New Reaver vs BA Halberd

[Cigarskunk]

http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=5628

Anyone else think that this might have contributed as well to the plunging price of the BA halberd?

[Elmarr Armoursmythe]

A number of reasons for the decline, actually, Cigarskunk:

1) Mudflation
2) Improved access to decent 2Handers (like Reaver, Narandi lance < 20 K now, some Windblades as low as 25K) has pushed non-smiths into dumping their BAH's for low prices
3) Many Paladins prefer Mace of the Fallen Crusader and Sarnak Battle Shield over 2HS (though the 2HS will provide more damage per second at levels above 50)
4) Greater availability of Akheva blood => lower price for components => smiths can charge lower prices
5) More smiths entering the market who can make these
6) Folks getting to higher levels and can afford/get better weapons than BAH

There are others as well. I just think we are seeing what typically happens to a nice tradeskill item that is beginning to get dated. Don't get me wrong, BAH is a great weapon, just I think it's time to be muflated has come for the above reasons
Regards,

[xaanru]

Its not resales killing the prices on these, it's smiths with no patience.

I've watched in the bazar on my server, as known smiths, or smith mules, sit and undercut each other, to speed up their sales. My observation is that it does a LITTLE to help sales, but kills the entire market pretty quickly.

I've watched the average price of Acrylia BPs drop from 3500pp each, down to 1600pp, as more smiths got into the market to sell them, and each somehow figured he/she could corner the market by undercutting.

Well, now there is some guy who has bags full of Acrylia BP's and legs for 1k each. I'm still baffled as to how this guy is making money making them (if he is). I do know for sure it is no reseller.

[Ilona]

I've seen the same guy, as I'm on the same server as Xaanru, and it's really annoying. I had to price the acrylia bp my bf was wearing up till the weekend at 1k as well, otherwise it won't sell

On the other hand, I'm sure I priced the enchanted full plate (silver) greaves too low at 1600 (matching the acrylia ones), since they sold really fast.

/sigh
I'll never get the pricing right :?

[Zacatac]

There has been a HUGE drop in price on 2-handers ever since PoP. I've seen BAH for 2500, Argent protector 6k, Greatsword of Discipline 12k, Nerandi's Lance 15k, Windblades 25k.

There was another one out there that dropped in high level PoP zone (can't recall name). But it was 2-hander with stats around BAH level (no proc) and dropped so often that 12 or more for sale every day, and as low as 200pp !

[Eumerin]

That would almost certainly be the Weighty Polearm. Very nice weapon, but lore, and there are plenty of them out there (they drop off of fairly common mobs in PoJ), which means the market is now flooded with the things. They'd be the new Centi weapon except that they have a recommended level.
On a related note, I replaced my Centi Warspear with a Honed Velium Lance, and I can't get rid of the Warspear for even a measly 50 plat.
A good part of the problem, I think, is that VI seems to pay little regard to the value of items when determining what merchants will pay for them. If you don't want high-level dropped weapons ending up in the hands of newbies (Most guides these days for melee classes seem to start out with - "Save up a couple hundred plat and buy a centi shortsword". Also note that with the latest prices on warspears on my server, every last one of these guides is outdated.) then get the merchants to pay a decent amount of cash for them. Eventually, the bazaar market on common items is going to drop to exactly 1cp above what vendors will pay for them, and if vendors aren't paying much, then you'll end up with newbs that are better equipped than the level 50 players of yesteryear.

[Zacatac]

Yes, thank you. That is indeed the one.

Weighty Polearm
LORE ITEM MAGIC ITEM
Damage: 29
Delay: 34
AC: +15 Agi: +15 Fire Resist: +10 HP: +35
Weight: 9.5
Weapon Skill: Two Hand Slash
Classes: Warrior Shadowknight Paladin Ranger
Races: All Races
Inventory Slot: Primary Melee
Recommended level: 50

And I've seen these for 200pp. So you wonder why BAH prices are dropping now? :?

[EanMoonshadow]

Maybe it's just now finding it's correct place?

I see lots of talk and dispair over the market value of the BAH going down. The talk seams to generally say "we have to act to prevent this", but i suggest the BAH is coming down from an artificial high that new items experiance when they are rare. It's nice, but I would not pay more then 2k, if that. I get a weighty pole arm on about every trip to PoJ and see lots of nice items for less then 2K. Gentlemen, reality is here.

