Whats up with the market values

    @melesean

    ... LUL

    Ok, whoever actually paid 2.000.000 for freaking fragment...

    deserves to pay 2.000.000 for fragment... xD


    wow.


    pls tell me someone did so to artifically boost the prices... PLS! D: Noone can be that stupid!

    Those two millions fragments sold. Multiple times a day. As such it's the correct price for them. Thery are actually worth that amount of money and the market doesn't care about your opinion on it. This is how a free market works. Prices are made by demand and there is a high demand for those fragment while people also have the money to buy.


    There is noting to agree or disagree on. It's just like it is, like a law of nature. Even if you complain about gravity, mother nature doesn't care.

    Quote from Nitros

    Those two millions fragments sold. Multiple times a day. As such it's the correct price for them. Thery are actually worth that amount of money and the market doesn't care about your opinion on it. This is how a free market works. Prices are made by demand and there is a high demand for those fragment while people also have the money to buy.


    There is noting to agree or disagree on. It's just like it is, like a law of nature. Even if you complain about gravity, mother nature doesn't care.

    I'm speechless. Fine.


    Just one last thing. No one buys that fragment for 2m. It doesn't sold for multiple times like you said, as long as the record I checked on these days. I start to sell it 2 days ago and I buy it today myself, therefore the transaction shows on history in public. I do it just showing you an extreme example of the dirty truth how people like me lifting the price by hyping the false records, which probably the 'demand' you just said. It didn't cause by nature, unless you want to classify me as hurricane or something.


    But anyway, I think I understand your perspective and I won't disturb your mother nature theory anymore.



    Quick reply to #24


    For fragments, no. Too many fragments produced everyday; I just do it for example since less ppl disturbing.

    For gears and fashions, yes. Buy precious one for 30m, wipe the records, double the price, and you get another 30m.


    Why people buying them? Idk. Mother nature doesn't care, probably.


    But I care the flaw in our market system. I simply believe something like that is wrong.

    Edited once, last by melesean ().

    Do you understand the demand curve?

    1 player is willing to pay X + Z for H.

    2 players are willing to pay X + Y for H.

    5 players are willing to pay X + V for H.

    15 players are willing to pay X for H.

    30 players are willing to pay X - S for H.


    I paid 5 million for a BP instead of the historical 1 - 2m or less because of (a) scarcity, (b) immediate gratification value I get from getting it to match with my friend's outfits.


    I paid 200,000 - 250,000 to 'wipe' the cheap Akashi Keycard market because I wanted to (a) get my cards to level 3 and (b) not make my party wait hours just to upgrade my cards for speed runs to get it for 'marginally' cheaper even when the market price was consistently 100,000 or less.


    When people see there are a few listings, yes you get people who are more desperate or resellers who speculate into buying it up (TEMPORARILY).


    And you know what exactly happens? More people who see it who are more profitable start farming those things! (Blueprints, energy converters, whales).


    They spam the market if they see they can get R for 250 million instead of 10 million because it's worth their time now!

    And the price drops. Every single time. Without fail.



    The only time the price consistently is kept at H is when inflation is making everyone have so much more dzenai that you have to keep the price higher or people would buy it all up within seconds. You cannot fake price history action and expect to get away with it more than a few sells here and there. But if people are buying energy converters to RNG items and sell them at 1 bil+ and weapon chips to +9 their things and using akashi key cards to get level 3 cards, and fragments to get level 9 SS- what do you think would happen? Do you know the supply of these things would not be able to keep up with the amount of level 55s who want to max their gears? It only takes one person to wipe the market, most of the time, because they need it.


    How do I know this? I buy up all the stuff from the market all the time. I also merch. The moment I list VIPs at 2.5X price and I'm the only one, people start spamming listings undercutting me. If I do previous price + 15%, it usually sells if I'm the only one. If I wait it a few days out for inflation to catch up, my 2.5X original price eventually becomes a bargain. Don't be cheap, buy the stuff now or you will regret it.


