What is the current condition of the tf2 economy as of now?

[Bobby Hill]

I did several ref to 20keys (aprox) in a week when the breadbox update came out.  does that count?  or too old :<

That is a great example of knowing how the economy works. People have different ways of doing it. 

[TheVirtualEconomist]

Simply put, don't listen to anything "veteran" traders say. Times have changed, and we all know you can't scrapbank, hatbank, or any of these "old" tequniques anymore. The economy has changed, but there are still plenty of ways to profit.

[Wrecks]

If anything, the fall of the buds helped the economy. Unusuals and other high tier items are no longer priced using an unstable currency. Much easier to use keys than to check every time someone offered you buds.

 

'Oi, how much are buds today?'

'Oh, I dunno, 15 keys.'

'Oh, bugger, they dropped again!'

 

How was that any better than now? Answer: it wasn't. Economy stability seems fine. Sadly, a lot of traders left last year after the 'crash'. So that hasn't helped much.

[Heated Bread]

Simply put, don't listen to anything "veteran" traders say. Times have changed, and we all know you can't scrapbank, hatbank, or any of these "old" tequniques anymore. The economy has changed, but there are still plenty of ways to profit.

 

Speaking from personal experience, you can definitely still scrap bank.  At least in terms of trade volume, you can do just about as well at it as you could before scrap.tf came along if you're smart about it.  It's just not worth it.  It's not worth the backpack space and it's not worth it to accumulate metal at that rate when keys are so much metal.  And just for some perspective, it was hardly worth the trouble for most serious traders back when keys were only 2.33 refined.

 

But yeah.  Things have changed.  Change usually means sour grapes for a lot of people.  Especially if you can't adapt.  Not valve, though.  Valve is still doing great.  Better than ever, reallly...

[.Dusk]

Ever heard of the Steam Community Market? 

 

>buy Golden pan for 980 keys

 

It's doable, maybe you're just bad?

the only thing bad here is your flawed logic. Ever heard of gaben tax? ever heard of the 1 week where whatever you bought isnt tradeable? anyone logical wouldnt settle for "doable" when there's easier ways. Especially when "doable" is dropping 2.5 thousand dollars on an in-game item. why wait 7 days to make 20% profit when you can do other things and get more faster? 

[TheMightyPotato]

Here's one for you:

 

I know you weren't asking me specifically, but that's been a video which has sort of been stuck in my mind for a while.

 

Scroll up to my previous post if you want to see what I think about why people like that guy are having such a hard time.

 

Hey, thanks for the video.

 

I haven't really had that much experience in trading, but I can agree with him on some points (trading isn't as easy anymore). Although, I never found trade servers to be profitable in the first place. It's essentially a place where people copy & paste frequently and hope to get a buyer. I've pretty much always stuck to using websites like tf2outpost. Another thing that he mentioned, the fact that people can't read on outpost hasn't changed over the years.

 

I also agree with your previous post as to why people find that "trading iz ded". Although, perhaps it's for the best that 'scrap to unusual' isn't as easy, that way we can see it in less usernames.

[Watermelon.]

you think someone could do a rags to riches kinda thing in present time, like a scrap to unusual. Or has the market changed so much that this kind of method is very ineffective or nearly impossible?

S2U are so hard now because the popular methods are wayyy too common for them to work even a bit.

The guy who made the S2U in one day was about to make a sequel to the series, but couldn't because all the methods he was using were too common to be effective.

 

There definitely are other, better ways, they're just not out there yet. A good way though is just to use lots of websites and resources, also the SCM helps too.

For example, using the SCM can take you from a marketable 2 ref item to 5 ref's worth of $$. But the week rule applies, so you would keep doing this until you have enough to buy an unusual. Speaking of which, you can find good deals for unusuals on the SCM.

[Aethrozᴷᴹᴳᴸ]

wait for a person to come along who isn't a trader, but who actually plays this game and wants that unusual to wear while he's playing.  This kind of person isn't concerned with profit, reselling the item later on, or getting a deal.  If you've got what they want (and nobody is selling cheaper), they will pay your price, either in pure or they will overpay a lot in items they no longer want. This is the guy you want to sell to.  No lengthy negotiations, no bullshitting about made up prices, just a straight up transaction like you'd have in a store.  

 

Can confirm. Source: Bought shit from Gren in this manner.

