price ceiling for dreugh wax and tempering alloys

Astanphaeus · November 2016

There are 2 main reasons for the high prices of tempers.

1) With the introduction of so many new drop sets that greatly out-perform crafted sets, there is barely a market left for Ancstor Silk, Rubedite, Rubedo Leather, and Ruby Ash, and tempers being in the system are largely a biproduct of this market there are fewer tempers in the market.

2) The market has been destroyed by ZOS by placing BoP on so many sets, basically removing crafted gear from the game hich has decreased the value of motifs, and greatly increasing the abundance of other materials such as cp160 mats and now alchemy ingredients with the alchemy sacks. This has left very few items actually valuable. Since the amount of new gold being introduced to the market hasn't decreased, those few items of value remaining are naturally going to increase in price. It's also why you see desirable weapons and shields going for multi-hundreds of thousands. Introducing a temper price cap would just make prices for those weapons even worse with little way for new people to the market to make the needed gold.

Honestly, the only reason the problem isn't worse is because many of the wealthier members of the community are setting aside millions for the hosing update. If ZOS doesn't make housing an absolutely huge gold sink while introducing new items of value to the market, you will see the prices for these few remaining valuable items skyrocket even further. What OP is suggesting will just make things worse.

Some things that can be done to improve the market would include:

Increase the cost of Alchemy Sacks, 500tv is way too cheap and easy to get
Introduce a system to use your know motifs to restyle your gear (ZOS, this will help with your crown sales of motifs as well)
Have the upcoming furniture crafting use an amount of mats comparable to cp160 crafting and use the same mats as gear crafting does
Make nirnhoned great again

Minalan · November 2016

Price controls only create scarcity and lack of supply.

I really wish schools taught basic economics nowadays. There are far too many ignorant people that need to know basic facts. Things like... Why we don't control prices. Why we can't give expensive things away for free. Why you have to be competitive.

SwaminoNowlino · November 2016

gp1680 wrote: »

SwaminoNowlino wrote: »

gp1680 wrote: »

BigES wrote: »

Stopnaggin wrote: »

BigES wrote: »

Again a question of time and utility (happiness). Sure, we could all do what you do. I farmed ore this entire Orsinium event that I wasn't in Maelstrom. I hated it. It horrible and in no way rewarding to me. In fact, lets all just farm, trade, and sell. Wait - that is causing several people to leave the game who want to play competitively. Because farming (at unchecked, and unbalanced extreme levels) not enjoyable to them, and the time invested is not balanced. Even with double resource nodes it not worth it. No worries - we'll just save the time and buy the mats from people like you who enjoy it, so we can move on to other content we enjoy. Wait, what? Tempers are not reasonably priced?

Maybe eventually they will all leave the game and you and the 1000 other farmers can live in node farming

Maybe the 1000s of farmer will leave and you would have to farm yourself. It goes both ways. Again I ask, what would you consider a reasonable price? You admit you don't like it, so in reality what is it worth to you? So you don't have to do the tedious work. What actual price is reasonable? I keep hearing cap it, but what is that cap. Is it high enough for me to continue to farm and be profitable? Or is it low enough to make me stop farming? Where is that fine line?

But wait, people are leaving because they can't be competitive without getting gold gear. So someone who grinds end over end for gear leaves because they would have to grind to upgrade that gear? Oh my I don't even know where to start with that one.

You set a target rate

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

BigES wrote: »

Maybe eventually they will all leave the game and you and the 1000 other farmers can live in node farming and crafting bliss.

Well, if that happened (upper 10% players leaving the game) we would have vMSA nerfed, MSA weapons dropping in normal mode, or even purchasable from an NPC vendor.
Would I mind that ? No, I'd love it.
Would YOU mind that ? I bet you would.
Am I asking for that ? No.
Are you asking for the exact equivalent ? Yes.

"Make gold tempers available from NPC vendors at reasonable (aka "low") prices is the exact same thing as asking "nerf vMSA, we need the weapons".

You are absolutely all over the place with your comments and its very difficult to rebuttal because there is so much to rebuttal. Its like debating Trump. This will probably be my last reply to you because I value diversity of opinion and balance. I equally farm, PvP, do trials, farm, and buy/sell. I have experienced all aspects of this game so its easy to identify deficiencies vs. a one-sided viewpoint.

Facts are... 1) prices are extreme, and time invested to farm and gold-out a reasonable set of gear is not balanced. 2) buying market priced tempers and dreugh wax is not reasonably priced to due to an unchecked gold supply and lack of information transparency (people don't know the true value and it is ambiguous because there is not a searchable item system or a main auction house). 3) A price ceiling - just like what is created with alchemy reagents offered at the TV merchant - would help realistically balance prices and set a price ceiling and target rate (like - I dunno - the real economy). 4) increasing the drop rate only slightly impacts the problem because again, these materials still get bought up by people with ample gold.

I understand your points and they are certainly reasonable, but on point #1, my argument would be this. I currently own a Honda, mostly because I can't afford that Acura NSX I've been dreaming of. I'm content with the fact that I won't own a NSX anytime soon because my job and paycheck can't reasonably support it. If I wanted to own that NSX, I'd have to work even harder, longer, and likely multiple jobs or get lucky and hit the lottery. I figure my Honda will suffice for now.

In ESO, if I want gold mats, sharpened Spriggan or Viper weapons, gold jewelry from "Golden", I'm going to have to farm my a** off to get them and/or earn the money to buy them. If I want Maelstrom weapons, I'm going to have to buy blood pressure medication and an ample supply of controllers (cuz I'm breaking them) to get through vMSA. You can't have everything just "handed" to you or the value of certain items lowered just because you want the best of what everyone else has worked hard for.

Your points are valid and I'm sure many agree with you, but I think you'll find a little bit of satisfaction when you "earn" that complete set of gold armor, weapons, and jewelry and you flaunt those shiny new maelstrom weapons that you burned so many hours obtaining.

