spartaxoxo wrote: »

wtlonewolf20 wrote: »

Addons are not the sole reason for inflation. Go look at the CP2.0 crafting tree.

None of the in-game things are causing it or console would also have it

Troodon80 wrote: »

Araneae6537 wrote: »

Do you mean gold inflation rather than Crown inflation? Because Crowns buy as much as they used to, although some newer items do cost more than some of their older counterparts. On PC NA Crowns were around 200:1 when I started in mid-2019 and they have fluctuated up and down since then. This year the rate seemed to vary between 200 and 400 early on and now between 400 and 600. I think part of it is ZOS improving the Crown store and there are more items that people want so that’s a good thing. Some of my guildies say that it’s TCE setting prices and too many people blindly following what they set. I have no idea about that.

I'm making a wild guess here in saying that they're referring primarily to PC-EU, where the average crown rate is 1500:1. Up from the ~400:1 that it started with in 2018.

Araneae6537 wrote: »

Troodon80 wrote: »

Araneae6537 wrote: »

Do you mean gold inflation rather than Crown inflation? Because Crowns buy as much as they used to, although some newer items do cost more than some of their older counterparts. On PC NA Crowns were around 200:1 when I started in mid-2019 and they have fluctuated up and down since then. This year the rate seemed to vary between 200 and 400 early on and now between 400 and 600. I think part of it is ZOS improving the Crown store and there are more items that people want so that’s a good thing. Some of my guildies say that it’s TCE setting prices and too many people blindly following what they set. I have no idea about that.

I'm making a wild guess here in saying that they're referring primarily to PC-EU, where the average crown rate is 1500:1. Up from the ~400:1 that it started with in 2018.

It sounds like it’s worse on EU but I see people pushing for higher rates on NA too at times. Of course people may sell their Crowns at whatever rate they want, if they can find a buyer, but some people get weirdly defensive about it. Like someone advertising in zone that they were selling Crowns so I messaged to ask their rate because sometimes I find great deals this way. However, 700:1 is anything but a great deal so I just thanked them for the reply but that it was more than I was looking to spend. I expected the conversation to end there, but they wanted to know what I wanted to spend and then to argue that the rate had been over 800:1 for weeks. Um, no, but good luck with that…

And then there was even an advertisement to use TCE at the rate of 1000:1. Their middlemen must make a killing. Yeah, safe and guaranteed, know exactly how much you are overpaying I guess. At those rates, I’d much rather take my chances.

Araneae6537 wrote: »

Maybe I was too quick to put stock in what some people in one of my guilds were saying about TCE and Crown prices when demand alone could account for it. To me, 1000:1 is too high when the highest in zone is 800:1 (even that is more than I can afford now) but maybe it is the amount of Crowns per transaction and the security and people are welcome to their choices.

xeNNNNN wrote: »

WereElf wrote: »

Disclaimer: This topic's purpose is not to discuss if anything SHOULD be done about the inflation of the crowns, but rather if the devs were willing to do something, then which would be the most efficient way.

A year ago, crowns used to cost 200 gold each. Now they cost around 1500 gold each, or 7,5 times more. The reason for this is simple: as time passes, more and more gold is generated and stored within the player population. And the more gold they have - the more gold they are willing to spend. Since the biggest gold transactions happen between players, the gold is only being redistributed, instead of being "consumed". There are very few things that you need to buy from NPCs for gold, and they are usually cheap. The expensive things (like houses) are one-time-purchase. So the game is simply lacking a "gold sink", which is the cause of the gold accumulation and the price increases.

On the other hand, we are constantly getting new things to spend crowns on (such as crates), so there is a constant "need" for crowns, and unlike gold - all of them are being disposed of, rather than being redistributed.
When on one side of the scale you put a resource that is constantly accumulating, and on the other side you put a diminishing, scarce resource, then it's normal for you to need more and more gold to purchase the same amount of crowns.

Before I go into "how can we deal with the inflation", I'd just state what would be the pros and cons of this:
Pros: It will be easier for new players to get into the game. The gold generation rate for new players hasn't increased much, unless they actually know what to farm, and sell what they get in the Auction House. But that is not the profile of the average new player (afaik), and therefore the majority of new players is facing bigger obstacles that they need to overcome, than old players had to face in their early days.
Cons: Dealing with the inflation may lead to less crown purchases, depending on the way it has been dealt with. So the management team would have to think if they want to bring more new players into the game, or keep milking the current ones for as long as possible.

