AL Economy in Recession??

[Rare]

a stimulus of gold, just like in our American economy isn't going to fix the underlying problem. It's a band aid, just like the stimulus package was. The only way to truly fix the problem is to fix the infrastructure. I outlined earlier what I believe to be the real problem. Fix that. More people have fun and play which means more gold in circulation. And more people buying and farming.

At this point, why bother buying anything if the game is handicapping me from playing?

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[JaytB]

Maybe the whole of AL tries to make a statement.

Let's take a look at the current situation, a pendant or ring for 10m each, a 3m helm, some 12m for a cool armor, ow and let's buy an arcane weapon to go with all that good stuff for another 40m while we're at it. Maybe stuff would sell faster if people would price it more reasonable. You can't blame people to not want to invest 20m+ for some upgrade that might be outdated in a couple of months when something cooler or better comes around.

To me, the economy seems very much alive when I sell items worth 100k-1m easily. The Mythic and Arcane business might be down because people are getting smarter about their hard earned gold.

Your idea to increase the prices to get the 'economy flowing' again is interesting. You got to ask yourself this question though, Flowing for who exactly? The casual player or the rich players? I agree that it should be easier to make gold, but if it isn't, and people just can't buy those extreme high priced items anymore, sellers won't have a choice other than to sell their items for a price that people actually are willing to pay.

If STS would decide to get rid of the 100% chance to get a pink, some people will complain about how they don't get anything and how it's not fair. I realize getting a pink now is often similar to getting nothing but I think it still 'feels' better for the majority than actually getting nothing.

If I had to propose something, I'd go for more varied and better drops from farming and a better award of time spend vs awards earned (going from the party system to the difficulty, all the way up to gold from liquidation), that would come a long way.

This is the only STS game I played where farming actually costs, generally, a whole lot more gold coins than what you make of it, except if you get extremely lucky with drops and/or use luck Elix all the time. I know I would find the game a whole lot more interesting when I could hop in for an hour and actually achieve something. As things stand now, you can get lucky to get 1 or 2 runs done in a random group, with a really high chance of getting 7 gold liquidation fee.

I can only speak for myself, but that's not exactly my idea of fun. That's why I'd suggest doing something about that instead of making changes to the current way of gambling for good stuff with real money.

[Lady_Pebbles]

Very well said Aed & J. I agree completely.

[Chaim Nail]

I suspect the Leprechaun Pendant has had a noticable impact on the AL economy too.

At the time of the pendant release the locked crates were going for over 10k, I had 8 at the time and sold 6 along with a bunch of eggs to afford the pendant, but since getting it I've never farmed so many crates, and have seen the market price of them drop to 8k and below. I've got 29 now and I'm holding on to them for the price to rise when STS releases the next arcane/mythic item in locked crates everyone wants, I might even have to buy more inventory slots to cope with collecting them.

My warrior has the best legendary items available and the only way to boost stats now is to get mythic/arcane items which will require months of farming to afford the market prices, which may become more difficult if the AL economy gets worse.

[Zanpakuto]

Wow a thread that hits it home! I've been playing this game since November and have never seen an economy at a standstill! I completely agree with all of u! I've saved up what I could from dailies, and getting lucky here and there with item drops that I was able to sell. I managed to buy medium armor for my warrior and my rogue for less than 20k! Noble armor is like junk now! I can afford right now ONE cheap mythic, but I want to see what STS does with these high end items. I'm not going to blow millions on an item that becomes obsolete one day. Since Arcane items are frozen in time for stats, I will never blow 20M on those items other than pets. However people tell me that the arcane pets aren't even that great lol

In summary, I'm now saving up for the filthy rich achievement which is made easier by the outrageous prices of the mythic/arcane items which I don't feel like spending on when cheapie legendaries come close to or even exceed outdated orange and red items! In other words, people like me who don't spend or spend pennies and save the rest will contribute to a recession!

Don't even get me started on the Arena and how random PUGS can't do it nor regular elite Nordr maps. This game has gone downhills since the Kraken update when elite mode became undesirable for the casual gamer. I'm not ready to quit yet, but the thought has crossed my mind after 2 of my real life friends quit. What I have done is sworn off crates and chests. Those apparently still sell somewhat well!

Also while I saw someone mention leprechaun amulets, I'm really laughing at those things! The idea behind it I'm sure was to get people to pay to buy with plat, and then it would make people buy more plats to open their more common crates as a money revenue! You know it's working because the price of crates has fallen dramatically and thereby pushing the economy further into recession like what the OP has mentioned!