I agree with you, but you're arguing from the perspective that the OP is wanting something he/she doesn't have. I'm arguing from the perspective of a "casual" who picked up the game on free play weekend or something. We all love this game, its why we are on the forums, and for the game to succeed it needs to grow its base. I'm not arguing that you need to cater specifically to that base, not at all. I'm just arguing that a healthy balance can be struck. 160k gold per piece of equipment doesn't exactly sound reasonable. That's just my opinion though (again from someone who's necessary equipment is gold and has never purchased gold mats). Just thinking objectively.

I love this discussion. Great points. My argument goes back to the car thing then...haha. When I was 16, I was THRILLED to get my first car, which was a 1987 Chrysler Lebaron. I had no idea or expectation at that time that I could ever own an NSX and was, frankly, enamored with my new/old car. I'd use that analogy on the "casual" who joins the game...there is soooooo much to learn about this game starting out and anyone who starts out shouldn't have the ability to immediately have the best stuff right away. The beauty of this game is the complexity and depth to which it will take you and the amount of time and work it takes to achieve the ultimate fighting machine. I'm still learning so much about this game from forum discussions and opinions of players who are far more advanced then me and I've been playing for almost a year now. I think the casual gamer just starting out should "look up" to that shiny new gold armor and learn everything there is to know on how to earn that gold before trying to use it.

I'm just kind of basing my opinion on the health of the overall game, solely from what I have experienced in my guilds and social circle within the game. I'll admit that straight up. I've had RL friends play the game and made friends in game. Too often they level up to CP160, and then kind of go "so now what?". That's where I think this rears its head to some extent. There are essentially two options for end-game. Trials and PVP.

PVP is a daunting experience and the amount of fun can ebb and flow to a great extent. If you're in the middle of a zerg, you can get away with being less than optimized. But the middle of the zerg, push one button, lag fest is not necessarily enjoyable to all. And when you're out soloing or running small groups, every advantage can make the difference (or it can at least feel that way).

Trials are another daunting experience and many of the top guilds with the top scores really push golding every item.

Either way gold mats and potions and all of that can get really expensive. Easy for people to get discouraged and quit at several points along the way. Not saying this issue is the reason for that, but anything we can do to get more money into the game so ZOS can really fix things the better (just me being completely selfish haha)

gp1680 · November 2016

SwaminoNowlino wrote: »

gp1680 wrote: »

SwaminoNowlino wrote: »

gp1680 wrote: »

BigES wrote: »

Stopnaggin wrote: »

BigES wrote: »

Again a question of time and utility (happiness). Sure, we could all do what you do. I farmed ore this entire Orsinium event that I wasn't in Maelstrom. I hated it. It horrible and in no way rewarding to me. In fact, lets all just farm, trade, and sell. Wait - that is causing several people to leave the game who want to play competitively. Because farming (at unchecked, and unbalanced extreme levels) not enjoyable to them, and the time invested is not balanced. Even with double resource nodes it not worth it. No worries - we'll just save the time and buy the mats from people like you who enjoy it, so we can move on to other content we enjoy. Wait, what? Tempers are not reasonably priced?

Maybe eventually they will all leave the game and you and the 1000 other farmers can live in node farming

Maybe the 1000s of farmer will leave and you would have to farm yourself. It goes both ways. Again I ask, what would you consider a reasonable price? You admit you don't like it, so in reality what is it worth to you? So you don't have to do the tedious work. What actual price is reasonable? I keep hearing cap it, but what is that cap. Is it high enough for me to continue to farm and be profitable? Or is it low enough to make me stop farming? Where is that fine line?

But wait, people are leaving because they can't be competitive without getting gold gear. So someone who grinds end over end for gear leaves because they would have to grind to upgrade that gear? Oh my I don't even know where to start with that one.

You set a target rate

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

BigES wrote: »

Maybe eventually they will all leave the game and you and the 1000 other farmers can live in node farming and crafting bliss.

Well, if that happened (upper 10% players leaving the game) we would have vMSA nerfed, MSA weapons dropping in normal mode, or even purchasable from an NPC vendor.
Would I mind that ? No, I'd love it.
Would YOU mind that ? I bet you would.
Am I asking for that ? No.
Are you asking for the exact equivalent ? Yes.

"Make gold tempers available from NPC vendors at reasonable (aka "low") prices is the exact same thing as asking "nerf vMSA, we need the weapons".

You are absolutely all over the place with your comments and its very difficult to rebuttal because there is so much to rebuttal. Its like debating Trump. This will probably be my last reply to you because I value diversity of opinion and balance. I equally farm, PvP, do trials, farm, and buy/sell. I have experienced all aspects of this game so its easy to identify deficiencies vs. a one-sided viewpoint.

Facts are... 1) prices are extreme, and time invested to farm and gold-out a reasonable set of gear is not balanced. 2) buying market priced tempers and dreugh wax is not reasonably priced to due to an unchecked gold supply and lack of information transparency (people don't know the true value and it is ambiguous because there is not a searchable item system or a main auction house). 3) A price ceiling - just like what is created with alchemy reagents offered at the TV merchant - would help realistically balance prices and set a price ceiling and target rate (like - I dunno - the real economy). 4) increasing the drop rate only slightly impacts the problem because again, these materials still get bought up by people with ample gold.

I understand your points and they are certainly reasonable, but on point #1, my argument would be this. I currently own a Honda, mostly because I can't afford that Acura NSX I've been dreaming of. I'm content with the fact that I won't own a NSX anytime soon because my job and paycheck can't reasonably support it. If I wanted to own that NSX, I'd have to work even harder, longer, and likely multiple jobs or get lucky and hit the lottery. I figure my Honda will suffice for now.

In ESO, if I want gold mats, sharpened Spriggan or Viper weapons, gold jewelry from "Golden", I'm going to have to farm my a** off to get them and/or earn the money to buy them. If I want Maelstrom weapons, I'm going to have to buy blood pressure medication and an ample supply of controllers (cuz I'm breaking them) to get through vMSA. You can't have everything just "handed" to you or the value of certain items lowered just because you want the best of what everyone else has worked hard for.

Your points are valid and I'm sure many agree with you, but I think you'll find a little bit of satisfaction when you "earn" that complete set of gold armor, weapons, and jewelry and you flaunt those shiny new maelstrom weapons that you burned so many hours obtaining.

