Discussion: Disabling XP No Longer Increases Influence

[MsSmart]

Hi:

 

    To concede a certain degree of bias, I do farm but only on occasion for it is boring after all. But because I do farm, it does not mean my suggestion is invalid from the very beginning.

 

     When we adventure we essentially get paid with two forms of currency: Experience and Influence

 

     Experience gained usually means we get to gain new powers or enhance those we have, after 50 there is no point to experience after doing incarnate material.

     Influence gained usually means we can afford to go to AH and buy that IO that is going to make us more powerful!

 

     So good, bad, or indifferent the character's compensation package is composed of experience and influence; which makes sense...

     In the real word for professionals their compensation is salary and benefits, as it happened to my husband he retired from the Army and thus his benefits are provided by the Army and thus has no need for a company to provide those to him, so he instead negotiates a higher salary to compensate that company's no need to provide him with medical, and life insurance.

 

    So when I looked at the option of no exp (pre-nurf), it made sense, the hero is already 50 has essentially achieved "retirement" and would naturally would seek higher pay for their work since exp is worthless to them.

 

   So the patch goes on, and the no exp is present, but there is no increase in influence, thus making the option totally dumb in my opinion, and frankly why even have it?

 

   While I am not sure that doubling the influence is right, after all my husband's benefits are not worth as much as his salary, so for him to expect his salary to be doubled would not make sense. I life those benefits he gets from the Army are worth about 25% of my husband's salary, so why not redo the no exp button, to no exp - 25% more influence?

 

    Perhaps the 25% is low,it is only a benchmark recommendation, what do the rest of you think it should be? If you disagree please make an intelligent argument of why with some detail, not an emotional one please.

 

Hugs

 

 

[golstat2003]

8 minutes ago, EmmySky said:

Lately I have been running several baby toons through to maybe 25 or 30ish without passing them cash.  Every single one of them, using 2xp so no inf just drop sales, has been able to afford their own Reveal (must have!!) by about lvl 3 and the standard health and stamina procs along with 25 common IOs by 22.  

 

Granted, I don't do a lot of high end build stuff, most of my 50s are slotted with common IOs and a few procs.  If I didn't sell all my crap on AH at 100 I could certainly increase my profits and afford those shiney fancy sets (if I understood bonus'). 

 

Some people hate farming.  Some people hate marketing.  Some people hate (certain) story arcs.  That's fine!  But don't choose to hate farmers or marketeers or story runners.  Everyone has the ability to play whichever way they enjoy.  

 

Lashing out at each other just serves to divide a small community.  The changes to inf earning while exemped are miniscule, anyone saying otherwise clearly hasn't kept very good track.  I havent even tried using reward merits to make inf and my baby heroes still have more than they need.  

 

Anyway, I just hate seeing people blow something so trivial all out of proportion and then turn the blame and hate on others.  Be responsible for your own actions and reactions and try to stay civil.  It is a GAME.  It will be alright.  

There's also the fact that some folks have the notion in their head that those that farm don't use converters and the market. That's patently false. I know many farmers who do both and contribute IOs to the market. It's not an us vs them, when many of the us are also them, and vice versa.

 

I have no idea where this "grand idea" came from that Marketers and Farmers aren't mostly the same damn people in many instances. It's a silly divide set up in this thread by folks who are simply salty about the exploit fix.

Edited April 20, 2020 by golstat2003

[Digirium]

1 minute ago, golstat2003 said:

There's also the fact that some folks have the notion in their head that those that farm don't user converters and the market. That's patently false. I know many farmers who do both and contribute IOs to the market. It's not an us vs them, when many of the us are also them, and vice versa.

 

I have no idea where this "grand idea" came from that Marketers and Farmers aren't mostly the same damn people in many instances. It's a silly divide set up in this thread by folks who are simply salty about the exploit fix.

I do both (farming and marketing, including flipping) and know just about what everything sells for. I really don't like the flipping part, to be honest. It means buying far too many enhancement converters and that part I don't think is right - enhancement converters ought to be account bound and not traded. That would mean players are limited to only the amount of converters that they earn through game play (purchasing with merits or drops if they are lucky). That would limit the players that setup niches.