It's only going to get worse in next season because I'm sure many people are holding onto 100s of crates currently and will try the economy at the next expansion. Pinks will rain the market within a few hours after level cap and prices will plummet even faster than in Nordr expansion. Twinks may help initially, but there's only so many out there and I've noticed a major drop in twink gear prices lately too. It'll be interesting to see next season, and I'm sure Malison farming will still be one of the major pass times!

[Rogueulator]

I am a long time player and would like throw my two cents in.

1. The problem with this slow economy is not because of the market (CS), as free markets always correct themselves over time. Outside intervention is absurd and will ruin the dynamics of the markets. If people are willing to pay 10 mil for a mythic ring, then the price will remain there until there is an imbalance of supply or demand.

2. Locked crates are a double-edged sword, they help in one way but create a problem later on. Crates were introduced by STS simply because they had to generate more revenue from people spending platinum to open them. They helped level the playing field between the hardcore players and the casual players in terms of equipment and gold, depending on how rare the drops were. One lucky drop could be the equivalent of two seasons of farming. This disgusted some players, but it wasn't enough to turn them off from the game. People opening tons of crates was a win-win for everyone, as CS was being flooded with crate pinks, giving casual players the chance to buy quality equipment on the cheap. This did devalue some of the drops from farming and once again upset some players, but it was not enough to turn them off from the game.

3. The introduction of Kraken (and the one hit kill). Up until this point, the game was thriving, it was all good. Everyone could get a Malison (it was selling for 70k in CS, no joke). AL was voted best MMO 2012 etc, etc.. STS felt they weren't making enough money so they had to turn up the greed. Elite dungeons suddenly became harder. This really blew the talent disparity wide open. Weak players were exposed overnight, to the point where they had to spend plats to keep up or just had no chance either way. The good times were over. The elite players had to unite to get through these adverse conditions. The weak players were basically left fending for themselves because it was a losing battle to party with these players. It was all frustration and no reward. Shortly after, STS scaled back the strength of elite mobs as they felt they went overboard. By this time the damage had already been done. People who were bored, on the fence, disgusted, or couldn't compete left.

4. Introduction of Nodr (It gets even worse). The one hit kills become downright irrational at this point, further turning off players. Once again the elite players have to unite even tighter than before, leaving the noobs in the dust. As many already know from experience, weak pug parties have little chance in most of the new elite dungeons. In the meantime, Jarl, which was a noob sanctuary was nerfed to junk chests (up to level 26 items). Nordr regular dungeons aren't so bad until you got to the boss. Then they became quite difficult to kill and not worth it unless you had to finish a quest. After elite Spyr got nerfed, Oltgar is pretty much the only Nordr elite you can pug. Even that is a challenge for many players, shown by them leaving mid run or at boss. So what was left for the casual, noob, weak player? Locked crates! They still held value as there was a frenzy for mythic and arcane items. But now we fast forward to the present, where it is crazy easy to get a lock crate drop and the interest is down, rendering the current value to 7-8k per (it was as high as 40k at one point). With this type of economic slowdown for them (the majority), can we expect anything different from where we are at now?

Thanks for reading.

[Energizeric]

free markets always correct themselves over time

Free markets only correct themselves when there is room for expansion, i.e. new markets or resources. So to put this in AL terms, the market will correct itself as long as lots of new players are constantly joining and the population of regular players continues to increase. Once that stops, or the population begins to decrease, there will be no automatic correction and the economy will continue to stall even more.

To put this in real world terms, there is a reason when there are sanctions against a country (Iran for example) their economy usually goes down hill. Without expansion and new markets to buy from and sell to, your economy goes down hill.

[Rogueulator]

Correct doesn't necessarily mean recover or fix. Even stalling out or crashing is considered a correction. Intervention only delays the inevitable. As I stated in my previous post, the damage has already been done. Intervention or not, it's downhill from here.

[drgrimmy]

Well crates used to be 5k last season, so the price of the crates dropping I don't think is a really good marker of the economy. They were just super inflated in price due to the two hit combo of the weekends with mythic weapons in and increased rates of mythic from crates. The frenzy of opening crates is over for now and the price of the crates are just normalizing. Unfortunately, the damage has been done with the market being saturated with legendary gear from crates.

[CrimsonTider]

This thread was specifically about the economy. Yes, I know there are other problems that the game has, but I was specifically addressing the economic issues here. But yes I agree with much of what you say.

