Conisdering Crowns <-> CE Prices (Oh look, another one of these topics..)
Fr, 06/10/2011 - 08:22
I was in several, if not many discussions about players who wanted to sell me some item with a UV. They were asking some odd amount of thousands of CE. Prices which I didn't have. I'd never thought I'd make a topic like this until now.
Now I understand UVs on helms/armors or weapons ups the value on the said item. However for a High~Maximum UV on some item, the value of the item increases tenfold. Now I understand that these UVs aren't common to obtain, but surely someone on the market is BOUND (no pun intended) to have them. What's the trouble? A little waiting? Apparently so.
I'm sure when we find someone who is buying or selling a certain item of this kind, we're in glee that we're able to make a sale. However the seller of that item asks an absurd amount of CE. Lets say.. A Shivermist Buster Bomb (5*) with a UV Charge Time Reduction UV, being sold for 17k CE. Now if you ask me, what is the current crowns equivalent? Way more than it takes to craft, for sure.
CE is used in a lot of crafting, moreso than crowns, but CE can also come from crowns if you're a free player like me. There are people who find crowns useless in the market. Crowns are used in buying a ton of recipes ALSO at higher prices than the vendor. Crowns are used for CE conversion. Then there are people who find crowns useful in the market and compare them with current CE prices, me and several others I'm sure.
In a competitive market such as this, aren't we asking a little much from people? Personally speaking, I think we are. If you say otherwise, I'd love an explanation.
Fr, 06/10/2011 - 08:56
#2
I agree with giga
...that prices are fair. But I believe that armor UVs only go low, medium, high and maximum, with NO very highs... perhaps I am mistaken though.
Also, I must admit the original post is not entirely clear to me. Are you suggesting that crowns should be accepted as equivalent currency to energy? If this is the case then I think you are right, but the problem is that the value of crowns is very unstable compared to energy... in fact it's consistently dropping. Since many of these high value items take a while to sell at a great price, vendors are obviously going to favor the more stable, upward-trending currency.
Fr, 06/10/2011 - 08:59
#3
I believe Armors can have
I believe Armors can have Very High, but not Ultra. Ultra is the stage between Very High and Maximum, and is only seen when you stack a combination of bonuses together (i.e. Volcanic Demo Helm's Medium CTR + Volcanic Demo Armor's Low CTR plus a Lv10 Bomb's Medium CTR will produce an Ultra CTR).
Fr, 06/10/2011 - 09:07
#4
Are all UV's even an equal
Are all UV's even an equal chance of happening? I've crafted lots of low UVs, a couple mediums, but never a high, very high, or maximum. But i've only done ~120-150 crafts.
So if high is even less common than low, and maximum less common than high, it would make the price considerably higher still.
Fr, 06/10/2011 - 09:18
#5
"So if high is even less
"So if high is even less common than low, and maximum less common than high, it would make the price considerably higher still."
Yeah, I was working on the presumption that they're all equally likely to appear, as this is most "favorable" to having the lowest possible total energy cost.
I forgot to actually mention that in the post though. I do not have any evidence on whether each UV actually has a higher or lower chance of appearing than others. (Though I do suspect that, yes, Low pops up more frequently than High.)
Fr, 06/10/2011 - 09:19
#6
Take into consideration when
Take into consideration when CE prices were once 3.5k for 100 CE for a little while. And you can just get lucky with UVs, it's purely random.
Lets say if someone wanted to purchase a Vog Cub Cap/Coat having a Medium or High UV. Back then, you could have gotten a hat or a coat for 10k CE. Nowadays, since the CE price has nearly doubled, people are asking for 20k CE for the cap or coat alone.
If anything, it should be 5k CE for the hat or coat alone today.
I'm comparing all of my prices from Crowns to CE. My argument still stands.
Fr, 06/10/2011 - 09:42
#7
@Gigafreak
While the fact that high UVs are less common than low UVs pushes the "energy spent" figure higher for a high UV item, you're ignoring a factor pushing the value in the other direction: All the non UV and low UV items crafted while looking for that high UV also have value. So in your example, 27500 energy doesn't just give you a maximum shock wolver coat, it gives you 549 other wolver coats as well, including most likely a few other max UVs in the mix.
Fr, 06/10/2011 - 09:48
#8
"Take into consideration when
"Take into consideration when CE prices were once 3.5k for 100 CE for a little while. And you can just get lucky with UVs, it's purely random.
Lets say if someone wanted to purchase a Vog Cub Cap/Coat having a Medium or High UV. Back then, you could have gotten a hat or a coat for 10k CE. Nowadays, since the CE price has nearly doubled, people are asking for 20k CE for the cap or coat alone.
If anything, it should be 5k CE for the hat or coat alone today.
I'm comparing all of my prices from Crowns to CE. My argument still stands.
"
No, your argument doesn't stand at all with that response. You cannot base prices on the fact that people can get lucky. In that regard, you finding someone selling a UV item cheap is lucky, so why not balance both of your luck together and meet up over a bowl of pasta?
