One other item to add is when I first started the game I frequently bought ZEN and traded it to AD as I was too lazy to farm everything for my growing list of alts and now that I'm making millions in leadership for the last several months I haven't bought ZEN directly. I haven't needed to as I just use the ZAX and I don't care that it's 500 to 1 or that it can (and likely will) take week/s. I can do $200 a month in free ZEN just off AD creation even at 500:1 so I have no reason to buy ZEN any more directly at this point and I'm sure there are many thousands just like me that over time have moved from sellers of ZEN to buyers.
Isn't a post like this basically waving a red flag in front of the Devs with "Nerf leadership now' written on it?
Because right now there is an unbalance between AD creation and removal, and as there don't seem to be any decent long-term AD sinks......
Isn't a post like this basically waving a red flag in front of the Devs with "Nerf leadership now' written on it?
Because right now there is an unbalance between AD creation and removal, and as there don't seem to be any decent long-term AD sinks......
Like I said, there was no issue weeks or months around Caturday and back then you could literally create billions of AD out of thin air.
Leadership takes months and months to get to 20 from scratch and gets people to log into the game daily.
How difficult is it to understand that the backlog has very little to do with AD "glut" and everything to do with the fact that Zen is required and AD has become less and less useful (keys -> zen only, more and more BoP items).
There is just no reason to hold AD and every reason to convert it to Zen right now. This was NOT always the case. The backlog will remain even if they get rid of 90% of the AD in the game and got rid of leadership, if all other things remain as they are now.
Even if they nerf leadership you could still run the dailies from Lord / Rhix and max out the 24k on several alts pretty easily every day as well. Part of the issue is they don't have enough new players doing what many of us did in the early days which is buy ZEN with our Credit cards and flip it to AD. However the main reason for this is as has been said time and time again is there are no "Good" AD sinks. (I even do the insane ones like upgrade white companions to purple and I still have tons of AD and it seems everything that has come out in the last few months is a ZEN item that I want vs an AD item).
Even if they nerf leadership you could still run the dailies from Lord / Rhix and max out the 24k on several alts pretty easily every day as well. Part of the issue is they don't have enough new players doing what many of us did in the early days which is buy ZEN with our Credit cards and flip it to AD. However the main reason for this is as has been said time and time again is there are no "Good" AD sinks. (I even do the insane ones like upgrade white companions to purple and I still have tons of AD and it seems everything that has come out in the last few months is a ZEN item that I want vs an AD item).
Pretty much this. It doesn't matter you make AD a bit slower, if at the end all you want to do with it is to buy Zen. Currently all you need/want can be purchased with Zen, except for gear maybe, but that can be (or it *could* when the dungeons chests were actually working) farmed pretty easily.
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schweifer1982Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,662Arc User
edited August 2014
Time to place from zen the respec to AD.
Race Change to AD.
Or reincarnation to AD.
Time to place from zen the respec to AD.
Race Change to AD.
Or reincarnation to AD.
This will help the economy.
At the very least, they can offer a choice of zen or AD (the zen would be cheaper exchange-wise to give incentive to get it from there) in order to avoid any backlog if there is some when someone wants it immediately.
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rojorMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 178Bounty Hunter
edited August 2014
10.3 mil ZEN at 500AD requested in the Exchange, you know what that means ? Unless they reset the whole market and do a decent ban wave ? They need people to invest roughly 10 MILLION USD into their game before some people get ZEN for their existing AD and if the past few weeks is any indication, the requested ZEN number is only going to keep rising...GG cryptic GG.
10.3 mil ZEN at 500AD requested in the Exchange, you know what that means ? Unless they reset the whole market and do a decent ban wave ? They need people to invest roughly 10 MILLION USD into their game before some people get ZEN for their existing AD and if the past few weeks is any indication, the requested ZEN number is only going to keep rising...GG cryptic GG.
I think you fail at math. At the very worst, its 1000 zen = 10 USD (no bonus zen with it) so its 100 zen per dollar. So, 10,300,000/100 = 103,000 USD.
