ZAX backlog

namelesshero347

is over one mio now. It was like 30K yesterday. What's happening?

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demonmonger

That is true...
I am not a blue whale, but maybe an orca.
I have not purchased any zen to trade for Astral in a while. The last time I traded my zen for Astral was to upgrade companions for sca, but now even sca is gone, items are maxed. I don't feel like getting the new weapons or leveling them up. So yea, there is nothing to buy.

Moreover I don't feel comfortable spending money on this game anymore, mainly because so many fundamental game mechanics have been changed over and over after I invested into them.

1) I made all my artifacts that had regeneration mythic, then lifesteal and regeneration ion got changed. My regeneration no longer worked in combat.
(Super angry face)

2) sca changes after investing into companions to play there

3) stamina regen investments and stamina regen is broken.

4) ..... I lost my faith in the game. Why donate to the never winter god's if they never hear my prayers and forsake me.

mercedesman

All I have to say is I have found that there are other things to do outside of NW. I figured sitting in front of a PC hour after hour and spending hundreds and thousands of dollars is not good for me or my wallet. Enter my new love, a Pietenpol Air Camper.. folks, get away from the PC and go build a full size airplane you can fly in.. but be warned, you will find that there is much, much, much less to complain about.

nameexpired

I guess less people buy ZEN with the recent changes. Also, holidays (and holiday money spending) are over. kids are back at school and doing homework.

mercedesman said:

All I have to say is I have found that there are other things to do outside of NW. I figured sitting in front of a PC hour after hour and spending hundreds and thousands of dollars is not good for me or my wallet.

Well, with the killing of the gateway I also have a hard time logging in. I pick up the VIP key, run a quest or two in BS, LW or CR and say hello to my Imaginary Friends. I used to play 6 hours after getting home from work. Now I watch Orphan Black with my wife. Good TV series! I hope to find motivation other than picking up a key rather sooner than later.

PS: being in need of 40k Voninblod also does not improve motivation when a quest gives you 50 of that currency

nameexpired

At the office I also used to ponder which gear to wear, what to do, browse the AH, and if I saw something that caught my fancy I would buy it. No more possible. If I did not have the AD for "this bargain 500k companion" I bought ZEN and sold it on the ZAX for AD. No longer possible.
I used to make plans what to do in game.Give these items from A to B, no more marks of union, I need to run PF with all my toons, etc. Now I lost total oversight of all my toons. Well, we will see what other explanations players can think of.

mercedesman

In truth, I used to be head over heals in love with this game. I too theory crafted, logged into the gateway to check for rare items on the market and pounce on them if I could. I would research builds, strategies and classes with obsession. I now find that I dread doing my campaign grinding, I despise the new zone(s) and the new campaign and I keep running into situations where I have either chosen the wrong character or build because the version I have doesn't work as intended and has NO chance of being adjusted/fixed.

With the addition of the console versions and the surge in their popularity, I would be willing to bet that our "issues" will become even slower to get resolved as we are now the low man on the totem pole as far as users and revenue generation.

silverkelt

They way overestimated what people would do for this mod, the gating is horrific and it needs to be cut, or daily quests should be increased from 50 vblood to like 200 per. This is the only real fix to this.

On another note, I have seen a dramatic decrease of players again on all of my regular channels, even my guild (one of the biggest and most active in the game) has had a dramatic decrease of players willing to put up with this HAMSTER. I used to see 10-15 people in the early AM (4 am est) , its bee down to 6 .. channels Im in had around 40-50 at that time.. down to 20-30) with so many less people willing to run things, its been much harder getting groups together.

Its really boring, gating vblood acquisition via stupid bought trowels and junk, not good , it wouldve been ok to do that , if they had a more regular amount of vblood via the common stuff.

At least mod 3.. had KR to run together.. you have to get a tremendous amount of vblood to get into FBI to get stuff if you want that way.. and frankly its a lot of time gating and annoying features to get there.

