Out of control crown exchange gouging destroying economy for new players.

VaranisArano · August 2021

OP, you say:

"The fact is, the ability to earn gold in-game has not increased, yet the amount of gold needed for most things has doubled or trippled. This means earning the gold for things like your first gold cp160 set is taking an inordinate amount of time grinding which is a reality that tends to put people off playing."

You know what hasn't changed, OP?

1. The ability of new players to level up their crafting, run around gathering nodes, and refine those materials for improvement mats.

2. The ability of new players to level up their crafting while doing crafting writs, another source of gold and improvement mats.

3. The ability of new players to break into extremely accessible markets like alchemy reagents, raw materials, nirncrux, and fishing, thus enabling them to make lots of gold in the current economy.

4. The ability of new CP 160 players to grind for the gear that they want to gold out - the player complaining about paying 3 million for a powerful assault staff is also a PVE-only player who says they don't want to head to Imperial City to grind Tel Var for it. Hmmm.

So as a player who made their fortune by following the above steps, especially step #3, I must confess that I'm not exactly handwringing over the poor new players who are having problems earning the gold to buy what they want as opposed farming for the mats to get their own improvement mats or farming for their own gear.

What this really reads to me is one of those periodic posts that amount to "I don't want to spend the time and effort to get the item myself, and I don't want to spend the time and effort to farm mkre gold, so would the players who did spend that time and effort please sell the items I want for cheaper?"

WhyMustItBe · August 2021

VaranisArano wrote: »

*snip*

I think you are missing the most important point. No one is saying that new players can't make gold like old players did. What I am saying, if you really think about it a minute, is that if the cost of things you want to BUY with gold has gone up 300%, but the TIME it takes to make that gold is the same, then the new player obviously has it 300% WORSE than the old player when they do those same things.

I don't know how much more clear I can be.

Also, leaving a real money transaction up to the "honor system" in an interface you facilitate while only providing services to redress grievances of people scammed by said system ONCE is a recipe for disaster.

There NEEDS to be a secure mediated exchange controlled through the game interface to prevent scamming FIRST.

We can talk about addressing the greed of monopoly crown sellers ruining the economy as a secondary priority.

moo_2021 · August 2021

If they formalize it, wouldn't the game become pay to win?

If everyone buys gold, but the supply of dropped items to be traded against remains the same, wouldn't it just cause inflation across all guild traders? In the end there would be no benefit.

Disturbed_One · August 2021

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

*snip*

I think you are missing the most important point. No one is saying that new players can't make gold like old players did. What I am saying, if you really think about it a minute, is that if the cost of things you want to BUY with gold has gone up 300%, but the TIME it takes to make that gold is the same, then the new player obviously has it 300% WORSE than the old player when they do those same things.

I don't know how much more clear I can be.

Also, leaving a real money transaction up to the "honor system" in an interface you facilitate while only providing services to redress grievances of people scammed by said system ONCE is a recipe for disaster.

There NEEDS to be a secure mediated exchange controlled through the game interface to prevent scamming FIRST.

We can talk about addressing the greed of monopoly crown sellers ruining the economy as a secondary priority.

So, the price of potent nirncrux is up 3x over the last year. Does it now take 3x as long to get potent nirncrux? No, it takes the same, so you CAN earn 3x as much gold in the same amount of time.

And we all agree with you that there needs to be a SECURE game interface to trade, nobody is questioning that.

But as somebody else said, criticizing those who are spending their real money as greedy because you don't like their prices, seems pretty selfish to me as well.

Kiralyn2000 · August 2021

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

What ZOS could do it create an interface for crown exchange that bases the exchange rate on the current demand, so that anyone trading crowns are only able to do so at the server set rate, through the game's interface.

Why do you assume that a Crown Exchange Interface would necessarily have a set exchange rate?

Star Trek Online, for ex, has an exchange... and the exchange rate is set by the players. The exchange rate varies up and down depending on supply & demand. The only control the devs put on it, is they set a maximum & minimum for the rate. Which, if ZoS followed that example, would have a pretty high top end.

(the exchange on STO is between Zen and a limited currency called Dilithium. You earn unrefined Dil from all sorts of things, but you can only refine 8k per day, per character. The maximum exchange rate is 500 Dil : 1 zen. So you can get 16 Zen/day, unless you run alts. So 500 is pretty darn expensive, compared to 700 gold:1 Crown.)