And now let's get to the main part of the topic:
1) Introduce a gold sink - bring something to the game, that costs a lot of gold, and is not a one-time-purchase. Like some extremely potent food/drink, that costs 1 mil gold per piece.
Pros: this is the least intrusive way to deal with the inflation. It targets the "accumulative" property of the gold. Would be healthy for the game to have a gold sink, even if its purpose is not specifically to reduce the price of the crowns.
Cons: it may be the least efficient way, if the "gold sink" items are not desirable enough.

2) Make a 1-time gift of 5000 crowns to all players. When the amount of crowns in the game is increased, their value will drop. Players, who needed 3500 crowns for something, and were looking to buy them, will now have 1500 crowns, that they'd want to sell. The market will be saturated quickly, and this will lead to reduced prices.
Pros: It will be highly effective, and it can be presented as "a Christmas gift", for example.
Cons: It's a short-term solution, and would need to be repeated occasionally, if it's to be effective. This solution may lead to losses in revenue, and it doesn't take care of the core of the problem.

3) Gift every player 150-250 crowns every month, even if they don't have ESO+. Similar to solution 2, but in a more balanced manner.
Pros: It will reduce the demand for crowns and thus their price.
Cons: It will not take care of the core of the problem. It will require a few months before the effect of this is felt.

4) Allow players to buy crowns for fixed amount of gold (and vice versa), from designated NPCs. This way the value of crowns will be determined by the game, rather than by the "free market" within the game.
Pros: simple, secure, effective. It works as a gold sink, since players will be disposing their gold, when they are purchasing items for crowns, that they've bought with gold.
Cons: may lead to a loss of revenue, if the price is set too low. Could be counter-productive, if the price is set too high.
Additional thoughts: Introducing new, desirable items for crowns, will be an effective way to control inflation in the future, even after this system has been implemented once. Since this system will be depleting the players' gold, if the demand for crowns is too high, then players will still need to be purchasing crowns the regular way.

In my opinion, solution (4) is the best one. Although, a combination between solutions 1, 2 and 3 could also be effective. Introducing a gold sink, while also starting to give players a sustained amount of crowns every month will keep the crown price in check. While the immediate gift of higher amount of crowns (could be 2000, if done in combination with the rest) will help with bringing down their price more quickly.

I highly doubt that anything will be done in this regard. Especially when we take into consideration how Zeni refuses to even give us a secure way to trade crowns between each other. But sometimes it's nice to speculate, and I kind a wanted to bring their attention to this problem, regardless if they're willing to solve it or not.

Option 4 is the best option there;
Star Trek Online (STO) does the same thing but for "Dilithium", They call it the dilithium exchange, this means that what people earn in-game can help them gain things they otherwise would have to spend money for by trading in those resources in order to gain "Zen" and then in the reverse you can also buy dilithium with "zeN". It is the only damned good thing about that game because the "Zen" you pay for is not only overpriced but their store is excessively overpriced. £35 in some cases for a tier 6 ship and most tier 6 ships can't be earned in-game. Which is just gross.

A gold to crowns conversion market of some sort influenced by the player base would help a lot however ZoS would have to manually control some things to prevent specific groups of players from ripping said exchange and other players. It will have some issues though, if gold suddenly becomes scarce.

I would also argue that based on the prices in ESO, the costs of housing, General store items and various other utility purchases they gain more than enough revenue to do this and risk a loss. Its just a matter of whether or not they care enough about the player to do so. I will also say that this would need to function like a proper exchange system and not something jury rigged. Assuming it happens at all.


And no mods, I am not blaspheming the holy chronicle that is our crown store, I am merely stating the obvious here. Keep that hammer away from me.

wtlonewolf20 wrote: »

xeNNNNN wrote: »

WereElf wrote: »

Disclaimer: This topic's purpose is not to discuss if anything SHOULD be done about the inflation of the crowns, but rather if the devs were willing to do something, then which would be the most efficient way.

A year ago, crowns used to cost 200 gold each. Now they cost around 1500 gold each, or 7,5 times more. The reason for this is simple: as time passes, more and more gold is generated and stored within the player population. And the more gold they have - the more gold they are willing to spend. Since the biggest gold transactions happen between players, the gold is only being redistributed, instead of being "consumed". There are very few things that you need to buy from NPCs for gold, and they are usually cheap. The expensive things (like houses) are one-time-purchase. So the game is simply lacking a "gold sink", which is the cause of the gold accumulation and the price increases.

On the other hand, we are constantly getting new things to spend crowns on (such as crates), so there is a constant "need" for crowns, and unlike gold - all of them are being disposed of, rather than being redistributed.
When on one side of the scale you put a resource that is constantly accumulating, and on the other side you put a diminishing, scarce resource, then it's normal for you to need more and more gold to purchase the same amount of crowns.

