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

dk_dunkirk

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I don't see how they would fix NA problems without harming the economies of console and to a lesser extent EU.

The biggest problem on PC is mods, which make it VASTLY easier to farm writs on max toons across multiple accounts. It's just too much work on consoles. I believe it only takes a relative few people doing this to affect the global economy. Over my few years in ESO, I've met a handful of people who admit that they do this across 3-6 accounts. I think most people who do this do not advertise it. At ~5K per toon, times 20, times 5, that's an injection of half a million in gold for just one person in a single day, with time left over to do pledges. It would take MONTHS of full time work to earn that on a single character just playing the story. Writs were invented to help people back when the game was introduced, and now they're being abused. IMO, they should limit the number of writs that can be run on a single account per day.

doesurmindglow

dk_dunkirk wrote: »

The biggest problem on PC is mods, which make it VASTLY easier to farm writs on max toons across multiple accounts. It's just too much work on consoles. I believe it only takes a relative few people doing this to affect the global economy. Over my few years in ESO, I've met a handful of people who admit that they do this across 3-6 accounts. I think most people who do this do not advertise it. At ~5K per toon, times 20, times 5, that's an injection of half a million in gold for just one person in a single day, with time left over to do pledges. It would take MONTHS of full time work to earn that on a single character just playing the story. Writs were invented to help people back when the game was introduced, and now they're being abused. IMO, they should limit the number of writs that can be run on a single account per day.

Perhaps, or an alternative could just be reducing the gold reward from these quest turn-ins, as the quests do still produce a non-insubstantial flow of mats into the economy and I'd be concerned about shutting off that spigot if our goal is to stabilize those prices.

You are probably right about the outsize impact of addons in that, and that these particular addons could have an inflationary impact comparing PC prices to consoles. But that's a pretty tangled equation to unpack considering that the quests both consume mats and drop mats, and then also drop other rewards like surveys with downstream knock-on effects of more mat generation vs time. If they adjusted so each quest just gave like 20 fewer gold pieces, maybe they could probably slow the rate pretty substantially in aggregate without wading into the rest of that messy econometric swamp.

kargen27

doesurmindglow wrote: »

dk_dunkirk wrote: »

The biggest problem on PC is mods, which make it VASTLY easier to farm writs on max toons across multiple accounts. It's just too much work on consoles. I believe it only takes a relative few people doing this to affect the global economy. Over my few years in ESO, I've met a handful of people who admit that they do this across 3-6 accounts. I think most people who do this do not advertise it. At ~5K per toon, times 20, times 5, that's an injection of half a million in gold for just one person in a single day, with time left over to do pledges. It would take MONTHS of full time work to earn that on a single character just playing the story. Writs were invented to help people back when the game was introduced, and now they're being abused. IMO, they should limit the number of writs that can be run on a single account per day.

Perhaps, or an alternative could just be reducing the gold reward from these quest turn-ins, as the quests do still produce a non-insubstantial flow of mats into the economy and I'd be concerned about shutting off that spigot if our goal is to stabilize those prices.

You are probably right about the outsize impact of addons in that, and that these particular addons could have an inflationary impact comparing PC prices to consoles. But that's a pretty tangled equation to unpack considering that the quests both consume mats and drop mats, and then also drop other rewards like surveys with downstream knock-on effects of more mat generation vs time. If they adjusted so each quest just gave like 20 fewer gold pieces, maybe they could probably slow the rate pretty substantially in aggregate without wading into the rest of that messy econometric swamp.

I still think you are trying to fix a problem that does not exist. Higher prices do not always equate to inflation. Gold production has kept up nicely with price increases. Or looking at it the other direction prices increased to reflect the amount of gold coming in. Either way a new player can by doing a few in game activities afford absolutely ever item in the game they need and a few things they don't need but simply want.
Players who have been playing longer also can afford everything they need and more of what they want. The market stays fluid and viable. Prices flow nicely based on supply and demand. Sure some items are extremely costly. Those same items are also extremely rare drops and are not meant to be easy to gain be it through game play or purchasing. The time it takes to get some of those drops is worth the hundreds of thousands they cost.
Lowering the amount of gold made through doing writs thumps the newer players as that is one way they can start making gold right from the start. Better to remove gold at the high end. Maybe a two tiered tax system. For purchases over a certain amount the tax rate for gold removed from the game could be higher. The main problem that pops out for me if this was done is players might not be able to sell full stacks of lower priced items and come in under the number for the tax increase.

More things to spend gold on would seem the easiest way to remove more gold from the game. One time use emotes sold by vendors might be able to remove some gold. A personality that wears off after an hour, things like that so players purchase multiple. Just cheap goofy things for players with extra gold to purchase with that gold.
Taking out a bit of gold at the top would help an already fairly stable economy stay that way.

TaSheen

It's really unfortunate that there's so little to spend gold on in this game (for me, with a few million on each of three accounts both PC megaservers - after 7 years in game).

Riches are not always in coin. At least, not for me....

Amottica

doesurmindglow wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

My comment is very much accurate in explaining the exactly how the price of items is set in ESO.

