There's no good way to start this talk.
I was here in the Auction House update. I remember how things were before, and I see how they are now. I'm going to try to be objective. I think you should lower the Energy price and raise the Crown price of making items.
Making an equipment has three relevant costs; a Recipe (The rarest 'material' needed to make the gear), a Crown price, and an Energy price. For the purposes of this post, I'm ignoring actual materials; I think that aspect works pretty ok actually.
The Recipe itself is ok. I remember, back then a recipe would account for half the item's price; nowdays, its closer to a third. I guess a 5-star item would theoretically cost 75000 crowns, 25k from recipe, 5k from Crown Cost, 45k which should represent Energy cost... assuming Energy would never go over 5600 crowns per 100 CE.
I'm not against the current balance between Recipe Cost and per-unit (Crown cost + Energy cost). I am against the current balance between Energy Cost and Crown cost of each item unit produced, which I believe, is that items should have a heavier Crown cost and a lighter Energy cost.
The point is, I understand why making an item costs so much. You want us to look at the 800 Energy cost and go 'I'd rather buy CE with cash to build this thing', which I'm sure is what's happening right now. Its also making quite hard for me to recommend the game for my more casual and freeloader friends. But I believe an item having a 50.000cr price tag to produce would produce the same effect with one small difference; it would sink Crowns, not Energy.
Its my belief that a higher Crown fee would lure players into buying CE; with that CE they buy Crowns, and with those crowns they evolve their character. Or, they play their hearts out with the bought CE to make enough crowns; in both cases, dollars are getting sunk here. The big difference is the 'buy CE to buy crowns' part of the process; it puts CE on the market, which allows it to flow more dynamically.
A lower Energy cost would make a high-rating piece of gear seem more accessible (with a higher CR cost, it would be just as accessible as it was before), less intimidating. People playing the game more casually would see them as something attainable, instead of leaving the game as soon as they see the price of a three-star piece of gear.
Frankly, I can also see why you wouldn't change how things are now. CE being sunk directly is money in your pockets. High CE prices in the Energy Market means more people will be inclined to buy CE with dollars, instead of getting for free (the main source of crowns in the game is, in its own way, Mist energy). And thats what you actually need from the clientele. But I still can suggest, right?
I think that its a decent Idea but sadly OOO would never agree, that is their first big source of Income, everybody wants bigger and badder weapons, so that's where the money comes in.
I have been thinking on the CE,ME, Crowns, and Mats problems for some-time now, and of course on the whole Game-Play situation of Spiral Knights.
And frankly I think CE isn't the problem, and its prices, the crown sinks etc. really are not the issue, from what I have read and what I have seen, people have been complaining day in and day out about everything but the thing they really hate.
The Fact is everyone complaining about CE prices, and the way they work fails to see the real issue.
The Real Issue is the fact that we can't play as much as we want without feeling ripped off.
The current system is "Play-time VS Gear" we either get CE to keep player, or get CE to keep going, which is really not a grand model for a long-lasting game of this category. (See Dragons Nest, for example, they switched for a good reason)
I think to solve the CE issues we need to look at the ability to gain crowns, right now it is as you said Mist=Crowns, Time isn't a factor really unless you count the 22 hours of waiting on mist, which I see was a smart but also short-sighted move by OOO.
The Benefits of the 22 hour wait forced on player who are free is this:
1:Less overall server load
2:Controls young-player game-time average(Parents go ga-ga for these kind of feature- Thanks Mom and Pa, now pay so I can play more!...great strategy OOO)
3: It keeps the crowns from being over-farmed.
Now for the cons:
1: Destroys the perception of Free-To-Play on New players
2: Entices Player to Rage-Quit
3: Can ruin runs when you are out of energy on the very last gate
4: Can make players feel limited, and cornered into paying out
5: Creates a bad reputation amongst reviewers(PC Gamer being the first, wait till the other review board get their hands on this)
6: Ruins the atmosphere of a boss run that ends before the boss.
I could go on, but you get the idea.
Solutions:
1: When you run out of CE and ME the drops are severely reduces 1/10 maybe?
2: No drops for you, but you can continue to support your group?
3: Access Cards, Basic (like 1, but absolves the energy cost for gates altogether) Veteran (increased drop rate, cost a fair amount of crowns) Spiral Order (Highest drop rate, cost CE) The basic access card is free to everyone so we trade out mist for lower drop rates, the veteran and Spiral order could have time limits, say 24 hours, 7 days, one month etc. and you can only have one at a time so you can't stack them, and there could be a limitation set on some of them like veteran could be only purchasable once a week.
Any one else have any thoughts?
But I feel the problem isn't CE or Crowns, its really Game-Play Time, if we could play as-long as we wanted, without CE or ME limiting how long we play it wouldn't be such an issue that the price went up 200 crowns?