Discussion: Disabling XP No Longer Increases Influence

[Gremlin]

I don't think of marketeer, farmer, role player, badger etc as people; I think of them as hats. We're badgers when we're hunting for badges, marketeers when we're trading and farmers when we're farming. At lot of us have favourite hats but most of us do at least a bit of everything.

[Luminara]

1 hour ago, Gremlin said:

I don't think of marketeer, farmer, role player, badger etc as people; I think of them as hats.

 

No!  Bad Gremlin!  People are not accoutremonts!  Take that geologist off of your head and put him DOWN!

[ForeverLaxx]

10 hours ago, Saikochoro said:

I also don’t know where this farmer vs marketer mentality came from. I would venture to say a lot of marketers farm and a lot of farmers market. They are not mutually exclusive. Neither are inherently bad. Both help supply the market with goods to keep prices under control.
 

One just has an aspect, that in the extreme and in the long run can have undesirable affects on the in game economy.  The only real different is that farming creates tons influence while marketing transfers already existing influence and while doing so deletes influence. 

 

Hence they nerfed the influence generation aspect only. Farming is still very effective in earning influence to kit out characters. 

It's because the people who only farm are trying to change the argument into one about "haves" vs "have-nots" and are pointing out that marketeers have more money than they do. They've decided that the "real problem" is that other players have more money than they do so why did it matter that they were abusing an exploit. It's an attempt to deflect the argument, and 50 pages later, it still isn't working. All they see is that they gain 500 million in a session with multiple accounts and the other guy hits 500 million with one account "doing nothing".

 

No amount of telling them the difference between farming (influence generation) and marketeering (influence redistribution) is going to convince them that they're arguing from a faulty position. In their mind, it's already decided that the devs just hate them specifically.

[golstat2003]

18 hours ago, MunkiLord said:

 

 

And I bet the folks complaining about inf generation due to the exploit fix won't bother to read either of these.

[SargentGoGetEm]

I'm really trying to make sense of it all. Why am I being FORCED to play the game the way YOU want me to? I did not use the lvl 49 AE mish. I'm not hurting anyone by farming! I just love the game, therefor  I make a bunch of alts.! Enhancements for alts are expensive! I love the end game content! Have you tried doing an Incarnate Trial with a character that has only SO enhancements? Let me tell you it sucks! Devs please put back the influence boost while xp is disabled feature. It's only fair. Find another way to fix the lvl 49 exploit (if you can call it an exploit). Even the Devs from live did not disable that feature and that's saying A LOT!

[Luminara]

3 hours ago, ForeverLaxx said:

It's an attempt to deflect the argument

 

Bingo.  Pointing out that others can become as wealthy, or wealthier, via a different method is a means of diverting attention away from a real problem of excessively rapid inf* generation to a contrived problem of inf* accumulated.  In doing so, the expectation is to either provide justification for reversion ("others also have eleventy gabillion buxes, how it was acquired shouldn't matter"), or expansion to include others in the change ("if my means of acquisition of buxes is no longer valid, other means of acquisition should be invalidated as well"), and in both cases, ignoring the underlying reasons, effects and desired outcome of the change.

 

We now return you to your regularly scheduled broadcast of "Googie design in modern vehicles: Or, How to fabricate body panels out of roofing sheet metal using only a 3lb handheld sledge."

[QuiJon]

1 hour ago, Luminara said:

Pointing out that others can become as wealthy, or wealthier, via a different method is a means of diverting attention away from a real problem of excessively rapid inf* generation to a contrived problem of inf* accumulated. 

Please in a game that generates its money only off killing or completing missions and that money holds no actually real value or backing, how is "generation" a "real" problem and accumulation only contrived? 

 

It is the exact same thing. The AH is designed to create a means for players to sell items. Players are greedy and will sell their items for as much as they can possibly get for them. The seller has no care if that 10m for that pvp IO is obtained through infl accumulated through marketing or generated by way of farming. All that matters is someone is willing and has the disposable infl in order to meet their prices. This is not the real world were there is only so much wealth to be circulated. It is created unlimitedly. 

 

 

[Obus Form]

8 minutes ago, QuiJon said:

... how is "generation" a "real" problem and accumulation only contrived? It is the exact same thing. . 

 

 

They are not the same.

 

Generation = create money from thin air

 

Accumulation = store the already existing money away

[golstat2003]

19 minutes ago, QuiJon said:

Please in a game that generates its money only off killing or completing missions and that money holds no actually real value or backing, how is "generation" a "real" problem and accumulation only contrived? 

 

It is the exact same thing. The AH is designed to create a means for players to sell items. Players are greedy and will sell their items for as much as they can possibly get for them. The seller has no care if that 10m for that pvp IO is obtained through infl accumulated through marketing or generated by way of farming. All that matters is someone is willing and has the disposable infl in order to meet their prices. This is not the real world were there is only so much wealth to be circulated. It is created unlimitedly. 

