There was enough time between everything ( Watching youtube while posting ) that spam algorithm should ( not completely denying the possibility ) not have registered.
Your double post was revived from the spam queue and is now sitting in the lower depths as a double post.
Let's try this another way using mechanics in the game with a few tweaks. Devs make a Bot ( this may be ironic ) that automatically sells 1 of different highly sought after items on the AH for varying prices each day. Name of bot changes every day so that it looks like players and therefore can't be identified. Varying prices are about an average of 'best 5 prices' currently available.
Highly sought items being things like the Glorious Legend pack. The Legendary reward for current lockbox. Legendary refinements ( teal diamond, etc. ). Primary artifact set. Secondary artifact set. Coal wards. You guys get the idea. At end of day, AUTOMATICALLY, bot character deletes AD received from players from the system. AD taken right out of the economy. ANy not sold, oh well. Recalculate next day's 'best 5 prices', etc.
Let's use examples for better illustration. I am ps4 player so I don't have PC figures.
Glorious leg. seen it for 6-7 mill.
Primary weapon set ive seen around 250k.
secondary weapon set ive seen around 250k.
Current legendary reward from current lockbox. Say around 2 mill to be generous.
Coal ward. Ive seen this floating from 400k to around 468k due to ZAX.
forge hammer of gond green. Seen around 6 mill minimum.
Beholder tank. been some time since I checked so I'll ay around 3 mill.
It is safe to say that glorious leg is gonna sell cause EVERYONE wants it. Coal wards are gonna sell cause EVERYONE needs it.
Just by those two versus the 20 million 'backlog'. 3-4 backlog gets caught up. And start going into 'surplus.'
Anyone finds out about the identity of the bot and attempts to 'farm it by flip it' will have to account for bot price plus 10 AH cut. Not so much the weapon sets, but Glorious leg set. That is gonna be atleast a half of million AD cut. This also has to compare against other prices that other players set that are likely gonna be within the '10%.'
AD disappears from game. Players have 'slightly' more availability on ideal gearing goods that are 'always needed.' Of course Cryptic can't put it into the game now cause then it would be an admission that players sometimes know better.
-edit- Interestingly, while editting this on a previous posting. The post got deleted. This is an admission by the powers that be that I have a solution that would actually work.
I am not sure how long you have played, but a few years ago on PC, they tried something kinda like this, but I don't believe it had the desired effect. They sold 5 copies of a companion that, at the time, was unavailable anywhere else in the game. They used a dev account Rhix@Rhix, to sell 5 Sergeant Knox companions. Many players predicted that these companions would sell for AD cap. I think maybe the devs were hoping for that as well. Unfortunately, that is not what happened. The 5 sold for: 12,360,000, 12,672,431, 12,927,271, 15,000,276, 30,000,000. So they only removed 82,959,978 AD out of the economy. Perhaps if they had these sales more often, it would help, but the main problem would be figuring out what kind of exclusive items to sell.
My opinions are my own. I do not work for PWE or Cryptic. - Forum Rules - Protector's Enclave Discord - I play on Xbox Any of my comments not posted in orange are based on my own personal opinion and not official. Any messages written in orange are official moderation messages. Signature images are now fixed!
There was enough time between everything ( Watching youtube while posting ) that spam algorithm should ( not completely denying the possibility ) not have registered.
Your double post was revived from the spam queue and is now sitting in the lower depths as a double post.
Let's try this another way using mechanics in the game with a few tweaks. Devs make a Bot ( this may be ironic ) that automatically sells 1 of different highly sought after items on the AH for varying prices each day. Name of bot changes every day so that it looks like players and therefore can't be identified. Varying prices are about an average of 'best 5 prices' currently available.
Highly sought items being things like the Glorious Legend pack. The Legendary reward for current lockbox. Legendary refinements ( teal diamond, etc. ). Primary artifact set. Secondary artifact set. Coal wards. You guys get the idea. At end of day, AUTOMATICALLY, bot character deletes AD received from players from the system. AD taken right out of the economy. ANy not sold, oh well. Recalculate next day's 'best 5 prices', etc.
Let's use examples for better illustration. I am ps4 player so I don't have PC figures.
Glorious leg. seen it for 6-7 mill.
Primary weapon set ive seen around 250k.
secondary weapon set ive seen around 250k.
Current legendary reward from current lockbox. Say around 2 mill to be generous.
Coal ward. Ive seen this floating from 400k to around 468k due to ZAX.
forge hammer of gond green. Seen around 6 mill minimum.
Beholder tank. been some time since I checked so I'll ay around 3 mill.
It is safe to say that glorious leg is gonna sell cause EVERYONE wants it. Coal wards are gonna sell cause EVERYONE needs it.
Just by those two versus the 20 million 'backlog'. 3-4 backlog gets caught up. And start going into 'surplus.'
Anyone finds out about the identity of the bot and attempts to 'farm it by flip it' will have to account for bot price plus 10 AH cut. Not so much the weapon sets, but Glorious leg set. That is gonna be atleast a half of million AD cut. This also has to compare against other prices that other players set that are likely gonna be within the '10%.'
AD disappears from game. Players have 'slightly' more availability on ideal gearing goods that are 'always needed.' Of course Cryptic can't put it into the game now cause then it would be an admission that players sometimes know better.
-edit- Interestingly, while editting this on a previous posting. The post got deleted. This is an admission by the powers that be that I have a solution that would actually work.
I am not sure how long you have played, but a few years ago on PC, they tried something kinda like this, but I don't believe it had the desired effect. They sold 5 copies of a companion that, at the time, was unavailable anywhere else in the game. They used a dev account Rhix@Rhix, to sell 5 Sergeant Knox companions. Many players predicted that these companions would sell for AD cap. I think maybe the devs were hoping for that as well. Unfortunately, that is not what happened. The 5 sold for: 12,360,000, 12,672,431, 12,927,271, 15,000,276, 30,000,000. So they only removed 82,959,978 AD out of the economy. Perhaps if they had these sales more often, it would help, but the main problem would be figuring out what kind of exclusive items to sell.
Orange profession tools...I´ve never seen any on the ah other than the ones for alchemy and rarely jewels. Its rather safe to assume the others are bought instantly when posted.
There was enough time between everything ( Watching youtube while posting ) that spam algorithm should ( not completely denying the possibility ) not have registered.
Your double post was revived from the spam queue and is now sitting in the lower depths as a double post.
Let's try this another way using mechanics in the game with a few tweaks. Devs make a Bot ( this may be ironic ) that automatically sells 1 of different highly sought after items on the AH for varying prices each day. Name of bot changes every day so that it looks like players and therefore can't be identified. Varying prices are about an average of 'best 5 prices' currently available.
Highly sought items being things like the Glorious Legend pack. The Legendary reward for current lockbox. Legendary refinements ( teal diamond, etc. ). Primary artifact set. Secondary artifact set. Coal wards. You guys get the idea. At end of day, AUTOMATICALLY, bot character deletes AD received from players from the system. AD taken right out of the economy. ANy not sold, oh well. Recalculate next day's 'best 5 prices', etc.
Let's use examples for better illustration. I am ps4 player so I don't have PC figures.
Glorious leg. seen it for 6-7 mill.
Primary weapon set ive seen around 250k.
secondary weapon set ive seen around 250k.
Current legendary reward from current lockbox. Say around 2 mill to be generous.
Coal ward. Ive seen this floating from 400k to around 468k due to ZAX.
forge hammer of gond green. Seen around 6 mill minimum.
Beholder tank. been some time since I checked so I'll ay around 3 mill.
It is safe to say that glorious leg is gonna sell cause EVERYONE wants it. Coal wards are gonna sell cause EVERYONE needs it.
Just by those two versus the 20 million 'backlog'. 3-4 backlog gets caught up. And start going into 'surplus.'
Anyone finds out about the identity of the bot and attempts to 'farm it by flip it' will have to account for bot price plus 10 AH cut. Not so much the weapon sets, but Glorious leg set. That is gonna be atleast a half of million AD cut. This also has to compare against other prices that other players set that are likely gonna be within the '10%.'
AD disappears from game. Players have 'slightly' more availability on ideal gearing goods that are 'always needed.' Of course Cryptic can't put it into the game now cause then it would be an admission that players sometimes know better.
-edit- Interestingly, while editting this on a previous posting. The post got deleted. This is an admission by the powers that be that I have a solution that would actually work.
I am not sure how long you have played, but a few years ago on PC, they tried something kinda like this, but I don't believe it had the desired effect. They sold 5 copies of a companion that, at the time, was unavailable anywhere else in the game. They used a dev account Rhix@Rhix, to sell 5 Sergeant Knox companions. Many players predicted that these companions would sell for AD cap. I think maybe the devs were hoping for that as well. Unfortunately, that is not what happened. The 5 sold for: 12,360,000, 12,672,431, 12,927,271, 15,000,276, 30,000,000. So they only removed 82,959,978 AD out of the economy. Perhaps if they had these sales more often, it would help, but the main problem would be figuring out what kind of exclusive items to sell.
