AotI-PC/PS2: Player market woes

[Ahkaskar]

First off, I'm on the PC servers. I don't know anything about the XBox 360 player market.

I've seen a number of things happen to the PSU PC/PS2 player market since the introduction of the condition search system. While it made it a lot easier to find things, it seems to have made it a lot easier for oddities to happen over time.

For instance, not too long after the conditional search was implemented, elemental photons were going for a lot more than they are now--megi for 1000-ish and on some occasions, di for 20000. While I admit that 20000 meseta per photon is overpriced considering the price of other materials, it kind of bothered me when somehow, the entire photon market dropped all the way down between 200 on the low end and 2000 on the high end.

It bothered me primarily because I got into the whole player market thing late and I barely managed to scrape together a couple S ranks before the whole thing seemed to go south in a blink. I know there are people out there who have tons of meseta and probably can't understand not being totally loaded with cash, but there are people out there who need so much equipment that they can barely hold onto anything over 500k at a time.

Whatever the case, I'm sort of seeing the same thing over again with this new truffle market.

Just like the photon market, I'm seeing some interesting tendencies crop up. For the most part, most people putting their items up are going for the average. 1200 to 1500 a truffle, give or take. However, occasionally I come across someone who decides to knock things down a notch and puts their truffles up for 800 or less. I saw this same sort of activity in the photon market and on one occasion I went to check out these people selling for half of the regular going price or less.

It turns out this person put had put up all of one or two photons.

At first, I thought it was either someone being silly, or maybe just someone who was seemingly oblivious to the rest of the market. When it kept happening, I eventually decided to go buy out someone's two-photon stack. Incidentally, the shop owner was in the room when I made my purchase, and I went back to my room to watch the market. Lo and behold, within minutes they plopped another single photon on the market.

Now, maybe I'm just paranoid, but this seems like manipulation to me. Get enough people to do that and you can push the average price down until the average Joe who does a quick browse to plan his prices follows suit without a second thought. It seems like that is exactly what happened and I'm starting to wonder if someone or a group of someones is going to do that to the truffle market, somehow. Seeing the initial signs start to crop up again is what has prompted me to make a post.

It was good for crafters when it came to photons, but for those (like me) who weren't so inclined for high-yield money farming, it was a kick to the balls. There we were, making a quarter of the meseta or less than before, and equipment prices were still sky-high. Fortunately, some of those prices have come down a bit since then, but it's still difficult to get many kinds of equipment. The Uransara for instance, is at a minimum of 1 mil and I might make 250k selling photons and truffles on the market maybe once a week when I manage to collect enough to make a decent inventory.

S-ranks in general are more or less minor improvements over their A-rank counterparts, and while I can understand the price-rarity relationship that isn't made apparent in the equipment statistics, it kind of gets to me when people feel the need to neuter the material supply market when they won't lower the finished product market.

I feel very strongly that there are people intentionally manipulating these price ranges for whatever reasoning, but more than anything I think it's generating more issues than solving them. The reduction in the photon market prices caused A-ranks to come down in price first and foremost, but left difficult to make S-ranks still sky high. (See the Crea Doubles, which are still going for at least 2 mil due to their rare material requirements)

Near as I can tell, A-rank weapons are practically going for charity prices, nearing (or even below!) the 30k meseta mark which is about what you can get for selling them to an NPC (note: that figure is as best to my recollection without running the game and checking again) and don't even get me started on armor. Basically what has happened is that A-ranks and common-material S-ranks have moved down to this new pricing schematic (but are just as much a meseta loss as before to the crafters!), while the rare-material S-ranks are still incredibly expensive.

For the crafters, the only thing that has come of this price reduction is that they're moving money around in smaller quantities. The suppliers who rely on this market for their upgrades are cut off at the knees. But, if there's anything I've learned about MMO-type player markets is that money acquisition is free-for-all.

Like I said, it might just be paranoia under coincidence. I would like to see players get the breadth of the market under regulation, though. And maybe nix those people scamming for over the NPC price while they're at it.

