louisclub Posted November 17, 2020 Share Posted November 17, 2020 Keys cost 56.55 ref right now. Its been steadily increasing since Halloween, from 43 ref a few weeks ago. I'm talking the key to ref cost, not the real dollar price. Anyone have an idea why? I know its supply and demand, i'm just curious as to why the demand plummeted, or did the supply increase? Does it have more to do with tf2 items losing value in general, for example if there are less players after halloween, it means less demand for most low value items? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vrakos Anthrakir Posted November 17, 2020 Share Posted November 17, 2020 Same reason keys have increased in metal-value for many many years. There are tons of threads about this already. Sure there are some fluctuations where the metal-value dips, but overall it'll trend upwards without an effective sink for metal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flamadin Posted November 18, 2020 Share Posted November 18, 2020 Still $2.49 from Valve, same as always. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott Bakula Posted November 18, 2020 Share Posted November 18, 2020 The big thing to remember is keys aren't going up in price, it's refined that's going down in value. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
louisclub Posted November 18, 2020 Author Share Posted November 18, 2020 30 minutes ago, Scott Bakula said: The big thing to remember is keys aren't going up in price, it's refined that's going down in value. Yeah I understand that, ref are losing value, i just didnt know how to properly word my question. My question is why ref lost value relative to keys, from end of october until now ? are ref price correlated with number of active tf2 players or something? Anyway i know there is no definite answer, i just wanted to hear opinions about people who are knowlegdable about the tf2 economy. Do people uncrate a lot at the begginnig of the halloween, so much that the month between halloween and christmas is "dry" and people uncrate less now that they did during the summer for example.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shoee Posted November 18, 2020 Share Posted November 18, 2020 I think there was a period where a lot of new traders entered the scene after dota’s economy was restricted a bit, so ref rose in price (I think there was an influx of new keys bought from the mann co store as well which helped propel the price of ref). It’s been steadily going back down, and now the market is adjusting for that. That’s what I think, dunno how accurate it is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott Bakula Posted November 18, 2020 Share Posted November 18, 2020 1 hour ago, club64 said: My question is why ref lost value relative to keys, from end of october until now ? Ref is always losing value. Ask yourself this: What crafting recipe is worth using? Nowadays the answer is none. Practically everything you can craft, you can find cheaper than for what it takes to craft. As such, refined never leaves the market; it just piles up, clogging up backpack space. It'd be different if we still had reasons to use refined, like when Low Crafts were introduced, or things like the Breadboxes and chemistry sets. 1 hour ago, club64 said: Do people uncrate a lot at the begginnig of the halloween, so much that the month between halloween and christmas is "dry" and people uncrate less now that they did during the summer for example.. Most people unbox while the Halloween event is underway, because of the limited Halloween effects. However, those are only found in cases, not crates, so regular keys aren't used much for unboxing nowadays. The last time they were really used was during the crate depression a while back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alecto Posted November 18, 2020 Share Posted November 18, 2020 It fell a couple of months ago due to a large influx of keys entering the market (some presume the Dota Arcana trade hold implement caused a lot of CSGO traders using them as a currency had to move to something else, and TF2 keys were a great candidate.) Then halloween came, and people wanted ref to make craft hates to use in transmutes to try get a chicken kiev (or other expensive halloween cosmetic) without having to pay 20+ keys for a tradable one. Now that that's over, ref once again has no great purpose besides being the pocket change that never goes out of print, more supply with no real demand means price goes back to falling again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HaloGAMER0329 Posted November 18, 2020 Share Posted November 18, 2020 None of these tired and long repeated answers actually give a proper answer, the question is basically asking why now? and why so quickly? Yes refined is always losing value but why specifically now did it take a dump? Alecto is the only one that actually answered the question. During halloween craft hats and by extension refined metal can be transmuted into various untradable halloween cosmetics, some of which are very rare and desirable therefore that makes refined desirable during halloween. Also regular keys can not be used to unbox halloween effects therefore keys desirability goes down and ref goes up during halloween. Now that halloween is over we get to see the sharp return to normal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vebster Posted November 18, 2020 Share Posted November 18, 2020 10 hours ago, Scott Bakula said: The big thing to remember is keys aren't going up in price, it's refined that's going down in value. This is important