AH getting out of control already

[KoboldKiller]

*SIGH*

As was mentioned in an ARGO thread the AH is a little out of control.

This server has been up for all of a week to week and a half and people are already putting way to high of prices on low level equipment.

Seriously people I know the power levelers are already in the high teens and have started to amass their wealth but stop for a moment and realize this is a new server and has many new players who have very little wealth. instead of making it hard and frustrating for them to obtain your castoff equipment why not make it reasonable?

Now for my advice section for new players. STAY AWAY FROM THE AH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
At least until you have started to know the game and the ways to sustain your money. Go to the Pawn shops in House D and House K. At least there the prices are set by the game and not some overly greedy player.

Flame me all you want, I know the AH is there for a reason and you can put whatever price you want. If it sells at stupid price then I guess that's what the market will ear, wither that or you forced some poor sap to buy plat to fatteb your own bank. Either way, IMHO opinion it's out of control.

[Ephemeral]

I get the impression that some of the stuff on the AH is more about bragging rights than anything else, e.g. there was a bloodstone up a few days ago with a minimum price and buyout around 2 million plat, obviously a sum of money no one actually has. I don't think this was put up to sell, it seemed to me more that it was put up to show that someone had already looted one.

Most of the loot in the first few days was reasonably priced, and much of it still is. I think many of the vip players are so used to their home server prices that they haven't realised where the market is yet and are pricing conservatively in response.

However, I'm sure that many characters are already running around with 50k + plat (if not more). The AH is currently in its infancy, and there isn't much in the way of decent gear (+stat items, mod or heavy fort, mithral armors) so if / when good items do come up, they can in fact command a huge premium at the moment because the demand is going to be high from those whose toons are already 10+.

What I'm noticing is that good high end weaponry is being put on at huge prices, particularly the burst of pure good weapons. This makes sense to me, as until you have greensteel, those weapons are the way to go. What would normally be classed as twink weapons on the other hand don't command good prices and/or are superseded by easily obtainable loot from the new quests, particularly sharn syndicate (my toon was dual wielding a nicked scimitar / nicked shortsword until about level 7 or 8, and this felt to me to be almost as powerful a combo as the stereotypical elemental of pg that would be the twink norm).

The key for most powergamers short-term (particularly melee builds) is to build up a reliable collection of weapon effects very quickly, which whilst not being optimal, allow for most of the content to be handled (the mod 9 transmuting nerf really hit this hard imo). Secondary is to flesh out defences and stat boosts (along with potency items). These items will command a premium until there is enough loot flowing for a liquid market to emerge.

Slightly off-topic, I think it will be fascinating watching this market develop, and I'm curious to see how much of the intuition that vets have built up playing on their old servers will serve them on Cannith when evaluating item value.

[Revord]

Ive noticed some of the same thing as well. I started playing in the recent beta, and found that a lot of items were much more reasonably priced there than they have been in Cannith. That said, the poster of the items certainly does have complete autonomy of what he/she posts and how much, but for those that are 'truly' looking to get rid of stuff, and make quick cash, but more than what they could get from vendors, dont post your items at the 'suggested retail price'. Take it down a notch or two.

As a new player, and not a power gamer, I dont have a lot to spend, but I always go for price. and with that, if I post something, I never try to 'max out' what I make off an item. As a low level character, I dont have uber items to offer. But others might be able to use what I have, so, I want money, they want items, its way better than the 10% youll get from the vendors. Maybe you get 40-50%, its better than clogging up your inventory or bank account.

In other words, if you really want to get rid of something, dont get greedy. This is just a point of view from an actual 'noob' player.

[Ivahoe]

I know I feel loaded at 130k plat and being the highest level on the server(at least was before I took off leveling the past 3 days) anything at this point over the price of 50k plat is basically going to cost an average player everything they have therefore unlikely to sell.

The 15k plat level 4 weapons make me laugh as the only people who would buy those are the level 4 people who have nowhere near that kind of money yet

[KoboldKiller]

I know I feel loaded at 130k plat and being the highest level on the server(at least was before I took off leveling the past 3 days) anything at this point over the price of 50k plat is basically going to cost an average player everything they have therefore unlikely to sell.

