What happened to the in-game economy?! o.O

HazardousMetal · August 2021

I took a break from the game around the launch of Greymoor and came back tonight after getting Blackwood... why are the prices of everything so insanely inflated compared to just a year ago? Items like potions on the marketboard are over double the cost they once were and the Crown to Gold exchange rate is like 600:1 (when I left it was about 200:1). One Chromium Plating is 220k!

What did I miss?

Everest_Lionheart · August 2021

Everyone has CP into the gold boosts. Lots more good to go around. Plus new sets that need to be golded out including one crafted set that many rushed to get day 1. The crown exchange I have no idea why it blown up. People impatient with endeavors maybe wanting those shiny new items in the store. Endeavors do take a long time to accumulate.

colossalvoids · August 2021

Crown ones are related to zenimax eliminating some ways of getting them for cheap through some regional deals and also introduction of house trade, there's more people with gold apparently also so people are buying crates in insane amounts and supply is draining fast. Some sellers are also becoming too rich to care about selling/buying so here we are, especially on EU with 1k+.

Mats are more expensive overall due to bots wipe and other stuff like Blackwood and companions aren't drawing enough players back or making them stay for long to collect said mats etc. so things happening and players act accordingly as always.

tsaescishoeshiner · August 2021

The Collections system boosted the price of materials by a lot, and they've steadily been increasing since. Pretty sure that's also part of why Crowns are more expensive, since people often sell Crowns to buy gear and upgrades (right?). Though what the person above said is part of it, too, about them raising the price of Crowns in a lot of countries where they were cheaper.

I don't think it's at all related to the amount of players joining or leaving the game. I'm meeting a lot of returning players lately.

Mumbles_the_Tank · August 2021

Everest_Lionheart wrote: »

Everyone has CP into the gold boosts. Lots more good to go around. Plus new sets that need to be golded out including one crafted set that many rushed to get day 1. The crown exchange I have no idea why it blown up. People impatient with endeavors maybe wanting those shiny new items in the store. Endeavors do take a long time to accumulate.

CP has nothing to do with it. The gold added from this source is absolute peanut shavings compared to the trader, carry and crowns parts of the economy.

ResidentContrarian · August 2021

Don't buy it and only sell...works well for me!

mocap · August 2021

HazardousMetal wrote: »

Crown to Gold exchange rate is like 600:1

Wake up Neo, it's 1000-1500 per Crown.

SeaGtGruff · August 2021

mocap wrote: »

HazardousMetal wrote: »

Crown to Gold exchange rate is like 600:1

Wake up Neo, it's 1000-1500 per Crown.

But that depends on the server, doesn't it?

Aznarb · August 2021

HazardousMetal wrote: »

I took a break from the game around the launch of Greymoor and came back tonight after getting Blackwood... why are the prices of everything so insanely inflated compared to just a year ago? Items like potions on the marketboard are over double the cost they once were and the Crown to Gold exchange rate is like 600:1 (when I left it was about 200:1). One Chromium Plating is 220k!

What did I miss?

Ahah, had the same shock when I'd come back. I left chromium was 80k which is already stupidly expensive, and now 180k is the minimum I can find, wtf xD

corrosivechains · August 2021

HazardousMetal wrote: »

I took a break from the game around the launch of Greymoor and came back tonight after getting Blackwood... why are the prices of everything so insanely inflated compared to just a year ago? Items like potions on the marketboard are over double the cost they once were and the Crown to Gold exchange rate is like 600:1 (when I left it was about 200:1). One Chromium Plating is 220k!

What did I miss?

Don't worry, the Crown sellers have assured us that the reason why everything was so inflated was because of mods which have existed long before this inflation started, and lack of Crown Sales. This Crown sale will TOTALLY make the prices drop and even back out the inflation issues in game, despite holding steady going into day 2 with even less sellers posting that they're willing to sell

.

[snip]
[edited for conspiracy theory]

Fennwitty · August 2021

There's too much gold sitting around in (some) people's banks.