I agree with you, but you're arguing from the perspective that the OP is wanting something he/she doesn't have. I'm arguing from the perspective of a "casual" who picked up the game on free play weekend or something. We all love this game, its why we are on the forums, and for the game to succeed it needs to grow its base. I'm not arguing that you need to cater specifically to that base, not at all. I'm just arguing that a healthy balance can be struck. 160k gold per piece of equipment doesn't exactly sound reasonable. That's just my opinion though (again from someone who's necessary equipment is gold and has never purchased gold mats). Just thinking objectively.

I love this discussion. Great points. My argument goes back to the car thing then...haha. When I was 16, I was THRILLED to get my first car, which was a 1987 Chrysler Lebaron. I had no idea or expectation at that time that I could ever own an NSX and was, frankly, enamored with my new/old car. I'd use that analogy on the "casual" who joins the game...there is soooooo much to learn about this game starting out and anyone who starts out shouldn't have the ability to immediately have the best stuff right away. The beauty of this game is the complexity and depth to which it will take you and the amount of time and work it takes to achieve the ultimate fighting machine. I'm still learning so much about this game from forum discussions and opinions of players who are far more advanced then me and I've been playing for almost a year now. I think the casual gamer just starting out should "look up" to that shiny new gold armor and learn everything there is to know on how to earn that gold before trying to use it.

I'm just kind of basing my opinion on the health of the overall game, solely from what I have experienced in my guilds and social circle within the game. I'll admit that straight up. I've had RL friends play the game and made friends in game. Too often they level up to CP160, and then kind of go "so now what?". That's where I think this rears its head to some extent. There are essentially two options for end-game. Trials and PVP.

PVP is a daunting experience and the amount of fun can ebb and flow to a great extent. If you're in the middle of a zerg, you can get away with being less than optimized. But the middle of the zerg, push one button, lag fest is not necessarily enjoyable to all. And when you're out soloing or running small groups, every advantage can make the difference (or it can at least feel that way).

Trials are another daunting experience and many of the top guilds with the top scores really push golding every item.

Either way gold mats and potions and all of that can get really expensive. Easy for people to get discouraged and quit at several points along the way. Not saying this issue is the reason for that, but anything we can do to get more money into the game so ZOS can really fix things the better (just me being completely selfish haha)

I completely agree with the PVP bit. It's one of the areas in ESO that I'm still trying to figure out and work on. Lags and disconnects make it almost untenable.

I was close to that "now what" stage and that's when I tried Cyrodil and farming. Now with testing out the new sets from T1, my evenings are "now what do I do first?". lol.

SwaminoNowlino · November 2016

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

SwaminoNowlino wrote: »

Just a note on this point, 99% of every good and service in the world, regardless of the economic philosophy of the relevant government has its price influenced to some degree. Subsides, tariffs, real estate, workforce, access to public goods, infrastructure, etc. All of these are controlled to some extent and serve to regulate the price point. Even a transaction between you and your neighbor is governed by outside influences to some extent. People are often quick to extol the values of a free market but seldom recognize no such thing truly exists.

Unless the governement rules say that said price shouldn't be under or above a certain level, the markets are free and the prices are determined by supply and demand. Supply and demand are in turn influenced by a zillion interconnected factors (including regulations, taxes, etc...). That doesn't make the market less "free".
How does it relate to the issue in this topic...?

Your argument is that it should all be determined by a free market and it will all work itself out naturally. My argument is that free markets do not function in a competitive fashion without intervention. They neither naturally occur nor naturally sustain. Price floors and ceilings are tools frequently utilized by governments. The value of the items in the transaction are largely determinate of the government or regulatory entities. Free markets are about as rare as unicorns.

If the in-game economy is unregulated, then it will move towards monopolistic behavior. This may not occur on other platforms/servers, but to some extent it does occur on Xbox NA. Can disagree and quibble about the extent of market power possessed by the main trading guilds, but many of them are very open about colluding and price-fixing. This system may be perfectly fine and 100% viable. It doesn't really impact me that much (because I spend an unhealthy amount of time on the game haha). But I think its at least worth discussion in regards to there maybe being a better system.

anitajoneb17_ESO · November 2016

SwaminoNowlino wrote: »

What evidence do you have to support this? Because if they did step in to regulate prices through supply, wouldn't the prices be dropping instead of rising? Or perhaps what we will see is that the event served to further increase the disparity between the haves and have-nots? We don't have sufficient data to see what the real impact of the Orsinium event will be.

Maybe it did increase supply such that prices dropped and people were able to gold their items, thus lowering demand and prices.

Or maybe those low-priced mats were purchased by speculators and prices will continue to rise.

Time will tell, but either way I fail to see anywhere in this debate where the presence of a gold-sink vendor or tel var vendor would be a bad thing. It would serve the same effective purpose as a central or reserve bank.

I don't know on what platform you're playing but on PC/EU gold temper prices have dropped since One Tamriel (although not by much due to very high demand because of all the new sets), refined mats have dropped by 75%, and columbine by 30%. I could go on like this. The increase in drop rate + the multiplication by 5 of zones where to find max level mats has lead to that. Plus, to a lesser extent, the Orsinium event. Prices don't rise. Prices drop.

I agree with you on the lack of gold sinks, but let's see what housing does to solve this, first. OP's issue is not the overall inflation or lack of gold sinks, but the availability and price of gold tempers. While the two things are related, let's not mix up everything.

SwaminoNowlino · November 2016

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

SwaminoNowlino wrote: »

What evidence do you have to support this? Because if they did step in to regulate prices through supply, wouldn't the prices be dropping instead of rising? Or perhaps what we will see is that the event served to further increase the disparity between the haves and have-nots? We don't have sufficient data to see what the real impact of the Orsinium event will be.

Maybe it did increase supply such that prices dropped and people were able to gold their items, thus lowering demand and prices.

Or maybe those low-priced mats were purchased by speculators and prices will continue to rise.

Time will tell, but either way I fail to see anywhere in this debate where the presence of a gold-sink vendor or tel var vendor would be a bad thing. It would serve the same effective purpose as a central or reserve bank.

