The deflation is awful.

Zodiarkslayer · November 3

SirGabenOfSteamia wrote: »

... There's no reason to grind anything anymore. Gold is abundant, things are cheap ...

Absolutely agree.

And I think this is proof for what I have been telling people for years. There never was a gold driven Inflation. It was a speculation bubble based on artificial scarcity of goods.

Because guess what? The same amounts of gold are still in the game at the moment. But they aren't circulating, because the demand for goods is just so much lower.

moderatelyfatman · November 3

Deflation is only bad if you're selling.
Stop selling and deflation will stop.

Renato90085 · November 3

Morgaledh wrote: »

Renato90085 wrote: »

Sleepsin wrote: »

Renato90085 wrote: »

event give me too many Perfect Roe
i nerver fish but my bag have 2k+ roe...

Not that kind of roe.

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Perfect_Roe
not this? i think 10th Anniversary Jubilee box give me so many

You're saying because of the anniversary boxes, you're sitting on 2k+ Perfect Roe? I almost need to see a screenshot to believe this, but only almost. If this is the case, 1. you're sitting on easily over 40 million gold or so, at least, but 2. that would explain the price plummet, since supply is way, way out of whack.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaJM847EcNs

event box have chance give you 20 roe/Dragon Rheum
and box just spend 15sec kill a dragon/portal boss...
i still remember i farm 10m in 5 hour..
and event have 2~3 week

RomanRex · November 3

the economy is chasing buyers that don’t exist.

so you have to bottom out prices to attract newer players with no money.

game is now marketed to turn-and-burn new players who aren’t invested enough to spend a lot of gold on rare items.

glad i made 10’s of millions when the economy was healthy.

AngryPenguin · November 3

Heren wrote: »

Oh, another 'I can't adapt' thread !

It's not a matter of adapting. It's a matter of can't make enough gold now to keep up with the meta builds required for end game activities.

AngryPenguin · November 3

RomanRex wrote: »

the economy is chasing buyers that don’t exist.

so you have to bottom out prices to attract newer players with no money.

game is now marketed to turn-and-burn new players who aren’t invested enough to spend a lot of gold on rare items.

glad i made 10’s of millions when the economy was healthy.

Same. My gold has stayed flat for the last six months. I'm struggling to break even and no chance to get ahead now. It saddens me to see the three trade guilds I'm in slowly sinking into the abyss.

freespirit · November 3

AngryPenguin wrote: »

RomanRex wrote: »

the economy is chasing buyers that don’t exist.

so you have to bottom out prices to attract newer players with no money.

game is now marketed to turn-and-burn new players who aren’t invested enough to spend a lot of gold on rare items.

glad i made 10’s of millions when the economy was healthy.

Same. My gold has stayed flat for the last six months. I'm struggling to break even and no chance to get ahead now. It saddens me to see the three trade guilds I'm in slowly sinking into the abyss.

My gold over 3 accounts has still been steadily rising.

Not in the huge numbers some players seem to expect but a steady increase, at the beginning of this week I noted I was up about 30 million from the last time I checked.....

Then I set up two Halloween house builds and sourced some nice prizes for our annual Halloween Party and pretty much wiped out that 30 million but hey in a few weeks I fully expect to be back to those numbers or at least pretty close!

Ofc I may just go do some more shopping and actually end up with less!! 🤣

Arunei · November 4

Zodiarkslayer wrote: »

So grinding cheap mats isn't profitable anymore. Mhm. Maybe grind something that is?
Furnishing plans, maybe? Or motif pages?
One can easily find alternatives.

The real question that you should ask yourself is: "What will I do with the gold?" 🤔
Seriously, what will you buy with, say, a million gold? Or ten? Last thing that I bought was Merryvine Estate and a bit of furnishings for it. Ever since then gold is just piling up again.
So I ask myself why grind at all?

I guess you could be a real pro, buy mats like crazy and sell them when the prices are inevitably rising again. Invest now, make profits later.
But hey, who wants to be a pro trader anyways? Right?

< This is not business advice, btw. I will not be accountable for your losses.😉 >

Er, you do realize just because you don't use a lot of gold, that doesn't mean no one else does, right?

If you do a lot of the hardest endgame PvE or a lot of heavy PvP, you'll tend to spend a decent amount on potions and food (if you don't make them yourself).

