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

Jarryzzt · February 2018

I think using the three goods chosen by the OP is misleading.

First, because it is difficult to encapsulate an economy by choosing three goods all from the same category (high end crafting upgrade materials). Especially since the market price for any individual good can be a function of a number of factors, besides supply-demand even.

Second, because once you got all your gear to gold, unless you want extra sets, you're done. At least between patches. Which means the comparison excludes a number of veteran players (how many we cannot know without seeing server-side stats).

Third, because there are other ways to see if there is inflation besides looking at individual market prices - in this game, I mean. One is guild store location weekly bids - if those are escalating, you know there is more gold floating around in the system and thus a sink might be needed. Another would be average gold balances (account-wide, even) and total gold on hand across the entire player base, and how these trend over time (monetarism!). The best definition of "inflation" I'd ever heard personally was "too much money chasing too few assets" - well, gold is money in this case. Unfortunately, these are all server-side stats that we simply cannot see.

Separately the OP makes the assumption that "gold sinks" are only there to combat inflation. This is not entirely the case. Gold sinks are gold sinks, inflation is inflation, and it is perfectly possible that a developer introduces a gold sink in a stable or deflationary MMO economy - perhaps not entirely rational, but possible. Granted, gold sinks are more likely in an inflationary environment, so I'll give the OP that one.

In addition, the OP assumes that ZOS must have put gold prices on outfit changes for monetary reasons. I can think of at least one design reason - they do not want people to change their outfits frequently or very much, at least not without some consequence. [E.g. to make players "feel" like they have "achieved" something by grinding enough gold to re-dye one small part of their outfit.] It may sound like a not entirely rational reason, but without physically bugging ZOS offices, which I am too lazy to do because it would require purchasing a plane ticket to...wherever they are, then performing not less than two instances of the Airport Checkpoint Striptease Dance (and you should see me go at an airport checkpoint! why, I don't even need any music...), then actually breaking into the place...anyhow, without all that, unless they tell us we cannot be sure that this isn't the reason. And that would render the whole gold sink discussion fairly moot.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is what you get when the patch breaks my client so I have to...oh good, only 27948 MB remaining on the repair process, I should probably be done by next week, maybe.

rfennell_ESO · February 2018

The typical problem with gold sinks is that developers apply them to the system as whole without accounting for stratification of wealth.

Now, I'm not saying there is a way to account for wealth stratification (there likely isn't).

Basically, those that play a lot and/or trade a lot... will always have more gold than they can spend. Gold sinks will never amount to much to them. It's like taxing gasoline to make the wealthy pay their fair share (or whatever nonsense spun), if you increase the yearly cost of gasoline by 1k or 2k or 5k... it's not going to impact "the wealthy". It only really impacts those without wealth, which is what gold sinks tend to do.

So... adding more and more gold sinks really only affects the "average" player of "average" wealth. Broke players will either have to turn to Crown purchases or do without.... Average players as well, will likely have to use crowns at some point. The bulk of "wealth" in game being held by "the few" will not be impacted, so new gold sinks will pop up to combat the overall gold existence.

The only way to really combat the issue in a mmo is depreciation of horded gold. How you achieve that past just making it disappear over time would be complicated (and unpopular).

Recremen · February 2018

Jarryzzt wrote: »

I think using the three goods chosen by the OP is misleading.

First, because it is difficult to encapsulate an economy by choosing three goods all from the same category (high end crafting upgrade materials). Especially since the market price for any individual good can be a function of a number of factors, besides supply-demand even.

Second, because once you got all your gear to gold, unless you want extra sets, you're done. At least between patches. Which means the comparison excludes a number of veteran players (how many we cannot know without seeing server-side stats).

Third, because there are other ways to see if there is inflation besides looking at individual market prices - in this game, I mean. One is guild store location weekly bids - if those are escalating, you know there is more gold floating around in the system and thus a sink might be needed. Another would be average gold balances (account-wide, even) and total gold on hand across the entire player base, and how these trend over time (monetarism!). The best definition of "inflation" I'd ever heard personally was "too much money chasing too few assets" - well, gold is money in this case. Unfortunately, these are all server-side stats that we simply cannot see.

