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Discussion - Does it drive anyone else nuts when people are stupid and drive prices into the ground? (1 Viewer)

ToeJamSamy

Seasoned veteran member
Joined
Nov 21, 2020
RedCents
574¢
I want to strangle people but I know they're not paying any attention to what they're doing. There are people on my server autopricing at 20-40% below bottom price, and because there are more than 1 of them the prices have dropped so much in just 2 days it's not even worth selling anything. When a chest piece for example, takes 32 silks, 4 pelts, and 8 ores to make, plus the 5-6kpp vendor parts, and silks are selling for 3400 and up, pelts for 1400 and ores for 9k, why would anyone want to sell a faded chestpiece for 84k to stay competitive? When an item takes 2-4 diamonds, cut at over 5kpp each, and they're being sold for 15kpp...what is the point? Are people really this dumb? Do they just not pay any attention before they start a baz bot to what the markdowns are or the cost to make things? IDK what goes through these people's minds. Venting, but this is some extreme pricedropping in a short period of time. The market on ice encrusted hasn't dropped as much lol. Anyone else encountering this?
 
things like this are why i simply plat grind to get me some plat back lol, but yeah agreed, i don't think anyone looks shit up. reasonable pricing/undercutting helps the economy. Reasonable.
 
Totally get where you're coming from, but armor pieces don't use 5-6k in vendor parts... it's less than 215pp (Filament Silk 209pp, 2 waters 2sp , tanning chemicals 1g, simple thread 1sp) the rest are dropped so essentially free given how often they are dropping right now. So 84k is still a tidy profit (arguably fair)

Non-visible items for 15k is plain stupidity though.
 
Totally get where you're coming from, but armor pieces don't use 5-6k in vendor parts... it's less than 215pp (Filament Silk 209pp, 2 waters 2sp , tanning chemicals 1g, simple thread 1sp) the rest are dropped so essentially free given how often they are dropping right now. So 84k is still a tidy profit (arguably fair)

Non-visible items for 15k is plain stupidity though.
Fair if it wasn't 3x that 4 days ago lol. But yeah, they're selling augs for 12k. It's just a few people going overboard on the automatic pricing, like at least one has too big a discount set, the others are only going a little below them, but they must not have minimums set, or not sensible ones. I'm tempted to drop price just long enough to make theirs bottom out, buyem all out, and reset the market lol. At one point they had jewelry down to half what it costs to make and someone else did that. Right now though, materials are worth more sold on their own. Idk why I was thinking there was something 5k from a vendor, but I'm always running to restock something of that sort.
 
I am afraid I am one of those asses. I look at what people are selling stuff for and laugh and mark mine a little over what it costs me to make so I can sell it in a few minutes and not have to leave my trader up for days. If it is useless to me anymore like old chase stuff lot of times I give it away. My stuff usually isn't on there very long cause another trader will grab it to resell which is fine with me. I used to mark it high and try to get rich and end up with leftover stuff that never sold ....nope get it out and gone or I will delete it. I sold some ice encrusted stuff for 500k the other day ..I got my use out of it. I still have plat I made from the aaaa box days .....It is all good
 
I am afraid I am one of those asses. I look at what people are selling stuff for and laugh and mark mine a little over what it costs me to make so I can sell it in a few minutes and not have to leave my trader up for days. If it is useless to me anymore like old chase stuff lot of times I give it away. My stuff usually isn't on there very long cause another trader will grab it to resell which is fine with me. I used to mark it high and try to get rich and end up with leftover stuff that never sold ....nope get it out and gone or I will delete it. I sold some ice encrusted stuff for 500k the other day ..I got my use out of it. I still have plat I made from the aaaa box days .....It is all good
Nah this is people putting up 5-10 per slot of the faded restless stuff. High demand while the droprates not nerfed, and they're dropping prices below cost to make. Stuff that sells overnight easily without. And the same traders up days on end. I don't think speed is the priority so much as they don't know what they're doing with autopricing
 
