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

Szalord

Don't know if this has been suggested, but a good way of decreasing the generated gold without screwing up players actually would be to remove completely the gold given by daily writs' quests, while slightly increasing the drop chances for yellow materials to compensate (yellow materials drop chance increase could also apply to blue and purple ones). Since daily writs are much more of a prominent factor on the PC servers due to a lot of automation with addons, they generate much more gold than in does on consoles.

Blood_again

doesurmindglow wrote: »

First off, inflation is a wealth tax. It means you're always losing money just with passage of time, unless you're actively working all of the time to accumulate gold to keep up with the inflation. If you haven't actively doubled your gold since the inflation began about 650 days ago, you lost half of your wealth as a result. Basically if you haven't logged in for three years and had a huge amount of gold when you left, your gold still would only buy half what it did when you last traded. Gold is being effectively taken from your bank as a result of your diminishing purchasing power.

Sorry, it is only partially true.
The main point is that MMO market consists of two parts with common currency (gold): dynamic part (player to player) and static part (NPC to player).
When we talk about market inflation and other real economics effects, the only part where they take place is the dynamic one.
Meanwhile you don't really loose money with any dynamic market changes if the only trade you use is buying Nickel and Adamantine for housing. For your 15k gold you'll get the same 1k of basic style material as in 2014. Gold doesn't lose any purchasing power in this area.
As a result some players may play for years without even touching the players' market. You'll barely find understanding telling them that they'll have to lose some gold monthly for making the global market healthy. I can't blame them.

So while we are taking the NPC vendor as a gold sink tool, we shouldn't forget that it has it's product with fixed price. It forces us to careful usage of the economics tools and evaluations we used to. We don't have the same element in real life market, so usual tools may take an unexpected effect

hiyde

doesurmindglow wrote: »

hiyde wrote: »

How many college credits do I get for reading this? 🤣

Ugh unfortunately none.

Well that sucks. I was totally ready for the final exam.

xylena_lazarow

Blood_again wrote: »

Gold doesn't lose any purchasing power in this area.

Meanwhile PvPers have seen Hakeijos for armor glyphs go from 5k each to near 100k, and Columbine for tris and immovables go from 400 to 4k. The reward for winning a PvP campaign is the same 15k gold that it's been since launch. This phenomenon gatekeeps a lot of players from being competitive in PvP. The random grinders ITT will probably never encounter a PvPer in game or outside this thread, they don't see any difference between PvP and picking flowers.

StShoot

Kartalin wrote: »

ItMustBeThursday wrote: »

I think there are ways that they could fix the economy without a reset. Events that give away the commonly very expensive items will drive prices down and have a cascading effect

I believe this is part of their intent in placing gold upgrade mats in the monthly login rewards. Not enough to tank the prices but little adjustments to see what happens. But in March they did 4 of each instead of one so this seems to be their plan going forward— additional currency and mats via login rewards to help control inflation.

They need to include nirncrux and columbine next. The columbine thing is entirely their fault though, making one plant with the most desirable traits for both pve and PvP.

Dont forget that columbine is also used in some of the meta bufffood recepies -.-

Blood_again

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Blood_again wrote: »

Gold doesn't lose any purchasing power in this area.

Meanwhile PvPers have seen Hakeijos for armor glyphs go from 5k each to near 100k, and Columbine for tris and immovables go from 400 to 4k. The reward for winning a PvP campaign is the same 15k gold that it's been since launch. This phenomenon gatekeeps a lot of players from being competitive in PvP. The random grinders ITT will probably never encounter a PvPer in game or outside this thread, they don't see any difference between PvP and picking flowers.

Kindly interested why do you answer with players' market prices to my comment about NPC vendor prices.
If you check, "Gold doesn't lose any purchasing power in this area" was quite after mentioning Nickel/gold at NPC.

I'll be glad to answer your questions if it is related to quote in context.

