You can bet your backside there will be plenty of AD sinks in m7 - if you've ever seen STO fleet bases, you'll know what I mean, and my money says, at least at a fundamental level, Strongholds will follow a very similar model. Now, will it be enough to move the needle on AD values? I don't know - maybe. I hope so. The biggest saving grace we have here is that Cryptic has a solid grasp on economics and already understands the currency supply and demand equations, which is why they've never - not in.. how many years has the Exchange system been around? Four or five years now -- t was added in season 5, when STO went free to play as I recall... Anyway, in all that time they've kept the limit in place because it's a good, reasonable limit, so all this intellectualizing and bickering about economic theory is (THANKFULLY) useless because Cryptic already understands the need for the limit to stay exactly where it is.
The only remaining question is will be whether the AD sinks they add are worth it, and people will actually spend AD on them. Mount training? that's a joke. Companion upgrade? ok.. fair, but only for a handful, I have no intention of upgrading the army of green companions in my pack. A good AD sink won't require a week of grinding.. so... things that cost < 5000 AD - that's a DD and Skirm daily, or one collection at lvl 25 leadership, not hard to earn amount. Give us useful and valuable things that cost in that range. What? Who knows. Temporary boosts, maybe... potions of some sort?
I have a hunch m7 will bring that exact answer, since if it does follow the STO model, you can put in 1 or 1 million ADs into the project - it just holds it until it's got all the components and kicks off. So you can put in whatever AD you happen to have, or however much you're willing to spend. I'm rambling a bit (I do that sometimes) - but I do think there may be some light at the end of the tunnel here. I hope so anyway.
Actually it does, it is just most that throw around such terminology have no comprehension of the true meanings of the economic theories. The average person tends to use socialist or communist just to describe economic regulations they don't like regardless of whether it is relevant or not. And that's as political as that topic can go.
Capitalism has found over the years laissez faire doesn't work. Some regulations are required.
This is one of them.
As I explained before this is not a balanced system. Zen IS worth more than AD because Cryptic did not attempt to add reasons to consistently want both.
As such no limit will result in AD consistently rising not to a point of equilibrium but well into the realm of "it is not worth my time to even bother." The system will not work without this limit and any changes would directly decrease the value of AD as AD value is maintained by the value of Zen even if the true value of Zen is above 500 AD.
As detailed earlier decreasing the value of AD increased the amount of AD needed to purchase items. This suggestion can only do one thing: hurt everybody.
100% correct. You and kvet obviously paid attention in economics class. Also I want to add that there isn't a country anywhere whose economy that is based on capitalism doesn't have price controls in place.
You can bet your backside there will be plenty of AD sinks in m7 - if you've ever seen STO fleet bases, you'll know what I mean, and my money says, at least at a fundamental level, Strongholds will follow a very similar model. Now, will it be enough to move the needle on AD values? I don't know - maybe. I hope so. The biggest saving grace we have here is that Cryptic has a solid grasp on economics and already understands the currency supply and demand equations, which is why they've never - not in.. how many years has the Exchange system been around? Four or five years now -- t was added in season 5, when STO went free to play as I recall... Anyway, in all that time they've kept the limit in place because it's a good, reasonable limit, so all this intellectualizing and bickering about economic theory is (THANKFULLY) useless because Cryptic already understands the need for the limit to stay exactly where it is.
The only remaining question is will be whether the AD sinks they add are worth it, and people will actually spend AD on them. Mount training? that's a joke. Companion upgrade? ok.. fair, but only for a handful, I have no intention of upgrading the army of green companions in my pack. A good AD sink won't require a week of grinding.. so... things that cost < 5000 AD - that's a DD and Skirm daily, or one collection at lvl 25 leadership, not hard to earn amount. Give us useful and valuable things that cost in that range. What? Who knows. Temporary boosts, maybe... potions of some sort?
I have a hunch m7 will bring that exact answer, since if it does follow the STO model, you can put in 1 or 1 million ADs into the project - it just holds it until it's got all the components and kicks off. So you can put in whatever AD you happen to have, or however much you're willing to spend. I'm rambling a bit (I do that sometimes) - but I do think there may be some light at the end of the tunnel here. I hope so anyway.
