Why POE games economy will fail.

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MrSmiley21 wrote:

I agree with OP. I'm one of those players who is never going to take crafting much beyond the occasional 4L, alteration orbs on flasks/maps, or possibly burning a divine orb or 2 to try and reroll a low rolled high valued item.

I've only gotten lucky once with fusings, and I've burned thousands of them over my time in playing the game. Fuck, it seems like every time I need to 4L something, it takes 20-25 fusings, and I consider that getting burned hard on a 4L.

See these boots? Its the last thing I tried to link, and I got raped on these hard core with no lubricants. 63 FUSINGS TO 4L!!

Last time I tried using alts on a flask, it took me nearly 160 alts just to get the warding suffix.

I avoid massive currency sinks, because I know I'll get burned. There is no doubt about it.

you want to get 4Ls easily? just try to 6L something.

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MildlyClever wrote:

I played EverQuest from 99 till 2003 or so - the reference to Everquest is almost right on.

One thing I would point out though - for example in Everquest there were items off top bosses - and less than a tiny fraction of a server (basically less than 50 people) would ever get to see that boss (let alone kill it etc) for years, until when that content became trivial due to EverExpansions.

Now, the top guild or two on each server would link those items out in websites (not many even had their own - maybe FoH, and my favority Legacy Of Steel (legacyofsteel.net is still around))

I played EQ on and off since release until a few months ago. I have lots of items that no longer drop in the game and are impossible to find and will die with my account, LOL. Funny that you mention Fires of Heaven too. Afterlife FTW.

haha oh yeah - I was never a top-tier or hardcore player, but EQ almost cost me my grad-school in 1999!

check out legacyofsteel.net - they update it with posts from 10 years ago. Tigole went from there onto Blizzard (when WoW was being developed etc), the main page updates were funny as hell on that website (and still is heh).

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WarlordClaw wrote:

Any change in crafting would sink currency better than increasing currency drop rates. You do not want to make it too easy to craft becasue then the sink is not doing its purpose. However I will argue that the sink is not working at all right now becasue most people are simply not using it.

I have to agree with this 100%. The best solution is to get people to attempt crafting, but I don't think this is going to happen without a complete overhaul of the current game mechanic.

Someone suggested new tiers for orbs that restrict what mods you can get or force the base item to be under a certain ilvl. I think this is a brilliant solution that would at least let you craft mid end items at lower cost than 4 exalts per mod.

About 80 fusings. I stopped counting after it surpassed an exalt.

Its true, in a hyperinflated economy getting ahead requires finding good drops. A lot of new players will join and find a few misc orb drops just to find that the stuff they've found isn't enough to buy themselves any upgrades. When it gets to that point, the game will pretty much be finished. Its almost there already.

Crafting is the problem or the lack of incentive for burning these orbs. More exalted and eternal orbs are being found than burned, its pretty much a fact, no disputing it at this point. Both of those would have to become a whole lot cheaper for more players to consider burning them, then if that happens the price goes back up. At no point in time will more of them get burned than found.

There are only maybe a couple dozen players tops who are even going to engage in high level crafting.

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MrSmiley21 wrote:

There are only maybe a couple dozen players tops who are even going to engage in high level crafting.

True. And do you - or more importantly, do GGG - think this is a desirable situation? What will realising this likely do to the chance of retaining players, especially the new joiners from full release?
"Oh, this is a great game, but it's only really good if you're one of the top twenty or so players with the in-game currency to actually do things. Otherwise, it's fun for a little while and then it palls that you're locked out of the later content."
... not the best selling pitch, is it.

It's as Scrotie said a while back. We need hugely increased orb drops.
Sure, the godly gear might go from 50ex to 500ex, and no doubt the same people will stay rich, and most players will remain equally able to afford such gear. And gambling jewellers/fusings/chromes on gear will be just as random as ever: but, most players will at least get the orbs to try it, rather than having such minimal chances they give up trying, and eventually give up playing because they're tired of never getting upgrades. And this increased chance of such gambled gear will also limit the price hikes.

Meanwhile, to those fussing about how this will "ruin the economy", it's an ARPG. As even Blizzard eventually realised, it's about killing monsters and finding good stuff, not about swapping currency. What matters is the chance for most players, with sufficient time, to get the better gear and kill more monsters. The number of in-game counters some bit of gear is "worth" is irrelevant to that.

(and then, there's 70+ map drops... allegedly...)

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Varana wrote:

[

It's as Scrotie said a while back. We need hugely increased orb drops.

You should know that Path of Exile is a hardcore Action Role Playing Game. And increasing orb drops could potentially make it less hardcore. Also you forget the fact that Wraeclast is a grim-dark harsh continent that has a lot of challenges and that includes orb drops. Wraeclast would not be Wraeclast with increased orb drops.