Why is everything so expensive? (PC NA)

Oreyn_Bearclaw

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Kwoung wrote: »

etchedpixels wrote: »

Interestingly there is a cap we've not yet reached on gold jewellery mats. At some point gold becomes so worthless that the best way to get gold materials is to buy lots of golden vendor stuff to deconstruct.

It is getting closer all the time, but a long ways off.. since getting a grain is a 50/50 proposition and are only worth 25k. They would have to hit 300k per grain to make it worthwhile, which would be insane and put platings at 3 mil a pop. Of course I remember when upgrading a full set of jewelry was a 800-900k proposition, what is it now, 3.6 million or something?

About that, but yeah. Clearly, there is no inflation in this game... LMAO.

Everything getting more expensive is inflation.

A handful of things getting more expensive is a supply & demand issue.

Overly simplified.

There are a lot of things getting more expensive in this game. Sure the cost of a potato hasnt changed much, but that's because the supply is SO abundant and the demand is SO minimal that it insulates the effects of inflation. Worthless is worthless. Even something like Rosin is insulated to some degree. I could play this game for another decade without doing another writ, and I will never run out of it. Rosin supply wildly outstrips demand, so the effects of inflation are not nearly as noticeable. That said, rosin is still north of 3k, I remember when it was around 1-1.5k. Supply Demand, Doesn't account for this on its own.

Look at the prices of new motifs or rare furnishing plans shortly after they are released compared to a few years ago, prices are through the rough. I remember when a chest piece would sell for a few hundred K and it was a big deal. Now 7 figures doesn't raise an eyebrow. Corn flower is at like 900 gold, I remember when you could get it for less than 100, and that is AFTER alliance pots which certainly lowered demand.

If you had 40-50 million gold 3-4 years ago, you were fabulously wealthy. Now, its barely above the poverty level. That is inflation.

Absolutely, supply and demand affect price. On abundant items with low demand, the effects of inflation or insulated. On rare items that are desirable, they are magnified. But to act like inflation is not present in ESO is somewhere in Flat Earth territory. Its nonsense.

silvereyes

For reference, here is the Crown to gold exchange rate history for TCE on PC:


There are very clear and rational RL reasons for each price spike, completely unrelated to any event that dumps gold into the in-game economy.

Here's a Chromium Plating graph for the same time period:


There are some vague similarities, but the timing and degree don't match. The Crown exchange rate doubled between Greymoor's release and when house gifting was introduced with Markarth a few months later. The Chromium prices have also doubled, but more gradually, and they didn't level off until nearly a full Update later.

The recent 200% surge in Crown exchange rate is also nowhere to be found in the Chromium prices. There's been an increase, but closer to 30%, and part of that is due to a couple of normal post-Update bumps that we always see for upgrade mats, as people funnel their gold into new meta gear and away from other things.

This is one of the few items you can cherry-pick that even has the vague shape of the Crown exchange rate graph, and it isn't even particularly close. Most of the other price graphs look quite different.

Crown exchange rates are not a good index for in-game inflation.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

tmbrinks wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Xebov wrote: »

Alendrin wrote: »

First, stop giving out gold. Replace it with things people want, at conversion rates well below market (which will drive down prices). Example, instead of 100K gold (happening this month, it made me cringe), give out 20 tempering alloy or 200 mundane runes, which are conversion rates far below market, at least on PC. These are things that people want anyways and could be sold if they didn't. You are increasing supply of things that are harder to get and not flooding the market with gold. As a bonus, it breaks speculation and hoarding habits because people never know when huge supply is about to hit the market.

The same is true for crafting dailies. Reduce gold, increase non-gold rewards, either in additional tempers or perhaps housing materials. Do so at conversion rates well below market.

Iam not a fan of this. Like you said there are fewer ppl farming and more buying. In the core many inflation/price threads are about this very matter. These 2 ideas look more like you want to adapt the game towards these players and supprot their lazyness or unwillingness.

Actually, I think the lazy approach on both the devs and the playerbase is to want gold rewards. Whether it's the monthly reward being 20 Temp alloy instead of 100k gold, or crafting writs bumping their gold drops in exchange for the gold currency, you are requiring more work on the part of the player to get gold, because they actually have to engage in the economy.

People miss the point that this actually kills two birds with one stone. It tackles both the Inflation/deflation issue by reducing incoming gold (good thing IMO), AND it tackles the supply and demand issues we have by introducing more supply.

As it is now, the writs I do (or more accurately did aggressively in the past), print gold into the economy and give me more than I will ever need to spend. They also give me more gold mats, than I realistically could use (save maybe chromium). The result is that not only is it contributing to inflation but it is also impacting supply and demand. I never sell gold mats. I don't need to because I have all the gold I need. More importantly, because of inflation, it is smarter for me to hold my wealth in mats, not currency.

If you increase the drop rewards of mats, but reduce the gold, well 2 things happen. One, less gold coming into the economy, so inflation is curbed. Two, because I cant print the gold I need, I am more incentivized to sell my excess mats to generate it. That forces more mats into the market, again helping get prices under control. It is a win win.

Agree that the gold reward from writs could just be removed and a (small) bump in drop rate (although one may not even be needed with current prices), would help keep gold out of the economy.

I'm actually kicking myself (slightly) because I would sell some of my gold mats back in the day, selling those Wax for 8k, Platings for 90k, etc... and now I've lost "value" to the inflation because I converted it to gold instead of hoarding them in my craft bag where they can grow as an asset.

The non-gold drops from writs have always been the most valuable portion of the writs anyways.

@tmbrinks

Totally missed your comment, the writ master has spoken, LOL.

But you are of course correct, selling gold mats at almost any point in the past was financially a bad move unless you had liquidity issues, or you were actively buying AND selling to time market fluctuations (like a day trader).

Anyone that does writs consistently on multiple toons, likely has never had a liquidity issue because they generate lot of gold. Keeping your wealth in your craft bag is much wiser than keeping it in currency, because your currency is worth less every single day. That is Inflation.

