Yeah, zen needs to be instantly created from the game. It is already instantly created by the game when you pay cash. No one would get it for free. They would pay astral for it JUST LIKE THEY DO NOW. You are familiar with the astral diamond exchange right?
What is it you don't undestand about AD currency being free to get, and Zen being locked behind a paywall? ALL ZEN in the game where purchased, minus some that were given by some Arc missions previously. Zen are instantly created when you buy them, when you spend cha$h money on them.
Wouldn't it make more sense to skip the player to player exchange and just instantly give zen for AD? And if people want to buy AD, well they can just buy it at the 500:1 rate. (which they can already do)
When you pay AD to get Zen, you're actually getting the Zen someone paid for previously. That money is the one that Cryptic earns for a living, that is their revenue, their only in-game revenue. Do you understand that skipping the player-to-player exchange and just instantly give Zen for AD is precisely killing their revenue? Why would anyone spend money to buy Zen when you can just get them via AD trade for free?
No one would get it for free. They would pay AD for it just like they do now
Do you even realize how you contradict yourself here? AD is free, AD is a currency you earn everywhere in game. Zen is not free, Zen is a currency only printed by cash. Your solution does indeed kill their only source of in-game revenue. Spoiler, you can't play if they can't pay for their servers.
PVP is pretty much dead in this game. Yes, there are some PVPers but they are minority at the moment. PVP is like foundry now.
SH is not that hard to upgrade (comparing with the beginning) if you have a lot of guild members who are committed to do so. The problem is these type of guild members are not common these days comparing with old days.
Nope, the problem is that the campaigns people are actually doing don't give currencies that are of any use, they've done IWD/ToD etc and are not going back to them, need to be able to trade chult/AI currencies.
Also the SH events are basically turkeys, nobody ever does more than one round of marauders.
You need 5 rounds to get the credit of marauders. No? I guess our alliance are nobody because we always do 5 rounds (waves). I still do weekly AD quests. That give currency of old campaigns although I need to find coffer to donate them because ours were filled long time ago. Although our alliance are filled with SH 20, we still do Dragonflight every night. There are also pick up Dragonflight and marauders in other odd time. As I said, the issue is I need to find an alliance guild coffer to donate stuff I pick up from the SH events.
Sorry, by one round I mean 5 waves, you know you CAN protect all 3 piles and carry on ? but nobody ever does because the rewards are terrible.
Yeah, zen needs to be instantly created from the game. It is already instantly created by the game when you pay cash. No one would get it for free. They would pay astral for it JUST LIKE THEY DO NOW. You are familiar with the astral diamond exchange right?
Yes we all know how the exchange works. I suspect that it is you who do not understand the workings of it.
I already suspect the devs are doing this. I don't think all of the AD posted to the market actually gets purchased by players. Here is why. ...... Meanwhile my guild mates were telling me, "don't worry it will all sell" Near the end of the event it all sold. How did they know? Insider information? Am I to believe that near the end of the event there was a giant surge in AD purchases by players? I don't think that is what happened. I think the devs simply gave people zen for their AD. I think no one purchased it.
Absolutely false. the devs have never manually added Zen to the exchange. Ever since the backlogs started (I want to say mod 4 or 5, but might have been later) it has been a constant exchange of 1-2 days per million of backlog. So if there was a 21 million backlog on the exchange than it would take approximately 3 weeks to receive your Zen. this does go up slightly when the sales happen and I see a 2-4 day window but it usually goes back down. The reason is that during these same sales there is also usually a zen bonus. those who are buying zen get extra zen with their purchases and will usually put it up near the end of the frame if they realize they don't require it.
Now, why does the exchange get backed up? It gets backed up from people selling millions of AD at a time to buy things from behind the paywall to sell for astral to put right back on the AD exchange. If you buy stuff that is sold in the zen market from the AH, from players, you are just overpaying for zen purchases. You're paying some player to pick it up for you. Its like you are a bank paying them interest on their savings (banks don't do that any more so it might be a bad analogy) Think of it like a bank buying a house for you and you are paying them interest on the loan.
. . .
