General Discussion - How the Economy Actually Works - Forum

" e7ang wrote: " emtwo wrote: I think there's a lot of confusion in this thread because people are talking about different economies. Some are talking about Onslaught, some Hardcore, some Standard (who cares what Standard economy is like anyway?). I don't know maybe the vast majority of people that play standard..... Maybe they should play Hardcore then? Standard is for people who don't want/need the hassle of dealing with losing characters and spending weeks saving up to buy a great piece of gear. For that to happen, the economy has to be non-existent and good pieces of equipment need to be plentiful enough that they do cost a bit (they aren't worthless), but not nearly the amount that they would in a league where they can be permanently lost absent of the will of the owner. It's a good thing imo that Standard's economy is this way considering that's essentially what it's made for. The "casuals" for want of a better word. Players who have less time to play the game and thereby can't have what time they have spent on grinding to reach the end game. Should there be a league that has the 15% XP loss but doesn't have gear funneled into it from all other leagues? I don't know. I wouldn't think so. It'd just split the player base more imo.	Posted by TremorAcePV#7356 on Jul 11, 2013, 8:12:24 PM Quote this Post
" Backkwodsss wrote: An understandable perspective but almost entirely false. People tend to stop playing a game when they acquire the best items. The things people are complaining about itt is actually what makes ARPG's popular. Really? I think you don't know "people" very well. The thing you are talking about can be generalized to "running out of meaningful goals". For you, with your "top gear" focus you run out of meaningful goals when you get the top gear. This game is a lot shorter to me since I run out of meaningful goals about level 50 where solo becomes impractical (solo includes self-found for me). That may or may not work out for GGG depending on how many people think like you and me respectively. " Shagsbeard wrote: Asking them to "let us" get good items is silly... the game already does that. Play the game and you'll get good items. Then you are playing a different game than I am. I can't be 100% certain but I don't believe I have EVER equipped anything I have ever found on any character past level 40 (or lower). Every single one of my characters maxes out on gear long before anything like "end game". You trade or die in POE. I don't trade. I don't group. My comments reflect that.	Posted by snapple99#2919 on Jul 11, 2013, 8:16:00 PM Quote this Post
" e7ang wrote: " emtwo wrote: I think there's a lot of confusion in this thread because people are talking about different economies. Some are talking about Onslaught, some Hardcore, some Standard (who cares what Standard economy is like anyway?). I don't know maybe the vast majority of people that play standard..... You don't need good gear to progress in Standard, merely perserverance. In this sense, the Standard economy has a virtually insignificant effect on Standard gameplay and can largely be ignored. HC leagues, on the other hand, require that your gear is good enough to NEVER die or you can't progress. This is when the state of the economy has a tangible effect on the state of gameplay.	Posted by emtwo#7165 on Jul 11, 2013, 8:32:28 PM Quote this Post
Spoiler " ScrotieMcB wrote: I've posted this before in replies to threads, but it keeps coming up so I'm giving it a thread of its own. Let us stop at the top of the economy food chain. These folks are the no-lifers with the amazing stashes and the best gear on the server. But here's the thing about having the best gear on the server: you can't trade for an upgrade. It's literally impossible. So instead you must farm one (which would involve chaining very high-level maps) or you make it yourself. Both of these things require large amounts of currency. So when a one of these players does trade something away, what they want are Exalts, and they intend to use them in large quantities, because given their position they are essentially in self-found mode. Let's say one of these players finds something to sell. The maximum logical price is a little less than the average cost to make it oneself with orbs; if it was the same, players would just make it themselves. The lowest logical price is a little more than the vendor would give, which is virtually nothing. In order to save time trying to find an interested buyer, items end up about halfway between these two extremes, at much less than the average crafting cost. Simply put, prices are set according to minimum hassle finding a buyer and getting more than vendor would offer, and otherwise simply getting as much as one can. Immediately below the best-gear folks you have the people with almost the best gear on the server. There are two ways for them to upgrade: either those with the best gear will find an upgrade then try to sell their old gear, or they can farm/orb it themselves. This becomes a test of patience, as the best-gear population which feeds them upgrades themselves seldom find upgrades, and thus rarely hand-me-down their old gear... thus upgrades are rarely available, but cheaper than "crafting" when they are. So these players hybridize trading with the practice of making gear themselves. Once you get a few tiers down, there is a steady feed of upgrades available to buyers. Because of this constant