Black Friday this year? Better not!

zurimor · October 2016

As it seems, people are stocking up on Zen in hope for another Black Friday 50% off this year.
We currently have a backlog of 4.5 million at ZAX...

I know that Cryptic wants to stabilize economy, so I'd really like to see no 50% off on everything in the Zen store this year, Cryptic also won't earn much money that way. Instead, maybe we can just have 5-10 items selected for a sale, if any at all.

It will be better for economy if people don't know in advance about such sale, so do something different this year!
Maybe even announce publicly that there will be no 50% off this year to stabilize ZAX again.

nameexpired · October 2016

zurimor said:

I know that Cryptic wants to stabilize economy, so I'd really like to see no 50% off on everything in the Zen store this year, Cryptic also won't earn much money that way. Instead, maybe we can just have 5-10 items selected for a sale, if any at all.

I guess they will (or would) max much money, as those many that do not have ZEN will buy ZEN to use the 50% off bonus.
Remember that only a small part of the population access the forum. (and news, I guess)

zurimor · October 2016

nameexpired said:

zurimor said:

I know that Cryptic wants to stabilize economy, so I'd really like to see no 50% off on everything in the Zen store this year, Cryptic also won't earn much money that way. Instead, maybe we can just have 5-10 items selected for a sale, if any at all.
I guess they will (or would) max much money, as those many that do not have ZEN will buy ZEN to use the 50% off bonus.
Remember that only a small part of the population access the forum. (and news, I guess)

People read zone chat, are in guilds, custom channels....there are many ways to know about things which happen in the game, and the current state of ZAX speaks for itself.

iandarksword · October 2016

I would wager that a significant amount of funding for development comes from the 50% sales. It's likely not an "if" but a "when." In years past they have had a Black Friday sale, though the one last year was more limited in time than in years past.

qexotic · October 2016

Cryptic are now facing the same problem regular retail companies created once they introduced Black Friday Sales. Customers are not buying things in November in the run up to the now expected big, end of month reductions. Black Friday was introduced as a way of getting US customers out and spending again after taking several days break for Thanksgiving as this had been causing a big drop in sales at the end of November. The Black Friday sale prices were really good, so people did go out and spend. The trouble is, the following year people anticipated another big sale so spent even less during the early part of November and it has become a vicious circle that is hard to escape. They either have steady sales for the first weeks of November and a slump during the holiday or low sales for the first few weeks and a big increase at the end of November. Neither of which is favoured as a nice steady revenue stream is always prefered. The retailer answer has been to keep entending the duration of the sale, so for some it lasts the whole of November with a few extra big reductions on Black Friday itself. I don't know how Cryptic will resolve things. Economics does not seem to be one of their strong suits >:)

oldbaldyone · October 2016

iandarksword said:
I would wager that a significant amount of funding for development comes from the 50% sales. It's likely not an "if" but a "when." In years past they have had a Black Friday sale, though the one last year was more limited in time than in years past.

They have all been for the same time period...one day. They have only had 2.

Black Friday sales will generate actual cash for them, and the ZAX backlog only works in their favor with it. If you can't get Zen, you are more likely to buy it with cash. Leftover zen will be converted to AD, helping the backlog a little (though it will still probably rise).

There is also a strong belief that they artificially add Zen to the ZAX to help people get their Zen during these sales, and thus remove AD from the world. Nobody would be aware and they won't ever admit it, but I would do it if I were them

Now, if there was just some new stuff on the AH to buy outside of another 12 months of VIP......

urabask · October 2016

oldbaldyone said:

iandarksword said:
I would wager that a significant amount of funding for development comes from the 50% sales. It's likely not an "if" but a "when." In years past they have had a Black Friday sale, though the one last year was more limited in time than in years past.
They have all been for the same time period...one day. They have only had 2.

They had one for cyber monday and during the jubilee. The one during the jubilee sale lasted two days.

shadowskysun · October 2016

I keep it really simple, as long as something is not on sale for at least 50% in the ZEN shop, i'm not buying.

I have currently 10k ZEN in my pocket, and another 2k ZEN will probably come in through the ZAX within the next few days.
And that ZEN is going to stay there, until they come around with a sale.

Besides, not sure if people can buy ZEN through the Steam Wallet again, but this might also have had some impact on creating the current backlog.
Not to mention that we have had much higher backlogs in the past, and that didn't stop them from selling Zen shop items at half price.

shiva79 · October 2016

double ad event will have the bigger impact on economy, i guess.
and probably not a positive one

btairborne · October 2016

zurimor said:
As it seems, people are stocking up on Zen in hope for another Black Friday 50% off this year.
We currently have a backlog of 4.5 million at ZAX...