Do you see how this could result in a black market AD exchange for RL currency? Eventually they have so much AD they need to find ways to get rid of it. Without spending a dime, they could have as many overpowered chars as they want. If they did this with 4 accounts per day, for 2 years they could be paying their rent.
not sure what you are trying to get at here. Yes people play the market. It is a very lucrative play if you are doing it correctly but it requires a lot of work to analyze trends and realize what is going on at any given time. It is almost like a second job which is why it is not a lot more prevalent. As for people buying Zen stuff off the AH. There are 2 reasons for this. They are new players and don't realize that they are overpaying or they want the item immediately instead of waiting to exchange for Zen.
For reason one, yeah it can be considered a predatory thing by the "whales" but that is just them taking advantage of a lack of knowledge which is no different than commerce in real life. For the second reason its just people wanting the "it" item immediately instead of waiting those 2-3 weeks to be able to buy directly themselves. for those who don't want to wait this is completely viable to them and they are thankful to those who have put the item up.
While waiting for my AD to sell, I watched the ticker go up millions at a time.
They wanted me to do this. I didn't want to play the game that way. THIS is bad for the game. When dungeons keep getting harder and harder it is because more and more players are getting too strong for it. I guarantee you, it isn't fun being dragged through CN by a 17,000 IL guy using an overpowered class. You are basically walking through an empty dungeon trying to keep up.
When my 11k IL chars are getting 1 shotted in intermediate queues, it is because the devs are responding to too many high level chars. My GF used to be able to tank CN (even though GF is terrible). He has gotten stronger, but can't do it now. If you are 16k IL + you might not even notice the dungeons have gotten more difficult.
Who wanted you do what? The Devs don't really want you using the exchange. They would much rather have you buy the Zen directly from them but the players campaigned for the ability to sell Zen. As for Dungeons getting harder, yes new dungeons are harder but old dungeons have not changed. There may have changes to different classes but CN for example has not really had any changes in a long time. It is the same dungeon it has always been.
I said 10% is probably what they get. The more people doing it, the smaller the margin would be. Competing would make it harder for them to make a profit. They told me they make 20%. I think they were doing the math wrong and they are not counting the 10% AH fee. Pres wards normally sell for around 5k each. 5000 would be 10% profit. AH cut = 500 Cost = 4000 (after using a 20% off coupon) 5k - 4000 - 500 = 500 or 10%.
Let me give you a hint. Anyone who is playing the market a lot does not have a AH Fee. I guarantee you that they have VIP which at a certain level (I don't remember what) removes the posting fee. That is why you will see the random huge overlist on a rare item as they hope some one will buy it. It doesn't cost them anything to list it.
In the latest mod, the devs made it a little harder to hit your raw AD limit. I think this is why. They did make it more streamlined by getting rid of salvage (ty) but harder to hit 100k. It is also harder to get raw AD bonus off mules now. ^-- that's why. Mules get AD bonus from being invoked. Salvage made it easy to get the AD off them.
Remember when Demo HE's gave blue salvage? It was always so easy and quick to sell that blue salvage. Why? Who was buying it? People who might not even be playing but invoked a whole account full of mules would have reason to buy it. They buy it for 2k, they get 3k for it. They profit 33k ad on the day just for buying salvage and invoking mules they might not ever use. Over the course of 1 year that makes 12 mil AD without the compounding interest.
Are we done here? Does everyone see why this should be shut down? Does everyone see why this is bad for the game? Does everyone see how this could, and probably does cost the devs money?
Salvage needed to be removed. I made hundreds of thousands of AD just from salvage and using my small 4 man alt army. Any salvage gained on my main (the only character I played) would be moved over to the invoke army and be salvaged for AD. All of that AD was then funneled into the ZAX to continually buy me Zen to keep up my VIP purchases and anything else I might want. As for selling the salvage, anyone who was selling salvage was a moron. Sorry for calling people that but anyone who did was giving away money for free. If you saw an item on the market that was selling for 2k and you could immediately turn it into 3k why would you not buy it. Again you are complaining about people using common sense to make a profit.
The current market system is not bad or killing the game. The system you are proposing and giving out free zen to everyone will kill the system. Lets look at it objectively and say they would do this. what happens
1. everyone immediately converts AD to ZEN 2. everyone buys all the needed mounts and other items to become as close to BIS as possible (Games loses Millions of dollars in previously obtainable profit instantly) 3. everyone continues to buy these things to put on AH to try and sell 4. market crashes to a point where these things make no profit or are sold for a loss 5. now since everyone has "everything" they need from the zen market no one has any reason to ever exchange AD to Zen again 6. devs make no external money since everything is available free in game. 7. game closes or moves to subscription model as they cant make money in its available state.
