but bots exist because RMT
It’s an endless circle
ninja’d x2
Don’t worry. Bots will stop farming when people stop buying from them and you can go back to your legitimate farming. What do you think is easier: banning gold seller accounts that will be remade in a matter or hours/days - or banning RMTers who buy from them? It’s not like they just ignore bots and do nothing. Go check their ban list weekly. It’s full of bots but it’s a seemingly futile effort.
MMO creators have traditionally turned a blind-eye to RMT buyers, and I always thought that was a dumb move. Take away the demand and suddenly the supply is meaningless.
I applaud IMC for trying something. I hope it works.
@STAFF_Yuri The main reason why people opt for ‘Illegal RMT’ is because the value of TP is ridiculously low. Tokens in Telsiai are just going for 8-10m. Even a whale would think otherwise to purchase $7 USD worth of silver for just that amount. Goddess Blessed Cube is just too unrewarding, 10% chance costumes go for 7-15m each, the only thing that is valuable are wings and a small pool of toys. It just has no value at all There used to be a silver option when you exchange medals but I don’t know what happened to that, Ok I understand GACHA should be a high risk - high reward thing but versus the amount of gold sinks that are implemented in game? It’s just not worth it.
Your ‘Customers’ spend and don’t really get what’s their moneys worth. Which makes you lose more money because why would they buy from “legit source that is trying to rip them off” versus a 3rd party which promises a good value for their money.
It’s like paying for comprehensive car insurance, you pay it off monthly, it’s more expensive but is “accepted anywhere” compared to a 3rd party car insurance that you only need to pay one time, doesn’t really apply to everything but, it does the job. Besides who likes getting into car accidents? the 3rd party works just as good as the legit one but with better value.
Bottom line, for people who can spend and don’t have a lot of time to play the game. Purchasing became an option to catch up to those who do, which made the game economy alive, imagine just the 10% controlling markets? No one would even bother and the high slope just goes higher.
The company decision to lean towards this type of reward system regarding spending of TP. Just fueled the rampant 'Illegal RMT and Botting business" Honestly it just did.
Just an insight on End game gear progression.
Time spent = silver earned.
Say I spend 20 hours playing and earned 1m/hr . I got myself 20m. (This is for an average player)
Now what can I do with that 20m for end game gearing?
Solmiki Cube 2x re-roll - average spent. 9-11m (Lucky if you can even sell a part for silver)
Velcoffer Cube 2x re-roll. Silver needed 24m
Amazing Primus weapon/armor (at least 120 stat / 200 stat for 2handers) - at the very least 20m - 70m
Reroll min. 3 green Low stat Primus Gear - 1.2m per roll / assuming 40k per sierra (High chance of disappointment)
Ichor Extraction (7-10% chance) - Primus 4.5m per attempt / Berthas 2.7m per attempt (High chance of disappointment)
Unique Raid - Spend 1.6m for one run, adds up as you run more (Assuming you buy stones) RNG rewards.
Most armors are garbage, 500k - 3m (If you can even sell one) Masinios Weapons. 2m - 40m (Mace/Pistol are the only ones worth, most just go from 2m- 15m)
Sierra Powder is your break even, 800k - 1.6m silver refund depending on how much you get
Upgrading good primus weapon to +16 = Chances are slim, cost at least 15m if successful. Will people buy? Don’t think anyone would even buy one at this point.
Note: All of these activities need time, and that lessens the time for farming silver.
We appreciate that you guys are doing something regarding these issues, we truly do. This game is great it can be amazing if we can balance things out between what developers plan to do and what players want without messing up the company time line. The casual stuff are fun and much appreciated.
Off topic: World boss is dead. Can’t be bothered to spend 2-3 hrs just to get some kidney stones. Bring back old world boss. Stop doing some dodgy and stitched up way to patch up end game. Velcoffer is a good start, just re-work your silver sinks.
@STAFF_Yuri - What @woolies said in his post is the biggest problem in fighting RMT. The value of TP has gone down, by too much.
