Curse

fb2000 · Mar 23, 2009, 01:13 PM // 13:13

So PvE means trading to you? no wonder it is a "boring and repetitive waste of time"

zwei2stein · Mar 23, 2009, 02:23 PM // 14:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Risky Ranger

Perhaps the XTH should have an entry fee to be able to make your choices.

Or fee to claim your rewards, which should be easier to implement.

Say, 100 faction per reward point. 10k Balth faction is fairly low price to claim 20 zkeys, but it goes beyond "don't do anything", and it allows people to claim their rewards in small chunks, i.e. pretty much every time they win PvP match.

Or, give players 5rps from XTH every time they win PvP match, making it real incentive to PvP.

Or charge 1sp per 5rps. (finally use for SPs!).

Or pretty much _anything_ that currently holds next no value, but which should. Hell, Zkey could "cost" one gold or green item to make, creating huge sink for such drops.

Martin Alvito · Mar 23, 2009, 02:51 PM // 14:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by slowerpoke

zkeys shifted the wealth balance from pve to pvp

i dont see why allowing the pver's to gain them also via xth is a bad thing.

Perhaps I can help.

Halls (assuming no updates or NOPs) gives out eight Zkeys per winning team. Matches start every twelve minutes. 8*5=40 per hour. 40*24 = 960 per day. 960*30 = 28,800 keys per month.

The 1v1 monthly kicks out 1472 keys for order of finish, plus keys for winning matches. Assuming 60 participants for a six round tournament, an average finish of 3/3 and 1 zkey per win, that's another 180 keys. Add 4+3+2+2+(1*4) = 15 keys for the single elim, and that's 1472+180+15 = 1677 keys for the mAT.

The 8v8 monthly kicks out quite a bit more. Keys from placement bonuses are given by: [(4500*8)+(2970*8)+(2475*8*2)+(1485*8*4)+(495*8*8)]/5 = (36000+23760+39600+47520+31860)/5= 35,712 keys. Assuming 60 participants again, 3 zkeys per win and 8 players per team, we have (60*3*8)=1440 more keys, and another 15*3*8=360 keys for single elim wins. Sum = 1800+35712 = 37,512 keys.

So, from the largest PvP sources of these things, we have: 37,512 + 28,800 + 1677 = 67,989 keys. Sure, there are daily ATs and faction earned from regular play. But the general point is that players don't earn all that many keys in-game at the end of the day.

A *really* conservative XTH estimate would tell you that at least a million keys are created monthly. Probably far more. If almost all keys are going to PvE-ers in small quantities, but the overall effect is REALLY large - can you see how this is a serious problem?

If Regina would like to toss some real data at this to refute the above argument, I'll listen. Otherwise, I consider the assertion that the vast majority of zkeys comes from the XTH to be proven.

moriz · Mar 23, 2009, 03:09 PM // 15:09

i don't see how this is a serious problem. yes there are a lot of keys, but it's a lot of keys chasing the same amount of money each month. you must remember that the keys themselves have practically zero value. it is only worth anything because players attach value to it. as such, all the keys will do is shift money around. at most, it might encourage farming, which isn't necessarily bad.

you must also realize that the keys have a title and potentially valuable items attached to it. this means that keys are routinely purged from the system. they might get traded around, but in the end, they go into two places: 1) the chest, in which it is gone; or 2) someone's storage, in which it is effectively gone until the owner of those keys decides to use it or sell it, in which case they will end back at 1) anyways.

please note that just because there's a ton of something circulating in the economy, it doesn't mean it will make it any worse. heck, there's probably a few million ectos in the playerbase, and no one's crying for ecto droprate to be nerfed yet. nevermind the fact that ectos don't nearly have as good as a sink as keys have.

zwei2stein · Mar 23, 2009, 03:10 PM // 15:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

...

Actually, from what I know it is about 3.5 million keys per month.

Consider this: PvP alone only gives enough keys for 3 people to max z-title each month. Assuming GW2 comes out in 2011, that is like 100 possible max zranks, and no more. Actually, it would be a bit less because keys would spread a bit in market.

XTH gives enough keys to allow 150+ people to max z-title each month, that allows about 10k people to max z-rank by time GW2 is out.

Draw your own conclusions.

