#¤%#¤ people undercutting prices!

[Reflan]

Baking is a notoriously easy skill with a notoriously sellable product, so it's probably one of the most popular skills to practice. On many if not most servers, it's fairly futile to try to make money off items that so many people are making just to skill up on. And the stuff takes up so much room that people are virtually forced to dump massive quantities of their stock as soon as possible or they won't be able to do any more combines at all -- or loot anything else or work on any other skills, whatever.

Annoying for sure, but in some way they're forced into it.

What annoys me far more is people doing that with something like cultural, though, or high end pottery, which has a limited market and where price-crashing sets prices that tend to stay fixed forever unless they get even worse. Really good stuff that is expensive and difficult to make and requires very high skill not easily earned is disappointing to see the market crash on because people have to price war so they they can sell their item this very second instead of in an hour or two or tomorrow.

[Suva]

People now will also raise just baking for the platters in the aid grimal quest. You can make those without doing any of the rest of the quest. They make a good food, but since are no drop then everyone who wants them needs high baking skill.

[Rissenn]

Rewde - out of that money, around 50pp is what I fail on the combine for picnic baskets or woven mandrake.
Both are trivial for me, yet I fail a lot when I combine them.

Im going to get my tailoring up a bit more this evening to see if that helps.

[Cigarskunk]

Originally posted by Cantatus
The way I figure it is: they don't have an unlimited amount. They'll sell out eventually and then people will have to buy the more expensive ones. With the way I've sold Halas Pies, that doesn't always take too long. I've had people buy 200 pies from me before.

If you recall, the problem is that these people are restocking, so it's not just someone who's skilling up and the odds are against enough folks buying out the undercutters in one night for others to be able to make thier own sales.

Another problem is that many people get the impression that the undercutter price is the new correct price instead of treating it as the windfall that it really is. Thus, unless they're desperate for the item now, they simply wait until the undercutters come back to get the better deal - a 3pp price difference on a 200 pie purchase is 600pp - you need to be seriously rich before you don't care about overpaying that much.

[Kytelae]

It's not just skillup items that this happens with. Someone on Xev has managed to drop the price of Blessed Fishing Rods to half what it was just by aggressively price-cutting against anyone else selling them. He's got a big inventory and seems to be online and observing prices 24/7.

Now mind you, there's a lot of profit you can cut into on BFRs and still make money, but the return for all that foraging gets pretty slim.

[Eumerin]

lol

I'm not on your server, but one of my guildmates more or less decided to sell fishing rods for less than the market price just because he thought the price on them was too high.

I don't know what he sold them for (never bothered to check), and I don't know what they're going for on your server, but I always find complaining about lower prices on fishing rods somewhat amusing.

[Kytelae]

Well I don't think that's the case here, because I know he jacks his price back up if no one else is selling. But you're right, the price on them used to be very high. Since they aren't skillup items though, if they don't make a good profit there's not really any reason to make them. I could spend my foraging time getting furs for Haversacks instead.

[Reflan]

Strangely enough, some people are almost impossibly bad at making money. They don't explore new places or try new things, and when they get one thing that works for them, they lock on hard and for good, even if it doesn't work well at all.

There will always be the occasional high-level, for instance, who is happy spending huge amounts of time to make one or the other tradeskilled items for incredibly small profits -- even undercutting others to make his own profits as small as possible, permanently; that guy at that level could do almost anything else conceivable and make much more money much more quickly and with less overall hassle, but -- he doesn't want to.

One of those guys is all it takes to permanently wreck a market, and there's always one.

Some people, frankly, play as if they are full-time money makers who...don't care if they don't make any real money. Go figure!

[Cigarskunk]

Originally posted by Eumerin
lol

I'm not on your server, but one of my guildmates more or less decided to sell fishing rods for less than the market price just because he thought the price on them was too high.

That is one of the most dangerous players around - the Robin Hood wanna-be's who think it's thier mission in life to save the consumers from the evil, greedy tradeskillers who are out to exploit them with overpriced tradeskill items - sigh.

Why can't people like this pick on farmers instead?

Why can't this guy say to himself "Gee, Windblades are just too expensive at 30k, I think I'm going to keep farming these suckers and selling them at 5k till every SK and Pally on Norath can afford one."

WHY do these people always have to pick on the tradeskillers? We've got enough problems with market flooding from folks skilling off items, over charging for raw materials and macro-philes ruining our profit items - why must we also be cursed with these pricing vigilanties to boot????????????????????

@#$%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Maisie]

Originally posted by Sulkano
Most likely it was someone skilling up. Ah, the joys of Aid Grimel! On Fennin there was someone selling Solstice robes for 50p the other day....the truly sad thing was he wasnt selling them. Pretty soon we are going to be seeing stuff on NPc vendors

It has happened on Fennin , I bought my robe for my earring off the gnome vendor in SH, for 16pp......

And she has more too : /

Maisie McDoodle

Council of Dragons

Fennin Ro

[Zacatac]

I bought my robe for my earring off the gnome vendor in SH, for 16pp

I would have bought them all.

[Sulkano]

I wouldnt have. One Fennin at least, there are so many folks (myself included) that are doing the Aid Grimel quest that Solstice robes and and many other TS made things are nearly worthless. And, in my opinion, it only going to get worse...as more folks get flagged and begin the quest, and (even more damaging) as more and more gear from the new zones floods the market. As it is, the markets for cultural armors, and even low-end planar stuff has been obliterated by the huge influx of ornate and drops from HoB and Sol C. While I agree the 'market' is becoming bloated and unwieldly, in the end I feel little sympathy for the economy any more. While I am an avid tradeskiller, and someday plan to be part of the 1750 club...I do it because I enjoy it. If I want to make any money, these days its faster to simply farm it.

[Eumerin]

Originally posted by Cigarskunk
[B]That is one of the most dangerous players around - the Robin Hood wanna-be's who think it's thier mission in life to save the consumers from the evil, greedy tradeskillers who are out to exploit them with overpriced tradeskill items - sigh.

Why can't people like this pick on farmers instead?

Why can't this guy say to himself "Gee, Windblades are just too expensive at 30k, I think I'm going to keep farming these suckers and selling them at 5k till every SK and Pally on Norath can afford one."

WHY do these people always have to pick on the tradeskillers? We've got enough problems with market flooding from folks skilling off items, over charging for raw materials and macro-philes ruining our profit items - why must we also be cursed with these pricing vigilanties to boot????????????????????

Heh.

He also didn't mind making a buck off of it. More power to him.

And the market responded. Prices dropped. People didn't quit selling the fishing rods. They dropped their prices instead. I think he still continues to sell them, too.

That's the way the market is supposed to work, however. He was poor. It wasn't as if he could afford to buy the various fishing rods for sale and sell them at one plat per. He simply decided that 1500pp was too much for the item in question. I don't know what he dropped the price to, but I'm sure its still more than I make off of a single charge of KEI looting fs weapons and phosphorous powder in LGuk.

He had a druid and a second box, so getting the required items was simply a matter of patience. And he could make a tidy profit from it, especially since his fishing skill was already maxed from other activities.

Whoever can bring the goods to market for the least amount of money makes the sale.

If the market were selling cultural armor for 1,000,000,000pp, and someone came along and provided it for a tenth of that price, that would be their right.

[Draggar]

Things are only worth what people are willing to pay for them.

That is true in the game and in real life.

[Serenya]

Originally posted by Zacatac
I would have bought them all.

As soon as I read the post I logged in to at least get enough robes for everyone in my group. Someone had killed the gnome. /sigh