Watch the windblade, it to will see a sharp decline in price in 60-90 days. Trust me on this It all goes in phases.

Eanamdar Moonshadow
Templar of the 56th Season
Master of all Trade Skills

[Eumerin]

Re: Maybe it's just now finding it's correct place?

I see lots of talk and dispair over the market value of the BAH going down. The talk seams to generally say "we have to act to prevent this", but i suggest the BAH is coming down from an artificial high that new items experiance when they are rare. It's nice, but I would not pay more then 2k, if that. I get a weighty pole arm on about every trip to PoJ and see lots of nice items for less then 2K. Gentlemen, reality is here.

I couldn't care less about the Black Acrylia Halberd pricing.

What DOES bug me is pricing on things such as the Weighty Polearm and the Centi gear. I'm glad that the Polearm has the recommended level limit, because otherwise, we'd see level 1 twinks running around with the things. Centi weapons are eventually going to start selling in the Bazaar for about ten plat each, and while most of the weapons haven't quite hit that low yet, the warspears are nearly there on the Sol Ro server.
VI should at least show an ounce of common sense when designing weapon prices. Maybe Centi gear shouldn't sell for 500 plat to a vendor, but giving it the same sellback price as fine steel weapons (the warspear currently goes for 5pp and change) is rather silly. And if VI made it possible to dump Weighty Polearms for a bit of cash from vendors (you currently can't sell them to vendors at all), then the market probably wouldn't be so flooded with them.

[Bennan]

Agree fully Eumerin.

As an example, one item(s) I always keep an eye out for is Truesilver, which has a high resale value to Vendors. The Coif, for instance, sells for around 120ish pp, to a Vendor.

There are a few of these items, and in most cases you never see the price drop below what the player could get from a Vendor...

My feelings are, that it would introduce an extra cash flow to all the players, but since items would always retain a reasonable sell back price, that extra money would get chewed up from upgrades when a player buys from another. That being, a Centi Longsword sells to vendor for 80pp, therefore the cheapest you will get it in the Bazaar will be 80pp plus sellers extra pricing...

[Taraddar]

Re: Maybe it's just now finding it's correct place?

I see lots of talk and dispair over the market value of the BAH going down. The talk seams to generally say "we have to act to prevent this", but i suggest the BAH is coming down from an artificial high that new items experiance when they are rare. It's nice, but I would not pay more then 2k, if that. I get a weighty pole arm on about every trip to PoJ and see lots of nice items for less then 2K. Gentlemen, reality is here.

I couldn't care less about the Black Acrylia Halberd pricing.

What DOES bug me is pricing on things such as the Weighty Polearm and the Centi gear. I'm glad that the Polearm has the recommended level limit, because otherwise, we'd see level 1 twinks running around with the things. Centi weapons are eventually going to start selling in the Bazaar for about ten plat each, and while most of the weapons haven't quite hit that low yet, the warspears are nearly there on the Sol Ro server.
VI should at least show an ounce of common sense when designing weapon prices. Maybe Centi gear shouldn't sell for 500 plat to a vendor, but giving it the same sellback price as fine steel weapons (the warspear currently goes for 5pp and change) is rather silly. And if VI made it possible to dump Weighty Polearms for a bit of cash from vendors (you currently can't sell them to vendors at all), then the market probably wouldn't be so flooded with them.

Problem is vendor price is a double edged sword. If you have Centi Long swords or spears or weighty polearms or what ever sellings for 500pp or 1kpp or what ever you've just increased the amount of PP coming into the economy by that amount. Giving junk items and weapons like a descent vendor price increases the inflation in the game.

The real problem is that the items don't leave the economy. They don't wear out, they don't break. When your supply is infinite the value of the item can't help but going to nothing over time. This is especially true for "the hot item" like centi long swords or yaks back in the good old days.

Since items don't leave naturally on thier own threw decay they need to come up with different ways to remove them from the economy. The most obvious is threw quests. Things like the rogue epic using the SMR. The robe held it's value alot better than a yak did even tho they are compariable items from the same dungeon.

Take the next solstice earring quest and use a centi long sword and use it in one combines.

