Auction House / Economy Discussion (2K18)

[harryl]

I'm always interested in talking about the economic meta game, as I'm miserly and refuse to pay real $ for VC/MT.

I played PC the last few years and making MT could be time consuming but was actually pretty simple. Not so much about sniping underpriced or accidentally priced cards, but more about buying and holding for medium-term appreciation in value.

But a lot of that operated in accordance with the much smaller player base and resultingly much greater scarcity to rare cards.

I need to learn the ground rules of AH profiteering all over again, now on the PS4 platform.

So far, I haven't done much. Have bought and flipped a handful of player cards that I could see were anomalously priced low. And some various consumables that I could see could be easily resold for more. And have sold pretty much anything I got in Starter/Domination packs that is worth over 750 MT.

I'm holding a few Sapphire that I bought to play while I wait to flip. Really not sure when is likely to be the right time. Memory from PC tells me that the top Current cards usually peak a couple or few weeks into the game.

Are we getting packs tomorrow? Throwback Thursday? Are we getting Theme Packs on Friday? What do y'all think these will do to the market? Logic would say they'd drive down prices on Currents, and all cards. But I don't recall prices crashing on Currents so quickly in prior years.

[Bi00]

Re: Auction House / Economy Discussion (2K18)

I also like talking about making $$. Reading trends will definitely be very useful and profitable this year as the alternative of sniping is really tedious.

I would say the next big shakeup is the start of the supermax season. I think effective online cards will make a decent jump. Good duos, current emeralds/sapphires, and collection rewards will be jumping up in price early into the season. I think people will realize that 1775 cap leaves a lot of room for good cards and people's un-upgraded lineups will be exposed.

People will probably upgrade up to higher rated cards which have a compounded benefit of high system proficiency. I would also look into weak positions. Playing out of position this year lowers system proficiency and won't be as attractive so I think good PFs are going to be in demand right away. This is why Davis is the most expensive sapphire and KP is the most expensive gold.

Personally, I'm not going to invest now because there's too many possible risks and unknowns coming in the future. We don't know what the first them packs will be like and how good the players are. I expect a ruby pullable and reward amy but who knows. Also, no one knows how the salary cap system will work either and if that has a noticeable effect on card prices.

I think the safe thing is to snipe cards that will keep value short term and sell right away. Snipe stable movers like badges and good reward collection silvers and bronzes.

[harryl]

Re: Auction House / Economy Discussion (2K18)

^ I think this all sound analysis. People may not even really calculate out advantages of certain cards in a meticulous way, but organically I think all the dynamics of team building you talk about will end up affecting price on the AH.

I'm just going to make the assumption that the good Sapphires will continue to appreciate for another week or so. I think that has always been the case, though every year can be different. I have 2 x Kawhi, KD, and AD sitting around and don't actually play them. And I definitely will sell them at some point and hopefully make MT and then wait for their value to crash at least once before rebuying.

Aside from lucky snipes or very marginal arbitrage sort of short-term buy-and-sell, this is the only way to make MT right now. Well, also playing through Domination and selling what you pull.

I think that the Salary Cap is 1750 to start with? It's kind of disappointing because people can already start out with teams that are 4 Sapphire, 4 Emerald, 2 Gold, and 3 Bronze. And certainly can also mix in Ruby and even Amethyst. So bar is already set pretty high and for a F2P player, I think one needs to try to sacrifice early competitiveness to build up the bankroll to compete later on.

If you try to field a competitive team right now, unless you sell at just the right time and temporarily sit out, the value of everything you're holding will evaporate and you'll lose large opportunity cost in MT.

We may seem Consumables go up in value now that Super Max is starting for real. Otherwise, I don't see the value of these climbing all that much for a while, because people won't lock in a lot of MT to upgrade players they consider to be disposable.

[Bi00]

Re: Auction House / Economy Discussion (2K18)

For sure, free players have to be smart with their MT unless they want to constantly go for AH snipes. Good idea on keeping those sapphires because I think they are on their way up.

Also, you'll want to build some MT to invest in any opportunities that pop up. Weekly challenges, event cards, moment challenges, and etc are all great times to invest heavy for easy profit.

[harryl]

Re: Auction House / Economy Discussion (2K18)

For sure, free players have to be smart with their MT unless they want to constantly go for AH snipes. Good idea on keeping those sapphires because I think they are on their way up.

I sure hope so, because I sunk basically all of the 45K MT I had at the time in them. Need them to go up at least another 10-15% to make it at all worthwhile. If we can get to the point where they're worth nearly 20K each, then I'll be fairly satisfied.

Also, you'll want to build some MT to invest in any opportunities that pop up. Weekly challenges, event cards, moment challenges, and etc are all great times to invest heavy for easy profit.

For sure. I only just beat the Bucks in Domination, so I still have a lot of grind-to-earn ahead of me.

