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Seriously? You think I'm whining because I can't afford stuff? Man, I guess I don't brag enough. |
Originally Posted by Sharker_Quint
what i am reading, and i may be reading to much into the OP, is that they still can't afford purples or unique io's. if that is not the case then i do appologize for reading to far into it.
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Originally Posted by Heraclea
The problem is that over i14-i15, inf has been something like the Zimbabwean dollar. |
Anyhow, I'm not advocating in favor of anything, or complaining about anything. I'm more trying to anticipate. I could be wrong, but I suspect that the devs are not entirely pleased that our in-game currency is being compared to Zimbabwe's. I suspect that they would like to see the numbers made smaller while the actual wealth stays the same.
New inf sinks may be in the works, but I wonder if they're pondering something more drastic. It would be a lot of work to implement all the things that MK listed. We've already speculated about whether Going Rogue will include a merged market. We already know that the devs are quite capable of adding as many different currencies as the whim strikes them, whether we like it or not.
This expansion could be an opportunity to correct some problems from the past, and to create new problems. By the time beta hits, it will be too late to affect some of the fundamental thinking around the market. Well, we've never had much impact on the devs thoughts about the market. But second guessing them is fun.
Avatar: "Cheeky Jack O Lantern" by dimarie
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I agree, the best Inf sinks are the ones that take money from players who have lots already but give very little benefit in return. Yes it will no doubt results in complaints from people that they can't have Cosmetic Item X which is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL for their character concept but in terms of the economy it's the best way to destroy wealth.|
Originally Posted by Fulmens
It's not the little things that get rid of inf... it's the big ones. Doubling my 100,000 inf cost to craft a little thing isn't going to do SQUAT to a billionaire's net worth, but it will make a big freakin dent in the net worth of the new kid who's trying to figure out how things work. On the other hand, a 100-million-inf "+10 salvage bag", or lottery tickets for 10 million inf each, or something like that, would seriously increase the cost of private jets while not affecting the cost of ford foci.
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The problem that CoH runs into is that as a non-item based game it's hard to implement Inf drain rewards that are either highly visible or very useful without breaking game balance. One option is of course costume options, in particular capes since those can frequently be added to an existing costume without impacting the overall costume as much.
What I would really like to see is "vehicles" although I realize that it would be a major hassle for the devs so I doubt we'll see it. However I think that it could be made to work without to many disruptions to either the mechanics or the balance. Essentially the Vehicle would be a new inherent power that you acquire through some means (crafting, inf purchase, random purple recipe drop etc.). When activated it functions like a standard travel power except that your character is shown on the vehicle and you can't use any non-toggle powers (for animation reasons). For speed I'd say make them equivalent to normal travel powers with full enhancement slotting since these will be rare and the no powers thing makes them slightly worse than standard travel powers.
Possible ideas:
Motorbike
Flying carpet
Gyro-copter
Horse (or other large animal)
Winged Horse (or other large winged animal)
Miniature Hot Air Balloon (since otherwise people will realize I just listed all of the types of mounts available in WoW)
A platform with a rocket engine on the bottom that moves in long hops (because Super Jump should be represented on this list somewhere)
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That's not always the case. There are several common salvages that are still low in terms of market availability and they fluxuate still based on time of day and day of the week.|
Originally Posted by UberGuy
With no relevance to the rest of your ideas, the market isn't in need of this currently. Right now it's drowning in salvage.
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The market looks very much as it did pre-AE at this point.
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You must be pushing the EURO.............. heheheh sorry couldnt resist.
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With the greatest possible respect to Heraclea, that analogy is an exaggeration, in fact I'd even go as far as to say a wild exaggeration, and can safely be passed over.|
Originally Posted by peterpeter
Anyhow, I'm not advocating in favor of anything, or complaining about anything. I'm more trying to anticipate. I could be wrong, but I suspect that the devs are not entirely pleased that our in-game currency is being compared to Zimbabwe's. I suspect that they would like to see the numbers made smaller while the actual wealth stays the same.
