k+ at 2g 5c and over 80k at 2g10c to simply prevent them from dropping below those points at any time. If it was not meant to keep prices above those threshholds, why would every other price point above and below feature a max of 500 orders?Edit: I saw someone else mentioned that exact problem before :) Just that there is now an extra 200k buy offers at the 2g5c threshhold.

and?

What you fail to address is how the current exchange rates at the current prices are still equal. In fact, as mentioned by others, stacks of Mystic Coins are getting sold out nearly instantly even at 2g10s and above. If they were not, those walls would melt. In fact, as long as enough demand is present and players willing to pay the price for Mystic Coins, the market is working.

If someone pushed the price to 3g right now, and the price remained there with equal exchanges, then the MC were to cheap. Being unhappy and unwilling to purchase something are NOT the same thing. Being unhappy yet still purchasing a commodity tells the market that you were still willing to purchase at that price. Being unwilling actually tells the market that the commodity is overpriced to you. Learn to spot the difference.

Simply put:There are players, likely even in this thread, who are unhappy with the current price, yet still purchase Mystic Coins. Market working as intended.

While at it, consider the pro's and con's of a wall which is fixed at 1 price, versus driving price up. Those orders could easily have been used to drive MC prices to 3 gold or above, and I'm pretty sure there would still have been enough demand to not make the price fall.

[Cuks.8241]

@"realviizz.4982" said:To those people saying that there is no such thing as "price manipulation" as it's a player driven market: There is over 400k buy offers placed for mystic coins at exactly 2g. 200k+ at 2g 5c and over 80k at 2g10c to simply prevent them from dropping below those points at any time. If it was not meant to keep prices above those threshholds, why would every other price point above and below feature a max of 500 orders?Edit: I saw someone else mentioned that exact problem before :) Just that there is now an extra 200k buy offers at the 2g5c threshhold.

First of all, you all seem to be very well informed what the intension behind those orders is.Second regardless of the intention that is still supply and demand. You're not required to have honourable intentions behind investments. Actually, most investments are for personal gain, to make money.Thirdly the fact that new orders are popping out actually shows that the 2g orders are realistic. Now maybe he is building a wall and spending almost a million gold on it. And it will be his loss if the MC price is overpriced. But maybe it is not overpriced and it will continue to grow (which I think is the case due to the fact that most mats for legendaries are dropping in price) and it was a smart investment. The only true thing here is that we have no clue but it is still just market. Sure you can call it manipulation. But every purchase, selling is price manipulation, this is what the market is.

[Obtena.7952]

@"realviizz.4982" said:To those people saying that there is no such thing as "price manipulation" as it's a player driven market: There is over 400k buy offers placed for mystic coins at exactly 2g. 200k+ at 2g 5c and over 80k at 2g10c to simply prevent them from dropping below those points at any time. If it was not meant to keep prices above those threshholds, why would every other price point above and below feature a max of 500 orders?Edit: I saw someone else mentioned that exact problem before :) Just that there is now an extra 200k buy offers at the 2g5c threshhold.

None of that is evidence of market manipulation.

[Sobx.1758]

I'm curious, how many of the people that complain about "market manipulation" also sold their MCs to get some ez gold? :D

[Veprovina.4876]

It does look like something sketchy is going on when you post a screenshot with banks full of MC stacks and players with hunreds of thousands of gold, but when you stop and think about it, there's no mystery here.

I've started playing after a long break (stopped after PoF), and have been playing now for about 4-5 months. I started with about 300 gold when i got back, noi'm now at around 750, and on top of that i think i spent another 300-400 or possibly even way more just on random skins, Skyscale, Beetle, and about 2 full ascended stat conversions, 2 legendary WvW armor pieces, plus ton of gear for my alts.

And i'm a WvW player mostly. Meaning, someone whose intention is to farm PvE effectively will have probably triple that in the same time frame, especially if they didn't waste it on skins and legendaries and just piled it up.

So imagine someone hoarding MC never selling, just farming gold for 8 years. You'd get banks full of MC just from log in, not to mention ley-line, CM, and other sources.

That's not my idea of fun so that's not what i do, but there's people like that and it's not really a mystery how they do it. It's just that most people don't find that fun.Also, after you get what you want/need in this game, gold largely becomes very useless and there's nothing to spend it on. If i didn't "waste" mine on skins, half of which i no longer use, i'd probably be well within thousands right now and that's just from 4 months of casual PvE play and WvW.

So any argument on market fixing is kinda weird to me, like, i know that's possible (kind of), but the prices don't seem that outrageous given how "little" we get of MC compared to how much use there is for them. So they're very sought after which drives the price up. The only way you're going to see MC prices go down is if Anet increases the supply.

