Achievement for being a successful merchant....

[Energizeric]

I know I made another thread suggesting various new achievements that could be added to the game. But I wanted to post a separate thread on this specific idea.

The 50m & 100m gold achievements were originally suggested as a reward for merchants who were successful in making a ton of money. However, these achievements have clearly been abused by those borrowing money from friends. In the other thread, Love (who is probably the most successful merchant in AL) made a better suggestion:

Achievements based on how much money you have spent overall in auction house fees.... These achievements could be given when you reach the 1m, 5m, 10m, 50m & 100m levels. STG would have to add a counter to the server which keeps track of these fees spent for each player. Instead of showing this number on your stat page, it could be shown when viewing the auction on the "My Sales" tab at the bottom of the screen. It could be labelled "Total Lifetime Auction House Fees" or something similar.

Unlike the the 50m & 100m achievements, these achievements cannot be borrowed or faked, and will really reward merchants who actually use the auction house to buy & sell items regularly.

Adding these achievements will also encourage players to use the auction house instead of just standing in town spamming that they are selling an item.

[Gesaffelstein]

I usually agree on your ideas and I do agree that the 50m and 100m achievements don't mean that much. But isn't non-auction trading a big part of being a merchant?

~

[Soundlesskill]

I like it. It would mean you wouldn't have to have 100m all at one time :/

[Haligali]

Im not sure that this belong here, but i dont like that merchanting is better way to make money, than farming on elite maps where the people are spending plats.

[gundamsone]

@ Ener
Instead of Total Fees change it to Total Sales
There's 2 problems with total Fees spent
#1 anyone can list a 100m item and and accumulate another 5m Fees
#2 Most people don't list in the AH because of the high risk of being undercut and an expired listing so unsold goods shouldn't be counted towards your wealth

Taking off the 5% selling fees, you're really only making 5-10% at most on big ticket items these days.
Meaning, if you want to legitimately earn 100M, you'd probably have to cycle through 1billion-2billion+ in AH sales.

[juaki]

I have another suggestion:

I have a lot of friends here (friend list) and a great reputation between them... then:

I offer you, all friends, to lend me amounts of gold! I write here, who lend me gold and the quantity. When I get the 50/100m gold I trade this amount with all participants in a date and place in order that everyone can get this "funny" achievement.

Because this achievement also means that you can be a great dealer, as great, that you can trade great amounts with a lot of players for getting pets, staffs, achievements, etc...

Obviously I will return all the gold when all friends get the achievement.

[Energizeric]

@ Ener
Instead of Total Fees change it to Total Sales
There's 2 problems with total Fees spent
#1 anyone can list a 100m item and and accumulate another 5m Fees
#2 Most people don't list in the AH because of the high risk of being undercut and an expired listing so unsold goods shouldn't be counted towards your wealth

I'm not suggesting this as a replacement for the wealth achievements. I'm suggesting this be in addition to them.

And no, I prefer the auction fees to total sales....

In answer to your #1, if you were to make it sales, then someone will just list a 100m item in the auction house, and then buy it with their alt. Yes, they would lose 5m in listing fees, but not too high of a price considering they would get every single achievement in this category.

Remember that if we are counting auction fees, then listing a 100m will cost you only 5m in fees. Technically you have to spend 100m in auction fees to get this achievement. Nobody is going to waste that kind of gold just to get the achievement. That means it will be a legitimate achievement that merchants can pursue.

I spend tens of thousands (sometimes hundreds of thousands) of gold on auction fees every day, and I'm sure you do. I do it because I make money doing it. I would not waste that kind of money just to get some achievements.

I suppose there could be some players who have so much gold they would be willing to do so, but I think it would be rare. The best part is that you cannot borrow this achievement from a friend. You actually need to spend the money on auction fees, and once spent that money is gone.

It will actually probably encourage more players to pursue being a merchant as it will have actual achievements attached to it.

[Energizeric]

I usually agree on your ideas and I do agree that the 50m and 100m achievements don't mean that much. But isn't non-auction trading a big part of being a merchant?

I can't speak for other merchants, but for me absolutely NOT. I do 99% of my business in the auction. I find that when I try to sell outside the auction the prices offered are considerably less than what I would get in the auction, even accounting for the 5% auction fee. People expect 20%+ discount.

