Crates and merching them
I have seen many posts from all lvls of players regarding crates and their exp with them. I decided to post mine. The following read will be lengthy, but it works and is how I handle the market with crates. The following includes my exp from opening crates and merching. I left out most names of items and kept a few things for myself. This is a broad overview, nothing to specific. Auction house is our own small version of the stock market. It requires speculation and percentages on our part. Sometimes I find myself burned from incorrect decisions. However, long term I have profited greatly. If click buy, confirm, or sell at the wrong time you will lose gold. It is what it is. Let's go make some lemonade....
1. Read Zaonabiuibil and TheMiraclebird's guides on merchanting
2. Watch TrueOrigin's video tutorial and take notes on what is looted from crates if you don't already know. There is much more here than a person opening a bunch of crates.
3. Bookmark DocDoBig's sticky, AL's timeline. Again, there is much more here than a list of when I got a cool vanity.
Thanks to all above who took the time to post this information
Let's get started
1. I have to climb inside the head of the person opening crates and figure out what is driving them. I need to be careful here and not step on anyones toes. It is human nature to open crates . For many it is not to get rich quick, regardless of what many may say, and anyone that has opened a lot knows this to be true. When I say a lot I'm not talking about a 100 of them. Opening tons of crates is not a way to individually control the market or be the most profitable in game. I can say this though, crates will be opened and they will be opened in great amounts, but not always by the most experienced players in the game. Giving me opportunity to profit.
2. You can actually read this part, go to game and make money. If I were to go to auction right now and buy every single crate up to say 20k gold in value. Then stash them and wait till next event I will profit greatly. No brainer, easy peasy, sure fire way to potentially double your gold. I post this first because it is so simple and effective, go and make money. What if I don't want to tie that much gold and stash spots up for weeks at a time? I know that at some point today someone is going to buy a lot of crates at one time from auction. Remember, it's human nature. PlayerA has a dozen listed at 15k. PlayerB, C, D, and E have underbid PlayerA, with opening price at 12k. I now need to know listing fees or I will not profit. I buy all crates from C, D, and E, leaving PlayerB's crates alone because they are to close in price to A. I now wait for someone to come through and buy the lot of them driving the selling price to 15.5k, I now relist the ones I purchased. You have to be on your toes because this can go fast. Maybe not the quickest way, but you can make lots of gold never even taking "locked" out of your search bar if you are dedicated enough.
3. Who are opening the crates? This is important to know and easy to figure out. PlayerA has 10 dimensional plates of savvy for sale. Obviously this person is opening crates, no one merches these items. However, 4 of them are lvl 8 and the other 6 are lvl 20 and the person selling is capped at 36. As a lot of us know these people are opening on alts and selling on main. Watch the seller and see if the lvl changes for their alts. Are they locked on a twink lvl? Are they slowly lvl'ing thier alts? Try to pin point trends here. They are there and at times deals can be found. Also, these deals are there at the same time next week or even tomorrow. Like on Saturday mornings PlayerA lists tons of crate items in auction. Good chance they got paid yesterday and it's time to auction some items. You may find me in kragg looking for the deals on the good items that they looted. Also, this information is good if you open crates as well. If three people are opening and selling on a lvl 10 then I won't be. I have seen many people say crate pinks are bad, this is not the case and in many cases can be best in class for specific lvls. I hope I took notes in that video tutorial or I may not even know what comes out of a crate.
4. When are people opening, selling, or saving crates? Obviously they are being opened during events and I shall either be opening them with everyone else or selling the ones I have stashed. I hope I can find that timeline I have bookmarked so I can average out time between events and know when to make a move. When they are being opened this is my time to take advantage of certain items drastically going down in value. I will scooping those up to sell at a later date. How do I know if they have been opened recently? Look at items that are for sale, but not lousy ones because they may have been lingering around for quite sometime with the seller stuck with them. Ethyl can sometimes be a good judge. Also, the actual price of the crates. Right now there are 6 ethyls listed by one seller and some individually listed, 3 of them being from known crate openers. Also, the price of crates hasn't fluctuated much. From experience, I speculate someone opened around 1000 last night and some random people open 50-100. Bet it was pay day, thats about normal. Why is this important to me? It helps me decide when to buy, sell, or open. The price of crates has not dropped down to what it was before last event and I want to know what everyone else knows that I don't. I refer to timeline, my own exp, and the announcement section from stg. I find Halloween is right around the corner, I won't be selling or opening now that's for sure, but I bet I'll be buying. Halloween is a no brainer, but it drives home the timeline and knowing when and where.
5. Next I have to crawl inside the head of the buyer. This easy, I buy crap all the time!! Woot, I just lvl'd my rogue to 20 for the first time ever. Thus, I have no idea what's good to use so I'm not going to search for specific items. Instead I will set my parameters for my new lvl and search usable items to find the best for me. As a seller I must do the same search. Excluding super rare and expired items it does not matter if my bow of uber coolness is listed at 20k if there is a better one listed at 15k. I will adjust my price accordingly.
6. Know your classes and what is desirable. We can look in auction and see where someone took their pricing from another uneducated player. Often times we will find a little more experienced player and see them wait till a few to get listed before they make their price. When I see this happening I will list one item on the high end to see what happens. If someone takes their pricing from me I will underbid. I will profit off my knowledge before someone else if possible. Some pink items from crates can be grossly overpriced resulting in an expired auction. Know your stats and items and you can confidently set your own price. When you do that you are setting the market and helping develop the game. It feels good
7. Out of auction sales. Know your fellow player! Am I trying to lowball a merch? There's a twink trying to buy my helm! Maybe or maybe not it's worth more than I thought, I will double check either way. Poor little guy, there's an anxious player trying to sell me an item to bank roll items for his new lvl. If I know why people are trying to buy and sell from me I swill save and make money. At this point I will say that I am a stand up player and do not and will not take advantage or scam fellow players. If someone obviously doesn't know the worth I will educate them so that they may help us all even out the market.
Once i understand why someone wants to buy/open something or to sell something and if i can find the trends then I will be able to make the proper decision on when to buy, sell, or open. Many of us already know what i am saying here, but there will be some that only think they know what I am saying. Please don't just read this and dismiss it. Think on it first and spend the time to figure it out. There is a lot of waste and missed opportunity from opened crates. Use it to your advantage, confidently set your prices, and let's all make some gold rather you open crates or not.
Disclaimer: I am not agreeing with or disagreeing with crates in the game. Like I said in the intro, I'm just making the best of what's offered. Let's sell some lemonade
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