Someone selling a UV will typically be someone who is mass producing items SPECIFICALLY TO ACQUIRE UVs. They aren't out to make money, they are out to get the exact piece of gear that they want. So, the RNG loved them enough to give out a Maximum UV, but not of the type they want. They aren't going to sell that Max UV off cheap and sit through months more repeat alchemy/sell routines. They will sell it at a rate which allows them to have a decent chance at getting another Maximum UV, and hopefully the one they want this time.
The change in Energy costs wouldn't reduce the cost of UV gear either, because the MAJOR COST OF ALCHEMY IS ENERGY. As the price per energy goes up, the price per UV item also goes up, not down.
Fr, 06/10/2011 - 10:00
#9
"So in your example, 27500
"So in your example, 27500 energy doesn't just give you a maximum shock wolver coat, it gives you 549 other wolver coats as well, including most likely a few other max UVs in the mix."
The buyer doesn't want the other 549 Wolver Coats though, they want the Max Shock Resistance. The seller can sell for less than that number because (s)he's usually selling the normal and boring-UV ones at a minimal price to reduce losses. (Checked last night: 2* items on the auction house are priced for barely over half the energy cost to buyout). As a result: the price point is ~10k CE instead of 25.5k CE.
Fr, 06/10/2011 - 10:01
#10
"higher" the UV, more rare it is to find.
I can say, unequvically, that low UVs are much, much, much more common than high UVs. I've been crafting for not all that long, and i've crafted more low UV this and that (armor, weapons, and bombs) than i could even bother to count. I've crafted one Medium UV, and nothing above that.
So yeah, i've found the 1 out of 10 average being a UV to be spot on. And of those, for me at least, about 2% have been higher than a "low" UV. So from a rarity standpoint, HIGH/MAX UVs are worth the money being asked. From a utility standpoint, they probably aren't worth a fraction of what people are asking. And from an economical standpoint, something is only worth what people are willing to pay for it. And if you have visted the bazare recently, you'll see that peaple are willing to pay plenty for these items.
Fr, 06/10/2011 - 10:36
#11
Asking price and other stuff
Sellers frequently use the Bazaar section to get a feel on pricing UV items. Items which are slow to sell are marked down or kept in seller's inventory. The asking price is determined more so by potential buyers. If you take a look at the Bazaar section of the forum, you can see bidding wars on highly coveted UVs. While the seller can determine a starting bid or seek offers and price checks, potential buyers determine the selling price.
Potential buyers will also jump on price checks to message and heckle sellers to get a bargain on a UV before it goes up for sale. These buyers know that if there is auction competition, the item they want NOW will:
1) Take longer to get as they need to wait for the auction to end;
2) The item price may skyrocket beyond what they willing or have means to pay for.
The in-game Auction House is perhaps more fair toward people with limited incomes. Rare tems being sold for CE on the Bazaar forum or in trade chat tend to attract the impulsive buyers who have the means to purchase CE directly from the game company. For the impulse buyer, CE is easy currency.
I am the main crafter in my guild and now have an over abundance of crowns from selling items on the in-game Auction House. Since Auction House sales have been very profitable for our guild, we started to use the extra crowns and crafted items to sponsor competitions. I am going to need to start selling on the Bazaar forum for CE to get more CE for crafting to support our competitions. My guild has more fun devising devilish competitions for the SK community to enjoy. Our first competition which we are wrapping-up can be viewed at: http://wiki.spiralknights.com/A_Beastly_Limerick_Competition
I think our competitions even slay the SK staff. Future competitions will include Gremlin Haiku and Impostocube Cosplay.
IGN: Raspberry
UV: ~10% chance to obtain. So if they were all actually useful, a UV will instantly make the item's cost 10 times more than normal.
Armor: Normal, Piercing, Shadow, Elemental, Stun, Fire, Freeze, Shock, Curse, Sleep, Poison
That's 11 possible defenses, which can be Low, Medium, High, Very High, or Maximum!, so there are 55 possible outcomes.
Weapons: Attack speed, Charge time, Beast, Fiend, Construct, Undead, Slime, Gremlin.
That's 8 possible bonuses (7 for bombs, since they can't get Attack Speed). Weapon bonuses can range from Low to Very High, leaving 32 possible outcomes (28 for bombs).
Okay, so let's find an example of an "overpriced" item.
Wolver Coat with Maximum! Shock Resistance.
Wolver Coat: 50 CE
1/10 odds for UV
1/11 for Shock Resistance
1/5 for Maximum
= 1/550 odds of crafting this, meaning an average of 50 x 550 = 27,500 Energy spent crafting Wolver Coats per Maximum Shock Resist UV. And that's just a 2* item. (Yes you can use Mist, but that converts to 225 days of doing nothing but crafting Wolver Coats-- no Mist left over for actual dungeons.)
Max UV armors usually sell for "merely" 10k to 20k. This is not even taking into account that Shock is a very hated status effect, making this more of a premium item than one with, for example, maximum Shadow defense.
Kinda makes the 17,500 cost of that Shivermist Buster look almost reasonable, huh?