What could Valve do that could help the TF2 economy?

[Mr Prince]

Discontinuing and then recontinuing....bad, very bad idea. That will make people worried about all old (presumably stable) effects and they'll want to dump them all and turn them into cash/buds/keys because who knows what valve will do. 

 

They don't need to add stranges to old effect crates, if they do then there would, literally, be no reason to unbox anything else--at least until the old effects crash as well. The benefits of the old effects make up for the shit in the old crates. 

 

They should do it secretly, so market does't notice, else people gonna take advantage raise their prices.

Or something like making it extremely rare for a long period.

As for old effects crashing no they should't as long their can be maximum of 5 unboxes per effect hat for each hat each year or so.

 

They could also just nerf the crates to have lower chance on old effects and add a small chance for new effects to old crates.

Eitherway the current unboxing rate is lame, just look at the viewfinder 95% new effects 5% is old, i doubt it can get much worse.

[Lamedonyx]

Maybe make the odds depending of the number of Unusuals availible

I.E. : Since there is so many Party Phantoms, make them rarer, and raise the odds of getting a Cold Killer.

And please : STOP THE DROP OF UNUSUAL GEISHA BOY AND DREAD KNOT !!! The ugliest hats ever

[Gren]

No change to unusual effects, unboxing rate, etc.  Summer effects are still unstable and a complete bitch to sell and new 2014 effects won't solve that problem.   There are more than enough effects out there right now, and the tiers at this point aren't obvious which is creating a rush on 1st gens since they're pretty much the only thing that's still a guaranteed sale at a fair price.  

 

It's funny that this hasn't been mentioned more often (considering how much people like to bitch about keys), but Valve did actually help the economy with the April 1st update in that ref is now an ingredient for the new strangifiers.  Less ref available = less inflation which obviously is going to slow down the rising key values.  

 

Like someone else already mentioned, why we still don't have trade offer notifications is beyond me.  

[MuffinsDad]

That would pretty much destroy the economy.

It would make the economy better since the economy is destroyed right now.

[AwesomeMcCoolName]

It would make the economy better since the economy is destroyed right now.

The economy is stronger than ever right now. 

[A Cyan Stone in Mustard]

The economy is stronger than ever right now. 

 

You mean buds, hell yeah. You mean keys and ref, lol no, that shits down the drain and even the plumber gave up on saving it.

 

There's really no point in unboxing anymore since all the unusuals that you'll get are complete shit.

 

I honestly I mean sure, make unboxing G1 effects not as common as 3rd gen but don't make them super rare. Can't it just be the way it was when unboxing first came out and all hats were G1 and the economy didn't shove shitty effects down your throat and spam the market?

[KarateMasterJarool]

Yeah, the bud economy is as strong as ever, but the key and ref economy is complete and utter shit, and logic pretty much dictates that if keys plummet in price, buds will skyrocket, and that's pretty damn bad.

 

Going to post what I posted in the key pricing convo here as it provides how my insight on this whole mess and how Valve can fix it: http://forums.backpack.tf/index.php?/topic/6090-the-one-and-only-key-price-topic/?p=105629

[Commander Douchebag]

Being that the price of refined metal is going down, this is what valve needs to do:

 

1.  Add another type of metal above refined. (3 refined = this type of metal)

2.  Delete scrap metal.

 

Or, another way of doing the same thing:

 

1. Turn all reclaimed metal into scrap metal, and all refined metal into reclaimed metal.

 

Therefore, metal will be the same value that it had in 2011, before the economy crashed.

[AwesomeMcCoolName]

Being that the price of refined metal is going down, this is what valve needs to do:

 

1.  Add another type of metal above refined. (3 refined = this type of metal)

2.  Delete scrap metal.

 

Or, another way of doing the same thing:

 

1. Turn all reclaimed metal into scrap metal, and all refined metal into reclaimed metal.

 

Therefore, metal will be the same value that it had in 2011, before the economy crashed.

1. Yes, although, I'm sure that'll make a bit of a mess as people are idiots. And could either speed up or slow down key:ref ratio changes. On one hand, if theres a higher ref denomination then people wouldn't need to use keys as a condensed version of ref. On the other hand, people might think even valve thinks ref is crap and keys are all that matters. 

2. How do you propose buying/selling cheap stuff--weapons/vintage weps/etc... 

 

1. So pretty much screw everyone...thats not gonna piss me anyone off. 

[Slocumruls]

why do you all think that the ref:key ratio indicates an economy crash? it really only means that those who can't afford keys generally have more room to make small profit on the way up and it allows those at the top to get larger amounts of ref per transaction. The trading economy by itself is just as fast as ever and combine that with the increase in steam market usage means the TF2 and the other Valve virtual economies are thriving. Valve's profit can be seen as a primary indicator of how strong the virtual economies are doing and that is quite substantial. 