Before I go into "how can we deal with the inflation", I'd just state what would be the pros and cons of this:
Pros: It will be easier for new players to get into the game. The gold generation rate for new players hasn't increased much, unless they actually know what to farm, and sell what they get in the Auction House. But that is not the profile of the average new player (afaik), and therefore the majority of new players is facing bigger obstacles that they need to overcome, than old players had to face in their early days.
Cons: Dealing with the inflation may lead to less crown purchases, depending on the way it has been dealt with. So the management team would have to think if they want to bring more new players into the game, or keep milking the current ones for as long as possible.

And now let's get to the main part of the topic:
1) Introduce a gold sink - bring something to the game, that costs a lot of gold, and is not a one-time-purchase. Like some extremely potent food/drink, that costs 1 mil gold per piece.
Pros: this is the least intrusive way to deal with the inflation. It targets the "accumulative" property of the gold. Would be healthy for the game to have a gold sink, even if its purpose is not specifically to reduce the price of the crowns.
Cons: it may be the least efficient way, if the "gold sink" items are not desirable enough.

2) Make a 1-time gift of 5000 crowns to all players. When the amount of crowns in the game is increased, their value will drop. Players, who needed 3500 crowns for something, and were looking to buy them, will now have 1500 crowns, that they'd want to sell. The market will be saturated quickly, and this will lead to reduced prices.
Pros: It will be highly effective, and it can be presented as "a Christmas gift", for example.
Cons: It's a short-term solution, and would need to be repeated occasionally, if it's to be effective. This solution may lead to losses in revenue, and it doesn't take care of the core of the problem.

3) Gift every player 150-250 crowns every month, even if they don't have ESO+. Similar to solution 2, but in a more balanced manner.
Pros: It will reduce the demand for crowns and thus their price.
Cons: It will not take care of the core of the problem. It will require a few months before the effect of this is felt.

4) Allow players to buy crowns for fixed amount of gold (and vice versa), from designated NPCs. This way the value of crowns will be determined by the game, rather than by the "free market" within the game.
Pros: simple, secure, effective. It works as a gold sink, since players will be disposing their gold, when they are purchasing items for crowns, that they've bought with gold.
Cons: may lead to a loss of revenue, if the price is set too low. Could be counter-productive, if the price is set too high.
Additional thoughts: Introducing new, desirable items for crowns, will be an effective way to control inflation in the future, even after this system has been implemented once. Since this system will be depleting the players' gold, if the demand for crowns is too high, then players will still need to be purchasing crowns the regular way.

In my opinion, solution (4) is the best one. Although, a combination between solutions 1, 2 and 3 could also be effective. Introducing a gold sink, while also starting to give players a sustained amount of crowns every month will keep the crown price in check. While the immediate gift of higher amount of crowns (could be 2000, if done in combination with the rest) will help with bringing down their price more quickly.

I highly doubt that anything will be done in this regard. Especially when we take into consideration how Zeni refuses to even give us a secure way to trade crowns between each other. But sometimes it's nice to speculate, and I kind a wanted to bring their attention to this problem, regardless if they're willing to solve it or not.

Option 4 is the best option there;
Star Trek Online (STO) does the same thing but for "Dilithium", They call it the dilithium exchange, this means that what people earn in-game can help them gain things they otherwise would have to spend money for by trading in those resources in order to gain "Zen" and then in the reverse you can also buy dilithium with "zeN". It is the only damned good thing about that game because the "Zen" you pay for is not only overpriced but their store is excessively overpriced. £35 in some cases for a tier 6 ship and most tier 6 ships can't be earned in-game. Which is just gross.

A gold to crowns conversion market of some sort influenced by the player base would help a lot however ZoS would have to manually control some things to prevent specific groups of players from ripping said exchange and other players. It will have some issues though, if gold suddenly becomes scarce.

I would also argue that based on the prices in ESO, the costs of housing, General store items and various other utility purchases they gain more than enough revenue to do this and risk a loss. Its just a matter of whether or not they care enough about the player to do so. I will also say that this would need to function like a proper exchange system and not something jury rigged. Assuming it happens at all.


And no mods, I am not blaspheming the holy chronicle that is our crown store, I am merely stating the obvious here. Keep that hammer away from me.

They can go with option 4, but I would expect items such as DLCs to be removed from the crown store and crowns from subs to disappear as a result. In addition I expect IRL costs of everything to go up.