I think also that some people who could be concentrating on earning money instead spent the last month playing the new content, exploring, leveling, and grinding rep.So there's less money exchanging hands, especially as the prices are still in flux.I've also seen a lot of "hey, I just made this because I'm leveling up my skill, you want it for free?"
It's funny because what that guy describes as "lower inflation" is in fact the deflation/revaluation made by Blizzard. Take a country as example: If the central bank (Blizzard) reduces the amount of money (gold) printed (looted) what happens is that the value of each unit (gold) goes up. He's basically saying that it's not deflation but then continues to describe the situation as an economy that has suddenly revaluated the currency. It's just that one of the two is organic while the other is forced. It's an awesome and fun economical experiment and I wish I had access to the data generated about wow economy.
One thing this article didn't really cover is the economy of the first 2 weeks of the xpac. You have to be really quick to truly capitalize on it, but the effort/profit margin is incredible. My friend and I spent perhaps 8 hours total farming (herbs, leather to craft into gear and then scrap), and each made over 2 million gold on Darkmoon Cards / Trinkets. It is always this way with the release of new content, and moving fast is the most important thing. My friend and I are not goblins by any means, we don't play the auction house, we're just normal players who saw an opportunity and capitalized on it.
I use Rogue Alts for weekly farming. All eight do the class hall weekly for 2500g each. And I sometimes park all of my alts on Timeless Isle for the 45g question. It doesn’t seem like much, but I can casually make about 200,000g per month for a couple of hours a day just logging in and answering the question. I have a lot of alts. I try to avoid the AH because I just don’t have time to Goblin research it and track sales. Also, still farming old Cata raids.
That poll is crazysauce, the people in /r/woweconomy maxed out at 3m gold? C'mon. I don't read woweconomy or play the market at all, but I did have 11 max-level characters doing gold missions in WoD and 12 in Legion, and I ended Legion at just over 15 million gold, almost entirely from passive income. Now THAT is inflationary. I'm very, very happy that the gold missions in BFA aren't worth doing. I spent the past 4 years refreshing gold missions 2-3x/day and it's incredibly freeing not being incentivized to do that any more!
In my example the value of gold goes up. Ask any economist. You're missing that everything crafted uses more gold than before as well as repairs being on an all time high. There are essentially more gold sinks than ever before and the ways to get gold are less. I'm not going into an argument of wether or not you are able to recognize all the gold sinks or not. If you don't want to believe it's deflating because Blizzard has decided on a revaluation. Go ahead but be aware that the facts are against you.
I think that the author of that article is likely correct in their estimates of how much gold average players are sitting on. I also agree that any poll done in articles or groups that are talking about the economy of the game are going to be skewed. Most players are only passively interested in the economy. As long as we have enough gold to cover our basic needs we are okay. Would it be nice to be able to afford some fancy extras? Sure, but I value killing things in the game more highly than I do trying to figure out what the best ROI for these mats or that piece of gear. Easier for me to buy a token if there is something I think I need that is just out of reach of my current purchasing power.
Omg that jewelcrafting tip. Curse on you.Worst tip ever for BFA
i think this is the perfect thread topic to post my personal thoughts if anyone cares. i consider myself LUCKY in my gains in Legion. it was pure luck that i actually had the fore-sight to take advantage of a market that had not revealed itself yet. (bs mount) lucky i read the wowhead post announcing that it was going to come out, and lucky i found a pug on day one of release that was able to kill it and i got the plans. sold about 11 of those mounts first week which skyrocketed me to the millions for the first time in my wow life. i then got into flipping ilvl101 boe epics for the twinks and i was golden. nearly hit gold cap (across 6 realms, not a single realm, i'm not that good or lucky lol) and was soooo happy.but then blizz got me where it hurts the most. they released event after event after event of overwatch skins and "collect them all" is one of my personal character weaknesses. i blew ALL my gold on lootboxes and i regret it soooo much to this very day cuz i coulda bought myself a long-neck and now i can't. i regret so..