Pretty much this. It doesn't matter you make AD a bit slower, if at the end all you want to do with it is to buy Zen. Currently all you need/want can be purchased with Zen, except for gear maybe, but that can be (or it *could* when the dungeons chests were actually working) farmed pretty easily.
OMG now it makes sense... The Dungeon chests arn't bugged ...they're a FEATURE!!!!! =O
10.3 mil ZEN at 500AD requested in the Exchange, you know what that means ? Unless they reset the whole market and do a decent ban wave ? They need people to invest roughly 10 MILLION USD into their game before some people get ZEN for their existing AD and if the past few weeks is any indication, the requested ZEN number is only going to keep rising...GG cryptic GG.
Ok a few things here.
1. Even with the backlog you can still get Zen for AD. It just requires patience. I put up buy orders for 500-1000 Zen a week and they get filled every week to ten days. This is because people are either impatient or lit majors (ie bad at math).
2. The real exchange rate is 600-630 Ad per Zen (do the math and remember the AH tax). There are three solutions for this problem.
2.a. Remove or raise the ZAX cap to make it competitive with actual market values and it will return to an equilibrium. For those of us that remember the value of Zen goods on the AH used to fluctuate in relation to the exchange rate on the ZAX.
2.b. Recind the BoP on coals and keys. A wider variety of zen (and T-Bar) items disperses the the means of exchanging zen for AD and that reduces the overall exchange rate. Currently the exchange via market is restricted to a small number of goods and that scarcity increases value and demand.
2.c. Offer zen goods through the wonderous bazzar at a rate of 1.08x500 AD per zen. At a 10% market tax this removes all incentive to buy zen items from the ZAX outside of coupons and sales. At face value this appears to be a disincentive to spend money on the game. But actually it means a 2% tax on cash interactions with the game economy. Further it is only 2% when the ZAX is capped at 450 zen/ AD zen exchange still makes more sense.
3. AD sinks, again, will not work so long as there is a higher demand for zen goods. Given enchant prices this is not a situation that is likely to change. Wards are the primary drain on my zen reserve. Clever investors will profit regardless. My aim is to make the game more equitable for those who do mot indulge in economic theory.
What I really cannot agree is, that the total number of players is important. I mean, I have no idea how the free players/ paying ones ratio looks like, but it should be the same no matter if we have 1 mln or 1 thousand players, right? So even if the overall quantity of AD entering the system is bigger, also more Zen is entering the system. Of course the demand for both is proportional too.
So if you belive the overall number of players influences the average Ad generation, you have to explain me how exactly.
I didn't. I said influx = average x population. Then 1mil vs 1k is very different. When people are having leftover AD, influx>consumption.
haha, i just woke up, and yes math me bad do, still 100 thousand dollars should be achievable right ?
Let's say turnover in ZAX has reached 2 weeks(?) 103000 x 356/14 = $2.6mil. That's only a fraction of an mmo's earnings in micro transactions alone. Since ZEN prices are stagnant, we cannot assume PWE is losing money in microtransactions, or losing income. We do not know the ratio of new ZEN is held or flipped, but when we assume less people is flipping, it's possible income from flipping is decreasing, or loss of income. (Or the amount flipped is just as much as in the past, we do not know because ZAX was not perpetually peaked.) However if the AD to ZEN demand (backlog) has increased actual ZEN sales and real money microtransactions, then only can we also assume increase in income. Willingness to pay though is subjective, and generally the bulk of microtransactions income is still readily paying customers (the ones who would have regardless).
It's very likely PWE is fully aware of the situation especially since income is involved. What actions they take will likely reflect where income is leaning.
Wow....It sounds like the economy went in the toilet. I haven't played in a long time and I was thinking of coming back but it looks like things have gotten worse. I left right before Mod 3 because they made coal wards BOP and nerfed the drop rate from the free chests. IMO I felt that meant you pretty much had to buy them from the Zen store. With that one move the price of a coal ward would theoretically go from 100k on the AH to 450k in AD which had to be transferred into Zen (I didn't stick around to see how high it went, but obviously it is 500k now). Now enchanted keys are BOP too? That's insane. No wonder there is a huge backlog for Zen. Everyone needs it and no one is buying it, or at least no one is selling it.
