Spiral Knights - The Market Is In DANGER!!

The Market Is In DANGER!!

32 replies [Last post]

Mon, 05/09/2011 - 09:56

Raul

I don't know exactly how to go about this post, but I need to express it fully.

I don't know if many of you have been paying attention, but my guild, we specialize in selling things and we have been noticing extremely dropped prices. Fausts and Avengers selling for under 500ce(only the start), materials being sold for nearly dirt cheap and some of them are 3* and above.

No buyers for anything, but sellers up the butt.

You can stand around for hours and simply just not find anyone willing to buy something from you.

If you are a mat seller you might as well just start crafting..oh wait you can't do that either, because you can just barely front the costs of all mats plus crowns and ce not to mention heat leveling time. Yah, the market is dying.

The only thing that seems to sell is UV's and I'm hardly seeing those anymore either.

It's become what is referred to as a buyer's market, this market design is utterly horrible. It NEEDS to be fixed. If no one can make a profit, they will quit and that is not good for the longevity of the game or it's health. If you got in right at launch and started learning the market and sold things to the newbies coming in, you should be richer then crap right now. However, for those of you just joining in, I'm going to go out on a limb and say, you are having a HELL OF A time trying to do anything and make a profit, to actually generate CE.

AS it stand right now, there is pretty much no way to get good amounts of CE without buying it, and that's not right.

I believe I mentioned that these things would happen earlier if things continued like they were. Once again CE prices are on the rise(however I'm unsure if they will break 4500) and with no way to make actual profit, people are going to quit the game and it's going to not be good. In fact I have already noticed an EXTREME decrease in the amount of Haven's that used to be populated up to red. I believe it barely goes past 6 now, the rest are all green. I have been noticing an increasing amount of "Can't find a party" messages. This means the population is dying!

I slowly feel this game, due to it's structure and layout of the market, is converting to pay to play or pay to win.

The coming Auction House will do NOTHING to improve it, it will only crash the economy.

Something must be done, but idk what, I'll leave you guys up to decide that. I'm just the one that brings things to people's attention.

Mon, 05/09/2011 - 10:04

Mohandar

As much as I'd love to say

As much as I'd love to say "Stop whining", you are correct in that the game economy is all out of whack. I'm sure the devs put some effort in initially to design a game economy they thought would work, but I feel like they haven't been trying to really fine-tune it since. I could also be entirely wrong, and the ceiling-devs could just be watching us and collecting data, only to step in when things become truly dire. The best move right now is probably to keep voicing your concerns and sit tight, and pray that it will be in the interest of the devs decide to step in with a fix.

Mon, 05/09/2011 - 10:24

Evesest

Legacy Username

lmao

You shouldn't post in the suggestions forum without actually suggesting anything.

All you're doing is complaining, and that gets us nowhere. Tell us, what do you think should be done? Don't know?

Rest thy mouth tbh.

Mon, 05/09/2011 - 10:25

Splinter

The issue like you said is a

The issue like you said is a whole lot of sellers and not a lot of buyers. Totally a buyers market at this point.

This is probably due (not positive here) to a lack of new members to the game and/or an increase in more developed players. It would make sense that as people become more and more satisfied with their gear, that they less and less look for materials and gear. And with the increase of more developed players as time goes on, there is an excess of materials for each player, who are all trying to get rid of it, but can't because we are all in the same boat.

Solution to this? Might not be one...Invite more people to play? Auction house will just decrease the prices in things even more like you said.

Releasing new weapons and armor helps a bit, but with all the people playing, it only helps for maybe a week. You see this with the additions of flourish, and regalia, an initial burst of interest and high prices on new stuff, allowing you to make some quick cash, but then it all dies away, and you see as more and more people want to sell it, sellers are undercutting each other's prices left and right.

I haven't tried to sell any mats or weapons in a while it's become useless / totally worthless to do so. It's more profitable to just farm money and mats and then make gear only you will want. Selling mats and pre-made goods has become pretty worthless and too much trouble for its own good.

Mon, 05/09/2011 - 11:12

Evesest

Legacy Username

You know what? I'll addresss

I'll make a thread with real suggestions tbh.