The 15k plat level 4 weapons make me laugh as the only people who would buy those are the level 4 people who have nowhere near that kind of money yet

Exactly. It took every dime I had to get a level 2 weapon the other day and that was at 20k gp buyout. i just saw a level 4 scimi on the AH for 45kpp buyout. Thta's out of control for a new server IMHO.

[Aerendil]

Given the nice new Sharn Syndicate weapons available around level 4-6, I can't see many players needing the AH for pre-10 gear unless they're keen on an adamantite or transmuter, ghost touch, or a holy / pure good weapon.

I know I had a look at handwraps lastnight and had a laugh at the 13950175 various +1 handwraps up there. Pure silliness.

So yes, stick with House D's weapon broker and house K's armour broker IMO.

In other news, it's interesting to see PUGs for VoN already on this server.

[Gleipner]

All the decent weapons i´ve pulled that i don´t use i´ve put on the AH at reasnoble prices +2 PG BS buyout 2000 plat and same for a +1 icy BS of pg one of em sold so i guess i wasn´t way out of line, and i´ll give a golf clap to thoose who will get one of their tomes sold at the prices that they are posted at atm.
Roflmfao
Yes Ah is broken mostly bc there is people from old servers posting things at the same prices as they would charge at their old home server.

[MagicianBlade]

I get the impression that some of the stuff on the AH is more about bragging rights than anything else, e.g. there was a bloodstone up a few days ago with a minimum price and buyout around 2 million plat, obviously a sum of money no one actually has. I don't think this was put up to sell, it seemed to me more that it was put up to show that someone had already looted one.

Most of the loot in the first few days was reasonably priced, and much of it still is. I think many of the vip players are so used to their home server prices that they haven't realised where the market is yet and are pricing conservatively in response.

However, I'm sure that many characters are already running around with 50k + plat (if not more). The AH is currently in its infancy, and there isn't much in the way of decent gear (+stat items, mod or heavy fort, mithral armors) so if / when good items do come up, they can in fact command a huge premium at the moment because the demand is going to be high from those whose toons are already 10+.

What I'm noticing is that good high end weaponry is being put on at huge prices, particularly the burst of pure good weapons. This makes sense to me, as until you have greensteel, those weapons are the way to go. What would normally be classed as twink weapons on the other hand don't command good prices and/or are superseded by easily obtainable loot from the new quests, particularly sharn syndicate (my toon was dual wielding a nicked scimitar / nicked shortsword until about level 7 or 8, and this felt to me to be almost as powerful a combo as the stereotypical elemental of pg that would be the twink norm).

The key for most powergamers short-term (particularly melee builds) is to build up a reliable collection of weapon effects very quickly, which whilst not being optimal, allow for most of the content to be handled (the mod 9 transmuting nerf really hit this hard imo). Secondary is to flesh out defences and stat boosts (along with potency items). These items will command a premium until there is enough loot flowing for a liquid market to emerge.

Slightly off-topic, I think it will be fascinating watching this market develop, and I'm curious to see how much of the intuition that vets have built up playing on their old servers will serve them on Cannith when evaluating item value.

lol, 50k in 2 weeks is easy. The question is, what can you actually spend your money ON that will allow you to NOT have 50k plat in 2 weeks? *i've found my answer.. healing wands for parties of people that seem to be not wearing any armor at all.. sigh*

[Ephemeral]

lol, 50k in 2 weeks is easy. The question is, what can you actually spend your money ON that will allow you to NOT have 50k plat in 2 weeks? *i've found my answer.. healing wands for parties of people that seem to be not wearing any armor at all.. sigh*

50k cash in hand in two weeks was my baseline assumption with someone starting a level 1, untwinked toon without access to any hand-me-downs.

It was also assuming a fairly quick levelling speed (I think no-one on Cannith is yet capped, but there are a couple of people very close, with quite a few people running around at levels 13-16). Even so, as a proportion of all people on Cannith, levels 13+ is still a relatively small percentage.

