"The players are controlling their own economy and it's working fine"
Did I misread that? I don't think things are working fine; or having a market suddenly taking price peaks at all times is the meaning of working "fine"?

im all for crown sink, weekly prized PvP with entry cost will be a good one

Thoran is a major in economics, if he says it's not working right, it's not working right.

omg, now I can only play my free game for 2 hours a day that is the worst thing that ever happened anywhere, you all s*ck. It would be a lot better, if energy cost was lower than cr cost. Like if you could buy 100 energy for 2000cr, but you can buy 8000cr for 100 energy. Thats soooo simple and it would soooo fix everything everywhere forever, trust me on this, I'm an expert of some sort.

So you say they annoy you, yet you are manipulating them? Go die k thx.

I only get hit with the banhammer for my cussing. No I most certainly will not control myself because you are part of the problem. Thx for admitting it though.

omg, now I can only play my free game for 2 hours a day that is the worst thing that ever happened anywhere, you all s*ck. It would be a lot better, if energy cost was lower than cr cost. Like if you could buy 100 energy for 2000cr, but you can buy 8000cr for 100 energy. Thats soooo simple and it would soooo fix everything everywhere forever, trust me on this, I'm an expert of some sort.

Pretty much this, if only OOO would LISTEN to their users for a change! Why won't they see it is all so SIMPLE!

pfffftghhghhahahahahahaha

you could always use that spiral knights haxor software i saw on YouTube to get endless energy then everything is all good =D
(i keed, its obviously a keylogging program stealing your accounts; 7k views? really? gullible people...)

but seriously and on topic. i don't see why OOO would want to do anything to lower CE prices, as the higher the price gets, the more money they will get as people begin to pay. of course the market would then crash as soon as everyone does that, and everything will be good again =D. but really all we need is some more crown related content (perhaps use crowns to buy stuff for guild halls?!?!) and make it expensive. then we got ourselves a better market.
the way i see it, the only way to keep the price steady is for OOO to continuously release content in which end game players take time to grind through.

in your big picture, things like the adition of the AH when the price was still trending upwards (due to the average player getting to his average crown payout/ce consumption) are missing.
AH temporary increased Crowns value, and things proceed as I expected. The problem is a structural one and not a player made one. Some mechanisms* at least try to compensate for the infinite generation of crowns, but they simply aren't cutting it from a numeral point of view.
Like everyone farming the only the 2 jelly king stages will allways make CE unaffordable for everyone else. (of course everyone else would be zero people in that scenario, but hey, every game needs new players, as well as players running the stages up to the jelly stages)

*especially the close crown payout between T1/2/3 suggests the ce:crown exchange was intended to allow new players to afford CE via crowns. Sadly it's also the only way for a new player to get to fall in love with the game.
This correlation is also what makes this game different from all MMOs I know, balancing a game around T3 players getting 3times more crowns per stage would be the easy way, a way about every mmo takes; but MMOs have the option to do so because they dont have restrictive measures such as energy fees.

OOO either has to lower ce value with effective ways to sink crowns or generate CE out of thin air, or make the game more playable to new players who won't pay 6000crowns or real money for 100 ce.

Yes you're right, some people made me realize the problem also lies in the fact that crowns are underused (I mean too much crowns and not enough stuffs to spend them on), though it should be the most used since its the very first thing players expect to obtain while visiting the strates. I just find its a bit stedious to say its only related to the current structure of the game; because many players now won't help themself increasing CE prices, without thinking that Crowns are worthless, but rather because "there's a flaw somehow, somewhere and I can now sell my CE far more expensive than before"
A quick suggestion while its running in my head; decuplating the mist energy tank size would help players crafting their items, at least. Maybe reduce the demand on CE also, admitting there could be patient players like me who'd accept to wait a week to craft a top gear.

yeah, something like upping the mist bar cap to 200 (still refilling at 100 per day) and/or adding a weekly mist bar of 100-200 would help greatly imo. (for new players to experience the game without overly buffing the mist gain; perhaps slightly lowering ce demand, depending on how casually new players actually play the game (OOO should have that data anyway, allowing em to balance that as they please))

or what I posted elsewhere already:
"perhaps add an npc that sells CE at a certain rate, but only a certain amount.
Like 5% below aeverage the trades of the last hour, but only one position a day (100ce).
Even though that looks little, it'd permanently remove crowns and create CE from a not $ source. so just by that correlation and by being cheaper than the exchange, it'd have a decent impact."

of course that's just a spontenous idea of mine. thinking about it there should be more to do with energy too! (not just more expensive crafting)

Going that way would mean free-playing accounts can't have any hold on the game they play, and that (take it at the second degree) CE sellers would be "dominating". Of course a F2P shouldn't feel the need to give priviledges to those who won't spend on the game, but usually there always are decent ways to work it through; few weeks ago I'd have said it was possible for anybody to succeed quickly in-game (like I "did", I simply meaning obtaining a decent 5* full gear) but nowadays its a bit more complicated. If that complication had only restrained to crafting the items, it'd be okay, even good for the game, but currrently the CE rise is making it hard to play the game, because CE is crucial in too many ways as for now. I'd never thought of visiting a random map for the fun of it lately, I'd straightly think "crap, waste of CE".

Thoran aren't you a major in Economics? Get all TECHNICAL up in there and start throwing out term paper stuff. Everyone needs to realize the problems and stop saying "Oh it's working as intended", yah intended for your greedy EFFIN butt you betcha.

