Price of Plex - Market intervention Required from CCP

It has a cap, and that cap is how many characters players are willing to support, so while the cap is fluid it does incur a cost, both in time spent and PLEX consumed, so yes it does exist

Indeed, the system is self regulating, hence there is no requirement for CCP to actually intervene at all, thank you for agreeing with that

Except for the part where they make more money from the current system than they ever would with the old one :stuck_out_tongue:

Hence its extremely productive for CCP

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Well, you’re not allowed to do so, but even then is it just not a new source of SP, and no amount of new characters that you create will change this. All you would do is to suddenly realise that if you were to train N characters that you could also get N-times more SPs. This is however not new and as old as the game. What is new is that by not holding on to all SPs, but by extracting and injecting them, do you destroy some of it.

I think you got confused here. first this is not a cap, second you don’t understand what a HARD cap is.

A cap on SP production is a NUMBER that is the maximum of SP produced.
If for whatever value you choose, this value can be theoretically reached after a finite amount of time, then by definition there is no cap.
Since players can create as many toons as they want, there is no such a cap.

THEN a hard cap is a value that is written to be the limit that can by rule never be reached. A soft cap is a value that can temporarily be reached but mechanisms are present to ensure this value is in reality the maximum you can expect to reach over a long time.

For example there is a hard cap on isk generation from anomalies, because the number of anomalies present is capped : if you have 25 anoms at max per system, 2000 systems, an anom generates 25M isks, and respawns every 10 min, then you can generate at max 200025M25*6 = 7.5 T isk per hour. That is a hard cap.
Now if you also have a mechanism that limits the respawn of anoms if too many are farmed for the next day, you will also have a soft cap that will be lower than the hard cap. You may have more isk on one day than this soft cap, but next day you will have less.

Seeing as i’m the person who actually brought it up in the first place, i think i’m more than aware of what i meant, and yes it IS a hard cap, its just a hard cap that has a variable upper limit

The comment is in relation to CCP knowing exactly how many SP can be generated at any given period of time, there is no way to generate more SP than can be made by the maximum number of characters that exist with omega skillqueues, ergo there IS a hard cap, if CCP were to start selling proper injectors, that would actually make SP generation infinite and this would then result in there being no hard cap on SP generation

Its simple math in terms of knowing exactly how much SP can be generated per day, just because that cap keeps getting raised that doesn’t really change the fact that you’re not generating SP out of thin air

Just because it’s limited by a factor does not mean it’s a cap. Especially not hard cap.

Again, a cap is a MAXIMUM NUMBER that can be reached.
Since there is no maximum number of accounts, there is no hard cap on SP creation.
CCP did not create a hard cap on SP creation.
That means, with enough time and money, you can have an infinite amount of SP creation (eg per hour).

And I think you are not aware of what a “hard cap” means.

I understood him perfectly.

Then tell us what is this maximum NUMBER of SP creation that is implemented in Eve Online ?

Selling injectors in the store for PLEX is hardly the old system. Buyers of injectors pay the identical price and thus you would have the the same economic equilibrium.

I want to give two examples illustrating of why extractors (and not injectors) are the primary source of Eve’s economic problems:

  1. I have a friend of mine who has been paying four subs for many years, $400+ a year for CCP. Just this month, he decided he doesn’t feel the need to accrue more SP in Eve anymore and is converting all 4 accounts to SP extraction mode. PLEX prices will rise because of his new consumption of 2K + ~1.7K PLEX per month (the demand curve). Economics also tells us that more PLEX will be bought with money and sold to compensate for that higher price; however, it also tells us that the aggregate amount will not be the same, it will be a little less, because real world PLEX demand is not inelastic. Imagine if 500 PLEX was 140B ISK, you could just buy one, and be set forever spending $20 on Eve as you could buy 2 titans with it.

