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The Zen to Money ratio is excessive and insane
crazyvipa
Member Posts: 8 Arc User
While I understand the Free-2-Play model, I really feel you guys took it way to far. Here is why.
* The Zen to Money ratio is excessive and insane.
I will proudly support game devs by spending money. I spent $36/month on Final Fantasy XI for nearly 8 years with me & the wife which did not include game add-ons and replacement disks. For this amount, we enjoyed a very full game that was extremely in-depth and challenging. In a comparison, I decided to see what I could get for $10. Giving me 1000 zen, I farmed a bit of AD and transferred it to Zen. Picked up 10 enchanted keys and started opening boxes. Out of 10 boxes, spending 10$, you'd imagine there would be some pretty helpful items and epics in there... and at least a pretty **** good chance to get a Drake. Instead, I received 1 greater potency and a few rank 7 gems for a follower. Pathetic to say the least. $10 should at the very least, multiple Epics / or a Legendary item.
Taking FFXI as a MMORPG example, that would have given me almost an entire month of play without mules & alts. I received 10 seconds of opening boxes and a night full of disconnects with NW.
-- Note: The game is extremely bugged. I consistently get "disconnected from GameServer." I feel like I am playing a Beta-- it's bad. I would not be surprised if nearly all players opted out of spending money for this reason alone.
* The Zen to Money ratio is excessive and insane.
I will proudly support game devs by spending money. I spent $36/month on Final Fantasy XI for nearly 8 years with me & the wife which did not include game add-ons and replacement disks. For this amount, we enjoyed a very full game that was extremely in-depth and challenging. In a comparison, I decided to see what I could get for $10. Giving me 1000 zen, I farmed a bit of AD and transferred it to Zen. Picked up 10 enchanted keys and started opening boxes. Out of 10 boxes, spending 10$, you'd imagine there would be some pretty helpful items and epics in there... and at least a pretty **** good chance to get a Drake. Instead, I received 1 greater potency and a few rank 7 gems for a follower. Pathetic to say the least. $10 should at the very least, multiple Epics / or a Legendary item.
Taking FFXI as a MMORPG example, that would have given me almost an entire month of play without mules & alts. I received 10 seconds of opening boxes and a night full of disconnects with NW.
-- Note: The game is extremely bugged. I consistently get "disconnected from GameServer." I feel like I am playing a Beta-- it's bad. I would not be surprised if nearly all players opted out of spending money for this reason alone.
Post edited by crazyvipa on
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Right now there's 2 kind of peoples buying zen :
- The ones buying a small amount to start their business or simply to buy their mounts/seals/race packs
- The wallet warriors that would do anything to have a huge advance on others by spending hundreds of $ and claiming to be good
If they lowered the price it would add a 3rd category of peoples, the normal players willing to pay for something valuable.
Wallet warriors would still do their things, while alot of players would invest a bit of cash into it.
But right now 40$ just to get a cool mount, that's just pure garbage.
Everything else in the Zen store is a fixed price and known quantity. If you really want a mount or companion from a lockbox, it will likely be cheaper just to buy one on the AH.
If you don't like the risk, don't gamble, don't open lockboxes. They are a lottery. It has been estimated that there is a less than 1% chance of getting an Epic item.
I don't think $10 should give multiple Epics under any circumstances. That's just me.
Of course it shouldn't, that would be silly. BUT it should give you more then useless HAMSTER. I've been exchanging AD for Zen and buying keys in hopes to get a mount or companion leveling tokens, but to no avail.
I wish they just sold those companion tokens straight up on the market. But no, you have to buy a key, open a box hoping a companion box is in it, and after opening the companion box hope there are tokens in it lol
However, they do something that is very cool and allow people to trade ad for zen. Last time I looked, it was being traded at 143 ad per zen, or 14300 per 100 zen, which equates to 1 real life dollar. So every day I can log into each of my characters and grind out at least 100 zen, until the trading price exceeds 250ad. After 250ad, it will start taking 2 days to grind out 100 zen. This system is very generous to those that have never actually bought zen with real money, which helps to make the pay barrier somewhat invisible and more enticing to new players that could be apart of that small percent that will actually buy zen with real money.
Just how I think of this system.
I *do* agree that Zen prices are a tad bit high, especially considering things like character slots are actually cheaper on the PC version (800Z on XB1 vs. 500Z on PC), and epic companions being $20 and locked in to a single character, but nothing on the store is *needed* to enjoy the game. If you think it's expensive to pay for things out of pocket, just don't buy them.
Abigore - 60 Hellbringer Fury Scourge Warlock
-XBOX ONE PLAYER ONLY-
If purchasing 10$ worth of drops, what would I get for it? The answer is nothing.
If it is an extremely low drop rate / roll chance (whatever this game calls it); then it shouldn't be a purchased item. It should be something that is at the very least, obtainable by killing mobs / bosses of some nature. At the very LEAST, it should not be $10 for 10 keys if its such a lottery item. It just shows the base mentality of the game itself. The value is not there. That is all this post is about. Without value, why the heck would anyone open their wallet?
