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.

I see that we do agree on many levels. However, I believe you truly don't understand why I play this game (and also why I farm).

I farm because I enjoy it! It's fun to take out my pent up frustrations on a huge mob of bad guys without fear of dying. It's truly fun for me to see what items I can find. I like the challenge of trying to farm unconventional things like coldfires. When I farm the UW, I keep all the storm bows and eternal shields I find and then go to international districts and give them all away for free. I like that feeling of being able to make someone's day a little happier. I play only PvE and may never try PvP. I never plan on buying fissure armor, I just like to collect cool things to give them away. I've played City of Heroes for a long time too. I left because they severely nerfed controller powers (because someone thought they we too uber and complained). I just end up resenting people who think they need to stop my way of playing the game, just because they don't like to play the game in the same way.

If everyone is enjoying themselves, why take harsh action against one group? It does seem all too often that pure and simple jealousy ruins many a game. Can't we all just get along and do the things that we find fun?

Last reply on this subject, although I'm sure your reply will tempt me.

If you want to get into real life, then let's go there. We're all losing, most people just don't realize it yet because the Earth has a huge capacity to absorb our impact. Most people care more about the 19" rims on their new SUV than they do about whether future generations will be able to survive breathing the air. Human nature it to exploit everything we find. We're very ingenious and we find ways to solve amazing problems, but unfortunately in any balance there is a point from which you can not return. We tip the balance in our favour, but there is a loss somewhere.

To the average farmer such as yourself, there is no noticeable harm. But when the world is covered in farmers, we change the face of the planet. Look at the destruction of the rain-forests and tell me there are no losers. Sometimes it's very hard to find the loser in a given situation, but there is always a down-side. If there wasn't, there would be no gain either. The universe is a zero sum game.

This game is a microcosm so we see the impact of our actions much sooner. Fortunately we can just start over when the newest and greatest MOG shows up.

[edit for Tanwarv]
If you read my posts you'll see I'm not necessarily pro-nerf. I just don't want to see another great game die too early because of a runaway economy or to PL'ers. I'm all for people's desire to play the game however they like, except when that desire detracts from the enjoyment of others. Instanced adventuring removed griefing and KS'ing and the like, but unfortunately economic exploits remain in this otherwise stellar game. Albeit in limited fashion. Kudos to ANet for reducing it this far.

Personally I'd like to have a character with a spear, but I realize it's not possible in this game yet. Likewise, I respect your desire to play the game the way you want, but you might have to make sacrifices for the good of the game.

Koroh

Koroh, I'd just like to express my appreciation for the insight and patience you're displaying here, and I wish more people would look beyond just themselves to see their role in the economy and community. I've personally given up this argument because people defending their cash cow simply aren't willing to hear what someone else has to say, so I just keep hoping that ArenaNet will solve this issue before it spirals further out of hand, and in a way that doesn't punish the casual gamers for a change.

I respect your view, but I don't agree with that philosophy. I also think the analogy between deforestation and moving pixels on a screen are a bit of a stretch. Let's get back to the OP's topic at hand.

I was incredibly surprised at how little PL spam I see. Kudos to Anet for that, athough this game's version of PL'ing seems to be "running", which is quite rampant. Back to original subject, I still don't quite see how farmers are causing a runaway economy, as long as the things that will actually help people survive better (basic max armor and collector's max weapons) stay at a reasonable price. Maybe some more concrete examples of inflation would change my view.

I think there's a great confusion between the microeconomics of price fluctions created by farming and the macro economics of Inflation in the whole GW in this forum.

Inflation is a macroeconomics issue of supply and demand for gold in GW. While the raises in price for any particular item is a simple micro supply and demand of that particular item. This are two completely different subjects.