ESO does not have the monetary policy we have in the real world. Ofc, the lack of a monetary policy in itself is still a policy but that leaves things to the pure market force of S&D. Zenimax cannot introduce policies that we have in the real world because there is no structure for them to exist.

No, frankly, it's not. The game does have a monetary policy: it's the gold balance equation, or the net difference between in-game gold sources and gold sinks. The game has gold sinks precisely for the purpose of preventing inflation and many of them do still work quite well. In-game monetary policy is set by the developers and is much less complicated and more predictable than its equivalents in the real world, which should, in theory, make it much easier to understand.

Amottica wrote: »

The suggestion of a gold sink has already been proven to not work in ESO and many other MMORPGs. Zenimax has added gold sinks and if the idea was to decrease inflaciton then they certainly failed.

The data show that a gold sink was removed and subsequently that inflation resulted. No gold sinks have been added since that happened with the introduction of the Armory System. Otherwise, you would name one, which you haven't.

In short, if your concern is exclusively preserving the wealth of rich players, you need to actively support the introduction of gold sinks to reduce inflation. That isn't my main concern, but for those who think it's "fair" for some players to have a lot more gold than others, inflation is still a very bad thing and one worth addressing.

Inflation has occurred in every major MMORPG in existence today. That is not conjecture. In ESO, the minimal changes that reduced some gold sinks pale in comparison to the inflation of certain items that have seen steep climbs over the years.

Heck, Zenimax even added a major gold sink to the game with the bidding on traders. Intersting how inflation still occurred back then. It occurs in ESO and other MMORPGs because the developers have no real monetary policy to manage such things.

The wealthiest players, even the ones with a couple of million gold, have that because they are active in the game and are not big spenders. Please quote one post in this thread with a suggestion that would pull money out of their pockets without harming the lower end of the economic scale. Without such a suggestion that is workable the wealthy will remain wealthy and the newer player and lower end of the economic scale would be harmed disproportionately.

spartaxoxo

dk_dunkirk wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I don't see how they would fix NA problems without harming the economies of console and to a lesser extent EU.

The biggest problem on PC is mods, which make it VASTLY easier to farm writs on max toons across multiple accounts. It's just too much work on consoles. I believe it only takes a relative few people doing this to affect the global economy. Over my few years in ESO, I've met a handful of people who admit that they do this across 3-6 accounts. I think most people who do this do not advertise it. At ~5K per toon, times 20, times 5, that's an injection of half a million in gold for just one person in a single day, with time left over to do pledges. It would take MONTHS of full time work to earn that on a single character just playing the story. Writs were invented to help people back when the game was introduced, and now they're being abused. IMO, they should limit the number of writs that can be run on a single account per day.

That's an example of a change that would hurt console, when console is actually fine. If anything, there's a bit of deflation on console.

chessalavakia_ESO

Amottica wrote: »

doesurmindglow wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

My comment is very much accurate in explaining the exactly how the price of items is set in ESO.

ESO does not have the monetary policy we have in the real world. Ofc, the lack of a monetary policy in itself is still a policy but that leaves things to the pure market force of S&D. Zenimax cannot introduce policies that we have in the real world because there is no structure for them to exist.

No, frankly, it's not. The game does have a monetary policy: it's the gold balance equation, or the net difference between in-game gold sources and gold sinks. The game has gold sinks precisely for the purpose of preventing inflation and many of them do still work quite well. In-game monetary policy is set by the developers and is much less complicated and more predictable than its equivalents in the real world, which should, in theory, make it much easier to understand.

Amottica wrote: »

The suggestion of a gold sink has already been proven to not work in ESO and many other MMORPGs. Zenimax has added gold sinks and if the idea was to decrease inflaciton then they certainly failed.

The data show that a gold sink was removed and subsequently that inflation resulted. No gold sinks have been added since that happened with the introduction of the Armory System. Otherwise, you would name one, which you haven't.

In short, if your concern is exclusively preserving the wealth of rich players, you need to actively support the introduction of gold sinks to reduce inflation. That isn't my main concern, but for those who think it's "fair" for some players to have a lot more gold than others, inflation is still a very bad thing and one worth addressing.

Inflation has occurred in every major MMORPG in existence today. That is not conjecture. In ESO, the minimal changes that reduced some gold sinks pale in comparison to the inflation of certain items that have seen steep climbs over the years.

Heck, Zenimax even added a major gold sink to the game with the bidding on traders. Intersting how inflation still occurred back then. It occurs in ESO and other MMORPGs because the developers have no real monetary policy to manage such things.

The wealthiest players, even the ones with a couple of million gold, have that because they are active in the game and are not big spenders. Please quote one post in this thread with a suggestion that would pull money out of their pockets without harming the lower end of the economic scale. Without such a suggestion that is workable the wealthy will remain wealthy and the newer player and lower end of the economic scale would be harmed disproportionately.

Replace the gold rewarded for completing daily crafting writs with tokens that can be exchanged for materials once you get enough or gold.

The idea behind this is that in high gold environments the materials will hold more value and players will thus choose to exchange for materials instead of gold which will cut the amount of gold being added to the game and somewhat reduce the value of materials as it increases the supply.

If the player would rather have the gold they would get now they can just exchange the token for gold.

