SF Update will destroy GW economy

First of all I don't think that most of the people (including me) would have farmed something else and paid over 575,000 in gold to buy someone's ecto for FoW armor. I think what's happening now is most of the people that wanted FoW armor can now farm it themselves, and this is making people cry about it.

Second, ecto is used for currency where as DOA gems are not. The only use for the gems was for a specific item. When the demand for that item loses value then the gems lose value. Ecto can and will be used for many different items so their demand is much greater which will keep their value up.

Third, I think the amount of ecto taken out of UW lately is a very small percentage of all the ecto currently on the market. If this game was going to be around another 3 years then I would agree with you that eventually it might affect the market. Right now I don't see that happening.

The extra ecto on the market is allowing more and more people to spend money on things they normally wouldn't be able to. This is allowing more and more people to be able to sell things that might have taken them longer than normal to sell.

All in all, atleast for now, I think this is one of the best things that could have happened to the economy. Sort of like the current stimulus plan going on in the real economy right now.

As far as this getting nerfed, I don't really think so. Anet's plan is to keep the players interested until GW2 and this is one way to do that. Players will be able to get alot of the things that they have wanted for a long time easier now. And lets face it, GW only has to last another year or so till Anet can just let it die since most players will move to GW2. Don't be suprised to see Anet implement other similar things to keep the playerbase interested.

Worst case scenario is that we go back to the old 105 prot bond monks which is when most of the long term players consider to be "The Golden Age" due to the ease of obtaining ecto. SF hasn't even come close to reaching those levels then. Once that build was in the wild anyone with a 105 monk had their obsidian armor quickly and easily.

Of course, what it caused then was massive inflation - we aren't in an economy based on true scarcity even with the traders. You can't run out of ecto nor can any individual corner the market. It may work similar to real markets but it isn't one and has other rules.

If anything this will create two classes of people - those that have a SF sin and can afford what they want and those that don't and can't get normal crafting material or minor runes. You play until you happen to get lucky and have the runes needed drop for your sin, purchase your crappy armor, and then go farm ecto. Anything else means you simply can not afford to play the game - do that or don't play. This is *exactly* what happened back then, Anet finally nerfed it when the gap between them (and the price of most items) became so high new players couldn't even afford a single set of base armor without many many many hours playing. I payed significantly more for my crappy armor from Ascalon city than I did for my armor at Droks (having purchased my Ascalon armor right before the nerf and my Droks after the economy stabilized) - having people have enough cash to totally equip heroes will make this even worse.

We don't have to speculate or argue theory about what will happen if Ecto become too easy to farm that anyone can do it - we have had that happen and have reality to see it by. All we need to determine is if this skill will will make it that easy or not. Time will tell.

I wasn't around then strcpy, how long after the nerf did it take for the economy to stabilize? How long did Anet allow this type of farming to continue unabated until they nerfed prot bond? This is all pretty interesting.

If this sf farming starts going the way that it did back then I would whole heartedly support a nerf but until then I simply see people being able to get some things that they normally wouldn't be able to.

As you say I guess time will tell.

How exactly does the market price of anything affect base armor prices? Armor crafters craft at a fixed cost. Merchants sell salvage kits at a fixed cost. Every common material can be easily salvaged for. And I think every class has at least one base armor set that uses no rare materials or only rare materials that can be crafted by an artisan for a fixed price. Am i missing something here?

How long to recover? Hard to say - the economy as a whole I remember as being fairly quick. As I said I spent more on my Ascalon armor than on my Droks so only a month at most. But then quite a number of the current really rich people made their money then and they kept prices of certain items up for years. I would say that over all a couple of months for everything to mostly settle and then a later change to drop rates for sup vigors and sup absorption runes to really make it such that most could afford base items (this is the point I feel is the "Golden Age" of GW). It was a *long* time before I could get a popular 15k armor or black dye.

