nothing much can be done. free players are a drain on the developer's resources, so i doubt they're gonna just give you free energy(read: money). you can expect the energy exchange rate to reach an equilibrium point, possibly the average crown gain in a t1 run's worth. meaning, since a t1 run nets you about 3000 crowns, and cost 60 energy. 3000/60*100 = 5000.

the exchange rate will be leveled at around 5k. most likely more, however.

Play with Mist Energy only. Seriously, that's how the majority of players roll. The cheap CE at launch just created this incorrect expectation that you would be able to make back your energy by buying it off the market, which is silly. The market exists so that F2P players can get energy to craft items by adding an extra day or two of adventuring to their time. That's all.

If you don't buy CE you are limited to about 1-2 hours of play per day. This is reality. You may play 1 hour days for as many days as you like, but that's your limitation for not supporting the devs. How many MMOs offer you this? Even the cash shop content is readily available to you if only you take the time to buy some CE from another player.

You can get enough energy to last you a month for five dollars. If you are unable to afford 5 dollars a month you are unfortunately outside the target market for this game. Be happy with what you have for free, and play the game the way it is meant to be played.

boo hoo lets all feel bad for the poor cripple whose free game isn't free enough and needs to mention his cripple status just so we know why he cant pay moneys and drive cars and make love or be loved

@anisoptera That is a really messed and disgusting way to verbally attack someone. You should be ashamed of yourself. While I do not like Godofskypes manners. Yours are far more vile.

To make it worse shes a lady! :O

Yes, I know I am a bit rough around the edges but I can get my points across well enough.

Smart people don't take bets and I am not a gambling man. Also harassing players is against forum rules I urge you to knock it off NOW, you already have 2 strikes against you and witnesses to prove it.

It also doesn't make me wrong if I take your bet or not.

...risks are not bets. Professionals don't gamble with their resources: they mitigate risk and make sound decisions.

"free players are a drain on the developer's resources"

Free players are advertisement for the game. My friend told me about spiral knights, and i told my friend, and new we all play. Also, if there were no free players then less people would trade crowns for energy thus less people would pay real money for energy thus three rings gets less money.

That said, free players should be able to keep playing the game as long as they want, even if that means they sell ALL of there crowns. But the way energy is handled right now points towards new players having no chance to supply themselves with enough crowns to buy energy. Nobody likes to be kicked off the game when there only halfway through there gaming session.

OH DOES SHE NOW?

At least I come up with my own things geez

Naaaa! not at all, the main goal is to save up crowns to buy new equipment (star of with 1 star and work your self up little by little) and save up more crowns to buy Energy AKA CE, because with out it you basically cant play down in clockworks.
im playing since Beta and its not bean easy but like i say little by little and hard work will take you to the top! just dont give up!
truly Crazywave
Guild Master of The Order of Angels vs Demons
theorderofangelsvsde.guildportal.com

wait, crazzywave im pretty sure you have argued on the opposite side of this issue and complained about how high the prices are. didnt you start one of these topics?? /facepalm

i'm not trying to make any claims about anyone elses post being this or that. im just stating that this is the same person who started a thread about the price of CE on the market being too high and inhibiting their playtime, and now hes singing this tune about playing the game and saving crowns and buying CE and its all groovy man. its just funny to me that his tune has changed. im glad it has though, i think hes right. its just more about sounding like a hypocrite.

Just because you have a reserve of energy doesn't make you a hoarder though, does it? I mean, are we required to put energy back on the market just because we have extra we're not using? I have a small reserve, purchased from the market over time. I am saving it for when I get up to my 4-star and 5-star equips. I'm making the most of ME, occasionally dipping into CE when I want to play longer without waiting. I don't know how many people are sitting on crowns waiting for the price to go up though. They'll get further with the CE than the crowns.