AnduinTryggva

doesurmindglow wrote: »

AnduinTryggva wrote: »

Check for minute 4:33

I can't say for certain, but I'm pretty sure this player is on the PTS: He also has 6 million undaunted keys, which would require him under the old system to be running all three pledges on hard mode on 20 different characters... ... Every single day since 1887.

Given that the game launched in 2014, I don't see this as likely.

Thanks, I did not notice that. Could hence be indeed.

EF321

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Blood_again wrote: »

Gold doesn't lose any purchasing power in this area.

Meanwhile PvPers have seen Hakeijos for armor glyphs go from 5k each to near 100k, and Columbine for tris and immovables go from 400 to 4k. The reward for winning a PvP campaign is the same 15k gold that it's been since launch. This phenomenon gatekeeps a lot of players from being competitive in PvP. The random grinders ITT will probably never encounter a PvPer in game or outside this thread, they don't see any difference between PvP and picking flowers.

I've made over billion gold from occasionally touching PvP (and not living there 24/7) over last couple of years, without even trying to be good at it, just playing meme, themed and roleplay builds for fun. That thing rains money on your for merely existing there.
If you are vendoring your rewards to NPC, you got only yourself to blame. There isn't NPC who converts dungeon motifs into potions I want either, you know? You got to monetize your rewards yourself, and not wait for ZOS to send gold and potions directly to your mailbox.


Also, PvPers are the ones selling hakeijos, lol. You are gatekeeping yourselves from PvP.

The random grinders ITT will probably never encounter a PvPer in game or outside this thread

Grand overlord, Former Emperor

kiwi_tea

One thing that would have a big impact would just be increasing supply by making existing loot boxes give mats.

Szalord wrote: »

Don't know if this has been suggested, but a good way of decreasing the generated gold without screwing up players actually would be to remove completely the gold given by daily writs' quests, while slightly increasing the drop chances for yellow materials to compensate (yellow materials drop chance increase could also apply to blue and purple ones). Since daily writs are much more of a prominent factor on the PC servers due to a lot of automation with addons, they generate much more gold than in does on consoles.

The problem isn't with gold generation, it's that there isn't much for an end-game gold rich player to buy. Over a certain savings or earnings threshold all that masses of amounts cash at the top is doing is pushing prices higher and higher. The devs need to target those players, the ones with little to spend on, with a broader range of systems *worth sinking gold into*.

Preferably systems that give back to other players, either through guilds, or some new communal venture, so that they're marketable within an MMO where broad appeal is everything: "Your guild leader/your rich friends/rich randos in the overworld can now provide you with access to this useful effect."

The big challenge is they have to be purposeful, engaging, and rewarding, or people won't sink gold into them.

The guild traders are a great example of this kind of system. They eat millions upon millions of gold back out of the economy in a way that feels competitive, natural and necessary. But players *need* them. They have purpose. They are extremely rewarding.

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Blood_again wrote: »

Gold doesn't lose any purchasing power in this area.

Meanwhile PvPers have seen Hakeijos for armor glyphs go from 5k each to near 100k, and Columbine for tris and immovables go from 400 to 4k. The reward for winning a PvP campaign is the same 15k gold that it's been since launch. This phenomenon gatekeeps a lot of players from being competitive in PvP. The random grinders ITT will probably never encounter a PvPer in game or outside this thread, they don't see any difference between PvP and picking flowers.

Also, as an on and off PVPer, everything xylena said is true for PVPers, even if it targeted a comment in the wrong context. If you're in the game just to PVP, gold is relatively hard to come by in the amounts that are increasingly required. And if you're a really GOOD PVPer, like xylena is, you are not going get far or have much fun just ignoring the meta.

Sakiri

Still don't think it's a problem.

And I still don't think ZOS can "fix" it, because it's not a problem.

Also, buying crowns for in game gold like gw2 does with gems is a terrible idea, especially combined with gifting. You like bots? That's how you get bots. More than we already have.

kiwi_tea

EF321 wrote: »

That thing rains money on your for merely existing there.

