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

thats why people should only buy cards that are effective in arena prioritizing on the below

1)fast
2)slow/kb
3)low dc cost

this cards will always have demand compareed to other cards, in this game there is no differentation between cards except in arena or battle usefulness

for events you always have your allies to back you up only in arena you have to build a deck that is faster and can disable the other team, cards like monica/vlad are useless in arena because rein/nina will knock you out before you have a chance to react

looking at the game trend i can surmise the following events

1) people who can spend will always rank top
2) because they are spending it creates a splurge of cards into the system
3) te/pot consumption is faster than game generation
4) un-needed 6*/5* cards will be sold by top players for te only at a cheap price
5) mid tier players will sell their cards cheapers to get their first 6*
6) low tier players will now have 5*
7) at the rate the game is going 6*/5* is no longer a rarity
specific event/good stats card become a priority
9) people will try to trade their cards to arena effective cards to win battles

Lastly it is inevitable that nina and rein will become the most sought after cards because those cards are the only one easily accesible and effective in arena. Other 5* card that will have value will probably be those that have similar traits to nina/rein.

sleepybryan wrote:

1) people who can spend will always rank top
2) because they are spending it creates a splurge of cards into the system
3) te/pot consumption is faster than game generation
4) un-needed 6*/5* cards will be sold by top players for te only at a cheap price
5) mid tier players will sell their cards cheapers to get their first 6*
6) low tier players will now have 5*
7) at the rate the game is going 6*/5* is no longer a rarity
specific event/good stats card become a priority
9) people will try to trade their cards to arena effective cards to win battles

Lastly it is inevitable that nina and rein will become the most sought after cards because those cards are the only one easily accesible and effective in arena. Other 5* card that will have value will probably be those that have similar traits to nina/rein.

I think a couple of those points need modification:

3) It's impossible for TE/Pots to be consumed faster than they are generated. Since the price of cards is generally measured against the TE standard, a drop in card price might also reflect an increase in the availability of TE.

7) This assumes that the community is and will continue to grow more slowly than the production of 5* and 6* cards. If, on the other hand, there is a large surge of new members, the demand for these cards will likely see a(n admittedly temporary) jump in card prices. This of course assumes that the incoming players are disproportionately biased to avoid spending money. I think we can assume that would be the case, since those who currently do spend money on the game tend to stay around much longer (so in any given month, a lower proportion of the players to join a game will be of that variety).

It should also be noted that as players become inactive, their cards leave with them. Thus the market can be affected positively (to raise demand against supply) by either having an influx of new players, or an exodus of dedicated players.

Those of us in the middle will win out if the game does VERY well, or VERY poorly...doesn't matter which .

sleepybryan wrote:

thats why people should only buy cards that are effective in arena prioritizing on the below

1)fast
2)slow/kb
3)low dc cost

this cards will always have demand compareed to other cards, in this game there is no differentation between cards except in arena or battle usefulness

I was just thinking about this the other day. My first event was the Nina trials two weeks ago and since then I have not seen an event which warrants owning 'strong cards'. Both the panel and training events are just massive grindfests. Inferno 5 in nina trials was doable with the right 5* allies. I had assumed there were events that would warrant owning the top tier 6*s which are not well suited to arena.

If you are correct that arena is the only discrimator then the only real incentive for me to progress in fantasica is that a few of the really good arena 6*s (diana, ellen, aragon) are obscenely expensive so I can make obtaining them my reason to play.

Craft wrote:

3) It's impossible for TE/Pots to be consumed faster than they are generated. Since the price of cards is generally measured against the TE standard, a drop in card price might also reflect an increase in the availability of TE.

7) This assumes that the community is and will continue to grow more slowly than the production of 5* and 6* cards. If, on the other hand, there is a large surge of new members, the demand for these cards will likely see a(n admittedly temporary) jump in card prices. This of course assumes that the incoming players are disproportionately biased to avoid spending money. I think we can assume that would be the case, since those who currently do spend money on the game tend to stay around much longer (so in any given month, a lower proportion of the players to join a game will be of that variety).

