A Little Thought about Game Economy (as of 1/6/2013)

Background:

I'm just a player who occasionally use real money to buy boxes and event boxes (and haven't got a single 5* from these stupid boxes). Because of the need of real money in real life, I cannot spend too much in game. Therefore, I had to resort in maxing/trading 4* and getting TEs/POTs from events. Recently, as everyone noticed, the economy of 5* (especially lower tier ones or non-event ones) is getting really bad. I joined the game right before Fire of Apocalypse, so I'm not sure how the economy was before, but I assume cards were selling for a much higher price. This is just my little thought. I’m posting it here to generate discussion (hopefully not quarrel) It might not be correct, so feel free to chip in your own penny of thoughts


Intro: Ways to Get Rarer Cards

I'm going to start with all the ways I can think of to get better cards. This also helps me to have a clearer logic when explaining each part later.
1. Real money-> TE -> cards
a. This is a no-brainer. Everyone knows how it works. Skip.
2. Lower rarity cards-> higher rarity cards
a. This includes mixture of TE/POT/Max cards. In general, trades like this include a certain number of max 4*. I’m using 4* as a base as I haven’t seen any trade involving 3* to 5*. People want max 4* for several reasons
i. Collection
ii. Event group
iii. Feeder
For most of top-level players, the third reason is probably why they would trade for max 4*. Because of this, max 4* can be categorized as “consumables.” This is big as it affects the stability of its value in market. I will go into this later.
3. Same rarity trade, lower tier -> higher tier (or lower rarity -> higher rarity)
a. This usually involves a multiple same level (say, 5*) cards for a same level but rarer card. For example, people are most likely willing to trade 5 Emma’s for 1 Werewolf Unit without really thinking too much (and this trade will most likely get a “nty”)
4. Higher rarity -> lower rarity
a. Rarely happens, unless the trade looks very good. I’ll skip this.


Chapter 1: Supply/Demand

I think this is not news to people that economy, not just this game, is all about supply and demand. For those who have no idea what this means, please wiki it. Here, I want to make a presumption that all trades in this game are “free trades,” which means there’s no rules/policy that prohibits/complicates trades (ex. Tax, tariff, can you imagine the company charging certain % of TEs every time a trade happens?) Free trade model can be much easier to analyze. It’s just 2 lines, one for supply, one for demand. For this article, all will be based on this model.


Chapter 2: Value of each type of “currency”

I value several things in game that have values.
TE/POT: This is like gold. Other currency is measured with these items. Therefore, the value is unlikely to change (1 TE will value a range from 1 POT to 2POT, not likely going up to 3).
4* cards: a common “bill” people use in trades. This is like a 1 dollar bill. Value is based on TE
5* cards: a more uncommon “bill” people use. This is like a 20 dollar bill.
6* cards: same idea, like a 100 dollar bill. Higher value, but less chance to be used (in general)
Luna: umm……pennies?
The value of each card is always changing, based on supply and demand.


Chapter 3: Trend of face value of cards

This is the first point I want to make: Cards’ value WILL GO DOWN. The reasons are
1. People buy boxes that contain these cards. Real money is a foreign currency that changes the dynamic of the game economy.
2. People (at this time) are not using 5* cards as feeders. As a result, 5* cards amount go up. Demand stays the same; supply goes higher-> price of 5* goes down.
3. Those 4* cards, even though used as feeders, are still oversupplied, so 4* price goes down too, but will be slower and they are consumables.
Now, when will the price reach a balance point? It’s really hard to say, but I assume several conditions will have to happen
1. People start to use 5* as feeder as price gets too cheap that even new comers don’t want them (I still remember I saw a post before that states he will never use 5* as feeders. That was back when a Sheryl was worth more than 100TE. Well, I think it’s imminent.) At that point, both 4* and 5* will reach its terminal price that unlikely to change. By then, I think not many non-event 5* will reach 100TE mark.
2. The amount of real money used in game stays the same or decreases. Again, foreign currency can ruin the economy. (Unlikely to happen, unless a % of the big spenders quit.)
3. Other currencies don’t come into play (i.e. Luna, other form of TE/POT, etc)
4. Events that give out tons of free TE/POT might temporarily raise the price of cards, but the price will eventually drop again, until the point where supply can demand meet.
It leads to the next point.


