Insight into the Growth Stone price rise

[Ducky Momo]

Hello.

We have recently seen a Growth Stone price rise of almost 400% in the last 72 hours in the server and I wanted to show some insight as to how and why this phenomenon happened. While the most basic argument can be summed up as "supply and demand", there are various factors that has contributed to such a phenomenon.

1) Growth Stone and Feso is a consumable. Due to its nature, there is no real permanent supply of Growth Stones in the market and, thus, it is an extremely non-sustainable resource for the players. The same can be said for the Vis, the in-game currency, however, the Vis can be earned through in-game means while the Feso can only be attained through very rare drops in certain areas, roulettes, or achievements in small quantities.

2) The Feso is actually a form of premium currency. However, due to being acquirable in-game, it is mostly a pseudo-premium currency with over 95% of its supply coming from the premium market.

3) Feso is a part of the progression system. This mostly means La Atencion and Ancient Area passes which are big parts of the progression system in Granado Espada. While most of the other items in the Feso shop are convenience items, there is no other option to be able to get these things outside of a large grind or the Feso shop itself.

4) iCash limits have affected the supply. Normally, people who want Feso for a lower price than the market have the option to buy the Heaven Treasure Book from the iCash store. However, due to the iCash limits that have been place on Steam accounts by imc, this is no longer possible.

5) The limited supply is hoarded. This is actually a valid reason why the prices of the Growth Stones are high. Usual small supply of Growth Stones that are sold at low prices are immediately bought and hoarded by high sellers. This is actually comparable to the telecom services in the USA and their monopolies in areas for their service in which they block or buy out any other business that offers any prices against them and that the little "competition" in their circle has an agreement to not interfere with the area of one telecom business and another.

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With these in mind, why is the Feso price going through the roof? It's not simply because of iCash limits, or hoarding but a mix of all of these.

Due to the nature of the Feso as a pseudo-premium currency and due to the fact that it plays a big part in convenience and progression, it is sought after by almost every player in the game. While the Feso can hardly be earned through normal in-game means, there is normally a little problem due to the lack of supply because it can be bought through the iCash shop. However, due to the iCash limits(being mostly spent on Lyndon Boxes), and scroll, gear, etc. trading and the overall consumable nature of the Feso, its supply has dwindled to a small amount of people being able to buy iCash monthly. This limited supply is further cut by anyone hoarding/monopolizing the Feso market by buying Growth Stones en masse, through in-game or the iCash shop, and holding that supply to force the price to rise before selling, and buying out the smaller competition.

Is this a legitimate business tactic? Yes, definitely. It's one of the ways that bigger companies, such as those in the telecom example, are so large in the USA.

Is this ethical? Debatable.

This is actually quite similar to the "Mystic Coin" economy of Guild Wars 2 in which the "Mystic Coin" was hoarded and the lack of in-game means to get them outside of weekly log-ins have forced the price to go quite high. The developer's response to this was that "Players are hoarding Mystic Coins and that the supply is actually there." However, the main difference between us and Guild Wars 2 is that the hoarded items, in our case Growth Stones, are ACTUALLY returned to the market but a higher mark up while those in Guild Wars 2 are left in abandoned accounts and never returned. This paradox alongside a philosophy of greed has left the price of Growth Stones to rise.
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So what can be done to alleviate this Feso mark-up before it goes into uncharted territory? There are various ways to be able to go around these and maybe there are more to be listed but the ones that easily come to mind are:

1) Removal of the iCash limit. While the removal of the iCash limit per month is the easiest way to solve this problem, I, personally, do not think this is a good idea due to the fact that I am actually in favor of the iCash restrictions to prevent RMT-related depreciation of the Vis, etc. However, a median approach may be done and that the monthly limit be refreshed every 15 days and, thus, allow people to buy more iCash items which include the Heaven's Treasure Book for Feso.

2) Make items in the Feso shop to be available in Vis. Duplicating some items in the Feso shop to be made available in Vis will help depreciate the Feso outside of niche items and put pricing "guidelines" for the ratio of Vis-Feso. However, this may not be applicable to all items in the Feso shop as, in my opinion, Feso was meant to be kept a pseudo-premium currency and that the developers would like to keep it that way.

3) Make Feso more accessible by play the game. ie. drops, rewards, roulettes, etc. This is probably the most consumer-friendly way to alleviate the Feso mark-up. Giving roulettes and all monsters a chance to drop Sun, Moon, and <even if very rarely> Growth Stones, would ACTUALLY help the price of Feso to depreciate to more accessible values.

For this third option, Ruan has suggested this[steamcommunity.com] although I, personally, would prefer something like this.[steamcommunity.com]
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All in all, I hope that imc is watching the in-game market, its figures, and its analytics, and be able to find an actual healthy way of helping the players of this server with the Feso mark-up. This is especially true as such an unhealthy phenomenon happening at less than a month after server launch may put off consumers and slowly turn the game into a ghost town that it was when it was under IAH.

<also I still hope they give the Barons a new, PvE-inclined stance>

[Rosenz]

OMG I've read your post from start to end and it really really does makes sense. I sure hope that IMC was able to read this or at least most of the player base before the price of GS stones becomes so high that our measly player base will dwindle by the end of December or January.

[Ri]

I dont agree with putting feso into roulettes due multi accounts abusing.
Instead, we can get feso only items likes event - 1MCC Buff ampule, untradeable enhanced booster.