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Prices routinely doubling in under 24 hours (as in November 2008 in Zimbabwe). Not here, not by a long shot.
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Let us trade inf for booster packs, server transfers, server slots, respecs, and additional months of playtime.
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Until DXP weekend.|
Originally Posted by Catwhoorg
Prices routinely doubling in under 24 hours (as in November 2008 in Zimbabwe). Not here, not by a long shot.
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(*shish* *boom* *bah*)
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I don't see on what basis you can really say, one way or the other. And like Cat, I don't really see that analogy as valid except in the sense that absolute prices went up.|
Originally Posted by peterpeter
Anyhow, I'm not advocating in favor of anything, or complaining about anything. I'm more trying to anticipate. I could be wrong, but I suspect that the devs are not entirely pleased that our in-game currency is being compared to Zimbabwe's.
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In Zimbabwe, you would make X Zimbabwe dollars a day on Monday, and a loaf of bread cost Y Zimbabwe dollars. On Tuesday, a loaf of bread could cost 2Y Zimbabwe dollard, but you still only made X dollars a day.
That's not what happened here, for serveral reasons. One, obviously the price increases weren't so extreme. But more importantly, they didn't represent a major shift in ongoing purchasing power. Yes, if you had a large pile of inf already, it would buy you less after I14. However, your absolute earnings rate on the market generally kept pace with the bulk of goods' prices, because you could sell on the market at increased prices.
The people who didn't keep pace as well were people who were only using the market to buy, meaning they were buying with purchasing power obtained purely through defeats, mission bonuses and NPC vendor sales of recipes and SOs. Their earnings would stay basically static while the market prices of goods went up*, so they could afford less. However, they were destined to be left behind no matter what, because the richest players would be the ones concentrating wealth by selling the most stuff (either dropped or flipped).
Unlike the laboror in Zimbabwe, who probably can't just up and change jobs (becoming a bread seller, for example), the player in CoH always has the option to act as a recipe (or crafted IO) supplier to the market. Doing so will always help them "keep up with the Jonses", as it were. They'll at least be able to afford to live in the same neighborhood.
* What prices actually did in I14 wasn't that cut and dry, and the example of them rising mostly applied to purple sets. A lot of goods decreased in price because supply spiked.
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I'll admit it was slower here than in Zimbabwe. But the net effect of the excess ratio of inf to goods over the past couple issues was more or less exactly as you describe in the first paragraph quoted. |
Originally Posted by UberGuy
In Zimbabwe, you would make X Zimbabwe dollars a day on Monday, and a loaf of bread cost Y Zimbabwe dollars. On Tuesday, a loaf of bread could cost 2Y Zimbabwe dollard, but you still only made X dollars a day.
That's not what happened here, for serveral reasons. One, obviously the price increases weren't so extreme. |
Prices skyrocketed, while the inf dropped by mobs over the course of play remained static. For someone for whom mob drops were the chief source of inf, the result was identical. The end result was to force you into a strategy of peculation and speculation on the markets, the only way to gain enough inf to meet current prices; or of hoarding and AE ticket farming, to minimize resort to the market.
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Except this is always in the hands of player choice. It is not like what happened in Zimbabwe, because real people cannot simply start doing something else to make more money, where players in CoH can. Worse, players should be expected to have to use the market as a two-way street. If everyone tries to act as a consumer, the system breaks down.|
Originally Posted by Heraclea
I'll admit it was slower here than in Zimbabwe. But the net effect of the excess ratio of inf to goods over the past couple issues was more or less exactly as you describe in the first paragraph quoted.
