"Gold Sink" has meaning and you aren't using it correctly

Recremen · February 2018

As some of you know, gold sinks are an important part of any MMO economy to help battle inflation on the player market. Inflation is bad because new and casual players are not able to keep up with the price increases and are shut out from an important aspect of gameplay. The way gold sinks accomplish this is by permanently taking gold out of the market, such as via in-game vendors. A good example of gold sinks in ESO are Mount Training from stablemasters, Bag and Bank Space upgrades, Houses, gear repair bills, and the Luxury/Home Goods/Achievement furnishers. You can tell that gold sinks are working when prices on the player market remain stable.

You know how you can tell when a gold sink isn't working? When you add one despite the player market being stable/suffering from deflation. We call that an unnecessary burden. So which is the new outfit system? Well let's look at the price of goods on the player market to find out!

Oh look, all three of the major goods are distributed within an extremely tight and stable range! And we call that... a stable market! So if you've been following along, how do you think our existing gold sinks have been performing? That's right, they are JUST FINE AS IS! Which makes the outfit gold cost... correct, and UNNECESSARY BURDEN! Good job, gold stars all around!! So the next time someone says that this game "needs more gold sinks", be sure to ask them what market analysis they've done to determine that! Because chances are they're full of ***.

Erraln · February 2018

It's an annoyance that can be solved by spending money on more slots, to save more settings.

Like, you know, motif farming. Or horse riding. Or trait research.

Motive, anyone?

Nihility42 · February 2018

Anyone have their Recremen outfit cost posts bingo card filled out yet?

VilniusNastavnik · February 2018

Now look at the motif market. Legendary mats have never been a gold sink as they are easy to come by. The motifs are skyrocketing in cost making new and casual players have to grind and grind even more to just get 1.

The Motifs on the other hand are suffering from mass inflation.

PlagueSD · February 2018

Recremen wrote: »

Oh look, all three of the major goods are distributed within an extremely tight and stable range! And we call that... a stable market!

I hardly call this a tight distribution:

Dreugh Wax:
Min: 2,915g
Max: 25,000g

Tempering Alloy:
Min: 4,499g
Max: 75,000g

Rosin:
Min: 2,500g
Max: 34,115g

MaleAmazon · February 2018

Those are outliers.

NyassaV · February 2018

@ZOS_GinaBruno Please take this into consdieration

LordSemaj · February 2018

I disagree. Countless players are sitting on literally millions of gold. The currency is effectively meaningless and the cause of the market stability is that these products are valueless for people who have everything they want and can afford to buy more.

Instead, those market listings are the desperate attempts of the lower class to get money for their necessities. They compete in terms of value, offering the lowest that people are willing to pay (can afford) and mostly trade between themselves or by the rich to the poor in resale trades. The reason those figures are consistent is because they mostly come from the same stands, the same market controllers, while cheaper items are scooped up and relisted almost immediately by TTC users.

These listings don't represent a stable market. They represent farming being so commonplace that new listings happen daily for the same items, low ones are immediately resold for more while older listings exist because they were priced slightly too high and overlooked thanks to constant stream of new listings. This is more like the farmers' minimum wage graph and how it has remained steady because GOLD accumulation has remained steady. There's a stable gold per hour rate that people can amass and so items are sold for how much per hour they value their farming time.

That doesn't mean we don't need more gold sinks to alleviate the market pressure of the wealthy, who hold the power to decide prices on a whim which the peasants will then follow as they have done before. You can already see new trends taking hold with motif prices which are 50% more what they were just yesterday, yet oddly enough all the prices are steady rather than fluctuating? That's the power of resale and the influence of the wealthy on the market by having the resources to buy out literally every listing of a product to determine the new cost.

Stock trends have followed similar patterns of holding and rising when a powerful investor enters the ring. Economic bubbles too are the result of driving a stock price well above its value. Real world has checks and balances to ensure that the rise is temporary as cash isn't infinite yet an MMO has the problem of cash actually being infinite and these items being viewed as necessities by the fans. So whether it takes 1 hour or 2 hours, they'll grind for the money either way to get it. Undercutters are normally what stabilize prices yet in ESO there is ample time for them to found and eliminated before the listing becomes common knowledge, especially with addons that automatically identify outlier listings for potential sharks to devour.

Deloth_Vyrr · February 2018

PlagueSD wrote: »

Recremen wrote: »

Oh look, all three of the major goods are distributed within an extremely tight and stable range! And we call that... a stable market!

