Im not entirely sure I understand what sinks are here to remove ad from the game.
A sink is a term used in MMO economies describing a system designed to remove currency from the game.
In real life economies currency is printed by the governments so the amount of currency is fixed to a point. With MMO's currency is generated so over time more and more currency enters the game. This means that unless currency is removed from the game the value of the currency will decrease over time.
There were lockbox keys (which were made bop) which were 1 of only about 3 consumable currencies this game really had.
This was not a currency. EVER. Players or more specifically bots often used it as currency which negatively effected the intended currencies which is why they were made to be BoP. Basically even non-bots would flood the Zen Exchange with AD to buy Zen with the AD and then sell keys for more than the Zen Exchange Value. Rinse and repeat. It was actually that would prevent AD value from dropping even if there were adequate sinks.
By having a small handful of people "hogging" the Zen Exchange to sell items for a higher value it prevented any chance the value would drop as a small portion of the community were responsible for a vast majority of the exchanges.
A sink is a system which acts like...well...a sink. You have three parts: a faucet for currency to enter, a basin for currency to sit in and a drain for currency to leave. In an ideal world currency would enter and leave at the same rate but of course the world is rarely ideal. Whenever you hear somebody mentioning the need for currency sinks they typically are referring to the drain.
So a sink would be something like Marks of Potency as ironzerg had mentioned earlier on. Basically any time you spend AD but the AD is not transferred to another person it is a sink.
And Neverwinter is woefully devoid of them and the few sinks it does have are very infrequently used either because of high pricing or low demand.
No they do not have to follow anything. They just need to remain cheaper than Cryptic. I'm fairly certain that if every "legit" player would drop 100 bucks on these sellers, they'd still not run out of AD.
And here we have the issue. So, why all these changes to try and slow them down? From what I've heard, everything in this game is for sale and at a cheaper price than in game anyway. So why compete? The game and the legitimate users are disadvantaged because of a never-ending battle to try and put them out of business. I highly doubt that 1000 transcendent negations were available 3 days after mod 6 launch legitimately, but I still saw loads of people running around with them. However, I could be wrong.
People understand the consequences of using these services (theft, user bans etc) but they still choose to use them. It obviously isn't going to stop so why even try?
Basically this game is relying on fear and honesty. Fear of being banned if you are caught and honesty in not using these third party services in the first place. And placing credit where credit is due, into the company providing you entertainment.
Penalizing people by removing things from the game is adding nothing as a solution to the issue.
The changes they have made have made zero impact, so why not reverse them and be more vigilant in removing supply and demand for third party gear.
Doubling the exchange limit would basically cut in half the value of your AD. I would also greatly benefit those people you say "exploited" AD because it would make it easier for them to sell it for Zen.
What if Cryptic decided to just halve everyone's AD with one patch? How happy would that make people?
The solution is to increase the value of AD in the economy. Case in point. Look what happened to the AD exchange during double refinement, when people were buying lots of marks of whatever, mostly Greater Marks of Potency from the Wondrous Bazaar? The Exchange briefly dipped down into the 490s for the weekend, and we liquidated over 5 million Zen over the course of about 24 hours as AD became more valuable.
Iron Zerg .. It's nice that u write this but be honest .. U probably sit on big pile of AD and u get lots of passive ad income + u probably auction house trader , so u have interest to keep the exchange rate low
But no !
For better economy based on free to play game model , that rely on incoming real money to keep it going , the AD cap Need to be higher .. So people who put money in this game will see a bigger return
need to be careful with that so not make it pay to win game .. But yes at this state of current in game economy , now the game is far too much expensive ,and for new player that play casual there is no way to make high enough AD to stay relevant in PvP , and not talking about bis ,that is reserved for the most hardcore only players ( and people need to start realize that ,when talking about "how come I can't be bis ever". , stop compare to bis !!! )
no no , I'm talking about staying relevant, take one -two level lower ( rank 9-10, legendary artifacts, purple article gear) , right now it's not casual achievement even in 4 month play casual ( which I think is the golden number that relate to-" when I can become relevant" ) and even if u put 10-20 bucks each month of that 4 months , which is legitimate average support for casuals ppl I think .
The same logic applies to raising the Zen-AD exchange cap as it does for increasing the daily AD refining cap. Supply and demand.
I know it can be hard to grasp the idea (took me some time to understand it many months ago), but raising the Zen-AD exchange cap will increase prices for everyone over time.
The way i see it players who spend $ would get more AD from mostly old players. Then those who get the AD would use it either to buy something from AH or to upgrade their companions, mounts or items. Imo it could even incrase the speed of AD sink.