Chapter 4: the current economy

Honestly, I did not predict the price of 5* dropping THIS fast. I’ve seen the price of Rose dropping from 75 TE to 35 TE in a week! This is like the 20’s. The stock’s value plummets to where no one was expecting. Well, it happened, and people are thinking of ways to deal with it. Therefore, we’ve seen several things that are current happening
1. Sell cheap: people know that TE/POT will keep its value, so get rid of the cards before price drops again
2. “Pure TE” discount: people came up with creative ways to boost sales. This is one of them. With pure TEs, buyers get advantage by spending less to get the same card compared to those who buy with mixture of TEs, cards
3. Deals: “buy 2 get 1 free,” “buy 3 for 5TE,” bundles, auctions; all the types of sales like this.
Essentially, people WANT TE/POTs. We all know that TE (including POTs. From now on I will only say TE) is the only currency that has a sustained value. With such drop in price of 5*, people “sense” the future of the market and try to sell as soon as possible. This is a snowball effect. When one goes, the other follows. The price keeps getting lower and lower, until the point when sellers can no longer take the hit. Then the market will rebound a bit and eventually go to the stabled price. This means the price wouldn’t drop this fast if majority of people resist dropping the price with others. What’s the chance it’s going to happen? Very unlikely. So……


Chapter 5: What cards have sustained values?

Many people will say “of course the rare cards, duh!” Yes, rare cards will have sustained value, but what is considered “rare?” There are several traits that cards are considered rare
1. Cards that are not likely to get after certain time—event box cards (now that they have this “step-up” that contains dark elf series, this will soon to be not true), event rank cards, high * cards, recruited monsters
2. Cards that have higher face value—not too many would buy it with lower value cards (ex. Not too many trades that trade 5* to 6*). This includes high * cards, event rank cards. Recruited monsters also count.
3. Cards that have high demand—this one is tricky. Demand is always changing, so it’s hard to say which card, even with lower * count will have sustained value. However, there are some cards that have higher value than others (ex. Dark Elf Liese [?], WWU, Liz, etc)
What cards are sharing all 3 traits? Event rank cards! The higher * count, the better! Sheryl can drop half to 2/3 of her value in a week, WWU and Liz are still standing around 170 – 200. Note that “sustained” value doesn’t mean the price doesn’t change. It simply drops SLOWER. There are only this many of them. The only factor is demand. With these many people (we know they have more than 400k download. Even if only 1/10 of players are still active, that is 40k, with only ~200 for each 5* rank card) I think it’s safe to say demand will be high constantly.
Of course, 6* cards still have their values, but that’s due to their high initial value. Cards that are draw-able are losing value fast (Monica, anyone?). Still, the rarity is there, so even if it drops a lot, the value will still be high (and nope, not Alexander)


Chapter 6: so what should I do as a player?

If you’re spending money to buy boxes and don’t mind doing so more, you just do it. However, if you don’t spend much money, if any at all, like me, you should consider what cards you buy.
A general rule of thumb is “the cheaper it is, the less demand it has.” Some cards can also be expensive but lose value fast. So be careful with those.
I’d say several things you can do when it comes to trading
1. Find higher value cards
2. Find higher sustained value cards
3. Browse forum to give yourself an idea what price people are selling each card
If you want to trade your way up to 6* (something I’m trying to do too), I think you should try to trade for rank reward cards. That gives you a better chance to jump to 6*. Again, those reward cards’ value is generally high, so getting there takes some time. To me, the trend is no longer as simple as max your 4*-> trade for 5* -> max your 5* -> trade for 6*. It instead became max your 4* -> trade for cheap 5*-> max several of your 5* -> trade for higher value 5* -> max several of higher value 5* -> trade for 6*. It’s more complicated, especially if the price of cheap 5* keep dropping.
At this rate, players will lose interest fast as they foresee the price of cards keep dropping. If I were Silicon Studio, I’ll need to do something to keep the game going, so……


Chapter 7: What would I do if I were Silicon Studio?

