280 Million Inf. for a Purple IO? That's Insane!
By
8_Ball,
Posted on: 2009-07-13 10:24 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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You can't blame buyers entirely...
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Sure you can.
High prices are determined by competition between buyers, not competition among sellers.
Because competition among sellers drives prices DOWN.
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Just because an item is highly valued or in high demand doesn't mean that they have to set their prices so high, but they do anyway.
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Here's a glimpse into how things actually work.
Successful marketeers like turnover.
Turnover requires a realistic price.
To achieve fast turnover your successful marketeer will set his sell price behind the "going rate", often WAY behind the going rate.
Way back when I was crafting generic IOs for <redacted> Club I'd price them around 100k to ensure quick turnover. And they reliably sold for 300k+
The same holds true for crafting set IOs.
If I'm working on something that costs me 1 million to make and is selling for 10 million, I'm going to price my stock between 5-7 million. And people will still pay me ten.
Supply and demand determines the price of things, not 'mean greedy sellers'.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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Demand is still pretty much the same. It's supply that got shifted around, and most people haven't bothered to realize that.
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Here's why purples are so expensive-
1: Merits
2: AE
Merits let people 'buy' those super expensive IOs directly without spending any inf. result: more money in the system & more disposable income for the power players.
AE sucked the farmers out of PI, where they were generating a lot of purples, and dropped them in a purple-free environment.
So we have a lot more money chasing a lot fewer recipes.
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People doing real mission farms would generate more Purples. So back to the old school farming methods.
Also I have a perma lvl 46 tank that will be happy to bridge on virtue.
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Actually, the old-school farming wouldn't work best, IMO. It's close but a few tweaks will greatly improve performance: parallelize it (i.e. stop the soloing!), don't farm 51s/52s, farm the lowest NPCs that'll drop the purple. You might not gain as much inf from the actual farming... but you'll get more drops/hour, which should result in more inf/hour, especially when you get a purple.
Also: Forget the whole PLing nonsense. Fillers or other farmers, no door sitters. They'll just leech from your profits, and decrease your odds of getting a purple, without increasing your kill rate.
Then again, it's still ebil 
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Originally Posted by ShadowNate
;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!
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Seriously! That's what I saw this weekend in the auction house when I went looking for an Apocalypse IO and a few other purples to complete a set I'd begun slotting several months ago.
How is *anything* going for 200 million plus inf. on the auction house? Is the system that unbalanced now? There's just no way the casual player is ever going to afford a purple recipe now - or is that the idea?
*edit*
Deleted the $ sign - sorry about that!
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I'm not seeing the problem here. An item has sold for a price you think is too high. Okay, if you don't want to pay that price, then don't. Place a bid for what you are willing to pay and wait. Give it a week or so, if you don't get it, creep your bid up a bit and wait again.
Sure it might take a while, but you'll save a whole lot of cash in the process. As an example, on one of my characters I'm memorizing IO recipes. So I've been buying them from the market because the University prices are too high. I placed a bid for 10 level 50 Accuracy IO recipes at 20,000 inf each. It took a week or so but I got all 10 at that price. Now obviously a purple will be harder to get, but it will be yours in time, and I imagine your chances will only increase during double XP weekend.
"If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?"
- Abraham Lincoln
IO's are unnecessary. You don't need them to solo 1-50 or anything. You don't need them for certain content. You can play just fine with SO's. The high prices will only be a true problem and unfair to casual players if/when the devs start designing content that requires IO's.
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Seriously! That's what I saw this weekend in the auction house when I went looking for an Apocalypse IO and a few other purples to complete a set I'd begun slotting several months ago.
How is *anything* going for 200 million plus inf. on the auction house? Is the system that unbalanced now? There's just no way the casual player is ever going to afford a purple recipe now - or is that the idea?
*edit*
Deleted the $ sign - sorry about that!
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ZOMG?! How many starving kids in Kings Row could that feed?
Such a waste.
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I was making a point. If someone is willing to buy something for a bazillion units of currency, you can't blame the seller.
Price is CoH is totally dominated by demand, because the supply is unlimited, and the currency is unlimited. The only factor that IS limited is demand. When demand is high, supply is high, price is high.
Demand is generated solely by the buyer. The seller can attempt to influence demand via marketing, but in the end, only the buyer can generate demand.
If I try to sell a left handed smoke shifter, and nobody wants to buy one, it won't matter if I price it at .01 or 1.0. It won't sell. If someone wants to buy it, but the price I set forces them to give up a weeks food, they won't buy it. If I set a price that they are willing to pay, then it will sell. Thus, demand has determined price.
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No. It's both supply and demand. Demand is not the only factor. Let's look at some City of Heroes examples:
1) Costume recipes
Drop rate changes. Supply increasing dramatically. Prices decrease dramatically. Demand relatively unchanged.
2) Knockback IOs
Tickets are created that allow a huge surge in Supply. Prices decrease dramatically. Demand relatively unchanged.
