Economic woes of inflation in the land of Arlor.... (part 2)

[Energizeric]

Last year I posted this thread:

http://www.spacetimestudios.com/show...y-in-Recession

The main issue at hand was that legendary items looted from locked crates were becoming way too common and were driving down prices of all other gear, including elite legendary items that drop from elite dungeons. Thus nobody was farming elites and the economy was at a standstill.

As a result of this discussion, it was concluded that instead of every locked crate giving a guaranteed legendary item, gold and plat rewards would replace epic crate drops, and would also replace some of the legendary drops. The result would be that the legendary crate gear would be more rare, and thus prices of this gear and elite legendary gear would go up. The extra gold entering the economy would also serve as a "stimulus" and would further drive up prices of these items.

This solution worked, and elite farming during season 5/6 was/is much better than during season 4.

However, now a new issue has appeared that seems to be an unintended result of these changes that were made. Too much gold is now entering the economy causing mass inflation. However, the inflation does not appear to be affecting the prices of legendary gear, but is only affecting the most rare arcane gear & pets.

The reason for this seems to be that most of this extra gold is going into the hands of the richest players (since they are the ones who open locked crates), and they are only interested in buying arcane gear, so they bid up the prices of these rare items into the stratosphere. Items that should be dropping in value over time, like a mythic glaive (which is now almost a year old), are instead continuing to go up in price.

So a few months ago I posted this thread:

http://www.spacetimestudios.com/show...-land-of-Arlor

As a result of this discussion, STS decided to remove the largest gold reward (50k) from locked crates, and instead added some elixirs to the drop table. The problem is that these elixirs are not very desired items, and instead have become too common which has driven their prices down.

The truth is that people opening locked crates do NOT want legendary items, nor do they want gold rewards. They are hoping to get lucky and loot a mythic or arcane item. Since only arcane items (and some discontinued mythics) have experienced these huge price increases, here is my proposed solution:

1) Locked Crates should no longer give 3 separate rewards/drops. Instead, they should give only 2 rewards/drops.

2) To account for this decrease in the number of chances you get when opening a locked crate, the chance of looting a mythic item should be increased by 50%. This will mean the number of mythic items being looted should stay consistent.

3) In order to make the most rare arcane items slightly less rare and hopefully bring down their prices, the odds of looting an arcane item should be increased by 80%. This, combined with the decrease in the number of chances you get when opening a locked crate, should result in a 20% increase in the number of arcane items being looted (someone please check my math!). This should result in a price decrease for these items, without driving the price down by too much.

4) The drop rate of legendary crate gear should NOT increase, which will result in the supply of these items being cut by 33%. This will result in a price increase for these items, which I think we can all agree is a good thing. An expedition rifle of brutality, which is the second best rifle for sorcerers, should not cost only 2k.

5) Gold rewards should NOT see any increase in drop rate.

6) Plat rewards should see a 50% increase in drop rate to account for the 50% decrease in the number of chances when opening a locked crate.


If these changes are implemented, the results should be that less new gold will be entering the economy in the hands of crate openers. However, more of them will be looting arcane items, which I think will make them happy. And the legendary items they do loot will be worth more than before. Prices of arcane items will drop slightly or at least level off, which I think will make everyone happy.

This, combined with STS cracking down on plat farmers, should help the current economic/inflation issues.