Duping Armor Sets & selling on the GTN

[Drew_Braxton]

It is rather irresponsible to label what you observed as duping when you have absolutely no proof. Just because you don't know how someone got that many items does NOT mean it was duping.

 

It was very common practice for many years to buy up tons of cartel market items when packs first came out, sit on them for a few months to a year and then start listing them when the packs went out of rotation. You could load up on gear for a couple hundred credits then sell them later for much more. I still have hundreds and hundreds of mounts just sitting there along with characters will full bank tabs of armor pieces from older packs. I just sold 12,000 void matter not long ago. Not everyone has 12,000 void matters, but it doesn't mean an exploit was used to obtain them.

 

There are other scenarios as well such as those crafty players with characters on several servers who buy cheap on one server and move to another server where the selling price is higher.

 

Its a free market full of scoundrels and hutts so there is no normal. Just because you don't understand how someone did something in a video game doesn't mean it was done through cheating or duping. Sure there have been exploits in the past, but those have been very rare so not the likely reason for what you saw.

[TrixxieTriss]

^ This is a very important question.

 

If they're crafted items, then I've gone from listing 5 or 6 at a time to putting up 20 or more when someone decides to buy up my reasonably priced crafted items and then relist them for a much higher price. I'll keep throwing them up at my price since it's all profit to me. For the tier 1 and 2 items I'm usually getting 3 to 4 times the cost of making them, and there is an infinite supply of them to feed to the relister.

 

I keep a supply of some crafted items in my legacy bay so I can list them with whatever character I'm playing that day, and don't have to bother logging into the actual crafter alt.

 

*note: I base my selling prices on the cost of running crew missions to get the mats, not the ridiculously high mat prices you find on the GTN.

 

I prefer to keep my listings to 3-5 at a time and keep the price a little bit higher. The less you list in one hit, the less people undercut by too much. I find if I list a whole bunch, even if the price is high, people drive the price down fast because they think that person must be selling heaps and they want some action.

 

The problem with that is it floods the market and keeps the price down too low for too long (because some people are dumb and will continue to undercut even when it’s too low) and it can take weeks and weeks till the price becomes a reasonable market price again where you don’t need to list 50 to get the same amount of credits as selling 10.

 

I did try it your way for a while and everytime it was nearly detrimental to the market price and I ultimately made less credits in the same period of time (when people didn’t drive the price down). I actually tracked it on a spread sheet over a month and made 10mil extra per week when I did not flood the market (and others didn’t)

 

Some items will always sell at a higher price and be hard to keep in stock because there is high demand for them. These are items that never need to be discounted much. But some people can’t understand that and think they’ll sell more and make more credits if they drive the price down and list 50 at a time. The reality is it takes 5 times longer to get those mats, make those items to get the same amount of credits as selling 10 at the higher price.

But listing 3-5 items at a time works the best if you are on at the same time and can restock as you sell. This allows other sellers to maybe sell 1 or 2 and they are less likely to undercut you much if they relist more,

 

What drives me crazy is when people undercut an item by half the amount, even if it is selling well at the current market price and I literally can’t keep them in stock and I had a stock pile at the start, 5 Alts doing missions or crafting and my wife farming mats,

It’s absolutely ludicrous to drive the price down by that much and then you get a bunch of other noobs who undercut them.

 

I don’t ever undercut more the. 1-5 credits. It’s just not needed because everyone ends up losing credits and if people are sorting by price, they usually buy the cheapest anyway.

I see some people under cut by 100 and think dumb, but ok. Then I see others undercut by 1000 -2500 and you know the price is going to take a dive because the next guy will do the same and the next.

 

1000 credits or even 100 credits doesn’t sound a lot at first. It’s only 1000 you miss out on. But when the next guy comes along and does the same and the next and the next. All of a sudden you are faced with the decision on wether to relist and lose 5000-20000 credits instead of the 1000 credits that didn’t seem like much or make the decision to remove them from the market so it doesn’t look so flooded.

If everyone stuck to a 1-10 credit under cutting policy, we could under cut each other all day before the price got driven down 2000 credits.

 

Some people are allergic to making credits easy and don’t understand market forces or buyer demand.