I also made off fairly well once I got to where I could farm Ettins outside of Beetletun for sup runes - this was while the prices were changing so I sorta made OK from the whole thing. At the least it funded three other characters one of which was a full time farmer.

As to how long did they allow the farming you will have to ask others. When I started the build was known enough to be abused but not so well that everyone had one. It was a month or two before the nerf. I know how long it was out in the wild from old forum posts but I don't know long it was well known enough to be abused.

I did a simple search for older threads - I recall many - but am too lazy to find better. You will note that http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...ack+dye+prices is finding prices we would find unacceptable today to be "normal". You will also not what people are talking about the upper realms and confused as to how people had this much gold. It was the 105 monk - if you read other threads you will note many finding out about it

You will also note that a thread from 2005 sounds exactly the same as one from now even though back then was the Golden Age when everything was Perfect.

My feeling too. I don't see any reason to nerf something until/unless it causes a problem.

[QUOTE=Chthon]How exactly does the market price of anything affect base armor prices? Armor crafters craft at a fixed cost. Merchants sell salvage kits at a fixed cost. Every common material can be easily salvaged for.[quote]

Mostly true - but when you can only salvage the stuff outside of Ascalon city you get after several party wipes it take ages to get the materials. You couldn't get anything other than pre-sear armor and had to salvage everything and then you had to be active enough in forums to know this to be the case (no wiki or no other resource - plus everyone else was new too and didn't know what things salvaged into).

The bigger issue was with runes. Though back then you didn't know what you would get when you expert salvaged your old armor either - a rune or some materials used for your armor (that *really* sucked given the prices of runes). But then that is more than offset by outfitting heroes - I purchase more runes now than I did back then as I made sure I purchased armor so I had as few salvages as possible.

Yes, it is a new player and the system was vastly different then. It's not nearly as big a deal now as it was then - we have enough out there that dedicated players can find what they need and you don't have the exact same issues with loosing items. Purchasing base armor will not be as big a pain but Runes will still have the same issues (and probably worse because of heroes).

But, again, it requires *dedicated* players. Common materials and most minors *should* be affordable. It is the same issue I eventually have found with other MMO's - I reach a point where a single death requires me to spend enough time to redo what I have already done that it isn't worth it. For many the exp loss is not worth worry about, for me it was. I want to mostly go play the game, not be a dedicated player.

I'm not sure how the new changes would interact there - however we have seen that it mostly causes inflation. Mainly because Ecto is the currency for high end stuff (both the armor and other items) it causes the top to medium end people to be flush with cash. They can spend like crazy on anything and do so. It makes it such that the items to farm those ecto are out of reach by purchasing - you have to find them. Everything else goes up because those people can spend what they want and are competing against each other to get stuff. At least now there are enough options that someone who comes on here or reads the wiki can find a semi-solution that requires some work - back then no such luck.

emmm, can i have that sin SF built asap please?!

earth:
OwZSk4PTSf8I6MID8Q5iTQpZ
fire:
OwZToY/85R6zj0ZIDcRw4WMBBA

I personally found this fire one much faster, but go ahead and try for yourself.

I don't understand how people think that ecto prices will affect the prices of high end values. Ecto's are just a replacement for gold. We're lucky in GW that gold itself still has a value.

So when someone is trying to sell Kunnavang for 100k+20e, they're actually asking for around 200k.

If the ecto price were to drop to 2.5k each, that same seller would be asking 100k+40e. The value of his Kuunavang hasn't changed.

Any drop in ecto price will make FoW Armor and Chaos gloves cheaper, and it will hurt hoarders that are sat on a couple of stack of ectos, but it won't affect the high end prices. The guys that could sit on stacks of ectos have probably invested in armbraces recently to catch the extra demand from the Hall of Monuments update so they should be fine too.

The High end prices are effected by rarity and demand, and by and large I think demand is going to keep dropping as there have never been many players that would pay 5 mill for an item and many of these seem to be retiring.

