IndigoSundown.5419 Posted December 25, 2017 Share Posted December 25, 2017 > @"Bladezephyr.5714" said: > > @"IndigoSundown.5419" said: > > If anyone considers the exchange unfair, they have an option. Don't use it. ANet is not forcing people to use it. So, what Ashen said. > > Sure, but this thread started by someone asking if it is fair. We can guess that the OP already knows the choice to not use it exists, so that doesn't help answer the question. You can only get at the fairness of it by evaluating the relative values and costs of what is being traded. Gold is accumulated via the expense of time. Gems via money. There is no equation that will solve whether the time spent to accumulate the gold has similar value to the money saved. That valuation is not going to be the same for all people. Soliciting opinions is not getting at the fairness of the exchange. It is attempting to build agreement that the exchange ought to be made more advantageous for those exchanging gold or for those exchanging gems. The Op does not offer his own opinion, but as most of the people who've raised this issue over the years wanted to farm less gold to get gems, I'd favor the former. The other option, of course, would be, "I'm bored, so let's see if I can stir up some controversy." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyninja.2954 Posted December 25, 2017 Share Posted December 25, 2017 > @"Bladezephyr.5714" said: > > @"Seera.5916" said: > > > @"Bladezephyr.5714" said: > > > > @"Linken.6345" said: > > > > You are wrong mate they keep the gems in the pool they dont vanish, what vanish is the extra gold you pay to get 389 gems > > > > > > Your assertion is not supported by basic arithmetic. Player 1 buys 100 gold, pays 575 gems. Player 2 sells 100 gold, receives 389 gems. There's no extra gold anywhere in that equation. There is only 186 gems that go missing. > > > > The gold vanishes, not the gems. You're just using instances where the player has fiddled with the controls enough to sell/buy 100 gold. I could go in game and do the same thing but make the gems stay constant. > > It's actually both... ANet is removing 33% of the transaction from the economy. For one person, that's gems, for the other it's gold, but in my book only the gems matter, because those were bought with real money. Your math is failing you there. Twice 15% does not equal 33% in this scenario. Basic math: 100x.85 = 85 85x.85 = 72.25 The net loss of an exchange back to back would be 27,75%. Or as the wiki states, close to 28% (I omitted the different currency in this example since they are irrelevant to the math at hand, the wiki does use the appropriate currency though): > Transaction fee is a 15% fee for trading gems for gold or vice-versa. For example, exchanging 1 Gold coin gives 85 Silver coin worth of gems while reselling those gems returns only around 72 Silver coin 25 Copper coin, resulting in a net loss of roughly 28%. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Currency_exchange We could get into a debate about why the transaction fee is useful and makes the exchange more fair overall (**cough** anti speculation **cough**) but suffice to say, since all values are fixed and the prices are dictated completely by both supplies (gems and gold) and both of those supplies lie to almost 100% in the players hands, the exchange is fair. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bladezephyr.5714 Posted December 25, 2017 Share Posted December 25, 2017 > @"Cyninja.2954" said: > Your math is failing you there. Twice 15% does not equal 33% in this scenario. Sorry, no... the numbers I used were taken directly from the in-game UI, not theoretical values reported on the wiki. They are the exact values that were on offer at the time, and if you care to review those numbers, you'll certainly see that the fee at that moment in time was 32.348%. That's the combined total value that was lost on that transaction by both players, however you care to divide it up. The way you (and the wiki) calculated the loss is also deceptive, because it is two separate transactions, where the base value of the second is based on the diminished value from the first. That's cheating. If, instead, you trade 100 of currency A and then trade enough of currency B to buy back 100 of currency A, then you will experience the full loss--same as if you sum up the loss experienced by each player for the single transaction. > We could get into a debate about why the transaction fee is useful and makes the exchange more fair overall (**cough** anti speculation **cough**) but suffice to say, since all values are fixed and the prices are dictated completely by both supplies (gems and gold) and both of those supplies lie to almost 100% in the players hands, the exchange is fair. If the price truly is based