Ecto price is concerning you too?

Since the loot scale changes the ecto price has been dropping from 11k --> 6k trader price.
I know that the price of ecto always has fluctuated and especially in the beginning. But since factions it kept a steady lvl between 8-9k, and after NF it went up to 9-11k. Now, i know ANET thinks they did a very good job with their loot scale changes but what i see is total chaos. Since the max amount of gold you can save up is 1000k (dont ask me why) you will need to invest your gold in other things. The 2 most logical choices would be either Black dyes or Ecto. Now i want to ask ANET this... you force ppl to invest in other things cause A : Max amount is 1000k in storage B : cant trade more than 100k over trade. Is it fair that you backstab ppl by changing something in the loot scale that their investments are suddenly worth shit?!? (and no im not a guy who has 50 stacks of ecto and black dye)

I think its not and the ecto price is really concerning me. I dont think it will go up anymore to the 8-9k but thats just a rough guess.

FoW armor anyone?!?

ANEt wants EVERYONE to have EVERYTHING....

NOTHING is elite or cool anymore...give the best to the masses is their motto I think

first of all i think its best if the price drops so more people can get a chance to buy them. Invest in something else like lockpicks. they will always stay at 1.2k sell back to the merchant.

other than that use your ecto for FoW Armor, I dont know why complain about the price dropping. If you don't like where its going sell them to someone who will use them for FoW armor.

So...umm...


...How does this concern me again?

ecto is crafting material, it's not SUPPOSED to be super-currency.

imo, I'd like to see the price dropping until it's closer to the price of shards (FOW requires equal amounts of both, after all)...

So you can't save up more than a million gold... Boo-freakin-hoo. Personally I can't see how you would need or even want anymore than that. The only thing I can think of is just so you can go "Zomg everyone look how rich I am!!1!11!!1" which is pointless 'cause unless you're going to share we don't really care. How about, Oh I dunno, doing something OTHER than farming and then complaining about how you're loosing money on ecto. You people get no sympathy from me.

Viva la revolution!

true ectos should have a price of 10k+ i dont want everyone to have Fow armors, crystalline swords, crazy minipets and everything rare, it wont be fun anymore, would be seem everyone is elite, so there is no more elite in this game... ill go play oblivion for now, then some other games.

good i'd rather not see you playing guild wars

Since when does having Fow armor make you leet anyway?

Buy gold on ebay, go craft armor and all of sudden your leet. Fow armor imo is the weakest money sink in the game and people that pour so much money into fow armour......

Well, buying armor makes you leet apparantly so they do.

Back on topic, Ecto's are 'RARE CRAFTING MATERIALS' not 'CURRENCY'. If you want to use something with a stable price for trading for money, then as it has already been suggested countless times, use lockpicks.

Without pre-ordering and buying extra character slots and with owning all 3 campiagns, you can have 1.8 million gold in storage since each character holds 100k. If you have more money than this, then you need something else to sink gold into.

Wisdom title, items that have set merchant value (lockpicks were mentioned), Treasure hunter title, sweet tooth, buying rare skinned weapons...there's a lot you can do with your money.

or boardwalk tickets

LOL, ok so wouldnt it make sense, the person selling the Crystalline Swords, Crazy minipets and everything rare, just to bump up the number of ectos to = the amount he wants, For Example if ectos are a going rate at 10k, and someone is selling something for 200k, it would be 100k +10 ecto, If the ecto rate is 2k, it would be 100k + 100ecto, yea it would be more ecto, but same price. It only matters for FoW, and people who bought them at 10k, instead for 6k...

The bottom line is that there will always be items in game that sell for more than 100k. Ecto have always been taken as a hard currency substitute for gold until now.

Anything you see on the high end forum will have a BO of 100k + XX ectos. Its practically written in stone.

The decline in ectos value will only make it more difficult to earn money for regular farmers in UW. Seeing as how the gold (cash) drops are scaled and now you can no longer guarentee that a UW solo run will even pay for the entry fee people are relying on the odd ecto to make the run worthwhile. If prices continue to fall UW farming will become redundant as a means for people to earn cash in game.

Shut up... I think you're just one of these people that couldn't ever make money so they decide to hate people who can. Don't try to tell people how to play their game.