The biggest AD sinks were Keys and Coal Wards back in the golden days. Once those became BOP, AD/Zen Exchange soared dramatically.
It might be worth reinstating, at the very minimum coalescent wards, back to BOE. It's simply cheaper to buy a transcendant enchantment than it is to build a perfect one. No one buys Coal Wards anymore from the zen market, anyhow. Just consistent praying on 15 characters yields me 2-3 a month.
0
ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
See magenubbie's post. AD is Zen and Zen is AD. They are two sides of the same coin. When one increases in value the other one decreases. Always. That is a law of economics.
The biggest AD sinks were Keys and Coal Wards back in the golden days. Once those became BOP, AD/Zen Exchange soared dramatically.
Those are not AD sinks. At all.
AD spent on those items went to other players...
Which means that AD went right back on the exchange -10%
10% with all the AD coming into the game means nothing. More money is sunk with marks now than was ever sunk with keys or coal wards. Additionally as I explained earlier keys were market manipulation which actually caused Zen to rise in value far more than the small amount of AD that was sunk.
Imo the cap needs to be increased to at least 1000 from current 500 and each time we get new mod it should increase by additional ~200.
You seem to forget that we do not have a static population , how would any new player ever be expected to be able to earn enough ad to be able to exchange it for zen if the exchange was 1000+/1 , you are basing your argument on the fact that you or people you know who have probably been playing for a while have lots of ad , cryptic have to consider the impact that an increase would have on new players.
No one buys Coal Wards anymore from the zen market, anyhow. Just consistent praying on 15 characters yields me 2-3 a month.
Me too, on 17 toons. I'd support BoE keys - I used to buy a key on the AH now and then when I was feeling lucky, now it's just too much effort. By the time my order comes through, I don't really feel the "itch" to roll the ol' dice. But, like ambi pointed out, those aren't really "sinks" because the AD doesn't leave the system...
You're missing the point we're been trying to make. Every item valued in AD has a basic relation to the Zen value as well as a supply vs demand modifier on top of that price. One can't exist without the other.
You get it wrong. That relation is in player's hands. If you spread AD equaly between playerbase (i.e new players buying AD from old players) prices wont change much, because average amount of AD per character will be much lower, hence selling for higher price will simply not work.
Only the price of items from ZEN store which are re-sold in AH will get higher and that's normal, because the price of ZEN will also be higher (if we assume that we still reach the new cap of exchange). The value of items that doesnt come from ZEN store wont be affected by different exchange ratio, since you gather it without ZEN anyway.
0
ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
Okay, let's try this again. You said right there that the price of Zen will rise. Okay we got that far.
If the price of zen rises then the price of AD drops.
So let's say the price of Zen is 500:1 right now. This makes every AD worth 0.0002 cents.
If the price reached 1000:1 then AD will be worth 0.00001 cents.
The Value of AD outright dropped in price.
Now if an item on the AH costs 500K AD right now it costs $10.
If AD is only worth half as much then that item will still cost $10.
The thing is you will need twice as much AD to have the value of $10.
You could trade goods using sticks, stones and piles of dung. These economic principles still apply. Value is value. The price is determined by the number of items of one value it would take to equal the value of another. When the price (and therefore the value) of AD goes down but the value of other items remain the same then more AD will be required to purchase these items. Supply. And. Demand.
Me too, on 17 toons. I'd support BoE keys - I used to buy a key on the AH now and then when I was feeling lucky, now it's just too much effort. By the time my order comes through, I don't really feel the "itch" to roll the ol' dice. But, like ambi pointed out, those aren't really "sinks" because the AD doesn't leave the system...
What you both are referring to are aggregate amounts and is not really applicable to what I stated. You and the other guy missed an important thing about trade and tax. 1) being volume.