I just think they 100% missed the mark on this one what is tolerable here.

There is no intrisic reason to do this mod at all.. in fact , if you look over it, it maybe the worst ever mod release in terms advancement , the boons have little impact on peoples builds, and even if FBI is super fun, its really super annoying to ungate.

Sad faces .. lack of reasonable listening and frankly a terrible amount of time to create one of the most lackluster mods ever. (mod 6 original was the worst, in terms of lack of content.. probably) but mod 10, takes the cake on grinding and gating.. only mod 4 matched this really.. Why they thought they had to mix the amount of time mod 4 grinding took, with the empowerment system of mod 3.. is beyond me.


Making really boring things to do.. never was a way to get players to stick around.

kvet

A backlog on the buy side means more people want to buy zen with AD than there are people selling. There's many possible reasons for this, it could be there's something worth Zen that a lot of people want, so there's more than the usual number of people trying to convert AD reserves to Zen, or it could be reflective of a slump in Zen sales (players quitting, players moving platforms, players simply not rewarding Cryptic's poor choices with cash, people simply holding Zen). It doesn't mean there's little of value in the Zen store, because if that were the case even if there was a trend of holding zen, you still wouldn't see the huge upticks in the backlog. It's hard to fully grok what's going on.

Personally? I hope zen sales are down because people are realizing that buying zen with cash is merely telling Cryptic that they're doing a great job, and should keep on doing what they've been doing rather than using innovation and real thought to improve the game in the long run.

nameexpired

Usually we had this huge a backlog only when fancy new stuff entered the game that had to be bought with ZEN which lead to increased demand of ZEN. Examples: new companion released, 50% sale in ZEN shop
As I can see nothing new here the only explanation I can think of is less ZEN being created in the first place. But this is just a guess.
To lessen the burden on the ZAX there are often "buy 100 Z with 100$ get 50Z for free" or "get a special companion you can only get if you invest 100$ NOW". I expect one to come along shortly.

darthpotater

The sad thing is that they did a really good job with the new dungeon, is really fun, with good mechanics and interesting bosses. But they somehow cant balance the rewards with the time needed to run the content. If even you get 1/50 of a BIS item in each Fangbreaker or Epic demogorgon or CN the feeling would be much better than invest 1 hour + 60 zen for a key (or grind a lot for a key) to get a lotto ticket of a BIS item.

ghoulz66

kvet said:

A backlog on the buy side means more people want to buy zen with AD than there are people selling. There's many possible reasons for this, it could be there's something worth Zen that a lot of people want, so there's more than the usual number of people trying to convert AD reserves to Zen, or it could be reflective of a slump in Zen sales (players quitting, players moving platforms, players simply not rewarding Cryptic's poor choices with cash, people simply holding Zen). It doesn't mean there's little of value in the Zen store, because if that were the case even if there was a trend of holding zen, you still wouldn't see the huge upticks in the backlog. It's hard to fully grok what's going on.

Personally? I hope zen sales are down because people are realizing that buying zen with cash is merely telling Cryptic that they're doing a great job, and should keep on doing what they've been doing rather than using innovation and real thought to improve the game in the long run.

VIP and wards are important.....

reg1981

kvet said:

Personally? I hope zen sales are down because people are realizing that buying zen with cash is merely telling Cryptic that they're doing a great job, and should keep on doing what they've been doing rather than using innovation and real thought to improve the game in the long run.

+1 A HUNDRED TIMES +1

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micky1p00

This mod..... 3 zones (pretty zones I must say) and a dungeon investment and a total HAMSTER on the mechanics part. How someone thought that the reincarnation of BI that no one liked will work ?
Worse, a dungeon that will take an age to unlock only to not have anything useful as a drop. I need something to sell. Something that someone with ZEN will want to convert his ZEN to AD and buy from me. But I have nothing.

I will unlock it eventually, perhaps by the next mod or later, maybe will buy a damn purple pick at 50% black Friday, but just for the challenge..