I don't know on what platform you're playing but on PC/EU gold temper prices have dropped since One Tamriel (although not by much due to very high demand because of all the new sets), refined mats have dropped by 75%, and columbine by 30%. I could go on like this. The increase in drop rate + the multiplication by 5 of zones where to find max level mats has lead to that. Plus, to a lesser extent, the Orsinium event. Prices don't rise. Prices drop.

I agree with you on the lack of gold sinks, but let's see what housing does to solve this, first.

Xbox NA and we have yet to receive the apothecary bags, so I have yet to begin to track their impact on the economy. But early reports from PC NA that I have heard about stated there wasn't a terribly large impact on prices at all. Some people just hate IC. PC prices have always been much more stable and and usually much lower than console. Many point to the transfer period and the advantage those funds gave to people to corner the market from the beginning. That transfer definitely had an impact on the ability to run comparisons across platforms and servers.

The balance they strike with house will be very important. They have to be expensive enough to suck out gold, and have to be worth that investment, while improvements have to be reasonable enough to discourage people from feeling the need to drive the markets to extremes. Very tenuous, and hopefully the execution will be better than the balance in PVP.

Integral1900 · November 2016

Never had to buy gold level tempers, or any other crafting mats for that matter, I do a full set of writs with four alts each day as a kind of relaxation therapy as I suffer from anxiety, I've stockpiled hundreds of each of them, eighty percent came from writ rewards... what's the big deal?

THEDKEXPERIENCE · November 2016

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

SwaminoNowlino wrote: »

What evidence do you have to support this? Because if they did step in to regulate prices through supply, wouldn't the prices be dropping instead of rising? Or perhaps what we will see is that the event served to further increase the disparity between the haves and have-nots? We don't have sufficient data to see what the real impact of the Orsinium event will be.

Maybe it did increase supply such that prices dropped and people were able to gold their items, thus lowering demand and prices.

Or maybe those low-priced mats were purchased by speculators and prices will continue to rise.

Time will tell, but either way I fail to see anywhere in this debate where the presence of a gold-sink vendor or tel var vendor would be a bad thing. It would serve the same effective purpose as a central or reserve bank.

I don't know on what platform you're playing but on PC/EU gold temper prices have dropped since One Tamriel (although not by much due to very high demand because of all the new sets), refined mats have dropped by 75%, and columbine by 30%. I could go on like this. The increase in drop rate + the multiplication by 5 of zones where to find max level mats has lead to that. Plus, to a lesser extent, the Orsinium event. Prices don't rise. Prices drop.

I agree with you on the lack of gold sinks, but let's see what housing does to solve this, first. OP's issue is not the overall inflation or lack of gold sinks, but the availability and price of gold tempers. While the two things are related, let's not mix up everything.

It's an XBox conversation. In a nutshell take whatever your PC price is and multiply it by 5 and you're in the XBox (and I'm assuming PS4) area.

Console economy is the Wild West. Many people, myself included, have taken the time out from doing their favorite activities to farm enough where it's not a big deal. Some have not.

SwaminoNowlino · November 2016

Integral1900 wrote: »

Never had to buy gold level tempers, or any other crafting mats for that matter, I do a full set of writs with four alts each day as a kind of relaxation therapy as I suffer from anxiety, I've stockpiled hundreds of each of them, eighty percent came from writ rewards... what's the big deal?

In a nutshell...

Some people don't have hours upon hours to devote to this game. For those who do (me included), this likely isn't a problem.

But if you only get one or two hours a week to play and you want to do trials, you need some gold gear. It would likely take multiple months to gold out your gear via traditional farming, and that is if you devote 100% of your limited time to it. Alternatively, you can pay others to do it for you. But if you're a tank for instance, it will take you roughly 160k on XBOX NA to gold a single piece of heavy gear or weapon. Not counting your shield or enchants or jewelry, that's 1.44 million gold to gold your set.

1.44 million...

Now maybe all that gear doesn't need golded and such, but that's a heck of an investment. (Especially when halfway through they introduce new gear meaning your old gear is no longer BIS lol)

AlnilamE · November 2016

BigES wrote: »

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

BigES wrote: »

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

Nothing prevents you from farming your own tempers.
It's not like any player has a monopoly on them.

Clearly you've never attempted to farm dreugh wax in an area dominated by macro-enabled Chinese robot pet sorcs.

Oddly enough, no. Doesn't prevent me from having over 150+ of them Dreugh Waxes in my crafting bag, all my gear golden, helped most of my guildies with goldening their stuff, all while selling tons of them and never buying one.
Which in turns means that I have done a lot of crafting writs and also farmed and refined a lot of raw mats without ever meeting any of those "robots". They simply aren't there. And if they are, just go farm somewhere else. Don't tell me they're everywhere, because they're not.

Prices are high because people are ready to pay that much. The answer to (too) high prices is either to lower the demand or to raise the supply, both of which you can contribute to by farming your own materials.

This comes down to a concern on game balance. Can I spend time farming, shopping - etc. and attempt to gold and finalize all my gear? Yes. Absolutely. I play this game more than enough. But the opportunity cost is that I don't get to do something else productive (or fun). Like - play the game. PvP. Do a dungeon. A trial. Do something that makes me interact with other players and keep the game community healthy.

This game is suffering from a grindy, RNG loot imbalance that is consuming too many people's time and turning them off to the game.

Honestly, I've never "spent time farming" outside of when I started doing low-level alchemy writs and I have plenty of gold tempers. What I do is stop for shinies whatever else I'm doing, do my writs on occasion and check my hirelings as often as possible.

Then every once in a while when I have a lot of mats to refine, I refine them.

I also don't feel like I need to have gold gear yesterday, but that's just me.

If you don't like farming, then don't do it. But pick up the occasional flower as you go about your business. Or if you like running dungeons, take advantage of the ones that have leather drops.

Think about what you like doing and try to incorporate picking up shinies into that.

anitajoneb17_ESO · November 2016

SwaminoNowlino wrote: »

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

SwaminoNowlino wrote: »

Just a note on this point, 99% of every good and service in the world, regardless of the economic philosophy of the relevant government has its price influenced to some degree. Subsides, tariffs, real estate, workforce, access to public goods, infrastructure, etc. All of these are controlled to some extent and serve to regulate the price point. Even a transaction between you and your neighbor is governed by outside influences to some extent. People are often quick to extol the values of a free market but seldom recognize no such thing truly exists.