TX12001rwb17_ESO

Your joking right? 40-50 mil is a massive amount of a gold, that is enough to buy every notable home in the game as well as hundreds of gold materials, most players don't even have 5% of that.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

tmbrinks wrote: »

Agree that the gold reward from writs could just be removed and a (small) bump in drop rate (although one may not even be needed with current prices), would help keep gold out of the economy.

Well, that would certainly screw me over completely.

Since quest & writ rewards, and vendoring gear drops, is the only gold I get. If you took the gold off of writs, my 'income' would drop like a rock. And I wouldn't be able to buy furniture from the weekend vendor, or another house to put it in, etc.

Because I'm never going to sell materials on the market. Adding more gold tempers to the writ rewards would do absolutely zero for me - I don't switch my gear due to nerfs, so I rarely need to gold out anything new. It just goes into my bank & craft bag. I've got plenty of tempers in stock, I don't have a use for more.

LMAO. You are so missing the point here. Selfishly, anyone that does a lot of writs doesnt want the gold turned off. Believe me, I get it. Other than perhaps Mr. Brinks, I would put my total number of writs done against darn near anybody. I have done tons of them. If they turned off the gold, it would force you (and myself) to become a seller of our stockpile of mats if/when we needed gold.

Selfishly, its a pain, I get it. From a macro standpoint, its great. Lower the gold coming into the game, (downward pressure on inflation and prices). Increase velocity of money (exchange of money between players), again good for prices and inflation. Increases the supply of mats in the market because now people cant just sit on thousands of them, again, good for prices.

TX12001rwb17_ESO wrote: »

Your joking right? 40-50 mil is a massive amount of a gold, that is enough to buy every notable home in the game as well as hundreds of gold materials, most players don't even have 5% of that.

On Console, yeah, its a lot (inflation is not nearly as much of an issue here). On PC for an experienced player, it really aint that much. I know a lot of players with 9 figures of gold. Dont get me wrong, if you have 40 mil in the bank, you probably arent worried about the basic necessities like potions or keeping your gear current, but you arent wreckless with it either.

I remember after the April event that drops all the motifs, I used to just spend the following few weeks buying up every motif I that was released over the last year. It would take like 1-2 million gold. As the years went on, that number just kept going up and up to the point that I stopped doing it. You could spend 40 million gold on a single carry run or a handful of style pages. Nothing cost that much 3-4 years ago, not even close.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

silvereyes wrote: »

For reference, here is the Crown to gold exchange rate history for TCE on PC:


There are very clear and rational RL reasons for each price spike, completely unrelated to any event that dumps gold into the in-game economy.

Here's a Chromium Plating graph for the same time period:


There are some vague similarities, but the timing and degree don't match. The Crown exchange rate doubled between Greymoor's release and when house gifting was introduced with Markarth a few months later. The Chromium prices have also doubled, but more gradually, and they didn't level off until nearly a full Update later.

The recent 200% surge in Crown exchange rate is also nowhere to be found in the Chromium prices. There's been an increase, but closer to 30%, and part of that is due to a couple of normal post-Update bumps that we always see for upgrade mats, as people funnel their gold into new meta gear and away from other things.

This is one of the few items you can cherry-pick that even has the vague shape of the Crown exchange rate graph, and it isn't even particularly close. Most of the other price graphs look quite different.

Crown exchange rates are not a good index for in-game inflation.

You have that same graph for Crown prices on console? It would certainly be interesting to compare. No single item is going to be a perfect benchmark for inflation, as supply/demand also affects price. That said, if you accept the premise that inflation is more of a PC issue than console issue, you would certainly expect to see that play out in the respective crown prices on each platform.

Crown prices may not be a perfect metric to measure inflation, but inflation (if present) would certainly affect crown prices. How could it not? In other words, all else equal, with no external events, if inflation is happening in game at a specific rate, you would effect crown prices to increase by a similar rate.

Also, one of the things that makes chromium interesting, is that it is more recent addition to the game. When chromium was released, people that had been doing writs for years already had massive stock piles of most gold mats. Using my craftbag as an example, I have the most Rosin>>Temp Alloy>Kuta>>>Wax>>>>Chromium. I am 100% not surprised that Rosin hasnt moved like wax or chromium. I literally give Rosin,Temp Alloy, and Kuta away to my friends (in small batches)if they need it. I would not do that with wax or chromium.

In other words, Chromium is less insulated from the effects of inflation. Certainly there is a supply and demand component as well, but you would reasonably expect an item like chromium to increase in price due to inflation more than something like Rosin, that many many people have thousands of in their craft bags.

Another fun story. I remember many years ago, I spent about 1.5 million gold to buy Desert Rose (or was it black rose) for a PVP build. I remember it well because it was such a large amount of money at the time, far more than I had ever spent on a build previously, and it got nerfed literally 2 weeks later. I wouldn't bat an eye at spending that on a single item if I really needed it these days. 1.5 million just aint as much as it used to be. That's inflation any way you slice it.

silvereyes

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Keeping your wealth in your craft bag is much wiser than keeping it in currency, because your currency is worth less every single day. That is Inflation.

No it is not. Appreciation ≠ inflation.

It is a logical fallacy to assume that because you can buy fewer of certain crafting materials today with the same gold than you did a year ago, that the currency itself is worth less. It just means people value those particular materials more.

Case-in-point: Perfect Roe - why has it gone up in price so much? Could it be perhaps that ZOS revamping the XP curve for CP 2.0 increased the demand for XP pots?

Focusing on a handful of items like gold upgrade mats, Hakeijo and Perfect Roe, it's easy to feel like everything costs more, but that's not really the case. You can still buy Rubedo Leather for pretty much the same price as it was years ago.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

silvereyes wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Keeping your wealth in your craft bag is much wiser than keeping it in currency, because your currency is worth less every single day. That is Inflation.

No it is not. Appreciation ≠ inflation.