I could pretend that I care, but I don't. As for 'everyone having FoW armour', it's a load of crap. People use armour they like - and I'll be a lot of people like other armour sets more than FoW armour.

Ahmmm i dont get it, why would you want to save more than 1 million gold?
Are you getting it just to have more than everyone else!?

I got to a point of the game when i said to myself "gee, i will never use all this money, its time for me to spend it" i have about 600k gold, now im down to 400k and i got a Shiro for birthday... so where im going to spend all this god damn money!?
Ask yourself this damn question.

I heard a guy say it once "im not planning to be the richest man in the graveyard".
So what are you going to to with all this gold when GuildWars2 comes out?

It will balance itself out.

When it's no longer worthwile to farm for ectos --> lesser demand --> rising prices.

What I think we are seeing now is the effect of gold reserves running low on millionairs and them digging into their ecto reserves, flooding the market with hoarded ectos.

And as far as I have seen unless something is truely rare the high-end price doesnt get adjusted that much for the lesser cost of ectos, bringing the high-end market prices down as well (in gold, as to trade in the high-end market you need a pretty stash of ectos the buying power in that market has diminished as well).

Some people farm that which is new and get a group of other people who are good at it together to regulary do that. In that setup and with the old prices of mostly titans and DoA greens you could get very rich there quick just by questing even to a point where you don't know what to spend it on.

You guys are saying it's pointless to have money, well it's a game... there is no point to any of it, other than for fun. Some people think making money is fun, just like some people think working on their rank is fun, or doing GvG is fun.

Do you hear people saying "OMG LOL NUBE GVG IS POINTLESS U DONT EVEN GET A CHEST AT THE END AHAHAHAHAHAH!!!"?

No, so don't tell him or others how to play their game. They have fun making money, you have fun your own way.

Backstabbing? They implemented the cap on money because they don't want people hoarding money like that. It's your fault for thinking that the value of Ectoplasm would never change.
Or, you could not spend all your time trying to increase your virtual wealth. Since you have so much, it hardly seems like you're planning on spending it, so why in the world do you need so much money?

I used to have 500k+ saved up from farming and such. Then one day it dawned on me, "Why am I saving up so much money if I'm not going to buy anything?" So now I've spent over 200k on things like armour and Elite skills (for the title) and I really don't care much anymore how much money I have, since its no like its real.

And I think you're one of those people who think that you "need" that money you farmed. Really, you shouldn't ever need to spend over 100k, that was a creation of the community's want for more money and people willing to spend it.

Having an expensive armor, rare sword, some stupid little pet, or anything else in this game does not make you elite. Your 1.2 million armor will do the same as 1.5k armor. your 100k+700 ecto crystaline will do the same a collectors sword. There are currently a VAST ammount of people running around in what used to be considered "rare" armor with "rare" weapons and whatnot and some of them did buy their gold/items/whatnot through ebay and ebay money meaning they didnt have to do anything but whip out a credit card to become "elite" as you put it. so no it doesnt make you elite, it doesnt show off anything more than you farmed your ass off, got lucky on a trade because some fool was dumb enough to buy it, or you bought your gold online... Skill and being elite in this game does not come from your items. it comes from your accomplishments and even those are starting to become way too common.

They implemented the cap on money for the one and only reason and that is farming bots, why the hell would they care if yankee 3 is getting some amount of golds because he farms 2 / 3 hours a day. Its getting annoying for anet when a bot does that 24/7 , 7 days in a week and that a whole year long. Instead of taking it up at the source they nail over a huge amount of players who like to farm because they simply love it, except those who cant care less they dont have money anyway.... 200g for my armor plz, only 200g.

I know ecto fluctuates and i stated that. So much money? Where did you get that info from? I got 500k in my storage just like you and i spend it from time 2 time.


you think wrong.

ecto might crash more, it's inevitable with some of the changes. it will be interesting to see where the economy goes with this. people are asking 100k+xx ecto for items they got easily in HM right now, which suggests they aren't adjusting their prices yet for the collapsing rare and ecto market. the reality is everything is rapidly losing more value every day.