[Defconxx]

Re: Auction House / Economy Discussion (2K18)

The economy of the game is quite different this year, I think. As there is no real collector levels, some items have lost their value. Last year, I made loads of MT flipping jerseys, logos etc... this year it will be more player centric I think.

Your best bet to make a decent bankroll right now would be to complete historic domination before the first historic players drop in packs and sell them right away. Golds and emeralds you pull will lose their value quickly once packs drop.

If one is a bit adventurous, you can try to anticipate what current collections will raise in value once the cap increases as people will more than likely try to improve their lineup for future supermax rounds. But that's easier said than done in those early stages of the game.

[Erithtotl]

Re: Auction House / Economy Discussion (2K18)

My experience from last year. Historic players have high value until their respective team packs come out. Then value plummets over 2-3 days, then slowly increases to a level below where it was before the pack, but higher than that all time low.

Players that are real valuable now, like the best emeralds and sapphires, will gain value as people start competing and earn MT from the solo challenges, then will start to steadily lose value as moments and specialty packs are released to the point where they are near list price after a few months.

The best badges will pretty much retain their value for the duration, unless we learn that some mean more/less than they did previous years. Right now people are flooded with contracts, as they have few players worth spending a contract on and are getting a ton through the challenges. I'd avoid AH'ing them as they'll likely just sit there, I just can't imagine people buying them even for the minimum. Later on, as people are running out squads with rubies and above, and they've burnt off all their surplus, they'll start buying them, though never for more than a little bit above the minimum price.

Only semi-related question, do strategy cards really do all that much, are their full effects documented somewhere? Its easy to very quickly hit your limit on these cards. I can't imagine anyone ever buying them on the AH.

I've seen a few teams loaded with emerald/sapphire players already. Are these the result of people just buying $100 worth of VC/legend edition, or are there already people making bank off the AH. With the resetting of your search parameters it seems like sniping is a lot harder this year. Also, I just switched to PS4 from XBox One. When is the AH refresh interval for PS4?

[justlaze]

Re: Auction House / Economy Discussion (2K18)

When is the AH refresh interval for PS4?

There is no refresh anymore, auctions go up live.

In my opinion 2K wanted to confront MT selling websites by killing sniping, as there is no more refresh and the fact that filters reset.

It is still possible to make MT, but it is harder.
Lowkey it's all about scroll sniping and being lucky to see something.

As there is no card count in 2K18 a lot of items that were worth something last year will only go now for 250.

I won't have as much time for MyTeam than in past years, but I know for sure, that it will be the most important to see trends quickly and react.

What cards are required for new challenges? What do people want to lock, what cards do they need? What are the best rewards "at the moment"?

I think you can still make good amount of MT if you invest time in it, but me personally will stick with some boxes when endgame cards come out.
I might flip some value cards in between but stack my MT without spending in lower tiers.

Sidenote: finally got a respond from the guy who completed historic domination first and got hooked up by LD with the missing rewards... it's 100% confirmed that you dont need the entire jersey collection (historic) for Pistol Pete - only the reward jerseys. So if you did bet on that horse to make MT, I suggest you start selling off asap...(before more people know - your welcome )

Cheers

[Erithtotl]

Re: Auction House / Economy Discussion (2K18)

There is no refresh anymore, auctions go up live.

In my opinion 2K wanted to confront MT selling websites by killing sniping, as there is no more refresh and the fact that filters reset.

It is still possible to make MT, but it is harder.
Lowkey it's all about scroll sniping and being lucky to see something.

As there is no card count in 2K18 a lot of items that were worth something last year will only go now for 250.

I won't have as much time for MyTeam than in past years, but I know for sure, that it will be the most important to see trends quickly and react.

What cards are required for new challenges? What do people want to lock, what cards do they need? What are the best rewards "at the moment"?

I think you can still make good amount of MT if you invest time in it, but me personally will stick with some boxes when endgame cards come out.
I might flip some value cards in between but stack my MT without spending in lower tiers.

Sidenote: finally got a respond from the guy who completed historic domination first and got hooked up by LD with the missing rewards... it's 100% confirmed that you dont need the entire jersey collection (historic) for Pistol Pete - only the reward jerseys. So if you did bet on that horse to make MT, I suggest you start selling off asap...(before more people know - your welcome )

Cheers

I'm glad they are trying to take action against MT sellers and over-snipers. Also good they cleared the interval, that jibes I guess with what I've been seeing as well.

[harryl]

Re: Auction House / Economy Discussion (2K18)

Have enjoyed reading what each of you has shared in this thread. Much appreciated that you've taken time to share impressions.

The best badges will pretty much retain their value for the duration, unless we learn that some mean more/less than they did previous years. Right now people are flooded with contracts, as they have few players worth spending a contract on and are getting a ton through the challenges.

You can definitely sell Silver contracts for 250 and Gold for a tick or two higher. My impression on Badges is that they're starting to climb in value now that some people have quite a bit of MT to burn and now that there's Super Max kicking off and there's incentive to get relative advantage.

