Can someone with better understanding of economics give me some insight on the Lenz rivens situation?

[Antiphoton]

I understand how offer and demand works, and thought I'm no wolf of Wall Street, I know how to navigate trade chat to make some profit now and then. However, the Lenz situation is confusing me a little. Why are people asking several thousands for rivens with random rolls for this weapon? Do they actually sell them for that price?

I get that it is a very fun and novelty weapon. I see posts stating that it can one shot 8 ancient healers with X riven. But it can do that even without one!

I had a CC+CD Lenz riven myself (ended up trading it for a bunch of other stuff). The base weapon is so powerful that a normal 5 forma build without a riven was barely distinguishable from a build with one. It destroys unarmored enemies no matter what. But it struggles with high level armored heavies in the same way.

 

I saw two or three guys saying that they are willing to pay very high amounts for VERY specific rolls (something like +DMG+CC+CD-zoom). Do you think that only a small demand like that that could affect the whole market to the point where a guy with something like a +multishot+zoom (and 50 rerolls) thinks that he can sell it for 2k? Do you think they can actually sell it for that price? What are your general thoughts on this matter? 

 

 

On a side note, if you want to make the most of your Lenz and you don't have a "godly" riven for it... Get the Seeking Shuriken augment for Ash. It's a one handed ability, you can cast it even while the bow is drawn. Aim, press 1 before releasing the arrow, and any Grineer will die as fast as an Infested. No riven required.

[FashionFrame]

I actually do that Ash build all the time! Makes the Lenz perfect for any situation (As long as it isn't crowded!)

[Jobistober]

[khangalanga]

The lenz riven market, along with ALL riven markets and markets in general, has a bunch of people who vastly overvalue their mods. A +heat/+faction damage/-reload speed could be listed for 2000p. Of course, no one is going to buy it, but tons of sellers believe their riven is already worth multiple thousands of platinum just because it has the name "lenz" on it. They're the same people who call that same riven "godly." They're all looking to make a pretty penny, but they greatly overvalue their items and refuse to accept the actual price of their riven.

It only affects the whole market as you said because people get this disillusioned idea that the riven name is the only major selling point and that the stats are just a side benefit. They don't factor in the fact that their stats absolutely suck.

And to answer your last question, I hate it. It makes it hard for riven traders and buyers like me to find an actual decent riven without sellers advertising their +zoom/-damage rivens as godly.

Edited September 27, 2017 by khangalanga

[shellspeed1]

5 minutes ago, Antiphoton said:

I saw two or three guys saying that they are willing to pay very high amounts for VERY specific rolls (something like +DMG+CC+CD-zoom). Do you think that only a small demand like that that could affect the whole market to the point where a guy with something like a +multishot+zoom (and 50 rerolls) thinks that he can sell it for 2k? Do you think they can actually sell it for that price? What are your general thoughts on this?

I had a CC+CD Lenz riven myself (ended up trading it for a bunch of other stuff). The base weapon is so powerful that a normal 5 forma build without a riven was barely distinguishable from a build with one. It destroys unarmored enemies no matter what. But it struggles with high level armored heavies in the same way.

 

 

First things first all weapons struggle against high level armored enemies due to how armor scaling works in this which is why you should bring a corrosive projection aura mod.

Going off what I remember for economics I don't think that the pricing for non crit damage , crit chance, and multishot or damage rivens are going to heavily impact the pricing for other rivens in this category unless people are buying lenz rivens in order to try and such such a riven mod by rolling themselves. As for the high price that they seem to be trying to sell the riven at it might be what the market will take however due to how people sell rivens mods it is much more likely they have significantly overpriced the riven at least in my opinion. So in my opinion no they cannot sell it for that price. My general thoughts on this is if you want a riven mod due to how they are priced you need to either really like the weapon and do not mind paying for farming large quantites of platnium or you need to be willing to buy the riven cheaply with poor stats and roll it until you are satisfied with it. Also DE needs to buff kuva drops.

