The strange place of Witch's Stews in the economy

I'm curious as to what the market will do in the next couple months from all of these stews. People are sitting on large quantities of it, and it's not unthinkable that there are many people with thousands upon thousands, equating to billions worth of the stuff. There has been a large supply and it's been kept in demand by general excitement for the new attack potions. Prime motivations are difficult to distinguish though, are people buying with the idea that it will be more valuable or are people buying to use the stews personally? How does the sheer volume of Stew affect the economy as a whole, are we entering a market whose value is inflated by people's expectations? No matter what I imagine that the attack potion market will be reacting as the potential buyers begin to dry up and people begin to recognize some basic principles. Currently there is an imbalance as to the costs of using all the high level attack potions when you go over the numbers:

Stew: 40 attack for 2mil/hr
Heartstoppers: 60 attack for 10mil/hr
Onyx Apples: 100 attack for 20mil/hr

One of these are not like the others. Stews compared to Heartstoppers gives us 66% of the attack for 20% of the cost, and compared to apples they are 40% of the attack for 10% of the cost. The balance among Heartstoppers and Onyx Apples is pretty well defined, with heartstoppers being 60% of the effectiveness for 50% of the cost.

If you extrapolate off of the Heartstoppers to Apples ratios for cost effectiveness than Stews ought to cost between 5.5mil and 6.5mil per hour of use, or cost ~1.4-1.6mil each. I won't be saying Stews will skyrocket though. It's a dangerous conclusion to make, because at the same time it's possible that Onyx Apples and Heartstoppers could collapse. Inefficient means of play can only be held up so long before something gives, and what the market chooses to do will be the result of whoever can best manipulate it. That's the best I can speculate.

There is an imbalance, and one way or another the market will correct itself. How it will happen nobody is able to know, but prices will most likely be changing as Heartstoppers and Onyx Apples fall and Witch's Stews rise.

So in my best and very mediocre opinion, stews are still a solid investment, and even if they don't skyrocket I still expect them to go up if Apples and Heartstoppers crash as a sort of cushioning effect as the market tries to find balance. I'm open to any and all criticism if you have any, because in markets there are no doubt hundreds of variables in play, and not to mention the deteriorating value of attack as it decreases, and perhaps psychological aspects such as what happened with Beanie Babies in the late 90s.

 

Oh! Very smart; I hadn't considered that, and it really gives greater value to greater discrepancies in the numbers. My figures could use some adjustments, but off the top of my head the market value should probably be just shy of 5mil/hr then, or about 1-1.2mil per stew given the smaller bonuses leading to a less desirability for taking down the legs and tail of HT.

There are factors that are difficult to measure, and I believe that's why the low current prices are in effect. In many cases a giant boost for a short period is more valuable than smaller, more drawn out boost. Another contributing factor is just how lucrative it's been to make the stews, and it's lead to a massive surplus and a demand that cannot sustain the numbers of production, leading to people underselling the stews.

I do find it strange that apple and heartstopper prices have remained the same though over this period of time, especially considering there was another method of getting heartstoppers. I can think of a couple reasons for this, such as stews not replacing apples for bossing, and therefore keeping the consumption of them steady, or the veritable stubbornness of players to keep buying and hoarding apples for future use, whether they are needed or not. Psychology of economics is weird like that, where the value of items could be less based on their use and more the the value we apply to them as consumers.