Re-release promos? Didn't they already do that? One of the first Promos was Rose Regalia. I don't think they ever re-released some of the original colors, but they have brought back Chapeaus and Tabards. Seemed to work alright, but admittedly the people who would be most pissed by it would be the wealthiest and oldest.

Trickle Down economics is not something I have thought about. I hesitate to say that SK is a good example of trickle down economics... mainly because of the biggest difference between MMO economic and IRL economics: MMO economies are constantly printing and destroying money at an insane rate. In any semi-stable MMO economy, players are encouraged to destroy a LOT of their wealth at a time. I don't have the stats, but I'm willing to bet that the vast majority of crowns get farmed by low level players, traded on the energy market, end up in the hands of an incredibly wealth player, and then spent on UV rolls. On the other hand, I suspect most energy is bought by the wealthy, traded among players a bit before being spent on the supply depot for Orbs or Wep/Trink Slots. And then we have promos which release cosmetics that bind on equip/use. Theoretically you can sit on them for a while to dramatically increase their value, but like 95% of that value gets destroyed the instant they're used. Heck, weapons in general lose a huge chunk of their value as soon as they are bound and upgraded. IRL, the reason why trickle down economics don't work is because wealth sometimes just gets accumulated at the top, and stays there. However because money in SK is constantly getting generated and destroyed, it has to be constantly flowing. That constant flow of money is what keeps economies running strong.

So in short, Energy is trickling down, crowns are trickling up, money is generated quickly, money is destroyed quickly, and wealth is constantly flowing.

EDIT**
I wrote this late at night. Needed a few edits.

No Paint Tool the developers have never done anything wrong prize boxes are content you're wrong about everything make it stoppppp

That downward trend has been discussed hundreds of times on these forums, nearly continually since 2011. For example, there is already an active thread, on the front page of General Discussion, that is discussing it. To my knowledge, such discussions have never been suppressed.

It looks like the downward trend existed from the very start. Not sure if the radiant drought in particular caused it. The drought is probably a factor, but just looking at the chart? Can't really say the start of the drought is where everything started going down.

First year-ish of SK's life on steam
June 2012 - 2224 players
May 2013 - 1608 players
Player loss: 616 players over 11 months = 56 players lost per month
616/2224 = ~27.7% of the player base left during the first 11 months

Before and after a big spike of players
Jan 2013 - 2072 players
Jan 2014 - 1494 players
Player loss: 578 over 12 months = ~48.2 players lost per month
578/2072 = ~27.9% of players left during this period

This spike contains the Dash/Bash update, the Sprite Update, the removal of mist energy, the introduction of the forge, the introduction of Apocrea, and the introduction of Kataclysm.

The year after the radiant drought starts
Nov 2013 - 1955
Nov 2014 - 1499
Player loss: 456 over 12 months = 38 players lost per month
456/1955 = ~23.3% of the player base left during the year after the radiant shortage

Player loss over 2015
Jan 2015 - 1148 players
Jan 2016 - 813 players
Player loss: 335 players over 12 months = ~27.9 players lost per month
335/1148 = ~29.2% of the player base left during 2015

Player loss over 2017
Jan 2017 - 745 players
Jan 2018 - 566 players
Player loss: 179 players over 12 months = ~14.9 players lost per month
179/745 = ~24.0% of the player base left during 2017

As a bit of a disclaimer, my statics teacher once said "There are lies, damned lies, and then there are statistics." If you know what you're doing, you can twist data to get any conclusion you want. That said, I have a hard time seeing the radiant drought as the cause of the decline, for the downward trend seems to be a constant. Also, this post assumes that the only data available is the provided steam chart. Anecdotal evidence may say otherwise.

I only bring up anecdotal evidence because that's probably the only other data we, as a playerbase, have access to. I highly doubt a large and extensive player-run survey has gone through the community... at least I haven't seen one.

Even if GH dumped every bit of data they have on their players (bad idea from a privacy standpoint), it'd be really hard to find specific numbers that represent player frustration with the forge. I'm not even sure where to begin. Best I can think of is looking at the number of inactive players with unheated 5* equipment, but then (assuming you can factor out unheated armor/shields) you'd need to find some way to distinguish someone simply losing interest in the game, compared to getting frustrated by radiants. Occasionally a poll will show up in game, but that has it's own series of issues (for example, the players most likely to take the survey are those who are still happily playing on a regular basis).

Yeah anecdotal evidence is far from ideal. However it might be enough to establish very vague trend lines. Might...

*shrug*

Oh no, I'm not rejecting the steam chart data. I'm just saying we don't have all the data. As unreliable as it is, unreliable anecdotes are still part of the data, and one of the more accessible sources of data to us players.

Re-reading my post, I realize that I did make them seem equivalent. That wasn't my intention to do so, and I apologize.

the last line was meant in jest. bad timing as usual i guess, heh