27 replies to this topic

[Ultistic]

Hey guys,

 

We have been reading all the feedback about our recent update to bonds and how they have changed. We want to offer you a fix to the problem which caused us to change the way the bonds were working. Prior to the recent update you could buy bonds all the way up to uber donator. We don't have a problem with that, the only problem we were facing is that people were buying bonds for 30-35m a piece and buying 2 mystery boxes with the points. You can easily sell mystery boxes anywhere from 10-20m depending on supply and demand. This got us thinking that people are buying $10 donations for 5-10m at a time if they successfully sold their mystery boxes for that price. 

 

We would like to hear feedback from you guys about how bonds are working currently and if you have any ideas that we can review if you don't agree with the question above please feel free to let us know!

 

Regards,

Lowkey

[Thorru]

What's wrong with people buying mboxes all the way to uber? The bonds have already been paid for, so it's not like they are getting uber for cheap.

[Bankplank]

Well, one issue I have with bonds is that I donated $40 today (already donated 10 previously.) I got 2 bonds and sold them in-game, and somehow I got changed back to regular donator from super....

[Jaw]

How about placing fixed prices in the TP with bonds and m-boxes.

It would give you a chance to regulate the amount flowing through without players hypothetically leeching this system for extra GP. 

[Ultistic]

What's wrong with people buying mboxes all the way to uber? The bonds have already been paid for, so it's not like they are getting uber for cheap.

 

What's wrong with it is you are adding $10 to your account (after selling mboxes) for 5-10m ea, when in all reality it should be the price of a bond to increase your rank. 100 tokens = $10, Bond = 30m if that makes sense

[Thorru]

What's wrong with it is you are adding $10 to your account (after selling mboxes) for 5-10m ea, when in all reality it should be the price of a bond to increase your rank. 100 tokens = $10, Bond = 30m if that makes sense

Could you just increase the token cost of mboxes then?

[Phsycofish]

you guys are really selling out huh? whats the actuall problem with them buying bonds all the way to uber then  buying mboxes most people dont even sell them so  i see no problem how the bonds were before. at this point i see you guys just wanting money..

[Flee]

Put a fixed price on those items, try to get them to be lower but might be difficult.

 

Or just make it so you can only buy 1 mb with the 100 credits.

[bsw]

Ffs, can we not just have it back as it was? 

 

 

 

Sellouts 

[Mewtwo]

I will stay neutal at this idea of making them untradeable, the shop is a bit unfair, just a quick example is Ags (400 tokens) 40M in game = 70M loss.

 

If they were made untradeable it would be a way to remove money from the game, not sure if it would be good or not. 

 

In my opinion increasing the cost of tokens making them for 100 or 150 atleast would be the best way to "solve" the issue that is being said on the topic.

[alumentum]

I am all for increasing the token cost, mboxes should be a fun thing to trade about, not a cheap way out.

[Whiss]

Why not just make things the way they were we had no problem everybody happy

[Lorie]

Honestly, I don't know about making them untradeable. But i do agree with what others have said and just would support on just increasing the token cost.

[Beta Chippy]

What's wrong with it is you are adding $10 to your account (after selling mboxes) for 5-10m ea, when in all reality it should be the price of a bond to increase your rank. 100 tokens = $10, Bond = 30m if that makes sense

But the bond was still bought for 100 tokens and -$10 to an account, it's not like there's a net loss for you. You guys are just fishing for whales by not allowing players to go beyond super donater without spending cash. The shop prices are already terrible (3rd age, DWH, Elder Maul) so why do you think that 10 tokens = 3m in game, when that only is the case because of bonds. This will simply ruin the economy of the other low token options, but i guess who cares about the economy.

[Syntax]

(Note to readers, I am currently an uber donator, however the rank is bugged and you have to pay 15 points to cancel a task, so I asked Omicron to move me down to legendary as to allow me to slay without issue for the time being)

 

 

@ uTorrent , You're claiming that the larger issue is that players such as myself have achieved uber while only losing ~5-10m per bond. In the end, it probably cost me around 1.5b for uber, and lots of time trying to buy those bonds. Even the slightest change from my set price of 30m per bond, such as paying 31m per bond would result in an extra 250m loss. Please keep that in mind as you continue to read.

 

It would require at a minimum, 7.5b to outright buy the 250 bonds required. As you can see, players like myself are forced to sell mys boxes, and other donor items in order to re-invest back into bonds. This is a much harder process than many people are led to believe (esp when people undercut you 24/7)

 

This is because mystery box prices are determined by the market. The market and economy determine the prices - why is that an issue?