Mon, 05/09/2011 - 11:19

Pawn

not a fan

Not a fan of losing items as a player, that would kinda suck.

1 thing they could do would be to make 'alternate' armors of existing armors. If they made a new re-skin of armors that would drive the price of mats up really quickly. I.e. now every sword specialist goes through the wolver line. Make another set of armor with the exact same stats that looks different. People will craft the new armor for vanity, and need more mats to make it. As of now, gun/bomb armor is 1 option on 2-4 star equip. If they released a 2nd option lots of people with 5 star gear would immediately be making new armors. Tons of people would, and thus mats would become more important again. Basically the more items there are to craft the better off the mat market will be. The new brandish swords has improved the economy dramatically over what it would be without them.

More bosses would help too. IF there was a stronger boss that required pierce defense, it would be of benefit to the market.

Mon, 05/09/2011 - 11:20

Azurenightmare

The problem is that not a lot

The problem is that not a lot of things are worth buying.

It's worth buying a set of 2* equipment, so you can rush to T2, start doing jelly runs, etc. It maaaaaay be worth buying 4*, but when you go that far, you may as well buy a 5*.

There's really no reason to buy the intermediate set of equipment (unless the line starts with a 3*).

The only other thing worth buying is UV stuff, and those cost so much that most people can't afford them before affording the 5*. At which point it's just a minor bonus and you don't need it anyway, so why pay so much for a dinky wolver cap you will have to upgrade anyway?

Mon, 05/09/2011 - 11:22

MrKnesh

Legacy Username

Marketplace solution

I think the prices are so dynamically changing because people do not know what to charge. There is no place where you can check how much a particular item is being sold for. A solution to this would be to make a searchable vendor market, where players could purchase a shop and sell their goods without having to be logged on.

Mon, 05/09/2011 - 11:22

Evesest

Legacy Username

That only postpones the

That only postpones the problem. Once the alternates are made, we're at the same place we began.

The "kinda suck" attitude is what puts us where we are now. It's a cinderella story game, where noone ever loses. Cute, but not competitive.

Mon, 05/09/2011 - 12:27

adrian783

Legacy Username

The market is supply and

The market is supply and demand. Now we have whole lot of supply, and no demand. Naturally, the price drops. It's actually working as it should be.

The invisible hand of the market...will provide.

Mon, 05/09/2011 - 12:28

#10

Evesest

Legacy Username

I've seen it all.

@adrian783

Wait.. is that logic? Please no, it hurts.

Mon, 05/09/2011 - 12:34

#11

MrKnesh

Legacy Username

Nope.

@Evesest
I fail to see the logic. It sounds more like a prophetic waving of the wand to me.

"Frodo, the market will change. Carry the ring to Mordor!" (spoken in as spooky and whispy of a voice as possible)

Mon, 05/09/2011 - 12:37

#12

Evesest

Legacy Username

Try again? Yes/No

@MrKnesh

The post was cute, but made no sense. I appreciate the attempt.

Mon, 05/09/2011 - 13:24

#13

Splinter

@adrian783 Wait.. is that

@adrian783

Wait.. is that logic? Please no, it hurts.

-----
@Evesest
I fail to see the logic. It sounds more like a prophetic waving of the wand to me.

"Frodo, the market will change. Carry the ring to Mordor!" (spoken in as spooky and whispy of a voice as possible)
------

No logic no magic, it's just simple Economics... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_hand

Mon, 05/09/2011 - 18:03

#14

SirNiko

Legacy Username

There need to be more

There need to be more material sinks and crown sinks. That would address the problem with material gluts in the market. Consumable craftables would address this, as would temporary vanity items to buy with crowns. I'm not sure how you'd address the glut of equipment in the market without drastically changing the way UVs work. Maybe for a reduced cost you can re-enchant an item for another shot at a UV?

I don't think this will make CE more affordable with crowns, though. The value of CE is likely to sit on the average amount of crowns players earn in a single run, which would mean you'd have to be above average to afford to run indefinitely. Making materials more valuable to sell is more likely to drive up the cost of CE as players earn more per run and can therefore afford to pay more for their CE to do more runs.

