I agree that some of their creative choices lately have been semi-mindboggling. The drop rates on some stuff, the drop mechanics in general -- Good LORD the Dungeon chests! Holy <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> what a fiasco.
I'd love to chalk it up to "this is a complicated system to manage", and that is a fact, but... come on, guys. Come on.
Please don't beat me over the head with your massive fontsize, gerbil.
I think ulviel was pointing out that the demand is a finite amount. It either gets satisfied through the AH or through the ZAX, or a combination of the two.
Let's say that a guy wants to buy a coal ward. He can either get it through the AH from someone who paid zen for it and then posted it to the AH,
OR
He can queue up in the ZAX himself and wait to exchange the AD for zen and use his zen to get the coal ward.
Either way, somebody used zen to buy the coal ward. the AH seller or the guy -- one or the other. Those of us who are anti-loopers would prefer that the guy goes through a hassle-free no-backlogged ZAX to get the coal ward himself. The looper crowd sees no problem with having a backlog to support a baron-class of players who use their AD to bypass the 500:1 barrier and make a profit off of the existence of the backlog. With no backlog, you can't really run the loop for a profit... because anyone could just use the ZAX themselves and cut the baron out of the equation.
Thats why some of us have been so vehemently against these AD parasites. They have a vested interest in the backlog remaining, and they do not care if it screws up everyone else's nice time... as long as they get theirs, then everything's cool.
Sigh... Ok, zen is lost, but at the same time demand for that exact amount of zen is satysfied.
Ohh... Saw someone else respond to this and I wanted to point something out right quick. Because the 'flippers' buy their stock during sales and such, its not the same amount at all. If the people using the AH to get AD were forced to use ZAX... They'd need to spend more Zen than they are now to get the same amount of AD they are getting through the AH.
Personally, I think Cryptic was trying to find the problem months ago. They saw how the ZAX was trending with the backlog increasing daily. And they tried to stem the tide. At first, it was changing the binding on keys, then it was the probation system. I think the whole exploit blindsided them. They were trying to fix the problem, totally unaware of what the true problem was.
Once the exploit went public, they knew the real problem, and plugged the leak. From that very day, the backlog has steadily decreased. It took months to get to the point its at. It will likewise take time to return to normal. Anything more that Cryptic could do to speed this up, will only server to tip everything back out of whack.
I think this statement sums up what really happened.
I think it also shows how the devs and most of the players are unaware of the behaviors of some of the higher end hardcore community are privy to.
sockmunkey's summary has got to be pretty close to the truth at the very least. I'm not sure if we've seen the last of developer "meddling" with some stuff as far as trying to make adjustments, but we'll see.
I have to imagine that the devs' true enemy are the 3rd party goldsellers. Those guys are just straight-up, direct profit loss for the company.
Please don't beat me over the head with your massive fontsize, gerbil.
I think ulviel was pointing out that the demand is a finite amount. It either gets satisfied through the AH or through the ZAX, or a combination of the two.
Let's say that a guy wants to buy a coal ward. He can either get it through the AH from someone who paid zen for it and then posted it to the AH,
OR
He can queue up in the ZAX himself and wait to exchange the AD for zen and use his zen to get the coal ward.
Either way, somebody used zen to buy the coal ward. the AH seller or the guy -- one or the other. Those of us who are anti-loopers would prefer that the guy goes through a hassle-free no-backlogged ZAX to get the coal ward himself. The looper crowd sees no problem with having a backlog to support a baron-class of players who use their AD to bypass the 500:1 barrier and make a profit off of the existence of the backlog. With no backlog, you can't really run the loop for a profit... because anyone could just use the ZAX themselves and cut the baron out of the equation.
Thats why some of us have been so vehemently against these AD parasites. They have a vested interest in the backlog remaining, and they do not care if it screws up everyone else's nice time... as long as they get theirs, then everything's cool.
That's exactly what I wanted to say, thank you. Well except for the parasites part, but ...nvm that, let's just agree to disagree there.
Now comes the funny part : the more people are selling stuff on AH (and it makes no difference if zen is recycled or "fresh"), the lower become the prices. Because of competition and need to undercut other sellers, you know
Now comes the funny part : the more people are selling stuff on AH (and it makes no difference if zen is recycled or "fresh"), the lower become the prices. Because of competition and need to undercut other sellers, you know
Hey yeah! Competition can be good. Problem is, ALL of the prices are sky-high right now, and have been so since like mod 2 when the backlog started. So pretty much you are left with people fighting over who gets the honor of gouging you.
If we want to see the prices REALLY fall, that backlog has to go somehow. The ad:zen ratio has got to back off of the cap and get normal for the first time in a long time. We may be seeing the beginnings of this now... it's certainly been awhile.
Hey yeah! Competition can be good. Problem is, ALL of the prices are sky-high right now, and have been so since like mod 2 when the backlog started. So pretty much you are left with people fighting over who gets the honor of gouging you.