Nothing else to spend it on except guild trading.

tmbrinks · August 2021

Mumbles_the_Tank wrote: »

Everest_Lionheart wrote: »

Everyone has CP into the gold boosts. Lots more good to go around. Plus new sets that need to be golded out including one crafted set that many rushed to get day 1. The crown exchange I have no idea why it blown up. People impatient with endeavors maybe wanting those shiny new items in the store. Endeavors do take a long time to accumulate.

CP has nothing to do with it. The gold added from this source is absolute peanut shavings compared to the trader, carry and crowns parts of the economy.

Those 3 three things add precisely ZERO gold to the game. They are simply TRANSFERS of gold.

The CP most assuredly adds gold to the game, since it's created out of "thin air" when you do a quest or kill a mob.

bmnoble · August 2021

Well anyone that would attempt to sell stuff at a seemingly more reasonable price is going to get their stock bought out and re-listed by someone else for a profit, plenty of people around with considerable amounts of gold in there banks that will be able to keep that going for a long time.

So long as demand for mats remains high and enough people are prepared to pay the high prices, they won't drop anytime soon, until demand goes down and forces sellers to start undercutting again on a larger scale to get sales.

As for crown prices, they got rid of a loophole that let people buy crowns cheaper from other regions, combine that with a new crown crate season and you get high prices. 500/600 per is on the lower end of the scale that I have seen in chat in PC/NA seen anywhere up to 1000 per crown.

JoDiMageio · August 2021

bmnoble wrote: »

Well anyone that would attempt to sell stuff at a seemingly more reasonable price is going to get their stock bought out and re-listed by someone else for a profit, plenty of people around with considerable amounts of gold in there banks that will be able to keep that going for a long time.

I tend to set my prices a little lower than what is being asked... A little less gold in my pockets is better than none, I guess, and if someone wants to flip my mats, they can go ahead.

My issue with this, and I assume it's your point, is that it keeps the mat prices high - chances are whoever is buying my cheaper mats is either someone who uses them and knows that I sell a little low (which is my hope), or a flip (which is more likely). And the people who want or need those mats probably have the gold to buy the more expensive mats, and because they want their mats now, they won't shop around for lower prices and boycott the higher ones.

Which leaves new players - new to the game or new to progression, min/maxing, etc. - to either find ways of making their gold (and since gold output has not increased proportionally to gold costs, it makes it harder for them), borrow from big fish or whales, rely on kind guildies, or avoid content they might want to play.

So, as in real life, the rich get richer, and everyone else has to follow or get left behind.

Mythreindeer · August 2021

One thing’s for sure: as long as people are willing to pay ever higher prices then prices will go ever higher.

Farming and crafting, you know, working for stuff, fortunately still works too.

EF321 · August 2021

Chromium prices definitely don't surprise me. If anything, before I was wondering why are people selling it so cheap when it is so hard to come by. I have 8 characters doing max level writs every day, I do every survey, harvest every platinum node and yet I barely have plantings to comfortably upgrade what I want when I want. For contrast, I can upgrade weapons and body armor to gold even if it is a niche set that I am barely planning to use and not feel like I'd better wait and upgrade something more useful, because I have enough spare mats to upgrade many more body sets. But when it comes to jewelry, it's more like 'maybe I should wait a couple of months in case golden vendor brings it' or 'it will be faster to farm vet trial a dozen times than reconstruct and upgrade', so my plates are usually reserved for crafted sets and tel var sets, because I believe their tel var price is still higher than mat price.

God bless trials that only drop gold perfected jewelry, so it is reconstructed as golden with no mat cost.

Kel · August 2021

EF321 wrote: »

Chromium prices definitely don't surprise me. If anything, before I was wondering why are people selling it so cheap when it is so hard to come by. I have 8 characters doing max level writs every day, I do every survey, harvest every platinum node and yet I barely have plantings to comfortably upgrade what I want when I want. For contrast, I can upgrade weapons and body armor to gold even if it is a niche set that I am barely planning to use and not feel like I'd better wait and upgrade something more useful, because I have enough spare mats to upgrade many more body sets. But when it comes to jewelry, it's more like 'maybe I should wait a couple of months in case golden vendor brings it' or 'it will be faster to farm vet trial a dozen times than reconstruct and upgrade', so my plates are usually reserved for crafted sets and tel var sets, because I believe their tel var price is still higher than mat price.