Nah this is people putting up 5-10 per slot of the faded restless stuff. High demand while the droprates not nerfed, and they're dropping prices below cost to make. Stuff that sells overnight easily without. And the same traders up days on end. I don't think speed is the priority so much as they don't know what they're doing with autopricing
Ahh yea I can see that. Sadly I have quite a few eq friends that don't even know how to use the bazaar at all and never heard of barter. I can see why it would make a lot mad though. Need to at least do some price researching before you go and set up stuffs
 
I want to strangle people but I know they're not paying any attention to what they're doing. There are people on my server autopricing at 20-40% below bottom price, and because there are more than 1 of them the prices have dropped so much in just 2 days it's not even worth selling anything. When a chest piece for example, takes 32 silks, 4 pelts, and 8 ores to make, plus the 5-6kpp vendor parts, and silks are selling for 3400 and up, pelts for 1400 and ores for 9k, why would anyone want to sell a faded chestpiece for 84k to stay competitive? When an item takes 2-4 diamonds, cut at over 5kpp each, and they're being sold for 15kpp...what is the point? Are people really this dumb? Do they just not pay any attention before they start a baz bot to what the markdowns are or the cost to make things? IDK what goes through these people's minds. Venting, but this is some extreme pricedropping in a short period of time. The market on ice encrusted hasn't dropped as much lol. Anyone else encountering this?

Toe, i hear your complaint. But true cost is whatever was paid for non-drop ingredients, and whatever time it took to skill up (which some would argue is a sunk cost). For people running teams, based of what I've heard of COV raw materials are dropping like crazy. So absent some major fixes that market is doomed to fail sooner or later. Smart people probably want to moneytize as fast and as frequently as possible, so that eliminates profiting by bater/resell or just regular sales. People who play in bazaar are probably printing as much finished product as possible and turning it around as quickly as they can before the market is saturated/crashes.

I'm not saying go do that...but if I were playing in COV i'd consider it. There's not going to be a market there soon once buyers are saturated...food for thought.
 
Toe, i hear your complaint. But true cost is whatever was paid for non-drop ingredients, and whatever time it took to skill up (which some would argue is a sunk cost). For people running teams, based of what I've heard of COV raw materials are dropping like crazy. So absent some major fixes that market is doomed to fail sooner or later. Smart people probably want to moneytize as fast and as frequently as possible, so that eliminates profiting by bater/resell or just regular sales. People who play in bazaar are probably printing as much finished product as possible and turning it around as quickly as they can before the market is saturated/crashes.

I'm not saying go do that...but if I were playing in COV i'd consider it. There's not going to be a market there soon once buyers are saturated...food for thought.
Well, the armor pieces cost the least in vendor items, and they're dropping the least. The jewelry and augs literally cost more in vendor ingredints IN ADDITION to the drops, than they're being sold for. These same sellers are driving the price down, getting bought out, making more and driving the prices down over and over. Which is why I'm debating buying them out if I can afford to, to raise the price back to reasonable levels(ToV fadeds sell higher in many cases, and for the next 3 weeks this stuff is selling like hotcakes) and restock lol. If I see them drop to half the cost of manufacture again, I'll definitely do it. Hell, could already be, it's been several hours lol
 
Well, the armor pieces cost the least in vendor items, and they're dropping the least. The jewelry and augs literally cost more in vendor ingredints IN ADDITION to the drops, than they're being sold for. These same sellers are driving the price down, getting bought out, making more and driving the prices down over and over. Which is why I'm debating buying them out if I can afford to, to raise the price back to reasonable levels(ToV fadeds sell higher in many cases, and for the next 3 weeks this stuff is selling like hotcakes) and restock lol. If I see them drop to half the cost of manufacture again, I'll definitely do it. Hell, could already be, it's been several hours lol

Well...have you considered sending them a "tell" and talking some shop together? You'd be amazed at how easily you can make friends in bazaar. More than likely you'll find a boxer on the other side happy to collaborate so everyone can make some plat in the end.
 