..actually, thinking about it, the other 'official' exchanges I've seen in past MMOs, also didn't have set rates. And yeah, as the gold supply in the games went up, new players couldn't afford much in the exchange. Natural side effect of a game having a endlessly increasing gold supply.

If you really want the exchange rate to go down, Gold has to become "more valuable"... which means they either need to cut the supply (reduce how much gold everyone gets), or increase the demand (more gold sinks, that people want to blow their gold on.)

Kiralyn2000 · August 2021

moo_2021 wrote: »

If they formalize it, wouldn't the game become pay to win?

If everyone buys gold, but the supply of dropped items to be traded against remains the same, wouldn't it just cause inflation across all guild traders? In the end there would be no benefit.

If it was a real Exchange, it's not "buying gold" from ZoS - it's trading it from other players. i.e, gold shifting back and forth (just like with Guild traders), not gold being created from thin air.

("gold being created from thin air", is everything else in the game - quest rewards, selling loot to vendors, gold drops, etc.)

VaranisArano · August 2021

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

*snip*

I think you are missing the most important point. No one is saying that new players can't make gold like old players did. What I am saying, if you really think about it a minute, is that if the cost of things you want to BUY with gold has gone up 300%, but the TIME it takes to make that gold is the same, then the new player obviously has it 300% WORSE than the old player when they do those same things.

I don't know how much more clear I can be.

You missed my point: those examples are all stuff that you and new players don't need to buy with gold in the first place.

Need improvement mats? New players can bypass the need for gold entirely by improving their crafting and doing crafting writs. That hasn't gotten any harder over time.

Need CP 160 gear? Don't buy it, just farm it. Again, that hasn't gotten harder over time.

Need potions? That's another frequent complaint by people who don't want to put the time in farming cornflower and columbine, then complain when the prices go up. Farming for mats has gotten easier over time, not harder.

If you feel that gold is inflated and prices are too high, then skip the whole process and ditch the need to pay gold. Just farm for the items directly - the difficulty, time, and effort of farming for the items haven't gotten any harder.

The only thing that's gotten harder is that players who wanted to use gold to skip the gameplay they don't like now have to pay more.

This really feels like one of those periodic complaints that "We shouldn't have to farm/do writs for our own improvement mats. Won't someone think of the "new players" and sell tempers for cheap?"

If you are going to use "new players" as your justification, try using better examples that actually require gold, and the answer isn't "If you don't want to pay the price sellers are setting, then play the game to get the item yourself."

Chips_Ahoy · August 2021

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

Chips_Ahoy wrote: »

"You can learn everything you need to know about a person by the things they take too seriously."

take it easy it's just a game.

Honestly I don't want to get off topic here. [snip]

It is simply a better designed system than the "honor system" ZOS developed, which I can't help but feel was always meant to be little more than a stop-gap that simply never got fleshed out.

Hopefully Microsoft can finish the job here. Because in addition to the skyrocketing prices, scamming is off the charts as well. As soon as the community found out they would only restore your items ONCE, that was basically the opening of the flood gate for scamming.

There NEEDS to be a controlled system for exchange when it comes to real money.

ok, then.

You started complaining that it takes a lot of work for the new ones to make gold.

I doubt that a level 1 will worry about that until a month later, maybe more, if it is not bored and leaves the game first for reasons that have nothing to do with the economy of the game.

I doubt they need a hero of none to defend them for something they don't need yet.

The price of things has tripled and the effort you say.

It costs me the same effort to obtain yellow crafting items as 3 years ago, when the ratio was 200/1

the honor system must be changed because those who use 3d party software are scammers.

Even when I agree to an in game exchange system, I've never had a problem with TCE, accusing them of scamers just because you don't like the ratio they handle, wow.

his playing field his rules, but I decide if I play, Who am I to decide the price of the crowns they buy with their hard earned real life money?

You are only seeing one side of the coin, the one that interests you.

as someone said above, a very selfish look, you are acting as judge and jury.

[edited to remove quote]

VaranisArano · August 2021

Disturbed_One wrote: »

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

*snip*

I think you are missing the most important point. No one is saying that new players can't make gold like old players did. What I am saying, if you really think about it a minute, is that if the cost of things you want to BUY with gold has gone up 300%, but the TIME it takes to make that gold is the same, then the new player obviously has it 300% WORSE than the old player when they do those same things.

I don't know how much more clear I can be.

Also, leaving a real money transaction up to the "honor system" in an interface you facilitate while only providing services to redress grievances of people scammed by said system ONCE is a recipe for disaster.