The initial idea of unbound drops from bosses and bound from chest was the correct one. Devs should have account for their HAMSTER in fixing the resonator exploit and skewing the economy. And not using a hammer to change the whole system that was skewed because of 2 exploits.
But even then the ZAX was at ~380-350 points and was much healthier than now.

empalas

The other thing to consider is that PC players may now be spending that money on Zen for Xbox or PS4 where they do need AD to get those characters gear up to snuff

silverkelt

If you were going to leave for new platforms, you needed to do it on day 1 or so to get any leg up on new players in terms of economy, the people who are quiting (or taking longer breaks) now are just doing it because they are fed up with a system that most of us hate.. a released module with terrible gating and boring dailies (duh dudes, you know we have enough dailies/grinding to do for years.. no need to add more) and a real lack of creative marketing in terms of "them" making cash other then making REALLY boring HAMSTER that you want to pay to get out of.

Some people will do that, but vast majority of players see boring HAMSTER dailies and just skip it.

Frankly im glad there is no real rewards for mod 10.. as I dont want to reward them for doing this to us.

Just twiddle our thumbs until its over I guess.. what a load of marlarky all over.

tripsofthrymr

magenubbie said:

Considering that nothing much has changed on the AD market and the zen market only gained very overpriced premade characters and half a campaign unlock that doesn't even include boons, I'd say this is probably the more accurate reason.

Things have changed on the AD side... supply of AD has presumably diminished after it was removed from invoking. The effect SHOULD have been a decrease in the AD/Zen price. Instead, the price stayed right at 499-500 for a bit then the backlog shot up.

I don't know if there's any way to track the traded volume (if you're not PWE).

beckylunatic

tripsofthrymr said:

I don't know if there's any way to track the traded volume (if you're not PWE).

Put in an order for 1 Zen and see how long it takes to fill, is what I was thinking.

The day before yesterday, I had the exchange window open for a bit and watched the number of Zen requested at 500AD per unit go up and down. I wasn't planning to buy, only to see how it looked re: "NO ZEN IN THE EXCHANGE WAHHHH".

The fact that the backlog was so low at the time had me considering placing an order, though I decided not to.

sockmunkey

The changes to invocation didn't really reduce AD from the system. It reduced EASY AD. But you can actually earn far more if you put in the time and effort to maximize gains. Something bots excell at.

So, I suspect, the end results of this are reduced gains for casuals, a slight increase for the hardcore, and a large increase for bots. Instead of fixing the problem they have just made it worse.

micky1p00

tripsofthrymr said:

magenubbie said:

Considering that nothing much has changed on the AD market and the zen market only gained very overpriced premade characters and half a campaign unlock that doesn't even include boons, I'd say this is probably the more accurate reason.

Things have changed on the AD side... supply of AD has presumably diminished after it was removed from invoking. The effect SHOULD have been a decrease in the AD/Zen price. Instead, the price stayed right at 499-500 for a bit then the backlog shot up.

I don't know if there's any way to track the traded volume (if you're not PWE).

Post 'to buy' listing for zen, write down the backlog, and time, when the order fulfilled, divide the backlog by the time it took to fulfill it and you got the volume. Doing it several times should minimize people with a lot of zen (bought earlier) selling to profit from the 500:1

reg1981

Throw us a bone behind a paywall! Make it a good one though! Give gateway to players who spend $xx per month. Less likley to be botted if we need to pay for it. The game itself would still be f2p as advertised.

I for one would pay for the gateway. And I don't mean convert zen and pay I mean pay with cash money! Matter of fact I would love to see a QoL package brought into the game. Add it to additional VIP ranks and make it cash money only to keep away some botters!

btairborne

sockmunkey said:

The changes to invocation didn't really reduce AD from the system. It reduced EASY AD. But you can actually earn far more if you put in the time and effort to maximize gains. Something bots excell at.



