The Way to fix the Ecto Market

The Guild Wars economy is very similar to that of a real world economy, in several respects: It is subject to recessionary and inflationary gaps,being the most notable. A recent addition known as the Perma Shadow Form build has caused an inflationary gap in the Guild Wars economy, meaning there is too much Ecto on the market and not enough buyers to sell to.There are several solutions to this problem, although there is one that I would favor in particular

1.Permanently nerf Shadow Form: The only instance I believe this should be done is if bots are exploiting the system (in which case I would like to know how they are able to get past the obsidian beheamoths and blackness)

2. make a new addition or change a skill to creatures in the Underworld: this could be done in a way similar to what the dying nightmare is to the 55 monk.Although it would not nerf shadow form per se, it may require a partner like the SS is to the 55 monk, therefore slowing the rate of supply in which ecto is sold making it more suitable to demand.

3. reduce the current drop rates of ecto: I think this speaks for itself

4.Introduce new armor, weapons and benefits for ectoplasm: this would be IMO best for the guild wars economy because if Guild Wars had some measure of GDP (money value of all final goods and services sold, in this case value of new weapon, armor etc.) it would show an increase in economic stimulus in higher levels.

This is all econ 101 thinking, but unless Anet wants to let the ecto market go straight to hell (perhaps even other sectors of the GW economy like items over 100k), it would be beneficial to address this problem in a timely manner.

Love or hate what I say? post away or pm me, would love to hear responses.

Option four would be the best. Maybe a few new consumables based around ecto? Or for X amount of ectos you can unlock a hero on a character, though that hero must've been unlocked previously on the account. Add Eternal armor which would just be a reskin with the translucent green. Could be used as hero armor as well and is very easy to create. A "Chaos Dye" which adds a slight glow to various portions of existing armor (most likely the colorable sections). The options are endless and all are easily done as they're simple edits to existing art assets. X amount of ectos allows for the purchase of more storage space.

Or, better yet: X amount of ectos to change your character's appearance. That'd sell like hotcakes.

1. The dev's have been talking about possibly nerfing shadow form in the next update due to it's potency at farming some of the hardest creatures in the game very easily.

2. Making a new addition/creature would be, in my opinion, the best way to deal with the newly buffed Shadow Form, but would also not address the issue of Shadow Form being used in other places.

3. Reduce the drop rate of ectoplasm = stupid, it nerfs more then just Shadow Form farmers.

4. New Armor and New Weapons are totally out of the question, at least ones requiring crafting materials.


Anyways, the price of ectoplasm as of today is around 5k/ecto anyways.

I want to point out that there's one huge flaw in the economy in any mmorpg. There is an infinite supply that cannot always be counter balanced with demand. Ecto prices are steady and there hasn't been a Black Tuesday yet so the ecto market is fine. Sell to the trader IMO...

You simply increase the outlets for demand.

Once Shadow Form is nerfed, people will just move to the Obs Flesh ele that does the same thing to mindblades. The nerf may still be warranted, but it's not going to save ecto prices, which is all most of the complainers care about.

or we can have some1 take 1 for the team and buy a crap load of ectos from the trader like 7 stacks or so...

Instead of the developers actually trying to fight this issue, it would be in the best interest of the game to introduce new items. I'm sure they have concept art that wasn't used form the scrapped 4th campaign that could be converted into ecto based items. Some way or another, there will always be folks trying to solo the place, so why not just let shadow form be, to slow, if not halt the solo builds out there. this could be used to get people more interested in the game and more of a way to promote GW 2 inside GW itself.

the trader isn't very effective at monitoring supply and demand as that raising or lowering the prices through the trader is only an artificial determination of S&D, it has no idea of indicating" x many players wanting to buy y ecto at z price" and "x many players wanting to sell y ecto at z price" unless A net wants to higher full time economists to monitor game stats .

I think new weapons and armor would do little for the ecto market. The people that can afford the current items requiring ecto will easily be able to get the stuff that is introduced. And as per usual, the people that struggle to earn what's available now will continue to struggle to earn new items.