on demand, I'm not sure why speculation is even a concern... allowing the players to get what they get without interference is the absolute fairest there is. Regardless... Fairness is a judgement; no one among us gets to decide what's considered fair for everyone. ANet decides the policy, but not what _you_ or _I_ think is fair. I personally think the fee is exorbitant, and therefore not fair, and I'm absolutely certain plenty of people will agree with me, even if you don't. But my goal here isn't to convince you of that. It's only to make sure that people who come looking for answers to the question posed by this thread understand what they are getting into. A lot of what people said in this thread in support of its fairness was right on, but also a lot of it was complete rubbish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dahkeus.8243 Posted December 25, 2017 Share Posted December 25, 2017 Fair? Yea, why wouldn't it be? Have extra cash, but little time? buy gems. Have little cash, but extra time? Convert gold to gems. Supply and demand balance out the values. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mourningcry.9428 Posted December 25, 2017 Share Posted December 25, 2017 > @"Bladezephyr.5714" said: > If the price truly is based on demand... As per John Smith: _To be clear. The exchange has a supply of both Gems and Gold. When you trade to the exchange you influence the supply of each. The exchange rate is relative to current supply of each. The price changes geometrically as one pool empties creating a better exchange rate for the low supplied currency. For this reason it's VERY difficult for the exchange to run out of currency._ Unless we're gonna start debating the trustworthiness of ANet employees, it couldn't be more clear... The transaction fee of 15% is the standard fee for a BLTC transaction. There is no unfairness what so ever as it applies across the board indiscriminately. Unpopular, perhaps, but not unfair. Edit: Just to elaborate, the exact exchange rate will differ from the noted 28% because as JS stated, it's geometrical, and not a fixed rate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cynn.1659 Posted December 25, 2017 Share Posted December 25, 2017 I love how people don't understand that gems are not infinite. Gold to gem exchange is there to entice whales to buy gems and buy gold with them. Which then other people get with gold. Just because you say you don't like what anet is doing with gemstore and then say you only buy gems with gold, it does't matter. Anet still made money on those gems. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TwoGhosts.6790 Posted December 25, 2017 Share Posted December 25, 2017 Yes it is. ~TG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyninja.2954 Posted December 25, 2017 Share Posted December 25, 2017 > @"Bladezephyr.5714" said: > > @"Cyninja.2954" said: > > Your math is failing you there. Twice 15% does not equal 33% in this scenario. > > Sorry, no... the numbers I used were taken directly from the in-game UI, not theoretical values reported on the wiki. They are the exact values that were on offer at the time, and if you care to review those numbers, you'll certainly see that the fee at that moment in time was 32.348%. That's the combined total value that was lost on that transaction by both players, however you care to divide it up. > > The way you (and the wiki) calculated the loss is also deceptive, because it is two separate transactions, where the base value of the second is based on the diminished value from the first. That's cheating. If, instead, you trade 100 of currency A and then trade enough of currency B to buy back 100 of currency A, then you will experience the full loss--same as if you sum up the loss experienced by each player for the single transaction. What? All you just said is that your approach is subject to mistakes caused by changing values due to change in stock of both currencies and rounding issues. The values on the wiki are based on the numbers provided by arenanet which have stated that there is a fixed 15% transaction fee both ways. So unless you want to get into the debate of trustworthiness of official statements you number is incorrect because it is prone to way more error. > @"Bladezephyr.5714" said: > > > We could get into a debate about why the transaction fee is useful and makes the exchange more fair overall (**cough** anti speculation **cough**) but suffice to say, since all values are fixed and the prices are dictated completely by both supplies (gems and gold) and both of those supplies lie to almost 100% in the players hands, the exchange is fair. > > If the price truly is based on demand, I'm not sure why speculation is even a concern... allowing the players to get what they get without interference is