It should also be noted that as players become inactive, their cards leave with them. Thus the market can be affected positively (to raise demand against supply) by either having an influx of new players, or an exodus of dedicated players.

3) I think both are true; card prices are dropping because the amount of TE in circulation is falling and also because 5* and 6* cards are flooding the market. Obviously this is just me speculating as only the fanta team have the raw data. I also suspect that the top players are sitting on a hoard of 1000's of TE each which they're saving for some kind of rainy day, which doesn't help either.

7) From what I've seen I'd guess there's more than enough 5*s to go around already. From the event rankings I doubt there's more than 30k active unique players each event. But there's a massive rich/poor divide which is why so many players don't have a 5* yet. Like in real life the more money you already have the easier it is to make money. We should be grateful that a lot of the top players don't trade in 5*s at all because they could use their massive buying power to dominate the market.

And as 5*s become less rare and less valuable people will be inclined to start using them regularly as feeders for their 7*s which will stabilise the price of 5*s (just as m4* prices are fairly stable).

Ariesthecat37 wrote:

sleepybryan wrote:

thats why people should only buy cards that are effective in arena prioritizing on the below

1)fast
2)slow/kb
3)low dc cost

this cards will always have demand compareed to other cards, in this game there is no differentation between cards except in arena or battle usefulness

I was just thinking about this the other day. My first event was the Nina trials two weeks ago and since then I have not seen an event which warrants owning 'strong cards'. Both the panel and training events are just massive grindfests. Inferno 5 in nina trials was doable with the right 5* allies. I had assumed there were events that would warrant owning the top tier 6*s which are not well suited to arena.

If you are correct that arena is the only discrimator then the only real incentive for me to progress in fantasica is that a few of the really good arena 6*s (diana, ellen, aragon) are obscenely expensive so I can make obtaining them my reason to play.

In regards to the strong units not needed for training event, ever fought a lvl 90+ boss?

aszutai wrote:

Ariesthecat37 wrote:

sleepybryan wrote:

thats why people should only buy cards that are effective in arena prioritizing on the below

1)fast
2)slow/kb
3)low dc cost

this cards will always have demand compareed to other cards, in this game there is no differentation between cards except in arena or battle usefulness

I was just thinking about this the other day. My first event was the Nina trials two weeks ago and since then I have not seen an event which warrants owning 'strong cards'. Both the panel and training events are just massive grindfests. Inferno 5 in nina trials was doable with the right 5* allies. I had assumed there were events that would warrant owning the top tier 6*s which are not well suited to arena.

If you are correct that arena is the only discrimator then the only real incentive for me to progress in fantasica is that a few of the really good arena 6*s (diana, ellen, aragon) are obscenely expensive so I can make obtaining them my reason to play.

In regards to the strong units not needed for training event, ever fought a lvl 90+ boss?

I have not

Are they impossible to beat with cards like Rein/Charles/Nina?

Ariesthecat37 wrote:

aszutai wrote:

In regards to the strong units not needed for training event, ever fought a lvl 90+ boss?

I have not

Are they impossible to beat with cards like Rein/Charles/Nina?

No they're beatable, just will take quite a few tries lol. Basically if you're competing in the event and have weaker units, you generally have to start recycling your boss lvls a lot earlier to keep your sanity intact (and your pots) XD

Since higher lvl bosses also give out more shards, that means player with stronger units will farm shards faster than you (and bt to a certain extent)

nina is not a weak unit fyi her damager is close to dana/nana and is not material enough to make it a big marginal effect. rein is however against certain bosses his melee ground damage is better than nina since he is faster.

and tradeable te supply in the game is definitely decreasing, not increasing in availability. with each event top players within 100 burn more than the masses are generating. and this is not a real life analogy because those with money cannot dictate market prices now.

its simple they need te, but they are buying boxes that does not always gives tradeable te. to get te they have to sell cheaply since there are "more" rich people buying boxes to compete in event which creates more supply of cards that they dont need. they sell this cheaply to the mass market and the mass market tries to sell their own card to get the above. it is a domino effect from the system.

the ways things are going (the pricing), it would look like 7* will be coming really soon. making 6* and 7* the premium category (like how 5* used to be). but 5* seems so common these days.