3) PvP IOs
Supply is reduced drastically. Prices shoot up. Demand relatively unchanged.
Neglecting Supply in a world where Supply is usually so constant is an understandable mistake.
Granted your point. I was opposing the fallacy that the high prices in the market were generated by the greedy sellers. I based my points on demand alone to follow the KISS rule.
I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
Thomas Jefferson
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200mil is tame on my server.
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Psst, markets are cross-server...
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See above, already saw that.
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You could have also saved face by saying Test Server (whether or not you actually do play the market on Test.) 
I think the only reasonable response is to increase the inf cap to 4 billion.
@Demobot
Also on Steam
I list everything for 5 influence. Sometimes a level 53 SO will sell for 500; sometimes a piece of rare salvage will fetch me 2 million. Whatever, I don't need it, or I wouldn't sell it.
--NT
They all laughed at me when I said I wanted to be a comedian.
But I showed them, and nobody's laughing at me now!
If I became a red name, I would be all "and what would you mere mortals like to entertain me with today, mu hu ha ha ha!" ~Arcanaville
Increasing the inf cap to 4b will raise prices in the long run. Decreasing the inf cap will drive prices down.
I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
Thomas Jefferson
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I think the only reasonable response is to increase the inf cap to 4 billion.
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Yeah, and price cap everything!
then we'll have a totally awesome REAL black market!
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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Increasing the inf cap to 4b will raise prices in the long run. Decreasing the inf cap will drive prices down.
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That actually may not be the case. As the Inf cap goes down Inf is harder and harder to store and use as currency. Imagine a 500M or even a 100M Inf cap. Some items just won't be traded on the market. This cap would also lead to hoarding of items instead of the hoarding of Inf.
Items begin to be bartered for off market. Bartering off the market means less competition means inefficiency. Inefficiency tends to cause higher prices. People won't sell their expensive PvP IOs or some Purple IOs on the market when they could get more in trade for items off the market.
Imagine if the Inf cap was 500M. Picture yourself having one of those PvP IOs that recently sold for a 1 Billion. Let's pretend, arguendo, that 1 Billion is the widely accepted going rate of that IO. You wouldn't want to sell that on the market. You won't be able to get it's real value. You'd rather trade it for something like 10 Luck of the Gamblers (if LotGs were 100M) or something similar. Though the Inf cap could technically make market prices lower items won't be all that traded on the market.
Another case of economics working in an unintuitive manner.
Nethergoat
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I think the only reasonable response is to increase the inf cap to 4 billion.
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Yeah, and price cap everything!
then we'll have a totally awesome REAL black market!
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Or simply institute an Inf cap of 100M or 500M. Force bartering and a Black Market even more.
A lower cap would increase the value of the influence in inventory. Demand would go down because fewer players would be willing to make the sacrifice necessary to sustain demand. If demand is down, supply constant, then price goes down.
I agree that your scenario would be the initial reaction to a reduced influence cap, but the market would eventually adjust, I think to the point where farmers would be willing to trade their inf cap for a single IO. This would increase supply, as the number of players farming inf would increase, causing a larger number of drops. I think prices would actually increase on non purple IO's, but purples would go down.
I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
Thomas Jefferson
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A lower cap would increase the value of the influence in inventory. Demand would go down because fewer players would be willing to make the sacrifice necessary to sustain demand. If demand is down, supply constant, then price goes down.
I agree that your scenario would be the initial reaction to a reduced influence cap, but the market would eventually adjust, I think to the point where farmers would be willing to trade their inf cap for a single IO. This would increase supply, as the number of players farming inf would increase, causing a larger number of drops. I think prices would actually increase on non purple IO's, but purples would go down.
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I don't see how it is possible that no increase in supply and an increase in willingness to spend Inf (otherwise you reach the cap) will somehow cause Purple prices to decrease.
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See, in theory, we all want it. How does one quantify who wants it more? Theoretically we all want it equally badly. How does the system allocate this scarce resource (scarce because it was intentionally designed to be scarce -- they wanted something to be rare)? I submit that "first come, first served" is unfair, and "random drops" is unsatisfying -- you're unlikely to ever get the one you want. "Willing to pay" is fair-ER, and a decent measure of differing levels of desire.
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So the people willing and able to pay get the nice stuff. If you can't afford them, or think prices are simply too high, well, that's your own fault, and you don't get to play with the great options that other, more deserving, players can get.
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Everyone is on a semi-level playing field to earn cash -- it doesn't have to take a lot of logged-in playing time, and although people who were here first have a leg up, it's been shown a new person can make a billion in a month from scratch. What vet badge are you on?
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42. marketeering is the only way to earn that kind of cash in short order. Playing the game "normally"- missions, occasional TFs, teaming with friends - will cut into your earning potential by a serious amount. If you want purples, the market realistically is the only game in town. Nothing else even comes close.
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So we are left with the imperfect, but better than the alternatives, market price method for allocating purples.