If we want to see the prices REALLY fall, that backlog has to go somehow. The ad:zen ratio has got to back off of the cap and get normal for the first time in a long time. We may be seeing the beginnings of this now... it's certainly been awhile.
It seems like all is going in the right direction. Backlog stopped to drop recently, but it is not a reason to worry - as soon as the current keys sale ends, we'll see it dropping again.
Hey if the guys doing that with the comics were literally <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> the ENTIRE US economy up, and making it so it took 2 weeks to get a roll of toilet paper, then yeah... hold their feet to the fire at least a little bit -- yeesh.
Look, I know some of you guys "play the market"... pretty much some of you have outright announced it. Maybe even some of you have purposefully bought zen items/etc. with recycled AD zen specifically to sell on the AH while bypassing the 500:1 cap purely out of trying to get the most out of what you see as acceptable and allowed behavior.
You're right.
It IS okay, and all but condoned openly by the devs of this game, because they have not made everything BOP or taken the liberty to set price controls on the AH, or a couple of other little steps they could take if they wanted to. They haven't done it.
So go on and keep milking that cow... what's the worst that could happen? It's not like a hundred other guys aren't doing the exact same thing and fleecing all the rubes that still pay for AD with zen. I don't blame you specifically for this mess not getting cleaned up. You are just doing what you are able to do, which is what any human being does.
But they're not. They're selling at a ridiculous profit same as the zen item sellers. Only difference is that you can still get your items in this case after a time. As for <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> the entire economy, that's not true, they're only taking advantage of it. If they were BoP we'd still see a pretty similar backlog most likely.
...we are talking about the zax exchange...you know the amount of zen that gets exchanged for AD.
If people are buying things in the zen store to trade on AH for money, they are not trading zen for AD on the zax. Thus contributing to the backlog.
How is that so hard to understand?
1) Reseller requests zen for their AD, reseller buys wards, reseller sells wards on the ah. Repeat.
2) Wards are bop. Person who would've bought wards on the ah now has to request zen for their AD on the exchange, buyer buys there wards. Repeat for each buyer.
Both request the same amount of zen, only the sellers can eventually sell to a bigger audience who decides to use the ah instead of the exchange. What's so wrong with selling items for the amount people are willing to pay with their fake money. It beats Cryptic selling their overpriced goods. Don't want it? Don't buy it and use the freaking exchange.
What you are missing is that it does screw the economy. Right now if someone isn't a fool
Person decides to buy something from the Zen store
Person charges Zen
Person buys Widget they wanted, whatever it happens to be
Person decides to turn the remaining Zen to AD
Person buys preservation wards
Person lists wards on the AH
This is what the flippers have created and this is why it needs to end. Only fools now use the ZAX to get their initial Zen. This is why the backlog will only go down slowly.
What you are missing is that it does screw the economy. Right now if someone isn't a fool
Person decides to buy something from the Zen store
Person charges Zen
Person buys Widget they wanted, whatever it happens to be
Person decides to turn the remaining Zen to AD
Person buys preservation wards
Person lists wards on the AH
This is what the flippers have created and this is why it needs to end. Only fools now use the ZAX to get their initial Zen. This is why the backlog will only go down slowly.
Um... flippers didn't create this. As frishter said, they are taking advantage of the situation, but they did not caused it.
Um... flippers didn't create this. As frishter said, they are taking advantage of the situation, but they did not caused it.
No but they keep it here, it started with an exploit, and continues because of flippers. They may not have started the riot but they are looting. They cause equal damage and are equally guilty.
Only fools now use the ZAX to get their initial Zen. This is why the backlog will only go down slowly.
Well if all of the zen sellers did use the ah, I'd imagine there'd be too much demand and it wouldn't be worth doing. By binding it, you're basically punishing and restricting all players just because they didn't do their job fast enough and closed the exploit sooner or even test it so that it was unexploitable. I have 2 accounts with their separate rolls. If my 2nd one has enough AD and I want something from the zen store, I should be able to use it in my account. If I want to gift someone a zen item, I should be able to. If people really want to buy my stuff for a profit so that they don't have to wait on the exchange, they should be able to. If I get a coupon and don't want to use it for myself, I should be able to benefit from it by selling it off.
What if the backlog someday got to the point where you can barely ever get zen? Then you have no option to get your zen items for AD.
Frishter, you have been here long enough to remember when there was no backlog. Back when everything was perfect, and nobody ever complained on the forums about anything at all.
All we want is a return to a healthy ZAX that is not locked at the cap, that doesn't have ANY backlog... we want this thing to be WAI instead of totally boned. I have a feeling that you are with us on this, and I also believe that you have nothing to worry about with the devs making everything BOA. I think that the possibility of that was brought up more for something to theorycraft rather than anyone seriously considering it ever having a chance of happening.
Personally, I think Cryptic was trying to find the problem months ago. They saw how the ZAX was trending with the backlog increasing daily. And they tried to stem the tide.