    At this point in the NA server, every level 55 player who plays 4 - 6+ hours daily has at least 1 billion dzenai in net assets (since the earliest days) and if they liquidated some of their things, 2 million would only be 0.2% of their worth which can easily be acquired. I bet you if it was the last fragment on the market, and you only needed 1 or 2 of those fragments, you would buy it too.


    Anyhow, even if they faked price history, you can't do anything about it. If people see it's too expensive, they will abstain from buying. Only those who value their time and have huge reserves of dzenai would buy it.

    Edited once, last by Rin ().

    Quote from Nitros

    Those two millions fragments sold. Multiple times a day. As such it's the correct price for them. Thery are actually worth that amount of money and the market doesn't care about your opinion on it.

    Inferior frags at 2mil? Do you even play the game?

    Weeblord

    So what is your point beside writing an insult? Of course I don't know every price out of my head and it really doesn't mater for my argument if it's 2m or even 2b.


    What matters is how much effort ist cost to make money. That's how it gets it's value. With more people getting money faster what's happening is only natural. I don't get why so many people are so surprised about it.


    Even if you would create a money sink, the effort to get the item stays the same. Only positive aspect is that the number fits in a technical limitation.


    I think the answer to this thread was pretty nicely summed up by Rin second to last paragraph.

    Not bothering to read all this trash, but I'll give my opinion now.


    The economy is dead, the game is going to die, as a paying player I'm not even going to play this trash anymore because these prices are ridiculous and I'd rather spend my time elsewhere.

    jfuhqf.jpg

    Quote from Nitros

    What matters is how much effort ist cost to make money.

    What matters is how rare the money is. It's what gives it value. Without money sinks, people will only get richer and richer, since in an mmorpg money is constantly created almost out of thin air. Which in turn makes dzenai less valuable and inflates prices to no end.


    Also, there was no insults in my post.

    lmao, all the people defending the market

    CAUSE OF COURSE NO ONE BUY MONEY FROM GOLD WEBSITES WITH GAMEFORGE DOING NOTHING ABOUT IT, USING THAT MONEY TO FLIP WUC/EC PRICES FOR THEIR OWN PROFIT, AND LOW LVL GEARS TAKING A HIT AS WELL SINCE YOU CAN DISMANTLE LOW LVL UNIQUE WEAPONS FOR WUC

    nope, everything's normal :thinking:

    Quote from ceruulean

    TBH ive never played a game where I can make a decent amount of money from just mob farming...

    all my money comes from selling drops

    you could, in the game early weeks, now with the massive inflation of gold buyers, it became extremely hard buying decent(even basic) gears for new players who just reached 55, and poor fresh 55 players can't really grind the content giving the most money efficiently with shitty gears

    You are right - but only for some areas. Your statement is definitely why I said it's not work for the fragment market. However, it works pretty different in other areas.


    For example, lv5-lv11 weapon worth from 200k-1m each at this point. Like you said, they are not really expensive to the veterans who earns 4m+ dz by only collecting at raids; it seems very cheap actually. However, the price has an astronomical number to newbies who just come to the game (unless they decide to pay either to publisher or gold seller). There is a demand for the weapons, but the benefit from farming it is so tiny compare to farm at high-lv dungeons. In that case, less people go to the supply-side. Meanwhile, I also mentioned before it's not that easy to farm something specific in the low-lv dungeons and it's simply not worth to do in a game. But on the other side, play monopoly in this market doesn't really cost you many time; it is just a problem if it's worth to do. While the answer depend on a person's own situation, the price definitely raised to an unaffordable level to new players. It's a result not only caused by our market system that allows reselling, but also the level-gap punishing system and awards you can get by creating sub-character.


