Farming Does NOT Cause Inflation

Look people, I farm runes solo, I farm griffons solo outside of augury, and I farm smites solo- all with my elementalist. Having played this game awhile and paying close attention to the economy I can tell you the general effects of farming in GW - it makes everything cheaper, it causes DEFLATION.

I've read a lot of posts that claim farming causes inflation because it "brings in gold, so your gold becomes less valuble - simple economics duh!"

What these posters fail to realize is that while farming does bring in a little gold, mostly what it brings in is ITEMS. Take griffon farming as an example: I remember back when a gold max axe with +13-14% above 50 and +15 health and a icy haft or something could bring you 20-30k. Now I'll be lucky to get over 5k. Why? Because if I farm griffons for an hour I'll get something equivalent, plus all kinds of lesser purple and gold weapons. With everybody doing that, those kind of weapons become much less valuable, and thus your gold becomes MORE valuable.

The 55/105 UW farming that some people are whining about is an even better example. Anyone remember how much a max clean stormbow used to go for? How much is one now? What about eternal shields? Used to get 5k easy for a max low req one - now I salvage them rofl. The farmers have made many of the high demand items much more accesible to the non-farmers.

Used a really cool weapon to smite your foe today? Thank a farmer!

Farming doesn't, botting does.

55 Build = Legitimate farming = Not bot = Nothing wrong

Okay, maybe not, I dunno.

Bots farm, right? So how can botting and farming have different effects on the economy?

It all depends - what % of the items that fall to a botter get sold at a merchant, generating gold? What amount of gold drops to them?

That's what determines how it works. Most botters aren't keeping minor runes to extract and sell to the traders. Nor the Majors. In fact, they probably have a list of runes to bother keeping, because of value. They likewise probably turn everything they pick up into cash unless it is exceptional. The more this happens the more gold there is in the economy - but that's happening with everyone all the time.

Does famring cause inflation? Well, playing the game causes inflation - money enters and stays in circulation unless vented by money sinks. The majority of drops are converted into money, which stays unless vented. Inflation thus will be bound to happen. Since farming brings more items and gold to the community than group play it thus contributes more to inflation. The rune traders and such are good deflation tools, as they make items more available, but since anything sold to a merchant leaves play those items go up in relative value - so swords and such can get pricier and pricier, simply be cause the valued ones drop so uncommonly, and everything else turns to gold. The gold is thus worth much less than the few items that are traded player to player, like maxed swords, mods and such.

botters sell for the normal price (not lowering it even though they have alot) and then use the money they make to either sell on ebay or buy items at extreme prices to keep the prices up therefore making them more money.

Yep I agree that there are offsetting forces at play here: more gold in the economy from gold drops offset by more items/materials in the economy. However, talking about the "theory" of inflation is not as strong as observing the measurable results. I believe most of us can agree that the number of farmers today is much greater than the number pre-trader patch (and immediately after that patch), based on the popularity of the 55/105 monk build. That said, I believe that if farmers were so bad on the economy, we would have seen extreme examples of price inflation on items during that span of time.

In actuality I would say that prices have been fairly stable on most things, and have actually decreased on almost all materials and tier 1 items (runes [except sup. monk], max storm bows and all but the very best gold weapons). Tier 2 items have probably gone up, as there are more millionaires out there to bid on the rarest of items. Even though it corresponds that farmers have more money to spend on tier 1 items as well, I believe most farmers just don't spend money on those items, when it's easy enough for them to farm instead.

I would argue that only the farmers were able to afford the tier 2 items in the first place, so the impact on the average player is, for the most part, positive. The average player can get runes, storm bows, chaos axes, and dyes at similar or cheaper prices than before.

If anyone has good evidence of recent inflation (I think a good baseline would be 1 or 2 days after the patch), I'd like to see it.

The inflation caused by farming is not evident in the inflated price of items. In this fact, you are most certainly right. Some uber items cost less, aye, there's the rub.

Inflation in MOG's is measured in the skills, items, and level progression of the players. Since these items are less expensive, more players have them, and thus they're more powerful.