It is a logical fallacy to assume that because you can buy fewer of certain crafting materials today with the same gold than you did a year ago, that the currency itself is worth less. It just means people value those particular materials more.

Case-in-point: Perfect Roe - why has it gone up in price so much? Could it be perhaps that ZOS revamping the XP curve for CP 2.0 increased the demand for XP pots?

Focusing on a handful of items like gold upgrade mats, Hakeijo and Perfect Roe, it's easy to feel like everything costs more, but that's not really the case. You can still buy Rubedo Leather for pretty much the same price as it was years ago.

I agree with that most certainly. Appreciation is supply demand, inflation is value of currency. The two are not in a vacuum. Both are in play at all times. Sure perfect roe went up with the new XP curve/CP cap, you would expect it to whether or not inflation was present. Refined Rubedo hasnt moved much, not surprise, but I also have 5 figures of it in my craft bag. I will never run out of it, and there is very little demand for it. It's easy to get and only used in medium armor builds and writs. Easy to get items are more insulated from inflation because the average player is more likely to simply farm it. If a stranger posted in one of my guilds, I need 200 rubedo, I would just send it to them.

I 100% agree that you can cherry pick items to show that inflation is rampant or that inflation is non-existent. But at a macro level, I don't think its that hard to realize that the buying power of our currency is less than it used to be, and supply/demand doesn't account for all of it.

Are you really suggesting that inflation is not present on PC? Certainly, we can quibble about magnitude, but to suggest it is not present borders on the absurd.

silvereyes

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

silvereyes wrote: »

For reference, here is the Crown to gold exchange rate history for TCE on PC:


There are very clear and rational RL reasons for each price spike, completely unrelated to any event that dumps gold into the in-game economy.

Here's a Chromium Plating graph for the same time period:


There are some vague similarities, but the timing and degree don't match. The Crown exchange rate doubled between Greymoor's release and when house gifting was introduced with Markarth a few months later. The Chromium prices have also doubled, but more gradually, and they didn't level off until nearly a full Update later.

The recent 200% surge in Crown exchange rate is also nowhere to be found in the Chromium prices. There's been an increase, but closer to 30%, and part of that is due to a couple of normal post-Update bumps that we always see for upgrade mats, as people funnel their gold into new meta gear and away from other things.

This is one of the few items you can cherry-pick that even has the vague shape of the Crown exchange rate graph, and it isn't even particularly close. Most of the other price graphs look quite different.

Crown exchange rates are not a good index for in-game inflation.

You have that same graph for Crown prices on console?

Afraid not. Sorry. I don't know anything about console exchanges. I just put that graph together using announcements from the TCE Discord.

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Crown prices may not be a perfect metric to measure inflation, but inflation (if present) would certainly affect crown prices. How could it not?

The crown exchange rate on PC was stable around 200:1 for a long time before Greymoor. Are you suggesting there was no inflation before Greymoor?

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

I remember after the April event that drops all the motifs, I used to just spend the following few weeks buying up every motif I that was released over the last year. It would take like 1-2 million gold. As the years went on, that number just kept going up and up to the point that I stopped doing it. You could spend 40 million gold on a single carry run or a handful of style pages. Nothing cost that much 3-4 years ago, not even close.

Motifs are a terrible example. They drop rarely, in content that the player base engages with less and less as it ages and more DLC are released. All this example tells me is that some players have accumulated grotesque amounts of wealth over the years, and that rare items continue to become rarer.

silvereyes

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Are you really suggesting that inflation is not present on PC? Certainly, we can quibble about magnitude, but to suggest it is not present borders on the absurd.

Of course not. The OP asked why certain materials and consumables are orders of magnitude more expensive than they were a year and a half ago. I'm arguing that some sort of hyperinflation over that time is not the reason.

Kiralyn2000

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

LMAO. You are so missing the point here. Selfishly, anyone that does a lot of writs doesnt want the gold turned off. Believe me, I get it. Other than perhaps Mr. Brinks, I would put my total number of writs done against darn near anybody. I have done tons of them. If they turned off the gold, it would force you (and myself) to become a seller of our stockpile of mats if/when we needed gold.

Eh, in my case, it would either 'force' me to go find a different in-game gold source (maybe go back to stealing/fencing on multiple alts; or grind mobs for gear to vendor; both of them much slower/more grindy-tedious/leave less time for actual playing), or just would be the final impetus to switch to another game. I'll never sell anything on this game's dumpster-fire of a market. /shrug

(no, I'm not advocating for a central AH. I know that'll never happen, and the periodic posts asking for it annoy me too. But that's the only game market I'll ever participate in, because I just don't care about selling stuff enough to do anything that takes more effort. The only thing worse than this game's "guild trader" system is those awful Eastern f2p games with the whole "leave your character AFK/online for hours, sitting in town square as one of hundreds individual vendors!" thing.)

Oreyn_Bearclaw

silvereyes wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

silvereyes wrote: »

For reference, here is the Crown to gold exchange rate history for TCE on PC:


There are very clear and rational RL reasons for each price spike, completely unrelated to any event that dumps gold into the in-game economy.

Here's a Chromium Plating graph for the same time period:


There are some vague similarities, but the timing and degree don't match. The Crown exchange rate doubled between Greymoor's release and when house gifting was introduced with Markarth a few months later. The Chromium prices have also doubled, but more gradually, and they didn't level off until nearly a full Update later.

The recent 200% surge in Crown exchange rate is also nowhere to be found in the Chromium prices. There's been an increase, but closer to 30%, and part of that is due to a couple of normal post-Update bumps that we always see for upgrade mats, as people funnel their gold into new meta gear and away from other things.

This is one of the few items you can cherry-pick that even has the vague shape of the Crown exchange rate graph, and it isn't even particularly close. Most of the other price graphs look quite different.

Crown exchange rates are not a good index for in-game inflation.

You have that same graph for Crown prices on console?

Afraid not. Sorry. I don't know anything about console exchanges. I just put that graph together using announcements from the TCE Discord.

