COUGH Like the USA COUGH

If I cant rely on people (Citizens), or three rings (Goverment), I'm moving somewhere else (Quake three).

Good point on the weapons, I didn't think about that...

Looking from a broad (mathematical) view:

A) What has happened (the patch that caused it all):

1) Energy sinks in this game have more than doubled with the new crafting systems.
2) Crown sinks have gotten somewhat lower (AH sinks some, lower recipe costs added a whole lot of crowns into the economy).
3) High level items are now un-tradable (due to no possibility of unbinding 4 and 5 star items).

B) In game influence (as of now):

Inevitably, with that patch crown value decreased by around 30% (where earlier 100CE got you 4-4.5k, it now gains you 6k), and that is with a massive offering by a huge CE trader keeping the prices this low - under the current conditions, this seems temporary at best as the prices are not going under this while the amount of offerings at 6000 are getting lower and lower, after which crown value will decrease more (possibly significantly so). While the auction house is a good sink for 3* and lower items, the bigger transactions used to be for 4 and 5 star items.

C) What this means (as of now):

This is undoubtedly making buying CE with cash more lucrative, BUT, by offering the same amount of CE for the same price, while the crafting prices have gone significantly up - the actual amount of gain from it was halved (crafting being the only CE-intensive task in the game). The starter package somewhat attempts to remedy this, but under current conditions, it is a worse deal than pre-patch. Basically: the game's time limit has gotten stricter due to increased reliance on mist energy, and the game has become more expensive on every level. Even though CE is far more expensive in-game at the moment - at a minimum of 700CE per crafting for 5* items (as opposed to 300 pre-patch), and a minimum of 1100 to craft a 5* item from scratch (as opposed to 400), the in-game price of CE needs to reach about 12K crowns for getting the same "relative" value as in the pre-patch economy.

D) What will happen if things continue as they are:

This means that what will logically happen without significant changes to the economy is that 100CE will stabilize at around 9-12k. That would mean that being able to play without time constraints would require an exceptionally lucky tier 3 run, and getting there with the (now insanely expensive) crafting costs would take a lot more grinding. That will eventually lead to devaluation of materials relative to crowns, as well for a de-facto price increase for anyone wanting to buy CE, while being a lot less comfortable for non-paying customers.

E) Why this change is permanent:

Because we won't leave. This game is awesome, and the fact that we are here means we love playing it. So we'll play less or pay more. Until the game decreases in popularity.

Why yes, it is from courage. I use this username or the tattle tale strangler on most websites. I still have SOME faith in citizens, and I my self would post offers for 5500 crowns per 100 CE if i bought more, and all the other at least semi-selfless things I may have posted. Now to reply to the moster comment above you...

I knew it was from Courage!

I always bid my cr/ce prices low even lower then what you can see on the bids. I was mostly referring the to citizens manipulating the market for their own greedy and selfish needs and goals. Example lowest bid for buy ce is 5200 I will bid 5199 or lower it's not much but it helps drop prices, granted I have to wait longer but meh.

"If OOO decides to do anything at all, they will not do it for a month at least (except for catastrophic userbase collapse), because they need to gather as much data as possible before making new decisions. And, with all due respect, the forums and the opinions therein are not exactly a reliable source of data."

Maybe not, but logic, facts and reason are not opinions, and are reliable.

When you know that (fact) people are artificially boosting the price of CE, and you know that (fact) there aren't enough valuable crown sinks in the game, then you can (logic) that this drives the CE price up and makes it harder for new players to get into the game, then you can (reason) that it needs to be regulated or new major crown sinks need to be added to allow new players a chance to enjoy the game before they decide if they want to invest anything into it.

OOO better not wait a month, because at this rate in a month this game will be virtually unplayable to anyone who doesn't pay to play. I started when the game was around 3400 Crowns per 100 CE, and it took me over a week of 2-3 hour a night playing to get enough gear and skill at the game to be able to make my money back in energy investments (this with many of the common mistakes new players make, like buying a piece of gear from vendors or buying and making recipes they don't need, or stopping only a few floors into the Clockworks and never reaching the deeper, more profitable floors).

At 6.8k per 100 CE, you're talking about two weeks of frustrated, start-and-stop gaming to really get a feel for what the game is about, meaning reaching tier 2 and learning of, choosing and acquiring gear that have crafting paths all the way to 5*. Some people already get bored of the game before then now, unless they have someone helping them out and explaining things. Doubling that time is just going to shrink the lifeblood of this game: new players.

The really obvious solution to me is the major crown sink route, tied to 5* UVs (the end-gamer's only concern). Allowing players to re-craft a level 5 or 10, 5* piece of gear into a new version of itself in order to give it a chance at a UV, OR if it has a UV give it a chance at upgrading the value of its UV, would be something everyone who is already "done" with the game and has hordes of energy stored up needs. Making this cost massive amounts of crowns, talking like 50k-100k, plus the mats needed to craft that piece in the first place (to add another mat sink), would heavily impact the Crown-Energy dynamic.

