Any more gold sinks?

Is there a reason why we aren't getting more gold sinks? The griffon mount and the release of 32 slot bags had a noticeable impact on the gem : gold exchange; people were actually converting gems to gold at a noticeable rate. Since the sale of gems in general is what ANet wants, wouldn't releasing more gold sinks also lead to more income? Right now it feels like the strategy is to release SO many gem store items that converting gold to gems is unfeasible, making people have to purchase gems for Quality of life items like bank slots. Playing without any bag slots or bank tab expansions is a pretty miserable experience too.

@Atmaweapon.7345 said:Is there a reason why we aren't getting more gold sinks? The griffon mount and the release of 32 slot bags had a noticeable impact on the gem : gold exchange; people were actually converting gems to gold at a noticeable rate. Since the sale of gems in general is what ANet wants, wouldn't releasing more gold sinks also lead to more income? Right now it feels like the strategy is to release SO many gem store items that converting gold to gems is unfeasible, making people have to purchase gems for Quality of life items like bank slots. Playing without any bag slots or bank tab expansions is a pretty miserable experience too.

It doesn’t matter whether the gems that are bought are spent in the Gemstore, or converted to gold. As long as gems are bought. It is the primary income for the game.The gem conversion rates fluctuate based on how many are traded for gold and vice versa. The thing is there’s plenty of gold sinks in the game already. The gold sink in Istan for the Astral/Stellar weapons is the latest one, so I guess you missed that mat/goldTPfee sink in your OP.And your final statement is subjective. I’ve never bought extra bag slots, and only have 2 extra bank tabs. I still enjoy my game time, I guess my inventory management is better than yours.

Mount skins.......

As Hayleydawn said Anet's goal isn't to keep the gold to gems exchange rate low enough that people are able to regularly buy gem store items with gold. That would actually work against them since apart from an expansion every few years the gem store is their only source of income. The exchange is there so we have that option - so that no one has to spend real money if they don't want to (and probably to make the reverse - buying gold with real money - tolerable to players). But Anet have never said (or implied) that they want to keep the exchange rate at any particular point. There were a lot of complaints through the first couple of years when it just kept going up - so buying gems with gold kept getting more expensive.

Gold sinks are important in any MMO, because gold will keep appearing in the game every time someone kills an enemy, completes a quest (event in GW2's case) or sells something to an NPC and without ways to remove it you get massive inflation. But that tends to be more effective with small, regular gold sinks like the TP and waypoint fees.

@Atmaweapon.7345 said:Is there a reason why we aren't getting more gold sinks? The griffon mount and the release of 32 slot bags had a noticeable impact on the gem : gold exchange; people were actually converting gems to gold at a noticeable rate. Since the sale of gems in general is what ANet wants, wouldn't releasing more gold sinks also lead to more income? Right now it feels like the strategy is to release SO many gem store items that converting gold to gems is unfeasible, making people have to purchase gems for Quality of life items like bank slots. Playing without any bag slots or bank tab expansions is a pretty miserable experience too.

Yeah so force them even more can go two ways.

1. They spend a ton more money on gems to convert to gold.
2. They get fed up and stop playing.

@Atmaweapon.7345 said:Is there a reason why we aren't getting more gold sinks?

The TP is the best gold sink in just about any game. Evon Gnashblade shaves 15% from every sale, so the more stuff that gets traded, the more gold is sunk from the game. As the OP has noted, other sinks only have a short term impact on the amount of gold that players can spend.

The gold:gem exchange is another sink: Gnashblade also skims about 17-18% of the gold and the same amount of gems per transaction (those numbers are estimated by using the API to predict the amount of gems left over if you: sell gems for gold and exchange that coin for gems instantly, or vice versa).

So to manage the gold supply in the game, ANet doesn't need to add that many short-term sinks. In fact, at the current moment, the market is depressed relative to rates in the last 2 years or more for: most materials, rares & ectos, exotics, and even precursors. Even many luxury items are at their lowest recent points or even historical lows.

tl;dr the game gets about as many temporary gold sinks as it needs.