Unless the governement rules say that said price shouldn't be under or above a certain level, the markets are free and the prices are determined by supply and demand. Supply and demand are in turn influenced by a zillion interconnected factors (including regulations, taxes, etc...). That doesn't make the market less "free".
How does it relate to the issue in this topic...?

Your argument is that it should all be determined by a free market and it will all work itself out naturally. My argument is that free markets do not function in a competitive fashion without intervention. They neither naturally occur nor naturally sustain. Price floors and ceilings are tools frequently utilized by governments. The value of the items in the transaction are largely determinate of the government or regulatory entities. Free markets are about as rare as unicorns.

If the in-game economy is unregulated, then it will move towards monopolistic behavior. This may not occur on other platforms/servers, but to some extent it does occur on Xbox NA. Can disagree and quibble about the extent of market power possessed by the main trading guilds, but many of them are very open about colluding and price-fixing. This system may be perfectly fine and 100% viable. It doesn't really impact me that much (because I spend an unhealthy amount of time on the game haha). But I think its at least worth discussion in regards to there maybe being a better system.

I bolded the part where we have a misunderstanding. I don't think ESO is a free market because ZOS can do two things :
- Adjust the drop rates back and forth as they see fit (drop rate is the direct "cost factor" of supply )
- Put stuff for buying or selling at NPC merchants, which sets hard bottom/ceiling prices and infinite supply/demand for those items.

Which is why I disagree with you when you say that the ESO market is unregulated and will lead to monopolistic behaviours (like, I agree with you on this point, a true free unregulated market would lead to - but few markets are truly unregulated, as you also mentioned).

IF ZOS interferes on the markets, I'd rather they do it via drop rates or similar mechanics, than with NPC merchants which set too "strict" and unflexible price limits upwards and downwards.

Obviously the PC economy is different from console economy, and consoles have suffered from the start from the gold transfers, and maliciously clever people have used both their gold and their knowledge of the game to install their own laws. Many disagreements here come from these different experiences PC vs. console. But in my experience, PC/EU economy works really well, adapts quickly and nicely, and while I cannot swear that noone tries to corner a market or monopolize it, I can tell that this behaviour is marginal.

I also agree with you that the implementation of housing will be crucial. Let's hope they do it right and have some people who understand economics... we really, really need HUGE gold sinks and new items to buy / sell / craft / trade.

THEDKEXPERIENCE · November 2016

SwaminoNowlino wrote: »

Integral1900 wrote: »

Never had to buy gold level tempers, or any other crafting mats for that matter, I do a full set of writs with four alts each day as a kind of relaxation therapy as I suffer from anxiety, I've stockpiled hundreds of each of them, eighty percent came from writ rewards... what's the big deal?

In a nutshell...

Some people don't have hours upon hours to devote to this game. For those who do (me included), this likely isn't a problem.

But if you only get one or two hours a week to play and you want to do trials, you need some gold gear. It would likely take multiple months to gold out your gear via traditional farming, and that is if you devote 100% of your limited time to it. Alternatively, you can pay others to do it for you. But if you're a tank for instance, it will take you roughly 160k on XBOX NA to gold a single piece of heavy gear or weapon. Not counting your shield or enchants or jewelry, that's 1.44 million gold to gold your set.

1.44 million...

Now maybe all that gear doesn't need golded and such, but that's a heck of an investment. (Especially when halfway through they introduce new gear meaning your old gear is no longer BIS lol)

I spent a year and a half working up enough capital to have an all gold set, extra tempers, max CP, and plenty of gold while having limited playing time. I have had help along the way and provided help to others as well.

Still, that did not give me the right to say, "I'm new, I want to do trials." If they want to be end game ready, go work for a year and a half at it.

SwaminoNowlino · November 2016

Astanphaeus wrote: »

There are 2 main reasons for the high prices of tempers.

1) With the introduction of so many new drop sets that greatly out-perform crafted sets, there is barely a market left for Ancstor Silk, Rubedite, Rubedo Leather, and Ruby Ash, and tempers being in the system are largely a biproduct of this market there are fewer tempers in the market.

2) The market has been destroyed by ZOS by placing BoP on so many sets, basically removing crafted gear from the game hich has decreased the value of motifs, and greatly increasing the abundance of other materials such as cp160 mats and now alchemy ingredients with the alchemy sacks. This has left very few items actually valuable. Since the amount of new gold being introduced to the market hasn't decreased, those few items of value remaining are naturally going to increase in price. It's also why you see desirable weapons and shields going for multi-hundreds of thousands. Introducing a temper price cap would just make prices for those weapons even worse with little way for new people to the market to make the needed gold.

Honestly, the only reason the problem isn't worse is because many of the wealthier members of the community are setting aside millions for the hosing update. If ZOS doesn't make housing an absolutely huge gold sink while introducing new items of value to the market, you will see the prices for these few remaining valuable items skyrocket even further. What OP is suggesting will just make things worse.

Some things that can be done to improve the market would include:
Increase the cost of Alchemy Sacks, 500tv is way too cheap and easy to get

Introduce a system to use your know motifs to restyle your gear (ZOS, this will help with your crown sales of motifs as well)

Have the upcoming furniture crafting use an amount of mats comparable to cp160 crafting and use the same mats as gear crafting does

Make nirnhoned great again

This. Agree with every point except the part about the price ceiling or merchant exacerbating the issue. If you cap the price I don't see what that has to do with prices going up. Should go the opposite direction.

SwaminoNowlino · November 2016

Minalan wrote: »

Price controls only create scarcity and lack of supply.

I really wish schools taught basic economics nowadays. There are far too many ignorant people that need to know basic facts. Things like... Why we don't control prices. Why we can't give expensive things away for free. Why you have to be competitive.

Except when you say these things to someone who is an actual trained and practicing economist...

