Are you sure the CE prices are player driven?

I am, like I said in my thread, totally willing to work with other players on this. I have added a possible solution to my thread.

http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/10662

I also added a link to your thread in the first post of my thread. I hope we can figure something out. While players farther along in the game are not having as big of an issue, its really sad that the newer F2P players are being left in the dust. And it would also be nice to get energy cheap.

Ah, but you fail to see that the general populace can't exactly make 6.5-8k off of 100 energy. Even in a very lucky Royal Jelly Palace run, that's really cutting it close to the maximum people can pay, fairly- that's cutting out 'wasted' energy, as well, for revives. The materials found in RJP don't sell for much at all, because of how many people run it for the heat and crowns-a Rocky Core, a 4* material, sells for lower than a hundred crowns. The way I see it, you're saying it's fair that only the people with great equipment can play as much as they want, that only the people that can run through Firestorm Citadel can play.

When new players get into the game, they can't play as much as they want without paying, because they can't make enough crowns to pay for more energy. Why? Because people have raised the CE prices too high.

In a nutshell, CE prices are too high, new players can't actually get into the game freely, leading to people being less likely to want to stick around.

Either there needs to be more crown sinks, less CE sinks (or toned down CE costs in crafting), or people need to stop being greedy and selfish. Since people are making walls of offers, it's ruining the game for many other people, just for their profit... which defeats the point of a game-for fun, entertainment, a good pass-time activity. The way this is going, people are gonna have to rely only on Mist Energy, or grind for hours to get a single piece of 4* equipment.

I think it's great some people are willing to take the task to hand and curb rising energy prices, but the major issue you'll see with getting any organized movement is the newbies who do not read the forums. They will remain ignorant to most plans and will continue to take the game at face value.

"people need to stop being greedy and selfish"

Come down off that high horse. I keep seeing this nonsense about CE sellers being greedy for wanting to sell their CE at a higher price. Well, guess what. It's mighty greedy and selfish of you to demand that you be able to play continuously on someone else's dime, and progress quickly in the game.

How much is CE worth to you? If you had another 100CE right now, you could run the clockworks for fun and crowns. Suppose I told you you should instead sell it to me for less than you'd make running the clockworks (whatever amount that might be)? You'd end up with less crowns and less play time than if you ran the clockworks. I'd get more crowns and more play time. Would that be cool with you? Maybe, if you need the cash quickly. But how much is that convenience worth to you? Do I have the right to tell you what it's worth?

"i think people are missing the point..... CE is used for runs and crafting.. if the prices get too high then people will only be able to run, so then the game will become a P2P game not a F2P game."

What kind of point is that. it's not unheard of that f2p games have content exclusively available to paying players. And even then, no one is stopping you from saving up CE you made from ME here.

as for your OTHER point, that the game has bad issues with crownsinks/crowndrops/item droprates, well that's true. OOO should do something about it or crowns, mats, any tradeable item, will just become worthless in the long run. Throwing (your) money at the problem won't fix it. (it'll help people NOW though, which is really nice)

And while there's player manipulation, it doesn't amount to more than resets of currently established price. Anyone with some 50-100 positions can do that when the demand situation for crowns:ce is out of propotion.

@The annoyance known as GodofSkype1

I have already said that you don't get to dictate the morals of others. Anyone who decides to manipulate the market to their will is within their right as a player. There is no reason people "have to be fair." None. They're playing the game just as well as anyone delving into the Clockworks.

the demand for CE via crowns will gradually fall the less people deem it affordable (these people then stop playing on CE or purchase it with $). for some people that's at 6k for some that's at 8k, etc. (and more people will be willed to sell at these prices) when demand for CE and demand for Crowns are at equilibrium the price will remain constant.
Of course demand for crowns will continually fall if there's no new players (cause the old players all can farm jelly king and don't need the crowns for recipes).
And it'll rise if there's many new players.
New players=can't farm crowns efficiently+need recipes

edit: simply put, there's no crown sink that'd make crowns valuable without new players. Personally, I'm glad there are still enough new/growing players that CE price isnt at 20k or something. But I'd prefer more new players and/or more crownsinks.

