"Someone else tried an elevator pass for Shadow Lairs and it tanked when people realized the hardcore grinders and premium players would gain even more while the casual and free to play people are left behind."

This I agree with. I wonder if it could be compensated for, though. For instance, what if the key only entitled you to one SL run per day? Then price it so that at max efficiency, it still won't be more profitable than FSC.

"The price would have to be substantially ridiculous to counterbalance the potential amount of Shadow Lair equipment suddenly flooding the market."

This doesn't seem like a major problem (although there are other major problems with the suggestion). It would just mean SL equips would become dirt cheap--but still not as cheap as every other (non-token) 5* out there. No big.

5$ for a shadow lair is overpriced, especialy considering you still have to pay for the gates going through the lair. Plus the sanctuary is its own gate, so there goes another 10 energy. If you buy in bulk, 100 energy is like a quarter, so 10 levels is like the price of a pac man game and around equal if not more play time. It's in ratio, makes sense. then suddenly a level rolls allong thats... 5$? How about 1$? We have enough CE sinks, and nearly every crown sink also sinks some CE. I consider AH to be the only pure crown sink, but it's more of a utility than a device for lowering the price of CE.

If OOO dosen't lower shadow lair keys or at least make a fixed price, they should at least make the gates in it completly free.

Does it really cost another 10? I don't recall it doing so. I don't think the Unknown Passage did, either. Could be wrong.

And the Key isn't $5 unless you're soloing.

I quote: "If you buy in bulk, 100 energy is like a quarter, so 10 levels is like the price of a pac man game and around equal if not more play time. It's in ratio, makes sense. then suddenly a level rolls allong thats... 5$?" 10 levels is only the price of a Pac Man game if you're measuring cost to a single player. It therefore makes no sense to compare that to the $5 figure, which is the cost to the party as a whole. (It also makes no sense to say that the "level" costs $5; an SL consist of multiples "levels" if by that one means "strata".)

It's perfectly possible to split it provided you would eventually have spent $ on CE anyway (or Steam games, if you're on Steam). Or if you have a regular SL group: take turns buying the key.

Most of the time people just make a thread in GD and specify that party members need to pay for their share. There are more than enough experienced players on the forum that can pay their cost. Just give it a day or two.

Sk is designed, at least partly, to be a team game. SL is supposed to be the hardest depths in the game, with the high amounts of enemy and whatever. Your argument for lowering/allowing you to access SL for lower than the cost right now is invalid because it only applies to soloists. And Sk is a team game, thus, soloists have no argument either.

/shrug

I just have a beef with people saying "your argument is invalid". That's why I posted. Not to mention, you saying that Derpule's argument invalid is based on the fact that you can split the cost. Your saying 1 person is forced to hold the cost. But that's not true, because he can always find people to pay their share. In the end, he isn't paying 5 dollars for a key, hes paying 5 dollars for a key to be used in a SL run, and some ce, depending on how many people split the cost. You saying his argument being invalid is baseless. Just because he might not have people to split it with, doesn't mean he will always never have people to split it with. Your reasoning is invalid.

On topic though, SL isn't meant to be grinded, or replayed constantly. It's considered endgame, because there is work required to get to it. The gear, skills, and entrance cost are all part of the process to it. Perhaps there's a way to balance it out, like a key for a day, or a certain amount of time. But in the end, it all comes down to sl and sl gear supposed to be rare. If you gave a elevator pass-esque way of accessing shadow lairs, you increase the amount of mats and gear from sl. And then it becomes like fsc.

Edit: I apologize, I didn't know this was one of those "i want it, give it to me now, idc what everyone else has to say" threads.

I only said it because you did. Something I do. It's much easier to copy someone else's argument and change a few words here or there. With that money spent logic of yours though, nobody should ever buy ce. So what if they can get crowns and gear with it. They still spent that money for themselves, and thus should actually not spend money at all. If you make your friends pay for the pieces of chocolate you shared with them, what are you left? Some chocolate to yourself, if you took some. Most, if not all, of the money you spent for the chocolate.

It sounds like you want to make it cheaper? Don't know. The proposed solutions to this are something along the lines of a cost that is higher than 1 or 2 sl run, but lower than multiple runs. This would sort of force players who chose to pay for sl run multiple times in order to get their moneys worth. And that would make sl another place to grind. We all know what grinding leads to. We get used to it. It no longer becomes challenging because one is accustomed to doing it for a long time. SL then no longer has that "Hard" part tagged to it. Then you don't get the challenge you want from them. That's your goal, right? To be able to do challenging parts of the game?

"Wait one or two days? Haha, no thanks."

Really sounds like someone who simply can't wait. Not that I am in any position to advocate, but why not do something irl, or just something else in general, while you wait? You don't have to watch the pot of water boil.

I'm saying that you may have paid 2 dollars for it, but you still got it back when your friends paid for their share. It's not like you are out 2 dollars of your own wallet, you got it back, minus the portion you ate. Say you ate half of it. You paid 2 dollars to the store, you split it in half with your friend, your friend gives you a dollar. How much are you out in the end? A dollar.

That was all trying to understand why you insist that everyone is paying 5 dollars for it. Which is a ridiculous amount, until you remember that you can split the cost with your party members.

The forum example I gave was more of a scenario like this:

I want to do ufsc on saturday. It isn't saturday yet, but I need party members. I'll go make a post, specify date, time, members needed, weapons wanted, experience wanted, and whether they can split or not. Then I go and do something else. I don't stare at that post until people reply. I go back to it an hour or two before your designated time to dive into sl. Then do the adding/pm'ing to contact people who posted.

That's not dedicating any extra resources or keeping you away from anything, posting a thread asking for people on the forum. Would I play a game that takes 2 days to load? If I don't need to spare my computer for those two days, or bandwidth, or anything I might need, I would. You seem to want to play sl on a whim, which is perfectly fine. But that's like anything done on a whim. You want a flight cross country, and you want it tonight? Probably need to pay more, as opposed to booking it early. You want to take the exit coming right up on the highway. You have less time to switch lanes as compared to the exit after that.

You can't just say "I want it, so I should get it now". Consider the progression from T1 to T2, then T3. You don't just say I want to play T3, and play it safely, when you are just starting out with your free cobalt set.

You don't earn back as much as you put in, because you got something out of it. Whether it was a piece of the chocolate, or a sl run.

I don't assume sl to be special. They have nothing I feel like I need. Some cool costumes, some nice armour. I don't costume much, beyond using some noob gear to troll pugs in fsc. I have skolver, don't need snarby. I use mad bomber, I don't have the uv's to make merc as powerful as mad. I don't get why you assume I think sl is super special.

I didn't know asking people to come on a sl run was big. Sorry, I guess everyone has different views on it. I don't think plans are anything big, just a way to be able to do what I wanted. Getting nothing out of a sl run? Then why would you even bother doing it. Even if sl was free to access, getting nothing out of nothing is, well, nothing important.

And again, you are asking for sl to be lowered in price. I have my own thoughts about this, leaning towards a no. Mostly because it isn't broken, so don't fix it.