Any plans to fix inflation in the economy? (PC/NA)

Treeshka

How about adding more merchants that randomly offers stuff?

HumbleThaumaturge

Realistically, there is never going to be a "fix" for in-game inflation. Therefore, I'd suggest that we all hold as little gold as possible . . . by converting nearly all of our gold to materials. That's what I did years ago. And I'm so glad I did.

I think there are two big contributors to ESO in-game inflation:
-- The Craft Bag.
-- Allowing items to be purchased with Crowns instead of in-game Gold.

Before the Craft Bag players would be forced to sell materials due to inventory limits. More selling meant more supply relative to demand, which meant lower prices. These days, with the Craft Bag, players are no longer forced to sell. Lower supply means higher prices. Of course, players LOVE the Craft Bag, so that's not going away ever.

One way to reduce price inflation is to remove Gold from the game. One way to remove Gold would be to offer items (such as Houses) for purchase exclusively with Gold. There are obvious advantages (to all) to allow items to be purchased with Crowns instead of Gold, but this practice does contribute to inflation. The advantages outweigh the disadvantages, so this practice should not be changed.

So, a word to the wise: Convert most of your Gold to materials! For example, back in the day, I bought Dreugh Wax for 2.7k each, but now Dreugh Wax sells in the neighborhood of 45k each! Similarly, Potent Nirncrux used to sell for around 8k each, but now it sells in the neighborhood of 85k to 90k! Crickey! Holding Gold means you are losing purchasing power all the time. Holding materials means your assets will keep up with inflation. My Dreugh Wax alone is currently worth over 80 million gold!!! I'm sure I'm not alone.

So, how can the run-away inflation be fixed? It probably never will be. The game designers would need to: (1) create "gold-traps" to remove gold from the game; (2) reduce generation of new gold in the game (not fair to new players); (3) eliminate the Craft Bag; (4) increase the drop-rate of materials; and/or (5) implement limits on gold, like the Fallout 76 limits on caps (limits per character, per bank account, and per guild bank). If a per-character gold limit were established, then the maximum price in the game would be limited to that gold limit, unless folks were willing to complete multiple character-to-character trades. I'd like to see them aggressively put a stop to gold-selling and associated gold-laundering, but that probably wouldn't impact in-game inflation. As I said, one way to remove gold from the game would be to offer items exclusively for gold, and not for Crowns. But that's not going to happen either.

One other thing that might help reduce inflation but will never happen: Eliminate websites and addons that accumulate and sort price information for all guild stores. Players manipulate prices specifically to artificially inflate the prices, so players feel that an inflated price is actually a "fair" price. Price manipulation may not work with high-volume items, but it can work with low volume items. For example, I used to belong to a guild where one guild member kept selling and rebuying certain items over and over and over again at 10 times the normal price, just to get the website/addon price to inflate. I'd love to see such programs eliminated from Tamriel, but other players love it so much, that's not going to happen ever.

kiwi_tea

So, how can the run-away inflation be fixed? It probably never will be.

I agree it can't be fixed as in "stopped", it seems to be a problem across MMOs, but they can find methods of mitigation.

Zodiarkslayer

The 10th anniversary boxes drop mats, recipes and plans en masse.
Most of which have already hit the market and are causing massive server wide drops in prices.
I made at least 500k in the last days and I am not even trying. I just sell the stuffs thats clogging up my inventory.
And I have to go low to even make sales.

So anyone who still believes in inflation go to the next vendor and proof me that we do not have functioning markets!

Proof to me that dropping prices everywhere and inflation go together!

TaSheen

Sakiri wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

How would reducing the amount of gold help? This would just motivate players to raise their prices to make up for the loss.

Nope. Under my idea, gold mats and master writs, surveys, would drop more often giving people more things to sell. More gold shuffling between players rather than generated from nothing.

I wouldn't be very happy with that. I never sell anything except junk, and I won't touch the trader thing with a hundred foot pole. If it was OPTIONAL, that would be fine. The small amounts of gold from writs and quests is pretty much how I make money in the game.

kiwi_tea

Zodiarkslayer wrote: »

The 10th anniversary boxes drop mats, recipes and plans en masse.
Most of which have already hit the market and are causing massive server wide drops in prices.
I made at least 500k in the last days and I am not even trying. I just sell the stuffs thats clogging up my inventory.
And I have to go low to even make sales.

So anyone who still believes in inflation go to the next vendor and proof me that we do not have functioning markets!

Proof to me that dropping prices everywhere and inflation go together!

We're going in circles. There's a glut of particular commodities temporarily, and they are being bought up at speed. The price drops are likely to be temporary as well. Inflation is an overall trend related to devaluation of gold due to a currency oversupply. We can't say inflation is happening or not without long term trend data. Prices dropping due to sudden supply aren't a sign that inflation is not happening, and, as far as I know, nobody has said markets aren't "functioning".