Interestingly enough you can now track how much $ the game brings in by using the exchange. It's not 100% accurate, but it gets you in the ballpark. If it takes 30 days to clear a 10mil backlog you can guess they probably made around $100 in Zen sales for the month. Again, it's not 100% because some was already in the game and some will be bought and used directly in the Zen store or hoarded. Also you have no idea how much of it was bonus Zen. When I was still playing you had no clue because there were no backlogs.
My main reason I posted in this thread was because I keep seeing people say everyone is hoarding their Zen because it is worthless to exchange it. If they ever fix the backlog and the price goes down all that hoarded Zen will lose value. The value of hoarded Zen will never increase unless they raise the cap so unless you are sure you want to buy something from the Zen store I think it would be better to hoard AD. If you decided to change it back to Zen it will either cost the exact same amount or less, it will never cost more. You can't lose by hoarding AD instead of Zen (even if they are worth less). This only pertains to hoarded Zen (as in Zen that will just sit there doing nothing). If you are buying Zen items and flipping them for a profit it is a different story.
I think I will still log in to take a look at the game and see how things look. It's been a while and I barely even remember all the stuff I had hoarded. Heck, it took me forever to even log in and post this because forgot my password and it kept taking me to ARC to change it and the forums wouldn't accept the new password for some reason. After I tried logging into the game it started working here. Weird. Anyway.......I still can't believe keys are BOP. That is just nuts.
Ok a few things here.
1. Even with the backlog you can still get Zen for AD. It just requires patience. I put up buy orders for 500-1000 Zen a week and they get filled every week to ten days. This is because people are either impatient or lit majors (ie bad at math).
2. The real exchange rate is 600-630 Ad per Zen (do the math and remember the AH tax). There are three solutions for this problem.
2.a. Remove or raise the ZAX cap to make it competitive with actual market values and it will return to an equilibrium. For those of us that remember the value of Zen goods on the AH used to fluctuate in relation to the exchange rate on the ZAX.
2.b. Recind the BoP on coals and keys. A wider variety of zen (and T-Bar) items disperses the the means of exchanging zen for AD and that reduces the overall exchange rate. Currently the exchange via market is restricted to a small number of goods and that scarcity increases value and demand.
2.c. Offer zen goods through the wonderous bazzar at a rate of 1.08x500 AD per zen. At a 10% market tax this removes all incentive to buy zen items from the ZAX outside of coupons and sales. At face value this appears to be a disincentive to spend money on the game. But actually it means a 2% tax on cash interactions with the game economy. Further it is only 2% when the ZAX is capped at 450 zen/ AD zen exchange still makes more sense.
3. AD sinks, again, will not work so long as there is a higher demand for zen goods. Given enchant prices this is not a situation that is likely to change. Wards are the primary drain on my zen reserve. Clever investors will profit regardless. My aim is to make the game more equitable for those who do mot indulge in economic theory.
First, Cryptic has to crack down on bots as well as players that go to third party sites. Begin permanently banning any and all accounts that purchase AD through a third party. If they're buying AD through a third party, Cryptic isn't making money on them anyways and they're damaging the game environment for the rest of the community.
Then get rid of AD all together and make everything cost gold.
Once they do that, they have to do one of two things.
Make everything on the zen store BoP so players are forced to sell zen to other players through the exchange.
Make everything on the zen store bind on equip, including items like additional character slots as well as coming out with per character versions of all the mounts that they sell on the zen store, and get rid of the zen exchange all together.
