The issue would have consequences to the other two Cryptic games. While Champions and Star Trek have a healthy currency exchange, they are under the same company. Two years ago, we witnessed them remove the Foundry (although separate entities) from both NW and STO. If the were to replace, remove, revamp, etc. the Neverwinter ZAX, why wouldn't they do the same for Star Trek and Champions. Obviously whatever they do, they will view it as a "positive upgrade" in the correct direction. I understand @thefiresidecat concerns to alert people, query the Cryptic staff, and post this thread. Many times they will say something in passing and then when you ask, Hey! What did you mean by that statement? You get silence and maybe months later, the bulldozers show up at your house to make the bypass.
I still don't think anyone is doltish enough to nuke all their games with this kind of change. I am fairly certain that would be the result. But I also won't ignore anyone running around shouting the "Sky is falling!" either.
Well that don't sound very positive to me! Oh wait, oops wrong thread... ZAX evil, Zen bad, down with the corporate empire!
I was just on Champions not long ago and I can buy Zen at a ratio 489:1 While the other side offering to sell Questionite at 1:430 there is no backlog there. I would say that is very healthy. Meanwhile I can buy a Bat Flight for 250,000 Q in the Question store. Bat flight is a travel power, where you can turn into a swarm of bats to travel... sound familiar? One big difference, you can actually fly upward and there is no restriction of movement.
The healthy Question store keeps Champions in the green. I have not checked on Star Trek recently but I am sure they are doing well. Wendy, I didn't know you read Adams, are you going to lie in the mud?
I was just on Champions not long ago and I can buy Zen at a ratio 489:1 While the other side offering to sell Questionite at 1:430 there is no backlog there. I would say that is very healthy.
Which directly points to the demand for more AD sinks to balance the economy.
When Cryptic started dropping refined AD into the economy, the ZAX queue responded by growing, as expected. When Cryptic dropped massive amounts of AD into the economy as compensation for bondings, the ZAX queue went from 40M backlog to 69M overnight.
This problem CAN be fixed, it is not really economic rocket science. But I am not sure Cryptic considers this a problem.
On xbox it went from a little over 2 million to over 20 million. Two million was fine.
The reason players aren't spending cash to convert zen to AD is partly because AD is worth less than it used to be. If players could buy dungeon keys or VIP with AD (for example) it would be a much more popular currency.
Another reason imo is that zen is actually pretty expensive in terms of cash. When I started playing this game I was amazed at the cost of zen and what it would buy you. Forty dollars/euros for some pack or another!!? I can buy a whole game for that!! Ten dollar/euros for a pack of ten pres wards or one coal ward!! Just no. Not to mention that even now, $10 will convert to 750k AD which is not worth much on the AH - so to my mind, spending real money on this game was never a good deal.
I suspect this is the biggest reason why Cryptic don't have more cash customers.
Please Do Not Feed The Trolls
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
I was just on Champions not long ago and I can buy Zen at a ratio 489:1 While the other side offering to sell Questionite at 1:430 there is no backlog there. I would say that is very healthy.
Which directly points to the demand for more AD sinks to balance the economy.
When Cryptic started dropping refined AD into the economy, the ZAX queue responded by growing, as expected. When Cryptic dropped massive amounts of AD into the economy as compensation for bondings, the ZAX queue went from 40M backlog to 69M overnight.
This problem CAN be fixed, it is not really economic rocket science. But I am not sure Cryptic considers this a problem.
The new Astral lockbox might do it though.
I am looking forward to buying more of those the week of April 1st to the 8th. The in game calendar has been wrong before, but this I hope is correct. The Astral keyless box is 100K for non VIP but the 15% off Wondrous Bazaar discount makes it 85K, if the VIP discount works with this discount the VIP members should get it for 63,750. Then I should see VIP members selling these in the AH between 65K to 84K.
Yummy!
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plasticbatMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 12,218Arc User
edited March 2021
I have just checked my storage toons to see what they are having. And, I found tons of Companion tome of experience, bunch of low level bonding runestone, stacks of Eldritch. I have not cashed in them all. I just cashed in Companion tome of experience which I got from XP rewards ages ago and people dumped them. Just that gave me over 3 million refined AD. That dos not even get to the core: Eldritch, low level bonding that I did not use, high level bonding for my 6 characters that I actually used. One can see how much refined AD Cryptic injected to the economy.