    Another example is the helmet from suzie suit. In fact, most people didn't remember to farm it until they reach lv55 (including me) and they got a punishing that drops your drop/exp rate from the system when they decide to go back to farm at lv48 dungeon. It's not a super serious punishing, but it indirectly reduced the numbers of the helmet. For example, there was a 2-day drop-rate buff at FA EP4 just days before. Everyone intend to farm it: auto-team went full in 3 minutes and there are always people looking for members both through n and chat. It is because the price of the helmet is really high: BP for haru cost about 30m and Lilly's about 20m. While the price is dropped today after the revelry, it didn't drop too much. BP for haru is 28m and Lilly even has a 10m but sorry I bought it so it cost about 16m. If I didn't guessing wrong it will go back few days later, both because it's a requirement for full suzie suit and it has a very low dropping rate (I farmed it myself with lv50 sub and still get nothing after 2 days, while 3 of my teammate got 1 each).


    For the fashion part...Well, I think I don't have to explain that. Everyone should pretty clear how bad the market is and I'm really tired on typing things. Just want to mention the gold in NA has a rate about 10M=$1, which has a kind fair rate to the stuffs selling on market - only if you ignore the soulcash rate divided by regions and the value's difference from characters, and the time you have to wait to sell your stuff on market. I believe more people would like to choose buying gold from bots instead from publisher under the environment you don't get punishment for RMT.

    The more gold that is injected, the less worthwhile RMT(non-gameforge, buying from shop and reselling the item). The reason being is, if the amount of dzenai for everything goes up, and the rate stays the same, eventually you will reach an official black market equilibrium for the valuation of dzenai. If 100m could buy you a costume today, but it costs you 200m tomorrow, then the effective cost remains at $20 with the same rates and thus some people would rather just soul cash it. Secondly, if one chooses to RMT(non-gameforge), then there is a lesser supply of costumes and other various cash shop goods- making it even more expensive, and less lucrative to buy dzenai, and just be better off buying the cash shop item directly. Thirdly, the higher the price that whales see things sell in the game, the more of the "crowding" out effect is played out. Other items which have 1:20000 or 1:30000 ratio will be ignored in favoured of 1:50000 ratio items like the Akashi box, if someone recharges at least 6,800 soulcash to get dzenai, meaning everything reaches parity. Just if fragments sold at below cost and it would be cheaper to convert + buy frag, then the prices of everything will reach parity - with the exception of whales selling things that they need liquidity immediately (things that sell faster on a volume basis, with poorer dzenai to soul cash ratio).


    Fourth, I have managed to level to 55 (first wave) with just blues and I have never bothered to get yellows until the very end (level 50-55). Yes, the game is significantly harder without the boosted stats, but it is still do-able and yellow armor is only there to act as a buffer to reduce the damage you take. This game's mobs were already buffed from the very beginning compared to other versions (at least what I heard) to make the difficulty curve harder so that people will take longer to get to the end game content, but gameforge seems to be undermining this process with gratuitous energy events so everyone is willing to buy upgrade protectors, costumes and various things to be "content-prepared".


    Fifthly, I see items being sold for 10-100k in the yellows section at low levels. This isn't much at all. If you sell some star cards, or weapon chips that you received from farming mini-bosses at Manic tower of greed, you would easily receive a million or two. Blues go for fair price, meaning that no high levels really touch it because you can't resell to individuals with low dzenai and most people selling these are low levels leveling up anyway. These get obsolete pretty quickly.


    Sixth, the rates have stabilized for the most part because the marginal costs to generate dzenai have a fixed amount of time, and selling at below cost would be undermining the business, which means that when all other variables are fixed, inflation should stabilize once things reach their true value. If energy converters become 100M for example, then this would imply a value of $9 and most would likely to abstain from buying it. However, the reason for the prices being high in the first place is because supply can't keep up, and this is the developer's fault for limiting ways to being able to buy these items anyways.


