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How could things have come to such a pass?

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  • ulvielulviel Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 741 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    sugarlies wrote: »
    As a side note, I have this level 4 CW. I got him the account companions I had and I've been doing Sword Coast Adventures on him. Tier 5 rewards rank 3 and rank 4.

    That's how my lvl 4 chars get their stuff too :)
  • wimpazoidwimpazoid Member Posts: 504 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    ulviel wrote: »
    Quite the opposite. You are talking about the single player's income, I am talking about global AD influx and how you failed to explain why is it bigger now than before.
    I am saying it is as big as it always was, and the Zen shortage is caused by higher zen demand.

    If I am wrong, please tell me how and why, because "players simply want their free money" doesn't explain anything.
    That's only because you are arguing a growing mmo remains stagnant since beta. I've already explain that your argument of 24k/char/day can only argue that the potential AD generation remains constant. Maintaining that the AD influx remains constant since beta makes absolutely no sense. It's only true if one continues to have the 2 characters since beta and the game population hasn't changed at all. I have also explain that your character limit does nothing to maintain that constant repeatedly, it is only a limit from a single player's perspective, because it's the cumulative AD generation that is increasing of the game population.

    You say the game needs AD sinks, true enough, but I have explained that AD sinks aren't working because while PWE is trying to erode away the mountain of AD in circulation, players are constantly replenishing it through AD generation. As I've said AD from Leadership is legit, but it's counter productive to any countermeasure put in place in the current situation. A good solution is to outright suspend AD generation from Leadership to allow AD sinks to do it's job for normalizing the economy first.

    Then you just go on to say it's impossible to generate a lot of AD from Leadership, which I've shown you isn't true.

    Then you sidetrack to say Mod3 and its subsequent changes are the cause of what's wrong with the economy, which again isn't true, because as I've explained, they are countermeasures to rectify the real root of the problem.

    I've explain many things, all of which ignored, some of which twisted. I'm still waiting for you to comprehend and get up to speed.

    And then you switch to saying I've not explained the backlog. You are still simply arguing the points you think have not yet been answered.

    There isn't a real higher demand for Zen, it's a pseudo demand created by the continuing devaluation of AD. Legit players no longer want to deal with the high prices and prefer to hold Zen thus creating the demand. It's not as if they are doing anything with that Zen, hence not a real demand for Zen, rather it's simply held and the opportunity here is to wait for a sale where they can capitalize and turn a profit. This was in my very first post.
  • ulvielulviel Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 741 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    wimpazoid wrote: »
    That's only because you are arguing a growing mmo remains stagnant since beta. I've already explain that your argument of 24k/char/day can only argue that the potential AD generation remains constant. Are you saying that although the AD generation *potential* didn't change, the real Ad generation changed? If yes, then how? If no, that what are we talking about?Maintaining that the AD influx remains constant since beta makes absolutely no sense. Why? Of course the influx was smaller at the very beginning (leveling leadership to 20 takes about 3 months) It's only true if one continues to have the 2 characters since beta and the game population hasn't changed at all. Sigh.... Of course the population changes, but only the AD generation PER PLAYER (or maybe per char, depends if you actually play your alts or just milk them) counts. More players = more AD influx, but also proportionally bigger AD demand, Zen influx&demand. I have also explain that your character limit does nothing to maintain that constant repeatedly, You actually didn't. You just claim it is so, but did not explain how. You just keep saying one can make more alts and use them for leadership/invoking, that however didn't change since beta. Actually, you could make more AD with leadership before it got nerfed. it is only a limit from a single player's perspective, because it's the cumulative AD generation that is increasing of the game population. Once again with the increasing population, the AD generation PER PLAYER does not change, the increased demand evens the generation out.


    You say the game needs AD sinks, true enough, but I have explained that AD sinks aren't working because while PWE is trying to erode away the mountain of AD in circulation, players are constantly replenishing it through AD generation. As they do since the game launch. To make this point valid you'd have to demonstrate that players can generate more AD (again, PER PERSON, I can't understand why is it not obvious) than they could in the past when the zax was balanced. As I've said AD from Leadership is legit, but it's counter productive to any countermeasure put in place in the current situation. A good solution is to outright suspend AD generation from Leadership this is just wrong and would make the life of newer/less wealthy players even harder than it already is, to the point NW would bleed them out rapidly to allow AD sinks to do it's job for normalizing the economy first.