You summed that up pretty well, i don't mind about this whole SF thing. Therse always something to change the economy, this is just the latest fad. If the game never changed it would get boring quick

Don't care about underworld farming, people will farm it and will try to until they find one that works.

I, myself farmed about 20 ectos lightly over 3 days then stopped because I got bored. If you can honestly have the patience to farm 50 a day then I give all the luck to you.

Hell arena-net doesn't need to touch shadow form if they feel like stopping this. Its just like the 55hp build all over again with the dying nightmares. Just shove aload of charged blacknesses into the mix. Hell if they want to be funny make dying blacknesses pop up with just shock.

lol, why not just have them go N/E? That'll really get on people's nerves.

This update to SF has allowed me to average 5-6ecto every 22-25 minutes with spikes as high as 11ecto and the occasional ruby,saph,black,white dye. Yes, when you look at my last statement the first assumption would be HOLY C*** and this cant possibly be good for the GW economy. I thought as much until i really added in all the factors. First, Ecto is a stored currency and is not sold to trader very often, threfore the prices remain stable. Secondly, the vast majority of GW players do not have pvE sin's and play the game only an hour/day at most. Third, A-net has kept the price of Ecto around 4.5-5.5k for over 16 months through all the different farming builds. Ecto is the staple of the GW economy and will remain so until GW2. Although more Ecto is being shipped out of Uw every minute this is not being sold to the merchant and thus we are safe to farm til our desires are satiated. The only problem i see is with those disgruntled veterans who only want to reminisce about the "good old days" where only a select few had money and those that had it could rub it in others faces. Then again that is only my humble opinion

Prior to people complaining about sins, sins sucked in PvE. They were primarily boss killers. Now, sins are needed. Before the creation of the SF sin, we had the terra tank. Before then we had the 600/smite group or 55/SS. Before then VWK. Before then the 55. There have always been gimmick builds that work for areas. Who cares?

Ecto are rarely ever sold at the merchant. They are normally horded or exchanged for armor. They are one piece of the economy, not the deciding factor of the economy. I watch Ecto drop over the years and feel okay with it leveling around 5k a piece. I have accepted the fact that there will always be someone creating a build that can solo an area. There will always be someone who will complain about it. Changes will always be made. There are constant factors in any online game.

1. I still really doubt that the price of ectos will fall.

2. This post perfectly sums up why, even if the price of ectos does fall, the sky won't. I think it should be required reading for posting in this thread.

Those drop from UW too, I got 2 rubies and a sapphire in one of my runs.^^

Although, I hope they don't nerf perma SF, it opens up a lot of new, easy, safe ways for people to make money, it always helps the noobs get money, which Anet will like.^^

Last I checked ectos were at 4.8 at the trader. They would magically raise back up to 5.5 sporadically, and then fall somehwere back around 4.8. Haven't checked it in a few hours, but last I did they were at 4.8 at trader.

Not saying they're going to stay at these prices, but they have been dropping then magically going back up.

1 ecto = 1 z key...
...
...
2 ectos = 1 z key...
...
...

you get the point...

What cracks me up the most about this thread is 3 years of hearing about PVP elitists trying to ruin the game for others.

As long as money/ectos are easy to get the gold sellers will have a harder time. If A-Net tightens up the economy like the horders want the gold selling market will explode again.

Is that why loads of guru users are making threads like this complaining about various overpowered skills? There use be many many threads about Ursan complaining until the guru mods got pissed. Everyday I see more and more people leaving the game because it gets too repetitive and there's no new content.


@EinherjarMx

Not much how about you? I barely log on anymore so I don't see you on anymore

The small click of GW players that hang out here on GURU is not exactly a very good representation of the Player base. Majority of players are playing the game, not like us here, bitching 90% of the time (yes me included).

And yes the game is getting "old", less and less to do for the "old" timers, but what ever way you look at it we have had a good time for the money we spent on GW.