I think the whole exploit blindsided them.
But when the Astral Resonator exploit went public, several people on the Legit_Channel said that the devs had known about it for months and months because it had been reported. And some of those who did it once to test if it was true and then reported the exploit got a three day ban for their trouble.
Take that with whatever size pinch of salt you will, but that is what I was told in-game on the Legit_Channel, by people on the Legit_Channel.
But the backlog was caused by Cryptic's coding and only by Cryptic's coding. Sure, you can blame the exploiters for succumbing to the weakness of human nature and the desire for a free lunch, but there would have been no exploit if Cryptic did not have it in their code and had not failed to fix it for so long. Look at Cloak Tower illusory wall not melting and the Dungeon Delve chests. EVERYONE knows about those, and the CT queue took over a year to fix.
The only reason they moved on the Resonators when they did was because (apparently - I never saw it) someone posted on this Forum a link to a YT video showing how the exploit worked. So that was a world-wide available video showing the world how to bypass charging Zen for cash money completely once you have 10 keys and 10 boxes. The chances for getting at least one resonator was quite high. So no wonder they shut the game down for a while and fixed it. I don't blame them.
When I started in February, 2014, the Zen:AD rate was 1:375 and orders got filled instantaneously.
It has been 500 for maybe a couple of months and takes at least three weeks even to get 300 Zen for 150,000 AD for a Retraining Token. The backlog has gone down by 3 million Zen, but is still about 10.2 million.
That is 5.1 BILLION Astral Diamonds.
A huge proportion of which must be exploited AD due to a glitch in the game code.
A huge proportion of which must be exploited AD due to a glitch in the game code.
.
I'd be willing to bet that the majority of that backlog that mysteriously stopped rising when they fixed the astral resonator exploit is exploited AD .
Frishter, you have been here long enough to remember when there was no backlog. Back when everything was perfect, and nobody ever complained on the forums about anything at all.
All we want is a return to a healthy ZAX that is not locked at the cap, that doesn't have ANY backlog... we want this thing to be WAI instead of totally boned. I have a feeling that you are with us on this, and I also believe that you have nothing to worry about with the devs making everything BOA. I think that the possibility of that was brought up more for something to theorycraft rather than anyone seriously considering it ever having a chance of happening.
I do but I don't want a restriction to be a solution (which I'm not sure it is one). Too many stuff is already bound. I'd probably care less if they didn't go overboard with the bound stuff maybe. Though I still heavily disagreed with the key binding. Our guild used to give them as prizes to members. Plus how far do you go. They can still sell enchants which at the higher end is probably profitable. They can still open lockboxes and sell the goods there, the older lockboxes having generally more expensive stuff. Bind those and you've killed any use in the lockboxes. If the game was harder it wouldn't be that unexpected to give scrolls of life to the team. I've been asked by a guildie to give her some dyes for her to see what it looks and she gives them back to me after shes chosen since it's pointless to buy them just to decide that you don't like it. There's also bags that are unbound, that's great I can use it, give it to another toon and then sell it if they release a bigger bag. Maybe I want to buy a stack of pres wards to make a rank 10, oh look it succeeded on the 7th time, I can sell my remaining 3 that I don't need and want to take up space and make back some AD.
I like the freedom to decide how to use the things I buy. If they're bound there's so many healthy stuff I'm no longer allowed to do.
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cacaoccursMember, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 2Arc User
edited September 2014
I can't exchange Zen for AD, I did $10 worth the other day and was banned from exchanging Zen...
I'd be willing to bet that the majority of that backlog that mysteriously stopped rising when they fixed the astral resonator exploit is exploited AD .
Exactly. A Never Ending AD Fountain will do that.
Those asking for everything to be BoP or BtA are missing the point and very, very wrong. This does very little to nothing to stop bots, exploiters, and 3rd party sellers of Pirate Game Assets. But it does punish legitimate customers who have done nothing wrong; particularly the paying customer.
I have opened several hundred boxes since February - most of those with keys bought by charging Zen I bought with cash money. If I was unable to auction stuff off, I would be stuck with a huge number of useless items, from Fey Rings and Rank 7 Runes to Thayan Books of the Dead and Epic Mounts.
Opening those boxes got me a large number of resonators I used legitimately, a large number of items I could use on my characters, and millions of AD from selling stuff on the AH, so I could buy stuff I really needed with AD; Ancient Priest's Symbol and Icon, Grand Templar Armour, a Soulforged Enchant and a Greater Plague Fire are the first that spring to mind. They boosted my PvP survival enough to get enough Glory to buy the Profound Righteous gear.
Having more items available on the AH will push prices down, not up. Having fewer items will push prices up, not down. People like me always undercut the cheapest item by a good whack in order to get a quick sale.