Consumables requiring ecto to craft would have to be pretty imbalanced for people to want to consider spending their ecto on them when they can get some pretty powerful stuff for less. A reduced droprate would just punish everyone, and personally I'd prefer SF QQ threads over ecto nerf QQ threads.

Maybe the UW needs a reduced enchantment environmental effect? New monsters? I don't know, but whatever happens I'm positive there will be a whole new thing to complain about.

Chaos dye is actually a really win suggestion imo, in terms of manpower required. The only problem is in dying gloves and axes.

heres my 2 cents as for why ecto prices have dropped, and why they wont rise

as time goes on for guildwars, more and more and more people buy the game and join the fun. in other words, there are more people online today, than there were say a year ago.

this means more farmers, and more buyers.

now, another trend, as time goes on, is buyers, become farmers, but farmers, stay farmers.

buyers, are people goin for that obby armor. but once they get it, they have no need to buy ectos anymore. so they become farmers.

in other words, its an infinite solution (ectos) for a finite problem (obby armor)

therefore there will always be surplus, or; supply>demand

so, as time goes on, the population of guildwars shifts from demand, to supply.

and it doesnt shift back.

and since this is a game, not real life, there is no scarcity or shortages that increase demand.

thats the major flaw in a game economy. it doesnt go in cycles of buy buy buy -- sell sell sell. it varies when stimuli are introduced (nerfs and buffs), but as a whole it is a one way street.

and it wont change, not within the bounds of a fair nerf from anet. if anet were to fix this problem, they would have to reform the way the game is played. farmers would have to stop farming, and sellers would have to start buying. and people dont want to do that. and it would cost people precious platinum.

no matter what anet does, there will be QQ.

what im saying is, this isnt a problem to fix. its just how things are now in today's age. trying to fix it, would be like tryin to bring back ice cream for 10 cents.

thats how i see it anyways.

Trader Price for ectos actually dropped to 4.3k today.

The Ecto Market is just fine, unless you are tying up your on-hand assets in them.

That is, say you have one person, Abe, who has 500k, and another person, Bob who has 100 ecto @5k. In this example, the price for ecto drops to 4k. If both persons assets were traded to Ecto, Abe would now have 125 ecto, while Bob would still have only 100. This is bad for Bob, but just fine for Abe. Abe now can get FoW and Chaos gloves for less, and post them in him Hall of Monuments.

Also, don't forget about Carl, who in the last week was able to farm his first 40 ecto ever, giving him more money than he's ever had. This is good for Carl, and Guild Wars as a whole, because a middle-class has emerged, and likes to buy things like minipets and armor sets for their HoM. Having a worthwhile HoM also means that Carl and all of his buddies will most likely buy GW2, giving Anet more resources, making GW2 more likely to be kick-ass awesome.

Now, if you like Bob, and if you have a stack or three, and you think that SF is going to stay, you should either sell them off now, or trade them in for Shards, as shards are increasing in price, or trade them in for Zaishen Keys, as they will likely be a stable commodity until GW2 comes out. On the other hand, if you think SF is going to be nerfed, you should hold onto them and buy more with your on-hand gold, because the price will most likely go up over time.

The best thing that Anet could do would be to introduce another use for Ecto. Something really fun, like trade in 50 Ecto for a present that gives one of three random minipets.

I honestly don't see the big problem here. Correct me if I'm worng, folks.. but Ecto prices will never dip below trader, right? And trader I'd say has hit the rock bottom. I mean, there was a time, when I could sell an ecto for 16k to players, but that was years ago.. it's been on 4-5k pr ecto since forever now and I think it hit the cap. Ergo, it won't fall below that. The day where an ecto goes for 1k or less will never come...

Today, if you sell and ecto to trader, you get 3.8k pr ecto.. that's not the 4-5k you could make from players, but it's still good. Basically if you can't sell to players, you can still make a good profit off of selling them to trader, which means ectos are still viable for high-end purchases of 100k+e.. because no matter whether there IS a market for ectos or not, players can still trade them in and get their value in money.. it just goes through trader instead of players.