 

Do not underestimate the niche sellers either. One or two might start a niche but that extends to 10 players, then to 100 players and more as players "dog pile" in at the same price.

 

I've not witnessed prices get any lower since the great nerf at the start of the month - they stayed the same.

[Lines]

11 minutes ago, Digirium said:

Do not underestimate the niche sellers either. One or two might start a niche but that extends to 10 players, then to 100 players and more as players "dog pile" in at the same price.

If that happens, then it's hard to call it a niche anymore. And that much competition and supply would start to see the price go down - or at least stay level.

 

Which is why the accessibility of converters is a good thing (assuming low prices are considered good), since that can and more or less does happen. Without them, supply of desirable items will dwindle while demand stays the same, driving prices up.

Edited April 20, 2020 by Lines

[Grouchybeast]

11 minutes ago, Digirium said:

I do both (farming and marketing, including flipping) and know just about what everything sells for. I really don't like the flipping part, to be honest. It means buying far too many enhancement converters and that part I don't think is right - enhancement converters ought to be account bound and not traded. That would mean players are limited to only the amount of converters that they earn through game play (purchasing with merits or drops if they are lucky). That would limit the players that setup niches.

 

I think that Jimmy addressed this 'issue' quite clearly already:

 

On 3/31/2020 at 9:11 PM, Jimmy said:

 

It's certainly not an 800 pound gorilla, and not something we're trying to hide or obfuscate in any way. It's a deliberate part of the economy working as intended right now.

 

Basically: Those people marketeering? They are turning the supply of low-demand goods into high-demand goods, thus lowering the cost of those high-demand goods for everyone. That's a net positive for the economy, specifically a net positive for the average player interacting with the economy. Anything we do to remove or damage this process would cause prices to skyrocket. We don't want that.

 

However if your argument is that it should be simpler or easier to engage in this process? That's a reasonable one, and certainly something we might look at in the future.

[SwitchFade]

1 hour ago, Digirium said:

I will make it very clear for you. Farmers do not and never have set the prices on the market. There are people that create niches to make profit for themselves - they are the actual exploiters. Farming is a response to those profiteers. People playing the game just because they need influence to buy those enhancements -- they fall in to the same category as farmers. Your bias against farmers extends to any player playing the game and your arguments and narratives undermine anyone and everyone playing the game.

 

Fixing the patrol experience so it was used up when under exemplar would have been fine and not lead to any backlash.

 

Removing the option to have influence instead of experience at the same time? It's a step that went too far and it affects everyone. Anyone saying they're fine with that are like "turkeys voting for and agreeing with Christmas/Thanksgiving". The amount of influence entering the game is not and never was the issue - saying that it is, is a blind. A blind to the real issue.

 

The real issue was and still is marketeers manipulating the market, creating a niche, setting their prices high. Sure, that can be competed with but who has the time to take for that when all everyone wants to do is play the game, Entering in to market PvP for the hell of it against the niche may be fun for a short while but you can be certain that the profiteers will to profit is strong/obsessive.

 

It was a sad day when influence instead of experience was removed as an option - it needs restored and I hope the devs are reading.

That's not how economics works.

 

Please see the many, MANY detailed explenations in this thread about supply, demand, equilibrium, dead-weight loss, inflation, normal vs inferior goods, substitute goods, deflation, determinates of supply and demand, price elasticity and more.

 

I'm sorry, multiple statements you have postulated are not accurate, as they run contrary to economic principle.

[Luminara]

10 minutes ago, Digirium said:

Peerless Girl is obviously the pivot point for something that needed to be said.

 

PG said what you said, essentially defending farming as an activity despite her distaste for it.  You attacked her because she expressed that distaste in previous posts, and you displayed an obvious vendetta by launching that attack while echoing her commentary.  And again in the sentence I've quoted above.  You're arguing with yourself explicitly to lambast someone you don't like.  You've dug that hole deep enough, just put her on your ignore list and move on.

 

34 minutes ago, Digirium said:

Farmers do not and never have set the prices on the market.