The AD price of Coalescent Wards are so high because those from the Tarmalune Trade House are now BoP so fewer are available for the AH trading. Honest AH Traders like my Guild Boss can now no longer use his bars to sell the Coal Wards on the AH. Personally, I use them for upgrading Weapon and Armour enchants. But there was a time I could get Coalescent Wards for a modest amount of AD far, FAR less than the ludicrous price of 1000 Zen.
There is a careful balance between the game companies and the bots and gold sellers. A certain amount of botting is good for the company and the players because gold sellers pay a lot of money for characters and accounts, and it allows things like stacks of 99 Rank 6 enchants to be on the AH for a few hundred thousand AD. This helps newer players enjoy the game more easily and helps the company as newer players may see the value of buying Zen in order to get higher level gear more quickly etc. So although all game companies do periodic sweeps to get rid of a lot of these accounts, it is very expensive on time and resources and a certain level is tolerable within "normal operational parameters".
But control of this balance was completely lost when the resonator exploit went public. That horse has already bolted from that stable, and it was the players, not 3rd party scammers, who caused that by exploiting the error in Cryptic's coding.
I always wondered why I was seeing resonators on the AH for more AD than you could get by using the resonator to open a rift. Now I know.
Personally I think stuff from the Zen store should be BoA and stuff from lockboxes should be fair game for the AH. I haven't seen many folks calling for box contents to be BoP.
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adinosiiMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,294Arc User
Personally I think stuff from the Zen store should be BoA and stuff from lockboxes should be fair game for the AH. I haven't seen many folks calling for box contents to be BoP.
Well, if the lockbox stuff was BoP it would effectively kill off the lockbox business. People can currently recover a portion of the key cost by selling unwanted lockbox drops on the AH, but without the ability to do that, most players would probably not bother with the boxes.
I see no problem with Zen store items being BoP rather than BoA - the Zen is "shared" between your characters anyhow, so you can always buy items from the Zen store with characters that actually need it. Well...maybe this is relevant for packs, like 5xwhatever or fashion packs - you might want spread the contents of the pack between your characters, so...yea...maybe simply BoA is the way to go.
However, consider the business side - if people are spending real $$$ on Zen, and not just exchanging that for AD, but buying popular items during sales, and selling them on the AH for a significant profit a few weeks or months later, making the Zen store items BoA might reduce Zen sales, which would be bad for business.
Exactly. Buy stuff you need from the Zen store. You and your account - BoA, BoP whatever - semantics. Turn a profit from Lockboxes loot, dungeon runs - whatever - fun on the AH. If you want to immediately turn cash into AD legitimately - use the ZAX. Period. Problem is, that's a sucker's bet right now (unless you want the sparkly right this very second) when you can patiently flip Zen store items for more AD than the 500/1 capped limit on the exchange.
Understand, I'm not naming this a cheat or folks doing this exploiters. Right now it's an open loophole that folks with half a clue and a bit of patience are using. I do believe that for the long term best interest of the game this loophole should be closed.
Well, if the lockbox stuff as BoP it would effectively kill off the lockbox business. People can currently recover a portion of the key cost by selling unwanted lockbox drops on the AH, but without the ability to do that, most players would probably not bother with the boxes.
This. 100% this.
I'm not a regular lockbox opener, but every long once in a while I'll give the new ones a go just to see what I get, and it's usually 20 to 50 keys I'll buy to make a go of it, just for kicks. I never expect the big prizes so I'm rarely disappointed. And the reason I am rarely disappointed is in knowing I can unload the unwanted stuff in the AH.
Without that ability I'd (personally-speaking) never open another lockbox again.
Thank common business-sense the Devs already know this.
Some say that ZAX is affected only by players and they are responsible to balance it... im ok with that.. BUT... when there are exploits that allow some people to overflow tha ZAX with ADs.. cryptic has a part on it and they should take some actions to help us balance it faster...
There is ONE simple change that will help us take down this Backlog faster.. Make Zen Market Products Bound To Account .. Many players that have ZEN on their hands are taking advantage of the situation and instead of directly exchange their ZEN for ADs, they buy items from ZEN market and sell them at AH for a way higher rate than 1/500.. I've found items that cost 1500 ZEN (750.000 AD if 1/500) in market for 1.300.000 AD in AH and going up..
So there is a large amount of ZEN that become AD through AH instead of ZAX at a much higher rate than the 1/500 cryptic set as ideal max for the economy to work..! And still all the exploit abusers dont have problem to pay double AD to get what they want.. but normal players cannot afford the prices at AH... And others have to deal with 2 weeks waiting list to get a Character Slot...
Make All Zen Market Products Bound To Account.. Over & Out
I hardly see that as "taking advantage of the situation", more like adjusting to reality. Why should you sell Zen 500 AD/Zen if you can purchase items with the Zen you bought with your real money and sell them for more. That is simply part of free market situation where authority (Government or in this case Game Company) has put an artificial obstacle to control free flow of goods. I think all should be well if everything in Zen market could be sold forward, as then free players would still get their goods and pay the market price based on the items real value, which is dictated by supply and demand.
