Trading Lifeskill Guide - BDFoundry (2024)

Introduction

Order Contracts

Once you purchase trade goods, the items go into your “Order Contracts” storage. Order Contracts are separate for each Trading NPC, and are used to store the trade goods until you are ready to transport them.

You automatically obtain a one-time fee for storing an item when you purchase the trade goods, and an additional fee is added every 4 hours if the items remain in your Order Contracts. These fees are paid using your Family Silver when you retrieve the items from the Order Contracts storage.

When you purchase any trade item, it will also automatically have a 7-day contract. If the trade items are not removed from the Order Contracts within 7 days, then the goods are spoiled, and can only be sold at 30% of the original purchase price.

To remove the Trade Goods from your Order Contracts, right-click the item and select how many you would like to place into your inventory (or nearby mount).

You can also view your “Order Contracts” at any time, by going to the ESC menu > Life (F6) > Order Contracts. However, in order to remove the items, you still need to go to the specific Trade Manager.

In the Order Contract UI, you can see the current Storage Fee for each item, the original price you paid for the item (in blue), and current selling price (in red). The selling price is the same for all regions, but you gain an extra bonus for travelling further distances to sell the item.

Price Changes and NPC Rumors

Trade Market prices change every 4 hours. The time for these price changes is every day at 02:00, 06:00, 10:00, 14:00, 18:00, and 22:00 (UTC). At each price change, the prices can increase or decrease by a maximum of 15%.

However, the overall price of the trade item can go up to a maximum of 300% (3 times) of the original price or can decrease to 30% of the original price.

You can track the next price change using the “Trading” alert on our website menu. Use the bell icon to turn the alert on/off.

As well as these basic price changes, there is also a “special price fluctuation” that can occur on certain items. This also happens every 4 hours at the same times as the regular price changes, and the special price fluctuation can increase the current price by up to x200% (doubling the price), or decrease the price by up to x50% (halving the price). The special price fluctuation is calculated after the normal price change.

For example:

• You buy an item that is at 100% price
• The normal price change occurs, adding +10% price. Now the price is 110%
• At the same time, there is a x200% special price fluctuation. This means that you double the updated price of 110% (not the original price), putting the new item price to 220%.

Old Moon Guild Newsletter

Information about these “special price fluctuations” can be found in the “Old Moon Newsletter”, which you can view by going to the ESC menu > Life (F6) > Old Moon Guild Newsletter.

How to confirm Rumors

The rumors are shown as speech bubbles above the NPCs head and the NPCs will give you hints about the items you can buy in that region.

For example, in the image below, the newsletter shows that there is a rise in the prices of Military Supplies in the Balenos Territory. When going to Velia, the NPCs can be seen saying “Why are the prices of weapons so high?” and “I’m not sure if the guards have enough weapons left”. This suggests that there is a demand for Military Supplies and that the rumors are true that the prices are going to rise. Therefore, you want to buy all trade goods in the Military Supplies category from Balenos, and then when the prices go up, sell them to any other region.

If the rumor is incorrect, there will either be no change at all, or the opposite may happen:

• Hike <-> Plunge
• Rise <-> Drop
• Slight Rise <-> Slight Drop

Rumor Locations

If the rumors cannot be found at the locations, this usually means that the rumor is false.

Use the locations below to search for certain rumors, a group of NPCs will spawn at these locations.

Using Rumors to make Profit

To make money with trading, you need to check the guild newsletter frequently. Pay attention to items that are rumored to “hike” or “rise”, since this means that the price is going to go up by a significant amount. Then, confirm whether or not the rumors are true. If the rumor is correct, purchase all items in that region for that trade item category. After the trade reset, you can sell them for large profit margins. Use a fast horse to run between the nodes, or swap to alts and check rumors, then purchase the items while you are there. Come back later with your wagon to deliver and sell them.

If you have extra time, you can also check “plunge” rumors, if they are incorrect, then there will either be no change to the price, or the opposite will happen (which will be a hike instead). Therefore, it is worth checking “plunge” rumors too, but only if you have spare time because they are more of a gamble.