This was not a currency. EVER. Players or more specifically bots often used it as currency which negatively effected the intended currencies which is why they were made to be BoP. Basically even non-bots would flood the Zen Exchange with AD to buy Zen with the AD and then sell keys for more than the Zen Exchange Value. Rinse and repeat. It was actually that would prevent AD value from dropping even if there were adequate sinks.
Sorry, I do appreciate your answer, but I wasn't literally asking what a sink was. I was asking what a module 6 sink looked like.
Bots always have the upper hand, they will always have the ability to farm ad at a ridiculously high rate, the only way that could possibly be stopped is if everything in the game was BTA or BOP. Which, lets face it, is an extreme step. And would probably be widely shunned by the general community.
Edit: just re-read this part I have now deleted and realized my mistake. Its 3am here, apologies.
And unfortunately, that still hasn't changed one bit. And won't until every single zen purchase turns BtA upon purchase, as it should have been from the start.
But this happens with every single item here. Binding zen market products will just force third party sites to trade in enchantments, and then something else, and then something else until everything is bound.. which lets face it, would just suck.
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silverkeltMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,235Arc User
And unfortunately, that still hasn't changed one bit. And won't until every single zen purchase turns BtA upon purchase, as it should have been from the start.
Which would be unfortunate for many, as I would never post a item then. Nor will I ever sell zen. I would just limit my purchases to what I use. So the dye packs I just posted up , no one would have, or they would have to wait for for some nebolous exchange to garner them.
Somehow you think this will force people to post zen, it wouldn't for me, ever. There simply is nothing driving me to post zen. Even for double refinement weekends, I avoid buying the refining mats, the price will drop 2-3 or more weeks after anyways.
Zen commodity isnt dead stock, its a turnable item. Yet my cost is treated as such with a loss of margin. Where is my margin add on my zen sale through the exchange? You do not sale items at a loss that you could create a profit on, just makes zero sense.
Its simply not there.
This isnt a free market guys. Its a artificially created and managed one. Which is why alot of your arguments are invalid.
They can throttle AD creation at any moment (in fact they have just done it!) Once throttled it controls the value of AD.
You want simple economic structures to apply to this system and in alot of ways, they do not respect each other.
Value of Zen in the way this economy is structured will always out-value that of AD. No matter what limit is placed on the exchange, the only way to see a true value would be to float it.
Some of you argue that would inflate prices, but those prices can be controlled here, where they are not controllable in a open free market system.
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silverkeltMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,235Arc User
But this happens with every single item here. Binding zen market products will just force third party sites to trade in enchantments, and then something else, and then something else until everything is bound.. which lets face it, would just suck.
100% agreement here, zen value = more then AD, no matter how you cut it, it will never change. Zen = real life dollars. AD = in game grinding.
People want to control how or where I get my value back from the Zen apparently, but all that will due is ruin entertainment in the game, not really the value of Zen, my zen would be then my own, as I would never sell it on the exchange at a loss. I would just buy less zen. This doesnt HELP the company, this only helps one ASPECT of the playerbase, IE.. the free to play only crowd. Which is fine, the COMPANY is very generous in allowing them to even buy zen.
Most other companies wouldnt allow it. They might allow you to earn some free to play tokens, but the amount of grind would be years in the making. Not just months.
Which would be unfortunate for many, as I would never post a item then. Nor will I ever sell zen. I would just limit my purchases to what I use. So the dye packs I just posted up , no one would have, or they would have to wait for for some nebolous exchange to garner them.
Somehow you think this will force people to post zen, it wouldn't for me, ever. There simply is nothing driving me to post zen. Even for double refinement weekends, I avoid buying the refining mats, the price will drop 2-3 or more weeks after anyways.
Zen commodity isnt dead stock, its a turnable item. Yet my cost is treated as such with a loss of margin. Where is my margin add on my zen sale through the exchange? You do not sale items at a loss that you could create a profit on, just makes zero sense.
Its simply not there.
This isnt a free market guys. Its a artificially created and managed one. Which is why alot of your arguments are invalid.
They can throttle AD creation at any moment (in fact they have just done it!) Once throttled it controls the value of AD.
You want simple economic structures to apply to this system and in alot of ways, they do not respect each other.
Value of Zen in the way this economy is structured will always out-value that of AD. No matter what limit is placed on the exchange, the only way to see a true value would be to float it.
Some of you argue that would inflate prices, but those prices can be controlled here, where they are not controllable in a open free market system.
You're in pretty good situations if you can make several kk AD within few days. New players and more casual players who cant would have more reason to trade their ZEN for AD, because they wouldnt be able to get these AD within their play time.
Ok I read all of your comments- iron Zerg and ambisinister community modder
You talk about the right problem , the right things , smart things at start ..
But your conclusions are so wrong .. It can't help me thinking , do u realize what u really talking about ?
