Time to reduce AD sinks now that invocation and salvage have been nerfed

feanor70118

AD costs for crafting reinforcement kits and purple items, the cost and/or number of cubes of augmentation to unlock artifact powers and roll stats, AD for crafting hoard/blessing enchantments and so on should all be reduced now that AD is harder to come by. Also, as others have said, there should be no AD cost for switching artifact powers on weapons, since different ones are useful for pvp and pve.

All these sinks were based on an economy with much more AD in it, and some of them were based on an economy that still contained AD from leadership.

nameexpired

Though I totally agree with you I think while the ZAX is above 350AD/Z the AD sinks will not get changed by PWE anytime soon.
I guess that they wont even change it if the request for ADs would be higher than the ZEN in game. IAm thinking of a backlog of 10000 Z offered for 100AD/Z but no one wants to sell his AD
I guess even in that case at least 6 months would have to pass before they remove AD sinks.
Did you know they increased the ZAX to 1000AD/Z on the Russian server? Too much AD, too little Z bought with real $.

sm0ld3r

Well they did promise to review the AD sinks as part of all the AD nerfs. It makes no sense for something like a reinforcement kit that adds +200 to cost over 150K to make.

nameexpired

sm0ld3r said:

Well they did promise to review the AD sinks as part of all the AD nerfs.

I guess you don't into contact with marketing and advertisement much, do you?
It's like "having a chance to win". I would not hold my breath until anything changes.
It's their job to entice you to spend time (=AD) in the game to sooner or later spend $ to get AD (=time).

The only reason to lessen the AD burden on us would be a lack of AD in the system, which would make Zen less valueable.
PWE can counter that with 2xAD days.
"they promised to look at" ... really? Are you falling for that?

feanor70118

nameexpired said:

I guess you don't into contact with marketing and advertisement much, do you?
It's like "having a chance to win". I would not hold my breath until anything changes.
It's their job to entice you to spend time (=AD) in the game to sooner or later spend $ to get AD (=time).

The only reason to lessen the AD burden on us would be a lack of AD in the system, which would make Zen less valueable.
PWE can counter that with 2xAD days.
"they promised to look at" ... really? Are you falling for that?

Your dev bashing is boring and nonproductive.

sm0ld3r

nameexpired said:

sm0ld3r said:

Well they did promise to review the AD sinks as part of all the AD nerfs.

I guess you don't into contact with marketing and advertisement much, do you?
It's like "having a chance to win". I would not hold my breath until anything changes.
It's their job to entice you to spend time (=AD) in the game to sooner or later spend $ to get AD (=time).

The only reason to lessen the AD burden on us would be a lack of AD in the system, which would make Zen less valueable.
PWE can counter that with 2xAD days.
"they promised to look at" ... really? Are you falling for that?

I'm not falling for anything. All the AD nerfs were pure greed, not fighting bots.

But, their official word was it was to fight bots and that they would re-evaluate the AD costs after the nerfs were done.

So, forget marketing this or that. Either they will "fix" the current AD sinks or they are liars.

nameexpired

sm0ld3r said:

So, forget marketing this or that. Either they will "fix" the current AD sinks or they are liars.

at the moment it looks like AD sinks ain't working, else we would not be at 500 AD/Z.
This might change in a month or two, though.

And I am not sure that your opinion on "fixing the sinks" has the same target that a profit making company considers "fixing".
Like fixing the coal ward problems, making keys bound to battle bots, etc etc.

sm0ld3r

nameexpired said:

sm0ld3r said:

So, forget marketing this or that. Either they will "fix" the current AD sinks or they are liars.

at the moment it looks like AD sinks ain't working, else we would not be at 500 AD/Z.
This might change in a month or two, though.

And I am not sure that your opinion on "fixing the sinks" has the same target that a profit making company considers "fixing".
Like fixing the coal ward problems, making keys bound to battle bots, etc etc.

True, but it's a more complex problem than that. Squeezing blood from a stone may seem like a solution to them, but a more intelligent long term solution would be to increase the player base and get less income per player but more income overall. Putting the squeeze on the remaining players is only further reducing the ranks creating a downward spiral of needing to squeeze more and more out of the ever shrinking player population.

