Where is the money coming from

Most people would agree that playerbase is a little low with new games and everyone waiting on GR to hit. Its kinda normal but thats not my point.

Consider this-with a lower pop lvl untill the new content the prices are still skyrocketing. Mostly for the good sets, pvpios, and purps.

Now here is the question with less players means less farmin, pvpin, and random players. So where is the Money coming from. If less are playing how are all my ios sellin for so much. Really, does anyone have any ideas on this. If all the farmers remaining, both pvp and pve ,are still selling their stuff like hot cakes whos buying this stuff and where are they getting 2 bill for an io. Dont get me wrong I love the fact that i finshed and IOd every toon i have on every server and i could just buy it now. But doesnt it seem to go against the logic.

I say this cause

1) If the only people left are the hardcore vets like us are we just trading amongst our selves really, or are the newer players 1yr and more recent actually buying this.
a. if they are buying it where are they getting all this money
b. if there not who is buying it

2) if vets are buying it why arnt we just advertising in a chat channel for our wares and stop trowing away 10% in fees.

3) with all the highend stuff selling there are major fees involved example. I just finsihed a toon cost me about 2 billl nothing great but good stuff. i just bought it at the market. So the real cost is 2.2 bill i think and why did me, u , they all of us just do that. And that 200 mill went poof.
a) doesnt that mean that more money is leaving faster for the people that remain without new people re-supplying the influ/infamy

b) leads me to belive someone is printing influ/infamy



Just some points if anyone has any ideas please respond if you understand what im getting at. I tried to put it as clearly as i could.

I16 fixed a bug which meant that level 50 characters are earning a lot more inf (almost double the previous level). This means that the amount of inf on a per-player basis is shooting up drastically. The major inf sink in game is the market transaction fee which fortunately scales with the amount of inf in use. Eventually it should stabilize so that the inf lost to market fees is equal to the amount being generated by playing the game. The question becomes, how many more enhancements will get pushed off the top with a price greater than 2billion before that happens?

You play at high levels, you create inf out of nowhere. I don't know the current rates for semicasual play (ITFs or what have you) but the old rate was something like 10 million per ITF, at 90 min or 2 hours per. Lose 10% every time it gets spent on the market, it takes 100 million inf of buying to get rid of that. And you have 8 people at a time getting that kinda money.

Dumple: There's a difference between moving inf from another character to yourself, and creating inf from nowhere, and I think that's the question the OP is asking.

Every time you hit a badguy and inf comes out, that's creating inf from nowhere. Every time you hit a badguy and a generic IO recipe comes out, that's [effectively] creating inf from nowhere. Every time you hit a badguy and a purple comes out, that's moving inf from another character to yourself, and destroying 10% in the process.

To the OP:

I suspect that the OP doesn't entirely understand the economy. I'm not saying I understand all of it, but the questions asked suggest a lack of understanding.

Players create Infl by playing, defeating foes and completing missions. Also, drops can be sold to vendors. The Mission Architect system also generates a lot of Infl and tickets . . . and those Tickets can be used to add new stuff to the markets. A lesser used way is to turn in your enhancments during a Respec. The amount of Infl a level 50 character can generate from these ways is pretty substantial. One friend of mine was telling me last night that he can generate about 9 mil per hour easily, not including what he can make by selling the drops. A lot of players have a lot of Infl banked in Infl itself, bids on recipes and hard assets (things that can be sold to vendors).

It is the veterans who generate the majority of the Infl used on the market. They are the ones who want to maximize their characters, so they need more Infl. They are the ones with the farming characters. The more casual players are more likely to come and go, but the Vets who stick around even when there are no events going on, generating Infl, drops and Merits to improve their characters. And it is mostly the kinds of recipes and Salvage that Min-Max players want that are higher priced in the markets.

And when things quiet down in the game, many of the vets will spend that time to spend their Infl and try crafting and improving characters. The 10% Influence sink from the markets is minor in the overall economy, when you can make back any loss so quickly.

I would say that the market is used, not so much to protect safe transactions, but because of the time and convenience, and because it is cross-server. The market provides a central place for transactions, where you can put up your goods for sale, and then leave -- to actually play the game or log off -- knowing that the sale will take place without you. If you need something, you can put in a bid and let it sit, waiting for a seller willing to accept your bid. That service is easily worth 10%.

Imagine having to run around to each zone, broadcasting that you have XX for sale . . . Ugh. Even for the high cost items, the market makes sense. There are only a very few very high cost items that sell for more than the 2 Bill cap where people go "off market," and even these are limited by server transfers (after this month when server transfers are no longer free).

I'd say it's already been answered. Influence "comes from nowhere" when you defeat a foe, or you sell a drop to a vendor. Add that up with all the people playing the game, and more people having 50s, and you get a lot of influence coming from nowhere. That means that more people have more money to toss around at things. I think there was another thread recently where someone was asking if we do need more money sinks in this game to keep prices down, actually.

I also don't know that supply is necessarily keeping up with demand. Some recipes are quite rare, and their costs have gone up and up. Other recipes have gone down to adjustments in the game. Other than Blessing of the Zephyr, -kb recipes are much cheaper than they used to be. I think that is partially due to the BotZ recipe, but also merits. However, merits and the drop changes that came with them have made other recipes more rare. I think the Guassian's rech/end recipe is ridiculously rare now, going way up in price.

So I think prices are going up, as more people have more money, and supplies are going down to some extent (the latter being more of a feeling and my minor observations of movements on Went's, the former more a natural occurrence from how the game works). I would also figure that if people are playing a little less while waiting for Going Rogue, that would cut down supplies more (maybe more than how it would lower demand).

Population just doesn't matter that much. If the population goes down, then both supply and demand drop. Prices are a function of the ratio between supply and demand. When both go up or both go down, prices stay the same.

What's the difference between 10/10 and 25/25? Different numbers; same ratio.




(Yes, of course population makes *some* difference, especially in the amount of fluctuations around an average price, and when supply gets too low then people sometimes change their behavior in fundamental ways which affects everything... but generally speaking a simple increase or decrease in overall population does not translate into an increase or decrease in price since both buyers and sellers are entering or leaving the market.)

I can now, if I choose and my character can handle it, play solo with settings for a team of 8 at +4 difficulty.

I'd be making more INF. (Actually, even more in less time if I drop the difficulty.) Which, honestly, makes your "I can't farm more than I did before" false. You may not be able to put more *time* in but you can adjust your settings for a greater return.

There's no limit to the INF you can make (well, single character holding 2 billion, and filling up slots with 2 billion INF bids on nonexistant items, but other than that...)

See my Guides and Tutorials

However, if there are less people on recently, not only will there be less influence generated, but there will also be less items generated. Since the items also come from kills, in a fixed percentage rate, then influence costs for them, even in a reduced player-number atmosphere, should stay the same (or go up if influence is generated at a faster pace than the items).

In the past you had to get 7 fillers to run a mission set for 8. I never engaged in the practice.

Today I can do that any time I want. In fact, I have to go talk to someone to AVOID doing that when solo. ^_^ I'm sure there are a lot of people, like me, who are taking advantage of the mission settings that did not regularly solo missions set for 8 the old way.

Please remember that "NEW" influ comes only from killing npcs not selling at markets. You me we he she they have to kill npcs to make new money ultimatly. even though at some time markets are almoast irrelavent even though they ar a influ sink.