    How many rerolls do you need to get perfect stats? How many shards do you need to get level 9 SS? How many akashi key cards do you need to get to tier 3? One person alone can buy up everything and they would increase prices temporarily. This is more a symptom of low rates, and high item costs than a dzenai inflation issue since even if dzenai farmers didn't exist, prices would still go up. Every game is like this, because the equilibrum for rate of influx of dzenai vs outflux of players quitting + dzenai sinks have not been established in the early phase of the game yet. This therefore is a systematic issue of the game's design features excaberated by the fact that gameforge is doing VIPs (nullifies market taxes), no listing taxes (prevents reselling), energy events (2x, 3x dzenai farming on weekends if you do death runs, vitamins, etc), high medical item costs (19k), and various other factors.


    Lastly, empirical studies have shown that most players do not stay in a game for long. Those who do are usually those who started the game first and accumulated a lot of wealth, and who reached max level or end-game content first. Even those who join after, do not stay for the same period of time as those who first started. This is simply the nature of things, that is- some will always have first move advantage over another. You cannot reverse or nullify this phenomenon, so there is no point in making sub-optimal solution fixtures to delaying the inevitable.


    Most games do level compression or various sorts of things during the mid and late-life of the game to get new players to stay, by incentivizing them to get to X content faster; just like how other versions of SW give 2x the exp relative to us due to their level cap/life stage of the game; nowadays some games give you instant level 55 packages, or tons of events which boost your character with a fixed yellow gear set that grows with your level or something. The point being is that, the publisher should focus on things which make money as long as possible; and this means by appealing to the "level 55ers" demographics and to "people who wish to play, but don't have much time to play, but would use money to bypass or speed up the grinding" demographic as well as the "fashion is cool" demographic since these people are the most likely people who would stay around for a little bit and drop money.


    If the publisher doesn't make enough money, then there won't be any updates, and the game effectively dies. The population itself is not of a primary concern, but there should be enough to sustain activity so that people continue to play, so that there would be some form of revenue stream from people purchasing things that are worthwhile to them and needed. Increasing player engagement is typically done in a fashion of rewards and time sinks, so all they really need to do is give players the items they want by making them grind for it at some fixed rate which is better than the alternative of farming dzenai or loots to get said item. (e.g. Akashi boxes with completion system) and same with RNG boxes with nice rewards.


    Anyhow, in my view there a lot of things they could do to remedify this problem. VIPs not giving any dzenai on the extra energy portion, 1-day soulbound VIPs being sold for dzenai with limited purchases per month, etc. For the most part, low levels aren't going to be using energy converters or weapon upgrade chips to min-max their gears, making these irrelevant to their gameplay as gears become obsolete very quickly. I find it hard to believe that if the first wave of 55 players could farm the most time-efficient farming set for raids, without any available gears that other players could not do it simply because of game inflation. Anyone who has to reach a point of efficiency, must have sunk at least some time into doing such activity to achieve such status, therefore it is moot to say that 'players are quitting because it is too time-costly' to get to X. In reality, only a fraction of players get to maximum level in any game, so the focus should be on people who do remain within the game and continue to play.


    A week of farming with half EP events should be sufficient enough to get at least some BPs. Expediting this process is simply a matter of joining a guild and getting carried by other players who have a vested interest in getting new 55s to also reach the same "gear level".

    Edited 4 times, last by Rin ().

    First, thank you for write such a long reply. I tried to spend time reading it and I found you added many more point to discuss. I can't have a comment to everything but I'll pick something to reply.


    First paragraph you said the cash item will eventually has a similar rate to the gold seller's rate. Although the market is still in chaos after 2 months running, I think your inference is in logic and it could be happen. But at the same time, if you play other mmorpgs that the player bound with a specific character or gender, you'll find items' price is never the same between characters, and the difference could be huge. I can't give specific examples since I don't want to waste time on research, but you are welcome to verify it. In SW, Edwin's hair color fixed at 10-15m while Lilly's cost 30-45m. According to your theory their price will eventually go same and approach the gold seller's rate. But according to my experience, I'm pretty sure there is a risk (at a very high rate) that the gap will exist like that - which is the reason I didn't buy them like other fashions.