Sadly I wasn't there when they did this but I heard about it a lot. I think this idea to remove AD from the game is pretty interesting, and while they only removed 83M AD from the economy, it's still a lot on a one-time sale.
There's PLENTY of exclusive stuff to aim for. I'm not sure that selling highly wanted items like Glorious Legendary packs, or Coals Wards would be efficient, because people would just undercut them, so they could sell absolute exclusive.
There's already plenty of exclusive giveaway mounts that you just can't find in-game: Aberrant/Fey/Firesoul Gorgon, Golden/Teal-dusted Axebeak, Ash/Soot/Sienna Lions, Golden/Sapphire/Carmine bulettes, Stormraider Horse, or the unique Rainbow Starry Panther. They also can put mounts from the old charge promotions that are unavailable now, the limited editions ones like Lords' Armored Polar Bear, Ice Panther, Gilded White Steed and others.
But they also could sell some special transmutes, fashion, titles, dyes... There's a lot of room for them on this idea.
Of course, this won't help destroying dozens of billions of AD, but can be an interesting AD sink. I for one would spend millions on exclusive mounts I don't own already.
Sadly I wasn't there when they did this but I heard about it a lot. I think this idea to remove AD from the game is pretty interesting, and while they only removed 83M AD from the economy, it's still a lot on a one-time sale.
There's PLENTY of exclusive stuff to aim for. I'm not sure that selling highly wanted items like Glorious Legendary packs, or Coals Wards would be efficient, because people would just undercut them, so they could sell absolute exclusive.
There's already plenty of exclusive giveaway mounts that you just can't find in-game: Aberrant/Fey/Firesoul Gorgon, Golden/Teal-dusted Axebeak, Ash/Soot/Sienna Lions, Golden/Sapphire/Carmine bulettes, Stormraider Horse, or the unique Rainbow Starry Panther. They also can put mounts from the old charge promotions that are unavailable now, the limited editions ones like Lords' Armored Polar Bear, Ice Panther, Gilded White Steed and others.
But they also could sell some special transmutes, fashion, titles, dyes... There's a lot of room for them on this idea.
Of course, this won't help destroying dozens of billions of AD, but can be an interesting AD sink. I for one would spend millions on exclusive mounts I don't own already.
Following on from @animewatcha#6533, these are all interesting ways they could remove AD from the economy.
The exclusive promo that @kreatyve mentioned I do remember. But I also remember I was a very new player then, so it didn't really affect me at all. It might be a useful, and relatively harmless, way to capture a large portion of AD from long term veterans with nothing else to spend on.
There was enough time between everything ( Watching youtube while posting ) that spam algorithm should ( not completely denying the possibility ) not have registered.
Your double post was revived from the spam queue and is now sitting in the lower depths as a double post.
Let's try this another way using mechanics in the game with a few tweaks. Devs make a Bot ( this may be ironic ) that automatically sells 1 of different highly sought after items on the AH for varying prices each day. Name of bot changes every day so that it looks like players and therefore can't be identified. Varying prices are about an average of 'best 5 prices' currently available.
Highly sought items being things like the Glorious Legend pack. The Legendary reward for current lockbox. Legendary refinements ( teal diamond, etc. ). Primary artifact set. Secondary artifact set. Coal wards. You guys get the idea. At end of day, AUTOMATICALLY, bot character deletes AD received from players from the system. AD taken right out of the economy. ANy not sold, oh well. Recalculate next day's 'best 5 prices', etc.
Let's use examples for better illustration. I am ps4 player so I don't have PC figures.
Glorious leg. seen it for 6-7 mill.
Primary weapon set ive seen around 250k.
secondary weapon set ive seen around 250k.
Current legendary reward from current lockbox. Say around 2 mill to be generous.
Coal ward. Ive seen this floating from 400k to around 468k due to ZAX.
forge hammer of gond green. Seen around 6 mill minimum.
Beholder tank. been some time since I checked so I'll ay around 3 mill.
It is safe to say that glorious leg is gonna sell cause EVERYONE wants it. Coal wards are gonna sell cause EVERYONE needs it.
Just by those two versus the 20 million 'backlog'. 3-4 backlog gets caught up. And start going into 'surplus.'
Anyone finds out about the identity of the bot and attempts to 'farm it by flip it' will have to account for bot price plus 10 AH cut. Not so much the weapon sets, but Glorious leg set. That is gonna be atleast a half of million AD cut. This also has to compare against other prices that other players set that are likely gonna be within the '10%.'
AD disappears from game. Players have 'slightly' more availability on ideal gearing goods that are 'always needed.' Of course Cryptic can't put it into the game now cause then it would be an admission that players sometimes know better.
-edit- Interestingly, while editting this on a previous posting. The post got deleted. This is an admission by the powers that be that I have a solution that would actually work.
I am not sure how long you have played, but a few years ago on PC, they tried something kinda like this, but I don't believe it had the desired effect. They sold 5 copies of a companion that, at the time, was unavailable anywhere else in the game. They used a dev account Rhix@Rhix, to sell 5 Sergeant Knox companions. Many players predicted that these companions would sell for AD cap. I think maybe the devs were hoping for that as well. Unfortunately, that is not what happened. The 5 sold for: 12,360,000, 12,672,431, 12,927,271, 15,000,276, 30,000,000. So they only removed 82,959,978 AD out of the economy. Perhaps if they had these sales more often, it would help, but the main problem would be figuring out what kind of exclusive items to sell.
Sadly I wasn't there when they did this but I heard about it a lot. I think this idea to remove AD from the game is pretty interesting, and while they only removed 83M AD from the economy, it's still a lot on a one-time sale.
There's PLENTY of exclusive stuff to aim for. I'm not sure that selling highly wanted items like Glorious Legendary packs, or Coals Wards would be efficient, because people would just undercut them, so they could sell absolute exclusive.
There's already plenty of exclusive giveaway mounts that you just can't find in-game: Aberrant/Fey/Firesoul Gorgon, Golden/Teal-dusted Axebeak, Ash/Soot/Sienna Lions, Golden/Sapphire/Carmine bulettes, Stormraider Horse, or the unique Rainbow Starry Panther. They also can put mounts from the old charge promotions that are unavailable now, the limited editions ones like Lords' Armored Polar Bear, Ice Panther, Gilded White Steed and others.
But they also could sell some special transmutes, fashion, titles, dyes... There's a lot of room for them on this idea.
Of course, this won't help destroying dozens of billions of AD, but can be an interesting AD sink. I for one would spend millions on exclusive mounts I don't own already.
Edit: The in-quote quote is not that visible so my post comes from @animewatcha#6533 I just put my own thoughts on it.
The problem isn't that the Neverwinter economy is growing by 850M AD/day. As I pointed out earlier, that only amounts to ~55AD/player per day. The problem is that a really sizable portion of that economic growth is concentrated in a relatively small sector of the player base. The accumulation of AD in and of itself isn't a bad thing; the problem with it is that it tends to change player purchasing behavior. I know because it has changed my purchasing behavior.
I have played the game for several years, and ever since VIP was introduced, I've made sure to buy a year's worth of VIP every year with cash purchased Zen. I figured that the cost of a year's worth of VIP during the semi annual sales was the equivalent to the price of a video game that I would purchase either online or in a store. I was happy to pay "the price of admission" so to speak because I understand that without regular cash infusions from the player base this game will fold. While AD will buy you just about anything in Neverwinter, it won't buy you a single thing in the real world.
This is important to understand because if people are only purchasing Zen with AD via the Zax, then they aren't purchasing Zen with cash.
And that is the boat I (and perhaps many others) now find myself in, much to the detriment of the game in general.
I have 23 total character slots. I use some of them as mules as the storage space they provide is cheaper than purchasing more bank space or new bags; most, however, I use to test out new ideas for builds and so that I can better understand game mechanics by playing different classes and playstyles.
I don't play a bunch of alts through a bunch of RQs because I think it is mind numbingly boring. In my mind, it turns a game into a job, but that is just my preference. The reality is that I mostly just play one toon at a time over an extended period of time. The proposed rAD refinement caps and RQ changes won't affect me one bit personally. Some people, however, really enjoy racking up as much rAD as they humanly can in a day, and I say, "More power to them." If it makes them happy, go for it.
I don't Mastercraft so I don't make any AD from that. In fact, I only have one toon that has all the professions up to level 25, and that toon has unlocked, but hasn't completed Masterwork 1. My next highest profession level on any of my other alts is level 18 leadership on a toon that I am playing now.