Mon, 05/09/2011 - 19:50

#15

Kauro

Legacy Username

an auction house like in FFXI

an auction house like in FFXI may work, You can only post a limited amount of items at a time.
don't allow anyone to see what you're selling it for, only what the last 10 prices it was purchased for.
Whoevers is selling the cheapest on the market will be sold first.
The people buying can overpay.

limitation provides that people will not just place any item for a cheap ammount, add a time limit to it as well.
secrecy of price provides those wanting to sell an item quickly from being undercut with ease and still having the chance to make decent profit.
cheapest first provides the competition of keeping a low price, but the secrecy of the prices people post an item for can help prevent deflation.
People get tired of attempting to buy things for "1 crown... (failed) 10 crowns (failed) 15 crowns (success)" So item prices may stay consistant.

This is all speculation, but the system worked pretty damn good in that game and ide prefer it to any other MMO AH ive seen.

Mon, 05/09/2011 - 20:10

#16

Eruzei

I also think that FFXI's AH

I also think that FFXI's AH system would be a good way to avoid market crash in SK. It reduces flooding of items and constant undercutting.

Mon, 05/09/2011 - 22:10

#17

Pawn

the invisible hand

Ok, this game is not a real and true market. In comparison to a real life market it is similar, but not the same. On the game we are selling items of which there are an infinite amount, and anyone can go find them.

The real life equivalent would be if you stepped outside and everyone on the block was shouting, "STICK FOR SALE, STICK FOR SALE", "GET YOUR DANDELIONS HERE", "I HAVE ROCKS THAT CAN WRITE ON CONCRET, WTS CHALK ROCK", "WTS RED FLOWER, RED RED FLOWER", "WTS LIZARD I CAUGHT AT POND". And everyones full time job was to go out exploring and finding money and sticks and rocks and flowers. And if this was the case in real life, our market would crash and burn.

What would you guys think if they put a price limit on how cheap u could sell items based on stars? For example, if you were forced to charge at least 100 crowns for 1 star item? Of course, i suppose that would just be worked around. I'll buy 10 blue shards if u give me 600 crowns, would be the new sales format. So who knows what to do.

Mon, 05/09/2011 - 23:23

#18

Njthug

First Off:

First off, this game is not dying in your perspective it may be, but with new players always joining current players who are addicts still playing and buying Ce its no where near to death. If you want to challenge longevity of well how this game will survive due to its current market one can easily argue that the players who wish to play Sk will keep playing and will silver line the pockets of Three Rings, and this will not affect Three Rings.

Now I am not here to argue with you, but to state simple FACT, so I will state the facts:

Supply and Demand is used in Three Rings (No its not a real world based supply and demand, but its close enough to compare it to it):

Supply of materials is vast and Demand for the materials is low = Price Drops

It does blow for you and other players who cant make more ce, but just do runs and live off the crowns you make from the runs. This game is free no one points a gun at your head telling you if you dont play more than the 100 mist energy provided they will shoot you. To satisfy many wants in life you have to pay.

In my view the market is fine before the prices were so high because there was a huge demand for the materials and now since most players have a lot of the materials Demand drops due to a huge supply thus causing price drops.

Nick already posted that Three Rings is searching for a better solution to a market it may be an auction house where you search for the item you wish to buy put your bid for it, and magically will appear in your mail. We just need to wait and see, they do listen to us since obviously the whole trade chat did not come out of thin air.

As a buyer of material : I buy mats by the bulk spent over 300k Crowns easily in materials, but I pay my price not the prices people want. I know already there is over 1000 blue shards in the economy, but there is about only 10 to 30 buyers at MAX in Spiral Knights for blue shards I wont pay 100 crowns for an item which is well a regular drop, and not even worth it.

My View Posted With Some Thoughts and Facts etc. Agree/Disagree dont care =) We are all entitled to have our own opinions =).

Tue, 05/10/2011 - 05:01

#19

Raul

The Market is crashing and I

Where did I ever say the game was dying? I said the MARKET was dying, and if the market dies then it won't be good for the longevity of the game.

Do not treat me like a noob sir, I have been playing since Launch Week and I have over 3000ce. I do not like this condescending attitude that you have.

Ok, yes that's a normal market flow, however there are no people coming in to replace it, it's going to crash.