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Crown prices may not be a perfect metric to measure inflation, but inflation (if present) would certainly affect crown prices. How could it not?

The crown exchange rate on PC was stable around 200:1 for a long time before Greymoor. Are you suggesting there was no inflation before Greymoor?

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

I remember after the April event that drops all the motifs, I used to just spend the following few weeks buying up every motif I that was released over the last year. It would take like 1-2 million gold. As the years went on, that number just kept going up and up to the point that I stopped doing it. You could spend 40 million gold on a single carry run or a handful of style pages. Nothing cost that much 3-4 years ago, not even close.

Motifs are a terrible example. They drop rarely, in content that the player base engages with less and less as it ages and more DLC are released. All this example tells me is that some players have accumulated grotesque amounts of wealth over the years, and that rare items continue to become rarer.

My best guess is that inflation has always been present, but it is escalating recently over the last few years. Inflation is one of those phenomenon's that can have a runaway effect. Do I think it accounts for every price increase in the game? Of course not, but I do think it is a factor that needs to be considered.

The first time it really hit me over the head was when I took about an 8 month break in late 2019/early 2020. I came back and the MM value of my craft bag had increased by over 50%, and it wasn't just the gold mats. I struggle to believe that appreciation, supply and demand, whatever you want to call it, accounted for all of it.

The second thing (which I know is starting to get repetitive), is that I started seeing more and more threads, specifically about PC crown prices, escalating very fast. Again, I have never bought nor sold a crown, so I have no first hand experience (or skin in the game). It also seems from the limited info I have, that the same phenomenon is not happening on console, which lead me to think critically about the fundamental differences between the two economies.

Lets say ZOS introduces a feature like the stickerbook and reconstruction. My first instinct is going to be that prices of mats are going to go up, especially in the short term. People like myself use it as an opportunity to gear out alts and that sort of thing. Personally, I dumped over a thousand transmutes and hundreds of gold mats when that happened, and I wasnt the only one. That said, I would expect that phenomenon (the price increase of mats) to be present on both PC and Console maybe not in the same magnitude, but the same general direction, and my guess is that it was.

What leaves me perplexed is that it appears that crown pricing is continuing to escalate on PC, but it seems fairly stable as far as I can tell on console. I also believe that the recent price swings on things like wax and chromium have not been nearly as dramatic on Console as they are on PC. That leads me to believe that something other than basic supply and demand are in play here. If the demand for an item on PC doubles because of a balance change or a new feature, you would expect the change in demand to be in the same ballpark on console. If one is moving and the other is not, its a logical conclusion that something other than Supply/Demand is moving the needle.

If the price goes up on an item, there are three obvious possibilities:
1. The demand for that item is increased.
2. The supply for that item is decreased.
3. The currency use to purchase that item has been devalued in some way (inflation).

Of course, all can happen by various magnitudes at any given time. If supply and demand both increase, what happens to price? Well, you need more info on the magnitude of each to answer. It's a classic Macro Economics test question.

If we accept that prices are increasing faster on PC than on Console, all else equal, it is logical to presume that inflation is more prevalent on PC. If we follow the bread crumbs here, we have to ask ourselves why that might be. Well, if rampant inflation is your goal, the easiest way to get there is to increase the gold supply in game. For fun, lets say ZOS doubled all gold sources in the game over night. Inflation would absolutely be the result. Mat prices would go up, crown prices would go up, even the prices of potatoes would probably go up.

More subtly, if gold in one economy (PC) was easier to generate than in another (Console), you would expect the rate of inflation to be higher where the gold is easier to generate. Short story long, its far easier to create gold on PC, so you would expect inflation to be more pronounced. That is really my whole point:

Inflation as it contributes to prices is more prevalent on PC than on console. If your goal is to combat inflation on PC, an obvious method would be to look at areas where its easy to generate new gold on PC but difficult on console. Writs seem to be the elephant in the room. Are they the only thing contributing to price increases, of course not, but I think they move the needle more than a lot of people (selfishly) care to admit.

On the macro side: We can reasonably debate how much inflation is affecting prices. We can reasonably debate how much of a problem it is. What is difficult to debate is that things generally cost more on PC, and that gold is generally easier to generate out of thin air on PC.

On the micro side: We can look at the price pattern of virtually any item in game and come up with a dozen reasons to explain what is going on and cherry pick data to support our side of the argument.

silvereyes

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

The second thing (which I know is starting to get repetitive), is that I started seeing more and more threads, specifically about PC crown prices, escalating very fast. Again, I have never bought nor sold a crown, so I have no first hand experience (or skin in the game). It also seems from the limited info I have, that the same phenomenon is not happening on console, which lead me to think critically about the fundamental differences between the two economies.

Yeah, well, as you can see from my graph above, 800 gp / Crown of that exchange rate increase was from a single event that only affected PC, specifically, Steam. It's completely unrelated to anything in-game. It used to be possible to buy crowns very cheaply in other countries using Steam-TOS-violating tricks and RL exchange rates. That all changed around June 2021, when ZOS started pricing crowns in other countries based on US Crown prices and current exchange rates. The gravy train ended, and there was a massive shock to Crowns supply. This is 100% supply and demand.

I get it, it's tempting to see something that affects one platform and not another and ask yourself what is different about them. However, in the case of PC Crown to gold exchange rates, we know exactly what is different and what the cause is. No need to go hunting other correlations for causes.

Amottica

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Kwoung wrote: »

etchedpixels wrote: »

Interestingly there is a cap we've not yet reached on gold jewellery mats. At some point gold becomes so worthless that the best way to get gold materials is to buy lots of golden vendor stuff to deconstruct.

It is getting closer all the time, but a long ways off.. since getting a grain is a 50/50 proposition and are only worth 25k. They would have to hit 300k per grain to make it worthwhile, which would be insane and put platings at 3 mil a pop. Of course I remember when upgrading a full set of jewelry was a 800-900k proposition, what is it now, 3.6 million or something?