I also find that you don't need to list your item lower than everyone else for it to sell. For example, two days ago I listed 4 Elite Golden Puzzle Boxes in the auction for 105k. At the time the lowest price for these was 98k. Tonight when I looked the lowest price was 95k, yet 2 of mine have sold, and the other two still have more than 30 hours remaining on the listings. Most likely they will all sell. This has been my experience with most end game "in demand" items.

I also find quite often that someone else undercuts my price on an item, and then mine sells and theirs does not. This means that whoever bought my item did not do a search for that item and was just browsing the listings and decided to buy. This also happens quite often.

[Energizeric]

Im not sure that this belong here, but i dont like that merchanting is better way to make money, than farming on elite maps where the people are spending plats.

Merchants help to keep the prices up on the items that you farm, which encourages more farming.

Also, I paid plat for all of my extra auction slots (I have many of them).

[gundamsone]

Thing is Ener, some people who are bad at merching waste just as much money on AH fees as successful merchants.
Should you reward both these type of players just b/c they wasted the same amount in fees?

And no you're wrong about buying you're way through AH sales.
A. people lose 5%
B. once again you have to "borrow" from a rich friend
C. B won't ever occur b/c the idea of selling 1-2 billion in items is just as EXTRME as EARNING 100M through Pure Merching.
No friend will lend you any amount of gold because to accumulate that much in sales means your so called friend is loosing out on 50-100m in AH Fees alone.

Once again a successful merchant who earns gold is someone with a high listing to selling ratio which simply cannot be measured by "AH Fees Spent".
There are many similarities between sales and fees but total sales will more accurately represent a players level of merching.

Under your scenario:
Player 1 sucks at merch, lists 2B worth of goods and only sells about 500M worth, and earns $100M achievement.
Player 2 is a pro merch, lists 2B worth of goods and sells 1.5B, and earns $100M achivement.

Under my scenario:
Player 1 sucks at merch, lists 2B worth of goods and only sells about 500M worth, 1.5B short in sales for the achievement.
Player 2 is a pro merch, lists 2B worth of goods and sells 1.5B, 500M short for the achievement.

Even though both players spent the same amount on AH fees, clearly player 2 is more successful as a merch however based on your scenario success in getting listings sold has no correlation to the achievement itself.

This is what I was trying to get at. B/c if you can truely earn 100m through the auction house, you'd have ENOUGH sales and also wasted ENOUGH AH Fees to meet both your and my criterias.

[gundamsone]

This is a bit off topic but has some relationship to this thread.
If STS will seriously consider implementing this new achievement then they'd have to take a very good educated guess at what number values to set for the achievement.

In My Case:
My 1-2B valuations might sound extreme, but i've been trying to get back in the merch scene and right now it's a tough cookie with 5-10% margins at most. Sometimes you even lose money if you get cut and your listing expires.
The first 100M that i've earned (a few months back), I was on 15-30% margin (good times yes), so personally if I had to take a whack at how much i've sold & wasted it would definitely be under 2B and 100M fees.

As the game grows, the market becomes more competitive and with the extreme 5% fee listing the market has somewhat become rather stable, which means a very low profit on anything you try to merch (unless you farmed/crated it).
With a more stable market, there's more people willing to give it a shot because there is most definitely less risk as items are constantly being traded hands.

With all that said, I still believe this achievement needs to be either 50M+ in Fees or 1B+ in Sales to be justify-able as a "true mercher" achievement in today's market.

[Alrisaia]

What a cool AP!! Good thought you guys!

I'd like to start seeing a lot more diversity in the LB player AP points - like Total Attainable points: 100k and highest Player currently: 20k or so... seems like that would leave a great deal to strive for and allow for players to pursue their own avenues of interest in order to compete for the LB space.

[Energizeric]

I see your point..... Raise the numbers on the achievement, but make it total sales instead of auction fees paid. Ok, that sounds like a good idea.

So instead of the numbers I posted above, perhaps the achievement should be for total auction house sales in the amounts of 10m, 50m, 100m, 500m, 1b. If they wanted to simply this, they could just do 10m, 100m & 1b.

I think that should work. As I mentioned, it could list "Total Lifetime Auction Sales" on the page that shows your current listings, and it would keep track of this number for each player.

I think this would encourage people to try merching. Even if they only break even on items, they would be adding to their totals towards getting these achievements. It would also encourage people to use the auction house instead of spamming in town trying to sell items, which I think is a good thing.