You can't cite a giant outlier - a 10-year version of an annual event - as evidence of anything, really. The market will distort temporarily, the glut of commodities will be sucked up for speculation and use, and then in short order we'll back on overall trend (whatever that is).

Shanrocks1

I don't see why Zos can't introduce a mechanic to increase the chance of getting a motif from boxes using gold. Like for example, base chance is 1%. Adding the ability to put gold into a box via a certain vendor can increase it to like 5%. Maybe the max limit of gold put into the box can depend from NA server to EU server to console servers.

Zodiarkslayer

hiyde wrote: »

Wait, you're saying there are multiple people out there who've socked away 44.1 Billion Gold on multiple accounts from running a trade guild? Could you maybe get one of them to drop by and confirm?

No. I didn't mean that. I meant there are multiple player that are at gold cap. I can't say if they have that on all accounts and all characters they own.
If you doubt me. I can show you one.

https://youtu.be/TvQrqkymfl8?si=C6hP_uCao96Rl2AB

hiyde

Zodiarkslayer wrote: »

TaSheen wrote: »

... I really didn't realize there were "megamillionaires" with that sort of gold....

There are. I know several who are at the gold cap, that is the maximum amount of gold a character and the bank can hold.
Look for the GMs of trade guilds and clans. Most have several accounts to mange their amounts of gold.
In terms of numbers take 2.1 billon multiplied by number of characters plus one for the bank. So, 44.1 billon per account.

Zodiarkslayer wrote: »

hiyde wrote: »

Wait, you're saying there are multiple people out there who've socked away 44.1 Billion Gold on multiple accounts from running a trade guild? Could you maybe get one of them to drop by and confirm?

No. I didn't say that. I said there are multiple player that are at gold cap. I can't say if they have that on all accounts and all characters they own.
If you doubt me. I can show you one.

You quite literally said that (see bolded above). This video shows a player with the *character gold cap* on ONE character. The player says nothing about being a GM of a trade guild, or having 44.1 billion gold on multiple accounts.

A player (or guild) having 2b gold does not surprise me at all. A player (or guild) having 44.1 billion on one (or many) accounts would. If you mythical creatures do exist on PCNA, please apply to the guilds listed in my sig. We have a terrific "Buy 1 Million Raffle Tickets Get 10 Free" promotion! 🤣

Zodiarkslayer

kiwi_tea wrote: »

...
We're going in circles...

That is because you still fail to see the problem from the right angle. You fixate on inflation and the gold being the problem. But that is never going to change. Right now there is already so much gold in game, that the relation between the total sum of gold and the price levels of tradable goods, can savely be described as infinite to one.

Do you grasp the concept of INFINITY?

That means even a substantial increase in gold per day (1 billion, for example) means only a borderline zero effect on the total sum of gold and therefore can be discarded as not contributing to price levels.

Once you do let go of inflation, you'll realise that the problem lies not with gold per se, but with much deeper lying mechanics of the game.

This, for example, is a very astute observation.

HumbleThaumaturge wrote: »

...
I think there are two big contributors to ESO in-game inflation:
-- The Craft Bag.
-- Allowing items to be purchased with Crowns instead of in-game Gold.

I'd add: the limitation of what you can buy with gold. The fact, that you can buy some stuff only with AP, Telvar, Crystals, Seals and, obviously, Crowns. Crowns!

Amottica

Sakiri wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

How would reducing the amount of gold help? This would just motivate players to raise their prices to make up for the loss.

Nope. Under my idea, gold mats and master writs, surveys, would drop more often giving people more things to sell. More gold shuffling between players rather than generated from nothing.

First, how is gold being generated form nothing? Someone needs to do something to get the gold and then someone else needs to do something to have things to sell so others can spend their gold. None of that is from nothing. Ofc, if someone only spends gold then they will not have much to buy more of what they want but that is from a personal choice on how they spend their gold.

Also, gold shuffles between players with how things are right now.

Amottica

kiwi_tea wrote: »

LaintalAy wrote: »

MJallday wrote: »

The way to do it is to increase supply.
Simply introduce an amount or supply of said materials which will render the high price null and void, driving prices down

Anyone had a look at the contents of their Anniversary Gift boxes?
... increased supplies of said materials.

So can we stop all the whingeing now? You got what you asked for.

The problem is the overall *trend* on PCNA for gold to be worth less and less. A one-time seasonal injection of rarer commodities into the market *may* cool prices a tiny bit for a little while, but because it's only a temporary increase in supply, commodity speculators are likely to very quickly soak all those mats up.

You are correct. Commodities are influenced by supply (and demand) as noted above. It is why players can solve this by taking the time to farm materials for their own use and to sell. Increasing the supply side is something we can solve without help if we truly want to bring about change.