  2. Back in 2013, I trained my first trader alt. I was still pretty new and I had him on the trade-focused Cha/Mem remap. One of the skills I trained then was the incredibly useless Marketing V. That skill, which I paid for 6 years ago has now been extracted, sold to buy PLEX, and redeployed to become Advanced Laboratory Operation so I have more research slots. This is what I mean by ever escalating productivity gains, and the rise of PLEX prices. I took this liquid asset that yielded 0 ISK and turned it into a much higher yielding one. If I wasn’t able to extract, CCP would not have earned 110 PLEX from me, so they may believe that I should be able to extract Marketing V. However, I was going to train Advanced Laboratory Operation anyways, and once I have it trained on all of my characters and all of my alts, I will have a very productive setup and will never need to buy a sub or a PLEX again. Extractors are steadily increasing player productivity, particularly of those willing to manage lots of alts. We want the hardcore players to not be so productive that they have no need to open their wallets. “Factory” players are not good for the game because they each price out several newbies seeking to PLEX with FW LP for example, and are thus making Eve smaller. If CCP does not remove extractors, then they have to put a cap on the # of Omega alts per account but that is a less elegant solution that is likely less palatable.

The longer CCP waits to change this, the worse it’s going to be for them. They need to realize they are in the SP selling business - that is their core product. They got a big infusion of money from the 110 PLEX I paid to extract marketing V, but the party has to end soon or else hyperinflation of PLEX prices will kick in.

It’s the number of SPs, which can be created at any given moment based on the existing SP accumulation by actively training characters.

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so, there is none. So you don’t understand what a CAP is.

Don’t try too hard… That people talk not only about hard numbers but also about variables should be known to you through math. So don’t act like a hard cap would always be a hard number.

Don’t try too hard, a hard cap IS a number.

So is a variable.

no it’s not.

Seriously you suffered some heavy brain damage. Saying “a variable is a number” is completely retard.

Now you are telling me dogs are cats. Without a single shame.

You’re having a hard time comprehending others. That’s ok, but don’t let your frustration out on others. Nobody here has got “heavy brain damage”. Keep your cool.

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You’re having a hard time understanding you used the wrong terms. That’s ok but then you start saying cats are dogs and start full retard mode. Keep your cool.

You may had an interesting point in the post you made, but the moment you affirm there is a hard cap on SP creation, your whole post becomes bullshÂĄt.

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I kinda like where you are going with this. I don’t think I grasp the potential side effects of such a change (CCP selling SP directly for a fixed Plex price) as I am always expecting ‘the law of unintended consequences’ to throw a curve ball at us whenever a solution looks simple and effective.

I do agree that (by default) encouraging players to turn every alt account into an SP farming and ISK farming alt, and providing the means to do so, is not good for the game. While people talk about ‘SP destruction’ from injectors, without that incentive people would not be multi-training those alt accounts anyway, and they certainly wouldn’t be trading those alt-SPs on the market… so I think the SP destruction point is another red herring thrown out by those who want the practice to continue.

What EVE really needs is ISK destruction(sinking), and materiel destruction (to consume all that ridiculous production coming out of Null). They do also need more products they can sell - subs, Plex, MCTs, skins and extractor/injectors simply is not a sustainable cash shop in todays MMO market.

On the other hand (<-- see, I’m a real economist!), I feel that EVE does need either a catch-up mechanism or an alteration to the way skill training works. Looking at your skill queue and thinking ‘hey, in only 247 days I can be flying an ‘X’’, may have worked okay ‘back in the day’… it is not really competitive in today’s busy MMO market.

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yes, in theory they CAN do that… have you ever tried it though? I have. I did 5 characters, and it was one of the most painful things I have ever had to do. not to mention time consuming and takes a LOOOOOONG time to actually start getting a return on investment.

not sure if you’ve noticed, but SP farms are not actually profitable right now. even using buy orders for the plex, sell orders for the injectors etc. you still come out with a deficit of about 200m isk, even for accounts with 3 characters (so can use the MPTC’s for a discount)

even when they are profitable, you only REALLY make your isk off the 2nd and 3rd character slots. at alpha training speed, and since they can only use +3 implants, it takes roughly 5 months to train up to 5m SP and to be truly profitable you need all 3 characters, so thats 15 months, of logging in at least once every 2-3 days (often times every day) just to save 14-15 bil getting all those characters trained up. or hell, just going over to the charactar bazaar and buying a SP farm character for 6b or less each. not to mention those are 15 months that you aren’t earning any profits from those characters (while a purchased one can start producing isk instantly, and a trained up one takes 2-3 months to start producing any profit, let alone breaking even.)

and thats just for 1 account, to earn a whopping profit ranging from -200m to ~400m per month (depending on how good or bad the prices are) now your telling me, that you think there is a whole bunch of people out there, going out and spending hours, every single day, setting skill queues on 50+ of these, for over a year at a time, just to turn a couple hundred mil per month? hell, you would be better off using those R&D agents for datacores. at least thats actually passive income once you get it going.