1. Cut the number of rank reward. Yes, you heard me, I would cut the rank reward card amount to around 150 instead of 200 (this is for 5*. 6* number is good) This is to make the reward cards even more rare, thus the value more sustained.
2. Have higher rarity cards. (well, we all know that 7* is coming)
3. More types of events (some suggested monster defense event. That sounds nice) to make sure people are not bored of the events
4. Less of the frequency of new events. Instead of having one event every 7 to 10 days, make it 2 weeks or longer. This will suck for the players as they have to go through more of a grind to get to top ranks, but it will benefit the company as people will probably spend more on buying cards/TE to achieve higher rank. They also don’t have to rotate the events so often. As we all know, event cards’ price drops rapidly right after the event.


Final note:

I know a lot of things I talk about are simple fact for some, but all I want to do is to share my ideas and hopefully generate some discussion about this bad economy. You never know, maybe someone has some brilliant ideas they want to share.
I didn’t really edit anything, and I typed everything in Word first before posting here, so format might be a little messy, and I might have bad grammar here and there. Bear with me.
Thank you for reading. Oh and,

TE;DR: Game economy is bad. Buy rank reward cards for their sustained value.

It looks as if you spent A LOT of time on this, so I wont lock it. But I am going to remove one small part, you know what it is...don't mention it again (I know you meant no harm, but still).

Also, I feel as if this would better fit somewhere else, but I can't think of where. If it comes to me, I will PM you about it.

I used/use 5*s for feeders. Actually a lot of people do. What else am I supposed to do with Emma?

You've noticed a large portion of this drop during an event that uses TE to win. THis time tomorrow prices will have risen, because TE will no longer be useful in "the here and now."

The rank rewards will only rise in #. I assume from most of what you're writing that you havent taken a very in depth look at a lot of our threads. I will link a couple when I'm done here to get you aquainted with the community.

http://www.fantasicaunofficial.com/t3191-5-4-cards

http://www.fantasicaunofficial.com/t3282-xmas-cards-being-devalued-too-fast

http://www.fantasicaunofficial.com/t2345-game-strategy-to-get-5s

http://www.fantasicaunofficial.com/t3030-curious-about-depreciation

http://www.fantasicaunofficial.com/t2857-microcosm-rant-about-the-game

http://www.fantasicaunofficial.com/t1666-trading-center-public-chat

I may or may not add these links to the end of your first post as additional reads based on how popular/unpopular it becomes...

Very well written, but I would like to point out one solution you missed

More resource sinks, which SS are doing on the jp side. You trade in your card/items for points, the higher the * the more points you get. Then those points are used to exchange for items various item packages or others like the goddess fruit that increases your unit's max level etc... These measures will stabilize the market a bit as now there are more "sinks" for the players to use their low valued cards in exchange for item/package of value. Thus decrease their numbers that's flooding the market, I know I would exchange that sea of useless 4*s I have for points lol. So it'll be interesting to see how the economy reacts to it once SS port those options over to the US side.

didn't realize i can't even mention it haha
sorry for violating the rules

and it shows how much i still don't know about the game. I'm basing on the fact that people are still selling cards like Emma for 20TE (i know ppl use Fiona as feeder) to come up with the thought that not many are feeding 5*

as of "The rank rewards will only rise in #," im not quite sure what you mean by that......can you elaborate?

And no, I haven't thought about "trading cards for pts" options......guess that's a good way too

jwoohoo wrote:

didn't realize i can't even mention it haha
sorry for violating the rules

and it shows how much i still don't know about the game. I'm basing on the fact that people are still selling cards like Emma for 20TE (i know ppl use Fiona as feeder) to come up with the thought that not many are feeding 5*

as of "The rank rewards will only rise in #," im not quite sure what you mean by that......can you elaborate?