It depends, doesn't it. Are you investing siege? Are you dropping camps? How much of your AP and drops go back into the campaign? Are you changing campaigns, cos there's a frankly ridiculous AP sink on doing that (why not just reset progress when switching?)

If you go to Cyro to earn gold via AP or RWoTW drops, and you're not heavily investing in builds, or rep kits, or siege, then of course you'll profit.

As for PVPers gatekeeping PVP, the cause of the short supply of Hakeijo is compounded in many ways - particularly the fact that ZOS initially intended to build a robust PVP aspect of the game that would supply this stuff, but then neglected it for the better part of a decade to the point where there just isn't a large community of suppliers. Demand outstripping supply is part of the problem there, but the inflationary pressure on Hakeijo prices is part of a much broader economic problem in the game: There's almost nothing higher-end players want/need to spend gold on, except competing with each other in driving up the prices of generally useful stuff that everyone needs.

Bucky_13

AnduinTryggva wrote: »

Sakiri wrote: »

I've never seen a zone devoid of a node type...

Surely it is not 100% because they do respawn. But it is sufficient if only 10% remain and they are scattered all over the place that farming becomes a lottery for people trying to get hardeners.

It also depends on the time. I don't know how it looks on the NA server but on the EU server before noon it can be hard to find sufficient cloth nodes that have a meaning when looking to get a gear up to gold level. Certain DLC regions are less concerned of course but there are folks that don't have access to these regions.

This explains the prices for dreughwax or how do you explain that dreughwax is so expensive? If cloth nodes were abundant you'd pick them up on the fly.

To be honest, I think such ressources like dreughwax should be available on normal sellers for a reasonable price. Not cheap but not as expensive as we see now. This would quickly eliminate that bot farming and leave enough cloth for those people who want to save gold.

The reason for Dreugh Wax being more expensive than Resin & Tempering Alloy (and chromium platings) is simply that it has a higher demand than the other 2.

Resin is only used on shields, staves and bows, this is why it's generally the cheapest one. You use it on 0-2 pieces in a build.

Tempering Alloy is used for the other 1 & 2 handed weapons + Heavy armor. Heavy armor is mainly used by tanks (and in PvP builds, but PvP players seem to be in a minority compared to the PvE crowd. 1 bar Raven is depressing to see). If you've ever queued for a dungeon, you know that tanks are not a majority of the player base. A DPS might use 1 piece of heavy armor for reasons, especially in a solo build.

So for a dps or healer in general, you use 0-4 pieces of Tempering alloy (weapons + maybe an armor piece)

For Chromium Platings, you will use it on 3 pieces (or 2 if you use a mythic item, but that can go for armor slots as well). Since the changes that removed grains, it acts like the other 3 now, and on PC EU is slightly more expensive than Tempering Alloy.

Dreugh Wax is used for light and medium armor. This is the armor types most commonly used by players. Players usually need Dreugh Wax for 6-7 items in a build.

So for an average DPS build which is what the majority of players will use (with a mythic, -1 to either TA, CP or DW):
Resin: 0-2 items,
Tempering Alloy: 0-4 items, (total Resin + Tempering Alloy: 2-4 usually)
Chromium Plating: 3 items,
Dreugh Wax: 6-7 items.


This is the main reason why Dreugh Wax is more expensive, it's simply used more. I do farm daily writs + surveys and picking up random nodes occasionally when I play. I don't farm ancestors silk specifically because I can't be bothered. I usually get the same amount of gold mats for all 4 on average, with weekly fluctuations because RNG.

I also know that when I make new builds for PvE or PvP, Dreugh Wax is the resource I drain the most (I play stamblade, I don't touch heavy armor).

Do bots farm more Ancestors silk than the other resources? Probably. Why do they do it? Because the demand for it is higher compared to the other resources. Even if we got rid of all bots (that would be awesome), Dreugh Wax would still be the most expensive golden mat because it has the highest demand, and supply would still be equal to the other 3 gold mats.