If you do housing, it can cost millions of gold to properly furnish a place, especially if you're relying on Lux Vendor stuff that hasn't been circulated in a while so you're having to pay out the nose @ trade guilds for it. Blueprints and the mats for furnishings can be expensive as all heck, especially for newer and thus rarer ones.

If you want to buy carries for getting the really hard to get titles and stuff, carries cost millions of gold as well.

If you want to buy Crown Crates with gold, the going rate for them is ridiculous. I bought 2.5k Crowns from a friend and it translated to 2.5m gold.

If you pay others to craft gear sets for you or to give you the mats to improve bound gear, that can cost quite a bit.

If you craft, Motif chapters can be stupid expensive. Style pages can also be very expensive. And the harder the content these things come from, or the rarer they are otherwise, the more they cost.

There are a number of fragments for all sorts of Collectibles that are super expensive. Scrap of Minstrel's Cloth still average like 250-299k each on PC-NA, and you need 10 of them iirc to make the Costume they're for. That right there is a couple million.

Each of these things alone can cost you millions, VERY easily. Now imagine if you're someone who crafts, does Housing, and buys a bunch of Crown Crates with gold. You could be looking at dropping several million VERY easily.

Nharimlur_Finor · November 4

Arunei wrote: »

Er, you do realize just because you don't use a lot of gold, that doesn't mean no one else does, right?

You do realise that for many months the forum was full of "stuff too dear" comments?

If you do a lot of the hardest endgame PvE or a lot of heavy PvP, you'll tend to spend a decent amount on potions and food (if you don't make them yourself).

Making them yourself doesn't cost gold.

If you do housing, it can cost millions of gold to properly furnish a place, especially if you're relying on Lux Vendor stuff that hasn't been circulated in a while so you're having to pay out the nose @ trade guilds for it. Blueprints and the mats for furnishings can be expensive as all heck, especially for newer and thus rarer ones.

Find plans for free, where other players find them.
Luxury Vendor stuff is for folks with money, just like RL.
"Trade Guilds" don't really sell anything; their members do.

If you want to buy carries for getting the really hard to get titles and stuff, carries cost millions of gold as well.

If you can't get the title without a carry, you don't deserve it.

If you want to buy Crown Crates with gold, the going rate for them is ridiculous. I bought 2.5k Crowns from a friend and it translated to 2.5m gold.

You can't buy Crown Crates with gold. Not approved.

If you pay others to craft gear sets for you or to give you the mats to improve bound gear, that can cost quite a bit.

Craft your own stuff; refine your own tempers.

If you craft, Motif chapters can be stupid expensive. Style pages can also be very expensive. And the harder the content these things come from, or the rarer they are otherwise, the more they cost.

Farm the motifs yourself. Some come from events; most don't.

There are a number of fragments for all sorts of Collectibles that are super expensive. Scrap of Minstrel's Cloth still average like 250-299k each on PC-NA, and you need 10 of them iirc to make the Costume they're for. That right there is a couple OF million.

Try harder.

Each of these things alone can cost you millions, VERY easily. Now imagine if you're someone who crafts, does Housing, and buys a bunch of Crown Crates with gold. You could be looking at dropping several million VERY easily.

It's a temporary phase. As more of these 'evil guild trader' middlemen stop farming, crafting and trading; the things you need will just get rarer and subsequently more expensive. It's a death spiral.

The Merchant Class has been run out of town.

sarahthes · November 4

LaintalAy wrote: »

Arunei wrote: »

Er, you do realize just because you don't use a lot of gold, that doesn't mean no one else does, right?

You do realise that for many months the forum was full of "stuff too dear" comments?

If you do a lot of the hardest endgame PvE or a lot of heavy PvP, you'll tend to spend a decent amount on potions and food (if you don't make them yourself).

Making them yourself doesn't cost gold.

If you do housing, it can cost millions of gold to properly furnish a place, especially if you're relying on Lux Vendor stuff that hasn't been circulated in a while so you're having to pay out the nose @ trade guilds for it. Blueprints and the mats for furnishings can be expensive as all heck, especially for newer and thus rarer ones.

Find plans for free, where other players find them.
Luxury Vendor stuff is for folks with money, just like RL.
"Trade Guilds" don't really sell anything; their members do.

If you want to buy carries for getting the really hard to get titles and stuff, carries cost millions of gold as well.

If you can't get the title without a carry, you don't deserve it.

If you want to buy Crown Crates with gold, the going rate for them is ridiculous. I bought 2.5k Crowns from a friend and it translated to 2.5m gold.

