About prices on good items, profit wins, resellers and other things on the global market

First of all, I would like to emphasize that I do not want to initiate a debate about envy - or how the market works.
For me it is still a game in which I have already achieved what I have set myself as a (little to medium) goal - and there are more important things to me than the game.

So, no hard feelings about the following text - but admiration in a certain way .

What makes me questionable is that it doesn't actually make sense to buy better items here on this (great) platform at the moment.

Every better item, and / or even the 20/20 torches, are constantly bought by the same people - sometimes with several accounts on the go (you can track that quite well) - to make a few runes profit.
You don't even know whether the prices will not be pushed through multiple accounts.
Sometimes you even see buying and trying to sell on the same day ... there's not even any respect in it.


That’s why I’d be interested:

Do you also get annoyed,
do you buy the stuff at overpriced prices,
do you think that the resellers are damaging the market,
or do you generally don’t care?


So for me, try buying these items is broken at the moment - hope that they will move on to ladder play.


To apologize for the whole thing again, a brief explanation of the addendum, especially for new readers:

This posting is not specifically about THIS platform, but about my feeling that something is generally wrong with the market.
Since I am only registered on THIS platform, I have no idea how it is on other platforms. I don't care either.

Schnorki wrote a nice post about this platform that I don't want to copy.

Alsvartr wrote: 3 years ago

Do you also get annoyed,
do you buy the stuff at overpriced prices,
do you think that the resellers are damaging the market,
or do you generally don’t care?

I get annoyed when people ask loaded questions like this, yes.

I get even more annoyed when people say things here are overpriced, but provide no comparisons or factual basis to back themselves up.

I get annoyed when people criticise others for totally valid ways of competing in an open and competitive marketplace.

I get annoyed when people think that the trade section should be a fairyland where respect comes before self interest.

Lastly, I get annoyed by topics that start out with 'I don't want to get into a debate about X' and then proceed to list all the things they don't like about X and ask people for their opinions on X.

These types of topics are inflammatory, they serve no purpose other than for the OP and some others to vent frustration about the state of the market and having to compete with richer, more prepared competitors, typically using this platform or 'here' as their scapegoat.

Hello,

thanks for the answer.

I don't want to list examples, nor names.

As I said, no hard feelings ... I'm just interested in how others think about the development (it's not specifically about THIS platform here).

If you think that this post is going in the wrong direction of envy or the like, then I am sorry and then leave it to you to close the thread.

Alsvartr wrote: 3 years ago

As I said, no hard feelings ... I'm just interested in how others think about the development (it's not specifically about THIS platform here).

But it was, you specifically said that it's a problem you have with this platform:

Alsvartr wrote: 3 years ago

What makes me questionable is that it doesn't actually make sense to buy better items here on this (great) platform at the moment.

So, are you going to explain yourself? You say 'no hard feelings' - but I and others worked our asses off to make this place possible, so when I see topics like this that try to attribute game-wide market problems to this platform in particular, with no examples, it pisses me off, sorry but there's no two ways about it.

Ok ... you shouldn't take this personally now.

I wrote on this platform because I am not signed in to any other.

So I can't KNOW what it's like anywhere else, but I THINK it is the same elsewhere.

So, I can only talk about THIS platform, but did not say that it is ONLY HERE.


If you want an Example, watch the whole 20/20 Torch story, as also mentioned above as an example, without wanting to specify it with names.

Price very much depends on urgency - e.g. if I want

Stone of Jordan right here and now I just pay

Sur + 3

Ist instead of waiting a day and buying it at

Sur/

Sur+ 2

Ist

If I have time and confident in item value I wait and sell it slow - e.g. i was selling small charm 5 allres 5 MF for a week with starting bid

Gul and finished by 3

Vex 2

Ist

I do not mind if some folks are spending their IRL resources and efforts to monitor market and to profit with in-game items - I am even a bit sorry for them, because making IRL job profit makes much more sence

Also you do not really need top items to enjoy the game - e.g. I was playing with my sorc torch 10/10 I bought 3 months ago until tomorrow and bought 20/13 at the same price now when torch market is dropped

Arbitrage trading is really just a natural aspect of any open market with more than 1 platform. Sometimes even within 1 platform. In the context of D2, it is just a valid alternative income stream to active farming. While I myself prefer farming over trading and hence don't use any platforms but this one, I don't blame people who do. Not saying I never took any arbitrage opportunities but in my case, they're limited to randomly spotting a crazy deal in-game and snatching that up to then sell either here or just in-game again which happened like maybe 2 or 3 times total.

That having been said, if you have a problem with traders price-gouging, then this platform (maybe others in a similar way, I wouldn't know that) is probably actually the best tool to defend yourself. Simply because you're not stuck with a snapshot of current offers but you can actually go back and look at a price history and (sometimes more importantly) a trade history for the person making you an offer. If you see that person is offering you something for

Ohm+ that they themselves literally bought not even a day ago for a

Mal, you may want to question that. That's a true story btw..I got that suuuper generous offer here. :p
If you need something bad enough, sure, you might choose to still overpay. In fact, I regularly overpay (at least slightly) on certain things just because I want them now (patience is overrated) but that is then my own fault and not something to blame on a broken system. Traders want to (rightfully) make a profit just as much as farmers do. And since their gouged trades slowly drive up pricing over time, farmers also make more profit for their sales and in the end, everything evens out again anyways.

