Why is everything so expensive? (PC NA)

heng14rwb17_ESO

Mat is ex.
Writ is cheap.

Brrrofski

Snamyap wrote: »

Hooded_1 wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

Hooded_1 wrote: »

Returning player. Quit for a year and a half. Came back and the prices of consumes, upgrade mats, and other generally useful items has increased tenfold. What the heck happened? Was there a new system ZOS implemented that injected more money into the economy? Some glitch that people exploited? What am I missing?

Antiquities... I think.

There was a serious price spike around the time Antiquities hit. Prices were pretty stable before that, they're still pretty stable, but they jumped sharply in the first few months after Greymoor released.

Antiquities seems to be a very obscure reason as to why prices shot up so much. I've played around with the system, even got my first mythic on New Year's Eve, and just from my limited experience with the system, I don't see a clear link between it and this hyper-inflation that's going on.

Every zone has a purple item that sells for a few thousand gold to a merchant. Multiply by all the players who bought that chapter and that's a lot of gold coming into the game.
Then we have the gold coming from login rewards (another 100k this month), and endeavors and it's just a recipe for inflation. Basically there is too much gold coming into the game and too little ways to make it leave the game.

There is simply very little to spend gold on because ZOS decided that every worthwhile cosmetic should come from the crown store.

If antiquities was the reason, wouldn't it be the same or similar on other servers.

Prices on Xbox EU haven't moved in years

In fact, gold upgrade materials (excluding jewellery which has held it's price) are probably cheaper than they've ever been on Xbox EU. You can get temps for like 5 or 6k right now.

Lysette

Brrrofski wrote: »

Snamyap wrote: »

Hooded_1 wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

Hooded_1 wrote: »

Returning player. Quit for a year and a half. Came back and the prices of consumes, upgrade mats, and other generally useful items has increased tenfold. What the heck happened? Was there a new system ZOS implemented that injected more money into the economy? Some glitch that people exploited? What am I missing?

Antiquities... I think.

There was a serious price spike around the time Antiquities hit. Prices were pretty stable before that, they're still pretty stable, but they jumped sharply in the first few months after Greymoor released.

Antiquities seems to be a very obscure reason as to why prices shot up so much. I've played around with the system, even got my first mythic on New Year's Eve, and just from my limited experience with the system, I don't see a clear link between it and this hyper-inflation that's going on.

Every zone has a purple item that sells for a few thousand gold to a merchant. Multiply by all the players who bought that chapter and that's a lot of gold coming into the game.
Then we have the gold coming from login rewards (another 100k this month), and endeavors and it's just a recipe for inflation. Basically there is too much gold coming into the game and too little ways to make it leave the game.

There is simply very little to spend gold on because ZOS decided that every worthwhile cosmetic should come from the crown store.

If antiquities was the reason, wouldn't it be the same or similar on other servers.

Prices on Xbox EU haven't moved in years

In fact, gold upgrade materials (excluding jewellery which has held it's price) are probably cheaper than they've ever been on Xbox EU. You can get temps for like 5 or 6k right now.

Not necessarily, because it depends on how many are interested to do antiquities - if it is a more combat oriented crowd, they might just choose to do something else and then the amount of gold coming from the antiquities system is by far less and doesn't effect the economy in the same way.

etchedpixels

Hooded_1 wrote: »

Returning player. Quit for a year and a half. Came back and the prices of consumes, upgrade mats, and other generally useful items has increased tenfold. What the heck happened? Was there a new system ZOS implemented that injected more money into the economy? Some glitch that people exploited? What am I missing?

The real value of most goods haven't changed on PC there has just been massive gold inflation. You can verify this several ways including the massive change in crown/gold trading prices and the numbers quoted on various (TOS violating so don't be tempted) goods and gold for dollar prices.

Being able to fast craft stuff on 18 toons per server per account, maybe to some extent the scrying and a few other things have simply not been balanced out by large gold sinks (because they've been keeping the aetherial well, big houses etc entirely crown store).

It also means it's best to hoard things that will sell than gold. Holding large quantities of gold is a lose - far better to keep it in resources.

Xebov

spartaxoxo wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

Vevvev wrote: »

Hooded_1 wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

Hooded_1 wrote: »

Returning player. Quit for a year and a half. Came back and the prices of consumes, upgrade mats, and other generally useful items has increased tenfold. What the heck happened? Was there a new system ZOS implemented that injected more money into the economy? Some glitch that people exploited? What am I missing?

Antiquities... I think.

There was a serious price spike around the time Antiquities hit. Prices were pretty stable before that, they're still pretty stable, but they jumped sharply in the first few months after Greymoor released.