Separately the OP makes the assumption that "gold sinks" are only there to combat inflation. This is not entirely the case. Gold sinks are gold sinks, inflation is inflation, and it is perfectly possible that a developer introduces a gold sink in a stable or deflationary MMO economy - perhaps not entirely rational, but possible. Granted, gold sinks are more likely in an inflationary environment, so I'll give the OP that one.

In addition, the OP assumes that ZOS must have put gold prices on outfit changes for monetary reasons. I can think of at least one design reason - they do not want people to change their outfits frequently or very much, at least not without some consequence. [E.g. to make players "feel" like they have "achieved" something by grinding enough gold to re-dye one small part of their outfit.] It may sound like a not entirely rational reason, but without physically bugging ZOS offices, which I am too lazy to do because it would require purchasing a plane ticket to...wherever they are, then performing not less than two instances of the Airport Checkpoint Striptease Dance (and you should see me go at an airport checkpoint! why, I don't even need any music...), then actually breaking into the place...anyhow, without all that, unless they tell us we cannot be sure that this isn't the reason. And that would render the whole gold sink discussion fairly moot.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is what you get when the patch breaks my client so I have to...oh good, only 27948 MB remaining on the repair process, I should probably be done by next week, maybe.

Pick another item then, stop hypothesizing and look things up. The addon authors made it painfully easy for us. Try looking at other incredibly popular high-throughput items, like refined crafting materials. Try looking at some consumable price trends. The findings will be exactly the same.

Additionally, none of the other things you mentioned seem to matter when talking about inflation. Even if (and that's a big if) a lot of players are accumulating more gold over time, they aren't driving up the price of goods. It's almost like all these stories of people with millions of gold are just outliers, and that your best bet for tracking inflation or potential inflation remains the price of goods. Very obviously the people with too much money are not chasing too few assets.

As to your final point, it seems very unlikely that they'd want to restrict players just from a design standpoint. It's difficult enough to get all the motifs as-is. How many people out there know even half of them, let alone all? How many people own even half the dyes, let alone all? If we know the style and know the dyes, I think that's all the sense of pride and accomplishment that's needed. We should be able to have fun playing around with the combinations, not have this arbitrary restriction in place because they suddenly forgot what a good monetization strategy was.

Blacknight841 · February 2018

First i would like to point out that anyone with gold can easily manipulate the master merchant add on, and the average market prices. In fact the market is even more easily manipulated due to add ons like master merchant and people that blindly use them. IF you sell a bunch of mats systematically to the same individuals across multiple guilds, you can slowly show that the materials are increasing in value, despite the fact that all that has happened is someone has moved their temps through a trader to someone else who will in turn do the same thing and send them back. Process can be repeated and sure some gold is actually "sunk" on the traders. However the ripple effect is well in place and people who look at their master merchant will see that there are more sales at higher levels, so sellers will raise their prices, and the buyers who see the rise will also go and buy up the temps they need before the price gets even higher. Now the ball is really rolling, and all it took was a little push in the right spots. This is why three gold mats are by no means a good example of the markets stability, especially if you were to look at the motif market right now. Lastly, This is an incomplete data set. One would also need to provide evidence that there was clear market instability after the new gold sink was applied.

zaria · 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.

Motif prices are up as motifs are more useful now.
If they released an crafted set better than julianos prices for silk would go up.

Blacknight841 · February 2018

zaria wrote: »

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.

Motif prices are up as motifs are more useful now.
If they released an crafted set better than julianos prices for silk would go up.

The silk market is not kept in control by the need for people to make one new set. The silk market is effected by the number of people doing their daily writs. Once set for 680 does not compare to the 4,725 pieces of silk required to do max level writs on all 15 characters each week. Sure you would see a bump but that also all depends not the number of people willing to switch to the new set as well.

Carbonised · February 2018

Blacknight841 wrote: »

First i would like to point out that anyone with gold can easily manipulate the master merchant add on, and the average market prices. In fact the market is even more easily manipulated due to add ons like master merchant and people that blindly use them. IF you sell a bunch of mats systematically to the same individuals across multiple guilds, you can slowly show that the materials are increasing in value, despite the fact that all that has happened is someone has moved their temps through a trader to someone else who will in turn do the same thing and send them back. Process can be repeated and sure some gold is actually "sunk" on the traders. However the ripple effect is well in place and people who look at their master merchant will see that there are more sales at higher levels, so sellers will raise their prices, and the buyers who see the rise will also go and buy up the temps they need before the price gets even higher. Now the ball is really rolling, and all it took was a little push in the right spots. This is why three gold mats are by no means a good example of the markets stability, especially if you were to look at the motif market right now. Lastly, This is an incomplete data set. One would also need to provide evidence that there was clear market instability after the new gold sink was applied.