Zypheran · November 2016

I always think a forum thread is most interesting when you find yourself agreeing with points made by both sides of the debate. On one hand I agree with comments that say that we are all free to farm mats and therefore the markets are reasonably free. Sure there is a certain amount of manipulation by people who play this game for it's in-game commercial aspects, but I would need more convincing that this group have as much control over market prices as has been suggested.
MMO economies are often similar to RL economics but do not really operate the same. At the end of the day this is a game and not subject to nearly the same level of complexity as RL commodity markets and so as valid as some of the economic arguments made would be in RL, I do not believe that they necessarily hold up when applied to a game. For example, supply/demand and monopolizing forces are very strong drivers in RL economics but in game I think we are getting a bit ahead of ourselves with the application. In game the primary economic drivers are what interests us in spending our game time. The price of items is set by how much we are willing to pay but this is not the same as demand. When you buy a temper you are essentially paying for the time spent by somebody to farm this item and the items value will be influenced more by how much value the buyer perceives farming time to be worth to him or her rather than the supply and demand economics. I find it no coincidence that prices of rare mats soared during a time when ZOS put on Halloween events and introduced 1T. ZOS gave us something new to spend our time on so people wanted to spend less time farming. This meant people were willing to pay more as an alternative to spending time farming. IMO there already is a market controlling cap on prices that is in the hands and control of each individual and that is your perceived value on time spent farming. The OP made the point that mat prices control the balance of the game and push the emphasis/balance for game time toward farming but my point is that I believe it is the opposite and that peoples emphasis on game time drives the mat prices.

anitajoneb17_ESO · November 2016

SwaminoNowlino wrote: »

But if you only get one or two hours a week to play and you want to do trials, you need some gold gear. It would likely take multiple months to gold out your gear via traditional farming, and that is if you devote 100% of your limited time to it. Alternatively, you can pay others to do it for you. But if you're a tank for instance, it will take you roughly 160k on XBOX NA to gold a single piece of heavy gear or weapon. Not counting your shield or enchants or jewelry, that's 1.44 million gold to gold your set.

If you only have 2 hours a week, you cannot do trials at a leaderboard competition level.
If you're not running for leaderboards, you can run trials in purple gear.
Problem solved.

That being said, you highlight one more issue that affects tanks adversely : they rely on blacksmithing tempers for their entire gear except the shield - and that's much more expensive than for cloth or leather. That's why I usually provide gold tempers for free to my tanking guildies.

timidobserver · November 2016

I don't want to see any heavy handed attempts to control prices like capping the price with a vendor. I'd rather they add more ways to earn gold mats or increase the drop rates of the current methods.

SwaminoNowlino · November 2016

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

SwaminoNowlino wrote: »

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

SwaminoNowlino wrote: »

Just a note on this point, 99% of every good and service in the world, regardless of the economic philosophy of the relevant government has its price influenced to some degree. Subsides, tariffs, real estate, workforce, access to public goods, infrastructure, etc. All of these are controlled to some extent and serve to regulate the price point. Even a transaction between you and your neighbor is governed by outside influences to some extent. People are often quick to extol the values of a free market but seldom recognize no such thing truly exists.

Unless the governement rules say that said price shouldn't be under or above a certain level, the markets are free and the prices are determined by supply and demand. Supply and demand are in turn influenced by a zillion interconnected factors (including regulations, taxes, etc...). That doesn't make the market less "free".
How does it relate to the issue in this topic...?

Your argument is that it should all be determined by a free market and it will all work itself out naturally. My argument is that free markets do not function in a competitive fashion without intervention. They neither naturally occur nor naturally sustain. Price floors and ceilings are tools frequently utilized by governments. The value of the items in the transaction are largely determinate of the government or regulatory entities. Free markets are about as rare as unicorns.

If the in-game economy is unregulated, then it will move towards monopolistic behavior. This may not occur on other platforms/servers, but to some extent it does occur on Xbox NA. Can disagree and quibble about the extent of market power possessed by the main trading guilds, but many of them are very open about colluding and price-fixing. This system may be perfectly fine and 100% viable. It doesn't really impact me that much (because I spend an unhealthy amount of time on the game haha). But I think its at least worth discussion in regards to there maybe being a better system.

I bolded the part where we have a misunderstanding. I don't think ESO is a free market because ZOS can do two things :
- Adjust the drop rates back and forth as they see fit (drop rate is the direct "cost factor" of supply )
- Put stuff for buying or selling at NPC merchants, which sets hard bottom/ceiling prices and infinite supply/demand for those items.

Which is why I disagree with you when you say that the ESO market is unregulated and will lead to monopolistic behaviours (like, I agree with you on this point, a true free unregulated market would lead to - but few markets are truly unregulated, as you also mentioned).

IF ZOS interferes on the markets, I'd rather they do it via drop rates or similar mechanics, than with NPC merchants which set too "strict" and unflexible price limits upwards and downwards.

Obviously the PC economy is different from console economy, and consoles have suffered from the start from the gold transfers, and maliciously clever people have used both their gold and their knowledge of the game to install their own laws. Many disagreements here come from these different experiences PC vs. console. But in my experience, PC/EU economy works really well, adapts quickly and nicely, and while I cannot swear that noone tries to corner a market or monopolize it, I can tell that this behaviour is marginal.

I also agree with you that the implementation of housing will be crucial. Let's hope they do it right and have some people who understand economics... we really, really need HUGE gold sinks and new items to buy / sell / craft / trade.

We actually agree on quite a bit. However I argue that increasing supply does little to solve the problem without also restricting the monetary base. A restrictive monetary policy, usually achieved through the sale of bonds, and could likewise be achieved, theoretically, through housing. This is often the tool of choice in combating inflation.
I also disagree about the merchant being too strict and inflexible. I'm assuming they could change the prices quite frequently to meet their metrics without pushing a patch or anything, similar to how they just changed the drop rate on those new experience things. At they very least it could be updated in the weekly maintenance cycles.

