Spiral Knights - CE/Energy Market Price is Skyrocking; Here are SIX fixes (UPDATED OCT 2015)

CE/Energy Market Price is Skyrocking; Here are SIX fixes (UPDATED OCT 2015)

61 replies [Last post]

Tue, 05/05/2015 - 15:57

Cheshireccat

The CE market (much like our national and international stock markets) need controls in place to stop artificial market manipulation.

W̶e̶ ̶a̶l̶l̶ ̶k̶n̶o̶w̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶m̶a̶r̶k̶e̶t̶ ̶h̶a̶s̶ ̶s̶k̶y̶r̶o̶c̶k̶e̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶t̶r̶o̶l̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶a̶ ̶v̶e̶r̶y̶ ̶s̶h̶o̶r̶t̶ ̶a̶m̶o̶u̶n̶t̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶i̶m̶e̶.̶ ̶I̶t̶ ̶c̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶h̶i̶t̶ ̶9̶5̶0̶0̶ ̶b̶y̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶w̶e̶e̶k̶e̶n̶d̶.̶̶(̶M̶a̶y̶ ̶2̶0̶1̶5̶ ̶p̶o̶s̶t̶)̶
EDIT: OCTOBER, 2015:
The Energy market is on the rise again! It hasn't dropped below 9000 in several months. The market is monopolized by players who keep the market high to maximize their profits.
It's time to consider some ideas to balance the market.

Watch the market for a while. You'll see some ridiculous posts like "____Cr x 1042" in the buy or sell. Math that out: that offer is for 100,000CE. That's all one player. He's put that in as a price wall that will never be passed. When you can't go lower than a certain price... the only way to go is up.

Another tactic is to list a number of offers, pump the market, remove your unsold entries and buy/sell at a higher margin.

A legitimate but problem-causing behavior is competition: because a player can add and remove offers freely you will get players trying to one-up each other, adding and removing, and racing up the market.

I propose any of the ̶f̶o̶u̶r̶ SIX following ideas:

1) Lock all buy/sell offers.
If you put an offer on the market, it will stay there until it expires 7 days later. If you want to buy CE right now you still have the trade buttons to buy/sell the top offer.
This will allow players to legitimately buy/sell CE but not play games with the market.

2) Charge a fee for removing an offer.
It would prevent spoofing and crashes for the REAL stock market, so how about our tiny one?
You can put an offer on the market just like you can now, but if you prematurely remove the offer you lose 5% of the CE/Cr. It needs to be more than the 2% CE sale loss. It needs to affect both buy and sell offers so people can't artificially moderate the sell price.
Doing this for CE sells is not a problem because most people won't pull their CE offers (knowing that doing so will lose CE).

3) Limit the number of buys or buy offers.
You can only post 10 buy offers each day. =OR= You can only post 10 buy offers at a time (Fangel) =OR= You can post as many buy offers as you want but only purchase 1000E per day. At that point all of your other offers would be refunded.
You definitely do not want to limit the number of CE sell offers--we want as much CE in the economy as possible.
This will only impact the veteran players. No new player will be trying to buy thousands of CE. Even then it won't be a problem for most of us vets. Think about it: how often have you tried to buy 50000 energy in one sitting? Never right?

NEW SUGGESTIONS OCT 2015:
5) Create a new Cr sink = Punch Discount Weekend.
This is similar to #4, in which it takes a large amount of Cr out of the economy in a short period of time.
For three days, give a 25% discount to Punch. 1UV=15kCr, 2UV=55kCr, 3UV=165kCr
At these prices people will sell off massive amounts of CE to take advantage. Players will try and make their perfect weapons or even just improve the ones they have. The people most likely to use this are the same ones with a huge amount of CE to sell.
In addition to lowering the CE market, this also has the added benefit of bringing back intermittent players! Everybody loves shiny things, and veteran players love shiny UVs. Turn this into a one-week event (a gift from the Punkin King? Combine it with Solstice/Equinox?) and older players WILL log back in and open their wallets to get the gear they've always dreamed of.

6) Create a new Cr sink = Daily Prestiege: 20kCr.
This is similar to #4, but it's a long, slow drain on the economy's Cr instead of a rapid drop. It gives players one more thing that they can purchase.
People want prestige. You want to draw Cr out of the economy. Have people pay Cr for prestige just like they pay materials (or weapons, which nobody does. Heck, you may want to replace the 5* weapon requirement with Cr).
Do this in addition to the other daily prestige missions. Don't make it cheap, but don't make it too expensive. 15-20kCr is more than one Vana run but not high enough to inspire derision.

Please +1 this thread if you want the CE market prices to go down!!