Yeah, wishful thinking.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Ahkaskar on 2008-04-02 18:16 ]</font>


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Ahkaskar on 2008-04-02 19:02 ]</font>

[SStrikerR]

On 2008-04-02 17:30, Ahkaskar wrote:
First off, I'm on the PC servers. I don't know anything about the XBox 360 player market.

I've seen a number of things happen to the PSU PC/PS2 player market since the introduction of the condition search system. While it made it a lot easier to find things, it seems to have made it a lot easier for oddities to happen over time.


For instance, not too long after the conditional search was implemented, elemental photons were going for a lot more than they are now--megi for 1000-ish and on some occasions, di for 20000. While I admit that 20000 meseta per photon is overpriced considering the price of other materials, it kind of bothered me when somehow, the entire photon market dropped all the way down between 200 on the low end and 2000 on the high end.
It bothered me primarily because I got into the whole player market thing late and I barely managed to scrape together a couple S ranks before the whole thing seemed to go south in a blink. I know there are people out there who have tons of meseta and probably can't understand not being totally loaded with cash, but there are people out there who need so much equipment that they can barely hold onto anything over 500k at a time.
The photons went down because they were overpriced, and since you couldnt see what other prices were before going into 5+ shops people had crappy prices. And since people undercut prices of others now they go lower and lower. And besides nobody needs to buy photons anymore because we all have so many.

Whatever the case, I'm sort of seeing the same thing over again with this new truffle market.


Just like the photon market, I'm seeing some interesting tendencies crop up. For the most part, most people putting their items up are going for the average. 1200 to 1500 a truffle, give or take. However, occasionally I come across someone who decides to knock things down a notch and puts their truffles up for 800 or less. I saw this same sort of activity in the photon market and on one occasion I went to check out these people selling for half of the regular going price or less. Well truffles are used in the parum exchange mission so that's why truffles are worth a bit now. Also, the reason you see a price half of the 2nd lowest is because they want theirs to sell first, so they make em cheap. Like what i do with goldania, the prices are crappy so if i happen to come across a few my price will be about 1/4 of the 2nd lowest price, because i know they'll sell.

It turns out this person put had put up all of one or two photons.

At first, I thought it was either someone being silly, or maybe just someone who was seemingly oblivious to the rest of the market. When it kept happening, I eventually decided to go buy out someone's two-photon stack. Incidentally, the shop owner was in the room when I made my purchase, and I went back to my room to watch the market. Lo and behold, within minutes they plopped another single photon on the market.

Now, maybe I'm just paranoid, but this seems like manipulation to me. Get enough people to do that and you can push the average price down until the average Joe who does a quick browse to plan his prices follows suit without a second thought. It seems like that is exactly what happened and I'm starting to wonder if someone or a group of someones is going to do that to the truffle market, somehow. Seeing the initial signs start to crop up again is what has prompted me to make a post.

It was good for crafters when it came to photons, but for those (like me) who weren't so inclined for high-yield money farming, it was a kick to the balls. There we were, making a quarter of the meseta or less than before, and
equipment prices were still sky-high. Fortunately, some of those prices have come down a bit since then, but it's still difficult to get many kinds of equipment. The Uransara for instance, is at a minimum of 1 mil and I might make 250k selling photons and truffles on the market maybe once a week when I manage to collect enough to make a decent inventory.

if you can't afford equipment then either you dont play for more than 10 minutes a day, or you suck at making money, or this game isnt for you. And making 250k on truffles and photons is pretty good. And uransara is a LOT lower than it used to be, and if you cant scrape together 1 mil then you have problems.


S-ranks in general are more or less minor improvements over their A-rank counterparts, and while I can understand the price-rarity relationship that isn't made apparent in the equipment statistics, it kind of gets to me when people feel the need to neuter the material supply market when they won't lower the finished product market.

it seems to me you're only looking at the BEST S ranks out there, becaus lot of S rank weapons are just as cheap as 8* weapons.