Because I enjoy testing out different builds and playstyles, I tend to like trying out different enchants (on live and not necessarily on preview) but that can be rather expensive if I'm not careful. Because of that, I've become pretty good at playing the AH. Playing market fluctuations, it is much easier, and *much* less time consuming to generate AD than by grinding rAD in low level dungeons. If you have enough AD, it is pretty easy to make several hundred thousand to a million or more AD per day, depending on how many bargains you can spot and afford. In fact, if I can't make at least 250K AD on a purchase, it really isn't worth my time as lower margins open the door to higher risk (and there are times where I've lost hundreds of thousands of AD on a sale).
This is a problem because after a while, I have more AD than I really care to spend, so what am I to do? I convert that AD to Zen. This is a problem for a twofold reason: 1) If I am purchasing Zen with AD rather than cash, then there is no influx of *my* real world cash into the game ecosystem, and since Cryptic is a real world business, that doesn't help them out one bit, and 2) After a while, I have more Zen than there are things that I want to purchase in the Zen market so there is no reason for me to liquidate my surplus Zen, thus creating another bottleneck to my purchasing in game items with real money.
In short, there just isn't a surplus of AD in the markets right now, there is also a surplus of Zen that needs to be absorbed before people start spending more money on the game.
Right now, I'm sitting on more than 200K of Zen and have orders for another 20K in the Zax. To put it in perspective, if you convert that Zen to it's cash equivalent, that is over $2,000 (and I assure you that is a multiple of the amount of cash I've put into the system), or based on the current 500:1 exchange rate, over 100M AD. The problem is that there really isn't anything compelling to spend it all on. I mean, my current character that I am playing is lvl 70, and has leveled enough times that all of it's powers are at Rank 4. I'm in the process of grinding out the last few campaign boons; should have SKT and River District completed by Tuesday and am currently working on Chult and Omu. The problem is that the game content isn't a challenge; I used to run with full enchants, bonds and Unparalelled Weapon and Armor enchants, but it was too easy. I am now finishing that content without even so much as breaking a sweat without any bonding enchants and the cheapest weapon and armor enchants I can find on the AH (think less than 50K AD total).
Look, I really want to spend my AD and Zen. I get it; it (my spending and other's spending) is needed to keep this game alive long term.
Give me a reason to spend my Zen so that I have to buy more. Right now, the only thing I really need is VIP, and I have enough Zen to outright purchase 33 years worth of it at the semi annual sales. This game isn't going to last that long. I'm not going to buy keys, because I think the lockboxes are a sucker's bet. If I buy Coal and Preservation Wards, all I will do is flip them for a profit, further compounding the problem.
I'm not a min/max type of player. I like to explore what toons can do and theorycraft, but most of all, I enjoy the role play aspect of the game. I mean, this is a game based on the D&D universe. I want more personal customization. Start putting cool stuff in the Zen store and people will start paying to access them. It really is that simple.
In the meantime, I'm going to continue to play the game, and I will continue to make profits until I'm given a *real* reason to spend it on stuff that I really want.
Decreasing the supply of AD in the ecosystem is only half your problem; you also need to absorb the excess Zen in the market that was purchased with AD as well. That excess "free" Zen is your real problem.
Every time you use the AH you are taking AD away from the economy, so it's not that bad.
But there just isn't enough AD sinks in the game for you. Cryptic make more AD sinks! (That we actually want to spend stuff on).
micky1p00Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,594Arc User
edited May 2018
Personally I'm adamantly against exclusive items. It perhaps removed AD, and at the time it was a much more significant number (I even remember who paid the 30mil), but in general terms of economy this is not what will solve the issue.
I think today the most important overall sinks are:
The AH 10% cut and the Marks from WB - Those are obvious and while AH is a very direct sink the Marks are a commodity but important for the ZAX stabilization.
2. Players not quitting / break (as long as they don't give away their items) - This is probably immense sink in terms of removing AD from the economy, if as pure AD or as enchants and other things that just leave circulation.
3. New artifact gear, new companions -> marks/AD to upgrade -> AD goes poof.
3b. Abandoned classes / new classes - Many changed mains, and with it all the bound stuff, so you have the same account, but upgrading artifacts etc.. is all marks (Not a sink on it's own but worth a mention).
IMO, adding ad sinks should go into 2 categories
One time buy (can be one time per char, or one time per account) - Fashion (preferably something that is not visualy crazy, a lot of the fashion is just "extreme" and no one wears that, like that feather set, or swap set..etc..) , emotes, skill visual modifiers (for example effect and color of Shard of the Endless Avalanche for CW is a great example), dodges modifier visual, run, walk animations etc... Other things that were mentioned in the context, like mount skins (looks like dev can make those left and right), & titles. All of the above shouldn't be exclusive, but as vanity objects they can have a relatively high price.
I wasn't kidding about buying SH decorations, but if I'm going to spend large sum on it, it should really be what I want, and not a shinier copy of every other chandelier. As of now, why would I pay thousands over the same chair?
The second category and the more important one is to use the natural gear change. It should have low price, as it's throw away, and player expected to buy from it multiple times. Now the main sink is via RP and Marks. Some of the potential sinks are just not utilized correctly, for example armor kits, way to expansive for 200 stats. Increase the stats and you made a repeatable sink appealing.
Ring upgrades, like I've wrote in rewards feedback, add some rare drop in new dungeon that together with either NPC trader or professions will allow upgrade current rings to higher ranks. The trade can have added cost either by direct AD or marks, and the unbound rare drop will encourage trade and with it 10% AH cut. It will also help the ZAX as it gives another wanted item for AD.
Transmutes, especially weapon transmutes, if the cost of the transmute is lower than the RP return from the weapons, people will buy those. It can also be of the expensive variety if it has a special effect, especially now that weapon enchant visual can be disabled.
The issue with transmutes is that there is no library or a way to see them or to know about them. And even if someone offers to make something like that outside of the game, there is no help, even when just asking for item names and those that have similar looks.
For exclusive items I think the direction should be totally different, not some companion that many may want but can't afford. But instead go bigger, and go really exclusive, for example:
Bid once a mod, an exclusive guild banner - Add a huge banner spots ad the main gate and hanging banners near the fountain at the entrance path and lets say for 200mil, add personalized banner to the guilds that bought it, with their name or their logo. Some guilds have very stylized logos and for 200mil or even more, I think guilds will go for it. It's also not technically complicated, add the decoration spot, and just have a dev char go there and put it in the warehouse (if there is no other way). You have the item set in only the one guild and it bound there.
Similarly unique re-skins for current mounts, within the limitations of the D&D and what not, make bids for some unique reskin that the player request. Also allow to bid for it for someone else (nothing like stylized "HAMSTER you" gift as an AD sink).
There are entire games with real $ sales of such items, and companies much larger than Cryptic that live on it. Some became a meme like Valve and hats. IMO the dev team is too focused on the daily quests and next zone, that they forgot to look at other aspect that can bring them both moneytization and in-game economy stabilization once they have the process streamlined. And the more of those they do, the cheaper for them to make them in terms of dev time - you have a system to modify in game animations, just add and sell those. You have a system to bid on exclusive mount, just do those once per X time. You have an NPC that sells emotes, just throw an emote once per month.
my concerns are affording marks of power to upgrade enchants and equipment and affording the ad to upgrade companions. these costs are pretty much set. slowing upgrades may be part of your goal idk.
this may have been mentioned, did not want to go through 18 pages of comments and back and forths
anyway, i have played over 2 years and am not even near "bis" for even one toon. i try to play all the classes cause theyre all fun. i do not farm ad a lot since i get bored easily doing the same thing over and over so it takes me a while as it is now to afford these upgrades. especially armor and weapon enchants. however i can still go way over 100k some days just running the weekly ad runs and the randoms which give ad, seals and salvage (even on just one toon sometimes).
with vip: to go from rank 7 to 14 for enchantments costs 600kad from bazaar (5gmop,3smop,3umop). so six days per enchant just for mops (assuming you can earn your enchanting stones) to get one enchant upgraded. i am already tired of moving the few level 11-13 enchants i have around to play the campaigns on another class/toon. 3,375,000 ad (30gmop,25smop,10umop) to upgrade a weapon/armor enchant or over one month just for mop (assuming you earn enchanting stones). i have like only one transcendent enchant after 2 years (not complaining, just saying)
as for companions, which i like to run with different ones cause theyre cool (despite the meta), cost 1750000 ad to upgrade from green to orange or over 2 weeks per companion.
just looking at the timing on doing any of this makes my heart sink. not that i want it overnight, but geez. focus on upgrading one item for week(s) unable to spend ad on anything else... meh (my opinion folks, no reason to comment on it, ive seen how these things can get out of hand in these threads)
I have way more rp than ad to get the stuff to afford upgrades as it is now.
and yes i have paid a good bit of real money for ad and am still debating if i should continue to do so. i understand the need for ad sink, and mops and companion upgrades are currently big ones. but i am not a fan of the timing on these with the 100k ad cap.
once the economy settles with the changes, please consider the pricing on these things or reconsider the cap
> @arakk00 said: > Working class? So HAMSTER anyone who is older on retirement, sick and can't work, younger kids who have all the free time in the world just because you "work"? Just because you play casually you expect every player to follow your lead? Selfish comment. > > > > This change will hurt the players who actually play the game for more than an hour or two a day. The players who are dedicated enough to play the game 6+ hours a day are more than likely the ones who willing to spend money on events than the casual player. > > > > I don't care how anyone plays this game but your opinion of "HAMSTER the diehard players just cater to us casual players" is incredibly selfish and will be the downfall of this game if the devs follow. > > Currently, the 'diehard' players are farming 50+ low tier dungeons a day to create a massive influx of AD for very minimal effort. Sorry, but that's not gaming. That's not dedication. That's grinding because you have nothing better to do, and you shouldn't be rewarded simply for having more free time to suck up server resources. If you want AD, play endgame content and sell on the AH. The current pattern equates to fewer players geared and capable of endgame content because it's easier and more efficient to simply grind low-end content and salvage across an army of alts. > > Moderator edited out mild flaming.