I hardly call this a tight distribution:

Dreugh Wax:
Min: 2,915g
Max: 25,000g

Tempering Alloy:
Min: 4,499g
Max: 75,000g

Rosin:
Min: 2,500g
Max: 34,115g

You cant count outliers since anyone can post an item for any value they want technically. You look at the average where the data clusters (in this case thats like 95% of the total cases - which makes a very accurate sample) and remove any clear abnormalities from the equation.

Recremen · February 2018

Nihility42 wrote: »

Anyone have their Recremen outfit cost posts bingo card filled out yet?

I think people aren't playing bingo because I started charging to use the "free" space. :-(

Kiralyn2000 · February 2018

MaleAmazon wrote: »

Those are outliers.

Yep. That's why most statistical analyses throw out the handful of wildly-different results first.

Looking at the graph for the Dreugh Wax, we see most of the dots forming a steady line, with a small number of dots way off from it. Pretty even distribution.

ArchMikem · February 2018

Yknow Alloys are still 10k or 11k here on Console.

It'd be really nice if prices were cheaper than that. Gold mats are hard to come by and I'd rather not spend tens of thousands just to gold out a single thing.

Recremen · February 2018

MaleAmazon wrote: »

Those are outliers.

Outliers and also TTC data, which uses listed price, not what actually gets bought. The Master Merchant data is the important bit.

Jayman1000 · February 2018

Recremen wrote: »

A good example of gold sinks in ESO are Mount Training from stablemasters

.

That particular example is perhaps not so good; like 250g per day is ever going to matter; to actually matter it should be in the thousands.

About the so called unnecessary burden of outfit gold sink: Have you not noticed any increasing inflation lately? I do regular trading and I have definitely seen some trending inflation over the course of the past months in that prices have been falling steadily. Some of the trading guilds Im part of even increased their weekly sell requirement even mentioning inflation as a cause. Gold sinks are needed, and the outfit sinks is not unnecessary in this respect.

MaleAmazon · February 2018

TBH I havent bothered with this much. It was only fairly recently that I made an effort to play some vet trials, engage in trading etc. MM helping you not get skinned by traders, the gold tempers are fairly easy to come by and reasonably expensive (by which I mean I can gold stuff out but I have to save some and think a bit about what to gold out, which is fine by me).

I´m glad I dont care about houses though, since those seem insanely expensive to me, at least the more expensive ones.

Recremen · February 2018

Jayman1000 wrote: »

Recremen wrote: »

A good example of gold sinks in ESO are Mount Training from stablemasters

.

That particular example is perhaps not so good; like 250g per day is ever going to matter; to actually matter it should be in the thousands.

About the so called unnecessary burden of outfit gold sink: Have you not noticed any increasing inflation lately? I do regular trading and I have definitely seen some trending inflation over the course of the past months in that prices have been falling steadily. Some of the trading guilds Im part of even increased their weekly sell requirement even mentioning inflation as a cause. Gold sinks are needed, and the outfit sinks is not unnecessary in this respect.

I didn't mention gold sinks in order of impact, just ones that are real and measurable. As far as impact goes mount training is still 45k gold per character. It matters. You keep pouring the syrup and eventually you'll have to head to the store for a new bottle before making any more pancakes.

No, I have not noticed any inflation lately as pointed out in my original post. Prices are remarkably stable. Also, you are not even describing inflation. If prices have been falling steadily that is deflation. Gold sinks do not help deflation, they make it worse. If your trade guilds are calling falling prices "inflation" then your guildies need an education.

Linaleah · February 2018

VilniusNastavnik wrote: »

Now look at the motif market. Legendary mats have never been a gold sink as they are easy to come by. The motifs are skyrocketing in cost making new and casual players have to grind and grind even more to just get 1.

The Motifs on the other hand are suffering from mass inflation.

the ONLY reason motifs are currently inflated in price is becasue there is a sudden demand for them due to outfit system. prior to that they have been surely and steadily going WAY down in price with a few outliers like Mazzatun and Silken ring holding a bit more steady as they are more difficult to farm. and even those were going down in price becasue there was no suddenly created demand for them.

that said... if WoW token is any example (prices on it tend to fluctuate depending on new releases of desirable something in Blizzard shop) - in a few weeks, tops - motif prices should go back down. most people who can afford higher prices, already have the motifs, and those that couldn't afford them before, surely will not be able to afford them now. not to mention - now that costs of outfit changing are live.... people who weren't aware of them before, are becoming aware of them now... and I would wager - quite a few of them will chose to mostly skip the system and/or use cheapest options and call it a day.. which will crash motif market right back down to its prior prices, or possibly lower yet again.

as for "countless people are sitting on millions of gold" even forum polls show that to be blatantly untrue. (even forums, because statistically - people who post on the forums tend to be more involved in a game and as such, more often then not - have more gold to spend). majority of people when polled about their gold? have under 500k - across all characters they have. and quite a few have even less then that