 

 

Generation is a problem because it pushes up the cost of items via inflation. Accumulation isn't an issue. I could list all my converted IOs (which I sometimes do) for 5 inf and still make money. The devs have already explained this based on the market data they have access to.

[Parabola]

9 minutes ago, QuiJon said:

Please in a game that generates its money only off killing or completing missions and that money holds no actually real value or backing, how is "generation" a "real" problem and accumulation only contrived? 

Because one adds currency to the economy creating inflation and the other just moves it around which doesn't. As has been said over and over again.

 

11 minutes ago, QuiJon said:

It is the exact same thing.

It really isn't.

 

11 minutes ago, QuiJon said:

The AH is designed to create a means for players to sell items.

The auction house was designed to create an in game economy. If the devs had only wanted people to be able to buy and sell items at cost then it would all still be done through vendors.

 

13 minutes ago, QuiJon said:

This is not the real world were there is only so much wealth to be circulated.

There is nothing that sets the amount of currency there is in the real world beyond governments not printing more of the stuff. We moved away from backing currency reserves with something tangible like gold a while ago. Even then who actually gets to say how much gold is worth?

 

The point is the in game economy works far more like a real one than you imagine. It is subject to the same forces and basic principles. The key one for the purposes of this discussion being that turning the 'printing money' tap down a bit has a limiting effect on inflation. As has been repeated in dozens of different ways throughout this thread.

[golstat2003]

12 minutes ago, Obus Form said:

They are not the same.

 

Generation = create money from thin air

 

Accumulation = store the already existing money away

Stated better and clearer for the umpteemtph time in this thread.

[EmmySky]

1 hour ago, SargentGoGetEm said:

Why am I being FORCED to play the game the way YOU want me to?

Because you are playing in someone else's sandbox.

 

Do you really not understand that the people running the server have final say over how things are done?  Usually, they ask for feedback.  This time they didn't. 

 

If you come into my house and light up a smoke, I will tell you we don't smoke in the house.  You are then free to abide by my rules or leave.  You are not free to demand I allow you to smoke in my house because you enjoy it or whatever reason you may manage to invent.

 

I totally understand that doom is now upon us.  Some players are feeling the crunch of only making 20m an hour and that is cramping their bling bling.  Maybe a more mature approach, like rational reasons, might sway people to your point of view.  I am certain tantrums will not.

[Hopestar]

8 minutes ago, EmmySky said:

If you come into my house and light up a smoke, I will tell you we don't smoke in the house.  You are then free to abide by my rules or leave.  You are not free to demand I allow you to smoke in my house because you enjoy it or whatever reason you may manage to invent.

Certainly welcome to convince you that smoking in your house is fine because there are worse things in this world. 😁

[skoryy]

The horse is dead, Jim.

[Haijinx]

Wow. 

 

I think the pro monetary inflation guys actually know there is a difference.

 

They just think price controls are somehow a better limit, for them, than any sort of monetary policy. 

 

Makes sense.  If you have a money printing press, and you can also control prices, your spending power is vastly increased.  

 

Who cares about everyone else.  They can just make farm toons too.  

 

Welcome to County of Farmers  

 

 

[Lockpick]

8 minutes ago, Obus Form said:

They are not the same.

 

Generation = create money from thin air

 

Accumulation = store the already existing money away

This has been said numerous times and if people don't want to understand; they won't. 

 

15 minutes ago, skoryy said:

The horse is dead, Jim.

Agreed.  This thread should probably be closed at this point as it is just a circle of people saying the same thing over and over and I doubt people are going to change their opinions.

 

26 minutes ago, EmmySky said:

Some players are feeling the crunch of only making 20m an hour and that is cramping their bling bling. 

I just did a run on my farmer and I am a horrible farmer.  Clearing the map and selling only white recipes will enable a horrible farmer like me to make ~$24M inf/hour.  If you add selling salvage and other recipes the total likely goes up a bit.  I'm not sure what target per minute influence the devs are looking for, but it seems to me that purchasing a purple IO every hour is pretty reasonable. 

 

A good farmer with an optimized build will outpace me easily and will make about $1M/minute or $60M/hour.   The doom and gloom is way overstated.

 

Numbers and stuff:

Spoiler

 

 

AE #125: 8:29 (509 seconds)

Starting Inf: 0

Ending Inf: 2,862,462

Farming Gain: 2,862,462

Inf/Sec: 5623.7

Inf/Min: 337,421.84

Merits: 0

Converters: 0

Converters AH: 0

Recipes:

• White: 7 (654,800 Inf)
• Yellow: 2
• Orange: 0
• PVP: 0
• Purple: 0

Salvage: 14

Drop Gain: 654,800

Total Gain: 3,517,262

Inf/Sec: 6,910.14

Inf/Min: 414,608.49

Inf/30 Min: 12,438,254.6

Inf/hour: 24,876,509.2

 

[Luminara]

7 minutes ago, QuiJon said:

Please in a game that generates its money only off killing or completing missions

 

And selling drops.