Antiquities seems to be a very obscure reason as to why prices shot up so much. I've played around with the system, even got my first mythic on New Year's Eve, and just from my limited experience with the system, I don't see a clear link between it and this hyper-inflation that's going on.

Before the Nerf to antiquities you could scry the same purple lead as many times as you wanted. Run a circuit in a small zone like Arteaum while grinding out scrying experience and you got a lot of blue, green, and purple items to sell. It was so ludicrous I made hundreds of thousands of gold. Purple leads still exist but ZOS limited the amount of times you can dig them up to 1 per zone.

The damage had been done though and CP 2.0's further cost reduction on wayshrines and repair, increased chances of rare loot from chests and pickpocketing, more money for fencing, and the passives boosting gold gain are doing a LOT more damage to the economy now. It's incredibly easy to get gold these days.

It was Eyevea, not Artaeum. That purple lead was bugged, so it wasn't every purple lead in the game, just that one. (I want to say the bug was that the lead awarded itself, so it wasn't even that you had to run up through green and blue each time, it was just that you could keep slamming out the purples.) So, of course, people did that.

The inflation burst came immediately after the release of Greymoor. So, yeah, it could be unrelated. But, that does seem to be one of the most likely culprits.

EDIT: Incidentally, there was a fairly significant population shift from XBNA to PCNA (and probably XBEU to PCEU) around the same time. So, there was an influx of players who were willing to snap up the inflated prices, because their market was much more expensive.

This is second hand, but my understanding is that the PC markets are still consistently cheaper than the console markets by a significant margin.

PC is generally more expensive than console by a significant margin. There was also a closed loophole where you could buy crowns for much cheaper than they normally were by buying them from a different country or something that caused a huge price hike for pc, the PC economy never recovered from that due to the various ways they can earn coin. Meanwhile on console, or at least PlayStation, the economy has remained largely stable.

On PC its easier to earn gold and many players have large sums stored that they hardly ever use or need. With crown trading a part of this gold was released back into the economy. Thats why you see an increase in prices.
Crown sellers are basically pumping gold into the market to buy materials and creating a huge demand, while gold is distributed more evenly across players selling goods.

starkerealm

newtinmpls wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

It was Eyevea, not Artaeum. That purple lead was bugged, so it wasn't every purple lead in the game, just that one. (I want to say the bug was that the lead awarded itself

Early on, in Artaeum you could go through green/blue/purple in an endless cycle - maybe not as fast at the purple Eyevea bug, but I (who hate grinding) sat next to my sweetie and watched him level 3 characters through Antiquities all in Artaeum before it got changed to "one purple per zone".

I didn't remember that Artaeum was also broken.

Incidentally, this is the answer to @kargen27's question, "why not all platforms?" Because this bug was identified after PC launch, and AFIAK, was one of the rare cases where something was patched before it hit consoles.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

Inflation. The game doesnt have enough gold sinks AND it pumps way to much gold into the game. Everyone loves to shout about gold sinks, or the lack there of, but nobody wants to admit that is only half the equation. Writs are the elephant in the room. Way to easy, especially on PC with addons, to simply print 100k+ in like 45 minutes.

Some of the best proof that this is one of the largest issues is that prices anent nearly as out of control on console. Gold is worth more on console because its harder to get. Therefore, prices are lower across the board.

The gold currency from writs needs nerfed (and the gold mat drops need buffed to compensate). This would force more mats into the market as writ farmers would need to liquidate some of their spoils. It would also lower the total gold coming into the game. Win win. It's not a popular opinion because a lot of people, myself included, have used writs as their primary gold source for a long time. That said, just because its unpopular, doesn't mean its untrue.

Hooded_1

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Inflation. The game doesnt have enough gold sinks AND it pumps way to much gold into the game. Everyone loves to shout about gold sinks, or the lack there of, but nobody wants to admit that is only half the equation. Writs are the elephant in the room. Way to easy, especially on PC with addons, to simply print 100k+ in like 45 minutes.

Some of the best proof that this is one of the largest issues is that prices anent nearly as out of control on console. Gold is worth more on console because its harder to get. Therefore, prices are lower across the board.

The gold currency from writs needs nerfed (and the gold mat drops need buffed to compensate). This would force more mats into the market as writ farmers would need to liquidate some of their spoils. It would also lower the total gold coming into the game. Win win. It's not a popular opinion because a lot of people, myself included, have used writs as their primary gold source for a long time. That said, just because its unpopular, doesn't mean its untrue.

But muh writ money! Tbh, nerfing that would anger sooooo many people. I think doubling or tripling resource node output without nerfing writs would be a lot more of a popular option. Just introduce 3x the number of gold mats that get introduced into the game and then they will cost 1/3 the price! (Kind of). If ZOS even just added a few node events on PC servers would be a step in the right direction.

