The economy is already woefully out of whack - increasing the broker is only going to incentivize further egregious price-fixing and make the current circumstances worse. If we're not going to actually approach a reasonable fix (which was wholly abandoned when the "progressive tax" legitimized all the cash dupe billionaires) then my vote is to continue making it as difficult as possible to engage in trading above the billion dollar broker cap, or the two bill trade cap.
It started honestly when they let all those people back with their time capsule stuff, then when the people that glitched the cash seemingly got away with it through advance notice and a far too generous cash reset it just became even worse. The truth is, the economy in this game is objectively, a train wreck right now No one really wants to do what's actually needed, which actual fixes range from significant cash sinks, trade restrictions all the way to a harder total reset. The mere prospect of messing with the economy brings on the inner "How dare you!" Greta Thunberg in everyone.
At this point I feel like there's only two types of players who would actively be against the prospect of messing with the economy. Players who have acquired their fortune through sketchy/illegal means. Players part of that niche group who consider "playing the broker" the fun part of this game. I would consider myself to be part of the rich 1% of this game but I would have zero issues with the devs doing something with the economy. The market has been inflated so much over the years because of all the glitches, money sites, etc. I personally think a clean slate would help settle down the situation.
I agree with those groups, but I don't really think it's limited to them, there's lots of genuine people out there with reasonable sums of money now that would become incredibly irritated with something like a hard reset and this is what complicates the matter because the devs will be reluctant to annoy that crowd and one could argue it isn't entirely fair to do so. That's why there's realistically no easy fix and unfortunately any true fix is going to upset many players, the situation isn't going to just get any better by itself though and I'm not going to suggest I have the magic answer by any means, but if nothing is done then it will only get worse in time. We were actually promised more economy fixes last year after the reset to 20b max, but they never eventuated and have all but dropped off the radar, which is a massive shame, because the longer it's left as well the harder it becomes to do anything without negatively impacting the people more innocently accumulating wealth.
Fair enough but at the same time, can we really come up with a fix where absolutely everyone will be happy? I think we're just bound to take a hit and upset some folks and it's something the devs will have to accept as a means to an end. I think that maybe setting a trade cap would help mitigate this issue, especially if we keep the current cap on the broker (even lower it maybe?). I really believe that by forcing people to use the broker instead of trade while keeping a reasonable cap (like the one we have now) on the broker, is the best solution we have right now. The only option left for those who want to inflate an item's price, would be to trade multiple times with someone. The prospect of getting scammed would probably be too heavy for them to even consider it.
Thanks to ideas like that you doing huge favor to all scamers .People will need to risk multiple trades for one item . Example : Im gona log in on my fake account and im gona sale to you comic material for 2 bill but 1st give me one bill and then i give you material and you give me that 2nd bill .Problem is im gona log of after you give me that 1st bill .Then im gona log on my 2nd acc and im gona do it to you again till you stop doing this to yourself. Same thing happens when people trade resets .I ask years ago for replay badges token so people could trade save way but nah its beter to support scamers. If you think people gona spend hundreds of $ real money to get item from casino boxes and then sale it to you for 1 bil which is like 1 $ after all this glitch abuses good luck with that .
This is getting to be quite a wall of text, so I'm snipping the better of your replies out leaving the crux of what you are saying in. If you believe this is misquoting you, sorry...just thinking of the readers. So who was talking about real life rich people? I'm talking in game wealth. Now...ARE there some people who play the game who have a lot of money? Well, by some of these people who supposedly buy 1000's of TC, I'd guess some have disposable income...or are not very wise with the money they have....irregardless...I was not referencing 'real world' wealth. So..this is why you bring up 'real world' wealth. Again....you wouldn't need any great wealth to have 10, 20 or 100 accounts. Not sure if you know this, but pssst...they are free and as long as you make another email (also free)...they are unlmited. At worst, for item trading/mailing, you'd have to spend $5 one time on them to make moving things easy via mail....at best you don't need to spend a nickle...there are ways to move items to these toons that require no spend. You brought up the trinkets and pets and the inventory crunch that they cause being a reason they will HAVE to sell vs horde. I responded those are different things because trinkets and