There NEEDS to be a secure mediated exchange controlled through the game interface to prevent scamming FIRST.

We can talk about addressing the greed of monopoly crown sellers ruining the economy as a secondary priority.

So, the price of potent nirncrux is up 3x over the last year. Does it now take 3x as long to get potent nirncrux? No, it takes the same, so you CAN earn 3x as much gold in the same amount of time.

And we all agree with you that there needs to be a SECURE game interface to trade, nobody is questioning that.

But as somebody else said, criticizing those who are spending their real money as greedy because you don't like their prices, seems pretty selfish to me as well.

Pretty much. I'm all for ZOS creating a more secure way to trade Crowns for gifts/gold - in fact, I recall me and others pointing out this flaw when ZOS first announced it.

But the drop rate of nirncrux hasn't changed since One Tamriel. The drop rate of gold mats from refinement/crafting writs, and the ability of players to farm their own CP 160 gear hasn't changed.

Fundamentally, the ability of players to get the items they need to play hasn't changed, only their ability to pay gold for those items. Fundamentally, the ability of players to get items that they can sell to other players hasn't changed.

kargen27 · August 2021

Even if ZoS did set a price for crowns to be sold there is a work around. The player with the crowns would simply ask for some up front gold before the exchange is made. Wouldn't be any more risky than what we have now.

The problem with setting up an in game secure method of trading crowns for gold is we are not trading crowns for gold. We are trading items in the crown store for gold. They would need to change the way crowns work before they could even entertain offering the feature. Crowns are not in game so would have to be added to the game.

trackdemon5512 · August 2021

tmbrinks wrote: »

trackdemon5512 wrote: »

@WhyMustItBe

ZOS has no control over the crown exchange rate which is solely a secondary market operated and controlled by individual players and set by concurrent in-game economy trends.

The prices of crowns remains the same in all territories. The exchange of crowns to DLC material hasn’t changed. None of this has changed in YEARS so ZOS changing anything now won’t do anything.

Your issue really is with how Add-Ons and the nature of PC players has led to PC servers having way too much gold thus devaluing currency to the point that the exchange rate is as you alluded to “ridiculous”.

None of the consoles have exchange rates anything close to what PC has. PS4 NA notably is steady at 100:1 and has been since crown exchanges were introduced.

Except that 100:1 is actually about the same as the 600:1 (taking the middle) on PC/NA.

I can do writs on 36 characters on PC/NA, running two instances, in about 45 minutes. I make, at current PC/NA prices, about 1.5 million gold worth of "loot" if I sell it all

Talking with people in the crafting forum, the average was on you being able to do writs on about 8-12 characters in that same amount of time (depending on if you pre-craft or not). At PS4 prices, that's probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 200-300k worth of "loot" in that time.

So the Time Ratio to Crown ratio is almost the same... and that's what buying crowns with gold is... is saving you time, so the ratios are fair

Yes, add-ons help make more gold, and have made things more expensive, but they also save you time, and those effects counteract one-another to come out almost equal. No need to ban add-ons, they're just different economies. (Now, if this game was cross platform, that'd be a whole different story)

100:1 isn’t the same as 600:1 in that in ESO the methods of generating gold are standardized across the platforms. No one platform has an in-game mechanic designed by the developers that would account six times as much gold to be accrued casually by players on PC versus the consoles. Even now 1000:1 makes no sense.

Your (and admittedly my) activity of doing crafting dailies on multiple characters is an outlier thing. Extremely few do it on 18 toons and far far less do it on more that one account. That much gold alone shouldn’t account for the huge discrepancy in secondary crown market exchange rates.

PC prices have run themselves into a vicious cycle mainly due to add-ons. It’s easier to do more craft dailies, farm more nodes, complete content, etc. That injects more gold into the system that can’t be eliminated through normal play and so players increase the price of what they sell their goods for.

And while long term players are conditioned to be fine, just like the stock or housing market it’s the new/casual players that have extreme difficulty getting in. A million gold doesn’t come easy and setting up 18 crafting characters is not a casual thing.

With regards to add-ons it would be best to relegate them to PTS and not live. The negative effects they’re having are becoming clear. Foremost is that content designed for PC difficulty has historically rendered tackling some content and achievements on console impossible. But that affects only the top PVE/PVP players. The effects on the ESO economy are far reaching and changes to the PC would unduly affect consoles (who have no issue) when inevitably ported over.