Just a short catchup:
My 1st post: Policy Update Regarding RMT
2nd post: Policy Update Regarding RMT
@woolies post: Policy Update Regarding RMT
These 3 posts sum up quite well what us ‘whales’ think.
As long as IMC increases value for TP, we can change this:
Whales <<Silver - Real$>> Bot/RMT
To this:
Whales <<TP - Real$ >> IMC
Whales << Silver - TP Items >> Other players
We are not saying that banning botters, RMT silver sellers etc is a bad thing.
But there is one very, very, important thing to note:
If the Company (IMC) does not provide a good value product, banning players who have real money to spend (even though its on RMT) does not provide much encouragement for players to spend on TP.
It’ll just make us leave the game / quit. Which isn’t really good from the company’s point of view.
And as for the rest of you who’re so filled with RIGHTEOUS FURY against people who buy silver from RMTers…
Until you actually buy TP yourselves, you’re all just a bunch of hot air.
This will be the better solution compare to what I thought from the scratch.
There are few things that could be done by myself, others requires some assistant,
But I agree that adjusting circumstances will also going to help us to improve the status regarding this issue.
that would also require whole another reports and statistic information to convince, but its my job to do that,
If possible I would love to keep have - opinions like Hey Yuri, you also have to take mind that look here. just like @Veldt and @woolies did, would greatly help what I have to, and going to do. Sorry if I didn’t mentioned the others, but I’ll go thorougly again.
Tokens should be cheap and available to people who legitimately can’t afford them.
The in-game economy is in deflation across the board. People can’t afford to buy tokens for more than 8-10m because that’s what the current economy allows for. Converting TP to silver was always inefficient, especially via tokens or gacha items. This has always been the case on Klaipeda, maybe Telsiai or other servers are different. Yet people still do it, or attempt to, and wonder why they aren’t actually making the amount of silver they thought they would.
Which is EXACTLY the issue my posts, and woolie’s post, is saying. And what we propose for IMC to address.
Just banning people with real cash, is banning people who are willing to spend on your game.
They’re already buying silver, regardless of the source. You just need to encourage them to change the supplier from RMT, to IMC.
Right, I’m saying you’re missing the point of a TP shop in the first place in a f2p game. You inject the TP items into the silver economy at your own peril. You are supplying and the demand is not set to your expectation. That’s not IMC’s fault, that’s your own.
edit: The only other comment I’ll make here is how absolutely hilarious it is to see all the insects pouring out of the woodwork. This announcement has been amazing. Now I won’t be embarrassed about telling more friends about the game again, because they’re removing the most cancerous element.
And that’s what IMC should care about: Bringing in more legitimate players who will still buy TP goods reliably, just not splurge and completely destroy the server economy. That’s stability, not the gimmicky, unreliable income brought in when a couple people with a gambling addiction decide to buy cubes.
edit: TLDR; people who RMT are all your potential customers, all you need to do is to make them divert away from RMT and spend legitimately in your game.
Imagine having 60 dollar to spend.
That loosely translates to 900+ 90 TP which is
30+3 goddess cubes or
90+9 letitia cubes or
based on current RMT value, around 200M.
In the end, would a player want to gamble that 60 dollar for that teenie weenie chance of getting a wing / DA (which are usually the most sought after things in the gacha) or directly get 200M in silver , buy gears, and move on with the game.
Bear in mind that if the person RMT, the person does not even need spend time much time farming silver or drops with RNG and then identify with more RNG and then upgrading with even more RNG anymore.
With silver in hand, his time can be invested elsewhere in game doing other activites now (raids, ET, anything other than farming silver while fighting for spots with bots all over the maps)
Just a quick note here. This should really be done with care.
If a company goes fully on P2WIN practices the silver <-> cash exchange rate is high since you can’t live without them or the economy/community pushes you for doing so. (Example on ToS currently: Diamond Anvils)
If what we mostly have are cosmetics and such, you’ll fall into the supply vs demand like @Csiko just said.