We go through the game faster, we chew up content, and we all run around with the best items in the game. And the game loses its charm.

Imagine if car manufacturers could make a Porsche for $1. Pretty soon we'd be building houses out of them. We'd tear them apart to sell the metal for scrap. Everyone would have three Porsches, and it would be boring.

The problem with farming is that the rare items that can be farmed become dirt cheap, but the rare items that can't be farmed now become ultra expensive, attainable only by those who are farming. If you're okay with farming, it's probably because you're doing it. See it through the eyes of a casual gamer and you'll realize that your joy comes at the expense of others.

Take a look around and you'll see that some of these casual gamers have worked hard and saved up $30,000 for their VW, only to find out it costs 200 Porsches. It's a free market economy, but it's the kind of situation that bankrupts companies and sometimes a whole country in real life.

Inflation isn't as simple a concept as some of you think it is. If you're farming, you're doing it because you know it's an advantage. It's human nature, but don't argue your innocence. Admit it and move on.

Koroh

The reason that we have not seen extreme inflation since the trader reset is, i think, because of the new system in operation on the merchants.
you may say that Farming causes deflation in items such as runes and dyes because of the influx of them. however this is only because of the presence of the traders keeping the prices within certain limits.

the price of weapons are getting higher all the time, from what i have seen. i believe this to be as a result of rich farmers being able to spend that much money on these items.
auctions just reach massive numbers because people with tons of money can afford to spend massive amounts on them.
and because the auctions reach these numbers everyone else uses these as an example and sets their prices accordingly.

IMO

Because I farm 3 hours a week, and bots farm 168 hours a week.
You could also argue that bots simply sell everything theygot (maybe except gold armors) for gold, while regular players toy with salvage kits and market salvage.
Generally, I blame it on bots and chinese (living bot type).

Generally, I'm absolutly sure that farming does not cause deflation, as topic started suggest.
Why?
-because people farm as much as they farmed before (boon wh0re build is nearly as good as 105 anyway)
-for one Fellblade of utter Uberness, there are few gazyllions of junk.

If anything, it's effect of joning the economies (europe had far lower prices than US and far less chinese living-bots:P) and new trader system, which is sucking gold at treademous rate.

Open Market Economics 201:

Inflation -> an increase in the price of any given kind.

General Inflation -> a decrease in the purchasing power of money (market value)
* This is a rise in prices.
* Increase in the money supply.
* In other words, the increase of money supply is greater than the rate of increase of the economy size.

ZERO INFLATION is another term for PRICE STABILITY.

If prices were falling, there would be DEFLATION.

Sadly put, the way to stop inflation is an increase in interest rates

So. Farming leads to more gold an items (which are valued by gold). The rate of increase in the amount of gold available is disproportionate to the amount of new players to the game. As more people begin to farm, more gold becomes available. As more new players learn to farm, the expansion of economy shrinks.

Hope that clears things up.

Koroh, you make some good points, however, I believe that your position gets eroded by the fact that having "uber" items does not decrease your advancement time in any noticible way. The best items (stat wise) are collector's items. Having +27 hp on a fort modifier is virtually the exact same thing as having a +30. The prices of the items that do make you advance faster are very very reasonable. However, the prices of cosmetic things like perfect mod fellbades are the things people have bidding wars over. Yep, you might have spent more time working towards your 15k armor (or fissure armor) than the new farmer, but who cares... it has the same stats as the 1.5k armor.

Charcoal Ann - if the prices the traders were offering were significantly less than "real" market value, then the traders would constantly be out of stock for those items. The only items I can see this happening to are sup. monk runes. So I think it is a reasonable conclusion that trader mechanics are not by themselves holding back inflation, although I can agree that trader mechanics pre-patch actually helped advance inflation.

Wow, that was a textbook answer! ;p

[edit]
Tell me again how having higher level armour doesn't help you advance faster? I'll have time to read your reply while I wait for resurrection after being destroyed by some level 10 dude with Drak/15k armour in the Ascalon Arena.