4) Create a new Cr sink = Cr flash sale.
[5/8/2015] OOO: THANK YOU FOR LISTENING TO YOUR PLAYERS!!!! :D :D
OOO just announced that they are having a weekend-long AH sale!
Please have MANY simultaneous auctions, at least 60 total, like a usual Flash Sale! The more shiny big-ticket things = the more Cr people will spend!! :D

I still hope that you will implement a long-term fix but I cannot tell you how happy I am to see this. It is proof that you do care for and listen to your players (which I will be sure to tell when I hear people complaining otherwise).
THANK YOU!!!

4̶)̶ ̶C̶r̶e̶a̶t̶e̶ ̶a̶ ̶n̶e̶w̶ ̶C̶r̶ ̶s̶i̶n̶k̶ ̶=̶ ̶C̶r̶ ̶f̶l̶a̶s̶h̶ ̶s̶a̶l̶e̶.̶
T̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶a̶ ̶t̶e̶m̶p̶o̶r̶a̶r̶y̶ ̶f̶i̶x̶.̶
̶H̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶a̶ ̶f̶o̶u̶r̶-̶d̶a̶y̶ ̶f̶l̶a̶s̶h̶ ̶s̶a̶l̶e̶ ̶b̶u̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶e̶n̶t̶i̶r̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶A̶H̶ ̶F̶e̶a̶t̶u̶r̶e̶d̶ ̶A̶u̶c̶t̶i̶o̶n̶s̶.̶ ̶E̶a̶c̶h̶ ̶i̶t̶e̶m̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶a̶d̶d̶e̶d̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶1̶ ̶h̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶t̶i̶m̶e̶ ̶l̶e̶f̶t̶,̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶O̶O̶O̶ ̶a̶d̶d̶s̶ ̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶n̶e̶w̶ ̶i̶t̶e̶m̶ ̶e̶v̶e̶r̶y̶ ̶1̶2̶ ̶m̶i̶n̶u̶t̶e̶s̶ ̶(̶s̶o̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶f̶i̶v̶e̶ ̶a̶u̶c̶t̶i̶o̶n̶s̶ ̶o̶c̶c̶u̶r̶r̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶a̶t̶ ̶e̶a̶c̶h̶ ̶t̶i̶m̶e̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶a̶ ̶q̶u̶i̶c̶k̶ ̶t̶u̶r̶n̶o̶v̶e̶r̶)̶.̶ ̶
̶S̶e̶n̶d̶ ̶a̶ ̶/̶z̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶a̶n̶n̶o̶u̶n̶c̶e̶m̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶e̶v̶e̶r̶y̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶a̶l̶l̶ ̶H̶a̶v̶e̶n̶s̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶e̶a̶c̶h̶ ̶n̶e̶w̶ ̶i̶t̶e̶m̶'̶s̶ ̶n̶a̶m̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶m̶o̶t̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶a̶u̶c̶t̶i̶o̶n̶s̶.̶ ̶P̶e̶o̶p̶l̶e̶ ̶w̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶s̶e̶l̶l̶ ̶m̶i̶l̶l̶i̶o̶n̶s̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶C̶E̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶g̶e̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶C̶r̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶b̶i̶d̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶b̶i̶g̶-̶t̶i̶c̶k̶e̶t̶ ̶i̶t̶e̶m̶s̶.̶
̶Y̶o̶u̶ ̶c̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶a̶l̶s̶o̶ ̶l̶i̶s̶t̶ ̶s̶o̶m̶e̶ ̶i̶t̶e̶m̶s̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶b̶u̶y̶o̶u̶t̶s̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶s̶t̶o̶c̶k̶,̶ ̶l̶i̶k̶e̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶d̶o̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶s̶u̶p̶p̶l̶y̶ ̶p̶a̶c̶k̶s̶.̶
̶I̶f̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶w̶a̶n̶t̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶r̶e̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶t̶r̶i̶c̶k̶y̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶c̶a̶n̶ ̶d̶o̶ ̶e̶v̶e̶r̶y̶t̶h̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶a̶ ̶b̶u̶y̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶B̶U̶T̶ ̶m̶a̶n̶u̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶a̶d̶j̶u̶s̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶C̶r̶ ̶p̶r̶i̶c̶e̶ ̶b̶a̶s̶e̶d̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶p̶ ̶C̶E̶ ̶b̶u̶y̶ ̶o̶f̶f̶e̶r̶ ̶w̶h̶e̶n̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶l̶i̶s̶t̶ ̶e̶a̶c̶h̶ ̶i̶t̶e̶m̶.̶ ̶I̶t̶ ̶w̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶s̶a̶m̶e̶ ̶"̶C̶E̶"̶ ̶p̶r̶i̶c̶e̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶a̶ ̶r̶e̶g̶u̶l̶a̶r̶ ̶f̶l̶a̶s̶h̶ ̶s̶a̶l̶e̶,̶ ̶b̶u̶t̶ ̶s̶o̶l̶d̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶C̶r̶.̶ ̶(̶H̶a̶v̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶e̶v̶e̶r̶y̶t̶h̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶l̶i̶s̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶a̶ ̶b̶u̶y̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶s̶i̶d̶e̶r̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶C̶E̶ ̶c̶o̶s̶t̶ ̶w̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶n̶e̶g̶a̶t̶i̶v̶e̶l̶y̶ ̶i̶m̶p̶a̶c̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶S̶K̶ ̶M̶e̶r̶c̶h̶a̶n̶t̶ ̶e̶c̶o̶n̶o̶m̶y̶)̶.̶
̶N̶o̶ ̶m̶a̶t̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶h̶o̶w̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶d̶o̶ ̶i̶t̶,̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶w̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶c̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶p̶e̶o̶p̶l̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶m̶o̶v̶e̶ ̶h̶u̶g̶e̶ ̶p̶i̶l̶e̶s̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶C̶r̶ ̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶g̶a̶m̶e̶ ̶e̶c̶o̶n̶o̶m̶y̶.̶