Nah this is people putting up 5-10 per slot of the faded restless stuff. High demand while the droprates not nerfed, and they're dropping prices below cost to make. Stuff that sells overnight easily without. And the same traders up days on end. I don't think speed is the priority so much as they don't know what they're doing with autopricing

Actually...you may be wrong...when i've done that I know exactly what i'm doing. I made my profit already and i'm looking to reduce my inventory...think Walmart rollback strategy...they've already made their profits on their initial batch of sales...whatever is left has to go to make room for something else. Also, things aren't always black and white...consider many of us have multiple sellers at different price targets to create the 'illusion' of competition...when in reality it's a little profit ladder, every rung up we make more.

More food for thought...you may think you're competing with 5 people when in reality you're banging your head agaisn't one or two players.
 
Now in terms of advice how to break people blockading or crashing sales lines. Go farm some of the raw materials, enough to make a large batch of finished product. Figure out how much it cost to make (just paying for vendor ingredients) and set 20 of whatever they're messing you up on at say 250 plat over cost and let it sit. You'll either sell out and make a small profit or they'll have to go lower (below your cost) where you know they'll be losing money on every sale. Do that on enough trades...and they'll either buy you out or move on...no one wants to lose money forever.

Also, if you're going to go all Rambo on your fellow traders list whatever raw ingredients they're selling (that you've farmed, not paid for) with a reasonable volume say 250-400 of whatever diamonds/pelts/silks...you name it and consistently keep your price at 1 plat under them all the way down to zero if need be...sooner or later you'll get a tell or they'll give up.

Now i'm not advocating that be your first recourse, definetely open up some lines of communication and negotiate back and forth. It is very unlikely you'll have to go this route...but if you need to at least here's a basic "how-to-embargo" a bully approach.
 
Actually...you may be wrong...when i've done that I know exactly what i'm doing. I made my profit already and i'm looking to reduce my inventory...think Walmart rollback strategy...they've already made their profits on their initial batch of sales...whatever is left has to go to make room for something else. Also, things aren't always black and white...consider many of us have multiple sellers at different price targets to create the 'illusion' of competition...when in reality it's a little profit ladder, every rung up we make more.

More food for thought...you may think you're competing with 5 people when in reality you're banging your head agaisn't one or two players.
Yeah but I know what Walmarts profit margin is lol, between 1000 and 2500%, this is a loss for these guys(it's the same cycle over and over) When they're charging less than it costs to make, and currently the only ones selling the item(the case on a few just now) buyem out and relist more reasonably. You can tell it's autopricing because the numbers, the frequency, the fact that they're charging double for tov versions(less competition) while most sellers have come down, it's just a select few that keep going into dollar store diamonds territory. In 2 weeks, it will make sense to start dropping inventory, but not now. Right now the stuff is in high demand.
 
It is interesting that you bring this up because I wasn't sure if I was imagining things or not but the prices on Faded Restless seem to literally drop every day. It works out good for me because Im not making any of it, just buying it. lol
 
I set up a trader at lowest prices, but only by about 1k. I checked 5 minutes later, and the guy I cut by 1k, cut me by 1k. I don't want to fuck around in the bazaar, so I cut the prices in half, barely making a profit, and once again within minutes, his price was 1k below mine, even barely making a profit. Blame the bazaar bot programs for the price drops, not the players.
 
I set up a trader at lowest prices, but only by about 1k. I checked 5 minutes later, and the guy I cut by 1k, cut me by 1k. I don't want to fuck around in the bazaar, so I cut the prices in half, barely making a profit, and once again within minutes, his price was 1k below mine, even barely making a profit. Blame the bazaar bot programs for the price drops, not the players.

