Its a hard topic and i dont really want to admit how much time i spent thinking on this…
There are 2 types of players in this game:
Those who treat it as a job. They take it seriously. They are always concerned with maximizing their profits via different strats, some more ethical than others: ramping up the prices, hoarding resources, hostaging markets/events/mechanics, abusing social interactions, etc… They wouldnt be here if not for the monetary benefit.
Those who do it as a game. People who dont really count profits/losses and treat it as “paying for entertainment”. They dont care about 2%, 5% or 20% undercut. They wouldnt be here if not for the fun factor.
And there is a whole spectrum in between. Some serious players have way more aggresive pricing than others. Some TTing metal res from gambling, and some AH it.
And the one thing ive learned in all those years is: both groups just dont give a fuck about each other.
Those who play “smart” look down on “gamblers” like if they were the dumbest people on the planet. Unable to make even tiniest of profits with all that bankroll.
And “gamblers” look at those “smart” people figting for how much 1k sweat should be: 1.3ped or 1.5ped (2 irl cents btw), and cant understand wtf people wasting their lives on.
So, if people want to help out to those who enjoy been profitable, giving them advices on how to be more efficient, is great.
And if people just want to have fun, its also great.
Just dont tell people, with different goals, that they are doing anything wrong.
At the end of the day, its about you enjoying this place the way you like it.
I understand your logic, I really do. But you also have to look at the people coming into the game, how many are going to be an eve, messi, image. There are going to be a lot of players coming into the game wanting to buy a bunch of limited weapons/amps/armors so on, that creates a more flourishing economy. To think just because a few undercutting individuals who undercut like crazy is destroying the economy is nonsense, if there was a demand for the resources those items would be snatched up in a heart beat. DPS has exponentially gone up over over last few years for a few uber players also, that can easily oversaturate the market with a lack of demand for said resources.
I’ve been reading this thread, and I have to respectfully disagree with the original post’s main idea. Focusing on players “undercutting” feels wrong and misleading. The problem isn’t that players are selling their loot for too little; the problem is that the entire system is broken.
People are talking about high markups, and that was mainly me yesterday. I was crafting Gizmo 8 and got frustrated. The reason for the high prices isn’t “bad player habits”—it’s the drop rates.
I was seeing maybe 2-3 blueprint drops per thousand clicks. Of course, you’ll get plenty of low-value (L) BPs, but anything useful is incredibly rare. This is the real reason for high markups. It’s not some “lesson” players are failing; it’s a direct result of supply being choked by the game.
When drops are that bad, why would anyone want to craft? It feels like the system is capped and gone. There are no new blueprints, so there’s no reason to even participate in that part of the economy.
And it’s not just crafting. The general loot system feels less like a rewarding game and more like just timers and drainers, where you lose, lose, lose, and then get a small carrot to keep you going.
So, the problem isn’t players undercutting each other. The problem is that the game’s core mechanics make drops so rare that the market is forced to be extreme.
As Milton Friedman aptly stated, “Prices aren’t ‘fair’ or ‘unfair’. They’re signals. Interfering with them reduces total welfare.” This fundamental insight explains the failure of the current market intervention.
The initiative imposing a price floor in the market, under the premise of “no undercutting,” generates a critical economic distortion. By artificially suppressing the price mechanism, it creates a non-visible surplus (items accumulate in players’ inventories), disincentivizes active hunting, and induces economic agents (crafters) to internalize production to preserve their profit margins. This results in a contraction of effective demand and a more accelerated and severe price depreciation (from 108% to 103.9%) than in a free market, where price flexibility allows for an efficient adjustment between supply and demand, ensuring rapid goods rotation and optimal resource allocation. The intervention, therefore, creates inefficiency, reduces overall welfare, and disproportionately harms new players, who lack the capital to sustain their assets over prolonged periods, unlike players with greater resources.
For a deeper understanding of these economic principles, particularly the crucial role of price signals and the consequences of their distortion, I recommend consulting foundational works such as Milton Friedman’s “Capitalism and Freedom” (1962), Ludwig von Mises’ “Human Action” (1949), and Thomas Sowell’s “Basic Economics” (2014), which thoroughly analyze how such interventions lead to market discoordination and the accumulation of unsellable inventory.
I would fit under number 2 here. I pay people to deliver damage enhancers if I feel like I’m on a roll, I bankrolled people during the Corinth event and very often I just TT stuff.
The last part is very important. Not everyone is looking to squeeze every penny out. Codex is one such thing, sticking to looter skills is the financially smart thing to do but the increments are so damn small it will take forever to notice a difference, while a big reward can make you max a new gun which equals fun.
There’s no such thing as play for profit OR play for fun. Both categories are the same, they have the same goal, it’s how they treat the journey. Some are externally reckless and some are extremely calculated. Both go for dopamine from playing real cash game.
Let’s get back to main topic please.
