Have a glimpse of the market and How to make wealth in PoE.

my god im scared

hey guys

read the full guide from start im still quite confused
would appreciate the help if i could learn a thing or two on how to become a succesful trader
all i do from start is merveil grind which only nets me 3 alts and no more sometimes trash unique drops but thats one in 100 chance

my currenyt treasury at the moment is only this

It's much harder to get started in standard because of inflation and so many uniques already floating about. Your best bet is to just farm alts for some more currency so you can buy a high dollar item, or farm docks/piety, or try to flip currency until you can afford a several exalt item.

Hello Hectrix, thanks for your question.

I did not play on standard when i learnt to trade, however i believe there is a place to make in any league, standard included, as a successful trader or as a player who can buy any item he wants for his build/builds/ or be able to help friends/make currencies giveaways..

When i wrote this 'guide' i did not know about the power of currencies flipping, i got some PMs from someone who read my thread and explained to me how he performed it, he said his currencies turned to 1ex then from that ex he got little by little 5ex, i don't know how many he has now..( perhaps he used his wealth like i did or he is continuing to gain more.)
And he plays only 3H a day he said. ( compared to players who play no life mode)

With your currencies i suggest to you to do the followings :

1. Track(follow) WTB threads, you can start to make some money if you are lucky, let's hear some examples :

- Someone who want to start a new build : Facebreaker Build? He needs a lot of gear and needs Lioneye's Remorse Shield, you can probably sell it to him for 0.25 to 1 ex while you can buy it from someone who has A TON OF uniques and just want to get rid of it for less than 0.25ex ( push(buy) for 1 gcp sell for 2/3/4/ or 10 gcp )

Note : beware of players who would make fake WTB threads just to trap you. ( in the end you buy the item, but he does not want to buy it from you) So make sure the player still needs the item he seeks in his WTB thread.

- Someone needs a very specific unique : Check the item unique NAME on Poe.xyz.is choose your league and see what are the common prices of the unique, you can even whisper the players who are online and ask for a price ( don't do it too much otherwise they will tag you as someone who waste their time )

When you learn about the item price, Ask that guy who needs to buy the unique what can he offer, if you can convince him to buy it for a price higher than what others are selling, then go buy it for and sell it to him, you made profit.

Note : as you can see, not everyone knows about poe.xyz.is

- Someone needs a rare item, like a shield with life armor or a ring with specific stats : you go check that ring on poe.xyz.is ( choose stats ), you might buy it for a very cheap price and sell it for a very good price, because the buyer need that ring as a last price of his gear perhaps.

2. Track other buyers on PoeTradeChat.com, example : write on the search mode "Chat Lines with no Items " :

wtb unique
wtb dps weapon
wtb 5L something

or anything.

Take all buyers usernames and go whisper each one of them, ask if he still need that item, ask what he is going to offer. Go buy that item for less than his offer, sell it to him, you make profit.

Note : So you basically act like a connection between the buyer and the seller.

3. Flip currencies! This is the easiet for you i think.. ( i don't like it but it's very efficient to help you get wealth ), examples :

- Buy 10 alterations for 1 alch/1 fus
GO to ACT3'(Clarrisa) and buy 1 fus with 8 alts, you already won 2 alts. Try to buy a greater number to win much more.

- I don't know what are the rates for (gcp to chaos) in standard, let's SUPPOSE 1 gcp = 2 chaos
Try to sell your gcp for 2.5 chaos and then go buy another for 2 chaos. You won 0.5 chaos ( this is just an example, i don't know how much 1 gcp = ? chaos )

- Most of the time it's easier to : sell gcp for fusings then go sell each 2 fus for 1 chaos, than : selling the gcp for chaos.

Note : you must learn about all rates in your league. Best way to know is to whisper a random high level player in act 3 merciless. But yeah you can ask players in chat

- Sell 1 exalted for 30 chaos and buy it for 28 chaos.

