What's causing the rune essence crash?

[ixfd64]

I've noticed that both regular and pure essence have crashed to around 16 GP each at around the beginning of this year. Anyone know what might have caused the prices to drop so much?

[Miss Lioness]

The release of RuneSpan has made much of the traditional Runecrafting redundant which has made the use of Rune Essence plummet to a point where it is barely used. Next to that Rune Essence comes massively in game due monster drops that it outpace demand.

 

Also moved this to the appropriate forum.

[Arceus]

Runespan is an old update but it is definitely still having its effect.  More than likely eliminating the bots that run runes further cuts down on the demand, and all the massive sources, be it monster drops or daily challenges, only serve to exacerbate the decline.  There's really no reason for it to go up as there isn't much demand at this point in time.

[ixfd64]

I figured the Runespan update might have had something to do with the crash, but the strange thing is that the prices didn't change much until about a year later. The Runespan was released at the end of April 2012, yet the prices only started to plummet the following spring. Even with the Runespan update, runecrafting is still useful for making money, especially for players who can craft double nature runes.

[Sobend]

To answer your question of the delayed crash I'd say it's more than just the runespan. I'd have to say the massive amounts of pure essence coming into the game through rewards from daily challenges is the biggest reason why pure essence is dirt cheap right now.

[Arceus]

I figured the Runespan update might have had something to do with the crash, but the strange thing is that the prices didn't change much until about a year later. The Runespan was released at the end of April 2012, yet the prices only started to plummet the following spring. Even with the Runespan update, runecrafting is still useful for making money, especially for players who can craft double nature runes.

True, but you have to ask yourself the question: is it useful enough?  Does it outweigh other methods enough to trek to 91 Runecrafting to get there?  I'm not sure of hourly profits but bossing, farming fruitfall, or other methods may well be faster, and in particular killing bosses is probably regarded as more fun than running back and forth to the bank with essence.

[Miss Lioness]

The profit from Graahking Nats is still just shy of 2m/h. Just clarifying that.

[Blofeld]

Can you still get essence as a reward for mahogany plank construction tasks? Last time I did that I got close to 30k pure essence as a reward, and that makes the problem exponentially worse as the price drops.  You would have thought that was a quick ninja fix they could have made ages ago to help alleviate the problem with minimal hassle.

[stealthchris117]

Rune and Pure Essence should go back up if they get around to making runes more valuable as was polled a few months ago. I only know a few people who still runecraft for money/exp, but if runes before more valuable it could be more worth it.

[Arceus]

Can you still get essence as a reward for mahogany plank construction tasks? Last time I did that I got close to 30k pure essence as a reward, and that makes the problem exponentially worse as the price drops.  You would have thought that was a quick ninja fix they could have made ages ago to help alleviate the problem with minimal hassle.

I believe it's still possible to get them as a challenge reward and in great number (it just calculates a gp reward and divides into it with the pure essence price to determine how many pure essence, which makes it even worse as price falls).

[Hedgehog]

Right now, the price of rune essence is only a little lower than what it was a little before the bot nuke (October, 2011).

 

The first decrease in price happened in early May 2012, which corresponds almost exactly to the release of runespan.

 

On November 19th, 2012, the price skyrocketed again. The Evolution of Combat was released on the 20th.

 

Prices fell back down again on January 7th, which corresponds to an EoC dev blog, which announced the upcoming release of the Kalphite King and the Ascension dungeon, which would make magic less useful.

 

The next price increase came on March 4th, which was the same day that another EoC update was released. This update made dual-wielding with magic OP, which explains the price increase.

 

On August 29th, the price increase for about a week because of an update to magic damage. An unexplained crash happened afterwards, but the price recovered a little before September 25th, when bonds were released. The price has remained low since then.

 

I think the conclusion to draw is that bonds are keeping the price of rune essence down, presumably because RWTers often made runes for money. Pure essence showed a similar trend, but it's a lot less telling because it isn't used nearly as much, especially after EoC.

[ixfd64]

I have a few ideas on how pure essence could be made more useful when crafting F2P-craftable runes:

 

1. An invisible +2 boost. For example, players could get 10x air runes at level 97 runecrafting instead of 99.

2. Small amounts of extra XP.

3. An increased chance to craft runes per essence.

 

But they are probably more appropriate for the suggestions forum.