Increasing guild store tax would also start to fix the issue.

At the end of the day, ZOS could do a lot of things to adjust the economy to a more reasonable level before nerfing the most popular moneymaker.

Edit: a couple typos

Lysette

Hooded_1 wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Inflation. The game doesnt have enough gold sinks AND it pumps way to much gold into the game. Everyone loves to shout about gold sinks, or the lack there of, but nobody wants to admit that is only half the equation. Writs are the elephant in the room. Way to easy, especially on PC with addons, to simply print 100k+ in like 45 minutes.

Some of the best proof that this is one of the largest issues is that prices anent nearly as out of control on console. Gold is worth more on console because its harder to get. Therefore, prices are lower across the board.

The gold currency from writs needs nerfed (and the gold mat drops need buffed to compensate). This would force more mats into the market as writ farmers would need to liquidate some of their spoils. It would also lower the total gold coming into the game. Win win. It's not a popular opinion because a lot of people, myself included, have used writs as their primary gold source for a long time. That said, just because its unpopular, doesn't mean its untrue.

But muh writ money! Tbh, nerfing that would anger sooooo many people. I think doubling or tripling resource node output without nerfing writs would be a lot more of a popular option. Just introduce 3x the number of gold mats that get introduced into the game and then they will cost 1/3 the price! (Kind of). If ZOS even just added a few node events on PC servers would be a step in the right direction.

Increasing guild store tax would also start to fix the issue.

At the end of the day, ZOS could do a lot of things to adjust the economy to a more reasonable level before nerfing the most popular moneymaker.

Edit: a couple typos

always this idea to tax the rich - who do you think will have to pay for these taxes in the end - the consumer of course, it is not the rich who will have to pay for it (well he does directly, but he gets it back from higher sales), it changes the sale prices and in the end you and I have to pay for it - let them be rich, why does it matter to you, let them have billions on their accounts, it is just a number for as long as they don't do anything with it - this is a gold sink, let them earn even more - if they cannot do anything with that amount of money, it is like it disappeared in a sink hole - on their accounts that gold is just a number.

[snip]
[edited for baiting/bashing]

Oreyn_Bearclaw

Hooded_1 wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Inflation. The game doesnt have enough gold sinks AND it pumps way to much gold into the game. Everyone loves to shout about gold sinks, or the lack there of, but nobody wants to admit that is only half the equation. Writs are the elephant in the room. Way to easy, especially on PC with addons, to simply print 100k+ in like 45 minutes.

Some of the best proof that this is one of the largest issues is that prices anent nearly as out of control on console. Gold is worth more on console because its harder to get. Therefore, prices are lower across the board.

The gold currency from writs needs nerfed (and the gold mat drops need buffed to compensate). This would force more mats into the market as writ farmers would need to liquidate some of their spoils. It would also lower the total gold coming into the game. Win win. It's not a popular opinion because a lot of people, myself included, have used writs as their primary gold source for a long time. That said, just because its unpopular, doesn't mean its untrue.

But muh writ money! Tbh, nerfing that would anger sooooo many people. I think doubling or tripling resource node output without nerfing writs would be a lot more of a popular option. Just introduce 3x the number of gold mats that get introduced into the game and then they will cost 1/3 the price! (Kind of). If ZOS even just added a few node events on PC servers would be a step in the right direction.

Increasing guild store tax would also start to fix the issue.

At the end of the day, ZOS could do a lot of things to adjust the economy to a more reasonable level before nerfing the most popular moneymaker.

Edit: a couple typos

Oh, it would be wildly unpopular. I have no delusions that this will ever happen, or if it did, that it would be well received by pretty much anybody. haha.

That doesn't mean it wouldn't be very effective. It could also be done well. I am not suggesting you make writ rewards as a whole less valuable, I am suggesting they reward in something other than gold. In fact you could probably buff them from a value standpoint, just not in the form of gold currency.

Tripling mat drops from other sources would certainly bring done prices on those mats, especially in the short term, but the would begin to rise again. It would not, however, do anything to get inflation under control. Inflation is the underlying issue. Prices are high across the board because gold has been devalued (inflation). Your gold does not have the same buying power as it did a month or a year ago, and that trend continues. Some inflation is certainly to be expected in any economy, but its pretty darn high in this game. You want to curb inflation, you need to look at gold sources and gold sinks. Sure they are not the only cause, but in an artificial economy like this one, its pretty simple. If you pump more gold into the game than you bring out of the game, inflation is the result.