The system we have in game right now is so <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> poor that whoever designed it, and whoever gave the approval to implement it, should lose their jobs because they have set up a system that is exceptionally easy to circumvent and, is ultimately harmful to the community. There is absolutely no reason at all for someone to use the zen exchange when they can purchase items on the zen market and sell them on the AH for far more than they would get exchanging their zen for AD. At the same time, there are numerous items that can only be acquired by purchasing them through the zen market. This essentially locks a good number of items away from a large portion of the community. I'm guessing that the rationale behind it is that it will force all players to eventually give them money but, that will most likely backfire on them. If they wanted all players to give them money, they should have charged a subscription.
Cryptic needs to either tightly regulate everything or, let us run the game economy completely. Trying to set up a system where they do both is what has created the problem we currently have.
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degraafinationMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
Also note that the costs of making a Perfect Vorpal have gone up a lot too. Vorpal Shards were at 20K+ when I looked, and Coals are 1000 ZEN (500 K AD).
Sure they are selling. To the impatient and lit majors (IE people who do not understand math). Everyone else can through basic calcualtions figure out a cheaper way.
Ok a few things here.
1. Even with the backlog you can still get Zen for AD. It just requires patience. I put up buy orders for 500-1000 Zen a week and they get filled every week to ten days. This is because people are either impatient or lit majors (ie bad at math).
2. The real exchange rate is 600-630 Ad per Zen (do the math and remember the AH tax). There are three solutions for this problem.
2.a. Remove or raise the ZAX cap to make it competitive with actual market values and it will return to an equilibrium. For those of us that remember the value of Zen goods on the AH used to fluctuate in relation to the exchange rate on the ZAX.
2.b. Recind the BoP on coals and keys. A wider variety of zen (and T-Bar) items disperses the the means of exchanging zen for AD and that reduces the overall exchange rate. Currently the exchange via market is restricted to a small number of goods and that scarcity increases value and demand.
2.c. Offer zen goods through the wonderous bazzar at a rate of 1.08x500 AD per zen. At a 10% market tax this removes all incentive to buy zen items from the ZAX outside of coupons and sales. At face value this appears to be a disincentive to spend money on the game. But actually it means a 2% tax on cash interactions with the game economy. Further it is only 2% when the ZAX is capped at 450 zen/ AD zen exchange still makes more sense.
3. AD sinks, again, will not work so long as there is a higher demand for zen goods. Given enchant prices this is not a situation that is likely to change. Wards are the primary drain on my zen reserve. Clever investors will profit regardless. My aim is to make the game more equitable for those who do mot indulge in economic theory.
1. I told this before, but I'll repeat. If the backlog stopped growing where it is now, I *may* be convinced, but we have a constant growth here. Which is logical, since low AD value encourages to NOT buy it with Zen, which makes it even more abundand and less valuable and so on. Anyway, it is dunno, 2 weeks waiting now? At this rate we'll have 1 month waiting in a week or two, and mod4 is before us. So how long can a free player wait before he'll quit the game?
2.a Bad idea. Think of an average free player and the time he would need to farm enough AD. If they remove cap, zax ratio will grow and AH prices won't go down.
2.b indeed
2.c They'll never do that because in that case nobody would buy those items with zen. Or at least very few people.
3. They just need to make AD sinks attractive enough, i.e. reasonably priced, or/and make some items players need avilable with AD only.
I could fix the AH with one move.
Make zen shop items BoA.
No more buying from zen shop to sell on AH creating an endless circle of ZAX/AD/ZAX exchanges.
I used the scientific method of pulling numbers out of my butt to deduce that 90% of the ZAX orders are people who
only buy zen shop items to sell for AD to buy more zen to get more zen shop items to sell for ad to buy more zen to get zen shop items to sell for more AD. This backlog is all the whales hoarding AD>Zen space in zax to manipulate the next event/module to come around.
AH should be for items dropped in game to trade between players. Why should I have <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> bind to me that may or may not be for my class? And why can't i sell this <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>? Prices would be determined by rarity of drops, not how long it takes to buy zen through zax. All this BoP in game drops are only making it harder for new players to grind through game content while trying to upgrade... Instead you have it so items get bought in zen shop can be sold on AH. Why would anyone buy something and then trade it unless they could make a profit? Making necessity items like coal wards an endless circle of profit for some, and a source of frustration for others.
