Curse

blackbird71 · Nov 10, 2006, 07:41 AM // 07:41

I was originally going to post this in the game discussion forum, but I came up with an idea for a solution, so I guess technically it is now a suggestion.

I was outfitting a new set of armor with runes and insignia, when I noticed the prices of some of the runes had risen significantly. For example, I recall a time when minor vigor runes were practically worthless. I'd sell them to the rune trader by the handful for 25g each just to clear some inventory space. Now, the rune trader sells them for nearly 2k!

(Warning: Economic analysis follows. If you are easily bored, better skip the next two paragraphs)

What caused this dramatic price increase? Well, it either has to be a decrease in the supply or drop rate of the rune, or an increase in the demand for it. While I have not personally noticed that these runes drop less frequently than before, it is possible, since the addition of newer runes to the game may have lessened the availability of other runes. However, there weren't that many new runes, and assuming the relative distribution among runes to be the same, at most there should only be a slight increase in price, nowhere near the 20x rise.

That leaves an increased demand. Not just an increase, but an incredibly massive increase. The best explanation I can think of is that people have been using these runes to equip their new Heroes. Consider that each player may have as many as 8 characters (considering all 3 campaigns) and possibly more, through the purchase of slots and preorder bonuses. Now, figure that each character that enters the nightfall campaign gains the ability to have heroes, and rather than sharing heroes across an account, each character has duplicates of the same heroes. You could easily have 20, 30, or more heroes associated with a single account. That's a lot of heroes needing a lot of equipment, particularly runes. Superior Vigor Runes are way too pricy to supply on that kind of scale. Even Major Vigors are a little on the high end too buy more than a few, so people make do with the Minor Vigors. But that causes a dramatic rise in demand, and skyrockets the price up to near the major vigor runes (which last I checked were at aobut 3.4k, less than twice the minors, and not much higher than the pre-nightfall price).

Well, I hope I haven't lost too many people with this economics lesson, but to cut to the bottom line, the addition of heroes to the game has had a huge impact on the cost of what used to be the low-end, inexpensive items. What's the solution? Personally, I think hero armor upgrades and weapons should be more dependent on the PvP equipment system. Heroes already have access to any skills unlocked on an account, why not treat their equipment the same way? It makes sense, especially when you consider having to equip the same hero several times over (once for each character who uses that hero), and in light of the economic drain heroes are causing to the game economy. Or is that Anet's purpose, to make another gold sink? If so, it's only partially effective, because players still receive money for the runes sold to the trader, if not quite as much as gets put into the trader.

What do you think? Does the rise in low end rune price have anything to do with the heroes, or am I way off? Is this a valid solution, or does anyone have better ideas?

Rera · Nov 10, 2006, 08:11 AM // 08:11

/signed

I agree with both your analysis and the proposed solution.

An additional source of demand is all of the new players, or poorer existing players making new characters.

x64600 · Nov 10, 2006, 08:16 AM // 08:16

I agree that the rarity of runes will likely be increased due to use on Heroes.

Though I do not see it having a bad impact on overall economy in that depleting the economy of its value is not necessarily a bad thing. To much Gold = inflation. Higher prices for goods. When gold becomes rare its value increases, & thus its value compared to the price of items being sold will cause the price of everything being traded to drop.

This of course would hurt the Gold for cash market economy. I feel for them really. Some of them have jobs that depend on that economy. Their prices would naturally go up because of the increasing value of gold due to its rarity in the economy. Honestly though buying gold is cheating your self out of playing a game.

The ability to freely modify a Heroes armor would be nice seeing as they can only have one set of armor.

Perhaps quests/missions to unlock modifications such as runes for your heros armor. The Free runes would be an amendable optional change to the armor of your hero. It would add content, & play value. & offer a free alternative to buying Runes for your heros armor.