Cause it seems u can't connect one point to the other ..I'm sorry
u want to create AD sink , it is needed indeed , and by raising cap it's the best sink ,period , cause rich in game ppl will search the zen and new player that will get the zen will buy more stuff from stores!! ( aka Gmop and cubes)
*btw u realize that raising cap will make zen more value and AD less value , aka sink, put this in your heads
there is no way around it , u can't create AD sink with this current state otherwise ,with this generated AD policy this game current have (24k generate per day per toon!! ) not include the resonators that probably create a lot too , And hope that the sink will be by lowering income sources , it's not the company business model as u see
( not agree to that model is another issue ) , so the only way is to make AD less valuable to zen
again , As I said earlier post , this is without creating the pay to win scenario , so not raise too high .
Look at this as real monetary system
U have inflation that increase every mode ( more toons) and the exchange rate need to be adapt so zen will keep its relevant
u do realize that the current route that needed to look at is real money to zen to AD
Not the other way around !!
It's for the new players for god sake, with yours ideas we will left only with us the old ones , aka death to game ,
We need to keep attract the new bringing zen players
* U look at this as ppl who have lots of AD income possibilities right one and your comments are biased , sad thing time u realize that
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ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
And unfortunately, that still hasn't changed one bit. And won't until every single zen purchase turns BtA upon purchase, as it should have been from the start.
I don't disagree. Hoever it was the main driving force. Other items in the Zen Market are either not tradable or in much lower demand. But yes they should all be BtA in my opinion.
First of all you I think you may not understand my role here. I am a community moderator or in other words simply a player with a bit more power on the forums. I'm not a developer so, yeah, I will bat for them if their decision makes sense (many decisions which players feel are bad are actually good when looked in a wider perspective) but I can not defend the lack of sinks.
As for your last paragraph - your memory is faulty. The Zen Exchange had been more or less sitting on 500 months before that change was made. The cold hard truth is that AD Value decreased over time because AD is generated exponentially quicker than it is removed. The key change reduced the problem as it removed an infinite loop but with the way the system is set up it would have happened whether keys were Tradeable, BoP or flat out didn't exist.
You're in pretty good situations if you can make several kk AD within few days. New players and more casual players who cant would have more reason to trade their ZEN for AD, because they wouldnt be able to get these AD within their play time.
You might make a couple mistakes as a new player, but selling zen is to be avoided like a plague. If that is the only way to make AD.. then leave, seriously leave the game, go find something else. Because that amount of limit, is beyond ridiculous. The costing of items is FAR beyond what a normal sell off of zen will get you.
Right now as a new player, YOU are far better off getting to 70 and zerging (even tail zerging) IWD for 3-400k or more a week of return. This will be much better for you then anything else. You will sacrifice gains in artifact gear to increase gains in enchantments and artifacts instead. Its a better trade off.
OF course you can do both, just limit your enchantment progression and do RP a little at a time.
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silverkeltMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,235Arc User
edited June 2015
THE backlog of was created do to 2 massive exploits that brought in untold billions and billions of AD into the game.
THE AD sinks only really limit legit players, its "US" who suffer from these exploits to try to manage the AD now.
The shouldve been way more proactive at their logs and either rolled back and or/banned for doing the said exploits.
In addition, I proposed a total server wipe of all items and AD at the last one.
To the shagrin of many, but I think it woudlve been the only way to totally fix the economy. Those who ALREADY spent money wouldve still had a advantage with leadership toons, so the loss wouldve been one of time, not advantage still, as everyone would be in the same boat.
It also would've shown who was legit, as the exploiters wouldve just left at that time. Fine by me.
I don't disagree. Hoever it was the main driving force. Other items in the Zen Market are either not tradable or in much lower demand. But yes they should all be BtA in my opinion.
First of all you I think you may not understand my role here. I am a community moderator or in other words simply a player with a bit more power on the forums. I'm not a developer so, yeah, I will bat for them if their decision makes sense (many decisions which players feel are bad are actually good when looked in a wider perspective) but I can not defend the lack of sinks.
As for your last paragraph - your memory is faulty. The Zen Exchange had been more or less sitting on 500 months before that change was made. The cold hard truth is that AD Value decreased over time because AD is generated exponentially quicker than it is removed. The key change reduced the problem as it removed an infinite loop but with the way the system is set up it would have happened whether keys were Tradeable, BoP or flat out didn't exist.
The thing with AD sinks is that it should affect mostly those who the most of it. If you make AD sinks which affect new players it will create even bigger gap and make them leave or complain about p2w, since you would need tons of $ to get enough AD that you later want to spend on specific <sink> items.