You can't buy Crown Crates with gold. Not approved.

If you pay others to craft gear sets for you or to give you the mats to improve bound gear, that can cost quite a bit.

Craft your own stuff; refine your own tempers.

If you craft, Motif chapters can be stupid expensive. Style pages can also be very expensive. And the harder the content these things come from, or the rarer they are otherwise, the more they cost.

Farm the motifs yourself. Some come from events; most don't.

There are a number of fragments for all sorts of Collectibles that are super expensive. Scrap of Minstrel's Cloth still average like 250-299k each on PC-NA, and you need 10 of them iirc to make the Costume they're for. That right there is a couple OF million.

Try harder.

Each of these things alone can cost you millions, VERY easily. Now imagine if you're someone who crafts, does Housing, and buys a bunch of Crown Crates with gold. You could be looking at dropping several million VERY easily.

It's a temporary phase. As more of these 'evil guild trader' middlemen stop farming, crafting and trading; the things you need will just get rarer and subsequently more expensive. It's a death spiral.

The Merchant Class has been run out of town.

Since when is trading gold for crowns not allowed.

Nharimlur_Finor · November 4

sarahthes wrote: »

Since when is trading gold for crowns not allowed.

The words 'trade' and 'buy' are different and you know that.

fizzylu · November 4

I'm still making gold, just significantly less.... but also not so little that I'd say I'm broke or can't buy what I need. Now, will I be buying gold houses just for funsies randomly now or for a quick teleport spot? Probably not. TCE will see less traffic from me as well since randomly buying crowns only items for gold just won't be as affordable.

And....

LaintalAy wrote: »

Arunei wrote: »

If you want to buy Crown Crates with gold, the going rate for them is ridiculous. I bought 2.5k Crowns from a friend and it translated to 2.5m gold.

You can't buy Crown Crates with gold. Not approved.

buy Crown Crates with gold = trade gold for crowns

sarahthes · November 4

LaintalAy wrote: »

sarahthes wrote: »

Since when is trading gold for crowns not allowed.

The words 'trade' and 'buy' are different and you know that.

What, exactly, is the difference when it is between two players??? This whole post is about the player economy after all.

Ingenon · November 4

I understand that there is deflation. Although on PS/NA where I play, the prices were not as high to begin with.

Separately, PS/NA base game starter islands still have lots of bots farming nodes. And I still see gold sellers spamming zone chat with the name of a web site that sells in game gold for cash. It seems to me that when you have people using the game to make real life money, by running bots that farms materials, selling the materials for gold, and then selling the gold for cash, that this would impact the game economy. Do folks on PC servers see bots and gold sellers, or is this only a PS/NA thing?

Aggrovious · November 4

RenTheCat wrote: »

But some materials are outright horrible to farm, extremely rare to get to the point you need to spend hours or get extreme lucky to get them.
Aetherial Dust went from 1 million to 300k gold.
Perfect Roe went from 90k gold to 20k gold.
Getting those items is extremely rare and painful. The amount of farming you have to do to get Aetherial Dust or Perfect Roe is now not worth the price at all. I don't see the people cheering now everything in guild trader is cheap being the ones who actively farm said materials.

Its quite simple, players are choosing to sell at these prices. Other players will always buy the cheapest if they can.

These two items can easily be increased back if all buyers follow. I agree that if the material takes awhile to farm, it should be sold at a reasonable price to cover the rarity of it dropping.

I think these two items are cheaper due to the need for Bear Haunch in bulk in primarily PVP content. This is just a guess and I could be wrong.

DenverRalphy · November 4

Perfect Roe isn't THAT rare. It's just under 1/100 fish on average. Personally I've always felt that Perfect Roe was always overpriced on the Traders. The demand for it is high, but the supply isn't exactly low by any means.

Vulsahdaal · November 4

Well even after some interesting posts in this thread, I still have no idea whats really going on here.

I know about some increased drop rates. Sixth House banner, Khajiit brazier etc..

I know that many mats flooded the market with the event boxes and the obsessive farming many turned to in their quest for ink. Im also aware of the drop rate of furniture mats and ink being increased by ZOS.

All these can most definitely contribute to what we are seeing now, however as someone who only very rarely deals in mats (even when the price was up) I cant help but feel theres something more concerning going on here. That is, that its not a price thing. Its just that nobody is buying even when prices are lowered.

