(PC) Astral Diamond Exchange

brewofamaziness · August 2018

Is the Astral Diamond Exchange dead on PC? I have had five postings up offering 500 AD for 5 zen and have gotten zero response. Before this I had then at 500 AD for 1 zen, and someone whispered me saying that 1z/500AD looked like a bot offer.

So I am very curious as to why I can't seem to find buyers when many of my colleges seem to get buyers same day.

kreatyve · August 2018

brewofamaziness said:
Is the Astral Diamond Exchange dead on PC? I have had five postings up offering 500 AD for 5 zen and have gotten zero response. Before this I had then at 500 AD for 1 zen, and someone whispered me saying that 1z/500AD looked like a bot offer.

So I am very curious as to why I can't seem to find buyers when many of my colleges seem to get buyers same day.

There is a backlog. The current rate is 500 AD per 1 Zen. The backlog clears at a current rate of right around 1 day per million. You can see how much the backlog is on the Sell Zen tab. It was 7 million last time I checked.

500 AD for 5 Zen will not get you any Zen at all, as that's well below the current rate.

brewofamaziness · August 2018

So I should return to 1/500? Seems like that's best outcome for the buyer.

greywynd · August 2018

Buying zen is a seller's market currently, so 500:1.

nunya · August 2018

brewofamaziness said:
So I should return to 1/500? Seems like that's best outcome for the buyer.

You need to be willing to pay 500 AD for every point of Zen you want to purchase.

adinosii · August 2018

nunya#5309 said:
You need to be willing to pay 500 AD for every point of Zen you want to purchase.

Until (or unless) the backlog goes away. It has dropped quite a bit recently, and while it will go up again before Black monday, there is a chance it might drop below 500:1 in a month or so.

That would create the possibility to make money by playing the Zen/AD exchange, taking advantage of predictable weekly and daily swings.

empalas · August 2018

I think the devs are hoping that after a few months with the newer 100k/day account RAD refine cap will help to get that number below 500AD/zen. Its definitely a long term goal of that. I'm expecting newer AD sinks to be coming our way as well.

kadven · August 2018

It has been 500 AD for 1 Zen for a long time. Current backlog of Zen is approaching 9 million which means if you want to buy Zen it will take about 9 days for the transaction to go through, e.g. about 1 million a day. Up until the 40% sale that was on a little while ago the backlog was around 20 million. As a result of the sale the backlog dropped to about 5 million, but it is now steadily creeping up again.

empalas · August 2018

I don't believe the sale caused the decrease. The sale caused it to build in the preceding weeks so people would have zen for it. After the sale there is less demand and it gets back down to normal levels. Anytime there is a mass incentive to buy something from the zen store will cause the backlog to increase until said incentive is gone. And anything that would cause AD to be heavily spent might cause the reverse, at least in theory.

kadven · August 2018

empalas said:
I don't believe the sale caused the decrease. The sale caused it to build in the preceding weeks so people would have zen for it. After the sale there is less demand and it gets back down to normal levels. Anytime there is a mass incentive to buy something from the zen store will cause the backlog to increase until said incentive is gone. And anything that would cause AD to be heavily spent might cause the reverse, at least in theory.

Very true.

mentinmindmaker · August 2018

The backlog seems to be slowly rising again now.

ironwoodelf · August 2018

What i don't understand is why the devs don't have it where they buy the AD from us directly? Most games i have played they have such a system. It is a good way to get AD out of the economy and they can control the rate that it is removed. After all it is just pixels and people will still buy Zen directly from them when they don't have the AD to trade for it. And yes the back log is rising again. I not going to wait 9 days to get my zen and how things are now i don't see it dropping below 500 AD for a zen. Maybe that is how they want it. Forces people who don't want to wait to buy directly.

plasticbat · August 2018

ironwoodelf said:
What i don't understand is why the devs don't have it where they buy the AD from us directly? Most games i have played they have such a system. It is a good way to get AD out of the economy and they can control the rate that it is removed. After all it is just pixels and people will still buy Zen directly from them when they don't have the AD to trade for it. And yes the back log is rising again. I not going to wait 9 days to get my zen and how things are now i don't see it dropping below 500 AD for a zen. Maybe that is how they want it. Forces people who don't want to wait to buy directly.

Because Zen is money. They want you to spend money to buy Zen and then may use Zen to buy AD.
Not the other way around.
If you don't want to wait for 9 days, pay cash.
For PC, the exchange rate dropped below 500 was probably less than 100 days in total in the past few years.

smulch · August 2018

I would be highly surprised if it wasn't already the case. the backlog causing such a constant 1m = 1 day regardless of mod is far too suspicious to believe that there isn't manipulation.

ironwoodelf · August 2018

plasticbat said:

ironwoodelf said:
What i don't understand is why the devs don't have it where they buy the AD from us directly? Most games i have played they have such a system. It is a good way to get AD out of the economy and they can control the rate that it is removed. After all it is just pixels and people will still buy Zen directly from them when they don't have the AD to trade for it. And yes the back log is rising again. I not going to wait 9 days to get my zen and how things are now i don't see it dropping below 500 AD for a zen. Maybe that is how they want it. Forces people who don't want to wait to buy directly.
Because Zen is money. They want you to spend money to buy Zen and then may use Zen to buy AD.
Not the other way around.
If you don't want to wait for 9 days, pay cash.
For PC, the exchange rate dropped below 500 was probably less than 100 days in total in the past few years.