the absolute fairest there is. Regardless... Fairness is a judgement; no one among us gets to decide what's considered fair for everyone. ANet decides the policy, but not what _you_ or _I_ think is fair. I personally think the fee is exorbitant, and therefore not fair, and I'm absolutely certain plenty of people will agree with me, even if you don't. But my goal here isn't to convince you of that. It's only to make sure that people who come looking for answers to the question posed by this thread understand what they are getting into. A lot of what people said in this thread in support of its fairness was right on, but also a lot of it was complete rubbish. > You seem to misunderstand what type speculation I mean. Currently there is no incentive to buy and sell gems and manipulate the market because with the 2 way transaction fee the barrier or required return would be way to high to receive any profit. If there was no transaction fee the gem-gold exchange would be more volatile since people would simple convert gems back and forth and manipulate the market as best they can to profit from buying low and selling high. That is currently not feasible since you'd first have to cover the loss caused by the transaction fee both ways. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shirlias.8104 Posted December 25, 2017 Share Posted December 25, 2017 Definitely fair. You can convert any amount of gold into gems and viceversa. Taxes are there to prevent speculations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aryan Arlande.6184 Posted December 25, 2017 Share Posted December 25, 2017 1.) Change gold to gems 2.)Change your gems back to gold 3.)See what's left 4.)Talk about fairness again Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lucatri.7945 Posted December 25, 2017 Share Posted December 25, 2017 Instead of complaining about whether it's fair or not (how can it be unfair when it's determined by player supply&demand?), be smart and convert gold->gems only when the prices are relatively low, aka NOT when a gemstore update has just dropped. There are even resources showing you gem exchange history. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheQuickFox.3826 Posted December 25, 2017 Share Posted December 25, 2017 Taxes are quite high here imho. But other than the taxes the prices are just a matter of supply and demand. If you want to buy gems with gold it is recommended to NOT do the transaction when new-high demand items have been added to the gem store because this greatly affects the exchange rate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raven.1524 Posted December 25, 2017 Share Posted December 25, 2017 Blame Manfred for hacking the game and ruining the economy . Lol, I think he'll be "hacking" Wildstar on the next Defcon though. They confirmed he was playing around with the gw2 code, but he's retiring from that "business". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyninja.2954 Posted December 25, 2017 Share Posted December 25, 2017 > @"Aryan Arlande.6184" said: > 1.) Change gold to gems > 2.)Change your gems back to gold > 3.)See what's left > 4.)Talk about fairness again It's called a tax. In this specific case this tax prevents massive speculation and volatility. The more you know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil.7369 Posted December 25, 2017 Share Posted December 25, 2017 > @"Shaaba.5672" said: > > @Panda.1967 said: > > No... reasoning, inconsistent exchange. > > > > 400 gems can currently be exchanged for 72 gold, but requires 106 gold to buy. > > > > Fair would be the same exchange rate both directions. > > Not really. Unless you think the TP tax is also unfair. Obviously we would all love for it not to be there, but it's a reality. Gems are a commodity, just like anything on the TP, it just has it's own separate marketplace. I've talked about the TP tax before and imo it is very punishing and way too luck dependant. This is also the reason why so many expensive items are not listed on the TP and are instead traded via mailing and why the prices for such items stay so high (lower supply, because it punishes item listing). So instead of losing your 5% instantly upon listing the item and having said item rot in the TP for months, only to remove it later on and then attempt to either relist it thus losing even more, or insta-sell (again losing more profit) or mail-sell it, risking a scamm... Anet can simply MOVE the 5% fee to the total exchange fee. Basically, no listing fee and 15% exchange fee. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyninja.2954 Posted December 25, 2017 Share Posted December 25, 2017 > @"Phil.7369" said: > > @"Shaaba.5672" said: > > > @Panda.1967 said: > > > No... reasoning, inconsistent exchange. > > > > > > 400 gems can currently be exchanged for 72 gold, but requires 106 gold to buy. > > > > > > Fair would be the same exchange rate both directions. > > > > Not really. Unless you think the TP tax is also unfair. Obviously we would all love for it not to be there, but it's a reality. Gems are a commodity, just like anything on the TP, it just has it's own separate marketplace. > > I've talked about the TP tax before and imo it is very punishing and way too luck dependant. This is also the reason why so many expensive items are not listed on the TP and are instead traded via mailing and why the prices for such items stay so high (lower supply, because it punishes item listing). > So instead of losing your 5% instantly upon listing the item and having said item rot in the TP for months, only to remove it later on and then attempt to either relist it thus losing even more, or insta-sell (again losing more profit) or mail-sell it, risking a scamm... Anet can simply MOVE the 5% fee to the total exchange fee. > > Basically, no listing fee and 15% exchange fee. > The TP tax is 0 luck dependent, unless you are taking the risk of selling an item at absolute maximum profit. Which as mentioned is a risk you take. You can minimize the risk to 0 by selling immediately to buy orders. Every step in between is subject to supply and demand. If you do proper research and stay clear of market shifting anomalies (new Living World Episodes, expansions, patches) you can minimize you risk for listing. That's part of having a free market. Removing the 5% minimum fee would encourage relisting and usage of bot programs even more than now. You'd have the same manipulation on the seller side as on the buyer side at the moment. A terrible idea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Embered.5089 Posted December 25, 2017 Share Posted December 25, 2017 It’s fair. It would still be fair if there was no gold->gems at all, because all gemstore items are luxury goods, not needed to play the game itself. The game is pay-once-to-play, so ANet makes nearly all of their money from those that spend real money on gems. By allowing us to do gold->gems at all, they’re cutting out a lot of their potential profit. And by putting only luxury goods in the gemstore, they’re ensuring that no poor man gets hurt (except the timeless greedy, but that’s their problem). It’s very fair. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shirlias.8104 Posted December 25, 2017 Share Posted December 25, 2017 > @"Aryan Arlande.6184" said: > 1.) Change gold to gems > 2.)Change your gems back to gold > 3.)See what's left > 4.)Talk about fairness again A genius. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arlette.9684 Posted December 25, 2017 Share Posted December 25, 2017 Hate to break it to the OP, but GW2’s TP system is easily one of the best trading systems I’ve seen in any game. I know there are people out there that are playing Trade Wars because of how well built the system is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Just a flesh wound.3589 Posted December 25, 2017 Share Posted December 25, 2017 > @"Aryan Arlande.6184" said: > 1.) Change gold to gems > 2.)Change your gems back to gold > 3.)See what's left > 4.)Talk about fairness again 1) Play a game with no taxes to stop inflation and speculation. 2) Watch inflation spiral to the skies and see gem prices go geometric as flippers flip gems <-> gold to make easy money 3) Making any purchase and see what’s left of your change 4) Talk about fairness again Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rpgtabbycat.5869 Posted December 25, 2017 Share Posted December 25, 2017 > @"Bladezephyr.5714" said: > > @"Linken.6345" said: > > You are wrong mate they keep the gems in the pool they dont vanish, what vanish is the extra gold you pay to get 389 gems > > Your assertion is not supported by basic arithmetic. Player 1 buys 100 gold, pays 575 gems. Player 2 sells 100 gold, receives 389 gems. There's no extra gold anywhere in that equation. There is only 186 gems that go missing. It will never be equal because ANet makes money only if you buy gems directly from them for cash. If you could obtain gems as easily with gold there would be less incentive for you to pay cash to get them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aryan Arlande.6184 Posted December 25, 2017 Share Posted December 25, 2017 > @"Just a flesh wound.3589" said: > 2) Watch inflation spiral to the skies and see gem prices go geometric as flippers flip gems <-> gold to make easy money Remember the time when you got 24 gems for 1 gold? Those were the days, my friend. Yeah, let's talk about inflation ..