About that, but yeah. Clearly, there is no inflation in this game... LMAO.

Everything getting more expensive is inflation.

A handful of things getting more expensive is a supply & demand issue.

Exactly.

An extremely small sampling is what is demonstrating inflation. Somehow some blame it on writs yet the base material needed for writs, and also used by many players to craft gear, has not experienced the same inflation, nor has the related gold upgrade matts.

Chromium is what some have pointed to as a sign of rampant inflation. Yet when I checked Tempering Allow and Rosin they have not experienced inflation. If people are upgrading their jewelry to gold then it would seem that they would also upgrade their armor and weapons to gold, yet those items are rather stagnant in price over the past year. I noted in the post linked here that I had also checked rubedite ingot and ore which again did not show any inflation.

This points to demand greatly outstripping the supply.

Comparing apples to apples here and using sound logic. The fact is if inflation was truly an issue vs a supply/demand issue with a small number of items then we would see a larger sampling of items increasing in price than just one rare gold upgrade matt, one rare enchanting component, and consumable potion related items. The facts do not support rampant inflation across the economy.

silvereyes

Amottica wrote: »

The fact is if inflation was truly an issue vs a supply/demand issue with a small number of items then we would see a larger sampling of items increasing in price than just one rare gold upgrade matt, one rare enchanting component, and consumable potion related items.

It's more than just those, but there are structural reasons for many of them, usually related to constrained supply. I hesitate to recommend tackling supply problems with the same tools one would use to tackle inflation. ZOS would most likely do more harm than good.

When it comes to inflation, @ZOS_PhilipDraven has said in the past that he gets reports on how the various gold drains and faucets in the game perform, and ZOS can introduce new drains as needed if things get out of whack. I tend to trust the guy who's actually able to get the raw reports on inflation. I trust arguments that focus heavily on prices in a small sector of the economy far less.

silvereyes

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Refined Rubedo hasnt moved much, not surprise, but I also have 5 figures of it in my craft bag. I will never run out of it, and there is very little demand for it.

One last point of correction. This is misinformation. There is plenty of demand for Rubedo Leather. It is a high volume commodity.

For the last year:

Average price for Rubedo Leather sold (56819 sold, 9944979 items): 15.62 gp
Total Rubedo Leather gp sold in UESP data set: 155,340,571
https://esosales.uesp.net/viewSales.php?viewsales=939&saletype=sold&trends=1&timeperiod=31558150

Contrast that with Chromium Plating over the last year:

Average price for Chromium Plating sold (501 sold, 722 items): 175030 gp
Total Chromium Plating gp sold in UESP data set: 126,371,660
https://esosales.uesp.net/viewSales.php?viewsales=488733&saletype=sold&trends=1&timeperiod=31558150

Do not confuse a low price with a lack of demand.

Granted, this is a limited data set, but you get the idea. A small price times a large volume makes a substantial sum when you are talking about the entire economy. In this specific data set, it's a bigger chunk of the economy than Chromium Plating is, despite the gigantic price increases there.

Kwoung

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Kwoung wrote: »

etchedpixels wrote: »

Interestingly there is a cap we've not yet reached on gold jewellery mats. At some point gold becomes so worthless that the best way to get gold materials is to buy lots of golden vendor stuff to deconstruct.

It is getting closer all the time, but a long ways off.. since getting a grain is a 50/50 proposition and are only worth 25k. They would have to hit 300k per grain to make it worthwhile, which would be insane and put platings at 3 mil a pop. Of course I remember when upgrading a full set of jewelry was a 800-900k proposition, what is it now, 3.6 million or something?

About that, but yeah. Clearly, there is no inflation in this game... LMAO.

Everything getting more expensive is inflation.

A handful of things getting more expensive is a supply & demand issue.

That would be true, if more than a handful of items were actually useful. If you remove all the literal junk no one wants or cares about from the equation, you get a pretty clear picture.

Amottica

silvereyes wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

The fact is if inflation was truly an issue vs a supply/demand issue with a small number of items then we would see a larger sampling of items increasing in price than just one rare gold upgrade matt, one rare enchanting component, and consumable potion related items.

It's more than just those, but there are structural reasons for many of them, usually related to constrained supply. I hesitate to recommend tackling supply problems with the same tools one would use to tackle inflation. ZOS would most likely do more harm than good.

When it comes to inflation, @ZOS_PhilipDraven has said in the past that he gets reports on how the various gold drains and faucets in the game perform, and ZOS can introduce new drains as needed if things get out of whack. I tend to trust the guy who's actually able to get the raw reports on inflation. I trust arguments that focus heavily on prices in a small sector of the economy far less.

Since it is isolated issues we are talking about Zenimax cannot tackle it as general inflation as that would harm the prices of everything else.

Further, Chromium supply is contained by design. Zenimax wanted upgrading jewelry to be rarer than upgrading armor. In other words, Zenimax wanted us to make the choice if it was worth significantly more time or money to upgrade our jewelry to gold. I do jewelry writs and have banked my chromium but may sell some of it now.

tmbrinks

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

tmbrinks wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Xebov wrote: »

Alendrin wrote: »

First, stop giving out gold. Replace it with things people want, at conversion rates well below market (which will drive down prices). Example, instead of 100K gold (happening this month, it made me cringe), give out 20 tempering alloy or 200 mundane runes, which are conversion rates far below market, at least on PC. These are things that people want anyways and could be sold if they didn't. You are increasing supply of things that are harder to get and not flooding the market with gold. As a bonus, it breaks speculation and hoarding habits because people never know when huge supply is about to hit the market.

The same is true for crafting dailies. Reduce gold, increase non-gold rewards, either in additional tempers or perhaps housing materials. Do so at conversion rates well below market.

Iam not a fan of this. Like you said there are fewer ppl farming and more buying. In the core many inflation/price threads are about this very matter. These 2 ideas look more like you want to adapt the game towards these players and supprot their lazyness or unwillingness.