Do you hold value in aesthetically pleasing mounts or companions? If yes, that may be worth 20-40K zen. If not, don't spend your money.
Do you play the lottery? Yes? Maybe lockboxes are your thing. No? lockboxes probably not the greatest idea.
Bottom line is there is absolutely nothing that costs zen that is mandatory to play this game. Things that cost zen can be purchased without spending a dollar (ZAX)
Want a purple mount, don't want to pay for it? Farm AD.
Want a purple companion, don't want to pay for it? Farm AD.
Want to open a bunch of lockboxes, don't want to pay for it? Farm AD.
This is a free to play title.
And it is exactly that - free to play.
It is entirely possible to do everything in this game without ever spending a dollar.
No one is holding a gun to your head, no one is forcing you.
There is no fine print, it is all pretty straight forward.
Spend money, save time.
Don't spend money, grind away.
It is not very difficult to understand.
Maybe that's their plan...
Do any of you play the lottery in real life? $200M by buying $2 powerball ticket!
what do you get for that $2? 6 times out of 7, nothing. yet millions of people buy those tickets twice a week. Instead of playing the lottery, they could have put that money toward something with lasting value. Instead, they get nothing, but keep playing, week after week after week. Why? because there's always a chance, and they're always seeing the winners on the news. That means people win, right?! it could be them.. all for a measly $2.
With keys, what you do get? usually, stuff with an average worth of about 40k AD (from my PC days, no clue about XB1 value because of difference in economy). Yet, millions of people keep buying those keys every day. Instead of buying keys, they could have put that money toward something with lasting value from the zen store. Instead, they get nothing, but keep buying keys, week after week after week. Why? because there's always a chance, and they're always seeing the winners in orange flash on the screen. That means people win, right?! it could be them.. all for a measly key.
see all the same language? its on purpose. People buy keys for the same reason they buy Powerball or scratch off lottery tickets. For the VERY small chance of getting a lot of return for a little investment. yet.. they pour so much money into keys, they end up getting nothing for a LARGE investment instead of just buying the stuff from the zen store.
Yeah man I've bought quite a few keys using the AD to Zen conversion and got nothing from it, so time to focus on getting some other things I think!
Guild: Supermarket Sweep
Chars:
Not to be a smart-butt, but I usually get my $2 back
They could even place it at $2 for 5 keys and I'd consider it. As it stands, current cost is $1.13/key. Pretty insane no matter what kind of chance you get. I'm better off spending my $2 on the actual lottery.
You're making things up - It's $16 to get a cool mount... and every character you've made gets it. Sounds like a good offer to me.
If you're going to use an example, you should have gone for companions, which are unlocks for a specific character rather than an account.
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Join us in the shadows where we stand mostly vigilant... although slightly distracted by our inventories.
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* The lock boxes are a lottery. That is made clear, and you can preview the box to see what can drop (note most of it is NOT the top prize)
* There is nothing in the Zen store you need. Lots of stuff that's nice, but nothing you need.
* You have to grind for stuff from the real money store. So? That's what you do in MMOs. Grind. If you don't like it, why play?
* At level 60, diamonds will be coming in faster than you can refine - so it's not like it's to hard to grind Zen anyhow.
Heirloom pack is great. It'll get you to level 60, and once you're there you can salvage epic gear for easy diamonds. Combine that with the leadership skill and you'll hit the 24k daily cap easy.
If you can hit 60 with two or three toons (the heirloom pack is given to every character you make, plus it gave you a 3rd character slot), you'll earn zen real fast (particularly because on xbox zen is selling so cheap).
Join us brothers and sisters and distant relations and confused onlookers.
Join us in the shadows where we stand mostly vigilant... although slightly distracted by our inventories.
"In war, unqualified. In peace, disorganised. In death, mild irritation."
JOIN US.
All this is very true.
The heirloom pack really made all the difference in helping with my leveling experience. What felt like a slow pace on a HR, the heirloom gear gave me a significant boost to help speed it up (more damage, better survivability due to the stats on the heirloom gear you don't normally see outside of questing commons and uncommon gear). Same with all other characters I have been leveling. I now have two at 60 and both are working on Campaigns, leveling Leadership (among other professions) and running Epics on one character (for now). I quickly maxed out my AD refining limit on both characters in very little time.
I payed for the CotN pack, purely for the epic mount for every character I create and the epic weapon you get from the Delzuon Chest. However, I didn't need to pay for this, but did so out of desire.
All in all, the Zen Store is nice for those items you want for RP reasons, appearance or for purchasing a Rare-Epic quality mount outside of AD or Tarmulune Bars. There are other services that I guarantee you'll use at least once (Retraining Tokens, at the very least). Don't bother with the Class Booster packs as they only provide blues that are replaced at Level 20 and, unless you're dying for a blue quality companion, it's not worth it.
Lower the prices and we're more apt to purchase 2x as much.