And no, I haven't thought about "trading cards for pts" options......guess that's a good way too

Lol yeah, you'd be surprised at how many people wouldn't know they couldn't mention it. No biggie! (Unless you do it again!)

And as for the rank rewards:

Black dragon castle: Black Dragon was given to like top 3 or five or 10, Minerva to top 20.
Halls of Valhalla: Loki top 30, Fernir top 75.

These two events are almost identical, save time period they occured.

Another example is the Halloween event and Christmas event. They were made for Japan, then just ported over here at the same exact time, in other words we got them ~6 months before they were supposed to arrive. And look at their rank rewards:
50 Christmas Francois/ Her most comparable examples, Ellen+Diana, were 10 each.
500 WW, 300 Christmas Lies/most comparable examples 200 Eliz and 100 Arrebol.

What I'm getting at is SS assumes that the # of competitive players rises over time, and the only way to combat this is to add more prizes to the pool.

predator852 wrote:

And as for the rank rewards:

Black dragon castle: Black Dragon was given to like top 3 or five or 10, Minerva to top 20.
Halls of Valhalla: Loki top 30, Fernir top 75.

These two events are almost identical, save time period they occured.

Another example is the Halloween event and Christmas event. They were made for Japan, then just ported over here at the same exact time, in other words we got them ~6 months before they were supposed to arrive. And look at their rank rewards:
50 Christmas Francois/ Her most comparable examples, Ellen+Diana, were 10 each.
500 WW, 300 Christmas Lies/most comparable examples 200 Eliz and 100 Arrebol.

What I'm getting at is SS assumes that the # of competitive players rises over time, and the only way to combat this is to add more prizes to the pool.

Ah....I see what you mean. but i still think, comparing to normal units, rank rewards' values will hold longer. besides WWU (who you need to recruit..one extra step), i'm seeing a decreasing stats for rank rewards (maybe its because there are more of them). If I were SS, i would do the opposite, making it more competitive and better reward
i'm no economist of game developer though. Don't know if this will work.......

jwoohoo wrote:

predator852 wrote:

And as for the rank rewards:

Black dragon castle: Black Dragon was given to like top 3 or five or 10, Minerva to top 20.
Halls of Valhalla: Loki top 30, Fernir top 75.

These two events are almost identical, save time period they occured.

Another example is the Halloween event and Christmas event. They were made for Japan, then just ported over here at the same exact time, in other words we got them ~6 months before they were supposed to arrive. And look at their rank rewards:
50 Christmas Francois/ Her most comparable examples, Ellen+Diana, were 10 each.
500 WW, 300 Christmas Lies/most comparable examples 200 Eliz and 100 Arrebol.

What I'm getting at is SS assumes that the # of competitive players rises over time, and the only way to combat this is to add more prizes to the pool.

Ah....I see what you mean. but i still think, comparing to normal units, rank rewards' values will hold longer. besides WWU (who you need to recruit..one extra step), i'm seeing a decreasing stats for rank rewards (maybe its because there are more of them). If I were SS, i would do the opposite, making it more competitive and better reward
i'm no economist of game developer though. Don't know if this will work.......

No they're getting better. Both Loki and Fernir are good units compared to those around them. Paris (a new unit) outclasses Rein, and is up there with charles in terms of DPS while also carrying poison.

Yeah, there will always be some standouts like Aggripina and Georgis, but overall the trend is they're getting better or staying on the same level. Look at cards like julia, adolf, emma, Alexander...
then you see WW, Alister, Elizabeth, Lu Bu...there's definitly a power creep behind the scenes...

Good read. From what I read, competing so just skimmmed it, a lot of why you pointed out is similar to what I've thought of the game. With a few exceptions here and there like decreasing rank prize numbers.

Overall a very well put together post!

jwoohoo wrote:

predator852 wrote:

And as for the rank rewards:

Black dragon castle: Black Dragon was given to like top 3 or five or 10, Minerva to top 20.
Halls of Valhalla: Loki top 30, Fernir top 75.

These two events are almost identical, save time period they occured.

