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On the topic of fixing the ADx backlog
mphoenix
Member Posts: 21 Arc User
The following methods if implemented together in the same patch should alleviate the ADx backlog completely.
1. Raise the ZEN price to 1000. This will immediately dissolve the current backlog. It took over a year for the backlog to return to ~5weeks since the last price raise, so this is a temporary but immediately effective method.
2. Add additional high-value AD sinks; examples:
a. Remove all stones of health from Zen store and tradebar store. Make the lesser and greater stones of health purchasable in the Wondrous Bazaar (example, 75,000/250,000AD each) as a very consistent AD sink.
b. Leave Astral Lockboxes in the WB forever. Keep them as they are, still markedly inferior to all other lockboxes that require keys.
3. Give incentives for selling Zen on the ADx (For example, every 5000 Zen you sell, you earn an account-bound coal ward).
All of these, if implemented simultaneously, will 1. dissolve the current ADx Backlog, 2. prevent another backlog from forming, and as a result 3. Keep the AD/Zen economy fairly liquid, while not de-incentivizing Zen purchasing for cash (as it does not reduce the practical value of Zen or AD in any way).
Feel free to discuss or add suggestions, etc.
1. Raise the ZEN price to 1000. This will immediately dissolve the current backlog. It took over a year for the backlog to return to ~5weeks since the last price raise, so this is a temporary but immediately effective method.
2. Add additional high-value AD sinks; examples:
a. Remove all stones of health from Zen store and tradebar store. Make the lesser and greater stones of health purchasable in the Wondrous Bazaar (example, 75,000/250,000AD each) as a very consistent AD sink.
b. Leave Astral Lockboxes in the WB forever. Keep them as they are, still markedly inferior to all other lockboxes that require keys.
3. Give incentives for selling Zen on the ADx (For example, every 5000 Zen you sell, you earn an account-bound coal ward).
All of these, if implemented simultaneously, will 1. dissolve the current ADx Backlog, 2. prevent another backlog from forming, and as a result 3. Keep the AD/Zen economy fairly liquid, while not de-incentivizing Zen purchasing for cash (as it does not reduce the practical value of Zen or AD in any way).
Feel free to discuss or add suggestions, etc.
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Possibly also:
4. Add a new tab to the WB which allows players to purchase certain specific account bound Free Appearance Change items or other dyes or fashion items, or other "coolness factor" items.
It took over a year to return to 5+ weeks wait time. The backlog is NOW about equal to what it was then, not worse, in terms of the number of days you need to wait.
The idea of the solution as I've proposed it is for it to be instant as well as long lasting.
That said, just implementing 2, 3, 4, etc and leaving the limit where it is would also work, it would just take longer for the players to see the impact.
"price controls may be enacted with the best of intentions, but in actual practice, they often don't work. Most attempts to control prices often struggle to overcome the economic forces of supply and demand for any significant length of time. "
https://investopedia.com/terms/p/price-controls.asp
#2, this simply is an issue of managing the economy. Some items need to be moved between the RL$ and the AD exchange to influence demand placed on each currency. Once upon a time people bought ZEN to convert to AD to buy armor and enchants. Currently there is very little reason to convert your ZEN to AD, especially if you can flip and sale some limited available items from the RL$ market and resale on the AD market (Auction House) at a profit over a straight up ZAX exchange. The trick is to manage the demand on each market, currently there is far to much demand for the RL$ and to little for the AD markets, while the production of ZEN is far more restricted than the production of AD.
#3, unnecessary. Sales are unnecessary if #1 and #2 are resolved. By introducing sales/programs then you also place interest on holding out for incentives (similar to what is seen with ZEN sales now). Also what prevents a person from flipping AD to ZEN via the ZAX, then flipping it back for the coal incentive, then flipping it back because the value of ZEN exceeds AD. Repeat Repeat Repeat to turn a profit. It's a system that benefits the uber-elite who already have enough AD/ZEN. More valuable would be going back to #2 and moving valuable consumables between the markets as needed to balance demand.