There are also 2 sides to the AD/Z issue. Is it too much AD or too little Zen? I'd argue that perhaps there are far fewer people buying zen and thus unless they wiped out huge amounts of AD in the game it will never drop to Mod2 levels again...... or they somehow manage to entice 10K new players to start playing the game. Squeezing the new little guy out of his meager daily earnings is not going to help this much at all.

greywynd

My main has 4 Archons in his active companion slots; 2 green, 1 blue, and 1 epic. I would like to improve them. Not long ago it was 3 green and 1 blue. It was far cheaper to buy an epic to replace a green than it was to improve a green to blue.

wylonus

yeah, it is silly for archons in all 3 tiers when we get them. if they have enough ADs, they buy epic versions instead of spending the upgrades. it seem devs are so blind or got greedy.

diogene0

Given the state of the zen/ad exchange, what we need is more sinks.

sm0ld3r

diogene0 said:

Given the state of the zen/ad exchange, what we need is more sinks.

Please elaborate on why you are 100% sure the problem is people are earning too much AD and not too few people buying Zen and willing to exchange it for AD?

AD sinks will not take away the AD that the previous exploiters got and still have. It will not bring more players to the game (and hence more Zen).

feanor70118

diogene0 said:

Given the state of the zen/ad exchange, what we need is more sinks.

Well, if I get an in with the devs I'll try to have them change your account so it costs 2 million AD to upgrade a companion from epic to legendary, and not only restore the AD sinks in the Dread Ring, Sharandar and other campaigns but double them just for you.

diogene0

sm0ld3r said:

diogene0 said:

Given the state of the zen/ad exchange, what we need is more sinks.

Please elaborate on why you are 100% sure the problem is people are earning too much AD and not too few people buying Zen and willing to exchange it for AD?

AD sinks will not take away the AD that the previous exploiters got and still have. It will not bring more players to the game (and hence more Zen).

It is because AD isn't desirable enough for people who pay for the game. Which means that something valuable they want for AD should be added. Or, in other words, more or bigger AD sinks.

feanor70118

diogene0 said:

sm0ld3r said:

diogene0 said:

Given the state of the zen/ad exchange, what we need is more sinks.

Please elaborate on why you are 100% sure the problem is people are earning too much AD and not too few people buying Zen and willing to exchange it for AD?

AD sinks will not take away the AD that the previous exploiters got and still have. It will not bring more players to the game (and hence more Zen).

It is because AD isn't desirable enough for people who pay for the game. Which means that something valuable they want for AD should be added. Or, in other words, more or bigger AD sinks.

You obviously don't know what an AD sink is. An AD sink is a price placed on something necessary, such as a duneon key, campaign boon, artifact weapon power or companion upgrade, or so usual as to be ordinary, such as a transmute or change of artifact weapon powers.

You fail at basic economics. Less money in the economy means things should be made to cost lest. Companion upgrade costs are the $600 epi-pen of Neverwinter.

diogene0

feanor70118 said:

diogene0 said:

sm0ld3r said:

diogene0 said:

Given the state of the zen/ad exchange, what we need is more sinks.

Please elaborate on why you are 100% sure the problem is people are earning too much AD and not too few people buying Zen and willing to exchange it for AD?

AD sinks will not take away the AD that the previous exploiters got and still have. It will not bring more players to the game (and hence more Zen).

It is because AD isn't desirable enough for people who pay for the game. Which means that something valuable they want for AD should be added. Or, in other words, more or bigger AD sinks.

You obviously don't know what an AD sink. An AD sink is a price placed on something necessary, such as a duneon key, campaign boon, artifact weapon power or companion upgrade, or so usual as to be ordinary, such as a transmute or change of artifact weapon powers.

You fail at basic economics. Less money in the economy means things should be made to cost lest. Companion upgrade costs are the $600 epi-pen of Neverwinter.

Instead of using ad hominem, you should read carefully. I'm not going to make walls of text because of your poor reading comprehension. Having best in slot gear unlocked somehow then sold for an AD cost at a vendor would be an AD sink. That's the kind of stuff the game needs right now. That's the kind of item people want, with a newly added AD sink. The exchange needs to be fixed and it won't be done by making zen less relevant for obvious reasons, so there's only that one.

I don't even remember the last time I clicked something that isn't the AH that would mean destroyed AD while I refine 72 to 100k a day, this tells a lot about the state of the "economy".

sneak

feanor70118 said:

AD costs for crafting reinforcement kits and purple items, the cost and/or number of cubes of augmentation to unlock artifact powers and roll stats, AD for crafting hoard/blessing enchantments and so on should all be reduced now that AD is harder to come by. Also, as others have said, there should be no AD cost for switching artifact powers on weapons, since different ones are useful for pvp and pve.

