Economic woes of inflation in the land of Arlor....

[Energizeric]

Last year we had a big discussion about the economic woes of Arlor in this thread:

http://www.spacetimestudios.com/showthread.php?102932-AL-Economy-in-Recession


As a result of this discussion, and based partly on my recommendation in this post....

http://www.spacetimestudios.com/showthread.php?102932-AL-Economy-in-Recession&p=1150294&viewfull=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?

[Zeus]

I agree with all of this!

I should not be able to sell arcane rings at upwards of 100m+. The gold cap was 100m to not have this issue in the first place, correct?

[Rare]

Now these changes have caused a new unwanted problem....inflation.

I'm pretty sure I said that EXACTLY that would happen. I could be wrong. let me look through the thread.

http://www.spacetimestudios.com/showthread.php?102932-AL-Economy-in-Recession&p=1147336&viewfull=1#post1147336

http://www.spacetimestudios.com/showthread.php?102932-AL-Economy-in-Recession&p=1147016&viewfull=1#post1147016

I'm going to stick with my suggestion. Fix the root of the problem, one that still hasn't been fixed. Playing with the gold in the economy is not going to fix the economic woes in Arlor. Do the right thing and address the problem.

If you want to get money OUT of the economy, create gold sinks (e.g. expensive revives for gold). If you want to get gold INTO the economy, get people playing and wanting the high priced items. I still see so many people right now that are hamstrung because they can't afford the best gear to run elite. They're stuck in a catch 22. Can't farm elite to get the gear needed for elite. Yes yes... if you get lucky enough to find an awesome party and spend hours and hours coming up with a strategy with that same party it works great. Lets be honest about it. I won't go into it. For the majority of people playing, this isn't possible. I tried a pug once in Tindirin, and I won't again.

By removing the gold from crates, more than anything, you are going to hurt new players that can't afford simple things like pots. Or even to gear up with decent gear. Locked farming, to me, is the most boring tedious way of making money in this game. I honestly don't see how anyone does it on a regular basis and still wants more. I do it occasionally if I get a luck elixir and can't find an elite party.

[Solid]

I think it was bad planning on STS's side, they should have calculated or at least estimated the amount of gold being put in (lockeds, gold conversions) and try to have balanced it out (pet feeds, auction tax)

[Rare]

I think it was bad planning on STS's side, they should have calculated or at least estimated the amount of gold being put in (lockeds, gold conversions) and try to have balanced it out (pet feeds, auction tax)

Pet feeds only affect a minority. Unless you PVP with one pet, most people have a pet rotation. So you're only looking at the Arcane pet wielders that will consistently do this. Maybe I'm wrong, but I doubt it. Auction tax? That only helps the rich merchants and holds down the little guy.

We need real gold sinks. These sink only work if they are perks that are a luxury (gold revives for example). Pots, listing fees, these are not luxuries any longer.

[Reunegade]

Great points, however I do not think the arcane pets (Hammerjaw, Glacian) should be removed from crates. These pets are viable and therefore should not be removed so that users who would like to use arcanes such as HJ and Glacian get the chance to do so without having to pay 10 million more for the best arcane.

[FluffNStuff]

Last year we had a big discussion about the economic woes of Arlor in this thread:



As a result of this discussion, and based partly on my recommendation in this post....


Now these changes have caused a new unwanted problem....

I don't think anyone anticipated this.

So what is the solution?




So here is my proposed solution:

Once again ...


Throws up hands ... can't post what I want ...

[Energizeric]

Guys, STS is never going to agree to a solution that reduces plat sales. So please be constructive and make suggestions accordingly. That means no items offered for gold that are currently things offered for plat. If you want a gold sink, it has to come from somewhere else. They are not going to agree to gold revives since they currently charge plat for that. They are not going to agree to do anything that will lower locked crates sales either.

Zeus and I discussed this yesterday, and it is clear to both of us that the real issue at hand is that you will always have problems with the economy in an MMO that is a "free to play" model. The perfect solution is to get rid of plat entirely and just charge a monthly fee. But that would probably result in STS going out of business as the player base is not strong enough to survive that kind of change. So to quote a funny line from the movie "Fargo", instead we must choose the best of the bad options.

[Temarichan]

I think it was bad planning on STS's side, they should have calculated or at least estimated the amount of gold being put in (lockeds, gold conversions) and try to have balanced it out (pet feeds, auction tax)

Through auction fees and pet feeding, gold has a way to... Well, be removed from the economy.

Despite the high feeding prices now at level 40-41 pets, it's the only mini vent to prevent too much gold stimulating around.

[Wutzgood]

1, 2, and 3 are ok. The others I wouldn't like. Personally I think the economy is fine tho.

[octavos]

I think the economy is fine, its only when arcane/mythic items show up..it makes things just sky rocket. (if there is a gold cap even for 200mill or even 500mill....when will it ever stop XD) even simple missions that when you get 1 or 2 gold..is like pesos from mexico compared to gold in locked. so why would the devs change that?

A money/item bomb is what we need. :) but..something to help encourage spending instead of feeling used XD.


A nice informative video :) We need a money bomb :p

Enjoy....


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Mhz9OXy86a0

[FluffNStuff]

Guys, STS is never going to agree to a solution that reduces plat sales. So please be constructive and make suggestions accordingly. That means no items offered for gold that are currently things offered for plat. If you want a gold sink, it has to come from somewhere else. They are not going to agree to gold revives since they currently charge plat for that. They are not going to agree to do anything that will lower locked crates sales either.

Zeus and I discussed this yesterday, and it is clear to both of us that the real issue at hand is that you will always have problems with the economy in an MMO that is a "free to play" model. The perfect solution is to get rid of plat entirely and just charge a monthly fee. But that would probably result in STS going out of business as the player base is not strong enough to survive that kind of change. So to quote a funny line from the movie "Fargo", instead we must choose the best of the bad options.

Can we just save some time by asking you directly what you are buying/selling that you wish to have the price raised /lowered so STS can just do that and save the REST of the economy from the fall out?

[Energizeric]

Why do you assume I have some personal thing to gain from this? I don't. This post came about because last night I was chatting with Zeus and he was saying how ridiculous it was that he could sell arcane rings for 100m, and that things were starting to get out of hand. It has reached a point where one cannot save for these items as the price keeps rising faster than even the best farmer can earn money. So if you wanted the best arcane item and you set out to save up 100m for it, by the time you reach 100m, the price for the best arcane item will be 200m, and so on. This pattern needs to be halted, if not reversed.

Anyone who is not a plat spender can benefit from this kind of fix. The best items should always be in reach of non-plat spenders who work hard and put in lots of hours playing regularly. Through season 4, that always seemed to be true. Starting last season with Ker'shal Scepters selling for 60m, this started to get out of hand, and now we have arcane rings going for 100m. What will happen next season? 200m arcane items? When does it stop?

[FluffNStuff]

Why do you assume I have some personal thing to gain from this? I don't. This post came about because last night I was chatting with Zeus and he was saying how ridiculous it was that he could sell arcane rings for 100m, and that things were starting to get out of hand. It has reached a point where one cannot save for these items as the price keeps rising faster than even the best farmer can earn money. So if you wanted the best arcane item and you set out to save up 100m for it, by the time you reach 100m, the price for the best arcane item will be 200m, and so on. This pattern needs to be halted, if not reversed.

Anyone who is not a plat spender can benefit from this kind of fix.

OK, I'll bite. Explain to me WHY the arcane ring cost 100M gold and I will believe you both understand the economy and are not just trying to manipulate it.

[csyui]

I could be wrong, but are you trying to lower the current price of arcane staff you are looking for by making this kind of thread?

[Tendirin]

yeah i agree wth fluff

[Reunegade]

How about an intricate questline that gives you the best gear in the game?

For example:
1. Get dragkin teeth (or buy) a dragonite bar.
2. Craft the dragonite bar into an infused dragonite bar which requires you to put 10m gold to the infuser ball.
3. A quest will be given to farm 100 dragkin teeth to receive an 'infused dragonite weapon' recipe.
4. Take the recipe to the infuser ball and infuse the dragonite bar to the weapon recipe. That will give you an infused dragonite weapon.
5. To make it a sword, staff, or daggers you have to put 2m gold to the infuser ball.
6. Wait 7 days before the infuser recipe is ready. You get to pick an 'infused' sword, staff, or dagger recipe.
7. A quest will be given to farm 50 dragkin teeth to receive a dragonite shard. Infuse the sword, staff, or dagger recipe, the shard, and the infused dragonite weapon and get the weapon.


Meh, it has to be something hard and worthwhile if you want the best item in the game, aswell as implement a gold sink alongside with it.

[Zeus]

I could be wrong, but are you trying to lower the current price of arcane staff you are looking for by making this kind of thread?

I don't see that connection at all. The arcane staff is at a stable, reasonable price.

The arcane ring? It is not. This is coming from someone that has made 60m+ merchanting them alone. If the price lowered, it would only affect my profit margin negatively as I need the crazy demand to justify gemming rings with tarlok wind gems. Otherwise, the cost just does not play out favorably.

However, at the same time that I am profiting off of this, I realized: isn't it a bit ridiculous at these prices? We're talking about a ring here, a ring! Is it really worth more than a Midas Touch or is it that the rich have a lot of hyperinflated gold in their hands and have nothing to do with it?

[Anarchist]

I don't think things are that bad actually...
The arcane ring has 4 fundamental qualities that makes it so disired and highly priced:

#1 Extremely rare: not only because it is defined as "arcane" but also because there are very very very few of them ingame.
#2 The best item: Yes the arcane ring is currently the best item compaired to any other right now. Nothing can beat it.
#3 Hard to create: The quest to create it is one of the most tedious and time taking.
#4 New: It just came out. Anything that is new and few initially is highly priced even if it a pair of green useless daggers.

Adding this to the fact Parth arcane ring was "perfectly perfect" with the rarest gems ingame it is only obvious it would cost a huge amount of gold.
As for the other arcane and mythic items they are currently accessible only through merching and farming w/o the help of plats so let us not genaralize a case and apply it to all the others.

[Rare]

and that things were starting to get out of hand. It has reached a point where one cannot save for these items as the price keeps rising faster than even the best farmer can earn money.

Correction... things ARE out of hand. And they were out of hand last year before you started that thread.

[FluffNStuff]

I don't see that connection at all. The arcane staff is at a stable, reasonable price.

The arcane ring? It is not. This is coming from someone that has made 60m+ merchanting them alone. If the price lowered, it would only affect my profit margin negatively as I need the crazy demand to justify gemming rings with tarlok wind gems. Otherwise, the cost just does not play out favorably.

However, at the same time that I am profiting off of this, I realized: isn't it a bit ridiculous at these prices? We're talking about a ring here, a ring! Is it really worth more than a Midas Touch or is it that the rich have a lot of hyperinflated gold in their hands and have nothing to do with it?

DING DING DING DING DING!!!!