Tue, 05/05/2015 - 16:04

Hyper-Galactic

http://i.imgur.com/Gsa0Eib.png says these suggestions were needed months ago...

Tue, 05/05/2015 - 16:28

Fangel

Alternatively

It is a player-driven market, and I see no reason to force anything in here other than if prices get ridiculous. Potentially you could only have X offers to buy and X offers to sell at any given time per player.

Let's say you can have 10 buy offers and 15 sell offers at any given time. This means a single player cannot control the market, but keeps the market driven by players. If you need crowns/energy quick, then you can use the trade offers, but if the offers are flying off the shelves then you can still make thousands of CE or hundreds of thousands of crowns in one day.

... Does this mean alts can rue the market? Totally, but if you're going to go through all the trouble of making several alts just for the sake of the market you sort of deserve the manipulation. A way around this is to make manipulating the market through alt accounts a bannable offense and place some safeguards in place to track things. If someone suspects market manipulation they submit a ticket to Three Rings and Three Rings will look into it. If you are found to be manipulating the market, your ability to use the market is revoked for 150 days for all accounts involved.
All of this doesn't need to be in place but it's a system that Three Rings could strive to have.

Getting back on track, the fact that the price fluctuates is just how the market is. No reason to cut down on it. Buy and sell offers should be refunded and placed for free, however the limit on how many you can place at once is reasonable enough. It also means you will only have a total of 25 mails to have to read through if your offers go through the system instead of possibly hundreds.

Tue, 05/05/2015 - 16:43

Cheshireccat

@Fangel

I'm glad you agree. I think that idea #3 (what you are talking about) has a lot of promise, too. :)

I also agree with you that we shouldn't be preventing fluctuation. I'm just trying to stop market manipulation and the resultant overinflation that hurts the game itself.
When the CE market first started to spike a few weeks ago the AH was *empty*. There were FIVE bombs for sale that were not 0* or 1*. It was like that for days. It won't regain the same amount of saturation until CE prices fall.

When all of the equipment areas of the AH are empty it means fewer players can buy gear and fewer players are crafting--which reduces player involvement in the game, and etc etc etc.

SK as a community is healthier and happier when the prices are lower and items are affordable.

--Chesh

Tue, 05/05/2015 - 17:08

Fangel

Hmm.

See, with infinite elevators comes infinite crowns, thus inflation is sure to happen. With more crowns circulating, and not enough end-game crown sinks, we have a general problem. Once you've hit end-game, you can start investing in energy... Whereas a new player can only really invest in crowns because they'll never have a large amount of energy due to hall of heroes missions.

And what I stated was a modified version of your number 3. I don't think a daily limit is the answer, but rather a timeless per-player limit. No single player could have more than 10 (buy) offers at a time, however if they're putting up a good price and someone's buying crowns then after the offer goes through they are able to put up to their limit again (if 3 offers go through, they are able to have an additional 3 up).
It would take quite a few alts to make a walls of hundreds, plus you could have offers expire after X time so that the players would have to be active on every account to not have any direct losses.

Sat, 05/09/2015 - 12:55

Dracora-Speaking

A potential crown sink, and +1

Seems like a gap between the poor and rich problem, something many RL countries suffer from. For us, the poor are the new players, and the old are the rich (statistically, obviously this is not always the case). This gap is supposed to close over time with good game design (or not be there at all), but as the game is now, the gap remains and doesn't appear to be closing because of the nature of the tasks one has to do to "succeed" in sk. And those wall makers are not helping things.

