Ways to Remove High-end Items from the Game (To Curb Item Inflation)

How about a way of removing all gems from the item. It removes all gems from the item but destroys the item in the process.

Atleast this way doesnt make people ragequit because their gems that they spend months leveling got destroyed because they got disconnected.

The major downsides i see in 'gem removal=destoyed item' is players would be very careful of what gems they put into a truely epic piece of equipment.
Also it would only give you 2 options, do i trade the weapon or do i destroy it and get my gems out so i can put them in a weapon i found?

Those are very possible ways to help sink items.

I think sinking currency-items, gems, and gear-items, could be played very dynamically.

I feel like currency-items are very much "economy-neutral" because they can be sunk immediately upon being acquired. So, playing off of that, we should be able to devise many different ways to sink gear-items and gems out of the economy.

Also, I believe that both Gems and Gear-items can be made into crafting materials, thus allowing an alternative sink method.

How crafting deflates the economy is like this - Lets says that you want to remove 50 rare items a minute from the economy. Well, the best way to do that is create a desirable item to craft that requires materials from at least 5 rare gear-items. Assuming at least 10 players are crafting for this item, then what will happen is the 50 rares will be replaced with 5 crafted rare items.

This is just one way of removing items.

Also, for example, to remove Gems, you could create an NPC that consumes five Gems of any level and type, then spites out one random Gem that is an average level of the gems that were consumed. This would allow 5 gems to be replaced by 1. This ration could be altered in any way to add more removal-power to the game.

Maybe, the player could trade gear or gems for currency-items, thus directly consuming the gear. Though this is more of a one-to-one ratio. This is currently in the works from what I know.

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Silver wrote:

Maybe, the player could trade gear or gems for currency-items, thus directly consuming the gear. Though this is more of a one-to-one ratio. This is currently in the works from what I know.

This is how vendors will work.

As far as is known, there is no crafting in the game outside of the random effects given by using currency items. Rolling a random mod and hoping it's decent is a long way from implementing recipe X to be guaranteed to get item X (which is how crafting in most games works). I think the random nature of crafting is very interesting but I know many people will be annoyed that it's completely unpredictable. Especially those people that want to have their gear perfectly tailored to their character (PvP players for example).

That's why you should be able to sacrifice items to influence the effects of currency items. It wouldn't remove the randomness of the currency item but it would give you a little bit more control which I think people would appreciate. More powerful items can have more influence over the outcome making them more valuable to use in this way.

I can easily see people sacrificing some of the most powerful items to get a 50% chance of the reroll turning out how they want. It also gives people something to do with all those off-class items they find besides selling or trading them. My point is that this is an item sink that would sink a whole lot of items while still giving tangible and worthwhile benefits.

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Silver wrote:

We're not debating GGG's competency. This thread has nothing to do with competency in fact.

This thread is about thinking up creative ways to remove items from the economy.

Few of which that have actually been thought up.

This thread is pointless. 11 pages now and nothing done, it's just a back and forth of ideas between (basically 2 people). Several people have made post's outlining (rather convincingly) that this is a non-issue. Yet, post's keep coming.

This "inflation" issue makes 0 sense, none. What you are discussing is saturation, which is also a non-issue. D2 has been out for over 10 years, and the "economy" still works fine. Same with every other game ever made.

The thing about economies is that they are never "right" or "wrong" but in a constant state of flux between 2 different extremes.

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Wittgenstein wrote:

This thread is pointless. 11 pages now and nothing done, it's just a back and forth of ideas between (basically 2 people). Several people have made post's outlining (rather convincingly) that this is a non-issue. Yet, post's keep coming.

Every post that has attempted to outline inflation as a “non-issue” has failed to show any data proving their case. Simply saying that D2’s economy is fine isn’t really proof of anything.

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Wittgenstein wrote:

This "inflation" issue makes 0 sense, none. What you are discussing is saturation, which is also a non-issue. D2 has been out for over 10 years, and the "economy" still works fine. Same with every other game ever made.

I wouldn’t agree that “any game ever made” had fine economies. I think it helps GGG to know what each player expects, and their opinions on certain matters. If this issue doesn’t make sense to you, well, that’s fine; there are plenty of issues I don’t understand. No one is perfect.

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Wittgenstein wrote:

The thing about economies is that they are never "right" or "wrong" but in a constant state of flux between 2 different extremes.

Not all economies are in a constant state of flux. Some are stagnated, others suffer from over-inflation, and yet others suffer from stagflation.

Stagflation

This is epic.

I nominate that this become a new suffix for in game items.

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ieatsoap wrote:

Stagflation

This is epic.

I nominate that this become a new suffix for in game items.

It's a real term, though I'm not sure of any games that have had this particular problem.

Anyone who claims the D2 economy is fine explain why they felt the need to reboot the entire world every year or so with a new ladder.

IMO the only solution to item quality inflation is to have items wear out. Players will always keep the best items. Having the best items wear out is the only way to get rid of them. Consuming items to make something else will just result in quality inflation of that something else.

I don't think I would have a problem with items wearing out based on say time equipped out of town. Or maybe time equipped in battle. I have played D2 for months without having anything better than I was wearing drop so finding something not quite as good useful would be welcome. Having to look and trade for replacement equipment gives you something to do.

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Fluffy wrote:

Anyone who claims the D2 economy is fine explain why they felt the need to reboot the entire world every year or so with a new ladder.

Deal.

1. They added the ladder "reboot" only after several years and patches.

2. Playing on any given ladder is entirely optional. No items were deleted or "sunk", no characters were deleted.

3. Some people dislike item saturation, some people dread playing without it. Making a new ladder allows people associated with the first group to enjoy a new (or perhaps old-and-nostalgic) challenge, while those in the second group don't have to give up their precious gear they spent so much time trading/hunting for.

4. Now, does the concept of timed leagues start to look familiar? Methinks Path of Exile is going to have a very similar economic model to Diablo II's... which is to say, one that allows for a variety of item saturation levels, thus accommodating a wide range of player tastes.

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This thread is pointless. 11 pages now and nothing done, it's just a back and forth of ideas between (basically 2 people). Several people have made post's outlining (rather convincingly) that this is a non-issue. Yet, post's keep coming.

What thread is a worthwhile one then? Its a discussion like the other treads are, and yes in terms of influence on devs it seems to be miserable (only 1 dev comment on page 2) - like the other threads do.

In respect to the statement that all games have working economy: well, the point of discussion is not to avoid complete economical collapse but how to keep it in a pre-designed state.