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How to Make the MicroTransaction model better in NW and diminish third party sales...
ayroux
Member Posts: 4,271 Arc User
Quick BIO: Ive played NW since beta and have a double major in marketing and finance. I have seen and played many microxaction games and think I could lend some advice to Cryptic/PWE here, chances are this will get lost in about a day but heres to hoping right 
Now there are a few things that plague Neverwinter's micro transaction system. ONE is third party sites - although any games faces that.
Part of the reason its more beneficial to go to those sites is the current prices on the Zen market. Some of them just frankly dont make sense. Putting up mounts for 5k zen when you can buy one for <1Mil on the AH just doesnt make sense.
Part of the issue is the ZEN:AD cap honestly. If you remove this cap, you allow players to set the market, there is hardly any zen because people buy AD for 3rd parties for much cheaper and then convert to zen, nobody wants to buy zen direct. This is because 2k zen only = a MAX of 1,000,000 AD. With new Zen items causing higher demand for zen, but the inability for zen prices to rise you are NOT allowing for markets to respond. remove the AD:ZEN cap, Zen prices will rise probably north of 700:1 and now that 1M for 2k zen is worth 1.4 M and looks more attractive.
The OTHER major issue is you guys are offering the WRONG types of things in the zen market. The TWO biggest things people pay for is 1) Convenience 2) Cosmetics.
So here are a list of things that will DRAMATICALLY increase PWE sales (with the combination of removing the zen:ad cap). Forget the "RP" factor here, if you want micro transactions people should be able to pay for what they want, even its its not RP appropriate.
1) Base ability score Re-roll - this will bring ALOT of paying customers. People would easily pay north of 2k zen for this.
2) RACE Changes - again people would pay BIG for this. Same with Sex-Changes too BTW.
3) Transmutes - not just gear, but enchants AND transmuting to OTHER classes gear too...
- This requires slightly more detail: Players love the look of enchants like flaming enchant on weapons, or lightning enchants, but often those enchants are NOT that great.. Heck I would have payed thousands of zen to turn that ugly bronzewood into an AWESOME looking lightning enchant. This ZEN token should NOT consume the item, and ALSO, it should have the power to look PAST "class gear" and look PAST "enchants" meaning: You like a lightning enchant look? Buy the Zen transmute for 2k, turn your Perfect Vorpal into a Normal Flaming enchant! Your a GWF but want to LOOK like your wearing a hood? Buy this item and Xmute your helm into a Hunter Hood ( I know about the Pack btw).
4) UN-Bind Token - This could take ANY item and make it "Unbound" (again convenience!). Players would pay BIG money for this (probably 4-5k zen) Not only will this GREATLY stimulate the economy and give reasons to farm, it will also increase the ZEN:AD ratio. Players would take gear like Formorian weapons, pay 5k to unbind them and sell them for alot. This in turn boosts the "drops" to make the weapons price, boosts the desire for zen, making a more efficient zen:ad price go up, boosting the value of buying zen.
- A secondary feature to this is unbinding artifacts, which people would do ALOT if they could, to put an artifact on an alt... I know I would. This would also make re-rolling new characters/classes more appealing creating the desire to play the current content MORE if players didnt have to fork over 10 mil for each new legendary artifact for each class, but could pay 4k zen to unbind 1 and xfer it over to that new character. Same with mounts etc.
5) More Cosmetic Options, not just "costumes" but gear choices for classes in the ZEN market. Things like "unique swords for GWFs, Daggers for TRs etc" These would follow the SAME rules as the current "transmute only" items. People pay ALOT of money for transmutes and farm ALOT for new transmutes.... Unique armor sets for all classes ETC... Doesnt even take stat balacling just costume design. Think of items that are NOT offered in game for instance. Like Giant Battle Axes for GWFs is 1 example.
- One REALLY easy way to to this, is offer ALL the current Epic Gear pieces for zen as transmutes... So take Dread Legion Helm for example. YOu can either 1) Farm for it or 2) Buy it for zen from the AH... YOur choice. This takes very little coding since it would just be an "epic transmute" that copies the already existing graphic onto the item.
6) More Dye Packs/Colors - again people pay ALOT for these things... Youd be surprised.
These are just a few IDEAS. really the focus is on convenience and cosmetics...
