hyperinflation

The only reason we can't technically use the term "hyperinflation" is because when most countries undergo hyperinflation, they print more paper money to stimulate the economy but can't print it faster than the currency is devalued - at which point the populace reverts to bartering and systems of hard currency like gold and silver standards. In essence, the only reason we can't have hyperinflation is because WE DON'T HAVE AN ALTERNATIVE FORM OF CURRENCY TO FALL BACK ON and bartering is worthless in a world where you can sell your goods on the hyperinflated by not hyperinflated only because it technically can't be deemed such market.

Here's where it becomes a giant concern. I fully IO'd a toon about three years ago. It cost me around 1.5 billion and today is 6 billion influence from being finished. The present build is worth 19.3 billion and all I've added is one Panacea proc. Panaceas are presently being largely sold p2p offmarket for 3-4 billion. Sure, it's not that bad right now, but what about three years from now when PvP uber rares undergo the inflationary shift? We can laugh and say, "It will never happen" but
1.) The game already has trillionaires
and
2.) Now we all have three builds
3.) For each of the massive number of new 50's that were spawned by the recent series of AE bugs followed by dblxpwknd.

Sure, the market's not that bad for us right now. But what's it gonna be like in three years? If we see similar inflationary trends (which apparently aren't bad enough to concern the crap out of you all yet), how are you going to feel when my primary toon's build is worth an eighth of a trillion influence and it's still not complete? I wouldn't ragequit over a doubling in prices, but if they go up by that much than I'll have two choices. Either I can stop bothering to try and fully enhance one toon or I can utilize my considerable abilities to sway the market in such a way that... dun, dun, DUN! Prices go up as I sit on thousands and thousands and even more thousands of fully crafted IO's until their value increases. I don't actively engage in this behavior presently because things are so bad right now that the more people there are cornering niches of the market, the worse it gets for everyone. The only viable solution for coming up with enough money to fully IO a toon to completion within a month is to farm AE for at least four hours per day set to +4x8, claim a low level silver recipe roll and craft/sell what's valuable then sell off what isn't selling well offmarket at the store (which feeds the inflation). With two accounts, you can overnight afk PvP farm. Most people don't have two accounts though, or can't run two instances of CoH. This leaves AE farming as just about the only viable solution for making a billion influence per day... which means that purple recipes aren't done inflating.

This increase in prices is a problem, has been a problem and will become a much more serious problem unless addressed in the near future. Otherwise the challenge of ever attaining one complete build will over the years come to elude all but the most vetted players who one by one set aside their concern for their fellow players and farm up masses of personal bases capable of storing 1,400 IO's each (like I have, not counting ww's and toonslots) then carve out their own niche in the market until there's nothing left to carve, everything is unreasonably priced and half of what's produced is sold in stores to drive up prices as a solution to one's inability to sufficiently store the amount of created goods needed to drive up a given corner of the market. I've sold tens of thousands of recipes in the store, and am not the only one. This isn't some great big imaginary "lol wut if" scenario, it's our future. I have two ideas for addressing this.

1.) Add streakbreakers to purple and pvp recipe drops. (This may already be in the system, I don't know. If it is, please add a better one.)

2.) Instead of having three builds which are each enhanced individually, have one character, three builds, and one pool of say three hundred IO's with which each build can be permanently slotted. This could cut demand in half without making anyone either wealthier or more poor and would drastically increase the quality of gaming in CoH. This would also make it a lot possible to respec a toon once and replace half the enhancements on it without having to delete tens of millions (if not billions) of influence in equipment (and thus driving IO inflation further) or using multiple respec's to remove IO's (and thus driving respec recipe inflation further). It solves so many quality of life issues without harming anything that I can't believe this isn't already in play.

I'd much rather spend 30 billion to fully IO three builds on one toon than, say, 25 billion here and 10 billion there then 15 over there. Or 30 billion across the board. I feel very comfortable saying there are individual toons in this game presently who hold 100 billion+ influence in total slotting and personal inventory. Four years ago, one billion influenced could've fully HO'd every toon you had on a server. Now you can get two enzymes and an Acc/Dam for a billion influence - but inflation isn't a problem? I perceive it as the most problematic issue with the game.