I realize that my examples are a over simplification but it is where the game will head.
Yeah, zen needs to be instantly created from the game. It is already instantly created by the game when you pay cash. No one would get it for free. They would pay astral for it JUST LIKE THEY DO NOW. You are familiar with the astral diamond exchange right?
What is it you don't undestand about AD currency being free to get, and Zen being locked behind a paywall? ALL ZEN in the game where purchased, minus some that were given by some Arc missions previously. Zen are instantly created when you buy them, when you spend cha$h money on them.
Wouldn't it make more sense to skip the player to player exchange and just instantly give zen for AD? And if people want to buy AD, well they can just buy it at the 500:1 rate. (which they can already do)
When you pay AD to get Zen, you're actually getting the Zen someone paid for previously. That money is the one that Cryptic earns for a living, that is their revenue, their only in-game revenue. Do you understand that skipping the player-to-player exchange and just instantly give Zen for AD is precisely killing their revenue? Why would anyone spend money to buy Zen when you can just get them via AD trade for free?
No one would get it for free. They would pay AD for it just like they do now
Do you even realize how you contradict yourself here? AD is free, AD is a currency you earn everywhere in game. Zen is not free, Zen is a currency only printed by cash. Your solution does indeed kill their only source of in-game revenue. Spoiler, you can't play if they can't pay for their servers.
In the latest mod, the devs made it a little harder to hit your raw AD limit
That's not true, its actually a lot faster to hit the daily 100k limit now. The big change was when they actually limited to 100k/account a day.
Edit: quote formatting
By your logic, zen is ALREADY FREE. I think I made a pretty strong case that the devs ALREADY give zen that was never purchased for AD. The problem with your logic is that AD is not FREE. AD is earned by in game work. People pay for zen with RL money to not do the work. The developer's source of revenue is players willingness to pay rather than work. Just as many people would be willing to pay rather than work, without this class of middlemen.
Revenue would remain the same. Some people have jobs or other responsibilities that prevent them from being online doing the work. Some people just have a lot of money. Some people just want to support the game. None of those revenue streams would change.
I don't know how you conclude his logic said zen is free.
Zen is not free. You can get it free because somebody else bought it. You get it free (through Zax) does not mean it is free in the economy. e.g. Depends on where you are, you may be able to get free medical. It does not mean medical is free in the big picture. Somebody paid for it. That is why sometime, people need to queue up and wait for medical service (say, in Canada). Sound familiar?
Cryptic did give our free Zen outside of the game before in a small scale but they got rid it. I assume that hurt their bottom line.
*** 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. ***
Yeah, zen needs to be instantly created from the game. It is already instantly created by the game when you pay cash. No one would get it for free. They would pay astral for it JUST LIKE THEY DO NOW. You are familiar with the astral diamond exchange right?
Yes we all know how the exchange works. I suspect that it is you who do not understand the workings of it.
I already suspect the devs are doing this. I don't think all of the AD posted to the market actually gets purchased by players. Here is why. ...... Meanwhile my guild mates were telling me, "don't worry it will all sell" Near the end of the event it all sold. How did they know? Insider information? Am I to believe that near the end of the event there was a giant surge in AD purchases by players? I don't think that is what happened. I think the devs simply gave people zen for their AD. I think no one purchased it.
Absolutely false. the devs have never manually added Zen to the exchange. Ever since the backlogs started (I want to say mod 4 or 5, but might have been later) it has been a constant exchange of 1-2 days per million of backlog. So if there was a 21 million backlog on the exchange than it would take approximately 3 weeks to receive your Zen. this does go up slightly when the sales happen and I see a 2-4 day window but it usually goes back down. The reason is that during these same sales there is also usually a zen bonus. those who are buying zen get extra zen with their purchases and will usually put it up near the end of the frame if they realize they don't require it.
