Economic woes of inflation in the land of Arlor....
Last year we had a big discussion about the economic woes of Arlor in this thread:
http://www.spacetimestudios.com/show...y-in-Recession
As a result of this discussion, and based partly on my recommendation in this post....
http://www.spacetimestudios.com/show...=1#post1150294
....the dynamics of locked crates were changed to be what they currently are.
This change solved many of the problems the economy was suffering from last year and added a much needed influx of gold into the economy to help boost prices of legendary and mythic items at a time when prices on everything were dropping fast.
As you may remember, prices on mythic weapons had dropped to under 1.5m at a time when they were still the best weapons, and the best legendary weapons were selling for under 200k. The influx of gold helped to stabilize these prices and boost the economy.
Now these changes have caused a new unwanted problem....inflation. As a result of the continued influx of gold, prices on the very high end arcane items and the best mythic weapons have continued to increase. I was wondering why the same did not happen to legendary items as well, and then I realized the answer.... The influx of gold is from locked crates, and therefore mostly goes to wealthy players who open large amounts of locked crates. Since these players are only in the market for the best gear, those items are the only ones that have seen this huge price increase. We have now reached a point where single items are selling for 100m, and I think we can all agree that this is a bit ridiculous. When STS originally increased gold cap up to 100m, I don't think anyone anticipated this.
So what is the solution? How do you lower the prices on these very high end items without lowering the prices on lower end items? Remember that any solution that STS agrees to implement cannot discourage plat spending or the opening of locked crates. Expecting them to agree to any such solution would not be reasonable.
What we really need is a gold sink to remove extra gold from circulation, but the problem is that most middle class players cannot afford to have another gold sink. So unless we implement a new Arlor progressive income tax on the rich, this is not a viable solution....
So here is my proposed solution:
Once again we must adjust the dynamics of locked crates....
1) Lower the amount of gold rewards in locked crates... do not lower the smaller 2k gold rewards, but lower the chances of getting the larger gold rewards, and perhaps even eliminate the largest of those rewards from the drop table.
2) Boost the drop rates of the newest and highest priced Arcane items. I'm not talking a huge increase in drop rate here, but enough to cause an increase in supply of these items which will help to lower their prices a bit.
3) Lower the drop rates of older Mythic and Arcane items. There is no need for items no longer used at end game to still be dropping from locked crates at high frequency. All this does is create a surplus of these items, and with not very much demand out there, these items will continue to drop in price. Someone who finally loots a mythic item from a locked crate only to find out that it is worth 200k is NOT going to be very happy. Lowering the drop rates on these older items will help keep the prices higher. That, in combination with the boost in drop rates on the more popular newer items will make more players happy with the drops they get from locked crates.
4) Remove the oldest Arcane Pets, Hammerjaw and Glacian, from locked crates. Their mythic counterparts Ripmaw and Slag have long been discontinued from the plat store, so no reason the arcane versions should still be dropping from locked crates. Nobody opening a locked crate is happy when they loot an arcane item only to find out it is the one worth 6m and not the one worth 20-50m.
5) Remove scaling of legendary items from locked crates. Because legendary items scale to the level of the user, we are left with a situation where there are too many end game legendary crate items dropping, causing the prices of even the best ones to drop to less than 1k. Today you can buy a level 41 expedition rifle of brutality for 500 gold -- this is currently the best sorcerer gun. Then you have players who have created twinks to open locked crates and get items at popular twink pvp levels. I suggest every legendary item should be random as to which level it is, and then crate items for both end game and popular twink levels cannot be farmed in the same way, and will then be more rare and will be worth more money, and this will make them more of a reward when they are looted. I would suggest making the odds lean more towards end game items since there is obviously more demand for those, but still make it random so that even an end game player can loot that popular level 18 expedition bow. And just as a level 10 player can loot a level 36 Ker'Shal Scepter, they can also loot a level 41 expedition rifle.
I think these adjustments should help stabilize and lower prices on the most expensive stuff, while at the same time making locked crates more desired.
Any thoughts?
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