The gold:gem exchange ratio isn't really a good proxy for measuring gold sinks, because it's affected by the demand for gems, not just the supply of gold. Over its 5 years, there are plenty of situations in which the ratio has changed significantly in a few hours. They include:

• Any time there's a major change to BL chests or BL keys are discounted. (Rate spikes)
• Any time there's a new glider or any sort of wings (for gliding or backpack) (Rate spikes)
• Whenever a new set of WvW world linkages occurs (the biggest spike came with the first of these; the amount of the spike is very modest now). Similarly, whenever a formerly-closed server opens up.
• With any discount or increase in the number of bank tabs, bag slots, character slots, name change contracts. (rate spikes)
• Around Wintersday (rates spike with new items, but have sometimes dipped a lot due to people spending their RL holiday gift cards on gold)
• With other gem shop offerings (including Mountfits, Outfits, miniatures, finishers, etc, depending on the popularity).

"Is there a reason why we aren't getting more gold sinks?" may be the wrong question. Theoretically, once the market passes a size and activity threshold, the amount of gold removed by TP fees and gem exchange fees will equal the amount of newly created gold.

Imo, the better question is, "Should the studio increase the demand for gold?" In the context of this question, the behavior of the gem exchange can be used as evidence, though not as definitive evidence. As we saw with the 250g mount, increasing the demand for gold will make gold cost more in gems. This benefits players with gold who want gems and if there is positive elasticity in the gem cost of gold, potentially the studio as well. Increasing the demand for gold will increase the rate that materials and other commodities appear on the TP, reducing inflation and increasing the production rate of craftable rewards. Increasing the rate that materials appear on the TP may or may not reduce the demand for gold among those with gems. Only the studio has an accurate understanding of the demand curve for gold but the persistent increase, in the cost of gold that correlates with the release of the 250g mount does imply there is positive elasticity in the price of gold.

Imho, if a reward meta is sincere, respects fan's investment of calories and cash and the world of Tyria as a place, then increasing the demand for gold could benefit everyone. My recommendation for the shape of that reward meta is always the same; home instances and player housing!

Since the studio profits from the demand for gold, there is an ethical context to this question. A context I am going to ignore because the ethical considerations are same for any gem store item.

I remember buyong around 6000 gems with ingame gold around launch. I was around the level 30 at that time. I'm pretty sure a low gold high gem exchange is the opposite of what Anet wants.

If you really need to flush your gold down the sink, then a mail attachment to my user name would suffice to your needs. :rolleyes:

@CharterforGw.3149 said:I remember buyong around 6000 gems with ingame gold around launch. I was around the level 30 at that time. I'm pretty sure a low gold high gem exchange is the opposite of what Anet wants.

The studio doesn't want a low price for gold or a high price for gold. They want the right price for gold. They want the equilibrium price calculated by players and the exchange algorithm to match the optimal price that would generate the most revenue for them.

I know make an Ascended set for a Power Reaper, including appropriate themed skins (which are surprisingly expensive for such an unwanted spec in PVE), then try to Raid as a Power Reaper, that my friend as I can tell you from personal experience is the biggest gold sink I have ever participated in.

No more gold sink mounts please. Its grind yourself to dead or pay for gems, which is not good gamedesign.

@CharterforGw.3149 said:I remember buyong around 6000 gems with ingame gold around launch. I was around the level 30 at that time. I'm pretty sure a low gold high gem exchange is the opposite of what Anet wants.

It doesn't matter to them, all gems bought with gold area already PAID FOR. Gems are not infinite, supply is based on how much players buy and sell. Low exchange, high exchange they already got their money from it.

@Cynn.1659 said:

@CharterforGw.3149 said:I remember buyong around 6000 gems with ingame gold around launch. I was around the level 30 at that time. I'm pretty sure a low gold high gem exchange is the opposite of what Anet wants.

Arguable. While it's absolutely true that every gem is paid for with cash, a high gold>gem rate probably still increases their revenue, as 1) fewer people spends gold to get gems, maybe choosing to buy with cash instead; and 2) more people will buy spend cash on gems to buy gold.