Now, why does the exchange get backed up? It gets backed up from people selling millions of AD at a time to buy things from behind the paywall to sell for astral to put right back on the AD exchange. If you buy stuff that is sold in the zen market from the AH, from players, you are just overpaying for zen purchases. You're paying some player to pick it up for you. Its like you are a bank paying them interest on their savings (banks don't do that any more so it might be a bad analogy) Think of it like a bank buying a house for you and you are paying them interest on the loan.
. . .
Do you see how this could result in a black market AD exchange for RL currency? Eventually they have so much AD they need to find ways to get rid of it. Without spending a dime, they could have as many overpowered chars as they want. If they did this with 4 accounts per day, for 2 years they could be paying their rent.
not sure what you are trying to get at here. Yes people play the market. It is a very lucrative play if you are doing it correctly but it requires a lot of work to analyze trends and realize what is going on at any given time. It is almost like a second job which is why it is not a lot more prevalent. As for people buying Zen stuff off the AH. There are 2 reasons for this. They are new players and don't realize that they are overpaying or they want the item immediately instead of waiting to exchange for Zen.
For reason one, yeah it can be considered a predatory thing by the "whales" but that is just them taking advantage of a lack of knowledge which is no different than commerce in real life. For the second reason its just people wanting the "it" item immediately instead of waiting those 2-3 weeks to be able to buy directly themselves. for those who don't want to wait this is completely viable to them and they are thankful to those who have put the item up.
While waiting for my AD to sell, I watched the ticker go up millions at a time.
They wanted me to do this. I didn't want to play the game that way. THIS is bad for the game. When dungeons keep getting harder and harder it is because more and more players are getting too strong for it. I guarantee you, it isn't fun being dragged through CN by a 17,000 IL guy using an overpowered class. You are basically walking through an empty dungeon trying to keep up.
When my 11k IL chars are getting 1 shotted in intermediate queues, it is because the devs are responding to too many high level chars. My GF used to be able to tank CN (even though GF is terrible). He has gotten stronger, but can't do it now. If you are 16k IL + you might not even notice the dungeons have gotten more difficult.
Who wanted you do what? The Devs don't really want you using the exchange. They would much rather have you buy the Zen directly from them but the players campaigned for the ability to sell Zen. As for Dungeons getting harder, yes new dungeons are harder but old dungeons have not changed. There may have changes to different classes but CN for example has not really had any changes in a long time. It is the same dungeon it has always been.
I said 10% is probably what they get. The more people doing it, the smaller the margin would be. Competing would make it harder for them to make a profit. They told me they make 20%. I think they were doing the math wrong and they are not counting the 10% AH fee. Pres wards normally sell for around 5k each. 5000 would be 10% profit. AH cut = 500 Cost = 4000 (after using a 20% off coupon) 5k - 4000 - 500 = 500 or 10%.
Let me give you a hint. Anyone who is playing the market a lot does not have a AH Fee. I guarantee you that they have VIP which at a certain level (I don't remember what) removes the posting fee. That is why you will see the random huge overlist on a rare item as they hope some one will buy it. It doesn't cost them anything to list it.
In the latest mod, the devs made it a little harder to hit your raw AD limit. I think this is why. They did make it more streamlined by getting rid of salvage (ty) but harder to hit 100k. It is also harder to get raw AD bonus off mules now. ^-- that's why. Mules get AD bonus from being invoked. Salvage made it easy to get the AD off them.
Remember when Demo HE's gave blue salvage? It was always so easy and quick to sell that blue salvage. Why? Who was buying it? People who might not even be playing but invoked a whole account full of mules would have reason to buy it. They buy it for 2k, they get 3k for it. They profit 33k ad on the day just for buying salvage and invoking mules they might not ever use. Over the course of 1 year that makes 12 mil AD without the compounding interest.
Are we done here? Does everyone see why this should be shut down? Does everyone see why this is bad for the game? Does everyone see how this could, and probably does cost the devs money?
snip...
As for selling the salvage, anyone who was selling salvage was a moron. Sorry for calling people that but anyone who did was giving away money for free. If you saw an item on the market that was selling for 2k and you could immediately turn it into 3k why would you not buy it.
snip...
Well, I agree with most of what you said, but not this part, (and this is another reason Salvage NEEDED nerfing) I would quite often get to the point where I had upwards of 1Mill rAD sitting across various characters' banks, meaning that I could spend a whole week or more doing nothing more than logging in, invoking, and watching 100'000 (or back in the good old days... up to 400'000) swish into proper Astral Diamonds every day. On top of this my bags would fill up and fill up with more and more salvage. So... if I could sell 200'0000 rAD in useless salvage for 150'000 (actual... LIVE) AD, and it cost me a grand total of 15k in AH Tax? Hell YEAH I was going to do it.
