The 100k cap is the least of it, this is the most important:
"Below are the AD changes to the random queues: Leveling Queue: 8,000 first run / 1,000 repeat Intermediate Queue: 12,000 first run / 2,000 repeat / 2,400 role bonus Advanced: 15,000 first run / 3,000 repeat / 3,000 role bonus Expert: 5,000 role bonus
The first run bonuses are now account gated meaning that only one character can earn those first run bonuses per day."
That will affect severely to new players.
I don't think it will. most new players don't have more than one account. if anything for honestly new players it's going to increase their money
Every solution you have come up with, as a company, has taken parts of this game that people have spent real money on - and devalued them.
snip
New Example - People have purchased (with real$) multiple character slots not because they wanted 55 GF's, but because they wanted AD. Now after they have invested money into that aspect of the game, you are once again devaluing their purchase from you.
I think this is an excellent point. Selling you something and then reducing its value is a real issue. Perhaps you could create a "trade in a character slot" function where you can sell them back for zen for a limited time?
It's great to think that lowering the zax will lower AH costs but there is still a supply and demand issue. Yesterday there were only two Radiant rank 14s on the trade house. Each were over 5 millionAD. Now to be fair there should be an understanding with players that with not being able to farm as much come mod 14 no one will be able to afford them at that price and the person posting should lower the cost.
How long will that transition take? I just spent $200 real world dollars yesterday to only get 3 rank 14s. If the exchange rate goes down and I can only get 5 million AD for my $200 dollars can you guarantee that I can still get 3 rank 14s?
Cryptic will have to post items on the auction house at a lower cost to bring players posting cost down. Even then the people sitting on mountains of AD will buy them up and sell them at a premium like Debeers does with real diamonds.
You already seem dead set to do this game killing change that hurts old players and your whales. I just hope that enough players are left and new comers stay in after this apocalyptic change.
So here is a suggestion since this will be a bad move anyways. Find a number, I wont suggest one since you guys see the analytics. But you need to set a cap for buyout of auction items.
Say you want to cut the zax in half. That would mean lowering your average posting amount of the most expensive thing on the AH by half. I know it's not but say the most expensive thing in enchantments is a radiant 14. If it is 5 million you would have to place a posting cap of 2.5 million AD. Or the legendary mount pack for 4 million would have to have a posting cap of 2 million.
This would help curve your change to lower the market without hurting paying and farming customers. Also this would hurt websites that sell that obscure item for 10 million AD to the guy that paid them $50. The bots would have a harder time profiting off a system like that.
So please if you are going to implement this have a check in place for the AH posts.
I am pretty sure if you had done the math you could have made them for MUCH less on pc. and you don't need r14's to do well in this game anyway. the jump from 13 to 14 is significant but not 4mil more significant lol. I haven't looked at r13 prices on pc recently but on xbox they are at about 1 mil. I did recently look at the price of ues. 260 ea. so
1.mil for base 13 enchant 780 for ues 200 for ultimate pot 450 for ward
so the cost to make an r14 on pc is going to be approx 2.2 on xbox probably 2.6
so it always pays to do the math before paying someone an exorbitant amount for something.
as far as your other question can you guarantee me that I can buy that for that amount of money. I wouldn't guarantee anything but my personal experience on xbox says that prices on the ah directly rise and fall with the cost of zen. for a long while zen was hovering around 111-150 and prices were soooo low on everything. then an influx of ad hit us and prices rose on everything and everyone was sad. prices rose to where they are now and prices are thru the roof. they are directly related.
well ok not everyone was sad. some people don't get that inflation is inflation and even though we have more money it's worth less. when everyone has less money it's worth more. prices are lower but it's directly related to how much is out there.
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ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
I personally don't like the system and would prefer a system where the two currencies were independent but that's not what is on the table for this thread.
Remove the zen as currency along with the exchange and either make us pay for vip with RL money or a monthly subscription to play, period.
That's exactly what I had already said I would prefer. The requirement to make both AD and Zen have value and the fact players, for obvious psychological reasons, are viscerally opposed to the notion that they would have to spend money on AD isn't something I see a resolution to.
But that is the system we have. For the purposes of this thread it's really better to focus on trying to fix the system we have which includes limiting the inflow of AD. How much is a reasonable restriction for players is where the feedback should be focused with the caveat that AD needs to be made more valuable (meaning less common and more used).
Suggesting the outright removal of the Zen Exchange is something that would need to be suggested and discussed in a different thread in the non-preview forums as it is unrealistic to request that to be done for Ravenloft.
I've not read through all 7 or 8 pages of this thread. I did get through three pages, however. That said, I currently run 8 characters on my account through random dungeons every day. I have one character for each class. It means I'll get slightly less astral diamonds every day, since my characters get an average of 13k/14k per day. (My main characters and former salvage mule use up their AD bonus every day.) I'll end up rotating through my line-up in order to maximize the bonus AD I get from running these dungeons and in order to keep myself from having characters sitting at the maximum bonus of 100k AD. Not all of my characters are capable of running the Advanced queue (I'm actually not sure I have any right now, as my SW is my highest at 12,095 IL). I actually run random dungeons as much for the AD as for the items to convert to refinement points.
This change will also let me choose to run other things, like some epic dungeons (outside of random queueing) in order to get some salvage stuff and have a shot at whatever gear drops from those dungeons. I doubt this change will have any effect whatever on bots. I also wouldn't get upset about this change even if I were refining much more than 100k AD per day across all my characters simply because I have no control over it (beyond leaving feedback, obviously) and because I'm hopeful it will produce some good results (and I'm willing to wait and see what the actual results are). Hopefully, it won't drive people away from the game en masse because that is one of Neverwinter's strongest attributes. I used to play DDO, and left because they have way too few players spread across too many levels, and getting groups to run stuff in the time I have available was nearly impossible.
The efforts of those giving feedback are better spent on discussing what would be a more reasonable cap. How many characters should be able to fully refine a day? 100K is 2.7 characters in the current system. Would 200K (5.5 characters) be more amicable?
