This is for anyone who thinks hackers help deflate economy:
Before I go into any deep analysis, there are a few facts that I would like you to remember:
1. There is a theoretically infinite amount of mesos being produced everyday. Amount of total MS mesos available is not limited per say compared to real life government money printing.
2. Merchants who buy low and resell high are still functioning on this total amount of mesos available in the game.
3. Mesos drop more often than items. i.e. you don't have 1 Ilbi drop per 1 meso generated. This implies that the ratio of mesos available to items present is always > 1, and let's say that this is constant, since drop rates are assumably constant, with or without hacks.
4. The only way we bring this infinitely accumulating supply of mesos as stated in (1) out of the game is through either exploding the mesos into thin air (i.e. Meso Explosion, Dueying mesos to a character and deleting the package), giving out the mesos to NPC (i.e. buying potions, Secret Spell Scroll), or conducting trade and allowing the tax system to effectively take however little mesos out of the game with each transaction.
5. The basic law of supply vs. demand in the sense of inflation is this: If demand is constant, and if there is more supply, then an increase in supply (shifts supply curve to the right) will cause a decrease in price. If all other things constant, when supply of a particular item stays the same, then on a personal basis, demand of that item increases when one is personally richer.
6. Gachapon increases supply without increasing demand, and causes deflation.
Now with those 6 points laid out, I will like you to consider all 6 at once in analogy with hackers.
Suppose a hacker hacks at Wolf Spiders for one night. From past figures obtained through talking with hackers, they generate about 20 mil raw mesos per hour. Because the drop rate is logically assumably constant for both hackers and non hackers, that means that however many Ilbis (let's take this as the item of interest to analyze here) that this hacker finds in an hour is the same amount of Ilbis that the legit player would find eventually after having made 20 mil raw mesos at Wolf Spiders. Basically, the hacker just kills a lot faster -> brings more mesos and more Ilbis into the game.
So how would this affect the game?
For one, over night, the total amount of Ilbis and mesos available to the market would have increased about 20 times as fast as it should have. That is, merchants now have +20 mil to play around with and merchant with instead of +1 mil (theoretically that's how much raw mesos someone might pick up at Wolf Spiders in an hour). So what does that mean? It means that merchants get richer faster. What do merchants do with those mesos once they get rich? They have more power to buy whatever they want. So what happens if merchants gain more power to buy whatever they want? It means the common folks who do not merchant find themselves squandering the FM for the next cheapest item that is still being bought out by more and more merchants.
But wait a second, why would this be any different if a legit player were to kill Wolf Spiders? Ilbis would be much rarer, and incoming mesos rate is lower too. So shouldn't prices be unaffected? Aha! You're forgetting one crucial thing! Unlike hackers, legit players do not actually have the same ratio of amount of mesos made / items found. Why? Because we need to buy potions! Ask any legit player who trains actively and keeps track of mesos picked up vs. potion costs. Most will tell you that they either spend more each repot or they barely break even. It is only cases of say level 14x+ hunting at Wolf Spiders when amount of raw mesos picked up < amount of money poured into NPC for potions.
In other words, hackers allow the total amount of mesos in the economy to vastly go boom because they do not take the mesos out of the game, whereas a normal player brings more items into the market with overall zero economic profit (meaning, they break even in terms of total costs and benefits).
That above being proven, then you may ask me...how do I explain the recent deflation and inflation? What has been actually happening to the market if what I say is true?
Well, being a merchant and MS market analyzer, here's an explanation for every single notable inflation/deflation event there has been lately:
Q: Why was Horntail skill books so expensive in the past and not anymore?
A: Having from suffered from hackers bringing in vast amount of mesos into the game, it means that overall, people who merchant at all are extremely rich and have a huge amount of mesos to play around with. This means that, with the initial release of Horntail, since the demand for higher leveled skill books are extremely high, those who won the competetion for the skill books are the rich people. However, because the number of people who needs skill books increases daily (i.e. more Bishops leveling up -> needing Gen 30), this demand never really quite goes down at the rate that Horntail was being killed. However, with the surge of Horntail killers and Gachapon Box events, that demand and supply level were met, and prices fell accordingly now that less people need the books.