Skyrim, Fallout, etc all deserve to have add-ons and mods as their single player experiences. But with ESO being a community one and add-ons going beyond cosmetic it presents different issues.

tmbrinks · August 2021

trackdemon5512 wrote: »

tmbrinks wrote: »

trackdemon5512 wrote: »

@WhyMustItBe

ZOS has no control over the crown exchange rate which is solely a secondary market operated and controlled by individual players and set by concurrent in-game economy trends.

The prices of crowns remains the same in all territories. The exchange of crowns to DLC material hasn’t changed. None of this has changed in YEARS so ZOS changing anything now won’t do anything.

Your issue really is with how Add-Ons and the nature of PC players has led to PC servers having way too much gold thus devaluing currency to the point that the exchange rate is as you alluded to “ridiculous”.

None of the consoles have exchange rates anything close to what PC has. PS4 NA notably is steady at 100:1 and has been since crown exchanges were introduced.

Except that 100:1 is actually about the same as the 600:1 (taking the middle) on PC/NA.

I can do writs on 36 characters on PC/NA, running two instances, in about 45 minutes. I make, at current PC/NA prices, about 1.5 million gold worth of "loot" if I sell it all

Talking with people in the crafting forum, the average was on you being able to do writs on about 8-12 characters in that same amount of time (depending on if you pre-craft or not). At PS4 prices, that's probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 200-300k worth of "loot" in that time.

So the Time Ratio to Crown ratio is almost the same... and that's what buying crowns with gold is... is saving you time, so the ratios are fair

Yes, add-ons help make more gold, and have made things more expensive, but they also save you time, and those effects counteract one-another to come out almost equal. No need to ban add-ons, they're just different economies. (Now, if this game was cross platform, that'd be a whole different story)

100:1 isn’t the same as 600:1 in that in ESO the methods of generating gold are standardized across the platforms. No one platform has an in-game mechanic designed by the developers that would account six times as much gold to be accrued casually by players on PC versus the consoles. Even now 1000:1 makes no sense.

Your (and admittedly my) activity of doing crafting dailies on multiple characters is an outlier thing. Extremely few do it on 18 toons and far far less do it on more that one account. That much gold alone shouldn’t account for the huge discrepancy in secondary crown market exchange rates.

PC prices have run themselves into a vicious cycle mainly due to add-ons. It’s easier to do more craft dailies, farm more nodes, complete content, etc. That injects more gold into the system that can’t be eliminated through normal play and so players increase the price of what they sell their goods for.

And while long term players are conditioned to be fine, just like the stock or housing market it’s the new/casual players that have extreme difficulty getting in. A million gold doesn’t come easy and setting up 18 crafting characters is not a casual thing.

With regards to add-ons it would be best to relegate them to PTS and not live. The negative effects they’re having are becoming clear. Foremost is that content designed for PC difficulty has historically rendered tackling some content and achievements on console impossible. But that affects only the top PVE/PVP players. The effects on the ESO economy are far reaching and changes to the PC would unduly affect consoles (who have no issue) when inevitably ported over.

Skyrim, Fallout, etc all deserve to have add-ons and mods as their single player experiences. But with ESO being a community one and add-ons going beyond cosmetic it presents different issues.

Disagree. Everybody has access to the same add-ons. There's nobody participating in the PC economy who can't use those same add-ons to get the same goals.

Again, I'd agree if the game was cross-platform, but it's not, so it's a level playing field.

Ken_Koerperich · August 2021

Million gold, at the rate I make it, ON ONE char = MONTHS....

trackdemon5512 · August 2021

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

Yeah, what is there to "address"?

It's entirely player-driven, outside of 1) having a crown sale (so there's more crowns in circulation), or 2) banning trading outright; there's nothing ZoS can really do about this.

There totally is though, and I alluded to it in the OP.

It even has a precedent. World of Warcraft did something similar to what I suggest with their server-side setting of the exchange rate on tokens.

What ZOS could do it create an interface for crown exchange that bases the exchange rate on the current demand, so that anyone trading crowns are only able to do so at the server set rate, through the game's interface.

The current system is a stop-gap that relies on the "honor system" of players not scamming each other, and since ZOS will only restore your scammed gold/crowns ONCE, it creates an incentive to create throw-away accounts to scam people.

It also allows the human tendency to obsess over monopoly and exclusivity as a self valuation and status mechanism to run roughshod over the entire gaming economy in pursuit of that addiction.

A simple in-game interface for exchanging crowns with a server-set exchange rate would eliminate all of the scamming going on and bring the runaway inflation under control so that new players aren't increasingly pushed out of the market.