Now there are a few things that plague Neverwinter's micro transaction system. ONE is third party sites - although any games faces that.
Part of the reason its more beneficial to go to those sites is the current prices on the Zen market. Some of them just frankly dont make sense. Putting up mounts for 5k zen when you can buy one for <1Mil on the AH just doesnt make sense.
Part of the issue is the ZEN:AD cap honestly. If you remove this cap, you allow players to set the market, there is hardly any zen because people buy AD for 3rd parties for much cheaper and then convert to zen, nobody wants to buy zen direct. This is because 2k zen only = a MAX of 1,000,000 AD. With new Zen items causing higher demand for zen, but the inability for zen prices to rise you are NOT allowing for markets to respond. remove the AD:ZEN cap, Zen prices will rise probably north of 700:1 and now that 1M for 2k zen is worth 1.4 M and looks more attractive.
The OTHER major issue is you guys are offering the WRONG types of things in the zen market. The TWO biggest things people pay for is 1) Convenience 2) Cosmetics.
So here are a list of things that will DRAMATICALLY increase PWE sales (with the combination of removing the zen:ad cap). Forget the "RP" factor here, if you want micro transactions people should be able to pay for what they want, even its its not RP appropriate.
1) Base ability score Re-roll - this will bring ALOT of paying customers. People would easily pay north of 2k zen for this.
2) RACE Changes - again people would pay BIG for this. Same with Sex-Changes too BTW.
3) Transmutes - not just gear, but enchants AND transmuting to OTHER classes gear too...
- This requires slightly more detail: Players love the look of enchants like flaming enchant on weapons, or lightning enchants, but often those enchants are NOT that great.. Heck I would have payed thousands of zen to turn that ugly bronzewood into an AWESOME looking lightning enchant. This ZEN token should NOT consume the item, and ALSO, it should have the power to look PAST "class gear" and look PAST "enchants" meaning: You like a lightning enchant look? Buy the Zen transmute for 2k, turn your Perfect Vorpal into a Normal Flaming enchant! Your a GWF but want to LOOK like your wearing a hood? Buy this item and Xmute your helm into a Hunter Hood ( I know about the Pack btw).
4) UN-Bind Token - This could take ANY item and make it "Unbound" (again convenience!). Players would pay BIG money for this (probably 4-5k zen) Not only will this GREATLY stimulate the economy and give reasons to farm, it will also increase the ZEN:AD ratio. Players would take gear like Formorian weapons, pay 5k to unbind them and sell them for alot. This in turn boosts the "drops" to make the weapons price, boosts the desire for zen, making a more efficient zen:ad price go up, boosting the value of buying zen.
- A secondary feature to this is unbinding artifacts, which people would do ALOT if they could, to put an artifact on an alt... I know I would. This would also make re-rolling new characters/classes more appealing creating the desire to play the current content MORE if players didnt have to fork over 10 mil for each new legendary artifact for each class, but could pay 4k zen to unbind 1 and xfer it over to that new character. Same with mounts etc.
5) More Cosmetic Options, not just "costumes" but gear choices for classes in the ZEN market. Things like "unique swords for GWFs, Daggers for TRs etc" These would follow the SAME rules as the current "transmute only" items. People pay ALOT of money for transmutes and farm ALOT for new transmutes.... Unique armor sets for all classes ETC... Doesnt even take stat balacling just costume design. Think of items that are NOT offered in game for instance. Like Giant Battle Axes for GWFs is 1 example.
- One REALLY easy way to to this, is offer ALL the current Epic Gear pieces for zen as transmutes... So take Dread Legion Helm for example. YOu can either 1) Farm for it or 2) Buy it for zen from the AH... YOur choice. This takes very little coding since it would just be an "epic transmute" that copies the already existing graphic onto the item.
6) More Dye Packs/Colors - again people pay ALOT for these things... Youd be surprised.
These are just a few IDEAS. really the focus is on convenience and cosmetics...
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
Ya, make all those top players pay for ability changes instead of doing it for free.
There are many players that are willing to pay real $$$ for convenience - why not accept their money?
There are other things I would be willing to pay for as well... for example, we currently have 3 belt slots - one of which typically holds healing potions, but there are too many potential items for just two slots - I would pay a reasonable amount of zen for unlocking a fourth and/or a fifth slot.