[SIZE=3]the GPT post was funny[/SIZE][SIZE=2] [/SIZE]
Its just you who finds fun ONLY in getting profits. But there are other people, with other goals, and other ways of having fun. There is no right or wrong way here.
If @WhiningSkeptic would have to go for those damage enhancers himself, it would give him monetary profits, but would ruin hes fun. He just wants to keep shooting. And the amount hes paying for delivery makes it worth.
Undercutting is just part of the economics in games, this game is not an exception. On most items the numbers will be higher then the demand always. Oils and nanocubes would be one of these items. So you linking the spleen as an example is a realy bad example imo and it also paints a wrong image. Most likely someone on a crafting run bought up all the low mu spleen up to a point they where willing to pay for it. Dont forget that the avergae monthly mu on it is like what 102.something?
If you look at stuff like tier comps, item upgrades or some L weapons , people are much less likely to undercut.
A second important point is that not many people have the same bankrolls you do. and in order for them to keep cycling undercutting on stuff like nanocubes and oils is the best thing for them to do. Selling for some mu is always better then selling to a tt or reseller (unless amounts are rly low), in order for you to keep going.
If you realy think undercutting is the problem here, you should use your bankroll and play the auction house.
But you and many people are not doing that for the sole reason that the undercutting is not the problem. Like others have mentioned the lack of player, the disproprtions between crafters and hunters and oversageration of the lootpool is the problem.
Right, but those players don’t just create more demand, they also create more supply. What are they doing with all these weaps/amps/armors they are buying? Increasing the resource supply. The problem is that the items that are consumed through normal play don’t exert enough relative pressure on the supply gained through normal play. In other words, the production of items used needs to require more resources than it currently does, or inversely the amount of resources gained through normal activities needs to be reduced.
This is a catch-22 for MA. Everyone wants higher MU loots but it’s scarcity that creates MU. You want oil’s to average 110% instead of 102%? Then we need to loot a lot more shrap and a lot less oils. But nobody wants that, they want to have their cake and eat it too. Those rare BP drops have high value because they are rare. You want them to drop more often? Fine, but then value will drop as well.
The whole economy is incredibly difficult to balance, especially across professions. Hunters don’t want to pay 120% for a gun, but they want to be able to sell the resources used to make the gun for 118%. Something’s gotta give.
I really like you Eve but I don’t agree with you here. I like that prices can be wildly volatile (if players choose them to be in a free market) and that it creates opportunities for people to buy during oversupply and sell during shortages - in the same way a hunter has the opportunity to sit on their looted materials to time the market instead of just converting it to nanocubes or even TTing them. In the same way a person can buy and empty auction and increase price on something temporarily it is just as beautiful when people flood the market and dump the price.
I have had so many people complain at me over the years how I price things in auction or on the forum. Somehow some people (not referring to you ) in this game believe that there is a shared responsibility between owners of the same item to keep the price stable and not decrease price. But if something doesn’t sell over time - what to do? I am not usually an impatient player but when something doesn’t sell for weeks or months on end and auctions just keep expiring I am quite ready to just throw up the item at TT=SB 7 days and see where the market prices the item (but maybe less so on expensive items 20k+). If other owners of the same item believes it sells for too little then their expectation on the market is either too high or the could always buy the item themselves instead and have 2
While I understand your thoughts about this thread, to increase awareness. The effect won’t be noticeable.
If only MA would rebalance loot across all planets to loot something like 90% shrapnel, 5% oil, 5% misc or similar.
Oils would go up, misc could go up.
Players with lower bankroll would be able to keep cycling with their looted shrapnel for longer and not need to undercut as often in order to get peds to continue their cycling.
Higher dpp can be more oil/misc but limit to max 10%.
The reason people undercut is to sell quick, and often times to be able to keep cycling.. I am guilty of that too at times.
It’s too easy to loot oil, and especially since it can be botted on instances with 10-15% oils. An uber with big pedcard go to Moloch’s and comes with 30k ped of spleen within a day or two..
You’re right that scarcity creates value, that’s a basic “catch-22” of any economy. But I think you’re missing the real problem, and it’s not as simple as “Hunters want 118% MU.”
The issue is that items that weren’t rare before are extremely rare now. It’s not about balancing new loot; it’s about old loot pools seemingly drying up.
You’re talking about balancing professions, but I’m talking about a lack of any drops. As I said, I was the one crafting Gizmo 8 yesterday. Look at what I got from around 4,000 clicks:
[ul]
[li]AP-54 Electric (L) Blueprint (L): 17[/li][li]Armor Plating Mk. 6A, Perfected (L) Blueprint (L): 19[/li][li]Infiltrator Foot Guards (L) Blueprint (L): 17[/li][li]Luna Gloves (L) Blueprint (L): 3[/li][li]Zombie Arm Guards (L) Blueprint: 2[/li][li]AP-54 Burn (L) Blueprint (L): 4[/li][li]Armor Tech Gizmo 7 Blueprint: 2[/li][li]Armor Tech Gizmo 8 Blueprint: 1[/li][/ul]
Do you see the problem here? I got a total of 21 clicks for (L) AP-54 plates in 4,000 attempts.