I feel very strongly that there are people intentionally manipulating these price ranges for whatever reasoning, but more than anything I think it's generating more issues than solving them. The reduction in the photon market prices caused A-ranks to come down in price first and foremost, but left difficult to make S-ranks still sky high. (See the Crea Doubles, which are still going for at least 2 mil due to their rare material requirements)
dude, you'ere reading prices wrong, they're 200K.
Near as I can tell, A-rank weapons are practically going for charity prices, nearing (or even below!) the 30k meseta mark which is about what you can get for selling them to an NPC (note: that figure is as best to my recollection without running the game and checking again) and don't even get me started on armor. Basically what has happened is that A-ranks and common-material S-ranks have moved down to this new pricing schematic (but are just as much a meseta loss as before to the crafters!), while the rare-material S-ranks are still incredibly expensive.

For the crafters, the only thing that has come of this price reduction is that they're moving money around in smaller quantities. The suppliers who rely on this market for their upgrades are cut off at the knees. But, if there's anything I've learned about MMO-type player markets is that money acquisition is free-for-all.

Like I said, it might just be paranoia under coincidence. I would like to see players get the breadth of the market under regulation, though. And maybe nix those people scamming for over the NPC price while they're at it.

Yeah, wishful thinking.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Ahkaskar on 2008-04-02 18:16 ]</font>
You're topic and complains are so unbeliveable and annoying that i wont bother quoting anymore because i might end up making a rant on this now >_>

(holy fuck i need to hit something. hard.)

[Yuneiko]

I'm sorry to hear your monetary troubles, but it's how the market works. From what you're saying, it seems like people are trying to lower the market for some odd reason. Maybe it's to get it closer to the "360's" economy or maybe it's also because there's less demand for said things nowadays. After all, it's a simple economics basic when there is more supply than there is demand, prices fall. With conditional search added in, it's MUCH easier to see how people deem what their supply is worth.

I'm afraid that it's due to the fact that people will always buy the same object for less if they can. I'm sure you think the same way, why buy a board for 10K when someone else is selling it for 5K? And I hate to say this, but if you really want to move those A ranks, make them higher than 30% or so, unlike many of the 9* weapons I see flooding the market.

As for the crafters you speak of, I assume they too are trying to make weapons that are of decent % rates(for melee weapons i assume as well) so they can either use it or sell the high % weapons.

In a way, it's sorta eeriely similar to jobs in the US nowadays too. Factory jobs were moved overseas and made cheaper, while US citizens were left without a job. My analogy is to the photons were made cheaper, while the photon overpricers (I still believed they were stupidly overpriced pre AoI) are left with having to cut off each other to move inventory.

[Ffuzzy-Logik]

I only skimmed it, but it looks like you're saying that competition is bad.

In my opinion, they never intended the shops to be a main source of income for anyone, rather a way to make some quick cash selling off minor things you didn't need for cheap, meanwhile trading valuable items outright for other valuable items.


But yeah, in the case of...anything, lower prices is good.

[Randomness]

Ryan... its hard to tell what you're doing there... I think you missed a ending bracket somewhere for a quote tag.

As for what hes saying... If someone is deliberately putting out one or two photons at a time, then something may be going on. In fact, its concievable for a single person to start a slashing frenzy, because everyone wants to sell first. I tend to make drastic undercuts myself when I see a mat has become a hot commodity, but there is also the fact that as people realize its now valuable and race to sell, the price will drop. Simple economics.

[Ahkaskar]

Ryan113: Your reply is entirely unclear. Quoting me, then replying inside another quote or mixed in with my words makes it very difficult to understand what you're trying to tell me. From what little I can actually find of what YOU said in your reply, you basically don't understand what I said. Please, go calm down, clear your head, and try rewriting your post later.

Yuneiko: I'm seeing a tendency that looks as though people are trying to lower certain parts of the market. (And really, it's quite possible, given the sheep-herd nature of the average player with something like a player market) I should also point out that game markets don't always follow supply-demand to the letter. Economy just doesn't really play to the textbook quite right in a situation where money is valued entirely differently. In reality, money is necessary to live. In a game, people may not have any perceived value for money whatsoever.