Prices skyrocketed, while the inf dropped by mobs over the course of play remained static. For someone for whom mob drops were the chief source of inf, the result was identical. The end result was to force you into a strategy of peculation and speculation on the markets, the only way to gain enough inf to meet current prices; or of hoarding and AE ticket farming, to minimize resort to the market. |
In the real world, what happened in Zimbabwe was a crisis and a tragedy. In the game, it called for people to adjust in some very mundane ways. Their refusal is neither a crisis nor a tragedy.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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The value of the junk they drop has risen wildly, so what's your point?|
Originally Posted by Heraclea
Prices skyrocketed, while the inf dropped by mobs over the course of play remained static.
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If defeats was the only way we could earn inf, maybe there's a problem.
But it isn't.
And as always, attempts to compare our completely optional and comically simple game economy to complex and manditory real world economies make me laugh really hard.
Buying food to stay alive couldn't be further removed from picking up some set enhancements to make your video game character slightly more powerful.
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Again? *looks around* I know my asbestos suit is here somewhere.
PVP IOs I can see a large rise, but the recent trend is down
Purples, spiked highly, but with folks being out of the AE, the prices are coming down, and pretty fast.
What exactly has gone up so fast and has not shown signs of coming back down ?
Most set IOs I slotted since the AE came out were actually cheaper to buy than before.
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Issue 9: I buy an Alchemical Silver for 30K. One week later, an alchemical silver drops from a mob and I sell it for 30K. | I'll admit it was slower here than in Zimbabwe. But the net effect of the excess ratio of inf to goods over the past couple issues was more or less exactly as you describe in the first paragraph quoted. |
Issue 14: I buy an Alchemical silver for 55K. One week later, an alchemical silver drops from a mob and I sell it for 55K.
I don't see the problem here.
( It was, in fact, IMPOSSIBLE to sell a single alchemical silver for 30K at Wents in issue 14, if I recall; the flippers set the buy line at 40K or something like that. )
I'm happy to buy alchemical silvers at 55K, just as happy as I am to sell them at 55K. If it's 30K tomorrow, I'll do that too.
I can STILL outfit a level 33 character for under ten million inf, with IO's that are good from now till the servers go down, and nearly Hami-O levels of goodness.
I can STILL make that ten million by level 33, playing normally and slotting SO's just like I used to.
Let me back that statement up a little bit... I can still have the money for my first set of SO's five or ten levels before I need it, instead of five levels afterwards.
This is pretty much the Big Rock Candy Mountain, where the hens lay soft-boiled eggs and so forth.
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Purples climbed a lot, and I'm sure they'll fall a lot. Prices on the two main IO sets I deal with tripled or quadrupled for quite a while (with my costs only climbing slightly, which confused me), and now they're back down to historical levels. Certain valuable IOs have trended upwards as people recognize their worth, reaching what I would consider more reasonable prices compared to other items of similar worth. Salvage appears to be in the neighborhood of historical levels. I'm honestly not seeing much inflation overall, much less hyperinflation.
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The only thing I'm noticing as getting harder to buy and more expensive are the more valuable Hami-Os*, probably due to the fact that the only methods of gaining them (STF, LRSF, Hamidon Raids) both have an option for taking merits instead of the enhancement.
I haven't tracked them specifically, so I can't say for certain. But I'm not use to seeing -ToHit/-Def/End at the 50-80 million mark before.
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Good post.
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Originally Posted by Fulmens
Issue 9: I buy an Alchemical Silver for 30K. One week later, an alchemical silver drops from a mob and I sell it for 30K.
Issue 14: I buy an Alchemical silver for 55K. One week later, an alchemical silver drops from a mob and I sell it for 55K. I don't see the problem here. ( It was, in fact, IMPOSSIBLE to sell a single alchemical silver for 30K at Wents in issue 14, if I recall; the flippers set the buy line at 40K or something like that. ) I'm happy to buy alchemical silvers at 55K, just as happy as I am to sell them at 55K. If it's 30K tomorrow, I'll do that too. I can STILL outfit a level 33 character for under ten million inf, with IO's that are good from now till the servers go down, and nearly Hami-O levels of goodness. I can STILL make that ten million by level 33, playing normally and slotting SO's just like I used to. Let me back that statement up a little bit... I can still have the money for my first set of SO's five or ten levels before I need it, instead of five levels afterwards. This is pretty much the Big Rock Candy Mountain, where the hens lay soft-boiled eggs and so forth. |
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Originally Posted by Ignatz
Good post.