10% is a completely incorrect number. The correct number for the amount subjugated at the zenith is not available via any data we have available. You would need to know the amount of each transaction and where the AD came from to come to that determinate, I.E I buy a key for 50k. Keyseller buys 9 pres wards for 45k, pres wards seller buy stack of radiant rank 4's for 40.5k with the end amount being 36k and some change. 3 transfers of the AD I created already reduced the total amount to ~70% of it's original value. But wait there's more! Radiant seller bought useless garbage from WB merchant chick. 50k of created AD was removed for 36k of items. 130% AD reduction.
0
ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
edited June 2015
10% is the "sink" in the Auction House. 10% of the transaction goes right down the drain and the rest is transferred (not sunk) to the other person.
And the fact is that when you bought a key the person selling the key was almost guaranteed to be buying Zen as quickly as possible with all proceeds to continue to buy keys just to sell them. This was a driving force in the intitial market situation. It is the reason why keys were made BoP.
So your analogy of the keyseller buying anything was the vast minority of actual situations. You AD went right into the pockets of people maintaining and profiting from Zen Exchange Inflation.
The bottom line is if you were to do a poll most people prefer to get Zen for AD than have something to buy with Zen and over time it all ends up back on the Exchange sooner rather than later and at a far lower rate than it is sunk by the 10% sink.
If what you were saying had any truth the system would not have been sitting at 500:1 since 4 months after Open Beta.
[...]
If what you were saying had any truth the system would not have been sitting at 500:1 since 4 months after Open Beta.
...umm, I joined in Dec. 2013, and then it's been 270-ish. 500 were reached some time in spring 2014, IIRC. Also I seem to remember it fell even below 400 some time in late Autumn 2014.
On topic:
What would happen if the limit would get removed?
Instead of short time speculation trading with stuff like RP and enchantments, the AD whales would start playing the ZAX. That means: Buy much ZEN when the prices are low, sit on it until people eager to buy ZEN escalate the price when there's a dearth, and do so until all those offers on the ZAX are served, use all those AD to set up a new bunch of offers at 60% of the old price. Wait for these to get served, hoard ZEN, rinse, repeat.
That's why the limit is there, and it's OK-ish as to where it is.
10% is the "sink" in the Auction House. 10% of the transaction goes right down the drain and the rest is transferred (not sunk) to the other person.
And the fact is that when you bought a key the person selling the key was almost guaranteed to be buying Zen as quickly as possible with all proceeds to continue to buy keys just to sell them. This was a driving force in the intitial market situation. It is the reason why keys were made BoP.
So your analogy of the keyseller buying anything was the vast minority of actual situations. You AD went right into the pockets of people maintaining and profiting from Zen Exchange Inflation.
The bottom line is if you were to do a poll most people prefer to get Zen for AD than have something to buy with Zen and over time it all ends up back on the Exchange sooner rather than later and at a far lower rate than it is sunk by the 10% sink.
If what you were saying had any truth the system would not have been sitting at 500:1 since 4 months after Open Beta.
What dude? It was like 350ish in January of 2014...
0
grogthemagnifMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,651Arc User
edited June 2015
1 Zen = 500 AD. 1 AD = $0.002. 1 Zen = 1000 AD 1 AD = $0.001.
Okay, let's try this again. You said right there that the price of Zen will rise. Okay we got that far.
If the price of zen rises then the price of AD drops.
So let's say the price of Zen is 500:1 right now. This makes every AD worth 0.0002 cents.
If the price reached 1000:1 then AD will be worth 0.00001 cents.
The Value of AD outright dropped in price.
Now if an item on the AH costs 500K AD right now it costs $10.
If AD is only worth half as much then that item will still cost $10.
The thing is you will need twice as much AD to have the value of $10.
You could trade goods using sticks, stones and piles of dung. These economic principles still apply. Value is value. The price is determined by the number of items of one value it would take to equal the value of another. When the price (and therefore the value) of AD goes down but the value of other items remain the same then more AD will be required to purchase these items. Supply. And. Demand.