I could fix the AH with one move.
Make zen shop items BoA.
No more buying from zen shop to sell on AH creating an endless circle of ZAX/AD/ZAX exchanges.
I used the scientific method of pulling numbers out of my butt to deduce that 90% of the ZAX orders are people who
only buy zen shop items to sell for AD to buy more zen to get more zen shop items to sell for ad to buy more zen to get zen shop items to sell for more AD. This backlog is all the whales hoarding AD>Zen space in zax to manipulate the next event/module to come around.
AH should be for items dropped in game to trade between players. Why should I have <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> bind to me that may or may not be for my class? And why can't i sell this <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>? Prices would be determined by rarity of drops, not how long it takes to buy zen through zax. All this BoP in game drops are only making it harder for new players to grind through game content while trying to upgrade... Instead you have it so items get bought in zen shop can be sold on AH. Why would anyone buy something and then trade it unless they could make a profit? Making necessity items like coal wards an endless circle of profit for some, and a source of frustration for others.
This is just wrong. First, to prevent ppl from using zen items to circumvent ZAX you would also had to make the containment of such items like lockboxes and profession packs BoA. And then if you open those and not get what you want, you could not sell it.
Second, that would push the game further into direction of this thing that should not be mentioned here and this game is supposedly not.
Third and most important, circumventing ZAX is a result of backlog, not the other way round, and it is always better to cure the cause not the symptom.
I could fix the AH with one move.
Make zen shop items BoA.
No more buying from zen shop to sell on AH creating an endless circle of ZAX/AD/ZAX exchanges.
That will only make it worse. Right now there is very close to 0 reason to hold onto AD, thus everyone is converting their AD to Zen. At least now there are a "few" things you might actually buy with AD at a steeper price. Make everything BoA and then the backlog will get even bigger as then Zen becomes a must as there would be no way to realistically acquire those items without converting AD to Zen.
Every suggestion that comes up seems to be pointed out as flawed....So, is there actually a fix for this?
If not, what the heck happens now?
...............vote for your favourite expansion.......... "Mod 6. Oh my f****** god. It gutted the game pure and simple. And what wasn't gutted was messed up by the poorly thought out new level cap and equip. The game never recovered from that atrocity". ..............not this one then.............
Every suggestion that comes up seems to be pointed out as flawed....So, is there actually a fix for this?
If not, what the heck happens now?
Nobody on the forums has a fix for this because nobody on the forums actually knows what the problem is. We can all speculate, but we simply don't have the information necessary to be certain.
We can only hope that Cryptic have this data and are working on a solution. I don't necessarily recommend holding your breath.
This is just wrong. First, to prevent ppl from using zen items to circumvent ZAX you would also had to make the containment of such items like lockboxes and profession packs BoA. And then if you open those and not get what you want, you could not sell it.
1. Does not make game p2w as f2p have zax to also buy zen shop items. (even with backlog it still works for now)
2. Sorry you get stuck with unwanted crafting items.
3. You can't circumvent the zax by selling zen shop items on AH for more than you'll get from the exchange if you CAN"T sell zen shop items on the auction house. Which would in turn make trading zen through the zax a way more attractive prospect for zen holders.
What we have now is a situation where Zen demand is higher than AD demand. There are 3 theorhetical things that could be done about it:
1. Reduce Zen demand (for example, by not making any promos or new items), which ofc will never happen because Cryptic/PWE need to make money.
2. Reduce AD influx (for example, by reducing leadeship AD, even to 0). That would result in less AD exchanged for Zen, but not more Zen exchanged for AD. Zax backlog would be reduced, but it wouldn't be any easier to buy Zen with AD.
3. Increase AD demand (creating/improving AD sinks). That would result in a) more AD flushed out of the system b) more Zen exchanged for AD c) everyone happier.
The question is, if Cryptic/PWE really want to fix the economy, maybe they sell more Zen now that it is in so high demand? Paying customers still can get anything they want, only free players have it hard now.