Just keep in mind no matter what the system as it is right now is unsustainable and will be changing. You won't be able to refine 36K x the number of character slots. That's off the table and you would be better off arguing for a removal of the Zen Exchange altogether at that point.
200k a day would probably make most people more happy and would probably not much of the population would reach that cap.
second point NOOOOO I LOVE THE ZAX.. it MUST STAY!!!
I personally don't like the system and would prefer a system where the two currencies were independent but that's not what is on the table for this thread.
Remove the zen as currency along with the exchange and either make us pay for vip with RL money or a monthly subscription to play, period.
That's exactly what I had already said I would prefer. The requirement to make both AD and Zen have value and the fact players, for obvious psychological reasons, are viscerally opposed to the notion that they would have to spend money on AD isn't something I see a resolution to.
But that is the system we have. For the purposes of this thread it's really better to focus on trying to fix the system we have which includes limiting the inflow of AD. How much is a reasonable restriction for players is where the feedback should be focused with the caveat that AD needs to be made more valuable (meaning less common and more used).
Suggesting the outright removal of the Zen Exchange is something that would need to be suggested and discussed in a different thread in the non-preview forums as it is unrealistic to request that to be done for Ravenloft.
NOOOOOOOOO THE ZAX MUST STAY!!!
personally I am all for a type of vip that requires real money be spent. I don't mind paying a subscription if it keeps the game going (as long as the rewards are meaningful) I.e vip plus with extra benefits and maybe some random bonus stuff for plus members every month. .... but leave the zax... for me it's one of the things that defines this game and a definite reason I stay. a mini stock market is FUN. probably the thing that is most fun about this game imo
the way to get more money isn't to strong arm the players and change things they like and are used to. but to be honest with us. give us numbers. give us rational. if the game needs to make more money just say yeah you guys need to buy more stuff or we're going to close shop. I'd be willing to bet most people would want the game to remain and spend more. fairest way would just be a subscription with added benefits that required actual money not ad.
> @plasticbat said: > It seems most people only pays attention to the rAD refinement account cap. Although it does not affect me at all (because I don't do RQ), the biggest rAD nerf is the RQ. 100K cap may sound like a big deal. Your ability of actually getting 100K rough AD should be the part to think about. > > In short, IMO, 100K AD cap is not necessary a big deal in the future because you can't reach it easily. The bigger deal is you won't be able to reach it.
My thoughts exactly. Cap the refinement at 100k but keep the RQ how it is so I can at least get close to the 100k without spending hours doing salvage runs in elol
This is a horrible idea if Cryptic likes making money. You are going to cause all of the whales to quit the game.
We all understand the ZAX is currently in a bad state, but it is not because people are gaining too much AD. It is because, outside of the few sales on Zen each year, there is very little incentive for people to buy Zen, leading to a shortage that causes the backlog.
Instead of trying to penalize players, how about you actually give us reasons to spend money (buy Zen) on a regular basis?
1st - lower the prices on the most commonly purchased items. (wards, keys, and VIP)
2nd - implement a program where when you purchase X amount of an item, you receive an account bound coupon worth X amount of Zen for anything. example: I purchase 100 preservation wards, I receive a coupon in the mail worth 100 Zen that can be used on anything, and does not expire for 30 days.
3rd - rework the entire transmute system. tie it to collections, so when an item is gained, from that point on it is available on that character as a transmute any time we want. charge 5-10k AD to do so. then add all of the past transmutes that are no longer in the game into the Zen market for reasonable prices. your goal is to get the masses to buy, so cheaper equals more people buying. regularly add new ones, and rotate the stock to keep things fresh
4th - add unique titles to the Zen market not available anywhere else. charge a small amount of Zen for them, and rotate them regularly. make then funny.
5th - add a dye option for mounts, and sell mount dyes in the Zen market. this would allow us to more customize our mounts and set up apart. it is an RPG, after all
These are just a few things I came up with in 5 minutes. I am sure your staff can think of many more, and even have contests to request ideas from the community.
Point is, while your goal is noble, your methods are terrible, and will cause destruction to your player base.
> @thefiresidecat said: > Nobody read?: > > The 100k cap is the least of it, this is the most important: > > "Below are the AD changes to the random queues: > Leveling Queue: 8,000 first run / 1,000 repeat > Intermediate Queue: 12,000 first run / 2,000 repeat / 2,400 role bonus > Advanced: 15,000 first run / 3,000 repeat / 3,000 role bonus > Expert: 5,000 role bonus > > The first run bonuses are now account gated meaning that only one character can earn those first run bonuses per day." > > That will affect severely to new players. > > I don't think it will. most new players don't have more than one account. if anything for honestly new players it's going to increase their money
How will this increase a new players money? A new player can't do salvage runs in epic dungeons to get close to the 100k cap. This change to the RQ is worse than the overall cap.
This is a horrible idea if Cryptic likes making money. You are going to cause all of the whales to quit the game.
We all understand the ZAX is currently in a bad state, but it is not because people are gaining too much AD. It is because, outside of the few sales on Zen each year, there is very little incentive for people to buy Zen, leading to a shortage that causes the backlog.
Instead of trying to penalize players, how about you actually give us reasons to spend money (buy Zen) on a regular basis?
1st - lower the prices on the most commonly purchased items. (wards, keys, and VIP)
2nd - implement a program where when you purchase X amount of an item, you receive an account bound coupon worth X amount of Zen for anything. example: I purchase 100 preservation wards, I receive a coupon in the mail worth 100 Zen that can be used on anything, and does not expire for 30 days.
3rd - rework the entire transmute system. tie it to collections, so when an item is gained, from that point on it is available on that character as a transmute any time we want. charge 5-10k AD to do so. then add all of the past transmutes that are no longer in the game into the Zen market for reasonable prices. your goal is to get the masses to buy, so cheaper equals more people buying. regularly add new ones, and rotate the stock to keep things fresh
4th - add unique titles to the Zen market not available anywhere else. charge a small amount of Zen for them, and rotate them regularly. make then funny.
5th - add a dye option for mounts, and sell mount dyes in the Zen market. this would allow us to more customize our mounts and set up apart. it is an RPG, after all
These are just a few things I came up with in 5 minutes. I am sure your staff can think of many more, and even have contests to request ideas from the community.