 

Ah, I see.  Your contention is that farmers, one of the two groups with the most in-game currency, exert no influence on pricing, neither by setting exorbitant sale prices nor by expending sums of currency in far in excess of what the rest of the player base can compete when purchasing, because farmers always sell and buy at minimum, never using their vast capital leverage to direct or manipulate market direction, not even unintentionally, such as whimsically spending 100,000,000+ simply because such a sum represents a pittance to their net accumulation.  It's the other half of the 1%, the marketeers (who would have far less leverage without the abnormally high influx of currency and recipes coming from farmers), never the farmers.

 

M'kay.

[Digirium]

The normal rules of economics (if anyone in the real world really thinks they're normal or benefit everyone, not just a few) do not apply in a video game.

 

That's been said so many times I wonder why it's not sinking in yet? Prices have remained the same on the game market so what Jimmy said was a bust - it was "make believe", that's all, to give a justification for the over-nerf of influence entering the game. That affected everyone, all the players but achieved nothing.

 

And instead of market diversity for enhancements we see enhancements and recipes snatched up and converted in to the rare ones. That's due to enhancement converters being too easily available and exploited. And please don't tell me players are performing a "service" for others - it's really only for themselves.

 

It would be helpful if everyone stopped thinking in a "market is centre" way.

[Lines]

41 minutes ago, MsSmart said:

 

   While I am not sure that doubling the influence is right, after all my husband's benefits are not worth as much as his salary, so for him to expect his salary to be doubled would not make sense. I life those benefits he gets from the Army are worth about 25% of my husband's salary, so why not redo the no exp button, to no exp - 25% more influence?

 

    Perhaps the 25% is low,it is only a benchmark recommendation, what do the rest of you think it should be? If you disagree please make an intelligent argument of why with some detail, not an emotional one please.

 

Not sure why, but your post appeared late for me.

 

I think there's definitely still room to balance rewards and what effects may happen when exemplaring. I doubt we've seen the end of changes in how players are rewarded.

 

To keep with the analogy, your husband's benefits are coming from an existing pot of money, whereas influence earned in-game materialises out of nowhere, which is a significant distinction economically. Too much influence generated this way leads to inflation. I doubt we'd see influence bonuses be readded since the whole point of the change was to curb inflation. We players don't have access to the data to know whether a 25% bonus would or would not be harmful, however. Don't forget that we still have merits as another form of reward, so player-beneficial changes may occur there. Since merits can't be traded, they help to keep a lid on how high prices can go.

[Luminara]

26 minutes ago, Digirium said:

I've not witnessed prices get any lower since the great nerf at the start of the month - they stayed the same.

 

I haven't seen any tomatoes on my tomato plants, despite the fact that they've sprouted and have green leaves.

 

In other words, three weeks is an insufficient period in which to experience and measure long-term effects.

[Lines]

3 minutes ago, Digirium said:

The normal rules of economics (if anyone in the real world really thinks they're normal or benefit everyone, not just a few) do not apply in a video game.

 

That's been said so many times I wonder why it's not sinking in yet? Prices have remained the same on the game market so what Jimmy said was a bust

When did anyone say they would go down because of the change?

 

The change aims to affect the rate inflation would cause disparity between players to increase and prices to rise. It's very unlikely we'll actually see prices straight up drop because of this.

[Digirium]

2 minutes ago, Luminara said:

 

I haven't seen any tomatoes on my tomato plants, despite the fact that they've sprouted and have green leaves.

 

In other words, three weeks is an insufficient period in which to experience and measure long-term effects.

I reckon the tomatoes have more of chance to grow than of you being correct. Players are patterned in to behaviour and buy enhancements for the same price all the time - sellers will never sell below the established prices because they also follow a pattern. It takes great effort to break a pattern. This nerf was not that effort.

[Digirium]

1 minute ago, Lines said:

When did anyone say they would go down because of the change?

Jimmy. That was part of the justification for the influence nerf. That's a big thing because, you know, he's a dev and runs the game.

 

Inflation is caused when players manipulate the market - we see it at the moment and all the time. A player decides the price is too low and manipulates it to be higher. They can do that in a game when they would not be able to in the real world because the rules are different. Other players join in and in the long-term sets a new higher price.

[Luminara]

1 minute ago, Digirium said:

Players are patterned in to behaviour and buy enhancements for the same price all the time

 

Then prices would never increase, as that would violate said pattern.  Obviously, prices have increased over time.  Your statement is falsifiable, thus incorrect.