It still wouldn't solve the issue of market manipulation, but that's another matter more up to OOO in terms of how they want to handle it.

I think he means OOO, but he could mean people who wave "cut rich peoples taxes!" banners allover the place... Let's save thar road for a different topic...
I don't really think that would help dropping prices GOSkype, but it should keep them stable-er. The real reson nobody puts low priced CE on the market is becuase they're up against an army of high pricing CE merchants. I'd have to have half of the populations CE at all times to keep it down myself. The fact is, if i place 5 offers for 5k, those will be quickly bought, leaving the thousands of 6.2k offers remaining. The real solution is to eliminate those AND put in new low ones, IE asking nicely for help from people who should stop profiting of of resseling CE for a higher price, or to buy crowns and sell them for a higher CE price. Too many people want to rely on three rings for help. The fact is, I think the people need to do this for themselves. Like a REAL SOCIETY.

Daystar brings up a great point, but reasoning and opinion are difficult to distinguish. For example, I could say "My opinion is that my reasoning is better". I agree with more crown sinks, but regulating or caping prices is out of the question. They might as well let brinks sell CE for a specific fixed crown price. That gives me an idea though, prehaps boss tokens can buy you CE? Not shure on it yet, but it's a good point to ponder.

First time mistakingly double post, that calls for celebrations. Sorry.

i'd say the major reason ce price are skyrocketing is because some people are really, really greedy. everyday you can see some "buy x50 ce" or more at a rate exceeding the one that was previously on. what kind of people could have that much money ? only the ones who sell massive amount of ce at high prices. which means some people are making it higher and higher and having a lot of fun making the F2P players suffer. sadly, OOO can do nothing about the mentality of sadistic humans and neither can anyone of the people complaining about it sinc they are also among the people supplying this game with ce right now. also, one of the only people here who seems to have understood that much about human psychology might be skype1 rofl

P.S. : during the prelaunching w-e, ce price were at 800-1300 cr per 100 ce max and nobody complained about it ( from the seller's point of view ). the monday it launched, the prices were at 2800 and some tiers 1 people were already finding it hard to craft their stuff. a week later the price was at 3500 and lots of people were leaving and the rate keeps increasing ... guys, did you know that increasing your prices isn't going to get you more money but only less buyers ? well they might be too blind or deaf to understand a thing -_-
oh it reminds me that there are still people saying that everything is fine since a jk run gets you enough to buy 100 ce and dive in again. uh the goal in a game isn't to grind just to be able to grind more or am i mistaken ? xD

I blame rocket fuel

well as the devs said at the very beginning, this game was about having fun. that is without much headache to find THE ultimate gear to get to high end tiers. you could relax and play a fun game. now it's all about saving every little cr you can grind and that, just to be able to play, not to mention having stronger gear, or even if you only want to collect those that you feel would be nice to have. i've been playing since the 1st day of the prelaunching w-e, and up until the end of the 1st week i wanted to collect as many pieces and recipes i could. now it's kinda more like using my mist energy to try and get 1 recipe i'd want after a week.

Thanks for the response, just offering some counterpoints.

"I'd say the major reason ce price are skyrocketing is because some people are really, really greedy."
That's what weve been saying, read the comments a bit more... Plus, some of them are just kid's who think they understand economy. They don't realize that that hurts them long term.

"lots of people were leaving"
I've only heard of a couple rage-quitters, and they don't really quit, they just use that as an empty threat towards OOO as a weak attempt to force them to become price-capping commies (No offense comunists, I'm a bit democratic...). Nobody really dose it and it won't work.

"did you know that increasing your prices isn't going to get you more money but only less buyers?"
Who needs all the buyers? If I sold one (Well two for one) Slap-chops to 1% of the american population, I'd make away like a bandit. The same principle applies here.

"oh, it reminds me that there are still people saying that everything is fine since a jk run gets you enough to buy 100 ce and dive in again. uh the goal in a game isn't to grind just to be able to grind more or am i mistaken? xD."
Sorta, but I don't hear people say that. The goal of the game is to have fun. If they can have fun playing the royal jelly over and over, who's stopping them?

Again, thanks. Don't act like there are horrible people doing this. This is mostly just people who don't understand they've created a/the problem. I still think we could convince nice people to post CE offers for 5500 or 5000 next time they buy CE, or manage to get alot Via trade. I will if I get help.

" without much headache to find THE ultimate gear"
It's a challange, not a headache. Ceartianly should be changed, but you have to play the game.... If i could buy vog cub for 1k I'd stop playing immediately.

