Well, today (28/3/19), the Zen Market exchanger is 36 million and raising very fast.
My opinion about that, is that every new incoming module, people become insecure about what to come, what to change, and after that, what to do to keep your toon strong and playable.
So, the best way to prepare yourself for the incoming changes, is to stock as many resources you can (AD, refinement points and Zen). And actually, almost all players think the same thing: Buy Zen with Astral Diamonds. Along these last 2 years, this situation never changed.
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A good solution to incentive players to sell more Zen and slowly revert this situation, is to
remove from Zen Store all useful and most used items by the players, and put all of then in Wondrous Bazaar in a new separate tab, (without the VIP 8~12 benefits).
Classic examples (no more or no less Astral Diamonds. It is the true value):
Coalescent Ward = 500k
3x Coalescent Wards pack = 1,35m (suggested new item)
10x Preservation Wards = 50k
90x Preservation Wards = 420k (suggested new item)
Runic Bag = 800k
Companion Upgrade Mini-Pack = 250k (Increase the Tokens to 25, up from 15)
Companion Helper Pack = 700k (Increase the Tokens to 60, up from 45, and change the Bonding Runestone Rank 7 to a Rank 10)
Epic Insignia Pack = 250k
Based on
this topic, create a new box that give you a random transmutable item (armors, cloaks and weapons) called
Legacy Treasures Box = 100k (suggested price)
All companions, services, VIP, mounts, packs, enchanted keys, and SH stuff remain in Zen Store normally.Suggestion about VIP: Add a rank 13 VIP, avaliable only if you brought the 6-months VIP item. Only in the first 2 months after you buy the 6-month VIP, you get one extra enchanted keys per day, and 3 extra Reroll Reward token.
Suggestion about the Auction House: Put again to sell more legendary companions pack like Alphonse Knox, but also add more unique legendary companions with a fixed price (with BoA status, to prevent resseling).
If the idea is to get players to sell more Zen, you will need very strong incentives for it using all the features that the game offers.
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That's all. No more ideas ^^ Thank you for reading this.
Comments
His solution would reduce the amount of player held AD.
The effect it will have by reducing the over all pool of ad in the game means the value of zen will go back up. When zen is worth less than 500 Ad per 1 zen the exchange will start trading again and players will have an incentive to purchase Zen to trade for AD.
Currently players go around the zen exchange. Instead they buy Zen packs and sell those items to players on the AH to make their ad because zen is worth more than 500 ad per 1 zen.
Basically his premise is to shrink the over all pool of ad in the game by introducing a higher demanded sink. Cryptic has attempted to do this but they underestimate players desire. One of the major ways they attempted to do this was through the new mod 15 crafting system. It has failed. Players realize if they spend 5 million AD on the final upgrade to their work shop they got basically no value out of that 5 million ad. The workshop isnt worth spending AD on, your return on AD is practically nothing.
They have attempted for years to use companion upgrading as a major ad sink but it too has failed. Its just SO expensive that players either never upgrade their companions, or they go another easier less expensive route. Ill try to explain what I mean.
Its over a million AD to upgrade 1 companion to legendary. However; if you were to spend that same amount of AD on companion boxes, you can get upgrade tokens and other goodies which will net you, not just one upgrade but multiple companion upgrades. A player has more incentive to circumvent the AD sink and essentially make other players wealthy instead. No ad was destroyed in the making of this transaction. One player traded a way their ad to another player who held the companion box. So that ad is still in the game circulating around.
Essentially every time Cryptic has tried to introduce an AD sink into the game they have failed because they either over do it like the workshop upgrade or they underestimate the players who will find an alternative solution that gets them the same result at a cheaper ad cost.
Why should Cryptic be so concerned about the AD/Zen exchange that they decide it's more important than the business making money until they drain the vast AD reserves from so many players?
For my bottom line (as I am Cryptic), I just want people to spend money to buy Zen. I don't really want people to use AD to buy Zen although I allow it.