Much as it is in real life.

A simple in-game crown exchange market would be nice and definitely lead to fewer scamming incidents.

A server-set exchange rate is an extremely bad idea as it would render a crown exchange meaningless. Doing so would be ZOS saying [X amt of Gold] = [Y amt of Crowns] = [Z amt of Real World Currency]. By the transitive property ZOS would create a very real Gold = Real World Money market. They would set themselves up to just be kicked off Microsoft and Sony platforms at the very least.

If you want to control the crown secondary market you need to address and standardize the amount of gold within the economies and ensure a healthy create/remove system. Seeing as the consoles have such it’s clear the game itself is designed to efficiently remove gold out of its system on its own. That just leaves add-ons/player behaviors and not bots as the outlying reasons for why so much gold exists solely in the PC markets.

Kiralyn2000 · August 2021

Ken_Koerperich wrote: »

Million gold, at the rate I make it, ON ONE char = MONTHS....

When I bothered to specifically Farm Up Gold for a big purchase (Hunding's Palatial Hall, 1.3mil) in whatever year housing first came out, it took me a bit more than a month. Writs + basic thievery, on several alts. No trading with other players, not a huge amount of time each day. (And this was without crafting mods)

I've got 8 characters now, and could do it faster if I chose to.

Then you have the big market traders, who make more in a week than I have since 2017.

But this is basically true of every MMO in existence - the player who just has one character, and who doesn't go out of their way to "farm gold", will earn a lot less than someone with a dozen alts who's actively working at it. The new player in a years-old established MMO, will have a hard time breaking in to the economy.

It's just the nature of the beast. /shrug

WhyMustItBe · August 2021

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

Why do you assume that a Crown Exchange Interface would necessarily have a set exchange rate?

Star Trek Online, for ex, has an exchange... and the exchange rate is set by the players. The exchange rate varies up and down depending on supply & demand. The only control the devs put on it, is they set a maximum & minimum for the rate. Which, if ZoS followed that example, would have a pretty high top end.

I would actually be fine with that. Currently the only reason prices are skyrocketing to 300+% in months is because those "official" crown exchange sites are greedy, and keep increasing the fee they charge for "safe" transactions.

If ZOS had a proper built-in safe transaction capability those sites would be obsolete and their price gouging would largely go away as a consequence of players setting their own prices at sane and rational levels not having to worry about getting scammed anymore.

This whole problem stems from ZOS's half-baked method of doing real money exchange. So I am all for letting the players set the price so long as it is mediated by the game UI and scam-proof, where both parties must commit the items before the exchange is allowed, unlike now.

It would also cut down on support tickets from people getting scammed, and customer dissatisfaction being told they can't restore their scammed items because they had already restored their scammed items once before, which is their current policy.

When dealing with real money this is simply not acceptable business practice and they need to make it a priority to fix this.

LordArconSeptim · August 2021

You guys never heard of second Life currency exchange? Damn

corrosivechains · August 2021

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

ZOS, I feel it is in your interest to address this issue.

As someone who has played since launch this doesn't affect me so much. But for new players it could become a huge deterrent to investing in the game moving forward.

Basically for the past year, prices on crown exchanges have skyrocketed almost 300%. This is for no reason other than greed of crown sellers. There is no more gold in the game, and no shortage of things which cost gold, from furniture to gold vendor to buying houses with gold, etc.

Yet we have seen the average exchange rate go from 300:1 to well over 700:1 in just a matter of months.

The result of this, has been the radical overpricing of many other things in the game, as the calue of gold has been artificially depreciated. For a perfect example, look at single item prices for things like this: Powerful Assault Ice Staff 3 Million Gold

Just last year, weapons for popular sets like Mother's Sorrow in gold with good traits would go for MAYBE around a million gold.

As prices continue to inflate artificially out of control due to a handful of "official" crown trading guilds ratcheting up the prices due to greed, it is creating a huge barrier to entry for newer players enjoying all the things you would normally be able to afford with a reasonable time investment in earning gold.

The fact is, the ability to earn gold in-game has not increased, yet the amount of gold needed for most things has doubled or trippled. This means earning the gold for things like your first gold cp160 set is taking an inordinate amount of time grinding which is a reality that tends to put people off playing.

ZOS: Is it time we follow through on the "gifting" system and make the exchange rate for crowns official, instead of relying on 3rd party sites and countless scammers to set the price, which is increasingly out of control?

@ZOS_GinaBruno any plans to move in this direction?