 

[KIREEK]

The answer to that is yes, the seller can ask any price for his unique riven, if you don't like it or your budget is smaller then don't buy the riven

Lenz is indeed great and rivens for it were sold for a substantial amount of platinum, i believe this gave the idea that lenz is a nice way of making pat, so players that have such riven, simply ask an ammount that if they are lucky, will make them receive a satisfatory amount of platinum.

While it's true some players know exactly what they want for the weapons they have (that's why they go to extreme lenghts to get specific things), this is not the case for the vast majority of players, many players are simply reading statements that lenz is good or that rivens for it are expensive because the weapon is good, but that won't help them in anyway, a competent player with far cheaper rivens will always outperform a player with a lenz and a 5k riven mod they they bought because "it must be good"

My sugestion, your concerns should be in your gameplay and not trying to change how the market or players mind work, it doesn't work that way.

[[DE]Grzegorz]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endowment_effect

[Alcatraz]

A lot of the initial high pricing was because it was very new, really good, and because it was all of that it got such a high price because EVERYONE wanted it, and few had it so the price was set high for it around 2k straight off without great stats because it was for those who wanted it during the highest demands.

Now when it had really good stats that just jumped it up on that select riven with really good stats. Everyone just watching trading chat saw these messages in trade with these said rivens just tried to get everything they could out of it, whether it had great stats or not. I watched Lenz for about 2-3 weeks and I saw a lot of the same rivens around the same time of the day, every day.

Now pricing has gone down to around 700-900 for mediocre stats, and still around 2-3k for really good stats. I've seen Arca Plasmor being advertised at 12.5k But the stats were really high, and of the best kind for it. Just it was new, and inflated.

A Lenz Riven like this will kill anything armored or not up to level 100 in 1 shot because it crits so high. And the cost for this, because it has 2 upsides and no down side, it would sell probably as high as 4k with patience and the right person to come along.

But you have to remember it is the individual person that is willing to pay that much that is actually going to buy something like this.

You know all those rivens you're seeing posted at such high numbers for the Lenz with mediocre stats? You're going to see that guy every day trying to sell it and reducing his price every so often because it doesn't sell. It's just inflation on an open market where everyone is greedy and want the most out of the riven, because they've seen it being sold by others for such a high price. Mind you, those they've seen, probably didn't sell it for that much either. If at all.

Those guys you mentioned, they aren't going to settle for any of these mediocre stats for their riven, so they are going to generally pay higher for a riven they will only have to buy 1 time.

Tl;DR: Over inflation of mediocre because they saw someone else with a high price. Create illusion that this is set price, and sell for higher than actual worth.

 

Edited September 27, 2017 by Alcatraz

[xXx_mtv_xXx]

Minmaxers are gonna pay a lot more than the average player, so yes those rivens will sell for thousands of plat.

[Beartornado]

It's new

It's good looking

It feels satisfying to use

It has the potential for some insane stats with the right Riven

 

That's basically Riven lottery right there. the actual value doesn't really matter to most players. I think you'r grossly underestimating the effect of demand. Rivens in general aren't hard to get, but getting one for a specific weapon is difficult. High demand can put a huge strain on price because you're not just paying for that specific Riven for the right weapon, as well as the stats, but you're also paying to get it first so to speak. I assure you down the line, as new toys are introduced and hype trails off that Lenz Rivens will be much easier to negotiate. It's the same logic that drives a full Oberon Prime set from 300-400p down to 100p in a matter of weeks, it just takes longer because of the rarity and popularity of Rivens.

[Antiphoton]

20 minutes ago, KIREEK said:

My sugestion, your concerns should be in your gameplay and not trying to change how the market or players mind work, it doesn't work that way.

I never said I wanted to. I just find this situation interesting as an observer, because I don't see the demand justifying the prices of the offer.

20 minutes ago, Alcatraz said:

A Lenz Riven like this will kill anything armored or not up to level 100

I had a +CC+CD Lenz riven like this. It had a little less of each stat because it didn't had a negative, but it would still surpass 100% crit chance without additional crit chance mods. It didn't one shot lvl 100 corrupted heavy gunners. The damage gain compared to a non riven build was very small against armored enemies.

24 minutes ago, JuicyButthurt said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endowment_effect

This is exactly the kind of info I was looking for, thanks.