[TheQuickFox.3826]

Hm, I've played the game since start, always do my dailies and never needed to buy a single mystic coin. And I got 3 leggy weapons, a full set of leggy armor and a number of leggy trinkets. Do your dailies and do your reward tracks (pvp, wvw) that give clovers and you won't need as many mystic coins.

[Trinnitty.8256]

@lare.5129 said:

@"Trinnitty.8256" said:A new Account is $15.00 when on sale.

have one more account it make from game - job. So more easy buy gems - convert and buy it asap if you need. Only 0.0000001 will be do that "monkey bussiness" wiht second acount

The biggest problem is and has always been mystic coins being used as a currency to bypass 500 gold mail transfer limit and to bypass the trading post maximum sale price limit on poorly implemented super low drop rates on some items. Also avoiding TP tax on big gold items.This market is small. How man ppl buy chak infusion ? 1 ? 3 ? 5 ? totaly all use tp for common things. So there is no any "biggest problem"

@Mannah.4012 said:I have always thought that allowing to convert laurels to MC could be a good idea to fix this problem (in addition to the actual ways to obtain MC).for that? need more - buy from TP without any timegate

As I say many people as me have a lot of MC on hand, but 2 gold is cheap and funny price.

People that are using multiple accounts are not logging into each account one at a time. That is too time consuming. You can launch multiple accounts on a single computer or use multiple computers. Its no more of a time sink than people farming their home instance daily. In general people need stacks of mystic coins for crafting legendary items so 2 gold becoming 500 gold in a hurry.

[lare.5129]

@"Veprovina.4876" said:It does look like something sketchy is going on when you post a screenshot with banks full of MC stacks and players with hunreds of thousands of gold, but when you stop and think about it, there's no mystery here.what mistery? play and get

And i'm a WvW player mostly.this is no bad. This is your choose.

So imagine someone hoarding MC never selling, just farming gold for 8 years. You'd get banks full of MC just from log in, not to mention ley-line, CM, and other sources.ok, why not?

That's not my idea of fun so that's not what i do, but there's people like that and it's not really a mystery how they do it. It's just that most people don't find that fun.some people get fun from race only on gw2, so what?

So any argument on market fixing is kinda weird to me, like, i know that's possible (kind of), but the prices don't seem that outrageous given how "little" we get of MC compared to how much use there is for them.MC is mostly useless, if you not craft T2 legs and leg accessory.

So they're very sought after which drives the price up. The only way you're going to see MC prices go down is if Anet increases the supply.what the point/reason do that? I don't see

[lare.5129]

@Trinnitty.8256 said:People that are using multiple accounts are not logging into each account one at a time. That is too time consuming. You can launch multiple accounts on a single computer or use multiple computers. Its no more of a time sink than people farming their home instance daily. In general people need stacks of mystic coins for crafting legendary items so 2 gold becoming 500 gold in a hurry.I am ok for that. So it not disturb me at all.

[kharmin.7683]

@TheQuickFox.3826 said:Hm, I've played the game since start, always do my dailies and never needed to buy a single mystic coin. And I got 3 leggy weapons, a full set of leggy armor and a number of leggy trinkets. Do your dailies and do your reward tracks (pvp, wvw) that give clovers and you won't need as many mystic coins.

That's just it, IMO. People are wanting legendary gear without doing the work. That's fine, if they are willing to pay the cost, but it seems to me that they aren't.

[Luthan.5236]

If something is very profitable ... a lot of players will do it. Then it will get less profitable over the time. Selling high and buying low can't work forever. Unless one of the players buys all the coins. Puts them at a higher price. And no other players undercut him by large. (They will probably match the higher price as close as possible to also earn well.)

The problem is when there is a huge demand and players also increase their buy orders. If they kept them lower (bigger gap between highest buy order and lowest sell order) ... the sell orders might go lower. With a bigger gap they will expect to sell slower. (Which might not be okay for everyone.) So putting iit a bit at lower price on sale.

ArenaNet of course likes if the price is high. An incentive to "play" the game. (I. e.: You could farm the coins for yourself. Or for selling them. Instead of buying them for gold on the TP. And as they are limited ... there might people willling to pay for a 2nd account upgraded with expansions. To earn coins there and shift the coins and/or profits to their main account.)

A guy buying all the coins ... could as well end up with a loss. If a lot of his coins get "stuck" at the TP. (With him having to recall the orders by losing the fee you needed to pay to place them.) If af the higher price still al lot find it attractive to undercut him to sell lower. (And with a higher price a lot more might want to actually sell.)