I know that Cryptic wants to stabilize economy, so I'd really like to see no 50% off on everything in the Zen store this year, Cryptic also won't earn much money that way. Instead, maybe we can just have 5-10 items selected for a sale, if any at all.

It will be better for economy if people don't know in advance about such sale, so do something different this year!
Maybe even announce publicly that there will be no 50% off this year to stabilize ZAX again.

What the hell..who ever heard of a customer telling a company not to have a sale? Screw this guy.
Cryptic, do a 50% SALE!

oldbaldyone · October 2016

urabask said:

oldbaldyone said:

iandarksword said:
I would wager that a significant amount of funding for development comes from the 50% sales. It's likely not an "if" but a "when." In years past they have had a Black Friday sale, though the one last year was more limited in time than in years past.
They have all been for the same time period...one day. They have only had 2.
They had one for cyber monday and during the jubilee. The one during the jubilee sale lasted two days.

I was talking about Black Friday sales, not 50% off sales

jamesbond007 · October 2016

I say do both dbl AD and 50% zen sale

urabask · October 2016

magenubbie said:

shiva79#6664 said:
double ad event will have the bigger impact on economy, i guess.
and probably not a positive one
Either you get 50% more AD worth from your zen sales or you get the same 50% on top of rewards for playing the game. We all know which option Cryptic values more, but yes. double AD would have a bigger -and better- impact than zen sales on the economy. More AD to the people who work for it and less in the hands that do nothing but watch the AH all day.

Honestly the people that are watching the AH all day probably have a year or two worth of salvage stored away so it'll just end up giving them more AD to play with. Everyone else might make a couple million extra AD at best.

arcanjo86 · October 2016

its not double ad its double rad

urabask · October 2016

arcanjo86 said:
its not double ad its double rad

Which is the same thing for people that have a pile of salvage and 50 alts.

ambisinisterr · October 2016

qexotic said:
Cryptic are now facing the same problem regular retail companies created once they introduced Black Friday Sales. Customers are not buying things in November in the run up to the now expected big, end of month reductions. Black Friday was introduced as a way of getting US customers out and spending again after taking several days break for Thanksgiving as this had been causing a big drop in sales at the end of November. The Black Friday sale prices were really good, so people did go out and spend. The trouble is, the following year people anticipated another big sale so spent even less during the early part of November and it has become a vicious circle that is hard to escape. They either have steady sales for the first weeks of November and a slump during the holiday or low sales for the first few weeks and a big increase at the end of November. Neither of which is favoured as a nice steady revenue stream is always prefered. The retailer answer has been to keep entending the duration of the sale, so for some it lasts the whole of November with a few extra big reductions on Black Friday itself. I don't know how Cryptic will resolve things. Economics does not seem to be one of their strong suits >:)

I agree with much of this...

The aspects you didn't touch upon or maybe were not direct enough for me to know with certainty you intended is that companies compete for the Black Friday revenue. You either have a sale or you don't get a slice of the Black Friday Pie.

While stabilizing the economy would be awesome I don't see them choosing not to take a slice of the pie. They will make money for every sale regardless of whether people use Zen they purchased with real world currency or with AD. Remember this is a business and they are in the business of making money.

With that said I really wish they would try something different with the store. They decide to put too much stuff people will buy as Zen and then the grinds which act as an AD sink are too painful for most people to throw into without thinking. I firmly believe the people who make the prices have to stop thinking about hitting a few home runs and start thinking of getting everybody to hit singles. (a lot of a little instead of a little of a lot)

dionchi · October 2016

zurimor said:
As it seems, people are stocking up on Zen in hope for another Black Friday 50% off this year.
We currently have a backlog of 4.5 million at ZAX...

I know that Cryptic wants to stabilize economy, so I'd really like to see no 50% off on everything in the Zen store this year, Cryptic also won't earn much money that way. Instead, maybe we can just have 5-10 items selected for a sale, if any at all.

It will be better for economy if people don't know in advance about such sale, so do something different this year!
Maybe even announce publicly that there will be no 50% off this year to stabilize ZAX again.

I've not purchased any Zen in quite a while because for at least some of the items I previously bought with purchased Zen they have been altered in such a way that they are no longer useful for the purpose I had originally bought them for and I'm not willing to pay the asking price for something that could suddenly be BTC instead of Unbound or BTA, however when there is a big sale (I'm not talking about the 10% & 15% coupons we get invoking) I usually do purchase more Zen for the items I've been putting off during the year... "no 50% off sale" - no annual or bi-ammual major Zen (gift card or direct) purchase, it's pretty much that simple.

