Auction House fees: is there any point?

[tidge]

50 minutes ago, hastened said:

I'm currently sitting on 3 billion influence.  I'm not actually going to spend that, becuase I have everything I want.  I don't even bother to sell things on the market anymore becuase I have everything and its basically pointless to gather more inf.  As long as I never spend it before quitting, that 3 billion inf is essentially gone, plus any more I make as a side effect of playing.  There are people with 10's or 100's of billions of inf.  That's the real mechanism removing inf from the market, not the market transfer fees, which is why I'm leaning towards agreeing that they are basically pointless.

So if characters being abandoned with all of their wealth is your preferred method of 'sinking wealth', does that mean that you favor 100% inheritance taxes?

[Zepp]

20 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

I still want to be able to store inf in account-wide base bank. One with no cap.

I just store a billion on each of my 50s. Another idea would be to bid 9.99m on 10 Super Packs. That's basically 100m, multiply that by 200 and you have 22b worth of storage space on one toon slot. Yes, you will have to email it, but is the small convenience of an account-wide base bank worth the headache of the programming time it would cost?

[Yomo Kimyata]

43 minutes ago, tidge said:

So if characters being abandoned with all of their wealth is your preferred method of 'sinking wealth', does that mean that you favor 100% inheritance taxes?

I haven't seen this on the forums since Live, but:

 

Can I have your stuff?

 

💲💰⚱️!

[Grouchybeast]

1 hour ago, hastened said:

I'm currently sitting on 3 billion influence.  I'm not actually going to spend that, becuase I have everything I want.  I don't even bother to sell things on the market anymore becuase I have everything and its basically pointless to gather more inf.  As long as I never spend it before quitting, that 3 billion inf is essentially gone, plus any more I make as a side effect of playing.  There are people with 10's or 100's of billions of inf.  That's the real mechanism removing inf from the market, not the market transfer fees, which is why I'm leaning towards agreeing that they are basically pointless.

That sounds like it makes market fees more significant in opposing inflation, rather than less, since they subtract exclusively from the pool of inf that's in current active trading circulation between players.

[Yomo Kimyata]

10 minutes ago, Zepp said:

I just store a billion on each of my 50s. Another idea would be to bid 9.99m on 10 Super Packs. That's basically 100m, multiply that by 200 and you have 22b worth of storage space on one toon slot. Yes, you will have to email it, but is the small convenience of an account-wide base bank worth the headache of the programming time it would cost?

People can and do sell Super packs for less than 10mm -- I've done as you say and ended up with more packs than I ever would have anticipated...

 

[SwitchFade]

2 hours ago, hastened said:

 

Its been a while since I really looked at the terminology surrounding economic supply demand curves and income elasticities.  Its kind of interesting. actually; I don't really agree that enhancements are a normal good, but I'm not sure if there's a good term for something with an income elasticity of 0, which is where they're at at current prices.  My income could drop by a factor of 5 or increase by a factor of 100 and it wouldn't change any actual purchasing behavior.  That's not really an inferior or a normal good.

 

Anyway, it is correct that Fees are a direct control on inflation.  But so is anything that takes currency out of circulation permanently.  I submit that by far the largest source of this is people who quit with a substantial inf balance.

 

I'm currently sitting on 3 billion influence.  I'm not actually going to spend that, becuase I have everything I want.  I don't even bother to sell things on the market anymore becuase I have everything and its basically pointless to gather more inf.  As long as I never spend it before quitting, that 3 billion inf is essentially gone, plus any more I make as a side effect of playing.  There are people with 10's or 100's of billions of inf.  That's the real mechanism removing inf from the market, not the market transfer fees, which is why I'm leaning towards agreeing that they are basically pointless.

 

In most economic systems, especially real world ones, people leaving and destroying their wealth when they go isn't a common enough destruction of currency to curb inflation, but it is here.

An inferior good is one that that moves inversely to disposable income: should disposable income increase, consumption of inferior goods decreases as a direct result, being replaced with consumption of normal goods.

 

A normal good is one that moves directly with an increase in Disposable income: when disposable income increases the quantity consumed of normal goods increases; when disposable income decreases, consumption of normal goods decreases.

 

Income elasticity of demand at zero would yield perfectly inelastic,meaning regardless of disposable income shifts, the same amount would be purchased. I. Sum, this is not representative of the market in CoH. As disposable income rises, participants are more willing to buy more expensive goods and pay higher prices per good.

