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Garcen Grease / Lubricant

moondog

moondog

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Charley Moondog 1969
There seems to be a current issue with the supply and price of Garcen Grease / Lubricant. This is used in crafting many smaller items that go into larger items, not least of which is the Daily 1 manufacturing Challenge for Level 1 Finder Amplifier Lights. I had this earlier in the week and having none in stock I went to the auction only to discover the MU was around 200%. Bearing in mind that nearly all materials have steadily dropped in price over the last year or so, i thought this a bit strange. Never mind I thought, I grabbed a couple of amps and went off to mine some myself in locations that I have previously found it. I did this over a couple of days and at different times. Burning through a couple of level 4 finder amps I found nothing in these areas except oil and melchi. I know people will respond that you have to find the waves which I am aware of (as it works the same for other mats) but my soc mates have also reported the same problem.

Obviously there is a current drought of Garcen and I am not paying 200% just to do a daily mission. My other concern is that it is a major ingredient in lots of other BP's including if I remember correctly the Armatrix weapons. So is this a deliberate change on MA's part, if so why, as it only hurts the economy as players can't craft the items they want or is this a bug. One soc member reported finding some on Ark but again not that much.

Does anyone have any idea what is going on. I did consider someone trying to manipulate the marked and maybe hoarding large quantities of the stuff, but it is. relatively common enmatter I cant believe someone has hoarded enough to effect the drop rate and MU that much

Moondog
 
From my understanding there is only a set amount ever in the system. Since it's used for RDI I'm sure some are stock piling it in storage, I know I have about 1k in storage for RDI, and since so much TT is saved away, the supply is less. Meaning since there is XXXXXX amount in game already it will thus be less found in mining.

Not sure how true this is but it might give some idea of why the supply is low?

just my 2 pecs.
 
jak said:
From my understanding there is only a set amount ever in the system.
Click to expand...

There is no proof of this, ever. I know people who have hoarded 10's of k's of ores before and there has never been a cap on miners.

It is purely MA that have switched it off/ or made it super rare, they do this with different ores all the time to increase their markup.

Rgds

Ace
 
Goodbye durable hoods I used to craft sometimes. The price of garcen was going up for a while now, it was ok at 120%, but now there's no point in even thinking about buying it, for hoods at least, not sure about other stuff, but it's probably the same.

I would really like to know how can this happen.

Also noticed that some ores like gazz and igni are up as well, not as much, but still.
 
I have noticed price increase immediately after 150%, and went on mining.
And as far as I can see it's mined about same as before. Around 25% of whole run in TT. So am wondering who stockpiling Garcen in a huge amounts?
 
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Deepa2 said:
I have noticed price increase immediately after 150%, and went on mining.
And as far as I can see it's mined about same as before. Around 25% of whole run in TT. So am wondering who stockpiling Garcen in a huge amounts?
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It’s area specific at least. Some of the more popular areas seem to not have as much anymore, but there are a few areas I mine that haven’t really seen a drop in availability.
 
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Is that really a thing? when a resource is hoarded up the system stops dropping that resource?
I'm curious, since it is currently selling at 200%. What if some really rich and wealthy person decides to just buy up everything at 200% would we just never see this resource in this game ever again? Not sure if there is someone that rich in this game to test this. It would be really funny if this is true. A very rich player can literally just break this game and prevent people from crafting certain items.
I see Ace Flyster doesn't believe in that, but sounds like many believe in this theory.
I think I remember reading a post about someone accidently TT a very rare item. I think it might have been an a101. Then someone reported that they looted an a101. That might support this theory of having a cap on the availability of a certain item in game.
But then Garcen is a consumable and commonly used item. Why cap this?
I recently just started mining and have learned that if you are getting only oil and lyst then it means the area has been mined out. Should either switch area or just wait a few hours for the area to respawn.
I am assuming that Lyst and oil has no cap. That post about the a101 suggests a101 has a cap.
Garcen might have a cap. Is there a list of item with a cap and items without a cap?
:unsure:
 
moondog said:
Obviously there is a current drought of Garcen and I am not paying 200% just to do a daily mission. My other concern is that it is a major ingredient in lots of other BP's including if I remember correctly the Armatrix weapons. So is this a deliberate change on MA's part, if so why, as it only hurts the economy as players can't craft the items they want or is this a bug. One soc member reported finding some on Ark but again not that much.
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I genuinely mean this in the least sarcastic way possible, even though it will still sound undesirably sarcastic when I say it: No one is asking you to pay 200% to do a daily mission.