The only exception to that used to be those weekly sales of Items in the Zen Store - but since we haven't really seen anything, or much of anything on sale, weekly or otherwise those special sales events are the only ocassions I've even the least tempted to spend acutal currency to purchase game items.

I would consider purchasing VIP, but unfortunately real life often interfers with gaming and to purchase something and not be able to get the full benefit from it (the days you don't - or can't log on, your items just "poof", wasted money), it wouldn't be a particularly wise decision for me to buy something that I would only get a portion of the actual value from.

demonmonger · October 2016

I agree...
Game has changed to many items I paid money for.

They have lost my trust in making large investments $200.00 or more a month.
If bored I will spend a few dollars here and there. (If we are bored we spend, yep that's how it works)

tripsofthrymr · October 2016

shadowskysun said:

Besides, not sure if people can buy ZEN through the Steam Wallet again, but this might also have had some impact on creating the current backlog.

It is fixed. I saw the backlog drop from 5m to 4m the day it was fixed. I think another user said it got as low as 3.5m but then it shot back up.

The ability to buy Zen in Steam seems to be creating more supply but that supply can't keep up with the demand (which I agree is likely driven by speculation about a sale).

nameexpired · October 2016

tripsofthrymr said:
The ability to buy Zen in Steam seems to be creating more supply but that supply can't keep up with the demand (which I agree is likely driven by speculation about a sale).

Not to mention the Russian solution to increase the ZAX cap to 1000 AD per Z.
So, at the moment, you are quite save if you have your AD stored in ZEN.
If Z it goes down to 480 you have lost 20 AD/Z, but if AD heads for 700+ you can gain 200+ per Z.

emilemo · October 2016

demonmonger said:
I agree...

Game has changed to many items I paid money for.

They have lost my trust in making large investments $200.00 or more a month.

If bored I will spend a few dollars here and there. (If we are bored we spend, yep that's how it works)

Thats kinda sad which doesnt make it less true. Spending because we're happy, that would be so much better.

qexotic · October 2016

ambisinisterr said:

qexotic said:
Cryptic are now facing the same problem regular retail companies created once they introduced Black Friday Sales. Customers are not buying things in November in the run up to the now expected big, end of month reductions. Black Friday was introduced as a way of getting US customers out and spending again after taking several days break for Thanksgiving as this had been causing a big drop in sales at the end of November. The Black Friday sale prices were really good, so people did go out and spend. The trouble is, the following year people anticipated another big sale so spent even less during the early part of November and it has become a vicious circle that is hard to escape. They either have steady sales for the first weeks of November and a slump during the holiday or low sales for the first few weeks and a big increase at the end of November. Neither of which is favoured as a nice steady revenue stream is always prefered. The retailer answer has been to keep entending the duration of the sale, so for some it lasts the whole of November with a few extra big reductions on Black Friday itself. I don't know how Cryptic will resolve things. Economics does not seem to be one of their strong suits >:)
I agree with much of this...

The aspects you didn't touch upon or maybe were not direct enough for me to know with certainty you intended is that companies compete for the Black Friday revenue. You either have a sale or you don't get a slice of the Black Friday Pie.

It was just a quick 'cheap and cheerful' summation of the situation, so not a great deal of detail and specifics. You have now covered those as much as is needed for a thread in this forum

zerappus · October 2016

btairborne said:

zurimor said:
As it seems, people are stocking up on Zen in hope for another Black Friday 50% off this year.
We currently have a backlog of 4.5 million at ZAX...

I know that Cryptic wants to stabilize economy, so I'd really like to see no 50% off on everything in the Zen store this year, Cryptic also won't earn much money that way. Instead, maybe we can just have 5-10 items selected for a sale, if any at all.

It will be better for economy if people don't know in advance about such sale, so do something different this year!
Maybe even announce publicly that there will be no 50% off this year to stabilize ZAX again.
What the hell..who ever heard of a customer telling a company not to have a sale? Screw this guy.
Cryptic, do a 50% SALE!

Imo, there is a current ViP/Key/Lockbox bubble. It's profitable to spam these things. However the Zen Exchange can't keep up with this demand. And the ViP/Key/Lockbox spammers can't acquire the Zen on-demand, hence they don't like the exchange backlog and the 50% Sale (that will further exacerbate it)

I can see two corrections to this backlog:
1) Nerf the lockbox drops - I think it's happening already. Runic Lockbox is so stingy. And next Giants lockbox has a (dud) artifact as a 'main' prize.