It wasn't a matter of months. Hell, it wasn't even a matter of weeks. I started playing again mid July when the crowns were going for 300:1.

It's pretty obvious and blatant that TCE and WCE purposefully inflated the ratios in anticipation of Quakecon, so that when the annual Crown Sale goes into effect, the average price looks like a "good deal". This was a common practice in retail until government stepped in and put the kaibosh on it, as it is price fixing and anti-consumer.

tmbrinks · August 2021

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

Why do you assume that a Crown Exchange Interface would necessarily have a set exchange rate?

Star Trek Online, for ex, has an exchange... and the exchange rate is set by the players. The exchange rate varies up and down depending on supply & demand. The only control the devs put on it, is they set a maximum & minimum for the rate. Which, if ZoS followed that example, would have a pretty high top end.

I would actually be fine with that. Currently the only reason prices are skyrocketing to 300+% in months is because those "official" crown exchange sites are greedy, and keep increasing the fee they charge for "safe" transactions.

Why lie? Right from TCE's announcements page. They REDUCED the taxes on sales and INCREASED the discount they give.

WhyMustItBe · August 2021

tmbrinks wrote: »

Why lie? Right from TCE's announcements page. They REDUCED the taxes on sales and INCREASED the discount they give.

So if I raised the price on a cheeseburger from $5 to $15 but posted a sign that "we have lowered our service fees on cheeseburgers by 45%," you're telling me you would actually believe this was a good deal?

Fascinating.

tmbrinks · August 2021

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

tmbrinks wrote: »

Why lie? Right from TCE's announcements page. They REDUCED the taxes on sales and INCREASED the discount they give.

So if I raised the price on a cheeseburger from $5 to $15 but posted a sign that "we have lowered our service fees on cheeseburgers by 45%," you're telling me you would actually believe this was a good deal?

Fascinating.

If the supply and demand dictated that the price go up to $15, like they have with crowns, yes. The reasons crowns have gone up have been given multiple times in this thread, but you casually don't respond to or acknowledge any of those posts... (curious)

Sounds like you have a personal vendetta against this... and I stand by my first statement.

Disturbed_One · August 2021

tmbrinks wrote: »

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

tmbrinks wrote: »

Why lie? Right from TCE's announcements page. They REDUCED the taxes on sales and INCREASED the discount they give.

So if I raised the price on a cheeseburger from $5 to $15 but posted a sign that "we have lowered our service fees on cheeseburgers by 45%," you're telling me you would actually believe this was a good deal?

Fascinating.

The reasons crowns have gone up have been given multiple times in this thread, but you casually don't respond to or acknowledge any of those posts... (curious)

My 2 year old does the same thing... they think if they don't acknowledge it, it doesn't exist

kargen27 · August 2021

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

tmbrinks wrote: »

Why lie? Right from TCE's announcements page. They REDUCED the taxes on sales and INCREASED the discount they give.

So if I raised the price on a cheeseburger from $5 to $15 but posted a sign that "we have lowered our service fees on cheeseburgers by 45%," you're telling me you would actually believe this was a good deal?

Fascinating.

If they could only make 1000 cheeseburgers a day but consistently had 3000 people a day wanting cheeseburgers would you expect them to keep the price of their burgers the same?

corrosivechains · August 2021

All of these excuses would absolutely make sense if the inflation was actually gradual over months. But it wasn't. It was literally 300:1 exchange up until Quakecon was announced, then jumped to 700:1 in 2 days. That's very blatant.

You can literally go onto the TCE and WCE discords, check out the backlogs and verify this for yourselves. This has absolutely nothing to do with price increases in other countries or a glut of "new gold" in the game. It was a deliberate spike with the foreknowledge of Crown Sales coming up, so when the price drops back down to "normal" it looks like people are getting a good deal.

For Reference, Quakecon was announced July 15th.

trackdemon5512 · August 2021

corrosivechains wrote: »

All of these excuses would absolutely make sense if the inflation was actually gradual over months. But it wasn't. It was literally 300:1 exchange up until Quakecon was announced, then jumped to 700:1 in 2 days. That's very blatant.

You can literally go onto the TCE and WCE discords, check out the backlogs and verify this for yourselves. This has absolutely nothing to do with price increases in other countries or a glut of "new gold" in the game. It was a deliberate spike with the foreknowledge of Crown Sales coming up, so when the price drops back down to "normal" it looks like people are getting a good deal.

For Reference, Quakecon was announced July 15th.

