A factor of inflation and why the economy is NOT WORKING

I have recently seen a market operation that really made me go thinking deeper about what is going on with the economy on this game, and prove why people that play temp leagues is completely wrong with the argument "Standard is flooded with stuff. You always find an item that is better than the other and better than this other one, that is why you can´t sell your stuff" and also to rethink on why people ends up RMT'ing on this game.

I will share it here just for the sake of letting people know what is going on here and open a new window to the observation of the game's economy.


Two days ago, I was looking for some decent boots to upgrade my slot. I was looking for a decent upgrade. It had to be an hybrid base roll, because I needed dex on them while having also a good ES roll and move speed.

I proceed to search at poe yzx, and surprisingly, I find something interesting. BUT JUST 1 RESULT. There are no eva boots on the whole market that have a good ES roll and movespeed.



Assasins Boots
----------------

111% Evasion and energy shield

+48 to maximum energy shield

+44 to cold resistance

30% movespeed


Nice. 4x T1's. This is by no means something normal. There are no mid-tier options to satisfy demand for endgame items, so this is really exceptional.

No DEX, but Eternal exalt comes to my mind. b/o price is 13 exalted. 13 exalted feels just right for 4xT1 boots. I would even pay 20 exalted for them. I proceed to contact the seller, and he answers quickly. I ask him what is the Ilvl on the boots because I was considering crafting them, even if it´s so incredibly expensive so I can get DEX on them, he answers that the ilvl is 72. Max roll DEX can´t be rolled, so I answer him that I will think about it and we stop the trade at that point.

The next day, just by curiosity, I check for boots again. Nothing shows up but the same Skull Thread boots that I checked yesterday.

But there was a little difference this time. The boots have changed the owner already and are now 70 exalted. Things start to get interesting. I click on the boots and I see the page of the guy that owns them now. It´s a popular guy selling several BiS items for crazy prices, and also running mirror service on many items.

And I said, oh look. This guy made an smart move and invested on those boots, now he is selling at the righteous inflated price of 70 exalted. That was really impressive to watch at that moment. I dind´t feel bad for not buying them, because as I didn´t really need them because they were useless for my build without any high DEX roll on them, the decission that I took was right to me. But a deep feeling of wrongness with the game came to my mind ... is this happening every day on this game ? Is this what you actually need to do on this game to win ? Is this what actually guarantees the rich to be richer and dominate and hyperinflate the economy as they wish ?

Well, after the stomach scrambling I went back to the game, played again. Kept on doing my thing.


But this is not the end. This morning ( as I am writing this ), I checked poe yzx again, just because kind of felt disturbed about what I saw yesterday, I still felt curiosity. Something was wrong and I knew it wasn´t over yet.

Searched again for the same boots, this time directly by name. The search result appears and I am completely blown away. The boots are now tri-resist and are tagged with a B/O price of 370 EXALTEDS.

I click on the boots to enter the shop to see that the guy is offering now a mirror service for them.


Amazing, simply amazing.

On two days, this guy has transformed some good boots on a mirror worth item.


This makes me think the following :

-The game lacks players, and not enough good natural drops are being generated to supply a market for endgame items.

Items on this tier are basically NON-EXISTANT. A ridiculously small ammount come up every insane large ammount of time, and then those are bought by rich only to brute force them with accumulated wealth to inflate its price to the roof and then even make more profit by making mirror services.

This is making the economy of this game completely broken, and it´s encouraging RMT like CRAZY.

Why ? Well. I have been looking now for almost one month to get a semi-decent upgrade for my boots, and I have hit a wall. It´s impossible to find stuff like this. It is simply not being generated on the game, and when something pops up, this is what happens. People who is not playing the game itself, but it´s playing the wall street simulator only, ( and who knows if other things like selling to other sites ) are completely breaking the economy by absorbing those natural drops and abusing them to inflate their price.

There is no offer of mid-high tier endgame items. It´s only low-mid tier or MIRROR items.

Here you got the answer to why everything is so expensive. This is very, very wrong on this game and I am starting to get paranoid about it. I am not sure if it´s because the RNG is really unbalanced or it´s just that there is not enough people playing the game so natural drops are not being enough generated to supply the market.

On the other hand, this is a clear example of how crafting is only for ultra rich people. How long did it take to this guy to craft two T1 resistances ? 1 damned day. How many eternals did he use to craft those boots ? A LOT.

This is only hurting the game, and encouraging RMT practices, both for people who plays to make profit and for people who wants to upgrade but they can´t find a natural progression on their items, specially at higher levels.

People is going to be forced to rip off, inflate their own prices for rare items to get the money to get that item. And if they don´t do that, they will end up RMT'ing it.

If the game is like this, because it´s been designed like this in purpose, I will think further if I want to keep on playing, because this just SUCKS. The concept of economy on this game is monstruous as it is designed right now.

I just wanted to share this with you guys and hope that GGG reads it. I keep on hoping that this is not working as intended and it is fixable somehow. If working as intended, WOW. This is not an ARPG then. This is a damned real world flawed and corrupted economy simulator.

I agree with your conclusions.
Eternals and mirrors should just never happened.