See the funny thing is with people complaining about ecto prices, is that it is a player-defined economy. Loot-scaling itself actually didn't really make ecto rarer, in fact it stayed exactly the same (due to exemptions). It was the mass amount of players going Depression-like and selling all their ectos to merchants that busted its price down to where it is, with no one buying from merch. Don't blame Anet, they don't control the market unless it gets too out of control (like when they reset merchs'). I don't care if you love farming and making money or not, its a game, games are meant for fun, and it is viable in GW. But don't go pointing your finger at Anet for a game mechanic destroying ecto prices, because the players did that, and it hasn't recovered yet.

Also, this has happened before, ectos crash once in a while because there's a lot of economically inept people playing this game.

Basically, you are blaming Wall Street for, say, introducing restrictions to instant transactions. Instead of making certain values (not related to instant transaction companies of course lol) rise due to slower purchasing ability, everyone sells out of pure unadultered fear. Is it Wall Street's fault? No, people acted stupid and sold sold sold, dropping prices since supply goes up up up. (Note: this is not something that would or has happened on the stock market, it is an example correlating Anet (Wall Street), the economy (GW econ), and the value of a stock to a person (ecto)). Technically, with loot scaling, right off the bat before exemptions, prices should have gone up, not dropped, and then leveled again with exemptions. But economy in-game is not real world economy, so that didn't happen. Therefore, if you look at it from that perspective, loot scaling has nothing DIRECTLY to do with ecto prices. It was players' reactions.

BTW, on a more general economic response to your idea that ectos should always be worth a lot even through new mechanics that didn't really change much; thats stupid. The only thing that stays the same value is cash, gold, platinum, not items. Items have supply and demand, gold satiates the supply and demand, and therefore, only direct currency is static. Ectos and other non-merch set things (read not: lockpicks etc, which is why lockpicks are a great idea for trading now) used for extra currency, are like stocks. You bought it at a value, and then its value will change, possibly bull, or possibly crash. Either way it is an investment and a risk. Risk bit you in the ass currently. I sold all my ectos right before update, thinking, maybe hard mode will increase supply. I got lucky and was right, and beat risk.

QFT

some people here should read this carefully maybe they get some slight id of how others play their game. Some of you are just 2 narrow headed, its almost amazing.

I was referring to Nuclear Eclipse's comment, which is why I quoted it right before I said that. Next time, try to pay more attention.

The thing that I love about Guild Wars is that you can get rich by choice, and not that you have to. Some of us CHOOSE to farm, some of us choose to buy high end items and for most of us it's not an "elite status" thing. This is what I enjoy doing with Guild Wars, it doesn't make me feel better than anyone using greens or collectors' items but it's how I play my game. I totally agree that ecto are a risk, like anything with fluctuating prices (Superior Absorption anyone?) and in fact there is so much more to it than that. I just get totally bothered when people come on here and say that it's oh so wonderful that prices are dropping because for some of us it's not and it's almost shameful how most of you come on here with your flame throwers in hand.

What the hell do all the posts like these have to do with the topic? It's about the price of ecto, not about if you want to bash people who actually have ecto.

Wow im glad you just snipp'd that to boost your post count. IF and thats a big IF you read the post i commented on, you would understand where this post came from. if not then ill gladly repost it for you. And here it is:
and no it wasnt a bash on people that have ectos. I have plenty of them. Trust me im taking a huge hit with ecto prices being cut in half basically... but im only keeping them because i dont have anythign i really want to buy and with GW:EN comming, there might be some armors and weapons i might want to buy.

Thank you for proving my point. We know our Crystalline Sword is not any better than a collector's sword but that's how we HAVE FUN! I agree with the whole elite thing, there are a very few amount of those who have this stuff that feel "leet" about it. If you don't like to grind for gold or these items, go get those collectors' items you're raving about. This is what we like to do, it's what we find fun in this game and basically it is being swept out from underneath us. Of course there are other things I find fun in this game but there has to be someway for me to continue to do some of the things I find fun by making big trades (i.e. chest farming).

Before factions I bought 105 ecto at 4.5k each.. I have seen it low before, it shouldn't ever really have been used as currency.

Here's a suggestion: if your money amount is starting to cap out buy something you want with it or stop farming.

