Path of Exile

Sam, Lance, Jacob, Dylan, & Brendan

Path of Exile

In-Game Trade Economy Analysis

In Wraeclast, they fight various monsters and people who have been causing chaos and destruction. The setting/story expands greatly from there.

Path of Exile is a dark fantasy action RPG where players take on the role of an exile banished to the ruined continent of Wraeclast.

Path of Exile (or POE) is a free-to-play action role-playing video game developed and published by Grinding Gear Games.

What is Path of Exile?

As players progress through the game, they will find lots of useable gear and items. Each of these can vary in value depending on their scarcity and potency, among many other factors. This, in turn, affects their market value in terms of Chaos Orbs and Divine Orbs.

Path of Exile is a continuous, on-going game. Within the game, there are specific "Leagues", with each League typically lasting around 4 months. At the end of a League the players' character, equipment, and items are all sent to a permanent realm. Basically, each player has to start over from the ground up at the start of each League.

Rather than a traditional form of currency, trading conducted within POE is done by trading in-game items for other in-game items. There are over 180 in-game items classified as "Currency", but there are 2 that players agreed upon for use in trades due to their consistent value: Chaos Orbs & Divine Orbs.

A Living, Breathing Virtual Economy

Questions We Want Answers To:

• Are there items (Weapons, armor, special artifacts) that are affordable early on that can be sold for a profit in a short time frame for an early season advantage?
• How do various in-game currencies compare at their minimum and maximum values?
• How do real world currency exchange rates compare to Chaos and Divine Orbs?

As players progress through the League, they will find, gain, and collect various items. Each of these items can vary in value depending on their scarcity, as well as other factors. Depending on these various factors, both demand and supply of items varies, affecting their value in terms of Chaos Orbs and Divine Orbs.

Path of Exile is a continuous, on-going game. Within the game, there are specific "Leagues", with each League typically lasting around 4 months. Upon the ending of a League the players' stats, equipment, and items are all sent to a permanent realm. Basically, each player essentially has to start over, from the ground up, at the start of each League.

Rather than a traditional form of currency, trading conducted within POE is done by trading in-game items for other in-game items. Over time, specific items that are typically consistent in their perceived value became a form of currency. There are over 180 in-game items classified as "Currency" but there are 2 main Currency Items players use in trades: Chaos Orbs & Divine Orbs.

Setting the scene for the story we aim to tell

Buy Low Sell High- PoE Items Analysis

Hypothesis: Are there items (Weapons, armor, special artifacts) that are affordable early on that can be sold for a profit in a short time frame?

• The five examples on the left initially posited to have early game flip value- all confirmed a 2x or greater increase in value at some point in the first half of the season.
• Using features common to these items, how can we identify other items that might give us an advantage? Criteria included:
• Under 100 Chaos Orbs in cost in first week
• At least 2x or greater average value at least one point in weeks 2 through 8
• Similar Item Type to these listed- Weapons, Armour, 'Oil', 'Beast', 'Invitation'. Not all items have relevant resale value.

PoE Items Analysis (cont.)

Hypothesis: Are there items (Weapons, armor, special artifacts) that are affordable early on that can be sold for a profit in a short time frame?

• Using the initial items as a benchmark for resale opportunity, we identified 132 items with a 2x resale value in the first half of the season (see scatter plot).

• Process steps:
• Download CSV of daily transactions for each item (3.3m rows for 4300+ items).
• Convert dates to datetime and aggregate by average price per week.

• Filter to items that sold for 100 chaos orbs or less week 1. Join that to grouped data for weeks 2-8, and calculate the quotient. Filter to items that were 2x or higher from their week one price on at least one week.

How do different types of currencies change from when at there lowest point to there highest point.

Analysis of Different Currencies at Their Lowest vs Highest Price

• After grouping all of the items together by name from different dates we got a cleaned dataframe that we used to find the individual values.

• The starting price of that item at the start of the league represented by the "first" column.

• The ending price of the indiviual item at the end of the league is represented by the "last" column.

• The lowest price of the league is represented by the "min" column.

• The highest price of the league is represented by the "max" column.

Taking the "min" column and our "max" column and plotting it we are able to see the relationship between different currencies.

Japanese Yen to US Dollar

Selected due to most similar average exchange rate

Japense Yen to US Dollar over the same timeframe as Necropolis League taken from the Alpha Vantage API1.

• Only four dates available through Alpha Vantage API for analysis during this timeframe, as their data is archived once a month.
• Data was averaged from opening/closing/min/max of exchange rates for each day.
• Data shows increasing trend in the ratio of JPY to USD.
• Increasing USD value or decreasing JPY value?

1. <https://www.alphavantage.co/documentation/>

• Linear regression line shows a positive slope of 0.09, reinforcing statement of increasing JPY to USD exchange rates.
• Linear regression equation intercept number is very large due to formatting datetime objects to the ordinal data type. (ex. 2024-03-31 is 738976)

Scatter Plot of the Same Data with Linear Regression

JPY/USD to Chaos/Divine comparison

JPY/USD Linear Regression line plotted over scatter plot of Chaos/Divine exchange Data

1. <https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2024/08/30/Currencies-in-Turbulence-Exploring-the-Impact-of-Natural-Disasters-on-Exchange-Rates-553991>

The Chaos to Divine exchange rate was the most similar to the JPY to USD exchange rates over other world currencies.

• Chaos/Divine trend only generally followed the JPY/USD trend at the end of the league.

• JPY/USD variance from Necropolis timeframe data was 12.7. Where as Chaos/Divine variance over the same time period was 351.4, an increase in variance of ~27 times.

• This high of variance isn't seen in world currency data, even over time frames of developing countries experiencing Natural Disasters.1

'Your content is liked, but engages much more if it is interactive'-Genially

Conclusion

1. Are there items (Weapons, armor, special artifacts) that are affordable early on that can be sold for a profit in a short time frame for an early season advantage?
1. Yes, there are 132 items that can be purchased for under 100 Chaos Orbs in week 1 of the season that can be resold at key points weeks 2-8 for at least 2x the value.
2. How do various in-game currencies compare at their minimum and maximum values?
1. There is a significant difference between min and max values of currencies.
3. How do real world currency exchange rates compare to Chaos and Divine Orbs?
1. There was a significant difference in variance between in-game currencies and real world currencies.