For my punishment, there were over 20000 mouse click/key press just for cashing in Companion tome of experience.
*** 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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micky1p00Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,594Arc User
I have just checked my storage toons to see what they are having. And, I found tons of Companion tome of experience, bunch of low level bonding runestone, stacks of Eldritch. I have not cashed in them all. I just cashed in Companion tome of experience which I got from XP rewards ages ago and people dumped them. Just that gave me over 3 million refined AD. That dos not even get to the core: Eldritch, low level bonding that I did not use, high level bonding for my 6 characters that I actually used. One can see how much refined AD Cryptic injected to the economy.
For my punishment, there were over 20000 mouse click/key press just for cashing in Companion tome of experience.
I would say that the exchange itself was a good move. Typical player usually had 3 bondings and swapped them around, richer players had a set on most playable chars. Those were the high ranks. Even taking all the winter festival stuff, and lower ranks that wouldn't amount to really high sums. A million there or here wouldn't make an impact.
The problem was the t.bars, adding a week before a lockbox that gives hundreds of t.bars and effectively allowing to cash it into AD (t.bars to rank 15 bondings to AD) is what created the issue.
A player who had keys saved up from the same ViP, instead of making 10mil or so, from exchanging what they had, made 100mil. Injecting huge amounts of AD into the economy.
Worse is that if before rich people would already have the maximum listing of 25k ZEN, and less rich players are likely to use the original bondings AD (2.6 x 3) to adapt the char to the new system, which wouldn't influence ZAX significantly, now there is excess AD that went into the ZAX.
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plasticbatMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 12,218Arc User
I have just checked my storage toons to see what they are having. And, I found tons of Companion tome of experience, bunch of low level bonding runestone, stacks of Eldritch. I have not cashed in them all. I just cashed in Companion tome of experience which I got from XP rewards ages ago and people dumped them. Just that gave me over 3 million refined AD. That dos not even get to the core: Eldritch, low level bonding that I did not use, high level bonding for my 6 characters that I actually used. One can see how much refined AD Cryptic injected to the economy.
For my punishment, there were over 20000 mouse click/key press just for cashing in Companion tome of experience.
I would say that the exchange itself was a good move. Typical player usually had 3 bondings and swapped them around, richer players had a set on most playable chars. Those were the high ranks. Even taking all the winter festival stuff, and lower ranks that wouldn't amount to really high sums. A million there or here wouldn't make an impact.
The problem was the t.bars, adding a week before a lockbox that gives hundreds of t.bars and effectively allowing to cash it into AD (t.bars to rank 15 bondings to AD) is what created the issue.
A player who had keys saved up from the same ViP, instead of making 10mil or so, from exchanging what they had, made 100mil. Injecting huge amounts of AD into the economy.
Worse is that if before rich people would already have the maximum listing of 25k ZEN, and less rich players are likely to use the original bondings AD (2.6 x 3) to adapt the char to the new system, which wouldn't influence ZAX significantly, now there is excess AD that went into the ZAX.
I disagree allowing exchanging bonding to refined AD is a good move. They could choose to exchange to another unbound enchantment, t-bar, a new currency for getting other valuables. All other choices would not increase amount of AD in the game and the individual still could maintain the wealth of their high rank bonding.
*** 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. ***
I only made about 18 mill from bondings from my 9 toons and most of that went into ranking up companions & mounts on 3 of them - I did buy 2 months of extra vip with the small amount I spent on zen.
Please Do Not Feed The Trolls
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
I have 6 and all them were forced into bonding... that sounded kinky. I bought the cheapest I could get, without looking too pathetic. I never refine, I didn't make millions of AD. But they could have given me cheese and I would have said, meh whatever.
@plasticbat you know what would have happened, if they gave players anything other than AD, right? Oh, boo-hoo, I paid cash money for my rank 200 bondings and they are worth a lot more than this fricking crud they gave us! Even then, I saw many still complained. I fully understand the issue with too much AD flowing into the game. I also understand it is worthless when no one wants or needs it. They didn't drive up the need for AD along with the incoming flow. Was this intentional or just a big mistake? Looks very intentional. They don't need to blow up the ZAX, plugging it up like a gas station toilet is good enough. I think I am going to login just to check on my posting for that 10 Zen.