Just to tie in what Aerian_Skybane said more directly to what you two are going on about.

You can't blame ANet for this.

The players created the economy. It was the players who said what skins were popular (rarities aside), what mods were good*, etc.

The players created Ectos as the Gold Substitute. It made sense why it was chosen, of course, being a rare requirement that had short drop rates in limited areas. (Lack of supply, with a decent demand, would push up the cost and thus allow it to efficiently substitute for large amounts of gold.) But none the less, the players chose it. The players inflated the price (a select percentage, at that).

So now that the minority can no longer supplant their wealth with liquid gold, they need to thaw out those Ectos. They sell them off in a self-induced panic, which increases supply and lowers the end price.

All ANet did was to implement a device to reduce bot farmers and "easy" farm runs (farming gold, rather than the items themselves).

They didn't make getting items any easier (many will argue its hard now that "farming" has been 'reduced.'). At the moment I can only think of three ways they could do that.

1) Flood the market with required materials
2) Flood the market with gold
3) Reduce the cost of the armor itself (as in, requires less ecto, gold, materials, etc.)

None of that was done. Loot scaling did the exact opposite actually.

ANet never intended (in my opinion) for items to scale over 100k (all merchants cap at that, for instance, trade and character capacity caps at that too).

---

Now onto the next point.

Your logic (Nuclear Eclipse) is flawed on the point of intentions within the game.

You have to evaluate the Reward or the Goal of an objective, to understand why people do it. For instance, you can't say "Why do you do GvG, there is no chest?" because the reward is not to obtain PvE-relevant weapons. Its to fulfill the goal of demonstrating skill and the reward of obtaining a good ranking.

-PvP (in general) has a reward of titles, your name in an announcement, personal satisfaction (though it's fleeting), rankings, and control of the Hall of Heroes. The Goal is to demonstrate skill (i.e. Win)

-PvE (on the surface) has the reward of End Game items, completion of the storylines, and advancement into end-stage missions (DoA, for instance.) The Goal again is to demonstrate skill (...winning.)

-Farming rewards you with gold, or marketable items, being known as the person who created the suitable build, etc. The Goal is operate the most efficient build to maximize profits in a timely manner.

Now some people farm to simply farm (evidence would be people on this forum who said the exact thing.) It isn't done for the cash, it's done to create the build, and kill things.

Many do it simply to get gold to buy things (things they WANT, as everything "necessary" in the game is free.)

and then finally we have...

-Making Money. Reward large buying power. Goal... largest bank account?

Seriously, I don't understand your position, and I'd be interested to learn. I understand wanting to attain a degree of wealth to purchase more "privileged" items (though personally I've never spent more than 20k on anything and have never obtained more than 80k in Gold.)

But to have large amounts of resources to just have them? I'm sure there has to be a Banking and Investment game on the market, or at the very least a game where that is actually a focal point.

In PvP there are always "new competitors" in PvE there is "harder/new" content (and when there isn't... people complain) ... but where do you go once you obtain "the most resources in Guild Wars." ? Do you compete with the number two person? It just seems lacking.

As I said though, I'd be interested to learn why you two especially herald this as such a fun time.

---

*While some would argue that a Mod is determined by its use in game, all one has to do is look at the popularity of Sundering/Fortitude and then the plethora of threads that debate Sundering vs. Vampiric and Fortitude vs. Armor. (Anecdotal, yes, but just to show a point.)

I'm curious as to why the ecto price is dropping, while at the same time ecto appears to be becoming rarer? I don't often farm, almost never UW, but I thought I'd try the W/Rt solo build for a bit. Out of 15 runs over 4 days I've gotten 2 ecto, both in the first 2 runs. Is anybody else getting next to nothing?

Hrmm some things are worth more then a mil gold..
like my mini rollerbeetle perhaps.
so its the only way you can trade.
So shhh

First off don't put words in my mouth. Did I say I like to farm for gold for the sake of gold? No, I didn't... so enough with the insults...

I don't really care about gold, but I do have a lot (around 1500k in total). I don't farm for gold, I farm for the challenge of it, and the items and gold I get is just a bonus. Why haven't I spent my money? Because I don't need incredibly expensive gold weapons that are no better than collectors... I just keep my gold around to track what I've gained from the farming I've done.