All these sinks were based on an economy with much more AD in it, and some of them were based on an economy that still contained AD from leadership.

No.. it's easier to come by..

it's harder to come by if you were an invoke botter with 50+ characters per account. Go do some actual gameplay/work and earn your AD.

sm0ld3r

diogene0 said:

feanor70118 said:

diogene0 said:

sm0ld3r said:

diogene0 said:

Given the state of the zen/ad exchange, what we need is more sinks.

Please elaborate on why you are 100% sure the problem is people are earning too much AD and not too few people buying Zen and willing to exchange it for AD?

AD sinks will not take away the AD that the previous exploiters got and still have. It will not bring more players to the game (and hence more Zen).

It is because AD isn't desirable enough for people who pay for the game. Which means that something valuable they want for AD should be added. Or, in other words, more or bigger AD sinks.

You obviously don't know what an AD sink. An AD sink is a price placed on something necessary, such as a duneon key, campaign boon, artifact weapon power or companion upgrade, or so usual as to be ordinary, such as a transmute or change of artifact weapon powers.

You fail at basic economics. Less money in the economy means things should be made to cost lest. Companion upgrade costs are the $600 epi-pen of Neverwinter.

Instead of using ad hominem, you should read carefully. I'm not going to make walls of text because of your poor reading comprehension. Having best in slot gear unlocked somehow then sold for an AD cost at a vendor would be an AD sink. That's the kind of stuff the game needs right now. That's the kind of item people want, with a newly added AD sink. The exchange needs to be fixed and it won't be done by making zen less relevant for obvious reasons, so there's only that one.

I don't even remember the last time I clicked something that isn't the AH that would mean destroyed AD while I refine 72 to 100k a day, this tells a lot about the state of the "economy".

First of all without access to behind the scenes data your making some very big assumptions as to the problem.

Consider the following scenario. There are 5000 players each with 10AD. There is only 1 person with Zen.

What do you think the AD/Zen rate will be? Do you think "more" AD sinks would alleviate the issue in this scenario?

The actual scenario is probably not that far off from this. At this point in time there are just more players than those buying Zen for $ to sell on the exchange so it's a sellers market for Zen. Only time you will see it drop much is if they have a sale on Zen.

sm0ld3r

double post

feanor70118

sneak#6191 said:

feanor70118 said:

AD costs for crafting reinforcement kits and purple items, the cost and/or number of cubes of augmentation to unlock artifact powers and roll stats, AD for crafting hoard/blessing enchantments and so on should all be reduced now that AD is harder to come by. Also, as others have said, there should be no AD cost for switching artifact powers on weapons, since different ones are useful for pvp and pve.

All these sinks were based on an economy with much more AD in it, and some of them were based on an economy that still contained AD from leadership.

No.. it's easier to come by..

it's harder to come by if you were an invoke botter with 50+ characters per account. Go do some actual gameplay/work and earn your AD.

Reducing salvage AD (you know, the kind you get for gameplay) means it's easier to come by? Nice try.

feanor70118

diogene0 said:

feanor70118 said:

diogene0 said:

sm0ld3r said:

diogene0 said:

Given the state of the zen/ad exchange, what we need is more sinks.

Please elaborate on why you are 100% sure the problem is people are earning too much AD and not too few people buying Zen and willing to exchange it for AD?

AD sinks will not take away the AD that the previous exploiters got and still have. It will not bring more players to the game (and hence more Zen).

It is because AD isn't desirable enough for people who pay for the game. Which means that something valuable they want for AD should be added. Or, in other words, more or bigger AD sinks.

You obviously don't know what an AD sink. An AD sink is a price placed on something necessary, such as a duneon key, campaign boon, artifact weapon power or companion upgrade, or so usual as to be ordinary, such as a transmute or change of artifact weapon powers.

You fail at basic economics. Less money in the economy means things should be made to cost lest. Companion upgrade costs are the $600 epi-pen of Neverwinter.

Instead of using ad hominem, you should read carefully. I'm not going to make walls of text because of your poor reading comprehension. Having best in slot gear unlocked somehow then sold for an AD cost at a vendor would be an AD sink. That's the kind of stuff the game needs right now. That's the kind of item people want, with a newly added AD sink. The exchange needs to be fixed and it won't be done by making zen less relevant for obvious reasons, so there's only that one.