[TheLastDinosaurOfTheCongo]

The economy is in no way shape or form dying, and if I hear another fucking person say that the "downfall of buds" was a economy crash, I am going to lose my mind.

Buds FIXED high tier trading. Let me say that again. Buds FIXED high tier trading. Why? Because now your unusuals don't randomly go up or down in price for no fucking reason. The economy is way stabler now than before, if u don't realize that, you might as well quit trading and do something more productive with your life.

 

 

I think Gren pretty much sumed up my opinion in a nice little responce. What makes a healthy economy? There being ACTUAL intrest in items. Why is csgo an arguably "better" economy? Because there is DEMAND for all items. 90% of tf2 traders trade to make profit, and the only "casuals" If you want to call them that live off the scm, not on tf2 outpost or the like. This makes it so the only people you trade with are toxic idiots trying to profit off you. TF2 is not a bad economy. But it sure as hell needs more people who actually want to wear unsuauls because hey look cool not because they can resell them for more than they paid for them.

This problem quite honestly is all because the only items with value are cosmetic. You don't need a burning team captain to play MvM, but you need a black box or a phlostiagator, or whatever. What would be he "fix"? deleate all unique weapons from people's inventories and make them pay for them in the Mann co Store for at least $5. This would make people riot even more than valve's shitty Escrow system, but the economy would be really healthy. People would spend money to get that weapon for competitive that they really need, and they would buy it from you on tf2 outpost as a "casual", not a "value" trader. How will I know this will work? I am an active trader in the Magic the Gathering economy. Pretty much all cards have some demand, so there is no issure in trying to move idiotic items like a gifted vintage max that no one in the right mind would ever want to buy. You can also snag good deals, trading a $5 card for a $10 card to someone who really loves the card you have a and it is the last card he really needs for his new deck. This is the way an economy this is truly healthy. Hopefully the release of competitive matchmaking will improve this issure of demand. This, and the fact that the scm is taking away from person to person trading are really the only two ways someone can argue that the economy is unhealthy. If you are not talking about those issuers, then your argument is faulty. There are reason that the economy is bad, but no one brings up the real reasons.

how do you think the hyper inflation of metal should be fixed? I've heard a good method would be to make craftable TOD tickets.

[jun]

Don't think at all

 

Little kids and new players think with the drop of buds, the economy is dead.

 

No

 

All that changed were buds dropped and stopped being used as currency. That's it

[TheMightyPotato]

 I've heard a good method would be to make craftable TOD tickets.

I'm pretty sure all that would do would dramatically drop the price of ToD tickets until they're worthless.

[Gren]

how do you think the hyper inflation of metal should be fixed? I've heard a good method would be to make craftable TOD tickets.

 

Fixing metal isn't enough.  I get that most people here are saying that everything is cool and maybe that's true.  What I do know for a fact is that every single day, the pool of available items in TF2 increases (through drops, MvM, unboxing, etc.), yet the demand pretty much stays the same (based on data that says the player base has been more or less stable over the last three years or so).  So more supply, but static demand.  This is why most items are decreasing in value, it's not even related to metal anymore (if it ever really was).  

 

We need trade-up contracts (like CSGO) that work with every single item in the game, from craft weps to unusuals.  I have no clue how those would work in TF2, but this is the only way to get the ever expanding mass of items under control.  

[TheLastDinosaurOfTheCongo]

I'm pretty sure all that would do would dramatically drop the price of ToD tickets until they're worthless.

I suppose the only way to icrease the value of metal is to actually delete it. In theory in a massive scale this would make it worth more. But people get wep drops and just make more! So it a never ending cycle.

[Heated Bread]

Crafting was supposed to be the way to deal with that.  People just don't craft with metal and they have no reason to.  If every crafting recipie needed metal, and if people actually had some motivation to craft, then that would probably fix things.  It would probably also bring back idlers, but I guess nothing is perfect.

[Buy my mixtape fam]

I suppose the only way to icrease the value of metal is to actually delete it. In theory in a massive scale this would make it worth more. But people get wep drops and just make more! So it a never ending cycle.

Well crafting is a productive way of deleting metal, but it's never been a perfect process.

 

And the economy is still well and all that. I mean, it's hard to sell unusuals for pure, but it's still fairly easy to make profit and work up to that dream hat. im just too lazy ayy