Martin Alvito · Mar 23, 2009, 03:39 PM // 15:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriz

you must also realize that the keys have a title and potentially valuable items attached to it. this means that keys are routinely purged from the system. they might get traded around, but in the end, they go into two places: 1) the chest, in which it is gone; or 2) someone's storage, in which it is effectively gone until the owner of those keys decides to use it or sell it, in which case they will end back at 1) anyways.

Sure, and ectos eventually end up in someone's box, get turned into FoW or get turned into chaos gloves. Please. Lots of zkeys are kicking around right now, and they're being created much faster than they're being destroyed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriz

please note that just because there's a ton of something circulating in the economy, it doesn't mean it will make it any worse. heck, there's probably a few million ectos in the playerbase, and no one's crying for ecto droprate to be nerfed yet.

A few million ectos is probably a very conservative estimate of the total number outstanding. Still, compare to zwei2stein's quoted rate of 3.5 million zkeys PER MONTH. It's true that eventually the price of zkeys will crash because the supply will outstrip the demand, but for the time being there's a huge advantage to be gained from buying up oodles of accounts.

Also note that people got extremely upset when the drop rate of ectos effectively tripled via perma-SF. This is the same sort of distributional problem. In that case, people with lots of time available right when the farm was going on benefited, and everyone else lost. Now, you're seeing the benefit going to people that are effectively engaging in RMT - much more reprehensible.

The basic point I'm making is this: there's a massive giveaway of in-game cash going on. Unless you're willing to drop a few hundred bucks on GW accounts or engage in clear exploits (champ point farming) to capitalize on the ready supply of in-game cash, you are quickly losing ground to the field.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Red Sonya

I suppose as long as THEY are the ones selling gold it's quite alright long as the greenbacks are coming into their pocket.

I am of the opinion that ANet is getting through the current credit crisis with revenue derived from the sale of accounts for XTH, and that this is the reason for their conspicuous silence on the matter and lack of action. The parent company's finances are known to be in poor shape. GW is the only consistent source of revenue the parent company has had, and they have to be leveraged due to some boneheaded acquisitions.

They can't go dry on revenue or they run out of cash with which to make interest payments, and fail to release GW2. Best solution: incentivize existing customers to buy more accounts at cut rates, since development costs are sunk.

moriz · Mar 23, 2009, 03:54 PM // 15:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

The basic point I'm making is this: there's a massive giveaway of in-game cash going on. Unless you're willing to drop a few hundred bucks on GW accounts or engage in clear exploits (champ point farming) to capitalize on the ready supply of in-game cash, you are quickly losing ground to the field.

and i don't give a damn. tell me, does having a billion gold suddenly make me play better? obviously not. until having a ton of gold make characters tangibly more powerful, gold is worthless. it's good for buying some armor sets and some items that you want. once past that, gold can pretty much disappear and there won't be much difference.

now ask yourself this: where does gold come from? from drops, and more specifically, because people farm it. the gold gets traded for keys, the keys get used, and the gold get used to buy armor sets and weapon skins. both disappear, and the cycle start anew. i've said this before, and i'll say it again (hopefully you lot understand this time): zkeys DO NOT HAVE INHERENT VALUE. ectos have inherent value, it will always have it because there's a trader for it. zkeys are worth ZERO, and only has its current value because the market pressures dictates that value. is it overfarmed? probably, and all that means is that zkeys will worth less.

you speak of "advantages" by having a ton of accounts. i personally see no advantage. maybe because my notion of advantage is based on performance, and your advantage is based on vanity. if people are stupid enough to spend hundreds of dollars on meaningless vanity, then let them. all it means is that anet gets more money, and hopefully make GW/GW2 better.

snaek · Mar 23, 2009, 04:04 PM // 16:04

^people like to have a good economy whether or not it has an effect on gameplay.

i will agree that xth doesn't have any effect on gameplay performance, but it does have an effect on the economy. to say that the economy is unimportant just because it doesn't affect gameplay performance is quite closed-minded if you ask me.

slowerpoke · Mar 23, 2009, 04:11 PM // 16:11

as a means of gaining wealth, just to compare, pvp'er were already playing ats, earning balth points. theres no extra steps involved, just do what you were doing and earn those keys.