0
grogthemagnifMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,651Arc User
edited June 2015
Since Mod 6 the only times I've exceeded the cap was when I got the 30k RAD overflow experience reward.
there is zero reason to touch refining cap anymore anyways.. no one can make that much salvage AD per day to matter.
I see this in a drastically different light, probably due to the fact the exchange has zero impact on me. I simply will not post a dime on it, ever at the return rate, some of you think there is a magic pill out there that makes AD more valuable then it is, I just dont see it happening, the very basis of it is thus.. my real world money will always be more valuable then the return of digital currency. The ONLY way that will change is if my 20 bucks of posted zen nets me something of more value, and right now.. its not happening and it hasnt happened since I started playing the game. I simply do not get why ANYONE posts zen on the market, I really dont. I see why people might move and sale zen, if they got that zen from a AD conversion basis. But where is the value of posting bought zen?
The trend I see is a tightening on AD creation, in fact you make about 1/4 of last mods daily rate.. thats A HUGE impact on me personally and on the economy.
The 3/4 drop rate of ad creation, hasnt really impacted AD value.. when will it? 99% reduction> 100%? sure AD will be worth more but your in the same boat, if you remove it, its not longer a f2p game.
IM 100% opposed to more AD sinks in game for regular players, if you want AD sinks they need to be special events and/or unique items that DO NOT impact game play for most of us.
THERE is already a huge daunting task ahead of a new player and some of you want to ADD more? adding more doesn't do ANYTHING for that new player.. nothing.. zip , zero.Its just another grind wall that is nearly impossible to achieve.
Myself personally, there is little incentive to convert my Zen to AD at the current exchange rate.
Yes thats part of what the mods and most players are saying. Everything is skewed towards purchases with zen. If there were consistent big ticket items available for AD, maybe itd balance out. But I dont think cryptic wants that. The backlog still entices players with no patience to use real money.
Couple of examples of more leaning towards zen purchases.
-Bag bind
-IWD RP nerf
-new lockbox only BIS mount
Yes, lets make it so players with 50-100 leadership alts still feel no change and casual and possible new players are being completely cut off and left behind because: reasons.
It wouldn't be AD sink.
Sinks take the currency OUT of the game, not give it to another player. AH prices wouldn't change a dime even if the zen exchange limit was 50.000AD for 1 zen, because that AD does NOT disappear from the economy, its still there, inflating stuff.
Okay, let's try this again. You said right there that the price of Zen will rise. Okay we got that far.
If the price of zen rises then the price of AD drops.
So let's say the price of Zen is 500:1 right now. This makes every AD worth 0.0002 cents.
If the price reached 1000:1 then AD will be worth 0.00001 cents.
The Value of AD outright dropped in price.
Now if an item on the AH costs 500K AD right now it costs $10.
If AD is only worth half as much then that item will still cost $10.
The thing is you will need twice as much AD to have the value of $10.
You could trade goods using sticks, stones and piles of dung. These economic principles still apply. Value is value. The price is determined by the number of items of one value it would take to equal the value of another. When the price (and therefore the value) of AD goes down but the value of other items remain the same then more AD will be required to purchase these items. Supply. And. Demand.
Yes you need twice as much AD to have the value of $10, but this is related only to ZEN and items from ZEN store which are being re-sold in AH, not all items.
The point is that you dont need the $ in the first place, because AD refiling and production is not related to ZEN exchange in anyway. Players will still produce the same amount of AD, they will still get the same rewards from quests and so on.
If they want to get more money from the players, they should rather start with selling better packs for reasonable prices.
Ne packs will cause even higher backlog, because f2p players will want to buy ZEN for AD and they will be able to set huge amount due to low ZEN cost. While those who buy ZEN for $ will simply get the packs for themself.
There's also one more important thing worth to mention. Last RP event players spent a lot to reach BIS, they wont do it again until another gear reset or big patch that will introduce new lvls on items and so on.