I have 6 and all them were forced into bonding... that sounded kinky. I bought the cheapest I could get, without looking too pathetic. I never refine, I didn't make millions of AD. But they could have given me cheese and I would have said, meh whatever.
@plasticbat you know what would have happened, if they gave players anything other than AD, right? Oh, boo-hoo, I paid cash money for my rank 200 bondings and they are worth a lot more than this fricking crud they gave us! Even then, I saw many still complained. I fully understand the issue with too much AD flowing into the game. I also understand it is worthless when no one wants or needs it. They didn't drive up the need for AD along with the incoming flow. Was this intentional or just a big mistake? Looks very intentional. They don't need to blow up the ZAX, plugging it up like a gas station toilet is good enough. I think I am going to login just to check on my posting for that 10 Zen.
I have a lot of toons and every AD I received from bonding stones I used to upgrade as many companions that I could. I didn't have any to spare. That is probably what they wanted us to do so I guess that's that. But for my mains all my ten companions are mythic now. So, meh... I didn't break even cuz I still have to burn some TB so upgrade some companions due to not having enough AD for all ten but wasn't that bad. All that said, I know many people weren't as lucky and just left the game esp on the heels of the mount upgrading update.
I have 6 and all them were forced into bonding... that sounded kinky. I bought the cheapest I could get, without looking too pathetic. I never refine, I didn't make millions of AD. But they could have given me cheese and I would have said, meh whatever.
@plasticbat you know what would have happened, if they gave players anything other than AD, right? Oh, boo-hoo, I paid cash money for my rank 200 bondings and they are worth a lot more than this fricking crud they gave us! Even then, I saw many still complained. I fully understand the issue with too much AD flowing into the game. I also understand it is worthless when no one wants or needs it. They didn't drive up the need for AD along with the incoming flow. Was this intentional or just a big mistake? Looks very intentional. They don't need to blow up the ZAX, plugging it up like a gas station toilet is good enough. I think I am going to login just to check on my posting for that 10 Zen.
I have a lot of toons and every AD I received from bonding stones I used to upgrade as many companions that I could. I didn't have any to spare. That is probably what they wanted us to do so I guess that's that. But for my mains all my ten companions are mythic now. So, meh... I didn't break even cuz I still have to burn some TB so upgrade some companions due to not having enough AD for all ten but wasn't that bad. All that said, I know many people weren't as lucky and just left the game esp on the heels of the mount upgrading update.
I allow my companions to burn in blue hell. Is that wrong of me? I don't think so. I don't see all that much benefit to upgrading from blue to mythic. I have some purples but they arrived that way. Friends and other player tell me to upgrade using Sybella's store. She will have you do 3 quests per week for 15 thingies and you exchange 3 thingies for 1 upgrade token, 5 per week . Is that 24 weeks to upgrade a purple to orange? Grind out 72 quests and you get the prize for free. The thing is I don't like all her quests and I cannot complete all her quests. Conquer is not that big of an issue, it is the other types. I haven't done Chult so going to Omu for the BHE is out of the question. BHEs normally require other players besides myself, then there are the BHEs no one seems to know when they are suppose to happen. I go to Icewind Dale and the Ramerhaz is nowhere to be found. When does this appear you ask, no one knows, people have said they waited hours for it. BHE in Ravenloft is ok but again 60 minutes to wait on one map, too few maps and you wait and wait. Do 5 quests on X map, some places can get that one done. Others don't have 5 available, come back tomorrow.
Yes, just like you, if I were to upgrade, I would have avoid the messy grind and spent the AD. But I didn't get a mess of AD, so meh. Where was I?? I also don't upgrade mounts or insignia either. The way I upgrade armor is I buy stuff in the AH. My last set on my fighter was the 770 gear that I got from Undermountain. Tonight I bought the cobalt gear from the AH, it was cheap. I put my rank 8 enchants on it and good to go! I did some tasks in New Sharandar with him and got in some more widgets and folding money for the campaign store. Thinking that shirt in there will be his next upgrade. No real need to refine, if I find better along the way. I think he was over 20K item level when I exited the game.
Oh @autumnwitch your post distracted me, not that you are very distracting too but yes my ZAX request of 10 Zen for 7500 AD is still there.
Just killing time...
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plasticbatMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 12,218Arc User
I have 6 and all them were forced into bonding... that sounded kinky. I bought the cheapest I could get, without looking too pathetic. I never refine, I didn't make millions of AD. But they could have given me cheese and I would have said, meh whatever.