Yolokin_Swagonborn · February 2018

So when an MMO company adds a quality of life feature other MMOs have had since day one, and charges an exorbitant amount of gold for it, it can only mean two things:

1. It is intended as a gold sink and the company doesn't understand gold sinks.
2. It is not a gold sink at all and the true purpose of the feature is to be difficult, tedious, and costly unless you pay with real world money.

smacx250 · February 2018

Yolokin_Swagonborn wrote: »

So when an MMO company adds a quality of life feature other MMOs have had since day one, and charges an exorbitant amount of gold for it, it can only mean two things:

1. It is intended as a gold sink and the company doesn't understand gold sinks.
2. It is not a gold sink at all and the true purpose of the feature is to be difficult, tedious, and costly unless you pay with real world money.

Ding Ding Ding! Winner! Give this gentleman an outfit token!

disintegr8 · February 2018

So are you saying my 9 million gold is going to be spent using the Outfit System?

Well, I better bump up the price on the tempers, wax and rosins I am selling then. I suggest everyone else do the same before the sky falls down.

heaven13 · February 2018

Some of the people sitting on over a million gold might be carefully saving it to buy into that other super expensive gold sink that was introduced...you know, the one called Homestead.

thedude33 · February 2018

doh, here I thought a new piece of house furniture had been added. Although I wasn't sure why they would add a gold sink when there aren't really any kitchens in the houses.

Recremen · February 2018

LordSemaj wrote: »

I disagree. Countless players are sitting on literally millions of gold. The currency is effectively meaningless and the cause of the market stability is that these products are valueless for people who have everything they want and can afford to buy more.

Instead, those market listings are the desperate attempts of the lower class to get money for their necessities. They compete in terms of value, offering the lowest that people are willing to pay (can afford) and mostly trade between themselves or by the rich to the poor in resale trades. The reason those figures are consistent is because they mostly come from the same stands, the same market controllers, while cheaper items are scooped up and relisted almost immediately by TTC users.

These listings don't represent a stable market. They represent farming being so commonplace that new listings happen daily for the same items, low ones are immediately resold for more while older listings exist because they were priced slightly too high and overlooked thanks to constant stream of new listings. This is more like the farmers' minimum wage graph and how it has remained steady because GOLD accumulation has remained steady. There's a stable gold per hour rate that people can amass and so items are sold for how much per hour they value their farming time.

That doesn't mean we don't need more gold sinks to alleviate the market pressure of the wealthy, who hold the power to decide prices on a whim which the peasants will then follow as they have done before. You can already see new trends taking hold with motif prices which are 50% more what they were just yesterday, yet oddly enough all the prices are steady rather than fluctuating? That's the power of resale and the influence of the wealthy on the market by having the resources to buy out literally every listing of a product to determine the new cost.

Stock trends have followed similar patterns of holding and rising when a powerful investor enters the ring. Economic bubbles too are the result of driving a stock price well above its value. Real world has checks and balances to ensure that the rise is temporary as cash isn't infinite yet an MMO has the problem of cash actually being infinite and these items being viewed as necessities by the fans. So whether it takes 1 hour or 2 hours, they'll grind for the money either way to get it. Undercutters are normally what stabilize prices yet in ESO there is ample time for them to found and eliminated before the listing becomes common knowledge, especially with addons that automatically identify outlier listings for potential sharks to devour.

No, there are definitely a countable number of people sitting on literally millions of gold. It is, additionally, a very small number.

Also this is just bad analysis. Not only can I not tell what point you're trying to drive home, you are making some very fallacious arguments in general. For instance, where are these ultra-wealthy price setters getting their money? Someone has to be buying what they're selling. Are you trying to argue that buying low and selling high somehow undermines the stability of the market? You might take ethical issues with it, but since this is the kind of market we have to live with we need to analyze it using the appropriate methodology, and that methodology says that the average price people are willing to pay is higher than what the undercutters are trying to sell for. The stable price doesn't somehow not count just because there are imbalances of power and influence in the market.

Now, these ultra-wealthy players you're talking about already have a nearly infinite gold sink to play with : housing. If they aren't playing with that cosmetic system enough to hit them in he wallet then they are very unlikely to be using the outfit system enough to significantly affect their market control.

Recremen · February 2018

thedude33 wrote: »

doh, here I thought a new piece of house furniture had been added. Although I wasn't sure why they would add a gold sink when there aren't really any kitchens in the houses.

Golden Sink added, costs 3k crowns to purchase and then 1.5k crowns every time you want to turn it off or on.

xaraan · February 2018

Gold sinks take gold out of the market, not just move it from one player to another. True Gold sinks are like the outfit system, buying guild traders, etc.

