What happened to Ecto and Shard Prices

Only the Master of the North title counts towards favor. All other Eye of the North titles don't. Thus favor will run out soon.

I like how a thread can be answered with "Shadow Form happened" but yet "discussion" goes on for multiple pages.

To quote Moloch Vein:

It's the magic of guru.

Yes, I think that could sum up this thread. I don't even know why this thread was created, the answer is so obvious:

1. Excess of Ectos in the game
2. Decreased demand for Ectos
3. More sources of ectos such as the A/E farm

The discussion goes on because some people are still denying they are going down in price when they've been at 5.5k for many months and then suddenly dropped to 4.3k at the trader as of now.

Bought 10 earlier at 4.5/each from the trader. Price usually bumps up after you do that, but it remained there until it... lowered >_>

Ecto for all?

Just another example of how anet's entire philosophy took a 180-degree turn:

Summer 2005: Anet nerfs prot bond to prevent imba easymode farming that was breaking the economy.
Summer 2008: Anet buffs shadow form to enable imba easymode farming that breaks the economy.

Actually, they nerfed Prot Bond because a bug with it and mind wrack would cause Mind Wrack to trigger on end, eventually leading to a server crash on their end. Nerfing it was the only way they could fix it.

I'm not sure about that. Summer vacation is near so more ppl will start playing daily again and grind titles that do count towards the favor.

+ it's possible to buy passage scrolls so ppl can still enter UW with or without favor

How would you do that? Unless you make your game terrible on purpose, there are going to be people that spend lots of time in it. If you have no ability to farm, the relative worth of gold increases, and then the people who play lots have loads anyway.

I don't know if it's been discussed, but Ectos were/are waaaaaaaay overvalued before the farming started to take place. The reason is that people use Ectos as platinum markers more than anything else. Players stock up on ectos because there is a 100k cap per player/trade, and there is 1000k cap in storage. So if the average player has 9 avatars, then they can have a max amount of 1.9k platinum. Imagine the dive in the price of Ectos if Anet finally raised the cap on storage and individuals. If the cap(s) were raised from 1000 to 10000 in the storage and raised for each individual/trade from 100k to 1000k, then people wouldn't need ectos to make simple trades and many could get by while using only gold. All those thousands of 100k+ to 1000k trades could potentially then be done in platinum/gold. Since currently any trade above 100k requires another item, and Ectos are the most commonly accepted material, there are probably 100's of thousands of them being hoarded that shouldn't be. I'd imagine if most people didn't need Ectos for trade, then Ectos would drop drastically and the market would take a little while to find some balance between the value of platinum and other materials.

So if the price dive is hurting you a little, be thankful they didnt raise the cap. I scrambled last week to get rid of half my ectos and I'm glad I did, but if farming slows down (nerf/lack of players farming/etc), they should climb back up later. Or this could only be the tip of the iceberg and go down like the Onyx.

If they removed the 100k cap, then ectos would be devalued a lot :P( say do it! )

oh BTW i see ecto is 4.1k * updates signature*

Ecto 3.9k and falling fast, sell now.

Perma-shadow is now the new 55 monk build technically. UW farming is WAY easier than FoW. It is possible to farm in the FoW using with A/E sliver version or A/Me version sololy (the shore, spider caves, battlefield, forest), but it isn't possible to fight the shadow mobs due to the monk using [Zealot's Fire] (and it really does kill, even in NM). Oh and if you come across the spiders while using the A/Me version, be aware that using hexes will force them to use healing spring and melandru's resilience, so spiders would a bit more difficult. Apparently, perma shadow is so popular that the rune trader is constantly out of shadow runes (luckily i bought the sup rune before the shadow form buff).

On the other hand, because of this and the diffculty to obtain, ecto prices are dropping, and shards is slightly increasing. Although ectos are still used as currency, mostly because of tradition (like black dyes as currency).

But again, people want ectos and shards to show off the obsidian armor, but I'm farming the ectos by means to getting an everlasting tonic (and I was a bit surprised that I gotten around 83 ectos within 10 days). By average, an everlasting tonic cost around 100-150 ectos depending on what you want (i'm guessing that the beetle one is cheaper than the golem one), which is usually enough to craft a set of obsidian armor. Currently, I'm trying to figure out a way to easily farm shards and kill the shadow mobs easier. Eventually, when ppl start using the ectos and shards to make obsidian armor, I'm sure the prices will increase again. It's the law of supply and demand. Much like gas is now $4 because it's now harder to get oil and eventually when peak oil comes, we're done for.

I have a feeling that I'm going to be laughing whole-heartedly at Rahja's "price floor" within a week (if not within a few days). Players are already dumping their ectos for 3.8K-3.9K each, but I'm giving Rahja the benefit of the doubt by assuming that he was talking about the price at which the rare material trader will sell them to you.

I've said it before and I'll say it again...I hate it when I'm right.

Does this mean they're going to re-introduce attribute refund points soon?

they should thatd be the shit

Don't even joke about that.

Now that ectos are as easy to farm as shards, they will drop to that price (about 2-3k) unless anet does something. There are 2 options they could do that I can think of.

1. Artificially limit the price of ecto at the trader to be 4k minimum (I think they didn't do this because i saw it at 3.9k for a short time).

2. Nerf shadow form. (They said they might do this, but its already Thursday (the usual day for weekly updates), so it won't happen for at least another week).

I am actually hoping that ectos permanently drop heavily in price because of so many dupers and scammers that have amassed them over the years (yep those people who consistantly bid 2000+ ectos in the high end forum).

However, anet should announce fast whether they are keeping the ecto prices up or letting them drop, because less and less people are selling "high end" (100k+) items because they are afraid to trade until prices stabilize. This is killing the economy.

Maybe a shaky question but wouldnt you want to sell high-end weapons now with the shitty ecto price as you will amass more and possibly have the chance of it going right back up?

I personally feel pretty confident that anet will nerf SF soon after reading the dev update.

Either way I dont give a shit I just feel bad for those people that invested tons of money in ecto.