Someone here mentioned specifically the Baron Zaudrus mask. This caught my eye because Ive been actively looking for it these past couple weeks as well as watching TTC. I finally got it yesterday. Paid 2.9 mil. He mentioned that this is only a fifth of what it went for before. I cant say I know this for sure, but it sounds probable enough. I went to the cheapest available on TTC, expecting it to be gone, but it was still there. With 7 days left to go, and this was at a Mournhold trader with high visibility.

So I have to wonder, why is something that the market is not flooded with (the most pages Ive seen on TTC is 2.5) and is listed at a fifth of the price still not selling? Maybe people dont like Baron Z (and I get that as he is my archnemisis in IA, not Tho'at) but still, something seems off.

As I mentioned, I dont deal in mats. I do deal in furniture plans and furniture. When I first noticed an issue was in less than 30 days after Gold Road release, I was trashing purple and blue Colovian plans because they wouldnt sell at any price. Now I dont bother. I was gonna try to farm up some Dwarven Glass Armonica sketches, but for what reason if they wont sell either?

Basically the tldr version is: Over abundance of supplies (intended by ZOS or not) may be part of the problem, but atm I believe the real issue is a significant loss of players. If no one is playing, then no one is buying. And this I dont believe was intended.

sunsrest · November 4

it's less of a hassle to get things when you need them right now so that's good, there will always be some more rare and therefore expensive things like some purple companion gear, people will still come across duplicate motifs without farming and need to sell them, out with the doom saying, the farmers don't hold up the sky

CrazyKitty · November 4

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

Deflation is only bad if you're selling.
Stop selling and deflation will stop.

This only works if everyone stops selling.

Vulsahdaal · November 4

LunaFlora wrote: »

deflation is awesome

Not really. A temporary shift in the market due to an overabundance of supply is ok, but in this case I think is more likely due to a significant loss of players. And if conditions remain like this we will most likely see traders who make that their end game join in the exodus.

I just dont see much awesome about that.

CrazyKitty · November 4

Vulsahdaal wrote: »

Well even after some interesting posts in this thread, I still have no idea whats really going on here.

I know about some increased drop rates. Sixth House banner, Khajiit brazier etc..

I know that many mats flooded the market with the event boxes and the obsessive farming many turned to in their quest for ink. Im also aware of the drop rate of furniture mats and ink being increased by ZOS.

All these can most definitely contribute to what we are seeing now, however as someone who only very rarely deals in mats (even when the price was up) I cant help but feel theres something more concerning going on here. That is, that its not a price thing. Its just that nobody is buying even when prices are lowered.

Someone here mentioned specifically the Baron Zaudrus mask. This caught my eye because Ive been actively looking for it these past couple weeks as well as watching TTC. I finally got it yesterday. Paid 2.9 mil. He mentioned that this is only a fifth of what it went for before. I cant say I know this for sure, but it sounds probable enough. I went to the cheapest available on TTC, expecting it to be gone, but it was still there. With 7 days left to go, and this was at a Mournhold trader with high visibility.

So I have to wonder, why is something that the market is not flooded with (the most pages Ive seen on TTC is 2.5) and is listed at a fifth of the price still not selling? Maybe people dont like Baron Z (and I get that as he is my archnemisis in IA, not Tho'at) but still, something seems off.

As I mentioned, I dont deal in mats. I do deal in furniture plans and furniture. When I first noticed an issue was in less than 30 days after Gold Road release, I was trashing purple and blue Colovian plans because they wouldnt sell at any price. Now I dont bother. I was gonna try to farm up some Dwarven Glass Armonica sketches, but for what reason if they wont sell either?

Basically the tldr version is: Over abundance of supplies (intended by ZOS or not) may be part of the problem, but atm I believe the real issue is a significant loss of players. If no one is playing, then no one is buying. And this I dont believe was intended.

I agree. I think what's cratering the market is a combination of factors, but the most significant of those factors is people just aren't buying anymore because people just aren't playing anymore. At least not seriously. Most sales I used to make went to players who play a lot and collect everything. Those players just aren't in game anymore.

DenverRalphy · November 4

Vulsahdaal wrote: »

LunaFlora wrote: »

deflation is awesome

Not really. A temporary shift in the market due to an overabundance of supply is ok, but in this case I think is more likely due to a significant loss of players. And if conditions remain like this we will most likely see traders who make that their end game join in the exodus.

I just dont see much awesome about that.

An increase in players is more likely. More items listed in the traders resulting in lower prices.