Has to be more at work:

1) There are four crown sales a year historically: Jan, April, August, and Nov. We would see this gouging behavior every time like clockwork if the crown sales were to blame.

2) Usually we see crown to gold rates drop during these sale below their normal. Sellers buy the biggest packs for 40% off and sell for slightly under or regular prices. They still take home more gold. Selling higher before doesn’t work unless there is desperation. That desperation clearly only exists on PC right now.

3) The last year has seen the introduction of home gifting, crown gems for radiants, and endeavors. While the endeavor system is too new to have any real effect on the crown market, the former two have had serious effects. Home gifting wipes out large amounts of stockpiled crowns while radiants for gems not only wipes out saved crown gems but also encourages the purchase of crowns in order to get more gems.

4) These exchanges can’t possibly control all of the crown selling secondary market. If so it’s another self inflicted wound caused by the PC community itself like add-ons.

5) Increased accumulation of gold has to be a factor as prices for everything on PC have correspondingly increased dramatically. Crown Sale market manipulation wouldn't account for the sky high comparative crown values seen the last several months. PC prices have been well north of 600 to 1 for quite some time.

Disturbed_One · August 2021

corrosivechains wrote: »

All of these excuses would absolutely make sense if the inflation was actually gradual over months. But it wasn't. It was literally 300:1 exchange up until Quakecon was announced, then jumped to 700:1 in 2 days. That's very blatant.

You can literally go onto the TCE and WCE discords, check out the backlogs and verify this for yourselves. This has absolutely nothing to do with price increases in other countries or a glut of "new gold" in the game. It was a deliberate spike with the foreknowledge of Crown Sales coming up, so when the price drops back down to "normal" it looks like people are getting a good deal.

For Reference, Quakecon was announced July 15th.

I checked those "backlogs" and this is what there was...
Not surprisingly... more false "claims"

January 28th 2021 - 400:1
March 2nd 2021 - 425:1
April 6th 2021 - 400:1
May 21st 2021 - 425:1
June 2nd 2021 - 450:1
June 14th 2021 - 475:1
June 19th 2021 - 500:1
June 27th 2021 - 600:1
July 1st 2021 - 750:1
July 14 2021 - 700:1

Yes, there was a big jump from Mid June to July.
But nowhere did it go from 300:1 to 700:1 in 2 days (when you use the word literally, it usually indicates that it did exactly that and that you're not using hyperbole)

1. Steam loophole was mostly closed in June.
2. Release of popular crates (Iron Atro) and returning crates (Baandari announced)

Yeah, there was a jump... but prices hadn't been 300:1 at all in 2021, 400:1 was the minimum.

(These are for TCE... in WCE each seller sets their own price, so I don't know how the claim above is even valid)

WhyMustItBe · August 2021

tmbrinks wrote: »

If the supply and demand dictated that the price go up to $15, like they have with crowns, yes. The reasons crowns have gone up have been given multiple times in this thread, but you casually don't respond to or acknowledge any of those posts... (curious)

Sounds like you have a personal vendetta against this... and I stand by my first statement.

We have only your word that demand for crowns has increased, or supply of gold increased.

Yet these "facts" you site are not supported by the evidence. Some said the price of crowns in Australia had increased 300%. But they are the same as PC NA so that doesn't pan out. So where is this evidence then?

Your opinion, while duly noted, is NOT evidence.

The supply of gold has not changed. Even people arguing against the 300% exchange rate gouge being totally manufactured by monopoly control have accepted and argued this. So, if the supply of gold hasn't changed, then we are left with the supply of crowns.

What statistically significant event do you propose has occurred since mid June to jack the exchange rate from 300:1 to over 700:1? There hasn't been a crown sale so you can't pin it on that.

In the absence of evidence of such an event, I stand by my original assessment of price gouging by monopoly exchange websites in the absence of a responsible secure exchange system in-game offered by the company.

ZOS are currently enabling this by not implementing a proper secure in-game exchange.

ZOS_GregoryV · August 2021

Greetings all,

After review, we would like to remind everyone that all posts should be kept civil, constructive, and within the Community Guidelines. Real-world politics is a violation of those rules and is stated as follows:

Inappropriate Content and Language: Certain topics and subjects are deemed inappropriate and not permitted on the official ESO forums. Things that we consider inappropriate are usually illegal, extremely volatile or violent, obscene, vulgar, or simply inappropriate for an official game forum such as ours. Inappropriate content on the ESO forums includes, but is not limited to the following:
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One specific term we’d like to call out, as well, is the term “gay.” It is never appropriate to use “gay” as a derogatory term.