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Originally Posted by Fulmens
Issue 9: I buy an Alchemical Silver for 30K. One week later, an alchemical silver drops from a mob and I sell it for 30K.
Issue 14: I buy an Alchemical silver for 55K. One week later, an alchemical silver drops from a mob and I sell it for 55K. I don't see the problem here. ( It was, in fact, IMPOSSIBLE to sell a single alchemical silver for 30K at Wents in issue 14, if I recall; the flippers set the buy line at 40K or something like that. ) I'm happy to buy alchemical silvers at 55K, just as happy as I am to sell them at 55K. If it's 30K tomorrow, I'll do that too. I can STILL outfit a level 33 character for under ten million inf, with IO's that are good from now till the servers go down, and nearly Hami-O levels of goodness. I can STILL make that ten million by level 33, playing normally and slotting SO's just like I used to. Let me back that statement up a little bit... I can still have the money for my first set of SO's five or ten levels before I need it, instead of five levels afterwards. This is pretty much the Big Rock Candy Mountain, where the hens lay soft-boiled eggs and so forth. |
Data Chunk Incoming:
Code:
The 10-25 number are based on a Pre-I16 analysis, I haven't added the increased xp/inf for lowbies into my sheets yet.Level Inf - No Sg Inf SG Recipes Salvage Total Drops 5 8 8 0 44 44 85% 10 12 12 14 44 58 83% 15 30 30 25 44 69 70% 20 35 35 76 44 120 77% 25 67 60 94 44 138 67% 30 147 74 155 44 199 57% 35 300 150 228 44 272 47% 40 624 312 343 44 387 38% 45 1067 533 801 44 845 44% 50 2006 1003 2056 44 2100 51%
Level - mob level defeated at even con
Inf No SG - inf dropped out of SG mode
INF SG - inf from defeat in SG mode
Recipes - inf from vendoring all Recipe
Salvage - inf fromvendoring ALL salvage
The percentage at the end is the inf earning from the drops, compared to the inf earned outside of SG mode.
Those are all vendor values
Taking a level 50 for example with the following tweaks.
Rare salvage sold at 500 000 inf (under estimate), common and uncommon at vendor rates
1 in 10 uncommon recipe sells for 1 million
1 in 5 rare sells for 2 million
Common recipes vendored
Those sale prices are a significant underestimate in both rate and price in todays marketplace.
That shifts the recipe coloumn up a touch to 2832, and the salvage up to 1459
Total drops is 4291, meaning 68% of the inf value of minion defeats is from the sales of the drops, rather than the raw inf.
(oh and for the full team situation its 46% of the inf per minion is from the sales under those conditions, just to have that comparison in here.)
And here is the key, if prices skyrocketed as long as someone is actively engaged in the market, and by that I mean selling their drops at the 'going rate' their income compenstates to a large extent automatically and without any chnage in behaviour.
That scenario above. Lets add a factor of 10 to the sold recipes.
1 in 10 uncomon for 10 million
1 in 5 rare for 20 million
Rare salvage for 5 million
Everything else still at Vendor rates
Recipes go upto 9858
Salvage to 14315
Total goes upto 26179
That is a direct earning rate more than doubling. Now how far this extra inf goes depends very much on your spending habits, versus the fixed costs of SO/common IO it goes further. Cheaper sets for frankenslotting is the same.
It is only if you slot heavily with the 'inflated' sets, that your inf doesn't go as far.
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I think a problem with anticipating what's going to happen is we don't yet really have a clue as to how INF (both kinds) is going to work in the new world of Going Rogue.
If you switch sides, will influence convert immediately to infamy, or will you have to start earning infamy if you just turned to the dark side?