You couldn't be more wrong.
Close to no one is farming 50+ low end dungeons every day and just for fun, lets assume they are, that definitely takes some effort so your first point goes out the window.
"if you want AD, play endgame content and sell on the AH"
This shows you have no idea what you are talking about. Lets say you are talking about T9G or Cradle, you will have to buy Legendary Dragon keys daily (beside your daily free campaign key) to run these dungeons and mix that with horrible loot and horrible drop rates and you are lucky to even get enough AD to make up for the ad you spent on keys. There are PLENTY of times I only get an Emerald and seals at the chests in T9G which is the same items I can get if I ran a Cloak Tower.
Your idea of making AD by running end game content to sell on AH is the same as opening lockboxes to hope for a legendary mount. You think the only way people should make AD is by either gambling their time and or money? Sounds great. What about the lower end players who can't get get into end game dungeons? Do you expect them to have their progress crippled?
I am not sure how long you have played, but a few years ago on PC, they tried something kinda like this, but I don't believe it had the desired effect. They sold 5 copies of a companion that, at the time, was unavailable anywhere else in the game. They used a dev account Rhix@Rhix, to sell 5 Sergeant Knox companions. Many players predicted that these companions would sell for AD cap. I think maybe the devs were hoping for that as well. Unfortunately, that is not what happened. The 5 sold for: 12,360,000, 12,672,431, 12,927,271, 15,000,276, 30,000,000. So they only removed 82,959,978 AD out of the economy. Perhaps if they had these sales more often, it would help, but the main problem would be figuring out what kind of exclusive items to sell.
I don't think it needs to be random one off drops. That would only be short term band aid solutions that would have no long term overall effect.
For AD to matter again, the entire market/vendor system needs overhauling. They need to get rid of things like the guy in Mantol Derith who sells legacy gear for some pointless quest based currency and then you have to pay to transmute it. Campaign currency related transmutes from single vendors in Sharandar, Dread Ring, Well and so on... they're all out of date now and the AD marketplace is far more important than, "well, we've always done it this way so..." Create legacy vendors IN PROTECTORS ENCLAVE, one who sells all legacy armour including shirts and pants if need be and another selling weapons. Get all the transmutes under one roof in one place. And sell it for AD. Likewise, a vendor selling legacy fashion sets. Stick it in PE and sell that stuff for AD.
But most importantly, the Wondrous Bazaar needs to be completely overhauled and put almost on a par with the Zen market. Try something like this. Every time a new mod drops introduce three tiers of new gear. Basic, which can be bought (Zen and AD), intermediate, which can be purchased through new seals, and advanced, which can be earned through campaign completion. Instead of having binary sets such as weapon and keys, and weapon and companion both for sale in Zen market, put the weapon and companion in WB at a price relative to the previous Zen cost plus a percentage. Rotate other gear on a modular basis... armour sets, shirt and pant sets, new rings, putting half of the basic set in the WB.
Don't treat the WB as some second rate flea market where good news consists of, "we've decided to take the Three Legged Donkey mount, and the Tethered Goat companion and move them to the WB from the Zen market. Basically because no one wants them..." It has so much potential, and could be used so much better than it is."
The VIP discounted price would become the standard, so people without VIP would want it, and even if they didn't, someone buying from the WB and selling on the AH would add to the sink by generating a further 10% from the sale.
Want to see regular AD sinks from mass hoarders? Want to a reason for time poor cash rich players to buy Zen to sell for AD? There you go. MAKE AD WORTH OWNING!!! Making it harder to get will not increase the intrinsic value, it will simply make it less appealing than it is right now to the players they expect to buy Zen and trade for it.
For both currencies to maintain a long term buoyancy, each has to have unique reason to own it, beyond it's relative value to the other.
There are so many ways they could address the problem in front of them that wouldn't involve a system that hits you harder the more you invested in the game. Certainly not to the level the 100k cap will.
The Random Queues were forced through despite the warnings, and I wish we'd been wrong. And the changes being made to attempt to backtrack to what many people considered a better system will unfortunately probably be just as bad with skirmishes and epic dungeons being hauled under the same umbrella.
I truly hope this account wide cap does not materialise. Certainly not at the level it is proposed. I work smart and hard to earn a regular amount of AD, of which most is spent on my Guilds Stronghold. This cap will stop that, and without it I will struggle to enjoy the grind for mundane upgrades in IL...
Personally I'm adamantly against exclusive items. It perhaps removed AD, and at the time it was a much more significant number (I even remember who paid the 30mil), but in general terms of economy this is not what will solve the issue.
I think today the most important overall sinks are:
The AH 10% cut and the Marks from WB - Those are obvious and while AH is a very direct sink the Marks are a commodity but important for the ZAX stabilization.
2. Players not quitting / break (as long as they don't give away their items) - This is probably immense sink in terms of removing AD from the economy, if as pure AD or as enchants and other things that just leave circulation.
3. New artifact gear, new companions -> marks/AD to upgrade -> AD goes poof.
3b. Abandoned classes / new classes - Many changed mains, and with it all the bound stuff, so you have the same account, but upgrading artifacts etc.. is all marks (Not a sink on it's own but worth a mention).
IMO, adding ad sinks should go into 2 categories
One time buy (can be one time per char, or one time per account) - Fashion (preferably something that is not visualy crazy, a lot of the fashion is just "extreme" and no one wears that, like that feather set, or swap set..etc..) , emotes, skill visual modifiers (for example effect and color of Shard of the Endless Avalanche for CW is a great example), dodges modifier visual, run, walk animations etc... Other things that were mentioned in the context, like mount skins (looks like dev can make those left and right), & titles. All of the above shouldn't be exclusive, but as vanity objects they can have a relatively high price.
I wasn't kidding about buying SH decorations, but if I'm going to spend large sum on it, it should really be what I want, and not a shinier copy of every other chandelier. As of now, why would I pay thousands over the same chair?
The second category and the more important one is to use the natural gear change. It should have low price, as it's throw away, and player expected to buy from it multiple times. Now the main sink is via RP and Marks. Some of the potential sinks are just not utilized correctly, for example armor kits, way to expansive for 200 stats. Increase the stats and you made a repeatable sink appealing.
Ring upgrades, like I've wrote in rewards feedback, add some rare drop in new dungeon that together with either NPC trader or professions will allow upgrade current rings to higher ranks. The trade can have added cost either by direct AD or marks, and the unbound rare drop will encourage trade and with it 10% AH cut. It will also help the ZAX as it gives another wanted item for AD.
Transmutes, especially weapon transmutes, if the cost of the transmute is lower than the RP return from the weapons, people will buy those. It can also be of the expensive variety if it has a special effect, especially now that weapon enchant visual can be disabled.
The issue with transmutes is that there is no library or a way to see them or to know about them. And even if someone offers to make something like that outside of the game, there is no help, even when just asking for item names and those that have similar looks.
For exclusive items I think the direction should be totally different, not some companion that many may want but can't afford. But instead go bigger, and go really exclusive, for example:
Bid once a mod, an exclusive guild banner - Add a huge banner spots ad the main gate and hanging banners near the fountain at the entrance path and lets say for 200mil, add personalized banner to the guilds that bought it, with their name or their logo. Some guilds have very stylized logos and for 200mil or even more, I think guilds will go for it. It's also not technically complicated, add the decoration spot, and just have a dev char go there and put it in the warehouse (if there is no other way). You have the item set in only the one guild and it bound there.
Similarly unique re-skins for current mounts, within the limitations of the D&D and what not, make bids for some unique reskin that the player request. Also allow to bid for it for someone else (nothing like stylized "HAMSTER you" gift as an AD sink).