    Then you just go on to say it's impossible to generate a lot of AD from Leadership, which I've shown you isn't true. I never said that, I said 1. there is a limit of how much AD can you make this way and 2.they cannot make more AD than they could in the past, when we had 1zen - 330AD exchange ratio. Therefore, the leadership is not a problem here.

    Then you sidetrack to say Mod3 and its subsequent changes are the cause of what's wrong with the economy, are you twisting my words on purpose? That the zax was balanced before mod3 is a fact, I didn't say mod3 was the cause. The cause is the lack of proper AD sinks, which only became a problem after mod3, when the constantly growing zen demand (I'll be back to it later) reached the point where we had 1/500 zax ratio. I never said that which again isn't true, because as I've explained, they are countermeasures to rectify the real root of the problem. You just said there are some countermeasures. *Explaining* would require to at least name them, telling what did they do and why was it not enough.

    I've explain many things, all of which ignored, some of which twisted. I'm still waiting for you to comprehend and get up to speed.

    And then you switch to saying I've not explained the backlog. You are still simply arguing the points you think have not yet been answered. *stating* some "facts" does not count as explaing if you do not show connections between them, and some evidence that those are *facts* and not just assumptions, which you didn't.

    There isn't a real higher demand for Zen, it's a pseudo demand created by the continuing devaluation of AD. Legit players no longer want to deal with the high prices and prefer to hold Zen thus creating the demand. It's not as if they are doing anything with that Zen, hence not a real demand for Zen, rather it's simply held and the opportunity here is to wait for a sale where they can capitalize and turn a profit. This was in my very first post.
    So we have a "real" demand and a "pseudo" demand now? Both make you buy zen (or at least *want* to buy it), so where is the difference again?

    And now some history, to show why zen demand changes, and AD influx doesn't.
    Memoria fragilis est, so I may confuse some details, but the big picture looks like this:

    I was not here during beta, but I've created my first char before module1. Back then 1 zen costed a bit over 300ad. It went a bit up when mod1 was released, but went down shortly after. Same story with mod2 release, but then they've introduced weekly sales, and that stabilized zax at the point of 1/400 or so. Since then it was constanly going up, but it was obviously connected to various Zen promos (zen prices peaks were occuring on fridays, then were going down til thursday). Cryptic/PWE obviously understood that was the way to do it and continued to give us nice weekly sales, key sales and other promos to the point we reached 1/495 more or less, but it was stabile, and would decrease if they stopped doing that for a while.
    And then mod3 was released with all that new stuff, new shiny lockboxes everyone wanted to open and all.... we reached 1/500 and this is the point where the vicious circle starts.

    So now what we need are really good AD sinks - I say combining temporary one (cockatrice event was a good idea) to remove already accumulated AD and permament ones for permament effect.

    What Cryptic should do from the beginning is to introduce something to even the increasing zen demand out, could be in form of wondrous bazaar sales similar to zen sales, for example.
  • edited July 2014
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  • jrfbrunetjrfbrunet Member Posts: 388 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    magenubbie wrote: »
    Oh no. It's a combination of things. You can get killed by Karzov all you want. It doesn't matter. Till blacklake you're nothing more than a normal player with some map and chat restrictions. It's getting past it without finishing the quest-line that'll get you. Because you cannot. And that's what stopping bots from progressing any further. You simply have to kill Karzov and take the crown to Knox before anything else in the game. No dailies, no foundries, no AH, in-game mail, no zen through AD.. nothing. Until you finish that quest-line. No need to ban anyone at that level. They are harmless. It's the current people who got past that without killing Karzov that are at risk. And they can simply spend 10 minutes doing so in the extreme case no character on their account has done so. The rest are bots.

    If you fear the lvl60 bots doing the quest, put a random math question in the dialogue to regain the quest and you have them. False answer = temp ban for a week, unless owner sends an request for release using the registered email and force a confirmation reply/link to re-activate the account. Bots have no email addresses and no links to reply to, nor could they formulate such a request without risking detection. Bots don't like drawing attention to themselves, because once you have an @handle, you have their entire history and their entire network. After a week without request: Kelemvor's hammer on their heads. Goodbye.