I'v heard Chris repeating what he has heard, he said : Buy in the morning sell in the evening.
It seems that rates can change within a day ( example : morning you can buy fusings with your gcp,, evening sell them for a higher rate) But i never did it so i don't know.

4. Play an MF build, i think you can win a lot of alts doing docks, i'v heard a lot about it! But i don't know where you can find this build, maybe someone could link a thread about a cheap mf build here? ( You can make a thread in Helping forum and ask about cheap mf builds, they will help you)

All those alts can be changed to fusings ( and 60+ fus can be turned to 1ex)
If i find a build i will post it here, i prefer you go find one though.

And finally, good luck!

I am a relatively new guy in poe and this was some really interesting information Inexium, thanks.

Moreover i liked your attitude (helping and stuff) so, keep on :).

I found this guide i started trying, after reaching a point with my mf sporker where its either docks for ever or shavronne for maps.
http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/479976

I do not know how it will work out since i started it yesterday but maybe it will help Hecktrix

Thanks Lemmy33;)

I will add it to op later :

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/479976

As an example of a successful trade : I just bought 2 items for about 10 chaos, and i already had an offer in the range of EX's in one of them.

"

Lemmy33 wrote:

I am a relatively new guy in poe and this was some really interesting information Inexium, thanks.

Moreover i liked your attitude (helping and stuff) so, keep on :).

I found this guide i started trying, after reaching a point with my mf sporker where its either docks for ever or shavronne for maps.
http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/479976

I do not know how it will work out since i started it yesterday but maybe it will help Hecktrix

You can run CI sporker just fine. Your clear speed is slower but you have much more survivability in smaller maps with chaos. Planning on getting shav when you have no currency = not a good idea. Is it possible? Yes. Is it fun? No.

Thought of something the other day. You claimed to turn an 1.5 ex profit on a pair of gloves but it took you months to sell them. So.....you realize that 1.5 ex isn't worth what 1.5ex was worth when you bought the gloves? Its very likely that the exalted was worth half, or less, what it was worth when you bought the gloves.

Items you can't turn around quickly are likely going to have there returns eating away by inflation. Nevermind the huge pain it was to advertise that thing for months. In short, if you are taking anything longer then a week to move an item, it is way too much hassle.


Just a reminder


NOTHING BEATS LUCK....

hello

thought i post an update
i made another account that is used for Magic finding
yes i started doing some of the things you mentioned like tracking those wtb threads ,,its quite terribly hard to perform currency flip in standard tradechat

while thats a work in process
i like to inquire what is the best mf build that i could optimize for with my current budget (1 divine) a friend suggested rapterJesus i also check out what lemmy33 suggested that CI summoner guy..let me know which build to follow

i created another account for that ,,also how much stash tabs do i need to complement these farmings

There's a reason why this thread, while arguably providing useful insight, ultimately makes things worse for PoE, although it's not Inexium's or anyone else's fault but rather the fundamental flaw in the game's economic model (which includes conversion/trading capabilities, crafting/item sinks, frequency of drops, and developers' intervention in laws governing any of these processes) that invariably leads to the exploitation scenario. I actually kind of stopped playing the game (I think I last logged in around mid-August) largely because of that. Decided to visit the forum once in a while, and yes, as expected, things didn't noticeably change for the better. Guess I'll continue my break for now.

A sentiment expressed earlier in the thread is "traders don't get richer, savvy traders do". In terms of generating added value (selling items for more than you spent earning them) and outplaying the market (selling items with fluctuating value above their statistical average), this is true. In terms of generating usable value, this is completely false: if you don't have a use for a potentially good rare, it's dead weight, but if you sell it for a few chaos orbs, you got value out of pretty much nowhere. So yes, trading is, by far, the main and the best method to generate wealth.

Now why do we need wealth in the first place? Because certain sought-after items that enable fun new ways to play are exceedingly rare, thus very expensive—and buying them is an option. In fact, there are only three options if one wants to get any of them.