If you don't think we can attain a kissing cousin to hyperinflation, you haven't been watching. I've personally caused it on many instances and sustained it for long periods. I've made recipes go from 5k to 4 million overnight and it cost me so little to do so that I made a profit on my first sale. That is the beginning of the problem and I could easily have tacked on another zero. I would've again made my money back for that second round of price increases on the first sale. The mechanisms for what could be perceived as hyperinflation are present, the means exist and just because it hasn't afflicted every aspect of the market yet doesn't mean it won't. It just means it hasn't afflicted every aspect of the market YET.

If you don't think what would and should be called hyperinflation in this game is possible, you can barrow my copy of An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations then I'll introduce you to a few self-made millionaires and you can ask what inspired them to start accumulating then sitting on wealth. In the end you'll understand that the only thing we're missing to ignite what should be called hyperinflation is the impetus to enact it. If you tell me it can't happen outside of purples and PvP io's, I'll do it just to show you then provide you with step-by-step instructions on how to do it. The real cure for the market is a long-term alleviation of the impetus to rapidly enact and continuously increase artificial inflation. Dot, period, end of story. We solve the problem or it'll never be out with the old and in with the new, it'll eventually just be in with the new who can never hope to compete with the old because they started playing three years too late and will never be able to hope to be on the same level before CoH2 comes out at which point it'll be out with everybody. And inflation could be the reason CoH dies instead of living on like EQ did after EQ2.

1) I've got "fully IO[ed] to completion" characters with no purples.
2) I made more than 6 billion inf since I started this thread, on Feb. 9 . Mostly on the market, but probably a billion of that was running tips and TFs. So apparently AE is not the "only viable solution".
3) You could also, in theory, get your 3-billion-inf IO's by accumulating thirty or thirty-five Alignment Merits. Run (this week) a LGTF and an ITF, as I did this morning, and you get enough Reward Merits for two. Next week, run a Sister Psyche and get enough RM's for another two.
4) If you're 6 billion away from finishing your build, and you can make a billion inf in 4 hours of +4/x8 AE farming, in one day, and you're not done yet: Why not? That's a WEEK by your numbers. And if you're this giant price-raising profit-building machine, you should be able to throw 6 billion inf into the Prestige shredder and get it back in the next couple weeks.

BurningChick: Apparently you were far too reasonable to get a good discussion happening. Or something.

That ... is so not what inflation is about.

The fact that you can raise the price on items doesn't point to inflation period, let alone "hyperinflation".

Don't take that to mean I deny inflation has been going on, though. There has been inflation in the market because the rate at which we can produce inf has been increased. It has been increased multiple times, in multiple ways. Some of them have been changes in how rewards work. Some of them have been changes in balance, making characters more powerful. Some have been changes in availability of stuff to defeat faster. Some have been changes in player demographics towards higher level characters, who produce more than low level characters.

The thing that's going to trend us towards additional inflation is going to be additional changes of this sort. Based on current public knowledge of planned Incarnate stuff, I am currently expecting more character strength increases, so I do think more are coming. Three more years of things like that? I can't picture it. I think most of your post is a bit on the alarmist side.

By the way, I don't "marketeer" (I just sell drops and merit produced goods), and I don't farm, and I have 9 purpled 50s. I just IO'd out one of my oldest characters and I did it for less than 3B inf. I spent some money, I spent some reward merits, and I played the game while I was waiting for stuff to come in. I certainly did not farm the AE to make the money for the IOs I got for him. (I did buy some rare salvage with tickets, though.)

Actually we do, we have the merit and the Amerit. When the merit first came out it was worth about 250k inf/merit now it is worth more than 1million/merit

You can't say how much people are just banking their merit earnings that information isn't easily. There is an indication that there was worry about the amount of inf and merits in the system, seeing as the devs capped the conversion rate from merits to Amerits.


