How to fix the inflation problem.

vesselwiththepestle

Sadly lots of stuff which could be a good gold sink is already offered in the crown store. Like faster research, faster mount training. I think an auction house for crown store items with high taxes (20%?) would be a good idea.

crispience

VaranisArano wrote: »

crispience wrote: »

zvavi wrote: »

Viewsfrom6ix wrote: »

phaneub17_ESO wrote: »

Allow people to sell Crowns like items on guild traders, the cost of them will eventually go down as it becomes a secure avenue to trade them between players and increase accessibility.

I definitely want this! But it does not solve the inflation issue from OP. Gold is merely transferred from one user to another. Gold needs to be sent to the shadow realm in order to slow down inflation.

Transactions in guild store are a gold sink (4.5%)

Yes, but this only applies to successful sales (and I think it is 8% total according to UESP). I think one of the biggest inflationary forces is TamrielTradeCentre which amplifies and propagates listing prices (not actual sale prices!), coupled with the fact that there is a very low fee (1%) for listing an item.

I think if the listing fee was increased to 5% or more and the trader's cut reduced correspondingly, the total fee for successful sales would remain the same, but there would be a greater penalty for listing items at inflated prices.

That doesn't really work out to increase gold sinks, though.

The current system is a 1% listing fee, then a 7% cut. 3.5% is a straight gold sink, and 3.5% goes to the guild, which usually goes into the trader bids, which is also a gold sink.

So if you want to increase gold sinks, then you need to increase the total fee for successful sales. You can't just add in one area and take away in another, ending up at the same place.

True, it doesn't add more gold sink, but it does address a (IMHO) huge inflationary force which I think might be more effective in reducing inflation than just adding more gold sinks.

VaranisArano

crispience wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

crispience wrote: »

zvavi wrote: »

Viewsfrom6ix wrote: »

phaneub17_ESO wrote: »

Allow people to sell Crowns like items on guild traders, the cost of them will eventually go down as it becomes a secure avenue to trade them between players and increase accessibility.

I definitely want this! But it does not solve the inflation issue from OP. Gold is merely transferred from one user to another. Gold needs to be sent to the shadow realm in order to slow down inflation.

Transactions in guild store are a gold sink (4.5%)

Yes, but this only applies to successful sales (and I think it is 8% total according to UESP). I think one of the biggest inflationary forces is TamrielTradeCentre which amplifies and propagates listing prices (not actual sale prices!), coupled with the fact that there is a very low fee (1%) for listing an item.

I think if the listing fee was increased to 5% or more and the trader's cut reduced correspondingly, the total fee for successful sales would remain the same, but there would be a greater penalty for listing items at inflated prices.

That doesn't really work out to increase gold sinks, though.

The current system is a 1% listing fee, then a 7% cut. 3.5% is a straight gold sink, and 3.5% goes to the guild, which usually goes into the trader bids, which is also a gold sink.

So if you want to increase gold sinks, then you need to increase the total fee for successful sales. You can't just add in one area and take away in another, ending up at the same place.

True, it doesn't add more gold sink, but it does address a (IMHO) huge inflationary force which I think might be more effective in reducing inflation than just adding more gold sinks.

If your goal was to tackle price inflation, then yes, reducing the incentive to post at higher prices by risking a greater loss with an unsuccessful sale might work.

That's not, however, going to do anything about the inflation caused by having too much gold floating around, since you keep the total fee for successful sales the same. I think I'd rather that ZOS looked at how much of a gold sink they need and increased the listing fee, trading fee, and COD fees accordingly - even though it will mean that I get less profit from selling my mats. I don't particular care what percentage goes to what, but if we need a bigger sink than effectively 8% off every guild trader transaction, then I'm okay with making less than 92% profit if it helps with gold inflation.

If they don't want it to be a flat tax, they could even have the fees be progressively more expensive on higher value trades so that players who are engaging in price inflation pay more for the higher gold transfer. But that would probably require more economic management than ZOS wants to do.

kargen27

Grandchamp1989 wrote: »

zvavi wrote: »

Grandchamp1989 wrote: »

Increase supply of sought after mats to match the insane demand, so the economy stabilize and they can figure out some more permanent solutions.

Supply was increased. Since supply got increased so did demand.

I dont follow you here, what do you mean since supply was increased so was demand? One dont automaticly increase the other.