So, they bought some for personal use and let some to sell.
What is player's incentive to buy Zen?
They want something that is only in Zen store which is not available in the game. For example, VIP, lockbox key, bank slot, ...
There is something that is cheaper to buy from Zen store than from AH such as p-ward, c-ward.
Does anyone really go to Zen store to buy RP packs? I hope not because AH is cheaper than Zen store.
People looks for a better deal.
How should player get Zen?
There are two ways, (1) pay with money and (2) exchange with AD (Zax)
How do wallet warrior buy their AD using money "officially"? Use Zax.
Can the whole economy continue if they get rid of Zax?
Yes, they can but this game will hardly be free to play.
Now, how can the wallet warrior get their AD "officially" if the Zax is gone?
Buy AD from Zen store such as AD pack.
Unofficially, they will need to find an item that can allow them to sell with a higher AD/Zen ratio.
What I am trying to point out is: Cryptic does not have to keep the Zax. Hence, for them, there is no good incentive to improve Zax waiting time. At least, not a priority.
Selling AD packs basically don't prevent players from getting millions of easy AD. The exchange at least requires getting the AD that is already in the game. If they sell AD packs they are essentially introducing more AD into the economy that isn't already there. With the exchange its moving AD from one player and to another player. So selling those AD packs would cause massive inflation, because there would be several cash cow players who will dump lots of money to get millions of AD. This would further divide the line between new players and veteran players. The exchange is a better system than selling AD packs because it prevents inflation. All its doing is trading who owns the AD. So selling AD packs would be a terrible idea. I think Cryptic is well aware that selling AD packs would be terrible and probably why they don't.
Even when they allow players to sell Zen pack items on the AH there is no AD being created out of nothing. Its just trading an item for ad that already exists.
The thing cryptic has failed to do is make reasonable AD sinks that are worth destroying AD for. Most players either find their current sinks too expensive or there is a way around those sinks that don't cost as much.
So .. want to decrease the amount of AD in the game? Let the sinks already in the game do their job and remove marks of potency from loot tables and from lockboxes. It won't fix the ZAX immediately, but it will go a long way towards getting rid of some of the absurd amounts of AD in the system.
Winter Lily (CW) / Winter Rose (DC) / Winter Ivy (HR)
Pandora's Misfits Guild Leader
Currently, the most common player base (including myself) who want to enjoy the game, and need to exchange AD for ZEN just to buy a 1-month VIP, they'll find a huge ZAX stratospheric wall to climb. And in the end, in my case, I end up buying VIP using my mythic Mastercard artifact, because the ZEN comes almost 2 months later.
Addind these items, will incentive players to keep online much more time to farm their AD, and save resources for the next modules and contents , and the ZAX wall will shatter little by little.
No need to add more than this stuff, and this will not break the game's economy because the Zen Store will remain intact. Who wants to buy C-Ward and P-wards for example using ZEN, will continue to buy there normally as it has always been. But we need a second option to buy these stuffs for AD ! Adding some BoA exclusive stuffs in AH helps too.
Think about that: It's us, the players, that keep this game online! If something isn't right, what we, players, do ? We'll give the feedback or post something about in Bug Reports forums, so that action is taken on top of that. Although it doesn't seem for some people, things won't work like "I would do it and not that, just because it's better for us". Please NO !! Things don't work that way, and should never work like that ! A QoL economy change is needed, and it's up to us, the players, to push the staff to make it happen ASAP.
If you make an NPC that sells these as an AD sink and remove the ability for players to sell on the AH. Then players will simply stop buying zen. You think fixing the exchange will help keep players buying zen? No, the exchange cap is not set HIGH enough for players to net the return on AD that they KNOW zen is worth.
So if you allow players to continue buying zen items and selling on the AH then your solution solves nothing because players will sell these items on the AH for less than the NPC is selling them for. Just look at the enchanting stones. There is an NPC that sells enchanting stones yet the AH sells them for less AD so no player buys them off the NPC.