SwaminoNowlino · November 2016

Zypheran wrote: »

I always think a forum thread is most interesting when you find yourself agreeing with points made by both sides of the debate. On one hand I agree with comments that say that we are all free to farm mats and therefore the markets are reasonably free. Sure there is a certain amount of manipulation by people who play this game for it's in-game commercial aspects, but I would need more convincing that this group have as much control over market prices as has been suggested.
MMO economies are often similar to RL economics but do not really operate the same. At the end of the day this is a game and not subject to nearly the same level of complexity as RL commodity markets and so as valid as some of the economic arguments made would be in RL, I do not believe that they necessarily hold up when applied to a game. For example, supply/demand and monopolizing forces are very strong drivers in RL economics but in game I think we are getting a bit ahead of ourselves with the application. In game the primary economic drivers are what interests us in spending our game time. The price of items is set by how much we are willing to pay but this is not the same as demand. When you buy a temper you are essentially paying for the time spent by somebody to farm this item and the items value will be influenced more by how much value the buyer perceives farming time to be worth to him or her rather than the supply and demand economics. I find it no coincidence that prices of rare mats soared during a time when ZOS put on Halloween events and introduced 1T. ZOS gave us something new to spend our time on so people wanted to spend less time farming. This meant people were willing to pay more as an alternative to spending time farming. IMO there already is a market controlling cap on prices that is in the hands and control of each individual and that is your perceived value on time spent farming. The OP made the point that mat prices control the balance of the game and push the emphasis/balance for game time toward farming but my point is that I believe it is the opposite and that peoples emphasis on game time drives the mat prices.

That's half the reason I'm having the discussion. People are quick to jump to character attacks or make assumptions about people making the arguments, but I'm an economist and enjoy conversing about such things and seeing how others think and react. Who knows, I could just be playing devil's advocate

Strider_Roshin · November 2016

If only they were sold for tel var

SwaminoNowlino · November 2016

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

SwaminoNowlino wrote: »

But if you only get one or two hours a week to play and you want to do trials, you need some gold gear. It would likely take multiple months to gold out your gear via traditional farming, and that is if you devote 100% of your limited time to it. Alternatively, you can pay others to do it for you. But if you're a tank for instance, it will take you roughly 160k on XBOX NA to gold a single piece of heavy gear or weapon. Not counting your shield or enchants or jewelry, that's 1.44 million gold to gold your set.

If you only have 2 hours a week, you cannot do trials at a leaderboard competition level.
If you're not running for leaderboards, you can run trials in purple gear.
Problem solved.

That being said, you highlight one more issue that affects tanks adversely : they rely on blacksmithing tempers for their entire gear except the shield - and that's much more expensive than for cloth or leather. That's why I usually provide gold tempers for free to my tanking guildies.

Perhaps, but bump that up to 5 or 6 hours, the equation doesn't work out to be all that much better when your time should be spent completing the content and learning the mechanics.

Tanks definitely have it rough in terms of how much it costs to build properly. Doesn't even factor in the pots and the constant switching of CP/attributes/skill points to do different content. Ouch

THEDKEXPERIENCE · November 2016

SwaminoNowlino wrote: »

Zypheran wrote: »

I always think a forum thread is most interesting when you find yourself agreeing with points made by both sides of the debate. On one hand I agree with comments that say that we are all free to farm mats and therefore the markets are reasonably free. Sure there is a certain amount of manipulation by people who play this game for it's in-game commercial aspects, but I would need more convincing that this group have as much control over market prices as has been suggested.
MMO economies are often similar to RL economics but do not really operate the same. At the end of the day this is a game and not subject to nearly the same level of complexity as RL commodity markets and so as valid as some of the economic arguments made would be in RL, I do not believe that they necessarily hold up when applied to a game. For example, supply/demand and monopolizing forces are very strong drivers in RL economics but in game I think we are getting a bit ahead of ourselves with the application. In game the primary economic drivers are what interests us in spending our game time. The price of items is set by how much we are willing to pay but this is not the same as demand. When you buy a temper you are essentially paying for the time spent by somebody to farm this item and the items value will be influenced more by how much value the buyer perceives farming time to be worth to him or her rather than the supply and demand economics. I find it no coincidence that prices of rare mats soared during a time when ZOS put on Halloween events and introduced 1T. ZOS gave us something new to spend our time on so people wanted to spend less time farming. This meant people were willing to pay more as an alternative to spending time farming. IMO there already is a market controlling cap on prices that is in the hands and control of each individual and that is your perceived value on time spent farming. The OP made the point that mat prices control the balance of the game and push the emphasis/balance for game time toward farming but my point is that I believe it is the opposite and that peoples emphasis on game time drives the mat prices.

That's half the reason I'm having the discussion. People are quick to jump to character attacks or make assumptions about people making the arguments, but I'm an economist and enjoy conversing about such things and seeing how others think and react. Who knows, I could just be playing devil's advocate

I can't prove you are, so your example doesn't count.

No, just kidding. You're actually making quite a few solid arguments but there are a lot of things to consider.

The hot button for me is whenever someone decides doing their favorite activity should come with no drawbacks. I've been a part of many arguments that were basically "Come spend every night in Cyrodiil! We need you!" When my response is, "If I'm not farming so I can pick enough flowers to use my Batman level potion utility belt then I won't be as effective." Generally that devolves into a fun vs not fun argument but a week later the same guy asking me to "loan" him 25 columbine which I'll never see again.

This whole topic is like PTSD. Haha.

SwaminoNowlino · November 2016

@danielpatrickkeaneub17_ESO Damned opportunity costs lol.

I get it, I remember the good old days when I never even used potions. Mostly just sold them to the vendors. Then I started doing trials, VMA, and PVP. I benched a character and robbed its skill points just to keep myself in potions lol. I never picked flowers or anything, never seemed important, now I'll do whatever I can to get to that Namira's Rot before the other guy. It is kind of a drag when the game you use as entertainment starts feeling more like work than your actual job (double vma drops just about killed me). So I definitely get both perspectives. Just would be nice to strike a balance that makes everyone happy, as futile a pursuit as that is. And who knows, just having the conversation could spur other, better ideas.

idk · November 2016

SwaminoNowlino wrote: »

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

SwaminoNowlino wrote: »

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

BigES wrote: »

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

BigES wrote: »

Stopnaggin wrote: »

You just need to learn how to get better prices. I bought 3 tempers yesterday 10k ea. Never go to guild traders for stuff like that. Prime example is the Psijic ambrosia frags. 120-10k on traders. I get mine under 50k ea. Learn how to work the market. Alot of low level players will sell low to get gold for something, I was buying frags over the weekend and a guy offered them to me @ 4k ea. I still gave him fair market value but there are people that either don't care or don't know.

