Inflation

[Thearlygamer]

Just want to start a discussion on the current inflation going on in the server.

So since playing a normie again, the price on end game items has gone up so much while most money makers from days past has remained relatively low.

Just a few years ago these are some prices I can remember:
full torva - 40b
prenix - 20b
steads - 10b
Custom whips - 16-18b
Bandos set - 2.5b
Gold leaves - 500k
Mahogany plank - 185k
Frost dragon bone - 2.5m

Now the rough current prices are:
Torva - 70b
Pernix - (haven’t looked into it)
Stead’s - 50b (sale price I see let’s say it’s 35b for arguments sake)
Custom whips - 35-40b
Bandos set - 5-5.5b
Gold leaves - 600k
Mahogany planks - 240k
Frost dragon bones - 2.8m

Most early game money makers are junk now, while donator credits are at an all time high. I think the issue can be singled down to either merchers or way more gp in the eco now vs a couple years ago with a lot less items (possibly due to people hoarding them). Now I don’t know a single solution to all this, but I think something(s) should be done and would like to get everyone’s input. Maybe some of you don’t think there’s anything wrong and it’s just the market adjusting itself, while it’s true that it makes players pvm drops more valuable, a lot more older players are running around in end game gear which makes it tough for newer players who get crashed whenever they go.

A way to counteract this would have more items come into the eco, possibly through instance bosses? But we also don’t want to get to a point where then we have the opposite problem, so what if we did something similar to OSRS with the GE tax and any gp retained from this tax would go to buying certain items from the GE and deleting them from the game. Just trying to figure solutions, but I couldn’t imagine trying to start a new account with how the current eco is, but maybe it’s not as bad as I think but that’s why I’d like to get feedback into what everyone else thought.

TL;DR : I think item prices are way up while money makers are way down, maybe introduce instance bosses and a GE tax with money from tax buying out set items from the GE to create a balance for both possible out comes.

[Skitzy paige]

All the prices will constantly rise up in the future because merchers or anyone that is selling the items will always look at the buy/sell offer and list the items at an unreasonable price at times. Example steadboot, ::prices are ard 22-28b (average : 25b), Even though buy offer can be at around 35b, ppl will try to sell for higher prices like 50b since seller tend to be greedy and wish to get more value for the items.

I always wish that G.E and trade box could have a function that ensures that sellers or buyers can only sell/buy the items at the range of the prices (Similar to runescape when they implement the trade limit when trading items) So if stead ::prices are at 22-28b, ppl can only list it at the highest price of 28b and more than that will be unable to list in g.e or in the tradebox. Currently, I feel that if PKh doesnt have any limit, ppl will abuse the price regardless of a regular update on ::prices

(This is just my opinion)

[Lykos]

A way to counteract this would have more items come into the eco, possibly through instance bosses? But we also don’t want to get to a point where then we have the opposite problem, so what if we did something similar to OSRS with the GE tax and any gp retained from this tax would go to buying certain items from the GE and deleting them from the game. Just trying to figure solutions, but I couldn’t imagine trying to start a new account with how the current eco is, but maybe it’s not as bad as I think but that’s why I’d like to get feedback into what everyone else thought.

I've been thinking about the eco and items recently too. I actually brainstormed and wrote out a couple of ideas and solutions to propose in order to help against similar issues you've mentioned. Offering things like more events was the biggest opportunity in my eyes; changes in the frequency and creativity of the overworld events that we occasionally have occur. In my document I wrote out stuff about timed instanced events and revamps to streakless events, pvp events, and more. I am curious to see what @Rapsey has to say beforehand though, as he tends to have a more useful idea or interpretation to offer.

[Raj]

Inflation on this server is super weird, there’s like 5 contributing factors, and trying to combat any one of them results in unpredictable stuff happening with the others. At this point I don’t see a need for systemic changes, because imo it’s mostly futile, and I’d rather just see the owners focus on controlling prices of items necessary for the servers survival, like statuses and beginner gear, doing things that won’t have major unknown impacts. For instance I consider adjusting shop prices and drop rates to be reasonable solutions, but only for items where it’s really needed.

If you have no idea what I mean by “it’s futile”, consider the changes to alch prices which were made, and the subsequent price explosion on pretty much everything. Why would that happen? No idea. But it makes me believe changes like that are pointless

[Rapsey]

while donator credits are at an all time high.

This is unsurprising seeing as there have been fewer and fewer donations in the past 3 years. In this case I think the rising prices are actually a good thing. It means the in=game value of a donation can keep up with the ever-increasing item prices (whereas before they fell behind and became comparatively worthless) and in theory, it should balance itself in times of shortages or excess by providing more or less incentive to donate. Unfortunately donations have been a downwards trend since 2014 so we've mostly seen price increases (which have helped to slow the problem down at least).

I think the issue can be singled down to either merchers or way more gp in the eco now vs a couple years ago with a lot less items (possibly due to people hoarding them).

I'd say it's mostly down to the merching & hoarding culture wherein the majority of players (and virtually every player with economic influence) is motivated to make item values go up. There is no incentive to make them go down.