1. Play with the build of your choice for a very, very long time without those items, waiting for them to drop randomly and/or chance them. AKA the (solo) self-found method. If you manage to avoid burnout in the process, it might be that they'll become outdated or otherwise unwanted by the time you get them, if you even do in the first place. As a result, you won't have as much fun with the game as you would if you had a better rate of item progression.

2. Play an MF build. Affordable MF builds are, usually, very strict in their methods and have low involvement as a necessity of being safe enough to begin with. If you don't happen to enjoy playing one of the 2-3 stereotypical MF builds (spork totem, summoner, possibly discharger if you manage to do it cheaply), again, you'll have less fun with the game than you could have.

3. Play the trading simulator instead of killing monsters by instructions given in this thread. It takes time, attention, and copious amounts of activity to generate wealth this way, that will be spent away from actual gameplay.

The problem with the first approach (and partly the second as well) is that many people aren't willing to donate as much time to this game as a, say, NEET would. I'm estimating that an average working and/or studying person who has to do chores and socialize with friends/family/significant other, would clock in at most 25 hours a week. Which is the amount of time the core populace of the game puts into it in about two to three days, tops. But since the game is balanced around the core populace, anyone who spends less time with the game gets shit for their time worth. What an obsessive gamer tends to find easily in a week, a more time-limited one may need at least a month. At one point I could invest about 400 hours of playing in a month, and I did. I didn't do much trading—only put some of the better rares in the shop. I mostly got jack shit for drops, even though at least 1/3 of the time was spent with high MF characters. The most expensive item I ever found myself was an Eternal Orb. The three most expensive items I ever found (the eternal, Maelstrom of Chaos, and a couple exalts), were found with non-MF characters, mostly in maps or around map level. The most of my wealth I gained in the last 1-2 weeks playing on either league when I was already becoming too bored.

The problem with the second and third approaches is that they facilitate continuous global downscaling of drops as a result of developers intervening with the economic model. They don't want too many people to generate wealth too quickly and they're worried about inflation, so instead of scaling down the entire system evenly, hurting everyone relatively the same, they tend to introduce deeper currency sinks and rarer quality drops. In the current state of affairs that rather tends to absolute numbers: 100-10=90 vs. 20-10=10 would be a more accurate representation of the effect on people's wealth. This method of scaling back the wealth explosion may limit the rate at which those already rich get richer, but it never actually prevents them from achieving their causes in comparable amounts of time. The main effect is to be found at the other side: it limits the options of a poor and/or time-limited player to have fun with their items, instead forcing them to deal with economics.

This is not to say that PoE's economics is inherently bad or hurts our society or something. In fact it facilitates seeking knowledge of basic (and sometimes even advanced) knowledge of economics, heh. Its problem is that this arguably helpful activity goes at odds with actual gameplay, and diverts developers' attention from the actual gameplay matters. There must be a reason why pre-WoW era games could still hook players for years without having anything more than rudimentary economics at the best. There must be a reason why Diablo 2 and its expansion, while being more limited in the itemization department and having some of the wildest drop rates for its rarest items (Zod...), never felt like you had spent an eternity without a upgrades, even less so just good drops. It's because these games weren't balanced around economy—it's the economy that was created around humane drop rates.

Another sentiment that can be frequently heard in regards to economy issues in PoE is that it "happens IRL, too". Indeed, people take advantage of each other by means of difference in current knowledge, predictive power, speed, and starting/fallback resources all the time. It results in arbitrage, deal sniping, extortion, loansharking—all these practices that have until recently been seen as malicious and distasteful. But the reason we play games at all is to have fun when we don't find enough fun in real life. When the unfun elements from real life find their way into games, they eliminate the incentive to spend any time playing: why bother if there's nothing different to gain for your time? In other words, it would be very helpful to keep all of that "realistic" shit out of games in favor of fun things. Some realistic elements can be fun, but not everything that's realistic is.

TL;DR: By teaching people how to exploit in-game economy, you only serve to exacerbate every economy-related problem—the biggest problems the game has.