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AD exchange Back Log solution
mebengalsfan
Member Posts: 3,169 Arc User
To solve the backlog of AD exchange without much fuss or confusion is actually a pretty easy method.
1) create a time window for AD Exchange - make it no longer than 5 days.
2) All backlog items are given a 5 day window
3) Communicate this by a massive in game email to all characters
4) Communicate this by social media
5) Implement
6) Backlog is removed after 5 days
7) Pray that the servers don't crash due to the backlog
To me this is a straight forward way to resolve the backlog issue.
What the devs did in mod 13 instead is upset players who invested time or real world money by buying additional character slots to gain additional AD. The change in mod 13 really did not hurt botters as many already manage more than one account.
1) create a time window for AD Exchange - make it no longer than 5 days.
2) All backlog items are given a 5 day window
3) Communicate this by a massive in game email to all characters
4) Communicate this by social media
5) Implement
6) Backlog is removed after 5 days
7) Pray that the servers don't crash due to the backlog
To me this is a straight forward way to resolve the backlog issue.
What the devs did in mod 13 instead is upset players who invested time or real world money by buying additional character slots to gain additional AD. The change in mod 13 really did not hurt botters as many already manage more than one account.
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If you are simply removing unfilled orders after 5 days, players will relist them and backlog is back. It seems you are just suggesting using the AH listing policy in the exchange. As for number 7, the backlog puts no more strain on the servers than AH listings, probably much less. If I am misunderstanding, perhaps some more details will help.
I don't recall if you ever played on PC. If you haven't, it's hard to get a good picture of the workings of the backlog as Xbox has never really had this issue, yet. The backlog is caused when the demand for Zen from AD exceeds the amount of Zen offered for sale. I would get really peeved if my listing request for Zen at 500 to 1 was removed without being filled and I had to relist and start all over hoping it will be filled within 5 days or I need to do it again. The backlog is often measured in weeks during specials (Jubilee, winterfest, black friday etc) and about a week at other times.
Even with the backlog, all requests currently get filled within 2 weeks (about 8-9 days currently). This means all those listings in the current backlog were posted in the past 8 or 9 days. So, there are no 500 to 1 listings older than that and therefore no inactive players in the backlog. Your solution does nothing to change the backlog. As I stated previously, it could get a temp drop with the one time 5 day limit, but everyone who was dropped would relist and it would be back at the same amount. The demand did not change. If the 5 day limit is maintained as a ongoing practice, there will be many angry players and no real reason or benefit to maintain that practice.
There could be old listings from inactive players for less than 500 to 1, but these listings are not part of the backlog as they will not be filled anyway. Until the demand is decreased and competition open up, nobody is going to accept less than the max of 500 AD for a Zen. Your suggestion would remove those ghost listings of less than 500 to 1(if any exist), but that is all it would do and at the cost of angering anyone who had a 500 to 1 listing removed without being filled. Not a good idea.
Players will get angry for being removed from the exchange without their order being filled, even if they know in advance. I certainly would be angry for being removed in a move that will do nothing to reduce the backlog. As Nameless hero implied, people do not like waiting in a line and then losing their place, for any reason. Players who miss the announcement, and there will be many, are the ones who are likely to think their AD was taken and no Zen given. In fact, if this was done, that 30 day advance period may cause an increase in exchange listings, leading to an increase in the backlog, as players try to beat the removal date.
You based your suggestion on a fallacy that inactive players are part of the backlog. Starting with a faulty premise leads to faulty solution. Your goal was to remove inactive players from the backlog, there are no inactive players in the backlog making this a faulty solution.
There are really only 4 things that may reduce the backlog. The first three focus on possible ways of lowering the exchange rate and reducing the backlog by getting it under 500 and listings competitive. Reducing demand for Zen, reducing the amount of AD available, increasing the amount of available Zen for purchase, and removing the exchange cap so that the market settles at a stable level (somewhere over 500 at first).
Each of these "solutions" has its own problems and concerns. As reducing the demand for Zen (less Zen sold) and raising the cap (Will make if more difficult for low income and ftp players, losing players) will have the most severe adverse affects on company income, they use the other 2 methods. They keep trying to reduce the amount of Ad (unsuccessfully so far, and this can also lead to player loss) and run periodic Zen sales to boost Zen in the economy.
For instance, make an enchanted key available for AD but make it cost 68,750 AD and make it in the WB and allow it to get the discount of other items but bound to account. The items added this way would cost !0% more AD but instead of waiting for the exchange, players can use their AD to buy the zen items they want.
2. The ZAX with a cap, is the main thing that maintains ADs minimal value. In a simplification: Remove the ZAX and AD is worthless. Here in video form:
The PS4 exchange, in spite of being in existence for a shorter period of time than Xbox and possibly having the largest player base currently of the three systems, is at 476 to 1 as I type this. It is also frequently, leading up to and during special events, at the 500 to 1 cap. PS4 had none of the PC issues you stated, but still managed to get a very high exchange rate. For comparison, the Xbox rate is 385 to 1(Checked after maint today). This should help to demonstrate that although PS4 and Xbox share a platform type, there can still be issues similar to PC problems and that glitches and abuse are not the only contributing factors.
There are(Sgt Knox) and have been multiple threads suggesting AD sinks. Your key suggestion should be discussed in one of those. Those discussions to occur more frequently in the preview and PC forums.
Hamster that. Right in the kitten. With a puppy.
