Remember that neither Zen nor AD are the end item in this exchange - they will both be used to buy other items. So the judgement someone who has Zen will be making is on the value (in either Zen or AD) of the item they want to buy. Prices on the AH have skyrocketed so at the current Zen/AD rate you get better value for your Zen by using it in the Zen store. If the Zen/AD rate were higher then that might reverse and Zen would start being sold again.
You may also have a point about the supply of Zen BTW. There are often multiple contributors to a situation like this.
Good point, sir. I have not fully investigated what might be re-sellable from the ZM at a higher rate. It's definitely not c-wards (at the moment) though. Looks like it might be p-wards (over 6000/each (or 600:1 ad:zen) right now)
<snip>
Those are the basic AD sinks, Companion and Horses upgrades. For me to be interested in actually buying AD there sould have a real possibility to be viable to spend that money upgrading mounts and companions.
Your English is fine
I disagree with your premise though. I do not think that companion and mount upgrades are "basic" sinks; I think those are "luxury" sinks (I have never upgraded a single companion or mount). What I consider "basic" is stuff like Marks of Potency and wards.
But specific examples is distracting from the main point: people with zen feel it is worth more than 500:1 (because demand is crazy high) and are either looking for a way to get that higher value from it OR have already sold all their zen. Thus it is unavailable to be bought by AD for a couple of weeks now. Seems like what is needed is a drop in demand and/or an increase in supply (perhaps a zen sale).
I disagree with your premise though. I do not think that companion and mount upgrades are "basic" sinks; I think those are "luxury" sinks (I have never upgraded a single companion or mount). What I consider "basic" is stuff like Marks of Potency and wards.
But specific examples is distracting from the main point: people with zen feel it is worth more than 500:1 (because demand is crazy high) and are either looking for a way to get that higher value from it OR have already sold all their zen. Thus it is unavailable to be bought by AD for a couple of weeks now. Seems like what is needed is a drop in demand and/or an increase in supply (perhaps a zen sale).
Because zen is worth more. A combination of more players and ineffective sinks has cause d rampant inflation. people think things in AH are going up in value. NO. AD is going down in value. the cap on zen needs to be removed. or youll find the supply will never increase. bacause its worth more ad to buy an item with that zen and sell it than sell the zen itself. want an example look at what KEYs are selling for in AH. it equates to more than 500-1zen. so why supply zen when i can just buy keys with that zen and sell them. this goes for many other zen items as well. THE ZEN CAP NEEDS TO BE REMOVED.
Because zen is worth more. A combination of more players and ineffective sinks has cause d rampant inflation. people think things in AH are going up in value. NO. AD is going down in value. the cap on zen needs to be removed. or youll find the supply will never increase. bacause its worth more ad to buy an item with that zen and sell it than sell the zen itself. want an example look at what KEYs are selling for in AH. it equates to more than 500-1zen. so why supply zen when i can just buy keys with that zen and sell them. this goes for many other zen items as well. THE ZEN CAP NEEDS TO BE REMOVED.
I disagree; removing the cap is a drastic measure. Remove some of the demand for zen and the trend will reverse itself. Demand cannot stay this high forever.
If you are looking at the true Zen:AD Ratio just look at the prices of keys. Currently it is at 1:595.
Math:
1125 Zen =10 keys
1 key=67,000 AD (current AH price)
1125 Zen= 670,000 AD
1 Zen= 670,000/1125
1 Zen= 595.55
This pretty much shows the effect capping the exchange at 500:1 does. If someone wants to buy AD for Zen, instead of using the exchange they just use keys. This begs the questions, why bother capping the exchange? What do they think they are achieving?
Next step will be to make all Zen market items BoP, then if you want anything you will have to pay $ for it as you won't be able to convert AD to Zen and there will be no way to sell Zen items on the AH.
If the game actually survives coalescent day, I don't think it would survive Zen BoP day.
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ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
I disagree; removing the cap is a drastic measure. Remove some of the demand for zen and the trend will reverse itself. Demand cannot stay this high forever.
I do love it when other players can work these concepts out.
As I said last night, there may be AD Sinks in the game but we don't use them. We only use AD to buy stuff on the AH. Most AD we spend on the AH ends up right back on the exchange.
