Inflation tax

EVE Technology and Research Center Player Features & Ideas
1

Hello.

My proposal’s goal is to remove a part of isk generation due to power creep.
This is, to reduce the inflation in Eve. Not sure if this is a problem, assuming this is one.

The idea is very simple : you remove a part of every isk generated, this part being proportional to how much money there is present in the game.

Inflation Tax

This tax is applied to

  • NPC BO prices (not visible in journal). If the tax is eg 20% then the SO of the item is dynamically adjusted to be 80% of the base price.
  • bounties from rats (through an additional tax shown in transactions)
  • mission reward (and bonus) from agents (shown in transactions).
  • incursion rewards.
  • insurance payout prices and purchase prices . The purchase price is modified by the rate of the inflation tax at the moment of purchase, the payout price at the moment of the loss.

Basically everything that generates isks inside the game.
The tax value is not “removed” from the player wallet, instead it’s present as a description . This way the eg corp tax won’t take that tax value into account, only what the player actually got. eg if the tax is 10%; and I should get 100 isk, in my wallet I will see a +90 isk, and a -10 from inflation tax, so my corp will only apply the 5% tax on those 90 isk, not on the total 100.

Inflation value

Basically the inflation tax is computed based on the total amount of isks present in the game.

assuming we now have a total 1.4P isk in game, that tax value should be equal to 1.4P/ MAX_VALUE.
eg if the max value is chosen at 2B, that means that we remove 1.4/2 = 70% of all isk production. (so a multiplication of income by 0.3)

If this is too much, we can adjust all isk production value by dividing them by 0.3 (so in the end the real income will be 0.3*base_value/0.3 = base_value) and only later increase in the players total wealth will actually result in a reduction of players income.

We can of course use different value for MAX_VALUE and the present adjust value.

Effect.

Basically if too many players create isk(and not enough lose isks), the quantity of isk created will reach 0 if we get close enough to MAX_VALUE. In turns that means players can’t actually have more than MAX_VALUE ISK in total in the universe.

This however leads to a small isue : isk hoarding would allow people to get ISK, and use them later once their price is more expensive. ie price manipulation.

This can be avoided by setting the max_value to a high enough value, so that the effect of total value on the isk generation is less important.
eg setting max value to 10P (so tax is 14% - so we need to divide the base incomes by 0.86 to keep value).

2

With my limited knowledge of economics, I would say this would only further the divide between rich and poor, to a point where (if it hasn’t already occurred), The top 1% will have a greater net worth than the combination of the remaining 99%. It would also be felt more significantly by the new bro, than the vet.

I would propose and income tax similar to that of the RL, UK in particular.

A Base income per hour would be assumed as a ‘Low earner’. Earning below this amount would be tax free. A second figure would be assume, which if earning where above, would pay a higher percentage as tax. Earning between would pay a lower tax.

This would only target isk generation, i.e. belt ratting, anomalies ect.

As an example, Killing NPC’s in anomalies (figures for example purposes only):

Low income set at >30mil Isk/hour
High income set at >90mil Isk per hour

Each hour, there are 3 Ticks, or payment.

If the income of one tick, is 10mil or less, no tax occurs.

If the income of one tick is 30mil, 10mil would be tax free, the remaining 20mil would be tax at regular rate.

If income of one tick is 50mil, 10mil would be tax free, 20mil would be at regular tax, and the remaining 20 mil would be at high tax rates.

Lets plug in some assumed tax rate percentages.

Regular tax = 20%
High Tax = 40%

Player tick of 18mil

10mil tax free + ((8mil/100)*80) = 16.4mil (1.6mil tax)

Player tick of 55mil

10mil tax free + ((20mil/100)*80) + ((25mil/100)*60) = 41mil (14mil tax)

Remember, figures used are for example only.

Imo, this would allow for poorer, or less experianced players to increase there wealth, and the more experianced, higher earners to still pull in a good income.

3

nope, this would apply exactly the same to both.