Other players used other glitches to garner AD but these typically took some AD off the market. Also the PS4 did allow use to pray and earn at launch. I was talking to a few different people I knew and many maxed out there character slots just to pray and earn AD. Than when that was taken away, they would simply salvage 1 item a day on said characters for the bonus AD. These players know the trick on how to earn max AD and keep the influx of AD high.
PS4 is closer to PC because there are more players out there and more players equals more AD in the market and more AD means more zen exchange request. More request means the rate of AD to Zen will grow over time and hit the cap faster. That along with the bugs as I pointed out is why the PS4 zen exchange is the way it is. I cannot speak for the XBox side of things as I don't play on XBox.
The issue with the Zen Exchange comes from bad management of bugs and glitches. The devs are now trying to correct the backlog issue but this issue comes from the devs not taking care of bugs or glitches when they come up and resolving them immediately. If they would have, the exchange might be in a better place. They were not proactive but reactive and reactive solutions always have a way to take their time before you see the positive change of the solution.
If there is a 5m backlog it works out to about 5 days, or 9m backlog about 9 days, 15m backlog perhaps 15 days... But the current system is FAIR cause you can only request 5000 ZEN at a time. I'm pretty sure that's a total pending order not the maximum you can list and then repeat that two, three or four or more times...
Yet I've also never tested if you could exceed 5000 ZEN if you made 3 order's of 5000 ZEN each. Now I would support they limiting the total pending quality of ZEN being requested to certainly no more than 5000. But perhaps it already works that way I'd at least imagine.
LOL.... "Hamster that. Right in the kitten. With a puppy."
You made my day! I laughed until I cried.
The "problem" is order imbalance - way too many buyers and not enough sellers. They need to do something to encourage selling and discourage buying. With the price cap, there is no reason for zen holders to sell unless they needs AD. If the market was allowed to rise, then people would sell at some point, barring another cap. Of course, this hurts newer players.
And to people with lots of spare AD, with no cost to acquire and hold zen, there is every reason to buy all the zen you can because if you ever need it, you won't have to wait. And if they ever lift the cap, cha ching!
As someone who has been around since almost the beginning and experienced almost all the bugs, glitches, exploits etc (I missed Caturday, but was here for the Nightmare Inferno debacle.), I'd have to agree that it was a contributing factor to some degree. But, I don't plan to even guess the degree and we'll never see the numbers to know.
How are these not glitching the game impacting AD and the exchange.
What about the guild maps; players who simply leave what is in the cache to change zone is abusing a glitch to gain AD by changing zone to acquire the item that sells more. The player that just picks up the cache is losing out on the extra AD and that player is acquiring the items as intended.
This game has plenty of bugs and glitches that allowed others to acquire unfair and unacceptable AD. Another glitch is the AH listing an item as epic but it was only uncommon. I got ripped off a few times like this, different seller taking advantage of an in game glitch gaining additional AD unethically.
My real solution is so much harsher than what I wrote here. What I wrote here is more of a pain that a kick to the crotch. My real solution is this. Shut the zen exchange down for 3 months. Cryptic pulls data and analysis to see who abused the game and has gained unfair AD. Penalize any player who exceeds 500K AD from such glitches in form of removing AD equal to what they gained and communicate this after they remove the AD. After removal of unfair AD gains is gone from the system turn back on the AD exchange, change max AD from character to account and drop the amount from 100M to 50M, and add new market designed around styles including mounts that cost some AD as another AD sink.
If Cryptic cannot acquire the AD that a player has glitched, they will be ban for 1 day for each 10K earned through unfair means.
That is how I would solve the problem, it would remove at least most of the AD gained through unethical means.
And on your idea, why begin at 500k from such glichtes? 499.999 doesn't seem that different. It's either you track all players (supposing there are such ZAX glichtes existing in game) and punish everyone that did it, or you don't do anything.
I also wonder why changing the limit per character down to 50M? I mean only 2 types of items exceed that amount on AH: legendary profession assets, that no longer would be listed on AH because their value is far greater than 50M ; and the recent Sergeant Knox AD sink that went 2 times for over that amount.
You think that limiting 50M per character will change a thing? But we have a way to transfer AD to other characters, be it ZAX from pre-M14, or shared bank from M14. So even with that change you can technically still have unlimited AD on an account. So what would this change.
As for you unlimited exchange using ZAX that is not true given you are limited on the number of exchange you can have at once and we are going from 100M on one character to 50M on the account. Combine that with the ZAX exchange limit being account bound you will be limited on the amount of AD you can have on your account vs. now.
Since I buy with real world currency what I want for key, mount, VIP, etc...I see no issue here from my end. I don't rely on AD to get what I want in this game. I realized a while ago that I get more getting a job and buying what I want than grinding it out on NWO. I do play and have gotten items that you can only get from playing but I will not grind it out for AD and believe I should be able to swap it for zen to buy VIP or other things in the zen store. I use my AD for SMOP, UMOP, etc... things I know I can buy with them without relying for an exchange. That is just me, a supporter of the game by actually using real world currency to buy things.
I think where things went wrong was someone thought it was a good idea to allow accounts with 50+ toons. They couldn't just take it away since many people paid money for them.Then they took they time shutting down leadership AD and the gateway. But there was still the daily RAD each toon can get. By that time, with the power creep, people were able to stitch together trashy toons to get carried in 2xeToS and 2xeSoT and be able to earn more than the 36K/toon refinement limit. That's been stopped now.
Unless some draconian measure is taken, like closing the zax, or a wealth tax, it's going to take time for the excess AD to work its way through the system. Think more people would be comfortable giving it time.