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silverkeltMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,235Arc User
The thing with AD sinks is that it should affect mostly those who the most of it. If you make AD sinks which affect new players it will create even bigger gap and make them leave or complain about p2w, since you would need tons of $ to get enough AD that you later want to spend on specific <sink> items.
EXACTLY... this is what Ive been trying to state for a couple of mods..
THEY are making the totally wrong costing/sinks in game. Making new players pay a few million in gmops is stupid, making them pay tens of thousands in offhand powers.. is wrong.
Making them even pay for boons.. is totally inneffective in controling AD.
ALL of that money should be saved up to progress more naturually in game.
AD sinks that remove things that are unique (like sgt knox companion, or tensers discs) that offer really no in game value add or competitive advantage, but gives people who have more then others, a aspect of the game that is totally unique to them, are fine, in fact should be encouraged more! The remove hundreds of millions from the economy (or can) but do little to a average player like myself or a new player.
The cost of AD sinks in this game is insane.
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ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
Ok I read all of your comments- iron Zerg and ambisinister community modder
You talk about the right problem , the right things , smart things at start ..
But your conclusions are so wrong .. It can't help me thinking , do u realize what u really talking about ?
Cause it seems u can't connect one point to the other ..I'm sorry
This is actually very simple basic economics. If points are not being connected it is because you are not thinking them through.
Supply and demand dictates the prices of all things. I know some tin foil hat wearers like to disagree but the rational world accepts this as a fact.
And this fact applies to currency as well as items.
AD is generated daily.That much you all seem to understand.
Now understand that the value of AD is directly proportionate to the value of Zen. They are tied together.
Two sides of the same coin. That means if the supply of AD increases the value of Zen increases. If demand on AD increases the value of Zen decreases.
Are you with me so far?
No matter what a balance can always be found if the system is set up correctly. Right now it is not. Sorry Cryptic but it is not working correctly or the value of Zen would not exceed the 500 AD Cap.
You are all getting distracted by "woah is me, there are bots." There are bots in every game but the economies don't just keel over.
Forget the bots. If there were no bots the same problem would exist.
Step back and look at the economy as a whole and completely ignore the bots. Just trust me and do so for now because you'll be enlightened to the real problem if you do.
What would you want ot buy with Zen?
What would you want to buy with AD?
How many people do you think want to buy Zen with AD?
How many people do you think want to buy AD with Zen?
How many of the people buying AD with Zen are doing so only to buy items from the auction house?
How likely is it that the people who sold the above items then buy Zen off the Zen Exchange?
When you think this all out you discover far more AD enters the system than leaves it regardless of the bots. There are simply too many reasons to want to buy Zen and too few to buy AD. It all results in AD being worth far less than it should be.
Imagine if lockbox keys were actually sold in AD. What do you think would happen to the value of AD? To the Value of Zen.
Whenever these threads come up those asking for what the OP said are only observing THE EFFECT.
THE CAUSE of the problem is that there are:
Too many reasons to want Zen
Too few reasons to want AD.
Too much Zen leaving the system.
Too few AD leaving the system.
The Cap could be increased. In two months it would sit at 1K. It could be increased again and it would sit at 1.5K. Let's increase it the cap to 50K and at a certain point it likely would not balance out because the system is completely and utterly eschew but people would simply quit because the value of AD is too low for it to be worth their time to bother.
Raising the AD cap above 500 AD per Zen is an aweful idea for all the logical reasons already put forward. It's been 500 for as long as the exchange has been in place - including before Neverwinter was even a thing (referring to STO's Dilithum exchange, which is identical functionality). The cap should NEVER be increased, it would be devastating to the economy (the reasons have already been posted, so not going to reiterate them). So, for what it's worth, put a check in the WAI column on the ZAX for me.
You might make a couple mistakes as a new player, but selling zen is to be avoided like a plague. If that is the only way to make AD.. then leave, seriously leave the game, go find something else. Because that amount of limit, is beyond ridiculous. The costing of items is FAR beyond what a normal sell off of zen will get you.
Right now as a new player, YOU are far better off getting to 70 and zerging (even tail zerging) IWD for 3-400k or more a week of return. This will be much better for you then anything else. You will sacrifice gains in artifact gear to increase gains in enchantments and artifacts instead. Its a better trade off.
OF course you can do both, just limit your enchantment progression and do RP a little at a time.
Only if you assume that new or casual layers have enough time to run IWD for few hours. What if they just want to invest their ZEN in specific assests and then create leadership army which can be managed even if little play time.
Example 2: new or casual player is interested only in PvP and they dont want to deal with all the grind. They have the $ and ZEN which they can quickly trade for various enchants that are pretty much required to stay relevant in PvP.
Not every player value the the amount of ZEN in the same way. There are players like you who find it priceless, while there are other for whom 1k Zen is a lot, while for some other 10k is nothing.