If we get an increase in say.. Gold mat drops then there would be more materials in circulation to feed the insane demand going on right now, which would (at the very least) keep prices steady and not increase as they do now. They would need to add quite a bit more drop rate for the price of mats to actually fall, but even going to that extreme would honestly be great for the game.

Code is right we need more materials in circulation and less gold.

And for the person who said not to touch materials as it is his source of gold income, if this inflation keeps up soon his gold will be worthless.

What we have is a fluid market where prices go up and down. Several things have caused an increase in prices. The prices eventually will correct. That isn't inflation that is a healthy market correcting itself to adjust for supply and demand.

Waseem

You can't fix inflation , [snip]

[Edit for Real-World Politics.]

simox

make the gold reward from writs scale the same way the chance to get a gold mat scales, currently too easy to print 5k gold with zero investment into actual crafting

DinoZavr

The major reason of items price increase is that supply does not catch demand, so the players defined prices of the highly sought goods (like golden improvement materials or such) steadily increase.
Still, farming materials is quite a tedious process, so many players prefer to farm gold to pay these increased prices. Putting it simple: inflation is what we (players) choose, otherwise Bleakrock and Bal Foyen could be overcrowded with resource farmers.

Speaking of the overall amount of gold in the games' economy we have to mention faucets and sinks:

Gold faucets (basically when you receive gold from NPCs or other non-player objects this way or another):
- gold drops from mobs
- gold found in treasure chests/lockboxes
- gold from quest rewards

Gold sinks (where you pay gold not to another player):
- guild traders sales tax
- guild traders listing fee
- guild traders bidding fees
- mount training cost
- armor repairs
- traveling to a wayshrine from the fields
- purchases from the NPC vendor
- purchases of housing for gold
- mail fee
- paying/clearing bounties in Justice system
- applying styles and dyes at dye/outfit stations

What Zeni could do is slightly decreasing gold rewards for crafting daily repeatable quests, but increase materials rewards instead.
Guild traders are done quite right, as multi-million trader bids remove quite a lot of gold from the game.

Another option is introducing somewhat close to PLEX in EVE Online which allow to pay subscription / purchase cosmetics.
PLEXes themselves are bought for real money, but players can sell them to other players to allow spend ingame gold (ISKs) for subscription and cosmetics...
However, TESO model is quite different: subscription is not mandatory and players receive crowns for paying for ESO+, so what could be done is introducing 100, 500, 1000 and 5000 Crowns tokens tradeable for gold. This would help to sink gold from economy as it eventually would be spent on cosmetics: costumes, mounts, account upgrades and such.
Though, I seriously doubt Zenimax would ever even consider this feature.

EF321

Add 5 more levels (like usually 10 slots each) to backpack merchant, with first costing million and subsequent one million more than previous.

Lady_Galadhiel

Instead of all being crown store stuff,things like the Aetherial Well could be sold for gold from a special furniture vendor.
Let it cost millions.Over the time they could add other things like writ boards and drop off boxes also for your house,and other useful furniture.
Real ''luxury'' furniture.

Tranquilizer

kargen27 wrote: »

Grandchamp1989 wrote: »

zvavi wrote: »

Grandchamp1989 wrote: »

Increase supply of sought after mats to match the insane demand, so the economy stabilize and they can figure out some more permanent solutions.

Supply was increased. Since supply got increased so did demand.

I dont follow you here, what do you mean since supply was increased so was demand? One dont automaticly increase the other.

If we get an increase in say.. Gold mat drops then there would be more materials in circulation to feed the insane demand going on right now, which would (at the very least) keep prices steady and not increase as they do now. They would need to add quite a bit more drop rate for the price of mats to actually fall, but even going to that extreme would honestly be great for the game.

Code is right we need more materials in circulation and less gold.

And for the person who said not to touch materials as it is his source of gold income, if this inflation keeps up soon his gold will be worthless.

What we have is a fluid market where prices go up and down. Several things have caused an increase in prices. The prices eventually will correct. That isn't inflation that is a healthy market correcting itself to adjust for supply and demand.

Yes, it WAS a healthy market, before ZOS enabled crown gifting, literally removing one of the biggest gold sink in game: the wealthy players.