What I mean is that the daily mission, and in fact the mission system in general, is a thin overlay set atop a very rich virtual universe. It is one facet of many; Entropia has many facets, and would survive (and did grow up) without a mission system. By contrast, the challenge of adapting one's playstyle to a dynamically evolving market is much more central to the nature of Entropia. Thus reverse engineering market values to control the economic viability of a mission seems to place the cart before the horse.

Similarly, and I say this as a crafter, I don't think it is fair to conclude that a (likely temporary) price spike in a single material which harms crafters and helps miners, "only hurts the economy." Rather, it should be viewed as a more-or-less zero sum shift in the economy.
 
psyche said:
Is that really a thing?
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I’m in the same boat as Ace. There’s never really been any good data to support the idea, but it’s a story that gets often repeated on the forums (like many other pet theories). All we know is that resource availability changes, and that there are many untested theories out there people use to try to explain it and run with the assumption.

I actually tried modeling hit rates of some resources like Dianthus awhile back over some months. Basically, the X values were things like total auction sales that week, month, etc. as well as the value of what was currently listed for sale. Y value was just % of claims dianthus back when I was primarily mining that. There wasn’t any correlation between the amount of dianthus “out there” and % claims.
 
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TheOneOmega said:
I genuinely mean this in the least sarcastic way possible, even though it will still sound undesirably sarcastic when I say it: No one is asking you to pay 200% to do a daily mission.

What I mean is that the daily mission, and in fact the mission system in general, is a thin overlay set atop a very rich virtual universe. It is one facet of many; Entropia has many facets, and would survive (and did grow up) without a mission system. By contrast, the challenge of adapting one's playstyle to a dynamically evolving market is much more central to the nature of Entropia. Thus reverse engineering market values to control the economic viability of a mission seems to place the cart before the horse.

Similarly, and I say this as a crafter, I don't think it is fair to conclude that a (likely temporary) price spike in a single material which harms crafters and helps miners, "only hurts the economy." Rather, it should be viewed as a more-or-less zero sum shift in the economy.
Click to expand...


Ha Ha - To be honest although I have been playing since 2011, I have only in the last 2 years started getting serious about mining and crafting, which are both professions I am still learning about. I certainly don't intend to pay 200% MU for Garcen to do a daily mission. However, I have recently become skilled enough to craft AP-30 Plates and Armatrix Guns above Level 50 which all use durable hoods. My real concern is the lack of Garcen at the moment to craft these items. With Garcen at 200% MU, I do not think it will be profitable for me to craft these items, unless of course the MU on the finished items increases as a direct result of the cost of the Garcen. I suppose it all goes back to the supply and demand issue.

Thank you for all your comments.
 
Hoarding resources theory is like perception theory. Never been proven, it doesn't make sense, it's just a rumor people choose to believe so they can have a closure and move on.
When a resource is very rare it also becomes very easy to be manipulated and atm we're having a little bit of that too, people mine it every wave and keep it to sell it at highest rates possible and the rates have gotten to a point that it's just not worth it to use it.
People don't do RDI much anymore these days and this is one of the reasons.
And imagine that the activity is pretty low compared to the a Mayhem period for example, can you imagine the impact of such an event over it price and all the things that need components made with garcen, a resource available in the ground for only 2-3 minutes per hour?

Probably the best way to make MA see there's an imbalance that impacts a lot of segments of the economy is to send a ticket. I have, on his topic, the ticket got closed automatically after 30 days, I sent it again....
 
Found some West of Limnadian District other day just across the river, try there
 
moondog said:
Ha Ha - To be honest although I have been playing since 2011, I have only in the last 2 years started getting serious about mining and crafting, which are both professions I am still learning about. I certainly don't intend to pay 200% MU for Garcen to do a daily mission. However, I have recently become skilled enough to craft AP-30 Plates and Armatrix Guns above Level 50 which all use durable hoods. My real concern is the lack of Garcen at the moment to craft these items. With Garcen at 200% MU, I do not think it will be profitable for me to craft these items, unless of course the MU on the finished items increases as a direct result of the cost of the Garcen. I suppose it all goes back to the supply and demand issue.

