Inflation: knock off the inf-sink idea's please. Here's how to "fix" the perception problem.

Since anyone can create a supergroup and use it solo, I'm not sure what difference it would make to link extra rewards to supergroups. I would guess that the people who have extremely large amounts of influence are more likely than not to be in their own solo supergroup (so that they have storage in the base that no one else can touch).

It's also not clear that adding merit reward prices for purples would accomplish anything at all. The number of merits required would have to be a thousand or more, if the highly desirable rare recipes are 200-250 merits.

I'm not a casual player, but it is extremely rare that I get 200 merits with a character by level 50. Task Forces are simply too time-consuming and painful compared to regular missions. And unless you run your own missions exclusively (meaning you run solo or don't let anyone else run their missions when you team), you won't get many merits running regular content. And if you run AE, you won't get any merits.

The real problem is with the way the merit reward system is set up: to get a reasonable number of merits you have to run TFs (regular ones or arcs in Ouroboros) or your own missions exclusively.

This does not represent the way most players play the game, especially casual players who run on pickup teams. Add to that the fact that many pickup teams run radio/paper missions because there's very little downtime compared to standard content, much of which is riddled with time-wasting talks, running back to the contact, defeats, travel to multiple zones, etc.

The devs have intentionally done this to reward players for engaging in more time-consuming (and tedious) content, and perhaps to reward team leaders. The real problem is that -- unlike with TFs -- only the mission holder gets any merits running regular content, even though the entire team has to suffer the inefficient nature of this content.

This is the problem that should be fixed: only one player generally reaps the rewards of running regular arcs. This is somewhat different in some newer zones, such as Faultline, where a team can pick up contacts in order, contacts give the missions in order. There it's possible for a team to run one or two short arcs together and have everyone get merits. But even in that case, teams are very fluid, and it's rare for a whole team to stick together long enough for everyone to complete an arc simultaneously. Add to that the fact that many people SK (or exemp) and can't get the contact, and it's nigh impossible for pickup teams to get merit rewards.

So, I don't claim to have an answer, but the merit reward system does not compensate the vast majority of players because they don't do the very narrowly defined content that rewards merits.

If the devs fix that problem (if they even consider it a problem), it will help bring inflation down and allow players a non-market solution for desirable items.

Agreed. Wow. Just wow.

Yes it could, but not without significant uproar and disapproval. Not to mention it would hurt the people that are complaining the most - the have nots.

Actually, no it could be implemented in a manner that would not hurt those people the most.

Every change has people complaining. Many for illogical reasons that are based on misconceptions, poor understanding and plain old idiocy. That type of complaining isn't always relevant. Complaining on this topic would be such complaining.

...I really like this idea, actually. I mean, I'm sure there's some glaring hole in it, but I do like the idea of level 50s getting something else instead of double the inf of level 49s. Something non-transferable. Somebody in a time zone where it isn't 2 AM figure out the problem with this.

I like that. It could even use the XP bar, so that the bubbles filled up at whatever rate was deemed appropriate, and then instead of levelling, the bubbles emptied back to zero and the game dropped a merit.

Yup, that's why I proposed something like that above. I'd rather not just create things out of nowhere though. Items created for the AH should have been earned by a player, but if they chose to vendor it instead, then there's a chance the background script will catch it and put it on the AH.

A straight up auto stocker could be abused by someone with a lot of bid slots and a rough idea of what doesn't sell, if not done carefully. That's why I think auto expiring bids and sales is still a good idea. If someone wants to shotgun the market on 54 alts, make him do it every 2-3 days

And you don't believe this will somehow NOT be exploitable by us marketeers?

It's already been pointed out WHY it's not a good idea...

Increase drop rate, as I said, is a temporary solution. It creates a surge of supply and drops prices, but doesn't actually stop inflation.

Merged markets... I don't see how that will stop inflation either. Blueside has inflation. Redside has inflation. Why would a merged market not have inflation?

More inf sinks, yes, that's what we need to do. It needs to be stuff people want to spend inf on for mechanical benefit, but where the money leaves the system. Like IOs bought from vendors.

What do costume change codes have to do with inflation?

And yes, lowering inf generation of 50s would help.

Costumes USED to be something that 50s spent their inf on. Until the devs started giving huge amounts of free change codes away. Which is why I stated that ship had sailed.

Merging the markets would give both sides more items to spend the inf on. This would be COMBINED with increased drop rates and the rest.

None of these solutions are meant to be on their own. They are meant to happen at all once. ESPECIALLY the news stuff that folks WANT to craft that require tons of inf.

IOs bought directly from vendors would KILL the market. I don't agree with anything that does that.

Unless you mean increasing the price of CRAFTING IOs via the university.

EDIT: My bottom line was to suggest things that were WAAAAY better than what the OP proposed.

Or we could...close up the holes that allow us to 'easily' get around the influence/infamy cap, kill the exploitable reward system for AE and institute something that makes sense...

Merge the markets and increase drop rates on purples. Reinstate the option of random recipe rolls in TFs and SFs along with the option to choose a merit rewards..

Give AVs a higher rate of dropping purples.

Create a global currency..maybe extend prestige to the global currency so that we are actually being TAXED on items in our base and being charged to keep it operational. (your money sink..)

Then make all storage items in bases require control and energy and place a tax on each storage item ontop of base upkeep.


None of these will 'cure' inflation i'm just mostly musing...

You have this option. it's called spending 20 merits for a random drop. Which the vast majority of TF's give you enough merits to do, except for the odd (3 or 4) that can be done in 15-20 minutes.

No, we don't have this option. Read and comprehend.

Unless the system forces you to take a random roll and the merits it would've granted (minus 20 for the roll), you don't have this option. One of the reasons supply was reaching the market before I13 was because people had to choose the random roll (or an SO or nothing, which were not attractive options). Now, a player can simply hoard merits to buy something else - let's say they save 200 merits for a LotG. Even if they don't use that LotG and decide to list it on the market instead, that's effectively 9 recipes that aren't making it to market. You can't force someone to random roll with their merits, in short.

@macskull, @Not Mac | XBL: macskull | Steam: macskull | Skype: macskull
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."

You mean we'd get merits AND random rolls or OR? If it's Or.. that's just worse than what we have.

Which technically...makes it not an option.

What we're discussing here is forcing the player to act in the best interests of the market rather than in their own best interests (putting off rolling until 50, saving for a specific reward). Either way there are going to be complaints; in one case that there's an undersupplied market, the other that random rolls always result in undesirable recipes ("I NEVER get a LoTG!!").

What I still don't get are players who just don't use their merits. Maybe if merits earned that exceed the cap auto-roll recipes.

(I for one am still very happy that merits are awarded for arc content - otherwise I'd have no Miracles, no Numinas, etc.)

@macskull, @Not Mac | XBL: macskull | Steam: macskull | Skype: macskull
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."

yes, we would get merits AND random rolls.

And storage units in base should be taxed heavily. I have over 50 purples in my base as we speak and I will continue to horde recipes as long as there is no penalty for it. Base upkeep SHOULD be costing us influence, why it doesn't? I blame the infinite wisdom of the devs.

Also, I wouldn't mind being able to purchase more salvage/recipe holders for 100mil on BM.