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What do you think will happen if AD to Zen is raised to 1500?
irene
Member Posts: 159 Arc User
Currently, the 750/zen cap ensure one can gain 750k AD at 1000 zen ($10).
Therefore many $10 items are priced for at least 750k in AH.
Over time, the items have become more expensive due to low supply and high demand.
Paid players will not want to trade 1000 zen for 750k AD. They could buy the item from Zen store, sell and profit in AH.
As a result, the AD to Zen convert system hardly benefit free players.
They have millions of AD to sell for Zen, but a buyer can take over half a year to surface.
To solve the problem, raising the cap to be above 750k to 1500k might do the trick.
Paid players could earn more AD with the system than to use AH. There will now be many AD buyers.
It is a win-win strategy because paid players get more AD instantly and more importantly,
free players can now earn Zen, solving the pay to win reputation once and for all.
However, will this eventually cause the price of items to raise in the long run?
A once affordable 750k item (1 week of saving for free players) might cost 1.5m very soon.
The free player made a lot less zen due to higher convert ratio as well.
I'm not an economy student, wish to hear your opinion if the cap is changed to 1500 with your trade experience.
Therefore many $10 items are priced for at least 750k in AH.
Over time, the items have become more expensive due to low supply and high demand.
Paid players will not want to trade 1000 zen for 750k AD. They could buy the item from Zen store, sell and profit in AH.
As a result, the AD to Zen convert system hardly benefit free players.
They have millions of AD to sell for Zen, but a buyer can take over half a year to surface.
To solve the problem, raising the cap to be above 750k to 1500k might do the trick.
Paid players could earn more AD with the system than to use AH. There will now be many AD buyers.
It is a win-win strategy because paid players get more AD instantly and more importantly,
free players can now earn Zen, solving the pay to win reputation once and for all.
However, will this eventually cause the price of items to raise in the long run?
A once affordable 750k item (1 week of saving for free players) might cost 1.5m very soon.
The free player made a lot less zen due to higher convert ratio as well.
I'm not an economy student, wish to hear your opinion if the cap is changed to 1500 with your trade experience.
8
Comments
No, what I think needs to happen, is to bind items purchased from the Zen store, or something else encourage paying players to use the ZAX.
The ZAX in its current form only benefits those rich enough to keep their ZAX queue full. 8+ months wait is too long to have any practical use when you need something from the Zen store.
I think at least one of two things is needed:
* Remove the cap on the ZAX. The market should then balance the Zen price so you get more or less the same exchange ratio whether you sell items or directly.
or
* Make all items in the Zen store sellable for AD - then you could basically terminate the ZAX and have an AD-only economy where the payers feed items from Zen store into the economy. Today the F2P crowd needs actual Zen for VIP, bank slots, character slots etc.
Just as water seeks its own level, raising wages causes the prices across the board to jump up and it helps nobody at all. In many cases the prices will jump much higher than wages causing the consumer price index to inflate in multiple areas.
Your question in the title is "What do you think will happen if AD to Zen is raised to 1500?"
What I know would happen is the following;
- Players would immediately demand more AD rewards for dungeons.
- The item you buy in the AH today for 750,000 AD would be more than 1,500,000 within days after the cap raise.
- Real money traders would get a lot of zen sales overnight.
- Eventually the backlog would inflate well beyond what it is at now.
I would also predict within 6 to 8 months fewer players would be running content, paying for zen, and they would be leaving due to the long grind. The economy would be more of a disaster than it was before tampering with the exchange.My Solution
I recommend, if you want something, buy it. If you don't think it is worth the payment, then it is junk and you don't need it. I know you are seeking answers to the economic trade for the good of the ZAX. Cryptic has known the solution for a long time, they have yet to move upon it for the good of the freemium users. This is their choice and I doubt they will change the ZAX anytime soon.
PSN Zen AD Exchange - Forecasting Spreadsheet
+ Astral Lockbox, that one should return more often, and sometimes without a Wondrous Bazaar sale attached to it
+ Knox Box for AD, hopefully fixed this week, should also return regularly
+ Wondrous Bazaar should have more high valuable items, that are actually worth buying, in it
in short, more good AD sinks.
Anyway, i think if they either increase or remove the cap from the ZAX it will only cost them more players.
And it won't matter how hard they try pushing players towards spending (more) money on the game, as long as their customer support isn't worth a damn...
I had to contact customer support more then once, and the last few times never got any help from them, and i'm not alone with that problem, so why the everloving HAMSTER would i or anyone else even want to spend more money on the game?