 

GTN selling, It’s not rocket science guide :

 

1. Items in high demand don’t need to be discounted

2. Items in low demand can be discounted in an undercut war (but don’t flood the market or under cut drastically because it still won’t sell faster because it’s a low demand item)

3. Dont make too many low demand items so you don’t have to discount as much to clear them (made that mistake)

4. Stock up on mats and items of high demand and sell enough at a time as to not flood the market and have enough mats to keep crafting and for the demand (nothing worse when you run out and there is a run on something)

5. Dont drastically undercut other sellers to clear stock. You get less credits for your hard work or time. It drives the market price down. It’s better to pull an item if someone does that so that less are listed and when they disappear, relist at a more reasonable rate.

6. If you see someone stupidly list something too low that’s a high volume seller. Buy some, not all of them at once (if they list 20 because all you are personally doing is feeding them credits and they will keep listing the price much lower than it needs to be because they saw so many sell in one hit.

7. When you buy some, don’t relist unless you’ve cleared their few from the market. Even then, don’t list many. Just wait till you’ve sold a few incase they reappear and flood the market again.

8. When you log out and you want to list. Don’t list more than 6 high volume items or more than 3 low volume. (Seems weird I know, but you aren’t likely to sell more because other people know it’s a high volume and will be undercutting you the whole time you are off).

9. Spread you crafting across enough items that you can still list 50 items when you log off, but you’ve not over listed some. You will make more credits than listing 10-50 of the same thing.

10. When you login, check what sold the most and the fastest (by time interval it was sold). See if you still have items listed, what price they are and what the market price is. If you sold none or one and you are still the cheapest, there is a good chance this is the wrong price and a low demand item. (Don’t list too many low demand items when you log off unless they sell for a lot of credits and there are hardly ever listed by other people).

 

Anyway, that’s my basic crafting GTN selling guide for dummies. It isn’t everything (don’t want to give all my secrets away). But it works well and gives a good steady income with less effort and allows the market to be healthy for everyone, both sellers and buyers alike.

[TrixxieTriss]

It is rather irresponsible to label what you observed as duping when you have absolutely no proof. Just because you don't know how someone got that many items does NOT mean it was duping.

 

It was very common practice for many years to buy up tons of cartel market items when packs first came out, sit on them for a few months to a year and then start listing them when the packs went out of rotation. You could load up on gear for a couple hundred credits then sell them later for much more. I still have hundreds and hundreds of mounts just sitting there along with characters will full bank tabs of armor pieces from older packs. I just sold 12,000 void matter not long ago. Not everyone has 12,000 void matters, but it doesn't mean an exploit was used to obtain them.

 

There are other scenarios as well such as those crafty players with characters on several servers who buy cheap on one server and move to another server where the selling price is higher.

 

Its a free market full of scoundrels and hutts so there is no normal. Just because you don't understand how someone did something in a video game doesn't mean it was done through cheating or duping. Sure there have been exploits in the past, but those have been very rare so not the likely reason for what you saw.

 

I bet some of those mounts and armour sell slow and not for very much. I use to do the same thing you describe and I’ve noticed since you can buy items direct from the CM, those items sell slower and slower for less and less as time goes buy.

I’ve items that use to sell for few mill a few years ago that I can hardly give away. Some are so old now that I can’t even remember what I purchased them for or if I’m losing credits on them.

I had a mass clearance 12 months ago of heaps to just clear some space and recoup some credits before they became worthless. If the OP saw my posting back then he would probably have assumed I was duping.

I find I make more credits selling some crafted blue item pieces than some CM items that use to be in high demand.

Even some of those “free drop” Stonghold items go for more than many of the old CM items.

[Keta]

And the possibility exists that someone spent a lot of credits buying up everyone else's version of a given armor on the GTN and then repriced/bundled them to form their own little monopoly of that item.

 

Back in the day ....

 

I cornered the market for certain key mid/high grade crafting materials in two or three crafting profession on Earthen Ring in that game (Plain vanilla version). Had a load of fun doing it and setting prices where I wanted them to be -- high low, whatever suited my fancy at the time. Then it got to be too much work and things went back to normal. Sort of like happens around here.

Edited February 14, 2019 by Keta

[Inspirals]

Right now on Darth Malgus server, the same person has 26 sets of Tulak Hord's Armor for 9 million credits each. That's a gold cartel market item. I don't know how legitimate that is, and I don't know how much SWTOR has suffered with duping in the past, but I've seen it extensively on other games.