Dyes are about the only other thing that can be considered "micro transactions" and that is pushing the line on those.
The only thing this company can do to encourage sales from it instead of 3rd party is to make things more reasonably priced that people will pay for it, and consider moving to a subscription model and do away with this zen/ad craziness that is messing everything up.
I will agree raising caps is not a solution that will only further widen the gap, but if people want to spend AD on Zen then maybe the cost of zen needs to drop for awhile to get more of it on the market. Otherwise one of the two currencies probably needs to be eliminated and or this game should move to subscription base.
Allowing players to pay for everything just because they want to is like saying the world economy should allow rich people to set the price that works for them such as selling a loaf of bread for 200 dollars just because a rich person can afford that doesn't mean its a good idea to set that price point to accommodate those willing to pay that price. The idea is to set prices that even lower income people can purchase things ergo more purchases = more money.
So be clear on what your definitions of reasonable are. There are plenty of people that would gladly pay 500+ dollars just to be able to say they are the best or beat people and gloat about it, that doesn't mean this game should be priced around what those people are willing to pay to have that experience.
Sekhmet@kvetchus_
Guilds: Greycloaks, Blackcloaks, Whitecloaks, Goldcloaks, Browncloaks, Spiritcloaks, Bluecloaks, Silvercloaks, Black Dawn
Tredecim: The Cloak Alliance
BUT I suspect they are not worried about this, after all with how things are now, if someone wants to get Z he can either post it in the Z:AD exchange and wait a few days or buy Z with real money. So more people will buy with real money than before.
It is just that people generate too much passive AD, but on the other hand, not everyone has 10 Leadership alts running on purple persons, 24/7.
If you want something except maybe a mount or bank slots, buy the stuff on the Auction house. The people buying Zen for cash do not wish to sell for 500 AD/1 Zen. But they still want to turn Zen into AD, so they buy keys, selling them for over 500/1 (plus 10% AH cut).
So either Leadership Alt more, or reach into your pocket.
Allowing Ability Score Re-Rolls and Race changes does not fit the Dungeons and Dragons concept at all. These cannot be allowed under any circumstance. You roll your scores, choose your race, and let the adventure begin!
Other stuff seems fine to me.
myles08807 said, "Back in my day, we didn't have any of this fancy Mulhorand gear while we were leveling . . . we walked uphill both ways while dying once every five seconds while leveling, and we liked it fine!" . . . Now, get off my lawn, you kids!"
pointsman said, "I don't rue the game. In fact I don't feel any regret for the game at all."
looomis said, "I don't like people changing to alts and then bragging about their mains like schizophrenic role players."
Pls. When people complain about lack of PvP, others say "you're the only 1% of the community, who cares about you." So, how many RP players out there? 0.01%? Should developers respect such a meaningless RP offense, when they could've made a lot money?
If demand goes up, so SHOULD price to create whats called market equilibrium. AT Market economic equilibrium the supply and demand create the market price so that there are just as many buyers as there are sellers.
So lets take that into Neverwinter.
Step 1 is Neverwinter creates these suggestions above, this makes Zen MORE attractive, so people would like to start buying zen. Well, last time I checked it was $20 for 2000 zen right? However at 3rd party sites I think the price is close to half that, so what players will TRY to do is buy third party sites, then try to convert AD to Zen for a more efficient process.
- What this does is created a HIGHER demand for zen since more people are buying zen, and less people are SELLING zen because a player who WANTS AD doesnt buy zen to get AD, they buy AD.... The market cap works AGAINST cryptic here.
Now if they decided to REMOVE the market cap, releasing new ZEN items still creates the higher demand for zen. What THIS means is now ZEN:AD ratio is say 700:1 or even 800:1 depending on how high it can go via market demand, not controls. Now a player who WANTS ZEN looks at the market, and can get almost the same value through PWE that they can from third party, some will still go 3rd party sites, but now many players would just support cryptic and buy from PWE.
Now that person who pays $20 and wants AD, can get 1.4-1.6M for their $20. The only person this would hurt, would be the person who buys AD, or farms AD and wants to try and BUY those zen items through AD... Now their prices just went up - but thats the point!