Yeah i have to agree with you. I only want zen for the VIP and i have no problem spending 10 dollars a month for that.

aeragar47 · August 2018

ironwoodelf said:
What i don't understand is why the devs don't have it where they buy the AD from us directly? Most games i have played they have such a system. It is a good way to get AD out of the economy and they can control the rate that it is removed. After all it is just pixels and people will still buy Zen directly from them when they don't have the AD to trade for it. And yes the back log is rising again. I not going to wait 9 days to get my zen and how things are now i don't see it dropping below 500 AD for a zen. Maybe that is how they want it. Forces people who don't want to wait to buy directly.

As Plasticbat said, Zen is real money. So if the company were to buy your AD (play money) with Zen directly, in essence, they would be paying you to play the game. They'd go out of business quickly with that model, I think.

smulch · August 2018

aeragar47 said:

ironwoodelf said:
What i don't understand is why the devs don't have it where they buy the AD from us directly? Most games i have played they have such a system. It is a good way to get AD out of the economy and they can control the rate that it is removed. After all it is just pixels and people will still buy Zen directly from them when they don't have the AD to trade for it. And yes the back log is rising again. I not going to wait 9 days to get my zen and how things are now i don't see it dropping below 500 AD for a zen. Maybe that is how they want it. Forces people who don't want to wait to buy directly.
As Plasticbat said, Zen is real money. So if the company were to buy your AD (play money) with Zen directly, in essence, they would be paying you to play the game. They'd go out of business quickly with that model, I think.

zen isn't money.

They don't pay anyone anything if they were to give zen away in a form or another.

Keeping the ZaX at a decent number, on the other hand, is very important because otherwise, you'd have a lot of players quitting (imagine if it took 3-4 months for an order).

plasticbat · August 2018

smulch said:

aeragar47 said:

ironwoodelf said:
What i don't understand is why the devs don't have it where they buy the AD from us directly? Most games i have played they have such a system. It is a good way to get AD out of the economy and they can control the rate that it is removed. After all it is just pixels and people will still buy Zen directly from them when they don't have the AD to trade for it. And yes the back log is rising again. I not going to wait 9 days to get my zen and how things are now i don't see it dropping below 500 AD for a zen. Maybe that is how they want it. Forces people who don't want to wait to buy directly.
As Plasticbat said, Zen is real money. So if the company were to buy your AD (play money) with Zen directly, in essence, they would be paying you to play the game. They'd go out of business quickly with that model, I think.
zen isn't money.

They don't pay anyone anything if they were to give zen away in a form or another.

Keeping the ZaX at a decent number, on the other hand, is very important because otherwise, you'd have a lot of players quitting (imagine if it took 3-4 months for an order).

Zen is not money for player. Zen is money for Cryptic. I don't need to imagine. It was 3 to 4 months (actually, I think it was half a year) to get Zen when I joined the game many years ago. For me, getting Zen is a year long planning.
Player quit, new player comes, life goes on.

namelesshero347 · August 2018

Zen is the main store of value for many players now, especially the older ones. And why not. You can convert zen to AD at any time. There's no threat of the rate dropping below 500:1 (even if it gets close, there is plenty of time to get out). Devs probably need to come up with a way to discourage people from hoarding zen.

plasticbat · August 2018

namelesshero347 said:
Zen is the main store of value for many players now, especially the older ones. And why not. You can convert zen to AD at any time. There's no threat of the rate dropping below 500:1 (even if it gets close, there is plenty of time to get out). Devs probably need to come up with a way to discourage people from hoarding zen.

There is no reason for dev to discourage people from hoarding zen. They want people to hoard/spend Zen as much as possible.

namelesshero347 · August 2018

I'm pretty certain liquidity is being injected into the zax because I can't think of another explanation for the fairly constant 1 mio zen/day turnover. I suspect much of the injected zen are going to hoarders.

greywynd · August 2018

plasticbat said:

There is no reason for dev to discourage people from hoarding zen. They want people to hoard/spend Zen as much as possible.

