Ecto Prices

I can agree on this, really...btw why community say "xxx" worth "xxx"k+"xxx"e and now say no its not???For months and months all agree in prices, and on last month all changed...
All speaking about SF, about nerfing bla bla bla...ok then?Sf is nerfed now?NO, you can still farm?YES..no reason to speculate...when SF get nerf with other skills and all become hard to find i just shut up and realize that all is going right..its normal why say not if the truth is in front of my eyes?BUT untill that moment i keep my ideas up...ppl farm a lot of "high End for Day", that mean is still possible do it,ectos get farmed every day so nothing change!!or you thing is a good thing shot on a person because you have afraid that 2 moths later he will shot at you?

Will ANet consider making some adjustments to the character and Xunlai storage limit on currency (perhaps in connection with skill changes directed at certain farming builds)?

1. The currency limits (like storage which has seen a number of improvements) was designed at the beginning of Prophecies. Hopefully for GW2 and to consider for improvements in GW, a general issue with MMOs is that everyone that starts the game with nothing, so when a game is new, everyone starts "poor", but wealth accumulation develops over time, and the system should be able to accommodate that players in time will have accumulated wealth. The limits of 100K per character and 1 million gold for storage is inadequate in the context of the current game. Even if the design requires some cap, a higher cap would seem much more reasonable after the release of content after Prophecies.

2. The current limits inordinately increases the demand for a substitute (like a commodity such as ectos in this case) because of the reduced demand in the actual currency. Many players have reached the max they can store in currency so there's a preference for an alternative which they can store. It's like a bank no longer accepting cash or cash equivalent after a set limit, thus increasing the demand in gold coins and bars.

Players may need to deal with a barter element at the high end, but the prevalence of the use of currency substitutes for many transactions and inadequacy of the currency system to store wealth should warrant some consideration by ANet of a design adjustment. It should help to enhance the gaming experience for many players.

Realistically, in the real world, for an issue like this, there would be another denomination in currency, etc., rather than resorting to bartering commodities as a substitute.

Upping the 100k limit per character would solve nothing as long as items in this game are being sold and bought for 5,000k+ gold.

The problem is people after 5 years are that godawful rich they are able to ask such exorbitant prices.

And with gold ever flowing into the economy and virtually nothing of it being destroyed, this isn't likely to change.

Who speak about increase by 100k?Maybe better increase by 1000k on chars and 10000k on chest, so you can easy pay items up to 1000k of worth.

Even if a percentage of high-end transactions would rely on currency substitutes, most transactions are smaller. It would probably be a convenience for such "more standard" transactions to avoid having to engage in a commodities exchange as well. The purpose of having a currency system is to facilitate transactions and avoid having to go through that. Even if a small percentage of transactions engage in a commodities conversion, that shouldn't have much influence on the design...it's the area of where there are more transactions which should influence the design and have more impact on their playing experience. (Convenience should be important. With the increased use of character mules for storage, I remember when ANet at least made the change to allow for character switching without having to relogin each time.)

For more typical, standard transactions (not the super uber-rare items, etc.), players should be able to rely on simply using the currency system to complete their transaction. It facilitates pricing and ease of transactions.

The only objection I imagine would be from those who have a strong personal interest in ectos (hoping for continued abnormal demand due to inadequacies of the currency system) rather than an interest in game improvement and gaming experience.

It is easy - increase ecto drop rate.

Ecto drop rate have been constantly nerfed because of farms/SC - those things have/are being taken care of - no reason to keep ecto drop rate so low.

Additionally many of those ectos were obtained by things that now are considered exploits - no reason to reward exploits.

That would make the currency go to something else that isn't easily farmed (if/when SF nerf comes out) like black dyes or armbraces.

To get those black dyes people would have to buy them with hard platinum.

I actually think the ecto rate will go up, due to game mechanics. if an area is farmed too much the drop rate decreases.

There's nothing wrong with ecto droprates, it's still the same as it was in 2005. It never changed and it doesn't change with overfarm, the drops are just random so your observations on a very small sample are often heavily biased.

And why would you want ectos to suddenly stop being a currency? Despite price instability they worked fine for all these years. No other existing item is worthy of becoming a currency, the only acceptable thing would be introducing stackable bars of 100k npc buy&sell value, effectively removing all trade/storage limits on platinum. That would temporarily drop the value of ectos but I'm sure that not for a long time (the buying market force of players who intend to actually use them for crafting is greatly underestimated).

Clearly, the answer is the same as alliance faction; every month, the Lion's Arch Taxation Office takes 10% of your wealth! Problem solved, and I'm sure no one will complain.

Or, you know, we could just have a few solid items that are worth a solid amount; gold bars, platinum bars, etc, which can be exchanged at a trader for a flat fee and allow higher level trading WITHOUT a reliance on a shifting commodity obtainable from only a single location.

oooooo I like that idea m8! A consistent item worth X amount of gold trade-able to special npcs for the SAME amount of gold every time. VERY nice.

Why not?

They weren't designed as a currency.

You can use stacks of lockpicks, stacks of black dyes, whatever, to complement ur trades without them being hard currency.

None of those things were heavily exploited before since they are random drops or have a fixed price, so it isn't favouring any style of play.

The main reason is to give back platinum value.

The reason for the ecto prices, is that less people are playing the game so less people farm = less supply of ectos.
Or people that have tons of them in their inventory, stopped playing so that supply is forever stored in someone's account.
When I started playing when the game first came out, ecto was 14k each then up to last year, it got to 4k now it is back up only due to the fact that less people are playing.
Face it guys, the game is dying and no one will be playing once GW2 is out.
Arenanet is taking their time with GW2 and with no expansions to GW1, the interest is fading.
I mean how many times can one, redo a mission or re create a toon.

my .2

I don't see what the problem is, I love the current price, I've been waiting for this price change for a long time.
Back in the day, when I first played Prophecies, ecto's were 12-20k.
Now, when you get an ecto as drop, you're way happier than when the price was at 4k, at least that's what I feel. It's much more special.
I'm not quite sure how much influence the UW update has had on the prices, as I havem't played for several months, but my guess is that it's played a (fairly decent) role as those skeletons made it a lot harder. Sigh, guess I'll have to try it some time.

Sounds like you have something to loose. Lockpicks are the obvious trade item.

A stack is worth 312,500 gold
So max tradeable in one fell swoop is 2,187,500

And thus armbraces would be EXACTLY 224 lock picks.

So there is no reason to say ectos must me this or that way. If all of us that do not have ectos started to trade in lockpicks our problems would be solved

Just to comment on a couple of flaws and possible reasons why lockpicks haven't generated much traction as a substitute, (1) there's an inherent unfairness with the pricing discount that provides a specific advantage for alliance members of Luxon/Kurzick outposts - (it might make more sense if those members didn't have such a pricing discount for lockpicks, but had it for other items...lockpicks was a free arbitrage opportunity that was a boon to them); and (2) there's a more significant pricing discount when trying to sell back to NPCs (1/2 price as opposed to a smaller margin with ectos). If there was a higher priced item that traded back for the same price as the purchase price (like festival tickets), that might be a better substitute than ectos.

It still begs the question and the designers should take a step back and consider whether the currency system should continue working (rather than max out so easily).

The price of an ecto? 0, it's a game there is no value to anything in it

But then I never understood the point of buying high-end stuff. I always obtained it myself. I farmed up all the ectos and shards for my ranger's Obsidian armor, all the amber pieces for my warrior's Kurzick 15k, and all the "rare" weapons and minipets I have I've found myself.

To each their own I guess....

Less people playing also means less demand too. And people who have tons of them in their inventory were never part of the supply, they were part of the demand.

This is probably the most elegant solution to the whole issue in my opinion. Create an item (Xunlai Bank Note or something to that effect), make it available at the trader for 5k and you can sell it back at 5k. No more worrying about current market price of ectos for high end trades.

Wow..ppl still skipping the problem...who care of get another currency?Who care about ectos price or black dye or lockpicks?Who care about drop rate (never changed)?
We are just skipping problem..i try to explain this for the last time, and let see if someone understand :
I have 100$ and 10 grams of gold,(necklaces,rings,bangles etc..)...I need to buy a jewel for my girlfriend and jewel seller acept cash and gold (in grams) as payment. 1gram of gold worth for example 10$ Ok?Jewel price is 90$...Seller say "you can pay me with full cash,full gold or both"...so i can pay 90$ or with 9 grams of gold...untill now no problems.
Lets suppose i need to buy another jewel, but when i go to buy it gold price is 15$ for a gram...jewel cost 90$...so i can pay 90$ or 90& in gold,that mean=6 grams (intead 9 grams).
Lets suppose that gold worth, instead, 5$ for a gram..so i need pay that jewel 18g...
Intead gold and cash just put ectos and platinum...the problem is that ppl overprice items now that ectos worth more..
And the worse thing is that ppl cover this thing (who have items)...btw i cant say nothing because is legal sell for less or oversell items, i just write to warning ppl about this fact.
"Ectos" never cause problems, just speculators cause always problems.

You would have a point, however higher ecto prices do not mean lower ecto costs. Armbraces are still around 40e despite ectos almost doubling in price, high end items, Obby Edges - 80e ish, Eblades 65e ish they're all still the same price. Why? Because high end trades happen exclusively in ectos. If you have 40e and prices drop back to 4k/u, you've lost half your wealth in gold, but your wealth in ectos will be exactly the same, you will still be able to buy an armbrace for that 40 ecto.