It's not unreasonably high when split among 4 people.

It's not unreasonably high when split among 4 people.

You keep saying that as if you think this is insightful and all these people haven't already thought about that angle.

Yes, this price will be low enough for more people to be willing to buy, but for others, it is still "thanks, but no thanks". My guess is that this still isn't low enough to get enough sales for OOO to justify the development time they poured into it.

You keep saying that as if you think this is insightful and all these people haven't already thought about that angle.

And you keep acting as if market forces won't even out the cost of entry with the profit you can acquire after a successful Shadow Lair run, easily getting back the CE you put into starting the run, or even multiplied over. And Orangeo actually makes an interesting point I didn't even factor in.

ok when is it GOOD???? for crying out loud people!!! now you HAVE a way and STILL everybody is whining about it... i LOVE this sure 1500CE is a lot FOR 1 PERSON!!!!!!!!!!!!! god you only need 1 friggin key that's 375CE/person what the hell is so friggin BAD?????????????? you want everything for free?? be glad OOO decided to sell them trough NPC

And Orangeo actually makes an interesting point I didn't even factor in.

Actually, I agree with you there and it was something I hadn't factored in either. However, people who sell items factor the recipe cost over many sells, so the 25k gets reduced. The key is that the item crafted has to be worth well over the 4k unbinding cost.

And you keep acting as if market forces won't even out the cost of entry with the profit you can acquire after a successful Shadow Lair run,

Uh, no, market forces don't always make everything profitable. A gold plated turd, won't sell, even if the turd is somehow "unique" and "rare".

Gold plated turds... costume items... zee cores.... yeah, they sell.

Also, this is a truly great deal we're being offered. Its not only cheaper than recipes, but it provides us better stuff and tokens when we do it.

Not sure why you're crapping all over Vole's comments, he's quite knowledgeable in matters of money in this game. ^_^

Though the talk of market forces sounds supernatural. XD It's just people buying stuff at certain prices.

Wall of text inbound.

I was glad, at first, that the price for keys dropped. I immediately wanted to do a run with some guildmates of mine, and so I did. We split the cost, and off we went.

...I'm ticked off. Why? Well, various things. (Remember, folks, this is Shadow Gloaming Wildwoods) Lag. I was constantly dying because I kept teleporting into spikes, freezing and losing any input for a split second, and getting rubberbanded into enemies, walls, and projectiles left and right. Bugs. A lot of attacks were screwed up, for instance, the Snarbolax shooting spikes while it was stunned, attacking while stunned, or moving and digging at the same time. Then there's cheapshots, where enemies spawn with no warning and hit you nigh instantaneously. In one of the snarbolax encounters, it immediately shot spikes at us and dug at the same time the moment we stepped on the party button. The lag does NOT help this. Then there's the cramped rooms that only abuse the lag MORE-you're supposed to dodge an Alpha Wolver by running back, right? Well, there's nowhere to run TO. You can't just shieldbump them because of how many enemies there are, and shielding won't work because you'll null two bites with a piercing shield but the last will break it, dealing major damage even with 5* Piercing defense. In a group which you're supposed to be in, you can't flinch them unless EVERYONE is attacking one, and at that point you're getting hit by the turrets or the Skellies.

As it is now, the only actually fun level for me was the Unknown Passage. While it still suffered from the same thing the other levels did, overfilling the screen with enemies and not giving anything a clear test of skill, it was interesting and innovative. The only gripe I have is the incapability to manage the shadowfield generator-thing and constantly deal with the enemies at the same time, in the final area; in text, that might sound fun and challenging, but it practically forces you to a small portion of the room and thus gives you yet another monsters-overfilling-screen, nothing-you-can-do-but-left-click scenario.

It was a good attempt, OOO, but there's just too many flaws in the levels and the enemies that ruin it all and make this a waste of CE (Lets not forget ressing), and a piece of artificial difficulty trash. I heavily regret getting a key now and I advise other players not to get keys unless you want to deal with something that isn't a testament to skill but a tedious, frustrating waste of time for the gear you can get (which, as it stands, isn't worth it except for a couple sets).

TL;DR- I honestly was expecting something more impressive, given the immense cost and the weakness of the gear. Ended up getting something more among the lines of an extremely long arena.

EDIT: I understand that lag is an issue in every part of the game, not just the Shadow Lair levels; it's just more prevalent in the Shadow Lairs given the cramped spaces, excessive amounts of enemies, cheapshots, and minimal room for error.

Sometimes the prices make me anxious of what I'll see in the future. But at any rate, I knew the shadow keys were coming, but I didn't know it was today. I'm kicking myself for not selling the divine veil to the vender to get over 400 ce, around 600 ce, but now I will get less than that. Well it's what I get for waiting around for someone to buy it at more than that which would've been a little under the average price. -_-

^yeah
I hate to give people ideas, but if you have the CE to bank into this, I'd probably throw a few thousand into shadow keys. If they go back to lockboxes, you can sell em for a profit hopefully [and if not at least you can keep the prices low for awhile :P]

I might actually spend my first bit of money in the game just to get myself a shadow key. It wont technically be my money, though it is, because it is money i made from selling tf2 stuff. Gotta love business.

I strongly recommend not going into the Shadow Lairs in 4* gear, that would be a slaughter fest. Even in full 5* with Elite trinkets it is easy to die. On the test servers I ran it about 5 times in optimal gear before I could get through with less than three deaths, and that was almost entirely lag free. The first try I died 11-12 times I think, thank goodness for unlimited mist.

Once you get to your 5* loadout, you don't need to spend so much CR/CE on gear that money can instead go toward things like the Shadow Lairs. Since I rarely buy anything any more, I can use my mist every day to make 10-15k CR, so in just two days of saving I could afford my quarter share of the Shadow Key from Boost. That is pretty reasonable. If I wanted to try the crazy challenge of soloing the boss I would just have to save up for just a week. Compare that to the prior AH prices where a solo venture was the equivalent of 1-2 months of earnings.