There are entire games with real $ sales of such items, and companies much larger than Cryptic that live on it. Some became a meme like Valve and hats. IMO the dev team is too focused on the daily quests and next zone, that they forgot to look at other aspect that can bring them both moneytization and in-game economy stabilization once they have the process streamlined. And the more of those they do, the cheaper for them to make them in terms of dev time - you have a system to modify in game animations, just add and sell those. You have a system to bid on exclusive mount, just do those once per X time. You have an NPC that sells emotes, just throw an emote once per month.
I must put a caveat on 'exclusive items' as an AD-sink. Exclusive items should not give a person a comparative advantage in terms of character power, but rather appeal to a players sense of wanting to be unique e.g. fashion, emotes, titles.
A library of transmutes would be great. Something they can implement in the Tower of Alteration perhaps.
Using each module to deliver a new set of AD-sinks would mean they could keep them fresh and appealing. We want something innovative.
Obviously a new class/race will reset the need for character progression and utilising the traditional AD sinks again (marks for refinement, companion upgrades).
I must put a caveat on 'exclusive items' as an AD-sink. Exclusive items should not give a person a comparative advantage in terms of character power, but rather appeal to a players sense of wanting to be unique e.g. fashion, emotes, titles.
Yes, this is why I'm against those exclusive companions as exclusive. And if exclusive then for much more personalized and visual items (and visual only, not game affecting in terms of char capabilty).
Many may want to have X companion, and having it exclusive is unfair. Or ill be unfair to those who paid when the same companion added to some drop table. But a unique guild banner / tag / is a different story. This can be leveraged to unique transmutes or transmutes with the guild logo.
So they are doing this to reduce the amount of AD coming into the game. Since there is so much more AD than Zen, the price of trading AD to Zen is steadily increasing. NW Devs want to slow this down. But AD doesn't disappear into the nether when buying/selling Zen on the AD exchange as it just changes hands. This fixes nothing by capping the AD per account per day. My suggestion: Offer the Enchanting stones on the Wondrous Bazaar, just like the Marks of Potency. There is a bottleneck for progressing due to the lack of resources/grinding involved with getting these types of upgrade materials. This would make it so AD is taken out of the players hands and put back into the nether. Rather than letting AD trade hands between players on the AD Auction house, it goes away. Or offer more useful items on the AD market place, as you are trying with green mounts. One suggestion, consumables like wards or scrolls of life. Problem solved. Don't take away our ability to earn them, that will just drive the prices up on the rare items because AD will be harder to come by.
As someone who plays 5 characters, paid for 3 of them, and uses all 5 to gain max AD for myself I find this update to AD a big mistake.
First, it will not resolve the issue of players having high amounts of AD in the game. What allows many players to have such high values is that we are allowed to hold onto 100,000,000 AD per a character. That is a bigger issue than how much AD we can generate a day.
Second, the Zen market is clutter with AD exchange due to players needing to use the system to transfer AD between characters. Adding AD to the shared bank will remove some of those exchanges that are in your back log.
Third, botters and players that do farm for large amounts of AD on one account today will simply create new accounts and use other methods to generate AD. This will not change the AH pricing and will have limited to impact to the zen exchange.
The issue in the game is due to how much AD we can hold on a character. The max amount of AD we can hold should be modified to account wide vs. character.
The next thing is modifying how much AD we can refine. I like the thought of the account having 100K but that should be if you only have 2 characters on the account. If you have more than 2 character, for each additional character the daily amount should increase by 20K. A player like myself will have the ability to refine 160K AD a day as I have 5 character on my account. Right now I am allowed around 180K. This change would reduce the amount of AD we can refine but it would still allow players who have more than two characters to continue to refine additional amount of AD for their investment in the other characters.
If the added character slots is not an option worth pursuing, how about an increase of AD daily amount based on the ranking of VIP. Or a combination of the two.
I personally would like to see the following if you want AD sink for players.
1) New legendary mounts (character bound) that is the Wondrous Bazar that are priced to lower the Zen exchange 2) Each new mod put some end game gear that can only be acquired by using AD 3) Max Rank Enchantments (weapon, armor, etc...) and priced to lower the Zen exchange
There is many ways to resolve the AD issues in the game, but limiting your player base to 100K for our account is not the best and most effective measure given many players have invested money and time into other characters to have ways to generate additional AD.
If this change does happen, I will stop playing my support characters and only play my CW. I know many who also feel like this and will stop playing their support alts if this happens. This will mean longer time to form groups because no one will want to play an alt if there is no need to if we can refine the max amount of AD on one character.
Ok, now I'm glad someone's said this, because I want to understand how that logic follows. Please, explain how someone who is not buying Zen now to trade at 500 AD per 1 Zen, is going to suddenly drop a wodge of cash on Zen because it now converts at 350... I'm not being funny or sarcastic, I just can't understand how lowering the relative value of Zen on the ZAX will encourage people to spend real world money to buy more of it than they are doing now.
An essential point that people are ignoring is that if this works, AD will be worth more than it is now. How much more? No one's really sure but could be as much as 40% - even 60% more. So 1,000 AD after the changes would buy what 1,400-1,600 AD buy today.
Supposing someone spent 100 zen to buy AD at a ratio of 500AD:1, they'd be getting 50,000 AD, but it would have the buying power that 70,000-80,000 AD has today.
A first run in a leveling dungeon may only net a player 8,000 AD, but it will have the value 11,200-12,800 AD does today. Refining 100,000 RAD could have the same value as 140,000-160,000 AD does today.
That's assuming: - that this works. - that the devs adjust the AD costs accordingly in areas like the Bazaar, Professions, and Strongholds (This is so important not only because it's the logical outcome of their proposed changes to the exchange rates, but also because it sends a very clear message to the players).
I don't know if the zen store prices ought to be changed since leaving them the same creates an incentive for people to purchase zen with real currency.
I was pondering, what about a merchant's fee for using the ZAX unidirectionally (AD to Zen)? like a 2% charge e.g. at the current rate of 1:500, to purchase 1 Zen it would cost the buyer 510 AD (rounded up to the nearest integer), whereby 500 AD goes to the Zen seller, and 10 AD is consumed by the ZAX. The ZAX is a very useful feature for all players, but there is no fee for using it. This would be an easy to implement AD sink, make exchanging Zen more attractive rather than the other way around, and at 2% should not significantly hinder the ability to purchase Zen items via the ZAX. However, it could be a slippery slope in 'taxing' the AD. It could be trialled to see if it would work, or abandoned just as quickly if there was too much of a backlash i.e. if people voted with their feet and left the game.
More AD is created than is destroyed, everyone agrees on that point. On the surface it would seem natural to simply create more sinks to remove more AD, and we have started doing that and have more planned for future modules as well. However, the rate of incoming AD would require massive sinks all over the game for all players to have any chance of bringing the AD incoming/outgoing rates into balance.
Over the last 2 years on PC, the net amount of refined AD in the game (all characters of all players) has increased 75%. The overall AD in the game has been increasing at a good pace since the game launched, and this is true of all platforms. Some transmute and other sinks added aren't going to be able to curb that alone. I won't go into too much detail on the numbers, but on average players as a whole, just on PC, are generating 1 billion brand new refined AD every 3 days. Each console on average is 4 days to generate 1 billion AD. That number already factors in all of the AD spent during that time as well. This is why there needs to be better generation limits in conjunction with AD sinks.
According to @noworries#8859, about 333 million AD enters the PC platform a day. If about 1 million Zen exchanges accounts per day on the ZAX (personal observation), a 2% unidirectional ZAX fee would equal 20,000 zen or 10 million AD. 10/333 million would represent a 3% AD sink, with no developer resource required to generate content. In conjunction with upcoming AD inflow restrictions, this may represent a higher percentage in Mod 14.
Furthermore, a major drive to purchase Zen with AD are the Zen sales via coupons and events. While sales stimulate player spending in the real world (as it plays on the perceived savings from a discount) it artificially increases the desire for Zen which a player who uses this method can reasonably use on their own, insofar that they may profit by reselling it on the AH. While driving traffic through the AH should be encouraged (as it is an automatic AD sink in itself), it puts a lot of pressure on the ZAX. There should be a distinction made between 'Zen purchased with money' and 'via AD'. By making discount sales coupons and items purchased with 'Zen exchanged from AD' bind to account, it may ameliorate the pressure on the ZAX. Zen store bought items from 'Zen purchased with money' should remain unbound. The other option is to remove sales discounts and coupons, but then again, the company may lose out on profit from people willing to spend money during sale events.
Ok, now I'm glad someone's said this, because I want to understand how that logic follows. Please, explain how someone who is not buying Zen now to trade at 500 AD per 1 Zen, is going to suddenly drop a wodge of cash on Zen because it now converts at 350... I'm not being funny or sarcastic, I just can't understand how lowering the relative value of Zen on the ZAX will encourage people to spend real world money to buy more of it than they are doing now.