EDIT: Sure, supply for some players might be lower for Dreugh Wax because of bots, but globally it's pretty much the same. Unless bots hoard it and only sell a fraction of what they have. Which I doubt. After selling gold mats myself for 3+ years (daily writs + surveys & rarely change sets), my experience is that all of them sell well and there is a supply for all of them. The demand for Dreugh Wax is just bigger than the others.

NoTimeToWait

kiwi_tea wrote: »

One thing that would have a big impact would just be increasing supply by making existing loot boxes give mats.

Preferably systems that give back to other players, either through guilds, or some new communal venture, so that they're marketable within an MMO where broad appeal is everything: "Your guild leader/your rich friends/rich randos in the overworld can now provide you with access to this useful effect."

The big challenge is they have to be purposeful, engaging, and rewarding, or people won't sink gold into them.

The guild traders are a great example of this kind of system. They eat millions upon millions of gold back out of the economy in a way that feels competitive, natural and necessary. But players *need* them. They have purpose. They are extremely rewarding.

I like this one a lot too. What if there was a guild system, integrated into the guild management that would give guild-wide incremental bonuses for gold donations by guild members.

Like if all guild memebrs donate 1 000 000 gold towards the goal, everyone gets 5% XP buff, at 2 mil gold threshold its 7% XP buff, at 3 mil its 9% XP buff, at 4 mil gold its 10% buff.
Thresholds could be whatever, bonuses too. Like a small speed buff out of combat as another donation category.
Or these donation thresholds could give a weekly Endeavours. Like if the guild reaches a target, every player in the guild gets their weekly endeavor bonus done

EF321

kiwi_tea wrote: »

EF321 wrote: »

That thing rains money on your for merely existing there.

It depends, doesn't it. Are you investing siege? Are you dropping camps? How much of your AP and drops go back into the campaign? Are you changing campaigns, cos there's a frankly ridiculous AP sink on doing that (why not just reset progress when switching?)

If you go to Cyro to earn gold via AP or RWoTW drops, and you're not heavily investing in builds, or rep kits, or siege, then of course you'll profit.

As for PVPers gatekeeping PVP, the cause of the short supply of Hakeijo is compounded in many ways - particularly the fact that ZOS initially intended to build a robust PVP aspect of the game that would supply this stuff, but then neglected it for the better part of a decade to the point where there just isn't a large community of suppliers. Demand outstripping supply is part of the problem there, but the inflationary pressure on Hakeijo prices is part of a much broader economic problem in the game: There's almost nothing higher-end players want/need to spend gold on, except competing with each other in driving up the prices of generally useful stuff that everyone needs.

Got plenty of everything (and much more, not everything here):

All this expendable stuff can't possibly outweigh amount of gold I've been getting, also using those typically helps you earn more AP, and good portion of it also came free in mail from regular and event mail rewards.

Of course what you should be using your rewards on to earn gold from Cyro varies from patch to patch, and you should not be expecting "I played x hours, this should equate z profit" every single time, it's a long game. During PvP events you earn so much more for doing exact same thing. Anniversary used to rewards at least home base quests, now it also rewards getting AP. Free gear pieces that you are getting now every time you turn in 'kill x classes' and other home bases quests are also sometimes worth a lot.
New sets, even if they are no good, will make you a bank on first days/weeks. And if they are any good on release, like Rally, DC or Mara's, you can finance whole year of your gameplay, without doing any side activities. Transmutes convert into nirn, you get these from RftW every day and big drop once a month. Gladiator proofs every month add up to 1-2 collectibles worth million or two.

Aldoss

@doesurmindglow I think the answer here lies mostly in the demand curve for things, amplified by the fact that there wasn't enough gold sinks in place prior to the massive overhaul to the combat system.

The moment hybridization happened, every build that ever existed was changed and outdated. Builds suddenly weren't mag or stam. People had to experiment to find what worked. People started to tinker. This actually was a big gold sink because I (and I know I'm not alone here), actually started hitting the respec shrine on an almost daily, but at least weekly basis. I had 15 toons that needed their builds redone if I wanted to play them competitively.