Arunei

Or they could just, you know, introduce other gold sinks, rather than nerfing the rewards of what for many people is their way of making gold? Especially since a lot of people can't or don't want to join trade guilds, and don't want to spend hours trying to sell their goods in zone chats. People seen think everyone doing writs does so every single day with full 18 character rosters or something. While that might be true for a portion of players, I have a sneaking suspicion it isn't the case for a majority of us.

People keep asking for ZOS to sell "base game" mounts in respective areas, like guar or Nix-Oxen in Morrowind, camels in Hammerfell, and so on. That right there would be a huge gold sink for a LOT of players. Releasing more houses that can be bought for gold instead of Crowns more than once every year or two would help, too, especially more Small and Medium ones.

warsteheineub17_ESO

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Inflation.

....

The gold currency from writs needs nerfed (and the gold mat drops need buffed to compensate). This would force more mats into the market as writ farmers would need to liquidate some of their spoils. It would also lower the total gold coming into the game. Win win. It's not a popular opinion because a lot of people, myself included, have used writs as their primary gold source for a long time. That said, just because its unpopular, doesn't mean its untrue.

The overall "wealth" that comes from doing daily writs is not the actual gold from the mission reward. That's what ? 660 gold ?
That's nothing. One wax alone is around 18k. Hell, even hirelings drop gold mats quite often.

Sure, I also use daily writs as my primary source for making gold, but it's not the actual gold from the reward that matters, it's all the mats that drops that someone else with gold buys from me.

So where does the gold that ends up being exchanged for mats come from ? Rewards from missions ? Maybe ? I don't know, those are limited, one can only so many.

Without seeing the data from the game I'm only guessing of course, but the only thing I can think that really is pumping gold into the game is the gold from the kills. That is endless.
Kills also drop other stuff/junk that can be turned into gold by selling it to game vendors. That is also endless.
So perhaps bots farming zombies , mudcrubs , whatever in Alikir for example are much more to blame regarding the inflation that is happening.

I don't know tbh, If anything, I think writ farmers help keeping things in check, "creating" lots and lots of rare mats but little actual gold in comparison.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not opposed to a nerf of the gold reward from writs. But I believe that wouldn't have much of an impact on how much gold the game creates.

Arunei

That's actually a good point, too. I'd be willing to bet that far more people get gold from killing mobs, opening chests, quest rewards, and selling junk drops than those who do writs. Should gold rewards be removed from those as well?

And then what? Where are people supposed to get the gold to buy anything with if all the actual ways of generating gold are reduced or removed? Sell stuff themselves? Yeah, sure, but that's only trading gold from one person to another and doesn't really do anything for the people without profitable items to sell. It doesn't solve anything; in fact, one could argue it just makes things more expensive. People who need gold but have no other real way of getting it just start selling things they have for more, and only the people who already have a lot of gold will be able to afford stuff.

So no, let's not go nerfing or removing ways of generating gold. Writs, Antiquities, Justice stuff, or selling junk drops from grinding might be the only way someone has of making their gold. Instead of taking peoples' methods of making gold, new gold sinks should be added. Find ways of removing gold from the game rather than strangling what's being generated and potentially ruining the game for others.

starkerealm

warsteheineub17_ESO wrote: »

The overall "wealth" that comes from doing daily writs is not the actual gold from the mission reward. That's what ? 660 gold ?

The mission reward from, "doing your writs," is 70k. Cash. Every day. Slightly more if you have a bunch of Imperials. That's before you start picking through the rest and deciding what to sell.

Arunei

starkerealm wrote: »

warsteheineub17_ESO wrote: »

The overall "wealth" that comes from doing daily writs is not the actual gold from the mission reward. That's what ? 660 gold ?

The mission reward from, "doing your writs," is 70k. Cash. Every day. Slightly more if you have a bunch of Imperials. That's before you start picking through the rest and deciding what to sell.

And once again, the problem here is acting as if everyone doing writs is doing so on 18 characters every single day. A lot of people don't have anywhere near that number, and even the people who do are likely not doing writs on all those characters, but rather have maybe one or two they do their writs on.

Lysette

Yeah, I do it on at most 4 characters - and lately just on the younger ones, who still need the experience. I'm playing to have fun, not to work intensively - and doing your writs on all characters without any add-ons is freaking work and takes valuable playtime, in which I could have fun - doing writs is not fun, but work.

starkerealm

Arunei wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

warsteheineub17_ESO wrote: »

The overall "wealth" that comes from doing daily writs is not the actual gold from the mission reward. That's what ? 660 gold ?

The mission reward from, "doing your writs," is 70k. Cash. Every day. Slightly more if you have a bunch of Imperials. That's before you start picking through the rest and deciding what to sell.