Reward players with Achievements and other rewards (that don't turn into gold) based on the amount of gold they have made selling items on the Guild Trader while also raising the amount that the Guild Trader eats for those players.

If you look at most of the richer players the gold they have generally comes from the Guild Traders. Increasing the fees will increase the amount removed from the game. Tying the fee increase to achievements will prevent the increase from impacting players that are newer immediately. Adding the achievements for the amount of gold made from sales will also reduce the screaming from the wealthy somewhat as they are getting both carrot and stick.

dk_dunkirk

kargen27 wrote: »

Or looking at it the other direction prices increased to reflect the amount of gold coming in.

This is the literal definition of inflation.

On console, if I wanted to buy a perfect roe, I could reasonably expect to buy one around 9,000g. That's not entirely unreasonable. That represents a couple hours of playing, and selling your junk. Surprise, surprise, that's about how much fishing time I would expect to take to harvest one myself. That seems a perfectly reasonable and rational tradeoff. On PC, perfect roe go for 10x that amount. To me, that's broken.

TaSheen

chessalavakia_ESO wrote: »

Replace the gold rewarded for completing daily crafting writs with tokens that can be exchanged for materials once you get enough or gold.

The idea behind this is that in high gold environments the materials will hold more value and players will thus choose to exchange for materials instead of gold which will cut the amount of gold being added to the game and somewhat reduce the value of materials as it increases the supply.

If the player would rather have the gold they would get now they can just exchange the token for gold.

Reward players with Achievements and other rewards (that don't turn into gold) based on the amount of gold they have made selling items on the Guild Trader while also raising the amount that the Guild Trader eats for those players.

If you look at most of the richer players the gold they have generally comes from the Guild Traders. Increasing the fees will increase the amount removed from the game. Tying the fee increase to achievements will prevent the increase from impacting players that are newer immediately. Adding the achievements for the amount of gold made from sales will also reduce the screaming from the wealthy somewhat as they are getting both carrot and stick.

Interesting idea. I'd go for it. I really.... don't need more gold. But I really enjoy the daily writ crafting on my mains - and during Jubilee, a couple of other alts per account per PC megaserver.

The days when I crafted on 18 characters per account per server are long in the past. Sure I enjoyed it - but all I got/get out of it is gold.

Which there's nothing for me to spend it on.

Sakiri

Wealth tax won't do crap.

I'll just stock up on expensive items and sell them as I need gold.

doesurmindglow

chessalavakia_ESO wrote: »

Replace the gold rewarded for completing daily crafting writs with tokens that can be exchanged for materials once you get enough or gold.

The idea behind this is that in high gold environments the materials will hold more value and players will thus choose to exchange for materials instead of gold which will cut the amount of gold being added to the game and somewhat reduce the value of materials as it increases the supply.

If the player would rather have the gold they would get now they can just exchange the token for gold.

Reward players with Achievements and other rewards (that don't turn into gold) based on the amount of gold they have made selling items on the Guild Trader while also raising the amount that the Guild Trader eats for those players.

If you look at most of the richer players the gold they have generally comes from the Guild Traders. Increasing the fees will increase the amount removed from the game. Tying the fee increase to achievements will prevent the increase from impacting players that are newer immediately. Adding the achievements for the amount of gold made from sales will also reduce the screaming from the wealthy somewhat as they are getting both carrot and stick.

These are actually some pretty interesting ideas. I don't know that adjusting the gold side rewards from daily writs (or other similar quests for that matter) is a bad idea, but even simply providing a second option of "not gold" could potentially be interesting if it's attractive enough. The problem is a lot of the in game currencies are valued in part based on the ability to be converted to gold, so it's hard to say what the outcome of an intervention like this could be. Even if the players do plan to convert these to gold somehow else, having them get the gold from the current circulation instead of an NPC would still effectively reduce the rate from the gold source.

I think increasing trader commissions (that is, the gold sink portion of the guild trader transaction) is probably an obvious move, but I do think you've given it a bit more thought by making it something that scales. I was relying a bit on the market to do that already, but if it were tied to something like achievement points or another similar progression system, that might be a way to improve the strength of the gold sink without raising costs for newer players. What I do worry about is efforts to essentially "escape" that regulation (what's to keep a player from spinning up a low level second account where they house their guild trading to get the lowbie discount, for example?) but perhaps those will be inconvenient enough for this concept to still work.

Sakiri

Again, anything they do to "combat inflation" is gonna screw over consoles, where this isn't so much a "problem".

It's almost exclusively PC NA, which is why I say it's not a problem.

quinancia

My guess is that this is more complicated than simply the fact they added the Armory Station. I don't have data to make that case. None of us do. ZOS might. I wonder if they have an economist on staff. All we can do is look at the data and engage in educated speculation as to cause. It doesn't really matter. We are in a period of inflation.

I agree there is way too much gold in the NA/PC economy. I agree that the prices are high. I don't think there is a sink big enough to make a dent in the amount of the gold that is available. Much of the gold is effectively out of circulation as it is in the hands of people who don't spend much. But there is still a lot!

I don't think the excess gold, whoever holds it, is the main driver of higher prices. Note. I am only talking about commodity mats here: tempers, housing mats, alchemy, and a couple enchant.