Win/Win.
If salvage still existed I'd be doing it right now.
I don't know how you conclude his logic said zen is free.
Zen is not free. You can get it free because somebody else bought it. You get it free (through Zax) does not mean it is free in the economy. e.g. Depends on where you are, you may be able to get free medical. It does not mean medical is free in the big picture. Somebody paid for it. That is why sometime, people need to queue up and wait for medical service (say, in Canada). Sound familiar?
Cryptic did give our free Zen outside of the game before in a small scale but they got rid it. I assume that hurt their bottom line.
If AD is free, and you can buy zen with AD, zen is also free. (by his logic) His logic fails because AD is not free. You pay for AD either by work or with cash. Effectively, you do that work to populate the game so that others, who are willing to pay cash have people to play with. We are all kind of like Cryptic employees. Our job is to create the environment others are willing to pay for.
I also pointed out where you get it but no one bought it.
Free medical is not free. Someone is paying for it. If you follow the money trail all the way to the bottom it is paid for by work. Someone's work, just not yours. It is free to you, yet not free.
lmao what?
"If AD is free and you can buy zen with AD, zen is also free". Do you even realize how non-sens is that sentence? Do you? No Zen isn't free. You can get if for free ONLY BECAUSE someone else paid for it at some point.
"AD is not free". Indeed it is, do you have to pay money to get AD? No, you just have to play the game, or play the AH. It's free, not locked behind a paywall.
I can't even... You're literally ignoring the very core of the ZAX, which is keeping the game free-to-play by putting a way to exchange PREMIUM currency for GRINDING currency, between players that did PAY for that premium currency.
By printing Zen when you want at a fixed rate (say 500 AD<>1 Z), people would never buy any Zen, because you could get them for free! And people not buying Zen => Death of the game.
Explain me again what you don't understand about that.
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plasticbatMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 12,456Arc User
I don't know how you conclude his logic said zen is free.
Zen is not free. You can get it free because somebody else bought it. You get it free (through Zax) does not mean it is free in the economy. e.g. Depends on where you are, you may be able to get free medical. It does not mean medical is free in the big picture. Somebody paid for it. That is why sometime, people need to queue up and wait for medical service (say, in Canada). Sound familiar?
Cryptic did give our free Zen outside of the game before in a small scale but they got rid it. I assume that hurt their bottom line.
If AD is free, and you can buy zen with AD, zen is also free. (by his logic) His logic fails because AD is not free. You pay for AD either by work or with cash. Effectively, you do that work to populate the game so that others, who are willing to pay cash have people to play with. We are all kind of like Cryptic employees. Our job is to create the environment others are willing to pay for.
I also pointed out where you get it but no one bought it.
Free medical is not free. Someone is paying for it. If you follow the money trail all the way to the bottom it is paid for by work. Someone's work, just not yours. It is free to you, yet not free.
I guess the critical difference is 'work'. Most of us do not consider playing the game is work. If I consider that as work, it is not free. If I consider that as something that drop to me while I am entertaining, it is free to me. i.e. I am watching a free movie and someone gives me pop corn because I am watching it. I consider the pop corn is free. If I consider watching a free movie is work, the pop corn and the movie are not free.
*** 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. ***
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greywyndMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 7,158Arc User
Zen in the exchange is put there by other players. Usually by people that spent real money to buy it. So, no, that zen is not free by any sense of the word.
AD is not free. AD costs time in the game to acquire. Or zen to buy it from other players.
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.
Well, I agree with most of what you said, but not this part, (and this is another reason Salvage NEEDED nerfing) I would quite often get to the point where I had upwards of 1Mill rAD sitting across various characters' banks, meaning that I could spend a whole week or more doing nothing more than logging in, invoking, and watching 100'000 (or back in the good old days... up to 400'000) swish into proper Astral Diamonds every day. On top of this my bags would fill up and fill up with more and more salvage. So... if I could sell 200'0000 rAD in useless salvage for 150'000 (actual... LIVE) AD, and it cost me a grand total of 15k in AH Tax? Hell YEAH I was going to do it.
