PC|NA Hyperinflation is out of control

NoSoup

Tempering alloy has nearly doubled in 2 months from a fairly consistent 7-8kea to 14-15k
Dreugh Wax is the same
Chromium plating has tripled over 12 months
and its not just the high end stuff

Corn Flower is trading for 1k EACH!!!!

I really do believe alot of this is artifical, you look at certain well known high traffic guilds and there will be one or two sellers listing certain items way above market cost, its as if these players are going around buying the cheaper items up and listing them for 2-3k higher than the average forcing all the price tracking addon's to inflate their recommended prices.

At what point will it all come undone, surely the only people this kind of inflation and market manipulation is helping are the chinese gold sellers???

PeterUnlustig

Same on PC EU

I think part of it is artificial but some parts of it are just economy.
Since years all new houses could only be bought by crowns. Golden vendor items are way to expensive to buy with gold compared to Ap. Luxury vendor only has 1 or 2 new items every week.

Trader fees are the only remaining money sink in the game.

Everytime i played in the last year i spend almost 0 gold towards npcs. Repairs with crates, gear with ap or farmed, mats from other players. Maybe they should implement overland set boxes for gold like they have for ap.

Another thing i noticed is, that afk gold farms exploded.
There are a few spots in the game where you can afk farm up to 75k gold / hour per account as long as you tab in every 19 minutes and loot.
In the last years there were only around 1-4 people on that spots but lately people started to farm in groups up to 24 people per zone instance all day long. Thats around 30 mio gold per day made out of thin air. Also the antiquity farm creates some money. When i started new players had below 100k gold. Now with antiquities new players can farm that in a day without any advanced knowledge.

Jierdanit

NoSoup wrote: »

Tempering alloy has nearly doubled in 2 months from a fairly consistent 7-8kea to 14-15k
Dreugh Wax is the same
Chromium plating has tripled over 12 months
and its not just the high end stuff

Corn Flower is trading for 1k EACH!!!!

I really do believe alot of this is artifical, you look at certain well known high traffic guilds and there will be one or two sellers listing certain items way above market cost, its as if these players are going around buying the cheaper items up and listing them for 2-3k higher than the average forcing all the price tracking addon's to inflate their recommended prices.

At what point will it all come undone, surely the only people this kind of inflation and market manipulation is helping are the chinese gold sellers???

I noticed pretty much the same happening on PC/EU as well.

The price of Alloy has pretty much doubled and most other important crafting materials have also got way more expensive over pretty much just the last month, while being pretty stable the entire rest of the time.

Shadow_CH

Maybe there is a higher demand due to the new stickerbook? Now you can reconstruct the items and you need Dreugh Wax, Alloy, Chromium etc. to upgrade them (unless they only drop in gold like some rings).

Higher demand (without higher supply) = higher prices

Corn Flower? Hm, dunno... i have enough of them, didn't notice that

Nordic__Knights

Shadow_CH wrote: »

Maybe there is a higher demand due to the new stickerbook? Now you can reconstruct the items and you need Dreugh Wax, Alloy, Chromium etc. to upgrade them (unless they only drop in gold like some rings).

Higher demand (without higher supply) = higher prices

Corn Flower? Hm, dunno... i have enough of them, didn't notice that

lot of bot farmers got hit so mats aint getting to the market as fast as before lol now everyone wants them back , that and new system that gave lots of gold put more gold into game for rich players to want lol

SeaGtGruff

There is definitely some price manipulation-- excuse me, "flipping"-- going on, but I don't know to what extent it occurs. The manipulation of prices could possibly be curtailed by adding a "not for resale" flag on items posted for sale, to prevent them from being bought up en masse at lower prices and then sold at higher prices. But I doubt we'll ever see anything like that.

Under the existing system, the best you can do is (1) do not buy items which are priced higher than you think they should be; and (2) if the lower-priced listings disappear before you can get to them, hang onto your gold and wait for more lower-priced listings to be posted that you can get to in time.

kiLLahweSPe

On PC/EU theres a group of players which recently go around and bought Dreughwax, Platings, Rosin and Alloy. After that one night where nothing was in stores prices went up, doubled even for alloy and almost doubled on Dreughwax. Best you can do is sell your stuff now for high prices and wait till another saturation kicks in and it goes down again.