Thank you for all your comments.
Click to expand...

Aye, I guess my point is that one can either select in advance their game play activity and let the market dictate its profit/loss, or select in advance their expected profit/loss and let the market dictate their corresponding options for game play activity, but they may find it quite impossible to select both a game play activity and an expected profit/loss, without restriction. I think you may be placing too many constraints on the market by saying both, "I want to do this particular mission I picked out at this particular time" and "I want to profit while doing so."

It would be very unfortunate from a free market perspective if MindArk took economic planning steps to force markets back into a state of making certain missions economically viable, in my opinion. :)

I'm as sure as one can be that this price increase won't last forever. In the mean time, perhaps mining one's own Garcen is a viable strategy?
 
kingofaces said:
I’m in the same boat as Ace. There’s never really been any good data to support the idea, but it’s a story that gets often repeated on the forums (like many other pet theories). All we know is that resource availability changes, and that there are many untested theories out there people use to try to explain it and run with the assumption.

I actually tried modeling hit rates of some resources like Dianthus awhile back over some months. Basically, the X values were things like total auction sales that week, month, etc. as well as the value of what was currently listed for sale. Y value was just % of claims dianthus back when I was primarily mining that. There wasn’t any correlation between the amount of dianthus “out there” and % claims.
Click to expand...

I have seen the huge spike in mu. I have not found the find rate any different on RT or NI.
 
Some guys can gobal on this at Arkadia. gotta check the resource distrubtion there

Also the hoarding theory used to be a thing before. Now it doesn't work like this anymore. you can have tons of tons of resources but the drop rate is dropping fixed each wave on those so called medium to rare ores.
 
Garcen has become more difficult to find than before. It's not rare but not prevalent in the resource fields I remember. I've noticed a few other resources that seem to have followed this trend since my return. It could be skill and finder dependent as well.

When it does show up it goes through a wave of sorts and then tapers back sort of like putty.

It could also just be less people mining and mining those resource locations.

Supply and demand + balancing is typically why you see things like this. I think it would be difficult to manipulate the market on this resource.
 
I knows it's shitty when you need the high MU items, but most of the whining in game is about shitty MU in loot, when some items finally have nice MU, the whining continues. Does People want high MU stuff or not? This makes me very confused lol.
 
problem is EU players are smarter than these devs. many of the players ( many lurkers in here ) wont tell you the truth cuz then you'd start cutting into their profits so they'll give you some bull crap theory like 'oh someones hoarding it all' just to keep you guessing on what's really going on and keep you from figuring it out.
 
infamousH4 said:
problem is EU players are smarter than these devs. many of the players ( many lurkers in here ) wont tell you the truth cuz then you'd start cutting into their profits so they'll give you some bull crap theory like 'oh someones hoarding it all' just to keep you guessing on what's really going on and keep you from figuring it out.
Click to expand...
So what do you except people to just say "Hey go to arkadia and mine near valiant firebase for garcen without wave ?" And get competion in ah ? :D
 
jak said:
From my understanding there is only a set amount ever in the system. Since it's used for RDI I'm sure some are stock piling it in storage, I know I have about 1k in storage for RDI, and since so much TT is saved away, the supply is less. Meaning since there is XXXXXX amount in game already it will thus be less found in mining.

Not sure how true this is but it might give some idea of why the supply is low?

just my 2 pecs.
Click to expand...
You shouldn't believe what your mining pet is whispering you :D
The hoarding theory is a hoax.
The garcen went through a market manipulation, being a small qty available each wave...
 
WildD3mon said:
ohh look , something is not tt food , lets complain
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We are not complaining because something is not TT food. The discussion is about a common en-matter that is used in many crafting blueprints, including AP-30 plates and Armatrix weapons over level 50 . This is not a rare resource and requires substantial quantities to even begin to craft the previously mentioned items. This is a discussion about the MU of an en-matter that should have a reasonable mark up but which currently is standing at around 170-200 %. I only started the thread because the MU has gone so high, there is no whining here, just an adult conversation about why this has happened. Is it hoarding (possibly) or has MA reduced the drop rate (seems more plausible). If you haven't got anything constructive to say, please stay out of the conversation
 
moondog said:
If you haven't got anything constructive to say, please stay out of the conversation
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How about asking support ticket to make it availble in webshop ?