Changes can cause fluctuation in prices (a potion or armor type becomes more or less valuable, or there is an influx or exodus of people, there is a new class or rebalancing of play styles, etc.).

I think there is an inherent bias towards inflation (everywhere, but specifically in this game on PC). We have detailed knowledge of the market. Customers are not as price sensitive as they seem on these forums. Sellers know this.

If a commodity mat is currently selling for 1000 and has TTC listings of between 900 and 1100

I know I can list as much as I have for 900 and it will sell immediately.
I know I can list as much as I have for 1000 and it will sell immediately.
I know I can list as much as I have for 1050 and it will sell almost immediately.

So, I list it for 1050 and it sells. Almost every one who actively trades is smarter than I am and also list for at least 1050. Soon the average price is 1050 and we are selling for 1100.

We are all small business owners. We can't really scale production in a paradigm shifting way, we aren't colluding (we don't have to), the smart move for the individual is to sell for a little more than average. There is no upside to selling our limited stock for less than market value. So, prices go up in general (there are fluctuations!). Eventually, people will no longer be willing or able to pay a higher price, and so prices will stabilize.

I am all for gold sinks! They are good for the economy. I think the best case is that they slow inflation of these commodity items.

kargen27

dk_dunkirk wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

Or looking at it the other direction prices increased to reflect the amount of gold coming in.

This is the literal definition of inflation.

On console, if I wanted to buy a perfect roe, I could reasonably expect to buy one around 9,000g. That's not entirely unreasonable. That represents a couple hours of playing, and selling your junk. Surprise, surprise, that's about how much fishing time I would expect to take to harvest one myself. That seems a perfectly reasonable and rational tradeoff. On PC, perfect roe go for 10x that amount. To me, that's broken.

Poor choice of words on my part. The buying power remains unchanged meaning the inflation is not a problem. That is what we see in the game. Items cost more but players have more. So buying power remains the same and the economy stays vibrant.
My poor choice of words doesn't change that people in this thread are trying to fix a problem that does not exist. Comparing markets/economies that can never co-exist or crossover isn't how you check for the health of either economy.
New players within a couple of hours can afford everything they need. Doesn't take long before they can begin purchasing things not out of need but out of want. That is a sign of a strong and stable economy. The beauty is no matter the server players can earn the gold they need for just about anything in game and usually in a reasonable amount of time.

doesurmindglow

quinancia wrote: »

My guess is that this is more complicated than simply the fact they added the Armory Station. I don't have data to make that case. None of us do. ZOS might. I wonder if they have an economist on staff. All we can do is look at the data and engage in educated speculation as to cause. It doesn't really matter. We are in a period of inflation.

Yeah to be clear: The data I have doesn't say the Armory Station is the only cause, or even definitively that it IS a cause, it's mostly just a fairly educated speculation based on a knowledge of how the Armory Station works and what preceded it, and also the data that we have regarding the trendlines in price increases across a number of commodities. I happen to think it's compelling but I concede we don't have enough information that can prove this as a cause.

Some other plausible causes have been identified in the thread: some of the changes to gold sources and sinks implemented with CP 2.0, a legitimate demand on materials brought about by a significant change to the meta, and the introduction of a couple of gold sources with systems such as Antiquites and Tales of Tribute that weren't really restrained with built-in gold sinks. All of these are plausible and I don't think even ZOS is likely to be able to identify a single cause with certainty, though I suspect they do have data on something we do not: the amounts actually paid into gold sinks over time.

I do hope they'll consult what data they have and make an informed decision of first if and then how to address inflation. But I do think we have data to suggest they probably should, at least on the NA and EU PC servers and markets, and unfortunately there isn't much being presented to support a different case that's more robust than "I'm not affected personally" or "I don't feel like it's a problem" or some version of "I'm scared of any changes I don't understand, and I don't understand much" which is great, and noted, but not data.

quinancia

[quote=". . . unfortunately there isn't much being presented to support a different case that's more robust than "I'm not affected personally" or "I don't feel like it's a problem" or some version of "I'm scared of any changes I don't understand, and I don't understand much" which is great, and noted, but not data.[/quote]

Thanks for the feedback! Your quoted section wasn't the point of my post, but I can understand that you thought it was.

I was trying to add to the conversation. I failed.

Sakiri

I still also think that a lot of the problem is that people don't want to go out of their way to do anything to make gold to buy stuff with.

The market is only catering to what people are willing to pay. If people are willing to pay nearly 4k for a columbine, then the price is on them, not how much gold any given person has. And none of you have any idea how much gold any given person has.

As mentioned before as well, that it doesn't matter what they do, outside removing the vast majority of old gold from the game with zero compensation, those that have hundreds of millions will NOT spend it, and there's folks that play this game exclusively to manipulate and profit from the economy. it happens in every game. I mean crap, World of Warcraft is used in college courses in order to show how economies work.

The only absolute way they could do anything about the commodities market, is to flood the system. That'd drop prices, but it wouldn't get rid of the gold. People don't care about how much gold is in the system, they care about how expensive things are.

Meanwhile, it's a 10 year old game, and there's no problem in my opinion. As I mentioned before, I started back up this game after 9 years off with 3200 gold. Yes, three thousand, two hundred. And nothing to sell that could make me money.