The reason micros work, its the BASE game is available for free, and enhancements in the form of convenience and cosmetics are pay to achieve. Thats what almost all zen items are, and the fact you can even convert is just a HUGE bonus to the players. Most Micro games dont have a currency conversion, you have to buy from the seller directly to get those items. This is the only real fair way to offer a micro based game.
I also agree, which is why I wrote in my OP, some of the prices need to be adjusted as far as ZEN in concerned. But you CANT just adjust zen prices because that DOESNT fix the issue of people buying from 3rd party sites. If you changed a zen price from 3000 down to 2000 people will still just buy AD and convert to zen. THATS the issue, its at the point of conversion. They cant and wont lower their price for zen - since it spans across ALOT of games, but what they can FIX is the ZEN:AD conversion to either make zen MORE or LESS attractive.
AD via AH is what gets you gear/enchants/xmutes ALL the "NEEDED" stuff to play the base game (besides coal wards arguably) but preserve wards DO drop, (not sure about coal wards - although maybe they should!). You even get ALL expansions for free too!
Then ZEN is for things like - new mounts(cosmetic)/costumes(cosmetics)/player slots(convenience)/dyes(cosmetics)/companions ETC. None of this is NEEDED to play the game but it sure enhances your experience!
The Zen cap is what causes players who want zen OR AD to go to the 3rd party sites, letting the market decide the price of those things, only allows for price adjustment from PWEs standpoint.
If the zen price is 2000 for an item, the market will set the price as to what that is worth for the consumer's pocket, not Cryptic saying "we want this to cost $20". If the market deems it has high value, zen prices rise, making it cost LESS to flat out buy direct and MORE to buy from 3rd party.
Class dismissed.
1 thing completely destroys your argument of this: gold/AD/etc. sellers can adjust their prices/amount to ALWAYS be cheaper than the game itself. Tell me this: have you ever seen a gold seller site sell the currency of a game for more than the current market value of that game's currency? The answer is no.
If you think they won't do this, you are seriously underestimating their supply.
All of the OP's suggestions are ways of increasing demand for zen, which will just take the market further in the direction that it has been going. As for raising or eliminating the cap, that will only increase the disparity between the "haves" and "have nots" and inflate the cost of everything, making it that much more difficult for f2p players to attain anything. Keep in mind that PWE has been marketing NW as a game where anything can be acquired without paying real $$. The more undesirable "in game" currency becomes in relation to "bought with real $$" currency and the more unrealistic it becomes to access much of the game's content without spending $$, the more they risk alienating a significant portion of their player base.
This is not a free market in any true sense of the word and to pretend that it is would be naive. Content decisions are surely being made specifically based on what their market impact will be. We just need those decisions to be more balanced with regard to AD and zen demand.
TL/DR: what we really need is something to increase the demand for AD, not to remove the ADX cap.
As it is now, someone has to wait weeks with their AD sitting on the ZAX waiting to be converted to Zen. And, their is no guarantee that it will ever be converted to Zen if the true market price increases enough. At which point, Zen store items will be sold on the AH for their true price, which will be much higher than their ZAX ratio prices. An example of this is enchanted keys, which currently sell for over 70k on the AH, at one point they were over 80k, while their ZAX ratio price is 62.5k.
So, people can say it allows the poorer non-paying customers the ability to get Zen for a reasonable price, but it doesn't. There is no government that mandates a supply of Zen to be sold on the ZAX and so a real queue doesn't even exist, we'll just be left with a bunch of players that have no way to purchase Zen other than irl cash.
Another positive if the ZAX cap is removed, is players will be given more incentive to buy Zen, because they will get more AD per Zen they sell on the ZAX.
This person understands, you must have taken an intro level econ class or maybe just have common sense LOL!
YES 3rd party will always have it cheaper, but they also can only go so low based on ability to farm AD. PWE either has to sell zen for less AD, which they cant, or they have to increase demand for zen. Either way, if they increase demand for zen, players STILL wont buy zen because its capped out... They will just buy AD and convert.
Again its a revolving cirlce: NW creates more zen items, zen in higher demand AD:ZEN increases forcing 3rd party to lower prices = lower profit margins = some stop selling, ontop of that, ppl buying AD 3rd party STILL raises the ZEN:AD xchange because you STILL have players who HAVE AD wanting to BUY ZEN. SO ZEN goes up fruther.