The point is that the better the ratio exchange the more players will be willing to exchange it, because only geeks like and can grind for hours every day.
It's in Cryptic business that ZEN stay relevant compared to AD, because it's not the AD farmers that keep the game alive. What players want is irrelevant here. It's a business model not charity.
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thefabricantMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 5,248Arc User
edited June 2015
The real solution to dealing with bots, is to make the things that they currently farm, unfarmable. For example, instead of enchantments randomly dropping everywhere, make them ONLY drop in TEAM based content. Yes, this will upset, to some extent, those players who like to run around solo and don't want to do team content, but you know what, its an MMO, part of that abbreviation is multiplayer. For example, if a set amount of RP was dropped at the end of a dungeon, say 50k for t1's, 100k for t2's and 10k for skirmishes, then it would quite literally, make RP unbottable. Especially if that was the only source of income. It would reward players for running dungeons and it would also make bots unable to farm it and put it up on the market. The next thing to address would be the power of the leadership army. The simple way to do this is to make everything unbound and have it never bind, so I can put on a piece of gear, take it off, then sell it later. AD would then be used to purchase gear pieces and non botted RP rather then just botted RP.
The next thing to do would be to increase the RP value of the zen market RP, because honestly, no one would spend that much money for such a measly amount. Something would have to be done about GMoPs as well, because they are actually the key to controlling AD inflow and outflow. True, you can have a ton of RP, but not be able to upgrade your item due to having no GMoPs. Leadership armies would still have power, but as that is what cryptic intended, it should not be a major issue, so long as sinks are added to help remove excess AD. I think if AD could be directly used to augment gear, or maybe something upcoming in the stronghold expansion, then it would help to solve the problem.
They could also do what Lineage 2 did in the past. Add enchant system which can totaly destroy your items (there wer also blessed items which didnt destroy your items but had the same success rate). This system can remove tons of AD and resources from the market, though you have to be careful in case some exploiters find a way to prevent their items from breaking.
For example in Lineage 2 people used various hacks or tricks like enchanting the items while it was in trade window and so on. This way fixed over time but many items remain thus some characters had significant advantage.
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plasticbatMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 12,421Arc User
edited June 2015
I don't even know why it is brought up right now. The wait time is not as bad as last year. At that time, I waited for 3 weeks to get a few hundred of Zen. Right now, the queue is 2 million. I got 1200 Zen in 2 days (the queue was also about 2 million 2 days ago). No, it is not instant but is it that bad?
*** 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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beckylunaticMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 14,231Arc User
The AD cap needs to be raised and Arc needs to trade zen for AD directly. The exchange is backlogged most of the time, this is very hard for most players to deal with.
It's not their job to make sure that anyone can get Zen at any time without paying actual money. The fact that you can get Zen for AD provided you're prepared to wait your turn is sufficient.
"Boohoohoo, I missed a sale because backlog." Well, plan ahead better. If you think you're going to want to buy things with Zen, make sure you keep some on hand. You can liquidate your Zen into AD immediately if you find you need the AD more.
It's in Cryptic business that ZEN stay relevant compared to AD, because it's not the AD farmers that keep the game alive. What players want is irrelevant here. It's a business model not charity.
What you just said is completely correct. They SHOULD want Zen to stay relevant compared to AD.
Right now it is not.
Again AD is Zen and Zen is AD. The entire system is built on the premise that a person should want BOTH.
In order for AD to be worth Zen then people need to want to buy Zen to sell for AD.
There's no losing side. Either way Cryptic will get money.
beckylunaticMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 14,231Arc User
edited June 2015
I was being blunt, but that wasn't intended as a troll post.
PWE has no reason to sell you real money Zen for your imaginary pixel money AD. If other players are willing to do so after paying them real money for the Zen, it's no skin off their noses, but it's not in their interest to just give Zen away, which is what you're suggesting they should do.
Comments
A sink is a term used in MMO economies describing a system designed to remove currency from the game.
In real life economies currency is printed by the governments so the amount of currency is fixed to a point. With MMO's currency is generated so over time more and more currency enters the game. This means that unless currency is removed from the game the value of the currency will decrease over time.
This was not a currency. EVER. Players or more specifically bots often used it as currency which negatively effected the intended currencies which is why they were made to be BoP. Basically even non-bots would flood the Zen Exchange with AD to buy Zen with the AD and then sell keys for more than the Zen Exchange Value. Rinse and repeat. It was actually that would prevent AD value from dropping even if there were adequate sinks.
By having a small handful of people "hogging" the Zen Exchange to sell items for a higher value it prevented any chance the value would drop as a small portion of the community were responsible for a vast majority of the exchanges.