 

• You altering the point cost for mystery boxes does absolutely nothing, the market would adjust accordingly.

 

If it is worth it to get uber (good benefits...), bonds go up in price (and the competition to buy bonds increases, along with a surplus of mystery boxes, mithril seeds, and prayer scrolls into the game as a result (then those items drop in price and the players buying bonds lose more profit)

 

 

Uber was "cheap" for me because I was the first person to fully commit to doing it before I had competition. Players within TNG were purposely holding off from buying bonds so that it wouldn't be as difficult for me to get.

 

----------------------------

 

It's a no brainer, revert it to how it was. All you did was make it so staff have to middleman donations. If you disagree with my post, please quote me or pm me on the forums for a more in depth explanation on basic economics (not meant to be flame). Lastly - the premise of making mystery boxes untradeable still leaves prayer scrolls/mithril seeds as the next item(s) for you to tackle.

 

@ Omicron @ Jare @ uTorrent @ Drewsy @ NaLoLBooster @ Syrinx @ Seabound @ Fat nerd @ Luxury

[Krategy]

You're claiming that the larger issue is that players such as myself got to uber, while only paying ~5-10m per bond.

 

This is because mystery box prices are determined by the market. The market and economy determine the prices - why is that an issue?

 

If it is worth it to get uber, bonds go up in price (and the competition to buy bonds increases, along with added mystery boxes, mithril seeds, and prayer scrolls into the game as a result (then those items drop in price and the players buying bonds lose more profit)

 

 

--Uber was cheap for me because I was the first person to fully commit to doing it before I had competition. Players within TNG were purposely holding off from buying bonds so that it wouldn't be as difficult for me to get.

 

----------------------------

 

It's a no brainer, revert it to how it was. All you did was make it so staff have to middleman donations.

 

@ Omicron @ Jare @ uTorrent

This.

 

How does it affect revenue anyway? Those bonds have to be paid for with IRL money from somebody, let the market determine the prices. If selling mboxes makes the bonds actually cost 10m then that is what they're worth. Revert it to what it was

[Ruthless]

lol i wonder if people ever think.

 

its not just mystery boxes players like kaguya abused the fact that buying 4 bonds for 120m then selling prayer scrolls for 125m ea made him profit plus increased his donor rank.

 

People can choose to buy whatever item they want from the donation shop and always make a certain amount of money back if needed, if they choose to go for high ranks they can buy newly released items if and when they come to donor shop or they can buy supplies or any item for that matter and make back close enough to where they only spend a few on the rank.

 

It doesnt matter if the boxes should be untradable and i think thats a dumb idea because people who buy boxes are usually ones that have the money to test their luck most of the time youll be getting garbage from those boxes and if you get lucky theres some rares to be gained.

[Syntax]

Could you just increase the token cost of mboxes then?

That's not the answer, thats simply trying to control the market. We need to let the economy adjust - as I mentioned in my post.

 

The more people who attempt to attain ranks, means more mystery boxes (prayer scrolls/mithril seeds/ etc.. This means mystery boxes lower in price. 

 

Hence, no need to adjust the points for mystery boxes, not to mention players can purchase mithril seeds and prayer scrolls as well (often for better profit).

 

---------------------------

 

Understand that by setting "x cost" for donor items, it in turn sets a price for the item on the server.

 

When @ Omicron introduced Dragon war hammers into the shop for 600 tokens (without asking the community), He essentially set the maximum price at 180m (600 tokens = 6 bonds (6x30m=180m)). Now any smart player who is well informed, would never buy a dragon war-hammer for 180m, they would rather purchase 6 bonds at 30m each, and receive the dragon war hammer, along with $60 in donations onto their account.

 

Generally speaking, for every 1 bond redeemed, a player should lose roughly 6-10m (mys boxes @ 12m ea). This means that if a player were to spend 6 bonds on a dragon war hammer, they should expect to take a loss of 6x6 which is 36m, we'll round to 40m at the minimum since having the ability to get rid of 6 redeemed bonds in 1 item is highly beneficial for the player trying to reach higher ranks. Ultimately - the dragon war hammer's set price is 140m maximum (was 400m~ before being put in the shop. Keep in mind that I used the minimum amount lost for bond, if we assumed 10m loss it would 110-120m - which it was for quite some time, until gamblers controlled most of the market, and liquidated them for cheap prices ~80m).

 

Omicron should never add items like that onto the server, especially without consulting with the community. Not only does he frustrate the player base by doing so, he also makes it so that lizardman shaman become dead content.