God bless trials that only drop gold perfected jewelry, so it is reconstructed as golden with no mat cost.

I remember when jewelry crafting came out, and people were freaking about one Zircon costing 20k.
Everyone on the forum and zone chat was like "calm down, prices will lower over time"

Well....🤣🤣🤣🤣

Oops

ApoAlaia · August 2021

What happens is that some players have devoted considerable amounts of time, effort and resources towards having all 18 characters in an account with maxed out crafting skills and multiple grand master crafters among them.

Then they spend in the region of 90 minutes of playing time every day just to get daily writs done and subsequent surveys harvested.

As the game 'matures' more players who feel this this way inclined reach the goal of being not only self-sustaining but also having excess to sell.

It is reasonable to expect a measurable gap between them and those players for whom bending over to pick up a single node is too grievous an asking.

Facefister · August 2021

Mumbles_the_Tank wrote: »

Everest_Lionheart wrote: »

Everyone has CP into the gold boosts. Lots more good to go around. Plus new sets that need to be golded out including one crafted set that many rushed to get day 1. The crown exchange I have no idea why it blown up. People impatient with endeavors maybe wanting those shiny new items in the store. Endeavors do take a long time to accumulate.

CP has nothing to do with it. The gold added from this source is absolute peanut shavings compared to the trader, carry and crowns parts of the economy.

People forget that you can make millions with the motifs whenever a new dungeon has been released.

MalEducado · August 2021

HazardousMetal wrote: »

I took a break from the game around the launch of Greymoor and came back tonight after getting Blackwood... why are the prices of everything so insanely inflated compared to just a year ago? Items like potions on the marketboard are over double the cost they once were and the Crown to Gold exchange rate is like 600:1 (when I left it was about 200:1). One Chromium Plating is 220k!

What did I miss?

where can you buy crowns for 600:1 ... actual rate is 1000:1

tmbrinks · August 2021

MalEducado wrote: »

HazardousMetal wrote: »

I took a break from the game around the launch of Greymoor and came back tonight after getting Blackwood... why are the prices of everything so insanely inflated compared to just a year ago? Items like potions on the marketboard are over double the cost they once were and the Crown to Gold exchange rate is like 600:1 (when I left it was about 200:1). One Chromium Plating is 220k!

What did I miss?

where can you buy crowns for 600:1 ... actual rate is 1000:1

all over the place on PC/NA can you get them for 600:1

maybe even less now that the crown sale just started.

kojou · August 2021

Kel wrote: »

EF321 wrote: »

Chromium prices definitely don't surprise me. If anything, before I was wondering why are people selling it so cheap when it is so hard to come by. I have 8 characters doing max level writs every day, I do every survey, harvest every platinum node and yet I barely have plantings to comfortably upgrade what I want when I want. For contrast, I can upgrade weapons and body armor to gold even if it is a niche set that I am barely planning to use and not feel like I'd better wait and upgrade something more useful, because I have enough spare mats to upgrade many more body sets. But when it comes to jewelry, it's more like 'maybe I should wait a couple of months in case golden vendor brings it' or 'it will be faster to farm vet trial a dozen times than reconstruct and upgrade', so my plates are usually reserved for crafted sets and tel var sets, because I believe their tel var price is still higher than mat price.

God bless trials that only drop gold perfected jewelry, so it is reconstructed as golden with no mat cost.

I remember when jewelry crafting came out, and people were freaking about one Zircon costing 20k.
Everyone on the forum and zone chat was like "calm down, prices will lower over time"

Well....🤣🤣🤣🤣

Oops

The issue is Chromium grains are a little bit harder to farm than Tempering Alloy and you need 10 of them to make a plating. So the price for grains is always going to be a little above Tempering Alloy, unless there is some market influence that pushes them one way or the other. Zircon Grains are similarly going to follow Grain Solvent

If I bother to do jewelry crafting writs on 18 characters then I can get enough grains to make 1 chromium plating per day, but doing the surveys and refining is faster (although I need to do crafting writs to do surveys), so the answer is you want to do your daily jewelry crafting writs, so you can get a steady supply and sell your surplus instead of buying them at high market prices.

