There is also the problem of people "buying" injected zen with only AD and sitting on it. If many accounts are 90% zen and 10% AD, then if something happens to cause the zax to go below 500 for an extended time, the zax can crash as people stampede for the exit.
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plasticbatMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 12,244Arc User
There is also the problem of people "buying" injected zen with only AD and sitting on it. If many accounts are 90% zen and 10% AD, then if something happens to cause the zax to go below 500 for an extended time, the zax can crash as people stampede for the exit.
You speculate there is an injected Zen. At least, Cryptic did not say there is. People uses AD to buy Zen. If they want to sit on it, they should be allowed to. If they are panic to sell Zen, there are always takers. Anyway, that happened before as Zen dropped all the way to 3xx range. That was mainly because the "regular" AD income was almost gone. And many people quit. That is: not enough AD supply and the AD cost of the game was not changed. And Zen sellers were not even Zen hoarders (because as I said they also had ton of AD). The AD cost of the game you see right now has been reduced a lot.
*** The game can read your mind. If you want it, you won't get it. If you don't expect to get it, you will. ***
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.
@ilithyn Thanks for the thoughtful response , I think I disagree with most of what you said.
"seeing vast droves of players leave the game" : I doubt that many would leave, but what do I know....cryptic has it at 500:1 so they must agree with you..
"Or making it extremely prohibitive for new players to get a foot in in high level content" : Not sure what new players would be spending Zen on to get a foot in high level content (other then VIP i grant you that), their AD would be much better spent on the AH to get into the high level content.. really what in the Zen store would you spend on to get into content... even completion tokens have a better AD rate then if you bought it with Zen
"Having their "spending money" essentially cut in half such as the doubling of the prices you suggest " : their AD to zen would be the only thing cut in half right.. doubling of prices not sure what you mean by that once again I argue the AD would be better spent in the AH then the zen store..
So lets say there is no hard limit or even 1000:1 limit that does not prevent anyone from listing at 500:1 ratio as well , an AD seller could still sell (or request) at that ratio but he would have to compete with someone willing sale at 600:1 etc... would it not self govern .. once the people willing to sell at ratios higher then 500:1 depleted their supplies people at 500:1 would be left etc.. I guess you could argue at a higher ratio say 1000:1 that everything in the AH would increase in cost in which case I guess my entire argument can be thrown out the window..
anyway it was it is, I simply wont buy much Zen for conversion to AD and I will stay away from the exchange. $10 for 500k AD is just not worth it... even more so since the recent AD changes, I seem to be making more AD daily then before...I have not missed hitting the 100k a day since it was started.
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.
@ilithyn Thanks for the thoughtful response , I think I disagree with most of what you said.
"seeing vast droves of players leave the game" : I doubt that many would leave, but what do I know....cryptic has it at 500:1 so they must agree with you..
"Or making it extremely prohibitive for new players to get a foot in in high level content" : Not sure what new players would be spending Zen on to get a foot in high level content (other then VIP i grant you that), their AD would be much better spent on the AH to get into the high level content.. really what in the Zen store would you spend on to get into content... even completion tokens have a better AD rate then if you bought it with Zen
"Having their "spending money" essentially cut in half such as the doubling of the prices you suggest " : their AD to zen would be the only thing cut in half right.. doubling of prices not sure what you mean by that once again I argue the AD would be better spent in the AH then the zen store..
So lets say there is no hard limit or even 1000:1 limit that does not prevent anyone from listing at 500:1 ratio as well , an AD seller could still sell (or request) at that ratio but he would have to compete with someone willing sale at 600:1 etc... would it not self govern .. once the people willing to sell at ratios higher then 500:1 depleted their supplies people at 500:1 would be left etc.. I guess you could argue at a higher ratio say 1000:1 that everything in the AH would increase in cost in which case I guess my entire argument can be thrown out the window..
anyway it was it is, I simply wont buy much Zen for conversion to AD and I will stay away from the exchange. $10 for 500k AD is just not worth it... even more so since the recent AD changes, I seem to be making more AD daily then before...I have not missed hitting the 100k a day since it was started.
Thanks..
Nobody is stopping you from posting at 499:1 now. Put in a bid & come back to tell us when it gets filled.
@wintersmoke not sure if that is at me.... I am arguing the opposite of that I want to put in a sell zen order in at 1000:1 , so for my 1000 zen i would get 1,000,000 AD... I agree a 499:1 order will not get filled.... but thats not my argument..
out of all the players listing their AD at 500 AD to 1 Zen you can not tell me there are not at least some sellers that would sell me their AD at say 700:1 or 800:1 or what ever.. my point is it should be controlled by supply / demand.. obviously not enough people feel 500:1 is a good ratio or we wouldn't have such a back log. Right now you have 4.4 billion AD in the exchange waiting to be converted to 8.9 million zen (not counting non 500:1 listings) from what i read speculation says the demand for that AD is only at 1mill day or at least that the speculated daily conversion rate
I dont see any valid reason if Joe Farmer wants to sell me his legit AD at 1000 AD to 1 Zen ratio why the system should prevent it... its his AD and my Zen... You do not dictate what I can sell my Rank 14s for...
You speculate there is an injected Zen. At least, Cryptic did not say there is.
There is no good reason for cryptic to ever admit they take monetary actions as it only leads to speculations, usually not good ones. But just by looking at my order places and fills, I'd have to be blind not to see a pattern.
ATM, there is no downside to convert to and hold zen, only upside as there is a possibility the zax cap may be lifted.