From my perspective it looks like the devs have given up on attracting new players. You toss in the new 84 month badge which is an invitation to manipulate market items, its daunting to new players coming in. Its especially bad for new players that didn't come in to play the market but did come in for a superhero game.


Indeed, there were and still are things that sell for considerably below what they otherwise should. They just haven't attracted the interest of someone yet.


What most people don't get about economics is its not physics. Physical laws are always obeyed by the elements of the system. Economic laws are at least in part a description of human mass psychology. In physics you don't wait for particles to realize they can make a profit off gravity.

Inflation isn't a magic wand that raises the price of everything in equal amounts. Price increases or reductions don't happen till the people involved either realize they can or need to make the changes happen.

New players coming in aren't going to be conncerned with getting purples and PVP IOs. By the time they've gotten the game figured out and leveled a character (without PLing) to 50, they'll have found enough drops to seed they're first build. At which point, they'll have plenty of means for getting a good build without purples and PVPs. It's been shown in the forums that anyone with even limited play time can go from 0 to over a billion on a level 50 in a week. That's plenty for making a decent build.

I believe you are likely wrong and I am certain you have nothing to back that up.

You believe a lot of things that many have already found comical.

Of the friends I've turned on to the game, most have been overwhelmed enough with the mechanics and figuring out playstyles to even be bothered with IOs. Sure, IOs sound good to them, but what good is it delving into them when they don't even know how something works on SOs?

Maybe it's been too long for you to remember what it's like being new to the game, but the friends I've played with all had plenty on their hands to do with just getting to know the game. As veteran players, many of us plan out a character from beginning to end with Mids and it all makes sense to us. Someone who really wants to learn the game won't just take a power because you tell them to, they want to figure it out on their own. I prefer a population of new players willing to learn how to play before wanting all the shiniest things they wouldn't know what to do with. They tend to stick around longer.

Most of the time, while leveling new players and showing them the ropes, they've come across a very nice drop to help them stay financially sufficient for SOs and then some. By the time they've got a 50, they've got enough to at half-way IO out a toon, if not more.

A: Someone who would have you believe the rate of inflation is going out of control, but is obviously unwilling to take the step towards reducing inflation by burning all of their inf. That is, of course, if they we're being completely honest to begin with.

You are the same person who said

I also believe the federal deficit is out of control but I am not about to give all my money to the government.

I'm not sure what my experience with new players that I know personally has anything to do with not being able to know the exact amount of inlfation that has taken place. All I'm showing is that any new player can still enjoy the game without having uber-millions/billions. Are you suggesting new players should be able to slot purples and pvp IOs out the gate?

Is the federal defecit something you're contributing to?

If you believe the market inflation is as bad as you say, then using the market and making billions off of it (especially in excess of what you obviously need) only makes you a hypocrite.

Honestly, if you're that upset with the system, why take part in it so much? You seem to have no problem using it to your advantage. You boast of the rewards you reap, then turn around and condemn people you claim to be part of a massive deceptions about the market. You feign concern for the new player base, but you're not actually doing anything to help them. If you're really as worried about new players being turned off by the market as you say, then write a guide on how to use the market. If you know as much as you think you do, then surely you can give them the guidance needed to stear the market.

So you feel its OK to say snapshots of the market can't characterize inflation in a meaningful way but a few people you personally know is adequate to characterize the entire player base ?

True, I did fall into your little straw-man trap there. While I never expressed my experience spoke for all of the new player base, and didn't intend it to, you did assert your small sample of CIs spoke for every level of CIs. And the market as a whole. Certainly, there will be players who come to the game and want all the shinies right away. I don't feel the game needs that kind of mentality, so if they're chased off by not being given everything at once, I'm ok with that.

Why bring it up? Do you feel intentionally using a small selection as an example for a whole entity is bad practice?

This has to be one of the funniest posts I have ever read on these forums. Please don't take this wrong I am sure you are at that tender age when right is right and wrong is wrong and the world is a terribly black and white place, where evil is to be dealt with harshly and success is derived from virtue. Where if someone sees a wrong they are bound by moral force to right it.