That makes literally no sense. Using several alts to generate the same amount of money would result in me being not taxed.

Also I often play in chunks of game time, eg only 20 min. With this modification I should alternate the alts to reduce my ticks and not be taxed.

you are not limited to 3 ticks per hour. Sometimes I can make 14 ticks per hour.
I’ve made 47M ticks, as well as 900k ticks, during the same hour.

This is off topic. There is no need for poorer players to increase their wealth. The sole issue this is trying to address, is isk INFLATION, that is increase of the total isk amount in the game, that makes isk value reduced with time.

4

How would this exactly effect the “power creep” or players in general? I suggest for you to go study (even wikipedia) about currencies, money and closed economies. Then it will be clear to you that in the big picture the “value” of isk is irrelevant, as long as its the only curency used for day to day trading.

5

That’s only correct as long as all values can be indexed on the currency value. Which is not true : some values are fixed.

But as written in the OP, this is assuming the inflation is an issue. If it is not, then … well it’s not.

2 Likes
6

You are greatly mistaken here. The ones with most isk / wealth are likely traders and industrialists - and neither trade nor industry generates isk.

Also how do you measure inflation? Cause when I look at prices of most inputs they are not much different from the past and can be easily explained by spacepolitical situation.

7

I agree that inflation is not visible on every item in the game. And it may as well be a mistake/illusion.

But the prices of all my fits have grown a lot (like +50%) over the past few years. That alone is not a mistake ! look at my killmails, and simulate the fit and it’s like +50% price ! (really, I did the test and was astonished)

Revolution ! Kamarad, let’s fight the inflation enemy with all our might !

8

Then the solution is easy! For every instance of ISK generation 100% of money is taken away and evenly distributed every hour to all players online that have been in space at least X amount of time during that hour (cloaked, tethered and time under forcefield does not count). NO more hoarding, Komrade!!!

1 Like
9

Do you store plex in your cargohold or something? I’m sorry, but if you spent a couple of seconds looking at the MER you would see that the CPI has actually gone down due to the huge supply of minerals. Literally the only things that have gone up are items that can’t be built, i.e plex and byproducts and high meta items

10

plextank, besttank !

Maybe it’s the deadspace modules that became more expensive ?

11

Yes, deadspace and SOME faction modules have become more expensive compared to a few years ago. However, they’re a very niche market, and an inflation tax would affect the entire market. By adjusting the taxes so that they line up with a relatively niche market, you would effectively crash the rest of the market’s prices. Since rorquals mine so much ore, our current rate of inflation isn’t even enough to keep up with the rate of production, resulting in a drop in prices everywhere else. Just for an example, titans used to be 80-90b for just a hull, and now they’re slipping to roughly 50b. Most T1 cruisers are sitting at around 6-7m when they used to sell for 10-12m. If you want to reduce the prices on shinies without making everything else worthless, CCP would actually need to increase the drop rates.

2 Likes
12

deadspace are more expensive because their production is hard limited . The more you dropped, the less you drop. Actually you have a limit, like 30 of each deadspace per day (don’t know the exact quantity, and it’s not per day). Even if the deadspace modules were not hard limited, the commander spawns are .
So their quantity produced proportionally decreases when compared to isk.

anoms, belts and moons should also have a hard limit. quantity in anoms *24/ respawn time , for each anom.

Same for blue T3 stuff

The only things that are not hard limited in Eve is the production of junk from the agents missions - and the isk.

13

How about stop nerfing loot and bounty pay outs…why doesn’t anyone say, INCREASE bounty pay outs because its a freaking game, and it always makes players feel better when the get stuff as aposed to you taking stuff…simple guys…stop f’n yourselves.

14

because when your bounty is not limited, it’s value is proportional to the part you are creating in the game.
If you increase all values by 10%, that is actually the same thing as if you don’t increase anything.
Conversely, if you decrease everything by 10%, that is exactly as if you don’t decrease anything. And that’s what I am proposing. The goals is therefore to have the global value of isk constant.

1 Like
15

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