Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Hi everyone,

there are a few topics around the forums that are discussed quite a bit. Plex prices, the huge amount of ISK generated by anomalies and the various changes that are supposed to fix the issue.

My theory is that they are connected. Players have realized that Plex is a very profitable investment. So they buy it, just to sell it later for more, after all the price of Plex seems to know only one direction. And the huge amounts of ISK being generated means that a lot of Plex is the target of this investment strategy. All this drives up Plex prices.

So the answer to this cycle was to nerf the top tier culprits of this ISK printing. And it seems reasonable at first. However I feel that there are other ways to solve all this, all with their own pros and cons. I would not nerf Super-capitals as they add quite a bit to the "landscape" and it would be a pity if you never saw them except in really huge engagements(which seem to get rarer). And owning one should feel good and you should use it and not treat it like some fragile piece of art stored away somewhere except for special occasions.

So here are my Ideas on how to solve the whole thing


1.) Inflation: Instead of battling against the inflationary tendencies, just let it happen. Several aspects of the game will need to be adjusted to bring the different incomes closer together(for example missions). Over time prices will again stabilize, but at a much higher level.

Pros: No nerfs needed, indeed some (currently not as profitable) things will (need to) get buffed;

Cons: Short-term turmoil as the market re-balances(overshoots likely); Current ISK stockpiles are greatly devalued; Quite a bit of work involved for CCP to balance ISK generating activities.


2.) Anomaly changes: Here I would NOT go into the direction of making the anomalies harder to do with certain ships, but rather change them, such that they become more ISK-neutral. One way would be that NPCs in anomalies have no bounties at all, but once you finish one you get a chunk of ISK and some kind of LP. This LP can then be exchanged for items, and it could even be made so that the LP type you get depends on the NPC you have, which would make regions with certain NPCs more valuable than others (short-mid term based on how active these regions are with active regions haven lower valued LP).

Pros: Self-regulating as value of LP can vary depending on how much is created; Relatively easy to implement i would guess;

Cons: LP stores have to be carefully balanced to not render other LP based activities worthless and to avoid over-correcting (making ISK too scarce, causing deflation).

3.) Create more ISK sinks for capital/super-capital class ships/play-styles: Here my ideas are thin, but it could be something like docking fees, fees for using normal gates, some kind of "radiation buildup"(that disables your modules if it accumulates to a too high level) while your ships is in space that can only be removed for ISK, etc. As I said my Ideas here are not so great, but the concept should be clear.

Pros: No changes needed to existing systems.

Cons: Good Ideas need to be thought up, new systems introduced.

So, three ways that I can think of, all not perfect, but perhaps a starting point for some other ideas/discussions

I'm not sure about removing isk from the game (I assume you don't mean erasing the currency but rather attempting to keep the isk faucet and sink equal to each other)

The main issue is that isk is often temporarily removed from the market... in the form of players becoming inactive. If I have a trillion isk and I decided to stop playing eve... that trillion isk is technically still in the game... but it is outside the economy as it just sits in my wallet. On the same note... if I come back a year later than a trillion isk gets injected into the economy that wasn't in the economy beforehand.

It's tough to account for that when balancing isk faucets and sinks. I think there is a slightly positive "sweet spot" with isk faucets exceeding isk sinks. I don't think break even works.

We do need more sinks I think. I tend to favor that solution rather than turning off the faucet... simply because doing something like decreasing bounties impacts everyone (the rich and poor alike) while adding sinks that target those with large amounts of isk will allow newer players to grow.

I think a simple start would be to change clothing/cosmetics available from LP stores to not cost anything other than LP and isk... and make the isk price very large. Perhaps reduce the LP and increase the isk portion of buying many other LP purchases as well. Items purchased from the LP store remove isk from the economy... so it might be beneficial to maximize that. By lowering the lp cost and increasing the isk cost, you allow more isk to be spent on LP store items with less grinding needed to get those things... causing more purchases that remove isk from the game.

OP, I mean this in the most sincere way possible. For the love of your financial life, do not ever go into financial trading or investment of any kind. Your theories on market movements are... wrong. For the reasons already stated.

So you mean to say adding more ISK to the EVE economy will have no impact at all and the current situation is not a problem?

Well perhaps the fact that this money lands in the pockets of a relatively small number of players could have an impact.

Obviously the overproduction going on mentioned before is a valid point as well, usually you would expect this to make the product unprofitable and production would stop, but then again (unlike in real life) you can store anything in huge quantities without any costs, so huge stockpiles exist. But that would only mean that it would take quite a while for the increased money to show an effect, not that it will have none at all.

In fact I would argue that we do not see drastic decreases in the cost of items is only due to the large influx of ISK.

But looking at the economic report you can see the velocity of ISK being on a relatively high level, so the ISK people have gets spend or "invested". My impression is that this higher level is almost exclusively Plex related. But maybe I am wrong and everyone buys titans instead.

The only other thing I can think of is how the ISK is actually distributed. If people who are very rich have a higher tendency to stop playing, they would actually remove ISK from the active cycle, but according to the economic report it does not look like this is the case. So then the only thing that remains is that fewer people own more ISK so that the "masses" are not actually any richer and therefore prices cannot increase.

So if all these relations are wrong - please tell me why.

The only ISK sunk by extractors and injectors is through taxes and brokers fees, and for the latter, only when in an NPC station. An isk sink isn't "something people spend money on", it's something that deletes money from the game. If your money is just going to other players, it's not a sink.

If hangar mechanics of any one type of hangar become more restrictive, people will stop using it as completely as they can.

If ALL (or most) hangar mechanics become restrictive, players will throw an absolute shitfit, myself included.

If hangars start requiring fees, returning players will be screwed, if they're bankrupted they will just bail completely. And rightfully so.

If the system can be gamed, like with large amounts of Alphas, it WILL be gamed. Legions of Alpha alts, contracting stuff back and forth from mains, for instance.

There's probably more reasons why this is a terrible idea, but I'll stop there.

buying plex and selling it for isk is not isk printing. The people that buy the plex off the market are not exactly isk printing determining what their job is.

ISK printing revolves around the creating of ISK from this air.

This would be activities like PVE bounties, incursions, and selling thins to the npc market.

Isk is already extremely skewed into a small percentage of players.

FINALLY!

Finally, somebody else noticed this and has posted it.

Holy **** it took a long time....

Now we can officially retired this forum.