@plasticbat you know what would have happened, if they gave players anything other than AD, right? Oh, boo-hoo, I paid cash money for my rank 200 bondings and they are worth a lot more than this fricking crud they gave us! Even then, I saw many still complained. I fully understand the issue with too much AD flowing into the game. I also understand it is worthless when no one wants or needs it. They didn't drive up the need for AD along with the incoming flow. Was this intentional or just a big mistake? Looks very intentional. They don't need to blow up the ZAX, plugging it up like a gas station toilet is good enough. I think I am going to login just to check on my posting for that 10 Zen.
One of simply way is to give t-bar with the same amount of t-bar that people could buy the same bonding stone in t-bar. T-bar could worth more than AD and it does not contribute to increase AD to the game.
*** 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. ***
Off topic, @blargskull Your Mad King finally broke over 20K that is awesome!
On topic "They don't need to blow up the ZAX, plugging it up like a gas station toilet is good enough.", good point! But our local gas station doesn't have a public toilet.
Well, i'm sticking to account-wide legendary/mythic mounts from lockboxes or the AH, and account-wide companions from the ZEN shop, i mean what's the point in upgrading companions/mounts on one character to the max, when some module later the class you're playing is being changed so much, that you don't want to play it any longer?
Which also means, that i'm not going to get into all the latest shiny content, but that's fine by me, i don't have to, as long as i can play through a new campaign and have some fun along the way.
Anyway, i guess we've to wait and see if the next round of Astral Lockboxes in the Wondrous Bazaar are going to make at least a little dent into the ZAX backlog...
You guys seems a lot more smarter than me so, i am sorry if it will sound stupid, but a solution for the zax could be, simply, Cryptic that set the min-max price to AD market, right?. If i put 100 Euro in zen, i can buy whatever want and resell it the double of the current exchange in AD market. For example i buy 1 zen stuff and resell it for 1500 AD, cause that's the current value change, not 750 AD, as it should be, and that' s what, in my ignorant opinion, is shutting down the economy. If you want to keep a market, u have to take control of it, like Black Desert Online, the best market asset in my opinion. Zen should improve Skip item like coalescent that should not be sold on marketplace like a lot of other stuff. Yes, it will be a big kick in the <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> for who has a lot of them, but they will just have, from selling, the fair price. I left with ravenloft, i came back, there are a lot of new players, but a lot less veterans, the only one that actually could afford the actual AD prices, and still, some of them are just ridiculous.
No changes to price in AD of Zen will fix the Zax, it will always require someone being willing to pay money for Zen then sell it for AD. Until there is something that is only available for AD that people want and or need it wouldn't change. Changing the bound status of Zen store items would not force people to sell their Zen.
You guys seems a lot more smarter than me so, i am sorry if it will sound stupid, but a solution for the zax could be, simply, Cryptic that set the min-max price to AD market, right?. If i put 100 Euro in zen, i can buy whatever want and resell it the double of the current exchange in AD market. For example i buy 1 zen stuff and resell it for 1500 AD, cause that's the current value change, not 750 AD, as it should be, and that' s what, in my ignorant opinion, is shutting down the economy. If you want to keep a market, u have to take control of it, like Black Desert Online, the best market asset in my opinion. Zen should improve Skip item like coalescent that should not be sold on marketplace like a lot of other stuff. Yes, it will be a big kick in the HAMSTER for who has a lot of them, but they will just have, from selling, the fair price. I left with ravenloft, i came back, there are a lot of new players, but a lot less veterans, the only one that actually could afford the actual AD prices, and still, some of them are just ridiculous.
What you are talking about was done in the game Black Desert. It doesn't really work that well there either. Silver is the grind currency. I haven't played the game all that much (I am still new) but I have over 500 million silver there already in my account. Pearls is their cash currency. You can buy a 30 day value pack (aka VIP) for $15 (1500 Pearls) you can sell it in their version of the AH for a max / min limit. I recall there was over 10,000 requests to buy at 120 million silver and no sellers. The backlog is simply transferred to the AH. Horses are virtually free to catch in the wild, players will sell you horse they have caught and trained, low end mounts start at 50K and go up to the best for hundreds of billions of silver. Since silver is so abundant, it is virtually worthless. The economy works, as long as, you are not one of the 10,000 plus players waiting on a 30 day value pack to fall into your lap. I enjoy the feature (mini game) of chatting up the vendors to get better items with affinity. All games like this have a backlog somewhere, it is just how they deal with it. Cryptic currently ignores it.
