Greetings! Over my years of being here I've laid witness to a lot of things, and one of the big ones i see often flaring up issues is the constant issues with cost of making a piece of gear over just buying it due to the rng; and with the cost increase of crons (vendor wise) it's gotten to the point that some of the bigger names in the community are saying it's actually just easier in a lot of cases just to not cron things anymore and go for things raw more often than not, if not just flat out buying it instead. In my oppinion this is problematic and could use a new idea for helping the system while also helping address some other problems in the same time.

I have a idea proposal to help cron prices, premium outfit sales being retained, and the community desire for outfit exchanges between characters (perhaps somewhat limited but still viable).

Pearl Shop outfits can have cron stones removed as a exchange item and have a Shard or Token item added in it's place that can be stacked.
Trading in a certain number of shards can be exchanged for a full classic or premium outfit box to be used again (even on another character) within limitations.
Exchange rates of shards to outfit boxes can be tailored  like you'd have to melt down 2 full classic outfit boxes worth of materials to make another full classic outfit box, or etc; that can be polished rates wise if the idea goes on to development.
Shards could also be able to be turned in at a fixed rate per Shard to raw silver for those who have no desire for whatever reason to continue stacking them for a full outfit turn in; but would give a alternate point of use.
Shards could also be stacked for use later in a bigger sink for some items or components of things, such as Epheria Carracks, Forest Path Wagons and parts, etc, perhaps even Rng boxes for the brave (but NEVER including treasure items.) This list can be tailored at the behest of developers to make it a good incentive as a long term sink for the market side still. *pulled from comments below*

Cron Stones at this point would be relegated to being bought specificly from vendors and could have the cost associated with them reduced to something reasonable; eg from 3 million per cron down to something more managable like 500k; letting those who choose to take the chance of gambling on gear enjoy trying more often; and for much more reasonable of a cost when you factor in costs to repair and other materials. This would directly help those who are unlucky enough to have bad streaks of finally getting their goals done and being many billions, tens, or even hundreds of billions over the cost of just buying one flat out from the market instead (or just preordering and praying instead..)

this would help those who also wanted to move outfits between characters since they dont use the previous one as much, or prefer to spread outfits more across their characters, etc. the uses can be weighed however you choose to see it.
I'm open ofcourse for feedback, and thought about something to fit the niche of this topic since it is so touchy of a area, but i definitely hope it resonates well enough to endure long term. There are things that can be improved upon (like what outfits can be applicable to exchange for when turning in Shards / Tokens, and what rate for a turn in per box) but we'll see if the idea even pans out further.

Cheers.

cool idea but cron is $$$ for pa

I do understand this; and ofcourse the idea is just a template for food for thought. in exchanges you could have something more worthy to exchange off for as well, but the general idea is to get crons less cash oriented to make the marketing side of the house more healthy since there's so much weight per tap for people towards the end of the game that it's suffocating to quite the large part of the playerbase.

If it can pan out perhaps its something like  (x = rate to be set.)
x shards - classic outfit box
x shards - premium outfit box
1 shard  - x number of raw silver
x shards - some rare item or component, rng item, etc that gives reason to keep the funds rolling in to burn them down still.

thoughts?

almost everyone buying costumes on market is not buying it to wear for cosmetic reasons

what would probably happen is costumes starts to sit and people that buy costumes with pearl to sell would stop paying since costumes are no longer selling

I do, lol. I try to get as many costumes as a I can for all of my characters. xD

I think crons or no, costumes would always sell.

Dude not everyone buying outfit is just buying them for cron. There's definitely a sizeable base that do, but there's plenty of people who buy outfits to wear too. I do.

That may be the case; but there's also a oppertunity to have the exchange be other items; like for example for those who dont want to do the grind for a Epheria Carrack, or Forest Path Wagon, these could be listed into the exchanges at a higher shard exchange, or etc items that could be a point to still bring in  people to buy stock and exchange them later. (think high number of shards to make it not tank prices of existing stock.) It would give some oppertunities to players who dont enjoy parts of the content of the game a chance to skip a part of the game they dont want to do, while also giving incentive to the whales who sell for silver to continue to do so.
Perhaps even things like Advice of Valks could even be added as a well for those who want to exchange enough shards for a good starting stack outside of doing seasonal content to get them, or events.

The idea is open to what it could be exchanged for; the people selling outfits sell for silver and buyers do it for crons most of the time, but perhaps that mentality can shift to buying crons isnt the thing you want them for anymore, and other chase items can be the goal.

i should note; that under no circumstances should TREASURE items be exchangable items; those should remain excluded.

I agree the upgrading system sucks sometimes. I am currently stuck at over 3000 a hit for pen blackstar (no I am not swapping it the godyr for incremental upgrades, that would drive me insane). Personally, I like this idea. Crons are just too damn expensive for how many I need at this point. And let's not even talk about the accessory cron requirement. Plus I like to get outfits for all my characters and being able to burn them down to get other stuff would be really cool too.