You say its common resource . If its common go mine yourself why create a thead in the first place ?
 
moondog said:
This is not a rare resource and requires substantial quantities to even begin to craft the previously mentioned items.
Click to expand...

I think you hit on something in your post. You mention "substantial quantities to even begin to craft" and that tells me that crafters are gathering and holding onto resources to craft large runs of such items. That just makes sense to me, I used to do large runs of E-amp 13s back the in day and used to gather resources (via mining my own and auction) over time. A large run would increase the likelihood of finding good BPs, globals, and HoFs so it was worthwhile to do so.

The demand is greater than the supply and somewhere in the realm of MA balancing they are controlling how much of this resource is made available via churn of crafted items that use it. If its dropping more prevalently on Arkadia then it makes sense to mine that location but that doesn't always lead to a markup reduction if sellers hold onto their resources and don't flood the market. Since my return to active play I've probably sold Garcen a total of four times when it hits my minimum tt value to sell setpoint that is why I think this is more to do with balancing at the moment. I would also hazard a guess that there will be an uptick in finds prior to big events where the churn of crafted items that use that resource need to be in place so hunters can happily decay them away unless MA just wants people to pay higher prices for such crafted items.

A lot of tier components are going through this same issue. I have three items that I want to tier up to the next level but the components are 500-600% or more markup which is a bit high for my taste so I am slowly gathering the materials and tier components I need via hunting and mining until those items are tiered up and then I can start selling those items again. If a lot of miners and hunters are doing these same things then the supply is low on auction and demand high for certain items.

My best advice if you don't want to pay high % is hook up with a full time miner that is willing to cut you a deal or mine it yourself. In Project Entropia days there were some hardcore miners who rarely sold via auction and always had a couple crafters willing to buy their resources. I just don't know if those types of relationships exist these days and if they can be relied on.
 
MA is just play with the amounts per wave but also demand for it went crazy.
 
@moondog is right, 170% to 200% for Garcen is totally unsustainable for everyone in the long run. It affects the Widget/Gizmo crafters that go fishing for all of these AP plate and ArMatrix BPs so the end result is higher prices for all of these items, not just a select few that use Durable Hood in their ingredients.. EDIT: My mistake, that's Alicenies, not Garcem..

Case in point, I stopped clicking Gizmos when Blazar went over 20 ped/k and Garcen went over 125%, it just all became too much of a gamble and I just didn't feel it was worth it for me anymore. With fewer people clicking these, some of the blueprints become more rare and thus go up in price, having the end result of making the item itself more expensive for the hunter.

The only ones that seem to gain from this high-mu are the miners who are lucky and hit a wave of Garcen somewhere randomly, everybody else loses (has to pay more to play and take more risk).

MindArk needs to focus on dynamics that are a win-win for everyone, this Garcen price is ridiculous.
 
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Nik-Elas said:
lol.
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WildD3mon said:
ohh look , something is not tt food , lets complain
Click to expand...
This is missing the point. Markup is generally based on supply and demand. If markup sees a huge spike, that means the thing is likely in much shorter supply than before. In other words, you probably aren't going to just being able to go out and get a whole bunch of it and reap huge rewards. Same thing has been happening recently with Tier Components. It looks good on paper, but then you realize the MU is so damn high because you get almost none of them.

So yeah...the point of this thread is to question why the MU is so high, meaning what might have changed to cause the increase. It's not to complain at all.
 
Legends said:
@moondog is right, 170% to 200% for Garcen is totally unsustainable for everyone in the long run. It affects the Widget/Gizmo crafters that go fishing for all of these AP plate and ArMatrix BPs so the end result is higher prices for all of these items, not just a select few that use Durable Hood in their ingredients.. EDIT: My mistake, that's Alicenies, not Garcem..
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Maybe you were wrong about some of these but Garcen does affect ArMatrix items. It's needed to craft several components that end up going in Armatrix.
 
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