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darthpotaterMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,259Arc User
Removing the ZAX limit is a very bad idea. ZAX limit is what makes the game free to play.
If you remove the limit, the ZAX could go easy to 1:3000 in few hours, free to play players wont ever get their zen, and new players that are evaluating the game and see how much do things cost to progress, unless you pay a lot, they will leave.
And before you say: "free to play players are not neccesary because they dont help to pay the bills" well I can tell you that free to play players are neccesary to balance the game, they are like the "workers" of the game, they grind for items that paying players buy, they farm hunts and lures, dungeons, Heroic encounters, events, etc.
Without FTP players the game would die in few months. Keep that in mind when asking to free the ZAX market.
You guys seems a lot more smarter than me so, i am sorry if it will sound stupid, but a solution for the zax could be, simply, Cryptic that set the min-max price to AD market, right?. If i put 100 Euro in zen, i can buy whatever want and resell it the double of the current exchange in AD market. For example i buy 1 zen stuff and resell it for 1500 AD, cause that's the current value change, not 750 AD, as it should be, and that' s what, in my ignorant opinion, is shutting down the economy. If you want to keep a market, u have to take control of it, like Black Desert Online, the best market asset in my opinion. Zen should improve Skip item like coalescent that should not be sold on marketplace like a lot of other stuff. Yes, it will be a big kick in the HAMSTER for who has a lot of them, but they will just have, from selling, the fair price. I left with ravenloft, i came back, there are a lot of new players, but a lot less veterans, the only one that actually could afford the actual AD prices, and still, some of them are just ridiculous.
What you are seeing is just another symptom of the same problem, the hyperinflation. Removing the cap will not solve it, on the contrary, it will make it worse due to two things, one is that more people will have AD, more demand, same supply => higher prices. And second and more important, now large portion of the ZEN to AD transfer is done via flipping items on the AH (wards for example) which removes 10% of the AD. Removing the cap removes that.
i lost the wall that i write so, i will be more shortly. No, the CAP has to be put on the AD Market. If i buy something from zen i have not to be allowed to resell on AD for double of his actual exchange, The inflation is happening because the AD keep be putting in from zen, when they should be put out from the zen exchange. I buy something at 750 AD (1 zen), i should not be allowed to resell to 1500 AD, because i put back the diamonds in market and double it! Whatever u buy with zen has to be reselled on market, if you are so stupid to do, at half the money you put in zen! It should discourage the reselling from Zen! Instead they should improve investment on our characters! This Game has turned in a market game! It s not what should be centrale in an MMO RPG! Your PG should be the center where you invest money or time! why do you have to play it? I can literally put 2000 Zen, at the end of the year, i will get them, i will buy coalescent or whatever, sell it for double of price, put back in zen exchange and wait again, and I, that i do not play the game, will keep ruin economy even if not playing it! Of course 2000 is an example of a poor man, but i hope i make the idea. Now what i m saying is that has to be a Min_Max prices in AD diamond, and a request buyer too! because ( i see your link) there is no "supply and demand", cause no one can demand! The supply make the demand!
If I am not allowed to sell things on the auction house for a profit, why would I bother buying and reselling them. Let all the free to play people suffer because they can not buy wards on the auction house any more.
What do all these people have against free enterprise anyway?
I writed why someone would bother to use real money. And there are people talking about saving the game from be played only by whales. There are the exact opposite people. It just needs some rework, to the upgrade system for example . You use your diamonds to buy, for example, the refining stones from game, instead that from player market, usually with a lower price. You will probably loose 'cause rng, so u have to buy back, just rework to a lower number of refining stones needed and a RNG evolution, that upgrade your chance of success after ever fail. If you cannot afford the zen coalescent, you will just keep trying, it s just an example on how to rework a mechanic to implement a FREE TO PLAY use of diamond instead to give your free to play diamond to Paying players. Cryptric do not get as much a buyer player get back from the actual game. Have you any idea how strong is the black market in/out this game? that's is a cryptic loss and, a loss for free to play player too, so again, i just step in because i care, but if it seems i am trying to go against free enterprise i give up, i stop speaking.