Point is, while your goal is noble, your methods are terrible, and will cause destruction to your player base.
Please rethink this before you roll it out.
Thank you.
YES!! this for sure. the zen store is in such dire need of an overhaul. this game is missing on money big time because of this. almost all of the packs are years out of date. the prices on many things are skewed. new relevant things should be added. irrelevant things should be retired. there have been so many suggestions for the zen shop over the years that people are willing to pay for.. but it's been totally neglected
These changes to AD WILL make me quit this game again, which sucks because I've been really enjoying upgrading my GWF and getting more powerful. AD is key to upgrading your character unlike in other MMOs that reward you with near gear out of dungeons. Both limiting the AD you can make a day and how easily you can acquire it is asinine! It requires too much salvage daily to reach your cap if you take away first run bonuses from your alts. Queues will probably take longer due to less people running them because the repeat AD is a pittance compared to the potential from salvage. With other good options in terms of MMOs out there, including the recent release of Tera on console, you need to find a way go to entice your players to keep coming back not push them away. This is a terrible and destructive nerf to AD gain, which I'll say again IS THE PRIMARY WAY TO UPGRADE YOUR CHARACTER. This is a detriment to all of the new players coming into this game who do not already have min-maxed character's and a giant backlog of AD. I hope this change is HIGHLY reconsidered and NOT instituted. I would hate to have wasted my time and money with this game for a second time.
I feel like this is an effort to try and get more people to buy zen, which is ironic really because before these patch notes I was considering spending some money for some character slots and such but I won't be dropping a single dime on this game until the devs explicitly state they are not changing AD refinement PERIOD.
This isn't going to reduce the cost of items in the AH. Items of value in the AH are already undervalued relative to their AD cost to produce.
For example, this morning I looked and there were 48 Unparalleled Weapon Enchants for sale at an average of cost of ~6,033,000 AD/enchant. (Yes, I actually went through and added up all the UWEs for sale and found the average price). To the casual observer, those prices look high and that may seem like the market is out of balance and that there is too much AD in the economy. Looking at it from the perspective of how much it costs to refine each of those enchants from shards, however, shows that the AD market is self regulating because if you add up the costs of needed materials to make those UEWs (Coal Wards x7, GMoPx30, GESx9, SMoPx25, SESx9, UMoPx10, & EESx3) you're looking at a 7,884,050 AD investment--and that is assuming you have VIP and are getting the discount rate on MoPs and Enchanting Stones at the Wonderous Bazaar.
Given the 10% AH cut from a sale, you, on average, would net ~$5,400,000 at today's prices. That is a net loss of your total investment of roughly 2.5M AD for every Unparalleled Weapon Enchant in the AH. People are willing to take that type of loss now because 1) they want something else *right now*, and 2) AD are so plentiful, it is easy to make that AD back in no time so there really is no long term pain.
If you lower the circulation of AD, and increase their value, people won't be willing to take a loss like that anymore. At a minimum, (and this isn't including the cost of refinement points), to simply break even in the AH after upgrading a weapon enchant to Unparalleled and subtracting the 10% AH cut, you would have to sell those items for 8,760,056 AD.
That is a 45% increase in AH prices for big ticket items.
The current proposal, then, is doubly damaging to the casual player; not only will prices be higher to get better gear, but it will take much, much longer to actually save up to get that gear.
The other option, as I mentioned in an earlier post is that the AH will, for all intents and purposes, collapse and be replaced with a bartering economy (already somewhat thriving on the Trade chat channel) mediated by a meta-currency.
It really doens't matter to me what you do; I'll adapt.
Just understand that you are setting yourself up for some really *economy crashing* unintended consequences.
A lot of folks will get crushed by these changes...and some of us will make out like bandits.
To mitigate some of those consequences, based on the feedback so far, I would recommend the following:
1) Raise the daily rough AD refinement cap to either 150 or 200K/day accountwide. As you say, it won't affect over 90% of the player base, but for those low one digit percenters who farm on multiple toons all day (and lets face it, they make the economy actually work) it is a nice compromise.
2) Make VIP Epic Dungeon keys account bound rather than bind on pickup. For those with multiple toons, this lets you run dungeons on your preferred character as many times as you want and still get a reward that can be converted to AD. It takes the sting out of the RQ changes; in fact, it would encourage more grouping with friends in the dungeon of your choice and increase gameplay enjoyment. If you have 8-10 toons, that is 30 keys/day that could be used on the toon of your choice; figure 10 minutes per (easy) dungeon run for 30 runs and you've consumed around 5 hours of time. In that time, you also get 30 salvagable items @ about 4,400AD per salvage and that is 132,000 rough AD/day +/- invocation bonuses.
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ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
We all understand the ZAX is currently in a bad state, but it is not because people are gaining too much AD. It is because, outside of the few sales on Zen each year, there is very little incentive for people to buy Zen, leading to a shortage that causes the backlog.
People have no reason to want to buy Zen...yet the ZAX is filled with people trying to get Zen...?
You have it backwards. People have little reason to want AD. People have more reason to want Zen than AD and more importantly little reason to want to buy Zen to buy AD. You are suggesting to fix the fact people want Zen more than AD by doing things that make Zen even more desirable than AD...
We all understand the ZAX is currently in a bad state, but it is not because people are gaining too much AD. It is because, outside of the few sales on Zen each year, there is very little incentive for people to buy Zen, leading to a shortage that causes the backlog.
People have no reason to want to buy Zen...yet the ZAX is filled with people trying to get Zen...?
You have it backwards. People have little reason to want AD. People have more reason to want Zen than AD and more importantly little reason to want to buy Zen to buy AD. You are suggesting to fix the fact people want Zen more than AD by doing things that make Zen even more desirable than AD...
and how much of that is spent on three items? keys (various) press wards and coal wards? edit fourth item vip, point is there is a lot left on the table. the zen store is WAYYYYY out of date. cross reference the prices of companions and mounts in the store to the ah. 98 percent of the zen store is irrelevant to the game. if it were more relevant you'd make a lot more money. I've seen a lot of suggestion threads over the years all of which have been ignored. not sure why you guys aren't more on the ball wiht one of the most significant cash cows out there.