Q: So hackers brought down prices for HT books like Gen 30. They cause deflation, right?
A: Right and wrong in this case. Horntail, unlike other monsters, do not give an overly high amount of mesos (just count the number of 50k bags after HT is killed. lol) in ratio of raw mesos picked up to items dropped. This means that Horntail hackers were actually bringing in much more items into the game without raw mesos...that causes deflation. However, this is only the case of Horntail hackers. You must not forget the argument made above and proven about regular monster hackers. Continuing on this point, because there was a booming rate of supply to meet this demand, prices for books gradually went down (Gen 30 went from 450 mil in Broa to 280 mil by end of Horntail hacking), with still the rich people controlling the market.
Q: So what about scroll prices and Ilbis?
A: When Ilbis were originally 35-40 mil each, they dropped from Spirit Vikings only. This was back then 2 years ago during the first hacking outbreak. Apply what was discussed earlier, and you should arrive at the answer of why they were so expensive.
Q: Following up, so how come those prices dropped?
A: With release of NLC, Wolf Spiders dropped Ilbis at the exact same drop rate as Lycans (don't ask me where I got this info from, but it isn't out of thin air.
) This would obviously lead to an increase in supply. From here it should be obvious why we got our first price dip on Ilbis from 35 to 20 mil.
Q: So how about the second price dip of Ilbis to 13 mil? And then the final one to 7-8 mil of today?
A: Substitution effect. When Crystal Ilbis and Phantom Forest came out, Icicles were about to be bought for a measely 2k per set, and the more powerful Crystal Ilbis were able to be forged. For the low leveled folks, this lowered demand for Kumbis and Tobis (which is why Tobis went from 1.5 mil to 700k). Since star prices are all rather relative of each other due to the substitution effect, Steelies prices fell too (in conjunction with the fact that Leprechauns spit them out like candy to a baby too), and so did Ilbi prices. To reply to Stereo's post below, Crystal Ilbis was also something that allowed the higher levels an alternative to Ilbis, however, because each set of Crystal Ilbis required a set of Ilbis to make, it does not affect the overall stars economy by too much, except that the richer are pouring out more mesos per set bought, and that in itself leads to more mesos being brought out of the game due to the tax per transaction -> overall deflation. The last and final price dip is caused by the ability to easily create Balanced Fury Throwing Stars with the release of Taos from Gachapon event and then CWK PQ. Again, your basic substitution effect that Stereo explains nicely below.
Q: What explains the most recent deflation and inflation on certain scrolls (Cape prices dropping fast, while a few other dark scroll prices are soaring like crazy)?
A: For one, with the abundance of Chaos Scrolls, regular stat cape scrolls are demanded a lot less, so their prices are on the ever decline. Weapon specific scroll prices are soaring through the roof because of upcoming anniversary event and anticipation to scroll more weapons. However, generic scrolls like Glove ATK, Earring INT/DEX/LUK, OA DEX/INT/LUK are still fairly constant in price because of the relatively unchanged demand and supply.
Q: What should we expect to see in the future?
A: More deflation, if Nexon is on top of things. It is generally in their best interest to make things affordable for everyone. Reasons for that: cheaper scrolls and other "valuable" goods promotes better equipments and higher damage, which in turn leads to faster leveling and a more enjoyable experience of the game. More happy players = more NX buyers and less quitters = more money for Nexon. As we have seen in the last 4 months or so, Gach Box events was an obvious attempt to crumble the grips of merchants on the economy, the lately increased banning of hackers and meso sellers and this latest Gach Box event is bringing down prices even more. CWK PQ bonus awards some of the most sought-after skill books and players are no longer required to pay a hefty amount of mesos for them through HT killers. I would say it's pretty obvious at what Nexon is trying to do.
Just ask the merchants. They will tell you about the deflation they all feel (hell I feel it, that's why I'm selling certain things as fast as I could), and they will tell you how much they hate Nexon for Gach Box events.