The fact that keys became bound actually made the demand for Zen to skyrocket even more, as did binding Coalescent Wards and many other such actions. Binding everything on Zen Store might solve the problem of seeing more Zen supply for sale, but it probably would also mean that as you can't get as much bang for your buck by direct transactions, people who before bought Zen, bought items with it and the sold those would instead just go to third party sites selling AD directly, which would cut income from PWE. Also probably many of those who pay for Zen to take advantage of certain high prices when some situations are too good to pass, wouldn't buy the Zen as there wouldn't be the advantage anymore.
There is delicate balance in economics and many of those supposed wise men who actually control it in real life do also fail miserably in many cases, so it is no wonder here is some problems too. There is no fast answers in larger scale, as every change usually brings their own problems and quick large changes tend to create economical cathastrophies.
History has shown us that free economy has many failsafes inbuilt and tends to work best of all choices we currently have with our capabilities and thus what I would do is to remove all those artificial obstacles, like bound Coalescent Wards, bound Keys and make all similar other quick use items that drop unbound. This would free Zen as utility items wouldn't again be cheapest on Zen Market and people could actually convert items into AD that they won't need, instead of being forced to use that bound Coal Ward on something unnecessary or hold to it until needed.
Also everything that is needed to be bound, should be account bound so you could actually use them. It is ridiculous how many character bound items you get from wrong classes that would be in many cases worth stash of AD, but being bound, they must be salvaged or sold for handfull of silver. This would make many items you get usable on your secondary characters and again make some leverage in the long run in the Zen market too.
You really can't stop people from gaming the system, as if something becomes restricted, they find new ways. There is always atleast 100 people thinking ways to circumvent any restrictions to every person who is actually thinking them, so who do you think will win in the long run? You can get currency manipulation and speculation dropped with small Tobin tax without any limits and some peole are just so adept at making money anywhere that they simply can't be stopped and why should they? You always can start to tax people hoarding large sums or allow some inflation to make this undesirable or just calculate and adjust to the fact that some amount of currency will be out of circulation just because many people like to sit on their purse.
So in short, unbind everything again and make the Zen/AD limit higher from the current so Zen may flow again.
Give us 4 or more power/item bar profiles so we can change powers and items with one click that are suited for the situation.
I'm pretty sure they aren't going to bind anything else if they can help it. Making direct zen items BOA would obviously help, as I explained in detail in a post of mine several pages back, but I also doubt that Cryptic would make a move like that without being forced to.
Here's an interesting thought about this mess:
NWO is hitting XboxOne console systems in early 2015. In less than a year, you will be playing alongside console users. I think it is safe to assume that there exists a "hard" deadline for Cryptic getting all their ducks in a row before this happens. They need to have the ZAX (and a couple of other things) sorted out and functioning FOR REAL before the massive influx of players.
Expect to see something happen if this situation does not resolve itself in the near future. If that means the devs make direct zen items BOA, then that may be the easiest for them to code/control. Lockboxes and the contents of such are very unlikely to receive this treatment.
Raising the cap from 500:1 to some other higher rate would only work against the majority of new players and the F2Pers. As explained earlier in this thread, Cryptic needs these people. Sorry, barons... that cap is obviously going nowhere anytime soon.
NWO is hitting XboxOne console systems in early 2015. In less than a year, you will be playing alongside console users.
Actually, I believe the console players will have their own servers and will not be merged in with PC players. At least that's what I gathered while talking to Akro at GenCon a couple weeks ago.
Making direct zen items BOA would obviously help, (...)
It obviously won't. First, people who were buying things on AH, would have to buy zen with AD. You think you've seen backlog skyrocketing already? It would be much worse.
And ofc the company would sell much less keys, which must be quite a big chunk of their income judging from all that "player X obtained mount Y from Z lockbox". Which is also why I do not shiver in fear they'd make all BoP.
Actually, I believe the console players will have their own servers and will not be merged in with PC players. At least that's what I gathered while talking to Akro at GenCon a couple weeks ago.
Comments
I'd love to chalk it up to "this is a complicated system to manage", and that is a fact, but... come on, guys. Come on.
...we are talking about the zax exchange...you know the amount of zen that gets exchanged for AD.
If people are buying things in the zen store to trade on AH for money, they are not trading zen for AD on the zax. Thus contributing to the backlog.
How is that so hard to understand?
I think ulviel was pointing out that the demand is a finite amount. It either gets satisfied through the AH or through the ZAX, or a combination of the two.
Let's say that a guy wants to buy a coal ward. He can either get it through the AH from someone who paid zen for it and then posted it to the AH,
OR
He can queue up in the ZAX himself and wait to exchange the AD for zen and use his zen to get the coal ward.