> The 100k cap is the least of it, this is the most important:
>
> "Below are the AD changes to the random queues:
> Leveling Queue: 8,000 first run / 1,000 repeat
> Intermediate Queue: 12,000 first run / 2,000 repeat / 2,400 role bonus
> Advanced: 15,000 first run / 3,000 repeat / 3,000 role bonus
> Expert: 5,000 role bonus
>
> The first run bonuses are now account gated meaning that only one character can earn those first run bonuses per day."
>
> That will affect severely to new players.
>
> I don't think it will. most new players don't have more than one account. if anything for honestly new players it's going to increase their money
How will this increase a new players money? A new player can't do salvage runs in epic dungeons to get close to the 100k cap. This change to the RQ is worse than the overall cap.
they will make much more money wiht their one toon then they would have before. current cap is 6k per dungeon it's 2x that now. no they won't hit cap with it but they'll still do better than they were. they aren't hitting cap now.
The 100k limit does not bother me personally...I may exceed that on weekends, but not on workdays, so personally I'm fine.
The limit will not affect botters..they will just use more accounts.
The players that will be affected are primarily F2P players who max out the current cap on multiple alts per day...and that's, what 10% of the players.
I consider that a bit too high, and I wonder how high the daily limit would have to be to only affect like 2-3% of the players.
Well, @noworries#8859 *did* already say it's a "low single digits" percentage who pass 100k/day as is.
I'd be more interested in seeing what percentage of accounts pass 700k/wk, or 3M/mo, and if that number is higher than then 100k/day number - basically, what percentage of accounts might beat "100k/day" only two days a week, but might beat it by a huge margin because they only really play on Weekends but they play all day, that sort of thing.
(Those players, incidentally, won't REALLY be affected by this change if they log in and click the magic refining button on days they don't actively play. Because it doesn't matter if you earn 700k on Saturday and can only refine 100k of it, if you can refine 100k/day until next Saturday. And I strongly suspect most people pulling half a million RAD on a single day are also VIP users who are signing in every day for the free key *anyway*.)
I have 22 charectors, and I use 18 of them strictly to refine Ad. I can hit almost 800,000 ad a day if I farmed all 36k per charector. Plz don’t ruin this for me. I’m cool with 100k per account, but don’t allow one ad run per account, I like it per character
I have 22 charectors, and I use 18 of them strictly to refine Ad. I can hit almost 800,000 ad a day if I farmed all 36k per charector. Plz don’t ruin this for me. I’m cool with 100k per account, but don’t allow one ad run per account, I like it per character
good point if the limit is 100k per day.. then changing how many characters you run on shouldn't affect anything yeah?
We all understand the ZAX is currently in a bad state, but it is not because people are gaining too much AD. It is because, outside of the few sales on Zen each year, there is very little incentive for people to buy Zen, leading to a shortage that causes the backlog.
People have no reason to want to buy Zen...yet the ZAX is filled with people trying to get Zen...?
You have it backwards. People have little reason to want AD. People have more reason to want Zen than AD and more importantly little reason to want to buy Zen to buy AD. You are suggesting to fix the fact people want Zen more than AD by doing things that make Zen even more desirable than AD...
The only things people want Zen for is VIP, keys, and wards. Almost everything else on the Zen market is outdated. The backlog occurs because of a lack of Zen in the market, not too much AD. AD is used for many things, including marks for upgrading, scrolls, and the AH.
The lack of people buying Zen is what leads to the backlog. For the F2P model to work, the people who want to convert AD to Zen need to be able to do so in a reasonable amount of time (ie. at the end of a dungeon to open a chest), and with a shortage of Zen, it causes the ZAX to break down due to the amount of time is takes to receive the Zen.
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ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
and how much of that is spent on three items? keys (various) press wards and coal wards?
Yeah...so reducing the prices of Zen Store items and making more items people would want to spend Zen on does what?
In economic terms it increases the demand of Zen.
The ZAX is basically an equation...
(Supply/Demand Value of AD) = (Supply/Demand Value of Zen)
If you increase the demand of Zen then the value of Zen will go up. When the value of Zen goes up but the supply and demand of AD doesn't change then the amount of AD needed to buy a single Zen will go up. In effect this means that AD is worth even less.
You are looking at this BACKWARDS. If people bought one billion Zen a day it wouldn't in any way reduce the ZAX values if the people who purchased Zen then used it on Zen store items. In order to make the ZAX function then people NEED TO BUY ZEN TO BUY AD.
The Zen exchange working is purely for the benefit of the players particularly those who don't want to spend real life money. Regardless of the value of AD the company makes money off of EVERY SINGLE ZEN.
A person who hasn't spent a single cent on this game but has used the ZAX to buy Zen to then use that Zen in the Zen store has actually in a sense given money to the company. Effectively it is no different than if that person handed AD over to another person for money and then used that money to buy Zen themselves.
The Zen store does need improvements, however in regards to this topic that doesn't actually help. The more desirable the items in the Zen store are, the worse the Zax trade imbalance gets. Currently on PC there are far more players wanting Zen then are wanting AD, which causes the high backlog. The better the Zen store gets, the more players want Zen, the worse the backlog gets. Improving the Zen store does not improve the value of AD or help the backlog.
There is a lot of focus on my comments on the ZAX, however I mentioned that as the easiest indicator of the value of AD. The overall goal is to improve the value of AD, improving the ZAX is also important and happens as the value of AD increases, but overall the focus is reducing inflation and increasing the value of AD as a whole.
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.
There is nothing wrong with the Zax; it is perfectly predictable and leads to a (for the most part) stable economy. I also think the 500:1 exchange rate helps to clarify what items are worth which leads, once again, to a more stable economy.
If you've watched the Zax for any period of time, you know that it processes, on average about 1M Zen/day. That 1M Zen/day means that the player base on PC is, hypothetically, spending around $10,000 (real world money) on Zen to convert to AD every single day. That translates into over $3.5M annually just from that conversion process. This isn't even counting the real money inflows from Zen purchase events and new shiny objects that get released with every mod.