Personally, I go for the low % weapons as I like my equipment to be "nearly" generally effective. I'd much rather pick up those cheap A-ranks and S-ranks because I'd rather use them whenever I want, instead of being unable to use a weapon on a particular target because the elemental stat would work against me.

Ffuzzy-Logik: No, I'm not. I'm worried that someone's screwing with the market in a situation where a competition model doesn't work. There is something of a standard market value (extrapolated values based off NPC values) that's being partially followed. Some things match NPC prices, while other things are way off.

I'm only bolding this in the hopes of averting misinterpretation:
I'm not upset that the photons are going for so little, but rather that this transition to a lower value (potentially closer to NPC value?) is only happening in limited ways. Example: A component goes down in price, but the associated products don't follow suit.

I had kind of been hoping that if the photons went down, most pieces of equipment would also. Many things have come down in price as I'd hoped (for instance, Crimsons are around 75-80k, not that I need any more than I already have), but there are others that I have yet to acquire which leave quite a discrepancy. Like some of these price differences exist almost for jollies rather than supply/demand.

Randomness: Thank you. That's what I was trying to say. Conceptually, it's easy to set a "slashing frenzy" in motion if you counted on people checking the prices without also checking the supply behind it.

[Randomness]

Well, with the vast majority of S ranks, a great deal of value is from the rarity of the board itself. Weapons like Crimsons, which had a flood of boards drop during 1up, are naturally much less valuable. (They also don't require the ever-pricey catilium) Other weapons, such as Blackbulls, have far fewer boards found, and so the finished items are more valuable. Note that both of these are 10*, its just supply and demand. (Theres only one substitute for a rifle, and several for sabers; this also messes with the price from higher demand)

Demand for materials soars whenever something new comes out (or is known to be coming soon, like with truffles) that uses them. Prices eventually stabilize. In theory, anyways.

[Arika]

oh? so Di-photon really over 20000 now? 2 week ago I see it only a few thousand.
but nothing wrong in JP AOI firstly came out DI-photon was 8000 there before.
I m lazy to check it now since I dont need it. However, those all item are depend on demand.
when the market is lacking anything that thing will be expensive, when the market is oversupply, that thing will cheap.

[Ahkaskar]

Randomness: That makes sense to me. I'd think Uransara boards would be cheaper since they drop off the ever-common Olgohmons, but a single character could need quite a few...

Arika: Di-photons were 20000 meseta months ago. The photon prices fell sometime last year.

[Arika]

To Ahkaskar, Sorry, but are you a retired player from many month ago or something?
I can see from sig that your LV is only 82. so you are probably a player that quited long ago and want to post something bad to bring ppl to go xbox360?

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/8593/psu20080403143902003vv8.jpg

this is the price right now, no different from what I checked 2 week ago.

[ngagerebel]

This topic makes sense and then its like why even bother?

[Ahkaskar]

Arika: I've seen the price fluctuate throughout the weeks. 100 meseta compared to 20000 is a much larger difference, too. Shows just how much it has come down.

Watch what you say. http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_razz.gif My highest level may be 82, but I've been playing more than two characters (I've only listed my mains) and I've restarted a few characters since launch. I don't level particularly fast either, but I am indeed an active PC player. With no XBox 360.

ngagerebel: Actually, I kind of agree. Almost regret posting the thread.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Ahkaskar on 2008-04-02 21:01 ]</font>

[Mikura]

Took me awhile to understand what you were trying to say but I get it now. Like Randomness said, it's just the rarity of the boards, nothing more. That's the only reason the completed products are still costing an arm and a leg and the materials are dirt cheap. (Most anyway...materials like Catilium, Diads, etc. will still yield a nice sum of meseta and if you want to stay in the supply market, start farming and selling those to make quick cash).