This is not a 'we need to fix the economy issue', it is we need something, ANYTHING, that actually excites players enough to get the gold OUT of their stash and back into circulation. All the suggestions above are designed to take from the rich, but the real solution is to find what the RICH WANT and give it to them. That is how to get the gold from the rich into the pockets of the rest of the players, and not just the rich players that make it to 100M, but the 'dirt poor rich' sitting around with 10-50m in their stash. Enough of this 'boring itemization', this game needs new high end items and it needs them soon.

[Kellhus]

Well i agree mostly with your original post. But, i dont want lockeds to drop random level items, sorry i just dont. If i farm with my twink on luck and get some lockeds i wanna make sure im spending my plat on something that toon can actually use.
You say no demand for.older myth and arcane.items? Like what? I also don't see prices dropping so low on these items they need to be curbed. And like you said it's plat users that are mainly gaining these items to sell, so if prices do go down it'll only help us middle classes.
I do agree that some prices are ridiculous but look at some of the best pink items, still highly priced only bc they are still sought after because they are next best thing to an absurd 4m gold ring (or much more in some cases).
Also, someone else mentioned this., most people who can't afford the best gear are stuck atm and very bored with the game. Even with good gear is still hard to find a pt that doesn't take forever to get thru new elite Tindrin and then try yo get them to run for more than one map. So like in real life those that can, do, those that can't, don't and the rich get richer and the rest, well we get bored and go play candy crush and become more poor.
So yeah i agree with most of your original statements but definetly not all. Maybe we just need a robin hood :-)

...

[Zeus]

DING DING DING DING DING!!!!

This is not a 'we need to fix the economy issue', it is we need something, ANYTHING, that actually excites players enough to get the gold OUT of their stash and back into circulation. All the suggestions above are designed to take from the rich, but the real solution is to find what the RICH WANT and give it to them. That is how to get the gold from the rich into the pockets of the rest of the players, and not just the rich players that make it to 100M, but the 'dirt poor rich' sitting around with 10-50m in their stash. Enough of this 'boring itemization', this game needs new high end items and it needs them soon.

I agree, it is most likely that the itemization system itself is flawed.

[csyui]

I don't see that connection at all. The arcane staff is at a stable, reasonable price.

The arcane ring? It is not. This is coming from someone that has made 60m+ merchanting them alone. If the price lowered, it would only affect my profit margin negatively as I need the crazy demand to justify gemming rings with tarlok wind gems. Otherwise, the cost just does not play out favorably.

However, at the same time that I am profiting off of this, I realized: isn't it a bit ridiculous at these prices? We're talking about a ring here, a ring! Is it really worth more than a Midas Touch or is it that the rich have a lot of hyperinflated gold in their hands and have nothing to do with it?

One word can solve all your problems --- "wait".

Those players pay 100m so they can enjoying the arcane ring before the majority. But once most of those "midas" player own their rings (probably after one month or two), the potential buyers of extra arcane rings on the market will be those "gold finger" players, then next...

You are not suppose to make a thread to manipulate the economy of the game. I just find so funny you agree with this thread after having made big profit of ring business. For me, it looks like you try to buy ring back with lower expense as soon as possible.

[notfaded1]

Why do you assume I have some personal thing to gain from this? I don't. This post came about because last night I was chatting with Zeus and he was saying how ridiculous it was that he could sell arcane rings for 100m, and that things were starting to get out of hand. It has reached a point where one cannot save for these items as the price keeps rising faster than even the best farmer can earn money. So if you wanted the best arcane item and you set out to save up 100m for it, by the time you reach 100m, the price for the best arcane item will be 200m, and so on. This pattern needs to be halted, if not reversed.

Anyone who is not a plat spender can benefit from this kind of fix. The best items should always be in reach of non-plat spenders who work hard and put in lots of hours playing regularly. Through season 4, that always seemed to be true. Starting last season with Ker'shal Scepters selling for 60m, this started to get out of hand, and now we have arcane rings going for 100m. What will happen next season? 200m arcane items? When does it stop?
So what ur saying is it's too expensive for you to ever save enough for an arcane ring by farming? That may be true today but just like mythics it won't be forever.

[Zeus]

One word can solve all your problems --- "wait".

Those players pay 100m so they can enjoying the arcane ring before the majority. But once most of those "midas" player own their rings (probably after one month or two), the potential buyers of extra arcane rings on the market will be those "gold finger" players, then next...

You are not suppose to make a thread to manipulate the economy of the game. I just find so funny you agree with this thread after having made big profit of ring business. For me, it looks like you try to buy ring back with lower expense as soon as possible.

I can also buy the ring right now just fine and still have another 70m leftover. Infact, I am purchasing another and crafting again to make yet another 15-20m profit margin. Isn't that ridiculous? By supplying players with what they need, I can make 15-20m in one trade?

Expense isn't a huge factor to me, since I've already paid off a ring through merchanting. Thus, buying back a ring for the lowest expense as soon as possible statement is incorrect. Anyone who is dealing with the business of these rings knows that being cheap is not how you profit. The demand is sky high and the supply is very low. The second a shard hits the market, you pay what the seller is asking (no questions asked) and get to crafting that ring. If you waste time dilly dallying in bargaining and lowering expenses, you will lose opportunities at significant profit.

In this case, if I waste time waiting for the price to drop so I can recraft, I waste a small window of time for me to profit.

[Anarchist]

DING DING DING DING DING!!!!

This is not a 'we need to fix the economy issue', it is we need something, ANYTHING, that actually excites players enough to get the gold OUT of their stash and back into circulation. All the suggestions above are designed to take from the rich, but the real solution is to find what the RICH WANT and give it to them. That is how to get the gold from the rich into the pockets of the rest of the players, and not just the rich players that make it to 100M, but the 'dirt poor rich' sitting around with 10-50m in their stash. Enough of this 'boring itemization', this game needs new high end items and it needs them soon.

Correct i am with this suggestion.

I also add that when these new items come out... i am talking of gears much more better than the current mythics and old arcanes there should be a simultaneous countepart realease of farmable legendary gears still better than current mythics on same level or slightly worser than current arcanes and worser than the new mythic and arcane gears.


We need to restabilize the circle. I am starting to think there is no actual solution to the problem nor is there really a problem but rather the inflation or incapacity to make decent gold is something that is born with the economy itself and the only way to solve it is by introducing new stuff time after time and making the course of event repeat itself, restarting from square 1.

In conclusion the itemization system is a good idea BUT it will only work if for every release of a mythic or arcane item there is a release of a very good legendary counterpart.

[falmear]

The way I see it is people are using locked crates as gold ATMs. They feed in enough cash either to loot what they want or loot enough to sell and buy what they want. Its not uncommon to hear stories of people spending 10k-20k plat. And I am sure there are plenty of people spending more. The other problem which most people don't seem to realize is crafting is inflating the price. To craft an arcane ring, people are spending 300 plat so they don't have to wait 5 days. Then spending plat on getting all exceptional gems. So these people are expecting a return on their plat investment.

I expect this is the same thing will happen on the next round of mythics. Because I expect that they will need to be crafted. Because it seems like STS wants you to pay 3 times on one item. Looting, crafting, upgrading. Because of this, the price on rare items will continue to rise.

[falmear]

In conclusion the itemization system is a good idea BUT it will only work if for every release of a mythic or arcane item there is a release of a very good legendary counterpart.

Itemization is a failure. Why buy now when you know something better will be released? This was the same problem as last season. I'm not sure why everyone thought this was a great idea.

[Zeus]

The way I see it is people are using locked crates as gold ATMs. They feed in enough cash either to loot what they want or loot enough to sell and buy what they want. Its not uncommon to hear stories of people spending 10k-20k plat. And I am sure there are plenty of people spending more. The other problem which most people don't seem to realize is crafting is inflating the price. To craft an arcane ring, people are spending 300 plat so they don't have to wait 5 days. Then spending plat on getting all exceptional gems. So these people are expecting a return on their plat investment.

I expect this is the same thing will happen on the next round of mythics. Because I expect that they will need to be crafted. Because it seems like STS wants you to pay 3 times on one item. Looting, crafting, upgrading. Because of this, the price on rare items will continue to rise.

This is also a very valid point.

Obtaining exceptional gems is a very risky business. Heck, I went through 70 tarlok gems the other night to only obtain 2 supers. On gold alone, that's over a 5m cost. Plat expense is another thing entirely.

[Anarchist]

The way I see it is people are using locked crates as gold ATMs. They feed in enough cash either to loot what they want or loot enough to sell and buy what they want. Its not uncommon to hear stories of people spending 10k-20k plat. And I am sure there are plenty of people spending more. The other problem which most people don't seem to realize is crafting is inflating the price. To craft an arcane ring, people are spending 300 plat so they don't have to wait 5 days. Then spending plat on getting all exceptional gems. So these people are expecting a return on their plat investment.

I expect this is the same thing will happen on the next round of mythics. Because I expect that they will need to be crafted. Because it seems like STS wants you to pay 3 times on one item. Looting, crafting, upgrading. Because of this, the price on rare items will continue to rise.

Lol selling arcane ring 110m.

After a while anything not discontinued goes down.

Sooner or later there will be enough arcane rings circulating in the market.
And this is what will happen:

#1 The ring will gradually start dropping.
#2 It will stabilize at a certain amount for a very long time( a amount still very vey high).
#3 Then when the offer starts exceeding the demand it's price will start dropping again.
#4 Then it will restabilize.
.
.
.
Everytime it drops fresh buyers that couldn't afford it earlier will start making the demand rise till when everyone in that range is not satisfied. When the offer exceeds the demand the price will shrink again till when sellers find new buyers. This does not only apply to the ring.


Right now the relation demand/offer is making the meter go red cause the demand greatly beat the offer. Infact there is no relation. The arcane ring is wanted at any cost.

[Kellhus]

This is also a very valid point.

Obtaining exceptional gems is a very risky business. Heck, I went through 70 tarlok gems the other night to only obtain 2 supers. On gold alone, that's over a 5m cost. Plat expense is another thing entirely.

:| i dont even have 70 tarlock gems.

...

[Rare]

Itemization is a failure. Why buy now when you know something better will be released? This was the same problem as last season. I'm not sure why everyone thought this was a great idea.

Why I thought it was a good idea? Because my assumption is that by itemization STS meant

1. Helmets
2. Weapons
3. Armor
4. Amulets
etc etc

This way of doing it was poorly thought out I think. It causes exactly the problem you stated. By itemizing different type of items, THEN there is a real drive to get it. And people will spend now on the best item of that type rather than waiting for the next best thing.

This way of itemization is no different than waiting for the next season's gear to be released rather than buying the current soon to be obsolete gear.

[FluffNStuff]

Why I thought it was a good idea? Because my assumption is that by itemization STS meant

1. Helmets
2. Weapons
3. Armor
4. Amulets
etc etc

This way of doing it was poorly thought out I think. It causes exactly the problem you stated. By itemizing different type of items, THEN there is a real drive to get it. And people will spend now on the best item of that type rather than waiting for the next best thing.

This way of itemization is no different than waiting for the next season's gear to be released rather than buying the current soon to be obsolete gear.

Totally! I thought it was a different exciting thing each month, not a slightly less bland everything!

[Zeus]

:| i dont even have 70 tarlock gems.