@wintersmoke not sure if that is at me.... I am arguing the opposite of that I want to put in a sell zen order in at 1000:1 , so for my 1000 zen i would get 1,000,000 AD... I agree a 499:1 order will not get filled.... but thats not my argument..
out of all the players listing their AD at 500 AD to 1 Zen you can not tell me there are not at least some sellers that would sell me their AD at say 700:1 or 800:1 or what ever.. my point is it should be controlled by supply / demand.. obviously not enough people feel 500:1 is a good ratio or we wouldn't have such a back log. Right now you have 4.4 billion AD in the exchange waiting to be converted to 8.9 million zen (not counting non 500:1 listings) from what i read speculation says the demand for that AD is only at 1mill day or at least that the speculated daily conversion rate
I dont see any valid reason if Joe Farmer wants to sell me his legit AD at 1000 AD to 1 Zen ratio why the system should prevent it... its his AD and my Zen... You do not dictate what I can sell my Rank 14s for...
Yes. it is at you,
Go back & read what you just posted. When the cap is 500:1, no posts of 499:1 will ever get filled. A difference of 1 AD per Zen. But if we raise the cap to 1000: 1 Suddenly, magically, players are going to be willing to take a loss of 200 - 300 AD per Zen. Really?
@wintersmoke you really dont get what I am saying or I dont understand you... I am saying that you should get MORE AD per zen.... i am saying 1000 AD per 1 ZEN your logic example of 499 AD for 1 zen just further makes my point... if people wont buy 1 Zen for 500 why would they ever buy 1 ZEN for 499 I am saying if you want to convert more AD to Zen you need to allow us to go the other direction... 600 to 1 etc... I want ZEN to be worth more... not less , and YES if you got more AD per ZEN i think suddenly and magically you will see a change in the backlog...
@wintersmoke you really dont get what I am saying or I dont understand you... I am saying that you should get MORE AD per zen.... i am saying 1000 AD per 1 ZEN your logic example of 499 AD for 1 zen just further makes my point... if people wont buy 1 Zen for 500 why would they ever buy 1 ZEN for 499 I am saying if you want to convert more AD to Zen you need to allow us to go the other direction... 600 to 1 etc... I want ZEN to be worth more... not less , and YES if you got more AD per ZEN i think suddenly and magically you will see a change in the backlog...
does that not make sense
You don't understand me. Partly because you look at Zen as a commodity to sell for AD, while I look at Zen as something to grind AD for so I can buy.
No, it does not make sense. You want as much AD for your Zen as possible. All the Zen sellers do. They will never sell 1 Zen for 499 Ad (or 500 AD, or 600 AD, or 700 AD) if they can get 1000 AD for it. Now, today, the cap is 500 AD for 1 Zen. Players are not willing to sell a Zen for 499AD. A difference of 1 AD. There is absolutely no way they would be willing to take a loss of 200 AD or 300 AD. If you change the cap to 1000:1, there would be a market adjustment. Everyone selling Zen for 500:1 would re-post for 1000:1 & it would stay there. Ask the Russian players.
@wintersmoke you really dont get what I am saying or I dont understand you... I am saying that you should get MORE AD per zen.... i am saying 1000 AD per 1 ZEN your logic example of 499 AD for 1 zen just further makes my point... if people wont buy 1 Zen for 500 why would they ever buy 1 ZEN for 499 I am saying if you want to convert more AD to Zen you need to allow us to go the other direction... 600 to 1 etc... I want ZEN to be worth more... not less , and YES if you got more AD per ZEN i think suddenly and magically you will see a change in the backlog...
does that not make sense
You don't understand me. Partly because you look at Zen as a commodity to sell for AD, while I look at Zen as something to grind AD for so I can buy.
No, it does not make sense. You want as much AD for your Zen as possible. All the Zen sellers do. They will never sell 1 Zen for 499 Ad (or 500 AD, or 600 AD, or 700 AD) if they can get 1000 AD for it. Now, today, the cap is 500 AD for 1 Zen. Players are not willing to sell a Zen for 499AD. A difference of 1 AD. There is absolutely no way they would be willing to take a loss of 200 AD or 300 AD. If you change the cap to 1000:1, there would be a market adjustment. Everyone selling Zen for 500:1 would re-post for 1000:1 & it would stay there. Ask the Russian players.
You're absolutely right. I actually do purchase Zen to be able to sell some for AD. If the cap moves from 500:1 to 1000:1, the price I'm willing to sell Zen for will double, as well. The only way I would sell for less is if I absolutely could not get 1000:1 and I don't have the patience to wait to refine the amount of AD I'm trying to buy with Zen.
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.
No Zen is not real money. They can generate it and it is pixels that they can sell to get real money. Zen is game money and also play money as you put it. The only value Zen has as real money is if there are players who will continue to buy it with their real money. And lets face it there is and endless supply of people who will do that. I have done so and 10 dollars a month is not a problem for me to spend in order to have the VIP. They are not taking their actual money and buying your AD. They just generating more pixel Zen. It will not affect their income in the fact that those who are paying real money for Zen are still doing it. Their profits will not drop. Only thing that could drop is the exchange rate for Zen in the Zen exchange. I can see how people will see it as real money because they paid real money for it. Maybe instead of cryptic generating Zen for our AD allow those who can't afford to buy Zen to be able to use AD to buy the monthly VIP.
So... when there is a 10m backlog at 1000AD per zen you'll what? Come back here and wish for it to be at 2000? Then... 10K? There is a cap for a reason, and it's an important one. The problem is the vast majority of people value Zen more than AD and the AD supply in game is MASSIVE. Because AD isn't highly valued as compared to Zen, and because the supply of AD is huge and the supply of Zen is small (relative to each other), the market is pegged at max.