A sink is a system which acts like...well...a sink. You have three parts: a faucet for currency to enter, a basin for currency to sit in and a drain for currency to leave. In an ideal world currency would enter and leave at the same rate but of course the world is rarely ideal. Whenever you hear somebody mentioning the need for currency sinks they typically are referring to the drain.
So a sink would be something like Marks of Potency as ironzerg had mentioned earlier on. Basically any time you spend AD but the AD is not transferred to another person it is a sink.
And Neverwinter is woefully devoid of them and the few sinks it does have are very infrequently used either because of high pricing or low demand.
And here we have the issue. So, why all these changes to try and slow them down? From what I've heard, everything in this game is for sale and at a cheaper price than in game anyway. So why compete? The game and the legitimate users are disadvantaged because of a never-ending battle to try and put them out of business. I highly doubt that 1000 transcendent negations were available 3 days after mod 6 launch legitimately, but I still saw loads of people running around with them. However, I could be wrong.
People understand the consequences of using these services (theft, user bans etc) but they still choose to use them. It obviously isn't going to stop so why even try?
Basically this game is relying on fear and honesty. Fear of being banned if you are caught and honesty in not using these third party services in the first place. And placing credit where credit is due, into the company providing you entertainment.
Penalizing people by removing things from the game is adding nothing as a solution to the issue.
The changes they have made have made zero impact, so why not reverse them and be more vigilant in removing supply and demand for third party gear.
Iron Zerg .. It's nice that u write this but be honest .. U probably sit on big pile of AD and u get lots of passive ad income + u probably auction house trader , so u have interest to keep the exchange rate low
But no !
For better economy based on free to play game model , that rely on incoming real money to keep it going , the AD cap Need to be higher .. So people who put money in this game will see a bigger return
need to be careful with that so not make it pay to win game .. But yes at this state of current in game economy , now the game is far too much expensive ,and for new player that play casual there is no way to make high enough AD to stay relevant in PvP , and not talking about bis ,that is reserved for the most hardcore only players ( and people need to start realize that ,when talking about "how come I can't be bis ever". , stop compare to bis !!! )
no no , I'm talking about staying relevant, take one -two level lower ( rank 9-10, legendary artifacts, purple article gear) , right now it's not casual achievement even in 4 month play casual ( which I think is the golden number that relate to-" when I can become relevant" ) and even if u put 10-20 bucks each month of that 4 months , which is legitimate average support for casuals ppl I think .
So yes , raise the cap
As op suggested
The way i see it players who spend $ would get more AD from mostly old players. Then those who get the AD would use it either to buy something from AH or to upgrade their companions, mounts or items. Imo it could even incrase the speed of AD sink.
Sorry, I do appreciate your answer, but I wasn't literally asking what a sink was. I was asking what a module 6 sink looked like.
Bots always have the upper hand, they will always have the ability to farm ad at a ridiculously high rate, the only way that could possibly be stopped is if everything in the game was BTA or BOP. Which, lets face it, is an extreme step. And would probably be widely shunned by the general community.
Edit: just re-read this part I have now deleted and realized my mistake. Its 3am here, apologies.
But this happens with every single item here. Binding zen market products will just force third party sites to trade in enchantments, and then something else, and then something else until everything is bound.. which lets face it, would just suck.
Which would be unfortunate for many, as I would never post a item then. Nor will I ever sell zen. I would just limit my purchases to what I use. So the dye packs I just posted up , no one would have, or they would have to wait for for some nebolous exchange to garner them.
Somehow you think this will force people to post zen, it wouldn't for me, ever. There simply is nothing driving me to post zen. Even for double refinement weekends, I avoid buying the refining mats, the price will drop 2-3 or more weeks after anyways.
Zen commodity isnt dead stock, its a turnable item. Yet my cost is treated as such with a loss of margin. Where is my margin add on my zen sale through the exchange? You do not sale items at a loss that you could create a profit on, just makes zero sense.
Its simply not there.
This isnt a free market guys. Its a artificially created and managed one. Which is why alot of your arguments are invalid.
They can throttle AD creation at any moment (in fact they have just done it!) Once throttled it controls the value of AD.
You want simple economic structures to apply to this system and in alot of ways, they do not respect each other.
Value of Zen in the way this economy is structured will always out-value that of AD. No matter what limit is placed on the exchange, the only way to see a true value would be to float it.
Some of you argue that would inflate prices, but those prices can be controlled here, where they are not controllable in a open free market system.
100% agreement here, zen value = more then AD, no matter how you cut it, it will never change. Zen = real life dollars. AD = in game grinding.