Let’s think about that. There are 9 damage types and 7 levels of armor. Based on my drop rate, to get just one (L) set of each plate type, I would need to do roughly 4,000 * 9 * 7 = 252,000 clicks. That is an unbelievable grind just for the (L) blueprints, not even the unlimited ones.
This is the real issue. This content was introduced in 2017-2018, and nothing new has come for this crafting chain in 7-8 years. At the same time, all the other planets have been adding new unlimited plates and armor chains. But on Calypso, it feels stuck. The same thing is true for Art-Matrix weapons. If you want a mid-high level one, the BPs are ultra-rare.
So, why should anyone grind for this stuff today? If you didn’t get these BPs years ago, there’s no reason to craft now. The system isn’t “balanced”; it’s just old, and the drops feel like they’re gone. That’s why markups are so fucked.
Thank you Baldurn, I like you too, but you did not disagree with me much.
I’m not sure why some people feel it’s about them or feel they should stand up for people playing differently than described in OP, the whole idea of the post is oriented towards the new players that are trying to understand the game, that’s the reason for which I placed this in n00b’s corner and not in general chat.
People are free to thow away their money as well as it’s obvious when something doesn’t sell the price comes down, following a supply/demand market logic. You and other seasoned players seem to know very well the consequences of impatient style of selling their stuff. So obviously it’s not directed towards yourself.
People have the right to sell their property however they want. This is crystal clear and doesn’t need any further debate. Even when you loot last part of a rare armor set, it’s still entirely up to you hat you do with it, you can even TT it.
For those that want to undercut me not by 2%, but by 5%, I’m in many places of the AH as an active hunter because I have lots of loot for sale so feel free to buy the entire auction and not undercut me by 5%, but you can TT it to teach me a lesson..
This thread is oriented for players that are joining now or are new, or even veteran players that might find and want to, ofc, an useful tip or trick, people that should start early in game to build a habit of being mindful when selling in auction, because it has big implications over their EU game. Eu is hard, at all levels, but especially on low level.
When people say loot is crap, on forums, the usual question is: tell us your setup and what you hunt. Also a common question should be: how you auction? Because it is equally important and has similar impact…
People that find other scopes within the scope of the game, or forget the initial reason for which people start to play EU which is RCE - this thread might not be for you so no reason to jump and perfectly fine to disagree with me as well
People that just want to gamble or have FU money and don’t care about percentages, are very good for the economy of the game, this thread is not for you or about you, you do you.
One misconception in some of the replies - cutting is bad. I didn’t say it’s 100% bad, just that it can be done in small increments that won’t drastically decrease a resource the seller is constantly farming so it’s a win-win long term.
• good rule of thumb, Match lowest and lock it up (sb/bo) . Assuming lowest fits the trend (recent mu)
• Check TIR before posting
• SB 1 can be ok for items that have no history
• test for higher mu if supply is low or if only item on ah
• consider nanocube if low qty and low mu
• splash a few of an item rather than dump 10+ of same item same mu to mitigate expired listings ( or one at a time)
• keep an eye out for good deals, there are many
This is quite possibly the most important thread on pcf now.
I’d even go as far as to say NEVER cut, at all. (Note that i refer to cutting as selling below market value where market value is actual market value and not what is listed anywhere in game)
If you need to sell fast, you have either made a bad decision and you should take time off until you manage to sell your stuff for what it is actually worth. Or you have taken advantage of an opportunity in which you knew beforehand you would end up in this situation and you have the choice of either slowing down or depositing to keep exploiting the opportunity.
In either situation cutting is bad for you as well as everyone else (I mean, almost everyone else).
In RCE the cost of opportunity dictates the rules.
How much you losing?
Why people take loans? Its because they expect to make more money, during the same period of time, than the fees.
How much you gaining?
Is it worth hoarding 30k TT for added 1% in the next 6 monts? Is it worth waiting even past those 6 months if price never reached your “goal”? Or would you be better doing something else with that money?
Its all about net gain during the same period of time. Stacking and ramping prices is convenience, not efficiency.
If it works best for you to hoard, you hoard. If it works best for you to cycle fast, you cycle. Do what you have to do in order to gain the most.
Unfortunately the Race to the Bottom is completely normal and can be witnessed in markets such as eBay and Amazon everyday. It is dictated by the amount of inventory available in the marketplace. Oversaturation of certain products causes the price to tank and selloff to ensue. Basic economics really.
One or two players may hold out and ‘fight the good fight’ but most are just going to dump their trash loot for whatever they can get above the auction fee.
Of course these items can at least be TT’d in Entropia so as not sell at a loss as in the real world. Look at me, glass half full!
) in this game believe that there is a 