Market Discussions

Why isn't the 'average player' doing the normal thing and subscribing with real life money?

CCP would certainly prefer a few thousand active players over SP farms, but how can they police that? ISBoxer's input broadcasting was easy, who could really argue with one click causing 20 actions to happen being reasonable? Mass numbers of accounts and using intentionally added mechanics to profit from people who are too lazy to take advantage of market opportunities is something completely different that CCP has never been against so even if they wanted to stop it, it's a bit more complicated than you make it out to be.

Yes, CCP's goal is to make as much money as possible, like every other for-profit company in the whole.



So when you started playing PLEX was negative 4.5b ISK for 500? Four months later it's now 1.5b ISK.

Why should new players be able to pay for their subscription with ISK? PLEX is a way to profit from new players, and keep veteran players around. If you found some way to help new players in this aspect then veteran players would benefit just as much, if not more. we call this Malcanis's law.



Play smart, not hard.

I'm well aware of non-ghost SP farming, but the question is where the equilibrium point comes - there's a PLEX price (of course itself dependent on the SP price) where it becomes uneconomic. That equilibrium point is much lower for legitimate SP farming because it needs more PLEX per SP farmed.

Back of the envelope, with a set of +5s and optimal map you can train 3.9 injectors worth in 30 days. EVE-central seems to be having a Moment and I'm in Hek, not Jita, so these figures may be a bit off (but before using buy offer prices I have verified that some have actually sold recently at that price), but to do that you need:

500 PLEX @ 2.8 million; 1.4 billion ISK.
3.9 skill extractors @ 270 million: 1.053 billion ISK. (Oddly these have lagged behind the PLEX price a bit; they are "worth" 1.22 billion at the current PLEX price).

Your 3.9 skill injectors then sell for 750 million each, less 1% sales tax (we're assuming you can do all this in a 0% broker fee citadel somewhere): 2.896 billion ISK. That's more profit than I expected (what am I missing?)

Assuming skill extractors increase to track the PLEX price, you're basically turning 937 PLEX into 3.9 skill injectors. At the current SP price that breaks even at a PLEX price of 3.1 million (1.546 billion for an oldPLEX). That's not a long way off the current PLEX price, so if the SP price doesn't change, non-ghost SP farming will soon become uneconomic.

Of course, besides the possibility that I've made some hilarious error, this doesn't paint the whole picture because with the demise of ghost training the supply of injectors will decrease and the SP price will rise, but the basic point that ghosts could sustain a higher PLEX price for a given SP price remains.

Guristas.

Why should the average player be able to afford to Plex?
If the average, 50%, can afford to buy Plex with isk, then that means 50% can't.
So who is going to pay RL money for all this Plex to get onto the market.
That bottom 50% are already paying approx $15 a month for their sub, and you want them to fork out another $20 for a Plex so that you can not have to pay RL money?

PLEX is a reward for the rich who have worked for their ISK, wether it's ratting, or SP farms or trading or whatever.




Now these SP farms you are so upset about, do you think they would be sustainable if the PLAYERS did not want the SP?
Or Do you think the SP injectors should be cheap enough for everyone aswell?


It's not expensive to set up a SP farm, heck if your so upset about it extract your main and put the injectors up at a price you think they should be, or you could even buy PLEX and put it up on the market at the price you think it should be.

Quit your self entitled whinging and go play WOW if you want a game that's fair for everyone, go tell them their 'tokens' are too expensive.


PS: I pay for my sub with RL money. I could probably afford Plex but don't want to turn the game into a grind just to be able to play.

1.5-1.6b right now.

What difference does the extra 1m/unit of PLEX make? Other than you not wanting to pay that much, which is kind of selfish really.

CCP is still sitting on large quantities of confiscated PLEX, if CCP would desire, they could reintroduce them to the market. They did once before.

Why should i switch to WoW when EVE is already like WoW. EVE stopped being hardcore when skill injectors were introduced. EVE character development these days is all about grinding. The more ISK you grind, the more injectors you can afford, the faster you "level up". Like in WoW.

And no, im not going to extract SP. I would rather biomass my characters. Skill injectors are a feature for the impatient and casuals, for the players who instantly want to switch to the newest overpowered ship/meta. Machariels are the meta? Inject the required skills! Rorquals get a huge buff? Inject the required skills! Rorquals get nerfed and carrier ratting is now the new hot thing? Inject the required skills!

To support all these bait and switch shenanigans we need SP farms that consume huge amounts of PLEX that could otherwise be used for game time. But PLEX supply is limited, so prices go up, but thats no problem for the 6% who rat in carriers and make almost 50% of all new ISK that enters the game per month.

But who am i to complain? I should just HTFU, inject some skills and start carrier ratting, right?

In the end its all about more money for CCP. More money, because the money from subscriptions/omega time is apparently not enough to fund Gunjack, Valkyrie and VR sports games.

Plex prices are not the issue here they are just 1 symptom of the sickness that was already mentioned in this thread, more than 30% of the player base have means to earn vast amounts of isk(rorqs,sp farms,carrier&vni ratting) but not enough places to spend it.The more stagnant this game becomes the more things will shift to having to aquire larger and larger amounts of wealth until we reach the point where only large scale operators will be able to survive the prices and the lil fish will be driven out of the game.

No winter expansion is going to fix that because any t2/capital prices spike will be almost instanly countered with more sp farm alts and more intensive ratting.One good idea i saw in this thread is to increase copy times.Not just that all industry times(build invent research) need massive increase(which is easy worked around by having more alts), to at least some extend cope with the problem.

Solutions to the problem have been given out to ccp and it basically boils down to a simple unpopular desicion to make conflict easier all over eve as right now there's multiple things that prevent players from fighting and destroying stuff fast.If nothing is being destroyed plex will remain king and everything else will not sell including minerals mods and ships.

As someone who has been around for 7years i remember how easy was before to destroy stuff no jump range limitations no cap damage limit, aoe dds, and all these things have changed because the community whined about it and now we're moaning to bring back things as they were like a spoiled child who has learned its hard lesson.

I remember the days where i would put an item on the market in jita and the next day i would see my wallet flashing in green, these days it takes constant updating to get your product sold and a carp tunnel syndrome to do the same thing, 4years ago you would actually have very hard time supplying enough of the product you are selling all by yourself, now 2-3people can saturate the whole market and have to fight fiercely for every bit of isk.

This idea has two different parts, the reinjection of confiscated assets (which are deemed to have been gained by illicit activity) and the decrease of demand by banning more players.
The first question is of morality. Should we use assets gained by exploits?. If we do then this would increase the supply and drive down cost. This would also improve the marginal utility of players increasing demand throughout the markets (less spent on plex more to spend on other assets). This would increase inflation , trade and industry becomes more profitable, plex becomes even more affordable, more demand, prices rise and back to higher equillibrium. The invisible hand completes its work.

The second (although player banning should always be an objective) is an overall fall in demand, general deflation.

The utility of plex has increased significantly. We can multi-train, purchase items, trade skills. Plex rises are inevitable in this environment, but also consider the monetary exchange rate of isk. Selling a purchased plex yields a far greater amount of money due to the increasing plex scarcity fuelled by alternative consumption which increases the utility for players that purchase plex. This will increase inflation by increasing demand akin to the first scenario, except this is a completely player driven environment.
Why ask CCP to subsidise free play? The players mange the market just fine.