So, I suspect, the end results of this are reduced gains for casuals, a slight increase for the hardcore, and a large increase for bots. Instead of fixing the problem they have just made it worse.

How do botters gain more now now that they lost invoke AD on their likely dozens of toons?

rayrdan

Black friday

lirithiel

rayrdan said:

Black friday

That's still a long way off.

vinceent1

lirithiel said:

rayrdan said:

Black friday

That's still a long way off.

double ref is 14 day off, its too far to influence zax so much already

but black friday sales are huge, i bet many starting collecting Zen already, i have over 4000 now

sockmunkey

btairborne said:

sockmunkey said:

The changes to invocation didn't really reduce AD from the system. It reduced EASY AD. But you can actually earn far more if you put in the time and effort to maximize gains. Something bots excell at.



So, I suspect, the end results of this are reduced gains for casuals, a slight increase for the hardcore, and a large increase for bots. Instead of fixing the problem they have just made it worse.

How do botters gain more now now that they lost invoke AD on their likely dozens of toons?

By running dungeons and PVP, just like anyone else.

reg1981

sockmunkey said:

btairborne said:

sockmunkey said:

The changes to invocation didn't really reduce AD from the system. It reduced EASY AD. But you can actually earn far more if you put in the time and effort to maximize gains. Something bots excell at.



So, I suspect, the end results of this are reduced gains for casuals, a slight increase for the hardcore, and a large increase for bots. Instead of fixing the problem they have just made it worse.

How do botters gain more now now that they lost invoke AD on their likely dozens of toons?

By running dungeons and PVP, just like anyone else.

Doesn't seem like a lot but consider this! A botter can take 3 accounts and run them in party through baby dungeons. WIth MY AD bonus and VIP bonus I get about 8k AD per toon for running 1 baby dungeon. If the botter controls the whole party that's approx 24,000 AD per run. 2 runs per toon = 48,000. 2 toons per account is nearly 100k. How many hundred or thousand of these things are running around at any given time??

Before there was no bonus for the runs and we got just under 5k per run. 2 runs a day = 10k + Invoking 3k = 13k AD. That's roughly 3k less than what is given now per toon per day. Cryptic did succeed in making the botters work a little harder for it though, it's not as simple as just invoking anymore...

And that example is just on a small scale! Who knows just how far down the rabbit hole it goes. There are skrimishs that award daily AD, weeklys that award it, etc...

rollingonit

Hehehehehehe. "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - George Santayana

Hope all is well IRL Neverwinter peeps.

tripsofthrymr

reg1981 said:

Doesn't seem like a lot but consider this! A botter can take 3 accounts and run them in party through baby dungeons. WIth MY AD bonus and VIP bonus I get about 8k AD per toon for running 1 baby dungeon. If the botter controls the whole party that's approx 24,000 AD per run. 2 runs per toon = 48,000. 2 toons per account is nearly 100k. How many hundred or thousand of these things are running around at any given time??

It takes the botters a lot more compute resources to run three toons though a dungeon than to invoke on the three toons. It certainly makes them have more available computer time to earn the same amount of AD.

Still, the AD supply drop should have corresponded to a drop in the AD/Zen exchange rate unless there was a very well-timed drop in the Zen supply, too. I don't see any reason to believe that the Zen supply dropped sharply at about the same time that the AD supply did. The volume of AD being exchanged is being propped up by something.

Could be early exchanges for Black Friday. Could be people with lots of AD buying the purple trowls for 1,000 Zen per toon. Could be bots adapting better than hoped for to the invoking change. Could be something else. Could be a little of each.

kvet

No, the botters were already running the DDs anyway along with invoking. Nothing. NOTHING AT ALL changed in their behavior or practices because of the invoke AD change other than the fact that they now make more AD than they did before. The only hurt this caused was to legit players.

That horse is long dead I know... It's well understood that Cryptic does not make its decisions with its customers in mind.