I think that it is interesting that I can't even give away my Jewelry Crafting Master Writs anymore. Nobody that I know wants to do them at these prices. I feel like ZoS needs an economy and market team (like the combat team except for monitoring the game economy) and make adjustments when things get out of whack. Otherwise, things that were once viable game-play elements get ignored completely.

VaranisArano · August 2021

Lots of gold produced as players spend more time in game.

Lots of banked gold used for Crown trades, since more players would rather spend gold than real money right now.

A Steam exploit making it profitable to buy cheap Crowns, encouraging more crown for gold trades, then that exploit was fixed, sending the Crown to gold ratio soaring on PC.

Back in Greymoor, we could see the start of the inflation. Back then, I figured it was a short-term thing caused by smaller events like ZOS banning a bunch of bots, etc. Well, I can admit that in hindsight, I was wrong and it seems to be a general problem with inflation.

ApoAlaia · August 2021

kojou wrote: »

Kel wrote: »

EF321 wrote: »

Chromium prices definitely don't surprise me. If anything, before I was wondering why are people selling it so cheap when it is so hard to come by. I have 8 characters doing max level writs every day, I do every survey, harvest every platinum node and yet I barely have plantings to comfortably upgrade what I want when I want. For contrast, I can upgrade weapons and body armor to gold even if it is a niche set that I am barely planning to use and not feel like I'd better wait and upgrade something more useful, because I have enough spare mats to upgrade many more body sets. But when it comes to jewelry, it's more like 'maybe I should wait a couple of months in case golden vendor brings it' or 'it will be faster to farm vet trial a dozen times than reconstruct and upgrade', so my plates are usually reserved for crafted sets and tel var sets, because I believe their tel var price is still higher than mat price.

God bless trials that only drop gold perfected jewelry, so it is reconstructed as golden with no mat cost.

I remember when jewelry crafting came out, and people were freaking about one Zircon costing 20k.
Everyone on the forum and zone chat was like "calm down, prices will lower over time"

Well....🤣🤣🤣🤣

Oops

The issue is Chromium grains are a little bit harder to farm than Tempering Alloy and you need 10 of them to make a plating. So the price for grains is always going to be a little above Tempering Alloy, unless there is some market influence that pushes them one way or the other. Zircon Grains are similarly going to follow Grain Solvent

If I bother to do jewelry crafting writs on 18 characters then I can get enough grains to make 1 chromium plating per day, but doing the surveys and refining is faster (although I need to do crafting writs to do surveys), so the answer is you want to do your daily jewelry crafting writs, so you can get a steady supply and sell your surplus instead of buying them at high market prices.

I think that it is interesting that I can't even give away my Jewelry Crafting Master Writs anymore. Nobody that I know wants to do them at these prices. I feel like ZoS needs an economy and market team (like the combat team except for monitoring the game economy) and make adjustments when things get out of whack. Otherwise, things that were once viable game-play elements get ignored completely.

I might do some of the blue ones if they have a favourable trait (like arcane, robust, etc) and I have an excess of iridium; there is always a character that could do with leveling a skill/morph (although that will also eventually dry out) and getting all the attunables for every set (long term goal of mine) is a metric ton of vouchers but the rest go in the trash.

Feels wasteful but it just makes no 'financial sense' to do anything different.

ApostateHobo · August 2021

I am genuinely curious what all makes the pc prices so much higher than those on console. I frequently see complaints about specific item prices here, and everytime I search in stores to compare the prices on ps4 they're usually a third of the price or less. It's really crazy how wildly our economies differ.

ToxicOutrage · August 2021

ApostateHobo wrote: »

I am genuinely curious what all makes the pc prices so much higher than those on console. I frequently see complaints about specific item prices here, and everytime I search in stores to compare the prices on ps4 they're usually a third of the price or less. It's really crazy how wildly our economies differ.

for PC EU,

1 Biggest server - more ppl - more gold generation - higher inflation
2 Less crown bought in relation to population due to lower purchasing power of Eastern Europe
3 Addons - more gold generation - higher inflation

phileunderx2 · August 2021

I play on both pc and console. I think the presence of bots or not makes a big difference on the price of mats.
I rarely see bots on pc anymore and our mat prices are high. On ps4 bots are everywhere and mats are dirt cheap.