Well let's hope they fix it then.

My View Posted With Some Thoughts and Facts etc. Agree/Disagree dont care =) We are all entitled to have our own opinions =).

Indeed.

The Market is crashing and I don't care what anyone says. I left it up to ya'll to get some suggestions. Not tell me why I am wrong, or why you think, I am wrong because I am not, any damn fool can see it's NOT working and it's crashing.

The Invisible hand shouldn't of even been brought up, this isn't a IRL market, it's a game market with infinite supply and no demand. The invisble hand may as well be as useful as a man with erection dysfunction.

SO LET'S GET SUGGESTING!!!

Tue, 05/10/2011 - 07:22

#20

Etendue

WRONG!!!! The only feasible

WRONG!!!!

The only feasible option is to have crown and material sinks. There simply is no other practical solution. Inviting massive amounts of players to join is only a temporary solution, there's no way a high recruiting rate can be kept, and when it falls, the market dies within a week.

I repeat to Three Rings,

WE NEED MATERIAL AND CROWN SINKS!

Tue, 05/10/2011 - 19:29

#21

Njthug

Where did I ever say the game was dying? I said the MARKET was dying, and if the market dies then it won't be good for the longevity of the game.

^Your opinion....my view is the market is just going back to its normal state since thats how it was during preview as well.

Do not treat me like a noob sir, I have been playing since Launch Week and I have over 3000ce. I do not like this condescending attitude that you have.

^I am sorry that you feel like I am treating you like a noob, and I have been playing much longer, and experienced many market changes in my Sk life-time as well, and have well over 1ce, but the ce we own plays no role in this conversation =). I am sorry that you do not like my e-attitude =).

Ok, yes that's a normal market flow, however there are no people coming in to replace it, it's going to crash.

^ Let the market run its course in my opinion why have items which are worth 20x's its regular cost the reason the market is "crashing" in your view point is because now items that were worth 5k ce are worth 1k or 2k ce....in my view the market is starting to show the real prices of these products not the inflated prices.

SO LET'S GET SUGGESTING!!!

^ If you are not open to criticism and cant accept that people will not see the economy in your view point well there is not much to do since both of have different view points. You can go on with your day and think you are right and I can go on with my day thinking I am right. =) .

This game easily has demand...if we had no demand in this game all items would be worth 1 crown or 1 ce. Do keep in mind to keep what you say age appropriate on the forums.

Have Fun In Life You can quote me all you wish =) I am done with this topic my suggestion for this topic is dont mess with the economy let everything run its course since the economy in this game is re-balancing =).

Tue, 05/10/2011 - 19:58

#22

Nodocchi

The market may be crashing

The market may be crashing but that doesn't mean its going to crash to a point where its impossible to make a profit. I don't see many reasons why players would sell at a loss so even at dirt cheap prices you should still be able to make a profit.

If you want a materials sink then I say increase the prices at which you can sell materials to NPCs, that will also provide a natural lower bound buffer for prices. At the same time increase the prices of recipes or find some other crowns sink.

Tue, 05/10/2011 - 22:34

#23

Jerakal

Legacy Username

I like how people quote

I like how people quote economics as a basis for how this game's economy isn't broken, when the same theories applied therein have repeatedly led to market failures IRL.

Wed, 05/11/2011 - 01:17

#24

ShinOkami

Legacy Username

^_^

Do you guys ever heard of greed? ^0^

Wed, 05/11/2011 - 02:14

#25

Sinxeno

Legacy Username

Oh damn, I can't get rich

Oh damn, I can't get rich like everyone else. The game must be broken because not everyone has 50,000 energy.

Wed, 05/11/2011 - 06:16

#26

Raul

Do keep in mind to keep what

Do keep in mind to keep what you say age appropriate on the forums.

How is this for age appropriate? PISS OFF.

You know for someone who doesn't think the market is dying, I can't really think of a reason why you came into this thread in the first place. You say it's to give your opinion but this thread was about the market dying and it was in suggestions, I wasn't looking for opinions, I was looking for suggestions to improve the problem. You seem to think there is no problem, so why are you here in the first place? Come to think of it, every time I have posted something you don't like, you come in under the guise of "opinion" and tell me why you think I'm wrong. Please stop doing that it just gets me very angry. I am trying to be helpful to the community and you want to be a butthat.

