First, this is not a flame post or a post for venting. I simply want to get some feedback from other individuals who regularly sell and are successful on the GOLD AH. The question is simple: are any of you noticing that it has become increasingly difficult to get items to sell? I consider myself quite a good seller. I search through pages upon pages and various filter options when listing a high-end item up so that I can price it fairly, and this last time around all ten of my auctions returned unsold. This was the first time this has happened since release. Three of my friends who regularly play the game are also experiencing difficulty selling items on the Gold AH.
Are my friends and I simply at a low point, or are some of you noticing similar trends?
Secondly, what do you think could be the cause of it? I personally don't think it's because everyone prefers to buy from the RMAH, since there must be plenty of players out there like myself who still only buy gear with gold. I'm thinking it might just be a general decline in the playerbase, or maybe it could be because many people now only sell good items on RMAH and therefore have no gold to buy high end items with anymore. I know that would be the case for me, except that I'm currently trying to earn as much gold as possible to buy the EG Gloves pattern, at which point I'll go back to RMAH selling.
First, this is not a flame post or a post for venting. I simply want to get some feedback from other individuals who regularly sell and are successful on the GOLD AH. The question is simple: are any of you noticing that it has become increasingly difficult to get items to sell? I consider myself quite a good seller. I search through pages upon pages and various filter options when listing a high-end item up so that I can price it fairly, and this last time around all ten of my auctions returned unsold. This was the first time this has happened since release. Three of my friends who regularly play the game are also experiencing difficulty selling items on the Gold AH.
Are my friends and I simply at a low point, or are some of you noticing similar trends?
Secondly, what do you think could be the cause of it? I personally don't think it's because everyone prefers to buy from the RMAH, since there must be plenty of players out there like myself who still only buy gear with gold. I'm thinking it might just be a general decline in the playerbase, or maybe it could be because many people now only sell good items on RMAH and therefore have no gold to buy high end items with anymore. I know that would be the case for me, except that I'm currently trying to earn as much gold as possible to buy the EG Gloves pattern, at which point I'll go back to RMAH selling.
What are your thoughts?
RMAH will have impact on higher end items but since they buffed drop rates people don't need gear as much as they used to from the AH. Since people are also obtain gear easily the prices in the AH are very low for easy upgrades (I'm talking less than 15K).
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Playing Diablo since 97. I know nothing and having nothing good to say, I be a troll.
Decent items that I would sell for moderately low prices (20-50k) are not selling anymore. If I sell 2/10 auctions before they expire, I'm lucky. Awesome helms with RA and a socket sell like hotcakes for me on the other hand.
This is happening to me as well. I am forced to sell 900+ DPS shit for almost nothing. They still end up unsold most of the time. I guess people are using the RMAH now instead.
Could be a shift to RMAH. Could be that the increased drop rates (1.03 in total not just today) are making people less likely to buy. It could be that the "hard-core (not HC characters) players" are done playing/buying and we are now seeing the market settle with respect to more casual players. Or simply the bubble burst. The economy will always be in a state of flux and today's changes are going to likely be big.
No, I think people are leaving the game. Most people only play games for a month or so and then leave. Less people playing means less buying and selling on the ah, this in conjunction with the increased +1 rare per elite with NV and the increased droprates and the nerfs on act2-onward means there is more average gear and under aviable per player than before and less new people per day that joins inferno and needs brand new average or worse gear.
That isn't the only cause. Frankly if you look at gold value vs. the going rate of "average," gear on the gold AH the disparity is terrible and it wasn't good prior to the patch either. If you spend a month farming gold in act1 inferno, chances are you're going to have at least a portion of that gear from your own drops now that it is possible to farm act1 without much difficulty.
Repair costs are factoring hugely into it, of course, since that is the big gold sink. Honestly, the biggest issue is likely to be the instant gratification crowd "quitting," or simply biding their time on alts they can self-gear. I am not alone in the community as someone who has yet to make much use of the AH simply because I find the gear hunt to be part of the game I enjoy.
The resulting economy leaves much more gear in the realm of vendor trash which only makes the game easier on me, since I would rather be killing monsters than listing things on the AH.
tl;dr: Supply is way out in front of demand because the AH is full of mediocre things people can find a substitute for. More ideal/perfect items will continue to hold value, but expect the low-mid range market to become mostly vendor trash in the near future. FOTM class/builds will prop up some mid-value items. Invest in barb gear :D.
If it eventually leads to reasonable pricing on both auction houses, that would be great. 250$ for digital items in a rapidly changing game? How about no.
I have noticed that prices for low/mid items have fallen, but higher end items are skyrocketing in price. I'm still able to sell stuff I find, but the mediocre items are just common enough now that the AH is flooded with them.
I think the AH was also very inflated for these low end items, and its taking people a while to realize your 150k item is now worth 15k, so they list it at 150k, someone else sees it there and thinks thats what its worth, and they list theirs at 125k, and so on. Takes a while for people to realize no one is buying at that price. The inability to see actual sales, rather than just what is up there, is also something that can result in lots of unsold items.