I like it, but i sincerely fail to see how this would fix the issue. There are SO many people needing CE, i fear that if you guys try this you will have a boatlaod of crowns and very little CE, and if you want CE you'll end up having to buy it back for more than you sold it for. Plus, as soon as you start buying it back, the price is going to go right back up.

I guess what i am saying is that the priced has already been fixed with false bid. I don't see how selling more energy is going to fix the problem. Also as soon as the price starts dropping people will start buying and then price will stop decreasing :(

i don't believe there is a manipulation in CE prices. for that to be true, several players has to be hoarding CE and holding it and not selling it back to the market to drive prices up. i don't believe there is anybody with billions of Cr doing this; at least this is not my perception from actually watching the Cr/CE market in action.

while everybody would like cheap CE prices, the CE prices is driven by demand; whether because it is summer and people have lots of time and wants to play Spiral Knights, or that it is in general a fun game and people want to improve their characters.

If you don't want to pay alot of CE for adventuring/upgrading equip. INVEST a little of real $ for CE. DON'T spend it immediately. Take the time to LEARN how to trade and understand markets. Then trade Cr/CE for a profit to fund your expeditions and equip.

You don't want to spend 3-4h a day trading Cr/CE so you can play for free anytime you want? Then stop complaining and pay real $ for CE and play as much as you want when you want.

CE prices will naturally gravitate towards the average number of Cr you can generate off of a 100 CE run in Clockworks. FAIR price will be around the breakeven of this run. If your runs are below the cost of 100 CE, you're better off trading Cr/CE on the market to make enough for better equip. If your runs are above the cost of 100 CE, then you're better off doing the run and then buying 100 CE to do another run. Of course there is always time consideration.

Trying to dump cheap CE prices to drive down the market isn't going to work. Anybody w/ Cr will buy up the cheap CE and then sell it at the prevailing market price.

Understand supply and demand before trying to accuse market manipulation and ask for artificial pricing.

"Ah, but you fail to see that the general populace can't exactly make 6.5-8k off of 100 energy"

Haha oh wow. I guess not everyone knows to buy recipes and sell them on the auction house. One time I bought a 4k recipe and sold it for over 8k. I have never paid a single dime in this game and if you count the recipes I am currently selling I have ~80k crowns.

People are not "manipulating prices". The reason there's a spike was because of the power surge weekend. The market regulates itself because the price will only go as high as people are willing to pay. If you don't want to buy energy for crowns then don't. And if you need energy to alchemical then buy it for real money. The real money cost will always stay the same and will not sway with the economic climate of crowns.

ITT: Let's fight the man because I'm too lazy to earn crowns.

No one here is trolling, you fail to see that paying players don't want to support you lazy bumps by bringing CE prices down.

Why would I donate 10$ on CE to the marked just so YOU get a cheaper price for it?

Answer that. OOO is not putting any CE on the market, its all run by players, people that pay crowns for CE and never buy CE with money themselves are the ones causing it to be more pricey.

If YOU want to bring CE down, go buy $1,000,000 on CE and start selling them at 4k crowns per 100. Stop free riding the ones that actually support the game.

Prices will be high so long as people are willing to pay – I think anyone who understands basic market forces should know that at this point. A CE seller has no reason to sell lower prices than what's currently going. Well, that's not true. Someone who wants crowns right away should undercut the competition by 5-10 crowns, and he'll sell quicker. Otherwise, no rational person is going to look at the market and think "Oh, prices are 6K right now. I would hate to pay 6K. I should sell for 4." Not when every other seller is going for 6. It is selfish, but only in the way that all economic actions are selfish. You usually don't sell to others as a way to be nice.