Obviously, there IS a problem with the market because the player base is agreeing with me and not only that I am seeing people sell thigns in where they don't get a profit. If you EVER see someone sell something and not make a profit, there is something wrong with the economy and you are DOING IT WRONG.

I don't give a dang what exp you have in WHAT economies, SK economy is far different from any other game out there and cannot be compared to IRL because IT IS A VIDEO GAME BASED IN A FICTIONAL WORLD. Furthermore, I'm really, really, really, really, REALLY sick and tired of YOU PEOPLE bringing up that Preview Event. It was a closed beta, only being done by a SPECIFIC NUMBER OF PEOPLE, UNDER CLOSED CIRCUMSTANCES, IN AN UNCHANGING SETTING. Now that the game is fully launched and out of beta, there are far too many variables to keep bringing up the preview event, SHUT IT.

Also, yet again, this isn't a IRL economy and if it was IT WOULD BE DEAD.

I have a suggestion for my own topic since people would rather complain and not put forth the effort to help.

I posted this in suggestions to bring the problem to light and to get suggestions not to fight and argue under the guise of "opinion".

Now I suggest we have sinks on both sides of the buyers and the sellers to make the economy meet in the middle. So it would neither be a seller's nor a buyer's market. This would level everything so we have good number of buyers AND sellers, the prices aren't rock bottom for no profit, and the longevity of the game is safe guarded.

The big question is HOW and WHAT??

Wed, 05/11/2011 - 06:28

#27

Leviathan

Legacy Username

I tend to agree that the

I tend to agree that the emerging picture of the market is off-kilter - that energy prices are tending towards a rate above new-player-friendly, and that materials prices will bottom out at a level where alt-farming will be rewarded by the system.

However.

We can't clearly see the market yet, for good or ill. The price you could get for materials in the first week of release was no good metric; anything where the inconvenience cost of simply arranging a transaction is greater than any other component is muddled. When we have the AH, and serious competition, then we'll start to *see* the market properly.

I don't expect it to be all that pretty; I do expect it will need adjusting. But shouting that it's going downhill because it doesn't look like it's very first stages seems.... Silly.

Wed, 05/11/2011 - 06:52

#28

Raul

@Levi OK, perhaps I am a bit

@Levi OK, perhaps I am a bit um worried and saying it's DEAD AND DYING is a bit much. However, I really do feel that the market is in danger and I don't feel the AH is going to help any, and it sounds like we are getting it this weekend.

This is like the 3rd time I have heard the term alt-farming, what is that exactly?

Wed, 05/11/2011 - 07:13

#29

Leviathan

Legacy Username

Alt-farming is "make ten paid

Alt-farming is "make ten paid accounts at the cheapest price possible, give each a single recipe, and ship them materials from your main, to use their mist energy as the source for massive crafting".

As materials prices drop, and trades become more accessible, alt-farming looks easier and more rewarding. Alt-farming strikes me as a problem because the more common it gets, the more it'll proliferate giant stacks of cheap gear and UVs, to the point where crafting in 'the usual way' will become a bad decision.

And that strikes me as quite a bit more problematic than just "I can't sell my mats for what I feel is a decent price!". The "decent price" is a matter of perception; the vast majority of mats aren't, honestly, significantly valuable at all, and the early prices people were asking on them were outlandish.

I can recall "100 crowns per shard, 200 crowns for blue!" as a thing I heard. When we see the actual supply and demand contrasted, I'll be surprised if shards value in at more than 10-25 crowns.

Thu, 05/12/2011 - 01:52

#30

Raul

^Should be a bannable offense

^Should be a bannable offense and that's so much work just to cheat.

Thu, 05/12/2011 - 02:18

#31

Pawn

@godofskype

@godofskype
You should not have started this thread, you should have posted here:
http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/6094
it's a market thread made a month before yours.

Thu, 05/12/2011 - 02:28

#32

Raul

I don't go past page 3 and 1

I don't go past page 3 and 1 month old with no bumps=invalidated.

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The Market Is In DANGER!!