An essential point that people are ignoring is that if this works, AD will be worth more than it is now. How much more? No one's really sure but could be as much as 40% - even 60% more. So 1,000 AD after the changes would buy what 1,400-1,600 AD buy today.
Supposing someone spent 100 zen to buy AD at a ratio of 500AD:1, they'd be getting 50,000 AD, but it would have the buying power that 70,000-80,000 AD has today.
A first run in a leveling dungeon may only net a player 8,000 AD, but it will have the value 11,200-12,800 AD does today. Refining 100,000 RAD could have the same value as 140,000-160,000 AD does today.
That's assuming: - that this works. - that the devs adjust the Bazaar and Store prices accordingly (This is so important not only because it's the logical outcome of their proposed changes to the exchange rates, but also because it sends a very clear message to the players).
I get that, but since fixed prices for AD purchases such as Marks will have a counter effect, having fewer AD will make them worth less. They will need to spend more Zen to buy marks... The numbers you suggest, and even an increase in relative value at all seem to have less science behind them than fervent prayer. People aren't trading Zen for AD to buy stuff when ADs are CHEAP. What will make them suddenly want more when the adjustments to the WB seem to be sticking doddery old HAMSTER that doesn't sell in the Zen market into the WB.
And regarding a 40-60% increase in value, because of the sliding impact of the account wide cap that increase fluctuates based on how heavily each individual is impacted.
I did the maths on this. If you run 3 characters and cap your daily RAD, you will be 7.5% worse off. For the value of AD to remain the same on Zen market purchases etc, you would need (on PC) the ZAX to drop to 462:1. With 4 toons - that drops to 347:1. Thats before it begins to show any increase to the player. For those rare beasts who run ten or more toons at daily RAD capacity, the ZAX would need to drop to below 135:1 for the relative value to even remain where it is. Thats what it would need to hit to be able to trade for the same amount of Zen. And if it they can't trade for the same amount of Zen the intrinsic value AND the relative value of AD diminishes. I stopped there and shudder to think what a 50 toon player loses.
The new "relative value" of AD will relate to what it currently is to players depending on how much they currently earn. That's how a flat account wide cap works.
The reason for this is the fact that a flat account wide cap negatively impacts players directly proportionally to how much they have invested.
The more you've spent, the bigger the "HAMSTER you".
I run 8 toons on XB at about 200k per day, using most of that to buy Zen to improve my Stronghold. For the relative value of AD to improve for me the ZAX will need to hit below 200:1. Trust me when I say that if that happens as a result of the proposals listed at the start of this discussion I'll sell my car and donate the proceeds to charity.
The only people for whom this is likely to show any noticeable improvement in the value of AD will be those who currently run only a couple of toons and don't hit 100k daily. It certainly won't to those buying zen, because WB prices won't drop, and AH prices are unlikely to drop below the ratio of AD:Zen
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kreatyveMember, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 10,545Community Moderator
Someone posted this really good thread on Reddit regarding what people can still do with multiple alts to make AD. Rather than generating it out of thin air, you will have to actually sell stuff, but it's got some great ideas in it.
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I just thought of another way to reduce the amount of available AD system wide. Remove the VIP bonus of No Auction Posting Fees. This would make it so that inflated prices on valuable/limited/rate items are reduced (I wouldn't want to spend 1 mil AD to post a 10 mil priced item and it not sell), reducing the need for AD farming, and costing the poster a fee for auctioning an item at an exorbitant price, this removing some of the available AD system wide.
Why do people keep saying AH prices are inflated? I'm just not seeing it.
Here are some examples: - You can buy rank 8 bondings for cheaper than ever. I paid ~200K each for them a year ago and had to buy 12 to get my set of three bondings ranked up and now you don't even need the matching and they are way cheaper per each. - Epic and legendary mounts are cheaper than they were a year ago. - The best dps companions are the same (i.e. archons, siege master) but that is because the prices are directly tied to the AD cost to upgrade them manually, or zen store price for the siege master. - Some Weapon/Armor enchants are cheaper at moderate than they used to be at lesser due to lockbox drops most likely
What are some examples of things that are more expensive on the AH now than they were a year ago?
EDIT: I'm on PC, I can't speak for the console prices
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plasticbatMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 12,421Arc User
Someone posted this really good thread on Reddit regarding what people can still do with multiple alts to make AD. Rather than generating it out of thin air, you will have to actually sell stuff, but it's got some great ideas in it.
Damn it! They spill my (not so hidden) "method" since I don't get rAD much and am still doing ok.
*** The game can read your mind. If you want it, you won't get it. If you don't expect to get it, you will. ***
Yo, I'm day one player and I love the fact arc is shutting down these 3rd party ad sellers, it's a disgrace to see so many people pettling this <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>* on FB smh they ruin this game market for us all
I haven't seen this mentioned before, but this is also a BIG hit for non-maxed guilds. A lot of buildings require AD donations. Only way we can get it without the real AD is from leadership, and that's 3 crates every 6 hours. You mostly don't have maxed players in those guilds, or players with "leadership armies". Before, there were AD vouchers, but now they mysteriously disappeared (no patch notes or anything, just stopped dropping). Siege of Neverwinter used to be an excelent event that helps people level up their guilds as it dropped two of the most needed vouchers (AD and Gems), and now that AD vouchers stopped dropping, and gems vouchers seem like they drop more rarely, this event becomes less and less useful (there aren't any new additions, only thing remotely useful from there is the siegebreaker griffin).
Sorry. This is off-topic a bit. When it comes to gems for the stronghold, I'm surprised that anyone other than new players has trouble generating this for their guild. Out of 13 characters between my wife's account and my own account, 11 of them have the resources and assets to craft crates of jewelry to donate to the guild coffer. A grandmaster jeweler makes it a 4 hour task, and 4 mithral tools means you'll either 6 or 8 crates every time. With 11 characters making crates, we added around 200k gems to our guild's coffer in about two weeks' time. (It's an average of about 15k gems per day, with 11 characters doing the task four times per day.)
Even with leadership, get two adventurers or one hero and you make that task into a four hour task, too. Sure, it takes longer to reach significant numbers of astral diamond crates to donate to the guild coffer, but make it into a four hour task and it becomes easily completable 4x a day without being a slave to the game. Currently, I only have two characters capable of doing this task, but the other 11 characters are all currently leveling leadership and by the end of next month, we'll be cranking out 156 AD crates per day. It takes a while to level leadership, even if you sink massive amounts of AD into buying heroes and/or adventurers, but once you've reached 23rd level in leadership, it's not that hard to generate crates of AD for the guild.
Yo, I'm day one player and I love the fact arc is shutting down these 3rd party ad sellers, it's a disgrace to see so many people pettling this HAMSTER* on FB smh they ruin this game market for us all
This won't shut them down. It simply means they will create more accounts. 100K per an account with 1 character can easily be done, especially with the raise AD gain from running randoms.
If anything, this will allow the AD farms/botters the ability to sell more AD through 3rd parties.
I talked to a few players and many only have 1 account right now but are like me with 5+ characters. Simply creating another account would allow these players to generate additional AD, similar to what they do now with 5+ characters. Some players even admitted they are ready and created new accounts just for this update, some went as far as having 10 accounts.
This update will hurt the honest players that have 1 account and play the game as intended and these players will get frustrated and leave which will hurt Cryptic more than they realize. I have seen this in a few other games,
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There's PLENTY of exclusive stuff to aim for. I'm not sure that selling highly wanted items like Glorious Legendary packs, or Coals Wards would be efficient, because people would just undercut them, so they could sell absolute exclusive.
There's already plenty of exclusive giveaway mounts that you just can't find in-game: Aberrant/Fey/Firesoul Gorgon, Golden/Teal-dusted Axebeak, Ash/Soot/Sienna Lions, Golden/Sapphire/Carmine bulettes, Stormraider Horse, or the unique Rainbow Starry Panther.
They also can put mounts from the old charge promotions that are unavailable now, the limited editions ones like Lords' Armored Polar Bear, Ice Panther, Gilded White Steed and others.
But they also could sell some special transmutes, fashion, titles, dyes... There's a lot of room for them on this idea.
Of course, this won't help destroying dozens of billions of AD, but can be an interesting AD sink. I for one would spend millions on exclusive mounts I don't own already.
The exclusive promo that @kreatyve mentioned I do remember. But I also remember I was a very new player then, so it didn't really affect me at all. It might be a useful, and relatively harmless, way to capture a large portion of AD from long term veterans with nothing else to spend on.
But there just isn't enough AD sinks in the game for you. Cryptic make more AD sinks! (That we actually want to spend stuff on).
I think today the most important overall sinks are:
The AH 10% cut and the Marks from WB - Those are obvious and while AH is a very direct sink the Marks are a commodity but important for the ZAX stabilization.