Personally i hate the economy now since everyone is a TE hog why? heres some reasons:

-Everytime i want to buy cards its always TE/Pots only or nty(this is true for most 6*s. most people wont even consider max 5*s for 6* cards. (except a few exceptions like wwu eliz etc)

- People who want to buy 6* cards to improve their team will be required to offer in pure TE

- Because of this they will only sell their cards for TE

- and the chain goes on all the way

- There is also lesser TE in the market each day as they are being consumed in events and people would rather pull packs than buy TE from the shop



This is my 2 suggestions to make the economy better and RESTORE value to our cards

1. Remove TE(P) from event rewards and log in bonuses. Let us have our normal TE back

2. Have a expiry date on TE(make TE go bad after a month or 2 after receiving it that will teach those TE hoggers ) Because TE will expire they will have to either spend it or trade it and not let it sit in their inventory until the next decade. When a TE will expire ad become a TE(P) becoming untradable this will force people to move TE

This expiry date should start on the day on creation e.g the day they are given out or bought, does not matter if it is in the inbox or not. Keep it in that inbox for 2 months when you take it out, you get a TE(P) instead. so no more hogging of TE and it will send a wake up call to all the TE hoggers to STOP hogging the TE and START spending them or you can keep those TE in your inventory forevermore literally

thats just my 2 cents

saphion wrote:

This is my 2 suggestions to make the economy better and RESTORE value to our cards

1. Remove TE(P) from event rewards and log in bonuses. Let us have our normal TE back

2. Have a expiry date on TE(make TE go bad after a month or 2 after receiving it that will teach those TE hoggers ) Because TE will expire they will have to either spend it or trade it and not let it sit in their inventory until the next decade. When a TE will expire ad become a TE(P) becoming untradable this will force people to move TE

This expiry date should start on the day on creation e.g the day they are given out or bought, does not matter if it is in the inbox or not. Keep it in that inbox for 2 months when you take it out, you get a TE(P) instead. so no more hogging of TE and it will send a wake up call to all the TE hoggers to STOP hogging the TE and START spending them or you can keep those TE in your inventory forevermore literally

thats just my 2 cents

I think the 2nd one will make the economy even worse...

For those who pay real cash for event, they dont care about the expiry date.
They just keep buying pack, selling cards cheaply and using over 100-1000Te in just one single event - 7/10 days....

Only those free players who store TE for event or 6* would be affected..
They can only trade for 5* or use TE before its expiry date.
It makes the supply of TE decrease and makes "pay-cash-to-win" situation even worse.

decrease in demand for TE means an increase in demand for cards

If people cant hog TE 10000 TE to buy trade sell, they will have to start converting them into cards or end up not being able to trade them for anything

Quote :

They can only trade for 5* or use TE before its expiry date.

Thats exactly my point. when was the last time you see people pay good TE for a 5* card ._.

People who store TE for use in event would not be affected since TE would expire into a TE(P) and they can still use it for event. This is just targetting at people who hog TE and insist on pure TE for trades, increasing TE demand and reducing card demand

By drastically increasing individual spending, the price of goods can be increased.