And once again, the problem here is acting as if everyone doing writs is doing so on 18 characters every single day. A lot of people don't have anywhere near that number, and even the people who do are likely not doing writs on all those characters, but rather have maybe one or two they do their writs on.

I never said that. But, if you're wondering about, "where does all this gold come from?" thinking, "well, it's only 660 gold per day," fails to consider the scale of this. The problem was never someone doing one, writ, the issue is the player doing one-hundred-and-twenty-six writs (or more) in short succession.

Of course, it is true; not everyone does all their writs on 18 (or more) characters every day. For example, I do not.

However, @warsteheineub17_ESO was wondering about the people buying their mats, and in that case, writ runners are a quite likely suspect. Writ runners have a ravenous appetite for crafting materials (as they burn through staggering quantities), and rather than take the time to farm the materials themselves, they will often simply buy those materials off other players. It hits the bottom line, but you'll still make massive profits, even after you add those expenses to the pile.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

warsteheineub17_ESO wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Inflation.

....

The gold currency from writs needs nerfed (and the gold mat drops need buffed to compensate). This would force more mats into the market as writ farmers would need to liquidate some of their spoils. It would also lower the total gold coming into the game. Win win. It's not a popular opinion because a lot of people, myself included, have used writs as their primary gold source for a long time. That said, just because its unpopular, doesn't mean its untrue.

The overall "wealth" that comes from doing daily writs is not the actual gold from the mission reward. That's what ? 660 gold ?
That's nothing. One wax alone is around 18k. Hell, even hirelings drop gold mats quite often.

Sure, I also use daily writs as my primary source for making gold, but it's not the actual gold from the reward that matters, it's all the mats that drops that someone else with gold buys from me.

So where does the gold that ends up being exchanged for mats come from ? Rewards from missions ? Maybe ? I don't know, those are limited, one can only so many.

Without seeing the data from the game I'm only guessing of course, but the only thing I can think that really is pumping gold into the game is the gold from the kills. That is endless.
Kills also drop other stuff/junk that can be turned into gold by selling it to game vendors. That is also endless.
So perhaps bots farming zombies , mudcrubs , whatever in Alikir for example are much more to blame regarding the inflation that is happening.

I don't know tbh, If anything, I think writ farmers help keeping things in check, "creating" lots and lots of rare mats but little actual gold in comparison.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not opposed to a nerf of the gold reward from writs. But I believe that wouldn't have much of an impact on how much gold the game creates.

@warsteheineub17_ESO
I have done thousands of writs. I know where the value is, but you are totally missing my point.

The gold currency that is part of the reward is the component that is driving inflation. When you introduce more currency into the economy that is taken out of the economy, inflation (and higher prices across the board) is the result.

Writs are the best way to print money in this game, and printing money is what drives inflation. Sure you can print money by questing, by farming undaunted plunder in trials, and by simply grinding mobs. With writs I can print 100k in about 40 minutes once a day. Nothing else comes close. Go farm zombies and see how long it takes to generate 100k gold. Its way longer than 40 minutes.

And to your point, even if you turned off the gold completely from writs, they are still very much worth doing. If the turned gold off, but buffed gold mat drop slightly, I would be an easier pill for people to swallow.

Now of course, we dont have the data, and there is no way to know how these stack up on a pie chart of new currency, but I think the proof is in the vastly different prices on PC and Console. Writs are way more of a chore on console, and inflation is not nearly as much of an issue. You obviously cant turn off all gold coming into the game, but writs are the best place to look if combating inflation is the goal.

Amottica

I am not surprised the cost of items varies from server to server and even platform. I expect you can have more or fewer players getting into harvesting/farming and selling and different degrees of interest in buying such items

katanagirl1

I really don’t know why so many people get bent out of shape about gain from daily writs. If someone wants to spend hours doing them on dozens of toons then they certainly deserve the rewards. It would be torture for me.

Everyone acts like they are somehow getting something that others cannot get for themselves. Every player who does them gets rewards. Yet, it’s treated like something that is not fair.

If it were not fair, then only some players would get them for the same number of toons and others would not. There is no rng in the gold portion of the rewards. As for gold mats, well there is some rng there but again, more work nets more gold mats so that seems fair as well.

I am on console and I’m happy to just do 4 toons. That is the amount of time I put in to get what I need out of it.

Don’t take my gold or mats from my daily writs. I don’t sell mats and the gold I get from daily crafting writs is about the only source of gold for me since furnishing plan drop rates hit rock bottom for me this chapter.

Arunei

starkerealm wrote: »

Arunei wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

warsteheineub17_ESO wrote: »

The overall "wealth" that comes from doing daily writs is not the actual gold from the mission reward. That's what ? 660 gold ?