The fix is simple and easy, give players more reason to want Astral Diamonds for a purpose other than to use on the AH.
Agree with Abisinsterr 100% it's always supply and demand we just have a couple of different ways and "resources" that fuddle it up some but the basic concept
The fix is simple and easy, give players more reason to want Astral Diamonds for a purpose other than to use on the AH.
I agree with 100% simple enough but lets see how they in fact action this...
Agree with Abisinsterr 100% it's always supply and demand we just have a couple of different ways and "resources" that fuddle it up some but the basic concept
I agree with 100% simple enough but lets see how they in fact action this...
Back to removing enchantments with AD? Tbh, at this point I wouldn't be surprized.
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ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
edited May 2014
I'm not opposed to that. I am opposed to it being 300K AD to remove an enchantment (angry face)
If Marks were, say, half the price they were in the bazaar more people would use that.
If companion upgrades were about a quarter of the price more people would upgrade their companions.
If mount updates were a tenth the price somebody might actually look at that and say "maybe."
I would transmute my appearance often if it was 10% the cost. I do it one time only because of the price.
If teleport scrolls to PE were a quarter of the price they might be used.
The problem with the AD sinks is and always has been their price. I would love to use some AD sinks but why would I pay more to upgrade a companion from blue to purple than I would pay to buy a whole new purple companion? Why would I spend 60 dollars on a mount upgrade for one mount when I can get an account wide mount for half the price?
AD sinks are actually good for the game but they need to be put at a price point which is reasonable. Think of it like the impulse buys at the check out in the stores. Most AD sinks should be so cheap people don't realize they are spending the money. "Oh it's just a dollar!" but if you add that up at the end of the year you are out thousands.
This is where the marketing team failed in the price points. Basically every AD sink has an extra zero at the end.
No AD sinks means more AD being added to the game than removed. I know I put about 60K in per day and the only thing I use it for is...Zen.
I'm not opposed to that.
The problem with the AD sinks is and always has been their price. I would love to use some AD sinks but why would I pay more to upgrade a companion from blue to purple than I would pay to buy a whole new purple companion? Why would I spend 60 dollars on a mount upgrade for one mount when I can get an account wide mount for half the price?
AD sinks are actually good for the game but they need to be put at a price point which is reasonable.
This is where the marketing team failed in the price points. Basically every AD sink has an extra zero at the end.
No AD sinks means more AD being added to the game than removed. I know I put about 60K in per day and the only thing I use it for is...Zen.
I totally agree,
I like my Medium Palamino Mount, I bought it because I liked the style better than the Clydsdale, I am a mage... not a knight.
I am not a demon or an orc or something that needs some kind of crazy, out there mount. I'm not an evil character which I suppose some people enjoy playing as an "image thing".
I'm perfectly fine with a normal Horse. Ok so I'll take a Medium Warhorse instead. I cannot buy an Epic Version that is not the Clydsdale heavy mount. So I thought, well lets buy a Training Token to upgrade it.
Lol yeah a training token worth more money than it would take to actually have bought a purple mount outright... and the type I'd actually like aren't even available in the store...
I also bought a Green Slime mount because it looked good as a "polymorph self" spell a mage would use for travel but that one was for looks, and doesn't fit in the snow of Icewind Dale.
This is where the marketing team failed in the price points. Basically every AD sink has an extra zero at the end.
No AD sinks means more AD being added to the game than removed. I know I put about 60K in per day and the only thing I use it for is...Zen.
And that begs the question, do they actually think the current AD upgrade prices are ok and why haven't they done anything about it?
Did they do proper (i'll settle for ANY) market analysis on the coalescent ward change before putting it in? Did they even consider the impacts it will have to the majority of the player population?
I honestly think it was a shoot from the hip move. I really don't see them making more money off of this.
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nwnghostMember, Moderators, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited May 2014
The Zen price hitting the 500 cap and then running out of Zen is a direct result of player greed.
There were times when even during heavy sales, Zen would never go above 350 odd.
I noticed that ever since the threads on "how to play the Zen/AD exchange and make profit" started surfacing on the forum, the Zen/AD price has been going higher and higher.
