One of the major reasons plex prices have increased past year is the addition of skill injectors. This introduction has led to a vast increase of plex consumption through skill point farms and extractor usage.
The question is if this effect on plex prices is desirable from CCP’s standpoint. I believe CCP has stated in the past that they think there is an “optimal” plex price range, they were also actually concerned their mini plex change would tank plex prices.
If plex price control is desired, one way to effectively control plex prices is to introduce meaningful amounts of Plex rewards from loot drops and missions. Currently the amount dropped is pretty insignificant and I propose making more use of this. Varying the amount dropped gives almost complete control over plex price without directly affecting plex sales (only influenced by the reduced price). This will act as a counterweight to the increased plex consumption.
Of course the bounty isk faucets still need to be fixed to fix the skewed income distribution.
PLEX prices are high because there is much more demand than there is supply, which means there is much more ISK going into the economy than ever before.
That would only be true if everything else was rising in price as well. This is more demand rising higher than supply combined with players being WILLING to pay that much.
If CCP used PLEX drops in any significant amount, they would be cutting their own throat - giving away game time. Over the past couple of years CCP has been progressively removing ISK sinks from the game - a lot of stuff we used to buy from NPCs are now available from other players. If the money supply grows faster than the economy people will look for safe havens to store the excess cash - in Eve, that means PLEX.
Reversing the trend will require reducing the faucets, increasing taxes and more stuff we need to buy from NPCs . Examples might include a universal tax on bounties, charters for Upwell structures or increased transaction taxes. These would pull trillions out of the economy each month but spread the burden across most of the player base so it’s barely noticeable.
The introduction of skill injectors has created a systematic increase in the demand of PLEX due to the creation of skill point farms.
This is a systematic factor that will remain in effect even if isk bounties are reduced.
Isk bounty inflation is indeed another factor why prices are so high. This is something that is being worked on by making it harder to rat in carriers.
Another factor is speculation and hoarding of Plex, however this is a natural market phenomena and shouldn’t be corrected.
If you wanted something harsh, you could “account bind” them once they passed on the market at once which would kill it as a safe investment. We don’t really know how much of the rise is due to manipulation and shortage because of stockpiling as investment.
The more I think about this, the more I’m convinced nerfing current faucets is not enough to achieve a healthier game. I believe highsec Incursions and anom ratting have to be nerfed to reduce inflation, but EVE desperately needs new, more engaging PvE content that players want to do not only because they need ISK, but also because it’s fun. Ideally, this content should also encourage more PvP.
You could also put subscriptions on sale for up to an entire year and thus reduce demand for PLEX and still make money for CCP to keep developing the game…now if only CCP would think to do this, What they just did!
Good job CCP!
(goes into apoplectic shock at ever having typed that last sentence).
Those mini-plex drops from events don’t really count as the amount is incredibly small. Below what’s confiscated from rmt and bots and what they previously injected into the market to control price.
PVE doesn’t need to be a huge ISK faucet. Instead of dropping shiny baubles as loot, CCP could award loyalty points or drop Nexus chips that are traded at a loyalty point store, along with a modest amount of ISK, for a shiny bauble that can be sold on the in-game market for considerably more ISK. Ideally the bauble will be consumable and time limited like the Crimson Harvest boosters.
People didn’t run the Crimson Harvest sites for the bounties - they wanted the skins and boosters. OK - give them loyalty points they can combine with ISK to buy those items. Turn the event into an ISK sink!
No. That is what called marker law - demand / offer.
Price is rising because ppl start earning more money. So the demand is growing, but offer is same or even going down.
Plex price should not be manually regulated.
Otherwise it will kill eve economics.
Yup, only to be expected with all the new alpha clones out there looking to Omega their accounts.
Two bumps could be expected… one as the bulk of the original new alpha accounts reach the point where they actually manage to accumulate enough ISK so they can PLEX and another when those who chose to not PLEX until they finished training all alpha skills PLEX their’s.
The second bump should have started to happen a while back now.
So it should stabilize & then (in comparison to the ISK price of other in game goods & services) slide back a little, in fact I think I’ve already seen that begin to happen.
You can’t multi-box alpha’s & going after drops isn’t something you can do while logged off (like a market order) so 1,000 alts would be a bit pointless for this
Do you really think sufficiently vast numbers of us illegally multi-boxing 1,000 plus alpha’s to be a real issue for them is actually something CCP need to worry about?