That sink did nothing for the demand for mats though, which exploded and there was already enough gold in player chests to warrant higher prices. Everything jumped. Had there been some new inflation mechanic, then the curves would keep rising, but they're not really. Technically, they are normalized with various ebbs and flows and a few outliers.

A new gold sink can work, but I don't think that's really the cause of some of these inflationary surges. Your own research kind of points to this because only some items have continued to increase dramatically past that surge in 2022.

I think the mat that clearly stands out amongst them is columbine - a mat that is needed by literally all combat related end game players, who all would rather spend their time in combat rather than farming. It's one alchemy item that is hard to acquire and end game potions can only be crafted with it.

If ZOS were to expand alchemy recipes to allow for tripots to be made with Lady's Smock, you'd instantly see a drop in columbine and the decrease would stick because 1. people have a ton of stored lady's smock, 2. farming for mats yields more chances to generate the final product, and 3. the demand for one mat is regulated by the demand for the other.

A modified gold sink that could help decrease money could be a scaling cost for wayshrines, respecs, or anything that requires giving gold to NPCs in the game, which would restrict the cost for new players and ramp up in cost for players who are 1000CP, 2000CP, and max CP. The higher you go in level, the more you'd pay. The reasoning is simply that by increasing your level, you are proving that you're participating in a part of the game economy that actively creates inflation.

Housing players and traders don't participate in these mechanics. There are some players in my trade guild that have played since beta and are still under 600CP. They trade and house and that's it. They'd end up paying less for these NPC gold sinks, which might seem unjust for the traders (the amount of gold some of my trading guild members have is absurd), but again, they don't actively affect gold inflation. They're just speculators. They mess with markets.

By contrast, casual crafters participate in one of the primary inflation and market regulation mechanics in game - writs. There are people in my trade guild that have 36+ toons and they religiously log into each one, every day, and do writs. It not only inflates gold, it also increases supply of mats.

I think there's also something to be said about addons like Beam Me Up. This addon allows a major bypass of one of the primary deflation mechanics in the game by easily listing all the zones friends and guild mates are in and letting you port to them. I alone have likely bypassed hundreds of thousands of gold by using it.

I think teleportation in the game should come with a nominal fee that operates with the scaling mechanic I just described to not induce strain on new players. New players pay nothing to travel to friends and guild mates, but once CP 160-300 strikes, you start contributing 30-100g for fast travel.

SilverBride

doesurmindglow wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Taking my gold that I worked hard to accumulate and maintain so I can have things in game that I enjoy is not a solution.

Ok but what happens to the gold you accumulate and maintain if the price of everything on the server doubles? Well, it's taken from you at twice the rate. Inflation is the same thing as implementing a wealth tax. There is no difference between what's been occurring on the server and what the poster was proposing, in actual effect.

Nothing would be taken from me at twice the rate because I have control over what I purchase and how much I am willing to spend for it. A wealth tax would just take my gold for nothing in return. I'm pretty certain that ZoS would never do this because it would cause quite an uproar.

kiwi_tea

SilverBride wrote: »

doesurmindglow wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Taking my gold that I worked hard to accumulate and maintain so I can have things in game that I enjoy is not a solution.

Ok but what happens to the gold you accumulate and maintain if the price of everything on the server doubles? Well, it's taken from you at twice the rate. Inflation is the same thing as implementing a wealth tax. There is no difference between what's been occurring on the server and what the poster was proposing, in actual effect.

Nothing would be taken from me at twice the rate because I have control over what I purchase and how much I am willing to spend for it. A wealth tax would just take my gold for nothing in return. I'm pretty certain that ZoS would never do this because it would cause quite an uproar.

If it actually lowered inflation enough then the return would be that your wealth in real terms might even increase, because your wealth would stretch much further. If you really have so much wealth that extremely, extremely high prices are a non-issue, would it actually do you any meaningful damage to sacrifice? Is this just about bragging rights for having bigger numbers, economy be damned?