Anyways. I believe the intent was to come up with a plan to your guild thing. Here are two solutions:

There are only two ways you could affect the market. You could buy a ton of CE and then sell it at 4-5K, which will push all higher offers off of the market screen so long as your low offers are available. If you had enough CE to keep this up for a day or so other sellers would realize they had to lower their price in order to sell, which might affect the market for a while and achieve your goal. This would require you to stockpile a LOT of CE though. You could achieve that by stockpiling crowns, buying CE, and then selling at a loss, but since this would wast a lot of your crowns I feel like it's self-defeating. You could also buy with real money, but since your whole goal is to avoid that I don't see a ton of people signing on for it.

Also, this would constitute market-manipulation, and is probably less ethical then what some people see sellers doing right now. It would also decrease the amount of sellers on the market, because some paying players would decide that that number of crowns wouldn't be worth their dollar, so they'd wait for prices to go back up. So it would only be short term fix.

You also could try price-setting via an embargo. People do this in real life, sometimes. You would need everyone in your coalition to temporarily stop buying CE. If you have enough people on board you could affect demand enough that sellers would be forced to lower prices. The problem is, as soon as prices go down, people in your coalition will probably act in their self-interest – this isn't a knock on players, that's just how economies work, by self-interest – and there would be a rush on CE, instantly driving it back up. You would have to carefully manage your actions to get this to work in the long run.

I suppose there's third option, also seen in the real world; get the 'government' (OOO) to price set. They could set up a price ceiling – always a bad idea – or they could try to regulate the supply of CE and Crowns via CE sales, surge weekends, and how much CE it takes to craft, etc. This would probably be your best option, if you got enough people to email OOO and petition. However, keep in mind that as a non-paying player you have a lot less clout than a paying player – OOO would much rather not piss their money-makers off because then they go out of business.

Those are really your only options. Morality aside (and I'm a laissez-faire guy, myself) there isn't really any other way you can affect the market.

Last word:

People ARE manipulating CE prices, driving them higher and higher during set timeframes (e.g. lunchtime in eastern time). I'll leave you to figure that one out.

convince people not to spend CE. if you can do that, i guarantee you CE prices will drop.

but good luck with that. As long as people enjoy the game and willing to craft and go spelunkering into the Clockworks, people will need energy. if people want to spend more than their mist tanks, there will be a demand for CE.

It's not like the Auction House, there is no time limit, the only fee is 2% of the price when you sell. I could put up an offer to sell 100 CE @ 20kcr and leave it there for a week, a month or even a year (assuming SK is still going) and it doesn't cost me a crown.

even if u wanted to get the prices as low or "fair" as possible (which would be nice), its never going to stay that way. typical economics is always varying, whether good or bad for the paying/nonpaying. this forum is pretty much a wasted effort because:
A)if the paying players bring it up too much, theres no point in playing the game
B)if the "fair players" bring it down too low... its going to make it a pointless game... i dont like rpg's that u can finish in a day...
C)this forum is bringing out a lot of arguements that are pointless because the idea of getting ppl to pay money and not use it is unrealistic and absurd

i think this forum has touched on the same point time-and-time-too-many. i think its well established that its a lost cause so,
@Shosuko stop ur overly-sophisticated rant

as someone correctly stated it is the F2P that drive the prices up; not the P2P players. in fact, while counter intuitive, the P2P are the ones who actually pressures CE Prices downwards. It is the F2P that pressures the price upwards.

Given to craft beyond lvl 2 items you need to expend CE. Delving more than 10 lvls a day expends CE. These activities take CE out of the supply.

Players who partake in these activties are the ones demanding CE and removing it from the total supply of CE. (this drives up CE prices)

P2P are the ones who reintroduces CE and hence increase supply of CE. (this pushes CE prices down)

this is very very basic economics.

P2P players who don't want to convert CE into Cr by delving into the clockworks sell it on the market. The more they need or want Cr the lower the price they are willing to sell CE.

Conversely, players requiring CE because they've expended their supply will demand CE. The more desperate they are for CE the higher the price they are willing to pay.