The mission reward from, "doing your writs," is 70k. Cash. Every day. Slightly more if you have a bunch of Imperials. That's before you start picking through the rest and deciding what to sell.

And once again, the problem here is acting as if everyone doing writs is doing so on 18 characters every single day. A lot of people don't have anywhere near that number, and even the people who do are likely not doing writs on all those characters, but rather have maybe one or two they do their writs on.

I never said that. But, if you're wondering about, "where does all this gold come from?" thinking, "well, it's only 660 gold per day," fails to consider the scale of this. The problem was never someone doing one, writ, the issue is the player doing one-hundred-and-twenty-six writs (or more) in short succession.

Of course, it is true; not everyone does all their writs on 18 (or more) characters every day. For example, I do not.

However, @warsteheineub17_ESO was wondering about the people buying their mats, and in that case, writ runners are a quite likely suspect. Writ runners have a ravenous appetite for crafting materials (as they burn through staggering quantities), and rather than take the time to farm the materials themselves, they will often simply buy those materials off other players. It hits the bottom line, but you'll still make massive profits, even after you add those expenses to the pile.

You did say that though. The 70k you quoted would be from someone doing writs on 18 characters, as you specifically put it, "every single day". You're implying that everyone doing writs is doing them on 18 characters every day earning 70k.

Also, blaming people who do writs for prices going up is...really not right. Most people who do writs keep themselves stocked on materials by farming themselves and from surveys. I don't really know many crafters who buy mats from other people. I literally have thousands and thousands of equipment mats, hundreds and hundreds of most Prov, Alchemy, and Enchanting mats. Most crafters likely have huge stocks of these things as well. Are there any polls or something to back up the claim that people doing writs largely buy their mats rather than farming them themselves?

And again, either way crafting writs might be someone's only form of making gold. A smaller group of people who might be doing slews of writs shouldn't result in everyone else being punished. Which is why instead of nerfing ways of earning gold, ZOS needs to add more gold sinks.

Woozywyvern

katanagirl1 wrote: »

I really don’t know why so many people get bent out of shape about gain from daily writs. If someone wants to spend hours doing them on dozens of toons then they certainly deserve the rewards. It would be torture for me.

Agreed, and lets not forget the time it takes to get 18 characters to 50. That investment should have some return too.

M0ntie

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Inflation. The game doesnt have enough gold sinks AND it pumps way to much gold into the game. Everyone loves to shout about gold sinks, or the lack there of, but nobody wants to admit that is only half the equation. Writs are the elephant in the room. Way to easy, especially on PC with addons, to simply print 100k+ in like 45 minutes.

Some of the best proof that this is one of the largest issues is that prices anent nearly as out of control on console. Gold is worth more on console because its harder to get. Therefore, prices are lower across the board.

The gold currency from writs needs nerfed (and the gold mat drops need buffed to compensate). This would force more mats into the market as writ farmers would need to liquidate some of their spoils. It would also lower the total gold coming into the game. Win win. It's not a popular opinion because a lot of people, myself included, have used writs as their primary gold source for a long time. That said, just because its unpopular, doesn't mean its untrue.

This is the only explanation in this thread that makes any sense. I play on PC and PS4. In the last couple of years the crown exchange rate on PC has gone from about 400:1 to 1200:1. Currently on Ps4 I'm quoted 100:1 and this hasn't changed.

On PC there are add ons that make it really really fast and easy to do writs. But I'd suggest rather making it easier to get gold on console. And ZoS STOP ALL THE CONTINUAL CHANGES AS TO WHAT IS META because this just drives the prices up for gold mats and widens the divide between players with heaps of time to play and those with less time.
Something needs to be done because the exchange rate, and hence prices on PC are just insane. (Written from someone who sells crowns.)

starkerealm

Arunei wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

Arunei wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

warsteheineub17_ESO wrote: »

The overall "wealth" that comes from doing daily writs is not the actual gold from the mission reward. That's what ? 660 gold ?

The mission reward from, "doing your writs," is 70k. Cash. Every day. Slightly more if you have a bunch of Imperials. That's before you start picking through the rest and deciding what to sell.

And once again, the problem here is acting as if everyone doing writs is doing so on 18 characters every single day. A lot of people don't have anywhere near that number, and even the people who do are likely not doing writs on all those characters, but rather have maybe one or two they do their writs on.

I never said that. But, if you're wondering about, "where does all this gold come from?" thinking, "well, it's only 660 gold per day," fails to consider the scale of this. The problem was never someone doing one, writ, the issue is the player doing one-hundred-and-twenty-six writs (or more) in short succession.

Of course, it is true; not everyone does all their writs on 18 (or more) characters every day. For example, I do not.