To be as kind as I can and to address your points as well as possible. The world is not that way at all. I can see inflation in the game realize its bad in general for the game even call for it to be fixed, all the while both contributing to it and even benefiting from it. I can even laugh at people who make excuses for it, or make ridiculous statements about it.

While part of me tells me "I'm only feeding one of them" . . .

I'm not sure how showing the illogic conclusions you assert has become a morality issue for you. Sorry you couldn't make a valid point in the thread. Better luck next time.

One minor addition to your thought Uber. The addition of the weekly Strike task Force may have affected the amount of full team to soloing going on.

This further increase the amount of inf generated, whilst doing little if anything for the drops.
Just adds to the inflationary pressure on the high end stuffs that little bit more.

Definition Hypocrisy:

a pretense of having a virtuous character, moral or religious beliefs or principles, etc., that one does not really possess.

And btw you also misused the concept of strawman in the post above as well

My use of the word hypocrite didn't rely on the religious or moral aspect of its use. More of the principles. I can understand why you'd need to derail it the other direction though, since it helps distract from the failing points of your arguments.

Using my reference to players I know as an equal misuse of intentional misrepresentation of CIs, is a pretty clear example of what's quoted. I never said all new players, just the ones I've played with. You presented a small selection of CIs and passed it off as the entire market. You claimed I had nothing to back up what I said with, and I showed you I did. You blew it up out of proportions, and attacked that position.

Now, unless you have anything to add about wether or not hyperinflation exist and care to remain on track with the OP, unlike the majority of your recent posts, then I'm done with the conversation.

That's a good point, and one I had overlooked. Thanks for mentioning it.

The rest of this thread seems to have gone to the americans, but I wanted to add something on the topic of just looking at the price of goods, and not knowing their transaction volumes.

Looking at individual parts of the market is confusing about whether or how much inflation is going on. Even if we don't cherry pick, none of us likely has broad enough market data to say for sure what's going on over time in terms of transaction volume. We know some stuff has gone up dramatically in price, some stuff has gone down, and some stuff hasn't changed much. What we don't know for sure is how much of the total market's money volume those items contribute. Other posters have alluded to or outright said that, but I wanted to try and express it a bit more visually, to try and get it across to more folks if possible.

Imagine we have this simplified market scenario:

So in this imaginary market, we sell 5 items a day that cost 500M inf, and 1000 items a day that cost 2.5M inf. Across the whole market, 10B inf changes hands a day.

Now, let's look at an imaginary version of this market from three years ago, and imagine that prices were quite different.

In this older market, our top tier items (row A) used to cost 1/10th of what they do today. The next tier down costs 1/5th of that they do today. Items in Row C didn't change. Maybe this is a category of goods whose prices stayed consistent, but more likely, this is a mix of that, plus some stuff the price of which fell, but was replaced by some stuff the price of which rose. Rows D and E are goods that used to cost 1/2 and 2/3 of what they do currently. Across the whole market, 4B inf changed hands a day.

Now, pretty clearly this example market experienced broad price inflation. In both cases, there are 1430 items being sold per day, but in the "old" data, that represented 4B inf changing hands, and in the "new" data, it's 10B inf. But measured across the whole market, the above example wouldn't be "hyperinflation" based on even the FASB criteria, despite the fact that its most expensive items went up in price by a factor of 10.

Now, before anyone jumps on the example, while I tried to make it look something like our market, it's far too simplified for me to be trying to say that's really the ratio in then and now. My # of transaction/day column is probably wildly off-base, and I don't really think we could then/now compare price categories directly the way I did - there would probably just be too much drift of items between categories. It was just meant to illustrate more visually that even huge price increase don't necessarily equate to huge inflation.

I'm pretty sure a lot of people look at our market, tunnel vision on the best shinies and assume the market has gone to hell because those things' prices have shot up like crazy. It probably doesn't really work out like that.

I think you're example more clearly illustrates what I was trying to say earlier. Thanks Uber.

And

VS

Let me see you attempt to turn the discussion from the measure of inflation in the game to the way I participate in the in game economy and I am trying to derail the conversation ?

At this point I don't know whether to give you or Nihilli the derail award.