They stated this during one of the balls. It went along the lines of, "Caphras surprised us because it was meant to help new players slowly catch up to veterans over time, but instead veterans paid lots of silver for very minor stats causing the price to become out of reach of the new players." I believe this explanation was given in the ball where they introduced Tuvala gear as the new alternative since the caphras system had failed to help new players. In the following years and with the increase in late-game players due to the Tuvala success, caphras continued to be bought, creating a larger demand for caphras. Due to this and the complaints from the community, PA increased the drop rate of caphras to allow players to grind them out as individuals rather than requiring them to buy them to reach the end game. Finally, PA introduced FG and reduced the number of caphras required for C10, allowing players to skip the majority of the Caphras grind, which had unintentionally become the measure for end-game progression. We will have to wait and see what PA decides to do with the caphras system in the future, but I hope they sunset this system and move into new directions.

I don't really care if caphras lose value, as long as they aren't sitting MIN.

Personally I think, this would be a good addition to the game since you will just save up caphras while going for these expensive hard to get end game gear. And like I said before, PA indroduced alot ways to get caphras. You almost get them from doing anything.

There would be an inital spike for caphras, since hardcore players starving for resonable upgrades, but long term it will have almost no impact for caphras market. (In total you need only 33k caphras, thats a single c20 dande)

The alchemy stone cups were lazy as fck from PA, completely agree! Serendia cups are good (atleast for belt/rings).

I can see the argument from CatDK, that reforming duplicates the gear, is poorly coded by PA. But the general idea of reforming an item to get an alternate version is good IMO (i wish we could still get black pegi).

Once FG weapons are out, they will sit MIN price...

make caphras stone exchangeble with memory fragments problem solved the prize for both of them wil be 2.5m forever 

Do you know what was an better catch up mechanic? 2mil vendor crons. Well now they are gone...

And as i said before, this amount of caphras doesn't affect the market in long term. You naturaly accumulate the caphras while going for end game gear.

There are a lot of other items that are much more useful than c20 weapons. Accruaccy Accessories, DP Accessories, Green Offhands or an Evasion/DR Set to switch. I've never seen someone go for c20 weapons to get the 2 extra AP.

And too much horizontal progression should not be the goal....

No.

Lower priced crons benefit veterans more than new players, because they earn more and therefore can buy more.  They are the opposite of a catch-up mechanic.  Your logic is completely backwards, and everything else you stated is purely opinion.

Also, I'm going for c20 weapons, so now you can't say you've never seen it before again.

What? So you suggest to rise the price of all items, since rising cronstone was such a good change? Veterans use the CM way more than new players, makes sense....

Maybe you don't play alot with new players / talk to them, but they use cron stones more often than you think. Only because it's the most effecient way to gear up as a new player without cron stones, doesn't mean they don't use them. And guess what, all the gear we already got, they have to pay 1mil extra.

Crons benefit all players equally.  They are equally priced for everyone.  But a geared veteran has higher earning potential, can afford to buy more crons (regardless of price), and therefore benefits more from crons than a lower earning new player.  It is the exact opposite of a catchup mechanic, crons widen the gap between new and veteran players, regardless of how they are priced.

There is a finite demand for caphras, a player only needs so many.  When the demand for them from veteran players decreases, the price goes down, making them cheaper for new players and allowing them to acquire them from the market and making it easier for them to catch up.  It is an excellent catchup mechanic, it narrows the gap between new and veteran players.

I look forward to min priced caphras.  It will be good for the game.

make caphras stone exchangeble with memory fragments problem solved the prize for both of them wil be 2.5m forever