...

Haha, I had to empty AH's stock multiple times last night!

[Kellhus]

Haha, I had to empty AH's stock multiple times last night!

:| this is what makes my mad. I feel like a knat under the thumb of the wealthy.

...

[Energizeric]

I could be wrong, but are you trying to lower the current price of arcane staff you are looking for by making this kind of thread?

I got my arcane staff today, so that's not it. Now I own one so lowering its price would not be in my best interest anymore.

[falmear]

I got my arcane staff today, so that's not it. Now I own one so lowering its price would not be in my best interest anymore.

Congrats.

[Energizeric]

OK, I'll bite. Explain to me WHY the arcane ring cost 100M gold and I will believe you both understand the economy and are not just trying to manipulate it.

The arcane ring cost 100m because an increasing number of players are now super rich and have more than 100m, and many of these players have so much gold that they don't know what to do with it, so they can offer gold cap for this item that they really want. Normally the price on an item like this would be high for a very short period of time, and then drop once those few super wealthy players have made their purchase. That is what happened with both the Kershal & Maul, and with Samael and Singe. But I don't see that happening this time around. I think the price will stay at 100m for the remainder of the season if no changes are made. There are enough super wealthy players who can afford that high price.

The reason for the increasing number of super wealthy players is the gold coming in locked crates. That is the only big change we have seen in gold being added to the game since its inception. Last summer some gold influx into the economy was needed to jump start things. Now farming is very healthy and I see tons of people running elites. The elite legendary items that the mid-level players use have a nice healthy price which encourages farming. The problem is only with these super high priced arcane and mythic items (like the razorbacks). So to solve the problem, you must cause these super rare items to drop in price without causing the elite legendary items to drop in price. That would be the goal.

[Energizeric]

DING DING DING DING DING!!!!

This is not a 'we need to fix the economy issue', it is we need something, ANYTHING, that actually excites players enough to get the gold OUT of their stash and back into circulation. All the suggestions above are designed to take from the rich, but the real solution is to find what the RICH WANT and give it to them. That is how to get the gold from the rich into the pockets of the rest of the players, and not just the rich players that make it to 100M, but the 'dirt poor rich' sitting around with 10-50m in their stash. Enough of this 'boring itemization', this game needs new high end items and it needs them soon.

I don't disagree with anything you said. The problem is that we tried this in season 4 and it resulted in huge numbers of players getting bored after 2 months and everyone stopped farming elites. So this new itemization strategy was designed to keep things interesting for a longer period of time. The developers did say there would be some growing pains to this strategy, the first being that the level 41 legendary items like the archon rings and dragonscale armors would probably be only slightly better than the level 36 items, and we are seeing that now. I suspect in another month we are going to see some more items released to make things more interesting. But you are correct, we need some interesting items to get the rich folks spending their money.

But we also need another gold sink of some sort, but one that does not affect poor players. STS actually had a good opportunity to create one with this arcane ring, and instead they missed the boat. Just like crafting the mythic armor and helm cost 100k, they could have had a fee for crafting the mythic ring, perhaps another component that cost a bundle. Considering the value of the ring, they could have made it cost 5m or so and still it would be no issue for most people crafting the ring, and would serve as a nice gold sink for the wealthy. I think they need to think about implementing things like this.

[Rare]

The problem is that we tried this in season 4 and it resulted in huge numbers of players getting bored after 2 months and everyone stopped farming elites.

Yeah... the solution isn't going to come from locked crates. I'm sorry. That's what caused the mess. Fast track to top gear. Oh... the best gear is Mythic Weapon, armor, helm, pendant, and ring? Why farm for this other crap that isn't worth anything (gameplay wise) when I can get these mythic items for relatively cheap? With the upgraded last season taking it to the pinnacle of futility. The most boring season in AL. Seriously, check out the video Ghost posted.

With so many players decked out in full mythic and a large divide between them and the players that couldn't afford them, it wasn't worth it to farm elites. And hardly anyone did.

[FluffNStuff]

The arcane ring cost 100m because an increasing number of players are now super rich and have more than 100m, and many of these players have so much gold that they don't know what to do with it, so they can offer gold cap for this item that they really want. Normally the price on an item like this would be high for a very short period of time, and then drop once those few super wealthy players have made their purchase. That is what happened with both the Kershal & Maul, and with Samael and Singe. But I don't see that happening this time around. I think the price will stay at 100m for the remainder of the season if no changes are made. There are enough super wealthy players who can afford that high price.

The reason for the increasing number of super wealthy players is the gold coming in locked crates. That is the only big change we have seen in gold being added to the game since its inception. Last summer some gold influx into the economy was needed to jump start things. Now farming is very healthy and I see tons of people running elites. The elite legendary items that the mid-level players use have a nice healthy price which encourages farming. The problem is only with these super high priced arcane and mythic items (like the razorbacks). So to solve the problem, you must cause these super rare items to drop in price without causing the elite legendary items to drop in price. That would be the goal.

How exactly would causing the price of super rare items that ... for the sake of argument some ~other player can't afford~ ... of course without effecting the price of those items that these random other players happen to be selling ... oh for .... sake I can't even pretend to take this seriously!!!!!

[Kakashis]

I agree to that whole list especially removing hammerjaw and glacian. Arcane pet at 6-7M is a JOKE and does those pets zero justice.

[Energizeric]

The way I see it is people are using locked crates as gold ATMs. They feed in enough cash either to loot what they want or loot enough to sell and buy what they want. Its not uncommon to hear stories of people spending 10k-20k plat. And I am sure there are plenty of people spending more. The other problem which most people don't seem to realize is crafting is inflating the price. To craft an arcane ring, people are spending 300 plat so they don't have to wait 5 days. Then spending plat on getting all exceptional gems. So these people are expecting a return on their plat investment.

I expect this is the same thing will happen on the next round of mythics. Because I expect that they will need to be crafted. Because it seems like STS wants you to pay 3 times on one item. Looting, crafting, upgrading. Because of this, the price on rare items will continue to rise.

It would be nice if they added some sort of gold sink to this crafting process. I'm sure Zeus would not have cared if he had to pay 5m to an NPC for some sort of crafting component as he would have passed that cost along to the customer, but it would have resulted in 5m leaving the game which would be a good thing.


Guys, I'm not trying to cause the price of anything to go down or up. What I am trying to do is create some stability. With the current trend, next season the best arcane item will cost 200m, and the season after it will cost 500m and it will never stop. Too much gold is being added to the game, and that will only increase when they release new mythics as more players will open locked crates to get those items, thus releasing more gold into the economy and creating even more inflation. I would not be surprised if the new mythic items coming end up costing 20m+ each, which is more than double what the level 30/31 mythics cost when they were first released, and more than triple what the level 26 mythic helms originally cost when they were new. We need to stop this inflation.

[octavos]

How exactly would causing the price of super rare items that ... for the sake of argument some ~other player can't afford~ ... of course without effecting the price of those items that these random other players happen to be selling ... oh for .... sake I can't even pretend to take this seriously!!!!!

couldn't help it XD.

https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/8147320320/h7FF188C6/

[Energizeric]

I also don't see prices dropping so low on these items they need to be curbed.

You don't see prices dropping? Runic gun was 10m when first released, then went down to 5m for a while, then down to 2-3m where it was until last month, and now 1.5m. Level 30 mythic amulets were 6-8m when first released, then dropped to 2-4m where they were until the end of season 4, then dropped to around 600k-1m last season, and now you can get one for 250k.

Soon when new mythic items are released there is going to be a flood of the older mythics on the market as no end game players are going to need them, and the price on some of those items like the amulets that still come in locked crates are going to go under 100k. If I were a crate opener and I finally managed to loot a mythic item and I found out it was the one that cost 50k instead of the new one that cost 20m, I'm going to be very upset.

There is already enough of those older mythics in circulation to satisfy the twink population. You can safely lower the drop rate or remove them from locked crates all together. Remember that they still will come in elite golden chests. Once the end game legendary gear has better stats than these older mythics, it is time to discontinue those older items from locked crates IMO.

[Kellhus]

Yea so you complain bc items don't cost 10 m now but on other hand ppl complain only the rich are holding gold and prices are inflated. So which problem you want to fix? Sorry but if 85% of people can't afford these items what do you think will happen? Someone said last season was the most boring, well I've never heard so many complain the same so early after an update this seaon or about the crap stats on new gear and ridiculous prices. To me, not being one of those ppl with the highest possible gear in every category, trying to get a number of runs n new elites that would provide fruitful is difficult. And if i happened to get something other than a common item for my reward, the new gear just isn't that great and only ppl with expendable cash might buy them. So what's left to do, farm teeth. Zzzz. Going back to last season, it was pretty boring which is why i hid out in twinks, most notably the reason for not having stacks of cash, but ik many who did the same and are only just now buying their myths and upgrading. So ok, maybe the are alot out there, but what happens when their price increases again, those middle class players can't afford, again, and the money and items sit there getting dusty. Isn't part of the solution to get the gold circulating? Not only amongst the rich but to others as well. Idk im sure my opinion counts as naught bc after all I'm not one of the elite wealthy.

Edit: and item prices always drop as time goes by so shouldnt be a suprise things aren't as expensive as they use to be.

Sorry, one more thing. How do you know there won't be another upgrade to current myth gear? Are you hoarding secrets? :-P
...

[falmear]

It would be nice if they added some sort of gold sink to this crafting process. I'm sure Zeus would not have cared if he had to pay 5m to an NPC for some sort of crafting component as he would have passed that cost along to the customer, but it would have resulted in 5m leaving the game which would be a good thing.


My issue is you should be able to craft the ring right away at no cost. Costing 300 plat to buy off the timer is a bad idea. And buying off the timer on upgrades is also a bad idea. This is part of the price inflation problem. In one of the original threads I stated this would be a problem where people could spend plat to turn over a profit upgrading items. Right now there are many avenues for people to convert plat to gold. Buy vanities, weapons or elixirs from the store and sell them for gold. Open crates and the sell loot for gold. Crafting & upgrades to buy off timer to sell items for gold. I have done well this season so I don't have a lot to complain about. I could buy a ring if I wanted to, but I don't feel the price is justified. So I'll wait and see what happens.

[Energizeric]

My issue is you should be able to craft the ring right away at no cost. Costing 300 plat to buy off the timer is a bad idea. And buying off the timer on upgrades is also a bad idea. This is part of the price inflation problem. In one of the original threads I stated this would be a problem where people could spend plat to turn over a profit upgrading items. Right now there are many avenues for people to convert plat to gold. Buy vanities, weapons or elixirs from the store and sell them for gold. Open crates and the sell loot for gold. Crafting & upgrades to buy off timer to sell items for gold. I have done well this season so I don't have a lot to complain about. I could buy a ring if I wanted to, but I don't feel the price is justified. So I'll wait and see what happens.

That's because people have no patience. If I had the money I'd just buy the shard and craft my own ring and I'd wait the 5 days, and then I'd take to time to gem it even if it takes a few weeks to get perfect. I would not spend any plat to do it.