Another example is the Halloween event and Christmas event. They were made for Japan, then just ported over here at the same exact time, in other words we got them ~6 months before they were supposed to arrive. And look at their rank rewards:
50 Christmas Francois/ Her most comparable examples, Ellen+Diana, were 10 each.
500 WW, 300 Christmas Lies/most comparable examples 200 Eliz and 100 Arrebol.

What I'm getting at is SS assumes that the # of competitive players rises over time, and the only way to combat this is to add more prizes to the pool.

Ah....I see what you mean. but i still think, comparing to normal units, rank rewards' values will hold longer. besides WWU (who you need to recruit..one extra step), i'm seeing a decreasing stats for rank rewards (maybe its because there are more of them). If I were SS, i would do the opposite, making it more competitive and better reward
i'm no economist of game developer though. Don't know if this will work.......

I understand what you are trying to say but I believe you are thinking of it in the wrong sense, I assume you are thinking of it from a collectors point of view as to the value of the cards. What people don't seem to understand is that SS is in the business to make money and not in the business of collecting, for instance if they had less events sure cards may hold their value a little longer but SS would make less money. As predator said earlier SS probably assumes that over time more people will be playing their game so they offer more rewards/prizes to the masses so that can make more money even if the cards aren't worth as much if they had less rewards/prizes.

rotarywhiz wrote:

hmmm, i guess you're right

predator852 wrote:

jwoohoo wrote:

predator852 wrote:

And as for the rank rewards:

Black dragon castle: Black Dragon was given to like top 3 or five or 10, Minerva to top 20.
Halls of Valhalla: Loki top 30, Fernir top 75.

These two events are almost identical, save time period they occured.

Another example is the Halloween event and Christmas event. They were made for Japan, then just ported over here at the same exact time, in other words we got them ~6 months before they were supposed to arrive. And look at their rank rewards:
50 Christmas Francois/ Her most comparable examples, Ellen+Diana, were 10 each.
500 WW, 300 Christmas Lies/most comparable examples 200 Eliz and 100 Arrebol.

What I'm getting at is SS assumes that the # of competitive players rises over time, and the only way to combat this is to add more prizes to the pool.

Ah....I see what you mean. but i still think, comparing to normal units, rank rewards' values will hold longer. besides WWU (who you need to recruit..one extra step), i'm seeing a decreasing stats for rank rewards (maybe its because there are more of them). If I were SS, i would do the opposite, making it more competitive and better reward
i'm no economist of game developer though. Don't know if this will work.......

No they're getting better. Both Loki and Fernir are good units compared to those around them. Paris (a new unit) outclasses Rein, and is up there with charles in terms of DPS while also carrying poison.

Yeah, there will always be some standouts like Aggripina and Georgis, but overall the trend is they're getting better or staying on the same level. Look at cards like julia, adolf, emma, Alexander...
then you see WW, Alister, Elizabeth, Lu Bu...there's definitly a power creep behind the scenes...

guess i should set georgios and some others as outliers............
but cards like lu bu can still be considered as "old" as they are old for jp version. what about new events like xmas? (okay i know many are arguing that xmas units have good arena use, but just judging by the stats, it seems a lot worse than other event units.........)

jwoohoo wrote:

guess i should set georgios and some others as outliers............
but cards like lu bu can still be considered as "old" as they are old for jp version. what about new events like xmas? (okay i know many are arguing that xmas units have good arena use, but just judging by the stats, it seems a lot worse than other event units.........)

i dun think event units will actually be very attractive. always think from the POV of the developers/ seller....

if they have an event unit that is good or even better than regular units, then no one will buy the regular packs.

event units... they can be sucky as heck and still people will buy because event units will give event bonus.

but having said that, there may be 1-2 occasions where event units actually have good use. i can think of Samantha, the witch. dunno why, i still like her very much.

I smell 5* feeders.

I very much doubt that 5*s would sustain their value in the long term due to the power creeping nature of the game and rigidity on how power works based rarity.

Further, people keep purchasing these digital cards, their values are bound to decrease overtime since TE and pots are hardly replaced by newer players and old players.