Perhaps one day they will also sense how much more difficult it is to merchant without hackers inflating the economy...hm...I'm feeling that already. Is it a coincidence that they are being massively permanently banned? :o
Before I go into any deep analysis, there are a few facts that I would like you to remember:
1. There is a theoretically infinite amount of mesos being produced everyday. Amount of total MS mesos available is not limited per say compared to real life government money printing.
2. Merchants who buy low and resell high are still functioning on this total amount of mesos available in the game.
3. Mesos drop more often than items. i.e. you don't have 1 Ilbi drop per 1 meso generated. This implies that the ratio of mesos available to items present is always > 1, and let's say that this is constant, since drop rates are assumably constant, with or without hacks.
4. The only way we bring this infinitely accumulating supply of mesos as stated in (1) out of the game is through either exploding the mesos into thin air (i.e. Meso Explosion, Dueying mesos to a character and deleting the package), giving out the mesos to NPC (i.e. buying potions, Secret Spell Scroll), or conducting trade and allowing the tax system to effectively take however little mesos out of the game with each transaction.
5. The basic law of supply vs. demand in the sense of inflation is this: If demand is constant, and if there is more supply, then an increase in supply (shifts supply curve to the right) will cause a decrease in price. If all other things constant, when supply of a particular item stays the same, then on a personal basis, demand of that item increases when one is personally richer.
6. Gachapon increases supply without increasing demand, and causes deflation.
Now with those 6 points laid out, I will like you to consider all 6 at once in analogy with hackers.
Suppose a hacker hacks at Wolf Spiders for one night. From past figures obtained through talking with hackers, they generate about 20 mil raw mesos per hour. Because the drop rate is logically assumably constant for both hackers and non hackers, that means that however many Ilbis (let's take this as the item of interest to analyze here) that this hacker finds in an hour is the same amount of Ilbis that the legit player would find eventually after having made 20 mil raw mesos at Wolf Spiders. Basically, the hacker just kills a lot faster -> brings more mesos and more Ilbis into the game.
So how would this affect the game?
For one, over night, the total amount of Ilbis and mesos available to the market would have increased about 20 times as fast as it should have. That is, merchants now have +20 mil to play around with and merchant with instead of +1 mil (theoretically that's how much raw mesos someone might pick up at Wolf Spiders in an hour). So what does that mean? It means that merchants get richer faster. What do merchants do with those mesos once they get rich? They have more power to buy whatever they want. So what happens if merchants gain more power to buy whatever they want? It means the common folks who do not merchant find themselves squandering the FM for the next cheapest item that is still being bought out by more and more merchants.
But wait a second, why would this be any different if a legit player were to kill Wolf Spiders? Ilbis would be much rarer, and incoming mesos rate is lower too. So shouldn't prices be unaffected? Aha! You're forgetting one crucial thing! Unlike hackers, legit players do not actually have the same ratio of amount of mesos made / items found. Why? Because we need to buy potions! Ask any legit player who trains actively and keeps track of mesos picked up vs. potion costs. Most will tell you that they either spend more each repot or they barely break even. It is only cases of say level 14x+ hunting at Wolf Spiders when amount of raw mesos picked up < amount of money poured into NPC for potions.
In other words, hackers allow the total amount of mesos in the economy to vastly go boom because they do not take the mesos out of the game, whereas a normal player brings more items into the market with overall zero economic profit (meaning, they break even in terms of total costs and benefits).
That above being proven, then you may ask me...how do I explain the recent deflation and inflation? What has been actually happening to the market if what I say is true?
Well, being a merchant and MS market analyzer, here's an explanation for every single notable inflation/deflation event there has been lately:
Q: Why was Horntail skill books so expensive in the past and not anymore?
A: Having from suffered from hackers bringing in vast amount of mesos into the game, it means that overall, people who merchant at all are extremely rich and have a huge amount of mesos to play around with. This means that, with the initial release of Horntail, since the demand for higher leveled skill books are extremely high, those who won the competetion for the skill books are the rich people. However, because the number of people who needs skill books increases daily (i.e. more Bishops leveling up -> needing Gen 30), this demand never really quite goes down at the rate that Horntail was being killed. However, with the surge of Horntail killers and Gachapon Box events, that demand and supply level were met, and prices fell accordingly now that less people need the books.