[falmear]

That's because people have no patience. If I had the money I'd just buy the shard and craft my own ring and I'd wait the 5 days, and then I'd take to time to gem it even if it takes a few weeks to get perfect. I would not spend any plat to do it.

I don't think its about patience. Its about being first to market and trying to command whatever price you desire. Most of these rings are being resold, so to have them fully gemmed means someone spent a bunch of plat to make that happen. I believe going forward this is the model STS wants to charge us for looting an item (locked), crafting an item (shard), upgrading an item (exceptional gems). If you see how much plat is extracted on just one item, then this makes total sense. Basically this is a tax on the crafting/upgrade system. And in my eyes this is why arcane & mythics cost so much now. You have a tiered system, shard is worth X, crafted clean ring is worth X+Y, an upgraded ring is worth X+Y+Z. People were saying this would help the casual player, but it doesn't. It only helps the people who are spending plat to upgrade these items and turn them around for a profit. And this isn't just on the arcane ring but its on legendary and mythic items too.

[Hectororius]

This would explain why they have made elixirs tradable. They were no longer drawing the plat they used to command and the upgrade system has become the new plat sink for plat spenders, so they give it a last hurrah via kit sales and move on to creating other ways for players to spend their money on the game.

Unfortunately this has created the divide between plat and not plat spenders that no amount of hard work will allow the casual/dedicated farmer to ever reach the lofty goals of obtaining New mythic and arcane items.

The economy is failing because there is no interest in the new elite items and worse, farming them isn't even all that exciting or its overly difficult. Or maybe I'm just burnt out. Or maybe I've spent too much time in these forums and its numbed any joy the game used to bring.

[Kellhus]

This would explain why they have made elixirs tradable. They were no longer drawing the plat they used to command and the upgrade system has become the new plat sink for plat spenders, so they give it a last hurrah via kit sales and move on to creating other ways for players to spend their money on the game.

Unfortunately this has created the divide between plat and not plat spenders that no amount of hard work will allow the casual/dedicated farmer to ever reach the lofty goals of obtaining New mythic and arcane items.

The economy is failing because there is no interest in the new elite items and worse, farming them isn't even all that exciting or its overly difficult. Or maybe I'm just burnt out. Or maybe I've spent too much time in these forums and its numbed any joy the game used to bring.

+1

...

[Energizeric]

I don't think its about patience. Its about being first to market and trying to command whatever price you desire. Most of these rings are being resold, so to have them fully gemmed means someone spent a bunch of plat to make that happen. I believe going forward this is the model STS wants to charge us for looting an item (locked), crafting an item (shard), upgrading an item (exceptional gems). If you see how much plat is extracted on just one item, then this makes total sense. Basically this is a tax on the crafting/upgrade system. And in my eyes this is why arcane & mythics cost so much now. You have a tiered system, shard is worth X, crafted clean ring is worth X+Y, an upgraded ring is worth X+Y+Z. People were saying this would help the casual player, but it doesn't. It only helps the people who are spending plat to upgrade these items and turn them around for a profit. And this isn't just on the arcane ring but its on legendary and mythic items too.

Unfortunately if we start making suggestions that will result in less plat being spent, STS is not going to listen. In order for our suggestions to be considered, we have to make suggestions that won't hurt their business model. So while I do not disagree with your analysis, I think it would be a waste of our effort to discuss that here. Instead we have to suggest other changes that can be made to make things improve. It is never going to be perfect with a "free to play" model.

[Energizeric]

This would explain why they have made elixirs tradable. They were no longer drawing the plat they used to command and the upgrade system has become the new plat sink for plat spenders, so they give it a last hurrah via kit sales and move on to creating other ways for players to spend their money on the game.

Unfortunately this has created the divide between plat and not plat spenders that no amount of hard work will allow the casual/dedicated farmer to ever reach the lofty goals of obtaining New mythic and arcane items.

The economy is failing because there is no interest in the new elite items and worse, farming them isn't even all that exciting or its overly difficult. Or maybe I'm just burnt out. Or maybe I've spent too much time in these forums and its numbed any joy the game used to bring.

I'd love to hear what your suggestions are to fix these problems. Again, making suggestions that result in less plat sales is not going to happen, so please keep the scope of your suggestions to things that does not involve plat. There are plenty of games that use the subscription model instead of the "free to play" model, and suggesting that STS change their game to that is like saying you don't like baseball and to fix it they should make it more like football. That is not going to happen.

[Kellhus]

Dont think anyone is suggesting less plat ideas rather something needs to be done to even they playing field or at least make it viable for non plat users while still encouraging play people to spend. Difficult one.

...

[Energizeric]

Dont think anyone is suggesting less plat ideas rather something needs to be done to even they playing field or at least make it viable for non plat users while still encouraging play people to spend. Difficult one.

Problem is nobody is going to spend unless it gives them a noticeable advantage by doing so.

FYI, I am NOT a big plat spender, but I do spend some plat. I do not open locked crates, and only spend plat on elixirs and an occasional vanity item or pet. Somehow I have managed to save up lots of gold and buy some of the elite mythic & arcane items. I don't have every item I would like to have, nor would I ever want to have everything or else the game would quickly become boring. But I will admit that I have some skill as a merchant and also spend tons of time farming, probably more than the average casual player can spend.

As with any game, those who spend more time are going to have an advantage. Plat basically saves you time. It makes everything happen faster. So if you cannot spend plat AND you cannot spend lots of time, then you can't really be successful. And that goes for everything in life, not just this game. If you don't have money, you better be prepared to work very hard.

[Kellhus]

Ofc they will always be an advantage to spending real money and anyone who begrudges that is silly. I'm like you i dont spend heaps of plats but i do spend some. Tbh idk what should be done other than something needs to be because i see alot of disheartened people now days which is not good for the game either.

...

[Hectororius]

I'm not going to suggest anything to fix the game since that appears to have gotten us in the current predicament we are in now.




As with any game, those who spend more time are going to have an advantage. Plat basically saves you time. It makes everything happen faster. So if you cannot spend plat AND you cannot spend lots of time, then you can't really be successful. And that goes for everything in life, not just this game. If you don't have money, you better be prepared to work very hard.

And just like in real life, you can work as hard as you want, but if you don't catch a lucky break sometimes, your hard work will be fruitless and for nothing.

[faefaefae]

Last year we had a big discussion about the economic woes of Arlor in this thread:

http://www.spacetimestudios.com/showthread.php?102932-AL-Economy-in-Recession


As a result of this discussion, and based partly on my recommendation in this post....

http://www.spacetimestudios.com/showthread.php?102932-AL-Economy-in-Recession&p=1150294&viewfull=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?

Your ideas are always brilliant. I agree with each of your suggestions.

To immediately alleviate the problem of inflation, a 'gold sink' has to be created so that 'extra gold' can be taken out from the economy. As you have said, we need to take into account the interest of STS when making any suggestion of this kind. Here is my suggestion:

We all know new mythics are coming. There may be new lv 41 mythic weapons, mythic armor, mythic helm and mythic amulet. Why not make one of them directly purchasable in AL store for a large amount of gold? For example, a new mythic amulet can be purchased from store for $15m gold (not plat) and this amulet cannot be looted from lock. This will absorb a large amount of gold from the economy and can alleviate the inflation problem immediately. As other mythic gear can only be looted from locks or other elite chests, implementing this suggestion will not affect STS's income as plat spenders will keep popping locks to loot those items.

[Kellhus]

Your ideas are always brilliant. I agree with each of your suggestions.

To immediately alleviate the problem of inflation, a 'gold sink' has to be created so that 'extra gold' can be taken out from the economy. As you have said, we need to take into account the interest of STS when making any suggestion of this kind. Here is my suggestion:

We all know new mythics are coming. There may be new lv 41 mythic weapons, mythic armor, mythic helm and mythic amulet. Why not make one of them directly purchasable in AL store for a large amount of gold? For example, a new mythic amulet can be purchased from store for $15m gold (not plat) and this amulet cannot be looted from lock. This will absorb a large amount of gold from the economy and can alleviate the inflation problem immediately. As other mythic gear can only be looted from locks or other elite chests, implementing this suggestion will not affect STS's income as plat spenders will keep popping locks to loot those items.

Thats not a bad idea.

...

[falmear]

This would explain why they have made elixirs tradable. They were no longer drawing the plat they used to command and the upgrade system has become the new plat sink for plat spenders, so they give it a last hurrah via kit sales and move on to creating other ways for players to spend their money on the game.

Yes because the way I see it is they are shifting their business model to draw more revenue from crafting and upgrades and less from elixirs. This will be confirmed if we have to craft mythics. If we do then the prices on these mythics will a lot more then they previously were. Crafting and upgrades by plat don't add any value to the game. You are buying off the timer and artificially increasing the cost. This happened last season with mythic weapons because of their rarity & cost of upgrading. If we have to craft mythics then I expect the prices on mythic weapons to exceed last seasons prices.

[Rare]

Lol

[rook storm]

Money, get away.
Get a good job with good pay and you're okay.
Money, it's a gas.
Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash.
New car, caviar, four star daydream,
Think I'll buy me a football team.

Money, get back.
I'm all right Jack keep your hands off of my stack.
Money, it's a hit.
Don't give me that do goody good bull****.
I'm in the high-fidelity first class traveling set
And I think I need a Lear jet.

Money, it's a crime.
Share it fairly but don't take a slice of my pie.
Money, so they say
Is the root of all evil today.
But if you ask for a raise it's no surprise that they're
giving none away.

Pink Floyd

[Anarchist]

]My solution is that when the new mythics come out there should be a counterpart release of new legendary gears that distance in stats just like Lv36 tarlok sets from Lv36 mythic sets.

A good idea someone suggested earlier is adding new items yes maybe even a mythic ring purchaseable with gold from the store. This will ( not 100% sure) give a limit to the other mythic pieces making them stay in a reasonable range from the legendaries. Sts will pratically control the mythic market price.


The problem we are having right now is a red emergency not because market inflates or things cost too much, not because a arcane ring was sold for 100million, Nono the problem is that the entire game is already broken again and we are were we start from. Yes sts messed it all up.

I explain,
The itemization system itself isn't a bad idea if applied like i said in my earlier posts by trying to keep the legendary quite as good as the mythic hence making the demand for legendary sets high in a long arc of time. Hiw to do this? When the current legendary pieces start dropping too low you simply create new ones with better stats revalutating them.

BUT....WHAT DID STS DO?

They brought new legendary pieces worser in stats compaired to the previous mythics everybody already had. So the demand for the new farmable items went flop and their value started dropping fast.


NOTE STS:
Legendary items are the key if you are interested in revalutating the market and making mythic/arcane stuff reachable just through farming, difference between the 3 categorize shouldn't be too high nor to low and that is were itemization plays a fundamental role with the goal of revalutating the legendary sets when they drop too low. The legendary items are also the weakest on market because they can't maintain their value for a long period compaired to the mythics and arcanes. The way the itemization system has been done till now is just "MEH" and oriented to spill the highest quantity of plats from the players.

IMO when you add the new mythic sets you will have to add new legendary sets because the current ones will just suck and the demand for them will drastically drop and it is already low.