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Just a flesh wound.3589 Posted December 25, 2017 Share Posted December 25, 2017 > @"Aryan Arlande.6184" said: > > @"Just a flesh wound.3589" said: > > 2) Watch inflation spiral to the skies and see gem prices go geometric as flippers flip gems <-> gold to make easy money > > Remember the time when you got 24 gems for 1 gold? > > Those were the days, my friend. > > Yeah, let's talk about inflation ..... > > You mean back in the days when the game was just starting and no one had much gold back then? Of course prices were low at the start of the game. Of course prices will go up as the game gets older and people get wealthy and learn how to make gold. No has ever said there would be no inflation or no increase in prices as the game gets older. However taxes are there to stop inflation from spiralling out of control and the gems/gold taxes are there to stop gem/gold flipping. Prices going up as people get wealthier are not the same as spiraling inflation and I suggest you read about it to inform yourself. [Here’s an article discussing hyperinflation in an mmo]( ) Extra credits has useful information [How to manage inflation in a virtual economy]( ) [Hyperinflation, reserve currencies and you]( ) Edit: [An article about hyperinflation in Diablo](https://mises.org/library/virtual-weimar-hyperinflation-video-game-world) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Illconceived Was Na.9781 Posted December 25, 2017 Share Posted December 25, 2017 tl;dr * The implied fees for changing gold:gems and gems:gold used to be a fixed15% in both directions * That changed sometime in 2015 (or at least, that's when I first noticed it). It's currently closer to 17.7% (implied) and it varies by small amounts. * The wiki was never updated because its editors haven't been made aware of the change (and to be fair, it's harder to explain than the old system: the old fees on the change were identical to how the TP itself works and that was difficult for some players to follow) * The fees are irrelevant to the concept of fairness, especially given that we pay similar fees for trading items|gold. **** > @"Bladezephyr.5714" said: > > @"Cyninja.2954" said: > > Your math is failing you there. Twice 15% does not equal 33% in this scenario. > > Sorry, no... the numbers I used were taken directly from the in-game UI, not theoretical values reported on the wiki. They are the exact values that were on offer at the time, and if you care to review those numbers, you'll certainly see that the fee at that moment in time was 32.348%. The wiki is correct... about how the system used to work originally. It was 15% in each direction. That changed at some point (and the none of the wiki contributors knew about it, so the article never got updated). I contacted John Smith around when this happened and he told me that he was surprised and would look into it, but I never heard back. Another change that happened at the same time is that the net fees for gold:gem:gold (or vice versa) aren't consistent. * **Original:** 15% in implied fees (measured ratio: 0.7225); this was consistent until the ratio changed * **10 Dec 2015:** 18.27% (0.668029697) * **15 Nov 2016:** 17.62% (0.678593631539045) * **31 Dec 2016:** 17.58% (0.679287469287469) * **19 Apr 2017:** 17.82% (0.675307718463108) * **19 Apr 2017 (later that same day):** 17.64% (0.678246022506791) The ratios were measured using the API, starting with X gold, converting to gems, and then back to gold and then presuming that the fee was the same in each direction. * https://api.guildwars2.com/v2/commerce/exchange/coins?quantity=1000000 * https://api.guildwars2.com/v2/commerce/exchange/gems?quantity=100 I don't have a good theory that explains all the facts: a change in the ratio, a change in its consistency, and Smith being (seemingly) unaware of either/both changes. The new setup does have some advantages for the community (as well as the obvious disadvantage: we get less after each transaction than we used to): * More gold is sunk from the economy, which helps to combat inflation * The higher ratio makes it all-but-impossible to speculate in gems even over the long term, which keeps the gem:gold exchange more active & robust * The variable ratio also reduces advantages of speculation. * The higher number also reduces volatility. That isn't much of a problem these days, but used to be when the exchange rate was lower. **** That said, none of the math is relevant to the original poster's question about whether the system is fair. _edit: added tl;dr at the top, since post ended up longer than I realized_ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daddicus.6128 Posted December 25, 2017 Share Posted December 25, 2017 Yes, it's fair. The only thing I would change is to have both parties in an exchange pay part of the fee, rather than just the seller. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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