 

4 minutes ago, Digirium said:

sellers will never sell below the established prices because they also follow a pattern.

 

Again, falsifiable, thus incorrect.

[Lines]

10 minutes ago, Digirium said:

Jimmy. That was part of the justification for the influence nerf. That's a big thing because, you know, he's a dev and runs the game.

 

Inflation is caused when players manipulate the market - we see it at the moment and all the time. A player decides the price is too low and manipulates it to be higher. They can do that in a game when they would not be able to in the real world because the rules are different. Other players join in and in the long-term sets a new higher price.

 

Prices and inflation aren't the same thing, though they are linked. Like a balloon is inflated by the amount of air inside it, the economy is inflated by the amount of currency inside it. The market only moves that influence around, it doesn't generate any more and has zero contribution to inflation. If 100% of players got their income through market manipulation, there would be 0 inflation. In fact, the economy would deflate because of market taxes.

 

I believe you may have misread the intent Jimmy put forward. Lowering the inflation rate - which was the goal - is a different thing to lowering prices - which would be nice, but probably won't happen. Influence is still entering the game economy faster than it's leaving, so inflation is still there, but the rate of it has been decreased.

Edited April 20, 2020 by Lines

[Digirium]

Just now, Luminara said:

Then prices would never increase, as that would violate said pattern.  Obviously, prices have increased over time.  Your statement is falsifiable, thus incorrect.

 

Again, falsifiable, thus incorrect.

I'd say the same about your opinions. Only one of us is right though, that's me.

[Myrmidon]

2 hours ago, Digirium said:

People playing the game just because they need influence to buy those enhancements -- they fall in to the same category as farmers.

They most certainly do not. People playing the game versus people building specific builds/missions in AE to AFK farm will never be in the same category.

[Luminara]

7 minutes ago, Digirium said:

Inflation is caused when players manipulate the market

 

Inflation is countered by market manipulation.  Prices for some goods might increase in the short term, but the net effect is reduction of total available currency for all via transaction fees.  With less currency to go around, each unit is correspondingly worth more, causing a general trend downward in prices.  Over a sufficiently long period, those downward trends become visible, and even higher-priced goods become less expensive simply by nature of fewer units of currency being available.

 

Inflation is driven by uncontrolled influx of currency.  Pumping inf* into the game economy rapidly, at a disproportionally high rate in comparison to the destruction of existing inf*, creates inflation by inducing rapid growth in prices of goods.  The more inf* available, the higher prices trend.  Over time, without control, prices escalate until each unit of inf* is worth so little that goods cannot be exchanged via the AH because of the inf* cap.  This occurred on the original servers.  This is not theory, it's history.

 

And the removal of double plus inf* at 50 was not directly targeted at immediately driving market prices down, but at reducing the uncontrolled inf* flooding the economy at a rate grossly disproportional to both the rate of removal and the rate of growth of population.  The short-term effect is some degree of stabilization of market prices in comparison to net inf* influx, so they are less disproportional and prices don't spike to levels beyond the reach of the players who neither farm nor play the market.  The long-term effect, presuming sufficient inf* sinks exist and continued population growth, will be either a very slow, controlled increase in pricing (inevitable) in concert with a growing player base, or a gradual decline in pricing.

 

Given the comparatively limited number of variables involved, this is relatively basic math.

[Grouchybeast]

1 hour ago, Digirium said:

A player decides the price is too low and manipulates it to be higher.

How?  I mean this literally.  What is the mechanism by which a player does this for profit?

 

Raising prices for a short time is very easy assuming that you have a lot of inf to burn, but it won't actually make a profit.  I assume that since you're asserting this manipulation happens, you know how price-fixing for profit is done and can explain it.

 

1 hour ago, Digirium said:

They can do that in a game when they would not be able to in the real world because the rules are different. Other players join in and in the long-term sets a new higher price.

This is exactly the opposite of how it works.  In the real world it is possible to price fix, because it's possible to create a cartel that controls supply.  In the game, controlling supply is impossible since players can literally create it out of nothing.  Just imagine what the price of diamonds would be in the real world if anyone could create them by waving a magic converter over a lump of coal, or spending ten minutes digging in their garden.