Part of this is also due to a small number of players owning a large percentage of the AD overall in the game due to evading the ban during Caturday. Those players with 70 million + AD can easily buy up most of the Zen on the Market and then relist it at a higher price. When other normal sellers see the price is higher, they also now sell their Zen at the new price rather than the old price.
Over time, the price remains high because there is no incentive to sell it any lower, and if anyone does, one of the rich players will simply buy it all out so that it remains high and they can thus dominate the market.
If there weren't any players playing the exchange for profit (rather than only buying/selling the Zen they actually need to purchase an item), then the Zen price would probably still be around 300.
You guys do realize the cap is the to protect the free players, right?
If the cap is raise it would merely cause AD to be worth even less.
All this says is Zen is in high demand. AD is not.
And look at my join date. Yes this is more distinguished than in the past but the same principle applies. It's a very simple economic law and it comes down to there are a lot more people wanting to sell AD than buy it.
EDIT - And if you can sell Zen items for more in the AH than they cost at the exchange rate then go for it. That's not black market. Cryptic simply will not allow unlimited extortion of the free player base by the paying player base.
its not extortion. id be more than willing at this point to pay 700 per zen. i have more AD than i know what to do with and need ZEN now. the cap hurts none payers. the price of zen settles at what we want to buy it at. if it goes up then its because were all willing to pay that. and zen price has constantly been going on for months. And there is inflation in AD. more players means more AD produced daily. More AD means the less all of it is worth. THATS SIMPLE ECONOMICS. ZEN is worth more than 500 AD. its that simple.
its not extortion. id be more than willing at this point to pay 700 per zen. i have more AD than i know what to do with and need ZEN now. the cap hurts none payers. the price of zen settles at what we want to buy it at. if it goes up then its because were all willing to pay that. and zen price has constantly been going on for months. And there is inflation in AD. more players means more AD produced daily. More AD means the less all of it is worth. THATS SIMPLE ECONOMICS. ZEN is worth more than 500 AD. its that simple.
You're operating on the assumption that the problem with the exchange is that too few people are willing to sell at the 500/1 cap. That's a false assumption.
Again, the hard cap is in place to keep the high dollar players from extorting the not-so-well off players by charging a ridiculous and unlimited amount of AD for their ZEN--because removing the limit DOES hurt players in the long run. I guarantee you, if that cap were removed we'd have people within weeks screaming for the ZEN/AD price to be capped again, once the surplus AD ran itself out.
And you're still missing the point. It's not the supply of AD that's even the problem--it's the scarcity of ZEN. People are simply buying it up faster than people are willing to sell it.
The problem is not a hard cap. It's a lack of AD sinks. There's nothing to put the surplus AD into and therefore it keeps building up. That's also "simple economics". Let's also point out that the precise same hard cap (500/1) has been in place over in STO for four years, with a third the daily refining limit, and has worked just fine, although that likely has a lot to do with their equivalent of AD (refined dilithium) not being the ONLY major tradable commodity between players other than ZEN.
ROLL TIDE ROLL
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Raising the cap will just inflate zen price to the new cap, that's all. And the cap above the selling zen price is what makes the zen reselling profitable.
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bioshrikeMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,729Arc User
its not extortion. id be more than willing at this point to pay 700 per zen. i have more AD than i know what to do with and need ZEN now. the cap hurts none payers. the price of zen settles at what we want to buy it at. if it goes up then its because were all willing to pay that. and zen price has constantly been going on for months. And there is inflation in AD. more players means more AD produced daily. More AD means the less all of it is worth. THATS SIMPLE ECONOMICS. ZEN is worth more than 500 AD. its that simple.
How about 7000, or 70000? There has to be a limit so as to protect the market. Just because you are willing to push it a little higher and suck up the higher price doesn't mean that'd be in the best interest of everyone.
No - the answer is to offer so many great things at affordable amounts of AD, that having AD to spend becomes as desirable as having Zen, or maybe even more so. IMO, this means lowering the price on things like transmutation, companion & mount upgrades, and so on, so people use these features regularly...
<::::::::::::::)xxxo <::::::::::::::)xxxo <::::::::::::)xxxxxxxx(:::::::::::> oxxx(::::::::::::::> oxxx(::::::::::::::> "Is it better to be feared or respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both?" -Tony Stark Official NW_Legit_Community Forums
And yet people still complain about the price of upgrading Companions and Mounts and things.