There's a trap here in preferring big, big numbers that are worth very little over marginally smaller numbers that are worth much more in terms of purchase power. I don't really believe you're making that mistake, but... ...are you *that* rich that a wealth tax might even affect you? Because if you are, there's a chance it would actually make you richer in real terms.

Again, I don't advocate a wealth tax, but it certainly strikes me as potentially better than the status quo. Some form of contractionary economic system at the top end of the wealth scale seems long overdue in this game. Money is oversupplied at the top, so they need to create more demand for money up there - and that demand needs to be real demand, not just punitive.

SilverBride

kiwi_tea wrote: »

If you really have so much wealth that extremely, extremely high prices are a non-issue, would it actually do you any meaningful damage to sacrifice? Is this just about bragging rights for having bigger numbers, economy be damned?

As I've already stated, I trade so I will have enough gold to afford the things that I enjoy. I absolutely hate farming and won't spend my time doing it. Trading takes little time and provides enough gold to purchase the mats I need for crafting furnishings for all my houses, and gear for my characters, and all the other things I do enjoy.

As I also stated, I only had 100k before I started trading. I didn't expect other players to lower their prices or sacrifice their gold so I could have the things they had. I put in the work and achieved this on my own.

This isn't Robin Hood and taking from the rich and giving to the poor doesn't teach anyone to become self supportive.

Blood_again

In case of a brainstorming for gold sink that may happen here, I'll add an idea.

If ZOS gave us an ability to expand chests, banks, guildbanks and inventories for gold more than current, it would eat a lot of players' money.
Bank 230 => 240 took 85k IIRC. If the next 10 slots were for 150k and more, players would sink astronomical sums on it.
Same for Armory, if it worked as a container for swapped gear. Buy armory slot for crowns, buy armory inventory for gold. Why not?

Unfortunately the last 15 slots I remember were sold to players for crowns as pets. No redux for inflation, more money for ZOS. Fair choice.

doesurmindglow

Blood_again wrote: »

Sorry, it is only partially true.
The main point is that MMO market consists of two parts with common currency (gold): dynamic part (player to player) and static part (NPC to player).

OH yeah I suppose that's a fair point. The poster is still being kinda silly: they're hung up on the idea of a wealth tax because they're ideologically opposed to relative fairness of outcomes, and refuse to consider the possibility that inflation has virtually the same effect on their purchasing power.

But you do raise a good point, which is that it only does that for transactions with other players, as transactions with NPCs generally remain the same price. I'd still argue there is an impact -- if you're spending more on transactions with other players, less is still available for spending on NPCs -- but it is true if you're mostly spending on NPCs you might not feel it at all.

In either case though I think we both do know that transactions with NPCs are probably a much smaller economy than transactions between players, though it is hard without being ZOS to substantiate that with data.

doesurmindglow

SilverBride wrote: »

A wealth tax would just take my gold for nothing in return..

Inflation does the same thing. No matter how much gold you claim to have, you don't have enough to actually dictate prices across the entire market. As a result, you inevitably pay more and get nothing in return.

SilverBride

doesurmindglow wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

A wealth tax would just take my gold for nothing in return..

Inflation does the same thing. No matter how much gold you claim to have, you don't have enough to actually dictate prices across the entire market. As a result, you inevitably pay more and get nothing in return.

If I think something is overpriced I don't purchase it. I have control over how I use my gold. No one has a right to just take it from me.

SilverBride

Another thing that is being overlooked is what we are actually paying for when we purchase mats.

I craft a lot of furnishings and use a lot of Heartwood. I am not going to spend hours farming for enough Heartwood to craft a few furnishings so I pay others not only for the mats but for the time that they spent farming these. That is called labor and is very common cost when getting anything done in real life, too.

doesurmindglow

Aldoss wrote: »

The moment hybridization happened, every build that ever existed was changed and outdated. Builds suddenly weren't mag or stam. People had to experiment to find what worked. People started to tinker. This actually was a big gold sink because I (and I know I'm not alone here), actually started hitting the respec shrine on an almost daily, but at least weekly basis. I had 15 toons that needed their builds redone if I wanted to play them competitively.