Lets say your $10 would be unspendable in a week would you be alot more inclined to use it on something? its the same logic basically


Another alternative would be to not make TE an omnipotent currency by limiting it to 100 in trade, that way people will have to trade cards for cards, creating a demand for 5*s and 4*s again

Want to buy a abel for 250 TE?
you can only put 100 TE and 100 Pots in trade, and you must add 3 more cards to make up for the value

which is why you should go with the flow and get arena useful cards (nina/rein), sooner or later you will see nina being the most in demand card and rein being able to trade equal value when arena comes

other card that will have value are those limited event aa cards, because there is no standard aa available

saphion wrote:

2. Have a expiry date on TE(make TE go bad after a month or 2 after receiving it that will teach those TE hoggers ) Because TE will expire they will have to either spend it or trade it and not let it sit in their inventory until the next decade. When a TE will expire ad become a TE(P) becoming untradable this will force people to move TE

This expiry date should start on the day on creation e.g the day they are given out or bought, does not matter if it is in the inbox or not. Keep it in that inbox for 2 months when you take it out, you get a TE(P) instead. so no more hogging of TE and it will send a wake up call to all the TE hoggers to STOP hogging the TE and START spending them or you can keep those TE in your inventory forevermore literally

Some questions on your point 2.
1: How you suggest to solve the problem of stacking decaying TE from many various players/source?

2: With every player having different date and time for their existing TE from various source, isn't it adding complexity for details shown within the inventory and trading windows?

sleepybryan wrote:

which is why you should go with the flow and get arena useful cards (nina/rein), sooner or later you will see nina being the most in demand card and rein being able to trade equal value when arena comes

other card that will have value are those limited event aa cards, because there is no standard aa available

The thing is no one has really sat down to analyze and compare the values of cards in terms of arena effectiveness. I like what BKwiz did with the 6* DPS tables but while interesting that information is of limited value as players who rank high in quest/boss events are those who spend the most money anyway.

I understand that players who hold that kind of information on arena effectiveness have a vested interest not to reveal it (or at least be 100% transparent) but as a result the value of all cards in the market are in constant flux and vary wildly for player to player. The uncertainty is pushing players into investing in TE as that is the only currency that is guaranteed to hold value. The number of fanta players who actively trade is so small that a small number of vocal traders can massively influence the perceived value of a card as well which is a big problem.

Also while I did agree with you a page or two back I think using arena as the sole indicator of card worth is not realistic simply because arena events come around so rarely. This is a side note but I think fanta would be a far more successful game if the developers held an arena every 3rd event. As it is this game haemmorhages players constantly as 90% of the events are so mindlessly dull.

What would be really amazing is if a group of dedicated players sat down and came up with a tierlist of cards that assigns logical (albeit fairly arbitrary) weightings on card strength in quests, card arena usefulness, card/sprite art and card rarity. This could serve as an actual priceguide (relevant for the majority of players anyway) unlike the current price check thread which mostly provides advice based on current trade observations. It also wouldn't require constant updating which would be a big plus for those who maintain the list.

saphion wrote:

1. Remove TE(P) from event rewards and log in bonuses. Let us have our normal TE back

^This.
The simple fact, is that this game is a massive TE (currency) drain, coupled with the fact that the market is constantly flooded with more 5 and 6 cards.

The main problem is that people spend their real money on card packs, rather than buying TE/pots with their real money from the shop. Therefore, the amount of in game currency decreases IMMENSELY every event, and is never replenished, while more and more 5 and 6s appear out of nowhere (event rewards too), sending card prices plummeting.

If they gave normal TE as event rewards, at least the currency would be replenished somewhat; this would help, although it's far from a solution. SS needs to make TE more freely available in the game, rather than what they have done, which is turn most of them into TE(p). They don't seem to realise how important TE is as the ONLY currency in game.

The reason TE is worth so much now, is that most likely, almost every time elixir in game currently has, and will be more increasingly in future, been paid for with real dollars. It will continue with this trend, as the options for gaining TE freely in game, decrease. Here, in Australian dollars, 1 TE is about $1.
How many people want to pay even, say $20/TE for a Maxed Marguerite? I'm surprised these low-end 5 cards are worth more than 10TE tbh, unless as feeders. In fact, they may not be worth even that, judging by how hard it is to sell them at all..