2. Players not quitting / break (as long as they don't give away their items) - This is probably immense sink in terms of removing AD from the economy, if as pure AD or as enchants and other things that just leave circulation.
3. New artifact gear, new companions -> marks/AD to upgrade -> AD goes poof.
3b. Abandoned classes / new classes - Many changed mains, and with it all the bound stuff, so you have the same account, but upgrading artifacts etc.. is all marks (Not a sink on it's own but worth a mention).
IMO, adding ad sinks should go into 2 categories
One time buy (can be one time per char, or one time per account) - Fashion (preferably something that is not visualy crazy, a lot of the fashion is just "extreme" and no one wears that, like that feather set, or swap set..etc..) , emotes, skill visual modifiers (for example effect and color of Shard of the Endless Avalanche for CW is a great example), dodges modifier visual, run, walk animations etc...
Other things that were mentioned in the context, like mount skins (looks like dev can make those left and right), & titles.
All of the above shouldn't be exclusive, but as vanity objects they can have a relatively high price.
I wasn't kidding about buying SH decorations, but if I'm going to spend large sum on it, it should really be what I want, and not a shinier copy of every other chandelier. As of now, why would I pay thousands over the same chair?
The second category and the more important one is to use the natural gear change. It should have low price, as it's throw away, and player expected to buy from it multiple times.
Now the main sink is via RP and Marks. Some of the potential sinks are just not utilized correctly, for example armor kits, way to expansive for 200 stats. Increase the stats and you made a repeatable sink appealing.
Ring upgrades, like I've wrote in rewards feedback, add some rare drop in new dungeon that together with either NPC trader or professions will allow upgrade current rings to higher ranks. The trade can have added cost either by direct AD or marks, and the unbound rare drop will encourage trade and with it 10% AH cut. It will also help the ZAX as it gives another wanted item for AD.
Transmutes, especially weapon transmutes, if the cost of the transmute is lower than the RP return from the weapons, people will buy those.
It can also be of the expensive variety if it has a special effect, especially now that weapon enchant visual can be disabled.
The issue with transmutes is that there is no library or a way to see them or to know about them. And even if someone offers to make something like that outside of the game, there is no help, even when just asking for item names and those that have similar looks.
For exclusive items I think the direction should be totally different, not some companion that many may want but can't afford. But instead go bigger, and go really exclusive, for example:
Bid once a mod, an exclusive guild banner - Add a huge banner spots ad the main gate and hanging banners near the fountain at the entrance path and lets say for 200mil, add personalized banner to the guilds that bought it, with their name or their logo.
Some guilds have very stylized logos and for 200mil or even more, I think guilds will go for it.
It's also not technically complicated, add the decoration spot, and just have a dev char go there and put it in the warehouse (if there is no other way). You have the item set in only the one guild and it bound there.
Similarly unique re-skins for current mounts, within the limitations of the D&D and what not, make bids for some unique reskin that the player request. Also allow to bid for it for someone else (nothing like stylized "HAMSTER you" gift as an AD sink).
There are entire games with real $ sales of such items, and companies much larger than Cryptic that live on it. Some became a meme like Valve and hats.
IMO the dev team is too focused on the daily quests and next zone, that they forgot to look at other aspect that can bring them both moneytization and in-game economy stabilization once they have the process streamlined. And the more of those they do, the cheaper for them to make them in terms of dev time - you have a system to modify in game animations, just add and sell those.
You have a system to bid on exclusive mount, just do those once per X time.
You have an NPC that sells emotes, just throw an emote once per month.
my concerns are affording marks of power to upgrade enchants and equipment and affording the ad to upgrade companions. these costs are pretty much set. slowing upgrades may be part of your goal idk.
this may have been mentioned, did not want to go through 18 pages of comments and back and forths
anyway, i have played over 2 years and am not even near "bis" for even one toon. i try to play all the classes cause theyre all fun. i do not farm ad a lot since i get bored easily doing the same thing over and over so it takes me a while as it is now to afford these upgrades. especially armor and weapon enchants. however i can still go way over 100k some days just running the weekly ad runs and the randoms which give ad, seals and salvage (even on just one toon sometimes).
with vip: to go from rank 7 to 14 for enchantments costs 600kad from bazaar (5gmop,3smop,3umop). so six days per enchant just for mops (assuming you can earn your enchanting stones) to get one enchant upgraded. i am already tired of moving the few level 11-13 enchants i have around to play the campaigns on another class/toon. 3,375,000 ad (30gmop,25smop,10umop) to upgrade a weapon/armor enchant or over one month just for mop (assuming you earn enchanting stones). i have like only one transcendent enchant after 2 years (not complaining, just saying)
as for companions, which i like to run with different ones cause theyre cool (despite the meta), cost 1750000 ad to upgrade from green to orange or over 2 weeks per companion.
just looking at the timing on doing any of this makes my heart sink. not that i want it overnight, but geez. focus on upgrading one item for week(s) unable to spend ad on anything else... meh (my opinion folks, no reason to comment on it, ive seen how these things can get out of hand in these threads)
I have way more rp than ad to get the stuff to afford upgrades as it is now.
and yes i have paid a good bit of real money for ad and am still debating if i should continue to do so. i understand the need for ad sink, and mops and companion upgrades are currently big ones. but i am not a fan of the timing on these with the 100k ad cap.
once the economy settles with the changes, please consider the pricing on these things or reconsider the cap
> Working class? So HAMSTER anyone who is older on retirement, sick and can't work, younger kids who have all the free time in the world just because you "work"? Just because you play casually you expect every player to follow your lead? Selfish comment.
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> This change will hurt the players who actually play the game for more than an hour or two a day. The players who are dedicated enough to play the game 6+ hours a day are more than likely the ones who willing to spend money on events than the casual player.
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> I don't care how anyone plays this game but your opinion of "HAMSTER the diehard players just cater to us casual players" is incredibly selfish and will be the downfall of this game if the devs follow.
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> Currently, the 'diehard' players are farming 50+ low tier dungeons a day to create a massive influx of AD for very minimal effort. Sorry, but that's not gaming. That's not dedication. That's grinding because you have nothing better to do, and you shouldn't be rewarded simply for having more free time to suck up server resources. If you want AD, play endgame content and sell on the AH. The current pattern equates to fewer players geared and capable of endgame content because it's easier and more efficient to simply grind low-end content and salvage across an army of alts.
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> Moderator edited out mild flaming.
You couldn't be more wrong.
Close to no one is farming 50+ low end dungeons every day and just for fun, lets assume they are, that definitely takes some effort so your first point goes out the window.
"if you want AD, play endgame content and sell on the AH"
This shows you have no idea what you are talking about. Lets say you are talking about T9G or Cradle, you will have to buy Legendary Dragon keys daily (beside your daily free campaign key) to run these dungeons and mix that with horrible loot and horrible drop rates and you are lucky to even get enough AD to make up for the ad you spent on keys. There are PLENTY of times I only get an Emerald and seals at the chests in T9G which is the same items I can get if I ran a Cloak Tower.
Your idea of making AD by running end game content to sell on AH is the same as opening lockboxes to hope for a legendary mount. You think the only way people should make AD is by either gambling their time and or money? Sounds great. What about the lower end players who can't get get into end game dungeons? Do you expect them to have their progress crippled?
That would only be short term band aid solutions that would have no long term overall effect.
For AD to matter again, the entire market/vendor system needs overhauling.
They need to get rid of things like the guy in Mantol Derith who sells legacy gear for some pointless quest based currency and then you have to pay to transmute it. Campaign currency related transmutes from single vendors in Sharandar, Dread Ring, Well and so on... they're all out of date now and the AD marketplace is far more important than, "well, we've always done it this way so..."
Create legacy vendors IN PROTECTORS ENCLAVE, one who sells all legacy armour including shirts and pants if need be and another selling weapons. Get all the transmutes under one roof in one place. And sell it for AD.
Likewise, a vendor selling legacy fashion sets. Stick it in PE and sell that stuff for AD.
But most importantly, the Wondrous Bazaar needs to be completely overhauled and put almost on a par with the Zen market.
Try something like this.
Every time a new mod drops introduce three tiers of new gear.
Basic, which can be bought (Zen and AD), intermediate, which can be purchased through new seals, and advanced, which can be earned through campaign completion.
Instead of having binary sets such as weapon and keys, and weapon and companion both for sale in Zen market, put the weapon and companion in WB at a price relative to the previous Zen cost plus a percentage. Rotate other gear on a modular basis... armour sets, shirt and pant sets, new rings, putting half of the basic set in the WB.
Don't treat the WB as some second rate flea market where good news consists of, "we've decided to take the Three Legged Donkey mount, and the Tethered Goat companion and move them to the WB from the Zen market. Basically because no one wants them..."
It has so much potential, and could be used so much better than it is."