Linaleah · February 2018

xaraan wrote: »

Gold sinks take gold out of the market, not just move it from one player to another. True Gold sinks are like the outfit system, buying guild traders, etc.

outfit system takes gold out of the market. housing with luxury and achievement vendors not to mention house costs - take gold out of the market. trading takes some gold of out the market by the way of listing and sale fees (only half the sales tax goes to trading guild, the rest is taken out of the game as are listing fees, which btw, are not refunded if you cancel a listing or it expires and you relist it).

if we didn't have enough gold sinks, trading would show inflation of prices on traded goods. you can see it in pretty much every game that uses trading of some sort. so tracking price changes of goods exchanged between the players is a good way to judge whether there is significantly more gold created vs taken out of the game.

disintegr8 · February 2018

heaven13 wrote: »

Some of the people sitting on over a million gold might be carefully saving it to buy into that other super expensive gold sink that was introduced...you know, the one called Homestead.

Already bought all of the houses except one, what else is there to spend gold on?
I'll be happy to spend gold changing outfits, better than buying outfit slots with crowns.

xaraan · February 2018

Linaleah wrote: »

xaraan wrote: »

Gold sinks take gold out of the market, not just move it from one player to another. True Gold sinks are like the outfit system, buying guild traders, etc.

outfit system takes gold out of the market. housing with luxury and achievement vendors not to mention house costs - take gold out of the market. trading takes some gold of out the market by the way of listing and sale fees (only half the sales tax goes to trading guild, the rest is taken out of the game as are listing fees, which btw, are not refunded if you cancel a listing or it expires and you relist it).

if we didn't have enough gold sinks, trading would show inflation of prices on traded goods. you can see it in pretty much every game that uses trading of some sort. so tracking price changes of goods exchanged between the players is a good way to judge whether there is significantly more gold created vs taken out of the game.

You didn't say anything that disagreed with what I said. So I guess this thread isn't complaining about outfitting system and everyone is in agreement the gold sinks that are with us working well.

idk · February 2018

OP is kinda correct but also incorrect.

The outfit system is not designed to be something we constantly change a single outfit. We can, but it is clearly intended that an outfit would be set and basically remain as is for awhile. If someone wants a few outfits they would get additional tabs and set up the additional outfits.

Of course, over time, we would probably want to change an outfit and it is only then we would see an additional cost. So it is not considered a constant and regular gold sink.

Linaleah · February 2018

xaraan wrote: »

Linaleah wrote: »

xaraan wrote: »

Gold sinks take gold out of the market, not just move it from one player to another. True Gold sinks are like the outfit system, buying guild traders, etc.

outfit system takes gold out of the market. housing with luxury and achievement vendors not to mention house costs - take gold out of the market. trading takes some gold of out the market by the way of listing and sale fees (only half the sales tax goes to trading guild, the rest is taken out of the game as are listing fees, which btw, are not refunded if you cancel a listing or it expires and you relist it).

if we didn't have enough gold sinks, trading would show inflation of prices on traded goods. you can see it in pretty much every game that uses trading of some sort. so tracking price changes of goods exchanged between the players is a good way to judge whether there is significantly more gold created vs taken out of the game.

You didn't say anything that disagreed with what I said. So I guess this thread isn't complaining about outfitting system and everyone is in agreement the gold sinks that are with us working well.

this thread is stating that additional gold sink was NOT needed and is instead and unnecessary burden. it is complaining about costs of outfit system being prohibitive in a game where gold is already not exactly overabundant.

Recremen · February 2018

Linaleah wrote: »

xaraan wrote: »

Linaleah wrote: »

xaraan wrote: »

Gold sinks take gold out of the market, not just move it from one player to another. True Gold sinks are like the outfit system, buying guild traders, etc.

outfit system takes gold out of the market. housing with luxury and achievement vendors not to mention house costs - take gold out of the market. trading takes some gold of out the market by the way of listing and sale fees (only half the sales tax goes to trading guild, the rest is taken out of the game as are listing fees, which btw, are not refunded if you cancel a listing or it expires and you relist it).

if we didn't have enough gold sinks, trading would show inflation of prices on traded goods. you can see it in pretty much every game that uses trading of some sort. so tracking price changes of goods exchanged between the players is a good way to judge whether there is significantly more gold created vs taken out of the game.

You didn't say anything that disagreed with what I said. So I guess this thread isn't complaining about outfitting system and everyone is in agreement the gold sinks that are with us working well.

this thread is stating that additional gold sink was NOT needed and is instead and unnecessary burden. it is complaining about costs of outfit system being prohibitive in a game where gold is already not exactly overabundant.

This is correct.