2) Raise the Zen/AD cap from 500:1. - If the bubble continues and the backlog sticks, then they would have no choice to raise it (even though it's not really to their advantage, hence there is a cap implemented in the first place).

nameexpired · October 2016

zerappus said:

I can see two corrections to this backlog:
Raise the Zen/AD cap from 500:1. - If the bubble continues and the backlog sticks, then they would have no choice to raise it (even though it's not really to their advantage, hence there is a cap implemented in the first place).

I strongly object. This would leave us with the ZAX at 1:1000 sooner or later.

*) What about adding interesting items to the game unrelated to grinding?
Problem: if you buy e.g. fashion today -> you are screwed, no infinite closet to store your bought items, fashion competes with a gazillion types of redundant stones in the tiny bag. Why should I buy fashion? (I have a dragon hoard bag and 3 runic bags on EACH toon and still struggle)
*) No 2x AD event while the ZAX is over 1:450 (simple people will hate for the notion, feel free to flame before you think)
One should rather try to get AD out of the system.

plasticbat · October 2016

I don't care about backlog. You just need to wait for a few days. If you plan it out, it is not an issue at all. When I started to play this game, I needed to wait for 2 months. Wait for a few days, one week or 2 weeks is nothing. I don't buy Zen when I need Zen. I buy Zen way before I need Zen.

throsbi · October 2016

zerappus said:

btairborne said:

zurimor said:
As it seems, people are stocking up on Zen in hope for another Black Friday 50% off this year.
We currently have a backlog of 4.5 million at ZAX...

I know that Cryptic wants to stabilize economy, so I'd really like to see no 50% off on everything in the Zen store this year, Cryptic also won't earn much money that way. Instead, maybe we can just have 5-10 items selected for a sale, if any at all.

It will be better for economy if people don't know in advance about such sale, so do something different this year!
Maybe even announce publicly that there will be no 50% off this year to stabilize ZAX again.
What the hell..who ever heard of a customer telling a company not to have a sale? Screw this guy.
Cryptic, do a 50% SALE!
Imo, there is a current ViP/Key/Lockbox bubble. It's profitable to spam these things. However the Zen Exchange can't keep up with this demand. And the ViP/Key/Lockbox spammers can't acquire the Zen on-demand, hence they don't like the exchange backlog and the 50% Sale (that will further exacerbate it)

I can see two corrections to this backlog:
1) Nerf the lockbox drops - I think it's happening already. Runic Lockbox is so stingy. And next Giants lockbox has a (dud) artifact as a 'main' prize.

2) Raise the Zen/AD cap from 500:1. - If the bubble continues and the backlog sticks, then they would have no choice to raise it (even though it's not really to their advantage, hence there is a cap implemented in the first place).

Lockbox drops have already been nerfed into the nine hells. There was a day when chat was so unreadable from the lockbox reward spam. Now you see a few spam during shortly after reset time than once in a while thru the day here and there. Lockbox reward went down many times especially after VIP key intro. The lower spam reward notice may also reflect active playerbase but is more related to HAMSTER reward from nerf. my vote is do not nerf.

carl103 · October 2016

I think whoever it was who mentioned VIP has hit the nail on the head. The salvage changes made those free epic dungeon keys incredibly valuable. Properly used a VIP can make around 7k per key which means on a daily basis they account for around half the earnings a single character can pull in if they properly split the salvage amongst several alts. Conversely pulling in even half that requires a lot more work and a lot more time without VIP. There's no comparison between the two, and thats leading to enormous amounts of buying up of zen. Result AD supply is outstripping zen, (inevitable as the whole point is to generate more AD than it costs.

Yet what this is also telling us is that yes a very large number of players are using this VIP trick to get lots of AD, but equally, those players don't have much else to spend their AD on other than zen store items. Which is a good indication that either a lot of players have got their gear as high as they feel the need to or that various zen store purchases are felt as necessary to advance the character sufficiently to support further gear advancement.

I also suspect the ongoing bot war and gateway closure has affected things. Assuming cryptic are on their toes about banning bots fast and assuming the bottors have not upscaled, the efficiency of the operations has probably been impacted. In particular it's fairly obvious from various dev comments that there were a lot of high frequency trader bots running around pulling buy low sell high on short time frames. You're probably going "so what". Here's the thing, bots do two things that help this situation. They store up a lot of AD, a lot of that doubtless comes in from non-AH direct earn sources. But any AD the AH bots earn that goes there is effectively out of the economy. In addition because of how the cut system works a given fixed initial sum of AD has to be spent in the AH 7 times before 50% of it is lost to the AH cut. As such whilst heavy usage of the buy low re-sell high trick pushes up AH prices for joe bloggs. It also helps the AH remove more AD from the economy.