I don't even remember the last time I clicked something that isn't the AH that would mean destroyed AD while I refine 72 to 100k a day, this tells a lot about the state of the "economy".

Ok, you also don't know what an ad hominem attack is. You'd probably benefit from looking up the definitions of your terms before using them.

But because I'm actually not engaging in that sort of thing, I'll save you some time: an ad hominem attack is one directed at a person rather than at their position. For instance, accusing someone of having poor reading comprehension is an ad hominem attack (more so in a context in which one provides no logical support for the idea that the other has poor reading comprehension). Pointing out that another is using words or phrases based on a mistaken idea of their meaning is not.

It seems like English is not your first language though, so I'm not going to try to address the arguments you made in response, since it is only possible to guess at your meaning past a certain point.

kingramze

The original poster's request has merit -- many of the sinks were put in place when there was a glut of AD in the economy. There may yet still be some AD hoarders out there, but many longtime players I've spoken with have stated that while they have their AH tricks to make AD, it's become much more difficult for them to earn and hoard AD.

As for the AD/Zen market, it's very much like any currency exchange market (except for the cap). Zen is more valuable than AD. If the rate is 500 to 1, then Zen is at least 500 times more valuable than AD. Why? Easy... CWards can only be purchased with Zen, VIP can only be purchased with Zen, account-wide mounts can only be purchased with Zen... etc, etc... and many things like RP can be purchased with Zen. Why would someone with Zen want to trade their Zen for your AD? AD sinks are one reason, but we got rid of the sinks to unlock boons and campaign progression. Many remaining sinks are crazy high... like companion upgrades. To stabilize the Zen/AD exchange, you need paying customers trading regularly with non-paying customers... so, you need lots of AD sinks that non-paying customers can unlock with their time earning AD and paying customers can trade Zen for AD to unlock to progress.

I don't see that happening. All I see is CWards setting the economy and with CWards no longer in the TBar store, Zen is king as the only way to get them.

sneak

feanor70118 said:

sneak#6191 said:

feanor70118 said:

AD costs for crafting reinforcement kits and purple items, the cost and/or number of cubes of augmentation to unlock artifact powers and roll stats, AD for crafting hoard/blessing enchantments and so on should all be reduced now that AD is harder to come by. Also, as others have said, there should be no AD cost for switching artifact powers on weapons, since different ones are useful for pvp and pve.

All these sinks were based on an economy with much more AD in it, and some of them were based on an economy that still contained AD from leadership.

No.. it's easier to come by..

it's harder to come by if you were an invoke botter with 50+ characters per account. Go do some actual gameplay/work and earn your AD.

Reducing salvage AD (you know, the kind you get for gameplay) means it's easier to come by? Nice try.

You said the "AD is harder to come by" now. Not my problem if you don't explain your position...

feanor70118

sneak#6191 said:

feanor70118 said:

sneak#6191 said:

feanor70118 said:

AD costs for crafting reinforcement kits and purple items, the cost and/or number of cubes of augmentation to unlock artifact powers and roll stats, AD for crafting hoard/blessing enchantments and so on should all be reduced now that AD is harder to come by. Also, as others have said, there should be no AD cost for switching artifact powers on weapons, since different ones are useful for pvp and pve.

All these sinks were based on an economy with much more AD in it, and some of them were based on an economy that still contained AD from leadership.

No.. it's easier to come by..

it's harder to come by if you were an invoke botter with 50+ characters per account. Go do some actual gameplay/work and earn your AD.

Reducing salvage AD (you know, the kind you get for gameplay) means it's easier to come by? Nice try.

You said the "AD is harder to come by" now. Not my problem if you don't explain your position...

So every time someone doesn't state the obvious, you urge the contradictory position even when it's plainly wrong? Don't you have anything to do?

ghoulz66

How cute. I can't upgrade companions again because I have to buy preservation wards and GMoP now....

The 99 wards is a way better investment than upgrading a blue companion.......

btbsaul40

agree with OP, cubes of augmentation being maybe the most glaring instance. the whole thing is a nightmare, frankly. there's no endgame to speak of, so you roll an alt, but your alt sucks forever because you probably don't have a dozen coals and 2 million AD lying around. i can't imagine being a new player, and an MMO that punishes new players to this extent is committing suicide.