Same thing with Shoes.

Only semi-related question, do strategy cards really do all that much, are their full effects documented somewhere? Its easy to very quickly hit your limit on these cards. I can't imagine anyone ever buying them on the AH.

I don't know. My assumption is that they might give something like a Silver shoe's boost to relevant ratings for some short duration (1 or 2 minutes?). But I have no idea, really. And I cannot imagine anyone is buying these...yet.

I think people will start burning them in Super Max and we may actually see ability to sell them. Or not. But I'm still not out of AH inventory space. Not my main 50 slots and I haven't been stashing in my Results overflow either.

I've seen a few teams loaded with emerald/sapphire players already. Are these the result of people just buying $100 worth of VC/legend edition, or are there already people making bank off the AH.

I have only played through Spurs on Domination and have not done much AH trading and I have 5 Sapphire and maybe like 8 Golds, some Silvers and Bronzes. I have enough MT to buy 3-5 Emeralds, depending on cost. And there are people who are done with Historic Domination. So one can definitely afford to have teams that are way above Super Max 1775 cap, without spending any real $.

In my opinion 2K wanted to confront MT selling websites by killing sniping, as there is no more refresh and the fact that filters reset.

There's also the benefit of reducing server load so that response time is better for everyone all the time. I was never going to do the thing where one camps out every 15 minutes. So I'm glad that any bargain finds will be more dispersed and, also, that one can sell off stuff extremely quickly if one wants to.

I won't have as much time for MyTeam than in past years, but I know for sure, that it will be the most important to see trends quickly and react.

What cards are required for new challenges? What do people want to lock, what cards do they need? What are the best rewards "at the moment"?

Yup. I think unless you want to live in the AH, and make more than what the occasional lucky find yields, it's going to be all about having more of an investment/trend mindset. Especially picking out which cards in a Theme Pack will offer the best cost:appreciation ratio, and when that ratio has peaked.

With today's drop of Historic TBT Packs, it will be interesting to see the effect on the market. It seems they're only dropping up to Emerald cards, so this may end up pushing down Current Emerald prices. Despite there being higher volume of added Sapphires to the market, because of aggregate pack buying, their value may be relatively safe as I don't think Historic Sapphires are dropping and there is generally a lot more MT coming into the market as more people play more games.

I'm very curious to see the trajectory of Historic Golds. Current Golds, aside from a very select few, are dirt-cheap. There are some really sweet Historic Golds and, earlier in the day, it seemed they could go for anywhere between, say, 1500 and 6000. I'm really hoping that they generally all end up between 1000 and 2000 very quickly, because there's a few I'd love to have for my cheap Domination team, while they're still very useful.

[harryl]

Re: Auction House / Economy Discussion (2K18)

It appears to me that the price on Historic cards was actually lowest yesterday afternoon. And that supply has constricted and prices have increased, generally, since then.

This isn't normal, right?

I'm used to cards in just-dropped packs being very expensive in the first few hours because people pay a premium to get them early, then for the price to taper down as more and more supply comes in. And then perhaps taper up as people stop pulling packs and/or drop rates constrict and/or the packs expire.

It seems to me, one might deduce that a lot of packs were opened in the early hours yesterday, but pack openings basically died...and/or 2K really restricted drop rates.

Maybe people lost enthusiasm when it became clear that the pack contents maxed out at Emerald?

[Bi00]

Re: Auction House / Economy Discussion (2K18)

It's pretty normal for the PS4 market. Usually, prices bottom out the night of a new pack release as people keep pulling and underbidding each other. Then card prices slowly rise until the first weekend where it tanks again around Saturday night. Then it stabilizes after that.

These packs are pretty terrible so maybe the weekend prices will stay high.

[Defconxx]

Re: Auction House / Economy Discussion (2K18)

It seems to me, one might deduce that a lot of packs were opened in the early hours yesterday, but pack openings basically died...and/or 2K really restricted drop rates.

Maybe people lost enthusiasm when it became clear that the pack contents maxed out at Emerald?

that's pretty much what happened IMO, you can expect a few more packs being opened during the weekend, but as they are pretty terrible, not much will change until new sapphires drop.

[harryl]

Re: Auction House / Economy Discussion (2K18)

Not seeing any meaningful movement on the Sapphires since they went up. Maybe around 10% appreciation since general game launch. But I ended up deciding they may not go up any further, sold my dupe Kawhi for 13,950. Bought him for 10,950, so just a sliver of profit.

May be a mistake. While we may get new cards in packs, and new inventory of existing cards, we may also see Sapphires and Emeralds in greater demand when the salary cap in Super Max goes up.

[Bi00]

Re: Auction House / Economy Discussion (2K18)

Sounds like we are getting historic sapphires added to packs this Thursday. That would mean that your current sapphires take a double hit, more supply of comparable cards and more supply of the same cards. Would be wise to sell them now.

Also, I've got more faith that increased salary cap favors the reward Rubys more than current Sapphires.