availability, hybridization disappears and trading for upgrades becomes the de facto best practice. Even if the person you're trading with doesn't consume Exalts, the person he's trading with (or the person he's trading with, and so on) does, so it's still the players at the very top setting the demand. Now that we understand the situation, let's debunk two common myths: Myth: Increasing droprate will make players craft more. Truth: Only if they're stupid with their "money." The price of hand-me-downs available on the market is not set by droprate, it's set by the seller, and will always be significantly less than the cost to make it from scratch, since the seller doesn't want to waste time finding a buyer nor risk vendoring it. If an upgrade for your character is available on the market, the only reason to make it yourself is that you enjoy paying more. Myth: No one actually uses currency, except for maps. Truth: No one you know, maybe. But some are using a ton of them. Remember that those at the top of the economic food chain can't trade for upgrades, so the main thing their currency is good for is making the upgrades themselves and/or perpetuating very high-level maps. The reason certain orbs are in such high demand is that those are the orbs those players need to forge their upgrades. well spoken. For me the only problem with eco is multiboxing and bots. as long as you work hard without illegal exploits I have no problem with it. “Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it.” ― Christopher Hitchens My QoL List: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3279646	Posted by Antigegner#0560 on Jul 11, 2013, 8:43:27 PM Quote this Post
" emtwo wrote: You don't need good gear to progress in Standard, merely perserverance. at least for me: 1.) good gear IS the progress i make. 2.) perserverance...mmmh.......I play for little more than one year now and not even once an exalt dropped for me... 3.) the better the gear the more pleasant the way you progress is and the more you actually want to progress. (oops, sorry for two posts in a row....) “Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it.” ― Christopher Hitchens My QoL List: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3279646 Last edited by Antigegner#0560 on Jul 11, 2013, 8:46:51 PM	Posted by Antigegner#0560 on Jul 11, 2013, 8:46:17 PM Quote this Post
" snapple99 wrote: " Backkwodsss wrote: An understandable perspective but almost entirely false. People tend to stop playing a game when they acquire the best items. The things people are complaining about itt is actually what makes ARPG's popular. Really? I think you don't know "people" very well. The thing you are talking about can be generalized to "running out of meaningful goals". For you, with your "top gear" focus you run out of meaningful goals when you get the top gear. This game is a lot shorter to me since I run out of meaningful goals about level 50 where solo becomes impractical (solo includes self-found for me). That may or may not work out for GGG depending on how many people think like you and me respectively. " Shagsbeard wrote: Asking them to "let us" get good items is silly... the game already does that. Play the game and you'll get good items. Then you are playing a different game than I am. I can't be 100% certain but I don't believe I have EVER equipped anything I have ever found on any character past level 40 (or lower). Every single one of my characters maxes out on gear long before anything like "end game". You trade or die in POE. I agree with you. For me the game is about getting end game (best) gear on a character. THEN, if the game is fun which POE is, I want to try same progress on another character build. But since I have found only 3ex and no Kaom's I can't afford best gear so I guess I play this ONE character til I am bored to death and quits. IGN: Hydralin	Posted by Peacebringer#0391 on Jul 12, 2013, 5:49:57 AM Quote this Post
The OP mises the point about the problems with the perception of the economy. The biggest, most stupid, myth, is that currency becomes worthless. In reality, over time, every player has INCREASING purchasing power, as better gear becomes cheaper and readily acquirable. Off course this is the MAIN problem in a loot finding game, as the probability of finding upgrades yourself instead of easily acquiring gear via trading diminishes over time. The problem is one of perception, because the currency exchange ratios are biased towards highly demanded currencies (btw, in some instances, the same happens in real life), for reasons exposed by the OP. But that's just perception, you don't need exalt orbs to acquire good gear. Over time, the time investment necessary to acquire better gear, diminishes too, so even if you are not a no-lifer, it will actually become EASIER for you to get gear you otherwise would not be able to acquire. People asking about 'item sinks', are fundamentally right, but such solution already exists: is called Hardcore mode. You could argue that you want something in between, not lose character progress, but some item destruction; but there are counterpoints, like if any more fragmentation of the community is good for the health of the game (would require new type of league) or if there would be enough real demand for this mode. In the end the easiest way to "fix" this is two-pronged: periodical restarts of the economy (new leagues, like Anarchy/Onslaught) AND new type of league: self-found, where the drop ratios are tweaked so players can find/craft upgrades at their own pace, not having the perception of constantly falling behind the economy and never been able to find upgrades. Meanwhile the best recommendation for any player who has the feeling of not being able to "keep up" is simply ignore "the economy", try diminishing trading to a minimum (specially buying) and play at your own pace, it can be done and is more rewarding and fun. Also, play hardcore if you care so much about ingame economies, it's more healthy because there is always a demand for mid to high end level items. Even if over time the problem still is there it's way healthier.	Posted by knac84#3886 on Jul 12, 2013, 7:05:02 AM Quote this Post