They said lower pack costs. Personally When they brought them out on sale (so my demand would be even higher otherwise) I ordered the max of 25k zen and it still wasn't enough. That's pretty significant for 1 person. Lower price = less demanded and the more zen people will sell because instead of feeling like they can barely afford zen items, they'll feel like they can now afford zen to exchange to ad.
lol you must have weird logic. ZEN value will always be high therefore demand for it can only increase even when there will be more players who buy ZEN. It's in Cryptic business model to make sure that players will want to spend their real $ on the game.
Since i made this thread backlog increased by over ~140k and it's slowly going up. When new big sales come in 6 days & 7h it will go up very fast.
0
theycallmetomuMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,861Arc User
edited June 2015
I don't know about anyone else, but I use the zen exchange as a way of making more astral diamonds.
Normally, no one would every but Preservation Wards off the AH. Why? Simple. In order to get wards to sell, you buy them with zen. The opportunity cost of buying them is equal to the price that people could get them for on their own. But the AH takes 10%. So why am I buying wards? Simple. Because people can't just decide to buy zen. They have to wait for zen to come to them. I can buy up zen, just so I can buy things that I can sell for AD, that I can use to buy more zen. It's basically a free profit scenario.
So you have to ask yourself, what percentage of the people who have zen orders are simply placing those orders because they know that by doing so they can make a profit? Paradoxically, it's possible that removing the AD cap, the profitability of investing in zen is erased, and therefore people like me won't buy zen. With less people buying up zen "because it's there" the price stabilizes. The value of items on the AH (Preservation Wards etc) reflects the price of the zen.
The current system turns zen purchasing into a first come first serve scenario. But if you're worried about goldspammers, just know: they're still the ones who buy up all that zen, because they had ten million astral diamonds first, so they get all that zen first.
The Zen to AD exchange rate won't matter as long as the ridiculously expensive RP refinement system keeps the players from buying Zen. It is not how much AD they can get from converting Zen that most players ask as the first question when they come to a game. It is what can they do with the Zen they buy. You think players come to a game to spend $10,000 to buy RP? Get real!!!
The current AD/Zen conversion cap is fine IMO. It may take a couple of days to get an order filled but I don't see any urgency for any player to change their AD to Zen right away. The backlog is actually pretty tiny comparing to the 20-30 million Zen that took 2 weeks to fill a while ago. If the price of RP continues to go down as they should logically be, and Cryptic put up more sell sales on Wards, the players will find it more worthy to spend money in this game and the Zen Exchange will self correct accordingly.
Comments
The only remaining question is will be whether the AD sinks they add are worth it, and people will actually spend AD on them. Mount training? that's a joke. Companion upgrade? ok.. fair, but only for a handful, I have no intention of upgrading the army of green companions in my pack. A good AD sink won't require a week of grinding.. so... things that cost < 5000 AD - that's a DD and Skirm daily, or one collection at lvl 25 leadership, not hard to earn amount. Give us useful and valuable things that cost in that range. What? Who knows. Temporary boosts, maybe... potions of some sort?
I have a hunch m7 will bring that exact answer, since if it does follow the STO model, you can put in 1 or 1 million ADs into the project - it just holds it until it's got all the components and kicks off. So you can put in whatever AD you happen to have, or however much you're willing to spend. I'm rambling a bit (I do that sometimes) - but I do think there may be some light at the end of the tunnel here. I hope so anyway.
Sekhmet@kvetchus_
Guilds: Greycloaks, Blackcloaks, Whitecloaks, Goldcloaks, Browncloaks, Spiritcloaks, Bluecloaks, Silvercloaks, Black Dawn
Tredecim: The Cloak Alliance
100% correct. You and kvet obviously paid attention in economics class. Also I want to add that there isn't a country anywhere whose economy that is based on capitalism doesn't have price controls in place.
The biggest AD sinks were Keys and Coal Wards back in the golden days. Once those became BOP, AD/Zen Exchange soared dramatically.
It might be worth reinstating, at the very minimum coalescent wards, back to BOE. It's simply cheaper to buy a transcendant enchantment than it is to build a perfect one. No one buys Coal Wards anymore from the zen market, anyhow. Just consistent praying on 15 characters yields me 2-3 a month.