pvers need to explicitly farm to gain more gold. that deviates from normal gameplay, and to most is rather boring and repeditive. farming areas over time generally have reduced payoff due to nerfs etc.

pvp'er can also use xth, and probably have a higher prediction rate since they are familiar with the teams and meta, versus the average pve'er whois randomly guessing.

either way, i doubt anet will do anything to change the current situation. zkeys, just like all items will loose value over time.

moriz · Mar 23, 2009, 04:55 PM // 16:55

i'm not just arguing that the game economy does not matter much (which is very true), but also that zkeys do not adversely affect the economy. like i said before, zkeys are effectively worthless items, and is only traded because of potential items and a silly title track. once these conditions cease to exist, and it will, since the tonics will recycle themselves after april, zkeys will go back to their old trade value, which is around 2k.

zkeys themselves do not affect the economy. unlike ectos, zkeys represent zero gold in the game engine. it is a commodity that's based on no "concrete" value. as such, adding a few million, or even a few billion of them into the game at once won't affect the overall scheme of things. all it will accomplish is redistribute the gold already in the game.

KIDGOOCH · Mar 23, 2009, 04:58 PM // 16:58

Yes lets get rid of it, and get rid of PvP, GvG and so forth.....

The only people complaining are the "LEET" PvP'ers who think that PvE is for the losers not good enuf to "fight" against another person as opposed to some AI controlled creature.

You really want to fix this, make PvE and PvP two separate games that never cross, otherwise, there will always be someone who thinks the other side is getting unfair perks.

PvP hates XTH for giving zkeys to undeserving n00bs.
PvE hates PvP for nerfing our game, because some PvP'er thought certain skills or mechanics were too powerful.

FoxBat · Mar 23, 2009, 05:02 PM // 17:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by zwei2stein

Actually, MOX quest reward influx did catch anet by surprise and was perceived to be issue

I know, the point is that it was a short-term issue. That doesn't mean it's unimportant. A week to a month of rapidly fluxuating prices is not something Anet wants, especially if they plan on doing similar things with periodic updates. The logic behind books exactly confirms this, because you can still get X money by doing the missions, but not all in one shot as retroactive would've done.

[quote]

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriz

zkeys DO NOT HAVE INHERENT VALUE. ectos have inherent value, it will always have it because there's a trader for it. zkeys are worth ZERO, and only has its current value because the market pressures dictates that value. is it overfarmed? probably, and all that means is that zkeys will worth less.

It's more likely they are worth 100g or so, but yes, their gold-value is far below their market value. By the same token ectos are only with 40g or something. Traders reflect market prices through supply/demand, they don't have a true "inherent" value either, farming an ecto does not cause an extra 4k of gold to be created, because the ecto only retains its price by someone buying from the trader for 4.5k.

snaek · Mar 23, 2009, 05:03 PM // 17:03

@moriz (edit: lol stop replying so fast, i don't like using quotes)
yes, no money is produced persay (even though its still possible by selling the golds/lps/etc obtained through the zchest), but don't forget that it is only one aspect of economy. exchange and distribution is also a big part--and zkeys definitely affects the economy in that regard.

Martin Alvito · Mar 23, 2009, 06:17 PM // 18:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriz

and i don't give a damn.

...

you speak of "advantages" by having a ton of accounts. i personally see no advantage. maybe because my notion of advantage is based on performance, and your advantage is based on vanity. if people are stupid enough to spend hundreds of dollars on meaningless vanity, then let them. all it means is that anet gets more money, and hopefully make GW/GW2 better.

You insist that I share your preferences. Further, you insist that anyone that does not share your preferences is stupid.

You are a bigot. QED.

DreamWind · Mar 23, 2009, 06:30 PM // 18:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriz

yes there are a lot of keys, but it's a lot of keys chasing the same amount of money each month. you must remember that the keys themselves have practically zero value. it is only worth anything because players attach value to it

I keep seeing this a lot in this thread and I'm here to say it doesn't tell us anything and makes no sense. I could say nothing in the game has any value. Gold itself has no value if players didn't attach something to it. Many players today are using keys as currency so that is what they are for all intents and purposes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriz

and i don't give a damn. tell me, does having a billion gold suddenly make me play better? obviously not. until having a ton of gold make characters tangibly more powerful, gold is worthless.