I managed to max my bank and bag space and build up to about 5 million in the course of six months. People just need to get off their butts and do stuff to make money.

doesurmindglow

quinancia wrote: »

Thanks for the feedback! Your quoted section wasn't the point of my post, but I can understand that you thought it was.

I was trying to add to the conversation. I failed.

My quotes weren't a characterization of your comments. More the comments of others that aren't really presenting much by way of evidence other than anecdotal testimonies.

We have this on the "anti-paying more for things" side of the debate as well, and I don't mind that either, but I have at least made an effort to substantiate that position with actual data, and then to engage in some preliminary analysis of what causes that data might suggest, but I concede your point that the cause isn't as important (or as easy to identify) as the effect.

kiwi_tea

doesurmindglow wrote: »

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.

Do nothing is not the worst, except that gold accumulation is pretty out of control at the top of the economy via automation, multi-account writs, etc. I hope prices stabilise, but being a player that started later than many of the others, I don't know if everyone quite appreciates the increasing struggle it can be to access markets and the meta - and also how hard the game makes it to access information about accessing and using the markets if you don't sink your teeth into Youtube. I do also wonder if there are assumptions about player behaviour embedded here that might not connect with economic reality? How many new players understand they need to engage with the guild trading system immediately? There are no tutorials or in-game guidance except for a rare NPC in a few towns. The UI for guilds is appallingly outmoded and overwrought. The guild system is presented as entirely optional. I certainly did not understand their importance in my first year, and in later years I was lucky enough to find a trader that had reasonable dues and didn't kick me while I was busy with work.

Time is the other obvious economic factor here too. How much time should a player have to expend in order to understand the basics of this game economy, given work, kids, etc. MMOs have never been very respectful of player time as a resource, relying as they do on whales both in terms of time and money. Those are the core metrics, after all: How many people are logged in? How much did we make? I suspect some players who have sacrificed very, very unhealthy amounts of time to accrue great in-game wealth simply resent the idea that maybe the game shouldn't require *quite* such a time investment.

That's understandable. Nobody wants their hard work devalued.

And saying it *shouldn't* cost such an investment in time is a moral conclusion. "Should" is a moralising word. But set morality aside, it also reflects a desire to see the game easy to engage with on a deeper level for more players. I'm not an economist, I'm a teacher. I'm all about demystifying systems. Teachers, we're very time poor. Our work comes home with us much more than it should. If I were full-time right now, this game be off the cards. It just requires too much of my time. Game design is more and more frequently reflecting the lack of leisure time the working people have. MMOs need to catch up, or more and more new players than necessary will come, struggle a year or so, then leave, perhaps having never even joined a guild, let alone a trading guild. Heck, ESO refuses to even have a minimap, which might conceivably be about "immersion", but in reality all the lack of that feature really does is <b>deliberately waste players time</b>.

All that said, they're not doing *nothing*. The reward structure of ToT was clearly intended to increase supply of many inflated commodities, for example. I need to go look at the great data-crunch posts and see if there was any effect there. ToT may have a small community of actual players, but it has plenty of bot accounts farming mats from it. ZOS are clearly aware of the issue, but being understandably conservative about how they tackle it, lest they cause an economic meltdown. And do we actually trust ZoS to tackle inflation in a way that doesn't cause an economic meltdown, after Update 35? Do we trust their comms team to sell it? Do as they're already doing might actually be wisest, especially given it takes time to truly see results from the things they've done so far.

I still hope for some contractionary systems that target the top band of earners. It's hard to see what harm might come from eating some of that financial excess back out of the system in ways similar to the guild trader bidding.

Sorry, I'm sick at home today, so this got long and rambly, but hopefully not incoherent. Heh.

quinancia

doesurmindglow wrote: »

quinancia wrote: »

Thanks for the feedback! Your quoted section wasn't the point of my post, but I can understand that you thought it was.

I was trying to add to the conversation. I failed.

My quotes weren't a characterization of your comments. More the comments of others that aren't really presenting much by way of evidence other than anecdotal testimonies.

We have this on the "anti-paying more for things" side of the debate as well, and I don't mind that either, but I have at least made an effort to substantiate that position with actual data, and then to engage in some preliminary analysis of what causes that data might suggest, but I concede your point that the cause isn't as important (or as easy to identify) as the effect.

One of my favorite movies is Joe vs The Volcano. One of Meg Ryan's many epic lines was, "I don't have a response to that"

I understand that when you responded to my post, you were actually commenting on post from other people.

I understand that you still don't understand my post. That's OK. I wish you the best. You are very smart in some areas. I think we are both finished with this conversation.

Amottica

chessalavakia_ESO wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

doesurmindglow wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

My comment is very much accurate in explaining the exactly how the price of items is set in ESO.

ESO does not have the monetary policy we have in the real world. Ofc, the lack of a monetary policy in itself is still a policy but that leaves things to the pure market force of S&D. Zenimax cannot introduce policies that we have in the real world because there is no structure for them to exist.