I know I'd go for this (I've seen it suggested many times):

A huge, consistent end-game crown sink would be to let players craft their forge crystals into the next star level, similar to how we can craft down (shudder). Like other crafts, bound crystals used in crafting would stay bound. In fact, I'd say you'd only be able to craft up bound crystals, not crystals you buy. So you'd need to fund your gear levels either through the market CR-E exchange (tah dah), direct E purchase from the SD (lol), or by playing and earning drops dependent on RNG. Players would still play in the clockworks to earn fire crystals (of a lower star and/or the star they want) as well as credits. The cost of crafting crystals up should be significant enough to deter finicky wallet savers (thus keeping them in the clockworks going for the "Free Drops" and not changing much for them), but cheap enough for many vets to cash in right away and probably continuously - which is the hope. This kills two greavers with one stone - it will create a significant end-game crown sink, and reduce the rotten feeling of battling RNG (and probably the amount of players complaining about radiant drop rates), thus bringing more players in to actually play because they feel problems have been at least addressed based on player feedback. Some will of course still complain...but not nearly as many, I think. Crafting crystals up would be an alternate option to the current availability of crystals for Energy - save time and buy them with E, or spend time and get them as drops, or spend a little less time and craft them up from crown+crystal drops.

Flash sales as Chesh described would be a great crown sink, but OOO seems to like SD sales - energy buyers are more profitable for them irl. But a permanent, somewhat constantly-demanded endgame crown sink that's more fair RNG-wise than stuffing cr down Punch's throat will be healthier for both customer and company. I digress. EDIT: Oh they totally did an auction house sale! I was happily wrong!

Regarding market options in this thread - I would be in favor of a hard cap on the number of E buy-offers a player can put up at once. Those walls are so high, the ones who built them will make everyone take the fall very hard. Let's just give them fewer bricks. Revoking market activity if found guilty of manipulating is fine too - it's not a total ban, you can still play. Get your armor rear into the clockworks and contribute to PLAYING instead of sitting in Haven hurting the game like some weird, energy-blue-colored cancer.

So I guess I'd hit the problem from several angles to "solve" it. It's standing on more than one leg after all.

Tue, 05/05/2015 - 18:27

Deleted-Knight

It's capitalism

Basically, there's little demand for energy and a huge supply of crowns since people can progress through the game without purchasing energy. Energy prices go up because people can afford to pay more.
End game player have nothing better to do, so they spend their time accumulating wealth. Unfortunately wealth also doesn't give them much to do. So they use the wealth to make more wealth, ie. manipulate the energy market. It hurts the less wealthy, but there's nothing OOO can do without offending rich people, which is not a good idea since rich people are those who have invested a lot of time/$$$ into the game.

For the most part energy is not even needed. It just gives people exclusive items. The people who want faster progress will regret it once they realize how short the game story is.
What's concerning is that there exist people who play the game solely to accumulate wealth. If your game has many end-game players who do nothing other than to make money to make more money, it's not going to be long-lived. Ironically, back in the mist days, many F2P players were forced to advance at a slow rate and the game could keep their attention. Now, people speed through the game, lose interest from the lack of content, and quit.

Tue, 05/05/2015 - 22:36

Poetry

Wed, 05/06/2015 - 00:04

Hexzyle

Second option sounds good, but combined with the first option:

You only get 95% of your crowns back if you withdraw a buy offer within 48 hours (this penalty occurs on the auction house, why not here too?)
After 48 hours passes, you may withdraw your offer at no charge.
Sell energy offers are unaffected because the destruction of energy through fees because someone is trying to sell cheap for an immediate boost in crowns shouldn't be a thing.

Wed, 05/06/2015 - 03:46

Spirro

I agree

Wed, 05/06/2015 - 05:49

#10

Xaurian

+1
This needs to be seen by Three Rings.

Wed, 05/06/2015 - 08:31

#11

Skepticraven

↓

Steams solution to stop market manipulation was locking of recently traded items.
It seems pretty stupid to allow players to list selling and buying energy at the same time.
That being said, the "lock" is also applied when items are traded and would be difficult to apply on a currency instead of items.

+1 for #1 and #2

Wed, 05/06/2015 - 08:38

#12

Euclidean-Space

1.
7 days seem brutal. I would agree with 3 days.

2.
This is kind of brutal as well, I would agree if it is coupled with 1.
Let me explain: 3 days cooldown, during the 3 days, remove => fee OR after the 3 days => remove => no fees incur

3.
Would not work out too well. Simply create alts. It is against TOS to use macros but many people do use and there is no good way to detect it.
This would only promote alt-usage.

4.
I like this one actually, I love seeing hoards of richies whining over one item.

Wed, 05/06/2015 - 11:22

#13

Cheshireccat

@Fangel @Hades

Fangel: added your version to #3

Hades: My #1 was based on the regular offer refund duration--I think it kicks back the offer after a week or two?
But sure. I could agree to a minimum of three days.

