Ectos verses Z-Keys

Well I am in and out of the hig-end selling now and then and wanted to get everyone's opinion. So here is the question

What is better to accept when selling for >100K

Ectos
Cons -
1. Recently dropped in price seemed to stabalize around 3.5K
2. Another buff or nerf could make the price unstable again
Pros -
1. post nerf may cause the price to creep up steadily therby increasing you stored wealth
2. Long time currency

Z-Keys
Cons - New and demand/price may fluctuate making pricing unstable

Pros - so far seem fairly stable and demand is steady. *edited*


So do you take a risk banking on ectos going up or stay with the fairly new but stable z-keys?

z-keys

1234

i think ecto will stay around the 3.5-4k mark from now on.
they can still be farmed quite easily, but not as many people are doing it now due to the nerf.
from the trades i have seen ecto still seem to be the main thing used.
i think in time we will see more trades w/ z keys though

Zkeys and don't accept less than 5k for them.

I prefer Z-Keys, but it's harder to trade in Z-keys. There aren't as many z-keys available ingame as ectos so that makes it tough to establish keys as a trading stable.

Really it's up to the seller and what he prefers. As a seller, you may like lockpicks and Z-keys so you accept those in trade. Another seller may be saving for fow armor and prefer ectos. Another may want a semi-rare minipet.

Ideally, the seller should list his preferences in the auction. If he doesn't then bids will most likely be in ectos since that's the established currency.

not sure from your thread whether Z keys are stable or unstable as the pro's/cons seem to contradict each other

I have been using ectos still myself

Neither. Price is going to drop on both of these; it is just how the game is played.

Lock picks - 1250g (or 1200 if you have access to a Faction Outpost)

Pro: Easy to get, go to kamadan District 1. Someone is selling Lock picks in large quantities there all the time. (The might even cut a deal if you buy a 100k)
Pro: Price does not vary that much (might find someone selling the odd lock pick for less but not often).
Pro: Can easily be turned back into gold since a constant demand for lock picks.

Cons: ???

Even better option would be to remove the stupid trade limit.

I prefer pure gold and armbraces... they are fairly stable in price at about 150k each, so they can cover all transactions above 100k...

...and, to explain for people who don't understand how to cover, for example, a 125k transaction with just gold and armbraces, the buyer (who pays) pays with an armbrace, and the seller puts the sold item along with 25k in the trade window... the only problem lies in the fact that people sometimes need to buy armbraces to fuel that economy...

...alternatively, pay with only gold for 100k+ auctions using an intermediary step. Example: The buyer is supposed to pay 500k for an item. The buyer first buys 100 Zkeys from the seller in 5 trades. The buyer then trades the newly bought Zkeys for the item. This system requires an intermediary currency unit such as the Zkey or ecto, but is fairly indepenent on the value of the currency in question...

EDIT: Oh, and as the person above me said, Lockpicks are wonderful at 1200-1250 each... only problem is that you need so many... but then again, who doesn't need hundreds and hundreds of lockpicks for all the HM and EotN treasure hunter grinding?

If Anet are smart and fix SF properly, then ecto will rise again. Till then, I'm staying away from trading. I'll stick to my armbraces thanks.

Personally, I wouldn't bank on either. If you're worried about wealth preservation, I would seriously look at lockpicks. Although their price floor doesn't provide that much comfort (i.e. being 40% or so lower than the current going rate), at least they have a floor compared to where ectos and/or zaishen keys COULD go.

So, if you're investing for the long-term, lockpicks are a better investment.

Short-term, I'd heavily consider ectos over ZKeys...ZKeys have the possibility of taking a quick nosedive, while ectos probably won't fluctuate anywhere near another 1K drop anytime soon.

when did the z-keys take a nose dive?

I personally prefer Zkeys over Ectospasms.

Why is there potential for a Zkey nose dive? Only a massive increase in supply would do that (or an even more unlikely decrease in demand). Unless Zkeys start dropping from monsters, I don't see that supply jumping suddenly.... So what do you see that I'm missing?