Either way, somebody used zen to buy the coal ward. the AH seller or the guy -- one or the other. Those of us who are anti-loopers would prefer that the guy goes through a hassle-free no-backlogged ZAX to get the coal ward himself. The looper crowd sees no problem with having a backlog to support a baron-class of players who use their AD to bypass the 500:1 barrier and make a profit off of the existence of the backlog. With no backlog, you can't really run the loop for a profit... because anyone could just use the ZAX themselves and cut the baron out of the equation.
Thats why some of us have been so vehemently against these AD parasites. They have a vested interest in the backlog remaining, and they do not care if it screws up everyone else's nice time... as long as they get theirs, then everything's cool.
Ohh... Saw someone else respond to this and I wanted to point something out right quick. Because the 'flippers' buy their stock during sales and such, its not the same amount at all. If the people using the AH to get AD were forced to use ZAX... They'd need to spend more Zen than they are now to get the same amount of AD they are getting through the AH.
Ok, now I'm really out.
I think this statement sums up what really happened.
I think it also shows how the devs and most of the players are unaware of the behaviors of some of the higher end hardcore community are privy to.
I have to imagine that the devs' true enemy are the 3rd party goldsellers. Those guys are just straight-up, direct profit loss for the company.
That's exactly what I wanted to say, thank you. Well except for the parasites part, but ...nvm that, let's just agree to disagree there.
Now comes the funny part : the more people are selling stuff on AH (and it makes no difference if zen is recycled or "fresh"), the lower become the prices. Because of competition and need to undercut other sellers, you know
Hey yeah! Competition can be good. Problem is, ALL of the prices are sky-high right now, and have been so since like mod 2 when the backlog started. So pretty much you are left with people fighting over who gets the honor of gouging you.
If we want to see the prices REALLY fall, that backlog has to go somehow. The ad:zen ratio has got to back off of the cap and get normal for the first time in a long time. We may be seeing the beginnings of this now... it's certainly been awhile.
It seems like all is going in the right direction. Backlog stopped to drop recently, but it is not a reason to worry - as soon as the current keys sale ends, we'll see it dropping again.
But they're not. They're selling at a ridiculous profit same as the zen item sellers. Only difference is that you can still get your items in this case after a time. As for <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> the entire economy, that's not true, they're only taking advantage of it. If they were BoP we'd still see a pretty similar backlog most likely.
1) Reseller requests zen for their AD, reseller buys wards, reseller sells wards on the ah. Repeat.
2) Wards are bop. Person who would've bought wards on the ah now has to request zen for their AD on the exchange, buyer buys there wards. Repeat for each buyer.
Both request the same amount of zen, only the sellers can eventually sell to a bigger audience who decides to use the ah instead of the exchange. What's so wrong with selling items for the amount people are willing to pay with their fake money. It beats Cryptic selling their overpriced goods. Don't want it? Don't buy it and use the freaking exchange.
Person decides to buy something from the Zen store
Person charges Zen
Person buys Widget they wanted, whatever it happens to be
Person decides to turn the remaining Zen to AD
Person buys preservation wards
Person lists wards on the AH
This is what the flippers have created and this is why it needs to end. Only fools now use the ZAX to get their initial Zen. This is why the backlog will only go down slowly.
Um... flippers didn't create this. As frishter said, they are taking advantage of the situation, but they did not caused it.
No but they keep it here, it started with an exploit, and continues because of flippers. They may not have started the riot but they are looting. They cause equal damage and are equally guilty.
Well if all of the zen sellers did use the ah, I'd imagine there'd be too much demand and it wouldn't be worth doing. By binding it, you're basically punishing and restricting all players just because they didn't do their job fast enough and closed the exploit sooner or even test it so that it was unexploitable. I have 2 accounts with their separate rolls. If my 2nd one has enough AD and I want something from the zen store, I should be able to use it in my account. If I want to gift someone a zen item, I should be able to. If people really want to buy my stuff for a profit so that they don't have to wait on the exchange, they should be able to. If I get a coupon and don't want to use it for myself, I should be able to benefit from it by selling it off.
What if the backlog someday got to the point where you can barely ever get zen? Then you have no option to get your zen items for AD.
All we want is a return to a healthy ZAX that is not locked at the cap, that doesn't have ANY backlog... we want this thing to be WAI instead of totally boned. I have a feeling that you are with us on this, and I also believe that you have nothing to worry about with the devs making everything BOA. I think that the possibility of that was brought up more for something to theorycraft rather than anyone seriously considering it ever having a chance of happening.
But when the Astral Resonator exploit went public, several people on the Legit_Channel said that the devs had known about it for months and months because it had been reported. And some of those who did it once to test if it was true and then reported the exploit got a three day ban for their trouble.
Take that with whatever size pinch of salt you will, but that is what I was told in-game on the Legit_Channel, by people on the Legit_Channel.
But the backlog was caused by Cryptic's coding and only by Cryptic's coding. Sure, you can blame the exploiters for succumbing to the weakness of human nature and the desire for a free lunch, but there would have been no exploit if Cryptic did not have it in their code and had not failed to fix it for so long. Look at Cloak Tower illusory wall not melting and the Dungeon Delve chests. EVERYONE knows about those, and the CT queue took over a year to fix.