Blargod wrote:

I very much doubt that 5*s would sustain their value in the long term due to the power creeping nature of the game and rigidity on how power works based rarity.

Further, people keep purchasing these digital cards, their values are bound to decrease overtime since TE and pots are hardly replaced by newer players and old players.

During recruitment event, I sold some max 4* for 9-10TE each. I bought these cards for 6-7TE each during the tower event. XD

Maybe I should have bought the max level fionaes available for 18-20TE. The only problem is that I wasn't sure if I can sell them for 22-27TE each.

Some 5* cards have already gone up tho for a bit.

lmnseason wrote:

Blargod wrote:

I very much doubt that 5*s would sustain their value in the long term due to the power creeping nature of the game and rigidity on how power works based rarity.

Further, people keep purchasing these digital cards, their values are bound to decrease overtime since TE and pots are hardly replaced by newer players and old players.

During recruitment event, I sold some max 4* for 9-10TE each. I bought these cards for 6-7TE each during the tower event. XD

Maybe I should have bought the max level fionaes available for 18-20TE. The only problem is that I wasn't sure if I can sell them for 22-27TE each.

Some 5* cards have already gone up tho for a bit.

The overall trend is that they're still going down though. Probably will hit rock bottom at some point then the release of the Goddess Fruits will likely stabilize mediocre or low tier 4-5*s

here's another question for the top/medium payers who trade in 5/6*/100+TE:

How do you value max 4*? I'm not talking about value in TE, but more like if you choose which 4* to buy. Since, from my understanding, max 4* is commonly used as feeders for high tier players, does it matter which unit to devour? (I remember seeing a formula about exp gained from feeding before, but I don't remember seeing any stat-related parameter. correct me if i'm wrong. i forgot where i saw the post)

jwoohoo wrote:

here's another question for the top/medium payers who trade in 5/6*/100+TE:

How do you value max 4*? I'm not talking about value in TE, but more like if you choose which 4* to buy. Since, from my understanding, max 4* is commonly used as feeders for high tier players, does it matter which unit to devour? (I remember seeing a formula about exp gained from feeding before, but I don't remember seeing any stat-related parameter. correct me if i'm wrong. i forgot where i saw the post)

Doesn't matter on what you devour. Unit deploy cost only determines the amount of Luna used (the higher the deploy cost the higher the luna cost by a certain amount).

The only thing to keep in mind is that there is some small bonus for using feeders that are the same as the card that you are enhancing:

Melee\monster unit feeder to melee\monster unit being enhanced.
Missile unit feeder to missile unit being enhanced
Magic unit feeder to magic unit being enhanced.

Blargod wrote:

jwoohoo wrote:

here's another question for the top/medium payers who trade in 5/6*/100+TE:

How do you value max 4*? I'm not talking about value in TE, but more like if you choose which 4* to buy. Since, from my understanding, max 4* is commonly used as feeders for high tier players, does it matter which unit to devour? (I remember seeing a formula about exp gained from feeding before, but I don't remember seeing any stat-related parameter. correct me if i'm wrong. i forgot where i saw the post)

Doesn't matter on what you devour. Unit deploy cost only determines the amount of Luna used (the higher the deploy cost the higher the luna cost by a certain amount).

The only thing to keep in mind is that there is some small bonus for using feeders that are the same as the card that you are enhancing:

Melee\monster unit feeder to melee\monster unit being enhanced.
Missile unit feeder to missile unit being enhanced
Magic unit feeder to magic unit being enhanced.

Yeah my higher level units have ate caym, H ghost, Mellanippe, Gleb, Dhimitros, Remika...level 80 sounds the same in every language!

A few things the OP overlooked:

1. New players are starting up playing, so there there will be increased demand for cards. Now, whether this increased demand offsets the increased supply from people continuing to buy them?

2. Old players aren't neccessarily giving away all their cards when they quit. (in fact, I sort of doubt it), so their is also a steady drain of cards other than just those being consumed for feeding purposes.