[Energizeric]

Your ideas are always brilliant. I agree with each of your suggestions.

To immediately alleviate the problem of inflation, a 'gold sink' has to be created so that 'extra gold' can be taken out from the economy. As you have said, we need to take into account the interest of STS when making any suggestion of this kind. Here is my suggestion:

We all know new mythics are coming. There may be new lv 41 mythic weapons, mythic armor, mythic helm and mythic amulet. Why not make one of them directly purchasable in AL store for a large amount of gold? For example, a new mythic amulet can be purchased from store for $15m gold (not plat) and this amulet cannot be looted from lock. This will absorb a large amount of gold from the economy and can alleviate the inflation problem immediately. As other mythic gear can only be looted from locks or other elite chests, implementing this suggestion will not affect STS's income as plat spenders will keep popping locks to loot those items.

That is a very good idea. I was thinking they could make it a bit more complicated and make it a crafting component. The arcane ring is already a done deal, but imagine if there had been a 4th necessary crafting component and that component must be purchased from an in game NPC for 5m gold. Or it could be 10m gold. Whatever the amount, the rich players will pay it. Remember the goal here is to have the gold sink affect rich players only. Call it a "rich tax". So your idea would work well. Just lets make sure it is only one single item. I suggest whatever item it is, that item only be available from this NPC and not from crates, chests or any other way. That way it doesn't start affecting the free market.

[Energizeric]

Yes because the way I see it is they are shifting their business model to draw more revenue from crafting and upgrades and less from elixirs.

I think you aren't realizing that the elixirs that are tradable are still purchased for plat. All they did was make a way for you to use your plat to buy an elixir for someone else. Kind of brilliant really. That's also why they made the plat store vanity items tradable. They realized that people will spend their plat and buy them for players who have no plat. If you buy a vanity set and sell it in the auction, you are doing exactly that.

[Energizeric]

]I explain,
The itemization system itself isn't a bad idea if applied like i said in my earlier posts by trying to keep the legendary quite as good as the mythic hence making the demand for legendary sets high in a long arc of time. Hiw to do this? When the current legendary pieces start dropping too low you simply create new ones with better stats revalutating them.

FYI, that is their plan. This was discussed in last month's google hangout session, and I actually talked to the developers about this before the video even started recording, and that is indeed their plan. There will be more than mythics coming, that is for sure.

The problem is that in order to have some balance, they needed to scale back the initial wave of items being released. They do realize this was not ideal, but the only other alternative would have been to nerf the level 35/36 tarlok items, and people would have raged. Otherwise by the time they get to their third wave of items this season, they are going to become too OP. So the only viable solution was to make this first wave of items only slightly better than the tarlok items. That of course meant that mythic items from level 36 are better than this first wave of level 41 legendary items. But my guess is that the next wave of legendary items will surpass level 36 mythics or at least be equal to them.

Because of this itemization plan, it is really going to take the entire season to get things straightened out. But that whole plan has little to do with the issues I brought up in this thread, which is inflation. The problem is not a 100m ring. The problem is that next season we may have a 200m item, and it will keep growing like that. We need for this trend to stabilize, and changing locked crates is the key to that.

[FluidShot]

Because of this itemization plan, it is really going to take the entire season to get things straightened out. But that whole plan has little to do with the issues I brought up in this thread, which is inflation. The problem is not a 100m ring. The problem is that next season we may have a 200m item, and it will keep growing like that. We need for this trend to stabilize, and changing locked crates is the key to that.

I don't usually comment on these threads, but I felt like I should add my two cents.

The problem with this game is that you can become one of those 100M players too easily. I have played other online games in my time, where real money can speed up your progress, and make the game slightly easier and less monotonous, but there was no way to actually convert your real money into game money. Whether you spent $1000 or nothing, it would still take the same time to make money, and gain wealth.

The problem with AL is that someone can blow $10,000 on plat, convert a thousand of it into gold, buy locked crates, then open them until they have 200M worth of items. This can happen in a span of an hour if they really want. Yet, if you don't spend any money on the game, most people wouldn't get to 100M in 25 years, and probably not get above 25M unless they are an expert merchant, who is always watching the market.

Since it is so easy to make money (I will make a sweeping generalization here) and the players who have the 100M and the best items, who have nothing to spend their money on because they used plat to get there, will always have more money available. There is no gold sink strong enough that would at the same time be attractive enough, to make a large enough dent on these players wallets. A large gold sink costs 25M? Use that last pay check to open locked crates until you get the money back.

The problem is how easy it is to get money. Since I'll assume 95% of those with 100M used plat to get themselves there (or at least significantly on the way there), there is no way to fix the problem in the past, the only way is to fix it going forward. That would be somehow, screwing with locked crates so players with way to much real money to spend don't think of them as the "real money to infinite game wealth" conversion they currently are. Until then, we're stuck with the top 1% controlling the price of these rich items, with the average person having no power to do anything about it. How should we do it? No idea. But there needs to be a change so the crates don't convert to instant wealth.

The dragonite bar was supposed to fix this - by adding a necessary gameplay element into it, so you couldn't open a crate and be instantly wealthy. But with the prowess of the ring, and the resulting price of the shard, combined with the fact that the dragonite bar is tradable, this has done nothing to the problem of insta-conversion. People open crates, find a shard, with all the other items, sell to make the 5M to buy the dragonite bar from auction, 5k for the recipe, you're done.
Don't want to open crates? No problem. If you have 100M, buy the shard for 70M, the bar for 5M, and finish up with the recipe. Either way, you're only appealing to a) people with tons of money, or b) the insane locked crate openers, who as a result, have tons of money.

If the bar were to not be tradeable, this might help in making it necessary to actually play through the game, without having the ability to, once you have a ton of money, continually merch them, control the market, and if you, and your merching buddies want, raise the price to 200M.

DISCLAIMER: This post was written by a tired person - feel free to rip it apart if the logic is a disgrace to humankind. I am just happy there is so much collective problem solving going on in this thread. It's encouraging. I just hope this post is coherent.

[falmear]

I think you aren't realizing that the elixirs that are tradable are still purchased for plat. All they did was make a way for you to use your plat to buy an elixir for someone else. Kind of brilliant really. That's also why they made the plat store vanity items tradable. They realized that people will spend their plat and buy them for players who have no plat. If you buy a vanity set and sell it in the auction, you are doing exactly that.

By making elixirs tradable they make them accessible to people who would may not have ever bought them. But once there is enough elixirs out there, there ends up being an excess supply. So overall I would expect sales of elixirs to decline. Ask yourself why they didn't make combo or XP elixir (7 day or +50%) tradable. I am pretty sure damage, damage reduction, and speed elixirs don't sell very well. Combo, XP, and luck elixirs are probably the best selling. And the highest profit margin I am sure is on the XP and combo elixirs.

[Hectororius]

I think you aren't realizing that the elixirs that are tradable are still purchased for plat. All they did was make a way for you to use your plat to buy an elixir for someone else. Kind of brilliant really. That's also why they made the plat store vanity items tradable. They realized that people will spend their plat and buy them for players who have no plat. If you buy a vanity set and sell it in the auction, you are doing exactly that.

The reason why things become tradable is because the sales begin to lag from the exclusivity, so they they find a way to boost those lagging sales and it usually results in exclusive items becoming available to the rest of the player base (see inventory, ah, character slots, vanities, Grimm, Ewen,...).

Unfortunately, they've only managed to compound the situation by making harder to sell already hard to move items. Withing a week of the elixirs being released, elite drop items have nearly dropped 50% in value.

You wanted gold sinks? We got em in spades. But its taxing the wrong player base.

[jrkimkyla]

Great points, however I do not think the arcane pets (Hammerjaw, Glacian) should be removed from crates. These pets are viable and therefore should not be removed so that users who would like to use arcanes such as HJ and Glacian get the chance to do so without having to pay 10 million more for the best arcane.

I agree with you. Do not remove hammerjaw or glacian

Sent from my XT1028 using Tapatalk

[Energizeric]

The reason why things become tradable is because the sales begin to lag from the exclusivity, so they they find a way to boost those lagging sales and it usually results in exclusive items becoming available to the rest of the player base (see inventory, ah, character slots, vanities, Grimm, Ewen,...).

Unfortunately, they've only managed to compound the situation by making harder to sell already hard to move items. Withing a week of the elixirs being released, elite drop items have nearly dropped 50% in value.

You wanted gold sinks? We got em in spades. But its taxing the wrong player base.

That is not a gold sink. When someone buys an elixir for plat, and then lists it in the auction and another player buys it form them, the only gold sink there is the 5% taken by the auction for the listing fee. It is simply a transfer of 95% of the gold from the buyer of the item to the seller.

A gold sink would mean that the money leaves the game, kind of like when you buy potions from the potion lady in the guild hall, or when you pay to feed your pet.

[Energizeric]

I don't usually comment on these threads, but I felt like I should add my two cents.

The problem with this game is that you can become one of those 100M players too easily. I have played other online games in my time, where real money can speed up your progress, and make the game slightly easier and less monotonous, but there was no way to actually convert your real money into game money. Whether you spent $1000 or nothing, it would still take the same time to make money, and gain wealth.

The problem with AL is that someone can blow $10,000 on plat, convert a thousand of it into gold, buy locked crates, then open them until they have 200M worth of items. This can happen in a span of an hour if they really want. Yet, if you don't spend any money on the game, most people wouldn't get to 100M in 25 years, and probably not get above 25M unless they are an expert merchant, who is always watching the market.

Since it is so easy to make money (I will make a sweeping generalization here) and the players who have the 100M and the best items, who have nothing to spend their money on because they used plat to get there, will always have more money available. There is no gold sink strong enough that would at the same time be attractive enough, to make a large enough dent on these players wallets. A large gold sink costs 25M? Use that last pay check to open locked crates until you get the money back.

The problem is how easy it is to get money. Since I'll assume 95% of those with 100M used plat to get themselves there (or at least significantly on the way there), there is no way to fix the problem in the past, the only way is to fix it going forward. That would be somehow, screwing with locked crates so players with way to much real money to spend don't think of them as the "real money to infinite game wealth" conversion they currently are. Until then, we're stuck with the top 1% controlling the price of these rich items, with the average person having no power to do anything about it. How should we do it? No idea. But there needs to be a change so the crates don't convert to instant wealth.

The dragonite bar was supposed to fix this - by adding a necessary gameplay element into it, so you couldn't open a crate and be instantly wealthy. But with the prowess of the ring, and the resulting price of the shard, combined with the fact that the dragonite bar is tradable, this has done nothing to the problem of insta-conversion. People open crates, find a shard, with all the other items, sell to make the 5M to buy the dragonite bar from auction, 5k for the recipe, you're done.
Don't want to open crates? No problem. If you have 100M, buy the shard for 70M, the bar for 5M, and finish up with the recipe. Either way, you're only appealing to a) people with tons of money, or b) the insane locked crate openers, who as a result, have tons of money.

If the bar were to not be tradeable, this might help in making it necessary to actually play through the game, without having the ability to, once you have a ton of money, continually merch them, control the market, and if you, and your merching buddies want, raise the price to 200M.