You realise they can buy things and sell things right, also yea theres nothing that give advantage right, so buying epics pets which give 200-300 free stats doesnt look like an advantage, an augment pet that give around 3k stats isnt an advantage either i guess
They also get all AD they want if they decide to drop 500$ on zen and convert it for AD, if ure telling me this isnt giving them a huge advantage then i can do nothing for you..
I took the exemple of 3.5k+ mounts, a cool mount isnt a green horse you know, its a 110% good looking mount.
Its even more than 40$ if u want a drake or the latest horse from boxes, prolly between 80-160$ seeing their prices in AD
At least 150, but I've cut myself off from purchasing anything else. I had most of the money saved up because I knew what to expect with a F2P, but now I have a rather nice sum of cash in game which will be the only wallet I use for Zen.
And sure, trading zen to AD is an advantage... or you could just play several characters and rack up Zen that way. The exchange rate was 140ad to 1zen, and two character slots were 80z.
It's no advantage to 'buy' with zen - it's just faster.
If you want the super-rare mounts, that's your own issue - don't throw out lock-box mounts like they're 'normal'.
The dire wolf and tiger mounts are cool, fast and $16. That's plenty good enough for most uses.
If you HAVE to have a purple mount that's also affordable, because every character gets a coupon at level 20 for a cheap zen-mount.
Join us brothers and sisters and distant relations and confused onlookers.
Join us in the shadows where we stand mostly vigilant... although slightly distracted by our inventories.
"In war, unqualified. In peace, disorganised. In death, mild irritation."
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well "just faster" is what u call an advantage, what a wallet warrior make in one day u'd have to grind 20/24h per day during at least a week. So they will get P.vorpal faster, enchants 9/10, all 3 maxed artifacts, artifact weaps/accs and they'll be at 16k gs after barely a month on the xbox, while normal players will be there in a few months still, but that's not an advantage for sure
And yea, you can make X amount of alts and farm ADs that way ( 6k from dailies yay ), but then it wouldnt be a game anymore at this point.
And that coupon is just here to remind : hey look at our cool mounts, you want the fastest one? come and spend 40$ for 3.5k zen!
So yea its perfect if you have money to blow that way, but that's still stopping a large percentage of the players from buying zen.
As others said, cut the price by half, warriors would still buy as much as they did and normal players would start to buy, but that wont happen.. f2p ftl.
I think you just need to work on your grind game.
And the mount thing is still driving me nuts - if $16 for a blue mount is to 'out-there' for you, then I don't know what to say. Hell, with the current rate you can have a Rage Drake for $20. Where you keep getting $40 from - when literally NOTHING costs that much, is puzzling me.
Join us brothers and sisters and distant relations and confused onlookers.
Join us in the shadows where we stand mostly vigilant... although slightly distracted by our inventories.
"In war, unqualified. In peace, disorganised. In death, mild irritation."
JOIN US.
Dont worry about my grind game
You dont understand that buying zen means zen>ad, means loads of ad paid by $, aka everything they need : artifacts.. enchants, aka they can clean contents before normal players, way before, considering some peoples were 14k gs after barely a week. Also boxes can get u artifact belts, sure its just one item u're gonna say, but that's one huge item giving sick boost.
And if you're too blind to see that a 3500-3700 zen mount is worth 40$ then i cant do anything for you.
The ratio is 100 zen to 1 dollar - AT MOST (buying $50 or more zen at once gets you bonus zen). That means a 3500 mount is worth $35 - or less, because you got 53,000 rather than 50,000 for your $5. All the time. And if you get a coupon (and everyone does in their adventures reward pack) it's even less again.
Adding an extra few bucks on the price to make it sound more expensive is fun, but again, no mount costs $40 or more. None. Zip. Nada. Zilch.
And your statement was that it takes $40 to get a 'cool' mount - by which you obviously mean 'epic', because (again) the wolf and tiger mounts are both 'cool' and serviceable for any practical need, and are only $16.
Join us brothers and sisters and distant relations and confused onlookers.
Join us in the shadows where we stand mostly vigilant... although slightly distracted by our inventories.
"In war, unqualified. In peace, disorganised. In death, mild irritation."
JOIN US.
Note that I precise about having time for that, cuz getting 300k+/day as a normal player require a freaking load of time and i wouldnt be able to do this if i had a full time job, but I guess that's how it is, the less time peoples have to invest in a game, the less goodies they get.
Well, I dont make it sound more expensive, you have to spend 40$ if you want the heavy howler for exemple, which is my def of a cool mount, cause i'm sorry but if you were to gear up, between blues or epics i doubt u'd choose blues, well that's the same for mounts, why pick a 80% when there are 110% available, basically you tell to buy a "cheap" 80% mount as a normal player without much cash to invest, well then they get a 30% speed advantage, and that's alot in an open map pvp ( which we dont have yet, i know ^^ )
You're so focused on mounts tho, looks like a mount price is more of a big deal than cashers at a 5k gs difference