People want to control how or where I get my value back from the Zen apparently, but all that will due is ruin entertainment in the game, not really the value of Zen, my zen would be then my own, as I would never sell it on the exchange at a loss. I would just buy less zen. This doesnt HELP the company, this only helps one ASPECT of the playerbase, IE.. the free to play only crowd. Which is fine, the COMPANY is very generous in allowing them to even buy zen.
Most other companies wouldnt allow it. They might allow you to earn some free to play tokens, but the amount of grind would be years in the making. Not just months.
You're in pretty good situations if you can make several kk AD within few days. New players and more casual players who cant would have more reason to trade their ZEN for AD, because they wouldnt be able to get these AD within their play time.
You talk about the right problem , the right things , smart things at start ..
But your conclusions are so wrong .. It can't help me thinking , do u realize what u really talking about ?
Cause it seems u can't connect one point to the other ..I'm sorry
u want to create AD sink , it is needed indeed , and by raising cap it's the best sink ,period , cause rich in game ppl will search the zen and new player that will get the zen will buy more stuff from stores!! ( aka Gmop and cubes)
*btw u realize that raising cap will make zen more value and AD less value , aka sink, put this in your heads
there is no way around it , u can't create AD sink with this current state otherwise ,with this generated AD policy this game current have (24k generate per day per toon!! ) not include the resonators that probably create a lot too , And hope that the sink will be by lowering income sources , it's not the company business model as u see
( not agree to that model is another issue ) , so the only way is to make AD less valuable to zen
again , As I said earlier post , this is without creating the pay to win scenario , so not raise too high .
Look at this as real monetary system
U have inflation that increase every mode ( more toons) and the exchange rate need to be adapt so zen will keep its relevant
u do realize that the current route that needed to look at is real money to zen to AD
Not the other way around !!
It's for the new players for god sake, with yours ideas we will left only with us the old ones , aka death to game ,
We need to keep attract the new bringing zen players
* U look at this as ppl who have lots of AD income possibilities right one and your comments are biased , sad thing time u realize that
I don't disagree. Hoever it was the main driving force. Other items in the Zen Market are either not tradable or in much lower demand. But yes they should all be BtA in my opinion.
First of all you I think you may not understand my role here. I am a community moderator or in other words simply a player with a bit more power on the forums. I'm not a developer so, yeah, I will bat for them if their decision makes sense (many decisions which players feel are bad are actually good when looked in a wider perspective) but I can not defend the lack of sinks.
As for your last paragraph - your memory is faulty. The Zen Exchange had been more or less sitting on 500 months before that change was made. The cold hard truth is that AD Value decreased over time because AD is generated exponentially quicker than it is removed. The key change reduced the problem as it removed an infinite loop but with the way the system is set up it would have happened whether keys were Tradeable, BoP or flat out didn't exist.
You might make a couple mistakes as a new player, but selling zen is to be avoided like a plague. If that is the only way to make AD.. then leave, seriously leave the game, go find something else. Because that amount of limit, is beyond ridiculous. The costing of items is FAR beyond what a normal sell off of zen will get you.
Right now as a new player, YOU are far better off getting to 70 and zerging (even tail zerging) IWD for 3-400k or more a week of return. This will be much better for you then anything else. You will sacrifice gains in artifact gear to increase gains in enchantments and artifacts instead. Its a better trade off.
OF course you can do both, just limit your enchantment progression and do RP a little at a time.
THE AD sinks only really limit legit players, its "US" who suffer from these exploits to try to manage the AD now.
The shouldve been way more proactive at their logs and either rolled back and or/banned for doing the said exploits.
In addition, I proposed a total server wipe of all items and AD at the last one.
To the shagrin of many, but I think it woudlve been the only way to totally fix the economy. Those who ALREADY spent money wouldve still had a advantage with leadership toons, so the loss wouldve been one of time, not advantage still, as everyone would be in the same boat.
It also would've shown who was legit, as the exploiters wouldve just left at that time. Fine by me.
The thing with AD sinks is that it should affect mostly those who the most of it. If you make AD sinks which affect new players it will create even bigger gap and make them leave or complain about p2w, since you would need tons of $ to get enough AD that you later want to spend on specific <sink> items.
EXACTLY... this is what Ive been trying to state for a couple of mods..
THEY are making the totally wrong costing/sinks in game. Making new players pay a few million in gmops is stupid, making them pay tens of thousands in offhand powers.. is wrong.
Making them even pay for boons.. is totally inneffective in controling AD.
ALL of that money should be saved up to progress more naturually in game.
AD sinks that remove things that are unique (like sgt knox companion, or tensers discs) that offer really no in game value add or competitive advantage, but gives people who have more then others, a aspect of the game that is totally unique to them, are fine, in fact should be encouraged more! The remove hundreds of millions from the economy (or can) but do little to a average player like myself or a new player.
The cost of AD sinks in this game is insane.