There are players with billions of gold, who couldn't buy a lot for their gold before gifting. They barely could use their gold for more than as a currency to count their success playing the market. They watched their gold pile up and up like Scrooge McDuck, literally removing it from the game.

Now, thanks to crown gifting being able to buy something usefull with their gold, they flood the market with it. IMO, that's the main reason for the current inflation.

I don't know how to counter this type of inflation. Guess prices will go down when the wealthy players have bought what they wanted, but I also think prices will never go back to where they were before crown gifting.

Hallothiel

Um loving all the suggestions but this is not a game issue, but a PC only issue, as far as I can see from reading all the different related threads.

So changing anything in the game would have a detrimental effect on console players.

Would perhaps need to come up with a pc only solution?

<cough get rid of lazywrit whatever add-on for starters cough> 😉

Oreyn_Bearclaw

kargen27 wrote: »

Grandchamp1989 wrote: »

zvavi wrote: »

Grandchamp1989 wrote: »

Increase supply of sought after mats to match the insane demand, so the economy stabilize and they can figure out some more permanent solutions.

Supply was increased. Since supply got increased so did demand.

I dont follow you here, what do you mean since supply was increased so was demand? One dont automaticly increase the other.

If we get an increase in say.. Gold mat drops then there would be more materials in circulation to feed the insane demand going on right now, which would (at the very least) keep prices steady and not increase as they do now. They would need to add quite a bit more drop rate for the price of mats to actually fall, but even going to that extreme would honestly be great for the game.

Code is right we need more materials in circulation and less gold.

And for the person who said not to touch materials as it is his source of gold income, if this inflation keeps up soon his gold will be worthless.

What we have is a fluid market where prices go up and down. Several things have caused an increase in prices. The prices eventually will correct. That isn't inflation that is a healthy market correcting itself to adjust for supply and demand.

You sure about that? For the most part, gold mat prices have been steadily increasing. It is the primary reason I simply don't sell gold mats. Why would I? If I log out for 3 months (something I do from time to time), my bank account stays the exact same, but the value of my pile of gold mats increases. It is the equivalent of a very good stock portfolio. Sure there are of course fluctuations in the market, but the generally trend points north. I dont know what prices will look like tomorrow, but I am virtually certain they will be higher in 6 months than they are now.

You are of course absolutely correct that several things cause prices to increase. There are also things that put downward pressure on prices. The net effect of all these sources in the short term can certainly go in either direction, but the overall trend has been increasing for years.

Waseem wrote: »

You can't fix inflation , look at the United States, an entire country can't fix inflation, let alone a pixilated videogame

Actually it would be significantly easier to manage inflation in the closed economy of a pixalated videogame than in one country in a global economy. The easiest way to combat inflation is to curb the supply of gold. That is something ZOS has direct control over. They could force deflation over night with a few lines of code if they really wanted to, one of the most obvious, as stated many times in this thread, would be to turn off gold from writs. Probably the most significant difference between PC and Console is the ease at which people can rapidly do writs. Even if Dolgubons didnt exist (certainly a huge factor), you can do writs on 18 toons way faster on a PC than you can on a console.

Another elephant in the room is the craft bag. Dont get me wrong, I dont want them to touch it, but it certainly disincentivizes people from selling. This lowers supply in the market, thus increasing prices.

Lady_Galadhiel wrote: »

Instead of all being crown store stuff,things like the Aetherial Well could be sold for gold from a special furniture vendor.
Let it cost millions.Over the time they could add other things like writ boards and drop off boxes also for your house,and other useful furniture.
Real ''luxury'' furniture.

And now we are back to my earlier point is that some of the most obvious gold sinks are in conflict with ZOS quarterly profits. Absolutely they should do this, but there short term interest in making money for exceeds their interest in managing long term inflation. Short sighted? Perhaps, but welcome to the corporate thought process.

Swordancer

People are not grinding that much as they used to, material drop rate is the same, but there is much more items to craft and test so prices are going up. Every year there is more players who would rather buy and sell for more gold than grind on thier own. This, of course, also affects the prices of crowns and I mean gold/crown exchange ratio, because gold becomes worth less.

There is also a black market for gold. People are selling gold for real money, of course which is against the rules. This gold often comes from players who have accumulated trillions of gold in trade guilds. This earned gold goes to the market to the players who then buys materials and multiplies thier fortune. Buying them massively inflates the price because the supply decreases and the demand increases with the number of players and items available in game.