Actually, I think the lazy approach on both the devs and the playerbase is to want gold rewards. Whether it's the monthly reward being 20 Temp alloy instead of 100k gold, or crafting writs bumping their gold drops in exchange for the gold currency, you are requiring more work on the part of the player to get gold, because they actually have to engage in the economy.

People miss the point that this actually kills two birds with one stone. It tackles both the Inflation/deflation issue by reducing incoming gold (good thing IMO), AND it tackles the supply and demand issues we have by introducing more supply.

As it is now, the writs I do (or more accurately did aggressively in the past), print gold into the economy and give me more than I will ever need to spend. They also give me more gold mats, than I realistically could use (save maybe chromium). The result is that not only is it contributing to inflation but it is also impacting supply and demand. I never sell gold mats. I don't need to because I have all the gold I need. More importantly, because of inflation, it is smarter for me to hold my wealth in mats, not currency.

If you increase the drop rewards of mats, but reduce the gold, well 2 things happen. One, less gold coming into the economy, so inflation is curbed. Two, because I cant print the gold I need, I am more incentivized to sell my excess mats to generate it. That forces more mats into the market, again helping get prices under control. It is a win win.

Agree that the gold reward from writs could just be removed and a (small) bump in drop rate (although one may not even be needed with current prices), would help keep gold out of the economy.

I'm actually kicking myself (slightly) because I would sell some of my gold mats back in the day, selling those Wax for 8k, Platings for 90k, etc... and now I've lost "value" to the inflation because I converted it to gold instead of hoarding them in my craft bag where they can grow as an asset.

The non-gold drops from writs have always been the most valuable portion of the writs anyways.

@tmbrinks

Totally missed your comment, the writ master has spoken, LOL.

But you are of course correct, selling gold mats at almost any point in the past was financially a bad move unless you had liquidity issues, or you were actively buying AND selling to time market fluctuations (like a day trader).

Anyone that does writs consistently on multiple toons, likely has never had a liquidity issue because they generate lot of gold. Keeping your wealth in your craft bag is much wiser than keeping it in currency, because your currency is worth less every single day. That is Inflation.

It wasn't entirely a bad move, since most of that gold I made from selling was used to buy items from the crown exchanges (with the rates being lower in the past), or to buy other in-game items (style pages, motifs, etc...), many of which have also experienced some increase in price (more of a barter w/ the gold as a middle man, which is how our modern, real-world, currency works). There were some though that I sold just "to sell" since I liked seeing that number of liquid gold I had go up, rather than keeping it in asset form. For some reason, this is a lesson I've learned in the real-world, but didn't apply it in-game

Could I have been a little bit wealthier now had I not sold as much, yes. Would it have changed my situation at all? Not in the least.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

tmbrinks wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

tmbrinks wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Xebov wrote: »

Alendrin wrote: »

First, stop giving out gold. Replace it with things people want, at conversion rates well below market (which will drive down prices). Example, instead of 100K gold (happening this month, it made me cringe), give out 20 tempering alloy or 200 mundane runes, which are conversion rates far below market, at least on PC. These are things that people want anyways and could be sold if they didn't. You are increasing supply of things that are harder to get and not flooding the market with gold. As a bonus, it breaks speculation and hoarding habits because people never know when huge supply is about to hit the market.

The same is true for crafting dailies. Reduce gold, increase non-gold rewards, either in additional tempers or perhaps housing materials. Do so at conversion rates well below market.

Iam not a fan of this. Like you said there are fewer ppl farming and more buying. In the core many inflation/price threads are about this very matter. These 2 ideas look more like you want to adapt the game towards these players and supprot their lazyness or unwillingness.

Actually, I think the lazy approach on both the devs and the playerbase is to want gold rewards. Whether it's the monthly reward being 20 Temp alloy instead of 100k gold, or crafting writs bumping their gold drops in exchange for the gold currency, you are requiring more work on the part of the player to get gold, because they actually have to engage in the economy.

People miss the point that this actually kills two birds with one stone. It tackles both the Inflation/deflation issue by reducing incoming gold (good thing IMO), AND it tackles the supply and demand issues we have by introducing more supply.

As it is now, the writs I do (or more accurately did aggressively in the past), print gold into the economy and give me more than I will ever need to spend. They also give me more gold mats, than I realistically could use (save maybe chromium). The result is that not only is it contributing to inflation but it is also impacting supply and demand. I never sell gold mats. I don't need to because I have all the gold I need. More importantly, because of inflation, it is smarter for me to hold my wealth in mats, not currency.

If you increase the drop rewards of mats, but reduce the gold, well 2 things happen. One, less gold coming into the economy, so inflation is curbed. Two, because I cant print the gold I need, I am more incentivized to sell my excess mats to generate it. That forces more mats into the market, again helping get prices under control. It is a win win.

Agree that the gold reward from writs could just be removed and a (small) bump in drop rate (although one may not even be needed with current prices), would help keep gold out of the economy.

I'm actually kicking myself (slightly) because I would sell some of my gold mats back in the day, selling those Wax for 8k, Platings for 90k, etc... and now I've lost "value" to the inflation because I converted it to gold instead of hoarding them in my craft bag where they can grow as an asset.

The non-gold drops from writs have always been the most valuable portion of the writs anyways.

@tmbrinks

Totally missed your comment, the writ master has spoken, LOL.

But you are of course correct, selling gold mats at almost any point in the past was financially a bad move unless you had liquidity issues, or you were actively buying AND selling to time market fluctuations (like a day trader).

Anyone that does writs consistently on multiple toons, likely has never had a liquidity issue because they generate lot of gold. Keeping your wealth in your craft bag is much wiser than keeping it in currency, because your currency is worth less every single day. That is Inflation.