Oh, and to address the person you saw depositing photons to drive the price down, I see some people do that all the time but I haven't seen where it's affected the economy much. Right now, things seem pretty stabilized and I believe it'll remain that way for awhile unless we either:

A: Have meseta duping run rampant again.

or

B: We have an influx of new players, thus driving up demand for everything.

But I don't see either one of those scenarios happening any time soon, if ever.

[EMPYREAN]

gotta say that this undercut thing that ppl r doing now is the reason i closed my shop. thers no point in this.

a month ago i found an 11* 1 hand pistol. i made it, tryed it, but dident like it so i wanted to sell it. i took a look at the marked and saw that the cheepest was 8mill. so i priced mine to 8.5mill. when i returend to my shop 2 weeks later i saw that it was still there. i wondered why and took at the shops, and boy did i get a shock.
the cheepest 1 was now 2.3 mill!!.
now thers no way im selling an 11* for that low cash so i took it out of my shop and after taaking a good look around i desided to close my shop. untill this undercut thing blows over im not opening again
(im on pc)



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: EMPYREAN on 2008-04-03 05:28 ]</font>

[icewyrm]

It isn't worth synthing + reselling any melee weapon that doesn't have a high % element value nowadays. Actually for the most part, it doesn't seem all that worthwhile to synth a ranks at all, except for yourself. Thats how it seems to me anyways :/

[daniel_drago]

On 2008-04-02 20:44, Arika wrote:
To Ahkaskar, Sorry, but are you a retired player from many month ago or something?
I can see from sig that your LV is only 82. so you are probably a player that quited long ago and want to post something bad to bring ppl to go xbox360?

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/8593/psu20080403143902003vv8.jpg

this is the price right now, no different from what I checked 2 week ago.



I do find that reply quite...I don't really know how to but it but the OP has replied to you on a 'nicer' way than I would.
My main is only lvl 88ish I started at launch and have been gone repeatedly, but in all honesty being over lvl120 doesnt mean you've been here for a long time and know the ins and outs of this game like the back of your hand, as I've seen people get to lvl 120 in a month.
Also you made quite a big judgement on the OP's original post. http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif

Sorry if I've made my self look like a troll again...I'm good at that http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif

[Arika]

On 2008-04-03 05:26, EMPYREAN wrote:
gotta say that this undercut thing that ppl r doing now is the reason i closed my shop. thers no point in this.

a month ago i found an 11* 1 hand pistol. i made it, tryed it, but dident like it so i wanted to sell it. i took a look at the marked and saw that the cheepest was 8mill. so i priced mine to 8.5mill. when i returend to my shop 2 weeks later i saw that it was still there. i wondered why and took at the shops, and boy did i get a shock.
the cheepest 1 was now 2.3 mill!!.
now thers no way im selling an 11* for that low cash so i took it out of my shop and after taaking a good look around i desided to close my shop. untill this undercut thing blows over im not opening again
(im on pc)



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: EMPYREAN on 2008-04-03 05:28 ]</font>



that is not under-cut lol, it is a good thing, same as JP, 11* are cheap!!
anything that supply over demand are alway cheap.



blah,ppl alway say this server alway overprice, and now some1 is saying the price is too low... http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_frown.gif


actually it is still overprice a bit too, in JP, that 11* pistol is not even worth a mil. while 50% S rank there still worth over 99 mil. (similar trend in this server, but everything here alway still a bit overprice)
so in the future I think it will drop lower than 1 mil to be closer to jp price, you should just sell it now when it still 2.3 mil lol.

to daniel_drago :, it is not about LV , this main char isn't being mainly use anymore other than shop ,so that is why my lv is only 121 there.
I m not LV hunting style, and if you asking about knowledge in this game, I dunno... just that is my real confident part. I m sure that know psu a lot more than most of ppl here. All formula, calculate, drop chart, map ,market price, dps of all the action, grinder success rate as %, secret % of PA, etc. etc. I know more than what psupedia shown lol (I know it is not a good thing to go into the game too much, but I m kidda addicted to it http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_frown.gif )



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Arika on 2008-04-03 07:29 ]</font>

[Para]

A kick to the rants section please?