The only reason they moved on the Resonators when they did was because (apparently - I never saw it) someone posted on this Forum a link to a YT video showing how the exploit worked. So that was a world-wide available video showing the world how to bypass charging Zen for cash money completely once you have 10 keys and 10 boxes. The chances for getting at least one resonator was quite high. So no wonder they shut the game down for a while and fixed it. I don't blame them.
When I started in February, 2014, the Zen:AD rate was 1:375 and orders got filled instantaneously.
It has been 500 for maybe a couple of months and takes at least three weeks even to get 300 Zen for 150,000 AD for a Retraining Token. The backlog has gone down by 3 million Zen, but is still about 10.2 million.
That is 5.1 BILLION Astral Diamonds.
A huge proportion of which must be exploited AD due to a glitch in the game code.
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I'd be willing to bet that the majority of that backlog that mysteriously stopped rising when they fixed the astral resonator exploit is exploited AD .
I do but I don't want a restriction to be a solution (which I'm not sure it is one). Too many stuff is already bound. I'd probably care less if they didn't go overboard with the bound stuff maybe. Though I still heavily disagreed with the key binding. Our guild used to give them as prizes to members. Plus how far do you go. They can still sell enchants which at the higher end is probably profitable. They can still open lockboxes and sell the goods there, the older lockboxes having generally more expensive stuff. Bind those and you've killed any use in the lockboxes. If the game was harder it wouldn't be that unexpected to give scrolls of life to the team. I've been asked by a guildie to give her some dyes for her to see what it looks and she gives them back to me after shes chosen since it's pointless to buy them just to decide that you don't like it. There's also bags that are unbound, that's great I can use it, give it to another toon and then sell it if they release a bigger bag. Maybe I want to buy a stack of pres wards to make a rank 10, oh look it succeeded on the 7th time, I can sell my remaining 3 that I don't need and want to take up space and make back some AD.
I like the freedom to decide how to use the things I buy. If they're bound there's so many healthy stuff I'm no longer allowed to do.
Did you charge your Zen through Arc or Steam, or is your account on Probation. Charging through Steam or being on Probation could do that.
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Exactly. A Never Ending AD Fountain will do that.
Those asking for everything to be BoP or BtA are missing the point and very, very wrong. This does very little to nothing to stop bots, exploiters, and 3rd party sellers of Pirate Game Assets. But it does punish legitimate customers who have done nothing wrong; particularly the paying customer.
I have opened several hundred boxes since February - most of those with keys bought by charging Zen I bought with cash money. If I was unable to auction stuff off, I would be stuck with a huge number of useless items, from Fey Rings and Rank 7 Runes to Thayan Books of the Dead and Epic Mounts.
Opening those boxes got me a large number of resonators I used legitimately, a large number of items I could use on my characters, and millions of AD from selling stuff on the AH, so I could buy stuff I really needed with AD; Ancient Priest's Symbol and Icon, Grand Templar Armour, a Soulforged Enchant and a Greater Plague Fire are the first that spring to mind. They boosted my PvP survival enough to get enough Glory to buy the Profound Righteous gear.
Having more items available on the AH will push prices down, not up. Having fewer items will push prices up, not down. People like me always undercut the cheapest item by a good whack in order to get a quick sale.
The AD price of Coalescent Wards are so high because those from the Tarmalune Trade House are now BoP so fewer are available for the AH trading. Honest AH Traders like my Guild Boss can now no longer use his bars to sell the Coal Wards on the AH. Personally, I use them for upgrading Weapon and Armour enchants. But there was a time I could get Coalescent Wards for a modest amount of AD far, FAR less than the ludicrous price of 1000 Zen.
There is a careful balance between the game companies and the bots and gold sellers. A certain amount of botting is good for the company and the players because gold sellers pay a lot of money for characters and accounts, and it allows things like stacks of 99 Rank 6 enchants to be on the AH for a few hundred thousand AD. This helps newer players enjoy the game more easily and helps the company as newer players may see the value of buying Zen in order to get higher level gear more quickly etc. So although all game companies do periodic sweeps to get rid of a lot of these accounts, it is very expensive on time and resources and a certain level is tolerable within "normal operational parameters".
But control of this balance was completely lost when the resonator exploit went public. That horse has already bolted from that stable, and it was the players, not 3rd party scammers, who caused that by exploiting the error in Cryptic's coding.
I always wondered why I was seeing resonators on the AH for more AD than you could get by using the resonator to open a rift. Now I know.
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Well, if the lockbox stuff was BoP it would effectively kill off the lockbox business. People can currently recover a portion of the key cost by selling unwanted lockbox drops on the AH, but without the ability to do that, most players would probably not bother with the boxes.