Several things:
1) 1.0.3 drop rates and hotfixed drop rates are vastly increasing the number of high quality items on the AH. The sad truth is that the longer Diablo 3 has been out, the more selective buyers have become. Thus, the "pretty good" items from two weeks ago are now vendor trash, and the "super elite" items from two weeks ago are now "pretty good."
2) Split between RMAH and Gold AH
3) Playerbase has become MUCH higher level on average. As the casual crowd fizzles out and we are left with the Hardcore, people don't bother gearing up for Act 4 Hell, or Act 1 Inferno...they buy items for Act 4, or nothing.
Just my theories. There's a lot going on, and I suspect the new drop rates will drive prices of low and mid tier items even further. Super elite items, I'm not sure. Maybe they will stay the same or continue to increase.
I have noticed the opposite. My items have been selling the same or even better than they have been.
I don't track price trends though, it is highly likely the same quality items are selling cheaper, but if you evaluate the current items selling well enough, you can usually price your items to get them to sell.
As the supply of good items continues to grow the prices come down. Personally, I would expect this to continue to happen to good items. The almost perfect items should continue to retain their value for significantly longer.
Good items are becoming easier to sell.
Bad items are becoming harder to sell.
Mid tier items sell like hot cakes.
Good items are any item valued over 15M, bad any item valued under 1M, mid tier is 1M-15M - in my analysis.
More players are understanding that good items aren't just items with big numbers. That sword with 700 dps, and 200% crit hit damage is worth a fortune: and that thing with 1k dps and no stats at all is worthless. I sold a 98% crit hit damage, open socket, 995 loh 395 dps weapon for 6M - sold pretty quick too. people are begining to understnad the importance of other stats(other than sheer damage). More people are looking for trifecta+stat gloves(crit/crithit/asi/vit/dex for example) and less are buying those 250 Dex gloves with no other stats.
As the game matures: so will the buyers. It won't be long now that there will primarily only be good items on the ah even for cheap.
I have also noticed this as well. Last night only 1/10 of my items up in the AH sold.
One thing I've noticed is ilvl61 and ilvl62 weapons are only worth ~1800 at most (salvage for essence). I actually have better luck selling ilvl60 and below weapons. Only thing I hold on to is the really good gear from ilvl 60-63 with near perfects going on RMAH. I usually undercut prices by about 25-30% and they are still not selling. I was able to get a pretty good monk ring to sell on RMAH for 8 bucks (something a bit better was going for $20USD).
But yes I agree the AH is slowing down. And after this new patch, be prepared to see it get even slower.
I would call myself a high volume seller. We expected prices to come down as the cheaters got banned, people left, and of course the drop rates have increased. I am down from about 3-5m per day to about 1-2m per day. Still selling the same amount of stuff all around but the prices have definitely come down. All expected IMO.
Don't forget that the demand for 'average' level 60 items is entirely dependant on the number of people hitting 60. After a month and a half, that number has to be decreasing fast.
The GAH's natural resting place is as a place for picking up middling items for dirt cheap, and for exchanging the best items in the game for serious amounts of gold.
With people farming/crafting everyday, there's more and more mediocre to good items on the AH so prices will decrease and things may not sell. Meanwhile I expect godly gear to continue to rise in price as people play longer and longer and accumulate more gold.
Guys it's economics. Even if absolutely nothing changed between day 1 of release and right now, prices would still be going down. Every week that goes by more people are playing and finding items, so the supply is going up and up but demand is relatively steady. During launch week a 800dps weapon was incredibly rare, now heaps of people are capable of farming higher Acts and those 800dps weapons are far more common so you're competing against more and more people.
If you think about it all items will eventually be worth vendor price, except a very few highly desirable items (perfectly rolled etc).
I've only played HC since alunch (think I've got a lonely level 11 barb with 1900 gold sitting in the purgatory that is my SC account!) so most of my experience stayed the same even with the patches.
HC characters die all the time, and people are levelling alts and gearing backups etc. so there is always a market for the midlevel gears. Also, a dying HC char takes with him a chunk of the economy in gear,gems and follower items, and makes for a very peculiar trading environment.
But on the SC side, I'm sure most of what we are seeing is due to the reasons mentioned in the posts above - increased amount of items flooding the AH, players gearing themselves, the RMAH and GAH split. It will stabilise eventually - excellent items will be going for a premium, while the rest will be selling for peanuts glazed in mansweat.
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Are my friends and I simply at a low point, or are some of you noticing similar trends?
Secondly, what do you think could be the cause of it? I personally don't think it's because everyone prefers to buy from the RMAH, since there must be plenty of players out there like myself who still only buy gear with gold. I'm thinking it might just be a general decline in the playerbase, or maybe it could be because many people now only sell good items on RMAH and therefore have no gold to buy high end items with anymore. I know that would be the case for me, except that I'm currently trying to earn as much gold as possible to buy the EG Gloves pattern, at which point I'll go back to RMAH selling.