pets are generally not tradable....collections, auras and materials are....if you don't want to talk about trinkets and pets, don't bring them up....I wouldn't have because they are totally different from the high value hordable items we were talking about in most cases and really don't factor in. People want the change so that they can apply a...for example....Zeus Lightning bolt orbital...then delete it from inventory, but can get it again later when they want to use it. That has nothing to do with something that is sellable and tradable Yes, bartering exists, mainly on items at 1B+. That's because people know what they are worth and an imposed broker cap doesn't change that...so they barter, for cash or other 'valuable' goods. Sometimes it's items even less than 1B, but generally at 500m or better and likely to avoid the listing fee from the broker(or they don't have the up front listing money on hand), no one is bartering for 10m items....they list them in the broker as it's not worth the effort to 'trade' them to avoid a 500K listing fee. As to your second point, no...no one who is hording auras or materials will delete or sell them to make room. They will mail them, or move them though the shared bank, league bank or hand them to a friend. The fact you even believe anyone would delete a 1M+ value item to make room shows you don't understand how people who know how to make money and use the economy to their advantage think....which is why you don't understand that a 1M cap won't change anything for the better. BTW... generating 1M in game is not hard. I've got a few F2P accounts that cannot trade OR use the broker and they have a few million just from selling gear and plans and mission rewards, and these are seasonal/event runners only...imagine if someone runs daily You make it like people 'make' money in the broker or trade....the opposite is true. The broker is one of the very few spots money is 'lost' in the game....and you want to take that away. Don't confuse the generation or 'making' of money from nothing and having it trade hands from one user to the other. The broker generates $0 ....it's actually -5% to the economy total per transaction. We need more money sinks in game...not less. No one suggested a vendetta...and I honestly believe you really think your idea would help. It won't, but that doesn't change the fact that you believe it will...and that it would be good in the long run. And no, I don't really care about those groups being 'hurt', but I'm more worried about who it 'helps'. As far as the 3 categories, there are actually 4. The 4th is people who took direct advantage of and caused the money glitch. Most of them have the bulk of their money still (because they off loaded a lot to those alt accounts) and many...many of the items as they can buy them at will...even at 1B. And yeah, I think this would help them immensely as anything that lists at 1m will likely go to them...because they already have the many billions to buy what is listed and can buy 10's of 1000's of them before their existing wallets would see a dent in them. So unless you are willing to hover over the broker refresh button and grab what you need before they can, you are only really helping one group....and it's them. I doubt that's your goal.
An unpopular opinion but... Disable trades all together. Raise the broker cap to five billion. Items listed under one billion retain the 5% fee. Items listed over one billion and under 2.5 billion get a 10% listing fee. Items listed over 2.5 billion up to five billion gets a 15% listing fee. You can almost smell low-key cash glitchin going on... and I would not be surprised about any continued low-key duping going on as well.
Sorry, but I earned every bit of my few billion bucks legit. I have a massive pile of inventory of 'valuable' goods and very little of it was purchased from the broker for the purpose of resale...it's stuff I gathered from TCs, or farming or things I bought with the intent of using, but maybe never did. I also have a major issue with some 'across the board' sweep when the biggest offenders who CAUSED the issue skated afterwards. Sorry, but until the people who caused the issue are made to pay MOST of the penalty, I'll keep saying I plan on paying none of it. You know why? Not because I don't think it would help the economy...but the ONLY ones who will walk away ahead or moderately unaffected are those who were the worst offenders. Even if we wipe the economy to 0 across the board, they are still sitting on a mountain of neons, BB items, and any other high end goods. Yeah they might only start selling for a few Mil a pop, but they will be the ones collecting that few mil...Joe lunchbox who plays 3 hours a week, will not be.
I wouldn't be surprised to find out you are right about the glitching and duping, but again....this is why I'm not in favor of a wipe. Those who DON'T cheat the system pay the penalty...those who DO cheat the system can continue what they are doing.
I have earned every bit of the billions I have made too, I guess I'm just not that hung up on fake video game dollars. I'm also willing to take a hit for the team if it means fixing the economy and giving everyone a chance at the pie. The offenders who cause this economical turmoil weren't punished and I fear that it's a tad too late now. The devs didn't do their jobs on that end. In the end I think the best idea is to put in a trade cap and lower the broker cap.