For most of the year, there is little to no backlog to purchase Zen on the Zax (maybe four days tops) so to say that there is an imbalance in the value of AD and/or Zen is simply mistaken; the large backlogs that you see now and around Black Friday are simply due to supply and demand. To say that the Zax is broken because you want your Zen *right now* is kind of like showing up to a popular restaurant at 6pm and shouting that the restaurant is broken because you have to wait half an hour for a table.
No. It is simply rush hour on the Zax. It is fine, everything will eventually work it's way through the system.
I'm curious, all those players saying they were able to make massive amounts of AD's per day previously - just what are those players doing with their accumulated wealth?
I see quite a few regulars who appear to be purchasing items from the Auction House and relisting those items at an inflated price - that's one thing I see as a benefit for those making massive amounts of AD's daily... and one of the best reasons for nurfing the daily AD amount as far as I'm concerned.
I also see quite a few players repeatedly running dungeon and skirmish content for the sole purpose of accumulating more Astral Diamonds with the apparent mindset that the quicker they make that run the sooner they can run their other characters to make even more AD's... as a result those who do run dungeons just for AD's tend to resent and sometimes wish to exclude or punish players who's primary purpose is not solely to accumulate more AD's during these runs.
Every player from the newest players to the most experienced players needs a certain amount of AD's to purchase better gear, enchantments, runestones, companions, mounts and artifacts so they can play Neverwinter more effectively but beyond that, it is my opinion that players accumulating massive amounts of AD's only serves the purpose of HAMSTER up the Neverwinter economy and artificially inflating the prices of some items available for purchase from the Auction House.
My personal thought - I'm giving the change to some players being able to accumulating massive quantities of AD's two very big thumbs up.
The Zen store does need improvements, however in regards to this topic that doesn't actually help. The more desirable the items in the Zen store are, the worse the Zax trade imbalance gets. Currently on PC there are far more players wanting Zen then are wanting AD, which causes the high backlog. The better the Zen store gets, the more players want Zen, the worse the backlog gets. Improving the Zen store does not improve the value of AD or help the backlog.
There is a lot of focus on my comments on the ZAX, however I mentioned that as the easiest indicator of the value of AD. The overall goal is to improve the value of AD, improving the ZAX is also important and happens as the value of AD increases, but overall the focus is reducing inflation and increasing the value of AD as a whole.
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.
not sure why the store would not be relevant to this point yeah more people would want zen to buy things but you'd get a lot more people just buying zen to buy things too and with that exchange some of it for ad. it's another part of the same coin. if more people did buy zen with their ad to buy things in teh zen store that's effectively also an ad sink is it not?
I can only speak for myself but I won't spend real money on wards or keys. I have spent real money on packs though. I'd spend real money on things that let me transfer bound things between characters. or let me bring over stuff bound to account from one platform to another. I think mounts and pets also would fit into this area of rational. wards nad keys are things that are fleeting i wouldn't spend hard earned cash on them.
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plasticbatMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 12,423Arc User
The Zen store does need improvements, however in regards to this topic that doesn't actually help. The more desirable the items in the Zen store are, the worse the Zax trade imbalance gets. Currently on PC there are far more players wanting Zen then are wanting AD, which causes the high backlog. The better the Zen store gets, the more players want Zen, the worse the backlog gets. Improving the Zen store does not improve the value of AD or help the backlog.
There is a lot of focus on my comments on the ZAX, however I mentioned that as the easiest indicator of the value of AD. The overall goal is to improve the value of AD, improving the ZAX is also important and happens as the value of AD increases, but overall the focus is reducing inflation and increasing the value of AD as a whole.
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.
not sure why the store would not be relevant to this point yeah more people would want zen to buy things but you'd get a lot more people just buying zen to buy things too and with that exchange some of it for ad. it's another part of the same coin. if more people did buy zen with their ad to buy things in teh zen store that's effectively also an ad sink is it not?
No. You don't understand what AD sink is. AD sink means the AD is destroyed/vanished/vaporized. Using Zen to buy AD from Zax means the AD is changing hand. The AD is not destroyed. Using AD to buy GMOP from AD store will destroy that amount of AD. That is an AD sink. Buying GMOP from AH will only destroy 10% of that AD. The 90% of AD is just passed to another person. So, AH is just a 10% AD sink while AD store is 100%. And, Zax is 0%.
*** 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. ***
and how much of that is spent on three items? keys (various) press wards and coal wards?
Yeah...so reducing the prices of Zen Store items and making more items people would want to spend Zen on does what?
In economic terms it increases the demand of Zen.
The ZAX is basically an equation...
(Supply/Demand Value of AD) = (Supply/Demand Value of Zen)
If you increase the demand of Zen then the value of Zen will go up. When the value of Zen goes up but the supply and demand of AD doesn't change then the amount of AD needed to buy a single Zen will go up. In effect this means that AD is worth even less.
You are looking at this BACKWARDS. If people bought one billion Zen a day it wouldn't in any way reduce the ZAX values if the people who purchased Zen then used it on Zen store items. In order to make the ZAX function then people NEED TO BUY ZEN TO BUY AD.
The Zen exchange working is purely for the benefit of the players particularly those who don't want to spend real life money. Regardless of the value of AD the company makes money off of EVERY SINGLE ZEN.
A person who hasn't spent a single cent on this game but has used the ZAX to buy Zen to then use that Zen in the Zen store has actually in a sense given money to the company. Effectively it is no different than if that person handed AD over to another person for money and then used that money to buy Zen themselves.
I was meaning reducing the price on outdated things that sell for 2k in the ah that they want 2000k zen for in the store. adding new things gets people to either spend actual money on what is available or to actually spend that zen instead of hoarding it. (which is also ad. ad can be used to buy zen and zen ad thus those two things are one and the same.) so spending zen is a ad sink. I think people buy and hoard zen. ad = zen and vs versa. if people spend more zen it's more ad out of the economy. if people spend more ad they're spending more ad. the problem I'm seeing is people are hoarding and not spending.
it makes sense to buy and hoard zen on pc because it's difficult to get. it also makes sense because if you're doing professions and stuff if you have too much ad on your toon it's easy to accidentally spend 300k in a lag click. zen is much safer.
