HOW TO FIX 60mil+ AD back log

elderislt · January 2021

hail hydra, so yea all wat cryptic need to do, just put cap on ad and zen per character lets say 30 mil max AD percharacter and 15k zen and give 3 month for ppl to spent AD becose i know ppl whu have 100+ mil AD, on this way RICH ppl start take AD from zen converter becose probably they have max 15k zen or more, so zax go down, if rich ppl wana save AD becose after 2 month lets say if you have more then 30 mil aD in bank or in inventory you lost rest ad, so to avoid wat rich ppl supose to buy staf from AH and sell them later, on last poit wat we have ? les gready ppl, max 10mil or less zax, and beter economy in game, its just my opinion, i know ppl say nooo its not fair bla bla bla

ty for read

plasticbat · January 2021

Why does people keep on thinking Cryptic want to "fix" the backlog at all? They don't.

regenerde · January 2021

Well, they might be interested in a solution for this problem that provides them with profit along the way... otherwise, they don't care. So, as many times mentioned before, they could start with improved ZEN Charge Promotions that offer account wide goodies again, so that people might start dumping some leftover ZEN into the ZAX again.
Then rotate epic account wide companions or mounts through the Wondrous Bazaar, and adjust the Astral Lockboxes content to the content of the current lockbox, that should take more then enough AD out of the game and reduce some of the ZAX backlog too.

Btw. any account restriction won't work, you'll only end up with people distributing their wealth across several accounts, one main account and then several alt. accounts, that are then being used for buying ZEN shop items that can be traded between accounts.

Anyway, this topic comes up over and over again, with more then enough player feedback and suggestions every time, but i think i haven't even seen even one official reply on the matter at any point... i guess that says it all.

greywynd · January 2021

To say that it need fixing implies that it is broken. What is broken is that people want zen items without spending money on them.

rosh · January 2021

Baby Zharial ( original post) saying is limit zen requests on ZAX by limit that way backlog is managed properly and every player is able to get Zen

Personally I think just remove the AD limit if a player wants to sell 1 million AD for 1 Zen they know what they are posting let the market stabilize and find the real value of AD

greywynd · January 2021

It is managed properly. Get in line. First come, first served.

benyr · January 2021

I've said it before and i'll say it again, ZAX isn't broken the last thing devs want is people getting Zen too quickly as that completely kills the temptation to resort to spending real money.

What you are currently seeing is absolute concrete evidence of this. Following the recent changes many players who historically spent real money have either left the game or stopped spending, so less Zen goes into the exchange.

Simultaneously they make Bonding stones obsolete and swappable for refined AD. Long time players had lots of bonding stones, I had several hundred million AD worth of bonding stones, meaning I'm going to to have over 18m AD in the ZAX at all times for probably the next few years before i've exchanged it all, as will many other players.

Anyone who's spent more than a few weeks in the game could have seen these changes would both reduced the ZEN going into the ZAX and increase the AD going in. No doubt exactly as planned to force people to spend real money for their VIP etc.

thany · January 2021

There is no fix. Everything is broken right now. More people will leave, less will stay. Nothing new here. I don't intend to leave, so i don't care anymore. Perhaps (I hope) in 6 months from now it'll be less broken.

mentinmindmaker · January 2021

There is good evidence Cryptic does not care.

There has been calls for better AD sinks for a long time to pull ZAX queue down.. and Cryptic goes and does the opposite by injecting refined AD into game from various sources.

hadestemplar · January 2021

Cryptic staff read tons of comments of "clever" players who giving advices how "fix" problems.
But in reality is just players pushing their own agendas.

I would say, leave cryptic to handle this problem on their own..

xenocide · January 2021

The reason the backlog is so big is because of the massive amount of astral diamonds in the economy.

Unfortunately Alot of those astral diamonds have come into the game either through exploits or bugs... sooooo, maybe we can start by having them putting out a better product, with less bugs and exploits

sandukutupu · January 2021

greywynd said:
To say that it need fixing implies that it is broken. What is broken is that people want zen items without spending money on them.