I sell Zen, I never buy it through the exchange. Because the AD-to-Zen ratio has reached cap I've actually 'burned' my monthly budget of cash to buy Zen by an advance of three months worth just to take advantage (I am not bragging, I know I am fortunate to have enough discretionary funds to throw into a game like Neverwinter).
Here's what some people are forgetting: Buy Zen from Perfect World is a one-way proposition: it is putting money into Perfect World, it never ever comes out. Once it's in there then I can 'manipulate' it (such as selling one currency for another, like Zen for Astral Diamonds) - but it's still "money" I have lost all discretionary spending on - it's only good for pixel-trinkets from here on in.
That means in order to sell more Zen I have to spend real money on the game. Trust me that if I could I would. This is the issue: the reason all Zen has 'dried-up" isn't that Zen sellers aren't willing to sell the Zen, it's because we've sold ALL that we can afford to buy with *real cash*.
It is people like us (who spend the real cash to buy Zen to sell to you) who help keep this game running and make it possible for the genuine free-to-play folks - and I'm all for that, I think it's a GREAT model. But people need to understand that even though we're talking about virtual currencies; Zen and Astral Diamonds, the Exchange relies heavily on REAL CASH LEGAL TENDER - and the current state of the exchange rates and dried-up supply of Zen proves that. Those of us fortunate enough to be able to afford throwing *real money* into the game can only afford so much.
A lot of people will take this the wrong way, but the fact remain that if the Zen is petered-out in the exchange and you want Zen that badly, how about breaking out your Credit Card or PayPal and actually doing what the rest of us do: buy Zen from Perfect World (and help contribute to the game's long-term viability in the process)?
You're operating on the assumption that the problem with the exchange is that too few people are willing to sell at the 500/1 cap. That's a false assumption.
That's not an assumption, it's a fact. I put up an order to buy Zen at 500 several days ago and it still hasn't gone through. Right now it's getting pretty close to 1M Zen requested to be purchased at the 500 cap that are just not getting filled.
Anyone with Zen that want's AD just buy keys and sell those for AD for an effective rate of 600:1.
The cap does nothing but make it impossible to convert AD to Zen.
That's not an assumption, it's a fact. I put up an order to buy Zen at 500 several days ago and it still hasn't gone through. Right now it's getting pretty close to 1M Zen requested to be purchased at the 500 cap that are just not getting filled.
Anyone with Zen that want's AD just buy keys and sell those for AD for an effective rate of 600:1.
The cap does nothing but make it impossible to convert AD to Zen.
Well, then people should just stop buying keys from those greedy sellers until they are forced to sell at normal rates, again.
That's not an assumption, it's a fact. I put up an order to buy Zen at 500 several days ago and it still hasn't gone through. Right now it's getting pretty close to 1M Zen requested to be purchased at the 500 cap that are just not getting filled.
Anyone with Zen that want's AD just buy keys and sell those for AD for an effective rate of 600:1.
The cap does nothing but make it impossible to convert AD to Zen.
Really now? I'll offer as rebuttal the point that I've received arguments/complaints in other games that previously had a hard cap on currency exchange, had that cap removed--and players have been complaining for months that the cap should be reinstated because real money players were gouging everyone else via the exchange. Think 500AD/1ZEN is prohibitive now? Try 10K AD/ZEN and more.
Removing that cap just widens the gap between the haves and the have-nots. People will charge exorbitant amounts of AD for just 1 ZEN merely because they can. Whatever the limit gets set at, that's what everyone will eventually and exclusively be charging for ZEN...and if the sky is the limit, then eventually the exchange will get out of control.
The cap has worked fine in STO. It's fine where it is.
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PC and PS4 player. Proud Guildmaster for PS4 Team Fencebane. Rank 5 Officer for PC Team Fencebane. Visit us at http://fencebane.shivtr.com
"it's because we've sold ALL that we can afford to buy with *real cash*."
Someone in the world will afford to buy more zen to sell for AD when they are allowed to be offered more AD.
