The Color Of Money: the dye economy in soul's remnant

why do i keep going down color-based rabbit-holes? my latest foray into colors leads me today to the dye system in soul's remnant.

for those of you who don't have a finger on the pulse of MMOs on steam, soul's remnant is a maple story type game made in godot 4 that is 10 years in the making. i really, really enjoy the gameplay. this is not a review of the game, but if you like DIY classing and the feel of old maplestory, you should give it a shot, it's free on steam!

soul's remnant has a wiki, so i will be using it as much as possible throughout this.

this game has dyeable items, mostly cosmetics, like wolf ears, or other types of hats, but it's not exclusive to hats. to dye items different colors, you need to have the color of dye you want.

how do you get dye? well, there's four ways...

the first, and easiest, but most expensive way: you purchase Custom Dye from the cash shop. it's only something like 100 of the premium currency, which is about 1 dollar USD. it's not a terrible price, considering you get to pick the exact hex code you want.

the second easiest, second expensive-est way is to buy them from the auction house. if someone has the color you want, just buy it for the flat (ingame currency) price and it's yours. these colors vary a lot and certain colors go for a lot of ingame cash. i'll cover what 'certain colors' i mean in a bit.

the third and fourth ways of obtaining dye is by destroying the local Pin Pin population. Pin Pin are the only enemy type that drop random Dyes, and also, they are the only enemy type that drops the Dying Sands item, which is used to create dyes through crafting.

to create a dye with crafting, you need 3 Dying Sands and then 30 of either Red, Blue, or Green herbs, all located in the same place as Pin Pins while using the Herbalism life skill. the type of herb you use is relative to the color you are skewing towards; red herbs give you redder dyes, blue herbs give you bluer dyes, et cetera. disassembling a premade dye does not, however, give you random herbs back, instead offering blue dye regardless of whatever color it is.

there are a few reasons i find dye crafting to be rewarding. firstly, when i grind up Pin Pins for their sand, they also drop dyes - this means i am technically getting more dye per grind session, even if i am not in direct control of what color variety i am getting. second, i can use a bunch of item drop buffs to try and get even more of the two dye-related items. third, i can sell "good colors" for a lot of money on the auction house to other people.

what makes a 'good dye', though? well, imagine trying to roll the perfect pink. you'd really want that pink, right? pink is popular. so that dye can sell for more. desaturated dyes are nice, too, but only the ones that are almost the same as a straight gray/black/white actually manage to sell for a lot. the more saturated colors are really popular in general, unless they're some kind of green. people don't like green and yellow nearly as much. (more for me...)

so, a brief list of what colors i consider to be popular on the auction house...

• saturated colors
• pink, red, orange, bright yellow, sometimes blue
• grayscales and off-white/gray/black hues
• colors that get close to the color values of any of the hair colors you can get (bonus points for cash shop ones)

colors that tend to clutter the lower end of listings:

• greens of all types, but especially pea greens and yellow-greens (i buy the yellow greens tho)
• dull colors that aren't close to grayscales
• pale purples, for some reason?

it's very vibes-based, but saturated pinks and oranges are always popular.

and that begs the question: how the fuck do you price these? and, like i said, it's vibes-based.

the ugliest colors tend to go for around 500-3,000 SC (the currency, soul crystals). this is basically pocket change. the lowest i've seen it is 100. but, let's be honest: 1000 is basically 100, like how 8 bucks is actually 5 bucks. it's like, once you hit a certain increment, any number in a certain range will be considered that specific increment. it's weird, okay??

so, lower-end bargain bin colors are 1000 or so on average, more or less. these are colors you could sell straight to the shopkeepers for way less, but maybe someone wants this shitty green? lmao. don't stress out about these colors if you think you've rolled one that sucks, you can sell to shopkeepers to make space in your storage, it's okay, i'm giving you permission, OK?

the next tier starts around 10-40k. these are colors that aren't straight-out garbage (ie, 'some kind of bleen'), but are more niche or specialized, like some purples, or saturated colors that aren't pink. you may even get some greens up here, actually, if it's saturated enough.

once you enter 50k-100k territory, you start seeing the pinks and purples. sometimes people put greens in here, i don't know why, i really don't think they sell at this tier.

then when you get towards 150k, you will see oranges appear. orange goes good with a lot of things. it's a popular color. it's close to pink. it's also often 'close enough' to one of the shop hair colors that people will want it. there's also a lot of deep saturated blues in this tier.

after around 200k, there's a huge stretch of... randomness. mostly very saturated colors, especially neon pinks or blues, or off-grays that are just a little too saturated to sell for more.

the line between that tier and what i consider 'final' tier is extremely fuzzy. you'll know it when you stop seeing any colors besides dark oranges, off-whites, and off-blacks. dyes that are particularly close to a grayscale tone (usually with values lik BFBDBF, where you're just a few off) tend to go upwards of 1 million SC. do people buy them? yeah! sometimes.

so yeah, there's some variables, and a lot of shrugging and going 'why not?', both from a buying and selling perspective. with some millions of color possibilities, finding the exact color you want without shelling out $1 USD for a custom dye is a bit like rolling the dice over and over and over and.... you get the picture.

so... if you sell a color someone wants, they will buy it at almost any price. some people have budgets, obviously, but selling to more established players (i.e. the ones with money to spare on cosmetic items) can be lucrative if they can't get the color they want otherwise, and they can and will go 'good enough' and buy something close, but not quite the same if it's passable at a glance, or if the color comparison to their target hex code is particularly good.

and yes, this is how i have been spending a lot of my recent hours in this game, LMAO. i just love to notice the trends of color popularity and connect them to potential patterns, like with the recurring pinks at top and greens at bottom.

and now you, too, can sell colors like this on soul's remnant with proper business strategies! (the strategy is to sell for at least 5000 SC unless you think it fits with the trends i listed above. take advantage of people's fashion taste!)