The silver lining for me, is when the dams burst and low-end 5* begin to get used universally as feeders. Their numbers will decrease drastically. Then, card packs should be less appealing.. The flood of new cards will slow down. Hopefully, paying players will start waking up and realise their money is increasingly better spent on actual TE (as it is incredibly valuable), rather than card packs. I actually don't see any appeal in buying a card pack whatsoever the way things are. Balance should slowly restore itself..
I suppose, in the end (I'm hoping) the economy will clean itself up *fingers crossed*

In my opinion fantasica is a trading card game, not selling-cards-to-gather-te-to-buy-the-card-i-want game, sure i can understand that people will want TE for cards in order to rank better in events, get better prizes etc. but this is no longer the case, people want TE because it is the ONLY THING people accept in trades which i have totally no idea why! This is a card game, not a TE collection game

You want to buy a charles and you see a person posts "WTS fresh charles 150TE" and you want to trade your 5 max 5*s for him, the reply that you most likely get is "sorry TE/pots only"

Want to trade up max ana for max paris? sorry m.ana and TE only, dont want 5*s

Personally i think that some values should be restored to the cards and not trade everything for TE/pots only. and i would like to see some restrictions made for TE/Pots in trade, such as a 100pot and TE limit a trade or maybe that TE will expire and turn into TE(P) after a certain amount of time, e.g. a month, to discourage people from using TE in trades and turn this back into a card based game instead of a TE based one

No more TE nor pots from arena... how will players adapt >< Fanta version of oil crisis -_-;

kyaaya wrote:

No more TE nor pots from arena... how will players adapt >< Fanta version of oil crisis -_-;

Actually they do give u pots and TE BUT U CANT TRADE THEM. Even the ranked rewards give you TE (P). I was hoping players will do less pure TE trades and more card trades. The way I see it, the recyling event where they let you change cards into points will help the economy tremendously.

saphion wrote:

In my opinion fantasica is a trading card game, not selling-cards-to-gather-te-to-buy-the-card-i-want game, sure i can understand that people will want TE for cards in order to rank better in events, get better prizes etc. but this is no longer the case, people want TE because it is the ONLY THING people accept in trades which i have totally no idea why! This is a card game, not a TE collection game

You want to buy a charles and you see a person posts "WTS fresh charles 150TE" and you want to trade your 5 max 5*s for him, the reply that you most likely get is "sorry TE/pots only"

Want to trade up max ana for max paris? sorry m.ana and TE only, dont want 5*s

Personally i think that some values should be restored to the cards and not trade everything for TE/pots only. and i would like to see some restrictions made for TE/Pots in trade, such as a 100pot and TE limit a trade or maybe that TE will expire and turn into TE(P) after a certain amount of time, e.g. a month, to discourage people from using TE in trades and turn this back into a card based game instead of a TE based one

Only one problem with card trading, those that have the cards you want; probably don't need the cards you have... Unlike traditional TCG where everyone who played the game have spent money to buy pack to get the cards, so chances everyone will have some decent cards to trade with. It's hard to imagine that a free player (most of fantasica's player population) would have a card/unit that a paying player would want/need.

Also, it doesn't help when you consider Fanta's game mechanics, you only need a few good units vs a regular card game like magic the gathering where you would keep an entire library of cards to build multiple decks with them. There's really no incentive for the pay player who have most of the good card/units already to trade with free player unless they're offering something that can help them gain an edge in the competition (TE/Pot). So yea, the economy is basically fudged lol... I blame it on crappy game design.

Edit: There's a lot of things they can do to help with maintaining a healthy economy, but SS is more interested in your pocket than game balancing so I don't expect them to do much of anything really. Unless it happens to make them more money (visibly) & help out the game at the same time. Having played a few more mobage published game in the past month or so, I'm past blaming them for SS's bad handling of the game. Doesn't make Mobage any less "evil" though.

i guess we can all agree that generally, gone are the days where we had 'free flow' of TE and pots (trade-able ones).

what does it mean? will units become cheaper? or more expensive?

for TE intensive events like Arena, can we expect to some good units being offloaded cheaply by those top players in return for TE?

or will top players now need to resort to also buying TE from the store?

