If you're thinking of buying CE isn't it better for that CE to be worth more Crowns though?
As to why Cutters are so cheap it's because people UV hunt. I got lucky with my Cutter and only had to make seven before getting a good UV but I have over 60 Haze Bombs on me and 40 Wolver Caps. That's just on me right now, I have no idea how much I've actually made. In that regard, it is incredibly easy to get to T2 now. You basically only have to buy 200 or 300 CE then sell it for Crowns then buy 2 star gear from players. Or you could just do T1 runs purely from Mist for a few days and buy cheap gear from others.
Technically, there are two types of players: group A, people who have paid for CE, and group B: people who haven't. What some of you seem to be missing though is that there are people in group B who haven't paid for CE yet but are considering it. Most new players are in group B, and if their first impressions of the game are poor, then they will stay in group B, or leave.
The CE market favors two groups of people (more groups): people who have played for a long time (group C), and group A - people who have paid. For group A, this makes sense - they buy CE, so they get CE. They bring new CE into the economy. Without them, we wouldn't even have the option to buy CE for crowns (unless OOO manually injects CE, allowing people to buy CE for crowns alone). Group C got lucky because they were there when CE prices were lower, so they got more Cr/CE, and were able to climb to Tier 3 more quickly, giving them access to the more valuable loot/recipes/etc. Obviously, people in groups A and C are at even more of an advantage.
As I said, group A people pay for their market advantage, and that's how the game makes money. Fair enough. But do group C people deserve the advantage they got just because they started earlier? Obviously, people who've been playing a long time will more likely be in Tier 3 and thus have access to the most valuable drops - that's how MMOs work. The problem here though is that people who started earlier were able to advance faster, for the most part. I might be wrong, because this economy is really weird (2k for cutters? That only covers the energy cost. How is that profitable?) and there might have been other circumstances that changed things, but everything else being equal, someone who had to pay 3k/100 CE will be able to advance faster than people who have to pay 4k/100 CE. People in group C also probably have more money than most people, and so are able to control the economy. With all their crowns, they can buy a bunch of energy and resell it later at a profit, driving the prices up even more. Say someone spent 150k crowns when CE was 3000/100 for 5000 CE. They can sell it all slowly, 100 at a time, at the highest offer, slowly driving it up. They are at an advantage, and if they're smart about it, the advantage will only grow.
"It'll stop rising eventually," people say. It might; it might not. It becomes problematic when the high price of CE scares off new people, though. It scares off a bunch of potential group A-ers, which hurts the game's potential. Someone might play the game, spend their 100 mist energy, really enjoy it, but leave when they see another 100 CE costs twice as much as they earned with their 100 CE. First impressions are very important, and if they're bad, it's easy to lose potential customers. On the other hand, if energy prices (or costs?) are fair at first, but steeper later, people will be less likely to leave, as they've already invested some time in the game.
I am in group B. I haven't paid OOO anything. Yet. I play with three friends, and I can afford the $10. I was planning on buying 3500 CE and sharing it with my friends, but I've only played for under a week. The cost of energy has risen by almost a thousand already, and this is one issue (not the only one, though - I've seen people say that T2 jelly king farming is more profitable than T3 farming, and whether that's true or not, that's a troubling prospect) that I see harming the long-term potential of the game and thus my $10 investment. $10 isn't a whole lot, sure, and $10 for 5 weeks of mist energy is one of the most fair F2P price plans I've seen. I've enjoyed the game thus far - it's deceptively challenging, especially once I got to tier 2, and I hear it only gets more challenging, which is exciting. So, in summary, I'm a group B-er who's considering becoming a group A-er, but I really want to see how OOO handles this economic situation before I start paying on any regular basis.
Just off the top of my head, some potential solutions - lower energy costs on the low end (5 energy/level for t1, maybe make energy costs for crafting 10-25-50 for 1-3*) and possibly raise them on the high end (and of course raise the crowns gained in t3 if it's not up to par). This will help encourage new players to play the game long enough to get hooked. You could also advertise in advance a sale weekend, where you sell CE at a discount - $5 for 3500, or $10 for 6000, or something - which could help lower the price of CE, and repeat as necessary.
Just a few thoughts from a pretty new player who's really enjoying it so far and who wants to stick around, but at the same time sees some problems.