Gold in GW, just as Money in our world, has 3 functions: unit of account, medium of exchange, and store of value. Inflation occurs when the value (price) of the gold decreases. And this happens when the gold supplied is more than gold demanded (simple supply and demand for gold itself). Then the question is how does these "new" money gets into the overall circulation to create inflation? In the real world, the price of money is defined by interest rate and this rate is extremely useful in defining the cost of borrowing and lending. And through borrowing and leading, the "new" money can easily sneak into the whole economy and thus create inflation (if you are interested in this area more, just look into your basic macro economy on money creation). However in our GW, since there's no borrowing and lending, the ONLY WAY for GW to create/pump more gold into its economy is through the drops for players when they killed foes. Assume this drop rate doesn't change, the rate of supply for gold into GW is fixed. This means more GW game activity (killing foes) a players has, the wealthier the player. When GW's gold is backed up by solid economics productions (foe's killed), and there's no other types of transaction for GW players to express their change in demand for gold, the price GW's gold is fixed. Thus, GW has no inflation. I believe this aspect of GW is not a free market.

As for prices changes of a particular item, both the supply and the demand for the item could change at any point in the game. When by chance, the particular items are being dropped more, the price of the item should drop because more people are selling it. This is where farming could create some situations. For example, a particular area is more ideal for farming compare to other places, and this area only drops certain type of items. Once this opportunity is acknowledged and fully explored, the whole GW world will be flooded by the drops of this area. Thus, eventually the price of these specific drops will decrease, which makes the area a undesirable area for farming. On the hand, if some items become trendy (more demand) due to the imbalance the item/the profession creates for foes and other players, or the different look, which the item provides, then the price should go up too. For example, rangers is a very popular profession due to its versatilities; with more rangers out there because every1 wants to take advantage of this profession's character, then the price of bows should go out.

I believe, for these types of transactions for specific items, they are all free market trading; thus the price could jump all over the place due to changes in the item's supply and demand at the particular moment. The price for the item is really a measure of the item’s relative scarcity and desirability.

Bottom line, inflation can be confirmed when the overall prices had gone up. Otherwise, the particular price changes of certain items only represent the changes of preference in supply and demand for that particular item. These two subjects are completely different.

Crying about farming is the most ridiculous thing ever...

That's like crying and complaining about people in real life making money by working.

Agree!

The economy (such as it is) in GW is pretty much entirely based on vanity. Since the addition of the various traders there are almost no functionally uber items unavailable to purchase at reasonable rates in this game. There are a rare few exceptions - a perfect Vampiric mod, for example is a pricey commodity and can certainly impact gameplay, and Monk Superior runes are off the hook just now, because of the popularity of the 55 build. But other than that and a few other possible exceptions everything you could possibly need to play effectively is easily in the budget of those who just play the game normally. As has been pointed out previously, you don't need a perfect 30 fortitude mod, the slightly lesser mods are very nearly as good and MUCH less pricey.

I've gone on a farming spree lately and gone from having about 40k spread between my characters to having approximately 800k (including the value of ectos).

How much has my ability to play the game increased?

Not an iota. Collector's weapons are there for the taking and in all the time I have spend playing and farming I have NEVER seen a weapon drop that bettered the basic stats of the top collector's items (not including the removable mods). Get a couple of half decent mods of your choice and pop them on a collector's weapon and you are set to play.

All the really big ticket items are vanity purchases. 15>50 Storm Bows aren't any better than any other 15>50 Bow - and with a little research you can go get whatever type of bow you want from a collector. And of course the biggest ticket items of all, the fissure armors, are entirely vanity. There is no functional difference between them and the Droknar's armor.

The economy in this game is almost entirely irrelevant to actual gameplay, provided you actually do a little research on collectors.

A very helpful link from the the Collector's thread in Community Works:
http://users.on.net/~telarin/index.htm

In the end, whether they nerf or don't nerf farmers, so long as collectors and traders exist basic gameplay will not be affected to any significant degree. The fact that people are willing to buy the Fissure Armor at all should be evidence enough that vanity is the engine of the economy here.