#$%^ing..much. cuz i barely even play that game but the "exclusivity" and the mere concept of it, is just...my WEAKNESS. you say something is "rare exclusive" and my brain shuts off and i NEED IT! i hate myself for that. and now i simply don't know how to get back to where i was with bfa. as i said at the begning, i consider it LUCK that got me up there. not skill or dedication. because i'm too lazy to get into inscription even if you could transplant me back in time with all the tools and knowledge, i STILL would be overwhelmed and too lazy to get into the card flipping market. it seems very daunting and you really seem to have to track every little thing with a sheet and i'm just not down for that. anyone who raked it in during that time deserves their gains cuz i just can't mentally deal with keeping track and going fulltime like that. i feel like card flipping/scribe cannot be done "casually" or lazily like gems. you really have to aggressively announce in trade or whatnot. nty. so idk if i'll get lucky again this xpac. it's still super early. so i have hopes. and of course i also put goblining on the back-end vs leveling/gearing so i agree with one users comment that once that is out of the way, i can have more time to goblin fulltime but i'm still not there yet. the only thing that bothers me is that i feel like i'm letting a ton of opportunities go by me by not putting goblining first. i feel like i already missed out on A LOT in the first 3 weeks cuz my focus has shifted and it eats away at me. but tbh, i don't have the resources that some goblins do. like multi-box farming. i feel like unless you're multi-boxing, farming alone is like not even worth the time. (opinion!) and i don't have a max engi so i was too late for the engi mount party and i refuse to drop any of my current professions cuz i have ultra rares i can craft from vanilla. and i don't have the time to lvl a new max lvl either. so i'm just playing the waiting game to see when a new coveted item will hit one of the 3 professions i DO have. :-/either way, i'm bummed out. if it wasn't for my stupid brain falling for the OW lootbox skins, i'd have a longneck and wouldn't even care about anything anymore. but i'm super bummed out about that and that alone and wonder if i can ever afford it ever again. /sigh
Alchemy is completely useless for gold making as it was in Legion. Unless you get super lucky with multiple procs, you won't even get your money back you invested.
I have two accounts, I farm herbs on both at the same time using alt tab, 1 with a guardian druid and on the druids back is a veng DH. (no stuns as tanks) running around from node to node. Very easily pays for both accounts especially with anchor weed nodes being rare, having two characters use the same node is very beneficial. The second account also has access to crafting (making drums of the mountain (rank 3) is still way cheaper than the BfA equivalent and with M+ sell extremely well. I can literally have my crafting toons make 1000s of these while I do things on my main account. Coarse Leather was selling sub 2g each the other day. I bought it all out and crafted the barding (@25 L/per craft = 50g per invest) sold them all for 225-300g each. Silkweave satchels (rank 3) if the silk is <=2g per silk cost approx 180g per craft. Selling 300-500g per. Time of day dependent. With the nerfs to skinning mobs. (lesser mobs skinning grey items now not the extra stuff. Blood stained bones have gone from around 12-17g per to 40g+ each. Using two monks with the two accounts (black ox statues are king) in certain very good farming areas can still farm 200-300 per Ox (ie 15mins) rounded to 1000 blood bones p/hr or 40,000g + green boes (200g if sold on trade) plus leathers. Average / estimated overall farm of 65K p/hour. JC has been overall underwhelming as has Alchemy at this point. I see JC improving overtime as less people will be crafting excessive amounts to gain points and the market will be less diluted. Alchemy flasks break even on my server. Potions - agility only seem to sell in the positives at this point.Potion of prolonged powers pre BFA release where selling extremely cheap, and have since tripled in price again. Will be studying shortly time to gather bloods and craft these vs other options.
I'm just so annoyed that I spent so much money on ore to quickly level my BS, then to find out that all high level pieces are BoP. I wear mail so can't use them myself. Not amused, I just stopped levelling BS. Should we now align our professions with the gear we use ourselves?