Its not willingly done for most but look, the point is there are paying players instigating new trends concerning CE price, and lately the trend is: push F2P players (I know that doesn't sound english at all, I mean free to play players, what?) to their limits on CE market, to obtain maximum profits. Okay, maybe I say, MAYBE latest contents are partly responsible but thinking back of it: why would energy sellers need more crowns? What's always being said lately is that crowns aren't useful enough, so why would they need more?
For some the answer is: need more crowns to buy more CE to re-sell it more expensive to buy more CE to re-sell...to get free energy, more or less. Imagine just 15 smart players who's been playing SK for a while and each stored 300k CR, what if they decided to buy most of the energy and reset it constantly at higher prices? I'm pretty sure such strategy could work quite fine.

@DrLequack
sure it's nice, but my point here is, what good does it do if you're the only one having all te money and there are less and less people playing ? remember how the english channels 1 to 8 were so packed with people that it was lagging all the time ? now there isn't enough people in all the channels to get 5 channels saturated ... come on, so what if you don't become billionnaire on this game and try to think about other peoples ?

@Thoran
that's exactly what's happening right now, some players are buying a huge amount of ce and reselling another huge amount of it at high prices

P.S. : I only use "you" because it's a habit of mine, it isn't directed at anyone in particular, more like directed at anyone who can fit in.
P.P.S : profit is nice and that's why i want to play and get to some shiny 5* gear, not staying blocked at my 4* set that i have been wearing for more than a month and i've been playing since before it was released as a F2P player that buys a lot of ce, thanks if someone is able to understand my point.

@DrLequack
seemingly some people are trying to do that ( seeing how there are still lower ce price set from time to time ) but those get bought immediately so it isn't noticeable, and those people aren't that rich as to sell packs of 10k ce at a time

Someone (I forgot his name) posted 400 offers at 6k CR each like 10 hours ago (that time the price was about 6.3k). Since then offers are remaining around (below) 6k cr. That's a nice "sacrifice" this guy made.

well don't think about it as a sacrifice xD more like a gift to people who can still keep up, remember that T1 runs get you about 3k with luck since mats aren't sellable easily. i think a fair price would be around 4k-4k500, that would be attainable with some cr sinks and people would get back to buying ce to get cr instead of the other way around. people who would just be able to do something like selling 400 stacks in one time are already rare so finding someone generous enough to get it slowly down would be really hard i think.
still, remembering them that the ce price were at 2k500 at the first day after the launching would help them doing this xD plus, it was that high at the very beginning only because some people had ce to spare after the w-e and wanted to sell those to buy the recipes to get further in the game.

It was I who made a small eulogy on his act on some other thread, I think the one I made mentionning I boycott market CE. But just imagine if that guy made his offer at 5k or even 4k. Market would have became stable again for a small while at least; because CE sellers need crowns, its not just selling for the pleasure of it.

almost 100 posts. I'm ok with him/her putting it at 6k, he's/she's already doing enough. I don't want to ask anyomore of whoever did that.

I heard there was an economics major in this topic, and he replied to my post (too lazy to check the last page for the name). Just going to run my logic, and hope that he will tell me where I'm wrong.

First I'm assuming that 100ME should equal 100CE in value at all time. This being that if CE is going for 2K crowns and I can get 6K per 100ME I have no reason to sell me CE on the market, and would be better off making dungeon runs.

Then I assume that if CE prices rise out of an acceptable area that people will stop buying it, until the price is forced back down.

Next assumption is that I can ignore crowns being created at random because they will disappear when buying recipes, alchemizing, or in fees at the auction house. This allows the regularization of crowns in the game, again assuming that everyone doesn't just stop spending and start hoarding.

So, in theory so long as people continue sinking crowns and CE, and that people continue buying CE, and that nobody manipulates the prices the price of CE should balance at the price of ME.

Now when I started I was averaging 6.5-7K per 100ME, and CE was 4K per 100. Now I'm averaging roughly the same(given the right assortment of graveyards and arenas), and CE is evening out on that number. So unless price continues to rise I would say it's working, and it's working fine. No if the price does rise I've already assumed that people would stop buying CE (if they continued I'd have to question their sanity), so it'd get knocked back into reasonable numbers.

If I'm wrong, some correction would be nice.

People will stop running the clockworks on CE when they take all factors into consideration and deem it unprofitable.
Doing second half only, arenas, hunting philoso feathers, sun silvers, etc can all allow people to deem 10k for 100ce worthwhile to keep running the clockworks.
Only a handful people would explore such options to their fullest of course, (and many would be anoyed by it) but yeah, you get the idea. There's still some room above 6k.

The other thing is running on ME, to save up CE/crowns over several days, to craft some item.
(I kinda do that sometimes due to not wanting to invest a lot of time already)

So if CE supply is running very low (no people spending $ on CE, or CE buyers actually not needing crowns cause they run/craft 3*s for reselling a lot themselves), CE price could go a lot lot higher. Shouldn't happen as long as there's an influx of new players with money who fall in love with this game though?