Other interesting thing i've heard is turning in items for potions that had 5 or 10 charges and where expendable. Altho it's a bit of a balancing act to make the effect useful enough that people would be willing to go threw the effort and expense to make them with out making them overpowered.

[EanMoonshadow]

Good discussion

Items never wearing out and rarely leaving circulation is indeed the core of many problems. The developers realized this to late. The level restrictions are a great idea, and would have been "the answer", if they had been here since day one.

Merchant sell back is indeed a double edged sword. Merchants offer to little to entice you to sell anything to them that a player will buy at market.

Merchants charge to much for items for you to consider buying the item from a merchant, if a player is selling it.

To make it even worse, merchants won't give you squat for player crafted items, and sell them very low.

No general change will correct this, however item by item buy and sell price tuning would be very beneficial. I can only imagine what that would take to accomplish. I don't look for that type of tuning to ever happen.

That being said, my original post really was not on this topic, but, rather focused on players expecting unreasoniable prices for crafted goods, and then getting upset when they can no longer get those inflated prices. The intent of my post was to point out that all items will drop in price as they become more common.

As far as crafted goods no longer selling, that is a supply/demand vs sell price issue. If it doesn't sell where you have it priced, after a period of time, you have to cut price or be stuck with the item. The seller does not dictate price, the buyer does. If an item gets to the point that you feel it is not woth making anymore, don't.

BAH is finially reaching a point where it is not that rare, and will no longer bring vast amounts of plat. This is both good, and normal.

Some items are late in coming to the point, like new clutural armors. With BD's becoming much more common with PoP, crazy prices on this gear can no longer be justified. The market is not that saturated yet, though. As there is more out there, and as simular quality items enter the game, the price will fall. It's happening now, due to PoP crafted and dropped gear.

The bottom line is, what's happening here is normal, and nothing new. I was a cultural smith pre May, 2002 (way pre May 2002, lol). The "old cultural" BP brought 5-10K easy in those days, it was a seller's market. Now you see them all the time, and you're lucky to get 2K for the inbued/enchanted BP, in the market.

As far as the second issue, yep the deveolpers screwed up. They never thought about the items never leaving play, and the effect that would have on the game. I remember short sword of Ykeska for 5K! , it was the new hot drop. Now you can get one for 50pp, or less.

IMHO items should have to be repaired, or they wear out. The repair should be NPC only, to siphon plat out of the market, and the repair cost should relate to the items value. Perhaps 10% of it's value.

I always thought being able to rent extra bank space would be a good idea as well. 50pp an extra slot, per week, and if you fail to pay the items in that slot are locked until you catch your account up!

Well, just a few thoughts.

Eanamdar Moonshadow

[Kethaniel]

merchant bought items will leave the market

We can probably all agree that that fact that nothing leaves the game is what leads to a lot of these problems. I am not in favor of item decay myself. I am in favor of merchants buying things back at a reasonable price. The reason i prefer that is its just a huge pain to get stuff repaired. Also, if anyone here has player DAoC, item decay there has essentially destroyed the value of any and all equipment. At least when i played, no one even cared what item they were wearing, they just threw on whatever was close at hand. Knowing your sword could break, even if its in great repair, leads to this apathy about equipment i think. And if people are apathetic about their equipment they sure aren't gonna pay us tradeskills much for it.

On the other hand, if merchants bought loot back at a reasonable price less of the items would go to market. There are ppl out there who would rather just sell this centi short sword to a merchant for 80 pp even tho they know they could get 100 from another player. To a lot of folks that 20 pp just isn't worth hassle. This isn't so much the case anymore with the bazaar, but i do think the majority of players would rather have their 80 pp now than wait till someone come along an hour...maybe a day later....and buy it at 100.

But the key to this plan is that merchants MUST sell the loot at a higher price than they buy it for. The best case would be 2 to 3 times the price they buy for. That keeps twinks from just buying stuff from the merchants. I know that would hurt those of us that farm merchants, but for the good of the economy I'll suck it up.

Its a simple case of elementary school mathematics fro there. If more people are selling to the merchants and less people are buying from the merchant the items stay in the merchants inventory. When there is a patch or a zone crash or a repop of NPCs the item go byebye. Then we would have lots of stuff leaving the world and not really much more pp entering the world.

Kethaniel