1. Does not make game p2w as f2p have zax to also buy zen shop items. (even with backlog it still works for now)
2. Sorry you get stuck with unwanted crafting items.
3. You can't circumvent the zax by selling zen shop items on AH for more than you'll get from the exchange if you CAN"T sell zen shop items on the auction house. Which would in turn make trading zen through the zax a way more attractive prospect for zen holders.
"Still" is the key word here. It is 2 weeks waiting for Zen now and it is only getting worse. As I already said circumventing ZAX with AH is a RESULT of the backlog, not it's cause. Actually, making less items traded via AH can only make it worse since the AH tax is the most effective AD sink we currently have.
About unwanted random drops, if people won't be able to sell it, they won't be buying it and I can't see how that is supposed to be good for anyone (bad for players because they cannot get those stuff and bad for Cryptic because they sell less Zen).
2. Reduce AD influx (for example, by reducing leadeship AD, even to 0). That would result in less AD exchanged for Zen, but not more Zen exchanged for AD. Zax backlog would be reduced, but it wouldn't be any easier to buy Zen with AD.
Wow, what happened to AD influx isn't a problem and removing leadership is just wrong after everything?
Comments
Isn't a post like this basically waving a red flag in front of the Devs with "Nerf leadership now' written on it?
Because right now there is an unbalance between AD creation and removal, and as there don't seem to be any decent long-term AD sinks......
Like I said, there was no issue weeks or months around Caturday and back then you could literally create billions of AD out of thin air.
Leadership takes months and months to get to 20 from scratch and gets people to log into the game daily.
How difficult is it to understand that the backlog has very little to do with AD "glut" and everything to do with the fact that Zen is required and AD has become less and less useful (keys -> zen only, more and more BoP items).
There is just no reason to hold AD and every reason to convert it to Zen right now. This was NOT always the case. The backlog will remain even if they get rid of 90% of the AD in the game and got rid of leadership, if all other things remain as they are now.
Pretty much this. It doesn't matter you make AD a bit slower, if at the end all you want to do with it is to buy Zen. Currently all you need/want can be purchased with Zen, except for gear maybe, but that can be (or it *could* when the dungeons chests were actually working) farmed pretty easily.
Race Change to AD.
Or reincarnation to AD.
This will help the economy.
At the very least, they can offer a choice of zen or AD (the zen would be cheaper exchange-wise to give incentive to get it from there) in order to avoid any backlog if there is some when someone wants it immediately.
I think you fail at math. At the very worst, its 1000 zen = 10 USD (no bonus zen with it) so its 100 zen per dollar. So, 10,300,000/100 = 103,000 USD.
OMG now it makes sense... The Dungeon chests arn't bugged ...they're a FEATURE!!!!! =O
Besides the bad math that Midnightfang highlighted who in the world are they going to ban? People that farmed ad instead of paying?
haha, i just woke up, and yes math me bad do, still 100 thousand dollars should be achievable right ?
1. Even with the backlog you can still get Zen for AD. It just requires patience. I put up buy orders for 500-1000 Zen a week and they get filled every week to ten days. This is because people are either impatient or lit majors (ie bad at math).
2. The real exchange rate is 600-630 Ad per Zen (do the math and remember the AH tax). There are three solutions for this problem.
2.a. Remove or raise the ZAX cap to make it competitive with actual market values and it will return to an equilibrium. For those of us that remember the value of Zen goods on the AH used to fluctuate in relation to the exchange rate on the ZAX.
2.b. Recind the BoP on coals and keys. A wider variety of zen (and T-Bar) items disperses the the means of exchanging zen for AD and that reduces the overall exchange rate. Currently the exchange via market is restricted to a small number of goods and that scarcity increases value and demand.
2.c. Offer zen goods through the wonderous bazzar at a rate of 1.08x500 AD per zen. At a 10% market tax this removes all incentive to buy zen items from the ZAX outside of coupons and sales. At face value this appears to be a disincentive to spend money on the game. But actually it means a 2% tax on cash interactions with the game economy. Further it is only 2% when the ZAX is capped at 450 zen/ AD zen exchange still makes more sense.
