Absent Elementals

As an example, there is currently volume of 1600 for Earth elemental salts in Centrum. The total volume for the most useful salt type at the main trading location in Elgea wouldn't run my crafting queue for a week. You couldn't even equip a real army with the resulting gear.

Perhaps the time of elements is coming to an end and the rise of dragons is coming...

ajqtrz wrote:   But there is no real demand for elementals because they can't be used to make anything.  Thus, there is a high supply without a high demand...and thus the market has become stuck.

In keppen nobody seems to harvestt them but me.  They spawn a couple of times a week.

I've never seen an Elemental in the Broken Lands.  Not one.  Haven't heard of anybody else finding one either...though they may have.   So count yourself lucky if you have any.

But here is the real point: market liquidity.  The markets for elementals are not flowing as their is little incentive to sell them at a price which makes economic sense to the buyer.  The value of an item is a product of the perception of the seller and the buyer.  Items which can be used to create profit or which will gain in value over time, are liquid because the seller and the buyer are exchanging something that each values differently.  The seller values the thing being sold at less than the buyer.  With Elementals the only value is in holding the item because no body can make a profit using them so there is not point in buying them.  Thus, for the most part, nobody does.

The devs apparently are thinking in terms of "supply and demand" and they should be.  They see a large stockpile of elementals and think, "high supply"  And they are right.  But there is no real demand for elementals because they can't be used to make anything.  Thus, there is a high supply without a high demand...and thus the market has become stuck.

To "unstick" a market you either saturate the market with product to the point that the price of the item will fall until it becomes cheap enough to use up....starting the cycle of harvest and use, or you increase demand by raising the value of the items that use the product.  Ultimately, in Illy, the reason things are stuck is that the equipment made using elementals has little to no practical value compared with it's competitive replacement.  The competitive replacement in this case being more troops.  If you want to equip an army with something made from elementals you currently will spend a fortune to do so with at best a moderate increase in the effectiveness of the army.  And if you lose the battle away from your city, the equipment is lost.  So the cost is quite high.  On the other hand, the competitive replacement costs a lot less.  The cost of troops as a product of what they add to your fighting level is a lot less.  What does a T2 fighter cost?  When you add it up, you get a rough average of 2k plus the hourly gold to support that troop.  If you equip that troop with something made from elementals it costs well over 200k.  And the bonus you get for that piece of equipment is only 24% max.  So, instead of purchasing the equipment or the stuff to make the equipment, it's better to spend 2k on another soldier, put the remainin 198k into a fund to pay that solder and reap a doubling or your effective strength.  Which is one reason elementals are not being bought and sold.

The other reason has to do with the psychology of scarcity.  If you have a one-of-a-kind postage stamp, even if nobody wants it, it's still perceived as valuable.  The more rare the item the more it's value is perceived to be.  Elementals are valuable because even though nobody wants to buy them, they are perceived to be valuable do to the difficulty of getting them.  And since the market is not liquid, they appear to be, in spite of the devs view, rare.

In the end players hoard things because they feel the things they are holding have a greater value in their stockpile than in the markets.  I hold a few elementals myself.  I intended to make some equipment out of them and did use a few, but once I determined the equipment wasn't worth the cost, I just stockpiled the remaining elementals.  They are more valuable to me psychologically than pragmatically.  And there is, again, why the elementals market is not liquid.

To summarize: elementals are not moving because the demand for them resides in the psychology of hoarding rather in the practical use of them.   As long as Illyites perceive owning elementals as more valuable than using them, they will go into the hubs and rest peacefully.  And if you want to change that you have to change the practical value of them by greatly raising the benefits of using them

Aj

AJ