Solutions:
Let the market decide where the equilibrium point is. By removing the AD cap, the market price of Zen will rise until the values based on their supply and demand curves equalize. It's impossible to tell where that will be but you can bet your booty it's a lot higher than 1000 AD/Zen. This will, most likely, cause the barrier of entry for new players to acquire Zen without spending $$ to be too high, the game will be permanently branded NOT really free-to-play, and they will lose every player that cares about not spending money but also being able to acquire Zen market items. Also, the cost for any Zen market item will also rise in the AH commiserate with the value of Zen, making it likewise unobtainable to the vast majority of player. This is simple Econ 101 stuff and is among one of the things Cryptic has done right with regards to the economy over the years.
Reduce the supply of AD. Because the supply of AD in the game is so large (yes, really) the relative value of AD is very small. The simplest way to increase its value is to make it more scarce. There are several ways to do that, such as reducing the rate of generation OR they can create AD sinks to pull AD out of the game. They've done both methods over the years, with little clear success. The problem, as I see it, is while they have taken many steps to reduce generation (all of which are generally panned by players at the time), they have done very little to provide quality AD sinks. In other words, the stuff you can get with AD, aside from refinement stuff, is generally worthless to the majority of players. They need some new ideas on what players would dump AD into on a reoccurring basis besides buying Zen.
Increase the supply of Zen. This is the so-called quantitative easing method where they either inject Zen into the game by buying AD and effectively deleting it, or they devalue the Zen buy cutting it's price. The latter is not sustainable since that will actually reduce their profits in a direct way. The former could work as a one-time thing provided they fix the AD economy at the same time - if they don't, the problem will come back within weeks. Either way, injecting Zen into the game will reduce overall profits. Remember, buying Zen with AD is simply exchanging AD for something someone else as paid for. Every point of Zen equates to money a player spent money to purchase at some point.
Do Nothing. Always an option, if not necessarily a solution.
I suspect Cryptic will opt for #4 and a little bit of #2. It would be a huge mistake for them to change the ZAX cap, and it would likewise be a mistake for them to inject Zen. The solution here lives squarely in the manipulation of AD supply. The only real question I have is whether they'll go full tyrant-mode and again take drastic steps to reduce AD generation, will they take a player/customer-focused approach and give us AD sinks we'll actually find enjoyable, or will they take a middle approach? In the past, their middle approached involved reducing AD generation while giving us sinks most people found pointless and not a little bit annoying.... So... we'll see how it goes
There are several things i see that they can do to reduce the generation of AD. One they can put a cap on how many random dungeons you can run a day. As it is now you run the first one get a huge amount of AD. Then you can run it over and over for a smaller amount that stays the same. I think they should reduce the first run amount of AD you get by halve then you get one more run at the smaller amount which should be halved also. And then if you want to run the random again you should have to pay with AD for another run and it should be halve of the AD you get from the run. I know many will not like this but this is the kind of drastic thing they need to do to pull AD out of the economy. As kvet said give us some AD sinks that are worth spending AD on. Maybe like you can buy extra Daily runs from the stewart in the strnghold to be able to get more adventurer shards of power and such. Make it so you can exchange AD for campaign currency. personally i think there are way to many currencies in this game.
These are just some ideas off the top of my head.
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plasticbatMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 12,244Arc User
There are several things i see that they can do to reduce the generation of AD. One they can put a cap on how many random dungeons you can run a day. As it is now you run the first one get a huge amount of AD. Then you can run it over and over for a smaller amount that stays the same. I think they should reduce the first run amount of AD you get by halve then you get one more run at the smaller amount which should be halved also. And then if you want to run the random again you should have to pay with AD for another run and it should be halve of the AD you get from the run. I know many will not like this but this is the kind of drastic thing they need to do to pull AD out of the economy. As kvet said give us some AD sinks that are worth spending AD on. Maybe like you can buy extra Daily runs from the stewart in the strnghold to be able to get more adventurer shards of power and such. Make it so you can exchange AD for campaign currency. personally i think there are way to many currencies in this game.
These are just some ideas off the top of my head.
Is that more or less what they are doing right now? it is not just you don't get much after the first run of a character. It is first run of an account. And the cut of subsequent run is more than half.
*** The game can read your mind. If you want it, you won't get it. If you don't expect to get it, you will. ***
There are several things i see that they can do to reduce the generation of AD. One they can put a cap on how many random dungeons you can run a day. As it is now you run the first one get a huge amount of AD. Then you can run it over and over for a smaller amount that stays the same. I think they should reduce the first run amount of AD you get by halve then you get one more run at the smaller amount which should be halved also. And then if you want to run the random again you should have to pay with AD for another run and it should be halve of the AD you get from the run. I know many will not like this but this is the kind of drastic thing they need to do to pull AD out of the economy. As kvet said give us some AD sinks that are worth spending AD on. Maybe like you can buy extra Daily runs from the stewart in the strnghold to be able to get more adventurer shards of power and such. Make it so you can exchange AD for campaign currency. personally i think there are way to many currencies in this game.
These are just some ideas off the top of my head.
Is that more or less what they are doing right now? it is not just you don't get much after the first run of a character. It is first run of an account. And the cut of subsequent run is more than half.
You missed the point. AD is to abundant and being able to run unlimited runs is actually stupid. Making it so it is harder to get RAD to refine will increase the value of AD and lower prices eventually. Ad AD sinks that are worth spending AD on. Like more dungeon runs. This is the only game i know of that give you unlimited dungeon runs. Eventually the value of AD will rise and you won't need as much in order to get the items you want or need. It is a game it is suppose to be enjoyable. Items should not be easy to get but require some effort and it should not be a second job basically in order to get them.