    It's the fact you have to get through it eventually to proceed any further in the game. Die once, die 5 times for all I care. But you won't go anywhere until you finish it. And face it, it's not too bloody difficult for a player to do so. A bot remains in blacklake indefinitely.

    Before you ask "what's stopping bots from lvling high enough in blacklake to kill Karzov by themselves?", the answer is nothing. But I ask you to do the math if you can: How long would it take a player that has no other quests (if they even do them, which I doubt), stuck in an outgrown area with mobs 2-3 levels lower than yourself that give little to no xp for killing -which they aren't very good at to begin with- to get strong enough to get through the questline?

    Sure, you'll get through eventually. But it's very un-economical to do so, even if have enough gold for pots to last that long without human aid. And that's what you have to achieve. You don't have to make it impossible to advance. You merely have to make it more trouble than it's worth. Any bots that should get past this "firewall" are so easily monitored by their movement patterns (they ignore roads and mountains or anything else that poses an obstacle for a normal player) that players can simply report the leftovers. But I doubt that will be necessary.

    If you can force a bot to remain useless for a week -and more likely indefinitely- he's already not worth the effort.
    There's a crapload of other games making it a LOT easier for them. They are not going to waste time, effort and money creating alternate bot programs and useless bots if they can get it easier elsewhere. This is nothing new. I've been GM and or mod on enough games to see this plan working although we had fewer details and arguments with players to worry about.

    We just said "We're sick of the bots. BAM. Everyone has zH starting at the next or first login to complete quest X starting at Y. No announcements, just a new quest icon informing them of a new quest. Failing to do so gets you a permanent ban. Existing storage accounts will be released on requests, after inspection. Event repeats itself every week." No player argued, some had questions, a few players failed and requested restoration, and we never saw bots again.

    It's a bit more complicated here, although the same prinicple applies: Find the bot by demanding something a bot cannot do and restrict it until it can be found. And I think there's no earlier detection possible than the Blacklake lairs achievement without any harm (except for the one-time quest once per account) to legit players. If you have a better way to find them earlier, I'm open to suggestions, but please no random in-game math popup questions just as I"m fighting a boss. I'm allergic to those.

    This wall of text backs up my original point - you had to keep tweaking and adding to your ideas in this thread to keep up with simple "what if" response from other forum users (users who don't have the skill and experience of bot creators, mind you). Your brilliant idea, composed of 'common sense' is severely flawed before it could ever make it to a dev's task list.

    I promise you, if PWE, or anyone else, could have created a measure to stop all bots permanently (since these bots and their associated gold sellers are stealing an obscene amount of revenue from PWE), they would have done so by now.
    Where'd my blinky-blinky path go?
  • dragoness10dragoness10 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 780 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    Solution - Everyone withdraw their offers to buy Zen at 500 AD per Zen. Relist them at lower prices like 380 AD per Zen.


    Logical? Yes. Possible? Yes. Probable? NO.

    I still vote for the Weekly Wonderous Bazaar sale I suggested to help get the AD to Zen exchange moving more. It'll still work to encourage people to spend AD as they will want to buy Zen to sell it FOR the AD.

    Thread - http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?703501-Wonderous-Bazaar-weekly-sale

    Meanwhiles, panicking about the Z/AD EXC is only going to be a good way to burn calories.
    " I tried to figure out the enigma that was you, and then I realized mastering Wild Magic was easier." - Old Wizard in Waterdeep

    "Why is it dragons only use ketchup? I'd like a little wasabi please. Us silvers like a variety of condiments."

    "Don't call them foolish mortals. One, they don't learn from it. Two, It just ticks them off." - An Ancient Red Dragon
  • kaedennnkaedennn Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 361 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    The worst economy ever !

    They can at least copy from even old games that last for ages and had a stable economy!
    inflation is eating the economy!

    Seriously , here u think that third party sites are welcome from the PWE , they advertise 24/24 and nothing is done !

    i came from another mmo that use a programe like an antivirus that prevent you from using another software to cheat with . if u disable this antivirus the game wont start !

    in game you have active Gms(game master) that u can pm in forum if u see a bot spammer and they nutreilize it as soon as they read your message.