CrazyKitty · November 4

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Vulsahdaal wrote: »

LunaFlora wrote: »

deflation is awesome

Not really. A temporary shift in the market due to an overabundance of supply is ok, but in this case I think is more likely due to a significant loss of players. And if conditions remain like this we will most likely see traders who make that their end game join in the exodus.

I just dont see much awesome about that.

An increase in players is more likely. More items listed in the traders resulting in lower prices.

I think you have it backwards. More players would mean more demand for goods and higher prices as a result.

DenverRalphy · November 4

CrazyKitty wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Vulsahdaal wrote: »

LunaFlora wrote: »

deflation is awesome

Not really. A temporary shift in the market due to an overabundance of supply is ok, but in this case I think is more likely due to a significant loss of players. And if conditions remain like this we will most likely see traders who make that their end game join in the exodus.

I just dont see much awesome about that.

An increase in players is more likely. More items listed in the traders resulting in lower prices.

I think you have it backwards. More players would mean more demand for goods and higher prices as a result.

It can also mean more players harvesting the stuff increasing supply. Which is more likely. Aetherial Dust is an un-farmable material from resource nodes due to it's extreme drop rarity. Individuals trying to farm it never yields measurable results, but many players increasing opportunities does. More dust in the market means more players looting it.

Vulsahdaal · November 4

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Vulsahdaal wrote: »

LunaFlora wrote: »

deflation is awesome

Not really. A temporary shift in the market due to an overabundance of supply is ok, but in this case I think is more likely due to a significant loss of players. And if conditions remain like this we will most likely see traders who make that their end game join in the exodus.

I just dont see much awesome about that.

An increase in players is more likely. More items listed in the traders resulting in lower prices.

There arent more items listed in traders. Each trader guild has a limited amount of members and each member can only list a limited amount of items, so there arent more items listed than before.

The lower prices are more likely due to items not selling, so trader will lower the price trying to get something for it. Problem is, even at the lower price its not selling, as Ive mentioned with the furniture plans and Baron Zaudrus mask.

This appears to be a decrease in the amount of players, not an increase. Unless I am misuderstanding what you mean here? Maybe you can explain further?

doesurmindglow · November 4

Vulsahdaal wrote: »

Well even after some interesting posts in this thread, I still have no idea whats really going on here.

You captured most of it. The only things I'd add are there was a significant change to guild trader listing fees, which is one of the many mechanisms that remove gold from existence in the game (gold sinks). The sink was adjusted to delete gold more often because listing duration was halved, effectively charging the listing fee twice in the same period of time. This also had some market-based knock-on effects: players lowered listing prices to sell items more quickly, given that their listing duration was now shorter.

Another knock-on effect arising from both that change to the gold sink and the mats oversupply events you went into is that there was a protracted period of inflation that began with a series of nerfs to other gold sinks, mainly those associated with respecs, back in 2021. Over time, this tended to create an asset bubble, as players often did buy mats to hedge against the effects of inflation -- holding wealth in gold meant its devaluation over time, so it was safer to buy mats and hold them instead. The aggregate effect of that speculative strategy meant there was a large unused stockpile of mats ready to enter the market as soon as prices began to fall, which then sped up and worsened the deflationary trend.

DenverRalphy · November 4

Vulsahdaal wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Vulsahdaal wrote: »

LunaFlora wrote: »

deflation is awesome

Not really. A temporary shift in the market due to an overabundance of supply is ok, but in this case I think is more likely due to a significant loss of players. And if conditions remain like this we will most likely see traders who make that their end game join in the exodus.

I just dont see much awesome about that.

An increase in players is more likely. More items listed in the traders resulting in lower prices.

There arent more items listed in traders. Each trader guild has a limited amount of members and each member can only list a limited amount of items, so there arent more items listed than before.

The lower prices are more likely due to items not selling, so trader will lower the price trying to get something for it. Problem is, even at the lower price its not selling, as Ive mentioned with the furniture plans and Baron Zaudrus mask.

This appears to be a decrease in the amount of players, not an increase. Unless I am misuderstanding what you mean here? Maybe you can explain further?

That argument would only hold water if those finite number of slots were also static in what those slots could hold.