Yes, I agree. If you want Zen now, buy it for $10 and don't be a barnacle like me. If you don't mind the wait in line, trade AD with other players at 750 AD per Zen.

I have talked about this before, count your blessings, I am not large and in charge of this game. I would "fix" it by removal of the Zax returning the AD to your accounts, telling you to pay or play. If I were the Queen, I would also make the game worth paying for, just for starter, in the first place. Telling players the Zax is broken, is like telling the News service that International trade system is broken, and you are the person with the plan to "fix it".

I really don't know how many times this kind of thread will be revisited. But one can look at the numerous times someone "has THE plan" and it boils down to everyone wants the apples and nobody wants the oranges. The people are lined up with oranges to trade for apples. Apples can only be obtained with real cash from your wallet, while anyone can pick oranges for free. Tell me why would someone pay for apples and trade them for your oranges?

Have a nice day!

regenerde · January 2021

Well, that's the question... why would anyone want to trade old oranges vs. dried up apples? I mean sure, you can still make something out of either one of them, but the "food experience" won't be that pleasant either way...

So, tell my, why should i spend more money here, when they can't advertise what they're trying to sell without mistakes, removed the extras from ZEN Charge Promotions, don't respect my investment of money and time, and can't provide a functional customer support?

Imagine for a moment, a customer comes to you, explaining in detail that a product you have sold isn't working anymore like it should because of a mistake you made, and you answer the customer "Can't help you, get lost." - sure, that won't fly with regular products and would result in legal repercussions, but it works with digital HAMSTER - and that's something that needs to change.

Last but not least, when at some point the apple farm closes down because there's no one left to actually pick enough apples, there won't be anyone left trying to get your oranges too - in other words, a working ZAX should be in the interest of everyone wanting the game to keep going. And it's not like they would have to come up with some magic tools for that, the tools are already in game and only need some improvements.

A game needs players - but players don't need a specific game.

greywynd · January 2021

xenocide#6577 said:
The reason the backlog is so big is because of the massive amount of astral diamonds in the economy.

Unfortunately Alot of those astral diamonds have come into the game either through exploits or bugs... sooooo, maybe we can start by having them putting out a better product, with less bugs and exploits

I'd say a lot of those astral diamonds came into the game from the selling of bondings. No exploit or bug needed. People need to stop crying about old problems that were resolved.

benyr · January 2021

People just need to accept that its not just the gaming experience they have ripped up and started from scratch, its also their entire business model.

This game always ran on the premise that the game needed people to pay in order to exist, but in order provided a substantial enough player base to keep paying players in the game there was a F2P option to provide the critical mass of players.

This balance no longer exists, Sandukutupu is right, no one wants AD anymore. Why would they, companion drops from dungeons are BTA now, so the best way to get companions you need is through the Zen store, where its an account bound purchase so you get as many copies as you need, same for mounts. Speaking of mounts Legendary mounts used to sell for £12+m because they were rare and useful, now you can get legendary or mythic for a few Million, and they drop so easily you're better off buying keys with Zen - each of the lockboxes released since the mount changes has near enough guaranteed a profit if you open 50+ of them.

Basically if you have Zen why on earth would you want to exchange for AD? aside from some items in the wonderous bizarre if you have the max VIP discount, Zen is the better option every time. Even if you did want AD, pushing it through the ZAX is the worst option. You're better off buying high demand items from the Zen store with discounts, then selling them on the AH for your AD, you will get a lot more AD for your Zen that way.

This is deliberate, not enough pay to play players exist, they've either left the game, already have all the gear and AD they will ever need or they feel cheated and wont spend any more money. Look at the steam player charts for example, the daily log ins are on a constant downward trajectory. The business model now is to attract players with the promise of F2P, but then do everything in their power to convert those players to pay to play, and the best way to do this is to devalue AD to point that the choice people now have is to accept they will never be able to get everything they want, or get their wallets out.

mentinmindmaker · January 2021

greywynd said:

xenocide#6577 said:
The reason the backlog is so big is because of the massive amount of astral diamonds in the economy.