I am royally peeved with the whole situation with expulsom, hydrocores and sanguicells.Mind you - in the last days of WoD, reading on what was then legion beta, I did a gigantic reshuffle: I ordered up my alt stable, and made it so that EVERY alt that has a crafting profession, also has its companion gathering profession. The only exceptions to this rule are my Tailor+Scribe and my Enchanter+Engineer - I didn't feel cloth was ever gonna be a problem, didn't feel the need to dupe my herbie, and with blacksmith and jewelcrafter getting mining, didn't feel the need to add a third.But now, when my main takes priority and needs to be raid-ready, and all alts are barely into their leveling, profession development is already an issue. In Legion, it worked great because I could take my bloods to a vendor, and send someone (alt, or guildie) mats to craft for me what I needed.Now, this is not possible and confronted with outright extortionate, retarded pricing on the AH, I have to do without, or rush-level. Doesn't make me the least bit happy particularly that professions that don't make raid consumables (my main is LW/skinner) outlive their usefulness VERY fast.In my case, expulsom generation was fine for the consumption rate when making my own or potential alt gear (level 300 rare stuff), even with some moderate duplication to get better stat combos. Then entire thing came tumbling down because of follower equipment: gathering pieces are bugged and don't get you anything at all. Of the rest, the only really desireable pieces are made by blacksmithing only (mission success and mission time), with LW making troop booster which is semi-useful but less so than the BS pieces. But all that became completely irrelevant, because the amounts of expulsom required for a single piece are PANTS-ON-HEAD RETARDED. I got a grand total of about 50ish, and most of that was spent gearing myself, banking a few pieces for alts, and leveling the profession. Dedicated farming to get the levels needed would require time off work and isn't worth the effort at all.Hydrocore situation was/is even worse. Hydrocore-only pieces I can craft became completely irrelevant by the time I got enough of them to even give it a shot. And I don't really do that much - I just ran all mythics in the weeks I was geared enough, and stopped when 340 drops became irrelevant with my ilvl hitting 355.Meanwhile, the sanguicells are slow coming, and in one of 2 slots, I already got better item than what I could hope to make, while the other would be a minor upgrade... and I'd actually have to have the recipe discovered, which I don't. The way it looks, I should be glad if that stuff comes useful for alts, but that feels just painful for me particularly, as no other class I play uses my main's armor class. At least I can make 2 classes of armor from LW.AND REGARDING GOLD overall... markets are extremely volatile, and tend to stall due to people asking ridiculous prices. Part of that is due to VERY limited availability (eg. augment runes), and part the fact that the anchorweed situation is again, a result of developers acting PANTS-ON-HEAD RETARDED. I understand they want to pimp their new chosen reporting stat to the investors, which is '/played', but people have lives. My guild already saw several players with many years of history outright LEAVE due to game becoming too grindy, and the current flask situation is such a calamity that our guild leader is accepting Legion flasks for raiding. He is a herbalist himself, and he stated it openly that he doesn't feel confident 'demanding' flasks when it takes him in excess of 2 hours of questing around to find a SINGLE anchorweed node, and get like 2-3 of a herb that needs 5 for but a single flask, with weekly consumption around 8 (2 nights of raiding, and a night of pushing keys which takes less). That is 40 herbs, which cost anything between 800 and 1500 gold each on the AH. 32'000 gold, with cash flow from emissaries, missions and quests barely covering repairs (usually around 1000g per night).No wonder that token keeps falling through the floor - between you publishing this column, and me writing here, EU token dropped to 180k and it's not the end of it.
Actually blizz made a stupid bull^&*! craft system for all times in this expansion and they dont know how to fix it now. Gear crafters like blacksmithing leatherworking etc are rubbish and i dont know what we do to deserve m+ dungeon and raid meterials in our finest recipes while alchemists, enchanters and other professions earning thousands millions of gold from their professions without any hassle. Actually the only expansion i benefit from blacksmithing was legion and yet i did not earned half of the money and alchemist done. Either blizz has to remove crafting system totaly or bring some balance to it. #$%^ blacksmithing...
I'm not a goblin by any means, but based on my calculations and the prices on my server, it was possible to make 100,000 gold per hour or more skinning the lesser animals in BFA. That has been nerfed now but just thought it was an interesting note since none of the gold-making youtubers predicted this before launch, and I honestly didn't see anybody actually doing this post-launch. They all said, gathering is your friend, herbs and mining are THE way to make money at BFA launch. But the blood-stained bones sold for 50g+ each on my server, as many as you can sell, and are farmable by killing instead of running around looking for nodes.I also bought a warforged BoE on day 3 for 300k and sold it for 850k in 5 minutes lol. So I'm set for a while as long as I don't waste it on other BoEs LOL
Probably not the place to post this, but, if any chance Ion see's my post maybe he can explain how a 355 chest piece is better then a 370 because of the traits. This is PRIME example of why using a system like this will always fail - you simply cannot expect players to get a higher piece of gear and find out is it useless because of traits. Stats are improvement obviously, but, the traits are worse then the 355, therefore, every sim and gearing suggestion site confirms the painfully obvious, and that is, the 355 is better then the 370. God please give the WoW Development team and this Game Developer to see the light and MOVE away from this system. PLEASE.
Around 50 Island expeditions and only 1 transmog and 1 toy. I'm done, they aren't fun. With over 100 items available from Islands - why is there not a required item that drops from the bags? Such a joke.