No, frankly, it's not. The game does have a monetary policy: it's the gold balance equation, or the net difference between in-game gold sources and gold sinks. The game has gold sinks precisely for the purpose of preventing inflation and many of them do still work quite well. In-game monetary policy is set by the developers and is much less complicated and more predictable than its equivalents in the real world, which should, in theory, make it much easier to understand.

Amottica wrote: »

The suggestion of a gold sink has already been proven to not work in ESO and many other MMORPGs. Zenimax has added gold sinks and if the idea was to decrease inflaciton then they certainly failed.

The data show that a gold sink was removed and subsequently that inflation resulted. No gold sinks have been added since that happened with the introduction of the Armory System. Otherwise, you would name one, which you haven't.

In short, if your concern is exclusively preserving the wealth of rich players, you need to actively support the introduction of gold sinks to reduce inflation. That isn't my main concern, but for those who think it's "fair" for some players to have a lot more gold than others, inflation is still a very bad thing and one worth addressing.

Inflation has occurred in every major MMORPG in existence today. That is not conjecture. In ESO, the minimal changes that reduced some gold sinks pale in comparison to the inflation of certain items that have seen steep climbs over the years.

Heck, Zenimax even added a major gold sink to the game with the bidding on traders. Intersting how inflation still occurred back then. It occurs in ESO and other MMORPGs because the developers have no real monetary policy to manage such things.

The wealthiest players, even the ones with a couple of million gold, have that because they are active in the game and are not big spenders. Please quote one post in this thread with a suggestion that would pull money out of their pockets without harming the lower end of the economic scale. Without such a suggestion that is workable the wealthy will remain wealthy and the newer player and lower end of the economic scale would be harmed disproportionately.

Replace the gold rewarded for completing daily crafting writs with tokens that can be exchanged for materials once you get enough or gold.

The idea behind this is that in high gold environments the materials will hold more value and players will thus choose to exchange for materials instead of gold which will cut the amount of gold being added to the game and somewhat reduce the value of materials as it increases the supply.

If the player would rather have the gold they would get now they can just exchange the token for gold.

Reward players with Achievements and other rewards (that don't turn into gold) based on the amount of gold they have made selling items on the Guild Trader while also raising the amount that the Guild Trader eats for those players.

If you look at most of the richer players the gold they have generally comes from the Guild Traders. Increasing the fees will increase the amount removed from the game. Tying the fee increase to achievements will prevent the increase from impacting players that are newer immediately. Adding the achievements for the amount of gold made from sales will also reduce the screaming from the wealthy somewhat as they are getting both carrot and stick.

1. If materials rewarded by this new currency, tokens are currency, is significant enough to reduce the price of the same materials in the player-based economy then it will replace that player-based economy to a significant degree. The economics of supply and demand are still in play here. If the demand in the player-based economy is reduced there would be less interest in farming the materials to sell.

So yes, this would reduce inflation of the related items but in the same token, it would work like government-controlled pricing. After all, that is what it would be.

2. The Tax the rich idea would work better as a cash dump though the rich would still be rich and inflation would still be in play. It goes back to why those in the game are rich and why those who are lacking gold are lacking gold It does not change that issue.

kiwi_tea

Amottica wrote: »

doesurmindglow wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

Inflation has occurred in every major MMORPG in existence today. That is not conjecture. In ESO, the minimal changes that reduced some gold sinks pale in comparison to the inflation of certain items that have seen steep climbs over the years.

Show me the data..

Further, anyone who has spend significant time in MMORPGs has seen heavy inflation. It is often attributed to being able to sell cash shop items in the game but even that is an opinion as no one has demonstrated a cause and effect.

Cause: More money comes into existence than disappears. Effect: Money worth less and less relative to goods and services.

[Snip]. As others have said, more money is entering the economy than is leaving it. That money tends to shift quickly into the hands of people who already have money, so the value of money decreases as rich players suck up newly generated money and then compete to set ever higher market prices for goods. Each gold piece does less and less for players. Taking some money out of the system slows the devaluation of the in-game currency, and means the market cannot set those excessively high prices into infinity.

[Snip]

[Snip]

[Edited for Baiting]

Sakiri

Tax the rich doesn't do crap when they move from liquid funds to assets. I'll buy a whole bunch of stuff to relist when I need gold.

Reducing the gold from writs will backfire, too, causing temper supply to drop, which, you guessed it, increases the prices on them.

So many ways to get gold. Why on earth will people just not pick one and do it?

doesurmindglow

kiwi_tea wrote: »

I suspect some players who have sacrificed very, very unhealthy amounts of time to accrue great in-game wealth simply resent the idea that maybe the game shouldn't require *quite* such a time investment.

That's understandable. Nobody wants their hard work devalued.

And saying it *shouldn't* cost such an investment in time is a moral conclusion. "Should" is a moralising word. But set morality aside, it also reflects a desire to see the game easy to engage with on a deeper level for more players.

Yeah that's a lot of the issue I have with the counterargument to action here as well: it's all very ideological, and rooted in some argument that those of who'd rather not be constantly paying more for things are offering free rides to those lazy new players that want all the shiny things but have no motivation to work for it.