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plasticbatMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 12,244Arc User
There are several things i see that they can do to reduce the generation of AD. One they can put a cap on how many random dungeons you can run a day. As it is now you run the first one get a huge amount of AD. Then you can run it over and over for a smaller amount that stays the same. I think they should reduce the first run amount of AD you get by halve then you get one more run at the smaller amount which should be halved also. And then if you want to run the random again you should have to pay with AD for another run and it should be halve of the AD you get from the run. I know many will not like this but this is the kind of drastic thing they need to do to pull AD out of the economy. As kvet said give us some AD sinks that are worth spending AD on. Maybe like you can buy extra Daily runs from the stewart in the strnghold to be able to get more adventurer shards of power and such. Make it so you can exchange AD for campaign currency. personally i think there are way to many currencies in this game.
These are just some ideas off the top of my head.
Is that more or less what they are doing right now? it is not just you don't get much after the first run of a character. It is first run of an account. And the cut of subsequent run is more than half.
You missed the point. AD is to abundant and being able to run unlimited runs is actually stupid. Making it so it is harder to get RAD to refine will increase the value of AD and lower prices eventually. Ad AD sinks that are worth spending AD on. Like more dungeon runs. This is the only game i know of that give you unlimited dungeon runs. Eventually the value of AD will rise and you won't need as much in order to get the items you want or need. It is a game it is suppose to be enjoyable. Items should not be easy to get but require some effort and it should not be a second job basically in order to get them.
This only make it hard for those who need to get AD to deal with the basic AD requirement to play the game. I am not talking about buying stuff from AH. e.g. How much does it cost to upgrade a companion? For others, they don't really need to earn rAD anymore. They just earn AD from AH. Since this will make it harder to run dungeon for average player, that also means the supply of the necessities from the dungeon will be lower. Hence, their price will be raised. Rich will be richer. Weak will be weaker.
You are looking at the AD/Zen exchange backlog which I don't even consider that as an issue.
Post edited by plasticbat on
*** The game can read your mind. If you want it, you won't get it. If you don't expect to get it, you will. ***
There are several things i see that they can do to reduce the generation of AD. One they can put a cap on how many random dungeons you can run a day. As it is now you run the first one get a huge amount of AD. Then you can run it over and over for a smaller amount that stays the same. I think they should reduce the first run amount of AD you get by halve then you get one more run at the smaller amount which should be halved also. And then if you want to run the random again you should have to pay with AD for another run and it should be halve of the AD you get from the run. I know many will not like this but this is the kind of drastic thing they need to do to pull AD out of the economy. As kvet said give us some AD sinks that are worth spending AD on. Maybe like you can buy extra Daily runs from the stewart in the strnghold to be able to get more adventurer shards of power and such. Make it so you can exchange AD for campaign currency. personally i think there are way to many currencies in this game.
These are just some ideas off the top of my head.
If they cut the amount of astral diamonds you get for running random dungeons, they run the risk of people no longer running random dungeons. This would be counter to their goal of low wait times for those queues. I'm not sure how many people would stop running them because there are many people who want the dungeoneer's shards for their guilds. Personally, I and my wife are down to running random dungeons just twice per day: once for the Leveling queue and once for the Intermediate queue. This has reduced the amount of dungeoneer's shards she's getting from 40 to 30, while it has reduced the amount I get from 80 to 30. Since my guild is small, I've noticed the longer time required to get anywhere near our coffer maximum. The reduction in astral diamonds awarded by subsequent runs for those queues has made doing subsequent runs not worth the time and effort. I'm not saying I want the astral diamond awards increased because I do not want them increased. I do not want enough of a reason to do subsequent runs! I'm already running Illusionist's Gambit, Master of the Hunt, and Dread Legion far more often than I would like. In fact, I'm already on the verge of being one of those people who afks after bronze is achieved in IG. I haven't been able to countenance doing that yet, but I am seriously considering it. Anyway, I don't see subsequent runs as a significant source of astral diamond creation/generation.
Salvage is where we get most of our astral diamonds now. We run the two random queues and then we tend to run 3x or 4x Castle Never every day, depending upon how fast the group is. My backlog of unrefined astral diamonds is up to 1.6m. My wife's is up from zero to 200k in the time since the most recent 2x experience event, which is when she created three more characters just for invoking and salvaging/refining. (She now has 8 characters.) I've been refining 100k AD per day for almost the last 45 days. (Nicely, I was able to put that cash to work for me this weekend and I've got my paladin's movement bonus up to 6750 [15.9%].)
I don't really care for any of your ideas, to be honest. I'm not going to bother addressing any of the rest of them. I only addressed the astral diamond creation sources because you're operating under the false belief that people are running random queues repeatedly for astral diamonds. While there may be a few people doing this, the majority of people are not and your suggestion to cut the astral diamond awards for random queues is, therefore, ill advised.
One thing to keep in mind: Like the ZAX, the AH doesn't CREATE wealth, it merely passes around. Every point of AD that's spent on the AH was generated by someone, somewhere, by refining it from grinding content and refining it. The solution here doesn't live in the AH - like the ZAX, the AH is entirely player-driven. The only viable control Cryptic has to manage the economy is related to AD supply: Either cut the flow into the game, or increase the drain out. Personally, I think 100K AD per account per day is probably about right given the fixed costs of some of the important upgrades (companion, refinement, etc).
So, if it happens that Cryptic agrees then then only control they can implement is a drain.