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This should be the same for omega injectors. 1800000 total SP you may inject monthly bought directly from CCP. Cap would be BS class. Supers for dedicated players only, buying from character bazaar is not the same as injecting everything with few clicks. We on spiral now. Vets telling alphas to go to NS and inject for capital ratting is missile in the knee. The more injectors are needed the more plex would be suck up from market by SP farms the more time would have to be spent on ratting for said plex. Now not NS donkey will leave because the stick that holding the carrot become longer and longer every day, and most topics alphas are talking are: how to plex.

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Yes and no. As G.E.P Box put it, “All models are wrong, but some are useful.” Or,

… all models are approximations. Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful. However, the approximate nature of the model must always be borne in mind…

In fact, models, being simplifications of reality, are by definition wrong…so if your nihilist sophistry above is true why even do it at all? Because in certain contexts models can be useful at gaining insights as to how things work.

Nonsense…they have looked and looked for non-linear dynamics that are sensitive to initial conditions in economic data and just haven’t found it.

Sure…

Nice job contradicting yourself. You just got done telling us we can’t know anything, all models are wrong thatwe don’t have enough information, but you know what CCP should do.

Oh and…

Hahahaha…:rofl:

Uhhhmmmm no. ISK is liquid, SP are not. They must be extracted first which comes at a cost, then sold, which comes at a cost…so they are not liquid, they are actually illiquid assets.

Says who? Maybe…maybe not.

What does this mean?

Uhhh no…once I get a skill like that to level V I am not going to extract.

Until they get blown up by the guy who still has that skill trained to V.

Do you know what a substitute good is?

Why are you fixated on acquiring PLEX?

This would be a terrible idea. The whole idea extractors is so that SP is not being created out of thin air.

Nobody is saying “don’t create new SP” just as nobody (who knows better) is saying “don’t crease new ISK”. It is the creating it out of thin air for RL money. Training takes time…and time is a valuable commodity. People trade time for SP and trade time for ISK. Creating SP or ISK out of thin air is what will debase things like SP and ISK.

And this is not a problem. It is not a problem because of the increasing costs associated with injecting SP. That cost basically destroys SP…it is an SP sink once a player passes the 5 million SP.

I really wish people proclaiming to understand economics would demonstrate even the slightest understanding of opportunity cost of time…

It is new SP that takes time. So not a problem. Now if you dropped $20 and just got 30 days of SP or say 1.5 million SP that would be creating SP out of thin air. Creating in game resources out of thin air is a sure fire way to ruin the game. It would be impossible to balance.

Yes, not instantaneously.

This is the height of stupidity.

Why can’t we have private fiat currencies? Because at a certain point each issuer of fiat currency has a very strong incentive to suddenly inflate the currency and destroy it, but walk away with a nice bundle of cash. This is what you are essentially advocating. That CCP basically create a fiat currency in SP.

Derp…it isn’t so much the ISK sink, but the SP sink.

Depends. If I injected those 4 injectors on my main I’d only get 600,000 the other 1.4 million would be destroyed.

For someone claiming to be some sort of economist you have zero clue about the rate of time preference.

Man Douglas North just rolled over in his grave at that…

Sooo…PLEX are a Giffen Good?

And how much SP were destroyed in the process?

Not anymore than time would. Once you go over 5 million SP SP are being destroyed. All other things held constant SP would go down.

Even though the in game CPI is showing at most mild inflation…

Yes, it is called debasing SP. In fact, this could lead to the increasing productivity that Eveconomist is worried about. Players could just buy SP at a fixed rate and are limited only by their own RL income/wealth. Right now SP have to be created in game over time, and thus trying to buy more and more will, as Eveconomist correctly notes, will result in a rising price and there is the increasing destruction of SP.

Deflation is bad for economies. I don’t know why everyone wants to keep on sinking ISK when the inflation index shows little problem with inflation.

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