FrancisCrawford · August 2021

ApoAlaia wrote: »

What happens is that some players have devoted considerable amounts of time, effort and resources towards having all 18 characters in an account with maxed out crafting skills and multiple grand master crafters among them.

Then they spend in the region of 90 minutes of playing time every day just to get daily writs done and subsequent surveys harvested.

As the game 'matures' more players who feel this this way inclined reach the goal of being not only self-sustaining but also having excess to sell.

It is reasonable to expect a measurable gap between them and those players for whom bending over to pick up a single node is too grievous an asking.

That sounds more like reasons for prices to go DOWN than up.

FrancisCrawford · August 2021

ApostateHobo wrote: »

I am genuinely curious what all makes the pc prices so much higher than those on console. I frequently see complaints about specific item prices here, and everytime I search in stores to compare the prices on ps4 they're usually a third of the price or less. It's really crazy how wildly our economies differ.

Crafting writs are MUCH easier to do with an add-on, so perhaps people do more of them.

Comparison shopping is somewhat easier with add-ons, and I'd guess that does more to raise prices (by enabling flippers) than it does to lower them (by increasing competition).

FrancisCrawford · August 2021

tsaescishoeshiner wrote: »

The Collections system boosted the price of materials by a lot,

What mechanism do you suggest for that causality?

Arunei · August 2021

tmbrinks wrote: »

Mumbles_the_Tank wrote: »

Everest_Lionheart wrote: »

Everyone has CP into the gold boosts. Lots more good to go around. Plus new sets that need to be golded out including one crafted set that many rushed to get day 1. The crown exchange I have no idea why it blown up. People impatient with endeavors maybe wanting those shiny new items in the store. Endeavors do take a long time to accumulate.

CP has nothing to do with it. The gold added from this source is absolute peanut shavings compared to the trader, carry and crowns parts of the economy.

Those 3 three things add precisely ZERO gold to the game. They are simply TRANSFERS of gold.

The CP most assuredly adds gold to the game, since it's created out of "thin air" when you do a quest or kill a mob.

Their point was the additional gold from the CP perks is inconsequential in the long run, as the amount you get is pretty much nothing. It's not nearly enough to contribute to any form of inflation; no one is relying on a few tiny boosts to gold you earn to make a regular 'income' in the game. Especially since one of those boosts is dependant on stealing stuff to sell to fences, an aspect of the game many people don't partake in.

As for Crowns and people saying the rate is 1000:1 and higher, uh...that might be through the ""official"" Crown selling groups, but there are plenty of people selling Crowns for less. Numerous people in one of my Guilds sell for 400:1 or 600:1 and someone even sells them at 100:1 (which is insane to me but he uses the gold from it to furnish the 'guildhall' so power to him). There's no official rate and no one can try to monopolize the rate when people are free to charge however much or little they want. Just be patient and ask around, especially if you're in any trade guilds. Yes, the ""official"" groups are that high partly because they work to ensure neither the buyer nor seller are scammed, but my main point is there are plenty of trustworthy people to get them from for less if you spend a bit of time to hunt around.

Also because I know someone is going to say it, I know there's no ZOS-approved actual official Crown-selling group. That's the point of the ""..."", to indicate they aren't actually official groups.

In terms of other things like mats, Heartwood especially spiked in price with the release of Vampiric blueprints, and has stayed high ever since. Chromium Plating has increased in price largely because of how hard to get they are, coupled with the stickerbook and the proc set nerf driving people to gold new sets. Armor passive changes have caused Dreugh Wax to shoot up in price because Light Armor now gives Penetration (fairly sure it didn't before but my memory is crap lol) on top of, again, the proc set nerf making people gold new sets (tho I'm not sure how many people actually gold their armor, seeing as it doesn't give as much of a boost as gold jewels and weapons). And just the fact that the longer the game is around, the more gold people will have in general, which will cause prices to go up over time.