Certainly not the first time this is happening, and most likely not the last time.

Tranquilizer

Nordic__Knights wrote: »

lot of bot farmers got hit so mats aint getting to the market as fast as before lol now everyone wants them back , that and new system that gave lots of gold put more gold into game for rich players to want lol

Exactly this. When gold farmers supply a steady flow of gold mats and keep the prices civil people complain about bots.

When ZOS axed bots people complain about prices skyrocketing.

As always, be careful what you wish for...

Jierdanit

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

There is definitely some price manipulation-- excuse me, "flipping"-- going on, but I don't know to what extent it occurs. The manipulation of prices could possibly be curtailed by adding a "not for resale" flag on items posted for sale, to prevent them from being bought up en masse at lower prices and then sold at higher prices. But I doubt we'll ever see anything like that.

Under the existing system, the best you can do is (1) do not buy items which are priced higher than you think they should be; and (2) if the lower-priced listings disappear before you can get to them, hang onto your gold and wait for more lower-priced listings to be posted that you can get to in time.

The problem just is that you do not find any low priced stuff anymore lol.

Why should anyone sell their alloys for 4k when the price went up to an average of 7k - 8k now?

rpa

I've found farming is easy and very profitable when I've made a habit of picking the money from ground. I have almost all mats I possibly need and get nice gold from surplus.

Of prices, if someone list something and it sells / gets flipped in minutes it's because the asking price was too low for market at that time.

Mythreindeer

So, being relatively new still, what are people buying that requires so much gold? You can't buy dungeon gear and most everything else can be farmed pretty easily.

TheImperfect

I have noticed that the game seems to be requiring a lot more cornflower for writs, probably driving up the prices.

Jierdanit

Mythreindeer wrote: »

So, being relatively new still, what are people buying that requires so much gold? You can't buy dungeon gear and most everything else can be farmed pretty easily.

Crafting materials, mostly gold upgrade mats.

Mythreindeer

Jierdanit wrote: »

Mythreindeer wrote: »

So, being relatively new still, what are people buying that requires so much gold? You can't buy dungeon gear and most everything else can be farmed pretty easily.

Crafting materials, mostly gold upgrade mats.

Kind of what I was thinking. Farming is obviously slower but I'm accumulating them pretty nicely without buying them. How many sets of gold gear do you need? lol

joseayalac

Not just mats, but other items have gone up in price significantly, which makes me believe it's not an overappreciation of items but the underappreciation of gold that is causing this.

If you can buy gold easily online, then gold won't be worth much. So too much gold farming (bot or not) contributes to this as well.

Waseem

If you think that Zenimax will step in to police the economy you are wrong.
this is players behavior who choose to manipulate the economy and applying monopoly

Sad? Yes
Solution? Farm your stuff, there is absolutely nothing else you can do


You certainly can't riot in the streets of Tamriel burning guild stores or loot guild houses

Coatmagic

More ingame gold sinks would help:

More homes for gold; addition of a cosmetics/barber type NPC; more basic mount reskins for gold; basic pet reskins/pet shop NPC...

So many things they COULD add that wouldn't hurt Crown sales but I wouldn't hold my breath.

rpa

Mythreindeer wrote: »

So, being relatively new still, what are people buying that requires so much gold? You can't buy dungeon gear and most everything else can be farmed pretty easily.

Gold tempers are still rising because collections. It will eventually come down I guess but it's a good idea to not undercut too much now. Also certain easily farmable overland sets in good traits are always in demand because people use em while farming better gear. And silly worthless off spec pieces of sets are now valuable because collections. And style pages from less played zones. And so on.

FrancisCrawford

TheImperfect wrote: »

I have noticed that the game seems to be requiring a lot more cornflower for writs, probably driving up the prices.

Alchemy writs are much cheaper to do at the top tier than otherwise.

Easily_Lost

If you do not want to pay the higher prices, then farm them yourself.
I farm all the time and sell them for as much gold as I can i.e. SUPPLY vs DEMAND.