 

Elasticity of demand, supply and income are related to normal and inferior goods, but elasticity does not define a good as normal or inferior.

 

I would not make any assumption, personally, about the largest inf sink in game currently, but could create a statistical model that would approximate it with a 95% confidence level. I am relatively certain that the primary method of inf removal in CoH is a combination of factors, chief among them would be fees, p2w and costuming.

[Riverdusk]

On 1/30/2021 at 5:54 PM, Bill Z Bubba said:

I still want to be able to store inf in account-wide base bank. One with no cap.

This. 

 

I'd add merits to that as well.  I have merits scattered all over the place and it'd take me forever to hunt them all down and use/convert them to inf with as many alts as I have.

[SwitchFade]

1 hour ago, Riverdusk said:

This. 

 

I'd add merits to that as well.  I have merits scattered all over the place and it'd take me forever to hunt them all down and use/convert them to inf with as many alts as I have.

Exchange for converters, store converters in base salvage racks. Use converters to roll and sell. All my merits become converters and go in base storage.

[golstat2003]

13 minutes ago, SwitchFade said:

Exchange for converters, store converters in base salvage racks. Use converters to roll and sell. All my merits become converters and go in base storage.

Yeah pretty much the ONLY thing I use merits for. Hell if I have extra incarnate emps lying around (that I haven't converted to Trans Merits and sent to other characters) I convert them also.

 

Buying things directly with merits . . . just does not seem all that useful to me. But I'm glad it's there as an option for those who HATE the AH.

[Zepp]

7 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

People can and do sell Super packs for less than 10mm -- I've done as you say and ended up with more packs than I ever would have anticipated...

 

Oh my, I thought they were fixed price.

[Grouchybeast]

4 hours ago, Zepp said:

Oh my, I thought they were fixed price.

They're seeded at 10,000,000 but people are free to relist them for any price they like.

[Vulpoid]

On 1/30/2021 at 8:55 PM, SwitchFade said:

I'm terribly sorry, that's not how economics works.

I don't think you are actually terribly sorry at all.

[The_Warpact]

On 1/30/2021 at 8:54 PM, Bill Z Bubba said:

I still want to be able to store inf in account-wide base bank. One with no cap.

This right here, if I'm Batdude for example, I'm a multimillionaire or if I'm a villain I'm manipulating markets, selling tech/weapons, robbing old ladies, etc.

There should be no cap, all access to that inf should be on the account/global level.

 

 

[Ironblade]

14 hours ago, SwitchFade said:

Exchange for converters, store converters in base salvage racks. Use converters to roll and sell. All my merits become converters and go in base storage.

Well, a base salvage rack has a capacity of 100 items.  You get 3 converters per reward merit.  My main hit the merit cap of 10,000 a while ago so I use him to buy all the purples/ATOs my other characters need.

 

Someone pointed out to me that it's more cost-effective to get converters, sell them and buy the enhancements.  To me, that just adds more steps to the process and it's clear that I'm never going to run out of merits.

[Yomo Kimyata]

7 minutes ago, Ironblade said:

Well, a base salvage rack has a capacity of 100 items.  You get 3 converters per reward merit.  My main hit the merit cap of 10,000 a while ago so I use him to buy all the purples/ATOs my other characters need.

 

Someone pointed out to me that it's more cost-effective to get converters, sell them and buy the enhancements.  To me, that just adds more steps to the process and it's clear that I'm never going to run out of merits.

It's *most* cost-effective to exchange merits for converters, use them to make the enhancements you need, and then make more and sell them.  But that's a lot more steps, and unless you enjoy it, don't bother!  I'll do it for you ... for a price.

[SwitchFade]

2 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

It's *most* cost-effective to exchange merits for converters, use them to make the enhancements you need, and then make more and sell them.  But that's a lot more steps, and unless you enjoy it, don't bother!  I'll do it for you ... for a price.

I'll gladly pay you on Tuesday for a Burger here today!

 

🤪🤪

[Grouchybeast]

2 hours ago, The_Warpact said:

This right here, if I'm Batdude for example, I'm a multimillionaire or if I'm a villain I'm manipulating markets, selling tech/weapons, robbing old ladies, etc.

There should be no cap, all access to that inf should be on the account/global level.

*That awkward moment when Batman's debit card is declined because The Joker spent all the money in their joint account*

[FuturaTrunks]

It's called a sink, it washes away our monies