>.> Why do people on guru think that the entire gw player base is a member here?

Oh, and I'm pretty sure the same people bitching about the overpowered skills are out there using them, and if they got nerfed, I'm sure they'd bitch about them getting nerfed. I don't see why everyone cares. If it makes me money, I'm happy.

The other side of the issue that A-Net "might" want to allow (which I don't totally agree) is the opportunity for more "casual" players to get themselves fow armor. Definitely not a motivating factor for allowing endless SF - but a side effect they might think as positive.

Perma SF has motivated me to do some UW again...I'm at 80e in just 3 days.

OK my two cents.

What is the big deal anyway? If you want the price to go up at the trader buy them from the trader. If you want the price to go down at the trader, sell them to the traders. Simple.

On the other hand, you can not sell your account or even sell the gold that you have in your account for real world money. This IS a game? or IS this a game?

If you want money, get a job. If you want more money get a part time job on top of your job.

The idea of the game is a simple way of gathering with like-minded people and having some fun killing stuff.

I can remember when I got my first 100K on a toon. I was so excited I went out and asked a guild member to help me get my sword and shield for the Hall. I did that and then was like OK. I have 10K left now what? It left me empty and bland.

What was the next thing to get? Nothing. I got bored after trying so hard to get 100K.

So I went to presearing to help new people learn skills to actually play the game, like pulling charr with a bow. setting the controls on their pets to not draw agro.

This stuff is free. It is playing the game. If you are obsessed with the game then I think that you might need to take a break. Sit back and think that this is just a game that you used real dollars to buy but you can not sell.

Unless or course you are selling for real dollars and then everything here makes sense.

If you were farming 50e at 5.5 for 270K in resale and you can get 40 bucks real money for a night tax free then I can see how that would effect your bottom line on the economy.

Just because somethings will get you banned from the game does not mean that people will not risk the chance to do it. IF that is the case then a drop in as little as 500 gold could really put a damper on the real bottom line of real money.

Leads one to wonder why people need 10 stacks of ectos. I also realize that for some people 10 stacks is like nothing.

Oh the math sorry.
10 stacks at 5.5 is 13,750,000 gold
10 stacks at 4.7 is 11,750,000 gold
this as a difference of 2,000,000 gold or 20 bucks real money.

Now that is something to complain about.

I'm so frustrated right now... a couple of months ago I re-rolled my sin and started trying for Survivor (again) - 777K XP and counting. I've even resorted to pricey lightbringer scrolls... it's gonna hurt if this gets nerfed before I get a chance to earn anything back.

Hmm, this is going off topic I think...

Anyways, I'll just say that at first it was easy to sell 20 ecto for 100k but now a lot of the traders I run into will only buy [email protected] or roughly 4550g each.

seems it starting massive ppl selling ectos for z-keys ANET needs to stop this now... I have 73 ectos and i don;t want them to be worthless... @trader they are worth 4.8k... Nvm 5.5k again, guess they are still stable, but i have started converting selling 1 ecto per 3 shards

Don't try the real life commodity market, there is no safety lines at all.
There is nothing to worry about, you wait and see what happens if the "Uber Super rich" starts selling to trader, ectos will go for 100g then.
The market will absorb the "new" ectos, people still use them for armour and "gloves" or horde them for buying "minis" with.

You need to wake up and realize guru isn't even 25% of the gw community. We are indeed the minority that he was speaking of.

You know, as I cliked on the "Last Page" link of this thread, something occured to me.

Saying that the SF update will destroy the GW economy is like saying that giving consumers more purchasing power will destroy the economy.

It's just silly.

i think this thread has pretty much been proven wrong by now.
a few weeks since this update and ecto is still at the same price. sooo the OP and anyone who thinks that it will ruin the economy or ecto prices /fails.