It’s important to purchase all items that are going to hike up in price. Your instincts may tell you it is only worth buying the cheap items, but we can see that this is not actually the case:

• For example: If an item costs 1,000,000 silver to purchase at 100%.
  • When that item is at 120%, it has a 1,200,000 silver selling price. With a x200% price hike, the price is doubled and is now worth 2,400,000 silver (1,200,000 silver difference).
  • When that item is at 50%, it has a 500,000 silver selling price. With a x200% price hike, the price is doubled and is now worth 1,000,000 silver (500,000 silver difference).

You can purchase a total of 66 items at each trade manager, this will fill the max weight of your Order Contracts. Since you can only buy a maximum of 50 stock, you will need to swap channels to purchase the last 16 items.

If you are serious about trading, it is worth investing in a Peridot Forest Path Wagon since it is the only wagon that doesn’t have a limited lifespan. You can fit 22 items in this wagon, allowing you to sell the items in just 3 trips.

I also recommend joining the Lifeskill Discord, because there is an NA and EU thread in the #trading channel. Players post confirmations about the rumors in this channel so you can easily check them to save time.

• The Mysterious Giant Merchant Guild will purchase all of the cheap trade items, to sell at a later date.
• When the Giant Merchant Guild buys all the stock for that item, it causes a shortage for a while.
• During the shortage, the trade item cannot be purchased, and the price of the trade item will remain the same for 18 trade resets (3 days). You can still sell the trade goods you have purchased, but will not be able to buy any new trade items.
• After the shortage ends (3 days), the price of the trade item will rise back up to 100%, and the Giant Merchant Guild sells their stock, allowing you to purchase the trade item again.
• The purpose of this mechanic is to raise the price of any trade items that are stuck at low prices for a long period of time.

List of Trade Goods (Purchasable)

Distance Bonus

• When selling any trade goods, you gain an extra silver bonus called the “distance bonus”.
• The greater distance between the original location you obtained the trade item, and the location you sell it, the greater the distance bonus.
• This is important when min-maxing profits if you are creating your own trade crates, and why many people choose to make their crates in Valencia, and sell to Grana.
• However, for active trading where you buy the trade goods from NPCs, it is often not worth traveling far distances, since you need to have multiple nodes connected and the distance bonus is negligible.
• Distance bonus is calculated by taking the base price of the item, then multiplying that by a set percentage. The distance bonus is then added to the current sell price.

Below are some examples of the distance bonus (%) between two locations:

In addition to purchasing items from NPCs, players can craft their own trade items called Trading Crates. These crates have to be “packed” by a worker in a city and then once you have a large number of crates you transport them to another city to sell them.

The crates take a long time to collect and you will probably only transport them once a month, but it can be a good way of making passive income. The only downside is that it takes a lot of setup, time, and CP. You also end up with a large amounts of money being tied up. You also need to spend quite a lot of time Processing materials for your crates, or can purchase the materials for a lower profit margin.

Where to setup your Trading Empire

With the removal of the “Desert Trading Buff” in April 2023, you are free to sell the crates where you want and no longer need to sell them in Valencia. However, you do want to transport the crates as far as possible for the distance price bonus.

At the moment, the furthest distance is between Grana and Valencia, with a distance bonus of +113%, but with the Land of the Morning Light region, players will be able to sell to Nampo Harbor, and the furthest distance is from Valenica with a 150% distance bonus, compared to Nampo and Grana, which is only 121%.

Therefore, a lot of players are now choosing to set up their trading empire in Valencia instead of Grana. In addition, Valencia has more workshops and lodging available, allowing for a much larger empire than in Grana.

Selling and Transporting the Crates

Leveling Trading (Trading EXP Buffs)

With the removal of the “Desert Trade Buff”, you no longer need to reach Artisan 10 Trading for the life skill to be profitable. However, a higher trading level is still useful, since it increases your profit from Bargaining when you sell the items, and is required to purchase some trade goods.

