TL;DR: Relative to how quickly the player population is consuming Agency boosters (Pyrolancea, Hardshell, Overclocker) - how quickly is the game replacing them back into the economy, and through what various means?
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In any market, there’s consumption and generation. (e.g. ISK faucets and ISK sinks.)
General question - I’m coming back to Eve from a couple of years off, and I have a reasonable stock of what I’m calling Agency boosters. (The blue / purple / red boosters, levels I through IV, with words like ‘Pyrolancea’, ‘Overclocker’, ‘Hardshell’).
Adding up my inventory, I have easily a few billion ISK worth, so I got to wondering… are these getting really pricey because they simply aren’t being generated much in-game? Would you say it’s only certain holiday events where they are available as loot?
I’m just trying to collect opinions / experience on the general trend of availability vs. consumption. (And yes, I understand fully the concept of inflation - that’s not what I’m asking.)
Any thoughts appreciated. I’m not desperate for ISK, and the Pyro’s sure help for L4/burner blitzing (my main high-sec source of income), so I’m just curious if I generally sell or generally hold. No one can predict the future, and I don’t feel strongly either way, but I figure some of you - especially traders perhaps - have a dialed-in sense of the Agency booster sub-economy and general consumption vs. replacement trends.
They mostly come from live events, but the 2nd tier ones are/were available in DED LP stores. They used to have a high drop rates and stupid low prices. Unfortunately, CCP has gotten kind of stingy with all the live event loot (and site spawn rates) in the past couple of years.
Things like this do seem kind of cyclical, and I imagine that CCP will beef up site spawn rates and drop rates again at some point. But who knows when that might happen. Like it might happen now that we’re exiting scarcity, but it could just as well take internal changes to company beliefs, priorities, and/or personnel.
Anyway, nowadays, in general, is a good time to sell. However, we just had a live event, and are about to have another one for christmass. So, you might want to wait if you’re looking to get the absolute best profit that you can (historical price graphs will give you a good idea of when to sell, just be aware that live event dates can vary by at least a couple of weeks). And, if all you’re looking for is a good enough time to sell, and not the absolute best time to sell, then you can just sell whenever there isn’t a live event going.
Also keep in mind that most ‘giveaway’ event boosters lately are consumed the moment you accept them (and therefore not marketable). So for your own use, use the cheaper or most available ones, and sell the pricey ones when prices are high.
I would expect them to drop in relatively large amounts in the coming holiday period.
But the higher % ones are very desirable so I wouldn’t expect their value to drop hugely. Everyone is hooked on them now as they’ve been login rewards for ages and you have to assume anyone you face is using at least the lower priced versions.