Added bonus tool here (which I was just recently made aware of and absolutely love!) is you can actually squelch that **** who tries to

Ohm+ gouge you on something with

Mal value and hide their posts within your trades from people, effectively not just wasting their time but fully preventing them and their price spiking at least within your trades.

Side note:
Arbitrage traders actually do you a service, believe it or not. The fact that they sell their items across multiple/all platforms to maximize their profit actually not only makes those items available on all said platforms, meaning you don't have to scout all of them yourself to find the 1 platform with that rare piece of gear on offer. But in the long run, it also means that prices (roughly) even out across all platforms and in-game, meaning you again don't have to worry about more than 1 platform yourself because the others won't be significantly cheaper/more expensive on average anyways.

Bruh, you think this market is bad, you should try the stock market...

Maybe one day I'll be able to trade some Gamestop shares for a few

Ber

Alsvartr wrote: 3 years ago

Ok ... you shouldn't take this personally now.

I wrote on this platform because I am not signed in to any other.

So I can't KNOW what it's like anywhere else, but I THINK it is the same elsewhere.

So, I can only talk about THIS platform, but did not say that it is ONLY HERE.


If you want an Example, watch the whole 20/20 Torch story, as also mentioned above as an example, without wanting to specify it with names.

Some people like to min/max the game. I have seen griffons diadems change hands, all of them trying to make profit. Same as other items. In my personal opinion, thats not how I like to play the game. I hork some runs out, and then make a decision to purchase or not based on the market, how things are sourced and my needs.

For example. I will wait a bit more until I buy an

Annihilus, but just purchased a 4BO CTA because it was affordable.

No matter what platform you choose, there will be people trying to play the market. Thats also how real markets work, even worse in D2R, where regulations are very loose.

The Diablo 2 market is just not very efficient. That’s going to be the case for every platform you use or trading in game.

That said, I’ve found D2.

Io to be a really convenient source for both procuring and selling items, and ultimately that should be your endstate - to sell what you don’t need in order to buy what you need so you can further enjoy the game.

I’m really not worried about what those item flippers do. I can’t control it - I’m just going to enjoy the game within what’s currently possible.

Haha dude. You’re in for a treat if you stick around a little bit. If you think these prices are bad? You haven’t seen anything yet. Things are on sale right now. 10 hrs for a jmod? 2-3hrs for a griffons? That’s childsplay. In LoD I paid 40+

Ber/

Jah for 1 45L paladin combat skiller. Cta 6-6-4 was 25 high runes. Today I have 20-20 anni and 23-20 griffons I didnt even have that back in the day in non ladder because you couldnt buy then for high runes you needed jsp forum gold because the prices where so high xD

Im so glad I wasn't around for those years.

Maybe im showing my age, but back in my day, these "

Ber" required runewords didnt exist and everyone ran around trying to find a

Windforce.

Ladders didn't exist, most of the items in the game were dupes. Sometimes they would disappear.

Those were the days...

First of all, big thanks for the constructive contributions.

Just had to think about it, and had researched ... I had played before Enigma and Grief.

But there were already dupes, also we tested it at the time (interested in purely technical matters), but never put it into circulation.

Breath of the Dying was released with patch 1.07, the patch came in the summer of 2001.
That was the item I wanted. Before that, of course, as already written,

Windforce, Grandfather, even Deathbringer ... never found it.

Enigma came with 1.10, that was in October 2003. I didn't play anymore because we all switched to Dark Age of Camelot (October 2001).

Back then I still had an 1.08

Vampire Gaze, where I got almost an entire account with Stone of Jordans for (were definitely legit, huh? ), and then I was able to afford a few good things.


And yes, a platform like diablo2.io didn't exist back then.

Hopefully we won't get a massive price explosion then, and Blizzard has the dupes under control.

Briefly back to the actual topic.
I see it the same way as with the Playstation 5.
They are (were?) limited, are bought up and sold at a higher price.
I just don't like that, although I don't even want the console .

To the OP. Nope, it personally doesn't bother me at all. If the resellers have the time and effort to buy an item off me and sell it higher, I personally don't care. When I was selling my torch for say

Ohm that's all I wanted. If they can get

Ohm

Ist so be it. If they can get a

Lo... Well I probably didn't price it correctly and it's really my fault.

Defo annoying but you'd probably like to think you'd act a certain way if you had the same resources these whales did but who knows really.

Can't hate the player and it's a free market/"fairness" can be a relative thing.

So the gist I got from this post; could the market be manipulated by organized groups to set prices on items ? Like groups of traders making inflated deals to boost prices to dump items.

As I see it - people start puttin more effort to their dealin aspect of gameplay when they suffer from long dry streaks. You're workin long and hard, spendin hours and days - but these slippery runes just avoid you. Naturally, you start seekin the way to obtain these from merchandise - and this is where you stock-brokerin CtA deals, or that

Lo/

Sur or

Ber/

Jah loophole. Some might stick so close to the process that they actually stop farmin and playin themselves - what's the point if you're already 96, for example, xp doesn't grow, and no runes drop?

Just sayin this type of thinking also exist - for some it's based on greed, some actually love bargainin aspect, some are refuse to kill the mobs because they tired already, some are too pessimistic and disappointed by dry streak (my case).