I know a lot of the ranting here is coming from players who are young and have no economic knowledge outside of just thinking about it. I've taken many courses in economics when I was in college and have a good friend who is a wall street investment banker, so I do understand the macro economic issues here. The solution to fix the economy is to get it "going" -- meaning to get people buying and selling items again.

1. Without farmers (or in RL manufacturers/farmers/producers), there is no product to buy or sell.

2. Pretty sure most of the people posting in this thread are far from "young."

3. Bringing about your qualifications as an "Economist" may actually hurt your argument more than anything. Many of the worlds economic issues are caused by economists. Sometimes solutions are very simple. In this case, you have many individuals stating they hate farming because of the time needed in game. When a game becomes a chore, interest in the game is lost. This causes a decline in player numbers and thus, a decline in items available to sell/merch. Also, when your "big spenders" begin to exit, less crates are going to be opened and less trading will occur. Many people rely on the "big spenders" to buy those crates and open them and when they aren't around, items begin to disappear.

We sometimes miss the forest for the trees.

[Energizeric]

1. Without farmers (or in RL manufacturers/farmers/producers), there is no product to buy or sell.

2. Pretty sure most of the people posting in this thread are far from "young."

3. Bringing about your qualifications as an "Economist" may actually hurt your argument more than anything. Many of the worlds economic issues are caused by economists. Sometimes solutions are very simple. In this case, you have many individuals stating they hate farming because of the time needed in game. When a game becomes a chore, interest in the game is lost. This causes a decline in player numbers and thus, a decline in items available to sell/merch. Also, when your "big spenders" begin to exit, less crates are going to be opened and less trading will occur. Many people rely on the "big spenders" to buy those crates and open them and when they aren't around, items begin to disappear.

We sometimes miss the forest for the trees.

Here's the thing.... there is absolutely no shortage of items for me to merch. In fact, there is a huge abundance of items currently for sale. Items that in the past would have only had 1 or 2 for sale in the auction at any one time in some cases have a dozen or more for sale currently. Problem is nobody is buying them. Nobody is buying cheap or expensive items. Nobody is buying anything much at all.

The problem is not a shortage of items. If it were, then yes a good fix would be to make sure more players are farming. But the problem is the exact opposite... there are too many items currently for sale. And lowering the price does not even help. A couple days ago I purchased a Borean Gun (a pretty good sorcerer gun) for less than 10k (I thought this was a good deal). I looked in the auction and there were 3 of them listed there between 28k and 50k. So I listed mine for 14k (50% of the lowest price). And the listing expired without a sale. A month ago this item would have sold within 15 minutes. Now a full day goes by and nobody is buying.

I'm not sure what the fix is, but it has very little to do with farming. The "fix" would be to get people to start buying the items that are already for sale. The fix is certainly not to get players to go out and find even more items to sell. We need more buying, not more selling.

Maybe STS needs to lower drop rates in general (not pink drop rates, just drop rates in general meaning fewer items drop), and increase gold drops (when you open a chest or destroy a barrel). More gold and less items will mean more buying and less selling which maybe will even things out.

[falmear]

Answer:

The only "fix" to these problems would be the following:

1) STS must step in and buy up all the excess crate pinks in the auction (just as the Federal Reserve bought up the crap mortgages when our economy was on the verge of collapse 5 years ago). Let STS make a toon, give that toon a few million gold, and let them buy up every crate pink in the auction that is priced below what they decide should be the floor for these items. And continue to do that for a week or two until the prices of these items rebound to what they should be.

2) Stop giving a legendary pink item in every crate. Let the crates have a chance for a pink -- maybe 1 in 10. Because right now it doesn't even matter that you get a pink in each crate if they are worth only 500 gold each. Nobody cares and nobody is opening crates to get these cheap crappy pinks. Players are only happy when they get mythic or arcane. So at least if the pinks were worth what a pink should be worth, players would be happy when they get one.

Once these crate pinks go back up in price, the elite pinks will become a worthy alternative again and players will start buying those again, and then the "elite" players will be able to sell the items they farm and they too will now have extra cash to spend on mythics and the whole economy will start moving again, which is what I think we all want. I think this would even result in players opening more crates, not less. Because if you knew opening a crate was more than an "all or nothing" chance, maybe you would be more likely to open one.