DISCLAIMER: This post was written by a tired person - feel free to rip it apart if the logic is a disgrace to humankind. I am just happy there is so much collective problem solving going on in this thread. It's encouraging. I just hope this post is coherent.

Very good analysis. You have pointed out all the problems with the "free to play" game model. But that is the kind of game we play, and STS is not going to change that. So the solution is to help them manage it the best that they can by making suggestions that will not hurt the game's profitability.

There is one error in your analysis however.... If they keep the total amount of gold in the game consistent by managing gold drops and gold sinks properly, then more and more players cannot keep getting richer and richer as there would not be enough gold for this to happen. People only spend 80m on an arcane shard because that 80m exists. There is only so much gold to go around.

Yes, the rich always have most of the wealth.... that is how capitalism works. If you are here to debate the merits of capitalism, then that is a different debate for a different forum. The problem here is that there is an increasing total amount of gold in the game, so the fortunes that these few players have amassed keeps increasing. If you stabilize the total amount of gold in the game, then these huge fortunes will level off, and so will prices of the best items.

Last summer we pointed out that there was a decreasing supply of gold in the game, which was a bad thing and was causing prices on everything to drop. So STS reversed that with a change to the locked crates. But apparently the balance has gone too far the other way. Just because a certain amount of something is good, does not mean that more of it is better. It's time to reduce the gold drops.

[Anarchist]

FYI, that is their plan. This was discussed in last month's google hangout session, and I actually talked to the developers about this before the video even started recording, and that is indeed their plan. There will be more than mythics coming, that is for sure.

The problem is that in order to have some balance, they needed to scale back the initial wave of items being released. They do realize this was not ideal, but the only other alternative would have been to nerf the level 35/36 tarlok items, and people would have raged. Otherwise by the time they get to their third wave of items this season, they are going to become too OP. So the only viable solution was to make this first wave of items only slightly better than the tarlok items. That of course meant that mythic items from level 36 are better than this first wave of level 41 legendary items. But my guess is that the next wave of legendary items will surpass level 36 mythics or at least be equal to them.

Because of this itemization plan, it is really going to take the entire season to get things straightened out. But that whole plan has little to do with the issues I brought up in this thread, which is inflation. The problem is not a 100m ring. The problem is that next season we may have a 200m item, and it will keep growing like that. We need for this trend to stabilize, and changing locked crates is the key to that.

TBH i didn't fully watch the hangout and skipped many parts.

Nonetheless it seems i was on the right track.

Can you explain in what way you want to change the locked crates?? Copy and paste if you already said it please.

What do you think of adding a gold shrink that is a mythic item purchasable directly from a NPC or craftable with a huge amount of gold?

Do you think as i do it can keep in range the other mythic items when they come out? Sure the mythis from lockeds would be higher but i don't think they will greatly exceed the gold mythic surpassing it with Xm-200m. This could be used by sts as a mythic market price regulator to keep the others at a good range.

The mythic items buyable with gold would be rotated so the natural devalutation is equally spread among all of them, this way there won't be a situation where a mythic ring will cost 10m and another mythic item 50m.

Like i said earlier i don't think inflation can be defined as a problem of arcane legends economy but it is rather a natural evolution that resides in the dna of the system itself, actually it resides in any economy that follows the capitalist method of a free market.


I want to also point out you are concluding there is inflation by saying a item that is currently the rarest, most expensive and strongest ingame can't be acquired by selling gears nobody really wants.

Let's wait and see what happens when the good legendaries pop out.

[Daddyblu]

Leave it be!

Arcane ring is a decent price do you know why it should be 100m++

1.) Its the only arcane rarity that all class can use ( Mage, rouge , War)

2.) the demand is high since all players can use it regardless of class.

3.) shard drop rate is low.

4.) if i have another shard i would always keep a extra one on my inventory ( because we all know shard will be use in the future for upgrading other items.)
So shard price wont go down.

[Energizeric]

TBH i didn't fully watch the hangout and skipped many parts.

Nonetheless it seems i was on the right track.

Can you explain in what way you want to change the locked crates?? Copy and paste if you already said it please.

What do you think of adding a gold shrink that is a mythic item purchasable directly from a NPC or craftable with a huge amount of gold?

Do you think as i do it can keep in range the other mythic items when they come out? Sure the mythis from lockeds would be higher but i don't think they will greatly exceed the gold mythic surpassing it with Xm-200m. This could be used by sts as a mythic market price regulator to keep the others at a good range.

The mythic items buyable with gold would be rotated so the natural devalutation is equally spread among all of them, this way there won't be a situation where a mythic ring will cost 10m and another mythic item 50m.

Like i said earlier i don't think inflation can be defined as a problem of arcane legends economy but it is rather a natural evolution that resides in the dna of the system itself, actually it resides in any economy that follows the capitalist method of a free market.


I want to also point out you are concluding there is inflation by saying a item that is currently the rarest, most expensive and strongest ingame can't be acquired by selling gears nobody really wants.

Look at the first post in this thread. I gave 5 things I would change about the locked crates.

And yes, having a mythic item that can be purchased from an NPC is not a bad idea for a gold sink. It would serve to tax the richest players, as they are the ones who would buy the mythic item, which is what we want. I think an even better idea would be to use this new crafting process and make one of the crafting items cost 5m or maybe more.

I actually suspect that instead of having actual mythic gear dropping in the future, we will have a "mythic shard", just like we have an arcane shard. And then there will be other ingredients that will have to be acquired to craft each item that we want. This will allow players to craft the exact item they want, instead of a mage looting a rogue armor and having to sell it to buy the one they want. The rare item will be the "shard". So my suggestion is to add some crafting element that you buy from an NPC and which costs a nice amount of gold, and that will serve as the gold sink. I suspect that 15m for a gold sink may be far too much. Remember that we don't want to have deflation, we just want to stop the inflation.

I do realize that not everyone is going to be able to have an arcane item. Arcane are super rare, and by definition, that means not everyone could have one. If everyone had one, then it would not be rare. My concern is that escalating prices every campaign. When arcane hooks were released, they were 20-25m. Maul was 40-50m. Kershal was 60-70m, and now we have arcane rings/shards going for 100m. Why does this number keep increasing? The answer must be that there is an overall increase in gold in the game. We are not talking just a few players who have 100m, there are a ton of them.

[Energizeric]

4.) if i have another shard i would always keep a extra one on my inventory ( because we all know shard will be use in the future for upgrading other items.)
So shard price wont go down.

Yes, I always make sure to own two Ferraris, that way I can drive the other one when one is in the shop. I suggest that all people should do that! :)

[epicrrr]

The fact that a single item has been bought/is selling for 80+ MILLION GOLD is pretty scary, were seeing how much gold a player can spend thus setting a base price for certain items.

[Anarchist]

I actually suspect that instead of having actual mythic gear dropping in the future, we will have a "mythic shard", just like we have an arcane shard. And then there will be other ingredients that will have to be acquired to craft each item that we want. This will allow players to craft the exact item they want, instead of a mage looting a rogue armor and having to sell it to buy the one they want. The rare item will be the "shard". So my suggestion is to add some crafting element that you buy from an NPC and which costs a nice amount of gold, and that will serve as the gold sink. I suspect that 15m for a gold sink may be far too much. Remember that we don't want to have deflation, we just want to stop the inflation.


Adjusting locked crates isn't powerful enough to stop any future inflation (as for now things are Ok. Arcane rings apart the current legendary gears allow F2P players to decently reach the mythics and arcanes items).

I like the five points you listed though.

The second is a bit risky because it means all new mythic and arcane drop rate will have to be boosted since there will never be enough of them when they come out. Just like in the case of the arcane shard.

[Fauksuras]

Well I'd just like to say that with the way things are moving if you're inclined to spend money on a game (like the amount needed in crafting), there are way better games out there to do so.

[Haligali]

1) Lower the amount of gold rewards in locked crates...

agree, from ~100 crate i usually get 500k-1m gold


2) Boost the drop rates of the newest and highest priced Arcane items.

agree, this is what we need.


3) Lower the drop rates of older Mythic and Arcane items.

agree, i hate looting doom, lunar and mythic sorcerer helmets


4) Remove the oldest Arcane Pets, Hammerjaw and Glacian, from locked crates.

agree, there is a ton of them


5) Remove scaling of legendary items from locked crates.

this is a very good idea!

[supersyan]

The Mythics, Arcane, best pinks primarily get in the hands of plat spenders. If they they decide sell it extremely high or low, no one can do anything about. No offence. Rich problem

Forgot to add suggestion. How about different economy Zones?
one another suggestion- Add minimum stats to enter in in pvp zone or maps irrespective of level so people need minimum stats to play pvp and map. This will make gear somewhat dropping price and helps new people and farmers too



We duh PizzA!

[Bigboyblue]

The way to stop this inflation is to add a gold sink. They could add new gear that you can buy with gold but this will make the "have nots" even worse off. If you do this for one season it may not be the end of the world but you will have a large player base angry for the whole season. Right now new players entering the world of AL have a chance to loot one of the best items in the game using rl money. If the best items become purchasable for gold they have no hope. Without hope players will not pop locks, crate gear becomes worthless and there is no real way for them to make money. This would result in less plat sales.

Even adding a 5m charge to crafting the best item dashes the hope of new players. When they know they need a large sum of money to obtain the best items. STS has to promote new players to stick around and ultimately spend rl money on plat. The current system they have works well.

I do not know the answer but if STS believes this is a real issue they need to add an item to the store that is purchasable with gold. Something that will not make the crate gear obsolete. Maybe a purchasable house or something along those lines. 50m and you get your own zone with a house and extended stash. You can invite your party there to hang out. It needs to be an item everyone will want to have but doesn't affect the current gear available.

[Iliketolol]

Gold sink is a must!!! Seriously just see price of arcane ring ( i understand its the only arcane item that can be used by every class) but still 85-100m is too much @_@.. I cant imagine price of endgame gear after 2 years!

[Rare]

A gold sink that is related to gear isn't going to work. Either the gear is second rate and nobody will buy it, or its great and becomes necessity. And also kills the legendary market. Also, anything that can be bought and sold in cs is not a good gold sink as it can be used and controlled by merchants. No offense to them, but it's not the way you want a gold sink to work. Taking money out of the game, but moving the in game money into the hands of those that are wealthy.


True gold sinks are perks. Expensive gold revives. Gold for respecs, etc. The problem is, the "perks" that are perfect for gold sinks are already purchased with platinum. Especially elixir.

[Anarchist]

A gold sink that is related to gear isn't going to work. Either the gear is second rate and nobody will buy it, or its great and becomes necessity. And also kills the legendary market. Also, anything that can be bought and sold in cs is not a good gold sink as it can be used and controlled by merchants. No offense to them, but it's not the way you want a gold sink to work. Taking money out of the game, but moving the in game money into the hands of those that are wealthy.


True gold sinks are perks. Expensive gold revives. Gold for respecs, etc. The problem is, the "perks" that are perfect for gold sinks are already purchased with platinum. Especially elixir.