3. AD sinks, again, will not work so long as there is a higher demand for zen goods. Given enchant prices this is not a situation that is likely to change. Wards are the primary drain on my zen reserve. Clever investors will profit regardless. My aim is to make the game more equitable for those who do mot indulge in economic theory.
It's very likely PWE is fully aware of the situation especially since income is involved. What actions they take will likely reflect where income is leaning.
Interestingly enough you can now track how much $ the game brings in by using the exchange. It's not 100% accurate, but it gets you in the ballpark. If it takes 30 days to clear a 10mil backlog you can guess they probably made around $100 in Zen sales for the month. Again, it's not 100% because some was already in the game and some will be bought and used directly in the Zen store or hoarded. Also you have no idea how much of it was bonus Zen. When I was still playing you had no clue because there were no backlogs.
My main reason I posted in this thread was because I keep seeing people say everyone is hoarding their Zen because it is worthless to exchange it. If they ever fix the backlog and the price goes down all that hoarded Zen will lose value. The value of hoarded Zen will never increase unless they raise the cap so unless you are sure you want to buy something from the Zen store I think it would be better to hoard AD. If you decided to change it back to Zen it will either cost the exact same amount or less, it will never cost more. You can't lose by hoarding AD instead of Zen (even if they are worth less). This only pertains to hoarded Zen (as in Zen that will just sit there doing nothing). If you are buying Zen items and flipping them for a profit it is a different story.
I think I will still log in to take a look at the game and see how things look. It's been a while and I barely even remember all the stuff I had hoarded. Heck, it took me forever to even log in and post this because forgot my password and it kept taking me to ARC to change it and the forums wouldn't accept the new password for some reason. After I tried logging into the game it started working here. Weird. Anyway.......I still can't believe keys are BOP. That is just nuts.
smartest post in this thread
First, Cryptic has to crack down on bots as well as players that go to third party sites. Begin permanently banning any and all accounts that purchase AD through a third party. If they're buying AD through a third party, Cryptic isn't making money on them anyways and they're damaging the game environment for the rest of the community.
Then get rid of AD all together and make everything cost gold.
Once they do that, they have to do one of two things.
Make everything on the zen store BoP so players are forced to sell zen to other players through the exchange.
Make everything on the zen store bind on equip, including items like additional character slots as well as coming out with per character versions of all the mounts that they sell on the zen store, and get rid of the zen exchange all together.
The system we have in game right now is so <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> poor that whoever designed it, and whoever gave the approval to implement it, should lose their jobs because they have set up a system that is exceptionally easy to circumvent and, is ultimately harmful to the community. There is absolutely no reason at all for someone to use the zen exchange when they can purchase items on the zen market and sell them on the AH for far more than they would get exchanging their zen for AD. At the same time, there are numerous items that can only be acquired by purchasing them through the zen market. This essentially locks a good number of items away from a large portion of the community. I'm guessing that the rationale behind it is that it will force all players to eventually give them money but, that will most likely backfire on them. If they wanted all players to give them money, they should have charged a subscription.
Cryptic needs to either tightly regulate everything or, let us run the game economy completely. Trying to set up a system where they do both is what has created the problem we currently have.
Wow.
Join Essence of Aggression: PVP-ing Hard Since Beta!
Are they actually selling though?
Also note that the costs of making a Perfect Vorpal have gone up a lot too. Vorpal Shards were at 20K+ when I looked, and Coals are 1000 ZEN (500 K AD).
1. I told this before, but I'll repeat. If the backlog stopped growing where it is now, I *may* be convinced, but we have a constant growth here. Which is logical, since low AD value encourages to NOT buy it with Zen, which makes it even more abundand and less valuable and so on. Anyway, it is dunno, 2 weeks waiting now? At this rate we'll have 1 month waiting in a week or two, and mod4 is before us. So how long can a free player wait before he'll quit the game?