Will you lose a percentage of your INF if you switch sides? (It would make sense AND be a money sink.)
Will you be able to have full access to the Black Market or Wentworths after switching sides? Or will they simply merge the markets?
Depending on how this all plays out, I can see some clever profiteers buying low on one side and selling high on the other after going through the process of switching. Dependent upon how devoted this person is (and how easy it is to switch back and forth), a clever person can probably game both sides with one character.
This is all speculation, of course.
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Well, yes. But I don't see that as a problem. More of an opportunity for rampant, baseless, entertaining speculation. We can assume, perhaps unreasonably, that inf in GR will work in whatever way is necessary to push the game in the direction the devs want. So then the question is "What do the devs want?"|
Originally Posted by Defenestrator
I think a problem with anticipating what's going to happen is we don't yet really have a clue as to how INF (both kinds) is going to work in the new world of Going Rogue.
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I'm speculating that what they want is to have smaller numbers in the market. I agree that it's a silly goal. I'm not defending it. I'm just predicting it. Now, if they want smaller numbers, then I guess the simplest way to do it is just cut the amount of inf earned from mob defeats and vendoring.
The problem with that, as people have pointed out, is that it would only hurt new players who aren't already sitting on billions of inf worth of bids on level 53 set IO's.
They could delete the inf which is already in existence, as a few people mentioned, but I just don't think they will.
They could do something sneaky, like delete level 53 set IO's from the market interface. Even if they refunded the cash, which they wouldn't have to do, it would still wipe many billions of inf out of existence all at once. I wonder if that's more than a drop in the bucket, though?
One thing we do know about the devs is that they can quite cheerfully pile up currency on top of currency on top of currency until they feel they've got it right. We know they don't want to merge the markets, or at least they have been strongly opposed to it in the past. We also know, or arrogantly assume, that they don't actually know much or even care much about economics.
So where does that leave us? Can the devs accomplish that goal by introducing a new GR currency with a steep conversion rate? Or will the fact that GR is an optional expansion mean they can't use it to make a global change? They might think that having side switching erase all inf will be a good inf sink, but of course most people will just pass the inf to an alt before switching, so no actual money is ever lost. What else might they try?
Avatar: "Cheeky Jack O Lantern" by dimarie
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If you lose ALL inf when trading sides, I can't imagine the person that wouldn't just move the inf to an alt before switching sides. If you lose SOME inf, then it would depend on how much, and how much you had on the other side to give the character.
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Originally Posted by Defenestrator
If you switch sides, will influence convert immediately to infamy, or will you have to start earning infamy if you just turned to the dark side?
Will you lose a percentage of your INF if you switch sides? (It would make sense AND be a money sink.) |
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Quote:
This is true. There have been games that have tried to rein in out-of-control economies and it only made it difficult for the new players to get going. I think when WoW started the Fishing skill actually had a chance of producing a "rare item" that you'd hook and haul up from the depths. This quickly got squashed and it only benefited those who had active accounts those first couple of days the game was live. There are other examples, of course. I don't see them adjusting INF rates of defeats at this stage, as a lucky recipe drop can easily dwarf INF from defeats.|
Originally Posted by peterpeter
I'm speculating that what they want is to have smaller numbers in the market. I agree that it's a silly goal. I'm not defending it. I'm just predicting it. Now, if they want smaller numbers, then I guess the simplest way to do it is just cut the amount of inf earned from mob defeats and vendoring.