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plasticbatMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 12,218Arc User
I writed why someone would bother to use real money. And there are people talking about saving the game from be played only by whales. There are the exact opposite people. It just needs some rework, to the upgrade system for example . You use your diamonds to buy, for example, the refining stones from game, instead that from player market, usually with a lower price. You will probably loose 'cause rng, so u have to buy back, just rework to a lower number of refining stones needed and a RNG evolution, that upgrade your chance of success after ever fail. If you cannot afford the zen coalescent, you will just keep trying, it s just an example on how to rework a mechanic to implement a FREE TO PLAY use of diamond instead to give your free to play diamond to Paying players. Cryptric do not get as much a buyer player get back from the actual game. Have you any idea how strong is the black market in/out this game? that's is a cryptic loss and, a loss for free to play player too, so again, i just step in because i care, but if it seems i am trying to go against free enterprise i give up, i stop speaking.
1. This game has been about enterprise since the first mod. The current situation is NOTHING comparing with from mod 1 to mod 6. Back then, flipping (say) Dark enchantment rank 4 within 24 hours could earn you millions. 2. People who 'bother' to use real money has at least 2 reasons: a) support the game, b) they cannot wait. 3. Many play this game for free. However, they do need to learn/research how to do so in every mod change (read #1). 4. The 'current' black market cannot compare with those before mod 6.
*** 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. ***
And second and more important, now large portion of the ZEN to AD transfer is done via flipping items on the AH (wards for example) which removes 10% of the AD. Removing the cap removes that.
Zen to AD via flipping items is core in a situation where the exchange between Zen and AD is not floating but capped + heavily backlogged. Once a paying player has understand that, he will never use his €/$/£ to get AD from Zax. In my opinion, nowdays, only new players get fooled with their $$$ by the Zax...
So what's the extreme limit the game is tending to ? every $£€ from players are used on ZenItem that are consummed for themselves or droped on AH for flipping or just AD, nothing in the Zax to get AD. Zen supply is dried up in the Zax, free-players can't get what a paying player can get (toon slots, banks, VIP for exemple can't be sold on AH)
It's a shift in NW once extremely friendly "free-to-play"/"pay-to-get-faster" model, and it was already drifting to that right after the end of Arc Quests. We are now driving close to "pay-to-win"/"subscription (for VIP)" models.
Since 2017, I was recommending NW as a game really friendly for f2players. This year, nope.
Nothing new over here, in order to stabilize the economy the game needs worthwile direct AD sinks that you can't bypass or use to grow wealth thanks to VIP/alt-army, because in essence most of the current sinks are truly sinking the AD of the least wealthy (in in-game currencies) of the players, not really the AD of the richer (in in-game currencies) players... which is great for me, but not so for most of my friends...
But it's definitely not the plan and strategy NW seems to have in mind.
I've always wondered why Cryptic don't alleviate the exchange situation by 'covering' all capped exchanges that go past a certain time limit. E.g. all purchase requests that hit 4 weeks of being listed - get fulfilled by the Bank of Cryptic (essentially 'printing money'). Countries print money at times to control their economy and I think it'd be a useful lever to control price inflation and help with player retention.
Please Do Not Feed The Trolls
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
Member of Casual Dailies - XBox
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plasticbatMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 12,218Arc User
I've always wondered why Cryptic don't alleviate the exchange situation by 'covering' all capped exchanges that go past a certain time limit. E.g. all purchase requests that hit 4 weeks of being listed - get fulfilled by the Bank of Cryptic (essentially 'printing money'). Countries print money at times to control their economy and I think it'd be a useful lever to control price inflation and help with player retention.
I suspect they did that before secretly (printing Zen and destroying AD).
*** 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. ***
Well, i doubt they were pumping ZEN into the ZAX at any point, i mean that would have come out eventually, and people would have stopped buying ZEN with $$$ directly, not to mention how they "handled" the whole ARC Quests for ZEN thing, saying that it would return in an improved way for PC, but after 3 years i think it's pretty clear that's not going to happen.
Still sitting on 4k ARC points...
Besides, if they really wanted to drain huge amounts of AD from the game, all they've to do is pick one of "our" better suggestions and then run with it.
I've always wondered why Cryptic don't alleviate the exchange situation by 'covering' all capped exchanges that go past a certain time limit. E.g. all purchase requests that hit 4 weeks of being listed - get fulfilled by the Bank of Cryptic (essentially 'printing money'). Countries print money at times to control their economy and I think it'd be a useful lever to control price inflation and help with player retention.