For someone who claims to be an owner of a trade guild, you seem to have very little knowledge of how trading actually works.

Your first obvious mistake is in the very first sentence of your post: "First i would like to point out that anyone with gold can easily manipulate the master merchant add on, and the average market prices."
Considering the massive, enormous amounts of gold tempers that get moved through traders every hour every day, that's just simply false. The same goes for every crafting material that sees heavy moving, such as ruby mats, tempers, alchemy mats, homestead mats and thelike. The sheer volume of trades makes it obvious that no single individual or small group can invluence the mean prices on that. List something too high, and it won't even sell (unless you're deliberately trying to scam by having a friend buy it for the inflated price, which again would just drown in the noise of the massive overall sales), list it too low and opprtunists will just buy and relist it at a higher value and you lose profit.
A few very high priced items with very high rarity can be somewhat controlled yes, but the examples OP provided are actually great, since gold tempers are far too valuable and far too numerous to be controlled by any small group. Gold temper prices are a great indicator on the overall economy.

Even if a mass effect is created such as you postulate, a REAL scarcity would lead to inflated prices, whereas a FALSE scarcity would just lead to more people listing their items, thus larger supply with no larger demand, as well as heavy undercutting, which again leads to a stable status quo in prices.
There are some great corrective mechanisms in an economy like this, which makes any price manipulation extremely hard and virtually impossible - unless you're specifically trying to control prices of very rare and very valuable items, such as Armiger motifs or the Redguard Bookcase recipes.

The amount of people who have no idea about statistics or economics is too damn high in this thread in general. OP, I think you're wasting your time trying to teach anyone anything here. People are quite content in their ignorance.

Jayman1000 · February 2018

Recremen wrote: »

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.

You're right, Im sorry but you are absolutely right. Prices have been falling, and yes that is an indication of deflation, not inflation; so it seems this supports your information in the OP. Thank you for correcting me here.

And yes those guilds are indeed naming inflation as cause for higher weekly sales requirements, so that is a bit puzzling, isn't it? This is not just some worthless guilds, it's the top trade guilds that say this.

Jayman1000 · February 2018

Blacknight841 wrote: »

First i would like to point out that anyone with gold can easily manipulate the master merchant add on, and the average market prices.

But that can easily be countered by anyone with a brain. At the end of the day, if your items doesn't sell, you're setting the price to high. Manipulation or not, whether your goods actually sell is what matters. That cannot be manipulated.

TheCyberDruid · February 2018

It's funny to see this thread and at the same time on PC EU the prices for mats are going down constantly. Potent Nirncrux used to be around 1k more expensive three weeks ago. I don't think that this is due to gold sinks, but rather due to the supply/demand. Which brings us to the point where we might look at the intent of the new 'gold sinks' and maybe rather call them 'crown incentive' instead

knaveofengland · February 2018

with all mmos you can tell if a new gold sink is needed , take a leaf out of eves online what one of the devs said 10+ years ago , look on the web and ebay to see if anyone is selling gold and what ever , if its small fry then no need if there is lots then gold sink is needed .

SGT_Wolfe101st · February 2018

TheCyberDruid wrote: »

It's funny to see this thread and at the same time on PC EU the prices are for mats are going down constantly. Potent Nirncrux used to be around 1k more expensive three weeks ago. I don't think that this is due to gold sinks, but rather due to the supply/demand. Which brings us to the point where we might look at the intent of the new 'gold sinks' and maybe rather call them 'crown incentive' instead ;)

Brilliant!!!!!!

Wrathmane · February 2018

Recremen wrote: »

]

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

Oh..... you mean its like a reflection of the real world..... where 1% of the population hold 99% of the worlds wealth?

Bax · February 2018

Just a note - 30 days graph is not really a good sample to prove that prices are stable.