[Rion_Starkiller]

Back in the day ....

 

I cornered the market for certain key mid/high grade crafting materials in two or three crafting profession on Earthen Ring in that game (Plain vanilla version). Had a load of fun doing it and setting prices where I wanted them to be -- high low, whatever suited my fancy at the time. Then it got to be too much work and things went back to normal. Sort of like happens around here.

 

Heh. Someone has been setting the GTN prices of mk-10 augmentation kits at 100k+ for the past several months. Just last night they were 168k (I assume because of 258 gear). Back before folks from Satele Shan transferred to Star Forge, they ran 50-60k. I've been tempted to undercut them by 10-20k, but I'm probably too lazy. I don't like price setters.

Edited February 14, 2019 by Rion_Starkiller

[TrixxieTriss]

Heh. Someone has been setting the GTN prices of mk-10 augmentation kits at 100k+ for the past several months. Just last night they were 168k (I assume because of 258 gear). Back before folks from Satele Shan transferred to Star Forge, they ran 50-60k. I've been tempted to undercut them by 10-20k, but I'm probably too lazy. I don't like price setters.

 

Why undercut that much? Just do it by 1 credit and it will still sell and you won’t drive the price down. That means you don’t have to make as many to sell.

 

Most people have a tonne of credits these days. While I don’t personally sell kits, I do buy them and have recently paid 157k for them, which wasn’t that much because 228 Augments + plus kit is still cheaper than 1 x 236 augment.

 

I’d leave the price be and the market will decide if it’s too much or too little.

[TrixxieTriss]

Right now on Darth Malgus server, the same person has 26 sets of Tulak Hord's Armor for 9 million credits each. That's a gold cartel market item. I don't know how legitimate that is, and I don't know how much SWTOR has suffered with duping in the past, but I've seen it extensively on other games.

 

And what’s the actual dollar value (conversion to CC) if the person got them when they were on a half price sale?

 

I know for a long time the Satele Shan items were really expensive on the GTN and in demand. So when they were half price on the CM, I got a few to sell. But everyone else had the same idea.

The price of them dropped drastically and the belt and pants are still super cheap at the moment. When the prices drop too much and I can put together a full set for 10mil, I’ve been buying the items. I currently have 12 full sets and 6 nearly completed sets.

I will hold onto these until the prices go back up, which they already are. When my bank roll gets higher as I sell some of them, I will start buying any that are cheaper than mine and relist higher or hold onto them.

 

Eventually I will only be competing to sell them with a few other people and the price stabilises as the amount available to sell diminishes it will slowly rise to the max of what people are willing to pay. Unless

A. someone has a horde of them to get rid of and forces a price realignment till the sell through

B. demand drops

C. they have another sale on the CM

D. someone with more credits than us buys all of our stock and relists at a much higher price and resets the market

E. they remove them from the CM and the GTN sky rockets

 

If you are lucky and have the credit stash, you can corner the market on CM items if they are something in demand and there are not too many in people’s storage or on the GTN. The more credits you get, the more you can buy cheaper and resell higher till you own all of them. Then you can set the market price.

(I don’t ever get to that stage because it’s a risky move and requires more credits as a buffer incase it fails)

It’s better to compete with a few other people. It’s keeps the market honest and doesn’t inflate it too much.

 

But my point is, having 26 sets isn’t unheard of if they’ve cornered the market through shrewd trading or are just so wealthy in real life they can afford to buy 26 sets to list.

Edited February 14, 2019 by TrixxieTriss

[Lhancelot]

Right now on Darth Malgus server, the same person has 26 sets of Tulak Hord's Armor for 9 million credits each. That's a gold cartel market item. I don't know how legitimate that is, and I don't know how much SWTOR has suffered with duping in the past, but I've seen it extensively on other games.

 

I am sure the dude has tons of credits, and what he does is buy up tons of armor sets for cheap then re-prices them higher to make profit off them.

 

I never did it on a scale of buying 25+ armor sets, but if I found 3 armor sets for 1mil, and it was a semi-rare set I'd buy them all then price them at 5mil. I made profits like this all the time.

 

If you know what sells fast, and see them for cheap, you too can buy low and sell high to make tons of profit. It's just a matter of knowing the market.