"the hard cap is in place to keep the high dollar players from extorting the not-so-well off players by charging a ridiculous and unlimited amount of AD for their ZEN"
And with a cap you cause not-so-well off players to not get the fair value of their Zen that do buy. The fair value being determined by the market place.
"Because the AD-to-Zen ratio has reached cap I've actually 'burned' my monthly budget of cash to buy Zen"
If you sold it on the exchange at 500 in the last few days you lost out on AD. You could have made more buying ten keys and selling it on the AD auction house even after the 10% rate. You have no incentive to fill orders. You just happened to do so.
"it's the scarcity of ZEN. People are simply buying it up faster than people are willing to sell it. "
1) Well at the moment, buying zen at 500 is a no risk way to make money, so people in the know and with resources have no reason not to flood the market with buy orders of 500. The way it is no risk is you put a buy for 1125 at 500, and if someone fills it, the WORST you can do is buy keys and put them on the auction house and flip a profit in 5 minutes. This benefits the people with larger orders the most since they are more likely to get an order filled and take advantage of this brokerage.
2) Zen is being inefficiently allocated to those that value it less than other people. Right now there is someone that really wants a retraining token and that person CANT get it this morning without paying cash or getting lucky. They wake up. Hypothetically this person does not care how much AD they pay for zen. They want to retrain because why not? They go to buy Zen and they are blocked out of buying zen by people that value it less than them, and it is not fair to them because they were willing to pay the angrysprite's of the world more than anyone else, but they can't, and now they have to pay cash to do their retraining, and they grumble to their friends. And for what? Because they valued Zen to highly and AD to lowly?
"It's a lack of AD sinks. There's nothing to put the surplus AD into and therefore it keeps building up."
1) What that is telling you is that people value AD less than the planners wanted, but that doesn't mean they don't value AD less than the planners wanted (note I just repeated the same thing twice). With these market place rules Cryptic is saying to the market, we didn't want it to be true so we will act as if it is not. That doesn't work.
2) Why is 50k AD for 1 dollar of real life money even a "magic number" in the market. Why there? You said 500 worked in STO? Who cares. It is a different game. With different rules. With different time sinks. Why are we under the impression they have the same magic number? It is artificial.
There is zen but there is a larger demand that the incoming supply of it cannot satisfy the market.
Main-Lothor Syralth Guardian Fighter
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degraafinationMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited May 2014
My two suggestions for beating this current ZAX stalemate:
1) Have a +50% bonus Zen sale. That will draw more people to purchase ZEN with real money and convert it to AD.
2) Have Cryptic infuse the ZAX with Zen. I highly doubt this will happen, but it would definitely get the ZAX flowing again.
As it is, Cryptic is in a good spot. There's only ways to get Zen now and that's by purchasing it with real money, or waiting a day or two for the ZAX.
If you sold it on the exchange at 500 in the last few days you lost out on AD. You could have made more buying ten keys and selling it on the AD auction house even after the 10% rate. You have no incentive to fill orders. You just happened to do so.
Great attitude there. It is already bad enough, that in real life 2% of the entire world's population are controlling the remaining 98%. The problem is, more and more people are waking up, stepping up to their rights and the rich are scared of it, trying to maintain their often times ill gotten wealth at all costs.
---
The exact same is happening in Nw, to be honest. This is not and never will be Wall street online.
Comments
Good point, sir. I have not fully investigated what might be re-sellable from the ZM at a higher rate. It's definitely not c-wards (at the moment) though. Looks like it might be p-wards (over 6000/each (or 600:1 ad:zen) right now)
Your English is fine
I disagree with your premise though. I do not think that companion and mount upgrades are "basic" sinks; I think those are "luxury" sinks (I have never upgraded a single companion or mount). What I consider "basic" is stuff like Marks of Potency and wards.
But specific examples is distracting from the main point: people with zen feel it is worth more than 500:1 (because demand is crazy high) and are either looking for a way to get that higher value from it OR have already sold all their zen. Thus it is unavailable to be bought by AD for a couple of weeks now. Seems like what is needed is a drop in demand and/or an increase in supply (perhaps a zen sale).