Because that'd be an admission the system doesn't work at all, and they'd be hard pressed to justify putting a system that hasn't worked, and they can't figure out how to fix, in new games they make. (which they are doing ..and i'm sure plan to keep on doing if anyone is dumb enough to let these people make a game for them .
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plasticbatMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 12,218Arc User
Well, i doubt they were pumping ZEN into the ZAX at any point, i mean that would have come out eventually, and people would have stopped buying ZEN with $$$ directly, not to mention how they "handled" the whole ARC Quests for ZEN thing, saying that it would return in an improved way for PC, but after 3 years i think it's pretty clear that's not going to happen.
Still sitting on 4k ARC points...
Besides, if they really wanted to drain huge amounts of AD from the game, all they've to do is pick something from the options we are suggesting here or in any other thread on this topic and run with it.
I was talking about long long time ago, way before Arc quest for Zen.
*** 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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I was just on Champions not long ago and I can buy Zen at a ratio 489:1 While the other side offering to sell Questionite at 1:430 there is no backlog there. I would say that is very healthy. Meanwhile I can buy a Bat Flight for 250,000 Q in the Question store. Bat flight is a travel power, where you can turn into a swarm of bats to travel... sound familiar? One big difference, you can actually fly upward and there is no restriction of movement.
The healthy Question store keeps Champions in the green. I have not checked on Star Trek recently but I am sure they are doing well. Wendy, I didn't know you read Adams, are you going to lie in the mud?
Just killing time...
When Cryptic started dropping refined AD into the economy, the ZAX queue responded by growing, as expected. When Cryptic dropped massive amounts of AD into the economy as compensation for bondings, the ZAX queue went from 40M backlog to 69M overnight.
This problem CAN be fixed, it is not really economic rocket science. But I am not sure Cryptic considers this a problem.
The new Astral lockbox might do it though.
The reason players aren't spending cash to convert zen to AD is partly because AD is worth less than it used to be. If players could buy dungeon keys or VIP with AD (for example) it would be a much more popular currency.
Another reason imo is that zen is actually pretty expensive in terms of cash. When I started playing this game I was amazed at the cost of zen and what it would buy you. Forty dollars/euros for some pack or another!!? I can buy a whole game for that!! Ten dollar/euros for a pack of ten pres wards or one coal ward!! Just no. Not to mention that even now, $10 will convert to 750k AD which is not worth much on the AH - so to my mind, spending real money on this game was never a good deal.
I suspect this is the biggest reason why Cryptic don't have more cash customers.
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
Member of Casual Dailies - XBox
Yummy!
For my punishment, there were over 20000 mouse click/key press just for cashing in Companion tome of experience.
The problem was the t.bars, adding a week before a lockbox that gives hundreds of t.bars and effectively allowing to cash it into AD (t.bars to rank 15 bondings to AD) is what created the issue.
A player who had keys saved up from the same ViP, instead of making 10mil or so, from exchanging what they had, made 100mil. Injecting huge amounts of AD into the economy.
Worse is that if before rich people would already have the maximum listing of 25k ZEN, and less rich players are likely to use the original bondings AD (2.6 x 3) to adapt the char to the new system, which wouldn't influence ZAX significantly, now there is excess AD that went into the ZAX.
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
Member of Casual Dailies - XBox
@plasticbat you know what would have happened, if they gave players anything other than AD, right? Oh, boo-hoo, I paid cash money for my rank 200 bondings and they are worth a lot more than this fricking crud they gave us! Even then, I saw many still complained. I fully understand the issue with too much AD flowing into the game. I also understand it is worthless when no one wants or needs it. They didn't drive up the need for AD along with the incoming flow. Was this intentional or just a big mistake? Looks very intentional. They don't need to blow up the ZAX, plugging it up like a gas station toilet is good enough. I think I am going to login just to check on my posting for that 10 Zen.
Just killing time...