I tend to think this would work as well, lowering the trade cap and either leaving or increasing the broker cap is more beneficial. The more stuff you get put on the broker the better it is and the more open competition becomes. You actually don't want the direct trade system being more favored than the broker for a raft of reasons, not necessarily exclusive to those already discussed, such as no money sink/listing tax. People often scaremonger as well saying lifting the broker cap means more expensive items, yes this is true, but also not at the same time. The reality everyone already faces are items already not appearing on the broker, even if they could be listed for 2 billion, that's no worse than what is already being experienced. At least if the items are out in the open on the broker, competition would dictate price falls because people would readily list and compete at the moment private trade stifles that competition. I agree the trade cap needs to be dropped and the broker increased so that the broker and subsequent competition is seen as more appealing. Having a low trade cap would also discourage people from undertaking multiple trades with people they are not prepared to trust, you could still do it of course with people you do trust, but having this limitation would also push more items towards a more transparent, healthy and competitive broker scene. The only people I can see truly opposed to such a move are people that don't want that competition because it eats in to their profit, they have no interest in any moves that might make them earn less money. It's basically the same typical anti competitive behavior you see in big business,shining through in the form of pure capitalist glory
This is essentially the core of the issue. And since making it more functional from an objective standpoint is impossible without doing that very thing, the alternative is to not do anything to actively and directly exacerbate the issues - having the current caps acts as a restrictor valve on how insane it can potentially get, removing those seems like it would make a tiny handful of people happy at the expense of pissing literally everyone else off to the exact same degree. Of course, we could just make all the TC and Booster Bundle stuff MP purchase and have done with it, but that would make other people cry. "How dare you steal away the forced scarcity of my digital status symbol!" So functionally the best course of action was the course of action they already took. Being simply : they didn't.
I know it's not popular, but I am 100% for cash reset on everyone. I've said that since the last time they implemented a cash fix, and I had around 12 billion at that time.. I'm for it because even with 12 billion, it wasn't that much money, which is just a ridiculous thing to even say. There was pages and pages of items listed on the broker for 999 million, at least 60-70 billion dollars worth of listings, it was insane and something had to be done. So while they may have removed a lot of money from the game, they still left plenty of us with tens of billions of dollars, and it honestly seems like it is heading right back to the way it was. Hell, I hear people talking about 50-60 billion like it's no big deal. I know it probably wont happen, but I do still think a reset is needed. And if they did, they should go the extra length of limiting trading cash to players to a small amount in order to encourage using the broker so that money gets removed from the game via broker fee's. And they should check back in on the economy a few times a month to see how rich players are getting, and if anyone stands out, watch them like a hawk.. And if they find any new exploits, ban the player and fix the exploit or remove what is needed for anyone to use the exploit until it is fixed. I'd honestly be happy to start all over in a brand new economy, hell the main reason I even subbed back in 2014 was because I made 20k and I couldn't use it..
Actually you know I'm almost of the mind they should make it all non tradable anyway so those that do have these things have to open their wallet, but as you say that brings with it its own massive raft of complaints an issues, but if that were the case I think there would probably be a better appreciation for exactly how rare these items are, or how pay2win capsules really are. I'm not saying that's necessarily a good idea, I'm just throwing the idea out there as a thought exercise, it makes you wonder how it would change peoples perceptions of these things. Notwithstanding that, I think it wouldn't hurt to have the trade money cap the same as the broker cap so as to apply that exact same restrictor valve, it seems a little absurd they differ in the first place, they should match each other, otherwise it's just nonsensical.
I read this top to bottom 3 times and the dots just aren't connecting at all. And its not because i'm an idiot, nor are you, but it just all seems......imaginary. I hope you dont take offence to that because theres absolutely none intended. But its like you've dreamt up this imaginary cabal of illuminati members who spend 24/7 plugged into the Broker specifically to make players lives a misery. And it just doesn't exist. Lets skip past the misinterpretation of "Many Trinkets = Less Space", and also the condescending tone of describing my understanding of how people currently hoard Items and Cash, and we'll toss it aside as a mistaken choice of explanation. You go from saying that you're not talking about Real Life Rich, to "oh yeah theres lots of people who just open 100's of accounts for storage". Accounts are free, we agree. Boosting even half of them to Premium with $5 purchases isn't at all. If you're actually claiming that some have 100+ accounts, you're basically saying Average Joe is dropping up to $1500 into the game. Not for DLC, or Skins, or Emotes or anything other than...... Storage. You go from saying that Trinkets/Pets aren't tradable, despite every Tier 1 2 & 3 Trinket/Pet disagreeing with you, to not wanting to talk about them at all. Despite the fact that currently, Trinkets/Pets are easily one of the fastest ways to make money ingame. Since the change to the Tiered Trinket system, i've sold roughly around 12 of them, admittedly under-priced as i'm not a huge fan of being a hypocrite. So whilst the