Every time AD sellers lower prices, it raises zen exchange rates because thats MORE people wanting zen who are buying AD.
People will always use 3rd party but if people can get CLOSE to the same value you can get 3rd party, alot more people wil buy direct.
Then why not raise the demand for AD? During the egg event a few weeks back the backlog on zen disappeared because everyone saw value in their AD and withdrew their offers in order to buy some eggs. It was temporary, but it fixed the problem while it was active, so why not run something similar permanently in order to raise the value in AD and lower the value in zen?
This is the crux, they cant make a microxaction game without having demand for the microxactions...
The statement still holds true you can get whatever you want, it just costs... Either people have to accept they wont be able to afford certain luxuries cheaply but they get the GAME for free, or they have to adapt a P2P model, otherwise they make no money.
There is nothing for zen that you NEED to play the game nor is there anything from zen you NEED to even have the best gear/ecnhants etc.
Increasing demand for zen is good, but you can make zen demand higher and higher all you want, your problem will get EVEN WORSE. Because people will value zen SO high, noone would EVER sell zen for 500AD EVER. Increasing demand and keeping the cap TRULY means players cannot access anything in the zen store for free.
Even now players dont sell for 500:1 they buy keys with zen and sell keys for over 500AD each.... Thats PROOF this is the bottleneck in the market. If someone could get the same amount of AD they could for buying a key and selling, who would buy keys and sell them? Nobody....
Your logic honestly doesnt work my friend.
Increasing demand for AD means players will flock MORE to 3rd party sites. Again why would someone pay $20 for 2000zen (1Mil) when you can get say 2MIL for $20? It makes no sense.
You cant increase demand for AD because it will mean LESS sales for NW and MORE for 3rd party. The reason it freed up the exchange is because people desired AD so much more the supply of zen came from people who already had it - not that they BOUGHT zen to convert.
That doesnt even make sense, why would they want to lower the zen value?
They want to increase zen value but wont allow the market to adjust - so the market found its own way(keys) to do so.
This is PROOF:
1 key = about 75k in AD. a 10 pack of keys = 112.5 zen PER KEY.
THIS MEANS THE MARKET IS PUTTING A 666:1 ZEN:AD exchange CURRENTLY and I would argue keys are even pigeonholing THAT number since not everyone who wants zen can do it by buying keys....
My theory is, Cryptic is fine with the current situation. The extra 2-3 days of waiting for Zen is enough incentive for lot of peeps to reach into their wallets. Also I'm pretty sure Cryptic won't do anything till Mod4 release, they are just observing the situation.
Never said you can buy zen, I said you can buy AD then convert to ZEN.
Zen would never be worth 5000:1. Even the AD whales would not buy the zen, why? there is no reason to... Also if it was 5,000:1 then your $20 would get you 10 million AD, id LOAD on on zen and sell it for AD. $20 for any enchant in the game, sign me up!!!! Ill take 10! GLADLY would I do this, but sadly it would not happen. My estimations of 700:1 are pretty close id say with the current key situation in place.
"The extra 2-3 days of waiting for Zen is enough incentive for lot of peeps to reach into their wallets." - Exactly! So why would people buy zen(support the company)? You nailed it - they dont.
People need to stop thinking about this from "how this will affect ME" and "how this will affect the company" because they are offering a free game and not making very much $... Removing the ZAX cap will make them more money ALONG with offering more zen items, because THEN it will be worth more to buy zen direct.
Race change? Again, never gonna see it. The benefits of the races can be seen during creation.
Everything else I could see happening.
But as for the market? Its PerfectWorld-ononmics, or Cryptic-ononmics. It theirs to do with as they please and I'll leave them to it.
If the exchange rate goes that high, then the prices of enchants will be 10x as high too. I really don't see how you would think they would be unaffected with that much of a price change.
Um, my argument is that demand for AD needs to raised not the demand for zen, so I'm really not sure what you're talking about here. And as evidence, I'll just point to the recent egg sale. One unique item introduced that could only be purchased with AD and voila, the entire backlog disappeared over one weekend. Egg sale ends, backlog returns. This is what will solve the current problem -- more ways to spend AD.