Win/Win.
If salvage still existed I'd be doing it right now.
Your right, I didn't think of the overflow for those who had excessive amounts of salvage. I was thinking about my own scenario where I never actually salvaged unless I had the rad bonus for the invoking. due to them only invoking for me (only played them up to 60 to see the individual race and class quests) they never made enough bonus to get into this scenario.
@vigor#8801 see this is exactly the reason that the devs would be unable to ever give a direct AD to Zen exchange without a player base behind the purchases. lets say I was as diligent in farming as Silvershard. I have my main and 4 alts so I have 5 million AD after a while of doing absolutely nothing in game I can now buy 10000 Zen. this is at the current rate of 500 AD to 1 Zen. that is $100 directly out of the games potential profit line. now say there are 100 characters just like us that is now $10k. how about 1000 of us, $100k. Also this is only if I do absolutely nothing during the time it takes to convert that money. Chances are though i have already made that much money again and the cycle contues. This clearly shows that this will kill the game.
neither the movie or the pop corn are free. I would think you agree considering your previous comment about "free medical services". You may not have paid for it or worked for it, so it is "free" to you but it is not free.
I consider anything I need to do to advance, but don't want to do, work. I don't want to run dungeons. I need to do it because I need the astral. I sure don't want to make 10,000 trips to sharandar to upgrade the guild hall, but I do it. It is work. It is also possible to have fun working.
The thing is, whether or not something is work is not dependent on how either of us feel about it. Work is work even if I have fun doing it. You are subjectively defining free and work to justify your point. You're mincing words in an attempt to win the argument. In a different situation you would define those same words differently to contradict yourself. i.e. "I worked hard to get to level 70 in 5 days"
I guess this is just different perspective. I am not trying to win anything. As I said, if you consider it is work, it is not free. For me, this is not work. I don't do stuff I don't want to do. e.g. I don't do RQ because I don't want to do RQ. I don't work hard to get to level 70 neither. If I consider this is work, I quit because I am not getting paid.
Again, I am not trying to win anything. For me, this is not work. I am typing here for fun and this is not work neither. It is fair for you to consider this is work because it is your perspective and probably many others. As you said, you are forcing yourself to do something you don't want to do. Yes, this is work.
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. ***
You guys BELIEVE all zen was purchased by a player. You don't know that. I have seen strong evidence that that is NOT the case. I told you about it, you don't believe... whatever. it doesn't even matter who is right. Whether it is always purchased by players or isn't, middlemen still cause balancing problems and my suggested changes would not harm profits for the devs at all.
There is a lot of unspent ZEN around which switches hands for AD sometimes. It still has been payed for at some point.
If you are worried about dev profits. Lets do the math. 29,633,441 is the current amount of requested zen. It will all sell this month. It might sell in 2 weeks. If every bit of that zen reflects $'s spent, it means the 6 man dev team is making 5 million dollars per month each. IF you are right (I am not implying you are) I don't think anyone needs to worry about how much the devs are making. If they were making that much, why wouldn't they hire a few more programmers to fix bugs that have been around forever? Why wouldn't they have some customer support?
At 1100ZEN/$10 those 30M Zen would only be $545000. So check your math first before pulling numbers out of thin air. And do you know how much servers for a game like this cost?
Regarding the topic:
If ZEN could always be bought for AD without players first buying ZEN and then changing them with other players, servers would be offline around tomorrow. ZEN-sales are their only revenue. There is never gonna be a change to that. Players that don't want to or cannot buy ZEN for cash are really lucky that the option of this player/player exchange exists and is being used.
"We basically have 1 currency with 2 names". No that's not the case. We have 2 distinct currencies, one premium and one grindable. Both can be exchanged, both can be used ingame, but one need to be paid for. Hence the very difference between them.
I don't "believe" all zen were purchased, that's actually how the ZAX works. Except for a very little portion of Zen that I already talked about, the (rip) arc missions.
Your maths are non-sense about the profits. The 29M Zen are not the amount being bought this current month. It is the total of requested zen by players. That's entierely different. You could in theory have only 1 Zen circulating, and complete all the requests with 29 million transactions. So don't bring up the $5M each month based on that, it's non-sense.