When leveling your Trading, you should try to use as many Life Skill EXP buffs as possible.

You can also use the items below for Trading EXP:

Icon	Item Name	EXP Buff	How to Obtain
	Silver Embroidered Trader’s Clothing	Trading EXP +0% – 25% (depending on Enhancement)	Craft at a Level 1 Costume Mill: Cotton Fabric x10 Powder of Rifts x10 Black Stone Powder x15
	Trader’s Clothing Costume	Trading EXP +10%	You can obtain the Trader’s Clothing Costume by using an Equipment Tailoring Coupon on a base Silver Embroidered Trader’s Clothing. This allows you to equip it in the costume slot and wear another Silver Embroidered Trader’s Clothes at the same time.
	[The Cycle] Lightstone Set	Trading EXP +25%	Lightstone of Flora: Wagon Lightstone of Flora: Wagon Lightstone of Flora: Wagon Iridescent Lightstone Read our Lighstone and Artifact Guide for details
	Sethra’s Artifacts – Life EXP	Life EXP +3%	Can be obtained randomly from all life skills
	Sethra’s Artifacts – Trading EXP	Trading EXP +5%	Can be obtained randomly when selling Trade Goods
	Dim Magic Crystal: Trade	Trading EXP +3%	Obtained from Challenge (Y) rewards by reaching Trading Apprentice, and by completing the “[Leap] Honor to the Trading Family #1“ quest

There are 2 ways of leveling your Trading:

• AFK Fishing
  • This is my personal favorite method and what I would recommend. You can AFK fish at the pond in Duvencrune (do not throw away any fish) and then trade the fish as far away as possible for a high amount of trading EXP.
• “Trash Crates”
  • Also known as “Junk Crates”. These are crates that are easier to make than the ones you will be selling for profit. They only require 1 material to make them.
  • For example, you use workers to create “Ash Timber Crates” at a Wood Workbench (level 1) and then you transport these to Valencia using the transport method explained further down in the guide. You then sell all the crates with as many Life EXP buffs as possible. I recommend using this Trash Crates calculator to work out exactly how many you will need.
  • Another issue with this method is that you will be sacrificing and investing a lot of materials into the crates and the crates are worth less than the materials you used to make them.
  • Important: When selling your crates to the Trade Manager, make sure not to sell them all at once or you will lose a lot of EXP. Sell the crates in smaller batches instead.

Other Trading Gear (Riding Crops)

Riding Crops can be equipped in your tool slot, and increase your wagon speed.

The Riding Crop also increases the speed of the Forest Rush skill on the Forest Path Wagon, which is considered the best wagon available for Trading.

The enhancement level of the Riding Crop does not matter, and only increases Training Mastery for Horse Training.

Trading Byproducts

When selling any trade item to a Trade Manager NPC, you have a chance of obtaining an item called “Stained Silk“.

You can then exchange x10 of this item at NPC Liana, for other materials, or Contribution and Trading EXP.

• Liana can be found in all major cities next to Jetina/Fughar/Stable Keeper. If you cannot find the NPC, use the “Find NPC” function to search for “Liana” (ESC Menu > Function > Find NPC)

The Trading Leap Quest chain can be completed to obtain rewards and large Trading EXP boosts.

• For example, completing the first quest in the chain “[Trading Leap Apprentice 2] Alchemist’s Reagent” can be completed once you are Trading Apprentice 2 or higher, and gives approximately 80% EXP at that level.

The quests can be found in your Quest log (O) under the “Suggested” tab.

These quests are available once per character

Alongside these quests, you can complete the “[Life][Leap] Honor to the Trading Family” quests for additional rewards.

You must have completed the previous Trading Leap quests on your current character to accept these additional quests.

• For example, to start the [Leap] Honor to the Trading Family #1 quest you must have completed the [Trading Leap Apprentice 10] The Cupid of Olvia quest on the current character

These quests are available once per family.