What's the logic behind mount training prices?

xdementia

Right now, to train a mount from rank 1 (50% speed) to rank 3 (110% speed), you will have to buy both training tomes, for a total cost of 768,000+2,064,000 = 2,832,000 AD, that is close to 3 millions AD

The current Zen <-> AD exchange rate is a bit lower than 380. For the sake of rounding, if I grind these 2.8 million AD and convert them, I get over 7300 Zen.

The price of a 110% mount in the cash shop is 4000 Zen. That would leave me with over 3300 Zen spare.

This oversight really baffles me, as even if the exchange rate was the max possible allowed (500 AD per Zen), converting 2.8 million AD would still net me 5600 Zen, which is much more than a 110% mount.

I don't know who made up the price for the training manuals, but it looks like they need a math lesson or two, unless I'm completely derping out, in which case you are really free to make fun of me.

terradraconis

My guess is because mounts are account wide.

zahinder

Yeah, the training manuals are goofy expensive, and probably going to become even more so as AD increases in value.

Particularly once you start factoring in the fact that a purchased mount is available to all your characters. Um. What?

terradraconis

I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for AD to go up in value.

bookwyrmm

terradraconis wrote: »

My guess is because mounts are account wide.

Which, if we think about it makes the whole pricing even more odd. For 4,000 Zen you can buy a Rank 3 mount once, and every character on your account gets it. If you buy one mount, for gold in game, and then upgrade it, you have spent 50% more to get one mount for one character.

In short, the costs make no sense, not even from an economic perspective for PWE.

xdementia

zahinder wrote: »

Yeah, the training manuals are goofy expensive, and probably going to become even more so as AD increases in value.

Particularly once you start factoring in the fact that a purchased mount is available to all your characters. Um. What?

Oh yeah, I didn't even take into account that the 4k Zen mounts are account-wide.

There is absolutely 0 reason to buy the manuals if you grinded that amount of AD then. I am quite baffled.

spyke2009

bookwyrmm wrote: »

Which, if we think about it makes the whole pricing even more odd. For 4,000 Zen you can buy a Rank 3 mount once, and every character on your account gets it. If you buy one mount, for gold in game, and then upgrade it, you have spent 50% more to get one mount for one character.

In short, the costs make no sense, not even from an economic perspective for PWE.

Could you clarify, what exactly it is that doesn't make sense?

jnc87

The point of it is so no one actually buys the ingame mounts imo

jetah

Pricing is geared to point you toward the ZStore. We did the maths in closed beta and said the same thing: it's cheaper to grind the AD convert to Zen then buy a Zen Mount then it is to upgrade that 5g mount.

riven84

terradraconis wrote: »

I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for AD to go up in value.

LOL, good joke.







You are joking, right?

bookwyrmm

spyke2009 wrote: »

Could you clarify, what exactly it is that doesn't make sense?

As the poster directly below you noted, if you are saving/grinding Astral Diamonds, you would be better served by converting them to Zen and buying a Rank 3 mount, which is account wide. So the player is better served doing that

From PWE's perspective, it makes more sense for the price to be comparable - such a complete disparity means that they have wasted resources (coding time and artist design time) creating a product that no one, well no one with a basic grasp of math anyway, will ever buy. On top of that, in order to maintain the idea that you can earn anything you want in game, the prices should be comparable - otherwise they are just giving the P2W folks even more fodder for their complaints.

riven84

bookwyrmm wrote: »

the prices should be comparable

You do understand that this is impossible, right?

bookwyrmm

Comparable does not mean exact. Yes, the fluctuating price on the AD to Zen market means that they would have a significant challenge keeping it the same. But comparable is easy. I would still expect it to point players to the Zen market - they need to make money - but making it ludicrous to buy the upgrades defeats the entire purpose of the process.

the1tigglet

Training should be lower since T3 mounts are token/zen only methinks. In every MMO out there with mounts they had to do this because the cost was way too high. either the training was cheap or the mount was cheap but both were rarely extremely expensive like in this title because it caused huge problems in the mmo community.

alex3omg

Maybe someone would do this if they wanted one of the low level mounts. It's kind of interesting that they let you upgrade mounts to the max speed but let you keep the aesthetics.

However the price should be comparable. It seems like having three separate currencies is confusing.

magitek3

The logic is simple: they want you to buy Zen mounts.

zahinder

It disappoints me in the sense that I'd rather buy a different weird mount per character. If zen mounts cost 1/2 or 1/4 as much but were single-character, then I might get an armored bear for one character and an armored charger for another etc.

Mind you, from PWE's perspective, they are likely to see most people only ever have one main character.

Hmm. Maybe, after making one mount purchase, further mount purchases are at a heavy discount? But then you have trading problems... A well.

diogene0

This is indeed really annoying. I don't like the look of the mounts in the store, and i enjoy my good white palomino horse. Everything in the store looks a bit ridiculous, especially the horse you buy to do some cooking while you ride it. But free mounts upgrades are insanely expensive. Like 5 to 10 times too much.

palelonginus

diogene0 wrote: »

This is indeed really annoying. I don't like the look of the mounts in the store, and i enjoy my good white palomino horse. Everything in the store looks a bit ridiculous, especially the horse you buy to do some cooking while you ride it. But free mounts upgrades are insanely expensive. Like 5 to 10 times too much.

Agreed. And are cheaper Zen store mounts even upgradeable? I mean can I have a 110% speed unarmoured worg or black horse? They should have kept the speed and aesthetics as separate things, and let people use the mount they like.

ghoulic123

So, if you purchase a 110% mount via zen such as the Armored Bear, is that only usable on one character or all existing and future ones on your account?

proqludum

ghoulic123 wrote: »

So, if you purchase a 110% mount via zen such as the Armored Bear, is that only usable on one character or all existing and future ones on your account?

It will be available to all your characters on the same account.

palelonginus

Am I correct in my assumption that you cannot use the training manuals on the Zen mounts?

riven84

bookwyrmm wrote: »

Comparable does not mean exact. Yes, the fluctuating price on the AD to Zen market means that they would have a significant challenge keeping it the same. But comparable is easy.

No. Impossible, as I said. This isn't rocket science. Unless… wait a minute, you're not suggesting they adjust the price every day to match the current Zen<->AD rate, are you?

LOL

isopoint

It's even cheaper to buy the nightmare mount so it is really out of whack.

Some people are collectors or like certain looks.

thezarze

Stupid edit erased my whole post.......................

fk it , is not worth it anyway