But the player is the one that is running the macro so I would still say he is to blame. :shrug:
 
I set up a trader at lowest prices, but only by about 1k. I checked 5 minutes later, and the guy I cut by 1k, cut me by 1k. I don't want to fuck around in the bazaar, so I cut the prices in half, barely making a profit, and once again within minutes, his price was 1k below mine, even barely making a profit. Blame the bazaar bot programs for the price drops, not the players.

Personal opinion, bazaar bot programs aren't all that they're cracked up to be. I understand that to some they may provide convenience, but no bot is going to be smarter than a player who's actually invested and thinking about what they're doing with a solid macro-economic approach. Just my two cents...
 
I set up a trader at lowest prices, but only by about 1k. I checked 5 minutes later, and the guy I cut by 1k, cut me by 1k. I don't want to fuck around in the bazaar, so I cut the prices in half, barely making a profit, and once again within minutes, his price was 1k below mine, even barely making a profit. Blame the bazaar bot programs for the price drops, not the players.

Just set your trader at cost and let the bot sell him out of inventory, if he keeps going that way he'll be at a loss on every trade. Once he's sold out he'll just be wasting more time creating finished product that he's losing more money on. Sooner or later he'll figure out he's wasting time and plat.
 
Totally get where you're coming from, but armor pieces don't use 5-6k in vendor parts... it's less than 215pp (Filament Silk 209pp, 2 waters 2sp , tanning chemicals 1g, simple thread 1sp) the rest are dropped so essentially free given how often they are dropping right now. So 84k is still a tidy profit (arguably fair)

Non-visible items for 15k is plain stupidity though.

The real question is how much is your time worth?
 
The real question is how much is your time worth?

Exactly...that's why when i reach that point (which rarely happens if you build trade relationships in bazaar) i'll just print like 10 of each item that's in dispute...and load them at say...50pp above my cost. After a day or two you'll see people raise their prizes and stop messing around. Common sense will eventually kick in...otherwise i'll make 500pp and prove a point eventually.
 
I set up a trader at lowest prices, but only by about 1k. I checked 5 minutes later, and the guy I cut by 1k, cut me by 1k. I don't want to fuck around in the bazaar, so I cut the prices in half, barely making a profit, and once again within minutes, his price was 1k below mine, even barely making a profit. Blame the bazaar bot programs for the price drops, not the players.
That's my point. People aren't checking or setting them up before launching them.
 
Just set your trader at cost and let the bot sell him out of inventory, if he keeps going that way he'll be at a loss on every trade. Once he's sold out he'll just be wasting more time creating finished product that he's losing more money on. Sooner or later he'll figure out he's wasting time and plat.
Exactly...that's why when i reach that point (which rarely happens if you build trade relationships in bazaar) i'll just print like 10 of each item that's in dispute...and load them at say...50pp above my cost. After a day or two you'll see people raise their prizes and stop messing around. Common sense will eventually kick in...otherwise i'll make 500pp and prove a point eventually.

If I ever get lvl 2 and set one up i will definitely take this advice.
 
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That being said...i think part of the problem sometimes is that people want to have their cake and eat it too...or however that saying goes. As a rule of thumb if you're selling the raw components...you probably don't want to compete on finished product...because you're competing with your customers...so the components have to be prized reasonably so that they in turn can turn a profit. Vice-versa if you're going to make finished product, bulk farmers will frown on your competing on the raw materials...

So there is a balance in there you've got to reach. I've found most vendors (people who make stuff) don't mind you listing a few items at say 2-4x what their prize is. In that event if they sell out you have a chance at a sale, and it makes their prizes seem more attractive. This is if you're a bulk farmer (you hunt and get raw material components for sale).

Another angle is to convert some of your raw materials to the intermediary components say...you sell both Raw Velium Ore (TOV) and at a slightly higher margin also Velium Powder...but you don't sell say Faded Velium Idol, Masks, Charms, etc...That way your buyers have a choice of buying it raw, buying the intermediary component (which reduces their risk failure and saves them a step)...so that they can make their stuff.

