The thing that bugs me about trading that I will never understand.

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xCaKtUs

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It costs one key to unbox a crate. One crate gives you one strange. By that logic, every strange should be worth one key, right?
Nope.avi.
What is the cause of this? It REALLY bugs me, and it makes uncrating almost useless.
 
The trading system of tf2 is completely user decided. There is no higher power to it.

People always dictate price on there. Best you can do it just roll with it.
 
Pretty much what Kiririn said. The prices are set that way because someone didn't want to spend a key on a strange, and then others didn't, and now nobody does (plus it also depends on how many of said strange there are, and how recent the crate is that they came from...etc).
 
By that same logic, all unusual hats should be worth 1 key.

You cant think of crates as an investment, think of them as a lotto scratcher.
 
Mithos Riot said:
By that same logic, all unusual hats should be worth 1 key.

You cant think of crates as an investment, think of them as a lotto scratcher.
Click to expand...

No, I said at least, depending on supply and demand. I guess that second part is pretty true though.
 
xCaKtUs said:
It costs one key to unbox a crate. One crate gives you one strange. By that logic, every strange should be worth one key, right?
Nope.avi.
What is the cause of this? It REALLY bugs me, and it makes uncrating almost useless.
Click to expand...

Well, not exactly. First, the market is flooded by a lot of strange weapons that no one really wants because people open crates hoping for unusual hats. Second, those unusual hats are worth more than one key. Even at a 1 in 100 chance of landing one, you have to balance the value of the hats alongside the value of the strange weapons and normal hats that come out of every crate. In other words, crates are really like playing the lottery. If you want a particular strange weapon or hat then you should convert your keys to refined and buy the item from another user. If you want to gamble and try to net a big payday then that is when crates are your friend.
 
It all depends on how many items there are of that item. If it is an item that everyone wants but there is not a lot of of course it is going to cost more. It just depends on what people are going to spend normally...
 
It depends on the quantity of the item, yes. That's why all these rereleases took the prices WAY down. But, it also depends on the demand. That's why the Nade Launcher is worth 5 keys and the Equalizer is worth a wep.
 
I've been playing tf2 for a while now, and I still don't care one bit about this 'economy'

Shiznoe said:
It all depends on how many items there are of that item. If it is an item that everyone wants but there is not a lot of of course it is going to cost more. It just depends on what people are going to spend normally...
Click to expand...

The technical term you're looking for is supply and demand.
 
I would explain you the fundamentals of trading in terms of what dictates how much things are worth but I'd max out the character count...

Basically as everyone has said it is Supply and Demand, People want it, people pay more for it (*cough* spidey *cough*).
 
A few reasons:

1) Why do people still play the lottery? There's something about gambling that is addicting to many people. Thus, keys are higher in value

2) As people have mentioned, the other better things that you can get from a crate also raises the overall value of the key in comparison to the crate.

3) Some stranges are just more popular than others, even if we could ONLY get stranges from crates, the more commonly used and popular weapons would still be worth more than a key while the unpopular ones would be worth less.
 
hEY said:
1) Why do people still play the lottery? There's something about gambling that is addicting to many people. Thus, keys are higher in value
Click to expand...

As someone who has a gambling problem(I don't actually have a gambling problem, but I know I would), it's the allure of a huge payoff for a small cost. But what gets people into trouble is the thought "just one more try" or "that wasn't a good one, but I'm feeling better about this one"
 
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