 

8 minutes ago, QuiJon said:

and that money holds no actually real value or backing, how is "generation" a "real" problem and accumulation only contrived?

Defeating foes, completing missions or selling drops creates currency.  That currency did not exist until you performed the action.

 

Purchasing or selling at the AH does not create currency, it moves currency which already exists.  It also destroys some of that currency, removing it from the game forever.

 

Creating new currency at an excessive rate decreases the net value of all of that currency, which is a factor in inflation.

 

Accumulating currency has little effect or no effect on inflation, but destroying a percentage of that accumulated currency is a factor in reducing inflation.

 

Accumulating inf* doesn't adversely affect the game's economy, unless and until someone finds a way to accumulate a significant percentage of the existing inf*, or a way to accumulate inf* at a faster rate than it can be generated.

 

In short, no-one gives a damn if someone is sitting in Wentworth's, wiping his/her ass with wads of marketeered inf* because it doesn't impact anyone in any way.  People DO care if uncontrolled inf* generation leads to massive increases in the prices of goods.

 

29 minutes ago, QuiJon said:

It is created unlimitedly.

 

Yes.  And that's exactly why the rate at which it's created has to be controlled.  Inf* isn't a gold standard currency, it's not backed by anything, it holds only as much value as players collectively assign to it.  If you couple unlimited generation with extreme rapidity, the collective value of the currency goes down, meaning each unit is less valuable.

 

Having inf* isn't the problem.  Creating inf* significantly faster than the economy can balance around it is.  Inflation is an inherent part of this economy, but rampant and rapid inflation is a result of too much inf* coming in too fast and driving prices up too high.

[SwitchFade]

23 hours ago, roleki said:

Sigh.  And when this does nothing to curb inflation, they'll nerf AE even more, then stand around with big comical question marks over their heads when inflation actually increases as farming gradually drops off. 

 

You want to fix your market?  Floor converters at 750K.  Make it unprofitable to transmute yellow trash into orange gold.

 

 

Sorry, that's not how economics works 

 

Your asertations are not valid. Please see the many detailed explenations in this thread.

[SwitchFade]

1 hour ago, QuiJon said:

Please in a game that generates its money only off killing or completing missions and that money holds no actually real value or backing, how is "generation" a "real" problem and accumulation only contrived? 

 

It is the exact same thing. The AH is designed to create a means for players to sell items. Players are greedy and will sell their items for as much as they can possibly get for them. The seller has no care if that 10m for that pvp IO is obtained through infl accumulated through marketing or generated by way of farming. All that matters is someone is willing and has the disposable infl in order to meet their prices. This is not the real world were there is only so much wealth to be circulated. It is created unlimitedly. 

 

 

That's not how economics works. Inflation and distribution are different.

[Yomo Kimyata]

I know this ship has sailed, but maybe I can simplify the issue of why inflation is bad.

 

First of all, inflation is not the same as higher prices.  If demand for something something rises, or supply of it falls, you'd expect to see prices rise.  Basic economics 102.  Let's say that our current economy is exactly the same, except Miracle +recovery is replaced with 2x Miracle +recovery .   Demand would get filled very quickly, there would be a lot of extra supply, prices would drop.  We'd say that's working as intended.  Who gets hurt?  Well, anyone who owned a lot of them in storage.  But anyone who wants to buy one in the future is better off.

 

Now, let's say all inf in the system is doubled, bur the rate of recipe drops et al remain the same.  The medium of exchange has just increased in supply, and that is going to affect prices of everything that is denominated in that currency.  Prices of goods would rise, possibly as high as double their previous level.  Who gets hurt?  Well, if prices on everything double, then it's just a menu pricing problem, which is minor; if everything you sell is at doubled prices and everything you buy is at doubled prices, then for established players it's pretty much a wash.  The people who get hurt are the newish players who don't have an inventory of goods to sell.  Effectively, their purchasing power has been cut in half, and their relative earning power as well.

 

That is what the devs are trying to keep from happening.  No one expects to have a billion inf in 24 hours from scratch*, but putting newish players at a purchasing disadvantage to established players would probably lead to fewer new players entering the system.  And the lifeblood of this game, even in free mode, is new players, since in the long run we will all be dead.  So it goes.

 

* It takes about 34 hours.

 

 

[QuiJon]

3 hours ago, Luminara said:

Accumulating currency has little effect or no effect on inflation, but destroying a percentage of that accumulated currency is a factor in reducing inflation.

