Please regulate the economy

Hello,

First of all I would like to say that I've played more than 500 hours of POE2 early access and I really enjoy the core gameplay and most of the mechanics of the game and I can just applause that. The balance feels nice, you really start super weak and can gradually become stronger than even the greatest bosses, and this for me is a goal that in this kind of game is required for me to enjoy it.

I've played quite a lot of POE1 back in the day as well, even if I finally did quit for the exact same reason I really hoped to see fixed in this new version which the reason I'm posting today : the economy.

(For anyone wanting to tell me something in the spirit of "go farm or learn to make currency", I'm not poor thank you, I still hate the system I'm forced to interact with - SSF isn't balanced around being SSF, this another rabbit hole I don't want to dig in. As a matter of fact, many activities that currently produce the most currency in this broken system are not actively playing the game or engaging with fun mechanics. This sadden me).

The economy is bad. No, the economy is absolutely atrocious as it was in the first opus. And the reason for this is that it is unregulated. You copied the real world economy and therefore you got the exact same glaring issues : wealth is very concentrated in the hands of very few people and that give them the control over the whole economy.

As a player it feels absolutely inacceptable. I don't want the market to be dictated by other players I will most likely never interact with. I want the market to be dictated by rules established by game designers trying to establish a proper sense of progression. AS in the real world, the economy shouldn't be an end in itself, but at the service of the whole population. So I want ot ask this from you GGG : please take control and reguiate the player economy to ensure the best and the fairest experience for everyone. This is NOT the goal of whoever is currently in control of it, and what better time than the release of a second opus to put an end to this ?

How ? I'm sure you can surprise me as I actually trust your game design skills, but here is a few leads from the top of my head (not saying they are all great, I've litteraly listed them in less than 30 minutes, just to show that you can do something else than nothing) :
-make mirrors way less rare => div retain their prices, but copying gear is not a legend for most players anymore but start to be an actual piece of the game (by the way, I find that you did exactly that with exalts, they were way rarer when I was plaing POE1 and I love it, I can actually interact with the craft system now even during campaign. This is awesome).
-allow items to be traded only once => there is no point in getting multiple of the same chase item for yourself, reduce wealth concentration
-create some (expensive but fixed priced on npcs) ways of guarantying certain items/craft => put a cap to inflation as the price of an item will not be able to go over the cap.
-make omens way way less rare => make access to proper crafting actually a thing for everyone.
-put a proper trade market in game in place, with gold as a limiting factor of trade as the currency market (great innovation btw) : you can't just trade all day without playing to at least get some gold, trade is facilitated, it's easier.
-make some of the rarest items "you can possess only one" : let's say I've got an ingenuity, I can get another but then I'm forced to sell / exchange => I can't just hoard them and this make the control of the prices on the market by one player much harder.

TLDR : regulate the economy to ensure the best game experience for evryone, this is not the goal of whoever is currently in control of it.

They will regulate the economy when they create new "leagues" (and restart the economy in a more balanced environment), which they are planning to do once they start pushing out bigger updates for the EA.

And then the economy of the new league will be as bad as before, because there are still no rules to balance it. Restart is not regulation, restart is just reset because the issues are getting out of control, which is perfectly expected as you did nothing to prevent them in the first place.

Absolutely atrocious thread. Player-driven economy is vastly more interesting than static, fixed ratios resulting in value bubbles.

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AliquamGames#5952 wrote:

Absolutely atrocious thread. Player-driven economy is vastly more interesting than static, fixed ratios resulting in value bubbles.

I'm sure we can agree to disagree then, as I feel the exact opposite. However, I'm not advocating for a static economy (even if I had to choose I would choose it eyes-closed over the current one) but for a regulated one. I think there is space for creativity there.

By the way, don't you think that there are insane value bubbles in the current economy ? Or maybe we are not playing the same game.

A Guy posted a good solution for this, just make people use Divines, the problem right now is no one is using divines, if instead of randomizing the numbers of the gear it changes its attributes tiers(with the higher the tier of the Gear higher the chance of getting 'high' tiers) this would make people try to use divines, even with this much inflation people are still not using divines, this show how 'useless' beside currency divines become.

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MSMagu#0469 wrote:

A Guy posted a good solution for this, just make people use Divines, the problem right now is no one is using divines, if instead of randomizing the numbers of the gear it changes its attributes tiers(with the higher the tier of the Gear higher the chance of getting 'high' tiers) this would make people try to use divines, even with this much inflation people are still not using divines, this show how 'useless' beside currency divines become.

Thank you for this lead, seems already a step in the right direction to me. This doesn't solve the wealth concentration problem, but at least helps the inflation one.

It would also open a whole new way of crafting as a bonus and that would be lovely.

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Aranéïde#3664 wrote:

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AliquamGames#5952 wrote:

Absolutely atrocious thread. Player-driven economy is vastly more interesting than static, fixed ratios resulting in value bubbles.

I'm sure we can agree to disagree then, as I feel the exact opposite. However, I'm not advocating for a static economy (even if I had to choose I would choose it eyes-closed over the current one) but for a regulated one. I think there is space for creativity there.

By the way, don't you think that there are insane value bubbles in the current economy ? Or maybe we are not playing the same game.

Of course not, players playing the arbitrage game ensure that exchange rates are adapted to the underlying item economy.

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MSMagu#0469 wrote:

A Guy posted a good solution for this, just make people use Divines, the problem right now is no one is using divines, if instead of randomizing the numbers of the gear it changes its attributes tiers(with the higher the tier of the Gear higher the chance of getting 'high' tiers) this would make people try to use divines, even with this much inflation people are still not using divines, this show how 'useless' beside currency divines become.

Who told you we are not using divines? It's actually used to roll, for example, that precious belt. It's costly but oh so worth it. There are other examples. There is actually a deficit of divines, that is why they are rising in price, not the opposite. Please read any economy textbook and stop listening to people with no clue about how economy works. I know Ghazzy (that streamer) did say something like "there is no divines sink, that's why they rise in price" in the devs interview and devs were like "What??" Cause for anyone even remotely related to business it's clear as day that the higher the demand is the higher is the price and not the other way around.

Edi: I mean with the same supply numbers ofc, and in our case supply is very limited that is the actual issue, not some mysterious group of price fixers.

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AliquamGames#5952 wrote:

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Aranéïde#3664 wrote:

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AliquamGames#5952 wrote:

Absolutely atrocious thread. Player-driven economy is vastly more interesting than static, fixed ratios resulting in value bubbles.

I'm sure we can agree to disagree then, as I feel the exact opposite. However, I'm not advocating for a static economy (even if I had to choose I would choose it eyes-closed over the current one) but for a regulated one. I think there is space for creativity there.

By the way, don't you think that there are insane value bubbles in the current economy ? Or maybe we are not playing the same game.

Of course not, players playing the arbitrage game ensure that exchange rates are adapted to the underlying item economy.

That is just not true, player are not arbitring anything, players are acting as they should in a free economy : they act the way they success at making the most wealth for themselves. They are selfish agents and that's why none of them should have the amount of power some of them actually have. The notion of arbitrage is relying on the idea of an objective for balance which is the objective of absolutely no player. No one should play "the arbitrage game" but the game devs crafting the experience.