#3 Yes, I anticipated this suggestion will promote alt usage. But you can't easily post a x400 buy wall on 40 alts--there is a point where the alt macro control is REALLY impractical. It's also easy to detect. If OOO sees that 40 accounts all log on in quick succession from the same IP address and they all post buy/sell offers that throws up a big flag. An easy amount of investigation would show that these 40 accounts don't play or talk to people and are just market-abusing alts to get banned.
The fewer alts run, the less likely to get noticed. But that also means less impact/control of the market. It's still a win.

#4 lol

Wed, 05/06/2015 - 13:33

#14

Holy-Nightmare

.....

The problem isn't that the CE market is rising with inflation (in the real world); the problem is that the amount of CR you can earn per floor hasn't increased (much like raising the minimum wage) along with it.

Wed, 05/06/2015 - 13:36

#15

Saltyrockmonkey

please do :c

Wed, 05/06/2015 - 14:11

#16

Cheshireccat

@Holy

The problem isn't that the CE market is rising with inflation; the problem is that it's being artificially and intentionally inflated by a tiny minority of players.

Wed, 05/06/2015 - 15:01

#17

Polychromous

I'm fine with whatever idea is picked, just as long as this problem gets a solution.

Wed, 05/06/2015 - 16:53

#18

Blessings

Wed, 05/06/2015 - 21:01

#19

Mergu-Md

Bit of a critique/thoughts

1) Locking offers has a good chance of hiking energy prices further up by creating even worse price walls. There are many small-time merchants that utilize the energy market to make minuscule gains every day, and the market may end up riddled with locked-in offers. Players would be apt to only place offers by 1's or 2's because they know someone may come in and stick a 7 day price wall in front of them.

2) This runs into the same problem as above - players are penalized if their offers fall to the depths and would rather have them stay up as price walls.

3) This would absolutely drop the energy price, and we might even see an increase in merchanting/unboxing/UV rolling because the people pulling the strings on the market would have that limb severed. My only problem is it's putting a cap on capitalism (bad pun? eh? eh?). I've never done straight-up trades for large amounts of energy because I know if I need a 4kE unbind, I can save a nice little chunk of cr by placing offers on the market and waiting a bit. You also talk about limiting to 10 offers or 1000E total but then compare this to 50,000E, which is a huge jump. What if I'm unbinding my 4* Salamander Suit Jerko convinced me to buy, or my 5* Winmillion (see who catches it)?

4) Like you said this is temporary... and sort of lazy because it's a workaround to a problem instead of a fix.

I think you should encourage feedback instead of +1s on this thread, because some of these ideas have the potential to do more harm than good. People see "lower CE prices" and are quick to post without fully reading and considering, or even saying which idea they like the most.

tl;dr > -1 Because ideas need refining. Legitimacy doesn't always mean a decrease in prices. Using in-game chat to garner +1s for "lower[ing] the CE market" brushes over the actual content of your suggestion. Number 3 is a good start, but it will hurt the casual energy-market user.

Wed, 05/06/2015 - 21:12

#20

Zethalan

Wed, 05/06/2015 - 23:45

#21

Drnegative-Reborn

Fine Tuning

Greetings I say plus one this, but as Lunarias said there needs to be fine tuning to the things you mentioned which by the way I agree with most of it.
Second: I think I might eaten alive for saying this but OOO has said they will not dip their hands in the market. But they can as they have started with the rework of Vanaduke can also without much accusation rework and fine tune the CE Market, oh and throw in a rework of haven with trees in there with chairs under them for me to sit on :D

But someone or some people need to bring the market to a level that benefits the majority of the Middle Class and Upper Middle Class players, because the market will collapse on the super rich because there will be no more buyers after a while.

So yeah that my two cents worth.

Drnegative/ Doc

P.S Excuse my grammar it is not the best :D

Thu, 05/07/2015 - 08:20

#22

Turtletalks

Yus.

Turtletalk agrees with Cheshireccat. Yes!

Thu, 05/07/2015 - 11:20

#23

Fangel

I was wondering where the artificial inflation of replies was coming from, lol. Rarely see so many new faces in the suggestions subforum.
I agree with Lunarias here though. I did my little bit of refining of number 3 because, well, a daily limit is kinda dumb. Having at max 10 buy offers be available by any person does make that one person able to buy 50,000CE in one day if they play the market correctly and the market is moving fast for whatever reason, however they can't single-handedly manipulate it.

Fri, 05/08/2015 - 07:47

#24

Cheshireccat

@Lunarias

I admit; I am promoting this in Haven. But it is with good intentions and success!

Many players don't even know about the forum. Some know but have never visited. Others never bother to post. Even MORE view the suggestions forum as a graveyard where ideas go to die.