    For second paragraph, I understand it is possible to level up without unique gears. Theoretically, you can even go to the lv55 without changing gears - but what's the point of it? You'll definitely spends more time on it. To 'stupid' players, good gears are a kind of 'rescue efforts', and to skilled player those gears are necessary investment to save time and energy and improve their gaming exprience. You can't negate their value only because you don't use them. It just like you laughing at people who intend to get +9 weapon.


    'I see items being sold for 10-100k in the yellows section at low levels.' I don't know which server are you at, but it's an impossible price at NA. Even it exist, it will be bought in half hour without doubt.


    In fourth paragraph, I think you underestimate the power of RMT. It is true that your assumption actually happens in online games running in Japan, since the publisher over there more or less limited the RMT activity (at least in games that I played). However, in regions that RMT is a half-legal activity like China, it's not unusual that the currency in game completely lost it's value. I used to spend months play CN version Elsword, and it is almost impossible to buy valuable things by in-game currency. Sometimes there might be one or two good weapons exist on market with a ridiculous number, but most things just selling directly on third-party website with real money. In fact, it passively confirmed that a game could exist with RMT and still collecting money from player, but please consider if it's an environment we looking for.


    I don't quite understand the fifth paragraph. It's true that the price will go up without bots but like said many times before it's too fast. I think we are on the same point?


    Sixth paragraph. Developer usually will give updates that shorten the gap between veterans and new players, which is an necessary method to lengthen an online game's life. Depend on the game is just released, it's too early to talk about it and why we talk it here btw?


    I'm so tired and I have to go sleep so I'm gonna stop here.

    So the later paragraph talked about what I said in the end yesterday (sry I'm too tired that didn't see that). I agree with it. I personally would like to spend money to reduce the time on grinding, and it is one of the common way to collect money from the industry. I think we have similar idea on that point.


    Nevertheless, it shouldn't become the only way for publisher and developer for profit. In my opinion, whether the charging method nor the items the publisher charges for gives me an impression of what Gameforge did ten years ago on their webgame. I mean, the time has changed. You can't really earn money use the method and update speed from last century while the desktop gaming market impacted by so many other platforms.


    I might bring the topic it too far, but as a view of player, Gameforge did well, but obviously not enough. There are so many problems remain in this semi-finished game and we player are waiting on the remediations, while the publisher lying over there and provides very limited info even after official release, and in the meantime the issue just getting worse and worse. To be honest, even the game ran for ten years seems more activate than us. I really wish there comes a change, but after the first week of official release it just make me more and more disappointed.

    Well I think inflated DZ is good because it makes the fixed costs affordable. You need about 10 million dz to make a lvl 9 soulstone? Just from Jenna's crafting fees.


    It's already a long grind to get the fragments yourself. And yeah, inferior fragemnts are about 50k dz ea. on mp. But even if the economy was less inflated and they sold at 200 dz ea. it just means that Jenna's crafting fee of 10 million would hurt more.

    When people talk about prices it somehow always about luxuries. Most of the stuff isn't even needed to play the game. Of course we all like to have those, but in the ends this still ends up being a complain of not being able to buy a luxury cheap.

    I like to get a good tablet as well, but I definitively do not need it. That's why I never bought one. Especially not for the prices they cost.

    Wtf? What's up with these walls of texts. Are we having a pointless competition of showing who has the bigger ego and the most time to waste?


    @OP Sorry for the problems you're facing rn. Tbh, yes, markets are fked right now due to numerous whales existing in the game. You shouldnt really worry about getting the best gears for now, until you hit lvl 55. Until then, just use whatever good gears boss' drop at your level.

    Quote from kuyhijsung

    Wtf? What's up with these walls of texts. Are we having a pointless competition of showing who has the bigger ego and the most time to waste?


    @OP Sorry for the problems you're facing rn. Tbh, yes, markets are fked right now due to numerous whales existing in the game. You shouldnt really worry about getting the best gears for now, until you hit lvl 55. Until then, just use whatever good gears boss' drop at your level.

    No, we just have wanna-be marketer elitist trying to explain(?) the cause. Nothing odd, just keep rolling.

    dddd