There's different angles to everything, but at the end of the day...nothing will beat you talking to your fellow traders and suppliers often, building good relationships, and taking care of your marketplace. You'll build a brand and people will continue to buy from you if they think you're fair and honest in your dealings. Prize is important, but people in the server will usually remember and favor people who've given them an honest deal in the past even if your prize is slightly higher sometimes.
 
When I bazaar I've used the macro to get the initial set up done, and then I go though and manually set prices to where I want them and leave them be. I eventually sell my shit at the prices I want /shrug. It's not worth playing the race to the bottom game for me.
 
The real question is how much is your time worth?
Lets face it, CoV is new and for the vast majority of people playing in CoV, collecting tradeskill items is simply a by-product of whatever else we're doing at the time (chasing Crystallised Ore, experience etc)

It's not like we're off farming these in old content and getting nothing else done

You would have spent that time doing whatever you were doing anyway
 
Lets face it, CoV is new and for the vast majority of people playing in CoV, collecting tradeskill items is simply a by-product of whatever else we're doing at the time (chasing Crystallised Ore, experience etc)

It's not like we're off farming these in old content and getting nothing else done

You would have spent that time doing whatever you were doing anyway

But it takes time to get your skills up to the level where people actually want your items.
 
But it takes time to get your skills up to the level where people actually want your items.

Trust the fact that those people being discussed in this thread and even the op and I'd wager most of the people on this thread have already done their skills to 300 or above long before CoV came out for various reasons. That being said does it suck to have a new market fall so quickly... yes but let's be honest within the first month of a new expac the market plummets often. This is just one time that someone drew peoples attention to it.
 
Trust the fact that those people being discussed in this thread and even the op and I'd wager most of the people on this thread have already done their skills to 300 or above long before CoV came out for various reasons. That being said does it suck to have a new market fall so quickly... yes but let's be honest within the first month of a new expac the market plummets often. This is just one time that someone drew peoples attention to it.

That makes sense, I am still working on leveling up my character from 13 years ago... Not sure if I want to spend the money on the level 2 yet. But it looks amazing.
 
For the record, I personally have no problem driving prices into the ground. It's annoying to not make much plat on stuff, but I'm not a re-seller, so everything I put up on trader is shit my group(s) have looted for free. What it does do, though, is bring in loads of business (market share). If you want to buy all my shit at once to drive me out of the market so that you can raise prices again, by all means, please do it.

Whining about people undercutting you using the same macros you use is sorta ironic. Just wait until they're under whatever "break even" point you're assigning something (remember, you're using the current market value of commodities like silks, pelts, ores, etc. in your calculation, which will also go down over time) and buy it when it's below that point. The risk with that strategy in EQ, just like in real life, is how long can you sustain that before you've invested all your money into cornering the market? You're spending plat to boost prices in the hopes that you'll make back that plat... which is basically akin to gambling.

<--- did a MBA for fun about a decade ago. YOLO.
 
For the record, I personally have no problem driving prices into the ground. It's annoying to not make much plat on stuff, but I'm not a re-seller, so everything I put up on trader is shit my group(s) have looted for free. What it does do, though, is bring in loads of business (market share). If you want to buy all my shit at once to drive me out of the market so that you can raise prices again, by all means, please do it.

Whining about people undercutting you using the same macros you use is sorta ironic. Just wait until they're under whatever "break even" point you're assigning something (remember, you're using the current market value of commodities like silks, pelts, ores, etc. in your calculation, which will also go down over time) and buy it when it's below that point. The risk with that strategy in EQ, just like in real life, is how long can you sustain that before you've invested all your money into cornering the market? You're spending plat to boost prices in the hopes that you'll make back that plat... which is basically akin to gambling.