Also I would be just glad if prices go more down together with amount of gold in circulation. Things in your original post are good example for quite high prices. You need to realize you need 8 pieces of those items to make upgrade something into legendary. And that considered you maxed particular passive in that crafting skill tree. That means if a newcommers want to make their gears legendary they need your price times 8 golds times number of equip pieces. That's huge amount of money. I started to do writs and dedicate my character to crafting just to avoid that. So if you want to talk about sinks as a tool to avoid scary prices for newcommers, it's clearly malfunctioned.

jubilante · February 2018

I don't even understand this complaint. It cost me 1k gold to make an outfit, with dyes and everything. That's cheap AF.

So you *choose* to spend 30k on an outfit because you want to use the rarest motifs and dyes -- how is that the system's fault?

Gold sinks are fine. It's the BS guilds-as-auction-houses system that screws the economy. Lack of visibility on prices without use of addons is just absurd and leads to the uninformed making poor decisions, and those with more time and money (ie, the brokers of the game) owning the market.

But that's a thread for another day.

MadLarkin · 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.

Every time they release a new, hyped feature, its like that episode of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia where they are told they are going to meet NFL player Donovan Mcnabb but it ends up just being a spokesperson for McDonalds.

NordSwordnBoard · February 2018

Don't forget gold "faucets". The same bots farm the same locations for weeks at a time, pumping gold into the economy.

They are apparently unstoppable, and take real money from players' pockets to send a bunch of gold into the game that shouldn't exist.

I wonder if this situation will cause an increase in bots/goldsellers as it sounds like an opportunity for them to increase supply. Everyone loses but the bots/goldsellers. Buyers are devaluing their own currency trying to get ahead, side-step farming, or keep their trader location.

I just get discouraged seeing bots when I farm mats. I wouldn't risk my account breaking ToS, but lack of enforcement (over a week these bots have been in the same exact location, doing the same loop) makes one think they are just accepted as a necessary evil.

heaven13 · February 2018

jubilante wrote: »

I don't even understand this complaint. It cost me 1k gold to make an outfit, with dyes and everything. That's cheap AF.

So you *choose* to spend 30k on an outfit because you want to use the rarest motifs and dyes -- how is that the system's fault?

Gold sinks are fine. It's the BS guilds-as-auction-houses system that screws the economy. Lack of visibility on prices without use of addons is just absurd and leads to the uninformed making poor decisions, and those with more time and money (ie, the brokers of the game) owning the market.

But that's a thread for another day.

lol you mean the motifs we went out and farmed bosses for or did vet dungeons for or traded our duplicates to get missing ones? Some people might have even spent crowns for the exclusive motifs. You're right...how dare we want to actually use those.

Linaleah · February 2018

jubilante wrote: »

I don't even understand this complaint. It cost me 1k gold to make an outfit, with dyes and everything. That's cheap AF.

So you *choose* to spend 30k on an outfit because you want to use the rarest motifs and dyes -- how is that the system's fault?

Gold sinks are fine. It's the BS guilds-as-auction-houses system that screws the economy. Lack of visibility on prices without use of addons is just absurd and leads to the uninformed making poor decisions, and those with more time and money (ie, the brokers of the game) owning the market.

But that's a thread for another day.

posts like this drive me nuts. EVEN IF YOU USE ONLY BASIC RACIAL STYLE - it costs 4500 gold to make a full outfit. with dyes and weapons and everything.

moreover. what is a bloody point of spending time, effort and/or gold to collect pretty and rare motifs if you are not going to use them???

your reasoning is just...

Bax · February 2018

Linaleah wrote: »

what is a bloody point of spending time, effort and/or gold to collect pretty and rare motifs if you are not going to use them

Exactly no point. Spend time, effort and/or gold only on motifs you are going to use then.

For me as a completionists, I collect them for my own ego. For you as someone who just want to create nice outfit - collect only those you'll actually use. No point to collect them all.

Recremen · February 2018

Jayman1000 wrote: »

Recremen wrote: »

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.

You're right, Im sorry but you are absolutely right. Prices have been falling, and yes that is an indication of deflation, not inflation; so it seems this supports your information in the OP. Thank you for correcting me here.

And yes those guilds are indeed naming inflation as cause for higher weekly sales requirements, so that is a bit puzzling, isn't it? This is not just some worthless guilds, it's the top trade guilds that say this.