Another clone thread. Another tired, pointless debate. Another attempt by yours truly to point out the only time this "issue" exists in my life is when I read yet another cloned, tired, worn out thread about the "issue" which (I'm sure I will have to post again in 3 days hence) DOESN'T EXIST.

Go get drunk or something.

Farming causes inflation. This is partly due to the simple mechanics of introducing large sums of money into the game. The more money people have, the more likely they are willing to spend. Currently only the exp scrolls are the only non-renewable resource with a meaningful effect. There have been times when ive seen two of the scroll types out of stock. Considering that they are only a time saver for a pve character that is not interested in re-rolling and rushing through the game, i would find that as a strong indication of how much excess money people have to just toss around at will.

What you are observing is the fact that each character only needs to buy a weapon, rune, armor, and other items only once. If chracater armor, weapons, and runes expired over time, then you would notice massive inflation upon seemingly average items. This would be due to the fact that those "average" items would be used for everyday pve, while the pvp individuals wouldnt care as they would just re-roll and get fresh equipment.

The problem with runes, in this instance, is that the traders were given a very finite stock and combined with how making characters work, yeilds the possibility that every player in the game could potentially need or use one. This problem is compounded when you observe the cost of major runes versus their effect, when compared against superior runes. Then the issue is magnified, due to how random drops are and what selection of monsters yeild the possibility for the drop to occur.

I would personally argue that this game does not even have a working economy, as the resources become rather stagnant over time.

Oh come now, surely you can post why I need to with something more original that that. I mean seriously.

Was my post offensive or wrong?

Sit down before you hurt yourself.

The Frog has no problems with the Honorable Farmer

Amen Brother

And then the question arises whether the 105/55 is actually supposed to be there, if not then its not honorable. If so then it is. :P

People who find themselves invincible will soon find themselves surprised. Thus spake the Frog! (paraphrased mind you)

Let's keep this frog nonsense out of sensible threads, shall we? As with most religious texts, you can twist any 'saying' to mean whatever you want it to mean, so in the end you're just presenting your own opinion without any further argumentation, yet pretending to be speaking for ArenaNet.

blasphemer... if you had read the Frog's you couldn't say that. The Frog tells truths whereas we simply speculate.

I'm not against farming as long as its done for personal use and you sell to NPC traders. thus maintaining the market for everyone else. What We object too is those that hoard them only to keep the price high, then sell to players and never making the price go down. This happens a lot still... Thus the Monk rune market out of stock. not from lack of runes either. its just those that have TONS of them don't sell to npcs so the availability never emerges, which keep the price at 30K plus for them.

The other factor is those that sell gold for real money. something that is strictly against the Rules of Conduct and the EULA. But it still happens. Personally I don't care as long as a player keeps themselves righteous. In other words, as long as they are not exploiting others in some way and they are playing the game as designed... then who cares. more power too you. If you enjoy this repetitive action so be it.

Just don't turn around and screw yourself and everyone else by doing something stupid to effect the market. I dump runes regularly on the nps just to be rid of them even for just 25 gold. Thus keeping them in stock. but every time I dump a superior monk rune on the market it is gone in seconds. Yet the one I need is NEVER Available cept from a player vendor. and that is unacceptable. Seeing as Players will scam another without thinking twice about it. So why should ANYONE trust another in the game. Some people actually believe they have a right to charge 200k for a superior Smiting rune. and call me a n00b for snubbing that price. Basically I tell them to go jump in a lake. Cause they need to cool off their ego.

Arenanet has assured us that future updates will lock down the trader market for more stability. but they have other things to attend too first. and I can understand this. I'm willing to wait for whatever they have planned. I'm expecting a type of vendor lock on supply and ceiling and floor on prices from what I was told. Hopefully this will cut the middle men out of the market and open up availability again for everyone.

When you compare botting issues with farming issues... farming seems like a pretty minor disruption in the economy. Someone spends hours getting gold and items to get themselves rich... another person spends 20 bucks and is hit in an instant with 500 plat... Here is where the economy's biggest problems lie.