However, @warsteheineub17_ESO was wondering about the people buying their mats, and in that case, writ runners are a quite likely suspect. Writ runners have a ravenous appetite for crafting materials (as they burn through staggering quantities), and rather than take the time to farm the materials themselves, they will often simply buy those materials off other players. It hits the bottom line, but you'll still make massive profits, even after you add those expenses to the pile.

You did say that though. The 70k you quoted would be from someone doing writs on 18 characters, as you specifically put it, "every single day". You're implying that everyone doing writs is doing them on 18 characters every day earning 70k.

Also, blaming people who do writs for prices going up is...really not right. Most people who do writs keep themselves stocked on materials by farming themselves and from surveys. I don't really know many crafters who buy mats from other people. I literally have thousands and thousands of equipment mats, hundreds and hundreds of most Prov, Alchemy, and Enchanting mats. Most crafters likely have huge stocks of these things as well. Are there any polls or something to back up the claim that people doing writs largely buy their mats rather than farming them themselves?

And again, either way crafting writs might be someone's only form of making gold. A smaller group of people who might be doing slews of writs shouldn't result in everyone else being punished. Which is why instead of nerfing ways of earning gold, ZOS needs to add more gold sinks.

No, you're missing critical details here. I put, "doing your writs," in quotation marks, because that was the way Ink phrased it. His community presented, "do your writs," as a mantra. That does, specifically refer to the players who are pumping out 7 writs across 18 characters, all at level 50.

You're also missing a second, important, piece. Personally, when I am spamming out writs, I do tend to buy ancestor silk off guild stores. So, (aside from the listing fee, and taxes) that money moves from me to another player. They receive gold from another player, and the amount of gold in the game doesn't increase. There's no inflation.

When I spam out writs on all of my characters, I can add about 115 -120k to the PCNA economy in about 90 minutes. That's gold that didn't exist before. So, when I turn to someone else, and use that gold to buy ancestor silk, that's money entering circulation that didn't exist 24h ago.

At this point, there are no gold sinks left for me. I can't increase my inventory size on any of my characters. I've got one character who is still training their mount (with a total remaining balance less than what I can make in ~20 minutes.) Literally, the only thing I could do is buy additional character slots on my alt account, max out their inventories, and feed their mounts... which I could bank roll that, right now, without putting a dent in my finances.

The problem is, there is no way to punish me, without punishing you in the process. Any new gold sink that would actually strain my finances, would be debilitating for you. (And, before you say, "well, it should be something that you need but I don't," that's not really possible. I already skip out on systems with sinks because I don't care (The Golden comes to mind.)) This creates a situation where, the best, practical, option would be giving the Haves a new way to flex on the Have-Nots. Which, yeah, that's not good a good situation either.

For example, if they cut gold payouts from quests, game wide, tomorrow, and sharply reduced vendor payouts, it would reduce my income, but you'd run out of funds for upgrading your inventories, and be unable to progress without getting that gold from other players, the market value of items would collapse, (Suddenly 700g for a trash set piece is non-trivial, if you're only getting 100 gold for undaunted plunder, and your pickpocketed blues are only vendoring for 25 gold.) But, at the same time, you're still expected to come up with 250 gold each day for mount training, and need 64.5k to upgrade your inventory from 190 to 200. It doesn't hurt me at all, because I still have cash, and a lot of very valuable stuff I can sell to other players, but for a player who doesn't already have a fortune? They're screwed.

If you pick any specific faucet, if you turn it off, the players who already have the resources will just navigate around that. Ironically, this even includes blocking writ completion APIs, as you can, now, quickly execute writs with the vanilla UI options. You lose a couple minutes over the automated system... but you're probably still losing more time from simply logging on and off of characters.

@Oreyn_Bearclaw and I have our disagreements on a great many topics, but dude's 100% correct on this subject.

Woozywyvern

If console and PC are vastly different, and its solely down to the speed of doing writs, then the answer is simple. Ban the Addon for speeding up writs, make it as difficult as it is on the console and we should see the PC market correct itself.

deleted220614-000183

Everything is expensive because of inflation.
Inflation means that more golds are puked daily into game then can be consumed in a week.
I estimate it is really as bad as I wrote, 7x more golds generated then destroyed.