If there may be any questions in regards to the rules, please take a few moments to review them here.

Thank you for your understanding,
-Greg-

tmbrinks · August 2021

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

tmbrinks wrote: »

If the supply and demand dictated that the price go up to $15, like they have with crowns, yes. The reasons crowns have gone up have been given multiple times in this thread, but you casually don't respond to or acknowledge any of those posts... (curious)

Sounds like you have a personal vendetta against this... and I stand by my first statement.

We have only your word that demand for crowns has increased, or supply of gold increased.

Yet these "facts" you site are not supported by the evidence. Some said the price of crowns in Australia had increased 300%. But they are the same as PC NA so that doesn't pan out. So where is this evidence then?

Your opinion, while duly noted, is NOT evidence.

The supply of gold has not changed. Even people arguing against the 300% exchange rate gouge being totally manufactured by monopoly control have accepted and argued this. So, if the supply of gold hasn't changed, then we are left with the supply of crowns.

What statistically significant event do you propose has occurred since mid June to jack the exchange rate from 300:1 to over 700:1? There hasn't been a crown sale so you can't pin it on that.

In the absence of evidence of such an event, I stand by my original assessment of price gouging by monopoly exchange websites in the absence of a responsible secure exchange system in-game offered by the company.

ZOS are currently enabling this by not implementing a proper secure in-game exchange.

You know when you live in a country like Australia, or Argentina, you buy crowns based on the local currency. And that currency may be "more expensive" relative to others that buy crowns.

In a similar vein, I live in a very low cost of living part of the United States. I make enough money that I own a house, have a nice vehicle, can pay for plenty of amenities. I'm not hurting for money at all. Yet, if I made that same money living in California, I wouldn't even be able to afford the rent on a studio apartment. Somebody in my career in San Francisco would be making nearly 4 times as much money as me. Yet our crowns, because we live in the same country, cost the exact same amount of money. To a person in San Fran making 200k a year, dropping $150 on 21k crowns is almost nothing. Me doing the same... that's 40% of my entire MORTGAGE payment on my house, for cosmetics.

Now, you go to a country like Argentina... where somebody makes the equivalent of $200 US or less a MONTH... crowns used to be like $5 or $6 (equivalent US dollars) for a 5,500 pack there, so they could potentially afford to buy them. Now, with the prices increased, they are $15/20 (equivalent US dollars), and they can't afford to buy them anymore, you're not going to be spending 10% of your monthly income on crowns... right?

The statistically significant event was ZoS raising the price on crowns 200-300% in some markets, and Steam closing the loophole where people from wealthier countries were using a VPN to say they were from Argentina to buy cheap, cheap crowns, sell them in game, and then sell the gold in USD making a profit. I hope every single one of those people who did that got banned from the game for RMT, and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law because they were committing fraud.

There are plenty who say the demand has gone up. More players in the game means more gold being made. Basic economics, when you print a bunch of money, the value of it goes down, and that leads to inflation. I thought they taught this in 9th grade econ.

WhyMustItBe · August 2021

tmbrinks wrote: »

...

Yet Australia's currency exchange rate is only around 33% above the dollar. While Argentina's rate maybe increased more significantly with crown price normalization, there would have to be a statistically significant percentage of the NA servers playing from Argentina to account for this massive jump, which is of course not the case. So the numbers don't add up here.

tmbrinks wrote: »

More players in the game means more gold being made. Basic economics, when you print a bunch of money, the value of it goes down, and that leads to inflation. I thought they taught this in 9th grade econ.

That only works for currency that goes back into circulation. We are talking about gold to crown exchange. When that gold is spent, it doesn't go back into the economy to cause inflation, it gets shifted. You don't get crowns you can resell through the exchange you get gifted items that cannot be resold. So the total gold quantity isn't effected.

As far as more players more gold that is a simplistic assessment that assumes that new players are only spending gold on crowns, and not bag and bank space upgrades and all the other things people spend gold on. Plus new players are not making tons of money doing crafting writs on 18+ characters or farming max level gear to sell on guild stores so their net contribution to total game gold is marginal.

Also, what are we basing the assumption of a massive influx of new players in the past 2 months that have seen this massive exchange rate hike, when threads around here have been posting a huge DROP in players in that time, since New World went to Beta and that Chinese MMO released?

These sound like made up statistics that are in direct conflict with observable trends.