Edited April 20, 2020 by Grouchybeast

[Gremlin]

1 hour ago, MsSmart said:

Perhaps the 25% is low,it is only a benchmark recommendation, what do the rest of you think it should be? If you disagree please make an intelligent argument of why with some detail, not an emotional one please.

Looking at this from the point of view of controlling inflation I'd say "the highest rate that will keep IO prices where they are now". I can't be specific because I don't know what the net influx of inf was before the change and what it is now.

 

From a purely personal point of view, I'm quite happy for my 50s to receive the standard inf rate. I don't want extra inf just because I'm not levelling any more. I've never felt that inf and xp were connected in any way so it seems natural that when I finish levelling the XP stops and the inf continues as before. I'm not trying to argue that this is how it should be. I'm just expressing a personal preference.

[Luminara]

8 minutes ago, Grouchybeast said:

How?  I mean this literally.  What is the mechanism by which a player does this for profit?

 

Comparative analysis of goods valuation.  If you know something is useful, and the cost seems low, and you believe it can be higher, and you can purchase a sufficient percentage of the supply, you can push the price higher.

 

Theoretically.  In practice, in the current iteration of the game, it's more difficult, due to convertors.  That's why marketeers prefer not to disclose the specific recipes and enhancements they trade in, unless that item is of limited supply (winter IOs, for instance).

 

As always, though, it comes down to "what the market will bear", not deliberate and malicious spiking.  Pricing even the most valuable item too high does nothing but cost them currency.  Despite what the short bus riders are asserting, it's highly unlikely there are any marketeers trying to push goods prices so high that no-one can buy them, or even so high that farming becomes necessary to afford them.  Smart marketeers buy low, sell less low, and strive for the most rapid turnaround possible because filling their AH sale slots with overpriced goods means they're not making any inf*.

[Gremlin]

1 hour ago, Digirium said:

A player decides the price is too low and manipulates it to be higher. They can do that in a game when they would not be able to in the real world because the rules are different.

Ironically, you've got this the wrong way round. In the real world, artificially high prices can only be created by a monopoly supplier or a cartel. In the latter case, the cartel acts as the monopoly. A monopoly can only continue if nobody else can create substitute goods, if the law forbids substitute goods or if the buyers have been convinced to reject substitutes. These are all possible in the real world. Non-monopolistic suppliers can only offer goods at some price and hope that people will pay it.

 

None of these are possible in the game. Nobody can stop other people from receiving drops. Nobody can stop other people from crafting and converting IOs. Nobody can stop other people from buying and opening Super Packs. Nobody can stop other people from choosing cheaper sets or no sets at all.

[BigGotter]

What happens when the player base doubles? Wont that generate twice the influence into the economy? Will influence have to be cut in half again to offset it?

[Digirium]

Wow, it will never cease to amaze how people can conflate the issue with absurd arguments.

 

With the change to how influence enters the game all the players have to play more, for longer than before to afford their builds. More influence entering the game while a player is playing to gain the influence for that build is longer now than it was before. This flies in the face of things like double XP boosters where the intention was to take half the play time compared to before.

 

The players still end up with the same influence bill for their build but their play time required is that much longer now (casual and farmer both).

 

Still we have the same people disregarding these simple facts and deploying high level pseudo-economic arguments that do not apply here, in a video game. They continually fail to acknowledge that the nerf was only right in one respect (patrol experience was not being consumed while in exemplar mode) and wrong in another (disabling XP for influence).

 

How players gain their influence is rightly a subject of examination here.

 

Those that play the game I've no issue with at all - it doesn't matter how, if you're casual or farming AE. I'd say farming AE was also casual play - nobody farms when they are not motivated to pay for a build. And there are casual players converted to AE farming all the time, for the same reason. But those that gain their influence not playing the game - by exploiting the efforts of those actually playing the game, not enough is being said against them. When players bring this up - we go around in the circular arguments again and it's a distraction: the dead cat hurled on the table.

 

And we're running out of cats.

[tidge]

3 hours ago, Digirium said:

I will make it very clear for you. Farmers do not and never have set the prices on the market.

This is demonstrably false (ignoring the obvious situation in which a 'farmer' also creates IOs) as farmers are buying IOs from the market as well as placing raw materials on the market. Both of these contribute to setting market prices.