Jierdanit

Mythreindeer wrote: »

Jierdanit wrote: »

Mythreindeer wrote: »

So, being relatively new still, what are people buying that requires so much gold? You can't buy dungeon gear and most everything else can be farmed pretty easily.

Crafting materials, mostly gold upgrade mats.

Kind of what I was thinking. Farming is obviously slower but I'm accumulating them pretty nicely without buying them. How many sets of gold gear do you need? lol

1 gold weapon costs 8 upgrade mats, that is right now on PC/EU about 40k gold (for a blacksmithing weapons, staffs/bows are cheaper).
I like trying out new builds quite a lot, so i will often make like 3 or more new builds per week, which often require a new gold weapon.
On top of that i need mats to craft Potions, Glyphs (Tristat glyphs cost 20k gold each as well) and Armor.
And it is way faster to buy your crafting mats than to farm for hours for a random chane at gold materials.

VaranisArano

If you think this is a case of "too much gold being generated out of thin air" style hyperinflation, can we get evidence of hyperinflation that concerns items that aren't related to the new Set Collection system?

Because crafting mats and sets pieces are currently subject to demand-pull inflation, that is, the demand for them spiked (predictably) and since supply hasn't kept pace for various reasons, prices also spiked. That's also a form of hyperinflation, economically speaking, but its not the same as "too much money" hyperinflation and it doesn't have the same solutions.

That's not to say we can't be experiencing both forms, but we are undeniably experiencing demand-pull inflation because of event housing writs and the set collection craze. We see this in microcosm everytime ZOS changes the meta and players rush to theorycraft/upgrade new gear.

What I haven't seen is much evidence that we're experiencing "too much gold is being generated" hyperinflation, and I'm curious to hear if anyone has examples of why they think that's happening.

So far: gold sources from antiquities and afk farming

Other example?
Are guild bids spiraling higher and higher beyond the pace of simple competition, as we'd expect to see if gold were losing value?

Are items rising in price across the board, absent obvious spikes in demand or, in the case of cornflower, an item that's necessary and thus fairly inelastic in demand vs prices that makes it a frequent target of price hikes?

Additional gold sinks work well for "players are generating too much gold" style inflation. But if we're in a situation where players aren't generating too much gold, but prices spiked because of demand, pulling gold out of the economy with sinks is arguably only going to make the problem worse for players with less gold to spend.

Viewsfrom6ix

Shadow_CH wrote: »

Maybe there is a higher demand due to the new stickerbook? Now you can reconstruct the items and you need Dreugh Wax, Alloy, Chromium etc. to upgrade them (unless they only drop in gold like some rings).

Higher demand (without higher supply) = higher prices

Corn Flower? Hm, dunno... i have enough of them, didn't notice that

The weird thing is that some popular on-trait gears like divine mother's sorrow have doubled in price.

You would think the price would drop since people can just reconstruct them in their preferred trait.

tmbrinks

Viewsfrom6ix wrote: »

Shadow_CH wrote: »

Maybe there is a higher demand due to the new stickerbook? Now you can reconstruct the items and you need Dreugh Wax, Alloy, Chromium etc. to upgrade them (unless they only drop in gold like some rings).

Higher demand (without higher supply) = higher prices

Corn Flower? Hm, dunno... i have enough of them, didn't notice that

The weird thing is that some popular on-trait gears like divine mother's sorrow have doubled in price.

You would think the price would drop since people can just reconstruct them in their preferred trait.

For some people, their transmute crystals might be worth more than their gold. Personal preference in that case.

There's also the savings in materials since Mother's Sorrow starts in green quality, so they don't have to spend the upgrade mats. (admittingly, this is minor, other than for legendary quality)

Zulera301

Supply and demand. The sticker book system created a huge demand for mats, on top of the existing increase of demand that was runoff from the housing mat frenzy (which was a result of the Alpine Gallery arriving).

When you reconstruct sets in this new system, they come out green or blue. The prices for these items hasn't changed much. Similarly, the price of refined materials is roughly the same.

But the big one to look at, as far as a commonly used item that hasn't changed much in price is Kuta. It's been around 2-3k for years and since demand wasn't affected by the sticker book, it remained about the same in price.