And the guys hoarding coins to use them for trades via mail: They can have fun ... until they get scammed and lose a lot. (Where ArenaNet might punish the scammer - I think it is forbidden to scam by ToS - but they won't refund the lost stuff to the guy that got scammed since this isn't a supported trading method. That is why the TP exists in the first place. To don't create too much work for the support.) / Stuff being too rare that it would cost more then 10k probably was not intended and does not occur too often. (Some people ask for changes of drop rates instead of changing TP coin limit. Which is a better idea.)

[Veprovina.4876]

@lare.5129 said:

@"Veprovina.4876" said:It does look like something sketchy is going on when you post a screenshot with banks full of MC stacks and players with hunreds of thousands of gold, but when you stop and think about it, there's no mystery here.what mistery? play and get

Exactly, there's no mystery, you play and get mystic coins. It just looks sketchy to people when they see it but they're neglecting that those people have been playing for years and years and hoarding MC. So of course there's no mystery.

And i'm a WvW player mostly.this is no bad. This is your choose.

That was meant to illustrate that even with WvW's lower rewards, i still can get tons of stuff by just playing PvE casually.

So imagine someone hoarding MC never selling, just farming gold for 8 years. You'd get banks full of MC just from log in, not to mention ley-line, CM, and other sources.ok, why not?

Yeah, that's what i've been saying, people have been hoarding MC and then have banks full of them. It's not sketchy, it's not market manipulation, they just have a lot of them over 8 years of plaiyng.

That's not my idea of fun so that's not what i do, but there's people like that and it's not really a mystery how they do it. It's just that most people don't find that fun.some people get fun from race only on gw2, so what?

So nothing, it's just another point to illustrate why some people have a lot of MC and gold.

So any argument on market fixing is kinda weird to me, like, i know that's possible (kind of), but the prices don't seem that outrageous given how "little" we get of MC compared to how much use there is for them.MC is mostly useless, if you not craft T2 legs and leg accessory.

You can get some skins in Mystic forge with them, and most people use them for clovers but yeah, if you're not into legendaries, they don't have a lot of uses. Which is again another reason why people can pile them up.

So they're very sought after which drives the price up. The only way you're going to see MC prices go down is if Anet increases the supply.what the point/reason do that? I don't see

Because it's a supply and demand issue, not market manipulation. If there's more MC on the market, the price will go down as the supply fills.

Why are you dissecting my comment? I'm basically agreeing with you. :sweat_smile:

[Linken.6345]

@Veprovina.4876 said:

@lare.5129 said:

@Veprovina.4876 said:It does look like something sketchy is going on when you post a screenshot with banks full of MC stacks and players with hunreds of thousands of gold, but when you stop and think about it, there's no mystery here.what mistery? play and get

Exactly, there's no mystery, you play and get mystic coins. It just

looks sketchy

to people when they see it but they're neglecting that those people have been playing for years and years and hoarding MC. So of course there's no mystery.

And i'm a WvW player mostly.this is no bad. This is your choose.

That was meant to illustrate that even with WvW's lower rewards, i still can get tons of stuff by just playing PvE casually.

So imagine someone hoarding MC never selling, just farming gold for 8 years. You'd get banks full of MC just from log in, not to mention ley-line, CM, and other sources.ok, why not?

Yeah, that's what i've been saying, people have been hoarding MC and then have banks full of them. It's not sketchy, it's not market manipulation, they just have a lot of them over 8 years of plaiyng.

That's not my idea of fun so that's not what i do, but there's people like that and it's not really a mystery how they do it. It's just that most people don't find that fun.some people get fun from race only on gw2, so what?

So nothing, it's just another point to illustrate why some people have a lot of MC and gold.

So any argument on market fixing is kinda weird to me, like, i know that's possible (kind of), but the prices don't seem that outrageous given how "little" we get of MC compared to how much use there is for them.MC is mostly useless, if you not craft T2 legs and leg accessory.

You can get some skins in Mystic forge with them, and most people use them for clovers but yeah, if you're not into legendaries, they don't have a lot of uses. Which is again another reason why people can pile them up.

So they're very sought after which drives the price up. The only way you're going to see MC prices go down is if Anet increases the supply.what the point/reason do that? I don't see

Because it's a supply and demand issue, not market manipulation. If there's more MC on the market, the price will go down as the supply fills.

Why are you dissecting my comment? I'm basically agreeing with you. :sweat_smile:

English is their third or fourth language so they missunderstand you.

[Fangoth.4503]

yeah Anet please ban all player so we can finally go back to the 100gem = 27silver <3

[Avatar.3568]

Just win pvp tournaments ez coin farm