Reasons why Fiesta is going down the drain....and fast

[Miles_Glorioso]

Unfortunately my post was pushing the maximum number of characters so I'm posting a double post (sorry!!! ) because there was another good response I got that I wanted to provide my feedback to.

This post definitely stood out to me, and was written by MaxOff:

@Miles_Glorioso: i just read your post, and i agree to nearly everything u say, but 1 point.
I dont see gold sellers as a blessing. The do increase the rate of money being created. Yes they also keep large amounts from the market too. But the money they keep from the market flows in large portions in the low lvl market.

Unlinke the high lvl market the low lvl market is not very tolerant to more gold. A lvl 20 is rich when he as 10s. So a player that buys 1g, gets in an instant 100times more then that he had before. With that his tolerance to high/extreme prices increases too. Because of that the prices of enchanted and rare item will explode.

In the end people who are rich, from the game designer perspective, will feel poor, and start farming money. And thus are starting a inflation spiral, that will spin faster and faster and faster. Until only people who paying for the game in one way or another can afford good items.

Firstly, in my previous post I was making an observation of what I saw and not really giving my opinion on the matter. Yes I believe that Gold-Sellers are not really causing inflation by slowing the rate at which game-induced inflation actually occurs. As stated above this is the RESULT of ongoing inflation.

Note, my previous observation never included anything on the surplus-supply before, which is what I lacked in order to be able to state a clear opinion. Here because I have the ability to conclude what IS happening to the economy on Fiesta, I am able to state an opinion supported by reasonable analysis and observations.

Your last paragraph definitely supports the observation that inflation IS occurring, and I agree that players who are not buying gold from Gold Sellers are at a disadvantage, however I do not believe those buying Gold are alone in Fiesta, or at least not yet. Players whose characters already have plenty of money and items are right up there with Gold Buyers, not being affected by the chaos occurring in Elderine and the simple lack of activity in Roumen. Pretty soon Elderine will begin to look like Roumen if we don't draw more players in quickly, and then the players in Uruga will start feeling the results and will be scurrying to make ends meet financially.

[AngellicDiety]

... and then the players in Uruga will start feeling the results and will be scurrying to make ends meet financially.

Not quite. Spider Assault, and the King Kong Phino are two of the highest paying KQ's. These KQ's run every hour.

Reward: a box full of T3 materials that can be NPC'ed.

Spider Assault: Up to 9 stacks of T3 items (30 per stack, 10 T3 potion buffs)
King Kong Phino: Up to 9 stacks of T3 items (50 per stack, 15 T3 potion buffs)


Unfortunately, Fiesta's economy doesn't quite work as one would expect it to.

The higher-levelled and lower-levelled area's can be completely independant of eachother. The only need for low-level assistance is in the production of scrolls which often require T2 or T1 mats when producing a T3 or T2 scroll.

[Phibrizzo]

uhm, quests do not cause inflation in the end :P

I mean, they actually give extra money to the econ, but NPCable drops don't give you THAT much money since you'll be using a lot of those on prod skills which will result in consumables, and skills/stones are more than enough to burn money out of econ in a reasonable rate.

as for the supply stuff, well, as much as I hate to say it, bots selling low tier mats make life easier for lots of people since not everyone wants to spend their strict amount of time available to play on gathering such stuff, and most of the legit players who actually gather stuff do it for using not selling x;
there IS a portion of the new incoming players that will sell those, but that doesn't cover all the demand. and even if the need for low level assistance is low, it's still needed to be given in a reasonable amount.

[MaxOff]

Miles_Glorioso , im really glad for your last posts, but there is some important error in your thoughts:
-Every Players that joins the game, will leave it someday too.
-GoldSellers do not sell the drops they farmed to the community, but to the npc's
-If my overvation is correct: GoldSeller mainly generate there money by selling enchantment services.
---they resell money, not generate
---are the mayor buyer for dusts
---are buying from the cashshop

[Miles_Glorioso]

Miles_Glorioso , im really glad for your last posts, but there is some important error in your thoughts:
-Every Players that joins the game, will leave it someday too.
-GoldSellers do not sell the drops they farmed to the community, but to the npc's
-If my overvation is correct: GoldSeller mainly generate there money by selling enchantment services.
---they resell money, not generate
---are the mayor buyer for dusts
---are buying from the cashshop

Thanks for your remarks!

1. It's not important to note that every joining player will leave someday - by having joined and doing a little bit in the game they have added money to the economy and when they leave it will still be there.