I don't see all that much benefit to upgrading from blue to mythic. I have some purples but they arrived that way. Friends and other player tell me to upgrade using Sybella's store. She will have you do 3 quests per week for 15 thingies and you exchange 3 thingies for 1 upgrade token, 5 per week . Is that 24 weeks to upgrade a purple to orange? Grind out 72 quests and you get the prize for free. The thing is I don't like all her quests and I cannot complete all her quests. Conquer is not that big of an issue, it is the other types. I haven't done Chult so going to Omu for the BHE is out of the question. BHEs normally require other players besides myself, then there are the BHEs no one seems to know when they are suppose to happen. I go to Icewind Dale and the Ramerhaz is nowhere to be found. When does this appear you ask, no one knows, people have said they waited hours for it. BHE in Ravenloft is ok but again 60 minutes to wait on one map, too few maps and you wait and wait. Do 5 quests on X map, some places can get that one done. Others don't have 5 available, come back tomorrow.
Yes, just like you, if I were to upgrade, I would have avoid the messy grind and spent the AD. But I didn't get a mess of AD, so meh. Where was I?? I also don't upgrade mounts or insignia either. The way I upgrade armor is I buy stuff in the AH. My last set on my fighter was the 770 gear that I got from Undermountain. Tonight I bought the cobalt gear from the AH, it was cheap. I put my rank 8 enchants on it and good to go! I did some tasks in New Sharandar with him and got in some more widgets and folding money for the campaign store. Thinking that shirt in there will be his next upgrade. No real need to refine, if I find better along the way. I think he was over 20K item level when I exited the game.
Oh @autumnwitch your post distracted me, not that you are very distracting too
Just killing time...
On topic "They don't need to blow up the ZAX, plugging it up like a gas station toilet is good enough.", good point! But our local gas station doesn't have a public toilet.
Which also means, that i'm not going to get into all the latest shiny content, but that's fine by me, i don't have to, as long as i can play through a new campaign and have some fun along the way.
Anyway, i guess we've to wait and see if the next round of Astral Lockboxes in the Wondrous Bazaar are going to make at least a little dent into the ZAX backlog...
If you remove the limit, the ZAX could go easy to 1:3000 in few hours, free to play players wont ever get their zen, and new players that are evaluating the game and see how much do things cost to progress, unless you pay a lot, they will leave.
And before you say: "free to play players are not neccesary because they dont help to pay the bills" well I can tell you that free to play players are neccesary to balance the game, they are like the "workers" of the game, they grind for items that paying players buy, they farm hunts and lures, dungeons, Heroic encounters, events, etc.
Without FTP players the game would die in few months. Keep that in mind when asking to free the ZAX market.
Caturday Survivor
Elemental Evil Survivor
Undermontain Survivor
Mod20 Combat rework Survivor
Mod22 Refinement rework Survivor
In general, more info:
https://guides.jannenw.info/2020/01/29/neverwinter-basics-economy/#Inflation_Rough_AD_The_ZAX_cap_and_AD_sinks
What do all these people have against free enterprise anyway?
2. People who 'bother' to use real money has at least 2 reasons: a) support the game, b) they cannot wait.
3. Many play this game for free. However, they do need to learn/research how to do so in every mod change (read #1).
4. The 'current' black market cannot compare with those before mod 6.
Once a paying player has understand that, he will never use his €/$/£ to get AD from Zax. In my opinion, nowdays, only new players get fooled with their $$$ by the Zax...
So what's the extreme limit the game is tending to ?
every $£€ from players are used on ZenItem that are consummed for themselves or droped on AH for flipping or just AD, nothing in the Zax to get AD. Zen supply is dried up in the Zax, free-players can't get what a paying player can get (toon slots, banks, VIP for exemple can't be sold on AH)
It's a shift in NW once extremely friendly "free-to-play"/"pay-to-get-faster" model, and it was already drifting to that right after the end of Arc Quests. We are now driving close to "pay-to-win"/"subscription (for VIP)" models.
Since 2017, I was recommending NW as a game really friendly for f2players. This year, nope.
Nothing new over here, in order to stabilize the economy the game needs worthwile direct AD sinks that you can't bypass or use to grow wealth thanks to VIP/alt-army, because in essence most of the current sinks are truly sinking the AD of the least wealthy (in in-game currencies) of the players, not really the AD of the richer (in in-game currencies) players... which is great for me, but not so for most of my friends...
But it's definitely not the plan and strategy NW seems to have in mind.
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
Member of Casual Dailies - XBox
Still sitting on 4k ARC points...
Besides, if they really wanted to drain huge amounts of AD from the game, all they've to do is pick one of "our" better suggestions and then run with it.