[Kietrinia]

Yep, supply and demand at work. If no one wants it, lower the price until they do want it. http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_smile.gif

Of course, it works the other way too.. *points at Catilium*

[panzer_unit]

On 2008-04-02 17:30, Ahkaskar wrote:
I feel very strongly that there are people intentionally manipulating these price ranges for whatever reasoning, but more than anything I think it's generating more issues than solving them. The reduction in the photon market prices caused A-ranks to come down in price first and foremost, but left difficult to make S-ranks still sky high. (See the Crea Doubles, which are still going for at least 2 mil due to their rare material requirements)


Prices in the market for common materials and equipment are based on cash income and maybe the cost/inconvenience of trying to synthesize an equally good item for yourself.

Prices in the market for high-end equipment are relative to a character's net worth, or at least their lifetime cash savings. Nobody's going to price something awesome for an amount that can be translated to truffles and photons from spamming C-rank runs. Only extreme long-term scrounging, and lucky finds of materials/boards/used equipment of the same quality will get you the kind of meseta you need for these things.

[icewyrm]

Yes, theres certainly a nice upside to it all - low elemental % s ranks are quite cheap nowadays, so if all you care about is looks it's much easier to fit yourself out now http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif

[Ahkaskar]

Not that it really matters anymore, but I thought I'd share this screenshot (http://content.nothingmachine.com/Ahkaskar/screenshots/PsuIlluminus%202008-04-16%2015-32-03-94.jpg).

Just goes to show that they still go for 2k sometimes. But hey, if anyone wants 26 di-photons at 300 meseta each on PC/PS2, go on over to that shop. http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_wink.gif

[Powder Keg]

Photons became ridiculously low-priced when we received the area drop increase.

[Cracka_J]

does anyone remember why prices were so high to begin with?
it was due to the HAXETA.

all I gotta say is more power to lower prices, makes for a better buyers market anyways.

[panzer_unit]

On 2008-04-16 12:39, Ahkaskar wrote:
Not that it really matters anymore, but I thought I'd share this screenshot (http://content.nothingmachine.com/Ahkaskar/screenshots/PsuIlluminus%202008-04-16%2015-32-03-94.jpg).

Just goes to show that they still go for 2k sometimes. But hey, if anyone wants 26 di-photons at 300 meseta each on PC/PS2, go on over to that shop. http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_wink.gif


I think you're making an assumption on the word "go".

Suppose you did a shop search of Brands and they're all 100000+ meseta each... does that mean people are making 100k a pop selling 2* sabers? Hell no.

[DarkEliteRico]

Wonders why people keep buying my goods then, i'm a crafter and i pull out decent %'s 30%+ i usually throw in shops unless it's a weapon i want to use, hell even some of my uncommon A-rank weapons are going for good prices because of grinds....looks to kitty/snowy claws as weapons i've sold for millions just because of a few grinds

If people want it they're gonna pay for it, you've gotta price compare, shit you'd laugh at the stacks of note paper i've kept for other peoples prices for similar weapons and my price, it's a battle every day and sometimes you've gotta loose money to make money.

Spent over 9 mill in a day just crafting armors and pulled out some good 50%'s, with a price of 12+ mill i'd say it's worth it if you want it bad enough

And this is all coming from a guy who still can't seem to come out ahead, been playing since launch yet my id is in the 21k's


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: DarkEliteRico on 2008-04-16 14:51 ]</font>

[SonicTMP]

Prices flux. If somsone is trying to mess with prices and they are that bored then dont worry about it. Cheaper mats is always helpful.

The mass amount of low end mats don't really matter. And the rare stuff will always be expensive because most of the population doesn't farm those areas.

[Hiroko]

It costs meseta to make meseta... A wise thought...

[Randomness]

Best thing to do is just stockpile your mats, and sell when something new comes out that needs them, which drives the price up. I sold Serafis at over 2 mil when Easter started, and now the price is less than half that sometimes. (I then bought a low % Halp for slightly more than I got for the feather, so it was quite a good deal)