It wasn't entirely a bad move, since most of that gold I made from selling was used to buy items from the crown exchanges (with the rates being lower in the past), or to buy other in-game items (style pages, motifs, etc...), many of which have also experienced some increase in price (more of a barter w/ the gold as a middle man, which is how our modern, real-world, currency works). There were some though that I sold just "to sell" since I liked seeing that number of liquid gold I had go up, rather than keeping it in asset form. For some reason, this is a lesson I've learned in the real-world, but didn't apply it in-game

Could I have been a little bit wealthier now had I not sold as much, yes. Would it have changed my situation at all? Not in the least.

I am guessing you are about as rich as they come, LOL.

silvereyes wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Refined Rubedo hasnt moved much, not surprise, but I also have 5 figures of it in my craft bag. I will never run out of it, and there is very little demand for it.

One last point of correction. This is misinformation. There is plenty of demand for Rubedo Leather. It is a high volume commodity.

For the last year:

Average price for Rubedo Leather sold (56819 sold, 9944979 items): 15.62 gp
Total Rubedo Leather gp sold in UESP data set: 155,340,571
https://esosales.uesp.net/viewSales.php?viewsales=939&saletype=sold&trends=1&timeperiod=31558150

Contrast that with Chromium Plating over the last year:

Average price for Chromium Plating sold (501 sold, 722 items): 175030 gp
Total Chromium Plating gp sold in UESP data set: 126,371,660
https://esosales.uesp.net/viewSales.php?viewsales=488733&saletype=sold&trends=1&timeperiod=31558150

Do not confuse a low price with a lack of demand.

Granted, this is a limited data set, but you get the idea. A small price times a large volume makes a substantial sum when you are talking about the entire economy. In this specific data set, it's a bigger chunk of the economy than Chromium Plating is, despite the gigantic price increases there.

Ill give you that, price is low here because supply outstrips demand by a significant amount. Demand is low on Leather, relative to its supply. That is certainly a better way to say it (those mudcrab bots probably dont hurt either LOL).

The point does stand that Supply/Demand issues can insulate or magnify the effects of inflation on any given item. If inflation is say 10%, that does NOT mean that every item is going to go up by 10% price. Some items will go up more, some might even go down. A specific Supply/Demand event that affects price can be many magnitudes grater than the effects of inflation. But just because some items haven't really moved in price, doesnt mean inflation is not present as a whole in the economy.

ZOS could double gold sources overnight which would by definition result in inflation or devaluation of the currency, but I still think the 100k+ alkahest in my craft bag would essentially worthless.

silvereyes

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

ZOS could double gold sources overnight which would by definition result in inflation or devaluation of the currency, but I still think the 100k+ alkahest in my craft bag would essentially worthless.

I know this is a tangent, but you know you can sell that to an NPC merchant? I know it's dreadfully dull transferring from the craft bag and selling, but 100k Alkahest will net you 300k gp with practically no work.

As for your main point, I can concede the point that Rubedo Leather isn't the best example. I can also concede that there's definitely inflation going on. For the most part, I don't think it's that bad, somewhere in the 10-40% range over the last couple of years based on some quick spot checking. For players who participate in the market, it's not particularly problematic, since they can earn proportionally more from selling items than before.

That's not really what this thread is about, though. It is about materials and consumables who's prices are - in what I can only assume is hyperbole - "increased tenfold" over the last year and a half. Inflation hasn't driven all prices up by that much, so we are left to debate what is specifically going on with those particular items that makes the increases especially bad.

tmbrinks

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

tmbrinks wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

tmbrinks wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Xebov wrote: »

Alendrin wrote: »

First, stop giving out gold. Replace it with things people want, at conversion rates well below market (which will drive down prices). Example, instead of 100K gold (happening this month, it made me cringe), give out 20 tempering alloy or 200 mundane runes, which are conversion rates far below market, at least on PC. These are things that people want anyways and could be sold if they didn't. You are increasing supply of things that are harder to get and not flooding the market with gold. As a bonus, it breaks speculation and hoarding habits because people never know when huge supply is about to hit the market.

The same is true for crafting dailies. Reduce gold, increase non-gold rewards, either in additional tempers or perhaps housing materials. Do so at conversion rates well below market.

Iam not a fan of this. Like you said there are fewer ppl farming and more buying. In the core many inflation/price threads are about this very matter. These 2 ideas look more like you want to adapt the game towards these players and supprot their lazyness or unwillingness.

Actually, I think the lazy approach on both the devs and the playerbase is to want gold rewards. Whether it's the monthly reward being 20 Temp alloy instead of 100k gold, or crafting writs bumping their gold drops in exchange for the gold currency, you are requiring more work on the part of the player to get gold, because they actually have to engage in the economy.

People miss the point that this actually kills two birds with one stone. It tackles both the Inflation/deflation issue by reducing incoming gold (good thing IMO), AND it tackles the supply and demand issues we have by introducing more supply.

As it is now, the writs I do (or more accurately did aggressively in the past), print gold into the economy and give me more than I will ever need to spend. They also give me more gold mats, than I realistically could use (save maybe chromium). The result is that not only is it contributing to inflation but it is also impacting supply and demand. I never sell gold mats. I don't need to because I have all the gold I need. More importantly, because of inflation, it is smarter for me to hold my wealth in mats, not currency.

If you increase the drop rewards of mats, but reduce the gold, well 2 things happen. One, less gold coming into the economy, so inflation is curbed. Two, because I cant print the gold I need, I am more incentivized to sell my excess mats to generate it. That forces more mats into the market, again helping get prices under control. It is a win win.

Agree that the gold reward from writs could just be removed and a (small) bump in drop rate (although one may not even be needed with current prices), would help keep gold out of the economy.

I'm actually kicking myself (slightly) because I would sell some of my gold mats back in the day, selling those Wax for 8k, Platings for 90k, etc... and now I've lost "value" to the inflation because I converted it to gold instead of hoarding them in my craft bag where they can grow as an asset.

The non-gold drops from writs have always been the most valuable portion of the writs anyways.

@tmbrinks

Totally missed your comment, the writ master has spoken, LOL.