I know because I farm high-cost materials and enjoy making bank off of it. I do not keep it secret which is why I am sharing the solution here.

zaria

kiwi_tea wrote: »

Zodiarkslayer wrote: »

The 10th anniversary boxes drop mats, recipes and plans en masse.
Most of which have already hit the market and are causing massive server wide drops in prices.
I made at least 500k in the last days and I am not even trying. I just sell the stuffs thats clogging up my inventory.
And I have to go low to even make sales.

So anyone who still believes in inflation go to the next vendor and proof me that we do not have functioning markets!

Proof to me that dropping prices everywhere and inflation go together!

We're going in circles. There's a glut of particular commodities temporarily, and they are being bought up at speed. The price drops are likely to be temporary as well. Inflation is an overall trend related to devaluation of gold due to a currency oversupply. We can't say inflation is happening or not without long term trend data. Prices dropping due to sudden supply aren't a sign that inflation is not happening, and, as far as I know, nobody has said markets aren't "functioning".

You can't cite a giant outlier - a 10-year version of an annual event - as evidence of anything, really. The market will distort temporarily, the glut of commodities will be sucked up for speculation and use, and then in short order we'll back on overall trend (whatever that is).

Its tend to be inflation in MMO as the gold is just created, players trading keep the gold in the economy except the gold sink then selling the money to the guild store go back into the economy.
Now an major gold sink is probably guild trader fees and fees went up a lot with multi trader bidding as its easier to get an better spot, before this was dangerous as you could loose and it was a kind of gentlemen agreement between major guild trades at least on pc-eu that if we start fighting over a slightly better spot they would all loose as fees would go up.
This is an good gold sink as it hit rich players in high end trading guilds but new or casual players.

kiwi_tea

Zodiarkslayer wrote: »

That is because you still fail to see the problem from the right angle. You fixate on inflation and the gold being the problem. But that is never going to change. Right now there is already so much gold in game, that the relation between the total sum of gold and the price levels of tradable goods, can savely be described as infinite to one.

"Potentially infinite" is not the same thing as "infinite". There are physical limitations within the system that limit the speed of gold production. While the total amount of gold in the system is unclear, it is plausible that ZOS can actually have some estimates as to the size of currency pools, and can exercise some contractionary policies. If if ZOS cannot have estimates, they can offer gold sinks that offset the speed of gold accumulation at the top, which constrains gold in the system. Perhaps that creates induced demand, and more gold generation in response, but there are still physical limitations on the speed of gold production.

The confusing thing is, none of your arguments seem to follow from your premise that gold in the system is potentially infinite - not even your argument that inflation does not exist/matter seems to follow logically from this premise.

Amottica wrote: »

kiwi_tea wrote: »

LaintalAy wrote: »

MJallday wrote: »

The way to do it is to increase supply.
Simply introduce an amount or supply of said materials which will render the high price null and void, driving prices down

Anyone had a look at the contents of their Anniversary Gift boxes?
... increased supplies of said materials.

So can we stop all the whingeing now? You got what you asked for.

The problem is the overall *trend* on PCNA for gold to be worth less and less. A one-time seasonal injection of rarer commodities into the market *may* cool prices a tiny bit for a little while, but because it's only a temporary increase in supply, commodity speculators are likely to very quickly soak all those mats up.

Increasing the supply side is something we can solve without help if we truly want to bring about change.

I know because I farm high-cost materials and enjoy making bank off of it. I do not keep it secret which is why I am sharing the solution here.

Firstly, there's already an incredible amount of work going into farming mats, both from real players and from bots. Secondly, all the newer players I have met use those farmed mats for themselves, and because of the time involved, struggle to gold out their gear (these are generally players trying to enter PVP or PVE, having recently hit CP160). It takes these players a long, long, long time to get fully set up, because their gold gets them very little on the guild traders, but farming eats very hard into the time they could be playing the game. More often than not, I see players just give up and spend the game in purple gear with gold weapons, so that instead of grinding, they can actually play.

I am not sure that is the experience that ZOS intends players to have. I do not think "If you're poor, you can farm" is a great solution to getting priced out really, because, as far as I can see, it make a decent number of players disengage from the game and its systems.

Sakiri

Amottica wrote: »

Sakiri wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

How would reducing the amount of gold help? This would just motivate players to raise their prices to make up for the loss.

Nope. Under my idea, gold mats and master writs, surveys, would drop more often giving people more things to sell. More gold shuffling between players rather than generated from nothing.

First, how is gold being generated form nothing? Someone needs to do something to get the gold and then someone else needs to do something to have things to sell so others can spend their gold. None of that is from nothing. Ofc, if someone only spends gold then they will not have much to buy more of what they want but that is from a personal choice on how they spend their gold.

Also, gold shuffles between players with how things are right now.