If you remove the ability for players to trade zen pack items on the AH and force players to go through an NPC only for p-wards, c-wards, ect as you proposed then you leave the exchange as the only trading source. NO player will do it because Zen is worth more than 500 ad currently. So you never get past the players who first incentive is to get Zen to make AD. But you have removed this incentive through your solution.
Also you have to consider the impact that NPC only items that hinder progress. Currently you can get pres wards through other means, invoking, and experience reward, and occasionally a dungeon reward. Also there are several events that give pres wards as a reward. If you remove these then players see that the only way to progress is to dump their AD onto an NPC that has no fluctuating prices. This burns players out and they quit. What is the point in running some events that use to have pres wards as rewards and now that has been removed because they want their NPC ad sink to work. No one will run those events.
The AH keeps this aspect alive because players can trade pres wards they don't need for AD so they can get the items they DO need. Essentially your solution would remove this from happening. It also means less rewards all around. You are reducing the loot tables to what? Nothing of value.
For anyone who tries to put their AD to buy ZEN in ZAX today, the waiting time will take at least 4 months.
If this continues, as we approach the end of this year, the waiting time to buy ZEN will go from 100kk easily, to the point that it becomes completely unfeasible if nothing is done about this!
When that finally happens, no one will ever want to buy ZEN using ZAX. Would you use ZAX to buy ZEN, even though you will have to wait 8 months or more? Me, never ! Then the game will become more and more like a p2w game, because in the end, you will be forced to buy your VIP, or that Coalescent Ward that you need so much, using real money at all times.
The reason the ZAX exchange is totally backed up at the moment is a simple one .... nobody is spending money to buy zen. And why should they? You are better off waiting until Mod 16 drops and then spending your zen on the new stuff ...
Winter Lily (CW) / Winter Rose (DC) / Winter Ivy (HR)
Pandora's Misfits Guild Leader
Then rework/update the Wondrous Bazaar with stuff that is reasonable priced and usefull to most players, so that a good portion of the AD created by players is drained out of the game again.
Last but not least, when some game changing updates (mod 16) have to be done to the game... at the very least acknowledge the investment (time/money) made by players to your game, and give them something/anything to balance their losses in return.
Do you think that cook is going to be happy knowing that now the dishwasher makes as much as them? No, they will want a wage increase too and not just a little one, like $16 or $17. So the entire company has to increase everyone's wages, which causes a massive increase in labor costs. So a restaurant like this would either raise their prices on their food, or get rid of how many employees they have. So it causes job losses, and also employers become increasingly more strict on who they hire. The only other option they have if they don't want to raise their prices on food or fire any of their employees is to use lower quality goods, instead of using real beef they use some byproduct HAMSTER that is cheaper to cut their costs.
NO ONE WINS except the government when they raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour.
Here is another way to look at this issue. Lets say you have a little market and every day every customer that walks in the door buys the exact same item, maybe other items too but lets just call this item a cookie. Every customer that walks in the door buys one. You can't even keep the stock up because they sell out faster than you can resupply. Knowing good business sense this tells you the cookie is being sold for too little. You want this to slow down so it keeps up with your re-supply. So you raise the price on the cookie until not every customer who walks through the door buys one. Until your stock meets your re-supply.
Now the opposite can happen, if you set the cookie price too high and no one buys them then your stock sits there and collects dust and mold. Now I know you might have reading comprehension issues here so I'll tell you I am well aware that zen can't or doesn't collect dust, its digital. The point is the reason the ZAX is not trading is because Zen is worth more than 500 ad per 1 zen. I bet they would have to raise the ZAX cap to 2000 before they would see it positively trading because I theorize by looking at other average prices on the AH that Zen is probably worth around 1200 to 1500 AD per 1 zen.
Who's dropping zen into the exchange?
Is it all coming from players who don't know any better, are simply too impatient, or maybe have money to burn?