See magenubbie's post. AD is Zen and Zen is AD. They are two sides of the same coin. When one increases in value the other one decreases. Always. That is a law of economics.
Those are not AD sinks. At all.
AD spent on those items went to other players...
Which means that AD went right back on the exchange -10%
10% with all the AD coming into the game means nothing. More money is sunk with marks now than was ever sunk with keys or coal wards. Additionally as I explained earlier keys were market manipulation which actually caused Zen to rise in value far more than the small amount of AD that was sunk.
You seem to forget that we do not have a static population , how would any new player ever be expected to be able to earn enough ad to be able to exchange it for zen if the exchange was 1000+/1 , you are basing your argument on the fact that you or people you know who have probably been playing for a while have lots of ad , cryptic have to consider the impact that an increase would have on new players.
Me too, on 17 toons. I'd support BoE keys - I used to buy a key on the AH now and then when I was feeling lucky, now it's just too much effort. By the time my order comes through, I don't really feel the "itch" to roll the ol' dice. But, like ambi pointed out, those aren't really "sinks" because the AD doesn't leave the system...
Sekhmet@kvetchus_
Guilds: Greycloaks, Blackcloaks, Whitecloaks, Goldcloaks, Browncloaks, Spiritcloaks, Bluecloaks, Silvercloaks, Black Dawn
Tredecim: The Cloak Alliance
You get it wrong. That relation is in player's hands. If you spread AD equaly between playerbase (i.e new players buying AD from old players) prices wont change much, because average amount of AD per character will be much lower, hence selling for higher price will simply not work.
Only the price of items from ZEN store which are re-sold in AH will get higher and that's normal, because the price of ZEN will also be higher (if we assume that we still reach the new cap of exchange). The value of items that doesnt come from ZEN store wont be affected by different exchange ratio, since you gather it without ZEN anyway.
Okay, let's try this again. You said right there that the price of Zen will rise. Okay we got that far.
If the price of zen rises then the price of AD drops.
So let's say the price of Zen is 500:1 right now. This makes every AD worth 0.0002 cents.
If the price reached 1000:1 then AD will be worth 0.00001 cents.
The Value of AD outright dropped in price.
Now if an item on the AH costs 500K AD right now it costs $10.
If AD is only worth half as much then that item will still cost $10.
The thing is you will need twice as much AD to have the value of $10.
You could trade goods using sticks, stones and piles of dung. These economic principles still apply. Value is value. The price is determined by the number of items of one value it would take to equal the value of another. When the price (and therefore the value) of AD goes down but the value of other items remain the same then more AD will be required to purchase these items. Supply. And. Demand.
What you both are referring to are aggregate amounts and is not really applicable to what I stated. You and the other guy missed an important thing about trade and tax. 1) being volume.
10% is a completely incorrect number. The correct number for the amount subjugated at the zenith is not available via any data we have available. You would need to know the amount of each transaction and where the AD came from to come to that determinate, I.E I buy a key for 50k. Keyseller buys 9 pres wards for 45k, pres wards seller buy stack of radiant rank 4's for 40.5k with the end amount being 36k and some change. 3 transfers of the AD I created already reduced the total amount to ~70% of it's original value. But wait there's more! Radiant seller bought useless garbage from WB merchant chick. 50k of created AD was removed for 36k of items. 130% AD reduction.
And the fact is that when you bought a key the person selling the key was almost guaranteed to be buying Zen as quickly as possible with all proceeds to continue to buy keys just to sell them. This was a driving force in the intitial market situation. It is the reason why keys were made BoP.
So your analogy of the keyseller buying anything was the vast minority of actual situations. You AD went right into the pockets of people maintaining and profiting from Zen Exchange Inflation.
The bottom line is if you were to do a poll most people prefer to get Zen for AD than have something to buy with Zen and over time it all ends up back on the Exchange sooner rather than later and at a far lower rate than it is sunk by the 10% sink.
If what you were saying had any truth the system would not have been sitting at 500:1 since 4 months after Open Beta.