Your idea for more effects, more cosmetics is great, like, really. Having more things to sell is nice and all, but keep in mind that in the end you’re still depending on the economy state.
The conversion rate won’t be as “efficient” as you want it to and that’s fine. My opinion (and of a big part of the community I’d say) is that a Cash Shop should be a Cash Shop, not a “Legal RMT venue”.
It should be possible to buy your way to some point, but not to throw money at the screen and become a super popolion from night to day.
Edit:
Also, the main reason lots of players complains about RMT and such isn’t because “it’s RMT” and that’s it. It builds a broken economy and inflation, in extreme cases it can create an environment where one simply can’t catch up without throwing money at the game like crazy. No one wants that, be it legal or not.
You’re missing the whole point - the items are tradable, market listable. If you’re so against injecting TP items, then make everything from the TP store BOUND TO ACCOUNT. NON-TRADABLE. Solved.
The fact of the issue right now is that the items are sellable. And for what, exactly? Silver. It is pretty much the entire point, heck, the point of the ENTIRE MMO INDUSTRY, to use this system to provide a means for real life rich players to exchange REAL $, for INGAME $. Look at EVE-Online, Guildwars2, they provide a direct means to trade REAL CASH CURRENCY straight to INGAME CURRENCY.
As much as you want to try and shove the blame onto others, you have not understood the underlying issues.
FYI, since you do not seem to understand economics - Trading TP items to OTHER PLAYERS for silver DOES NOT ‘destroy the silver economy’. No new silver is generated from the transaction (from botting). In fact, silver is consumed during the transaction through market tax.
Your misunderstanding of economics and silver generation is affecting your entire judgement.
@Seiran If you purely have cosmetics, then definitely you’ll have to keep churning out more and more, OR price them high from the start (See Path of Exile’s 64 US dollar wings). Adding consumables like RANK RESETS that are also market tradable will help. You want to increase the selection to decrease the over-influx of one specific item.
And, as I addressed the issue to Csiko - Selling TP items to other players does not generate additional silver. Buying from RMT does (since they bot for the silver). By encouraging TP >> Silver, you fight both RMT, AND INFLATION.
Doesn’t change much. If a bunch of whales keeps, for example, some items costing 800m they’re still creating a virtual barrier that puts away anyone that can’t afford that without cash.
It should be done with care so we don’t have people becoming super popolions out of the blue nor making it impossible to participate in high-end items economy without cash.
It does change the entire problem.
RMT mainly generates silver through botting. That is a additional currency tap. If you remove the currency tap by encouraging TP >> silver, you control a portion of the inflation of silver.
A virtual barrier to what, exactly? This is a PVE game. You can run Velcoffer with normal non-whaled items.
It is not like a few whales with 800m+ weapons are standing at the entrance PKing anyone who arrives.
ALL the items in the game are farmable (with the exclusion of world boss shenannigans). And world boss gear isn’t even the best, anymore.
Edit: There has also been lots of sales of Solmiki gear on Telsiai. Guess what? Solmiki gear is farmable with Berthas equipment. Heck, I enter solm myself with a berthas geared character.
Solm gear is definitely still endgame viable with the slight exception of Velcoffer (Reset some stats into Con, people).
WHAT endgame barrier. Geeze.
You’re avoiding the point. I’m not gonna continue talking to a wall.
If you want to do “legal RMT” you want to buy something. If the economy, community or company balances the prices based on you and many others that relies on the “legal RMTers” you’ll start making it hard for average players to enter certain places of the economy.
Just because you can throw money and buy an item for 800m and “it won’t affect you, you can farm with this +11 gear” you’re still affecting them because you’re part of the group holding the item for 800m.
It affects people in the sense they can’t participate on the high-end economy itself, it will affect price of (directly or indirectly) related items.
And well, you know it, you’re just avoiding the point, just like you kept saying in another thread for people to make multiple accounts just because you do and profit with that. It was the same type of shitty excuse AFK Necros said in the past and made a mess of the economy.