I don't know why you're buying corn flower for 1k when the price is still around 600-650 or so like it's been for a while (this is all PCNA btw). Most alchemy mats might be a bit steep, but they've been that way for a while and didn't jump on this "hyperinflation" bandwagon the way upgrade mats did. But on the other hand, anyone who was paying attention was saying that upgrade mats would skyrocket in price, and they were right. Now I'm over here selling the dreugh wax for 13k that I bought and hoarded for 6k before the sticker book.

TLDR—capitalism. Love it. Embrace it. Become it.

Bucky_13

kiLLahweSPe wrote: »

On PC/EU theres a group of players which recently go around and bought Dreughwax, Platings, Rosin and Alloy. After that one night where nothing was in stores prices went up, doubled even for alloy and almost doubled on Dreughwax. Best you can do is sell your stuff now for high prices and wait till another saturation kicks in and it goes down again.

Certainly not the first time this is happening, and most likely not the last time.

This is one of the major reasons for EU, can't speak for NA. As those mats are one of my main sources of income, I'm completely ok with this. I also get why buyers of these mats are not. I don't do the hoarding myself because I can't be bothered, selling is enough and adjusting prices since why sell for lower than current market value?

What I am curious about is when that bubble will burst. Prices have increased since greymoor without slumps like previously tho, so even without the manipulation they most likely would've kept rising, just not this steeply.

Oakiyo

Some price can be explained by the current meta in pvp. Heavy armor is the standard in cyrodiil, so it's natural that tempering alloy price raise. Same goes for Hakeijos rune.

But I agree that some players are suspiciously fast to grab good deals. And it's easy to imagine some abuse with tools like TTM.

Anotherone773

Mythreindeer wrote: »

So, being relatively new still, what are people buying that requires so much gold? You can't buy dungeon gear and most everything else can be farmed pretty easily.

Literally telling you in this thread. Upgrade materials for gear and ingredients for potions and poisons. All heavily used in end game content.

Calm_Fury

It is very unlikely that there is price manipulation on those really popular items, at least to a point where it affects the game's economy.

It is one thing to have one player/guild going around shopping rare items to flip that only have a couple dozen listings, causing an artificial inflation. It is another thing for players to do that with items that have literally thousands of listings in almost every one of the I think 200 traders.

This is just the effect of the sticker book.I haven't bought those mats in months. Just in the last couple of weeks I had to buy dozens of them.

josiahva

NoSoup wrote: »

Tempering alloy has nearly doubled in 2 months from a fairly consistent 7-8kea to 14-15k
Dreugh Wax is the same
Chromium plating has tripled over 12 months
and its not just the high end stuff

Corn Flower is trading for 1k EACH!!!!

I really do believe alot of this is artifical, you look at certain well known high traffic guilds and there will be one or two sellers listing certain items way above market cost, its as if these players are going around buying the cheaper items up and listing them for 2-3k higher than the average forcing all the price tracking addon's to inflate their recommended prices.

At what point will it all come undone, surely the only people this kind of inflation and market manipulation is helping are the chinese gold sellers???

Do you even know what the word hyperinflation means?

Hyperinfaltion: "...typically measuring more than 50% per month."

None of your examples match the definition, though alloy could come close(don't know about cornflower, I never buy it, its so easy to pick up off the ground).Also, hyperinflation is SUSTAINED inflation of more than 50% a month. If the price of something doubles, that isnt hyperinflation, hyperinflation is if it keeps increasing 50% for months in a row. In reality, prices have gone up because of the transmute system...people are trying out more sets and golding them out takes more gold mats.

In the end, it doesn't matter whether you or I think something is worth it, it sells for what people are willing to pay for it. I personally never buy any of the stuff, hell, I don't buy much of anything in this game....I don't need to, just pick it up off the ground and you will have it when you need it....but I also dont SELL anything either. You really don't need to buy or sell in this game if you hoard.

ssewallb14_ESO

No one is reconing 50 golded out gear sets just because they can. It's simple supply shock. Bots get the yeet, price increases. On the scale of a game with this many players there's nothing else that could inflate tempers to that magnitude.