And let's not forget about all the bugs and issues and how they handled them... or how they destroy player investment of time and money over and over again for "balancing" reasons.
It come down to a question of, do you want to wait for your VIP, or spend more AD to get it now?
The downside, sales of Zen would take an immediate hit, due to AD hoarding. It would have to bounce back, because of the profuse amount of AD needed for an entire month. Maybe I am off on my 10 million AD price tag, I assume there is no way to make 10 million in 1 day every day? However should the average user make 1 million AD per day, in 10 days they could afford 1 day of VIP.
As you stated, this is beating a dead horse, as they will never implement the needed changes.
PSN Zen AD Exchange - Forecasting Spreadsheet
It really would require someone with database access, to calculate the average income, and base the price for the average player to afford to buy 1 day every 10 days of playing. This would free up the exchange for the casual players. Other than VIP, others have suggested wards. I believe they added some wards only as a temporary event?
PSN Zen AD Exchange - Forecasting Spreadsheet
Simple Soul-loo-shuns!
1. Move appearance change tokens to the AD, nobody buys these for zen ... except those who complain their beard and hair don't match.
2. Race reroll token to the AD store, because weird stuff happens in D&D where characters change mid journey. Druids do a strange thing called reincarnation to people.
3. Add new character skins to the AD store, spell plagued, undead, and battle scared. Want to make the undead tiefling? How about a spell plagued half-orc? Get your battle scared halfling ... half off!
All of this should be permanent and not temporary sinks, they should never be available for zen or the AH.
Just killing time...
I see two effects that will actually boost Zen sales:
* It will be easier to convert Zen to AD in ZAX, rather than going the longer way of flipping Zen items. That will make it more attractive to purchase Zen to boost your AD spending.
* Since the rich and patient people no longer can generate a significant income by waiting out the ZAX and flipping cheap Zen store items, they will be more inclined to purchase Zen to get the items they want.
Remember Cryptic only cares about sold Zen.. who ends up using it is irrelevant for Cryptics income. All sold Zen ends up in the Zen store anyways, it has no other way to go.
As for those purchasing things for AD, a removed ZAX cap should not matter much. Items in the AH are already priced by their market value and not according to their purchase price.
no cap on the Zax (or undercap Zax) = perma ability to speculate on the Zax price.
The more wealthy, the more leverage on the Zax so the better ability to manipulate the prices as lever can be on the 2 directions. Quite a good place to operate for third parties gold(AD)-sellers.
Personnally, with an unregulated Zax, I would not have to bother with the tedious flipping of items from the Zen Market (or from wonderous bazar) in the AH to get more AD to refuel more Zen, sinking 10% AD (from the buyer mostly) in the process.
I would have a better direct and immediate tool which doesn't sink anything, usable in both ways which i would use to :
- daily quickly play on tiny variations (+1/-1).
- patiently play on bit above bottom/bit below roof "trending" values (if a significant discrepancy between selling and buying prices would be trending [like the no backlog situation on Champions Online]).
- anticipate the various event (especially the -x% $ on Zen sales, or +x% zen for the same $), players peaks (new mod, summer/winter holidays) to profit from their quite predictible effects on the Zax.
- some other tricks ^^
Side note : i don't think a huge backlog like the one we have nowdays is a good situation.
In my opinion, the ideal situation is when the Zax is "breathing", building up and backlogging approaching jubilee and blackfriday, then cleaning down and going undercap in between (and if it follows the patern we had before mod14, the lowest AD:Z ratio should be somewhere between january and march).
No one will exchange 750:1 at least not a mmo veteran when they can buy something from zen store and sell it for double.
And the prices will keep rising becose f2p ppl dont have or dont want to spend money on game.
Uhhh, if a "Free to Play" user pays money they are no longer "Free to Play", you really can't blame anyone for not paying out for stuff they don't want. Let's face some facts, money costs way too much.
I have lots of money compared to the man living out in the street, but no one ever is satisfied with their current income. People will be telling you they cannot afford to buy stuff, yet here they are on the internet, through a paid service, the power running the PC can't be free, and the machine you are using didn't come out of the neighbor's garbage or did it? Some software company tells you their game is free to play... oh what a baldfaced lie!
Do you have free time? When a stranger asks me that very question, the answer is a quick resounding, No. All my time has value, if you want me at your Tupperware party or listening to your sales pitch for a MLM scam, you are going to be paying me. Anyone with free time is not spending it well. I spend my time playing games, talking to friends, giving my best advice to people who listen. It is your choice to buy or not to buy, the seller must be competitive not deceitful.
So who are these free to play people you speak of?
Just killing time...