Any non player source of gold is being generated from nothing. Mob drops, quest rewards, writs, treasure drops that you vendor to NPCs, etc.

That's being generated out of thin air.

Sakiri

I also don't see how gold sinks would work.

They'd have to be really dang good to get someone to spend their gold on it. Every other game I've played with these sinks, they were only purchased by people that had more than enough for them to be pocket lint, and did it for bragging rights. The vast majority of people that could afford them, myself included, did not, because it's taking away our gold that we worked for.

As mentioned previously, I hoard money. I don't spend it. I'm a dragon. They could put crown mounts on a vendor for millions and I still would rather pay crowns for it.

sarahthes

Sakiri wrote: »

I also don't see how gold sinks would work.

They'd have to be really dang good to get someone to spend their gold on it. Every other game I've played with these sinks, they were only purchased by people that had more than enough for them to be pocket lint, and did it for bragging rights. The vast majority of people that could afford them, myself included, did not, because it's taking away our gold that we worked for.

As mentioned previously, I hoard money. I don't spend it. I'm a dragon. They could put crown mounts on a vendor for millions and I still would rather pay crowns for it.

One of the most used gold sinks in the game, that is engaged with most players on a day to day basis, is the fee for fast traveling.

Another is the small fee for sending items via mail.

Amottica

kiwi_tea wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

kiwi_tea wrote: »

LaintalAy wrote: »

MJallday wrote: »

The way to do it is to increase supply.
Simply introduce an amount or supply of said materials which will render the high price null and void, driving prices down

Anyone had a look at the contents of their Anniversary Gift boxes?
... increased supplies of said materials.

So can we stop all the whingeing now? You got what you asked for.

The problem is the overall *trend* on PCNA for gold to be worth less and less. A one-time seasonal injection of rarer commodities into the market *may* cool prices a tiny bit for a little while, but because it's only a temporary increase in supply, commodity speculators are likely to very quickly soak all those mats up.

Increasing the supply side is something we can solve without help if we truly want to bring about change.

I know because I farm high-cost materials and enjoy making bank off of it. I do not keep it secret which is why I am sharing the solution here.

Firstly, there's already an incredible amount of work going into farming mats, both from real players and from bots. Secondly, all the newer players I have met use those farmed mats for themselves, and because of the time involved, struggle to gold out their gear (these are generally players trying to enter PVP or PVE, having recently hit CP160). It takes these players a long, long, long time to get fully set up, because their gold gets them very little on the guild traders, but farming eats very hard into the time they could be playing the game. More often than not, I see players just give up and spend the game in purple gear with gold weapons, so that instead of grinding, they can actually play.

I am not sure that is the experience that ZOS intends players to have. I do not think "If you're poor, you can farm" is a great solution to getting priced out really, because, as far as I can see, it make a decent number of players disengage from the game and its systems.

Clearly, any item experiencing inflation could use more farming. Bots are also mostly farming for gold sellers which is not the same as actual players since that gold selling adds to the inflation. They do farm things for gold other than just materials that cause inflation.

Second, purple gear is just fine for most players. The top players could wear purple gear, even blue gear, and still out DPS most of the players on the server since gear does not make a player good. I am not suggesting that gold gear is not nice to have or that it helps some set bonuses more than others but merely stating that the increase does not make an average player into a great player.

ellmarie

ItMustBeThursday wrote: »

I've been wondering if there is anything planned to address the rampant inflation affecting the in game economy.

The price of certain items has gone absolutely insane, and it feels like you'd have to aggressively farm gold to be able to buy even the most basic necessities.

Yeah, I've been noticing this myself. I've been trying to do some house decorating and wow how much mats and furnishings have gone up. Granted it seems certain styles may be hot at certain times. But I'm talking like items you can buy at Home Goods furnishers, i.e. hedges. I buy those at 500 or 1000 per and if you go to sell them back to a merchant their like nothing. Wow, talk about depreciation!!! Some items don't have any worth at all!!! 0 dollars. I have to money because I bought too many hedges or boulders that I thought I would need? lol hysterical.

notyuu

You wanna fix the economy

Step 1: increase the drop rate, and thus supply of the more expensive goods
Step 2: there is no step 2, you just reduced inflation by making supply meet demand, proof of this is in game already, for the month or so after the anniversary event guild trader prices steadily decrease due to the excess of goods and materials available

CrashTest

notyuu wrote: »

You wanna fix the economy

Step 1: increase the drop rate, and thus supply of the more expensive goods
Step 2: there is no step 2, you just reduced inflation by making supply meet demand, proof of this is in game already, for the month or so after the anniversary event guild trader prices steadily decrease due to the excess of goods and materials available

Pretty much this. Prices have tanked harder than a vAS+2 offtank.

Just one example is dreugh wax went from 50k+ all the way down to 38k today, since this thread was started 2 months ago.