This is a long one, but bear with me:

OOO could make a system that allows everyone to buy 100-200 ME per one day, for a fixed rate (4000CR/100ME or 2000cr/50ME, for example). The energy type is crucial: ME would be non-tradeable (and still capped), and thus wouldn't force the CE market price to the same 4000. Furthermore, to craft higher level gear, one would still need to buy CE at some point.

And the fact is someone IS rigging the market. Too many relatively big price increases (20-50cr steps), and then flooding the top five list with smaller increases, but with many bids. New bidders will see the situation as if the natural rate would have increased, while it's only market manipulation. Waiting for the selling side to stabilize (to a higher norm rate), then repeat. That's why it would also be beneficial to be able to see the full energy bid list, in addition to the "top five bids".

I know OOO needs to make a profit to keep the game running, and see this as a driving force for people to buy energy with real cash. But if they're not doing anything to this situation, they could lose the freeloaders. That won't make a direct impact to OOO's salary, sure, but if the freeloaders are gone, the only ones playing are the paying customers, and it might be a quiet place after that. And thus the paying customers will get bored, too.

I have nothing against the community itself maintaining the market price, but OOO should at least keep an eye on those players trying to rig the market and take the necessary measures to stop it (like a market-ban for a week or so). Yes, it's an open market, but that sort of activity is ultimately ruining the game for the rest of us.

And one thing to note for economic theorists, who will say the market will balance itself:
the CE isn't a "necessary/indispensable commodity"; you don't need the CE in another game
(if you catch my drift...?)

I think the ME part could be good in a way or another.

As for people and the market, I think an option to see more/all offers placed would be more helpful. perhaps in a colorful diagram or stuff, like with sized blocks to indicate volume of close positions, and color to indicate how long ago they have been placed, and colorful animations to show when things quickly get bought! Or that's just me having silly wishes.
Banning people from the market for making 5 different positions close in price in a short period of time is rather undesirable.

Ok all CE sellers keep that way until I get the materials I need Lmao.

I guess the only thing they could really do to "reset" the Market would be, as TiVVV34 said, to flood the Market with fake CE offers AND to remove players' offers. Even if they were to do both anyone could go back to selling it for the same price or even more. So, that's not possible.

You can't force players to sell energy for any price. Well, I suppose you can if you want to completely remove energy from player-to-player trades. The thing most people don't realize is that the Market simply gives players a nice, convenient UI to see what current offers are on energy and sell it. You people who seem to think the market prices can be regulated are, honestly, not thinking very hard.

It's not that we're thinking hard, is just that it's so damn easy to manipulate the prices. I bough 10x CE yesterday sold all of them 500 crowns more and walked home with a hefty profit. The only thing I ever thought hard about is how to manipulate the prices to get them lower, which never helps.

In other cases, easy to go up and harder to come down.

removing the option to trade CE at anything but a regular tarif, would effectively lower the power you can buy with CE, directly corresponding to how much crowns volume is inflated..

it'll become several times more efficient to craftspam for UVs at a point like that. (instead of using the fixed tarif)

edit: fixed typos, was short on time. also not saying that'd be a bad thing for the economy, just really weird for people who want to buy some power hazzle free.

More crowns per level would work. I mean, if CE is 6000, then they could put about 600 crowns per level in the average teir two zone. (Since teir 1er's don't need CE to craft just yet). Another solution is to change crafting prices. If CE prices double, cut the crafting in half. I'm open to criticism, and I'll admit, this IS indirectly controling the CE market, but it isn't exactaly communism or anything.

That reminds me (sorry for the triple post...), why can we only sell things for crowns on the market? If we could set a fixed CE price on our sold items, we'd have more ce and less crowns. That'd reverse the market.

"More crowns per level would work. I mean, if CE is 6000, then they could put about 600 crowns per level in the average teir two zone."
The CE price will rise to corespond to the increased income of the average player of course.

And T1 players need CE to play more without making much of a progress because they spent their crowns on CE, to get sucked into the game.
The most fair thing would be to make every stage reward a flat ~1000 crowns at the end. no crown drops. no difference between T1/2/3.
Doubtful that'll happen though.

"If CE prices double, cut the crafting in half."
well they doubled crafting prices as to counter 5*s becoming too cheaply to obtain. halfing the real money component, the only component that's not inflating (nor deflating) to the real money purchaser, would defeat that purpose.

you should consider causes when looking for fixes, and also think of the consequences.

Your right, but still: for the first one you used an "Extreme example". I'm just saying that I should make around the same aomount of money by playing 10 levels as buying 100 CE. I think that would be fair, considering you get heat and mat's from levels, but risk dying. Having an AH of only crowns makes that seem like the real currency, thus making CE appear as an more of an item than form of money. The fact is, I'd rather sell my items for CE so I could sell it for crowns and lower the price, but still have crowns as an option for marketing too keep value on each side.

I also dissagree on the fact that you said "you'd never get a large enough portion of the population to self-sacrificingly sell their CE for less than they think it's worth". I think if we convince people that this will help them in the long term, they'd willingly do it. Plus, there are certianaly planty of nice people out there, who merely don't want to buy their own CE with real money, or beg their parent's for it. I, for example, just bought 20 dollars worth becuase i thought the developers deserved it. Like a slightly benificial donation.

All this being said, thank you very very much for the feedback!I enjoy counterpoints from multiple people working toward the same goal. (@opaopa)