    In the end there were no gold bots ( the economy is based on gold) .

    Free players can farm for anything they need from the cash shop in a reasonable time , paying players still sell cash and the economy is stable it's been years !

    An exeplme : the cash sell only lvl 1 mounts and companions , players have to lvl up these pets with gold .

    PWE can do the same here with selling only green companion/mounts , and keep the mount training and another item for the companions in the wonderous bazaar ,... (you got the sink idea) !
  • myowmyowmyowmyow Member Posts: 1,923 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    frishter wrote: »
    As long as you're aware that people legitimately share ad from for example split runs by doing this. No need to punish the legit players.

    Agreed!!! Selling a crappy item for big AD on the AH is currently the ONLY way to share AD value of rare drops from group dungeon runs. I have done it myself once or twice and I know others that have also done so.

    Catching gold sellers and bots is NOT easy, unfortunately.
    SEC! SEC! SEC! SEC! SEC! SEC! SEC! SEC! SEC! SEC! SEC! SEC! SEC! (repeat indefinitely)


    myles08807 said, "Back in my day, we didn't have any of this fancy Mulhorand gear while we were leveling . . . we walked uphill both ways while dying once every five seconds while leveling, and we liked it fine!" . . . Now, get off my lawn, you kids!"
    pointsman said, "I don't rue the game. In fact I don't feel any regret for the game at all."
    looomis said, "I don't like people changing to alts and then bragging about their mains like schizophrenic role players."
  • myowmyowmyowmyow Member Posts: 1,923 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    kaedennn wrote: »
    I came from another mmo that use a programe like an antivirus that prevent you from using another software to cheat with. If u disable this antivirus the game wont start !

    in game you have active GMs (game master) that u can pm in forum if u see a bot spammer and they neutralize it as soon as they read your message.

    These are both EXCELLENT ideas! The GM plan has been used by MANY MMO games and should really be implemented ASAP by Cryptic/PWE.
    SEC! SEC! SEC! SEC! SEC! SEC! SEC! SEC! SEC! SEC! SEC! SEC! SEC! (repeat indefinitely)


    myles08807 said, "Back in my day, we didn't have any of this fancy Mulhorand gear while we were leveling . . . we walked uphill both ways while dying once every five seconds while leveling, and we liked it fine!" . . . Now, get off my lawn, you kids!"
    pointsman said, "I don't rue the game. In fact I don't feel any regret for the game at all."
    looomis said, "I don't like people changing to alts and then bragging about their mains like schizophrenic role players."
  • tradeactbdtradeactbd Member Posts: 50
    edited July 2014
    magenubbie wrote: »
    So? how does that matter? One of your alts surely has completed the blacklake lairs achievement. That's the key in distiquising players from bots. Bots cannot handle Karzov. Players can. Your alts are 100% safe.

    .

    How do you know bots can't handle Karzov? Do you mean kill him or do you mean there is something fundamental about the quest that their bot logic can't handle? If you are basing your assumption on some publicly available bot software then it still won't work. The farmers use their own, far more sophisticated bots than anything publicly available.

    I don't for a second believe this would stop the bots for long.
  • tradeactbdtradeactbd Member Posts: 50
    edited July 2014
    wimpazoid wrote: »
    There isn't a real higher demand for Zen, it's a pseudo demand created by the continuing devaluation of AD. Legit players no longer want to deal with the high prices and prefer to hold Zen thus creating the demand. It's not as if they are doing anything with that Zen, hence not a real demand for Zen, rather it's simply held and the opportunity here is to wait for a sale where they can capitalize and turn a profit. This was in my very first post.

    I agree with your point above, but don't agree that there is an uncontrolled influx of AD into the market.

    Just to add to what you said, the current 500:1 locked in ratio with a 8M backlog effectively ensures safety in holding on to Zen as opposed to converting Zen to AD. Likewise, with the AH current prices (due in part to the backlog, in part to the binding of wards, in part to getting rid of bots) there is just no incentive for folks to sell Zen for AD. This in and of itself perpetuates the current backlog problem.