What needs to happen is
remove the ZAX ceiling so markets dictate how valuable ZEN/AD is, also this allows for real time analysis on the imbalances in currency values
move items between markets to increase demand for their respective currencies and to undercut those who profit from exchanging demand items gated behind the ZAX on the AH
Limit or eliminate sales that encourage hoarding of one currency over another. Currently there is no penalty for hoarding ZEN in preparation for sales and new items. If you need to convert ZEN to AD its easily done via the ZAX or resaling ZEN items for AD. So everyone is encouraged to convert all their excess AD into ZEN
Consider implementing an exchange fee for the ZAX as an AD sync and to discourage making ZEN the default currency
I agree that fixing ZAX is important as it can be off-putting for newer players to learn they need to wait 5 weeks to access the ZEN market. My concern is if cryptic has the resources to manage the economies which is an activity they have ignored for the history of the game.
Raising the limit to 1000 and leaving it there while implementing the other changes which increase the effective value of AD (incentivizing people to keep and spend AD rather than change to Zen, or indeed, sell Zen to AD) accomplishes everything while preventing what would probably be a disastrous price-spike if the price limit was removed completely.
Half-measures can sometimes be safer than full measures.
Group 1: no cap
Group 2: don't mind waiting
Group 3: improve AD sink
Group 4: raise cap
Group 5: ....
Every group has the same "representative" in all these cycles.
That, done well enough, will actually solve the problem in its entirety, and will also be exclusively good. This basically can't HAMSTER anyone off.
Suggestion #1 remove the exchange and problem solved.
Suggestion #2 make the Auction House gold based and not AD based.
Suggestion #3 create items that players can only buy with AD and Zen buyers want to have right away.
Like I said, you would not like my idea.
Also just to note, they are giving each player 100k REFINED ad with the new mini-campaign, so prepare for a (even) higher Zen demand.
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- Fixing the symptoms is useless if you do nothing about the underlying cause,
- Discussing any "fix" which potentially would reduce Zen sales is a waste of time.
The basic issue is that there is enough Zen being bought - but it is just more profitable to use the Zen to buy items and resell them on the AH than it is to convert the Zen to AD directly.If you do not want to make everything in the Zen store BtA, then you have to come up with a better way to solve the fundamental problem.
In this time, we have seen next to no AD sinks, mostly high profile events like Alphonse Knox or the Magnificent Lockbox which had little to no effect.
When the ZAX was raised at mod 16 launch, the backlog relocated to 750 in a few hours. I was at work at the time the server came back up. A few hours later when I got home, it was already ballooning out of control.
The way out of this mess would have to be some measure of reining in the RAD rewards as well as adding actual, sustained sinks that will be used by the majority of players, not just Whales or the those already rich. Reducing the daily RAD sources would be painful but it is necessary. The economy needs to move back to one based around trading, rather than currency generation. There was a time in the past when new players were advised to farm things and sell them for AD. We need to get back to that point if the economy is ever to be functional again. Less RAD, more unbound, sellable drops so the AH fee can actually do its job.
The LAST time the exchange traded daily below the cap was mod 12, zen was freely trading. The reason this is no longer the case is because there is more AD in the game which has devalued it. Players know if they trade their zen for AD they aren't getting their ADs worth for their zen at 750 ad per 1 zen. I have calculated it to be around 1200 to 1500 AD is where it should be. But most players object to raising the cap because they don't understand economics.
It is possible they could solve this problem by providing more meaningful AD sinks into the game, but the AD lockbox is NOT a solution. It's just a method to make new players poor and disappointed. Currently the other AD sinks are too expensive and avoided for other solutions. Adding Stones of Health for AD might work since they are an extremly high valued item but if you ask me they should completely remove them from the game. They break the game.
EDIT: ZEN to AD conversion would be instant while a backlog remained, but I could see the cost of ZEN soon becoming ridiculous as people that make a lot of AD outbid everyone else in the game. In summary: My idea sucks.
Can be easily replaced with its opposite: "Few players propose to raising the cap because they don't understand economics."
Your statement and my replacement are opinions.
Opinions are subjective and therefore can be replaced with the contrary.
Arguments are based on facts and not replaceable with the contrary.
Argue your case with arguments based on facts, then people might actually take your "solutions" seriously.
Gentle reminder:
- Insults are not arguments (such as "they don't understand economics" )
- Self-promotions are not arguments (such as "I have watched it for many years and have been playing the game since it launched"
- baseless claims are not arguments (such as "I have calculated it to be around 1200 to 1500 AD")
Sadly, your first two paragraphs do not contain any argument at all.
The last paragraph is an improvement.
Still I think you can do better...
However, irrespective of your arguments, @adinosii 's law will always apply: @adinosii 's law will always remain a highly relevant consideration, because Cryptic needs to make money.