The VIP discounted price would become the standard, so people without VIP would want it, and even if they didn't, someone buying from the WB and selling on the AH would add to the sink by generating a further 10% from the sale.
Want to see regular AD sinks from mass hoarders? Want to a reason for time poor cash rich players to buy Zen to sell for AD?
There you go. MAKE AD WORTH OWNING!!!
Making it harder to get will not increase the intrinsic value, it will simply make it less appealing than it is right now to the players they expect to buy Zen and trade for it.
For both currencies to maintain a long term buoyancy, each has to have unique reason to own it, beyond it's relative value to the other.
There are so many ways they could address the problem in front of them that wouldn't involve a system that hits you harder the more you invested in the game. Certainly not to the level the 100k cap will.
The Random Queues were forced through despite the warnings, and I wish we'd been wrong. And the changes being made to attempt to backtrack to what many people considered a better system will unfortunately probably be just as bad with skirmishes and epic dungeons being hauled under the same umbrella.
I truly hope this account wide cap does not materialise. Certainly not at the level it is proposed.
I work smart and hard to earn a regular amount of AD, of which most is spent on my Guilds Stronghold. This cap will stop that, and without it I will struggle to enjoy the grind for mundane upgrades in IL...
A library of transmutes would be great. Something they can implement in the Tower of Alteration perhaps.
Using each module to deliver a new set of AD-sinks would mean they could keep them fresh and appealing. We want something innovative.
Obviously a new class/race will reset the need for character progression and utilising the traditional AD sinks again (marks for refinement, companion upgrades).
Many may want to have X companion, and having it exclusive is unfair. Or ill be unfair to those who paid when the same companion added to some drop table. But a unique guild banner / tag / is a different story. This can be leveraged to unique transmutes or transmutes with the guild logo.
First, it will not resolve the issue of players having high amounts of AD in the game. What allows many players to have such high values is that we are allowed to hold onto 100,000,000 AD per a character. That is a bigger issue than how much AD we can generate a day.
Second, the Zen market is clutter with AD exchange due to players needing to use the system to transfer AD between characters. Adding AD to the shared bank will remove some of those exchanges that are in your back log.
Third, botters and players that do farm for large amounts of AD on one account today will simply create new accounts and use other methods to generate AD. This will not change the AH pricing and will have limited to impact to the zen exchange.
The issue in the game is due to how much AD we can hold on a character. The max amount of AD we can hold should be modified to account wide vs. character.
The next thing is modifying how much AD we can refine. I like the thought of the account having 100K but that should be if you only have 2 characters on the account. If you have more than 2 character, for each additional character the daily amount should increase by 20K. A player like myself will have the ability to refine 160K AD a day as I have 5 character on my account. Right now I am allowed around 180K. This change would reduce the amount of AD we can refine but it would still allow players who have more than two characters to continue to refine additional amount of AD for their investment in the other characters.
If the added character slots is not an option worth pursuing, how about an increase of AD daily amount based on the ranking of VIP. Or a combination of the two.
I personally would like to see the following if you want AD sink for players.
1) New legendary mounts (character bound) that is the Wondrous Bazar that are priced to lower the Zen exchange
2) Each new mod put some end game gear that can only be acquired by using AD
3) Max Rank Enchantments (weapon, armor, etc...) and priced to lower the Zen exchange
There is many ways to resolve the AD issues in the game, but limiting your player base to 100K for our account is not the best and most effective measure given many players have invested money and time into other characters to have ways to generate additional AD.
If this change does happen, I will stop playing my support characters and only play my CW. I know many who also feel like this and will stop playing their support alts if this happens. This will mean longer time to form groups because no one will want to play an alt if there is no need to if we can refine the max amount of AD on one character.
Supposing someone spent 100 zen to buy AD at a ratio of 500AD:1, they'd be getting 50,000 AD, but it would have the buying power that 70,000-80,000 AD has today.
A first run in a leveling dungeon may only net a player 8,000 AD, but it will have the value 11,200-12,800 AD does today.
Refining 100,000 RAD could have the same value as 140,000-160,000 AD does today.
That's assuming:
- that this works.
- that the devs adjust the AD costs accordingly in areas like the Bazaar, Professions, and Strongholds (This is so important not only because it's the logical outcome of their proposed changes to the exchange rates, but also because it sends a very clear message to the players).
I don't know if the zen store prices ought to be changed since leaving them the same creates an incentive for people to purchase zen with real currency.
Furthermore, a major drive to purchase Zen with AD are the Zen sales via coupons and events. While sales stimulate player spending in the real world (as it plays on the perceived savings from a discount) it artificially increases the desire for Zen which a player who uses this method can reasonably use on their own, insofar that they may profit by reselling it on the AH. While driving traffic through the AH should be encouraged (as it is an automatic AD sink in itself), it puts a lot of pressure on the ZAX. There should be a distinction made between 'Zen purchased with money' and 'via AD'. By making discount sales coupons and items purchased with 'Zen exchanged from AD' bind to account, it may ameliorate the pressure on the ZAX. Zen store bought items from 'Zen purchased with money' should remain unbound. The other option is to remove sales discounts and coupons, but then again, the company may lose out on profit from people willing to spend money during sale events.
Discuss.
The numbers you suggest, and even an increase in relative value at all seem to have less science behind them than fervent prayer.
People aren't trading Zen for AD to buy stuff when ADs are CHEAP. What will make them suddenly want more when the adjustments to the WB seem to be sticking doddery old HAMSTER that doesn't sell in the Zen market into the WB.
And regarding a 40-60% increase in value, because of the sliding impact of the account wide cap that increase fluctuates based on how heavily each individual is impacted.
I did the maths on this.
If you run 3 characters and cap your daily RAD, you will be 7.5% worse off. For the value of AD to remain the same on Zen market purchases etc, you would need (on PC) the ZAX to drop to 462:1. With 4 toons - that drops to 347:1. Thats before it begins to show any increase to the player.
For those rare beasts who run ten or more toons at daily RAD capacity, the ZAX would need to drop to below 135:1 for the relative value to even remain where it is. Thats what it would need to hit to be able to trade for the same amount of Zen. And if it they can't trade for the same amount of Zen the intrinsic value AND the relative value of AD diminishes.
I stopped there and shudder to think what a 50 toon player loses.
The new "relative value" of AD will relate to what it currently is to players depending on how much they currently earn.
That's how a flat account wide cap works.
The reason for this is the fact that a flat account wide cap negatively impacts players directly proportionally to how much they have invested.
The more you've spent, the bigger the "HAMSTER you".
I run 8 toons on XB at about 200k per day, using most of that to buy Zen to improve my Stronghold. For the relative value of AD to improve for me the ZAX will need to hit below 200:1. Trust me when I say that if that happens as a result of the proposals listed at the start of this discussion I'll sell my car and donate the proceeds to charity.
The only people for whom this is likely to show any noticeable improvement in the value of AD will be those who currently run only a couple of toons and don't hit 100k daily. It certainly won't to those buying zen, because WB prices won't drop, and AH prices are unlikely to drop below the ratio of AD:Zen
Any of my comments not posted in orange are based on my own personal opinion and not official.
Any messages written in orange are official moderation messages. Signature images are now fixed!
Here are some examples:
- You can buy rank 8 bondings for cheaper than ever. I paid ~200K each for them a year ago and had to buy 12 to get my set of three bondings ranked up and now you don't even need the matching and they are way cheaper per each.
- Epic and legendary mounts are cheaper than they were a year ago.
- The best dps companions are the same (i.e. archons, siege master) but that is because the prices are directly tied to the AD cost to upgrade them manually, or zen store price for the siege master.
- Some Weapon/Armor enchants are cheaper at moderate than they used to be at lesser due to lockbox drops most likely
What are some examples of things that are more expensive on the AH now than they were a year ago?
EDIT: I'm on PC, I can't speak for the console prices
Even with leadership, get two adventurers or one hero and you make that task into a four hour task, too. Sure, it takes longer to reach significant numbers of astral diamond crates to donate to the guild coffer, but make it into a four hour task and it becomes easily completable 4x a day without being a slave to the game. Currently, I only have two characters capable of doing this task, but the other 11 characters are all currently leveling leadership and by the end of next month, we'll be cranking out 156 AD crates per day. It takes a while to level leadership, even if you sink massive amounts of AD into buying heroes and/or adventurers, but once you've reached 23rd level in leadership, it's not that hard to generate crates of AD for the guild.
If anything, this will allow the AD farms/botters the ability to sell more AD through 3rd parties.
I talked to a few players and many only have 1 account right now but are like me with 5+ characters. Simply creating another account would allow these players to generate additional AD, similar to what they do now with 5+ characters. Some players even admitted they are ready and created new accounts just for this update, some went as far as having 10 accounts.
This update will hurt the honest players that have 1 account and play the game as intended and these players will get frustrated and leave which will hurt Cryptic more than they realize. I have seen this in a few other games,