I see your point of view knac84, well spoken. But if you want the (at least almost) best gear AND max out many characters then it is very hard as it is right now. One solution is to have a self found league with higher drop rates and easier crafting. Man, I want to try like 15-20 builds, but my personality when playing is that I have to max out the character before moving on to the next one :-/ IGN: Hydralin	Posted by Peacebringer#0391 on Jul 12, 2013, 7:24:37 AM Quote this Post
" Peacebringer wrote: I see your point of view knac84, well spoken. But if you want the (at least almost) best gear AND max out many characters then it is very hard as it is right now. One solution is to have a self found league with higher drop rates and easier crafting. Man, I want to try like 15-20 builds, but my personality when playing is that I have to max out the character before moving on to the next one :-/ Yeah, as I said, I'm favour of such league and think it would solve a lot of the problems for players which have problems with the current state of the economy. (I would also get rid of the dated IIR/IIQ concept, as it does more harm than good, but that's subject for other discussion.) As for acquiring best gear possible for your build, IMO there are two problems here, one is that of linking (6L being higher end), second is BiS (or close to BiS) uniques. Crafting "the perfect" rare item for your build could be considered also a problem, but we must have realistic expectations here, as to make it possible statistically speaking we would have to increase currency & item drops several orders of magnitude higher, which is impractical even for a self-found league for several reasons (technical, gameplay, difficulty balancing, etc.). The former two problems can be solved several ways, the unique one is the easiest: there shouldn't be in the first place BiS uniques or mandatory (Kaom's is mandatory for life builds survivability in endgame for example), is an act of balancing both uniques and some stats. And linking, is a bit more problematic, because 'rng' can be a bitch, I'm in favour of reducing the importance of rng (via some sort of entropy) when it comes to linking and balance drop rates of 6S, fusings/jewellers around that, but there could be more solutions; also this could be tweaked easily in a self-found league and we could leave it as it is in 'trade' leagues.	Posted by knac84#3886 on Jul 12, 2013, 7:40:19 AM Quote this Post
" knac84 wrote: " Peacebringer wrote: I see your point of view knac84, well spoken. But if you want the (at least almost) best gear AND max out many characters then it is very hard as it is right now. One solution is to have a self found league with higher drop rates and easier crafting. Man, I want to try like 15-20 builds, but my personality when playing is that I have to max out the character before moving on to the next one :-/ Yeah, as I said, I'm favour of such league and think it would solve a lot of the problems for players which have problems with the current state of the economy. (I would also get rid of the dated IIR/IIQ concept, as it does more harm than good, but that's subject for other discussion.) As for acquiring best gear possible for your build, IMO there are two problems here, one is that of linking (6L being higher end), second is BiS (or close to BiS) uniques. Crafting "the perfect" rare item for your build could be considered also a problem, but we must have realistic expectations here, as to make it possible statistically speaking we would have to increase currency & item drops several orders of magnitude higher, which is impractical even for a self-found league for several reasons (technical, gameplay, difficulty balancing, etc.). The former two problems can be solved several ways, the unique one is the easiest: there shouldn't be in the first place BiS uniques or mandatory (Kaom's is mandatory for life builds survivability in endgame for example), is an act of balancing both uniques and some stats. And linking, is a bit more problematic, because 'rng' can be a bitch, I'm in favour of reducing the importance of rng (via some sort of entropy) when it comes to linking and balance drop rates of 6S, fusings/jewellers around that, but there could be more solutions; also this could be tweaked easily in a self-found league and we could leave it as it is in 'trade' leagues. I agree with you, again :-) Also I think GGG should remove their increased/decreased chanses of getting low end/high end unique once you get the unique drop. Keep on adding more uniques instead. I've got maybe 15 uniques and no one is above lvl 55 (vendor stuff). That's pretty annoying for my lvl81 char... IGN: Hydralin Last edited by Peacebringer#0391 on Jul 12, 2013, 2:47:31 PM	Posted by Peacebringer#0391 on Jul 12, 2013, 2:46:33 PM Quote this Post