I've been noticing recently that the market on my server(erica) has gone totally. No one really buys things anymore.
The only thinigs that seem to have a value and actually get sold are augmentation stones.
Is this the same accross all servers, or is erica just suffering from a lack of players. I personally feel that more people are blowing money on these augmentation stones than bothering with other things like enchanting or new gear, thus killing the marketplace.
Well I think a big part of it is the no trade/no drop thing. If you get a good augment, or any at all, you can't get rid of the weapon unless you take it off. So if you get a really good one you're "stuck" with the weapon.
I've had to hold off doing many augments just because lots of my characters share the same one. My SE/SH both use the SOV for example
It is not agumentation, it is the let-down of Interlude that caused many players to leave the game. Less players = less buyers. Those players who are rich and already have hordes of weapons and armor in their werehouse are less likely to leave then those who don't have much adena and still need to buy all their equipment.
Thus, you have many people who still need to buy equipment leaving, while those who have drac bows and full sets of boss jewels who don't need to buy anything staying. Basically, this crashes the market.
How to fix this: eveyone move to the more populated servers. (Bartz, Teon, Franz)
All I see now is sellshops, hardly any buyshops like there used to be. I had assumed though that people were tending to blow money on augmenting instead of enchanting though.
Crystal prices are up, enchants are down, Nothing else is really selling.
Well I can buy Top A/S Grade weapons for the price of some of those high grade lifestones (which can give a useless augmentation to you, I've gotten a few to drop and tried them on my weapon and they were useless, not even a graphic or clickie/passive effect - one gave 100 CP yey useful!).
You can buy a +4 SoM/Acumen for the price of a High/Top Grade 61+ lifestone here.
The price on the lesser stones is dropping alot. I think alot of players are blowing their cash on augmentations to try to get a useful effect - and not twinking their alts as much.
The augmentations seem to be dropping ALOT too. My Roomate gets at least 2-3 lifestones a day, and most of them were mid or high grade (46/49/55).
My roomate (necro) got a high grade 55 lifestone drop and it gave him passive chance guidance.
A week before interlude, I could buy low/sell 1 mil higher on cheap gear (buy avadon from a desperate person for 13 mil, sell at cost for 15 mil - normal price). I had to auction for 3 days to sell it after I upgraded my robe set, and I had to sell it at a deficit. No one is buying much of anything.
No healthy influx of new recipes = typical things (gemstones, crystals, mats) are not getting bought.
exactly. the genius idea of making the Interlude weapons drop from lvl 80+ mobs on Dyno Isle is simply beyound words.
I saw a recipe for the new bow a few days and ****, it would be much cheaper to BUY a Drac bow than crafting that thing
that's how it has always been - highest c grade parts drop from b grade mobs, b grade from a, ...
do mind that current s grade items are the lowest ones and, besides the fact that they are new, it looks expensive because high s grade is not available yet. i expect high s grade recipes/mats to be much harder to get than those from dino island. additionally, the prices are high because farmers cannot bot in dino island (mobs have large aggro range) and that is a good thing although they might have exaggerated a bit with difficulty :T
i can imagine that availability of new Interlude recipes could make market better but i don't see how the lack of them could make market worse, there are many other things to craft besides these new weapons.
imo the market started to crash some time after C5 (i have even made a post then about weird changes on the market) and Interlude only made it worse. there are many new things that are slowly killing it - easily obtainable and cheap item replacements (clan armors, shadow weapons), new adena sinks (augmentation system, teleport fees, death debuffs), making subclass quest harder (meaning less subclasses and less demand for lower grades), players quitting the game, events with too many drops (especially heart event at the beginning of current year, it significantly lowered my earnings for a bunch of weeks), ...
The market's at an all-time low on my server, and I'm liking it! I can get new armors and weapons for cheap, and stock up on consumables (bsoe's, brez, etc) while AA is at the lowest it's ever been (currently 1:1).
The market will come back again. It might not be for a while. So take advantage of the low prices now and reap the rewards later.
Augments haven't been around long enough to impact the market to this degree, but eventually the market, especially enchant scroll sales and overenchant weapon sales, will see a decline as people opt for augmentation over overenchanting as a means of gaining competitive advantage. I'm not saying that overenchants will stop altogether, because there will always be OE addicts, but the average gamer will prefer to augment rather than risk breaking a weapon.