That sink did nothing for the demand for mats though, which exploded and there was already enough gold in player chests to warrant higher prices. Everything jumped. Had there been some new inflation mechanic, then the curves would keep rising, but they're not really. Technically, they are normalized with various ebbs and flows and a few outliers.

To be honest it's a little challenging to unpack that, as the patch notes do seem to indicate that the hybridization and armory hit the live server at about the same time. I'm inclined to concede players were respecing more often, and also that hybridization triggered an across the board update to player builds that contributed to real demand for these mats, but I still do think there was an inflationary effect at issue as well just because it's hard to find a material (Lady's Smock notwithstanding) that wasn't impacted.

Primarily what I mean by this is that you can look at a few materials like Heartwood that have no plausible connection whatsoever to build/meta updates, and you still see a steady increase in prices over roughly the same timeframe:

Aldoss wrote: »

A new gold sink can work, but I don't think that's really the cause of some of these inflationary surges. Your own research kind of points to this because only some items have continued to increase dramatically past that surge in 2022.

This is a fair point though, for one reason or another, we did begin to see some price stability more recently, and I'm not entirely sure why this is. That deserves some investigation, but would support your argument that it was a largely temporary demand spike driven by a pervasive need to update builds.

If I were to speculate I actually think both things are going on: build updates drove real demand, but once they were over, prices remained fairly high due to an increasing gold supply. I suspect that some mats were thus more affected than others, but ultimately all experienced inflation.

Aldoss wrote: »

I think the mat that clearly stands out amongst them is columbine - a mat that is needed by literally all combat related end game players, who all would rather spend their time in combat rather than farming. It's one alchemy item that is hard to acquire and end game potions can only be crafted with it.

If ZOS were to expand alchemy recipes to allow for tripots to be made with Lady's Smock, you'd instantly see a drop in columbine and the decrease would stick because 1. people have a ton of stored lady's smock, 2. farming for mats yields more chances to generate the final product, and 3. the demand for one mat is regulated by the demand for the other.

This is fair, I should also note the data for Columbine is a bit wonky: there was a lot lower trading volume recorded at the lower price point, which could be a result from either lower demand or just poorer data integrity, or both, but it does make that particular market a little more opaque.

Aldoss wrote: »

A modified gold sink that could help decrease money could be a scaling cost for wayshrines, respecs, or anything that requires giving gold to NPCs in the game, which would restrict the cost for new players and ramp up in cost for players who are 1000CP, 2000CP, and max CP. The higher you go in level, the more you'd pay. The reasoning is simply that by increasing your level, you are proving that you're participating in a part of the game economy that actively creates inflation.

I think this would be a decent way to implement a new sink. Another thing that's occurred to me is it's also potentially viable to actually just nerf one of the gold sources, like by cutting in half the amount vendors pay for Undaunted Plunder and other similar "treasures."

You're right to point out that wayshrines are a pretty good gold sink because of their extremely high frequency, and it's plausible that extending their coverage to more fast travel might be viable. One option that occurs to me since you raise the issue of the BeamMeUp addon is that they could just add a Wayshrine cost to guild roster travel, but put it at a reduced rate from the normal "click on the map" so there's still this benefit to participating in a guild like there is now.

I don't know exactly the right solution but I do have data to support that a solution is probably necessary.

zaria

Szalord wrote: »

Don't know if this has been suggested, but a good way of decreasing the generated gold without screwing up players actually would be to remove completely the gold given by daily writs' quests, while slightly increasing the drop chances for yellow materials to compensate (yellow materials drop chance increase could also apply to blue and purple ones). Since daily writs are much more of a prominent factor on the PC servers due to a lot of automation with addons, they generate much more gold than in does on consoles.