I think the buyers are more at fault, or as much to blame. If they keep shelling out inflating prices and tryin to outbid the last guy, then they're just increasing the crown profit. I do think the market could be brought down a bit if buyers organized and refused to pay over a certain amount, but some people will cave, shell it out, and keep the prices up (until it reaches some absurd price, not sure what that ceiling is). But whats the incentive for anyone to sell CE for cheap right now?

when are you ever done with alchemy? i plan on making alternate sets as soon as I finish my first set :)

Well, that is 3-Rings fault if they want to loose new players! I think 3-Rings is doing this on purpose by trying to limit amount of people who can play their game do avoid sever crashes! Idk! All I have to say is sadly, "it sucks to be a new registered player right now!"

Is the 3-Rings! Are your Public Relations people reading these topics? Aren't you going to take action or let this game get bad ratings from other players, simply because of this whole energy thing? Several people I know quit, because simply that it is all slowly rounding down to a P2P game.

I think they have more than enough servers to handle the amount of players coming here. I've seen a pretty high number of instances in different numbers of languages and I don't think they're having trouble yet. I'm sure they're well equipped for a good load of players. So, I'd have to disagree with that line of reasoning.

On a side-line: Three Rings is the same development company that created Puzzle Pirates which has a similar market going on. That market never crashed and it settled to a modest amount for its preferred units (Doubloons) over time. The market didn't crash there; it isn't gonna crash here. The only difference is that there was "free" things to do in PP and not so much to do in SK.

djbiznatch;

If PVP comes back, and works as in beta... It'll be no-CE, ranked to allow lowball gear, and cost only crowns.

Which means another reason to sell Energy (one that keeps on coming), meaning a slight downward pull on CE prices, and one that extends playtime without costing real monies.

So, er. It may be on the block already.

The problem as I see it is that the current system makes it difficult to hook new players.

I'm a recent addition and to be honest I haven't decided whether this game is actually worth paying for yet. Right now I can play for about an hour and then just when I'm getting into things I have to stop. This means I tend not to play with other players and form the social bonds that create long term players or have a really good exciting couple runs. Worse yet is the fact that as I'm trying to get the gear to access Tier 2 I'm faced with the option of doing 1 run OR getting an item thats going to help me towards that goal but not actually play today.

I understand that in Tier 2 you can earn enough crowns to fully pay for the energy used in a run or at least significantly offset it. However it is very difficult to get there as a new player which means that the incentive for crystal energy is largest on the newest, least committed players. Shifting energy costs down on Tier 1 but up on Tier 2 and 3 would spread the incentives across the entire player base and make it easier to recruit new players. If gates energy costs increased with increasing depth it would allow new players a chance to experience the game and get hooked, and allow earning to scale with the cost of the level so that players who don't want to pay could mostly offset their energy expenditures with that levels earnings and exchange time played for rate of advancement.

What puzzle pirates does do is shift the real money cost to OTHER more dedicated players for the majority of players.

....which is exactly what Spiral Knights does. I can at least concede that maybe the ins and outs of the energy market may be a little bit too abstract for brand new players to grasp at the moment, but the overall system, in and of itself, is absolutely fine.

Here's what I think would help:

1) An in-game tutorial, right off the bat, that explains how energy works, and walks you right through a few pretend market transactions. At the moment, all energy explanations are handled by an NPC that neither flags players down, nor stands out all that much. There's some information important enough that it can't be hidden behind a completely voluntary conversation with an NPC. Too many people are impatient and will make a beeline right for the area where they can start swinging a sword. I really can't stand that kind of rushed, impulsive attitude, but it's out there in droves.

1) An auction house, if nothing else but to demonstrate to the majority of players that MOST OF THEIR CROWNS should be coming from material sales to other players .... it always seems to be the yokels that think their only money comes from the actual coins they're plucking out of the clockworks that yell the loudest about how little they have available to spend on energy.

I mean it shifts the sinks to other players, not just the purchasing of doubloons/energy. Puzzle pirates is a very structured game and it's the officers+ who are doing most of the doubloon sinking there, while new players don't have to sink any doubloons to play as much as they want. That's a definite difference.