Some ideas that occur to me off hand:
1. AD expiration. I hate this idea, in fact I REALLY hate it... but it's definitely one way to drop supply. Make ADs use or lose after some period of time, like 30 days. 2. VIP-lite that comes as a Wonderous Bizzare purchase. Provide a few additional monthy-fee based services that aren't in VIP. Things like a reduced AH commission (say .25% reduction per level up to 12), free teleportation scrolls to PE, 1 free standard dungeon key per day, priority queue placement for all Randoms, free random SH voucher daily, 1 free lockbox key weekly. 3. ZAX commisions similiar to the AH (I don't like this one, as it makes Zen purchases more expensive, but a tax is always a way to reduce supply) 4. Convert companions to hirelings. You have to pay them periodically or they won't remain summoned. Lower level companions might not require anything, mid-level ones might only ask for gold, while more advanced companions will require AD payments. Failure to pay them if they need payment means they'll remain in your stable but won't be available for summoning. Will need to change the UI so you can pull gear and enchants off companions that you've failed to pay and don't want to pay. 5. Automation. For an AD cost, you can pay to have your profession collection automated. Perhaps there's a specific vendor you have to go to in game to pay each time or something that makes it a little hassle (and perhaps something captcha-like -- random position of the answer to a question, that sort of thing) but not as annoying has collecting and manually resetting each profession on all your toons. 6. EDIT: thought of another one: Extended bank options like being able to deposit other currencies, or being able to access alt banks. 7. EDIT: Another idea: AD Subscription access to a read-only version of the Gateway.
EDIT: One note: Salvage is another place where adjustment is possible, but given the 100K per day refinement limit, I'm actually OK with where salvage is. From an economic perspective, rAD is non-existent. You could have 50 alts with 10 million rAD unrefined and it would mean nothing to the economy because it's not currency yet.
One thing to keep in mind: Like the ZAX, the AH doesn't CREATE wealth, it merely passes around. Every point of AD that's spent on the AH was generated by someone, somewhere, by refining it from grinding content and refining it. The solution here doesn't live in the AH - like the ZAX, the AH is entirely player-driven. The only viable control Cryptic has to manage the economy is related to AD supply: Either cut the flow into the game, or increase the drain out. Personally, I think 100K AD per account per day is probably about right given the fixed costs of some of the important upgrades (companion, refinement, etc).
So, if it happens that Cryptic agrees then then only control they can implement is a drain.
Some ideas that occur to me off hand:
1. AD expiration. I hate this idea, in fact I REALLY hate it... but it's definitely one way to drop supply. Make ADs use or lose after some period of time, like 30 days. 2. VIP-lite that comes as a Wonderous Bizzare purchase. Provide a few additional monthy-fee based services that aren't in VIP. Things like a reduced AH commission (say .25% reduction per level up to 12), free teleportation scrolls to PE, 1 free standard dungeon key per day, priority queue placement for all Randoms, free random SH voucher daily, 1 free lockbox key weekly. 3. ZAX commisions similiar to the AH (I don't like this one, as it makes Zen purchases more expensive, but a tax is always a way to reduce supply) 4. Convert companions to hirelings. You have to pay them periodically or they won't remain summoned. Lower level companions might not require anything, mid-level ones might only ask for gold, while more advanced companions will require AD payments. Failure to pay them if they need payment means they'll remain in your stable but won't be available for summoning. Will need to change the UI so you can pull gear and enchants off companions that you've failed to pay and don't want to pay. 5. Automation. For an AD cost, you can pay to have your profession collection automated. Perhaps there's a specific vendor you have to go to in game to pay each time or something that makes it a little hassle (and perhaps something captcha-like -- random position of the answer to a question, that sort of thing) but not as annoying has collecting and manually resetting each profession on all your toons.
EDIT: One note: Salvage is another place where adjustment is possible, but given the 100K per day refinement limit, I'm actually OK with where salvage is. From an economic perspective, rAD is non-existent. You could have 50 alts with 10 million rAD unrefined and it would mean nothing to the economy because it's not currency yet.
My thoughts about your suggestions...
1. If AD expires after 30 days, then the most anything can cost on the AH is 2.9 or maybe 3 million AD. This will cause everything to inflate to a significant portion of that cap. Things that are "merely" 800k or 1m AD will almost certainly inflate to 2.9m or 3m. 2. This is not a bad idea, really. Let people purchase some of the bits of VIP that are of interest to them. I would say that simply making enchanted keys available for purchase from the WB would be a great way to drain AD from the economy. Of course, this could impact their actual income via Zen sales... 3. I could take it or leave it. It probably would not impact my willingness to sell Zen. 4. This would be terrible. I would probably leave the game over this. I don't like the feeling of being forced to spend AD on things, and this would definitely be a "must" situation if they implemented this because you know they're not going to make the content any easier. So for people who can't afford to pay their companions, they'd just be out of luck and excluded from most content - especially content that would help them generate astral diamonds. 5. This would not be effective. I'm sure a few (some, maybe) people would pay this. I would never spend AD on this, even if my characters were awash in astral diamonds.
You're right that rough astral diamonds effectively do not exist as it relates to the economy. The thing the developers need to do is come up with something that costs AD, isn't required, and yet is desired by most people. That's what's going to get the astral diamonds out of the system.
You're right that rough astral diamonds effectively do not exist as it relates to the economy. The thing the developers need to do is come up with something that costs AD, isn't required, and yet is desired by most people. That's what's going to get the astral diamonds out of the system.
I don't actually disagree with any of your assessments I probably wouldn't leave the game over the companion things, but it would be a hated thing no doubt. Really, it would make high-level companion use a lot more rare and a luxury only for the wealthy. It strikes me that the AD sink cost for upgrading companions would be rendered nearly obsolete since many people would stop upgrading to where an AD salary is required.
And I definitely agree with the above. I guess that's the real trick though, huh? What sort of thing would people desire enough to pay for on a recurring basis and not either hate or consider pointless?
What sort of thing would people desire enough to pay for on a recurring basis and not either hate or consider pointless?
The only things I can think of relate to appearance: appearance of mounts and companions, in particular. Additional appearance customization options for characters would be nice. I would like the ability to decorate more of my stronghold than just the inside of the guild hall. It would be nice to be able to purchase an upgrade to mount speed, too. Make that a per-character purchase and make it expensive (since it's only a one-off per character). That's definitely something I'd spend AD on for the characters I truly play that don't have legendary mounts. I'm of the opinion the developers should stay away from things you need to purchase on a repeated basis because players are going to feel like they're being nickel-and-dime'd and will resent it.
yeah, they'll need to steer clear of the black ice, vblod type recharge thing. That just plain sucked. That's why I was going toward a sort of AD version of VIP - a monthly payment (or even daily) to get benefits in the same way as VIP does. Not game changers, and not as good as full VIP, but worth the investment, again like VIP.