Unfortunately Alot of those astral diamonds have come into the game either through exploits or bugs... sooooo, maybe we can start by having them putting out a better product, with less bugs and exploits
I'd say a lot of those astral diamonds came into the game from the selling of bondings. No exploit or bug needed. People need to stop crying about old problems that were resolved.

Yeah, we need to realize that the maybe biggest AD drain in game is people leaving game.

It is a long time since we had any major bug/exploit that gave refined AD. So I would say most AD that came into the game through that is long gone. I agree it is time to stop whipping that dead dog

The main reason for the huge ZAX backlog today is there is too much refined AD entering game versus how much is leaving it. That Cryptic injected mass refined AD into game from Bondings only served to make a bad situation worse. The 46 billion(!) AD that are locked up in the ZAX queue are there because the owners got nothing more useful to use them for.

Recent refined AD sources that popped into game were 5k refined AD drops from premium loot tables and the 10k weekly sales from Citadel. Cryptic keep making the situation worse, which is a good indicator they do not care.

There are a few things you MUST have Zen for, like VIP and character slots. Since the long queue means the truly F2P players more and more are denied this, the game is moving a bit away from a fully F2P game. The ZAX queue is what makes NW a fully F2P game where everything in game is available to free players.

Note I am not saying NW is pay-to-win, there are many shades of grey between a fully F2P game and a pay-to-win game. Neverwinter is just slowly moving into darker shades of grey.

greywynd · January 2021

People leaving doesn't drain their AD unless their account is deleted. That purchasing power still remains locked on their account in the event they return at a later date.

mentinmindmaker · January 2021

greywynd said:
People leaving doesn't drain their AD unless their account is deleted. That purchasing power still remains locked on their account in the event they return at a later date.

Yes, but it will be out of circulation so it will not matter any more. Anyone leaving game will not affect ZAX queue once any entries they have are gone.

greywynd · January 2021

And they won't be gone until they're filled.

tchefi · February 2021

greywynd said:

I'd say a lot of those astral diamonds came into the game from the selling of bondings. No exploit or bug needed.

And a bit from tomes of companion experience. Don't ask me why I kept so much, but i got 12M AD for my stockpile of those books... (can't remember where i got those, wasn't it given sometimes as a reward in invoke bags for the standard one ?)

By the way, i think this sudden huge rain of AD put a kind of "let's go without a second thought" on some AD sinks.
Personnally, I unlocked all the bank tabs for my guild of mules (my true guild had already all), something i would have never even give a thought before this avalanche of wealth.
But obviously... there are still not enough interesting places where to sink my AD... (so I give away huge pool prizes during events I organize in my ally to "loose" personnal AD)

It won't really change very much my personnal situation on the Zax beside the waiting time, i'm up more or less permanently with 4 or 5 demands of 3-5k Zen in the Zax, I think since mod15 maybe...

blargskull · February 2021

Excuse me, I thought they had limits on this? The very most my account can request is 5,000 Zen per slot or 25,000 Zen. A 65,000,000 Zen backlog means 2,600 player accounts with maximum requests! Is my math right? You check it. If the average player is only asking for 12,000, this means over 5,400 players asking.

Once again, the issue is plain as the nose on your face. Champions Online (Cryptic's superhero game) isn't backed up. We have an auction house that functions on the gold base not the Questionite (AD here), Star Trek Online has a trade house that is based on energy credits (gold) and not the Dilthium (AD here). Also we get to buy keys on the the auction of both of those games, but not here, your keys are bound. If they would fix your AH to use gold instead of AD there wouldn't be a backlog here either. They of course will not do that, because it is too late, and as some of you said above, a slower exchange will mean more Zen sales.

darthpotater · February 2021

Since they started introducing refined AD in the game, I was suspecting that a big change was coming. First it was something small, 5000 AD here and there in chests, with currency, etc. Now with the bonding thing, I am 100% sure that a big change is inminent.

The entire model was bassed on controlling the influx of AD in the game, and having enough sinks to keep the balance. That is gone. There is no balance, and the influx of AD in the game is out of control. Aditionally, AD is not desired because the Binded items policy, so items that are hard to get, are binded, so players with money cant buy them.

