Problem with this is, people will still be able to bot currency and trade it for zen. That's why my idea still has AD in there as a middleman. Something you need, that you can ONLY get by completing specific tasks, and nothing simple enough for bots to do.
Giving players the ability to make AD by playing the game (without having to play the market) is enough of a bot deterrent for me. If players can accumulate it through normal questing and dungeon runs, then bots will have less of a customer base.
If there is more needed to combat botting, it is on the game designers to crack down on without punishing "honest" play.
Except more AD being generated = more need for AD sinks = more need for AD = more bots botting the AH with drops and generating plenty of AD that way. It's why we have this ridiculous spiral in the first place. Make AD unobtainable by bots by switching the auction house to gold, then bots can only deal in gold, and can't deal in things from the Zen shop as easily (which is still a problem - most bots advertise things like coalescent wards and blood rubies and brilliant diamonds alongside their AD). We'd still have bots botting gold, but it'd have less impact on the economy or peoples' ability to upgrade their gear.
It's not enough to have RAD obtainable by people so they have no need to buy it from them, you have to take away the bots' ability to deal in it or generate it, or else they absolutely will.
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silvergryphMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 740Arc User
Would be nice if you could Buy say 100 ad for 1 gold with a limit of 50k Ad per day per account. That might make professions usable again.
I have had great success turning gathered resources from every profession into AD through the AH. Metal plates, rings, leather, stones and cloth will all sell. Alchemy can easily generate as much AD as Leadership used to, and potentially quite a bit more.
You can also just buy mounts, potions, and injury kits from vendors and sell them consistently.
buy marks of potency and anything else in the wondrous bazaar.
... what? Most of the items that players would consistently buy from the wondrous bazaar are far cheaper in the AH (GMOPs, anyone?). Why would anyone with Zen trade it for AD that is going to be essentially worthless at the end of the day? Gold is easy to make so it's not like anyone would be hurting that badly for it.
The entire economy is based around AD and if you make AD worthless what are the people who have a lot of it going to do with it? Trade it for Zen? Oh, wait, nobody is trading Zen for AD because AD is worthless. Trade it for Gold? The market gets flooded with gold and becomes worthless.
They're only cheaper right now because it's so easy to get tons of AD, turn it into zen, get VIP, buy marks and sell them for a profit with the discount. If this were changed, they wouldn't be. And also, gold would be the basis for the almost the whole economy in this model. Meaning, you'd need more of it. No one's hurting for gold and it's easy to make because it's practically worthless right now.
I think the main problem with your proposal is exactly this. Bots are a problem now but imagine what they'd be like when EVERY ITEM IN THE GAME can be dumped for the most valuable currency without relying on the AH.
But it's not the most valuable currency. Gold wouldn't be exchangeable for AD or for Zen. I also suggested in another comment that you could get around the ability to trade by putting a cap on player-to-player gold trades. If you can't directly trade enough gold to make it worth trading your high-end enchant for, you'd HAVE to use the auction house. Or they could just make gold straight-up untradeable.
Except more AD being generated = more need for AD sinks = more need for AD = more bots botting the AH with drops and generating plenty of AD that way.
More of each item on the AH means less per item.
My concern is equipping players with the ability to earn more AD via engaging gameplay. Players earning more = botter AD worth less.
More of each item only hurts legitimate players who are trying to sell things. The bots don't care, they deal in volume. They can farm hundreds of thousands of enchants and flood the market, it takes them literally no effort. A player, however, will only be able to get a tiny amount of currency for their items because of bots, who will make more AD than anyone, because they can monitor the AH and undercut people or buy out cheap auctions to manipulate the prices.
this sound like what sto is doing. this is not gonna stop gold farmers they will just switch to gold and gold is WAY easier to farm than AD. this change would HAMSTER everyone off, but if they were serious about "fixing the economy" they would need to do something this drastic. disagree about locking the exchange rate, thats just a bad idea. the exchange should be player/content driven the way it is now. increasing the AD cap is pointless. it would be better to reduce the cost of ALL thing that require AD by 50-75%. also increase the amount of AD you get from dailies,or keep what they have now and ad dailies back.
buy marks of potency and anything else in the wondrous bazaar.
... what? Most of the items that players would consistently buy from the wondrous bazaar are far cheaper in the AH (GMOPs, anyone?). Why would anyone with Zen trade it for AD that is going to be essentially worthless at the end of the day? Gold is easy to make so it's not like anyone would be hurting that badly for it.
The entire economy is based around AD and if you make AD worthless what are the people who have a lot of it going to do with it? Trade it for Zen? Oh, wait, nobody is trading Zen for AD because AD is worthless. Trade it for Gold? The market gets flooded with gold and becomes worthless.
They're only cheaper right now because it's so easy to get tons of AD, turn it into zen, get VIP, buy marks and sell them for a profit with the discount. If this were changed, they wouldn't be. And also, gold would be the basis for the almost the whole economy in this model. Meaning, you'd need more of it. No one's hurting for gold and it's easy to make because it's practically worthless right now.
I think the main problem with your proposal is exactly this. Bots are a problem now but imagine what they'd be like when EVERY ITEM IN THE GAME can be dumped for the most valuable currency without relying on the AH.
But it's not the most valuable currency. Gold wouldn't be exchangeable for AD or for Zen. I also suggested in another comment that you could get around the ability to trade by putting a cap on player-to-player gold trades. If you can't directly trade enough gold to make it worth trading your high-end enchant for, you'd HAVE to use the auction house. Or they could just make gold straight-up untradeable.
If you get to the point where people are actually able to buy high end enchants with gold on the AH you're making gold the most valuable currency.
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theycallmetomuMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,861Arc User
Gold should be used for the player economy. Players exchanging items amongst each other.
AD and Zen are used for the real economy. AD is obtained "over time" and zen is obtained through cash, and they're exchangable, but at a floating rate.
Then it's just a matter of making sure AD/zen items aren't tradeable. The cost of zen in terms of AD will be based on the supply/demand of AD and cash. Items traded on the AH use their own market systems, completely divorced from W. Bazaar and zen markets.
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It's not enough to have RAD obtainable by people so they have no need to buy it from them, you have to take away the bots' ability to deal in it or generate it, or else they absolutely will.
You can also just buy mounts, potions, and injury kits from vendors and sell them consistently.
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My concern is equipping players with the ability to earn more AD via engaging gameplay. Players earning more = botter AD worth less.
this sound like what sto is doing. this is not gonna stop gold farmers they will just switch to gold and gold is WAY easier to farm than AD. this change would HAMSTER everyone off, but if they were serious about "fixing the economy" they would need to do something this drastic. disagree about locking the exchange rate, thats just a bad idea. the exchange should be player/content driven the way it is now. increasing the AD cap is pointless. it would be better to reduce the cost of ALL thing that require AD by 50-75%. also increase the amount of AD you get from dailies,or keep what they have now and ad dailies back.
AD and Zen are used for the real economy. AD is obtained "over time" and zen is obtained through cash, and they're exchangable, but at a floating rate.
Then it's just a matter of making sure AD/zen items aren't tradeable. The cost of zen in terms of AD will be based on the supply/demand of AD and cash. Items traded on the AH use their own market systems, completely divorced from W. Bazaar and zen markets.