Inflation will rise as it rises in real life. Deflation at this stage can only be caused by the creators themselves, as in real life the government can do it by making the appropriate changes. There is no other way.

However, this will not happen because more people will choose to buy crowns for gold instead of real money and inflation is convenient for them. ZOS does not have to do anything as the number of items will rise with new DLC's and chapters they have to make anyway and each of it with the right promotion will attract new players which significantly increases the demand for any item in the guild store.

ResidentContrarian

Easiest solution: only sell, never buy.

Inflation stops mattering.

karthrag_inak

Inflation could be controlled easily by having npcs offer every sellable item at some ceiling price. All of a sudden mega rich folks can't go buy up everything available and then force the prices to be high.

coop500

karthrag_inak wrote: »

Inflation could be controlled easily by having npcs offer every sellable item at some ceiling price. All of a sudden mega rich folks can't go buy up everything available and then force the prices to be high.

I don't even sell mats but this would really be terrible IMO, people make their ESO living off of selling mats. It's not fair to take that away.

ZOS_GregoryV

Greetings all!

Let's be sure this discussion doesn't get into the realm of Real-World Politics. That would be a violation of the Community Guidelines, as it is stated as so:

• Inappropriate Content and Language: Certain topics and subjects are deemed inappropriate and not permitted on the official ESO forums. Things that we consider inappropriate are usually illegal, extremely volatile or violent, obscene, vulgar, or simply inappropriate for an official game forum such as ours. Inappropriate content on the ESO forums includes, but is not limited to the following:
  • Extreme violence
  • Illegal substances and activities
  • Pirated copyright-protected material
  • Pornography and other sexually explicit topics
  • Real-world religion and politics
  • Tasteless, vulgar, or obscene material

If there may be any questions in regards to the rules, please take a few moments to review them here.

Thank you for your understanding,
-Greg-

starkerealm

Hallothiel wrote: »

Um loving all the suggestions but this is not a game issue, but a PC only issue, as far as I can see from reading all the different related threads.

So changing anything in the game would have a detrimental effect on console players.

Would perhaps need to come up with a pc only solution?

<cough get rid of lazywrit whatever add-on for starters cough> 😉

Sort of, but it's more that the recent inflation spike has been PC exclusive (to the best of my knowledge.) We've had years with LWC, but the inflation spikes have been a relatively recent change. It also (appears) to correlate to the bot farmers getting shut down last year.

Even after all of that, from what I understand, the PC economy is still significantly cheaper than the console economy. That's the irony in all of this, the PC economy still has less overall inflation than the consoles, but it's just started experiencing that in the last year, where you guys have been living with it for years.

kargen27

Personal opinion but I think if we could get a longer break between special events that would help supplies for crafting to increase. I know they want to feature anniversaries and certain zones each year but it might be time to combine some events. Seems like we always have something special happening.

karthrag_inak

coop500 wrote: »

karthrag_inak wrote: »

Inflation could be controlled easily by having npcs offer every sellable item at some ceiling price. All of a sudden mega rich folks can't go buy up everything available and then force the prices to be high.

I don't even sell mats but this would really be terrible IMO, people make their ESO living off of selling mats. It's not fair to take that away.

How does this take that away? Mats are free. By having an NPC sell mats at some relatively high ceiling price, the mat prices players charge will be capped. Just like what happens now with style stones and various runes - this isn't something totally new - many crafting related commodities are sold by npc vendors, and by players as well. Often players will be able to sell things for more than the npc vendors just because many players are ignorant (style stones routinely go for 20 gpu, despite that they can be had for 15 from vendors, for example).

neferpitou73

zvavi wrote: »

Grandchamp1989 wrote: »

Increase supply of sought after mats to match the insane demand, so the economy stabilize and they can figure out some more permanent solutions.

Supply was increased. Since supply got increased so did demand.

I don't think economics works that way? Would you mind explaining what you mean?

I've always though it would be nice for them to add gold mats to rewards of the worthy and end of campaign rewards. Instead of the completely useless sets in there right now. Kill two birds with one stone.

SeaGtGruff

Turn off gold from doing daily crafting writs? That would basically kill daily crafting writs. And it would undoubtedly increase the number of players farming gold through other means.