I only hope they can keep the game FTP, because lets be realistic, if they force players to pay for progressing, there are better options out there, and good MMPORGs are coming this 2021.

I hope they can keep character progression under the FTP model, and introduce new cosmetic / QoL things in the paying shop.

aslan3775 · February 2021

Neverwinter has had a really good run, and a good storyline for all these years. But you are right--other MMPORGs are coming up this year. And they have competition from another game model: VR
The VR games are going to start eating into this player base as well. As those games become better and bandwidth catches up, I can see a "neverwinter" on those platforms. I know several VR players that are eagerly awaiting games like neverwinter to be released on their systems. It's a bit premature right now--but it will happen.

tribbulater · February 2021

ZAX isn't broken. Base issue is accounts can fairly easily grind 3 million AD per month, but once your character is mostly developed you don't have a lot you need to spend that AD on. So people throw it on the ZAX and pile up Zen for the next big pack. There's way more people piling up AD who want Zen, and not many people paying cash for Zen because they want more AD.

Cryptic needs some more (and more interesting) types of AD sinks in the game that even maxed characters would want to spend AD on. Then you'd have less AD in circulation, and more people who need AD and are willing to buy/trade Zen for it.

Right now, for instance, they could sink a ton of AD on a 30 minute potion that makes your character as useful as it was before the latest "combat upgrades"...

elderislt · February 2021

tribbulater said:
ZAX isn't broken. Base issue is accounts can fairly easily grind 3 million AD per month, but once your character is mostly developed you don't have a lot you need to spend that AD on. So people throw it on the ZAX and pile up Zen for the next big pack. There's way more people piling up AD who want Zen, and not many people paying cash for Zen because they want more AD.

Cryptic needs some more (and more interesting) types of AD sinks in the game that even maxed characters would want to spend AD on. Then you'd have less AD in circulation, and more people who need AD and are willing to buy/trade Zen for it.

Right now, for instance, they could sink a ton of AD on a 30 minute potion that makes your character as useful as it was before the latest "combat upgrades"...

still think main zax rezon is ppl with 200+ mil AD whu fliping zen to AD for profit, and later AD for zen, then you have ppl whu have 700+ MIL AD wat you can put in game for them to spent this amount ?

problem is fliping, you have 5 mil, make exscange for zen, wait zen store dismount, buy items whu not lost walue in ah and seling for AD profit, and making more then you spent to get zen , srr for bad englich, wats why AD and zen cam will be 80 % efectiv

p.s i personalaly know person whu have 700+ mil AD, so how you think how he made this amount ?:3

plasticbat · February 2021

elderislt#1066 said:

tribbulater said:
ZAX isn't broken. Base issue is accounts can fairly easily grind 3 million AD per month, but once your character is mostly developed you don't have a lot you need to spend that AD on. So people throw it on the ZAX and pile up Zen for the next big pack. There's way more people piling up AD who want Zen, and not many people paying cash for Zen because they want more AD.

Cryptic needs some more (and more interesting) types of AD sinks in the game that even maxed characters would want to spend AD on. Then you'd have less AD in circulation, and more people who need AD and are willing to buy/trade Zen for it.

Right now, for instance, they could sink a ton of AD on a 30 minute potion that makes your character as useful as it was before the latest "combat upgrades"...
still think main zax rezon is ppl with 200+ mil AD whu fliping zen to AD for profit, and later AD for zen, then you have ppl whu have 700+ MIL AD wat you can put in game for them to spent this amount ? problem is fliping, you have 5 mil, make exscange for zen, wait zen store dismount, buy items whu not lost walue in ah and seling for AD profit, and making more then you spent to get zen , srr for bad englich, wats why AD and zen cam will be 80 % efectiv
p.s i personalaly know person whu have 700+ mil AD, so how you think how he made this amount ?:3

Use exploit? Masterwork profit?

micky1p00 · February 2021

elderislt#1066 said:

tribbulater said:
ZAX isn't broken. Base issue is accounts can fairly easily grind 3 million AD per month, but once your character is mostly developed you don't have a lot you need to spend that AD on. So people throw it on the ZAX and pile up Zen for the next big pack. There's way more people piling up AD who want Zen, and not many people paying cash for Zen because they want more AD.