And actually, your logic is flawed. You seem to think that a game must have a strict set of goals to be the least bit humanly enjoyable. Some people just like to accrue wealth. Just because you don't doesn't mean other people can't enjoy it.

Everyone needs to just mind their own business and play the game how they want, and stop trying to force other people to change their views through insults and put-downs.

Exactly. It should never have been used as currency. But it did get used that way. And yes, I do know everyone says "use lockpicks". Well that's fine for the people who are just now making money and deciding where to put it, but plenty of people were "invested" in ectoplasms. You can't say that was stupid either(or at least not blame it on one person, because that was everyone's way of saving excess wealth, and the main means of trade for transactions over 100k). Simply put, the players made due with the trade system they had available to them. I am sure this will be called A-Net bashing, but it really was short-sighted to have a trade system that did not allow for high level transactions, or barring that a system that allowed over-achieving players to keep their money securely(Not subject to crashes caused by game mechanic changes).

Certainly there is the idea of keeping the prices down to make the game accessible to casual players. But thats what Weaponsmiths/1.5k armor Crafters are for. The idea(as i understood it) was that casual players could have the same stats/skills/effectiveness as the guy with FoW armor and a R8 15^50 Crystalline and still come out okay. And it worked. But this current economic change seems to be set on removing the hardcore player entirely, or at least all of his hard earned financial security. I don't understand why, and why nothing is being done about it.

I cannot say for certain that A-Net isnt doing anything about it, i really hope they are. If they are doing something about it it would be a good idea to let people know about it sooner than later as well. The sooner they say they are going to work on a fix the better because that will restore some "investor confidence" in the Ectoplasm market. And believe it or not, it does effect everyone in the game. Don't make fools of yourselves saying that people don't need over 1million gold. Noone needs to play the game at all really but they do. The rich/hardcore player plays a major part in making the economy viable and accessible to the casual/poor player. Rich players buy from poorer players. If the rich players are all waiting for the economy to stabilize and their financial backing to become secure thats less money trickling from top to bottom. And that steady flow of gold downwards is what allows the casual player to afford his +30 hp mod or 1.5k Chestpiece. The very things that allow the casual player to keep up with the hardcore player.

In short people need to realize that this is a real problem. Maybe you didn't have money in ectos. Maybe you've never seen 100k much less 1000k. It doesn't matter cause the people who have are part of the same system that lets you get on for an hour every few days and play the game and have fun doing it.

So after that nice long vent(had to cover my bum in every direction possible to keep flames away from this real point at the end).. I'm just as concerned as the original poster. And I'm asking A-Net: Are you going to do something about this?

And I don't think I was being insulting, either.

You'll notice I did highlight "farm for challenge" in my post. The only point I was honestly questioning was the whole "getting gold to just get gold." That I didn't understand.

Not "strict" in the sense that it must be pre-defined, but more in the fact that an underlying cause will arise. Think about anything you've done that was "fun" there is a reason you enjoyed it. It's human nature, fun doesn't manifest out of thin air.

And now I think I get why your earlier part got so defensive. You can talk in generalities, but I apparently can't. You yourself state people gaining gold just to gain gold.

Insults and put downs? Last time I checked, I asked questions and was genuinely interested in another point of view.

Ha Ha i guess this might well be my last I CARED post.In a nut shell we really get to have everything now and well move over to Guildwars 2.

Whatever L33t stuff you had around is just for yourself to see, other then that nobody actually really cared what uber big deal you are or how flashy your rank or C.E emotes.

To tell you the truth me myself and some of my guildmates are moving over to Lord of the Ring since the whole revamp concept of guildwars no longer appealing to us.If it work out fine its good bye guildwars if not it some other games i can enjoy.Day in day out it goes omg soul reaping nerf ecto prices in toilet etc etc.I guess playing for 2 yrs it well worth its box value been fun Anet thanks for the good time and cya folks.

Your mini rollerbeetle is only "worth" that much because someone is willing to pay that much.

That would be the normal drop rate of Ectoplasm. The chance of a Smite Crawler dropping a Glob of Ectoplasm is less than 2%.

http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Smite_Crawler