Spiral Knights - How do you even AH?

How do you even AH?

8 replies [Last post]

Sun, 03/08/2015 - 07:33

Kesari

I'm almost terrified to use the Auction House at all.
That 10% AH cut means you just can't make any narrow margin profits. Selling a 25,000 recipe MUST be sold for more than 27500.
It also discourages trying to sell any valuable items, as posting an item worth, say, 500,000 costs 50,000 just to put up...

This only leaves trying to sell stuff in zone chat, which is just tedious, and you're likely to get scammed by someone changing numbers right when you press 'accept' on an offer, even though it's supposed to reset when something is changed.

So, are there any items that sell well on the AH, and that by being posted here doesn't drastically change the SK economy to shift into having a surplus of that item because everyone ends up reading this? I know some people have made quite a living off of buy/sell, but I'm not sure how they manage it with those fees on AH and energy trading.

Sun, 03/08/2015 - 07:53

Bopp

yes

First, you forgot the Bazaar forum. Along with Auction House and chat, that's another key part of the marketplace.

Second, yes, you can make money selling things on the Auction House. Here are two uncreative ideas:

* Try selling recipes that are not available in the Hall of Heroes. Those include new gunner gear and boss item upgrades. But you have to be careful, because some recipes (e.g. Dark Briar Barrage) don't sell well for some reason. Get to know the market, before you invest a lot of money.

* Some players buy Orbs of Alchemy with energy and then re-sell them one at a time for a higher price. But last I checked the 10% cut made the margins on this transaction pretty thin.

For more information, try searching Google for things like "merchanting site:forums.spiralknights.com", "auction house site:forums.spiralknights.com", etc. Several players have made guides over the years.

Sun, 03/08/2015 - 08:20

Kesari

AH Guides

I've seen a lot of guides, many are several years old, and thus a lot of things have changed.

One difficulty I'm having is this "getting to know the market"
How? Just take note of everything with bids? See what's just sitting there and what's being bid on?
The AH doesn't show a history of recent buyouts, or settled bids, so I have no idea how to get my bearings this way.

Sun, 03/08/2015 - 08:38

Skepticraven

↓

Logistically speaking, a 25kcrn cost item must be sold for 27,778 crns on the AH to break even.
The 10% applies to the end selling price, so you have to divide by 0.9 for the price you wish to obtain [10% more than multiplying by 1.1].

Sun, 03/08/2015 - 10:55

Bopp

yes

One difficulty I'm having is this "getting to know the market". How? Just take note of everything with bids? See what's just sitting there and what's being bid on?

Yes, you have to observe the market for a while, noting prices. For example, you see a Black Kat Cloak with Buy Now price of 500,000. And you think, "That's kind of high; is that really going to sell?" And you check back a few hours later to find that it sold long before time ran out. So you just learned something.

It's not the kind of thing you can master in one minute of study. If it were, then everyone would do it equally well, and making money would be much harder.

Sun, 03/08/2015 - 11:13

Traevelliath

If you want to dip your toes into the Auction House, I'd recommend trying to sell 3* recipes that aren't in the hall of heroes. They're 4k cr at Basil (D13 in the arcade), and can sell up to 14k cr on the auction house.

Some good recipes to aim for that always seem to reliably get me money...

- Dark Chaingun
- Twisted Targe
- Twisted Snarble Barb
- Tundrus
- Kilowatt Pulsar
- Flaming Pulsar
- Elemental Blaster
- Shadow Blaster

Sun, 03/08/2015 - 16:54

Kesari

Thanks for that

I appreciate the feedback, and thanks for the list Traevelliath, that's about what I've been aiming for, but I've honestly been too concerned about throwing crowns away on stuff that wont sell. I mean, recipes rely on the fact that people do not have that recipe, as once it is learned, you know it forever.

With the game being older, I was concerned that there would no longer be any value to these items.

I tried materials a bit, but all of that is just penny pinching nonsense, got some blighted bones for 56cr a piece and not sure if that's good or bad or if they'll ever resell, or if I should even care as I can make that money in half a level.

Currently I'm just placing bids on stuff that is super low, I know that someone will outbid me BUT it lets me track their progress and see what they ultimately sell for, and thus I have something to go off of for future reference.

Sun, 03/08/2015 - 19:57

Leekcoco

I could type a long post about merching, but since you only mention recipes and such I'm going to assume you're working with 100k or under items. Recipes and high-end items are different ballparks, eg. recipes sell better in AH, where stuff over 200-300k tend to appear in trade chat because of the fee you're worried about. In short, AH has a much higher "readership" than trade chat (reaches people when you're offline, in guild halls) so sell your lower value items there while sacrificing the fee because 2k in losses is nothing compared to the 1-2 hrs you can save by not standing in Haven while you could do something more productive (like farming FSC, worth more than 2k).

Recipes lines that sell well: Polaris, BTB, BTS, Divine Avenger, Gran Faust, all new Blaster lines. You'll be more popular with buyers who play LD and don't want to grind Basil instead. But never get the 4* because they're common so the market is flooded and you won't make profit.

As for learning the market, just go to the Bazaar forums and read all the threads. You will start to pick up the pattern.

Sun, 03/08/2015 - 22:29

Hexzyle

@Kesari

With the game being older, I was concerned that there would no longer be any value to these items.

Well, there is value in them. Just because the game's getting older, doesn't mean that no new players ever join the game. There are far more new people joining the game than there ever could be merchanters selling 3 star recipes. That's why the price for them is so high, and it's why the price of them has stayed so high.

The over-promotion of missions also adds to the profit.

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How do you even AH?