*rolls around in the stacks of ecto ive farmed*

It really is just silly.

boo hoo... i feel sorry for all those people who bought ele swords for 100k + 60e and now can;t even sell them for 20k becauase of da raptors. LOOOL. things change mate, deal with it. there are always Icy Dragon Swords that still go for like 15-25k a peice. You can normally get like 1-3 per half hour. better than 5 ectos in half hour... well. same really and IDS's sell like mad.

btw. they won;t nerf SF for PVE. it was originally nerfed for PVP and they just fixed it again... hey, look. they just put Mystic Regen back to normal again. woot. more Earth Farming eles now destroying the economy....

After you finished the storymode you can grind titles and farm gold. That's all there is. They won't destroy something which keeps people busy till they bring you GW2. Fixing Mystic Regeneration for PvE a coincidence?

the big deal is that some of us spent a lot of our time playing our asses off to get those stacks of ectos and armbraces and whatever else. now that we have them, they aren't worth as much. you can see the change in the economy minute-to-minute, as ecto prices fluctuate. before the SF update, they did not move nearly as much as they do now. GW, being an MMORPG, does have an economy, such as it is, and certain changes in the game do hurt it.

for me, it's not so much about e-peen as it is about accomplishment. i spent a lot of time to get where i am and feel as though it wasn't worth it to put that much time into it now. i still enjoy the game immensely and feel there is still plenty to do and accomplish. this one, single skill, however, has diminished the sense of satisfaction i had with one of my accomplishments.

but, eh, learn to live with it and move on. maybe i'm just sounding silly though. ;P

I've had that feeling so many times. One of the biggest irritations is still Ursan Blessing. I don't think there is something wrong with "Shadow Form farming" but they could at least ask a bit more "skill" from the players.

Ecto prices hasn't been really affected because very few people buy and sell ectos from the trader.
The same can't be said for obsidian shards though, they are 1.9k at trader now. One week ago it was 1.2k (and was hovering around ~1.1k-1.3k for a very long time iirc).

In GW, and from what has been said about GW2, you will never be happy. Your idea of a "good economy" is one where you have the haves and have nots. Anet's idea is that everyone is a have. Dropping prices on ecto. dropping prices on armbraces, allowing people to clear DoA, and all this other stuff is exactly what they were trying to achieve. Complaining that they did so isn't going to get things changed. It happens to be my idea of a good economy too (as someone else above me said I find it a good economy when everyone has a high degree of purchasing power).

Of course it's about e-peen - no one has taken any accomplishment away at all. The *only* thing you are complaining about is that now others have your shiney too and that is purely vanity (or e-peen if you prefer). That any that wants to do so can make it to rank 8 LB now doesn't diminish the accomplishment of those that got rank 6 before hard mode. I have a certain amount of pride in beating prophecies with hench even though now everyone knows you can do it and there are tons of strategies out there to use - back when I did it it was considered near impossible. Again, there is nothing in terms of my accomplishment taken away because now I'm not the only one out there that did it. The only thing is that no one cares about my screenshots or pays attention to having LB at rank 8.

I understand that - I like my shiny things too. I liked the few things I had gotten that few others have had. However I will readily admit it is vanity (or whatever term you want to use) and can't say I expected it to last long. FOr one thing I realized that I found it more advantageous to be able to do pretty much everything instead of only having those small areas. That is there are more cases where I had loads of fun doing something I could not have done if people had their way about keeping things "hard" than I would have had if the system was more protectionist. My bet is that if you sit back and look at all your characters and all you time you will find that on balance you took advantage of the system more often than you were screwed.

No, there is a large group of people who want their own shiny that no one else has - many MMO's are centered around that. But then again most of them have a much smaller population and only live because they have monthly fees. GW is really the only one that goes this far, WoW kinda walks the line and has been moving towards a more GW like system of casual players (they realized there are WAY more casual players than hard core).

You are mistaking something that hurts you for something that hurts the game economy.

You should take this post to heart: