Why are Z Keys still rising in prices?

I know they have been going up since the HoM update where the Zaishen title (3) or above is needed to obtain a PvP statue, but that is old news and one would expect the prices to stablise, but they kept going up!

Z keys are going for almost 7k now, and I have seen plenty of 1:1 key-ecto trade. I am interested in why this is happening. Thank you

maybe more people using them and less people actually selling them ?

Most Zkeys come from PvP. Guess how that's doing lately?

Guess why PvP is going bad? because if you're new, no one takes you in, unless you're rank 1 million ++++++ and have 6000 hours experience.

bah with the amount of people doing JQ and FA which gives may 750+ balth points per match

maybe the stack of keys gained with multiple gw acc's during the Tournament seasons is getting low and therefore the price is getting higher?

less people playing pvp means supply goes lower, with demand staying the same its only logical the price rices

i would say demand is going up for zkeys(more veternas and new people playing) while the pvp community isnt doing too good. That raises prices. all supply and demand.

Supply is decreasing while demand is increasing. Simple as that.

Isnt the price of z keys solely determined by the player? There are not z key vendors, so the price of them from NPC's never changes. Ever. Plus, with the addition of z coins, getting z keys is even easier, since now you dont even have to play PVP to get them. Just purchase a flame of balthazaar for some coins. The only reason the price for something like that would go up is if the seller decides to bump up the price, and the buyer falls for it.

Bingo. PvP players killed PvP. In any case, tourney seasons up so people are unloading. Ebbs and flows.

Or maybe, as everyone else is suggesting, demand is higher than supply. This causes prices to rise.

This is called economics. Things are worth what people will pay for them.

Tell you what, go to GToB and try buying zkeys for 5.5k, see how many times you get called a noob

Simple supply and demand economics people....
the only z-key source that are coming into the market in masses is z-quest rewards for RA and Codex.....which few do... and many want.... this is nothing back before XTH z-keys were 8k+/ea.... expect it to be that price again before it slows down...

only way i see z-key prices fall if some kinda miraculous fix to pvp is done causing more people to produce z-keys... or they bring back XTH.... don't see either happening...

The price of coins is still basically set by bags and elite tomes. Before keys were 7k they weren't worth 1 gold (or 10 silver from balth flames) when 2 gold would get you a rit tome or whatever. They are now approaching the point where they are worth trading coins for though, so I would not expect keys to go up much further regardless of the continuing implosion of the pvp community.

I can't believe people still perpetuate this nonsense.

You assume Zkeys only come from HA / GvG. I can get 5 Zkeys every FA Zaishen Quest, Followed by 3000 Daily Balthazar Faction and the additional faction for playing in PvP. A stack every 3 - 4 months isn't all too hard when you run Random-Spikes in HA (with 0 rank on the account I'm raising currently) and Random Arena / FA + Quests.

PS: GvG is dead, try forming a guild of decent randoms and you could probably get to Quarter or Semi's.

Bad guilds care about titles/time played, what top 200~ guilds ask is for references such as guilds/trims/or even players that u played with
Plus, if PvE players really want to GvG why don't they form in their own guild? I am pretty sure there's 8++ persons interested in playing if U ask in a decently big guild(which is pretty normal to find in PvE I think). I kinda understand what you are saying tbh, but the key is to not give up, keep trying and be willing to learn. I am pretty sure you'll be able to find a guild.

Justify this with evidence please.

The question you should be asking is why they didn't rise a long time ago. If using Zcoins and an example, you could save for 5 and grab 1 large bag and trade that for 9 ecto and then get 15 keys a couple of months back. Instead people keep using coins to buy keys though, because theyre stupid.

On the other side of things, ecto's have a near indefinite supply, it's hard to find a single old player that doesnt keep a stockpile of atleast 100 these days. Armbraces aswell, there are single players with stockpiles of 1000+ of them, and quite many of those players aswell. I bet the armbraces currently in the game would be enough to supply the game with every single tormented weapon they could possibly want for the next 2-3 years. So that too has a near infinite supply

Most players that will go get themselves Obs armor for HoM I think allready has. And I think conciderably more ectos get farmed then the amount that gets used for armor.

Now you have zkeys, they cant in any way quickly be farmed. RR days are long gone and most players are still "working" on their title. In other words they dont have it but they've used maybe 50 keys or so and are trying to get it.

So to me it's a wonder why ecto in any way would be considered to be more valueable then a zkey.. I dont think they are