<--- did a MBA for fun about a decade ago. YOLO.
I don't use baz macro. And I'm not selling stuff I looted, but stuff made at 510 trivials, that without fails cost thousands for some materials, but at 510 a lot fail. Not talking about free stuff where everything is profit. Buying stuff at cost or below, if you know it will sell, is worth the risk. Buying stuff above production cost is an entirely different story.
 
I don't use baz macro. And I'm not selling stuff I looted, but stuff made at 510 trivials, that without fails cost thousands for some materials, but at 510 a lot fail. Not talking about free stuff where everything is profit. Buying stuff at cost or below, if you know it will sell, is worth the risk. Buying stuff above production cost is an entirely different story.

Did you loot the other components? The silks/ores/pelts?
 
I sold items in the first three days of COV at a profit that was enough to not worry about the drop I knew would come and by day three the prices dropped to basically cost of the vendor ingredients and I stopped selling. Many folks in the last two expansions have raised their TS abilities and your buyers market is much smaller then it ever was and your margins disappear quickly. I'm not mad at them. I have played with that market in the past of bartering and raising the buy cost to above what the sell cost is and if you force those bots too loose money they typically have enough where they wont see it for days. Beat the price on one server where the TS guy makes stuff for free.
 
If someone is bulk selling below market, and I know it's not going keep getting replenished at that lower price, I'll make contact with the seller and try to setup a buying system. You can usually work them down lower than the low price they are advertising if you start buying everything that they're selling.

It's been some years, but I used to buy from a raid guild on Phini and resell. It's a bit different now with bazaar and static buying / selling, but you can make it work.
 
... There are people on my server autopricing at 20-40% below bottom price ... Are people really this dumb? ... IDK what goes through these people's minds. Venting, but this is some extreme pricedropping in a short period of time. ... Anyone else encountering this?

I hate the opposite more; artificially inflating prices. I see a lot of effort going into skewing prices high. Competition will naturally drive prices down to their balance point. What you're experiencing is market normalizing, it's just not the frequent 'norm' anymore. Especially on FV. Prices spike back and forth as sellers at both ends tip the balance around. With the modern situation in EQ, I would expect that extra volitility.

Regardless, you're simply complaining your margin isn't high enough in the end. If the margin isn't high enough: pick a different sector, improve the efficienies of your process, or go 'out of business'. That's how open markets work. It's worth remembering that a lot of players are not trying to be billionaires, pay bills irl through EQ, or well-equip a box crew. I would not assume players are pricing in ignorance or stupidity. Their behavior is simpler than that. They are pricing at a profit margin they are satisfied with ... wether they realize it or not.
 
If someone is bulk selling below market, and I know it's not going keep getting replenished at that lower price, I'll make contact with the seller and try to setup a buying system. You can usually work them down lower than the low price they are advertising if you start buying everything that they're selling.

It's been some years, but I used to buy from a raid guild on Phini and resell. It's a bit different now with bazaar and static buying / selling, but you can make it work.

Keep it simple, if you figure out a rotation...have them do a set price...for a set number of items...then you can go above then with a small margin with an equal count...and so on for the next person. There aren't usually a ton of ts product makers...sooner or later they'll figure out and fall in line....best approach is to always build good trade partnerships. Rotations usually work well if everyone respects it.
 
What does that have to do with anything. When I say production costs I mean flat out vendor mats required for recipes, not whatever people are charging in baz

Toe...if you source your own components the production costs are a lot lower, i think that's what Sum1 may be aluding to. If you're doing your own farming, then your only true cost is what you're mentioning. Otherwise you're paying for vendor mats + raw mats from suppliers.

EX: If i'm farming all my own Velium Infused Spider Silk, Raw Velium Ore, and Velium Infused Pelts...my production costs for TOV armor are extremely low. Not sure if that hits the mark, but it may be what he's alluding to. As long as my sales are more than those costs i'm the green. It doesn't matter what baz traders are charging
 
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