[Arvs]

IMC is quiet about the issue. But with issues related to iCash not being credited they are replying almost instantaneously! BUT WITH THESE ISSUES, THEY ARE JUST IGNORING!

[Ducky Momo]

Originally posted by Ruan:

I dont agree with putting feso into roulettes due multi accounts abusing.
Instead, we can get feso only items likes event - 1MCC Buff ampule, untradeable enhanced booster.

That is a certainly valid concern. However, the reason that certain Event Feso items may not be suitable in the Roulette is that:

1) It convolutes the roulette pool from actually useful items.

2) Feso items that are bought are usually Pet Food, Mercenary Contracts, Tears of Sara.

If these are the items instead put into the Roulette instead of trash Feso items, even as very rare drops, it would help depreciate the Feso. However, this is quite unlikely. While oversaturation of the market of Feso is also not a good thing, its result would be more akin to oversaturation of Shiny Crystals in the market than an actually abusable buy-and-sell, RMT-trade levels of change in the market.

Of course, your suggestion would actually work quite well if they would be willing to implement these "actually useful" Feso items into roulettes in Event form. At least that meets the criteria to make the highly sought-after items in the Feso shop actually earnable by playing the game which most are currently not.

[Ducky Momo]

Originally posted by Arvs:

IMC is quiet about the issue. But with issues related to iCash not being credited they are replying almost instantaneously! BUT WITH THESE ISSUES, THEY ARE JUST IGNORING!

I think you overestimate the powers of the developers in this case. Economical problems in-game aren't actually supposed to be touched by developers since this are left to be in the care of the players and that intruding or making (heavy-handed) changes in these things may be more unhealthy than healthy for the game. Of course, the developers also need to step in when it becomes too much for most players to handle(there was a game in which the developers refused to step in against the monopolies of players and eventually resulted in the game having a very small playerbase, if not closed. I forgot the name but it involved planets, resources, ships, etc.) although I do not think this is one of those times. A good comparison would be trying to uproot corruption -- it sounds easy to do but when you realize how deep it goes, it actually isn't unless you're willing to start a new slate over.

Fixing these things take more time to resolve than simply asking for your transaction number, comparing it to their bank ledger, and then fixing what went wrong in the system.

[Ri]

Originally posted by Ducky Momo:

1) It convolutes the roulette pool from actually useful items.

Useful items in roulette. You mean 30AR weapon/29 DR armor in raid which you need 80-85 DR tanker, right ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrH1IF_3V2g

Originally posted by Ducky Momo:

2) Feso items that are bought are usually Pet Food, Mercenary Contracts, Tears of Sara.

Pet food/ tear of sara used to be event reward in another server.

Btw, sell the weapon which was looted by your pet, then use vis for pet food. If you didnt want spend any vis on pet food, then its ur problem.

In case of Merc, IMC wont do it for sure, due event character card abuser.

[Ducky Momo]

Originally posted by Ruan:

2nd post

Simply putting Feso items into the roulettes isn't a solution. A probable solution is putting the Feso items that matter into the roulettes. While I agree that 29/30 AR/DR items in high-tier roulette is plain horrible, that is well beside the point.

You did say it before and it was actually a good way of approaching the Feso mark-up problem -- put Feso items in the roulettes but the items that needs to be put should be the ones that actually matter for the users and not just a hodgepodge of them to be able to say that "They put Feso items into the roulette." I would be more irritated if I got a 10-minute, MCC1 ampule over a 29/30 AR/DR item.

[ambo22]

You forgot to mention inflation. More than just supply and demand, inflation played a big part in the increase of prices of Growth Stones. Essentially, due the 100k vis roulette event, which puts more money in circulation, people are able to get more money and they get more spending power. Due to this spending power, they are willing to pay more for stuff that they need.

[ambo22]

In addition to my above comment, the inflation problems increases not just the price of Growth Stones but everything else that is in high demand such as character cards.

[El Finger]

imc don't care about it at all

[alecman3000]

how much feso do you get from heaven's treasure book

[Ducky Momo]

Originally posted by ambo22:

Inflation.

Indeed it does play a part but to what extent I can't fully say. Not including this seems to be an oversight on my part(and I don't know why I actually didn't include it in the first place).

EDIT:

Although I'm not quite sure how big the part Vis inflation adds to the overall Feso mark-up especially since the Feso mark-up began before the 100k Vis event. Of course, there's also that the sharp price increase happened AFTER the 100k Vis event so it may actually be a bigger factor than I'd first expected.

Inflation is, of course, expected as a game grows older.

I actually want to find the division of the factors that contributed to the Feso mark-up as I think the way to solve this problem lies there.

Originally posted by alecman3k:

how much feso do you get from heaven's treasure book

It gives 10 Growth Stones per book used with a chance for more items, such as 2-3 Growth Stones, Socket Tranquilizers, pet boxes, Rare Character Card box.

[alecman3000]

thanks for the response. it's kinda expensive for now. i mean the treasure book costs around 5k+ icash and 10 growth stones is around 40m if you sell it at 4m. i mean it's gonna be worth it if you plan on using them if you don't have vis but if you plan on selling them it always depends on how much each growth stone costs. Also depends on the current state of the economy more vis doesn't necessarily mean you can buy that much if most items are expensive as well

[El Finger]

They really should look BDO market system

[El Finger]

They really should look BDO market system