This is an excellent argument against redistributing the gold in circulation, or something, I guess, but it's not a good argument FOR inflation. In fact, I think that if you did spend 10,000 hours accumulating a large reserve of in-game gold, you should be more concerned about inflation than anyone: it means that, despite all of that effort, your purchasing power is constantly being diminished, and you are constantly at risk of losing that "wealth," especially if you (god forbid!) decide to take a break from the game.

Someone who has accumulated a large gold stockpile essentially has no financial security in an inflationary environment because the market is constantly moving in a direction that makes their pixel money increasingly worthless. In truth if you value the "hard work" or whatever that goes into accumulating gold and then having the option to spend it, inflation is just a very bad thing.

kiwi_tea wrote: »

If I were full-time right now, this game be off the cards. It just requires too much of my time. Game design is more and more frequently reflecting the lack of leisure time the working people have. MMOs need to catch up, or more and more new players than necessary will come, struggle a year or so, then leave, perhaps having never even joined a guild, let alone a trading guild. Heck, ESO refuses to even have a minimap, which might conceivably be about "immersion", but in reality all the lack of that feature really does is <b>deliberately waste players time</b>.

Yes, this is the other big concern I have: there are numerous risks from simply allowing inflation to continue that aren't just limited to the wealth depletion of accomplished players. It's also just a huge barrier to entry for people with limited money and time, and a massive impediment for any players who have had to step away to return. No one likes logging in and finding out everything has doubled in price since they left. There's no way that's good for player retention.

kiwi_tea wrote: »

All that said, they're not doing *nothing*. The reward structure of ToT was clearly intended to increase supply of many inflated commodities, for example. I need to go look at the great data-crunch posts and see if there was any effect there. ToT may have a small community of actual players, but it has plenty of bot accounts farming mats from it. ZOS are clearly aware of the issue, but being understandably conservative about how they tackle it, lest they cause an economic meltdown. And do we actually trust ZoS to tackle inflation in a way that doesn't cause an economic meltdown, after Update 35? Do we trust their comms team to sell it? Do as they're already doing might actually be wisest, especially given it takes time to truly see results from the things they've done so far.

I actually do think ZOS is pretty serious about this problem, which is why I'm even bothering to engage with the full-time forum 1vXers on here at such length (not you, but you and I both know who I mean) and frequency: they just historically see more threads where the page count is longer. They are implementing interventions quite aggressively to increase drop rates of materials, especially those that are very significant pain points for players. They've been doing this fairly aggressively in several successive patches, mostly recently with a massive adjustment to the jewelry crafting system.

That system was certainly particularly dated and obviously well outside the bounds of what is healthy for the game, which is why they moved in and took action. I suspect they will be doing more of this in coming months and potentially, which is why I hope to inform that progress here, both anecdotally in my role as a trading guild GM and also with a look at the data that is available to me. My issue is that their interventions so far have targeted the commodities supply, which is not a bad approach necessarily, but that it's probably going to be a bit of a stopgap if the gold supply question isn't addressed.

doesurmindglow

quinancia wrote: »

I understand that when you responded to my post, you were actually commenting on post from other people.

I understand that you still don't understand my post. That's OK. I wish you the best. You are very smart in some areas. I think we are both finished with this conversation.

I'll go back and take another look at it.

kiwi_tea

doesurmindglow wrote: »

My issue is that their interventions so far have targeted the commodities supply, which is not a bad approach necessarily, but that it's probably going to be a bit of a stopgap if the gold supply question isn't addressed.

I share exactly that concern, and was thinking it as I wrote it. It's great to see supply crunches for specific commodities addressed. It does make it hard to see inflationary effects in the data of individual commodities, though, right? You have to look at a range of commodities, as you've been doing. In NZ we have a CPI (Consumer Price Index) to track inflation. It'd be good if we had something similar to track in ESO, and I'd assume the devs already have an analogue that they track.

doesurmindglow

kiwi_tea wrote: »

I share exactly that concern, and was thinking it as I wrote it. It's great to see supply crunches for specific commodities addressed. It does make it hard to see inflationary effects in the data of individual commodities, though, right? You have to look at a range of commodities, as you've been doing. In NZ we have a CPI (Consumer Price Index) to track inflation. It'd be good if we had something similar to track in ESO, and I'd assume the devs already have an analogue that they track.

I suspect they do also. I honestly actively arbitrage the mats markets as a trader, so I know where prices are most of the time and have followed the inflation quite closely.

Hilariously, I'm probably the only person in this thread actively arguing against my own economic self-interest: Arbitrage is far less lucrative in an environment of price stability, and I hold almost none of my wealth in gold; most all of it has been traded into mats ever since I noticed mats beginning to increase across the board. I hold instead vast quantities of crafting materials and other consumables, which have acted as my hedge against inflation. I also run a trade guild, and the pressure for people to pay higher prices is a large driver in our ability to raise funds, collect taxes from sales, and attract members.

It quite literally is not a problem for me.

That is, unless and until ZOS actually does something to address it: When ZOS made the jewelry change, I took modest losses from peak on platings but sold them off aggressively, and after accounting for the inflation that'd occured, still technically came out ahead; I'd have to do the same with my other positions if they were to actually implement anything of the ideas I've offered or supported on this thread.