However, for me as individual, there was a way around this. I just keep telling myself, that the rest of the "market" does mean little to me and I do not try to continue with any single character past certain progression threshold (~upper 80 usually) where "Path of Merchant" is almost mandatory to liquidize the good drops you cannot use into upgrades.

Sucks a bit, but still, I enjoy the game despite this. The 4 month leagues are much better for this than the permanent leagues for this single reason.

The guy is just trying his luck. You can make any boots you want for a lot less than 370 ex. Calm down.

"

The guy is just trying his luck. You can make any boots you want for a lot less than 370 ex. Calm down.

Dude ... I don't want to post the guy's shop cause it's prohibed, but this guy has 10 mirrors for sale. His luck my ass.

What are you trying to say with calm down ? You must be one of them.

OP: Calm down.

You should've just bought them and re-listed them yourself if other people flipping items makes you so mad.

Someone saw a chance and took it, and now he is going to profit from the risk he took. Seems to me like you're just bitter and jealous that you won't get your coveted boots. [Removed by Support]

"

chromafunk wrote:

You must be one of them.

[Removed by Support]

"

chromafunk wrote:

"

The guy is just trying his luck. You can make any boots you want for a lot less than 370 ex. Calm down.

Dude ... I don't want to post the guy's shop cause it's prohibed, but this guy has 10 mirrors for sale. His luck my ass.

What are you trying to say with calm down ? You must be one of them.

When I say he's trying his luck, I mean he's trying to sell an item that you can easily make for under a hundred ex for more than three times that amount. And if anyone is actually paying him anything like that amount for stuff like boots then ya damn right he's got mirror stacks, basic math bro.

I'm so sick of people screaming rmt everytime they see someone with a serious amount of in game wealth. I took a break from the game and came back to find half the shit in my stash had become legacy, made hundreds of exalts by selling off items that weren't even considered GG when I got them. There are lots of other people who have accumulated wealth in similar ways, or just through trading, or doing shit like the guy you're talking about is doing.

You have no freaking idea how he made his wealth, so stop crying about it.

Edit: as for your "you must be one of them" bullshit, how about you go through my post history, find the thread where I sold off all my old legacy shit in sc for hc currency, then come back and make an appropriate apology. [Removed by Support]

"

OP: Calm down.

You should've just bought them and re-listed them yourself if other people flipping items makes you so mad.

Someone saw a chance and took it, and now he is going to profit from the risk he took. Seems to me like you're just bitter and jealous that you won't get your coveted boots. [Removed by Support]

[Removed by Support] I am not mad. I could have bought them to flip if I wanted to, but I don't play this game. I don't think it's right because it's dishonest and It's not how I see the game should work.

I am just disturbed because now I realize why there is so much RMT and inflation, as seeing the process with your own eyes it's much different than someone telling you. Actually this is something done, but not said by obvious reasons.

It's fucked up. I got money to play and I sell stuff everyday, but the proportions of this kind of market operations makes me see there is something wrong with this game. Then people complains bout the inflation, RMT, etc. [Removed by Support]

"

MonstaMunch wrote:

The guy is just trying his luck. You can make any boots you want for a lot less than 370 ex. Calm down.

But not 4x t1 boots with 13 exa.

I think the point OP is trying to make is

- There is no good (not mirror tier, just generally good) gear available for reasonable prices because

1. Good stuff drops very seldom
2. When that drops, it is sold as it is (since no funds to eternal-ex) and then bought by a random rich dude who then bruteforces it into mirror tier -gear.

Thus after reaching the certain point of gear (needed uniques, capping resistances, having the needed attributes) only way to upgrade is getting a mirrored or mirror tier -item.

So, you need to go from 1 ex boots into 300 ex boots for upgrade

- Now what if there were no eternals?

1. Good stuff drops very seldom
2. When that drops, it sold as it is OR yolo-exalted resulting in additional bad rolls, decent rolls or good rolls creating good gear that is not mirror-tier.

Thus there would be a lot more gear with price tag ranging from few exas to dozens of exas. Instead of skyrocketing from few exas to hundreds of exas.

The implementation of eternals was really, really bad idea.

The problem is that people don't understand that crafting can be profitable. Only a small % of people know this and exploit the hell out of the fact that others don't.

I agree with your assesment of the boots The prise you wanted to pay was probley about correct. the 70 Ex inflated prise is a bit silly , and the over 300 is totaly insane ... but some 1 might buy them.

The reason some 1 will buy them is they say ...fuck RNG sucks i can't get what i want ill just buy it , no matter the coast.


But look at it from a logical point with "normal prises"

guy buys boots for say 20 ex ... then spends eternal exsults on them. get the tri resit roll say this coast him 40 Ex to do ( probley a logical number mabey more mabey less ) that's 60 ex .. he could then sell them for the "fair " prise of 90 ex and be way ahead. And if he has a large bank roll ( say 500 ex ) he can do this offten enoughf to curb any bad luck failers he may have cuz sometimes he will get the stats rightaway.


Then if on top of that you compound the fact that a small amount of people have a strangle hold on this top tier item market then they can move the "fair" prise of them from 90 - 100 ex to whatever they want ... something stupid like IDk 370 ex.

It's not the mechanics of exsulting and eternals that is the problem ...it's peoples understanding of how to use them.