Fixing the VIP situation isn;t hard in one sense. Just make epic keys available in game without spending AD. E,g,. by making the available for adventurer seals and/or various campaign currencies. As long as the costs are low enough VIp just won;t be as valuable anymore. But thats not going to stop people turning the same amount of AD into zen and spending the zen they would have spent on VIP on somthing else.

At the end of the day the game need more things to spend AD that people who've reached a comfort point or glass ceiling with their gear might want. The best way would be to move some high volume items to the wondrous bazaar, (or a new vendor if cryptic dosen;t want the VIP discount applying), with the AD price set based ion where cryptic wants the ZAX exchange ratio to be.

The items that spring most strongly to mind are:

1. Lockbox Keys: the one Zen item thats never not in demand, these will never stop selling.

2. Wards: Often one of the biggest blocks on gear progression both directly and indirectly, (AH final item prices are strongly determined by the prices of these), and another item allways in demand even if the types where targeting may not necessarily be short of them, they'll take a lot of AD away from everyone else which cuts their ZAX impact, and i don't doubt now it;s started backing up they're adding a fair share to the ZAX. Also helps discourage bots from clogging up the ZAX. Of course killing them first would be ideal, but thats clearly not possibble.

3. Bags and bank slot: Alongside the zen store mounts these are undoubtedly some of the most popular mid progression items, people often admit to skimping on these for obvious reasons, so i imagine a lot of the people using the VIP trick to generate AD for zen are short on these, they'd buy these like hotcakes.

4. I'd be tempted to cycle various Zen store companions complete with bonding runestones in on a promotional basis They'll sell well for the runestones alone and a cyclic availability will boost tendency to buy them.

kvet · October 2016

It's strikes me they could over price zen items for AD - for example an item that costs 200 zen (100k AD @ 500ad/z) might be priced at 150k AD in game. So, ppl who would have merely converted AD can pay a premium not to have to bother, and ppl who are willing to wait or play the market can save AD can do so using ZAX or cash.

It further occurs to me that, by doing this in conjunction with an increase in the ZAX cap (which is something I've never consider supporting because of the massive detrimental effects it would have on the economy), they could allow for the additional upswing, but that upswing in Zen price would be heavily mitigated by the fact that AD costs would soft-cap the rise in price. This is because at some point, it would cost less to buy with AD than it would to buy with Zen - so it will be more valuable to convert Zen to AD than the other way around.

Conversely, without raising the limit (which, again, I'm generally against the idea of raising the limit, despite the idea I proffered above) they could set the AD price at EXACTLY the value of 500 AD/zen - making it less profitable in terms of time to buy zen at 500 AD. This would pull AD out of the market, driving down the exchange rate. However, there will still be upwards pressure on the rate because of coupons and sales (which would only apply to Zen prices). That gives reason to buy Zen with cash, or exchange AD for Zen (thus, again, placing upwards pressure on the price).

Regardless, by acting to make AD valuable (rather than simply making it scarce), they can balance the economy and restore order without sowing extra chaos elsewhere and, more importantly, losing customers by the bus load....

ambisinisterr · October 2016

That's the unfortunate side effect of having a variable market tied to a fixed (to consumer eyes) market. Depending on the value of AD one will always offer the better deal.

That said, what items are still comparable in the Zen and AD stores? That was the reason the removed Coal Wards from tradebar's afterall. aside: that is a perfect example of taking a perfect possible AD sink and making it Zen instead of AD. rrrrrrr!

If there are any more comparable items they should be made one or the other...which likely means they will be made Zen only.

Sorry Cryptic staff but as a player it really does feel like whoever decides whether something is AD or Zen does decide based on how popular something will be. A balanced system (The Zen exchange should be balanced) can't balance with an unbalanced store.

sandukutupu · October 2016

I have made cash purchases from this company before, but in the last 16 to 18 months there is just nothing in the zen market I want. This is really the problem. Here is a hint if you want us girls to spend some of the hubby's money on your game boys;
I would buy dresses but I get on a horse and they just look stupid. The result is; all my girls are wearing pants. When I run in the dress it doesn't flow. I would be into buying costumes from the zen market.

However they put the wedding attire in the trade bars... I don't do trade bars. I know many comics make sport of us women chasing down items on sale. I either missed out on the genetic code or I just don't shop every time a man has a sale. I would like glitch free wardrobe but if it means digging through lock boxes, forget it. If they placed the wardrobe back into the zen market, they still need to fix those dresses or make the ladies ride side-saddle. I noticed armor has glitches with my drow underwear poking out my breastplate. We want to look nice while killing the hoards of demons is that too much to ask?

Black Friday this year? Better not!

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