I actually don't know about the financial situation of Cryptic, nor do I really care. But your solution is just about printing Zen whenever you want, and that, if you still don't understand after 2 pages of explanations, would be killing the game, period.
The OP is quite obviously not capable or willing to understand, that the game needs to make money to continue to exist. Fortunately the Devs understand the importance of getting paid for their efforts. The OP probably would like to pay them with AD earned by "hard work" playing the game. Can we close this thread? Waste of time.
Comments
When you pay AD to get Zen, you're actually getting the Zen someone paid for previously. That money is the one that Cryptic earns for a living, that is their revenue, their only in-game revenue.
Do you understand that skipping the player-to-player exchange and just instantly give Zen for AD is precisely killing their revenue? Why would anyone spend money to buy Zen when you can just get them via AD trade for free? Do you even realize how you contradict yourself here? AD is free, AD is a currency you earn everywhere in game. Zen is not free, Zen is a currency only printed by cash. Your solution does indeed kill their only source of in-game revenue.
Spoiler, you can't play if they can't pay for their servers.
Also, last thing That's not true, its actually a lot faster to hit the daily 100k limit now. The big change was when they actually limited to 100k/account a day.
Edit: quote formatting
Absolutely false. the devs have never manually added Zen to the exchange. Ever since the backlogs started (I want to say mod 4 or 5, but might have been later) it has been a constant exchange of 1-2 days per million of backlog. So if there was a 21 million backlog on the exchange than it would take approximately 3 weeks to receive your Zen. this does go up slightly when the sales happen and I see a 2-4 day window but it usually goes back down. The reason is that during these same sales there is also usually a zen bonus. those who are buying zen get extra zen with their purchases and will usually put it up near the end of the frame if they realize they don't require it. not sure what you are trying to get at here. Yes people play the market. It is a very lucrative play if you are doing it correctly but it requires a lot of work to analyze trends and realize what is going on at any given time. It is almost like a second job which is why it is not a lot more prevalent. As for people buying Zen stuff off the AH. There are 2 reasons for this. They are new players and don't realize that they are overpaying or they want the item immediately instead of waiting to exchange for Zen.
For reason one, yeah it can be considered a predatory thing by the "whales" but that is just them taking advantage of a lack of knowledge which is no different than commerce in real life. For the second reason its just people wanting the "it" item immediately instead of waiting those 2-3 weeks to be able to buy directly themselves. for those who don't want to wait this is completely viable to them and they are thankful to those who have put the item up. Who wanted you do what? The Devs don't really want you using the exchange. They would much rather have you buy the Zen directly from them but the players campaigned for the ability to sell Zen. As for Dungeons getting harder, yes new dungeons are harder but old dungeons have not changed. There may have changes to different classes but CN for example has not really had any changes in a long time. It is the same dungeon it has always been. Let me give you a hint. Anyone who is playing the market a lot does not have a AH Fee. I guarantee you that they have VIP which at a certain level (I don't remember what) removes the posting fee. That is why you will see the random huge overlist on a rare item as they hope some one will buy it. It doesn't cost them anything to list it. Salvage needed to be removed. I made hundreds of thousands of AD just from salvage and using my small 4 man alt army. Any salvage gained on my main (the only character I played) would be moved over to the invoke army and be salvaged for AD. All of that AD was then funneled into the ZAX to continually buy me Zen to keep up my VIP purchases and anything else I might want. As for selling the salvage, anyone who was selling salvage was a moron. Sorry for calling people that but anyone who did was giving away money for free. If you saw an item on the market that was selling for 2k and you could immediately turn it into 3k why would you not buy it. Again you are complaining about people using common sense to make a profit.
The current market system is not bad or killing the game. The system you are proposing and giving out free zen to everyone will kill the system. Lets look at it objectively and say they would do this. what happens
1. everyone immediately converts AD to ZEN
2. everyone buys all the needed mounts and other items to become as close to BIS as possible (Games loses Millions of dollars in previously obtainable profit instantly)
3. everyone continues to buy these things to put on AH to try and sell
4. market crashes to a point where these things make no profit or are sold for a loss
5. now since everyone has "everything" they need from the zen market no one has any reason to ever exchange AD to Zen again
6. devs make no external money since everything is available free in game.
7. game closes or moves to subscription model as they cant make money in its available state.