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ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
not sure why the store would not be relevant to this point yeah more people would want zen to buy things but you'd get a lot more people just buying zen to buy things too and with that exchange some of it for ad.
It is only relevant in the sense that "The more desirable the items in the Zen store are, the worse the Zax trade imbalance gets."
The goal is to make AD more valuable. There are four ways to make AD more valuable.
1) Reduce the amount of AD entering the system. 2) Increase the uses for AD. 3) Increase the amount of Zen entering the system TO BUY AD (if it isn't used to buy AD it doesn't help) 4) Reduce the uses for Zen
If you make the Zen store better then the amount of people trying to obtain Zen with AD will go up thus devaluing AD which is the opposite of the goal. See how number 4 is REDUCE the uses of Zen...not increase. They are two sides of the same coin but they are inversely related. They are listed in supply, demand, supply, demand order to point out the inverse relationship.
If you increase the demand of zen then you will decrease the value of AD. If you increase the value of AD then you will decrease the value of Zen.
Forget the Zen Store. You are looking at it backwards. Focus on feedback regarding points 1 and 2. What can the devs do to reduce the supply of AD or increase the demand of AD with minimal or beneficial impacts to the players?
so spending zen is a ad sink. I think people buy and hoard zen.
No. No. It is only a sink when it is destroyed as plasticbat said. AD and Zen values are tied to each other but they ARE NOT the same. It's not a conversion. It's an exchange. AD has it's own value and how much Zen you can buy is based on the value of AD. They are intrinsically tied together but absolutely NOT the same. Zen sinks DO NOT sink AD. Zen sink s sink Zen while the AD merrily sits and deflates in value.
not sure why the store would not be relevant to this point yeah more people would want zen to buy things but you'd get a lot more people just buying zen to buy things too and with that exchange some of it for ad. it's another part of the same coin. if more people did buy zen with their ad to buy things in teh zen store that's effectively also an ad sink is it not?
That's not quite how it works out. Those who directly buy Zen because of good items in the store, spend it on those items. Those who don't spend money on Zen and want things in the store trade their AD to get the Zen to buy the store items. The better the store/more items they want, the more AD they deposit in the ZAX, the higher the exchange rate or the higher the backlog if the exchange is capped.
You can see this anytime there is a sale in the store. The ZAX doesn't go down from players buying store items and converting left over Zen to AD. It rises sharply from players wanting access to the store items and putting lots of AD into the ZAX.
Comments
1.mil for base 13 enchant
780 for ues
200 for ultimate pot
450 for ward
so the cost to make an r14 on pc is going to be approx 2.2 on xbox probably 2.6
so it always pays to do the math before paying someone an exorbitant amount for something.
as far as your other question can you guarantee me that I can buy that for that amount of money. I wouldn't guarantee anything but my personal experience on xbox says that prices on the ah directly rise and fall with the cost of zen. for a long while zen was hovering around 111-150 and prices were soooo low on everything. then an influx of ad hit us and prices rose on everything and everyone was sad. prices rose to where they are now and prices are thru the roof. they are directly related.
well ok not everyone was sad. some people don't get that inflation is inflation and even though we have more money it's worth less. when everyone has less money it's worth more. prices are lower but it's directly related to how much is out there.
But that is the system we have. For the purposes of this thread it's really better to focus on trying to fix the system we have which includes limiting the inflow of AD. How much is a reasonable restriction for players is where the feedback should be focused with the caveat that AD needs to be made more valuable (meaning less common and more used).
Suggesting the outright removal of the Zen Exchange is something that would need to be suggested and discussed in a different thread in the non-preview forums as it is unrealistic to request that to be done for Ravenloft.
This change will also let me choose to run other things, like some epic dungeons (outside of random queueing) in order to get some salvage stuff and have a shot at whatever gear drops from those dungeons. I doubt this change will have any effect whatever on bots. I also wouldn't get upset about this change even if I were refining much more than 100k AD per day across all my characters simply because I have no control over it (beyond leaving feedback, obviously) and because I'm hopeful it will produce some good results (and I'm willing to wait and see what the actual results are). Hopefully, it won't drive people away from the game en masse because that is one of Neverwinter's strongest attributes. I used to play DDO, and left because they have way too few players spread across too many levels, and getting groups to run stuff in the time I have available was nearly impossible.
200k a day would probably make most people more happy and would probably not much of the population would reach that cap.
second point NOOOOO I LOVE THE ZAX.. it MUST STAY!!!
NOOOOOOOOO THE ZAX MUST STAY!!!
personally I am all for a type of vip that requires real money be spent. I don't mind paying a subscription if it keeps the game going (as long as the rewards are meaningful) I.e vip plus with extra benefits and maybe some random bonus stuff for plus members every month. .... but leave the zax... for me it's one of the things that defines this game and a definite reason I stay. a mini stock market is FUN. probably the thing that is most fun about this game imo
the way to get more money isn't to strong arm the players and change things they like and are used to. but to be honest with us. give us numbers. give us rational. if the game needs to make more money just say yeah you guys need to buy more stuff or we're going to close shop. I'd be willing to bet most people would want the game to remain and spend more. fairest way would just be a subscription with added benefits that required actual money not ad.
> It seems most people only pays attention to the rAD refinement account cap. Although it does not affect me at all (because I don't do RQ), the biggest rAD nerf is the RQ. 100K cap may sound like a big deal. Your ability of actually getting 100K rough AD should be the part to think about.
>
> In short, IMO, 100K AD cap is not necessary a big deal in the future because you can't reach it easily. The bigger deal is you won't be able to reach it.
My thoughts exactly. Cap the refinement at 100k but keep the RQ how it is so I can at least get close to the 100k without spending hours doing salvage runs in elol
We all understand the ZAX is currently in a bad state, but it is not because people are gaining too much AD. It is because, outside of the few sales on Zen each year, there is very little incentive for people to buy Zen, leading to a shortage that causes the backlog.
Instead of trying to penalize players, how about you actually give us reasons to spend money (buy Zen) on a regular basis?