Cryptic needs some more (and more interesting) types of AD sinks in the game that even maxed characters would want to spend AD on. Then you'd have less AD in circulation, and more people who need AD and are willing to buy/trade Zen for it.

Right now, for instance, they could sink a ton of AD on a 30 minute potion that makes your character as useful as it was before the latest "combat upgrades"...
still think main zax rezon is ppl with 200+ mil AD whu fliping zen to AD for profit, and later AD for zen, then you have ppl whu have 700+ MIL AD wat you can put in game for them to spent this amount ? problem is fliping, you have 5 mil, make exscange for zen, wait zen store dismount, buy items whu not lost walue in ah and seling for AD profit, and making more then you spent to get zen , srr for bad englich, wats why AD and zen cam will be 80 % efectiv
p.s i personalaly know person whu have 700+ mil AD, so how you think how he made this amount ?:3

How fast? The game is ongoing for a year or two, or 8. In 8 years you can make 300 mil just refining 100k per day. (Just an example).

People who are serious about making AD can make a lot it just takes the effort of tracking, hoarding, spreadsheeting, and so on. Some are good at it, some not so much, but at the end, IMO, AD is not the target but just a means, and for many, it becomes "end-game" game only if players do not have satisfactory content to play otherwise.

Personally, I would prefer to run content for shiny (and AD valuable) rewards. But since that's limited, I can as easily sell stuff on AH that I even didn't know I have stashed on old storage alts.

tepes · February 2021

There are people in the game with over $500 million AD and I've heard whispers of those with over $1 billion. That wealth did not come from selling bondings either. It was obtained through methods I won't post about here. I know a subset of people in the game with hundreds of million in AD and who continue to post to ZAX because there is nothing worth buying (With AD or Zen).

rosh · February 2021

We have bubble that needs to pop and market needs to be hit with it regardless, so remove ad limit completely and let the market stabilizes so players can start getting zen may bet at reduced rate but that is the real value of AD right now, it has to happen no matter what

The whole AD sink is done with that amount that is a failed approach that hasn't work for 7 years

Also account lock everything bought from zen store so there is no reselling, no video game ever allows people to resell items from premium shop ever that way zen owners have to use ZAX

I have no benefit doing this since I charge my account with zen and I myself resell items or what I get from lockbox for AD profit, but it does not feel right for casuals to wait half year for zen order so they can buy vip

greywynd · February 2021

tepes#1182 said:
There are people in the game with over $500 million AD and I've heard whispers of those with over $1 billion. That wealth did not come from selling bondings either. It was obtained through methods I won't post about here. I know a subset of people in the game with hundreds of million in AD and who continue to post to ZAX because there is nothing worth buying (With AD or Zen).

I heard there's a hard cap on how much AD you can have on an account.

hotfrostworm · February 2021

greywynd said:

tepes#1182 said:
There are people in the game with over $500 million AD and I've heard whispers of those with over $1 billion. That wealth did not come from selling bondings either. It was obtained through methods I won't post about here. I know a subset of people in the game with hundreds of million in AD and who continue to post to ZAX because there is nothing worth buying (With AD or Zen).
I heard there's a hard cap on how much AD you can have on an account.

Integers have limits in the SQL database, it depends on how they set the field. Integers can be assigned as;
Tinyint 1 byte = 255
Smallint 2 bytes = 32,767
Int 4 bytes = 2,147,483,647
Bigint 8 bytes = 9,223,372,036,854,775,807

I am pretty sure they used the Int value. I don't recall were I read it in the game, but your gold is capped at 21,478 gold 36 silver and 47 copper. An obvious 4 byte Integer. Since AD is not divided, this would mean you could have a little over 2 billion.

HOW TO FIX 60mil+ AD back log

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