Like I said, the prices on A Grade and above are insane (IMO). 135Mil+ for a base weapon and 100 Mil for armor sets - 40-70 Mil for Jewel Sets. Augmentations, even not being here long enough, have been enough of a money sink on the server to put people in the position where they have to compensate for what they spent on them (High/Top Augmentations costing as much as a Top A Grade Armor Set/Weapon with SA). Becasue your chance of getting something useless on an augmentation is as low as ever - people have spend billions of adena on it.
GL finding OE A/S mage weaposn on Bartz. I suspect the people who have OE'd mage weapons are either so rich they have about 5 of them to enchant in case they break one, or they Enchanted using Blessed Scrolls so that they could not break them. The items cost so much that the gains from OE are not worth the risk breaking it - especially once you've gotten it to +4/5.
What the market needed was for Interlude to bring a little more innovation to the game, a weapon or two at each grade, maybe another SA (that is useful) for mage, melee, and priest types; Another S/Ag armor set, and somewhat more accessible A/Sg recs.
By putting the recs on Dino island, they have basically made it near impossible for over half of each server to ever obtain them, and since you cannot bot there due to the agro radius - they've also insured that when the items DO start to pop up, the prices will be so insane to compensate for the legit players' time and effort in getting it that few people will be able to afford it.
This means that 80% people will continue to wear their A grade gear, and use their A grade weapons - and the prices will continue to rise because more and more people/subclasses are getting to those levels. Bots don't buy gear, they only sell it - Dino island was a good way to prevent them from mudflating the market with Interlude gear/weapons/items, but it did great harm to server economies that could have been balanced out a bit more had they done it a different way.
And BTW Enchant Scroll prices have jumped up quite alot in the past month or so (since Interlude release).
All the gear that I had used for B Grade deprecated in price so much that I lose almost half the value selling it after I got to A grade, making it that much harder to afford the Ag gear.
It will soon be more profitable to crush the items and sell the crystals at the rate the market is currently declining. People are selling high but buying at less than cost, and sticking to their guns (even when they claim they are desperate to sell such items).
The new stuff are usually always in the new areas. Wait till Kamael comes in then the Dino herds will get thinned and EVERYBODY including your grandma's cat will be in there fighting for a spot.
If the Dino herds get thinned out a bit, and the agro radius' fixxed, that will be good. But, you still need to be high level to go there and get it (or even equip the items, since most are S Grade). My grandma's cat is not level 75+, not to mention in a top alliance on the server (they will most probably control those areas).
Ag is 61 - 74. I can guarantee there are alot more players looking for Ag gear than Sg gear. The problem that I was trying to illustrate is that the rarity of the items, and their placements has caused prices to rise because there are now more players moving to Ag than there are players moving out of Ag - or into different sets of Ag gear. That is a consequence of L2's design, with it's "build-type" equipment system (unlike most other MMOs).
Interlude basically added close to nothing for 90% of legit L2 players, except weapon augmentation money sinks and an enlarged map. The game is not evolving to keep up with the leveling pace of the player base, especially with the subclass system, which encourages players to keep gear/weapons and not sell it.
If the Dino herds get thinned out a bit, and the agro radius' fixxed, that will be good. But, you still need to be high level to go there and get it (or even equip the items, since most are S Grade). My grandma's cat is not level 75+, not to mention in a top alliance on the server (they will most probably control those areas).
Ag is 61 - 74. I can guarantee there are alot more players looking for Ag gear than Sg gear. The problem that I was trying to illustrate is that the rarity of the items, and their placements has caused prices to rise because there are now more players moving to Ag than there are players moving out of Ag - or into different sets of Ag gear. That is a consequence of L2's design, with it's "build-type" equipment system (unlike most other MMOs).
Interlude basically added close to nothing for 90% of legit L2 players, except weapon augmentation money sinks and an enlarged map. The game is not evolving to keep up with the leveling pace of the player base, especially with the subclass system, which encourages players to keep gear/weapons and not sell it.
On the light servers the impact is the hardest. Cash flow is few and far between. Less people buying, less people selling. Prices go up, etc, etc.
Bartz hasn't been too bad. If anything the rich people buying up high grades of any level hoping for a good augment has helped out the impoverished of L2. ^^
But the exodus of real players is finally taking its toll. With the new sinks and binded gear, servers can no longer maintain small amounts of players anymore. If no one buys much, the farmers will quit selling, then quit farming, then move to another cash cow. Prices and mats with low supply on all low pops will sky rocket. More players quit, viscious cycle.
Prices and mats with low supply on all low pops will sky rocket
Or *gasp* your clan BHs and Manor toons will actually be able to fulfill the roles they were meant to.