A mythic item used as a gold sink can't be controlled by merchants.

If you buy a mythic amulet for 15m from a npc and then try to sell it on the AH for 16m who do you think will buy it?

[Rare]

A mythic item used as a gold sink can't be controlled by merchants.

If you buy a mythic amulet for 15m from a npc and then try to sell it on the AH for 16m who do you think will buy it?

That's true. But that would be a one time usage for 99% of people that would actually pay that much. At most probably 3. It is not a recurring expense that can accumulate over time.

The other problem then is you're actually affecting other parts of the game with the gold sink. If the mythic amulet is the best, you're essential eliminating any type of farming for those items (of course, as of now, there really aren't amulets to farm). The other thing is, locked crates are one part of the game that you can't touch if you want to use perks like I mentioned. I feel like those are the best options for true gold sink.

[FluffNStuff]

A mythic item used as a gold sink can't be controlled by merchants.

If you buy a mythic amulet for 15m from a npc and then try to sell it on the AH for 16m who do you think will buy it?

Is it perfect? I can never get perfects so I would wait for the merchants to buy them and try to make perfects out of them.

[Energizeric]

The way to stop this inflation is to add a gold sink. They could add new gear that you can buy with gold but this will make the "have nots" even worse off. If you do this for one season it may not be the end of the world but you will have a large player base angry for the whole season. Right now new players entering the world of AL have a chance to loot one of the best items in the game using rl money. If the best items become purchasable for gold they have no hope. Without hope players will not pop locks, crate gear becomes worthless and there is no real way for them to make money. This would result in less plat sales.

Even adding a 5m charge to crafting the best item dashes the hope of new players. When they know they need a large sum of money to obtain the best items. STS has to promote new players to stick around and ultimately spend rl money on plat. The current system they have works well.

I think the fact that crafting the mythic ring requires the dragonite bar itself shows that STS does not care about this issue. The dragonite bar must either be purchased for gold from the auction, or you must spend many dozens of hours farming for 150 dragkin teeth.

I also think that it annoys most veteran players that a new player can just spend a ton of plat and suddenly have the best gear. So this would not be a negative. Also, if someone really wanted to spend a ton of plat and have the best gear, they could just convert some of that plat to gold anyway.

[Rare]

there are some serious logical flaws.

[FluidShot]

Very good analysis. You have pointed out all the problems with the "free to play" game model. But that is the kind of game we play, and STS is not going to change that. So the solution is to help them manage it the best that they can by making suggestions that will not hurt the game's profitability.

There is one error in your analysis however.... If they keep the total amount of gold in the game consistent by managing gold drops and gold sinks properly, then more and more players cannot keep getting richer and richer as there would not be enough gold for this to happen. People only spend 80m on an arcane shard because that 80m exists. There is only so much gold to go around.

Yes, the rich always have most of the wealth.... that is how capitalism works. If you are here to debate the merits of capitalism, then that is a different debate for a different forum. The problem here is that there is an increasing total amount of gold in the game, so the fortunes that these few players have amassed keeps increasing. If you stabilize the total amount of gold in the game, then these huge fortunes will level off, and so will prices of the best items.

Last summer we pointed out that there was a decreasing supply of gold in the game, which was a bad thing and was causing prices on everything to drop. So STS reversed that with a change to the locked crates. But apparently the balance has gone too far the other way. Just because a certain amount of something is good, does not mean that more of it is better. It's time to reduce the gold drops.

I'm surprised there was only one mistake. Wow.

Absolutely. I didn't mean to nerf them so much there isn't a large enough constant influx of gold into the economy. But if the crates are nerfed so, like I said, they are no longer viewed as the money to in-game money conversion they are, this would also increase the usage of elite maps, and elite loot.

I'm not arguing that the top 1% should control all the wealth - that is expected. All I'm saying is the path to becoming the top 1% in AL is too short, and simple.

Another idea - make the arcane ring untradeable. Once you craft it, like the mythics, it will become yours forever. Couple that with making the bars untradeable. This means those who are rich can not just resell them and continually make profits of 20-30M. They can only sell them as fast as they can get 150 dragon teeth, which we all know isn't very fast. If both the ring and the bar are untradeable, the only item that could be merchanted is the arcane shard. The shards "shouldn't" increase in price, because they drop rates wouldn't be altered, but it wouldn't allow the select players at the top so much control over the items that they could jack them up to 200M if they wanted.

Thoughts?

[Foebegone]

Ok I'm skipping to the end after the 3rd page so sorry if this has been said. STS tend to only put gold into the system and locked are a large input. there, as you said, needs be a output to match or gold will pool and prices will rise accordingly. The 2 ways to fix this are to restrict the input or increase outflow. I like that ppl can farm locked so I am for keeping them the same.

What I would like tho are some large scale gold purchases and I would base these around guilds. sell them a 1v1 pvp room for 100mil, 5v5 for 200mil sell them an in GH CS for 50mil, a notice board for 10mil, there are a lot of things you can provide that would not effect other players but draw gold out of circulation. this system would possibly be donation based and have a ranking so a guild levels up. from 100k to 1000mil

Everything else hits STSs plat income, tho I like the idea above but would extend it to all items and make them soul bound once you use them, that would have a massive impact on the markets for people that don't merch while leaving them largely unaffected (basicly I think it would break the trickle down effect)

[Deadroth]

OK, I'll bite. Explain to me WHY the arcane ring cost 100M gold and I will believe you both understand the economy and are not just trying to manipulate it.

Im just seeing a merch assemble for killing economy. I think it should be as it is.

In way like Energizeric said, someone can buy 5 hj for 6 m each, and sell for 8m each then... Next way to get rich for rich ones..

[Bigboyblue]

I think the fact that crafting the mythic ring requires the dragonite bar itself shows that STS does not care about this issue. The dragonite bar must either be purchased for gold from the auction, or you must spend many dozens of hours farming for 150 dragkin teeth.

I also think that it annoys most veteran players that a new player can just spend a ton of plat and suddenly have the best gear. So this would not be a negative. Also, if someone really wanted to spend a ton of plat and have the best gear, they could just convert some of that plat to gold anyway.

You may be right. I'm not too sure this is an issue for STS at all. If anything I would think it has the opposite affect. Knowing that the only way to reach the ultimate status is to buy plat and pop locks probably lets them rest well at night.

Although vets may be annoyed that new players can become as well equipped as them with the right amount of rl money I can almost bet that that too is the reason that they are so well equipped. There really aren't that many people that farmed, merched and saved for their gear(that makes you special :smile: ) There are some but a lot of ppl buy plat and pop locks. Also STS has to make this possible for new players. They want new players to buy plat. If a new player can't "buy" their way to the top then the risk losing revenue.

[falmear]

Leave it be!

Arcane ring is a decent price do you know why it should be 100m++
.

How many arcane rings did you buy at 100m++?

[notfaded1]

It's the same old argument getting older... those that don't spend plat looking for some way to change the balance (make the elites harder so we can sell for more, nerf the locked crates... la la la). Too many people forget that STS doesn't do this as a hobby for free players that don't spend money.

[Zeus]

How many arcane rings did you buy at 100m++?

He sells them for 100m+, I doubt he's silly enough to keep one, let alone buy one, when it's 100m+.

[notfaded1]

Leave it be!

Arcane ring is a decent price do you know why it should be 100m++

1.) Its the only arcane rarity that all class can use ( Mage, rouge , War)

2.) the demand is high since all players can use it regardless of class.

3.) shard drop rate is low.

4.) if i have another shard i would always keep a extra one on my inventory ( because we all know shard will be use in the future for upgrading other items.)
So shard price wont go down.

This actually cracked me up today... coming from a guy buying / selling shards... more power 2 ya brother! Smart high end market to be in right now... good way to make a few free rings.

[falmear]

He sells them for 100m+, I doubt he's silly enough to keep one, let alone buy one, when it's 100m+.

Exactly. If Daddybly isn't silly enough to be buying at 100m+, then why should anyone else. Just follow what merches do when buying.

[Zeus]

Exactly. If Daddybly isn't silly enough to be buying at 100m+, then why should anyone else. Just follow what merches do when buying.

You can't stop people from buying what they want though, haha. If you could, well, it would be quite a different market.

[notfaded1]

You can't stop people from buying what they want though, haha. If you could, well, it would be quite a different market.

True and the flip side is there will always be some dude that will undercut what you listed for in CS too...

[falmear]

You can't stop people from buying what they want though, haha. If you could, well, it would be quite a different market.

No you can't but just because people are asking for a certain price doesn't mean people have to pay for it. Seems like those that are buying at X price are smart and all those who are buying at Y price are silly. Those that read this, who do you want to be?

[Sorcerie]

84182

84183

[Energizeric]

It's the same old argument getting older... those that don't spend plat looking for some way to change the balance (make the elites harder so we can sell for more, nerf the locked crates... la la la). Too many people forget that STS doesn't do this as a hobby for free players that don't spend money.

Did you even read my post?

Nowhere did I say to nerf locked crates. I said to INCREASE the drop rate of the more valuable arcane items, and reduce the amount of gold. Do you open locked crates for the gold or for the chance at getting arcane items?

[Rare]

I play the lottery to hit the jackpot, but i'm not going to scoff at $7 to increase my chances to slightly better than nothing.

[Terracio]

It's the same old argument getting older... those that don't spend plat looking for some way to change the balance (make the elites harder so we can sell for more, nerf the locked crates... la la la). Too many people forget that STS doesn't do this as a hobby for free players that don't spend money.

Did you even read my post?

Nowhere did I say to nerf locked crates. I said to INCREASE the drop rate of the more valuable arcane items, and reduce the amount of gold. Do you open locked crates for the gold or for the chance at getting arcane items?

People don't read and want to have an opinion. I agree with you Energizeric, it's the same thing i said last season when Hooks fell from grace. Take them out of locked but keep them in Elite Pirate Chests.

This is actually in the best interest of STS. Right now I have some plat I refuse to use since only 3 items are even worth looting: Scepter, Sam and Shard. I won't open to run the risk of getting some mythic pendant, a hammerjaw, hooks etc and I'm sure PLENTY of people feel the same way.

[elmanco]

I think the economy is fine, its only when arcane/mythic items show up..it makes things just sky rocket. (if there is a gold cap even for 200mill or even 500mill....when will it ever stop XD) even simple missions that when you get 1 or 2 gold..is like pesos from mexico compared to gold in locked. so why would the devs change that?

A money/item bomb is what we need. :) but..something to help encourage spending instead of feeling used XD.

Excellent video!!

However to achive this in al dev should create more top gears options otherwise everyone will have same sats,gear,pets and skills.
With new content, skills, gear and stats limits, money bomb would be awsome idea

[Daddyblu]

This actually cracked me up today... coming from a guy buying / selling shards... more power 2 ya brother! Smart high end market to be in right now... good way to make a few free rings.

Yes do you know why its 100m+?

lets say i purchase the shard 80m is the lowest + Dragon Bar 4m = 84m

now calculate the amount of plats when you craft it.
75 plats for essence + 250 plats for finish crafting = 325 plats.