A finite number of slots does not apply to Stackable items. Perfect Roe is showing up in larger wholesale stacks more often than they used to these days. Nor does it take into account what items are occupying those slots. Sellers are gonna fill those slots with items giving them the highest return.

freespirit · November 4

DenverRalphy wrote: »

CrazyKitty wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Vulsahdaal wrote: »

LunaFlora wrote: »

deflation is awesome

Not really. A temporary shift in the market due to an overabundance of supply is ok, but in this case I think is more likely due to a significant loss of players. And if conditions remain like this we will most likely see traders who make that their end game join in the exodus.

I just dont see much awesome about that.

An increase in players is more likely. More items listed in the traders resulting in lower prices.

I think you have it backwards. More players would mean more demand for goods and higher prices as a result.

It can also mean more players harvesting the stuff increasing supply. Which is more likely. Aetherial Dust is an un-farmable material from resource nodes due to it's extreme drop rarity. Individuals trying to farm it never yields measurable results, but many players increasing opportunities does. More dust in the market means more players looting it.

First I dropped more Aetherial Dust than ever before in this year's Anniversary boxes, I cannot be the only one.

Secondly I know loads of people who don't usually farm, that still are doing one or two hours of node farming every day because they are still trying to collect 500 inks for the Ink Amasser achievement.

All this extra farming most likely is helping to keep lots of dust on the market and prices lower! 🙂

DenverRalphy · November 4

freespirit wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

CrazyKitty wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Vulsahdaal wrote: »

LunaFlora wrote: »

deflation is awesome

Not really. A temporary shift in the market due to an overabundance of supply is ok, but in this case I think is more likely due to a significant loss of players. And if conditions remain like this we will most likely see traders who make that their end game join in the exodus.

I just dont see much awesome about that.

An increase in players is more likely. More items listed in the traders resulting in lower prices.

I think you have it backwards. More players would mean more demand for goods and higher prices as a result.

It can also mean more players harvesting the stuff increasing supply. Which is more likely. Aetherial Dust is an un-farmable material from resource nodes due to it's extreme drop rarity. Individuals trying to farm it never yields measurable results, but many players increasing opportunities does. More dust in the market means more players looting it.

First I dropped more Aetherial Dust than ever before in this year's Anniversary boxes, I cannot be the only one.

Secondly I know loads of people who don't usually farm, that still are doing one or two hours of node farming every day because they are still trying to collect 500 inks for the Ink Amasser achievement.

All this extra farming most likely is helping to keep lots of dust on the market and prices lower! 🙂

Jubilee is far enough back now that using it as an excuse isn't really feasible anymore. We're closer to the next Jubilee than we are to the most recently passed. Yes Jubilee dropped a bunch. I got quite a few myself. But dust has been consistently listed on the traders every day since, and it's selling. Not at the prices that it used to, but it is selling.

And if you know loads of people who don't usually farm but now are... then um... that MORE players farming.

sarahthes · November 4

DenverRalphy wrote: »

freespirit wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

CrazyKitty wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Vulsahdaal wrote: »

LunaFlora wrote: »

deflation is awesome

Not really. A temporary shift in the market due to an overabundance of supply is ok, but in this case I think is more likely due to a significant loss of players. And if conditions remain like this we will most likely see traders who make that their end game join in the exodus.

I just dont see much awesome about that.

An increase in players is more likely. More items listed in the traders resulting in lower prices.

I think you have it backwards. More players would mean more demand for goods and higher prices as a result.

It can also mean more players harvesting the stuff increasing supply. Which is more likely. Aetherial Dust is an un-farmable material from resource nodes due to it's extreme drop rarity. Individuals trying to farm it never yields measurable results, but many players increasing opportunities does. More dust in the market means more players looting it.

First I dropped more Aetherial Dust than ever before in this year's Anniversary boxes, I cannot be the only one.

Secondly I know loads of people who don't usually farm, that still are doing one or two hours of node farming every day because they are still trying to collect 500 inks for the Ink Amasser achievement.

All this extra farming most likely is helping to keep lots of dust on the market and prices lower! 🙂

Jubilee is far enough back now that using it as an excuse isn't really feasible anymore. We're closer to the next Jubilee than we are to the most recently passed. Yes Jubilee dropped a bunch. I got quite a few myself. But dust has been consistently listed on the traders every day since, and it's selling. Not at the prices that it used to, but it is selling.

And if you know loads of people who don't usually farm but now are... then um... that MORE players farming.

Dust drops in IA provisioning bags.

I've also gotten more dust drops "in the wild" this past year than I have in the entire previous 7 years I've played. I think the drop rate increased slightly.