Math:
1125 Zen =10 keys
1 key=67,000 AD (current AH price)
1125 Zen= 670,000 AD
1 Zen= 670,000/1125
1 Zen= 595.55
PS. I love neverwinter teaches me real economics
seriously fix this pls. or let me respecc some other way
Because zen is worth more. A combination of more players and ineffective sinks has cause d rampant inflation. people think things in AH are going up in value. NO. AD is going down in value. the cap on zen needs to be removed. or youll find the supply will never increase. bacause its worth more ad to buy an item with that zen and sell it than sell the zen itself. want an example look at what KEYs are selling for in AH. it equates to more than 500-1zen. so why supply zen when i can just buy keys with that zen and sell them. this goes for many other zen items as well. THE ZEN CAP NEEDS TO BE REMOVED.
I disagree; removing the cap is a drastic measure. Remove some of the demand for zen and the trend will reverse itself. Demand cannot stay this high forever.
This pretty much shows the effect capping the exchange at 500:1 does. If someone wants to buy AD for Zen, instead of using the exchange they just use keys. This begs the questions, why bother capping the exchange? What do they think they are achieving?
Next step will be to make all Zen market items BoP, then if you want anything you will have to pay $ for it as you won't be able to convert AD to Zen and there will be no way to sell Zen items on the AH.
If the game actually survives coalescent day, I don't think it would survive Zen BoP day.
I do love it when other players can work these concepts out.
As I said last night, there may be AD Sinks in the game but we don't use them. We only use AD to buy stuff on the AH. Most AD we spend on the AH ends up right back on the exchange.
The fix is simple and easy, give players more reason to want Astral Diamonds for a purpose other than to use on the AH.
I agree with 100% simple enough but lets see how they in fact action this...
Back to removing enchantments with AD? Tbh, at this point I wouldn't be surprized.
If Marks were, say, half the price they were in the bazaar more people would use that.
If companion upgrades were about a quarter of the price more people would upgrade their companions.
If mount updates were a tenth the price somebody might actually look at that and say "maybe."
I would transmute my appearance often if it was 10% the cost. I do it one time only because of the price.
If teleport scrolls to PE were a quarter of the price they might be used.
The problem with the AD sinks is and always has been their price. I would love to use some AD sinks but why would I pay more to upgrade a companion from blue to purple than I would pay to buy a whole new purple companion? Why would I spend 60 dollars on a mount upgrade for one mount when I can get an account wide mount for half the price?
AD sinks are actually good for the game but they need to be put at a price point which is reasonable. Think of it like the impulse buys at the check out in the stores. Most AD sinks should be so cheap people don't realize they are spending the money. "Oh it's just a dollar!" but if you add that up at the end of the year you are out thousands.
This is where the marketing team failed in the price points. Basically every AD sink has an extra zero at the end.
No AD sinks means more AD being added to the game than removed. I know I put about 60K in per day and the only thing I use it for is...Zen.
I totally agree,
I like my Medium Palamino Mount, I bought it because I liked the style better than the Clydsdale, I am a mage... not a knight.
I am not a demon or an orc or something that needs some kind of crazy, out there mount. I'm not an evil character which I suppose some people enjoy playing as an "image thing".
I'm perfectly fine with a normal Horse. Ok so I'll take a Medium Warhorse instead. I cannot buy an Epic Version that is not the Clydsdale heavy mount. So I thought, well lets buy a Training Token to upgrade it.
Lol yeah a training token worth more money than it would take to actually have bought a purple mount outright... and the type I'd actually like aren't even available in the store...
I also bought a Green Slime mount because it looked good as a "polymorph self" spell a mage would use for travel but that one was for looks, and doesn't fit in the snow of Icewind Dale.
And that begs the question, do they actually think the current AD upgrade prices are ok and why haven't they done anything about it?
Did they do proper (i'll settle for ANY) market analysis on the coalescent ward change before putting it in? Did they even consider the impacts it will have to the majority of the player population?
I honestly think it was a shoot from the hip move. I really don't see them making more money off of this.
There were times when even during heavy sales, Zen would never go above 350 odd.
I noticed that ever since the threads on "how to play the Zen/AD exchange and make profit" started surfacing on the forum, the Zen/AD price has been going higher and higher.