Now how can be gold destroyed ? (I mean really destroyed, not circulated)

1. Buy items / upgrades from NPC. Not an option as NPC tends to sell cheap/beginner stuff only
2. Pay taxes in guildstores that are consumed by ZOS . It is about 4 percent and it is not enough
3. Buying houses for golds. Houses for golds are very cheap or need a lot of quests and even then they are very cheap (3M golds is nothing to compare with 14k crowns which is roughly 21M golds - 7 times more
4. Other services like teleporting, repairing etc- not worth mentioning
5. Bidding on guildtraders. Some bids goes up to 100M per week but these are also pocket money comparing with selling volumes (they are nearly 2 billions per week now)
6. End accounts with a lot of golds in a bank

So that's it. Inflation goes up to roof which forces old/inactive/sleeping account to log in the game (Christmas for example) and spend ALL THE GOLDS they have on items which keeps it's value (gold mats for example) then let them burn on bank account without any protection. This is the same behaviour as in real world where people buys houses and properties instead of keeping cash.

The more severe inflation is, the more people are trying to get rid of golds instead of keep them so the inflation worsens in a spiral.
It is a typical real world behavior and it works the same in the microeconomy of MMORPG.

The only think ZOS need to do is stop giving people free golds (for example 100k daily reward, awesome, really) and have game exploits under control, for example ban all bots dropping golds from chests or easy monsters.

[snip]

So that's it in short. [snip]
[edited for bashing]

hafgood

Umm, problem is people thinking of gold as anything other than pretend money.

Thats all it is, pretend money.

Once you realise that's all it is you no longer care about what it can buy you, when you need something you see if you can afford it and if you can you buy it. If you can't you can (a) come to the forums and state everything is too expensive; (b) farm the item yourself or (c) farm gold so you can buy the item.

It's that simple.

There is no need for gold sinks because they only affect the players who have little gold anyway, they don't affect the rich, they also affect other platforms which seems a little unfair

Oreyn_Bearclaw

Woozywyvern wrote: »

If console and PC are vastly different, and its solely down to the speed of doing writs, then the answer is simple. Ban the Addon for speeding up writs, make it as difficult as it is on the console and we should see the PC market correct itself.

@Woozywyvern
The reality is that you would have to ban a lot more than Lazy Writ Crafter. I did writs for almost 2 years without this addon. The PC interface is so much faster for this sort of thing (mouse is vastly superior to a controller here).

Absolutely the addon saves time, but I would wager that I can still do writs at least twice as fast on PC than a console. In my brief experience playing console, I can also swap between characters much faster on a good PC (and that is one of the biggest time components to doing multiple writs). Even something simple like an addon that displays the next step in a quest (i.e., what to craft), or any number of other addons that make the crafting interface better are going to speed things up. The retrieve from banker feature is nice for alchemy and provisioning, but all of that is easy to preload on your characters. That is an inventory saver more than its a time saver.


@starkerealm I don't know what you are talking about. I never argue with anyone.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

hafgood wrote: »

Umm, problem is people thinking of gold as anything other than pretend money.

Thats all it is, pretend money.

Once you realise that's all it is you no longer care about what it can buy you, when you need something you see if you can afford it and if you can you buy it. If you can't you can (a) come to the forums and state everything is too expensive; (b) farm the item yourself or (c) farm gold so you can buy the item.

It's that simple.

There is no need for gold sinks because they only affect the players who have little gold anyway, they don't affect the rich, they also affect other platforms which seems a little unfair

@hafgood
There is nothing pretend about the value of currency in ESO. If it was only pretend, there wouldn't be an entire industry of gold sellers, and the notion that people would buy crowns for cash and sell for currency would be laughable. Both obviously happen, because ESO Gold absolutely has real world value.

Look around, digital currency is taking over the world, and I am not just talking about bitcoin. There is an entire industry of mobile games that reward tradable currency that has real world value. Currency in an MMO is really not that far removed from it.

Now certainly, nothing ever stops people from farming an item for themselves, but acting like there is no point to managing gold sources and gold sinks to curb inflation, or that ZOS has no interest in managing their economy is 100% nonsense. The value of gold as a currency affects everyone that plays the game.

Necrotech_Master

it is easier to make gold almost regardless what your doing in game

i rarely to never do normal writs (i do not find them enjoyable at all), but i make approx 200-400k+ a week just selling things in the 5 trade guilds in in (i make better sales in some than others)

i rarely ever buy anything, usually when i do its because its a 1 time purchase: houses, motifs i need to learn, outfit pages i need to learn, recipes i need to learn, other collectibles that i need to learn (yes i know not all of those items are "1 time" because you can learn them on multiple toons, but i dont feel i need to)

the only time i feel that i dont have enough money is any kind of stuff like guild auctions/raffles, i know there is always someone with more gold than me, so i never participate (auctions bid prices can sometimes get well over what the items are worth individually, and raffles, he who has the most money is most likely to win and i refuse to put money into something i am like 90%+ guaranteed to get nothing out of)

most of the stuff i do want is expensive because drop rates are low (or its a new motif), but usually just give it time and prices go down as more people collect those things (again mostly 1 time purchases for many people)