[Rion_Starkiller]

Why undercut that much? Just do it by 1 credit and it will still sell and you won’t drive the price down. That means you don’t have to make as many to sell.

 

Most people have a tonne of credits these days. While I don’t personally sell kits, I do buy them and have recently paid 157k for them, which wasn’t that much because 228 Augments + plus kit is still cheaper than 1 x 236 augment.

 

I’d leave the price be and the market will decide if it’s too much or too little.

 

Because I feel they are way overpriced. If I set it 10-20k less than the price fixers, then the price fixers make practically nothing (or break even), thus they put in all that effort just to keep the price set. If they choose NOT to buy up my kits, then a player can buy my kits for a substantial discount.

 

The mats don't cost that much. So I would be doing it purely out of spite.

Edited February 14, 2019 by Rion_Starkiller

[TrixxieTriss]

Because I feel they are way overpriced. If I set it 10-20k less than the price fixers, then the price fixers make practically nothing (or break even), thus they put in all that effort just to keep the price set. If they choose NOT to buy up my kits, then a player can buy my kits for a substantial discount.

 

The mats don't cost that much. So I would be doing it purely out of spite.

 

So now you become what you hate, the price setter.

 

What do you have against other people making credits too?

And who made you the market police to decide if something is too expensive?

If they are selling at a reasonable rate at that price, why reduce that price if the market is happy to pay it?

It’s makes no logical sense to do that, unless you are trying to **** with other sellers for some reason.

 

Why be so spiteful to do that to people?

[Inspirals]

I am sure the dude has tons of credits, and what he does is buy up tons of armor sets for cheap then re-prices them higher to make profit off them.

 

I never did it on a scale of buying 25+ armor sets, but if I found 3 armor sets for 1mil, and it was a semi-rare set I'd buy them all then price them at 5mil. I made profits like this all the time.

 

If you know what sells fast, and see them for cheap, you too can buy low and sell high to make tons of profit. It's just a matter of knowing the market.

 

The Tulak Hord armour set normally goes for a lot more than 9 million credits, I think it's usually about 3 or 4 times that on the Malgus server. It's 2600 CC's from the Cartel Market.

[TrixxieTriss]

The Tulak Hord armour set normally goes for a lot more than 9 million credits, I think it's usually about 3 or 4 times that on the Malgus server. It's 2600 CC's from the Cartel Market.

 

So when it was on sale for 50% it was 1300 CC’s. 1300 to 9 mil conversion is ok.

And if other people buy at the same time and drive the price lower for a short period and you buy them all.

It is then feasible to list them all and make a bunch of fast credits. Not smart, but it is feasible.

It would be much better to list 2-3 at a time so you don’t flood the market.

 

If I was on Tulak horde I would sit and watch the prices on that armour carefully as it’s likely to drop more in price because they’ve listed too many.

When it drops to 5-6 mil, buy as many as you can reasonably afford or risk and hold onto them for a while. Then relist a few at a time for 20ml as the price goes back up after all those cheap one are sold off. That’s a 75% profit margin.

Edited February 14, 2019 by TrixxieTriss

[jimmorrisson]

I'm assuming that "duping" in this topic's case involves creation of duplicate copies via exploit for resale purposes.

[TrixxieTriss]

I'm assuming that "duping" in this topic's case involves creation of duplicate copies via exploit for resale purposes.

 

Yeah or finding some way to get free CC to buy them off the GTN

[Wafflesmoo]

Idk seems fishy, right now on Darth Malgus if you search, Tulak-Hord Set, Revered Master's, Field-Tech Gunner, Revan and Resilient Warden, you'll see pages of it listed at all the same price by one guy. These are just a few I found, i'm sure there's more.

[TrixxieTriss]

Idk seems fishy, right now on Darth Malgus if you search, Tulak-Hord Set, Revered Master's, Field-Tech Gunner, Revan and Resilient Warden, you'll see pages of it listed at all the same price by one guy. These are just a few I found, i'm sure there's more.

 

Best thing to do is PM Eric Musco with the details and get him to investigate further. There is nothing else you can do.

[Rion_Starkiller]

So now you become what you hate, the price setter.

 

What do you have against other people making credits too?

And who made you the market police to decide if something is too expensive?

If they are selling at a reasonable rate at that price, why reduce that price if the market is happy to pay it?