...umm, I joined in Dec. 2013, and then it's been 270-ish. 500 were reached some time in spring 2014, IIRC. Also I seem to remember it fell even below 400 some time in late Autumn 2014.
On topic:
What would happen if the limit would get removed?
Instead of short time speculation trading with stuff like RP and enchantments, the AD whales would start playing the ZAX. That means: Buy much ZEN when the prices are low, sit on it until people eager to buy ZEN escalate the price when there's a dearth, and do so until all those offers on the ZAX are served, use all those AD to set up a new bunch of offers at 60% of the old price. Wait for these to get served, hoard ZEN, rinse, repeat.
That's why the limit is there, and it's OK-ish as to where it is.
I disagree, I specifically remember it reaching max at a module launch - possibly module 4, until then it was sitting at around 300 - 350.
What dude? It was like 350ish in January of 2014...
Yes thats part of what the mods and most players are saying. Everything is skewed towards purchases with zen. If there were consistent big ticket items available for AD, maybe itd balance out. But I dont think cryptic wants that. The backlog still entices players with no patience to use real money.
Couple of examples of more leaning towards zen purchases.
-Bag bind
-IWD RP nerf
-new lockbox only BIS mount
Fox Stevenson - Sandblast
Oh Wonder - Without You
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
- Dylan Thomas
It wouldn't be AD sink.
Sinks take the currency OUT of the game, not give it to another player. AH prices wouldn't change a dime even if the zen exchange limit was 50.000AD for 1 zen, because that AD does NOT disappear from the economy, its still there, inflating stuff.
Yes you need twice as much AD to have the value of $10, but this is related only to ZEN and items from ZEN store which are being re-sold in AH, not all items.
The point is that you dont need the $ in the first place, because AD refiling and production is not related to ZEN exchange in anyway. Players will still produce the same amount of AD, they will still get the same rewards from quests and so on.
Ne packs will cause even higher backlog, because f2p players will want to buy ZEN for AD and they will be able to set huge amount due to low ZEN cost. While those who buy ZEN for $ will simply get the packs for themself.
There's also one more important thing worth to mention. Last RP event players spent a lot to reach BIS, they wont do it again until another gear reset or big patch that will introduce new lvls on items and so on.
Drunken Goose of MidNight Express. - 3.3k Paladin , 3.6k GWF , 3.1k GF,
lol you must have weird logic. ZEN value will always be high therefore demand for it can only increase even when there will be more players who buy ZEN. It's in Cryptic business model to make sure that players will want to spend their real $ on the game.
Since i made this thread backlog increased by over ~140k and it's slowly going up. When new big sales come in 6 days & 7h it will go up very fast.
Normally, no one would every but Preservation Wards off the AH. Why? Simple. In order to get wards to sell, you buy them with zen. The opportunity cost of buying them is equal to the price that people could get them for on their own. But the AH takes 10%. So why am I buying wards? Simple. Because people can't just decide to buy zen. They have to wait for zen to come to them. I can buy up zen, just so I can buy things that I can sell for AD, that I can use to buy more zen. It's basically a free profit scenario.
So you have to ask yourself, what percentage of the people who have zen orders are simply placing those orders because they know that by doing so they can make a profit? Paradoxically, it's possible that removing the AD cap, the profitability of investing in zen is erased, and therefore people like me won't buy zen. With less people buying up zen "because it's there" the price stabilizes. The value of items on the AH (Preservation Wards etc) reflects the price of the zen.
The current system turns zen purchasing into a first come first serve scenario. But if you're worried about goldspammers, just know: they're still the ones who buy up all that zen, because they had ten million astral diamonds first, so they get all that zen first.
The current AD/Zen conversion cap is fine IMO. It may take a couple of days to get an order filled but I don't see any urgency for any player to change their AD to Zen right away. The backlog is actually pretty tiny comparing to the 20-30 million Zen that took 2 weeks to fill a while ago. If the price of RP continues to go down as they should logically be, and Cryptic put up more sell sales on Wards, the players will find it more worthy to spend money in this game and the Zen Exchange will self correct accordingly.