I see no problem with Zen store items being BoP rather than BoA - the Zen is "shared" between your characters anyhow, so you can always buy items from the Zen store with characters that actually need it. Well...maybe this is relevant for packs, like 5xwhatever or fashion packs - you might want spread the contents of the pack between your characters, so...yea...maybe simply BoA is the way to go.
However, consider the business side - if people are spending real $$$ on Zen, and not just exchanging that for AD, but buying popular items during sales, and selling them on the AH for a significant profit a few weeks or months later, making the Zen store items BoA might reduce Zen sales, which would be bad for business.
Understand, I'm not naming this a cheat or folks doing this exploiters. Right now it's an open loophole that folks with half a clue and a bit of patience are using. I do believe that for the long term best interest of the game this loophole should be closed.
Just my 2 AD.
This. 100% this.
I'm not a regular lockbox opener, but every long once in a while I'll give the new ones a go just to see what I get, and it's usually 20 to 50 keys I'll buy to make a go of it, just for kicks. I never expect the big prizes so I'm rarely disappointed. And the reason I am rarely disappointed is in knowing I can unload the unwanted stuff in the AH.
Without that ability I'd (personally-speaking) never open another lockbox again.
Thank common business-sense the Devs already know this.
I hardly see that as "taking advantage of the situation", more like adjusting to reality. Why should you sell Zen 500 AD/Zen if you can purchase items with the Zen you bought with your real money and sell them for more. That is simply part of free market situation where authority (Government or in this case Game Company) has put an artificial obstacle to control free flow of goods. I think all should be well if everything in Zen market could be sold forward, as then free players would still get their goods and pay the market price based on the items real value, which is dictated by supply and demand.
The fact that keys became bound actually made the demand for Zen to skyrocket even more, as did binding Coalescent Wards and many other such actions. Binding everything on Zen Store might solve the problem of seeing more Zen supply for sale, but it probably would also mean that as you can't get as much bang for your buck by direct transactions, people who before bought Zen, bought items with it and the sold those would instead just go to third party sites selling AD directly, which would cut income from PWE. Also probably many of those who pay for Zen to take advantage of certain high prices when some situations are too good to pass, wouldn't buy the Zen as there wouldn't be the advantage anymore.
There is delicate balance in economics and many of those supposed wise men who actually control it in real life do also fail miserably in many cases, so it is no wonder here is some problems too. There is no fast answers in larger scale, as every change usually brings their own problems and quick large changes tend to create economical cathastrophies.
History has shown us that free economy has many failsafes inbuilt and tends to work best of all choices we currently have with our capabilities and thus what I would do is to remove all those artificial obstacles, like bound Coalescent Wards, bound Keys and make all similar other quick use items that drop unbound. This would free Zen as utility items wouldn't again be cheapest on Zen Market and people could actually convert items into AD that they won't need, instead of being forced to use that bound Coal Ward on something unnecessary or hold to it until needed.
Also everything that is needed to be bound, should be account bound so you could actually use them. It is ridiculous how many character bound items you get from wrong classes that would be in many cases worth stash of AD, but being bound, they must be salvaged or sold for handfull of silver. This would make many items you get usable on your secondary characters and again make some leverage in the long run in the Zen market too.
You really can't stop people from gaming the system, as if something becomes restricted, they find new ways. There is always atleast 100 people thinking ways to circumvent any restrictions to every person who is actually thinking them, so who do you think will win in the long run? You can get currency manipulation and speculation dropped with small Tobin tax without any limits and some peole are just so adept at making money anywhere that they simply can't be stopped and why should they? You always can start to tax people hoarding large sums or allow some inflation to make this undesirable or just calculate and adjust to the fact that some amount of currency will be out of circulation just because many people like to sit on their purse.
So in short, unbind everything again and make the Zen/AD limit higher from the current so Zen may flow again.
Here's an interesting thought about this mess:
NWO is hitting XboxOne console systems in early 2015. In less than a year, you will be playing alongside console users. I think it is safe to assume that there exists a "hard" deadline for Cryptic getting all their ducks in a row before this happens. They need to have the ZAX (and a couple of other things) sorted out and functioning FOR REAL before the massive influx of players.
Expect to see something happen if this situation does not resolve itself in the near future. If that means the devs make direct zen items BOA, then that may be the easiest for them to code/control. Lockboxes and the contents of such are very unlikely to receive this treatment.
Raising the cap from 500:1 to some other higher rate would only work against the majority of new players and the F2Pers. As explained earlier in this thread, Cryptic needs these people. Sorry, barons... that cap is obviously going nowhere anytime soon.
Actually, I believe the console players will have their own servers and will not be merged in with PC players. At least that's what I gathered while talking to Akro at GenCon a couple weeks ago.
It obviously won't. First, people who were buying things on AH, would have to buy zen with AD. You think you've seen backlog skyrocketing already? It would be much worse.
And ofc the company would sell much less keys, which must be quite a big chunk of their income judging from all that "player X obtained mount Y from Z lockbox". Which is also why I do not shiver in fear they'd make all BoP.