[Commander Douchebag]

1. Yes, although, I'm sure that'll make a bit of a mess as people are idiots. And could either speed up or slow down key:ref ratio changes. On one hand, if theres a higher ref denomination then people wouldn't need to use keys as a condensed version of ref. On the other hand, people might think even valve thinks ref is crap and keys are all that matters. 

2. How do you propose buying/selling cheap stuff--weapons/vintage weps/etc... 

 

1. So pretty much screw everyone...thats not gonna piss me anyone off. 

All weapons/cosmetics/miscs are only worth what people are willing to pay for them. If they are more rare, people will pay more, if they are more common, people will pay less. 

[AwesomeMcCoolName]

All weapons/cosmetics/miscs are only worth what people are willing to pay for them. If they are more rare, people will pay more, if they are more common, people will pay less. 

I never said anything about the price of items, because there kind of irrelevant, they'll always find an equilibrium price, and frankly it doesn't matter what that price is. 

[Commander Douchebag]

I never said anything about the price of items, because there kind of irrelevant, they'll always find an equilibrium price, and frankly it doesn't matter what that price is. 

So what is the problem with my idea?

[AwesomeMcCoolName]

So what is the problem with my idea?

1. Nothing 

2. Theres still a need for scrap 

 

1. Thats still going to screw a lot of people over as it would just turn the currency on its head and probably make people not want to touch it as it would become a chaotic mess. 

[Commander Douchebag]

1. Nothing 

2. Theres still a need for scrap 

 

1. Thats still going to screw a lot of people over as it would just turn the currency on its head and probably make people not want to touch it as it would become a chaotic mess. 

And there will be scrap! Reclaimed metal will become the new scrap (And have the same value that scrap did before the economy crashed)

 

Edit:  And yes, it will be chaos n 'stuff for a little bit, but after that it will become normal.

[Gren]

why do you all think that the ref:key ratio indicates an economy crash? it really only means that those who can't afford keys generally have more room to make small profit on the way up and it allows those at the top to get larger amounts of ref per transaction. The trading economy by itself is just as fast as ever and combine that with the increase in steam market usage means the TF2 and the other Valve virtual economies are thriving. Valve's profit can be seen as a primary indicator of how strong the virtual economies are doing and that is quite substantial. 

 

The only people that say the economy is crashing or has already crashed are those that have not the limpest of grasps on basic economic theory.  

[Kleril]

And there will be scrap! Reclaimed metal will become the new scrap (And have the same value that scrap did before the economy crashed)

 

Edit:  And yes, it will be chaos n 'stuff for a little bit, but after that it will become normal.

What do you hope to resolve with this? All you're doing is altering the possible denominations of a good.

Look at it this way: If all your economy had was nickels, and you decided to create quarters, money still has the exact same purchasing power as it did pre-nickel. This would be convenient, sure, but it solves nothing.

[>Sneaks]

Why not do something to reduce the amount of metal in the economy?

Does anybody remember the Engineer update where people had to craft a golden wrench? Maybe Valve could do something like that, but instead of trying to craft the wrench, Valve could do something where people are forced to craft hats in the hopes of getting something extremely rare and badass *cough*golden gibus*cough*. Or, add a special feature into the crafting section where people have to destroy/use refined to get that super rare item.

Eh, I'm just shooting ideas here.

[AwesomeMcCoolName]

Why not do something to reduce the amount of metal in the economy?

Chemistry sets and collectors

[♥Prof. Sugarcube♥]

 

Perhaps adding some new, cheap recipes? Like the ability to combine a MvM part with a nominal amount metal for a random part of the same quality? Or a reformulate Chemistry Set recipe for the older stuff to put some of those sets asking for a S. Kritzkrieg to better use than backpack filler.

 

Yes, Yes, Yes, A THOUSAND TIMES YES

 

THat means I can get a FDU Chem set NOT asking me for a Diamond Botkiller Rocket launcher

or a Towel chem set not asking me for a team Captain.......................

[whopz]

how do smart traders fell about all the high end knowledgeable traders "quickselling" their expensive stuff?

[Heated Bread]

Make refined harder to craft.

[whopz]

that wouldn't really do anything

[Heated Bread]

that wouldn't really do anything

 

Gotta disagree there.  Look at the graph.  The increasing amount of refined is clearly a problem.  Slowing that down should be a top priority.  You can see that the introduction of the first series of chemistry sets did level it off for a bit, however this did not last for long and the amount of refined has continued to grow at an increasing rate.

[whopz]

making refined hard to craft today would artificially inflate the value of all refined that currently exists. if people were smart they would trade it all for keys ASAP, then the graph would return to where it was, but grow proportionately slower depending on how difficult refined was to craft

 

it's not a problem for the economy anyway. anyone who didn't see this coming from the beginning just doesn't understand markets. valve have tried to mitigate this with metal sinks, and it's clear that it has absolutely no impact on the market, even with scrap stranges going for as high as a refined