But you are of course correct, selling gold mats at almost any point in the past was financially a bad move unless you had liquidity issues, or you were actively buying AND selling to time market fluctuations (like a day trader).

Anyone that does writs consistently on multiple toons, likely has never had a liquidity issue because they generate lot of gold. Keeping your wealth in your craft bag is much wiser than keeping it in currency, because your currency is worth less every single day. That is Inflation.

It wasn't entirely a bad move, since most of that gold I made from selling was used to buy items from the crown exchanges (with the rates being lower in the past), or to buy other in-game items (style pages, motifs, etc...), many of which have also experienced some increase in price (more of a barter w/ the gold as a middle man, which is how our modern, real-world, currency works). There were some though that I sold just "to sell" since I liked seeing that number of liquid gold I had go up, rather than keeping it in asset form. For some reason, this is a lesson I've learned in the real-world, but didn't apply it in-game

Could I have been a little bit wealthier now had I not sold as much, yes. Would it have changed my situation at all? Not in the least.

I am guessing you are about as rich as they come, LOL.

I don't even come close to some of those that play the trading game. But I will not deny that all the writs have made it so I don't want for much.

I also have no issues with giving away mats to raid team members, buying pots, making new glyphs for them when needed. Whenever I see somebody ask in zone for mats I usually send them a stack with a "pay it forward someday" message with it.

(I did balk at spending 50m for Chef Arquitius's Lost Thesis when I saw it on sale... somebody else did after I had found it for sale)

Edit to fix bad quotes

silvereyes

tmbrinks wrote: »

(I did balk at spending 50m for Chef Arquitius's Lost Thesis when I saw it on sale... somebody else did after I had found it for sale)

Dang! It actually exists? I could have sworn that was just a legend.

tmbrinks

silvereyes wrote: »

tmbrinks wrote: »

(I did balk at spending 50m for Chef Arquitius's Lost Thesis when I saw it on sale... somebody else did after I had found it for sale)

Dang! It actually exists? I could have sworn that was just a legend.

Yeah, it does. I found somebody who could make them during the last MYM, and used those to push to GO for the achievements. Then I saw this one a few weeks ago (maybe a month).

silvereyes

Arunei wrote: »

With the sticker book Chromium Platings have shot up in price to around 250k now, where back in the day they were around 80-100k.

Except the price increases for Jewelry Crafting mats didn't start with Markarth in November 2020 when the sticker book was released. They started six months earlier, shortly after the PC Greymoor release on June 1, 2020.

Also, all Jewelry Crafting upgrade materials increased dramatically, even Terne Plating and Slaughterstone which aren't used during sticker book reconstruction at all.

If the increases started several months later, and if it they just included things like Chromium Platings and Zircon Platings, the sticker book explanation would make more sense, but that's not what we see.

Since most items in the market have only gone up 10-40% over the same time, not doubled like JC, I can only conclude that some major supply/demand issue was introduced with Greymoor. Some theories:

• Antiquities became a new avenue for earning gold that lured people away from doing writs.
• A bug was fixed that previously prevented combat pets from benefiting from the Bloodthirsty and Charged
• Between the introduction of Mythic items, and a ton of combat and item set changes, way more builds than usual were nerfed and needed to be reworked.
• The COVID-19 pandemic had an enormous number of people stuck at home right when "Skyrim Online" was released, so a major change in player behavior was introduced as a greater proportion of new and returning players picked the game up.
• Related to the large sales of Greymoor, a larger proportion of the player base had access to Summerset and Jewelry Crafting.
• Various upsetting issues (performance, crashes, not upgrading arena weapons to perfected, vampires being gutted, etc.) caused veteran players to leave, many of whom were large suppliers of materials to the market.

Xebov

silvereyes wrote: »

Between the introduction of Mythic items, and a ton of combat and item set changes, way more builds than usual were nerfed and needed to be reworked.

Given some other threads this might be a major reason. There are to many ppl that want to go meta but nearly completely rely on the player market to supply them. Since at least some of them even do it for multiple characters this uses up alot of supply.

Anfieldkris

The idea of tenfold increases in mats costs generally is misleading in a number of areas, imo. I’m on PS EU.

Taking some very standard things, alloys have been as high as 12k historically, may be occasionally more. I could buy up loads today for 6k. Kuta are now readily available for 5.5k, having been much higher previously. A lot of PS4 prices are lower than they were 12/24 months ago.

I’d say biggest areas of cost increases on PS are housing materials, which are currently very high and in demand. However, I’d guess that’s more to do with regular releases of new houses, a house as a reward from collecting tickets which was generally available and mats being needed for writs in the recent festival.

It’s also noticeable that the awful bots which used to pick up everything now only seem to bother with metal/jewellery nodes, and run past everything else.

spacefracking

Need to discuss with the federated tamielic reserve to see if a monetary policy adjustment can stabilize inflation. Perhaps they could raise rates on guild trader listings to discourage speculative investment, or increase the supply of fungible goods such as crafting tempers (higher drop rate). Furthermore

FlopsyPrince

Djennku wrote: »

The guild trader market is all player-run. There's lots of groups who will manipulate the market and raise prices for the same amount and availability of goods to make more gold out of it. Eventually people going around buying all of an available item and flipping them for higher prices made things that used to be lower in cost extremely expensive.

But the ones who love the current system claim this is not possible!

Xebov

spacefracking wrote: »

Perhaps they could raise rates on guild trader listings to discourage speculative investment

That point is brought up from time to time but i hardly ever see it happen. 9/10 times ppl act because they know something surrounding it. Like a unused overland set getting buffed on PTS etc.

spacefracking wrote: »

increase the supply of fungible goods such as crafting tempers (higher drop rate)

I see this brought up from time to time but i dont like it. I would go with Jewelry platings because there are realy to few. Other golden materials however i see critical because the ppl most commonly complaining about the prices dont want to farm them and instead want to shop them as cheap as possible. Increasing drop rates there would send the wrong signal when it comes to simply playing the game.