At level 13+ 50k plat becomes trivially easy to make in a couple of hours of loot runs, so we are now in a different mode of the economy for the higher level characters on Cannith.

However, what we also seem to be seeing is an influx of plat farmers onto the server who are dumping weapons to the brokers. Whereas just a few days ago there were very few paralyzers / disrupters / vorpals on the server, we are now seeing these turning up a lot more frequently. My gut feeling is that the rate that these are coming on exceeds the rate at which people are levelling in general, therefore this creates a downward influence on pricing. Once we start seeing multiple such weapons being put up for auction at any one time, the prices will fall.

Also, we are on the verge of shroud crafting - a fair proportion of the 14+ characters on the server are either shroud flagged or close. Once they hit the shroud (my guess is we'll see quite a few people hitting this over the weekend) we're into greensteel crafting territory and a huge reduction in demand for dps weaponry from the AH. Again this will push prices down (I'd expect the market in ingredients to start developing which would absorb a fair chunk of newly generated cash).

There are guys that have been making like bandits on the AH over the last few days and they are probably known to the higher level players, and I for one find their opportunism to be irritating. I know that whereas with people I group up with often and know well I will happily give away even the best loot we're currently finding if they can use it to contribute more to the party than I can, I am beginning to recognise a group of people who I will only trade on a like-for-like basis now. On a server with relatively few people to group with at higher levels, excessive greed is a short-term strategy only, and it will come back to bite you in the longer term.

AH pricing will stabilize for Cannith, and if you want a really good way of understanding the relative economies of the different servers, its educational to look into what plat sellers are selling currency for on the different servers. At present, they seem to be pricing Cannith plat at 5-6x the price on the legacy servers. This suggests that an item priced at 500k plat on Argo (say a planar gird) should realistically be priced at 100k plat on Cannith today. At present, we're not seeing this reflected in the Cannith pricing, and anyone who is buying at hyper-inflated prices is basically a moron.

[vyedma]

I'm a newer player - started in August. And I put tons of things on AH at low low low prices. I figure as long as I make more money then I would selling to a vendor then its all good.

[Holinyx]

i've got a +1 longsword of lesser undead bane i want to sell for 20 million gold or will trade for 10 bloodstones.

seriously all the weapons for 500k gold or 2 million gold....you people are freaking crazy, and you are keeping good weapons from being used by good players. not everyone has 500k gold barely 2 weeks into the new server. 100-200k outta be the ceiling right now, but its not and sadly, MOST of us can't afford that. half a million for a portable hole? lol. alot of ya'll keep forgetting this server is not 3 years old.

[noob]

You do realize, that a free market will even itself out, if its too much, dont pay for it. Its that simple. If nobody buys it, then the prices will go down, if people DO buy it, the prices will stay the same, or go up, either way it reflects the way the economy should be. Its just like real life, if nobody interferes with the market then it works flawlessly.

[Gutskas]

I don't know the 'real' prices a given item should be, I do however keep an eye out on the AH for items that seem to be discounted to buy every so often, but I mainly just keep running dungeons for gear that I can use.

[Ephemeral]

After watching the AH pricing develop over the last couple of days, I'm becoming more and more convinced that there are some real idiots playing on Cannith. There are a bunch of newly found items (+6 stat items, nice weapons such as bursting of pg / status affectors / banishers, tomes) being put on at prices well in excess of 100k plat, some getting up to 1000k plat or more.

To put this into perspective, I would imagine that I could count on my fingers the number of people who have 500k plat free at this moment in time. Most of the mid-teens level toons running around probably have realistically somewhere in the region of 100-200k plat. Toons at lower levels than this have much much less, because there simply is no market yet for things like pure water and other collectibles.

I think the market will stabilize quite quickly, and prices will drop rapidly in about a week's time, after 2-3 cycles of 3 days when people's items expire after no-bids on the AH. At the moment though, the AH is pure caveat emptor - you really need to know exactly what weapons / items are good and factor in timing (e.g. atm paralyzers, disrupters, smiters and banishers are being put on at ungodly rates today however once there are a few more floating around the cost will crash down to where they should be).