1) You're asking STS to prop up the economy so sellers make a profit? What happens when STS stops propping up the economy, this isn't the real world. We'd be back in the same place. What difference if STS buys up these crap pinks, they are only 500 gold or even less in most cases. What will this do for anyone who spent 15 plat + cost of the crate if they get 500 gold?

2) What difference if its a crappy pink or an epic. Its the same thing. So if they take out crap pinks, its till the same rate of getting a good pink. You substitute one crap item for another. You're asking for the drop rate to be increased because its probably not even 1 in 10. So this is contradictory to what you are even saying.

3) People aren't buying because its near the end of the season. People already have equipment and don't need anything else. The problem is demand and it probably means its taking people longer to get to level 30/31 then it did for people to get to 16/21/26. So new people arent getting to the level cap as fast. And those who have gotten to 30/31 have already bought their stuff. If you want to prop up the economy make it easier people to gain levels faster. The guild I am in has over 4000 members, and right now there are 28 members online, and of those people online only 4 of us are level 31. And I am sure next season the problem will get worse because it will take new people even longer to get to the next level cap and so on. You should ask STS how many new sign ups they get every day. Because these people are your new buyers. And if people struggle to get to level 31 and never make it. Then you'll never be able to sell your stuff to them. I don't agree with any of your suggestions.

[Energizeric]

1) You're asking STS to prop up the economy so sellers make a profit? What happens when STS stops propping up the economy, this isn't the real world. We'd be back in the same place. What difference if STS buys up these crap pinks, they are only 500 gold or even less in most cases. What will this do for anyone who spent 15 plat + cost of the crate if they get 500 gold?

2) What difference if its a crappy pink or an epic. Its the same thing. So if they take out crap pinks, its till the same rate of getting a good pink. You substitute one crap item for another. You're asking for the drop rate to be increased because its probably not even 1 in 10. So this is contradictory to what you are even saying.

3) People aren't buying because its near the end of the season. People already have equipment and don't need anything else. The problem is demand and it probably means its taking people longer to get to level 30/31 then it did for people to get to 16/21/26. So new people arent getting to the level cap as fast. And those who have gotten to 30/31 have already bought their stuff. If you want to prop up the economy make it easier people to gain levels faster. The guild I am in has over 4000 members, and right now there are 28 members online, and of those people online only 4 of us are level 31. And I am sure next season the problem will get worse because it will take new people even longer to get to the next level cap and so on. You should ask STS how many new sign ups they get every day. Because these people are your new buyers. And if people struggle to get to level 31 and never make it. Then you'll never be able to sell your stuff to them. I don't agree with any of your suggestions.

1) they would not only buy up these pinks, they would make sure the drop rate from crates is lowered, so they don't repopulate.

2) there currently are no "good" pinks which come from the crates. They are all worthless crap (in terms of value, not stats). My solution would make it so that they would regain their value and you would have a chance at a decent pink.

3) You don't have to reach cap. All the legendary items that come in level 31 also come in level 30 and nobody is buying the level 30 items either. Why buy items for 50k when you can get cheap crate pinks for 500 gold. As long as the crate pinks are so cheap and have decent stats, this economy will be ruined. It doesn't matter what else happens.

Also, this was never an issue in Pocket Legends at Level 66/71/76 cap where you needed 100k XP to cap. Players kept buying end game pink gear right up until the next expansion. Even then when the price dropped because an abundance of old gear being sold, the items were easy to sell for the lowered price. The reason is these items were still relatively rare. There were not so many of them that nobody needed them. They were scarce enough so that there were still players who needed them.

[Lady_Pebbles]

It has everything to do with farming when players don't get enough gold during runs and quests to be able to continue to farm throughout the day. IF they even have the time to do some or even all of the quests plus some runs daily. Plus, elite runs in PUGs are extremely lacking in many areas (mentioned in this thread), the drop rate without elixirs is (as I said before) horrible, hell appauling even! The costs for pet feeds, pots, and listing feeds in the ah/cs are overwhelmingly greater than the amount of gold being looted in runs.

Along with (or instead of) them adding gold to the crates they should have added gold to the Copper, Rare, Golden and Elite chests that actually scaled with the drops. Make end game elite pinks and eggs actually drop without elixirs like they used to. No, not like Wrath & Snag (when they were dropping like water), but with some (keyword some not a freaken chore) effort they actually drop. Players can farm for hours without elixirs and not get a single pink drop yet with a luck elixir they get drops on the first few tries. STILL yet, they expect the non-plat users to pay a lot of gold for their drops when the runs those non-plat players run in, do not reward them with ANYTHING worth selling and if they do get a chest to drop... they don't get enough gold to list item(s) in the ah/cs because they have to feed pets and pot up for the next runs.