They want people to buy zen. Spending it or hoarding it doesn't really matter.

namelesshero347 · August 2018

To the newer players, it matter. Hoarded zen is not available for purchase. Which means they must wait many days, possibly weeks. Or pay higher prices for zen items available in the AH. At some point, people get the impression the game is P2W and devs have to inject. If the cost to hold zen is zero, people will hoard as much as they can.

plasticbat · August 2018

namelesshero347 said:
To the newer players, it matter. Hoarded zen is not available for purchase. Which means they must wait many days, possibly weeks. Or pay higher prices for zen items available in the AH. At some point, people get the impression the game is P2W and devs have to inject. If the cost to hold zen is zero, people will hoard as much as they can.

It will not change much because if there is a cost to hoard Zen, they can use Zen to buy stuff from Zen store and hoard the 'stuff' instead. Those Zen will still not go back to exchange. For those who hoard Zen, they have a lot more AD. They are not going to exchange Zen to AD.

namelesshero347 · August 2018

Sure they can use other 'stuff' to store value. But that's such a hassle. Then when you sell it in AH, it cost 10%.

If they make the cost to hold zen high enough, people will hold less. If the backlog is eliminated, the rate will plummet even more as no one wants to hold tens of thousands of zen and watch rates go down and not know if the backlog will come back.

sinarr · August 2018

for me, I would love to give the devs/cryptic more money ... but its just not worth it at 500:1 , if they want me to buy Zen from them it needs to be worth more.. $10 for 500,000 not worth it....I suppose i just don't see the big picture here, I know free to play players want AD to out value Zen, but as a Pay 2 Play player I want more value for my zen $.... everything else aside if the ratio was say 1000:1 would the backlog go down via more exchanges .. .or would AD suppliers simple pull their supply back into their AD hoards... why can the market/exchange not govern itself.. if player A wants to sell 1000:1 to player B why not allow it, would it not eventually work it self out ?

smulch · August 2018

sinarr said:
for me, I would love to give the devs/cryptic more money ... but its just not worth it at 500:1 , if they want me to buy Zen from them it needs to be worth more.. $10 for 500,000 not worth it....I suppose i just don't see the big picture here, I know free to play players want AD to out value Zen, but as a Pay 2 Play player I want more value for my zen $.... everything else aside if the ratio was say 1000:1 would the backlog go down via more exchanges .. .or would AD suppliers simple pull their supply back into their AD hoards... why can the market/exchange not govern itself.. if player A wants to sell 1000:1 to player B why not allow it, would it not eventually work it self out ?

It would not. Russia has it at 1000:1 and their situation is the same

ilithyn · August 2018

sinarr said:
for me, I would love to give the devs/cryptic more money ... but its just not worth it at 500:1 , if they want me to buy Zen from them it needs to be worth more.. $10 for 500,000 not worth it....I suppose i just don't see the big picture here, I know free to play players want AD to out value Zen, but as a Pay 2 Play player I want more value for my zen $.... everything else aside if the ratio was say 1000:1 would the backlog go down via more exchanges .. .or would AD suppliers simple pull their supply back into their AD hoards... why can the market/exchange not govern itself.. if player A wants to sell 1000:1 to player B why not allow it, would it not eventually work it self out ?

Because this isn't a free marked and Cryptic really isn't keen on seeing vast droves of players leave the game. Or making it extremely prohibitive for new players to get a foot in in high level content. Yes right now it takes some patience to exchange AD for Zen, but that's something most can live with. Having their "spending money" essentially cut in half such as the doubling of the prices you suggest would make it practically impossible for most new players to get a foot in at all.

And inb4 someone goes "they can just pay money for zen then". Not everyone has that option. I see a really nasty assumption in this forum constantly that people who exchange AD for zen are just cheap skates or are unwilling to pony up. And yeah we get a couple of HAMSTER braggarts now and again, but there's a good portion of those people who simply can't financially afford to pay.

tanzlow · August 2018

Well said Ilithyn. Personally I wouldn't spend real money on this game. That's the way my budget rolls.

plasticbat · August 2018

namelesshero347 said:
Sure they can use other 'stuff' to store value. But that's such a hassle. Then when you sell it in AH, it cost 10%.

If they make the cost to hold zen high enough, people will hold less. If the backlog is eliminated, the rate will plummet even more as no one wants to hold tens of thousands of zen and watch rates go down and not know if the backlog will come back.

If they put a cost to hold zen, that will just kill the game.
Nobody will buy zen and see its value diminishing. That will be a huge PR issue.
That means the Zen discount promotion will not yield as much because many bought Zen during promotion, held it and waited for the Zen store discount. The backlog will be longer than now.

I don't even understand people consider the backlog is a problem. It is not even a problem. The suggested "solution" is a problem.

greywynd · August 2018

namelesshero347 said:
Sure they can use other 'stuff' to store value. But that's such a hassle. Then when you sell it in AH, it cost 10%.

If they make the cost to hold zen high enough, people will hold less. If the backlog is eliminated, the rate will plummet even more as no one wants to hold tens of thousands of zen and watch rates go down and not know if the backlog will come back.

If they make the cost to hold zen more than nothing people will stop buying zen.

(PC) Astral Diamond Exchange

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