But I can tell the difference between what's good for me personally as a trader and what's healthy for the game and players in general. I'd rather take substantial losses on my in-game pixels than have friends leave the game because the grind is too annoying. I'd also accept a position of less wealth if it meant the game was easier for new players to get into. And I'd be happy with less lucrative trading activities if it meant the gold I made was more likely to hold its value.

I don't know if ZOS has a CPI or not but I am tempted to try and create one. I'm thinking about taking a look at the data we have about trading volumes -- these are things like quantities of listings or sales, and begin keeping track of the most traded goods as a kind of "basket" that benchmarks an index telling us more about how the value (purchasing power) of gold is actually changing over time.

kiwi_tea

doesurmindglow wrote: »

I don't know if ZOS has a CPI or not but I am tempted to try and create one. I'm thinking about taking a look at the data we have about trading volumes -- these are things like quantities of listings or sales, and begin keeping track of the most traded goods as a kind of "basket" that benchmarks an index telling us more about how the value (purchasing power) of gold is actually changing over time.

I'm surprised TTC don't have something like that. There are probably a few people out there with the data for it. I really wish I wasn't so... ...I'm not innumerate, but dyscalculia means I do anything involving formulae at a glacial pace, while feeling like I'm squeezing my face through a cheese grater.

Which raises all the other issues with the moralising going on this thread, really. Earning money is not simple. Time and capital are not the only resource apportioned to people differently. Economic effects like the reckless spending of people with low incomes due to feelings of insurmountable grind - these will be taking effect here too like they do in the real world. That's unhealthy behaviour caused by unhealthy economic conditions, not just an individual moral failing. Economies need to feel accessible to be functional, or they do create crises of engagement. You can't just finger wag and say "Y u make no $$$$$, fool?"

It's not just a pointless little virtue signal, it's an intellectual cop out.

dk_dunkirk

Amottica wrote: »

Poor choice of words on my part. The buying power remains unchanged meaning the inflation is not a problem. That is what we see in the game. Items cost more but players have more. So buying power remains the same and the economy stays vibrant.

As @doesurmindglow has pointed out several times in this thread, inflation hurts the game, whether we see it or not. If you stop playing for a year, and come back, your buying power will have severely diminished because of inflation. You'd have to get to work grinding and farming stuff to sell to catch back up. So, yes, in the short term, inflation is a problem for everyone who doesn't play the game to farm and grind to keep up with the economy. It's working exactly like real life, right now. Your time is worth less, and you have to spend more and more of it to keep up.

Amottica wrote: »

My poor choice of words doesn't change that people in this thread are trying to fix a problem that does not exist. Comparing markets/economies that can never co-exist or crossover isn't how you check for the health of either economy.
New players within a couple of hours can afford everything they need. Doesn't take long before they can begin purchasing things not out of need but out of want. That is a sign of a strong and stable economy. The beauty is no matter the server players can earn the gold they need for just about anything in game and usually in a reasonable amount of time.

But you really CAN compare them. I took a long break from PC, and started playing on console. To get into the current Deadly Strikes meta, I bought a full set of gear on PS for about 20K gold. That's eminently reasonable, given playing the game as designed, and collecting gold from questing and selling junk.

Then I switched back to PC again, where the same set of gear cost me 500K gold, and I'm not even talking about the gods-forsaken daggers! Farming motifs or nirncrux or perfect roe, this kind of money represents a pretty significant investment in time. I mean, I'd expect to have to farm 50 low-value motifs or 10 perfect roe. That's 20-30 hours. Is that reasonable? I don't think so, but it's completely subjective. (Please, everyone, don't get pedantic about the numbers; I'm just putting some down to show where I'm coming from.)

The other alternative, of course, is actually playing enough PVP to farm the in-game loot boxes, and try to win the desired traits, and that's the same on either platform. You can say, see, it's not broken, because you can just "farm" the gear directly, but PVP is a whole other argument. No, strike that, it's a whole other catalog of arguments. Thanks, but no thanks. ;-)

My point is that playing the game as ZOS designed it yields a certain gold per hour. On console, the prices of things seem to be in line with that design. On PC, well, that's what we're all arguing about here. Sure, you can go farm expensive things to earn gold to buy stuff you want, and you're arguing that this effectively renders the problem moot, but it breaks the game design, and forces a bunch of people to focus on the things that are NOT "the game," per se.

I think this shows up in strange places, like in the threads on the way jerks run ahead in random dungeons. They're on a schedule to get their random and/or pledges done, and GET BACK TO FARMING to keep up and get ahead in the economy. I think there are many knock-on effects that demonstrate that the economy on PC bends the game out of shape. The flip side of the argument that "it's not broken is": Just because some people put in the work to navigate the new shape doesn't mean it's NOT.

dk_dunkirk

Sakiri wrote: »

I managed to max my bank and bag space and build up to about 5 million in the course of six months. People just need to get off their butts and do stuff to make money.

That might be just enough to buy a full set of Deadly Strikes gear and weapons in all the right traits. Maybe not. Does that seem a reasonable tradeoff to you? Six months of grinding for 1 set of meta gear? I'm honestly asking. Sure, you could spend all your time PVP'ing and grinding it out there, but it might take that long to do it that way as well. I'm specifically asking about your perception on the value of your time in relation to popular things to buy in the game.