This would obviously reduce the supply of gold tempers and increase the price of them who benefit who?
Yes I do crafting writs while watching news in the morning and I don't need the gold.

zaria

doesurmindglow wrote: »

kiwi_tea wrote: »

Again, I don't advocate a wealth tax, but it certainly strikes me as potentially better than the status quo. Some form contractionary economic system at the top end of the wealth scale seems long overdue in this game. Money is oversupplied at the top, so they need to create more demand for money up there - and that demand needs to be real demand, not just punitive.

I don't think the wealth tax is a viable solution to inflation either, mostly because I think it would just trigger players with large gold reserves to spend them, which would probably make the problem worse. But let's be real: this poster just doesn't understand how inflation affects them, and thinks this discussion is political, which is that it's about creating fairness for poorer players at the expense of richer ones. They're against that for selfish ideological reasons, which is fine, but irrelevant.

That's not actually what the discussion is about, as you've rightly pointed out. Inflation is an interesting force in economics in that it's one of very few that hurt the poor and the rich at the same time. Arguably, the effect is even worse if you are rich, as you have something for it to work against.

This, obvious solution is to spend 20 million gold buying heartwood
Taxing the rich is hard as they has money to hire tax lawyers to help them avoid it.
Not saying that housing materials should not be cheaper not seriously into housing myself.
But standard housing materials should not be very expensive.

SilverBride

I have yet to hear how taking the gold I earned away from me would lower prices. It won't. I will still continue to buy the mats I need because I refuse to spend my game time farming.

I also have not heard how it's fair to take the gold I earned away from me just because I am a successful trader and others haven't earned as much.

I seriously doubt ZoS would ever do something like this, anyway.

YandereGirlfriend

Would love to see ZOS pull a "Chromium" on the current prices of Dreugh Wax.

doesurmindglow

kiwi_tea wrote: »

Agreed. I didn't see it at first, but it's entirely connected to IRL ideology, with no real concern about monetary policy or economics or the state of the game mixed in at all. I see there's really no point continuing with that particular conversation in this thread.

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This is a conversation about inflation, how it impacts players, what might've caused it, and what ideas could address it. I don't think a wealth tax is a great solution either, but not for ideological reasons, it's really just that I don't think it'd work. I do also think reducing in-game inequality might be good for the game too, but that's a different conversation and would need a different thread. Options to increase the potency of in-game gold sinks could work, as maybe could an intervention that reduces gold sources commensurate with the "lost NPC revenues" from respecs, if my analysis is remotely accurate that this was, in fact, the most significant cause of what we've seen.

My hope is really that developers can look at the size of the respec gold sink before and after the change and pursue a change that replaces it. I also think it should be implemented slowly or in limited steps over time to keep deflation from damaging the in-game economy in a serious way.

There is another option probably worth considering: do nothing. We see a degree of price stability over the last year or so, and though prices remain much higher than they were prior to the inflation, it does not appear to be continuing at least over the last six to eight months or so. I'd be interested in a data driven analysis to support this approach, but unfortunately too many of the players engaging this that support that approach are mostly making self-centered arguments instead of systemic ones, ie. "I don't think inflation is bad because it's not a problem for ME." Like great, input received. We still are looking for evidence that the current level of price stability is sustainable.

[Edited for Baiting/Bashing]

doesurmindglow

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Would love to see ZOS pull a "Chromium" on the current prices of Dreugh Wax.

This is actually a interesting additional approach: tinker with and buff the drop rates of materials to increase commodity supplies and drive down prices. I'm not terribly convinced it'd be adequate to address inflation (it doesn't alter the gold balance equation) but to be fair I do think it's the one ZOS appears most interested in, given that they've already made a number of adjustments to drop rates of certain crafting items.

One area I think is super obviously needed along those lines is stripping out most of the "pulverized" and "raw" trait and style materials, which are largely relics of a dated system that no longer really makes sense. (I'm looking at you, Grain of Pearl Sand.) Like with the jewelry changes this does have the problem of really just freeing up the gold to move into other commodities, but it's not a bad change just for its own reasons.