    Back when the rates were at 400 or lower, you ran a real risk in holding on to Zen that you weren't planning on immediately using. While it seemed to always go up when a new box or Mod was introduced, week to week it had as good a chance of declining as it did of going up. Thus people were constantly buying and selling Zen. Today, with the 500:1 firmly locked in, very few people are selling Zen. Which as was pointed out is an artificial shortage. The Zen exist, there is just no reason for anyone to sell it.

    As far as AD creation, the player base now is far smaller than it has been back before the server merger. There were no real issues with overabundance of AD then. That despite the fact that many folks profited from Caturday and had billions of AD. Likewise, any character is gated at 24K AD per day, be it from salvage, leadership or whatever. Your just not going to bring more than that in per day. Many have argued that even 24K is too small. Even leadership takes a huge investment in time and resources to get up to rank 20. I really think this is a red herring and is not contributing to the issue.

    AD sinks will help, but only in as much as it will give people a reason to want AD as opposed to only wanting Zen. To me that is the long term issue. Not the creation of AD or the current backlog. With the current situation the way it is, they could wipe out half the AD on the server and it won't change the Zen/backlog issue.
  • doriangreighdoriangreigh Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 707 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    Here is a thought, since I see a lot of focus on the bots and people the exploited with not a lot really being able to be done about someone just because they happen to have millions of AD for whatever reason ...

    How about good old fashioned socialist economics ... take the AH and cap every single piece that can be put in there, PWE sets this cap at whatever they think it should be, if people want to sell an item they can sell it for less to get it out faster but CANNOT sell it higher.

    This of course puts a bit of a hurt on people who do split runs, but frankly people got buy with just running for the greed option anyone so in future split runs with guilds might have to revolve around people that doing multiple runs passing on loot if they won a piece before. OR actually make it so that AD can be shared ... however with the cap on AH I think people would be more apt to keep to the "greed" run and just let whoever wins sell and run again.

    Ideally though it would be nice to be able to actually trade AD directly to other players. I don't know if ultimately that would be good or bad, on one hand it could circumvent these AD millionaires that maybe manipulating the game economy, on the other it may help them move money from one bot to another so who knows.

    I said it before I don't think there are any good solutions but I really think capping what items are worth in the AH would be a good place to start. Not that it seems developers have a good idea of what things should be valued at vs. time it would take to get it.
  • iceshard2faceiceshard2face Member Posts: 289 Bounty Hunter
    edited July 2014
    lol maybe if people would stop posting enchants and other <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> up at ridiculous over priced values of 18-25 mil paying players would actually put their zen into the exchange.

    as one i would never dream of contributing to the 500:1 ratio becuase it's not beneficial for me to do so if i want to buy something on the ah i could never exchange enough zen at the rate i have to work with to get it

    when in reality our zen is worth probably at this point 1,000:1 or maybe more

    it also doesnt help that coals and easier ways to acquire these things have essentially been extracted from the game

    and im willing to guarentee that come mod 4 coals will reach 1 mil a piece

    and armor and weapon enchants will probably hit 30-40mil
  • ulvielulviel Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 741 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    Ideally though it would be nice to be able to actually trade AD directly to other players.

    If that would be possible, nobody would use AH anymore, which is the best AD sink we currently have.

    Also capping AH prices would drive ppl away from AH.
  • darthpotaterdarthpotater Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,261 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    If crypic sells refinement points at a low prize in the wondorous bazaar for example peridot at 1000ads (99x100k) bots must sell lower (less profit) we would have ranks10 and perfects in a normal prize and a very good ad sink.

    Is the only solution i see to the economy.
    Lescar PvE Wizard - Sir Garlic PvE Paladin
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  • tobixnewtobixnew Member Posts: 40 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    If crypic sells refinement points at a low prize in the wondorous bazaar for example peridot at 1000ads (99x100k) bots must sell lower (less profit) we would have ranks10 and perfects in a normal prize and a very good ad sink.