Note that you do get gems for a few achievement awards. Though I have to imagine the vast majority of gems were bought with real money.I'm one of those people more likely to sell gems for gold. Some equipment in the game just requires a lot of materials - I can spend weeks grinding it out, which I don't find interesting, or I could spend weeks doing one of the gold farms, which I also don't find that interesting, or I can play content I enjoy and just use some gems to get the gold I need. I higher exchange rate makes that more appealing. If I only got 5 gold for 100 gems, that really wouldn't be worthwhile, unless all the materials or things I needed were also much lower cost.

OP you want gold sinks!? I've big news for you (and anyone else interested): the new "Donate to me, to make me happy and rich!" quest has just begun. It rewards with nothing but my gratitude, I hope you'll enjoy this amazing new content. :)

Maybe a better clarification of what a gold sink is would help.Simply providing more things that can be bought with gold isnt really a gold sink.The TP 15% tax is more like a gold sink as it takes gold out of the game and gives you nothing in return.Trying to do this by providing more things to buy with gold means creating new things continuously for people to buy, but thats a permanent new load of work for Devs.You could possibly create new gold sinks by for example adding durability to items so that you have to keep buying new ones as the old ones wear out, but players would hate this.

if you have to much gold, my mail is always open for donations. B)

@"Atmaweapon.7345" said:Is there a reason why we aren't getting more gold sinks? The griffon mount and the release of 32 slot bags had a noticeable impact on the gem : gold exchange; people were actually converting gems to gold at a noticeable rate. Since the sale of gems in general is what ANet wants, wouldn't releasing more gold sinks also lead to more income? Right now it feels like the strategy is to release SO many gem store items that converting gold to gems is unfeasible, making people have to purchase gems for Quality of life items like bank slots. Playing without any bag slots or bank tab expansions is a pretty miserable experience too.

A market that's good for gold-to-gem converters is less good for gems-to-gold converters, and vice versa. ANet walks a fine line between having "enough" gold sinks and "too many." They need "enough" to keep people who want the items the sink is composed of to keep buying gems to get gold. However, if there are "too many" the gems-to-gold rate looks less attractive, which could mean less gem sales. The PoF release had the gold sinks you note. Only ANet knows if those sinks worked for them because of there being a lot of gems available via the Ultimate Edition purchases.

One interesting idea I had for more gold sinks was upmarket vendors similar to the the existing ones that you can spawn which last for 15 mins.The upmarket vendors would cost more than existing ones, but of the value of goods bought and sold via the vendor , some would go to the player who spawned the vendor.In the case of the TP vendors, the player who spawned the vendor would get a cut of the 15% the TP normally takes.Its a bit difficult to model what a suitable price in gems for such vendors would be , but would be an interesting economic exercise.The exercise works best if players spawn such vendors in places where there is a lot of need for buying and selling stuff.A good example is the end of the AB meta.

@mauried.5608 said:One interesting idea I had for more gold sinks was upmarket vendors similar to the the existing ones that you can spawn which last for 15 mins.The upmarket vendors would cost more than existing ones, but of the value of goods bought and sold via the vendor , some would go to the player who spawned the vendor.In the case of the TP vendors, the player who spawned the vendor would get a cut of the 15% the TP normally takes.Its a bit difficult to model what a suitable price in gems for such vendors would be , but would be an interesting economic exercise.The exercise works best if players spawn such vendors in places where there is a lot of need for buying and selling stuff.A good example is the end of the AB meta.

I can't imagine this actually working out to be a gold sink. If part of the gold that would normally just vanish (tp tax, cost of vendor items such as gathering tools and salvage kits) instead goes to another player, that's a reduced sink for the economy at large, as less gold is destroyed. If the cost of making/aquiring it is larger than the revenue I could expect from using it, why would I use it?(Also, no part of tp tax is removed in interaction with an npc - 5% is removed as soon as you put up the sell order, no npc needed; 10% is removed when it's sold but before you even see the gold waiting in the delivery box, so before you interact with an npc)

I prefer material sinks. Ascended mats are drastically dropping in price thanks to them not being needed for new legendaries nearly as much.

Want a gold sink? Just add Chak Egg Sac and Vial of Liquid Aurillium for 1000 gold + 100k of the map currency to the respective vendors.