You don't understand me. Partly because you look at Zen as a commodity to sell for AD, while I look at Zen as something to grind AD for so I can buy.
No, it does not make sense. You want as much AD for your Zen as possible. All the Zen sellers do. They will never sell 1 Zen for 499 Ad (or 500 AD, or 600 AD, or 700 AD) if they can get 1000 AD for it. Now, today, the cap is 500 AD for 1 Zen. Players are not willing to sell a Zen for 499AD. A difference of 1 AD. There is absolutely no way they would be willing to take a loss of 200 AD or 300 AD. If you change the cap to 1000:1, there would be a market adjustment. Everyone selling Zen for 500:1 would re-post for 1000:1 & it would stay there. Ask the Russian players.
It might stay there simply because there's so much AD in the system, but if you move the cap above the point where zen->AD conversions start making sense, you'll see a non-capped equilibrium. That was the case for a while in Neverwinter, before runaway AD production, and it's currently the case in other games. Star Trek Online, in particular, has a similar farm->refine mechanic of "Dilithium" instead of AD, and uses Zen, and has an in-game Dil/Zen exchange, that is currently not at the cap at all - it's around 340 Dilithium per Zen, and orders fill instantly as long as you're willing to pay 1 above the current break point or sell at 1 below the current break point.
STO, notably, has three major things they did right that Neverwinter did very wrong. #1: All raw dilithium is bound to character. There's no account-bound raw dil and no Auction House raw dil and no items you can pass around and salvage. Refined dil can be moved between characters using the Zen exchange, same as moving AD in Neverwinter before the AD account bank. Neverwinter has SORT OF moved this way with the 100k account limit, but it's about 5 years late.
#2: The refining cap is hard, and there are only a few ways to get around it, for small amounts per day, that reward VIP users and those who've built a large fleet but are a rounding error in the larger thing
#3: There is NO way to get Dil without refining it or spending Zen for it. The STO auction house uses Gold, not AD. You can't sell items for Dil. You can't get lucky from a lockbox drop and make a million Dil the way you can make a million AD on a lockbox key in Neverwinter. And you can't bypass the Zen exchange by buying Zen items and selling them in-game for AD the way you can in Neverwinter. In Neverwinter, selling your Zen for AD is stupid when you can make more AD per zen by buying Coalescent Wards and selling them on the AH. STO doesn't let you do that.
Oh, and Dil is valuable and even end-game toons want it for stuff.
The Zen<->AD exchange *can* work and be maintained not at cap. Neverwinter just isn't doing it, in large part IMO because of design errors like "the AH uses AD" and "Zen Store Items can be sold for AD"
STO, notably, has three major things they did right that Neverwinter did very wrong. #1: All raw dilithium is bound to character. There's no account-bound raw dil and no Auction House raw dil and no items you can pass around and salvage. Refined dil can be moved between characters using the Zen exchange, same as moving AD in Neverwinter before the AD account bank. Neverwinter has SORT OF moved this way with the 100k account limit, but it's about 5 years late.
Is the main point you are making with #1 about salvage of account bound items? That is the only way you can "pass" around rAD that I'm aware of. And then have an Alt army for AD refining of salvage. I'm guessing this is the point you are making?? Or is there a feature I was missing that allowed you to move rAD between characters as there wasn't to my knowledge. Only AD via exchange prior to the bank change. I don't know enough about STO about whether you only have a cap on what each character can refine(like Neverwinter used to have) or an account cap.
STO, notably, has three major things they did right that Neverwinter did very wrong. #1: All raw dilithium is bound to character. There's no account-bound raw dil and no Auction House raw dil and no items you can pass around and salvage. Refined dil can be moved between characters using the Zen exchange, same as moving AD in Neverwinter before the AD account bank. Neverwinter has SORT OF moved this way with the 100k account limit, but it's about 5 years late.
Is the main point you are making with #1 about salvage of account bound items? That is the only way you can "pass" around rAD that I'm aware of. And then have an Alt army for AD refining of salvage. I'm guessing this is the point you are making?? Or is there a feature I was missing that allowed you to move rAD between characters as there wasn't to my knowledge. Only AD via exchange prior to the bank change. I don't know enough about STO about whether you only have a cap on what each character can refine(like Neverwinter used to have) or an account cap.
I'm referring to account-bound salvage, which is the most common kind of salvage. "auction house rough AD" is blue unbound salvage that you can buy and salvage for more than it cost, letting you salvage for a net profit and the seller bypass the AD cap by "using" your refining quota instead.
And it doesn't take an ARMY of alts to make good use of account-bound salvage to bypass the per-toon cap (old system) or reach the account cap faster due to prayer boosts (current system).
The fact that the RAD refining limit is account-wide actually heavily limits the problems from account-bound salvage, but, again, that's a very recent change.
The refining limit in STO is per-character, so more characters means more room to refine, just like Neverwinter was before this mod. It's just a lot harder to provide all your alts with raw AD for them to refine - you don't have to PLAY them to make Dilithium from the STO equivalent of professions, but it takes a lot longer and is a lot harder to gear up a character to make good money playing the minigames and professions, and it takes a lot longer per day to play the minigames etc.
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greywyndMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 7,098Arc User
This only make it hard for those who need to get AD to deal with the basic AD requirement to play the game.
It doesn't make it hard. It just makes it slower than it was.