but i see this message in every key thread... Well maybe its because every key thread is basically the same Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joekiller Posted November 19, 2020 Share Posted November 19, 2020 There was a bug in some bots that was increasing the price of a key by .11 every trade. Since fixed but it could've caused some unexpected inflation Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zeus_Junior Posted November 19, 2020 Share Posted November 19, 2020 19 minutes ago, joekiller said: There was a bug in some bots that was increasing the price of a key by .11 every trade. Since fixed but it could've caused some unexpected inflation That being a bug and not the intended way is news to me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghost Posted November 19, 2020 Share Posted November 19, 2020 Marketplace.tf closing the seller program More people than ever want keys to sell for paypal cash on marketplace.tf while they can (this panic selling is also driving down the usd price of keys) Bots usually have difficulty undercutting eachother on keys as the margin is generally only 1 scrap or around there The keys got bulk bought off the bots that sell them at regular prices All those bots that sell various items at ludicrous prices found themselves at the top of the keys classified listings The normal bots which were still buying at normal prices, having now more margin to work with, started undercutting eachother scrap by scrap and copying the price from the ones selling at ludicrous prices, going up and up We reached the price you see today This is something that happens every now and then with a lot of items, for example yesterday the sharp dresser (unique) was being sold for 2 keys instead of 3.11ref by the bots just because all the sellers disappeared (someone must have bulk bought a ton of sharp dressers or the bots just didn't manage to buy enough or whatever) and the only reference they had for the price were the spelled ones, driving almost all the bots into copying that price and selling a unique non-spelled generic sharp dressed for 2 keys lol. I don't expect them to have made a lot (if any) sales for that item while this was going on because people isn't desperate for sharp dressers lol, nor panic selling sharp dressers on marketplace.tf and willing to pay any price for it lol. Eventually a few bot owners (me included) realized what was going on and set the bots to sell the sharp dressers for 3.11 and all the other bots followed suit copying and undercutting eachother's prices eventually going back to the regular one. This is exactly what happened with keys too, the only difference is that people ARE desperate, panic selling keys on marketplace and willing to pay any amount of ref for them, so why manually adjust the price like with the sharp dresser? If the price keeps going up indefinitely bots will only make more and more profit, just like with the keys that mine bought when they were 48ref or so, and it is selling them now for 57+ lol, 9ref profit per key while normally my profit per key was only 1 scrap (81 times more profit now), why would i ever force my bot to sell keys for their actual price, its definitely against my interests. I can't think of a single bot owner that would profit from selling their keys at the regular price. So to give you an answer, this is just common everyday bot stuff mixed with marketplace.tf closing to sellers and people panic selling keys for cash, no matter what some say about sinks, bathtubs and toilets. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
awsommv Posted November 20, 2020 Share Posted November 20, 2020 On 11/19/2020 at 9:49 AM, Ghost said: Marketplace.tf closing the seller program More people than ever want keys to sell for paypal cash on marketplace.tf while they can (this panic selling is also driving down the usd price of keys) Bots usually have difficulty undercutting eachother on keys as the margin is generally only 1 scrap or around there The keys got bulk bought off the bots that sell them at regular prices All those bots that sell various items at ludicrous prices found themselves at the top of the keys classified listings The normal bots which were still buying at normal prices, having now more margin to work with, started undercutting eachother scrap by scrap and copying the price from the ones selling at ludicrous prices, going up and up We reached the price you see today This is something that happens every now and then with a lot of items, for example yesterday the sharp dresser (unique) was being sold for 2 keys instead of 3.11ref by the bots just because all the sellers disappeared (someone must have bulk bought a ton of sharp dressers or the bots just didn't manage to buy enough or whatever) and the only reference they had for the price were the spelled ones, driving almost all the bots into copying that price and selling a unique non-spelled generic sharp dressed for 2 keys lol. I don't expect them to have made a lot (if any) sales for that item while this was going on because people isn't desperate for sharp dressers lol, nor panic selling sharp dressers on marketplace.tf and willing to pay any price for it lol. Eventually a few bot owners (me included) realized what was going on and set the bots to sell the sharp dressers for 3.11 and all the other bots followed suit copying and undercutting eachother's prices eventually going back to the regular one. This is exactly what happened with keys too, the only difference is that people ARE desperate, panic selling keys on marketplace and willing to pay any amount of