I realize that my examples are a over simplification but it is where the game will head.
Zen is not free. You can get it free because somebody else bought it. You get it free (through Zax) does not mean it is free in the economy. e.g. Depends on where you are, you may be able to get free medical. It does not mean medical is free in the big picture. Somebody paid for it. That is why sometime, people need to queue up and wait for medical service (say, in Canada). Sound familiar?
Cryptic did give our free Zen outside of the game before in a small scale but they got rid it. I assume that hurt their bottom line.
So... if I could sell 200'0000 rAD in useless salvage for 150'000 (actual... LIVE) AD, and it cost me a grand total of 15k in AH Tax?
Hell YEAH I was going to do it.
Win/Win.
If salvage still existed I'd be doing it right now.
"If AD is free and you can buy zen with AD, zen is also free". Do you even realize how non-sens is that sentence? Do you?
No Zen isn't free. You can get if for free ONLY BECAUSE someone else paid for it at some point.
"AD is not free". Indeed it is, do you have to pay money to get AD? No, you just have to play the game, or play the AH. It's free, not locked behind a paywall.
I can't even... You're literally ignoring the very core of the ZAX, which is keeping the game free-to-play by putting a way to exchange PREMIUM currency for GRINDING currency, between players that did PAY for that premium currency.
By printing Zen when you want at a fixed rate (say 500 AD<>1 Z), people would never buy any Zen, because you could get them for free! And people not buying Zen => Death of the game.
Explain me again what you don't understand about that.
If I consider that as work, it is not free.
If I consider that as something that drop to me while I am entertaining, it is free to me.
i.e. I am watching a free movie and someone gives me pop corn because I am watching it. I consider the pop corn is free. If I consider watching a free movie is work, the pop corn and the movie are not free.
AD is not free. AD costs time in the game to acquire. Or zen to buy it from other players.
@vigor#8801 see this is exactly the reason that the devs would be unable to ever give a direct AD to Zen exchange without a player base behind the purchases. lets say I was as diligent in farming as Silvershard. I have my main and 4 alts so I have 5 million AD after a while of doing absolutely nothing in game I can now buy 10000 Zen. this is at the current rate of 500 AD to 1 Zen. that is $100 directly out of the games potential profit line. now say there are 100 characters just like us that is now $10k. how about 1000 of us, $100k. Also this is only if I do absolutely nothing during the time it takes to convert that money. Chances are though i have already made that much money again and the cycle contues. This clearly shows that this will kill the game.
As I said, if you consider it is work, it is not free.
For me, this is not work. I don't do stuff I don't want to do. e.g. I don't do RQ because I don't want to do RQ.
I don't work hard to get to level 70 neither. If I consider this is work, I quit because I am not getting paid.
Again, I am not trying to win anything. For me, this is not work. I am typing here for fun and this is not work neither.
It is fair for you to consider this is work because it is your perspective and probably many others. As you said, you are forcing yourself to do something you don't want to do. Yes, this is work.
Regarding the topic:
If ZEN could always be bought for AD without players first buying ZEN and then changing them with other players, servers would be offline around tomorrow. ZEN-sales are their only revenue. There is never gonna be a change to that. Players that don't want to or cannot buy ZEN for cash are really lucky that the option of this player/player exchange exists and is being used.
"We basically have 1 currency with 2 names". No that's not the case. We have 2 distinct currencies, one premium and one grindable. Both can be exchanged, both can be used ingame, but one need to be paid for. Hence the very difference between them.
I don't "believe" all zen were purchased, that's actually how the ZAX works. Except for a very little portion of Zen that I already talked about, the (rip) arc missions.
Your maths are non-sense about the profits. The 29M Zen are not the amount being bought this current month. It is the total of requested zen by players. That's entierely different. You could in theory have only 1 Zen circulating, and complete all the requests with 29 million transactions. So don't bring up the $5M each month based on that, it's non-sense.
I actually don't know about the financial situation of Cryptic, nor do I really care. But your solution is just about printing Zen whenever you want, and that, if you still don't understand after 2 pages of explanations, would be killing the game, period.
Fortunately the Devs understand the importance of getting paid for their efforts. The OP probably would like to pay them with AD earned by "hard work" playing the game.
Can we close this thread? Waste of time.