The Most Hated (but most effective?) Way To Solve Inflation
|
I wrote up a bunch of crap explaining economics but ultimately it doesn't matter.
The bottom line is you can't solve inflation in any economy without two things: a deflationary measure and a trade economy. If you play SSF you don't have to worry about the trade part, and PoE's deflationary measure is largely crafting. If there's nothing to spend currencies on (be it items you craft or items on market you buy), the value will "inflate" because there's nothing to buy to deflate its value. The solution to inflation in PoE is: (1) keeping players trading and engaged, and (2) more crafting sinks for currencies and gold. Last edited by HashBob#0163 on Oct 14, 2025, 6:05:41 PM
|
|
" I kind of ignored this at first because it is nonsense to me. So what if more builds are viable and they can all make more currency? It will be the same thing, eventually they will run out of uses for basic currency. It is not used in crafting. Eventually they will run out of uses for pretty good rares, and they will need an exceptional base with perfect mods, eventually they will outscale simple crafting methods and they will be blasting through maps picking up a bunch of ex, which they will then do nothing with but convert into divine to buy items, or buy currencies to slam maps/ precursors. " With all of the above information, and a decent understanding of the game, how could one with a clear rationale suggest that talking about ex sinks in maps/ precursors is off topic? |
|
|
@Hashbob
(can't quote, the forum is blanking my message when I do) Yes, people just seem to hate the idea of slamming maps like in PoE1, but that is literally what makes chaos valuable. In leagues where T17s are some of the best mapping content and everyone is spamming chaos to get good maps, the price of divine never gets out of hand. Last edited by AverBeg7#1689 on Oct 14, 2025, 6:09:11 PM
|
|
" Another thing is that when speaking about inflation, it's always in reference to something. So in PoE's case it's usually players talking about the value of Exalts (or Chaos) to Divine orbs. Or ex/c in reference to an item you can buy (usually the price of specific modifiers, like +gem levels, are what players specifically look for when trading). |
|
|
The problem with currency in PoE: the game constantly prints "new" money. This is not the way the real world works, except in emergency scenarios. The "new" money is carefully regulated against existing numbers. This is not the case in PoE. If you just keep printing money, ALL money within the same system loses value. It's like finding an "ultra rare" pokemon card.....if more of those cards were suddenly printed, they would cease being ultra rare and lose value.
As such...the ONLY combat we currently have against natural inflation due to oversaturation is currency sinks. Inflation happens when the pace of gaining "new" currency out-speeds any of the currency sinks available. If someone were to take a pile of those "ultra rare" cards and burn them....the ones that remain are now more valuable by comparison. That's it, plain and simple. Too much coming in versus going out. There are other facets of irl inflation, but none that apply in the PoE setting. There will NEVER be a solution that "fixes" this: we can only lessen or slow the effect by adding more sinks. Tweaking drop rates will NOT tackle this problem, because it is in the nature of the market to almost immediately correct itself to the new rarity rates. And then.......inflation happens yet again. More build variety is a laughable solution, it would in fact result in the OPPOSITE: more builds farming faster and more efficiently, and therefore faster inflation. What the current "numbers" tell us is that chaos orbs currently do not have enough usage in-game and they need something more. They pile up too quickly and lose their value. Starting anew....with PoE 2 Last edited by cowmoo275#3095 on Oct 14, 2025, 7:21:19 PM
|
|
|
I do not care about having sinks for currencies I'm not getting any of in the first place.
The main problem with the currencies isn't not having enough ways to spend them. It's the lack of earning them. They're too rare. They only become obtainable too late. The first step to solving the game's economy problems is making them start dropping sooner and more often. For most players, the sizable majority, the inflation being caused by the no lifers at the top is a joke, because they already can't afford anything at the prices that were in place before any inflation happened. Most players are going to see leagues end having acquired no perfect orbs, little to no crafting omens, no perfect essences, minimal divines, and all around having been broke the entire time. |
|
" You just do not need extremely good items to beat the campaign, and it being that way only makes sense for progression. Crafting early is not a thing people should be worried about. Perhaps we should be worried about early maps after the 0.3.1 changes, I bet lower tiers are pretty unrewarding, but that's a separate discussion. The game needs sinks. Every game does. They are not optional. A sink is just a use, it is just some negative connotation with the word that you disagree with, not the actual premise. Last edited by AverBeg7#1689 on Oct 14, 2025, 11:06:04 PM
|
|
" I did not say I'm against sink. I said I don't care. Because I have no reason care. Because they don't matter until people are actually obtaining the items to be sunk. And people aren't. The majority, the vast majority, of players are going to end the league having obtained no perfect orbs, no perfect essences, little to no crafting omens, little to no divines, and just all around never even approach an economic state where the existence of sinks would have any affect of them. People can't afford items at the pre-inflation prices. People can't afford items at the prices they have with or without sinks. Because acquisition, lack of it, is the main problem. "Needing extremely good items" has nothing to do with anything. Crafting is a mechanic in the game. You should be "worried about it" the entire time, in that the option should exist the entire time. People should get to engage with the mechanic. The entire time they play the game. Without having to be far into the endgame and richer than Bezos first. Crafting should already be enjoyable in act 1. It is not. The highest tier resources for the endgame of crafting should be being obtained early enough that players actually get to use them. They are not. Everything other than scarcity of acquisition about divines, perfect orbs, so on is functionally irrelevant for most players because they don't have any and aren't going to get any so long as they remain this rare and only start dropping so late in the game.\ No changes regarding these high end currencies is going to count for anything without being accompanied by a change that makes so basic players who don't no-life the game actually get these currencies in the first place. |
|
|
pay exalts to add league mechanics to map at map device
|
|
" It is good just because it adds another easily accessible layer of juicing and experimenting, would be a good addition although not the most exciting idea ever |
|