 

I continue to applaud both @ Jare , and @ uTorrent for the last 2 topics like these (previous was pvp ragging discussion) which are community feedback driven. For the success of the server, I hope you continue to do so. I would like the two of you to respond more on discord-  but that's besides the point.

 

While I haven't spent enough time clearly outlining what I'm trying to convey - it should be clear that the economy will create the answers, regardless of the attempts to adjust token prices. 

 

Part 2 -

 

 

This is a bit of a stretch, so please understand that the information below may very well be misinformed, I am simply trying to make a conjecture

 

Let's ask ourselves why bonds are 30m ea shall we?

 

• The most consistent form of money making is thieving stalls (not affected by the market).
• Thieving on the level 90 stall for arguments sake will be 8m an hour

Bonds are purchased for $10, thus $10 is 30m (assuming the donor doesn't spend higher amounts of $ at once, for discounts)

 

-Minimum wage in the United States is ~$8-10. If a player were to thieve in game it would take at least 3-4 hours to reach 30m~ for a bond.

 

If the loss of trying to achieve higher donor ranks is more in game wealth (mystery boxes becoming untradeable), the bond prices go down as a result. 

 

While this may not seem like an issue, it's important to realize that a well informed spender (players who spend irl money to the server) is less likely to donate when the prices of bonds go down in value. This would only cut down on the amount of $ coming into the server @ Omicron

 

 

-- I wrote this pretty fast and my idealogies could be well off, as there are an immense amount of confounds in which I'm sure aren't being factored into my argument.

 

TLDR - The higher/stronger prices of bonds (in game value) leads to more in game donations.

[Syrinx]

(Note to readers, I am currently an uber donator, however the rank is bugged and you have to pay 15 points to cancel a task, so I asked Omicron to move me down to legendary as to allow me to slay without issue for the time being)

 

 

@ uTorrent , You're claiming that the larger issue is that players such as achieved uber, while only losing ~5-10m per bond. In the end, it probably cost me around 1.5b for uber, and lots of time trying to buy those bonds. Even the slightest change from my set price of 30m per bond, such as paying 31m per bond would result in an extra 250m loss. Please keep that in mind as you continue to read.

 

It would require at a minimum, 7.5b to outright buy the 250 bonds required. As you can see, players like myself are forced to sell mys boxes, and other donor items in order to re-invest back into bonds. This is a much harder process than many people are led to believe (esp when people undercut you 24/7)

 

This is because mystery box prices are determined by the market. The market and economy determine the prices - why is that an issue?

 

• You altering the point cost for mystery boxes does absolutely nothing, the market would adjust accordingly.

 

If it is worth it to get uber (good benefits...), bonds go up in price (and the competition to buy bonds increases, along with a surplus of mystery boxes, mithril seeds, and prayer scrolls into the game as a result (then those items drop in price and the players buying bonds lose more profit)

 

 

Uber was "cheap" for me because I was the first person to fully commit to doing it before I had competition. Players within TNG were purposely holding off from buying bonds so that it wouldn't be as difficult for me to get.

 

----------------------------

 

It's a no brainer, revert it to how it was. All you did was make it so staff have to middleman donations. If you disagree with my post, please quote me or pm me on the forums for a more in depth explanation on basic economics (not meant to be flame). Lastly - the premise of making mystery boxes untradeable still leaves prayer scrolls/mithril seeds as the next item(s) for you to tackle.

 

@ Omicron @ Jare @ uTorrent @ Drewsy @ NaLoLBooster @ Syrinx @ Seabound @ Fat nerd @ Luxury

 

I fully support this.

 

Syntax is a smart person and knows how to reason with sound logic. I do not have anything else to comment on this issue as Syntax said it wonderfully. 

[Hex]

Wouldn't this have the opposite of the intended effect? lowering the demand for bonds by essentially increasing the gp loss per bond sixfold?

 

A bond is just a way to transfer a pre-existing donation.

The items we purchase with them should be irrelevant and should come to a more sensible value on their own, without outside interface.

I get that you don't want to see a bunch of uber donator's running around that only spent 1-2b on the rank, but as omicron has done quite a good job at balancing donator benefits, i don't exactly see why....

 

And can i just point out that this entire strategy is hinged on people actually buying the mystery boxes, if they wanted they could hold out and drive the price of mystery boxes down in a week.

 

To get an uber donator rank, $2500 is being donated to the server regardless, why does the transfer of in-game gp even enter the equation?