My two cents,

Well I have never used either one to trade with. I do know that the ecto's price has fallen drastically. Black Dye for some reason never comes up as a means for trading and it's value has steadily increased to over 8K at the trader now.

In presearing there is not choice but to do the black dye as thee is no traders there.

I do like the idea of the lockpicks though. 1200 is a very fair price. You can farm them but not that fast that is for sure. I could get one for every 100 snow wurms that I kill in GW:EN so that is about 1 an hour.

zkeys wont nose dive. You can't farm them unless you consider 1 a day in Zaishen elite farming. There's a lot less Pvp players than PvE, the supply is just less unless something drastically changes they are going to remain much more valuable than ectos and the only people that say otherwise are the ones sitting on stacks of ectos.

I have always wondered why lockpicks haven't caught on as a trading alternative as there is little arguement over price 1200-1250. The only con is the limited of items in a trade window, still you can get 1.8M+ so should cover most trades.

Right now I am wondering if I should gamble on Ectos creeping up or not. I have a minipets I am looking to ditch that will get me a few stacks of ectos or keys. If ectos creep up to 4-4.5 it could be quite an investment.

Another thing on the z-keys is that more of them are probably consumed then ectos keeping the availability rate stable and therefore the price. As pointed out above there is no way to farm them in mass quantity like ectos aside from PvE which is a lot slower unless you can hold halls for hours. Wonder what is going to happen when they do their first double zaishen point weekend.

They are just trying to spread fear into the market about zkeys, to keep it from becoming a currency. They are like the Oil speculators in real life, who are responsible for the sky-high prices we are paying right now. The Speculators spread bullcrap rumors about the rise in demand and the decrease in supply, which in turn causes the price to go up because of those fears.

Its the same principle they are using here. These players want to cause 2 things to happen: They have stockpiles of Ecto saved up, and they want the value to go back up. secondly, they want the price of zkeys to go down so that they can buy more of them...

on topic, I would say of the 2 choices, ecto or zkeys, zkeys are the safer bet. Since the zaishen title came out, zkeys have been steady at around 5k, which is a fair price. In effect, this puts an actual value on faction; 1 platinum per 1k of balthazar faction. I dont see that changing anytime soon, but I'm no economics guru, so I could be wrong...

The challenge with using Z-keys as a trading medium is they are not readily available, yes, you can buy them from players, some ppl may even have a lot of them (a stack perhaps?) but there is no trader for them so a person is required to sit in a town, possibly even visit a few to find a seller, could be time consuming and many just want to be able to get whatever they need and move on without sitting around spamming WTB... When it comes to ectos and lockpicks, they are readily available at any time, always people selling large quantities of each and if you are one who doesn't want to deal with other players, a quick trip to a trader in most towns and you're set up with whatever you need. Eg: Yesterday I was buying a mini and was 8 ectos short of agreed price, well if I had of needed Z-keys, would have had to leave town, go search them out, wait for seller, trade, and hope mini was was still available. As it was, just ran 40 steps to trader, 30secs later had ectos and mini was mine, convenience is also something to take into consideration.

[quote=evilseabass]They are just trying to spread fear into the market about zkeys, to keep it from becoming a currency. They are like the Oil speculators in real life, who are responsible for the sky-high prices we are paying right now. quote]

For starters you're a lunatic. Spreading fear? No one is disagreeing with Z-Keys... If you look at the statements they all state negatives and pros of each respective trade item. There are cons to everything. Lock Picks are worth too little to make them a good tool for trading.. Think Obsidian Shards. Zaishen Keys are suspect to fluxuation because of the relative instability in volume. Ecto is suspect to fluxuation because of the steady decrease in demand. Lock Picks and Ecto however are in high volume all the time. Zaishen Keys are in low volume all the time. This makes them more susceptable to volatile price shifts. It's simple economics dude, not scare tactics. Do some research.

I'm not playing this game to buy skins that cost 100K+E/zK.
I love PvP and spend all keys myself for the fun of getting something nice.
But I would never buy expensive skins/minipets or other stuff.
I couldn't care less about what would be better to trade.