2.a Bad idea. Think of an average free player and the time he would need to farm enough AD. If they remove cap, zax ratio will grow and AH prices won't go down.
2.b indeed
2.c They'll never do that because in that case nobody would buy those items with zen. Or at least very few people.
3. They just need to make AD sinks attractive enough, i.e. reasonably priced, or/and make some items players need avilable with AD only.
Make zen shop items BoA.
No more buying from zen shop to sell on AH creating an endless circle of ZAX/AD/ZAX exchanges.
I used the scientific method of pulling numbers out of my butt to deduce that 90% of the ZAX orders are people who
only buy zen shop items to sell for AD to buy more zen to get more zen shop items to sell for ad to buy more zen to get zen shop items to sell for more AD. This backlog is all the whales hoarding AD>Zen space in zax to manipulate the next event/module to come around.
AH should be for items dropped in game to trade between players. Why should I have <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> bind to me that may or may not be for my class? And why can't i sell this <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>? Prices would be determined by rarity of drops, not how long it takes to buy zen through zax. All this BoP in game drops are only making it harder for new players to grind through game content while trying to upgrade... Instead you have it so items get bought in zen shop can be sold on AH. Why would anyone buy something and then trade it unless they could make a profit? Making necessity items like coal wards an endless circle of profit for some, and a source of frustration for others.
This is just wrong. First, to prevent ppl from using zen items to circumvent ZAX you would also had to make the containment of such items like lockboxes and profession packs BoA. And then if you open those and not get what you want, you could not sell it.
Second, that would push the game further into direction of this thing that should not be mentioned here and this game is supposedly not.
Third and most important, circumventing ZAX is a result of backlog, not the other way round, and it is always better to cure the cause not the symptom.
That will only make it worse. Right now there is very close to 0 reason to hold onto AD, thus everyone is converting their AD to Zen. At least now there are a "few" things you might actually buy with AD at a steeper price. Make everything BoA and then the backlog will get even bigger as then Zen becomes a must as there would be no way to realistically acquire those items without converting AD to Zen.
If not, what the heck happens now?
"Mod 6. Oh my f****** god. It gutted the game pure and simple. And what wasn't gutted was messed up by the poorly thought out new level cap and equip. The game never recovered from that atrocity".
..............not this one then.............
We can only hope that Cryptic have this data and are working on a solution. I don't necessarily recommend holding your breath.
Aelar Hawkwind - Archer
Karrin Feywinter - Mistress of Flame
Errin Duskwalker - Executioner
Darquess - Soulbinder
2. Sorry you get stuck with unwanted crafting items.
3. You can't circumvent the zax by selling zen shop items on AH for more than you'll get from the exchange if you CAN"T sell zen shop items on the auction house. Which would in turn make trading zen through the zax a way more attractive prospect for zen holders.
1. Reduce Zen demand (for example, by not making any promos or new items), which ofc will never happen because Cryptic/PWE need to make money.
2. Reduce AD influx (for example, by reducing leadeship AD, even to 0). That would result in less AD exchanged for Zen, but not more Zen exchanged for AD. Zax backlog would be reduced, but it wouldn't be any easier to buy Zen with AD.
3. Increase AD demand (creating/improving AD sinks). That would result in a) more AD flushed out of the system b) more Zen exchanged for AD c) everyone happier.
The question is, if Cryptic/PWE really want to fix the economy, maybe they sell more Zen now that it is in so high demand? Paying customers still can get anything they want, only free players have it hard now.
"Still" is the key word here. It is 2 weeks waiting for Zen now and it is only getting worse. As I already said circumventing ZAX with AH is a RESULT of the backlog, not it's cause. Actually, making less items traded via AH can only make it worse since the AH tax is the most effective AD sink we currently have.
About unwanted random drops, if people won't be able to sell it, they won't be buying it and I can't see how that is supposed to be good for anyone (bad for players because they cannot get those stuff and bad for Cryptic because they sell less Zen).
It is wrong. The problem isn't incoming rad, the problem is almost zero outgoing ad.