3. I'm sort of surpised you didn't notice, but the most recent massive price drop is a trend... but it's a repeating trend. The halls event has VERY nice rewards (2 6*), is TE dependant, and is very competitive. As such the demand for TE itself skyrocketed. People were burning through their stock in order to get those 6*'s. So unlike gold, yes. The value of TE changed. DRAMATICALLY. As such the prices of everything else relative to TE went down. This tends to happen towards the end of most heavily TE dependant events, but I know a LOT of people were really looking forward to/competing heavily in this particular event, so it was even more than usual. I'd expect the prices to start picking back up, especially if/when there's an event that gives TE as a reward and/or card packages that come with TE.

GnatB wrote:

A few things the OP overlooked:

1. New players are starting up playing, so there there will be increased demand for cards. Now, whether this increased demand offsets the increased supply from people continuing to buy them?

2. Old players aren't neccessarily giving away all their cards when they quit. (in fact, I sort of doubt it), so their is also a steady drain of cards other than just those being consumed for feeding purposes.

3. I'm sort of surpised you didn't notice, but the most recent massive price drop is a trend... but it's a repeating trend. The halls event has VERY nice rewards (2 6*), is TE dependant, and is very competitive. As such the demand for TE itself skyrocketed. People were burning through their stock in order to get those 6*'s. So unlike gold, yes. The value of TE changed. DRAMATICALLY. As such the prices of everything else relative to TE went down. This tends to happen towards the end of most heavily TE dependant events, but I know a LOT of people were really looking forward to/competing heavily in this particular event, so it was even more than usual. I'd expect the prices to start picking back up, especially if/when there's an event that gives TE as a reward and/or card packages that come with TE.

The fact is I overlooked a lot of things to make things simpler

but to keep the discussion going, I'll share my view on each of your point.

1. I don't think the demand offsets the supply, in several reasons

a. new players don't have many TEs (at least majority of them), so they won't look for too many 5* (maybe 1 cheap one, that's about it)
b. these players are not stupid. Once they play for a while, they start knowing the value of cards. unless someone's really desperate, the cheaper cards are still hard to sell.
c. a direct evidence is that the price of 5* is dropping, however minimal, constantly

2. how many old players quit? does it offset the amount of cards being pulled from boxes? it might have an effect, but is it a lot? I can't really answer this question.

3. I agree with you that price of cards drop DRAMATICALLY at the end of TE-needed events. it's indeed a trend. At the same time, price rise after events giving out TE is ALSO a trend in this case. Again, does the price rise cancel out the price drop? At least I'm not seeing it. Thanks for pointing the value of TE changes out though.

Some Max 4* going for 7te.

fresh 5* going for as low as 20te.

It used to be about 4-5 maxed 4* for a fresh 5*. Now 5* prices have also dropped. In fact, got myself a fresh rose for 15te.

Only thing I see is that 6* prices are still there. But I doubt 4-5 maxed 5* can get one a fresh 6*.

correction: fresh 5* going as low as 15 TE.
All non-limited 5* are dropping like flies. Fresh Diane about to sink to less than 70 TE.

Even limited 5* are dropping. Lana for 150 TE, maybe even less.

The game has had several panel and training events now with no arena. I'm a new player but from the sounds of things arena injects a lot of TE back into the system and until there is an arena event the value of cards in TE will continue to fall.

The guys who are buying pack after pack to stay at the top of the leaderboard are flogging their fresh 5*s for 10-20TE. I saw NCTRL sell 5 fresh dianes for 35TE each.
Due to the reprint/depression max Heide is worth less than 100TE. Only units that are rank rewards and/or good in arena are holding any sort of value.

There's also a knock-on effect to 6*s. Fresh abels being traded for 3max 5*s and max reins being sold for 170TE It's madness but very good for players who are trying to make the jump from 4* to 5* or 5* to 6*.

The only thing that seems unaffected are max4* values. People still buy for 7-8TE and this is because maxing a 4*requires time and effort even if you use luna to buy a metric boatload of 1-3* feeders.