1st - lower the prices on the most commonly purchased items. (wards, keys, and VIP)
2nd - implement a program where when you purchase X amount of an item, you receive an account bound coupon worth X amount of Zen for anything. example: I purchase 100 preservation wards, I receive a coupon in the mail worth 100 Zen that can be used on anything, and does not expire for 30 days.
3rd - rework the entire transmute system. tie it to collections, so when an item is gained, from that point on it is available on that character as a transmute any time we want. charge 5-10k AD to do so. then add all of the past transmutes that are no longer in the game into the Zen market for reasonable prices. your goal is to get the masses to buy, so cheaper equals more people buying. regularly add new ones, and rotate the stock to keep things fresh
4th - add unique titles to the Zen market not available anywhere else. charge a small amount of Zen for them, and rotate them regularly. make then funny.
5th - add a dye option for mounts, and sell mount dyes in the Zen market. this would allow us to more customize our mounts and set up apart. it is an RPG, after all
These are just a few things I came up with in 5 minutes. I am sure your staff can think of many more, and even have contests to request ideas from the community.
Point is, while your goal is noble, your methods are terrible, and will cause destruction to your player base.
Please rethink this before you roll it out.
Thank you.
> Nobody read?:
>
> The 100k cap is the least of it, this is the most important:
>
> "Below are the AD changes to the random queues:
> Leveling Queue: 8,000 first run / 1,000 repeat
> Intermediate Queue: 12,000 first run / 2,000 repeat / 2,400 role bonus
> Advanced: 15,000 first run / 3,000 repeat / 3,000 role bonus
> Expert: 5,000 role bonus
>
> The first run bonuses are now account gated meaning that only one character can earn those first run bonuses per day."
>
> That will affect severely to new players.
>
> I don't think it will. most new players don't have more than one account. if anything for honestly new players it's going to increase their money
How will this increase a new players money? A new player can't do salvage runs in epic dungeons to get close to the 100k cap. This change to the RQ is worse than the overall cap.
I feel like this is an effort to try and get more people to buy zen, which is ironic really because before these patch notes I was considering spending some money for some character slots and such but I won't be dropping a single dime on this game until the devs explicitly state they are not changing AD refinement PERIOD.
For example, this morning I looked and there were 48 Unparalleled Weapon Enchants for sale at an average of cost of ~6,033,000 AD/enchant. (Yes, I actually went through and added up all the UWEs for sale and found the average price). To the casual observer, those prices look high and that may seem like the market is out of balance and that there is too much AD in the economy. Looking at it from the perspective of how much it costs to refine each of those enchants from shards, however, shows that the AD market is self regulating because if you add up the costs of needed materials to make those UEWs (Coal Wards x7, GMoPx30, GESx9, SMoPx25, SESx9, UMoPx10, & EESx3) you're looking at a 7,884,050 AD investment--and that is assuming you have VIP and are getting the discount rate on MoPs and Enchanting Stones at the Wonderous Bazaar.
Given the 10% AH cut from a sale, you, on average, would net ~$5,400,000 at today's prices. That is a net loss of your total investment of roughly 2.5M AD for every Unparalleled Weapon Enchant in the AH. People are willing to take that type of loss now because 1) they want something else *right now*, and 2) AD are so plentiful, it is easy to make that AD back in no time so there really is no long term pain.
If you lower the circulation of AD, and increase their value, people won't be willing to take a loss like that anymore. At a minimum, (and this isn't including the cost of refinement points), to simply break even in the AH after upgrading a weapon enchant to Unparalleled and subtracting the 10% AH cut, you would have to sell those items for 8,760,056 AD.
That is a 45% increase in AH prices for big ticket items.
The current proposal, then, is doubly damaging to the casual player; not only will prices be higher to get better gear, but it will take much, much longer to actually save up to get that gear.
The other option, as I mentioned in an earlier post is that the AH will, for all intents and purposes, collapse and be replaced with a bartering economy (already somewhat thriving on the Trade chat channel) mediated by a meta-currency.
It really doens't matter to me what you do; I'll adapt.
Just understand that you are setting yourself up for some really *economy crashing* unintended consequences.
A lot of folks will get crushed by these changes...and some of us will make out like bandits.
To mitigate some of those consequences, based on the feedback so far, I would recommend the following:
1) Raise the daily rough AD refinement cap to either 150 or 200K/day accountwide. As you say, it won't affect over 90% of the player base, but for those low one digit percenters who farm on multiple toons all day (and lets face it, they make the economy actually work) it is a nice compromise.
2) Make VIP Epic Dungeon keys account bound rather than bind on pickup. For those with multiple toons, this lets you run dungeons on your preferred character as many times as you want and still get a reward that can be converted to AD. It takes the sting out of the RQ changes; in fact, it would encourage more grouping with friends in the dungeon of your choice and increase gameplay enjoyment. If you have 8-10 toons, that is 30 keys/day that could be used on the toon of your choice; figure 10 minutes per (easy) dungeon run for 30 runs and you've consumed around 5 hours of time. In that time, you also get 30 salvagable items @ about 4,400AD per salvage and that is 132,000 rough AD/day +/- invocation bonuses.
You have it backwards. People have little reason to want AD. People have more reason to want Zen than AD and more importantly little reason to want to buy Zen to buy AD.
You are suggesting to fix the fact people want Zen more than AD by doing things that make Zen even more desirable than AD...
I'd be more interested in seeing what percentage of accounts pass 700k/wk, or 3M/mo, and if that number is higher than then 100k/day number - basically, what percentage of accounts might beat "100k/day" only two days a week, but might beat it by a huge margin because they only really play on Weekends but they play all day, that sort of thing.
(Those players, incidentally, won't REALLY be affected by this change if they log in and click the magic refining button on days they don't actively play. Because it doesn't matter if you earn 700k on Saturday and can only refine 100k of it, if you can refine 100k/day until next Saturday. And I strongly suspect most people pulling half a million RAD on a single day are also VIP users who are signing in every day for the free key *anyway*.)