The quest would be a repeatable high level errand, or task offered by an organization that pays its workers in the forms of credit. The credits can be used to purchase runes, & other items from an agent of said organization. The agent would have a credit price on his runes that would parallel the in game economic demand for the runes. Either you conduct the quests to earn a free Rune. Or you sell the runes back into the economy to turn those earned credits into cash. It would also be a spiffy alternative to Farming. An actual in game job for the characters to earn cash. More stuff for the characters to do.

I would like to be able to dye Hero armor to. Being able to customize your heros would also be interesting. Consider having a complete squad of Heros all customized to look like they are a unified squad with a uniform code.

Terra Xin · Nov 10, 2006, 08:49 AM // 08:49

you can't make a judgement like this at such an early point in the life of NF. You also have to consider that Minor Vigor runes have been at the 500-1.5k since Factions was released, so Heroes does not impact on the prices that significantly. You can debate that we have more people playing the game also, causing this increase.

freekedoutfish · Nov 10, 2006, 09:33 AM // 09:33

I dont know if id agree that the sudden increase in prices being directly related to the introduction of Heroes.

Minor Vigors have shot up to rediculious prices before, for instance the weeks after Factions went live.

As you say, one human character can own quite a few Heroes, ultimately increasing the number of players in the game who can use runes and increasing the demand for runes by 10 or 20 fold per player.

Now that would be a HUGE increase in player numbers, if you include Heroes in the count.

But if that HUGE increase had effected rune prices, the prices would have been increased by ALOT more then what they have.

I dont think Heroes are to blame for price increases.

The prices have risen by the same amount, as they have in the past. Any minor increases are just due to more humans playing GWs.

How ever I do think a different way of upgrading Hero armor might be needed, if we cant actually buy them whole new sets.

korcan · Nov 10, 2006, 12:16 PM // 12:16

i have yet to buy a single rune, or for that matter spend a single piece of gold on any of my heroes. am i cheap? hellz ya when it comes to my heroes, they dont deserve jack imo

im not huge on the pvp aspect of gw so i doubt that any of my heroes for any of my toons will be receiving any upgrades or weapons except for the occasion drop.

im sure there are a ton of people like me out there

as for your reasoning about price increases, take the gw nf population and add 1 new character to every active account [on average im sure that every person who has bought nf has created at least 2 new characters] 2 new characters for every account increases the gw population by quite a bit. that alone probably accounts for the price rise in cheap runes, upgrades etc, and not the small percentage of people who actually spend money on their heroes.

as time passes, the dust will settle and most things will be back to normal.

blackbird71 · Nov 10, 2006, 11:04 PM // 23:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by x64600

Though I do not see it having a bad impact on overall economy in that depleting the economy of its value is not necessarily a bad thing. To much Gold = inflation. Higher prices for goods. When gold becomes rare its value increases, & thus its value compared to the price of items being sold will cause the price of everything being traded to drop.

Yes, a lot of gold in the economy can cause inflation, and for this reason, Anet has worked hard to find ways to divert money out of circulation, i.e., "gold sinks," and I wonder if heroes are intended to be another such sink. However, there is another cause of inflation, and that is across the board decreased supply, which I believe we are experiencing in this case. When the supply of everything goes down, all priced go up, but especially the prices on what were before the cheapest goods. Basic economics, see Irish Potato Famine for example.

And Terra, I think I can at least make this assumption this early, because we are considering a sudden and potentially short termed spike. In a short period of time, there was a dramatic increase in the number of characters in the game (counting heroes in that number). For a period of time, everyone will be trying to equip these heroes, and then the spike should level off once they are equipped. Whether the prices actually do drop off remains to be seen, but the spike has already been observed and it's perfectly reasonable to consider heroes as the cause.

Here's another aspect of the situation I hadn't considered before. Heroes are basically new characters in the game, at least when it comes to equipment, as they require an investment of equipment like any other character. However, they don't provide for their own equipment, because they don't receive drops. They can't loot weapons or armor upgrades, they don't gain gold to buy needed items. They use up resources without contributing. If Anet won't let heroes use the PvP equipment selection, maybe they could allow players to get the drops earned by heroes' kills. I know, it will never happen, but I can wish, can't I?