Selling TE(P) for 1TE each.

lmnseason wrote:

Selling TE(P) for 1TE each.

sure... OT. i want 10. my ID is at top left...

1. The mission of SS is to make money out of your pocket but not maintaining the card value in TE. Why some people think the value of the card should hold because they hold a devaluing card (like apple's stocks?). How SS make money is indeed printing some more 5* and 6* (some more stocks). So, your stocks value will ALWAYS be diluted coz supply of 5* and 6* is expected to raise in near future (some more event). However, if you look into the economy model in other TCG, like MTG, some of the out-printed old cards like the power 10 are damn expensive. Which, the more powerful of the card in various event, the higher the value. However, like the government, SS can change the rule and you cannot argue with them. AND even in MTG, some more potent cards were printed out such that players have to keep buying new cards. (but they have another way to make people pay which is entirely different)
2. Using TE or pot as currency is ALWAYS better than barter, card to card trading.
3. There is real money (USD, paypal) card trading in the game, which, you guys have not looked into. Quite a lot of players sell their cards when they leave the game which is NOT in TE and which, I believe a lot of old cards will be recycled in this way. (black market/underground economy )
4. TE are consumables and it has its own supply and demand like copper or silver but not gold for value storage (not anymore now, coz US gave up the gold standard) which would have seasonal fluctuation (like arena event now). It is evident that cards worth less TE than before (I started to play 2 weeks ago but I found quite some old players overpriced in similar faction, and I assume that was the old price) which the supply of cards (which worth TE) is more than the TE supply, or the demand of TE is more than the demand of cards (which worth TE).
5. SS already make some of the prize in TE(P) or POT(P) to reduce trade-able TE (or I would say, the free obtainable TE for free/middle players). This is, to me clever in short term but stupid in long term. Top players will have to buy BOTH new card and TE to win, instead of trading off his old or unused cards for TE. It gives the top spending players more advantage in event but not the free/low expense players like me. However, if they HAVE to spend more to win and knowing that it is impossible to get some trade-able TE as a way to reduce the gaming cost, probably they wouldn't spend so much money to buy card packs or even switch to another game. Also, middle players will have less advantage in events and they are more likely to quit.
6. Consume 5* or 6* for level up is a way to keep the price up, just like tossing away the food instead of selling it cheaper to Africa. But I doubt the incentive to do that coz you can sell it for $ in black market. Also, the pricing of 5* and 6* not determined only by the supply of cards but also supply of TE. Instead of giving out trade-able TE and POT, TE(P) and POT(P) as prize, supply of trade-able TE reduced and at the end, the value of trade-able TE increased. The value of both cards and TE are increased and so, no inflation. But I think the printing rate is ALWAYS faster than consuming rate. Printing of new cards is ALWAYS easier than obtaining new cards.
7. TE expiry is not good for everyone but SS coz the supply of trade-able TE is lowered. So, you usually have to pay for TE.
8. A VERY GOOD question by myad, top players will pay real money for TE instead of selling their cards!! You cannot forgot the fact that if the price of card is lower than the perceived price, players can choose NOT to sell it (which technically keep the price coz no duel is made, similar to the real estate market couple of years ago in US)!!! AND for top players, TE is always there by paying (but not middle(?) or free players)! Middle or free players held a lot of TE but do not have the right of printing TE but SS. Like the quantitative easing of US government, money is borrowed to bankers and technically inflation would begin!!! However, since TE are consumables and I believe top players buy TE for their own use instead of keeping it and paying for cards....so.....

leosiu wrote:

1. The mission of SS is to make money out of your pocket but not maintaining the card value in TE. Why some people think the value of the card should hold because they hold a devaluing card (like apple's stocks?). How SS make money is indeed printing some more 5* and 6* (some more stocks). So, your stocks value will ALWAYS be diluted coz supply of 5* and 6* is expected to raise in near future (some more event). However, if you look into the economy model in other TCG, like MTG, some of the out-printed old cards like the power 10 are damn expensive. Which, the more powerful of the card in various event, the higher the value. However, like the government, SS can change the rule and you cannot argue with them. AND even in MTG, some more potent cards were printed out such that players have to keep buying new cards. (but they have another way to make people pay which is entirely different)
2. Using TE or pot as currency is ALWAYS better than barter, card to card trading.
3. There is real money (USD, paypal) card trading in the game, which, you guys have not looked into. Quite a lot of players sell their cards when they leave the game which is NOT in TE and which, I believe a lot of old cards will be recycled in this way. (black market/underground economy )
4. TE are consumables and it has its own supply and demand like copper or silver but not gold for value storage (not anymore now, coz US gave up the gold standard) which would have seasonal fluctuation (like arena event now). It is evident that cards worth less TE than before (I started to play 2 weeks ago but I found quite some old players overpriced in similar faction, and I assume that was the old price) which the supply of cards (which worth TE) is more than the TE supply, or the demand of TE is more than the demand of cards (which worth TE).
5. SS already make some of the prize in TE(P) or POT(P) to reduce trade-able TE (or I would say, the free obtainable TE for free/middle players). This is, to me clever in short term but stupid in long term. Top players will have to buy BOTH new card and TE to win, instead of trading off his old or unused cards for TE. It gives the top spending players more advantage in event but not the free/low expense players like me. However, if they HAVE to spend more to win and knowing that it is impossible to get some trade-able TE as a way to reduce the gaming cost, probably they wouldn't spend so much money to buy card packs or even switch to another game. Also, middle players will have less advantage in events and they are more likely to quit.
6. Consume 5* or 6* for level up is a way to keep the price up, just like tossing away the food instead of selling it cheaper to Africa. But I doubt the incentive to do that coz you can sell it for $ in black market. Also, the pricing of 5* and 6* not determined only by the supply of cards but also supply of TE. Instead of giving out trade-able TE and POT, TE(P) and POT(P) as prize, supply of trade-able TE reduced and at the end, the value of trade-able TE increased. The value of both cards and TE are increased and so, no inflation. But I think the printing rate is ALWAYS faster than consuming rate. Printing of new cards is ALWAYS easier than obtaining new cards.
7. TE expiry is not good for everyone but SS coz the supply of trade-able TE is lowered. So, you usually have to pay for TE.
8. A VERY GOOD question by myad, top players will pay real money for TE instead of selling their cards!! You cannot forgot the fact that if the price of card is lower than the perceived price, players can choose NOT to sell it (which technically keep the price coz no duel is made, similar to the real estate market couple of years ago in US)!!! AND for top players, TE is always there by paying (but not middle(?) or free players)! Middle or free players held a lot of TE but do not have the right of printing TE but SS. Like the quantitative easing of US government, money is borrowed to bankers and technically inflation would begin!!! However, since TE are consumables and I believe top players buy TE for their own use instead of keeping it and paying for cards....so.....

Not sure how new you are but back then, there was a well maintained balance in the economy with the fair way of obtaining TE. It was sometime early or near end of last year when everything changed. 5* and 6* popping here and there while tradeable TE has gone down. Before, you would spend 50-110TE for a good 5* and now, they are gone to 30-65 with the exception of WWU.

I'm just letting you know so you can add this on the equation. I joined mid November and I'm sure there are few more other things we both don't know about.

a simple way to fix this is my suggestion of limiting the trade to 50TE and 50POTS a trade

E.g. a person who wants to sell paris for pure TE will have to do something like this

Sell paris for vlad+50 TE
Sell vlad for ana+50 TE
Sell Ana for Abel+50 TE
...
...
...
until the person gets his pure TE

Like this it will create a "upgrade" path for new players and uptrading 6* cards will be more within reach instead of having to pay like 330 TE in 1 shot for a paris

Limiting TE per trade puts more emphasis into trading cards instead of TE. I dont see whats wrong selling a 100TE value card for 3 30TE value cards and 10TE instead of insisting on 100TE like what people are doing now