idiot i mentioned on a previous page has failed to sell their Ink Material for 600m over a year, I made roughly around 700m in months. Most of which i've since lent out to Leaguemates and Friends because of, (of course) the broken Broker/Trade system. You go from saying the solution i suggested would create a monster out of the "Bartering System", and then you describe the current one, which sounds just as bad as what you fear it'll become. "Thats because people know what they are worth". What? Can you elaborate on this further maybe because right now this is the furthest dot to try to connect? Who knows? Who was qualified to decide? If i go to the broker looking to sell Dark Matter, and the only listing has it at 100m, is that correct? Cause to me i'd chuckle a little, wish that posting luck, and post it for a reasonable amount like 200k-500k dpending on Episode release. Right now on EU they're going for around 200k so i post em as 100k or lower. Price is always decided by the majority, not the minority. If shop A sells handwipes for $2 and shop B sells handwipes for $10, which one do you imagine gets more business and sells more handwipes? Was the popularity of both shops decided by the staff, or by the majority, the customers? As such this current Barter System you described is absolutely the minority. Literally. Its one person guessing value each time. And by the sounds of it they're getting it woefully wrong in an embarrassing way. After your explanation, i'd wager that the ridiculous Trades on US Server would die off far far faster than i'd previously expected with the solution implemented. All these points are just kind of.....there. Dont get me wrong, they're good points to discuss and i've enjoyed seeing another view of them but, after that, not one of them actually proves a problem exists with capping both Trade and Broker to 1 Million. I wont leave it with a blanket statement like that though so lets recap them: - Trade would be overtaken by the aforementioned illuminati - Proof or they dont exist, and you're worried about nothing - Theres a huge amount of people dropping up to $1500 on the game for storage - Im afraid this would also require proof. Im not doubting the possibility, i'm doubting the magnitude. - Trinkets/Pets + Tradability + Sales - A main point, but i think you'd agree this is more of a side-discussion we're having with no relevance to the main discussion - The Bartering System - Without proof of Point 2 (Storage) this ones dead in the water when it comes to the 1 Million cap solution. If the magnitude of Point 2 is as small as I believe it is, this just snaps us right back to the discussion about Space for Average players to store the items. I think the main point of contention from this stems from how we both visualize the situation. All along i'm visualizing someone with a screen full of Auras and Mats and everything in between, from all previous TCs and BBs. I feel like you may be visualizing someone just storing 1 or 2 TC/BBs worth. In essense it comes down to this; Greedy Players hoard Auras and Mats for 1 purpose, and 1 purpose only. Profit. A 1 Million cap takes that future away from them, including your "4th group" who were included in my 3rd group. As we both agree, even they arent damaged enough to put themselves through thousands of Trades to collect a few Billion. The suggestion that they'd switch to only bartering is ludicrous when you accept and acknowledge that they hoard Auras and Mats for 1 purpose, and 1 purpose only. Profit. They need numbers, not another item taking up space. To a lot of them its a literal compulsion. And they wont find the same relief from it through bartering. To extend an olive branch here though, I absolutely agree that "some" of them will either go silent for a while, hiding supplies, or temporarily barter. Thats merely spite, and that cant last. And yes, there is a slim possibility that some old Auras and Mats may disappear forever. I'll admit that possibility outright. But I think the chances of that are FAR far less than what you believe it to be, and when these same people are listing the exact same old Auras and Mats for ridiculous prices nobody can pay today, ask yourself, whats the difference between something you cant have vs something you'll never have?
I dont know bout the illuminati lol, but I think they were referencing years of gold sellers. They have used this games economy to make real life money, for years, I'm sure they have many many accounts and items set up in a pretty good technique by now. Further, they only reinvest the cash to further enable future sales. If the broker caps at 1B, but they have accumulated 100s of Billions, they can control the market in many unfair ways, and they do. Just an example, buying out an entire inventory of one item, then reposting a few 10, 100, 1000 times the original price. If they control the right rare drops, they create monopolies. The math is exponential. Pretty soon, anyone without at least 1B wont be able to really buy anything, and I doubt this economy is what any game developer wants for an entire community.
Genuine question: Was this reply meant for somebody else? I ask for 2 reasons: 1) Everything you just explained about Goldsellers pretty much mirrors exactly what I already said about them in a reply on page 1 or 2 of this thread. We're actually in complete agreement about the threat Goldsellers represent, and the methods they use. I even gave a step-by-step of how people are unwittingly handing ingame cash that they bought from Goldsellers, right back to Goldsellers in a previous reply. 2) I'm very confused about where 1 Billion comes from? As i've been explaining from my very first post in here, the solution is to Cap the Broker and Trade to 1 Million maximum. That leaves no wiggle room for anything to get as far as 1 Billion. Again, in a previous post, I explained how the cap at 1 Million would eliminate any 1 Billion price tags. Actually I explained how if someone was pricing something at 3 Billion on the US Server, it would take 3000 separate Trades to transfer over 3 Billion. This rationale also translates to your worries about Goldsellers owning the Market. They literally can't. If the max that anyone, Free, Premium or Member, can price anything is 1 Million, then Goldsellers get trapped by that rule too.