Dejavu... I find myself pretty much repeating what we've all been saying LOL.

[Energizeric]

Yes, the more we discuss this, the more I think the solution is 2 parts:

1) Increase the supply of gold in the game by increasing gold drops from chests (both the kind in dungeons, and the chests that drop from bosses), barrels, crates and daily quests.

2) Decrease the supply of crate pinks so that pinks that drop from bosses or elite chests will actually be worth something decent.

[Rogueulator]

LOL. You guys still don't get it.

The majority of the elite farming is done by elite/mythic players. These players are not the ones buying the drops from the elite dungeons, they can farm any dungeon and only need to buy items which are not possible or have too little chance to get from farming. So who is the majority buying these items in CS? It is the low to mid range talent players who cannot farm their own items. Where do they get their gold? Anyway they can get it, but it is really difficult for them in elite dungeons.

We will use Elite Oltgar as an example since it is probably the only Nordr elite you can pug these days. While an elite group can get 5 rerolls on one reroll elixer, the noob group can only get 2 or 3 if they are lucky and people don't leave mid run. That's if they even spend plats to reroll. A lot of these players don't even have plats for a respec. Yes, it's sad, but that's the majority, the players who buy the items in CS. Where can they turn for income when most of their sources have been crippled. Chests across the board and crates are decreasing in price. Has farming gotten any easier for them? No. Now they have to farm three times as much to make what they used to. So we have the same elite farmers doing their thing (farming items and chests), but the demand has dropped because there is not enough money. There is the paradox.

[Rare]

Yes, the more we discuss this, the more I think the solution is 2 parts:

1) Increase the supply of gold in the game by increasing gold drops from chests (both the kind in dungeons, and the chests that drop from bosses), barrels, crates and daily quests.

2) Decrease the supply of crate pinks so that pinks that drop from bosses or elite chests will actually be worth something decent.

If i may be honest, i don't agree that either of these will help anything. Fact of the matter is, the game isn't fun to actually play. I know some like to think it's all about amassing a fortune. It is not. If the game isn't fun, people stop playing. I think it's pretty easy to deduce how this will impact an economy.

Back to the stimulus you mentioned. Stimulation only works if people spend the money. And if people aren't playing, well, they aren't spending. There have to be attainable goals in game. For most of us, the goal is to play, farm, enjoy. Not sit in a town and buy and sell things.

I don't see how adding more gold will help. Fix the real problem here. When the dust settles, this is a game. Playing it has to be fun, interesting. Right now it isn't. Increasing demand for gear that is already expensive for most and removing cheaper quality gear... I don't see the benefit for normal players. As an economist one should understand how inflation works. When the value of money goes down, the cost of living goes up.


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[Rare]

I dont know why it reposted.

[ShadowGunX]

LoL.
this is jst LOL

[Energizeric]

LOL. You guys still don't get it.

The majority of the elite farming is done by elite/mythic players. These players are not the ones buying the drops from the elite dungeons, they can farm any dungeon and only need to buy items which are not possible or have too little chance to get from farming. So who is the majority buying these items in CS? It is the low to mid range talent players who cannot farm their own items. Where do they get their gold? Anyway they can get it, but it is really difficult for them in elite dungeons.

We will use Elite Oltgar as an example since it is probably the only Nordr elite you can pug these days. While an elite group can get 5 rerolls on one reroll elixer, the noob group can only get 2 or 3 if they are lucky and people don't leave mid run. That's if they even spend plats to reroll. A lot of these players don't even have plats for a respec. Yes, it's sad, but that's the majority, the players who buy the items in CS. Where can they turn for income when most of their sources have been crippled. Chests across the board and crates are decreasing in price. Has farming gotten any easier for them? No. Now they have to farm three times as much to make what they used to. So we have the same elite farmers doing their thing (farming items and chests), but the demand has dropped because there is not enough money. There is the paradox.

Yes, the solution is to increase gold drops and gold from quests. Then these mid range players will have more gold. For example, in Pocket Legends you can farm the dungeons in AO3 and get over 1k gold for a single run that takes less than 5 minutes. Spend an hour there and you'll have 10k. I'm not talking about 10k worth of items that you then hope you can sell. I'm talking about 10k of actual gold. That is what we need here.