The problem with that, as people have pointed out, is that it would only hurt new players who aren't already sitting on billions of inf worth of bids on level 53 set IO's. |
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| They could delete the inf which is already in existence, as a few people mentioned, but I just don't think they will. |
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| They could do something sneaky, like delete level 53 set IO's from the market interface. Even if they refunded the cash, which they wouldn't have to do, it would still wipe many billions of inf out of existence all at once. I wonder if that's more than a drop in the bucket, though? |
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| One thing we do know about the devs is that they can quite cheerfully pile up currency on top of currency on top of currency until they feel they've got it right. We know they don't want to merge the markets, or at least they have been strongly opposed to it in the past. We also know, or arrogantly assume, that they don't actually know much or even care much about economics. |
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| So where does that leave us? Can the devs accomplish that goal by introducing a new GR currency with a steep conversion rate? Or will the fact that GR is an optional expansion mean they can't use it to make a global change? They might think that having side switching erase all inf will be a good inf sink, but of course most people will just pass the inf to an alt before switching, so no actual money is ever lost. What else might they try? |
I can't see them tinkering too much with the economy. The dev team has done little (or nothing) to adjust anything in the game. Honestly, I think they've added alternative ways to get some of the more desired recipes, but you're still a victim of random numbers to get those.
I'm really curious to see how Going Rogue is going to work, though.
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As far as "Destroying the level 53 bids":
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I don't know if a lot of people are storing their cash this way- 0.1 % sounds right- but people tend to store cash by the billion that way. I don't bother putting up a level 53 bid for less than about 500 million. Doesn't come up THAT often, but I do run a Fake Money Transaction business exchanging currency, influence for infamy, and my clients tend to want to move inf by the billion. Sometimes the billions all end up on the same side and the same server. | Are a lot of people really storing tons of cash this way? It's a great idea that I'd never thought of, but I also don't have any characters near the INF cap. Frankly it would probably only impact the wealthiest .1% of players, and even then it would be like fining Donald Trump $10,000 for something. |
Here's the thing: There are people out there with ten or twenty or fifty billion inf each. Top .1% would make it a hundred of them or so. It's kind of a power series- the top 1000 players (1%) have a billion each, the top 100 have ten billion each, and the top 10 have 100 billion each. I don't know how high the stack goes, but I moved (over a few weeks, as people moved money back and freed up my working fluid) around six billion from someone and he said he had fifty billion heroside. I see no reason to doubt him. People have posted their 20-billion-inf screenshots.
So let's make up some numbers. There are 10 people with 100 billion and 100 people with 10 billion. Half of that is stored in billion or 2-billion inf bids. That's a trillion inf. Let's say the devs get rid of the level 51-53 bids and let's say that 80% of the people get their money back. 20% despair or don't bother or don't notice or whatever.
You're getting rid of 200 billion influence, bam. And now people can't "safely" store their 2-billion-inf amounts. They can bet on weird stuff, like level 48 Intangibility DO's. But what they're probably going to do is buy and sell more stuff. So maybe half of 1.8 trillion is now sloshing around the system, losing 10% here and there as it goes.
(Interestingly, that power series puts the total inf in the system at around 3 or 4 trillion, which is roughly where it stood in I9. I may have to up my numbers of gazillionaires.)
Pretty soon you've got a lot less stored cash. Prices in the short term go up... I wonder if people will invest in tangibles, like respec recipes?
EDIT TO MAKE MY ORIGINAL POINT:
... I think that Going Rogue will only have a way to destroy inf if they can make people think it's cool or fun. The Devs seem to only care about the economy in terms of "can people get the stuff they want?" which is part of the global goal, "Only frustrate people with intentionally hard content." I think they maybe had TOO many giveaways in general, but I'm old and cranky.
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It's not the little things that get rid of inf... it's the big ones. Doubling my 100,000 inf cost to craft a little thing isn't going to do SQUAT to a billionaire's net worth, but it will make a big freakin dent in the net worth of the new kid who's trying to figure out how things work. On the other hand, a 100-million-inf "+10 salvage bag", or lottery tickets for 10 million inf each, or something like that, would seriously increase the cost of private jets while not affecting the cost of ford foci.
I'm not even ripping inf out of the economy anymore these days. Occasionally i'll move a billion inf around for a currency exchange, then move it back, for a 200 million inf donation to Mr. Wentworth's. . .but not often.
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So you think you're a hero, huh.
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