It’s makes no logical sense to do that, unless you are trying to **** with other sellers for some reason.

 

Why be so spiteful to do that to people?

 

Because I buy Aug kits instead of crafting them. They have more than tripled in price in the past 8 months. I can put some of that on the new 252 and 258 gear, but they were over 100k well before the new gear came out.

 

Someone is fixing prices. There's a reason this is illegal in real life. I'm not the police, but I'll happily be a good citizen and cut the overinflated prices --168k is NOT reasonable.

 

And I'll do it because I can.

Edited February 15, 2019 by Rion_Starkiller

[TrixxieTriss]

Because I buy Aug kits instead of crafting them. They have more than tripled in price in the past 8 months. I can put some of that on the new 252 and 258 gear, but they were over 100k well before the new gear came out.

 

Someone is fixing prices. There's a reason this is illegal in real life. I'm not the police, but I'll happily be a good citizen and cut the overinflated prices -- they are NOT reasonable. And I'll do it because I can.

 

But why do you feel it’s not reasonable when the same could be said for people selling 236 or 240 Augments at 3-6 million a pop?

 

They aren’t unreasonable when you consider the time and effort it takes to craft them. First you have to craft a blue item that you then need to reverse engineer. You also need to get purple slicing parts from doing slicing missions and already have crafted the bonded attachments.

Essentially, augment 10 kits cost twice as much to make as most other standard blue items on the market and no other blue items I know of require a purple mats to craft. Remember, you don’t always get purple mats from the missions (which can add up in credits) and you can’t farm those slicing terminals for mats (you only get a measly amount of credits farming since they nerfed them to stop credit sellers)

 

I honestly think 100k is too cheap for the cost and time and effort that goes to making them, it’s why I don’t do it and I’m sure it’s why you also buy them instead. When I see them for 60k. My mind boggles at the stupidly of even bothering.

I can sell dyes and make three times as many credits as I would making Augments and selling them for 100k because it’s faster craft and use less mats. You also need to consider the 8% tax for selling something. People listing for 100k aren’t getting 100k.

 

If they were selling cheap before the new gear, it was probably because people had a stock pile of those mats because they were reverse engineering for other stuff and just wanted to get rid of them. But once demand took off and people cleared those reverse engineered components, they would have realised how much it actually costs in time and credits to make them. That’s why the price has gone up, not because people are gouging the market.

 

You are probably right about the person selling at 100k setting the market price. But that doesn’t mean he’s selling much higher than it costs to make them. It just means he’s undercutting everyone else to sell the most.

 

If you have a stock pile of them you got cheap or you have the mats, by all means sell them super cheap if you want, but you will sell out fast and find making more will cost too much. All you will do is give the people selling higher some cheap kits to buy and then resell when you sold yours. You are feeding them more than helping other people and for a short time you will negatively affect those small few ledgitmate crafters who’ve put in the time and effort to craft for a small percentage of profits.

Edited February 15, 2019 by TrixxieTriss

[LD_Little_Dragon]

So now you become what you hate, the price setter.

 

What do you have against other people making credits too?

And who made you the market police to decide if something is too expensive?

If they are selling at a reasonable rate at that price, why reduce that price if the market is happy to pay it?

It’s makes no logical sense to do that, unless you are trying to **** with other sellers for some reason.

 

Why be so spiteful to do that to people?

 

There are more buyers than sellers.

 

When I price my items, I don't think 'what is the most profit I can make' I think 'what is a reasonable profit to make'. I'm sure the sellers who want to make 300 to 400 percent profit are unhappy when I price at a measly 200 percent profit, but I'm also sure that the buyers are happy.

 

I don't consider sellers the victims, not when it's all too common to find the people listing (for example) an item for 350k who will then start a game of leapfrog with people undercutting that, until that same item is now going for 150k or less. If that 350k seller is willing to list the same iterm for 150k, then that 350k listing was way too high to begin with.

Edited February 15, 2019 by LD_Little_Dragon

[Joonbeams]

There are more buyers than sellers.

 

When I price my items, I don't think 'what is the most profit I can make' I think 'what is a reasonable profit to make'. I'm sure the sellers who want to make 300 to 400 percent profit are unhappy when I price at a measly 200 percent profit, but I'm also sure that the buyers are happy.