The game community counts with every player and should cater to the majority and the game’s target playerbase. Whales are minority, while you should cater to them as well, they aren’t the center of the world.
Please, do not suggest for IMC to make a whale-centered game where average players can’t play without throwing money. F2P should not be treated as a tutorial for P2WIN end-game.
well, as you can see. peeps are suggesting that RMT and bots is a paradoxial cycle.
the way i see it, ToS currently has taken action towards botters, little by little
this policy update is for their anti-RMT section to catch up with the anti-bot section
by adding consequences to silver buyers, which encourages RMT
as it is easier to take small steps on both problems
rather than trying to focus in fully eliminating one
it’s kind of like that twin glass giraffe boss in ff13-2
killing one of them would only make the other revive the slain one
where the solution is to slowly lower both their HP and simultaneously deliver the killing blow on both, due to their paradoxial relationship similar to RMT and bots
I am not avoiding the point.
Why do you keep insisting that players have to purchase weapons from some mysterious source?
WHO is the source?
How many 800m+ weapons are you seeing? I’m pretty surprised here, because even on WHALELAND (Telsiai), the highest weapon i’ve seen went for 600 to 700m (+21 Trans10 Primus 2H Hammer). Most really great gear are never sold. And will never affect the economy.
In fact, +16 Primus weapons go for 40m to 80m and falling (Depending on stat rolls). You can get +11 primus weapons for 4m or less (less than the cost of unidentified, even).
I am defending this because all you people keep throwing around mysterious MULTI BILLION magic items that even I, myself, have not seen. Participate in ‘high-end economy’, you say? You mean crafting +16 weapons yourself?
Edit: And as for ‘catering to all’ - Yeah, sure, just lock all TP items to be non-tradable, account bound. Solves the whole issue of it all, am I right?
FYI - Some of the players with really high-end equipment on Telsiai got all their stuff by farming end-game raids and selling the drops to whales. You should try it sometime.
Edit2: @Aoi_Kanashi Which is what my posts were addressing. And what @woolies post was directing our concerns at. The system isn’t balanced right now.
The cash shop -is- a ‘legal RMT venue’, no matter what you think. Otherwise all items would be character or account bound. The whole point is to change, as per my previous posts, the supplier from RMT to the Game Company (IMC, in this case). And as for conversion rates - most rates were within 10-20% of RMT prices (since they have to drop their price below ‘legal’ rates), NOT 50% like TOS. Something is wrong when it is at a 50% difference.
Things do not exist in a vacuum. The ‘legal’ RMT system -is- competing against the ‘illegal’ one. It is how Steam became so successful. They provided a easy-to-use, one-click location for buying and downloading your games. They provided CONVENIENCE over torrenting / piracy. Sure, there’re still people without, or unwilling to, spend money, but you can’t solve world hunger.
As for examples wise - You don’t use exceptions as an example. Are you going to campaign against Lamborgini, Maserati, or what have you to make their cars accessible to all? Of course not. There will never be more than a few 800m+ items (And most of them are self-crafted).
For silver inflation, once you shut off a faucet/tap from RMT, through market tax controls and other silver sinks the available circulating silver will decrease, forcing prices to fall to equilibrium. That takes time. There is no magic PUSH BUTTON REDUCE PRICE like some of these folks keep thinking.
The whole problem about overinflated prices right now is because of how long the RMT bots (silver faucet) have been running, now we introduce products (TP items, costumes) that will dilute the per-item silver cost.
Oh this is the best part:
Excuse me? In this case, I AM THE SUPPLIER OF DIAMOND ANVILS. Why would I buy them off the market? Where do you think the diamond anvils come from? Some MAGIC player just like your 800m weapons?
PS. I am posting this from the point of view of one of your ‘whales’. I am telling you, that YOUR thinking of how WE spend money, is wrong. You’re telling an elephant that his nose isn’t long, here.