So what it sounds to me is that we should charge a higher AH fee. I mean if the amount of currency in the AH is the problem then perhaps we should create an elevating system where you are charged from 10 percent like now and the more expensive of an item you sell it cranks up to like 75 percent. 

 

See the problem that no one is really touching on here is that marketers are also creating currency in the game in the way of products that the game didn't "create" randomly. If I can buy a 1k recipe and for 600k transform it into a 5m infl recipe at sale, sure I might only be transferring money, but I am creating a more valuable item to take more from the economy for myself. So maybe we should just destroy more of that profit from the purchase, there by taking more infl out of the economy to balance out the infl created in game play.

 

People have and will always farm. It is the best time vs return in the game for xp and infl. And it has always effected markets yes. So again if we are truly looking at wanting to control INFLATION, the simply put cap prices. Either cap each level if IO to a value or seed the market at a price point like they did salvage that means that no one can really sell for much more then that. 

 

The fact is prices are going up because more people have 50s, more people are building out IO characters and more people want what is for sale and have now gained the money to afford it. More demand doesn't drive down prices in this game it drives them up. It always has and always will. If you want to limit it then take away the system that causes it, which simply put is the market itself. Create a price point that someone that plays how the devs feel is appropriate can earn the money to outfit themselves doing normal content. Cap the prices to that, and you suddenly cut off both the greedy of the markets and the "creation" issue of the farmers since neither of those two groups will also have to work as hard to build a toon out. 

[Yomo Kimyata]

2 minutes ago, QuiJon said:

So what it sounds to me is that we should charge a higher AH fee.

That is certainly an option.

 

Cowmen of the crafting variety aren't creating inf.  They are making more valuable goods from materials, but they are actually removing inf from the system.  

 

Please read my previous post.  You might learn something.

[QuiJon]

4 hours ago, EmmySky said:

If you come into my house and light up a smoke, I will tell you we don't smoke in the house.  You are then free to abide by my rules or leave.  You are not free to demand I allow you to smoke in my house because you enjoy it or whatever reason you may manage to invent.

Look I get that the devs put in volunteer time doing this and keeping the game servers running. But this is also not a profit engine anymore. Its purely for fun. And once a month those devs open donations and ask us to contribute to keeping these servers up and running. 

 

I don't believe that makes this my server, or that things should be a democracy. However that doesn't mean that changes to existing game mechanics should be alters at whim of a small group of people with absolutely no input and no discussion. This thread should have been going for the last month only having started with the devs stating a problem they are seeing of inflation, what they think is responsible and how they might want to change it or ALL the options they could do to change it and this should have been a discussion to figure out what most people would have liked. I mean if patrol XP was the issue that bumped XP to high, perhaps killing patrol xp would have been a better solution to try. We don't know. And we wont because they made this change, and lets face it this change will nto solve the problem. We know that from the last 15 years this game ran they never found a way to not have farming be the most productive use of time. But I don't appreciate stealthing in a nerf to a mechanic that like it or nor was being used as intended, and then calling all of us using it exploiters so they could change it with out discussion. 

 

You example compared to this is more like if I came into you house and lit up a menthol, and you told me no we don't allow menthols just the type of smokes that we like are allowed and we think menthols stink. 

[Doc_Scorpion]

5 minutes ago, QuiJon said:

Look I get that the devs put in volunteer time doing this and keeping the game servers running. But this is also not a profit engine anymore. Its purely for fun. And once a month those devs open donations and ask us to contribute to keeping these servers up and running. 

This is exactly why we need that "facepalm" forum reaction....  (Or a forum reaction that properly conveys "oh boy, here comes a complete non sequitur!")
 

5 minutes ago, QuiJon said:

However that doesn't mean that changes to existing game mechanics should be alters at whim of a small group of people with absolutely no input and no discussion.

When that small group is the people actually running the game...  Yeah, it does mean exactly that.

[Haijinx]

25 minutes ago, QuiJon said:

 

 

See the problem that no one is really touching on here is that marketers are also creating currency in the game in the way of products that the game didn't "create" randomly. If I can buy a 1k recipe and for 600k transform it into a 5m infl recipe at sale, sure I might only be transferring money, but I am creating a more valuable item to take more from the economy for myself. So maybe we should just destroy more of that profit from the purchase, there by taking more infl out of the economy to balance out the infl created in game play.

 

 

 

That's the problem you supposedly aren't getting.    

 

The marketers are not creating currency. 

 

They are being paid by others.  What you are discussing is called Adding Value.  It has nothing to do with Money Creation.  

 

Its a prime target for taxation in a lot of Economies, resulting in a Value Added Tax.   Sort of what we already have.  (Ish)