The lack of people buying Zen is what leads to the backlog. For the F2P model to work, the people who want to convert AD to Zen need to be able to do so in a reasonable amount of time (ie. at the end of a dungeon to open a chest), and with a shortage of Zen, it causes the ZAX to break down due to the amount of time is takes to receive the Zen.
In economic terms it increases the demand of Zen.
The ZAX is basically an equation...
(Supply/Demand Value of AD) = (Supply/Demand Value of Zen)
If you increase the demand of Zen then the value of Zen will go up. When the value of Zen goes up but the supply and demand of AD doesn't change then the amount of AD needed to buy a single Zen will go up. In effect this means that AD is worth even less.
You are looking at this BACKWARDS. If people bought one billion Zen a day it wouldn't in any way reduce the ZAX values if the people who purchased Zen then used it on Zen store items. In order to make the ZAX function then people NEED TO BUY ZEN TO BUY AD.
The Zen exchange working is purely for the benefit of the players particularly those who don't want to spend real life money. Regardless of the value of AD the company makes money off of EVERY SINGLE ZEN.
A person who hasn't spent a single cent on this game but has used the ZAX to buy Zen to then use that Zen in the Zen store has actually in a sense given money to the company. Effectively it is no different than if that person handed AD over to another person for money and then used that money to buy Zen themselves.
There is a lot of focus on my comments on the ZAX, however I mentioned that as the easiest indicator of the value of AD. The overall goal is to improve the value of AD, improving the ZAX is also important and happens as the value of AD increases, but overall the focus is reducing inflation and increasing the value of AD as a whole.
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.
If you've watched the Zax for any period of time, you know that it processes, on average about 1M Zen/day. That 1M Zen/day means that the player base on PC is, hypothetically, spending around $10,000 (real world money) on Zen to convert to AD every single day. That translates into over $3.5M annually just from that conversion process. This isn't even counting the real money inflows from Zen purchase events and new shiny objects that get released with every mod.
For most of the year, there is little to no backlog to purchase Zen on the Zax (maybe four days tops) so to say that there is an imbalance in the value of AD and/or Zen is simply mistaken; the large backlogs that you see now and around Black Friday are simply due to supply and demand. To say that the Zax is broken because you want your Zen *right now* is kind of like showing up to a popular restaurant at 6pm and shouting that the restaurant is broken because you have to wait half an hour for a table.
No. It is simply rush hour on the Zax. It is fine, everything will eventually work it's way through the system.
I see quite a few regulars who appear to be purchasing items from the Auction House and relisting those items at an inflated price - that's one thing I see as a benefit for those making massive amounts of AD's daily... and one of the best reasons for nurfing the daily AD amount as far as I'm concerned.
I also see quite a few players repeatedly running dungeon and skirmish content for the sole purpose of accumulating more Astral Diamonds with the apparent mindset that the quicker they make that run the sooner they can run their other characters to make even more AD's... as a result those who do run dungeons just for AD's tend to resent and sometimes wish to exclude or punish players who's primary purpose is not solely to accumulate more AD's during these runs.
Every player from the newest players to the most experienced players needs a certain amount of AD's to purchase better gear, enchantments, runestones, companions, mounts and artifacts so they can play Neverwinter more effectively but beyond that, it is my opinion that players accumulating massive amounts of AD's only serves the purpose of HAMSTER up the Neverwinter economy and artificially inflating the prices of some items available for purchase from the Auction House.
My personal thought - I'm giving the change to some players being able to accumulating massive quantities of AD's two very big thumbs up.
not sure why the store would not be relevant to this point yeah more people would want zen to buy things but you'd get a lot more people just buying zen to buy things too and with that exchange some of it for ad. it's another part of the same coin. if more people did buy zen with their ad to buy things in teh zen store that's effectively also an ad sink is it not?
I can only speak for myself but I won't spend real money on wards or keys. I have spent real money on packs though. I'd spend real money on things that let me transfer bound things between characters. or let me bring over stuff bound to account from one platform to another. I think mounts and pets also would fit into this area of rational. wards nad keys are things that are fleeting i wouldn't spend hard earned cash on them.
AD sink means the AD is destroyed/vanished/vaporized.
Using Zen to buy AD from Zax means the AD is changing hand. The AD is not destroyed.
Using AD to buy GMOP from AD store will destroy that amount of AD. That is an AD sink.
Buying GMOP from AH will only destroy 10% of that AD. The 90% of AD is just passed to another person. So, AH is just a 10% AD sink while AD store is 100%. And, Zax is 0%.
it makes sense to buy and hoard zen on pc because it's difficult to get. it also makes sense because if you're doing professions and stuff if you have too much ad on your toon it's easy to accidentally spend 300k in a lag click. zen is much safer.
The goal is to make AD more valuable. There are four ways to make AD more valuable.
1) Reduce the amount of AD entering the system.
2) Increase the uses for AD.
3) Increase the amount of Zen entering the system TO BUY AD (if it isn't used to buy AD it doesn't help)
4) Reduce the uses for Zen
If you make the Zen store better then the amount of people trying to obtain Zen with AD will go up thus devaluing AD which is the opposite of the goal. See how number 4 is REDUCE the uses of Zen...not increase. They are two sides of the same coin but they are inversely related. They are listed in supply, demand, supply, demand order to point out the inverse relationship.
If you increase the demand of zen then you will decrease the value of AD. If you increase the value of AD then you will decrease the value of Zen.
Forget the Zen Store. You are looking at it backwards. Focus on feedback regarding points 1 and 2. What can the devs do to reduce the supply of AD or increase the demand of AD with minimal or beneficial impacts to the players? No. No. It is only a sink when it is destroyed as plasticbat said. AD and Zen values are tied to each other but they ARE NOT the same. It's not a conversion. It's an exchange. AD has it's own value and how much Zen you can buy is based on the value of AD. They are intrinsically tied together but absolutely NOT the same. Zen sinks DO NOT sink AD. Zen sink s sink Zen while the AD merrily sits and deflates in value.
You can see this anytime there is a sale in the store. The ZAX doesn't go down from players buying store items and converting left over Zen to AD. It rises sharply from players wanting access to the store items and putting lots of AD into the ZAX.