Oh, and as soon as I can afford 15k armour, I'll consider your point. I've been playing for a little over two weeks so I'm offering you the point of view of someone new to the game. I'm not a MOG newb, but I'm new to GW. I hit 19 in a week of play though so I have seen some of the higher level content. If I'm wrong, I'll man up and admit it. So far I can only comment on what I see as a broken economy.

Koroh

Hey, I drew that from memory!

The way I see it:

Botting/farming (mostly botting) brings in money, which therefore decreases the value of gold.
Botting/farming (mostly farming) brings in items, which decreases the value of the expensive "collector pieces/novelty items" like the Dragon Sword and Fellblade.

Therefore, keep banning bots, they're evil. And ban the Chinese (so racist...)

The situation with getting the 1.5k armor early in the game is only caused by people running to Draknor's early in the game. Please don't muddle the farming argument with the running argument. I believe most people can easily afford a runner with their 2nd toon if they so chose, playing without any farming. I never farmed or soloed my way through the game and I ended the game with 20 plat on my first toon, as a necro of all things.

Hmm... what does it take for the average player to get the best armor possible (1.5k NOT 15k... which you claim you can't afford because of farmers driving up prices)? X number of raw materials (which are dropping in price because of farmers) and a fixed amount of gold OR Y number of collector's items (which are also dropping in price). The fact that you can't afford the best armor has nothing to do with farmers driving prices up, and wholescale nerfing of farming will only RAISE the price of all raw materials and collector's items.

I agree with the original poster. The vast majority of people griping about the economy are full of bullshit. Go take a basic economics class before you come here complaining.

Tanwarv,

I never claimed I couldn't get that armour because of farmers, I just don't have 15k (or is it 15k x5?) lying around yet. I'm half-way to 20 and haven't ascended. I've also done it the honest way; doing the missions instead of being run around by someone. I've paid for my own kit and right now I think my armour pieces are all either 65 or 71. To be honest I think it's probably too easy to get the best armour in this game. I really didn't expect to be wearing it in under two weeks of play so don't get me wrong!

What I have seen so far in game is a bunch of people selling me uber items for entirely reasonable prices. So reasonable in fact that at first I questioned whether it was a scam. Then I looked at the price of some of the highest level runes and realized that there was a runaway on some of the prices, while others had been debased entirely.

This means the economy is broken in some way. Plain and simple.

Reading that people are farming with an exploit template, I realized this is a toon I've heard before I've seen it in several games so it came as no surprise it's in this one too. You can argue all you like, but the facts speak louder than either of us.

Fact 1: Farming is boring to everyone except maybe a few OCD people who like pushing buttons in a certain order, over and over again.

Fact 2: Lots of people are farming.

The conclusion I draw is that there's an advantage to farming. If there weren't, then people wouldn't do it. Some very clever people out there have mechanized the farming with bots, but no everyone knows how to do it.

Fact 3: Every advantage has a winner and a loser. If you're the winner, there's a loser somewhere. If you haven't found the loser, you need to look more carefully.

While I realize you probably see no drawback to any players, I disagree. I think we all lose because we're destroying the balance that ANet has worked so hard to create. They've made a beautifully well crafted MOG. It's one of the best I've seen, and I'm not just talking graphics. Even if the only losers in this equation are the NPC enemies, we're hurting ourselves by ruining the balance of our favourite game.

Ask yourself why you play this game. If your only reason is to own the coolest stuff you can find... I guess you win. High time you move on to a new game with shinier stuff.

Koroh

There is no loser.

Take a real life farmer, for example. The real farmer produces the items. He then sells them to cover his costs and earn a living... or in GW's case, cool items. The customer got what he paid for, and the farmer got what he did the work for. You could say that the farmer sold to a large corporation - like a grocery store, and the item was resold for a much higher price, but that is no fault of the farmer at all.

Economy > Farming. For every inflation there is an equal deflation that you will also be pissed off about. I hope you don't invest money in the stock market.