Eh don't stress too much that some of your guildies are mislabeling economic phenomenon, there's no reason to expect they know much about economics just because they're in a trade guild. Now if the guildmaster themself starts using the wrong terms... that might be a little more peculiar. XD

Recremen · February 2018

jubilante wrote: »

I don't even understand this complaint. It cost me 1k gold to make an outfit, with dyes and everything. That's cheap AF.

So you *choose* to spend 30k on an outfit because you want to use the rarest motifs and dyes -- how is that the system's fault?

Gold sinks are fine. It's the BS guilds-as-auction-houses system that screws the economy. Lack of visibility on prices without use of addons is just absurd and leads to the uninformed making poor decisions, and those with more time and money (ie, the brokers of the game) owning the market.

But that's a thread for another day.

Actually, there is no rhyme or reason regarding the pricing of motifs in the outfit system. The rarest motif, Buoyant Armiger, is half the price to use in outfitting as much more common motifs like Apostle or Ebonshadow. And just because you choose to have no taste doesn't mean the system is well-designed. If people put in the work to learn the motifs they should be rewarded for it, not hit a second time with per-use gold fees. It's not a difficult concept.

Recremen · February 2018

heaven13 wrote: »

jubilante wrote: »

I don't even understand this complaint. It cost me 1k gold to make an outfit, with dyes and everything. That's cheap AF.

So you *choose* to spend 30k on an outfit because you want to use the rarest motifs and dyes -- how is that the system's fault?

Gold sinks are fine. It's the BS guilds-as-auction-houses system that screws the economy. Lack of visibility on prices without use of addons is just absurd and leads to the uninformed making poor decisions, and those with more time and money (ie, the brokers of the game) owning the market.

But that's a thread for another day.

lol you mean the motifs we went out and farmed bosses for or did vet dungeons for or traded our duplicates to get missing ones? Some people might have even spent crowns for the exclusive motifs. You're right...how dare we want to actually use those.

As someone who's collected all available motifs to date, I've :

Done hundreds of hours of PvP
Done dozens of hours of trials
Done hundred(s) of hours of dungeons
Done all the Thieve's Guild dailies
Done all the Dark Brotherhood dailies
Done all the Morrowind dailies
Done all the Wrothgar dailies
Done all the public dungeons
Done all the chest farming in Vvardenfell
Done all the chest farming in Craglorn
Done all the holiday things
Bought all the cash-shop-exclusive motifs

But some ass gonna come in here and tell me I should stop being lazy and go farm gold?? SMFH

Erekon · February 2018

It's not about gold, its about $$.
If they reduce the cost, it would affect their crown store revenue negatively.

AhPook_Is_Here · February 2018

I know I haven't played in about a year or so, but I remember when those tempers were 2k a pop. Wish there was a good market sometimes so you could see size at the B/A, someone should make a TBBO (Tam best bid/offer) netwerk. shouldn't be hard to sweep trader data with some helpers with a mod routing data to the external site.

NyassaV · February 2018

Well if this isn't more proof the majority of ZoS doesn't play this game IDK what is

Linaleah · February 2018

Bax wrote: »

Linaleah wrote: »

what is a bloody point of spending time, effort and/or gold to collect pretty and rare motifs if you are not going to use them

Exactly no point. Spend time, effort and/or gold only on motifs you are going to use then.

For me as a completionists, I collect them for my own ego. For you as someone who just want to create nice outfit - collect only those you'll actually use. No point to collect them all.

that's the problem. I was excited to use them, I was looking forward to using them. they are TOO. EXPENSIVE. TO USE.

weg0 · February 2018

PlagueSD wrote: »

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

Dude are you serious? As people have said, those are outliers... min and max don’t matter. It is average and trend.

Also, the min/max you are referring to are not from actual sales. They are TTC stats, which are based on people listing them for sale at that price with an extra 0; either by accident, or hoping some careless fool will not notice the 10x inflated price.

Rex-Umbra · February 2018

Gold mats prices low from bots not gold sinks.

Recremen · February 2018

Rex-Umbra wrote: »

Gold mats prices low from bots not gold sinks.

Implying bots are trading on the official market. 9_9 Gold sellers will sell mats directly same as gold, not take risks like going through traders.