2. Gold Seller Bots will definitely sell drops they farmed to NPCs, but Gold Sellers who do not Bot know as well as everyone else does that drops CAN fetch a better price if sold directly to another player. I've discussed both situations in my analysis already though.

3. The "reselling" of money is an interesting notion I had not explored - and I can definitely see a clear benefit here for the gold sellers. However unless anybody actually has real statistics on what gold sellers actually do to get their gold, everything mentioned pertaining to Gold Sellers is all hypothetical and should be treated as such.

How does that differentiate between a person who, say, farms a lot of sap in the the sap farms in AEW and someone who only farms and only gets money from quests? Obviously, the person who has farmed a lot of Sap and then NPC'ed it has a lot more money to add than someone who has simply gotten money from the quests. The game has a near limitless supply of ways to earn money, simply by NPCing mushrooms, ore, petals, starfish, clam meat, whatever.

I have explored both of these notions in both of my analyses. But to expand further, the point is that both scenarios generate gold to be added to the economy. Thus inflation is occurring. The exact amount of inflation is as you observed is vastly different between the two sources of gold. My notes on quest-related inflation are strictly noting its presence and are by no means arguing it is the primary source of inflation, especially after the addition of my second analysis. Farming and NPC'ing is a very large source of inflation in the game.

The thing with this is Gold Sellers don't... affect the economy otherwise in any other way. That is, they aren't spending money for skills, or equips, or HP/SP stones like real players do--that money "disappears" into the game forever (and I'm going to go out on a limb and say that is good for keeping down inflation since it is removing money from the economy). Also I'm assuming they aren't getting their money from quests since the money that is earned through quests is actually not a lot compared to the same amount of time spent farming. Not to mention it's hard for bots to figure out quests and what to kill and to turn in quests.

It is correct to note that real players are a strong source of deflation in the economy to help counter the inflation from NPC'ing. It should also be noted that real players also do a fair bit of NPC'ing themselves. The fluxuation in inflation related to real players is very difficult to quantify though.

I dunno about this one but I don't think Gold Sellers actually sell (vend) the drops they farm. I've always been under the assumption that Gold Sellers are using bots that can farm or mine and they will later sell these drops to an NPC and since they aren't limited by time, this is highly profitable for them. (I wouldn't be surprised if one gold-selling company could be run by just a couple people.)

Right, as noted earlier in this response there is a higher profit margin to be made by vending to players - but NPC'ing is something one would have to do if you were using bots.

Also, another thing to note is that unlike the real world, there isn't a certain amount of money that players have to earn in order to "play." Yes, it's nice to have HP/SP stones, but those aren't necessary in the sense that IRL, food and other expenses are necessary. So for many people (like me), vending stuff that I don't want is a bonus. I would still do fine whether I sold/bought stuff or not. I know that whenever I cannot sell my equips, I will continually lower my price until I can sell them. However (and correct me on this if I'm wrong), retailers feel like they have to keep raising the price of everything to keep up with the expenses. A character's most basic expense in Fiesta is from the NPC, which do not ever change prices.

Basically, I don't consider Fiesta to be dependent on currency flow from one player to another.

Since you have brought this up, this is actually not an Economics concept but rather a Game Theory concept. To avoid complications, if a player is very very very dedicated to playing Fiesta and levelling up or doing whatever they do and are trying to do it as quickly as possible, NPC'ing becomes a better and better source of currency as one needs money quicker and quicker (and acquires drops quicker and quicker).

But if you had all the time in the world to sell your stuff, or if your competition was very very small (or if you have a very high demand, the proportions of demand to competition here hold the same effect so this is really the same thing), or you have an extremely rare and valuable drop, then you would prefer to sell your stuff rather than NPC it.

Of course not everybody has all the time in the world - so to extend from your observation, a lot of people cause a great deal of inflation because of this.



Also, I don't believe there is much of an economy to look at in Fiesta, true there are things one can look at but in all honesty if water were currency (metaphorically speaking) then Fiesta much resembles the "Flat World" concept in which water falls from the heavens and then falls from the earth - so really there is no stability. In actuality, a "Fiesta Economy" is hypothetical altogether and the only thing an analysis can lend to is an explaination for small fluxuations that players may feel from time to time.

As pointed out, NPC'ing things brings money into the economy, and buying skills/items from NPCs removes money from the economy. It's an entirely unrealistic situation to even attempt to analyze. Ironically the "Vortex of Money" that surrounds NPCs parallels a very long analysis I did on the effects that the "illegal drug market" has on the rest of the economy (drug lords are hoarders and givers of money, outside the drug market they would appear to be themselves a vortex of money, limitless amounts coming and going).