Had farmers never entered the L2 picture, I suspect that we'd only now, at least only relatively recently, be seeing people entering the S-grade gear (levels, sure, but not the gear). Without the farmers, the mats just would not have been available for the amount of top-teir, OE'd gear out there, which could have brought a number of otherwise out-of-control elements back into the realm of managability.
Prices and mats with low supply on all low pops will sky rocket
Or *gasp* your clan BHs and Manor toons will actually be able to fulfill the roles they were meant to.
Had farmers never entered the L2 picture, I suspect that we'd only now, at least only relatively recently, be seeing people entering the S-grade gear (levels, sure, but not the gear). Without the farmers, the mats just would not have been available for the amount of top-teir, OE'd gear out there, which could have brought a number of otherwise out-of-control elements back into the realm of managability.
Doesn't change the fact that it once again also force basic mat prices over 1k. Inflating gear prices to excessive levels. Even with Manor you still have limited supply. Which will be monopolized. I see your reg date, you remember how it use to be. On top of the 75/3rdclass/Sub/Noble grind, people who have to excessively grind for cash as well. Burning more players out.
Making it harder on newer players because old players had it easy is not the answer for a game that has a thining sub base as it is. Cry as we must NAL2 is addicted to cheap plentiful mats and gear. Farmers have to stay.
Prices and mats with low supply on all low pops will sky rocket
Or *gasp* your clan BHs and Manor toons will actually be able to fulfill the roles they were meant to.
Had farmers never entered the L2 picture, I suspect that we'd only now, at least only relatively recently, be seeing people entering the S-grade gear (levels, sure, but not the gear). Without the farmers, the mats just would not have been available for the amount of top-teir, OE'd gear out there, which could have brought a number of otherwise out-of-control elements back into the realm of managability.
Doesn't change the fact that it once again also force basic mat prices over 1k. Inflating gear prices to excessive levels. Even with Manor you still have limited supply. Which will be monopolized. I see your reg date, you remember how it use to be. On top of the 75/3rdclass/Sub/Noble grind, people who have to excessively grind for cash as well. Burning more players out.
Making it harder on newer players because old players had it easy is not the answer for a game that has a thining sub base as it is. Cry as we must NAL2 is addicted to cheap plentiful mats and gear. Farmers have to stay.
You think Koreans dont Bot and purchase Adena like crazy too? Its not some sort of fad in NA to pay real money for virtual goods. You think koreans enjoy massive grinds and making very small amounts of adena farming? Most do not, like here with us and farmers.
Koreans are just like you, or me, or jesus over there in the corner, they want to play to have FUN. There is always and always will be, a virtual marketplace for adena/powerleveling etc.
Doesn't change the fact that it once again also force basic mat prices over 1k. Inflating gear prices to excessive levels. Even with Manor you still have limited supply. Which will be monopolized. I see your reg date, you remember how it use to be. On top of the 75/3rdclass/Sub/Noble grind, people who have to excessively grind for cash as well. Burning more players out.
Making it harder on newer players because old players had it easy is not the answer for a game that has a thining sub base as it is. Cry as we must NAL2 is addicted to cheap plentiful mats and gear. Farmers have to stay.
Basic mats, at least, are easier than ever to acquire now, thanks to the Manor system. At this stage, so many Manors, on every server, have been well-run to the point that only the noobiest of the noobie new castle-owners could screw it up.
One of the reason that prices are so high is because there are people willing to pay it. Inflation is cause by an over-abundance of capital within an economic system, not a lack of it. Mats also aren't rare... after all, there's technically a limitless supply of them, you just have to go and get them (like a bottomless oil field... there's limitless oil there, but you still need to drill for it).
Basic mats, especially, are overly expensive because of a) demand and b) RMT has enabled a set of players to have more adena than they know what to do with. Given the availability and ready amount of adena, a large number of players never learned the value of it, there was nothing to give them pause at the thought of dropping 600, 800, 1000+ adena per Animal Bone, for instance. I won't disagree with the statement that L2 players are addicted to cheap, plentiful materials... no argument there... but I think, from a design standpoint, the mechanics of crafting, the amounts of materials required, etc. etc. the devs had in mind that nearly everyone would have WS/BH alts, with fewer, larger clans than we have experienced in NA, with each clan being nearly self-sufficient through their own means, either by obtaining gear through RB runs, tax proceeds, or simply farming and crafting their own items, one member at a time.
Lack of active population (I dont count bots or farmers, who don't participate in regular gameplay) has crippled more than one Korean-born MMO I've played. I had thought, for awhile, that L2 was the exception but it would seem that isn't the case.