I wanted to get more voices involved in this idea. I also wanted to give players an avenue for their discontent so they don't sit around Haven and badmouth OOO.
I would say that my efforts are a success since half the posts in this thread are opinions, critiques, and discussion.
We both win!

On that note, I love some of the tweaks to my ideas. Many of you have raised legitimate points. I hope that OOO will implement some solution for a long-term solution to this player-caused problem. A solution that is less heavy-handed than banning the worst offenders.
--Chesh

Fri, 05/08/2015 - 07:54

#25

Puurrfect

Well look at those Featured offers

Fri, 05/08/2015 - 18:00

#26

Aer-Loc

Yes, please.

Fri, 05/08/2015 - 20:18

#27

Mergu-Md

I'm not sure if artificial fluff from members on your friends list/business partners/guildmates or your popularity is necessarily beneficial. All it really does is skew data from a bias unrecognizable to Game Masters. I have a feeling you know, and possibly want, this. Not saying your intentions are sinister, but there seems to be an agenda behind the scenes here. Again, not pointing fingers.

What I do know is the energy price has recently plummeted due to a few new featured auctions that are only pumping in a few items to the economy. Whether they are related to this thread doesn't really matter. Great move by OOO. In fact, there seems to be many great moves being made recently.

If a Game Master is reading this, give my regards to the team. Things are looking positive.

Sat, 05/09/2015 - 05:16

#28

Deathwlsh

It's called supply and

It's called supply and demand. If people want to buy at that price they will. Nothing will change that. This updated it unneeded. The prices have been going up and down since 2011

Sat, 05/09/2015 - 07:21

#29

Mergu-Md

If you're suggesting this was natural, you're very wrong. The featured auctions have changed the supply and demand, which has thus changed the energy market. The day before the update, it costed an average of 9200 cr to buy 100 energy. Although it did go up and down, it kept within a ~50cr margin. The day of the update, energy dropped to 8300.

Sun, 05/10/2015 - 13:14

#30

Arkate

It's skyrocketing because

It's skyrocketing because unlike currency, CE is not static. There will always be new CE made. And there will always be more demand than supply. So to keep supply up, prices will be higher.

I remember when I started, CE was only ~3kcr. Then just a year after, it shot to fluctuating between 6 and 10kcr for 100CE.

Mon, 05/25/2015 - 06:37

#31

Petater

If OOO had a schedule for its AH sales, then CE would remain stable as there'd be that lingering target where ce actually gets input into the system on a predictable schedule.

Mon, 05/25/2015 - 09:39

#32

Batail

Yes! This is genius! The energy market is asking too much! It takes so long to get 9000+ crowns, especially if you don't have access to those shadow gates in Tier 3 or Tier 3 at all!

Wed, 07/22/2015 - 22:30

#33

Hyper-Galactic

Needs another round of ah sales. :0

Fri, 07/24/2015 - 04:23

#34

Azure-Guardian

Tue, 10/13/2015 - 09:58

#35

Cheshireccat

UPDATE

The May 2015 Featured Auction Flash Sale was a HUGE success! It dipped the market by 2000cr and kept it lowered for a couple of months.
Energy prices are rising again.

I've added suggestion #5 to the OP.
OOO, please take care of your fans! :)
--Chesh

PS: If you do another FAFS, I bet you could pull 2mil per Gunpup and 4mil per Snarbopup. ;)

Tue, 10/13/2015 - 09:59

#36

Cheshireccat

"An idea whose time has come" again...

OCTOBER 2015 +1'S
Restarting the clock! If you +1'd back in May, please feel free to do so again after this post! --Chesh

Tue, 10/13/2015 - 10:28

#37

Petater

Problem here is that this isn't a regularly scheduled thing, so people are free to speculate up the prices afterwards again. You need to modify this suggestion explicitly asking for such to prevent speculation in the future.

Tue, 10/13/2015 - 10:37

#38

Cheshireccat

@Petater, @OOO

@Petater

@OOO

My question (to which only you know the answer; and to which you will never share): how big is the imbalance between Cr generated and Cr destroyed? If the balance were closer, wouldn't that lower the CE market as Cr becomes scarcer? If so, would Petater's (and my) suggestions on a regular basis help regulate the economy?
Just something for you to consider, and which may justify our suggestions.

Tue, 10/13/2015 - 10:50

#39

Petater

Actually I went to the forums at the same as you posted...

Also they need people UV rolling again to reduce the cr in the system. Maybe throw in UV tickets for half price on featured ah every month or two. They need some kind of way to add a visible schedule for marketers to cash out on CR/CE so they can't speculate it out of bounds too much. The AH sales can be more effective in a series if they're spread out though. Just don't 24/7 it like promo boxes (Which I'm sure are experiencing diminishing returns due to being 24/7)...

