Moving from refined to tickets?

[KayEf]

So, I remembered a conversation within the trading community that we should be using Mann Up tickets instead of refined since they're not as abundant, have a set price in the mann co store like keys, and that they'll stay consistently in demand since people still play MVM.

Don't remember the real specifics about it, but what happened to that? Or am I just not up to date and that people are still talking about it?

[Vrakos Anthrakir]

There was never a point to the proposition because you'd still need to make change for cheap items.  These days, with bots automating most of low-tier trading, most items are immediately convertible to a reasonable amount of pure via quickbuying bots.

[Apoq]

Id rather have valve implement a ref sink in the form of crafting ref into tour of duty tickets.

[three ★]

5 minutes ago, Apoq said:

Id rather have valve implement a ref sink in the form of crafting ref into tour of duty tickets.

I feel like there's so much potential for a ref sink in crafting - there are so many useful tools or desirable items that could be added to the crafting system. Does valve really care about the trading scene though?

 

[Vrakos Anthrakir]

23 minutes ago, three ★ said:

I feel like there's so much potential for a ref sink in crafting - there are so many useful tools or desirable items that could be added to the crafting system. Does valve really care about the trading scene though?

 

The question is more 'does valve care about tf2' though, not trading specifically.  Easily answered with a 'no'.

[three ★]

8 hours ago, Vrakos Anthrakir said:

The question is more 'does valve care about tf2' though, not trading specifically.  Easily answered with a 'no'.

I feel like they do care, just not nearly enough. I don't think valve deserves tf2 tbh.

[SOLINVICTUS]

55 minutes ago, three ★ said:

I feel like they do care, just not nearly enough. I don't think valve deserves tf2 tbh.

broken spawn gates that you can kill the enemy through that have been in the game for years now beg to differ

[FP jh34ghu43gu]

Imo any tool is already pure because it's already attached to a real world value. You cannot get rid of ref like you can the penny because that would mean you would have to get rid of all items worth less than a ref which simply cannot happen.

 

Pure is a "currency" as it has an agreed upon value that you can trade for other items for which the value is unknown or fluctuates overtime. The key is the staple of pure because its value is almost always around the same value depending on which market you are referring to (paypal/scm/etc..). Because it also happens to be the most populous tool it was chosen as the item we price most stuff with. But what happens when something is worth less than a key? Enter ref, always worth 3 rec, 9 scrap, or 18 weapons; weapons being the lowest valued item (along with crates but those can't be condensed) and the fact that we can always condense 18 of them into a ref makes ref the perfect candidate. There are a few problems with this system though, mainly that although weapons are the lowest valued item, they themselves do not have a dollar assigned price. This leads to the inflation of ref to key price from the ever increasing supply. Switching from ref to tickets in pricing would not solve anything as that simply adds another "key", we still need something to break down items worth less than a ticket and we'd just end up with ref again.

A far superior option is to use decimal key prices for items that are typically bounded by real world value aka tools. Ref pricing still has a place for hat drops as those are already semi-tied to ref through crafting but most sub-key priced items generally have a steady price in real world value markets, or are already tied to a real world price through the mann co store.

 

This analysis also brings up a very easy solution for valve that involves no risk*, more metals. A 4th and 5th tier metal that follow the same pattern would set "key inflation" back a few years, provided the community switched from ref to the 5th tier metal for pricing purposes. Will this happen? No, but I can dream.

 

*A ref sink like most people want (ref to tickets, paints, etc...) would be a HUGE risk for valve as there is no way you can predict what tying ref to a real world valued item would do to said item/the economy as a whole. The range of risk would be "nothing happens" to "valve never makes another sale of that item" to "the entire economy collapses from the inrush of 10 million+ ref being converted into cash." Thus it is in valve's best interest to keep ref's value separated from a solid link to cash. IF they wanted to make such a tie it would have had to happen in like 2012, not now.

 

 

 

I have 1 high school econ class and 1 college business class: these are mostly opinions and should be taken with a few grains of salt.

[NotAliasing]

19 minutes ago, FP jh34ghu43gu said:

*A ref sink like most people want (ref to tickets, paints, etc...) would be a HUGE risk for valve as there is no way you can predict what tying ref to a real world valued item would do to said item/the economy as a whole. The range of risk would be "nothing happens" to "valve never makes another sale of that item" to "the entire economy collapses from the inrush of 10 million+ ref being converted into cash." Thus it is in valve's best interest to keep ref's value separated from a solid link to cash. IF they wanted to make such a tie it would have had to happen in like 2012, not now.

Isnt ref *already* tied to pretty much the most active cash to item thing in the game, keys?

[Alecto]

5 hours ago, NotAliasing said:

Isnt ref *already* tied to pretty much the most active cash to item thing in the game, keys?

Only thing ref is tied to is craft hats. There is no crafting recipe to turn refined into keys - you have to trade for them at whatever price they're going for on that day, and it of course can fluctuate. 

 

Keys are bound to cash because the only way to get them besides trading is buying them from the mann co. store for $2.50 US
Tour of Duty Tickets are bound to cash because although they can also come from unboxing, there's enough demand for them that their value is still based on the mann co. store price.

Ref is not bound to money because it comes from items that drop in game for free - and there isn't enough demand for it to be a stable currency.

 

This is where the ref sink thing gets a bit tricky - not only will tour of duty tickets lose their stable value, but everything tour of duty tickets are required to create - Australiums, Killstreak kits (and botkillers but they're already piss cheap) suddenly become obtainable to the guy who didn't even spend any money.