I'm not looking for forgiveness, and I'm way past asking permission. Earth just lost her best defender, so we're here to fight. And if you want to stand in our way, we'll fight you too.
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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.
@ilithyn Thanks for the thoughtful response , I think I disagree with most of what you said.
"seeing vast droves of players leave the game"
: I doubt that many would leave, but what do I know....cryptic has it at 500:1 so they must agree with you..
"Or making it extremely prohibitive for new players to get a foot in in high level content"
: Not sure what new players would be spending Zen on to get a foot in high level content (other then VIP i grant you that), their AD would be much better spent on the AH to get into the high level content.. really what in the Zen store would you spend on to get into content... even completion tokens have a better AD rate then if you bought it with Zen
"Having their "spending money" essentially cut in half such as the doubling of the prices you suggest "
: their AD to zen would be the only thing cut in half right.. doubling of prices not sure what you mean by that once again I argue the AD would be better spent in the AH then the zen store..
So lets say there is no hard limit or even 1000:1 limit that does not prevent anyone from listing at 500:1 ratio as well , an AD seller could still sell (or request) at that ratio but he would have to compete with someone willing sale at 600:1 etc... would it not self govern .. once the people willing to sell at ratios higher then 500:1 depleted their supplies people at 500:1 would be left etc.. I guess you could argue at a higher ratio say 1000:1 that everything in the AH would increase in cost in which case I guess my entire argument can be thrown out the window..
anyway it was it is, I simply wont buy much Zen for conversion to AD and I will stay away from the exchange. $10 for 500k AD is just not worth it... even more so since the recent AD changes, I seem to be making more AD daily then before...I have not missed hitting the 100k a day since it was started.
Thanks..
out of all the players listing their AD at 500 AD to 1 Zen you can not tell me there are not at least some sellers that would sell me their AD at say 700:1 or 800:1 or what ever.. my point is it should be controlled by supply / demand.. obviously not enough people feel 500:1 is a good ratio or we wouldn't have such a back log. Right now you have 4.4 billion AD in the exchange waiting to be converted to 8.9 million zen (not counting non 500:1 listings) from what i read speculation says the demand for that AD is only at 1mill day or at least that the speculated daily conversion rate
I dont see any valid reason if Joe Farmer wants to sell me his legit AD at 1000 AD to 1 Zen ratio why the system should prevent it... its his AD and my Zen... You do not dictate what I can sell my Rank 14s for...
ATM, there is no downside to convert to and hold zen, only upside as there is a possibility the zax cap may be lifted.
Go back & read what you just posted. When the cap is 500:1, no posts of 499:1 will ever get filled. A difference of 1 AD per Zen. But if we raise the cap to 1000: 1 Suddenly, magically, players are going to be willing to take a loss of 200 - 300 AD per Zen. Really?
does that not make sense
No, it does not make sense. You want as much AD for your Zen as possible. All the Zen sellers do. They will never sell 1 Zen for 499 Ad (or 500 AD, or 600 AD, or 700 AD) if they can get 1000 AD for it. Now, today, the cap is 500 AD for 1 Zen. Players are not willing to sell a Zen for 499AD. A difference of 1 AD. There is absolutely no way they would be willing to take a loss of 200 AD or 300 AD. If you change the cap to 1000:1, there would be a market adjustment. Everyone selling Zen for 500:1 would re-post for 1000:1 & it would stay there. Ask the Russian players.
Solutions:
I suspect Cryptic will opt for #4 and a little bit of #2. It would be a huge mistake for them to change the ZAX cap, and it would likewise be a mistake for them to inject Zen. The solution here lives squarely in the manipulation of AD supply. The only real question I have is whether they'll go full tyrant-mode and again take drastic steps to reduce AD generation, will they take a player/customer-focused approach and give us AD sinks we'll actually find enjoyable, or will they take a middle approach? In the past, their middle approached involved reducing AD generation while giving us sinks most people found pointless and not a little bit annoying.... So... we'll see how it goes
Sekhmet@kvetchus_
Guilds: Greycloaks, Blackcloaks, Whitecloaks, Goldcloaks, Browncloaks, Spiritcloaks, Bluecloaks, Silvercloaks, Black Dawn
Tredecim: The Cloak Alliance
These are just some ideas off the top of my head.
it is not just you don't get much after the first run of a character. It is first run of an account.
And the cut of subsequent run is more than half.
For others, they don't really need to earn rAD anymore. They just earn AD from AH. Since this will make it harder to run dungeon for average player, that also means the supply of the necessities from the dungeon will be lower. Hence, their price will be raised.
Rich will be richer. Weak will be weaker.
You are looking at the AD/Zen exchange backlog which I don't even consider that as an issue.
Salvage is where we get most of our astral diamonds now. We run the two random queues and then we tend to run 3x or 4x Castle Never every day, depending upon how fast the group is. My backlog of unrefined astral diamonds is up to 1.6m. My wife's is up from zero to 200k in the time since the most recent 2x experience event, which is when she created three more characters just for invoking and salvaging/refining. (She now has 8 characters.) I've been refining 100k AD per day for almost the last 45 days. (Nicely, I was able to put that cash to work for me this weekend and I've got my paladin's movement bonus up to 6750 [15.9%].)
I don't really care for any of your ideas, to be honest. I'm not going to bother addressing any of the rest of them. I only addressed the astral diamond creation sources because you're operating under the false belief that people are running random queues repeatedly for astral diamonds. While there may be a few people doing this, the majority of people are not and your suggestion to cut the astral diamond awards for random queues is, therefore, ill advised.
So, if it happens that Cryptic agrees then then only control they can implement is a drain.
Some ideas that occur to me off hand:
1. AD expiration. I hate this idea, in fact I REALLY hate it... but it's definitely one way to drop supply. Make ADs use or lose after some period of time, like 30 days.