What are your thoughts?
RMAH will have impact on higher end items but since they buffed drop rates people don't need gear as much as they used to from the AH. Since people are also obtain gear easily the prices in the AH are very low for easy upgrades (I'm talking less than 15K).
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That isn't the only cause. Frankly if you look at gold value vs. the going rate of "average," gear on the gold AH the disparity is terrible and it wasn't good prior to the patch either. If you spend a month farming gold in act1 inferno, chances are you're going to have at least a portion of that gear from your own drops now that it is possible to farm act1 without much difficulty.
Repair costs are factoring hugely into it, of course, since that is the big gold sink. Honestly, the biggest issue is likely to be the instant gratification crowd "quitting," or simply biding their time on alts they can self-gear. I am not alone in the community as someone who has yet to make much use of the AH simply because I find the gear hunt to be part of the game I enjoy.
The resulting economy leaves much more gear in the realm of vendor trash which only makes the game easier on me, since I would rather be killing monsters than listing things on the AH.
tl;dr: Supply is way out in front of demand because the AH is full of mediocre things people can find a substitute for. More ideal/perfect items will continue to hold value, but expect the low-mid range market to become mostly vendor trash in the near future. FOTM class/builds will prop up some mid-value items. Invest in barb gear :D.
I think the AH was also very inflated for these low end items, and its taking people a while to realize your 150k item is now worth 15k, so they list it at 150k, someone else sees it there and thinks thats what its worth, and they list theirs at 125k, and so on. Takes a while for people to realize no one is buying at that price. The inability to see actual sales, rather than just what is up there, is also something that can result in lots of unsold items.
1) 1.0.3 drop rates and hotfixed drop rates are vastly increasing the number of high quality items on the AH. The sad truth is that the longer Diablo 3 has been out, the more selective buyers have become. Thus, the "pretty good" items from two weeks ago are now vendor trash, and the "super elite" items from two weeks ago are now "pretty good."
2) Split between RMAH and Gold AH
3) Playerbase has become MUCH higher level on average. As the casual crowd fizzles out and we are left with the Hardcore, people don't bother gearing up for Act 4 Hell, or Act 1 Inferno...they buy items for Act 4, or nothing.
Just my theories. There's a lot going on, and I suspect the new drop rates will drive prices of low and mid tier items even further. Super elite items, I'm not sure. Maybe they will stay the same or continue to increase.
I don't track price trends though, it is highly likely the same quality items are selling cheaper, but if you evaluate the current items selling well enough, you can usually price your items to get them to sell.
People start realizing whats "good" items, and whats crap...
and of course, to much shit dropping...
I didnt had a single drop the last three days thats worth selling...
Bad items are becoming harder to sell.
Mid tier items sell like hot cakes.
Good items are any item valued over 15M, bad any item valued under 1M, mid tier is 1M-15M - in my analysis.
More players are understanding that good items aren't just items with big numbers. That sword with 700 dps, and 200% crit hit damage is worth a fortune: and that thing with 1k dps and no stats at all is worthless. I sold a 98% crit hit damage, open socket, 995 loh 395 dps weapon for 6M - sold pretty quick too. people are begining to understnad the importance of other stats(other than sheer damage). More people are looking for trifecta+stat gloves(crit/crithit/asi/vit/dex for example) and less are buying those 250 Dex gloves with no other stats.
As the game matures: so will the buyers. It won't be long now that there will primarily only be good items on the ah even for cheap.
One thing I've noticed is ilvl61 and ilvl62 weapons are only worth ~1800 at most (salvage for essence). I actually have better luck selling ilvl60 and below weapons. Only thing I hold on to is the really good gear from ilvl 60-63 with near perfects going on RMAH. I usually undercut prices by about 25-30% and they are still not selling. I was able to get a pretty good monk ring to sell on RMAH for 8 bucks (something a bit better was going for $20USD).
But yes I agree the AH is slowing down. And after this new patch, be prepared to see it get even slower.
edit: spelling
RMAH has slowed down for me much more then gold.
The GAH's natural resting place is as a place for picking up middling items for dirt cheap, and for exchanging the best items in the game for serious amounts of gold.
If you think about it all items will eventually be worth vendor price, except a very few highly desirable items (perfectly rolled etc).
I've only played HC since alunch (think I've got a lonely level 11 barb with 1900 gold sitting in the purgatory that is my SC account!) so most of my experience stayed the same even with the patches.
HC characters die all the time, and people are levelling alts and gearing backups etc. so there is always a market for the midlevel gears. Also, a dying HC char takes with him a chunk of the economy in gear,gems and follower items, and makes for a very peculiar trading environment.
But on the SC side, I'm sure most of what we are seeing is due to the reasons mentioned in the posts above - increased amount of items flooding the AH, players gearing themselves, the RMAH and GAH split. It will stabilise eventually - excellent items will be going for a premium, while the rest will be selling for peanuts glazed in mansweat.