A very simple rule of thumb is this: melee toons have the highest costs in terms of equipment, and they need several weapons sets. Most dps builds are still twf, so each set requires 2 weapons. About 8-10 different weapons sets are needed, as well as armors and other items. By the time a typical toon has hit level 14 (when the majority of current weapons in game are usable) they will have looted/vendored/AH'd probably in the region of 200k plat. Taking 200k plat as the budget then, an average weapon set can be up to about 15k plat, assuming some desired items are found as loot. Ceiling prices therefore for weapons on the AH are likely to be in the region of 50k plat (and these would be the absolute best weapons). Anything higher than this, and I just can't see who'd be stupid enough to buy them.

[dj.kickz]

Hey Case!
Yeah i agree I would gladly pay 50k plat for a good disruptor, paralyzer, smiter, or vorpal weapon but people keep throwing them up for more then 100k plat which is quite frankly more then i have earned up to this point. I think if you have weapons like this the only way to realistically get what you think their value is through trade. I wish the people who are selling these weapons for 100-500k plat would post on the trade forums because I would gladly trade equivalent value items (Gird, 6 con belt, etc) that I don't believe I can sell for their actual value at this point.
~dizzy

[Ephemeral]

Hey Case!
Yeah i agree I would gladly pay 50k plat for a good disruptor, paralyzer, smiter, or vorpal weapon but people keep throwing them up for more then 100k plat which is quite frankly more then i have earned up to this point. I think if you have weapons like this the only way to realistically get what you think their value is through trade. I wish the people who are selling these weapons for 100-500k plat would post on the trade forums because I would gladly trade equivalent value items (Gird, 6 con belt, etc) that I don't believe I can sell for their actual value at this point.
~dizzy

The interesting this is we know the relative drop frequency of items from the other servers, and also what is long-term a better item (e.g. paralyzers, disrupters, vorpals etc. are good right now but won't hold their value as well as items like girds where alternatives simply don't exist).

I personally would not trade my gird for a special effect weapon because I know from the other servers that it is worth, relatively speaking, at least 3-4 special effect weapons. As for +6 stat items, they are so cheap everywhere else that the current pricing on Cannith is quite simply wrong.

My gut feeling is that a top end weapon on Cannith today should be worth about 20k plat buyout based on the amount of cash sloshing around, with items like girds at about 75k (if you actually want them to sell), and bloodstones maybe at 150k. Current pricing is 10x this, which looks to me more like the economies on the legacy servers.

I completely agree with you about trading rather than buying / selling for currency atm, however my suspicion is that people who are trading know the true worth of these items and you simply won't see them trading away really good items for things which are rare right now but will be common before the month is out.

Edit: another thought - using the AH removes 30% of the sale value from the server's economy. For the legacy servers, this is a good thing as it helps to counteract the rampant inflation there. On Cannith, if people did actually pay some of the prices being asked, the server economy would become even less liquid as large chunks of plat were removed from circulation.

[winsom]

those auction house sellers are not very smart then. The function of those very high prices on AH items is typically to milk the players that have had many months to amass many millions of gold.

Since there is relatively little wealth on the new server for people to be buying these items to outfitting twinks (if they are even building twinks yet) there will be very little chance of those high priced AH posts of being fullfilled.

[xanvar]

Not only are the auction house prices a bit high. The chatter that goes on in the trade channel is down right annoying. If I have to read any more about +1 weapons and armor for sale at base price I may scream.

[EDarkness]

Not only are the auction house prices a bit high. The chatter that goes on in the trade channel is down right annoying. If I have to read any more about +1 weapons and armor for sale at base price I may scream.

No offense, but isn't that what the Trade channel is for?

[Dayin]

No offense, but isn't that what the Trade channel is for?

Not really, since +1 items are trash. Either the buyer doesn't know that, or he/she does and is just trying to take advantage of noobs. Annoying, either way.