Q: So hackers brought down prices for HT books like Gen 30. They cause deflation, right?
A: Right and wrong in this case. Horntail, unlike other monsters, do not give an overly high amount of mesos (just count the number of 50k bags after HT is killed. lol) in ratio of raw mesos picked up to items dropped. This means that Horntail hackers were actually bringing in much more items into the game without raw mesos...that causes deflation. However, this is only the case of Horntail hackers. You must not forget the argument made above and proven about regular monster hackers. Continuing on this point, because there was a booming rate of supply to meet this demand, prices for books gradually went down (Gen 30 went from 450 mil in Broa to 280 mil by end of Horntail hacking), with still the rich people controlling the market.
Q: So what about scroll prices and Ilbis?
A: When Ilbis were originally 35-40 mil each, they dropped from Spirit Vikings only. This was back then 2 years ago during the first hacking outbreak. Apply what was discussed earlier, and you should arrive at the answer of why they were so expensive.
Q: Following up, so how come those prices dropped?
A: With release of NLC, Wolf Spiders dropped Ilbis at the exact same drop rate as Lycans (don't ask me where I got this info from, but it isn't out of thin air.
) This would obviously lead to an increase in supply. From here it should be obvious why we got our first price dip on Ilbis from 35 to 20 mil.Q: So how about the second price dip of Ilbis to 13 mil? And then the final one to 7-8 mil of today?
A: Substitution effect. When Crystal Ilbis and Phantom Forest came out, Icicles were about to be bought for a measely 2k per set, and the more powerful Crystal Ilbis were able to be forged. For the low leveled folks, this lowered demand for Kumbis and Tobis (which is why Tobis went from 1.5 mil to 700k). Since star prices are all rather relative of each other due to the substitution effect, Steelies prices fell too (in conjunction with the fact that Leprechauns spit them out like candy to a baby too), and so did Ilbi prices. To reply to Stereo's post below, Crystal Ilbis was also something that allowed the higher levels an alternative to Ilbis, however, because each set of Crystal Ilbis required a set of Ilbis to make, it does not affect the overall stars economy by too much, except that the richer are pouring out more mesos per set bought, and that in itself leads to more mesos being brought out of the game due to the tax per transaction -> overall deflation. The last and final price dip is caused by the ability to easily create Balanced Fury Throwing Stars with the release of Taos from Gachapon event and then CWK PQ. Again, your basic substitution effect that Stereo explains nicely below.
Q: What explains the most recent deflation and inflation on certain scrolls (Cape prices dropping fast, while a few other dark scroll prices are soaring like crazy)?
A: For one, with the abundance of Chaos Scrolls, regular stat cape scrolls are demanded a lot less, so their prices are on the ever decline. Weapon specific scroll prices are soaring through the roof because of upcoming anniversary event and anticipation to scroll more weapons. However, generic scrolls like Glove ATK, Earring INT/DEX/LUK, OA DEX/INT/LUK are still fairly constant in price because of the relatively unchanged demand and supply.
Q: What should we expect to see in the future?
A: More deflation, if Nexon is on top of things. It is generally in their best interest to make things affordable for everyone. Reasons for that: cheaper scrolls and other "valuable" goods promotes better equipments and higher damage, which in turn leads to faster leveling and a more enjoyable experience of the game. More happy players = more NX buyers and less quitters = more money for Nexon. As we have seen in the last 4 months or so, Gach Box events was an obvious attempt to crumble the grips of merchants on the economy, the lately increased banning of hackers and meso sellers and this latest Gach Box event is bringing down prices even more. CWK PQ bonus awards some of the most sought-after skill books and players are no longer required to pay a hefty amount of mesos for them through HT killers. I would say it's pretty obvious at what Nexon is trying to do.
Just ask the merchants. They will tell you about the deflation they all feel (hell I feel it, that's why I'm selling certain things as fast as I could), and they will tell you how much they hate Nexon for Gach Box events.
Perhaps one day they will also sense how much more difficult it is to merchant without hackers inflating the economy...hm...I'm feeling that already. Is it a coincidence that they are being massively permanently banned? :o