Now add the gems 1 slot is 24plats + 2nd slot i forget + 3d slot 95 plats.

Also calculate the number of tarlok gems spend and plats when making the ring perfect. 30-40 gems 1k-1.5k plats.

each tarlok gems 80-120k each = 3.6 - 5m just gems alone.

total plat spend is 2k-2.5k thats 150-200 USD

So yah did you calculate all of this?

[Hiosahaf]

Who buys essences for plat.. really. That's just way too lazy.

Sent from my GT-I9500 using Tapatalk

[gumball3000]

Shard is locked crate item, ring is not. Can u give me the calculation on why tje shard is 80m?

[Zeus]

Shard is locked crate item, ring is not. Can u give me the calculation on why tje shard is 80m?

It's wanted by all 3 classes, it's very OP for rogues so they hold the highest demand, and inflation.

[Haligali]

It's wanted by all 3 classes, it's very OP for rogues so they hold the highest demand, and inflation.

Maybe for rogues, but you need arcane weapon and samael first if you are a sorcerer, ring alone wont make you decent.

[falmear]

Yes do you know why its 100m+?

lets say i purchase the shard 80m is the lowest + Dragon Bar 4m = 84m

now calculate the amount of plats when you craft it.
75 plats for essence + 250 plats for finish crafting = 325 plats.

Now add the gems 1 slot is 24plats + 2nd slot i forget + 3d slot 95 plats.

Also calculate the number of tarlok gems spend and plats when making the ring perfect. 30-40 gems 1k-1.5k plats.

each tarlok gems 80-120k each = 3.6 - 5m just gems alone.

total plat spend is 2k-2.5k thats 150-200 USD

So yah did you calculate all of this?

So basically you are saying you are spending 150 USD for a profit of 6m-16m gold depending on the finale sale price. 88m (rounded up) for arcane shard, dragonite bar and cost of gems. If we take the plat spent of 2k at a 1:3000 plat to gold conversion. (You could make this selling elixirs or vanities). So the opportunity cost is 6m. Which amounts to 88m + 6m = 94m. So lets say it sells for 100m to 110m? So basically you spent 2k plat ($150 USD) to loot a hammerjaw, glacian or Samael at best? Haha, I don't know why but I find this hilarious.

[Zeus]

Maybe for rogues, but you need arcane weapon and samael first if you are a sorcerer, ring alone wont make you decent.

Yup, sorcerers do have other requirements first. I actually told that to the guy that I bought an arcane shard off of an hour ago! He was undergeared and thought the ring was a better option rather than taking 83m for a shard.

[Zeus]

So basically you are saying you are spending 150 USD for a profit of 6m-16m gold depending on the finale sale price. 88m (rounded up) for arcane shard, dragonite bar and cost of gems. If we take the plat spent of 2k at a 1:3000 plat to gold conversion. (You could make this selling elixirs or vanities). So the opportunity cost is 6m. Which amounts to 88m + 6m = 94m. So lets say it sells for 100m to 110m? So basically you spent 2k plat ($150 USD) to loot a hammerjaw, glacian or Samael at best? Haha, I don't know why but I find this hilarious.

It's about as hilarious as super gem items selling for 10M a ring when they first came out. If you don't want to pay the plat, you need to pay the gold. I understand that and so do many others who pay crafters.

The super gem process is a time thing. Originally, when the item is new, the super gem cost will be an extreme premium. However, as the item grows older, there is more of a chance that people have supergemmed it using the free method, thus the supply gradually increases and the premium to supergem drops.

Note: I'm not saying the ring is not overpriced, but I am explaining why the plat cost has to be worth it to crafters to actually become crafters.

[Haligali]

Yup, sorcerers do have other requirements first. I actually told that to the guy that I bought an arcane shard off of an hour ago! He was undergeared and thought the ring was a better option rather than taking 83m for a shard.

I think we reached the maximum price of the ring now, as supply increases(i hope hehe) it will never be as much again.

[Zeus]

I think we reached the maximum price of the ring now, as supply increases(i hope hehe) it will never be as much again.

Hopefully, lol. The prices are really too ridiculous.

[Daddyblu]

This actually cracked me up today... coming from a guy buying / selling shards... more power 2 ya brother! Smart high end market to be in right now... good way to make a few free rings.


So basically you are saying you are spending 150 USD for a profit of 6m-16m gold depending on the finale sale price. 88m (rounded up) for arcane shard, dragonite bar and cost of gems. If we take the plat spent of 2k at a 1:3000 plat to gold conversion. (You could make this selling elixirs or vanities). So the opportunity cost is 6m. Which amounts to 88m + 6m = 94m. So lets say it sells for 100m to 110m? So basically you spent 2k plat ($150 USD) to loot a hammerjaw, glacian or Samael at best? Haha, I don't know why but I find this hilarious.

well if you spend 2k plats on crates its a gamble, it is 50/50 from 1 to nothing to get arcane items or pet.

there are times you open 100 crates you get nothing all pinks and that is already 1.5k plats.

not to think that 100 crates = 1.2m already.

while if you use it to craft its assurance that you will earn something and your plats wont be a waste.

[falmear]

It's about as hilarious as super gem items selling for 10M a ring when they first came out. If you don't want to pay the plat, you need to pay the gold. I understand that and so do many others who pay crafters.

The super gem process is a time thing. Originally, when the item is new, the super gem cost will be an extreme premium. However, as the item grows older, there is more of a chance that people have supergemmed it using the free method, thus the supply gradually increases and the premium to supergem drops.

Note: I'm not saying the ring is not overpriced, but I am explaining why the plat cost has to be worth it to crafters to actually become crafters.

The reason I find this funny is because the cost in USD to craft this perfect arcane ring is less then I have spent on this game in over 1 year time. And the amount of gold I have earned in the game during this same period far exceeds the cost of the ring. Though I feel sorry for those people starting now. They must think the only way to earn these items is to get rich by a contest or gambling on crates. Though I have come to realize that the best time to play these free to play games is in the beginning and once they start to full monetize every aspect of the game, it maybe time to look elsewhere.

[Anarchist]

The reason I find this funny is because the cost in USD to craft this perfect arcane ring is less then I have spent on this game in over 1 year time. And the amount of gold I have earned in the game during this same period far exceeds the cost of the ring. Though I feel sorry for those people starting now. They must think the only way to earn these items is to get rich by a contest or gambling on crates. Though I have come to realize that the best time to play these free to play games is in the beginning and once they start to full monetize every aspect of the game, it maybe time to look elsewhere.

I agree after a X period of time all f2P turn into P2W and die.

The more the game gets old the higher the cost of the best items get and the rest of the items in the game lose their value. Usually at least from my personal experience it becomes literally impossible to buy those items without investing real serious cash into the game.

The game gets divided in two distinct categorize the mediocre class and overpowered class.

Afterwards new players that freshly enter the game immediately notice what the old player are experiencing: the impossibility to get the best items without spending serious cash so after "tasting" the game they give up and move to other ones. At a certain point no new player joins the game anymore.

The mediocre players which are the majority can't take it anymore and also give up on the game.

Now the game is dying who remains are those OP players i stated earlier that spent just too much money on the game to abbadon it like that.

When there are serious events and new expansions some of the old mediocre players still login to partecipate but when the events finish or after a while the excitement gets over and they vanish.

At this point even the OP can't it take anymore and

The game dies.



We are currently at the initial stage were the best items are just too far from the rest. AL is aging.

[Energizeric]

That is why I made this thread. This is something that can be fixed. Whether or not arcane rings sell for 100m in the first few weeks of the expansion is not something that will affect the common player. Arcane items are always going to be super rare and will always go for many millions. The issue I have is that these numbers just keep increasing, and that is indeed a problem. As stated, we need to see a gold sink, and we need to remove some gold from the game. People can only spend gold if it exists. Looting good items from locked crates and selling them does not add more gold to the game, it only transfers gold from one player to the other. What is increasing the total gold in the game and causing inflation is the gold rewards from locked crates, and that needs to be scaled back, along with some sort of new gold sink. Likewise, players spending plat on crafting items is not causing inflation either.

[valheeru]

I agree after a X period of time all f2P turn into P2W and die.

The more the game gets old the higher the cost of the best items get and the rest of the items in the game lose their value. Usually at least from my personal experience it becomes literally impossible to buy those items without investing real serious cash into the game.

The game gets divided in two distinct categorize the mediocre class and overpowered class.

Afterwards new players that freshly enter the game immediately notice what the old player are experiencing: the impossibility to get the best items without spending serious cash so after "tasting" the game they give up and move to other ones. At a certain point no new player joins the game anymore.

The old players mediocre players which are the majority also can't take it anymore and also give up on the game.

Now the game is dying who remains are those OP players i stated earlier since they spent just too much money on the game to abbadon it.

When there are serious events and new expansions some of the old mediocre players still login to partecipate but when the events finishes or after a while the excitement gets over and they vanish.

At this point even the OP can't it take anymore and

The game dies.



We are currently at the initial stage were the best items are just too far from the rest. AL is aging.

agree 100%

[supersyan]

Check Game interest Over time. collected from Google insight
84506

[Daddyblu]

also they should add more items that can be purchase by gold.

[Jiarijiba]

The idea of gold sink in form of a house is amusing. Think about rich people sitting in their castle and watching ordinary people doing their daily tasks to earn 1000g. But heck make them untradeable vanities so they can show off in towns, pets that do not change the game balance. Only available in gold. Much of it.

[notfaded1]

People don't read and want to have an opinion. I agree with you Energizeric, it's the same thing i said last season when Hooks fell from grace. Take them out of locked but keep them in Elite Pirate Chests.

This is actually in the best interest of STS. Right now I have some plat I refuse to use since only 3 items are even worth looting: Scepter, Sam and Shard. I won't open to run the risk of getting some mythic pendant, a hammerjaw, hooks etc and I'm sure PLENTY of people feel the same way.

Thankfully after looting another set of hooks in locked they are finally gone.

Sent from my Nexus 5

[notfaded1]

Yes do you know why its 100m+?

lets say i purchase the shard 80m is the lowest + Dragon Bar 4m = 84m

now calculate the amount of plats when you craft it.
75 plats for essence + 250 plats for finish crafting = 325 plats.

Now add the gems 1 slot is 24plats + 2nd slot i forget + 3d slot 95 plats.

Also calculate the number of tarlok gems spend and plats when making the ring perfect. 30-40 gems 1k-1.5k plats.

each tarlok gems 80-120k each = 3.6 - 5m just gems alone.

total plat spend is 2k-2.5k thats 150-200 USD

So yah did you calculate all of this?

Buying / Selling shards in for sale that's why I commented... Sorry if its not true. ;^}

Sent from my Nexus 5

[notfaded1]

What would really be cool would be new pinks every couple weeks in locked that do different cool things...

Sent from my Nexus 5

[Zoge]

I see where you are coming from very nice suggestions

[extrapayah]

hmmm, there isn't such problem as limited resource in AL, so any problem about 'economy' should not exist, everyone can become rich eventually, and that's good thing for me, and it should be kept like this, for simplicity, cmiiw.