 

I don't consider sellers the victims, not when it's all too common to find the people listing (for example) an item for 350k who will then start a game of leapfrog with people undercutting that, until that same item is now going for 150k or less. If that 350k seller is willing to list the same iterm for 150k, then that 350k listing was way too high to begin with.

 

^^. And don't assume all "undercutters" know about or care about your prices. I've made this point a few times in the past. High volume crafters don't care about the prices others are selling at. I almost never ever look at what the prices of other items are. If you've done this long enough, you will have a system and you'll know what a steady stream of profits should look like. When I'm active, I'm often selling pages and pages of items on several toons. I know what my costs are and what my margins need to be -- and that's all I use in setting my prices. It's only on the very rare occasion that I'm selling CM items that I bother to see what the other prices are. Otw, I have a general sense of how fast things should go and what the state of inflation is. And that's it - craft, list, collect, rinse, repeat....

[juliushorst]

When I price my items, I don't think 'what is the most profit I can make' I think 'what is a reasonable profit to make'. I'm sure the sellers who want to make 300 to 400 percent profit are unhappy when I price at a measly 200 percent profit, but I'm also sure that the buyers are happy.

 

I don't consider sellers the victims, not when it's all too common to find the people listing (for example) an item for 350k who will then start a game of leapfrog with people undercutting that, until that same item is now going for 150k or less. If that 350k seller is willing to list the same iterm for 150k, then that 350k listing was way too high to begin with.

 

,,,and then someone comes, buys your stuff and posts it again at higher price Seen that happening with my items, did it myself a couple times when seeing something posted for far too little (like Hypercrate for 80M).

[Rion_Starkiller]

But why do you feel it’s not reasonable when the same could be said for people selling 236 or 240 Augments at 3-6 million a pop?

 

236 and 240 augs have extremely rare mats. An augmentation kit costs regular mats after RE'ing a green piece of crafted gear. The costs are no where near similar.

 

They aren’t unreasonable when you consider the time and effort it takes to craft them. First you have to craft a blue item that you then need to reverse engineer. You also need to get purple slicing parts from doing slicing missions and already have crafted the bonded attachments.

Essentially, augment 10 kits cost twice as much to make as most other standard blue items on the market and no other blue items I know of require a purple mats to craft. Remember, you don’t always get purple mats from the missions (which can add up in credits) and you can’t farm those slicing terminals for mats (you only get a measly amount of credits farming since they nerfed them to stop credit sellers)

 

I honestly think 100k is too cheap for the cost and time and effort that goes to making them, it’s why I don’t do it and I’m sure it’s why you also buy them instead. When I see them for 60k. My mind boggles at the stupidly of even bothering.

I can sell dyes and make three times as many credits as I would making Augments and selling them for 100k because it’s faster craft and use less mats. You also need to consider the 8% tax for selling something. People listing for 100k aren’t getting 100k.

 

If they were selling cheap before the new gear, it was probably because people had a stock pile of those mats because they were reverse engineering for other stuff and just wanted to get rid of them. But once demand took off and people cleared those reverse engineered components, they would have realised how much it actually costs in time and credits to make them. That’s why the price has gone up, not because people are gouging the market.

 

You are probably right about the person selling at 100k setting the market price. But that doesn’t mean he’s selling much higher than it costs to make them. It just means he’s undercutting everyone else to sell the most.

 

If you have a stock pile of them you got cheap or you have the mats, by all means sell them super cheap if you want, but you will sell out fast and find making more will cost too much. All you will do is give the people selling higher some cheap kits to buy and then resell when you sold yours. You are feeding them more than helping other people and for a short time you will negatively affect those small few ledgitmate crafters who’ve put in the time and effort to craft for a small percentage of profits.

 

You can literally log in to your crafting toon, mash a few buttons, then switch to the toon you want to play on.

[Rouslaan]

It is Cartel market items, not crafting or dropping from somewhere, for ridiculously low prices.

Same pattern continues for the last couple of months: some ppl put 50x Armor sets which are being sold for 2600 cartel coins on Cartel Market for 6-8 millions. This is very suspicious.

[DzastinBiberi]

Its easy to explain really.

 

I you have bils' of credits, you buy 10 sets when they are low priced, wait a bit, then sell them for higher price, which will be lower than a current one.

 

Or buy a few hypercrates and sell sets for whatever price that suits you.