ref for them, so why manually adjust the price like with the sharp dresser? If the price keeps going up indefinitely bots will only make more and more profit, just like with the keys that mine bought when they were 48ref or so, and it is selling them now for 57+ lol, 9ref profit per key while normally my profit per key was only 1 scrap (81 times more profit now), why would i ever force my bot to sell keys for their actual price, its definitely against my interests. I can't think of a single bot owner that would profit from selling their keys at the regular price. So to give you an answer, this is just common everyday bot stuff mixed with marketplace.tf closing to sellers and people panic selling keys for cash, no matter what some say about sinks, bathtubs and toilets. Uhhhh.... what? I dont know what your on but Alecto was spot on with his response. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghost Posted November 21, 2020 Share Posted November 21, 2020 16 hours ago, awsommv said: Uhhhh.... what? I dont know what your on but Alecto was spot on with his response. They absolutely aren't, the increase in price its just people bulk buying keys to sell on marketplace.tf while they can (the closer to december 15th the worse) and bots with ludicrous prices found themselves at the top of the classified listings. Even as we speak there's people that want to buy keys off bots, even when they are not for sale, and not 1 or 2 keys, my bot is getting flooded with those offers all day long recently. I have seen this happening infront of my eyes as i was doing some work on my bot and with the events described above so there's not much point telling me theories about dota and chicken kievs ignoring the elephant in the room (marketplace.tf shutting down the seller program) and the whole bot shenanigans that i witnessed in first person. So thanks but no thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IDGCaptainRussia Posted November 26, 2020 Share Posted November 26, 2020 Even before MP started the shutdown, the lack of a Sink was the largest reason that ref was losing value. The Shutdown however just devalued keys and ref even more, the supply is too high and the demand is too low. Scott already made this point about crafting, but I'm going to mention another example: Cosmetics only in Cases Ever since Gunmettle, valve only releases new cosmetics through cases, which you cannot get through the crafting system, you cannot craft the items from the case. They have NOT released ANYTHING you can craft since 2015, I looked around the wiki, I did my research, this update https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/January_15,_2015_Patch was the LAST update a craftable item was added to the game. If the game even had a simply sink like: being able to sacrifice 3 ref for a random case or crate from the game's past, it would go back up in value again on the promise that people would want a means to get gargoyles without paying the high price. But Valve being valve, we already know the outcome to that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
awsommv Posted November 27, 2020 Share Posted November 27, 2020 On 11/21/2020 at 7:00 AM, Ghost said: They absolutely aren't, the increase in price its just people bulk buying keys to sell on marketplace.tf while they can (the closer to december 15th the worse) and bots with ludicrous prices found themselves at the top of the classified listings. Even as we speak there's people that want to buy keys off bots, even when they are not for sale, and not 1 or 2 keys, my bot is getting flooded with those offers all day long recently. I have seen this happening infront of my eyes as i was doing some work on my bot and with the events described above so there's not much point telling me theories about dota and chicken kievs ignoring the elephant in the room (marketplace.tf shutting down the seller program) and the whole bot shenanigans that i witnessed in first person. So thanks but no thanks. ... people buying keys with ref simply to sell on mp doesnt make sense. Do they have an endless supply of ref or something??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IdiNium Posted November 27, 2020 Share Posted November 27, 2020 Reply to Zeus_Junior: The bug was realized 6 hours after the release of v1.7.0 of TF2Autobot and only applied to bots that have "Autokeys" and "Scrap Adjustment" feature enabled, and an announcement has been made on the TF2Autobot Discord server to urge users to disable "Scrap Adjustment" until it's fixed on v1.7.3 (lasted for 5 days in the script). Just an info. (Sorry forgot to click that Quote thing). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bomsusik Posted November 27, 2020 Share Posted November 27, 2020 A few simple factors: - Inflation (Steady metal generation) - Automated price manipulation - Scrap.tf confirming the manipulation with a price adjustment to the backpack.tf offers market. - Traders are ready to pay that price. If you are a metal/low-tier trader, it may screw you, but if you are dealing with real money it shouldn't really affect you, because the key price in dollars is jumpy but stable and stays the same most of the time. (it also becomes an opportunity with metal) It's Christmas soon and the keys are going to be at their lowest, so it will be a good time to invest in my opinion. Welcome to the market simulator. TL;DR As long as you are trading with real money/the market it shouldn't be a problem and it even becomes an opportunity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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