Part of this is also due to a small number of players owning a large percentage of the AD overall in the game due to evading the ban during Caturday. Those players with 70 million + AD can easily buy up most of the Zen on the Market and then relist it at a higher price. When other normal sellers see the price is higher, they also now sell their Zen at the new price rather than the old price.
Over time, the price remains high because there is no incentive to sell it any lower, and if anyone does, one of the rich players will simply buy it all out so that it remains high and they can thus dominate the market.
If there weren't any players playing the exchange for profit (rather than only buying/selling the Zen they actually need to purchase an item), then the Zen price would probably still be around 300.
All AD comes from either rough AD refinement or very little from zen packs like hero of north
The fact you can only refine 24k ad per day is what's making AD scarce pushing everyone into zen
the max AD entering the game is # of characters times 24k rough ad per day.
then you have the AD sinks 10% on all sales on the AH
plus others
its not extortion. id be more than willing at this point to pay 700 per zen. i have more AD than i know what to do with and need ZEN now. the cap hurts none payers. the price of zen settles at what we want to buy it at. if it goes up then its because were all willing to pay that. and zen price has constantly been going on for months. And there is inflation in AD. more players means more AD produced daily. More AD means the less all of it is worth. THATS SIMPLE ECONOMICS. ZEN is worth more than 500 AD. its that simple.
You're operating on the assumption that the problem with the exchange is that too few people are willing to sell at the 500/1 cap. That's a false assumption.
Again, the hard cap is in place to keep the high dollar players from extorting the not-so-well off players by charging a ridiculous and unlimited amount of AD for their ZEN--because removing the limit DOES hurt players in the long run. I guarantee you, if that cap were removed we'd have people within weeks screaming for the ZEN/AD price to be capped again, once the surplus AD ran itself out.
And you're still missing the point. It's not the supply of AD that's even the problem--it's the scarcity of ZEN. People are simply buying it up faster than people are willing to sell it.
The problem is not a hard cap. It's a lack of AD sinks. There's nothing to put the surplus AD into and therefore it keeps building up. That's also "simple economics". Let's also point out that the precise same hard cap (500/1) has been in place over in STO for four years, with a third the daily refining limit, and has worked just fine, although that likely has a lot to do with their equivalent of AD (refined dilithium) not being the ONLY major tradable commodity between players other than ZEN.
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How about 7000, or 70000? There has to be a limit so as to protect the market. Just because you are willing to push it a little higher and suck up the higher price doesn't mean that'd be in the best interest of everyone.
No - the answer is to offer so many great things at affordable amounts of AD, that having AD to spend becomes as desirable as having Zen, or maybe even more so. IMO, this means lowering the price on things like transmutation, companion & mount upgrades, and so on, so people use these features regularly...
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I sell Zen, I never buy it through the exchange. Because the AD-to-Zen ratio has reached cap I've actually 'burned' my monthly budget of cash to buy Zen by an advance of three months worth just to take advantage (I am not bragging, I know I am fortunate to have enough discretionary funds to throw into a game like Neverwinter).
Here's what some people are forgetting: Buy Zen from Perfect World is a one-way proposition: it is putting money into Perfect World, it never ever comes out. Once it's in there then I can 'manipulate' it (such as selling one currency for another, like Zen for Astral Diamonds) - but it's still "money" I have lost all discretionary spending on - it's only good for pixel-trinkets from here on in.
That means in order to sell more Zen I have to spend real money on the game. Trust me that if I could I would. This is the issue: the reason all Zen has 'dried-up" isn't that Zen sellers aren't willing to sell the Zen, it's because we've sold ALL that we can afford to buy with *real cash*.
It is people like us (who spend the real cash to buy Zen to sell to you) who help keep this game running and make it possible for the genuine free-to-play folks - and I'm all for that, I think it's a GREAT model. But people need to understand that even though we're talking about virtual currencies; Zen and Astral Diamonds, the Exchange relies heavily on REAL CASH LEGAL TENDER - and the current state of the exchange rates and dried-up supply of Zen proves that. Those of us fortunate enough to be able to afford throwing *real money* into the game can only afford so much.
A lot of people will take this the wrong way, but the fact remain that if the Zen is petered-out in the exchange and you want Zen that badly, how about breaking out your Credit Card or PayPal and actually doing what the rest of us do: buy Zen from Perfect World (and help contribute to the game's long-term viability in the process)?