Raising the cap has the potential to reduce Zen sales. You might want to argue against this.
If you can show Cryptic - via a sensible argument -that raising the cap will increase their revenue, you will have increased your chances to have the cap raise you are wishing for actually implemented.
Are you up to the task?
Otherwise, I suggest you stop wasting our and your time.
So no they aren't baseless claims.. I just didnt feel like repeating something I have mentioned so many times now.
Less people are likley to buy zen if you can get it in a few days from trading ad.
From a players point, There isnt really anything you can get on the zen market that you can not get from another source in the game. People just want the backlog to be shorter so they can abuse the zen exchange for their own personal profit.
Thats an argument, sure, people want something in the zen store (usually something limited in time), they dont have zen, so they buy zen. OK. But that is also a frustrating strategy over time.
But the opposite is true also, if you have a healthy ZAX and people want to buy items with AD, for example items that cant be obtained with zen (there are lots) and you dont have AD, you buy zen and exchange it in the ZAX to get AD and buy the item.
Only cryptic has the metrics and we are only speculating.
My opinion is that they arent doing more money now that when the game had a healthy ZAX and was much more atractive to new players. The more players the better, even if some of them dont pay money, they teach and help others, make guilds, guides, etc. And makes paying players stay for long time.
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+ no more in game extras from ZEN Charge Promotions, which probably was at least some incentive for players to buy more ZEN then they would have otherwise
+ the game itself having more then enough bugs and issues, some of them are around for a very looong time now
+ the way they're dealing with some game exploits leaves me wondering what the fudge is going on in this company
+ no real Customer Support (i bought the latest legendary bag from the ZEN shop, bag ended up being bound to account due to some fudged up patch, months of waiting for the Devs to get their HAMSTER together and fix this mess, but they "can't" fix it, and support "won't" help here either.)
+ selling account wide legendary mounts and highend enchantments through the ZEN shop, don't get me wrong, i'm not against this, just saying that this also drove the ZAX backlog higher
+ time limited events, that try to push more and more players towards the "buyout options" provided through the ZEN shop
and so on.
So, with more and more players either spending less or no money at all for ZEN, and some players even starting to spend their time and money on other games, where will enough ZEN come from for the ZAX in the future?
I shall not repeat the reasoning, since there are articles, videos and what not on the topic, all of them explain it better than me.
Though one caveat, with now BiS (or close enough) items provided in the ZEN store (directly or via unlock), perhaps it is in the company interest to make ZEN unattainable for AD. One doesn't need to create AD sinks or worry about refine caps if those 100k AD do not worth anything.
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Waiting and planning is one thing. So expensive that it's not worth to bother, is another.
I really tried to stay away this time.
now they're roughly 700k since the exchange rate is 750.
if you think the price will go down when the exchange goes to 1000 you need to rethink your logic.
the ONLY fix for the ZAX is to give you something of value for AD and only AD.
right now, everything of value is in ZEN, so there is no reason for me to convert my 10000 zen to AD. there is nothing i can't buy with the Zen.
if they strip things like refinement, RP and healing stones from the Zen market and put them in the Bazaar, that would help.
it's now 7 weeks for one of my sales on the ZAX. and honestly if it doesn't improve people who use the ZAX for VIP are probably going to stop playing. most of my guildies have already warned me that they will leave if / when they can't get VIP any longer.
As was already mentioned, ZAX is defining the worth of AD. Raising cap does not make economy healthy, it just erases part of the AD value. Anyone, who is sitting on some AD savings, will lose portion of his wealth. Guess what - those, who sit on AD, are not part of the ZAX problem. You are suggesting to punish innocent.
Cap raise will not stop anyone from flipping AD to Zen in order to make profit. It just changes the coefficient, but all those people buying on discounts will not stop. The core of their business will not change, just the coefficient. In fact, they - the people driving the backlog up - will be the only ones making the immediate profit if ZAX got raised again.
Suggestions about raising of the cap smell like purely personal interest.
To those proposing more AD sinks: wake up. There are some AD sinks, for example Auction house... however, devs are actively removing trade-able stuff from the game. There is Bazaar... however, with double dipping discount it was turned from AD sink to a tool to exploit new guys. By devs.
...stop suggesting "fixing" the economy. Those suggestions go against the dev plan or are just plainly ridiculous.
I dont think there IS a simple answer, well, its beyond my capabilities.