This is actually very simple basic economics. If points are not being connected it is because you are not thinking them through.
Supply and demand dictates the prices of all things. I know some tin foil hat wearers like to disagree but the rational world accepts this as a fact.
And this fact applies to currency as well as items.
AD is generated daily.That much you all seem to understand.
Now understand that the value of AD is directly proportionate to the value of Zen. They are tied together.
Two sides of the same coin. That means if the supply of AD increases the value of Zen increases. If demand on AD increases the value of Zen decreases.
Are you with me so far?
No matter what a balance can always be found if the system is set up correctly. Right now it is not. Sorry Cryptic but it is not working correctly or the value of Zen would not exceed the 500 AD Cap.
You are all getting distracted by "woah is me, there are bots." There are bots in every game but the economies don't just keel over.
Forget the bots. If there were no bots the same problem would exist.
Step back and look at the economy as a whole and completely ignore the bots. Just trust me and do so for now because you'll be enlightened to the real problem if you do.
What would you want ot buy with Zen?
What would you want to buy with AD?
How many people do you think want to buy Zen with AD?
How many people do you think want to buy AD with Zen?
How many of the people buying AD with Zen are doing so only to buy items from the auction house?
How likely is it that the people who sold the above items then buy Zen off the Zen Exchange?
When you think this all out you discover far more AD enters the system than leaves it regardless of the bots. There are simply too many reasons to want to buy Zen and too few to buy AD. It all results in AD being worth far less than it should be.
Imagine if lockbox keys were actually sold in AD. What do you think would happen to the value of AD? To the Value of Zen.
Whenever these threads come up those asking for what the OP said are only observing THE EFFECT.
THE CAUSE of the problem is that there are:
Too many reasons to want Zen
Too few reasons to want AD.
Too much Zen leaving the system.
Too few AD leaving the system.
The Cap could be increased. In two months it would sit at 1K. It could be increased again and it would sit at 1.5K. Let's increase it the cap to 50K and at a certain point it likely would not balance out because the system is completely and utterly eschew but people would simply quit because the value of AD is too low for it to be worth their time to bother.
Sekhmet@kvetchus_
Guilds: Greycloaks, Blackcloaks, Whitecloaks, Goldcloaks, Browncloaks, Spiritcloaks, Bluecloaks, Silvercloaks, Black Dawn
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Only if you assume that new or casual layers have enough time to run IWD for few hours. What if they just want to invest their ZEN in specific assests and then create leadership army which can be managed even if little play time.
Example 2: new or casual player is interested only in PvP and they dont want to deal with all the grind. They have the $ and ZEN which they can quickly trade for various enchants that are pretty much required to stay relevant in PvP.
Not every player value the the amount of ZEN in the same way. There are players like you who find it priceless, while there are other for whom 1k Zen is a lot, while for some other 10k is nothing.
The point is that the better the ratio exchange the more players will be willing to exchange it, because only geeks like and can grind for hours every day.
It's in Cryptic business that ZEN stay relevant compared to AD, because it's not the AD farmers that keep the game alive. What players want is irrelevant here. It's a business model not charity.
The next thing to do would be to increase the RP value of the zen market RP, because honestly, no one would spend that much money for such a measly amount. Something would have to be done about GMoPs as well, because they are actually the key to controlling AD inflow and outflow. True, you can have a ton of RP, but not be able to upgrade your item due to having no GMoPs. Leadership armies would still have power, but as that is what cryptic intended, it should not be a major issue, so long as sinks are added to help remove excess AD. I think if AD could be directly used to augment gear, or maybe something upcoming in the stronghold expansion, then it would help to solve the problem.
For example in Lineage 2 people used various hacks or tricks like enchanting the items while it was in trade window and so on. This way fixed over time but many items remain thus some characters had significant advantage.
It's not their job to make sure that anyone can get Zen at any time without paying actual money. The fact that you can get Zen for AD provided you're prepared to wait your turn is sufficient.
"Boohoohoo, I missed a sale because backlog." Well, plan ahead better. If you think you're going to want to buy things with Zen, make sure you keep some on hand. You can liquidate your Zen into AD immediately if you find you need the AD more.
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What you just said is completely correct. They SHOULD want Zen to stay relevant compared to AD.
Right now it is not.
Again AD is Zen and Zen is AD. The entire system is built on the premise that a person should want BOTH.
In order for AD to be worth Zen then people need to want to buy Zen to sell for AD.
There's no losing side. Either way Cryptic will get money.
PWE has no reason to sell you real money Zen for your imaginary pixel money AD. If other players are willing to do so after paying them real money for the Zen, it's no skin off their noses, but it's not in their interest to just give Zen away, which is what you're suggesting they should do.
Neverwinter Census 2017
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