By the way, your condescending attitude toward everyone who disagrees with you is a bit hard to take. I'm an industry analyst who writes economics papers for a living -- I don't really need your econ 101 cliff notes or your snide remarks, thank you very much.
Then I dont understand at all how you dont understand.
The PROBLEM is people are buying AD from 3rd party sites. The problem ISNT that there is a backlog of zen ppl are not willing to buy...
If all you want to do is release the backlog then yes, adding more AD sinks is what you need. If what they are looking to do is increase zen SALES for the company then you need to increase the value of zen NOT decrease the value by adding ad sinks....
This thread is how to increase PWE sales and increase the worth of zen, this is in response to the DEV post yesterday saying/reminding people that purchasing from a 3rd party is probated... This isnt a post about the "backlog"
If all you do is offer more AD items for sale, you DO release the backlog and all you did then was decrease the zen value in the market and increase the value of AD, what this does then is makes the price 3rd party is willing to offer ALOT better than the price PWE is willing to offer on a $ per AD basis.
If the zen market can freely fluctuate then people can set their own price for zen, which will mean almost always there will be a market for zen.
If zen prices go too high, more ppl will BUY direct from PWE than from 3rd party sites (raise in sales for PWE) dropping the zen price back to the equilibrium.
So it seems you are saying the issue is the backlog - I dont think thats an issue to me that means the market cannot effectively price ZAX. Why? Because the cap. Remove the cap, the market takes effect.
I am a strong proponent of free markets and I think PWE should be too.
I knew a guy who bought 1 mil for $3 and said it was legit... I dont dabble there either, but I also know its a big problem for the game...
Also if you look at all the "potions" up on the AH selling for 1M+ youll see ALOT of people are doing this.... I check every few days and I see just handfuls of people buying 10-20mil +... Think of all the ZEN/Sales that would be... thats thousands of dollars every few days....
Look, I understand they want it free to play, and I see where people are coming from saying they want the zen exchange opened up.
If they devalue zen by making more AD sinks or AD more valuable, all that will do is further the divide between what PWE can offer on a cash to zen to AD basis from the 3rd party sites.... I think the norm is $10 for a mil, maybe someone can verify.
So if PWE wants to increase sales and stop 3rd party sales. They need to offer (zen) what others cannot (AD) and then make it lucrative to buy what they can offer (zen).
They cant drop prices since its the same across all games, this wouldnt work, so what they need to do is find a way to make zen more valuable. Make what people buy FROM cryptic more valuable. The ONLY way to do that is to let the market set the price.
If all you do is make more zen items, the zen giants out there will make a killing buying and selling in the AH. If you increase the value of zen to AD, then more people will buy zen to buy items instead of xferring AD to zen to buy items...
Things like mentioned in the OP. The markets will balance themselves out.
I mean look at what it is right now, people are free to buy zen, to get AD so why is there a shortage of zen on the ZAX? its not because they want to buy AD - those offers are eaten up instantly... Its because AD is easily attainable, zen isnt.... Zen is worth more than 500 AD atm, and the market isnt allowing it on the exchange to adjust so people have flocked to things like buying keys with zen to sell instead because they can get north of 666:1 ratio - so why sell for 500:1?
1) Regardless of actions taken by a game's publisher, third party websites will ALWAYS offer in-game currencies at lower rates than legitimate sources, due to bots, career-farmers, etc. This has been true in every game I have played, and I've played a fair few. And if they are offering lower rates, someone some place will still use them.
2) Despite this, the majority of people go through legitimate sources, or at least this is true of the people that I've gamed with. Why deal with the various risks and hassles associated with third party sites for a few extra AD? Most people spending on a video game see it as entertainment, not investment. If I'm going to spend $50 on a game, all I ask myself is "will I get $50 worth of entertainment for my money?", not "how can I squeeze out the absolute maximum impact for this cash?". Obviously, some people use those sites, or they wouldn't exist. However, based on my own reasonably-wide circle of gamers, the percentage of people using these sites seems relatively small.
Given these two premises, which I acknowledge are based on my own subjective experiences, I just don't see an advantage to eliminating the cap. All I see is the price of everything skyrocketing to the point where all the f2p players give up hope and move on.