Also, it would really encourage people to use the auction house to sell very pricey items that they have looted, such as arcane and mythic -- something that many players have been reluctant to do most often.

[Soundlesskill]

How about...

COMPLETLEY DELETING ALL MONEY APs

[Taejo]

Honestly, while this isn't a terrible idea, I don't think the majority of AL players will care/obtain this kind of achievement. The money APs are a dead-end debate in my eyes, and not worth the developers' time/resources to work on. I'd much rather see a wider variety of achievements implemented that cater towards the entire community rather than improving the already broken ones (flags, money, etc.).

Energizeric, please put more time into your New Achievements thread - that is the money maker for STG and the entire community! Your ideas there (as well as other's) are very good.

[Psykopathic28]

This is horrible. Merchants already have tons of gold, some in the hundreds of millions yet they hardly ever enter a map. I think the profits of your success is more than enough reard for standing around all day. You do no need AP that benefit ONLY merchants. They are the people that have the most yet play the actual game the least. They should not be given something that would so obviously set them apart from everyone else when there is no way that someone is the #1 player by doing these things. The #1 player is someone who puts time and effort into pvp and elites and tombs and is a better **gamer** than everyone else. Not by any means should someone be rewarded in rank for being the best business in an rpg.

[falmear]

They should rename this game to Auction Legends. People get confused and think they should be playing a game by killing stuff. They don't realize you're suppose to spend all day standing in front of the auction house buying and selling.

[gundamsone]

They should rename this game to Auction Legends. People get confused and think they should be playing a game by killing stuff. They don't realize you're suppose to spend all day standing in front of the auction house buying and selling.

Why all the hate? Half your comments are giving off the negative vibes.
In MMO's players do w/e they want and if you've actually played a MMO before you know that theres the
Merchers who play to merch
PVE-ers
PVP-ers aka PKers
Role Playing-ers people who dress up and chat

How people play the game is 100% up to them and theres no reason to discriminate against a certain group of players just b/c you think it's not how the game should be played

[gundamsone]

This is horrible. Merchants already have tons of gold, some in the hundreds of millions yet they hardly ever enter a map. I think the profits of your success is more than enough reard for standing around all day. You do no need AP that benefit ONLY merchants. They are the people that have the most yet play the actual game the least. They should not be given something that would so obviously set them apart from everyone else when there is no way that someone is the #1 player by doing these things. The #1 player is someone who puts time and effort into pvp and elites and tombs and is a better **gamer** than everyone else. Not by any means should someone be rewarded in rank for being the best business in an rpg.

So you support borrowing 100m for the achievement yet you don't support people who legitimately earned the 100m?
From your post it sounds like you just want easy accessible achievements regardless of how you obtain it as long as it's easy and do-able in a heartbeat.

Most of what STS considered to be the hard to get achievements in this game have been abused, whether its borrowing 100m off a friend or free flagging in a guild game or farming yourself in a locked game.
If STS adds 500k/1M pve kills or 50k/100k PVP kills or even what's suggested here, it would be extremely hard to abuse.
Only those who are really interested in what they're good at may eventually obtain these achievements.

Not all achievements are meant to be obtained in a short period of time.
That's the selling point of MMOs but most of the players in this forum community do not believe so.

[Psykopathic28]

So you support borrowing 100m for the achievement yet you don't support people who legitimately earned the 100m?
From your post it sounds like you just want easy accessible achievements regardless of how you obtain it as long as it's easy and do-able in a heartbeat.

Most of what STS considered to be the hard to get achievements in this game have been abused, whether its borrowing 100m off a friend or free flagging in a guild game or farming yourself in a locked game.
If STS adds 500k/1M pve kills or 50k/100k PVP kills or even what's suggested here, it would be extremely hard to abuse.
Only those who are really interested in what they're good at may eventually obtain these achievements.

Not all achievements are meant to be obtained in a short period of time.
That's the selling point of MMOs but most of the players in this forum community do not believe so.

if you read my other posts I suggest a lot of difficult achievements such as killing each elite boss 1k times. I am all about challenges, I just don't want an achievement that's gonna force me to spend a lot of time in town when I prefer to be out killing things, which is exactly why ill attempt to borrow like most other players and ill earn my flags and my kills like I always have.

Also I do not discourage marching nor hate on merchants. More power to all of you to stand around and make your fortunes. I just firmly believe AP shouldn't be based on wealth.