    Is the only solution i see to the economy.

    like your solution. If there were peridots, greater marks or something like that it would be about 1 or 2AD/RP and enchantment prices would go down. But I think there were still too many ADs in the game.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • cyencecyence Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 99 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    I dont get what is so wrong with paying some money... People act like it is unethical to monetize their investment.
  • iceshard2faceiceshard2face Member Posts: 289 Bounty Hunter
    edited July 2014
    cyence wrote: »
    I dont get what is so wrong with paying some money... People act like it is unethical to monetize their investment.

    im not against paying in fact i do it quite often but right now the 500:1 makes the real money i spent worthless to trade in for that price

    and due to outlandish prices on the AH from players that control the market im not willing to pay my zen into AD nor should anyone else. the artificial cap is actually hurting the backlog more than helping it atm

    and it's even a catch 22 if you make all items BOA from the zen store sure i could trade in my zen at that rate and get ad

    but what would happen is items on the AH would skyrocket to compensate for it not lower

    thats why making items from the z store account bound is the worst idea ever and defeats the purpose of a pay if you want to model you would literally be forced to have to pay as that would be the only way to get coal wards.
  • charononuscharononus Member Posts: 5,715 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    you would literally be forced to have to pay as that would be the only way to get coal wards.

    Get enough character slots and you'll never pay for a c. ward again as long as you have a little patience. I've heard the drop rate is about 3% and that sounds right.
  • walk2kwalk2k Member Posts: 928 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    ^lol 3%. what a joke.

    in other words I hope you have about 35 characters (and the patience to log them all in once a day to pray) to get 1 coal ward per week.

    wonderful.

    it's just obvious they did this to promote sales on the $ZEN store.
  • charononuscharononus Member Posts: 5,715 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    walk2k wrote: »
    ^lol 3%. what a joke.

    in other words I hope you have about 35 characters (and the patience to log them all in once a day to pray) to get 1 coal ward per week.

    wonderful.

    it's just obvious they did this to promote sales on the $ZEN store.
    You build up that alt army for leadership too. I started building the army for invocation but realized how good leadership combined with it.
  • iceshard2faceiceshard2face Member Posts: 289 Bounty Hunter
    edited July 2014
    charononus wrote: »
    You build up that alt army for leadership too.

    that doesnt solve anything and isnt helpful at all is that the meta it actually perpetuates the problem

    the point i was making is that my real money that i have turned into zen is now pretty worthless because of the hard cap of 500:1 ad when in reality zen is worth way more than that clearly by the backlog.

    lol the time/effort to even do that is not worth it to me .
  • charononuscharononus Member Posts: 5,715 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    lol the time/effort to even do that is not worth it to me .

    That's the thing though, I'm disabled, I have plenty of time but not a lot of money. So I figure out how to get the most I can for free and pay only when I really think it's worth it. (As evidenced by the guardian next to my name) I get that most people won't find this kind of system worthwhile but it does exist, and it means that you can't be forced into buying a c.ward from the store or otherwise.
  • rayrdanrayrdan Member Posts: 5,410 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    Leadership should be deleted from the game.
    All zen item bound to account to prevent people causing backlog for profit.
  • xenotorchxenotorch Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 196 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    rayrdan wrote: »
    Leadership should be deleted from the game.
    All zen item bound to account to prevent people causing backlog for profit.
    Heck no to removing Leadership, I have worked hard over the amount of time I can play this game over the last year and finally got 2 toons to level 20. It's the hardest and longest to level and they have already nerfed some of the rewards. i.e. coming out of Closed Beta Protect Caravan was 200 AD (now 100) and took 1 hour (now 2 - I may have misremembered this so please correct me if so).

    As to binding zen items to account, I have to say no to that as well.

    These are not the main problems - lack of desirable AD sinks is the real culprit. Reduce mount training and companion upgrade costs by a fourth (as a tester to see how it works) for one month as an offer - make it permanent if the figures shows it works or change the amount of reduction. Get some more desirable items in the WB (stick BoP Coal Wards in for 1000 Zen equivalent in AD). More AD for CTA medals or some such. Something!

    The problem is that there have been dozens of Zen offers/sales etc and next to no AD sink improvements.
  • jrfbrunetjrfbrunet Member Posts: 388 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    xenotorch wrote: »
    Heck no to removing Leadership

    As to binding zen items to account, I have to say no to that as well.