I'm aware you can find unsuspecting players who don't know what they have or the value of it. But I'm talking about the 90% market value, not the exception. I'm talking about the community price. If we all "looked for a deal" as you suggested, it wouldn't be a deal anymore, would it?

Exactly. If everyone or at least many people made the effort to look for deals (instead of complaining about prices but buying anyway) high priced goods would not sell and prices would drop for everybody.

Remember : everytime you buy something at a certain price, it means you agree on that price, because you have the choice to NOT BUY. In ESO there's nothing you cannot farm by yourself and thus obtain without gold (unlike RL where you have no choice but to buy some basic stuff regardless of price).

Again, this is not specifically about cost. Its also about time. Time is money.

@BigES

The person you quoted is correct that we agree to the price we buy it at. Market forces set the price.

Additionally, and more important, legendary quality gear is intended to be much rarer than epic. It's by obvious design in the game. The price should not be cheap.

It's a choice.

I don't think you understand the concept of inflation...

Lol. Inflation only occurred eso based on our choices and how it affects market pressures.

So no, you don't understand how inflation works. As long as we both accept that. "Market forces" isn't some abstract concept or something that just occurs in a vacuum. People control those "market forces" in your every day life, you just may not be aware of it.

You seem a tad confused if Your saying I do not know how inflation works. Or your not reading my posts.

Market forces absolute control inflation and deflation in eso. 100%. In the vacuum the game is. There are no other forces than supply and demand changes available to the game.

People control what via buying more and buying less. They control it by selling more and selling less.

Basic economics at work. Cannot get more basic than this.

Enemy-of-Coldharbour · November 2016

I agree with the OP. Legendary mats need to be sold by an NPC vendor like they did with enchanting runes. I'm sure there are many people against this, but they are most likely bot masters who are controlling the market.

anitajoneb17_ESO · November 2016

Enemy-of-Coldharbour wrote: »

I agree with the OP. Legendary mats need to be sold by an NPC vendor like they did with enchanting runes. I'm sure there are many people against this, but they are most likely bot masters who are controlling the market.

So everyone (like me) who disagrees with you is an outlaw driven by his own illegal interests... ?

THEDKEXPERIENCE · November 2016

SwaminoNowlino wrote: »

@danielpatrickkeaneub17_ESO Damned opportunity costs lol.

I get it, I remember the good old days when I never even used potions. Mostly just sold them to the vendors. Then I started doing trials, VMA, and PVP. I benched a character and robbed its skill points just to keep myself in potions lol. I never picked flowers or anything, never seemed important, now I'll do whatever I can to get to that Namira's Rot before the other guy. It is kind of a drag when the game you use as entertainment starts feeling more like work than your actual job (double vma drops just about killed me). So I definitely get both perspectives. Just would be nice to strike a balance that makes everyone happy, as futile a pursuit as that is. And who knows, just having the conversation could spur other, better ideas.

And we have found common ground. Well played.

SwaminoNowlino · November 2016

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

SwaminoNowlino wrote: »

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

SwaminoNowlino wrote: »

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

BigES wrote: »

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

BigES wrote: »

Stopnaggin wrote: »

You just need to learn how to get better prices. I bought 3 tempers yesterday 10k ea. Never go to guild traders for stuff like that. Prime example is the Psijic ambrosia frags. 120-10k on traders. I get mine under 50k ea. Learn how to work the market. Alot of low level players will sell low to get gold for something, I was buying frags over the weekend and a guy offered them to me @ 4k ea. I still gave him fair market value but there are people that either don't care or don't know.

I'm aware you can find unsuspecting players who don't know what they have or the value of it. But I'm talking about the 90% market value, not the exception. I'm talking about the community price. If we all "looked for a deal" as you suggested, it wouldn't be a deal anymore, would it?

Exactly. If everyone or at least many people made the effort to look for deals (instead of complaining about prices but buying anyway) high priced goods would not sell and prices would drop for everybody.

Remember : everytime you buy something at a certain price, it means you agree on that price, because you have the choice to NOT BUY. In ESO there's nothing you cannot farm by yourself and thus obtain without gold (unlike RL where you have no choice but to buy some basic stuff regardless of price).

Again, this is not specifically about cost. Its also about time. Time is money.

@BigES

The person you quoted is correct that we agree to the price we buy it at. Market forces set the price.

Additionally, and more important, legendary quality gear is intended to be much rarer than epic. It's by obvious design in the game. The price should not be cheap.

It's a choice.

I don't think you understand the concept of inflation...

Lol. Inflation only occurred eso based on our choices and how it affects market pressures.

So no, you don't understand how inflation works. As long as we both accept that. "Market forces" isn't some abstract concept or something that just occurs in a vacuum. People control those "market forces" in your every day life, you just may not be aware of it.

You seem a tad confused if Your saying I do not know how inflation works. Or your not reading my posts.

Market forces absolute control inflation and deflation in eso. 100%. In the vacuum the game is. There are no other forces than supply and demand changes available to the game.

People control what via buying more and buying less. They control it by selling more and selling less.

Basic economics at work. Cannot get more basic than this.

Factors other than supply and demand that impact ESO, off the top of my head.

Monetary policy, substitute goods, complementary goods, imperfect information, monopolistic profit, barriers to entry. Just to name a few. All of these contribute to the supply and demand function, and are much more complex than your basic assessment. Saying things are a simple as supply and demand demonstrates a lack of understanding of the basic principles that drive any economy.

SwaminoNowlino · November 2016

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

Enemy-of-Coldharbour wrote: »

I agree with the OP. Legendary mats need to be sold by an NPC vendor like they did with enchanting runes. I'm sure there are many people against this, but they are most likely bot masters who are controlling the market.

So everyone (like me) who disagrees with you is an outlaw driven by his own illegal interests... ?

yes