That's not an assumption, it's a fact. I put up an order to buy Zen at 500 several days ago and it still hasn't gone through. Right now it's getting pretty close to 1M Zen requested to be purchased at the 500 cap that are just not getting filled.
Anyone with Zen that want's AD just buy keys and sell those for AD for an effective rate of 600:1.
The cap does nothing but make it impossible to convert AD to Zen.
Well, then people should just stop buying keys from those greedy sellers until they are forced to sell at normal rates, again.
Really now? I'll offer as rebuttal the point that I've received arguments/complaints in other games that previously had a hard cap on currency exchange, had that cap removed--and players have been complaining for months that the cap should be reinstated because real money players were gouging everyone else via the exchange. Think 500AD/1ZEN is prohibitive now? Try 10K AD/ZEN and more.
Removing that cap just widens the gap between the haves and the have-nots. People will charge exorbitant amounts of AD for just 1 ZEN merely because they can. Whatever the limit gets set at, that's what everyone will eventually and exclusively be charging for ZEN...and if the sky is the limit, then eventually the exchange will get out of control.
The cap has worked fine in STO. It's fine where it is.
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Someone in the world will afford to buy more zen to sell for AD when they are allowed to be offered more AD.
"the hard cap is in place to keep the high dollar players from extorting the not-so-well off players by charging a ridiculous and unlimited amount of AD for their ZEN"
And with a cap you cause not-so-well off players to not get the fair value of their Zen that do buy. The fair value being determined by the market place.
"Because the AD-to-Zen ratio has reached cap I've actually 'burned' my monthly budget of cash to buy Zen"
If you sold it on the exchange at 500 in the last few days you lost out on AD. You could have made more buying ten keys and selling it on the AD auction house even after the 10% rate. You have no incentive to fill orders. You just happened to do so.
"it's the scarcity of ZEN. People are simply buying it up faster than people are willing to sell it. "
1) Well at the moment, buying zen at 500 is a no risk way to make money, so people in the know and with resources have no reason not to flood the market with buy orders of 500. The way it is no risk is you put a buy for 1125 at 500, and if someone fills it, the WORST you can do is buy keys and put them on the auction house and flip a profit in 5 minutes. This benefits the people with larger orders the most since they are more likely to get an order filled and take advantage of this brokerage.
2) Zen is being inefficiently allocated to those that value it less than other people. Right now there is someone that really wants a retraining token and that person CANT get it this morning without paying cash or getting lucky. They wake up. Hypothetically this person does not care how much AD they pay for zen. They want to retrain because why not? They go to buy Zen and they are blocked out of buying zen by people that value it less than them, and it is not fair to them because they were willing to pay the angrysprite's of the world more than anyone else, but they can't, and now they have to pay cash to do their retraining, and they grumble to their friends. And for what? Because they valued Zen to highly and AD to lowly?
"It's a lack of AD sinks. There's nothing to put the surplus AD into and therefore it keeps building up."
1) What that is telling you is that people value AD less than the planners wanted, but that doesn't mean they don't value AD less than the planners wanted (note I just repeated the same thing twice). With these market place rules Cryptic is saying to the market, we didn't want it to be true so we will act as if it is not. That doesn't work.
2) Why is 50k AD for 1 dollar of real life money even a "magic number" in the market. Why there? You said 500 worked in STO? Who cares. It is a different game. With different rules. With different time sinks. Why are we under the impression they have the same magic number? It is artificial.
Anyway.
Them are things to think about.
1) Have a +50% bonus Zen sale. That will draw more people to purchase ZEN with real money and convert it to AD.
2) Have Cryptic infuse the ZAX with Zen. I highly doubt this will happen, but it would definitely get the ZAX flowing again.
As it is, Cryptic is in a good spot. There's only ways to get Zen now and that's by purchasing it with real money, or waiting a day or two for the ZAX.
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Great attitude there. It is already bad enough, that in real life 2% of the entire world's population are controlling the remaining 98%. The problem is, more and more people are waking up, stepping up to their rights and the rich are scared of it, trying to maintain their often times ill gotten wealth at all costs.
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The exact same is happening in Nw, to be honest. This is not and never will be Wall street online.