2. VIP-lite that comes as a Wonderous Bizzare purchase. Provide a few additional monthy-fee based services that aren't in VIP. Things like a reduced AH commission (say .25% reduction per level up to 12), free teleportation scrolls to PE, 1 free standard dungeon key per day, priority queue placement for all Randoms, free random SH voucher daily, 1 free lockbox key weekly.
3. ZAX commisions similiar to the AH (I don't like this one, as it makes Zen purchases more expensive, but a tax is always a way to reduce supply)
4. Convert companions to hirelings. You have to pay them periodically or they won't remain summoned. Lower level companions might not require anything, mid-level ones might only ask for gold, while more advanced companions will require AD payments. Failure to pay them if they need payment means they'll remain in your stable but won't be available for summoning. Will need to change the UI so you can pull gear and enchants off companions that you've failed to pay and don't want to pay.
5. Automation. For an AD cost, you can pay to have your profession collection automated. Perhaps there's a specific vendor you have to go to in game to pay each time or something that makes it a little hassle (and perhaps something captcha-like -- random position of the answer to a question, that sort of thing) but not as annoying has collecting and manually resetting each profession on all your toons.
6. EDIT: thought of another one: Extended bank options like being able to deposit other currencies, or being able to access alt banks.
7. EDIT: Another idea: AD Subscription access to a read-only version of the Gateway.
EDIT:
One note: Salvage is another place where adjustment is possible, but given the 100K per day refinement limit, I'm actually OK with where salvage is. From an economic perspective, rAD is non-existent. You could have 50 alts with 10 million rAD unrefined and it would mean nothing to the economy because it's not currency yet.
Sekhmet@kvetchus_
Guilds: Greycloaks, Blackcloaks, Whitecloaks, Goldcloaks, Browncloaks, Spiritcloaks, Bluecloaks, Silvercloaks, Black Dawn
Tredecim: The Cloak Alliance
1. If AD expires after 30 days, then the most anything can cost on the AH is 2.9 or maybe 3 million AD. This will cause everything to inflate to a significant portion of that cap. Things that are "merely" 800k or 1m AD will almost certainly inflate to 2.9m or 3m.
2. This is not a bad idea, really. Let people purchase some of the bits of VIP that are of interest to them. I would say that simply making enchanted keys available for purchase from the WB would be a great way to drain AD from the economy. Of course, this could impact their actual income via Zen sales...
3. I could take it or leave it. It probably would not impact my willingness to sell Zen.
4. This would be terrible. I would probably leave the game over this. I don't like the feeling of being forced to spend AD on things, and this would definitely be a "must" situation if they implemented this because you know they're not going to make the content any easier. So for people who can't afford to pay their companions, they'd just be out of luck and excluded from most content - especially content that would help them generate astral diamonds.
5. This would not be effective. I'm sure a few (some, maybe) people would pay this. I would never spend AD on this, even if my characters were awash in astral diamonds.
You're right that rough astral diamonds effectively do not exist as it relates to the economy. The thing the developers need to do is come up with something that costs AD, isn't required, and yet is desired by most people. That's what's going to get the astral diamonds out of the system.
And I definitely agree with the above. I guess that's the real trick though, huh? What sort of thing would people desire enough to pay for on a recurring basis and not either hate or consider pointless?
Sekhmet@kvetchus_
Guilds: Greycloaks, Blackcloaks, Whitecloaks, Goldcloaks, Browncloaks, Spiritcloaks, Bluecloaks, Silvercloaks, Black Dawn
Tredecim: The Cloak Alliance
Sekhmet@kvetchus_
Guilds: Greycloaks, Blackcloaks, Whitecloaks, Goldcloaks, Browncloaks, Spiritcloaks, Bluecloaks, Silvercloaks, Black Dawn
Tredecim: The Cloak Alliance
STO, notably, has three major things they did right that Neverwinter did very wrong. #1: All raw dilithium is bound to character. There's no account-bound raw dil and no Auction House raw dil and no items you can pass around and salvage. Refined dil can be moved between characters using the Zen exchange, same as moving AD in Neverwinter before the AD account bank. Neverwinter has SORT OF moved this way with the 100k account limit, but it's about 5 years late.
#2: The refining cap is hard, and there are only a few ways to get around it, for small amounts per day, that reward VIP users and those who've built a large fleet but are a rounding error in the larger thing
#3: There is NO way to get Dil without refining it or spending Zen for it. The STO auction house uses Gold, not AD. You can't sell items for Dil. You can't get lucky from a lockbox drop and make a million Dil the way you can make a million AD on a lockbox key in Neverwinter. And you can't bypass the Zen exchange by buying Zen items and selling them in-game for AD the way you can in Neverwinter. In Neverwinter, selling your Zen for AD is stupid when you can make more AD per zen by buying Coalescent Wards and selling them on the AH. STO doesn't let you do that.
Oh, and Dil is valuable and even end-game toons want it for stuff.
The Zen<->AD exchange *can* work and be maintained not at cap. Neverwinter just isn't doing it, in large part IMO because of design errors like "the AH uses AD" and "Zen Store Items can be sold for AD"
And it doesn't take an ARMY of alts to make good use of account-bound salvage to bypass the per-toon cap (old system) or reach the account cap faster due to prayer boosts (current system).
The fact that the RAD refining limit is account-wide actually heavily limits the problems from account-bound salvage, but, again, that's a very recent change.
The refining limit in STO is per-character, so more characters means more room to refine, just like Neverwinter was before this mod. It's just a lot harder to provide all your alts with raw AD for them to refine - you don't have to PLAY them to make Dilithium from the STO equivalent of professions, but it takes a lot longer and is a lot harder to gear up a character to make good money playing the minigames and professions, and it takes a lot longer per day to play the minigames etc.