I don't think it's due to more GP in the economy. The number of items in the game has actually increased way more than the GP. But of course, it's debatable whether these items are "in the eco" seeing as most of them are just sitting in people's banks. In a way this is good, because if they were all being sold then item prices would crash and everything would become worthless - including the moneymakers. But it's also a problem that so little is being sold.

Now I don’t know a single solution to all this, but I think something(s) should be done and would like to get everyone’s input.

It's a complex issue but I think it boils down to a few simple realities:

The only way item prices go down is if people sell items below market value, and the only reason anyone ever does this is because they need (or would rather have) cash. This rarely happens nowadays because:

• People don't need cash. There aren't many things you actually need cash for and they cost peanuts compared to people's wealth. They also don't scale with the increasing wealth so these money sinks become even less effective over time. The cash people get from various sources like alchables and merching is more than enough to cover any cash needs, there's rarely ever a need to convert your belongings into cash.
• People don't want cash, because having your wealth in items means your bank value goes up by itself and keeps up with the inflation. Having your wealth in cash means the number stays the same and you fall behind. It's pretty much the worst way of storing your money as long as prices keep going up.
• People don't need cash, because thanks to the miracle that is the ::wealth command your vast hoard of items functions like a cash stack. No need for a giant stack of tickets to know for yourself (or prove to others) that your net worth is in the trillions. You can have the best of both worlds: all the convenience of having every item you could possibly need (making you not dependent on the eco), a "cash stack" that keeps growing by itself plus a nice numeric overview that lets you see your items as if they were a giant stack of cash.

You might be seeing a pattern here.

A way to counteract this would have more items come into the eco, possibly through instance bosses?

I doubt that would help. It doesn't address what I believe to be the root cause of the problem (see above). There's already more than enough items going into the game and adding some more would just get vacuumed up by the hoarders along with the rest of it.

The only way I think this could change anything is if the game started spewing out items like crazy. Then it could go one of two ways:

• Items become worthless, the economy collapses and everyone is mad. (less likely)
• Item prices stay the same and everyone goes "woohoo, we can make 100B/h now!"(more likely, because people still don't want prices to go down and items are like a bag of overpriced air anyway)

Why do I say that last bit? Because in a real economy, an asset is only worth as much as you could actually sell it for. But on here, people (and the ::wealth command) look at their 1K item stack and value it as if they could sell the entire stack for the current price of a single one of those items. But if they actually tried to sell that entire stack they would never be able to get that much. The market would be flooded and the price would drop (unless it is quickly scooped up by another mercher/hoarder who is betting on this bag of air continuing to go up in price). And if multiple people tried to liquidate their assets at the same time, then they would be forced to keep undercutting each other to be the one who get the sale. This would then trigger a selling frenzy as everyone watches their ::wealth drop day by day and tries to cash out as fast as possible. Pretty much what you see in any stock market collapse when people were artificially inflating the price of things far beyond the actual market demand.

Either way, pumping more items into the game seems like it would only have negative consequences.

I don't know the solution either, and we should be careful because a market crash could be far worse than the situation we're in now.
But the best solution I can think of right now is:

• Create non-essential things that require loads of cash, things that veterans want but newcomers don't need at all
• Get rid of the ::wealth command, or change it to use alch values

[Raj]

• Create non-essential things that require loads of cash, things that veterans want but newcomers don't need at all
• Get rid of the ::wealth command, or change it to use alch values

I personally prefer the first one of those things over the second one, only because OSRS also offers wealth checks of sorts and their economy seems to be doing relatively ok with it, although they also have major sinks that we don't so maybe not the best comparison but still worth mentioning

[Somedudedw]

I agree with everything Rapsey said. As an end-gamer with every item I want\need, I don't place any value in cash because it is essentially useless. It does nothing but sit in my loot tab, until I decide I wanna buy a bunch of stuff that I already own, or gift to someone who needs things. I think a lot of us are like that. I think a GE tax would sort of work, but it might ultimately just make people use the GE less and merch via trading instead, which I suppose is fine since it would take a lot more time and effort to make GP.

The idea of a semi-useless money sink would be great, as long as it's something enticing that will actually be used. Even so, will that really solve the issue of our item inflation? I'm not sure, since people are accustomed to paying these prices, even though, as Rapsey said, there are more items in game now. A major cash sink MAY level them back down to where it doesn't feel as big a gap to a newer player, but it also may only impact the top 10%-20% of players, and not really do anything for the ones that are struggling.

[Thoby]

• Create non-essential things that require loads of cash, things that veterans want but newcomers don't need at all

I have mentioned it before, but it would be great for the economy if the ultra rare sales would require a large amount of cash instead of donator credits. Maybe not even all ultra rare sales, but just one or a few (although that would really help with the donator statuses being these insane prices).

It could be a simple gp value, or some form of a bidding system where players have an unknown/random/set amount of time to bid against each other to acquire new ultra rares. This could definitely get rid of a few trill from the economy.

[Pkermen]

what does this have to do with adding osrs spellbook layout?

[Mvpranger]

• Create non-essential things that require loads of cash, things that veterans want but newcomers don't need at all

Maybe make a well of goodwill that will do action X when amount Y is donated, this will have low rate of dropping a non-essential item. If you can diversify the item once in a while (when it has been dropped like 5 times to keep it unique or smt like that) you can keep in interesting.

This will be a money sink with some RNG into it.