Fluctuating CE prices have plagued this game since it's release, this problem will bring about the end of the game if it is left unchecked.
CE prices are constantly on the rise, the reason for this is because as people acquire higher end gear they stop needing to monetize so often, as they can afford to buy CE with the crowns they've earned. However, as more people stop purchasing CE the crown demand for CE increases, because fundamental parts of the game such as crafting still require it.
As CE prices rise it becomes more and more difficult for new players to turn a profit from dungeon diving, as a result people stop playing and the population decreases.
OOO don't seem to realise that when it comes to MMOs the players ARE content. Who wants to play an MMO when it's a ghost town? Spiral Knights is far from this at present, but with the way it's heading there's a very real possibility of it becoming one.
Spiral Knights is a free to play game, yet OOO clearly aren't ok with people playing it for free, since the crafting system requires SOMEONE to monetize, even if it isn't ultimately the person crafting the item in the end, someone had to buy that crystal energy, and that is a massive problem with this game.
The price of CE is going to continue to increase, as the number of people willing to purchase it will develop their characters to the point where they no longer need to, and the current model is starting to push newer players away, simply because they can't turn a profit from using CE to go dungeoning.
The only way to counteract this would be to have a steady stream of new players which the game just does not have.
Remember back when Steam was intergrated into the game? Remember when players could actually turn a profit from dungeoning? That was due to a population explosion, lots of new players, many of them monetizing.
But even a platform as large as steam can't create a steady stream of players large enough to keep this monetization system in check, if this doesn't highlight the problem with the system, what will?
Now, after all that gloom and doom you probably aren't too optimistic about the future of Spiral Knights, but a very simple change could enable new players to turn a profit for their CE, Stabilise the market and the population, AND keep people monetizing.
What is this supposedly simple change you might ask?
CE needs to be made available for free. No I don't mean hand it out for free. I mean it there needs to be a way in the game to acquire CE without ANYBODY monetizing. The system as it stands requires someone, somewhere to monetize for every single unit of CE in the game, and since CE is a fundamental requirement for advancing in the game this game is anything but free to play. This system does not work. The less people monetize, the quicker the economy grinds to a halt. The slower the economy, the less people play. The less people play, the less they monetize!
The best solution I an think of right now would probably be to add an NPC vendor to Haven who constantly sells CE for a fixed rate. My suggested rate would be about 5000 crowns per 100 CE. If this was applied, people could still buy CE with real money, and sell it for competitive amounts of crowns. It would prevent the economy from stagnating, and would allow lower level players to still turn a profit.
Yes, we understand OOO need to turn a profit, servers ain't cheap and those code monkeys sure as hell aren't gonna pay for their own bananas.
But if you want to make a free to play game that works, you actually have to be ok with people playing it for free. Not everyone's gonna monetize, that's the nature of this kind of system, but this particular system damages the game and alienates new players, rather than drawing them in and encouraging them to switch over to the paying side.
You have stated a lot of things like they are fact that are not actually facts, why didn't you just post in an existing thread whining about this stuff instead of making a new one? It really wasn't necessary.