    These are not the main problems - lack of desirable AD sinks is the real culprit. Reduce mount training and companion upgrade costs by a fourth (as a tester to see how it works) for one month as an offer - make it permanent if the figures shows it works or change the amount of reduction. Get some more desirable items in the WB (stick BoP Coal Wards in for 1000 Zen equivalent in AD). More AD for CTA medals or some such. Something!

    The problem is that there have been dozens of Zen offers/sales etc and next to no AD sink improvements.
    Agreed.
    However, if they lowered the AD cost of mount and companion upgrades - that may rob potential revenue from the Zen store. The 'trial' period would be an interesting experiment.
    Where'd my blinky-blinky path go?
  • rayrdanrayrdan Member Posts: 5,410 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    Ad sink???? Sinks are not desiderable garbage no one will ever spend ad into.
    I have ad and love to make more throught zax, AH and 80 per cent of my profits comes from the zax. Bind the items and see the 9M backlog going down to 4-5M or even less.
    And leadership is broken i couldnt care less if you ( and me too) wasted time in leveling it.
  • beckylunaticbeckylunatic Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 14,231 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    jrfbrunet wrote: »
    Agreed.
    However, if they lowered the AD cost of mount and companion upgrades - that may rob potential revenue from the Zen store. The 'trial' period would be an interesting experiment.

    I really don't believe it would.

    Since most companions have completely different bonuses from others, people who want to upgrade a non-Zen companion are doing it because none of the Zen companions fulfill their particular need, be it roleplay or min-maxing. There are some repeats on the flat stat bonuses you get on free and cheap companions, but there is no non-Zen equivalent of the Blacksmith or Wisp.

    Likewise, a mount upgrade is good for one mount on one character, regardless if it's an event mount or a single instance of your slower Zen mount. People who buy these are doing it because they love the aesthetic of a *specific* mount. If any fast mount will do, they'll buy a Stormraider Clydesdale like everyone else. It's as likely to increase sales of Zen mounts where people love the look of them but won't buy it because it's not max speed.
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  • query523query523 Member Posts: 1,515 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    rayrdan wrote: »
    Leadership should be deleted from the game.
    All zen item bound to account to prevent people causing backlog for profit.

    Where are people getting the idea that making more things BoA will mend the ZAX? I mean recent history kind ofdisproves this whole notion. Coals and then Keys were made BoP and the the backlog.... just got worse. Which only makes sense. If you are a gambler then ther is no incentive to turn zen into AD because you cannot get keys anywhere but the zen market. If you are a refiner there is no incentive to turn zen into AD because coals only come from the zen (or T-Bars, a currency that comes from keys, that only come from the zen market).
    I don't like to gamble but I have picked the brain of a few people to do so let me explain how, prior to the bomdapocalapse, gambling played out. Open a large quantity of boxes and hope the gods of RNG smile upon you. Sell the valuable drops and (if you are opening a lot of boxes which the serious gamblers who actually facilitate a lot of large transactions) the laws of probability give you a nice stock of coal wards that always sell well for a steady baseline income to insure you will be able to buy replacement keys and maybe a few more than you started out with. But Coals are BoP and Keys are BoP zen-store-only. So this is no longer an option so all the goods it put on the market become scarcer hence more expensive adding to the inflation rate.
    I do refine. So lets look at that for a moment. Well again Coals are a choke-point for high end (reads high profit) refining. Pres wards (especially if you buy on coupon drops) are much cheaper in zen than AD. So the net outcome of the bondapacalapse is that nobody who has access to zen wants to trade it for AD. And the ZAX sits stagnant as nobody wants to lose a ward or key for a small ammount of AD.
  • imit8rimit8r Member Posts: 74 Arc User
    edited July 2014
    If crypic sells refinement points at a low prize in the wondorous bazaar for example peridot at 1000ads (99x100k) bots must sell lower (less profit) we would have ranks10 and perfects in a normal prize and a very good ad sink.

    Is the only solution i see to the economy.

    This is not a wholly bad idea, and I wish you could actually get RP items at an even somewhat reasonable price. But you forget that people still sell GMarks of Potency for over 100K AD on the AH, and shockingly people still buy them, which still blows my mind.
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