Tue, 10/13/2015 - 13:03

#40

Fangel

Punch Discount is a neat idea. Sure people who frolic over to those. They need to be semi-regular however, like once every 3rd weekend of the month. Will get us online for those times.

Additionally I still stand by the 10 buy/sell offers idea. Seems the most worthwhile to me.

Crown sinks? Yes, we need more of them. However we also need more incentive to buy energy. I'd say make equinox and solstice energy bundled boxes so that every 3 months we'll get more energy in the system while also making those boxes more tolerable to get a UV ticket out of. Bi-monthly AH featured auction sales would also help, as long as they're both small but have a fair amount of sought-after items, such as mixmasters, iron dragon wings/golden dragon set, splendid toppers, etc.

Tue, 10/13/2015 - 13:25

#41

Cheshireccat

@Fangel

Nah. If Punch Discount happens once a month you won't solve the problem. You'll just make it so that people only Punch once a month. :P
The Punch idea needs to be rare and unpredictable. IMO, only once a year and never at the same time. Or (sadly) only just once ever.
That way when it DOES happen people will leap to take advantage.
--Chesh

Tue, 10/13/2015 - 14:08

#42

Fehzor

We have a "Punch discount". It's called the "Equinox prize box", wherein the whales grant the energy tycoon/merchants a discount when they go to roll UVs so that they can buy their celestial.... whatever. Tell me I'm wrong.

Tue, 10/13/2015 - 14:16

#43

Fangel

Not... Really...

If you roll UVs often then yes, the discount will put you off. If you're someone line me who rarely does rolling then a discount every month will have me rolling at least once a month. Have one heavily discounted first roll (5k crowns for a single UV) and then the discounted price from then on and you have players from all over rolling at least once, taking a large chunk of crowns out of the system. This doesn't take massive crowns away from whales, but it takes a lot of crowns away from the game's economy. 5k crowns isn't much to one player, but if everyone online spends 5k crowns? That's millions of crowns being taken out of the economy.

The problem with crown sinks right now is that they don't happen often or regularly. Promo boxes do. We see new things come into the economy every month, but rarely do we see them taken out. Making these things happen often will be beneficial.
Heck, you could have Punch have two things going on, one that discounts prices, one that you can pay more money for to get a higher chance at a specific UV type (i.e., you can lock in up to a high UV or lock in a UV type). Have the lock-in one happen every 4 weeks, discount happen every 3 weeks. Eventually they'll line up so that players can get better UVs at a more reasonable cost. This overlap would happen about once a year, but the other two things would happen every month, thus making crowns exit every month but every year a LOT more would leave.

Tue, 10/13/2015 - 18:48

#44

Petater

I see prismatic valks on AH featured, not sure if start of AH sale or a tease.

Wed, 10/14/2015 - 11:17

#45

Cheshireccat

@Fangel

I like the idea of giving Punch more features but the downside is that would require significant programming to alter Punch's code. That change wouldn't directly impact the problem in this thread (but if you move it into one of the Punch suggestion threads I'd +1 :).

More crown sinks would help balance the market, as would some direct controls to prevent manipulation. I do agree that we need more regular crown sinks.
Importantly though, we need something that will sink the market down to a reasonable level NOW.

Anecdotal observation: The higher the CE prices, the fewer items listed in the AH. People stop crafting once it goes too high. An empty AH doesn't inspire players to keep playing. :(

--Chesh

Wed, 10/14/2015 - 15:40

#46

Bonjourhippo

I heavily disagree with

I heavily disagree with suggestions number 2, 3, 5 and 6, let me explain why.

5) Punch discounts
First of all, putting discounts at specific times in hope to sink more crowns also means that CE will be cheaper during promotion times. It's hardly a fix, in fact it would force most players looking to optimize their trading to try buying only during discount times. Heavy trade flow will just cause the CE supply to drain in strong bursts during the discount, which as we all know ultimately causes prices to raise. Not to mention your average market fiddler will just buy during the discount and resell outside discount periods, it will harm the market even further.
Fair to say it would also harm the unique variants market, there are better ways to sink crowns without taking stabbing other markets.

6) Paid prestige.
This already exists! It's the supply delivery missions. I think it's fair to say very few players do these, simply because Prestige is worthless. In fact most players don't know where to buy the supply packs.

2) Charging the sellers even further
NO! This will further convince CE suppliers to turn to chat to carry out transactions. I'll be honest here and say that when I can, I avoid using the market to purchase my CE by offering a "cover" for the 2% fee, which essentially means in the trade I'm paying the equivalent of the market price with a 1% fee instead of 2%. This worked well for me and for my providers. On top of that, imagine taking a 5% CE fee; that's pure madness, here we are talking about how precious CE is and at the same time putting a 5% sink on it, again, gotta stress this this is insane. The fee wouldn't even break the sink balance between CR and CE, which means back to square one.