So where's the big problem? It can't be in the player-to-player trade.. I'm guessing everyone complaining is just shooting the breeze because suddenly people have a way of making quick money? Because FOW used to be a lot tougher to get?

There are other ways to make roughly as much money in just as short a time tbh.. HFFF, for one.. or COF.. I base this on some guildies of mine, who tell me they do the UW run in 30-45 mins.. and typically come out with 2-3 ectos to show for it. 2-3 ectos @ 3.8k = 11.4k..

In that span of time an expert HFFF charging 2 people 100g pr run can make more or less the same.. I know, I've done it..

To be precise, you can make 8.750k from quest and players in that span of time + 1k from 10 amber.. so we're at almost 10k.. tell me if that's not just as viable?

I'll completely agree here, instead of nerfing Shadow Form or Underworld which may incite angry protests (Shadow Form has been used to farm greens for heroes as well, as well as getting elite tomes), they should include more items, weapons, and armor that involve ectos. For example, since there is obsidian armor and chaos gloves, why not have a weaponsmith that create chaos weapons and obsidian weapons. Or how about introduce a new kind of armor that uses ectos like, say....Zaishen armor? There is a lot of possibility that doesn't involve nerfing or incite angry protests.

And besides which, obsidian flesh eles aren't 100% protective against ATTACKS that causes interrupt like [Savage Slash], so using them in the UW would pretty much be pointless. Not to mention Bladed Aaxtes give a sorry pain to eles.

Uhh we have chaos axes and that would be dum because then anet would make it so that you can "make" e blades and obsidian edges which would fail

Option 5: Restrict [glyph of swiftness] to elementalist spells only, then feathers and dusts price gone higher than ecto and everyone starts hunting the poor birdmen.

Option 6: Let ecto price drops so low till it's not worth farming anymore that everyone can just buy it from trader, but then more people, especially ecto collectors start whining on guru and any other GW forums.

Seriously, if the ecto market dies, just let it be. GW economy isn't all about ecto. I'm sure those 'greedy' players will think of new ways for their so-called 'high end trading' like 'WTS something 100k + xx Zkeys'.

Has anyone noticed that the price of Obsidian Shards has more than doubled? Has anyone noticed that if a person goes to buy the material for Obsidian armor from a rare material trader they will pay the same now as before the shadow form buff due to the price increase of obsidian shards? Shadow Form may have driven one down by .8k to 1.5k (Ecto 4.7k at this time) but it has driven one up by 1.5k (2.5k at this time and holding steady)

The only people complaining are people that horde ecto as a currency (which it was never intended as and for those people might I suggest lock picks - 1250g since they were introduced) and farmers that want to sell ecto at a higher price.

I like the new armor suggestion. New armor to match the gloves but it would mean resources would have to be pulled from GW2.

I think that nothing should be done to quote on quote "fix the ecto market". Last night ecto jumped back up to 6k then started going back down. This is because ecto is more than just a means to Obsidian armor. It is a commonly accepted exchange rate in all purchases. If at all, the ecto surge will help stimulate the market in other places. If ecto isn't being bought by players it is being bought by the trader. When the trader gets low in price, people buy from him. When people buy from him, trader price goes up. When trader price goes back up, ecto price is high.

We don't need new items, we don't need a dev change. As someone stated earlier in this thread, its not like ecto farming is the only way to make 10-12k in 30-45 minutes. Ecto fluctuates around a certain range. I remember at one point ecto dropped to 5k or so way before shadow form was even introduced but it bounced back. Furthermore think of it this way: When shadow form changed ecto farming significantly, people pretty much made a bank run and tried to empty out their ecto anywhere they could in fear of dropping prices. However, it still stabilized and will continue to do so.

My solution = Smile and do nothing

Or when favor runs out.

That is very true. Favor is dwindling quickly. However, this double reputation weekend for GWEN might knock the favor count back up.