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Except the alternative of letting everyone get the shinies, letting every player have a reasonable (a loaded word, I know) chance of getting what they want. A shocking idea that a game should be FUN and not WORK, but as I've said before, other games already do the high-end powergamer-only loot thing. CoX was always great because it was a casual game. Introducing ultra-powerful loot wasnt the bad idea: making it ultra-rare was a terrible idea from what the game has always been.
Wondering why the RMT spammers are such a nuisance? INF is profitable now. People, players, are more willing than ever to actually go to WORK and earn REAL MONEY to get the rare stuff. When that becomes preferable to people over playing the game because of a terrible reward system, the devs should realize that the next obvious step for a lot of subscribers is to simply leave, or go play a game that does the loot system better. They can act, or watch as people get fed up with always being behind inflation curve and leave.
119088 - Outcasts Overcharged. Heroic.
Because the perceived value of the lower available amount of influence will increase. 500k with a 5 million cap has more tangible spending power than 500k with a 4 billion cap, and requires a bigger sacrifice.
This is why it's so critical to try to control inflation after/during a recession. More available currency devalues the currency.
I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
Thomas Jefferson
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So the people willing and able to pay get the nice stuff. If you can't afford them, or think prices are simply too high, well, that's your own fault, and you don't get to play with the great options that other, more deserving, players can get.
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And here I'd given up on your ever making a rational reply!
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marketeering is the only way to earn that kind of cash in short order.
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No it isn't- you can also play a high level character and sell drops.
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Playing the game "normally"- missions, occasional TFs, teaming with friends - will cut into your earning potential by a serious amount.
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Nonsense.
The market is uniquely designed to earn you tons of inf while you're doing other things, or even while you're logged off.
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If you want purples, the market realistically is the only game in town. Nothing else even comes close.
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Well, except playing the game and selling your drops.
But yeah, other than that we're all just chained to the market
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Except the alternative of letting everyone get the shinies, letting every player have a reasonable (a loaded word, I know) chance of getting what they want.
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If they want it they can earn it.
The opportunity is there for everyone.
If they don't want it AS MUCH as some other players, then too bad.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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Because the perceived value of the lower available amount of influence will increase. 500k with a 5 million cap has more tangible spending power than 500k with a 4 billion cap, and requires a bigger sacrifice.
This is why it's so critical to try to control inflation after/during a recession. More available currency devalues the currency.
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No. The opposite occurs.
If you don't spend your money now it is wasted. Everyone is out spending their money with an Inf cap. Increased spending is increased demand. Increased demand is higher prices.
Lower Inf cap means "Spend money now or lose it."
In a deflationary cycle, 4 things happen:
1) a decrease in the available supply of money
2) an increase in the available supply of goods
3) a decrease in the demand for goods
4) an increase in the demand for money
I do realize that the CoH economic model isn't really all that close to real world economics, but the basic principals still apply as they do in any economy. I think prices on the market would go down.
I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
Thomas Jefferson
It's not a deflationary cycle. The rate of Inf earned is the same. The amount you can hold is what changes.
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Imagine the real world and all bank accounts were limited to $10,000 and everyone used direct deposit.
People earn the same amount of money. Wages are the same. Salary is the same. When you are at $9,000 or so your choices are... do nothing and watch your money poof or go out and buy something and put it in your house.
People are going to buy something, anything, and put it in their house. More people buying stuff is increased demand. Increased demand is increased prices.
Right. But an enforced inf cap would create a deflationary cycle, just as if the gov't stopped printing money tomorrow. The funny thing is, even if prices went down, the affordability of the rare IO's would probably be even steven with what it is now, unless the fixed prices in game for costume changes, market sales, prestige transfers, singles, etc were also lowered. The prices would be lower, and people would still complain because they couldn't afford them.
I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
Thomas Jefferson
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Right. But an enforced inf cap would create a deflationary cycle, just as if the gov't stopped printing money tomorrow.
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The government isn't stopping printing money when the Inf cap is 500M or 1Billion or whatever. People are still getting the money. It's use it or lose it.
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It's not a deflationary cycle. The rate of Inf earned is the same. The amount you can hold is what changes.
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Imagine the real world and all bank accounts were limited to $10,000 and everyone used direct deposit.
People earn the same amount of money. Wages are the same. Salary is the same. When you are at $9,000 or so your choices are... do nothing and watch your money poof or go out and buy something and put it in your house.
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That's not how an economy works though. This would eliminate profitability for business, causing ..well you know the rest.
A deflationary period is actually just as dangerous to an economy as an inflationary period, even more so if you have price inflation and currency deflation, which has only happened once IIRC, in the early 30's.
I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
Thomas Jefferson
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Nice taking quotes out of context there. Good stuff.
You can't blame buyers entirely, sellers play just as big a part of it. Just because an item is highly valued or in high demand doesn't mean that they have to set their prices so high, but they do anyway.
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A buyer paid that price you see in the last 5. If no one did, the prices would go down.
High prices are entirely the fault of the buyers and not the sellers.
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It could've been Bill Gates...