3) Limit the amount of offers
I don't think I need to remind anyone here how abusive one can get with alt accounts on Spiral Knights (#ignitionSet). This will be worked around by players.

There is one suggestion in the list that is not just workable, but also proved to be a viable solution in the past. Auction House flash sales. I've not read all comments but I'm sure someone else explained well enough why this is such a great way to re-balance CR/CE rates.

Also I don't understand why there isn't a 7), link energy purchases with prize box rewards again; that always kept CE stable in times of promotion (which is 90% of the time nowadays), there's no reason it shouldn't work now.

Wed, 10/14/2015 - 16:36

#47

Petater

I assume there isn't CE with promos because that'd be way to reduce buying power of customers without increasing prices. Spiralhorn looks like it came with CE only so people would buy a promo with only two items (pet and horns) via increasing the buying power allure, while equinox/solstice come with UV tickets to reduce the overall value in game of the promo per real dollar spent.

It'd be interesting to see promo boxes for crowns on AH featured for buying at a preset price only. That way OOO can sell promos for real money, except make people buy energy and then convert the energy to crowns as an intermediate step instead. Also it'd be a way to make it limited in quantity, so OOO can control the rarity of specific items, as some people in the game tend to overbuy promos at random.

Wed, 10/14/2015 - 17:46

#48

Fangel

Wanna jump in here

3) Limit the amount of offers
I don't think I need to remind anyone here how abusive one can get with alt accounts on Spiral Knights (#ignitionSet). This will be worked around by players.

Yes, people will use alts if this is in place, however this is to make the whole process less of a "click and go" situation. For one it's permanent, and does not negatively affect someone who uses the energy market to buy a bit of energy every so often.
People can make buy or sell walls quickly and easily right now. Making it take more effort will stop those who want to manipulate the market but don't have much drive to do so.
It also becomes very difficult to keep up with your offers. Something along the lines of making offers expire after a week or two means that every week or two you're setting up that wall again. It's not 100s of offers at once, it's 10 offers, log into new account, 10 more, log into new account, 10 more, etc. It takes time and effort that most players wouldn't even think to do. Note that this is per account, not per knight - can't make 30 offers by just logging on. New knight, new account. Gotta send your crowns to these new accounts to work with.

Auction House featured sales would need to happen frequently for it to be a permanent sink. Right now they happen, what, twice or three times a year at best? That is not enough to prevent prices from climbing.

Bottom line with the whole thing is to make the whole buy/sell process less exploitable so easily. People typically go down the path of least resistance, so by making the path harder to exploit you make players less likely to exploit it. This doesn't hurt casual buyers or sellers, makes the market more active, while making it harder for a single player to control the market. That player also doesn't get the full amount, with a 200 crown tax for each account for sending and receiving crowns or energy. If you want to make one of the walls we've been seeing, it would cost you thousands if not tens or hundreds of thousands of crowns. At that point you're being a crown sink yourself.

Thu, 10/15/2015 - 12:01

#49

Cheshireccat

@Hippo @Fangel

Fangel, thank you for your defense. Alts, difficulty, reducing feasibility, increasing reaction time for a single-user manipulation... these are the same points I would have made.
Hippo, I see your point on fiddlers buying during discounts. What will also happen is regular players buying CE for reasonable prices, AND draining the wallets of 1%'er players, AND introducing a Cr sink that pulls excess Cr from the economy.
Punch discount weekend would be an alternate version of the FAFS weekend which players enjoyed and also helped the economy. FAFS and Punch Weekend are easy, NO-DEV ways to add something to the game while band-aid'ing the CE market.
If FAFS's become a regular event it won't cause temporary dips but a longer-term reduction.

Supply Packs: even I don't know where to buy supply packs. Cr -> Prestiege conversion would be direct and uncomplicated. Players trying to get the horsey head would do this even if they wouldn't buy Packs.

Thu, 10/15/2015 - 12:02

#50

Cheshireccat

@Petater

Promo Boxes on Featured Auctions seem like a really interesting idea. OOO loves to try out new ways of doing things. Maybe this would work?

Combining yours and my ideas: "FAFS: Prize Box Weekend" would be a big hit. OOO has four years of prize boxes in the can. Put up a new box every two hours on Medium with Qty:100 at 200kCr. People would buy the hell out of Surge/Hunter/Moorcroft/Confection/Stormy/etc boxes. Selling 100 Surge boxes would take 20milCr out of the economy and you would DEFINITELY see people dumping CE to buy them up.

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CE/Energy Market Price is Skyrocking; Here are SIX fixes (UPDATED OCT 2015)