Because most people don't care about playing better? The ratio of people who care about the economy compared to being skilled is probably at least 10:1.

Lastly this whole Anet selling gold thing is hilarious. Hilarious in that I agree with it and hadn't thought about it until now. Thanks for bringing it up (it adds to my future thread lol).

moriz · Mar 23, 2009, 08:01 PM // 20:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

You insist that I share your preferences. Further, you insist that anyone that does not share your preferences is stupid.

You are a bigot. QED.

right back at you.

You insist that I share your preferences. Further, you insist that anyone that does not share your preferences is stupid.

You are a bigot. QED.

but since you insist on playing this little game, answer me this: what will happen to the economy if a few million 2-3 damage swords suddenly gets added? the answer, in case you don't know, is nothing. similarly, adding a bunch of keys, each effectively spawns zero gold in the game (unless you get really lucky and manages to get something good from that chest, but even then, the game does not generate gold from those items) will have the same effect.

this is different from adding a bunch of ectos, purely because i can cash in the ectos at 4k or so. the game spawns ectos at around 4k (or whatever the current price is) each, and that adds directly into the game. keys are not tokens to an auto-money generator.

for a relatively simple game like GW, the economy only needs to maintain one thing: the amount of gold generated is approximately equal to the gold being lost. gold generation comes from monsters and merchants, gold lost goes into armor/titles/consumables. the zaishen keys themselves do not represent gold in the economy, so you can add as many of them into the game as you want, and the overall economy won't be affected. it does change the way trades are being conducted, but it does not negatively/positively affect the overall economy.

Sir Skullcrasher · Mar 23, 2009, 08:20 PM // 20:20

I think it's time mods close this thread. Too much QQing and not enough playing!

Not to mention Martin is making this into a flame war!

go cubs · Mar 23, 2009, 08:46 PM // 20:46

Yah...or a poll would be sweet.... (No QQ plox)

Martin Alvito · Mar 23, 2009, 08:50 PM // 20:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriz

but since you insist on playing this little game, answer me this: what will happen to the economy if a few million 2-3 damage swords suddenly gets added? the answer, in case you don't know, is nothing.

Well, since they all have a merch price, around ten million gold would be added to the economy. Not a big deal, given the amount that is already in circulation.

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriz

similarly, adding a bunch of keys, each effectively spawns zero gold in the game (unless you get really lucky and manages to get something good from that chest, but even then, the game does not generate gold from those items) will have the same effect.

It doesn't have to be the case that the item can be tradered or merched to have an impact on total currency in circulation. If players value 5 points towards the Zaishen title at 3k and the average value of the chest drop is 1k (accounting for outliers that are worth oodles), then the intrinsic value of a zkey is indeed 4k.

You continue to miss this fact. Gold is virtually worthless except for aesthetic purposes. (Yes, there are limited industrial uses.) Yet people still pay over a thousand dollars an ounce for the stuff. Why? Because it looks nice, and you can reshape it into just about any form you please.

As for your retort about argument content, there's a difference here. If you don't want the same things that I want, that's fine. I'm arguing that you're losing rather than winning with XTH, and the sad part is that you don't even know it. The short run benefits have blinded you to the long run consequences.

My argument is: a problem exists, this is why it is a problem, and this is the proper solution. Yours is: you're an idiot for caring about this problem, and it isn't a problem anyway. The trouble with the second half of the argument is that you're just wrong (and I'm not the only one telling you this), and the trouble with the first half is that it isn't falsifiable.

Here's why my argument works and yours doesn't: explain why the price of fixed-supply items is skyrocketing right now. You can't with your theory. According to your theory, the prices should be remaining constant. Yet they are not. I can explain this phenomenon with the story that I am telling. This should tell you that zkeys have intrinsic value and that a massive giveaway of zkeys isn't a great idea.

I agree with Sir Skullcrusher that it's time to lock. I am losing my patience with arguing with someone that refuses to accept logic. The previous post indicates that succinctly.

Sword Hammer Axe · Mar 23, 2009, 08:54 PM // 20:54

I like it. If it's only once a month it's fine. In a month a player can easily farm the money that you can make and a bit of gambling is what the zkey thingy is all about. I don't think it should be completely free though. It should cost 1 k at least to join each time.