I’ve been reading the whole conversation on this — and I wasn’t sure where in it to reply so going back to POST NUMERO UNO.
Okay. So. The most baffling thing about this is why ARE gem prices being allowed to go down? Why are gem-sinks not being introduced?
From a FR Is First And Foremost A Business a high gem-to-treasure ratio is best for the developers. The harder gems are to obtain in terms of work-on-site the more likely people are to pay cash money for them.
This is yet another example of FR Design Philosophy Mystifies Me. I realize that there is a sweet spot to hit - if gem prices go up infinitely then you’ll start losing players to I Can’t Afford Anything attrition. But, I’m not sure I know the sweet spot the devs are aiming for. I felt like 500 was… a good point in terms of attainability of gems. Difficult enough that it would encourage some players to spend money on gems while still being affordable if you wanted to put in some time.
I’d like to hear some about the design philosophy in terms of balancing gem prices, but I’m afraid of asking because we’d probably just get some “It’s a free market, players determine the conversion rate blah blah blah” BS.
And it is BS. Because while players might write up the conversion rate, the devs are controlling the demand AND the supply of both treasure and gems. Of all the markets in the game they can control the easiest one for them to control is the ratio of gems to treasure in game.
Which brings me to my second FR Design Philosophy Is Mystifying To Me point. Okay so. We can all agree that in terms of the developers… FR is a business right? They are doing this for profit. To make money. Hopefully to one day be their full time jobs.
There are two sources of income for the site. Ads and gems. We can alllll agree on this, right?
A high treasure to gem ratio (but not TOO high) is good for the site in terms of pushing players to buy gems and keep the site funded, right?
Why then. WHY are there way more treasure sinks in the game than gem sinks?
Outside of the gem marketplace/the AH the only gem sink I can think of is the apparel slots — which, ultimately, are not a huge gem sink. Outside of the treasure marketplace/the AH you have the crippling treasure sink that is lair expansions PLUS the not-too-cheap nest expansions.
It’d be nice to see a bigger gem sink in the game. Maybe let you pay for lair expansions in treasure OR gems.
Of course, the other way to control the ratio (besides adding more gem sinks) is to add more treasure production. Which like, everybody has been asking for forever because grinding the games to hit cap after a few days becomes as pleasurable as pulling out your fingernails one by one.
(IMO game payout on all games should be 1000t per minute at an average play speed because that is what you can make by clicking in random circles on shock switch. Until all games have a payout at that level there is no point to grinding any of them BUT shock switch.)
Anyway. I realize that a lot of the questions I have about development probably amount to ‘the developers want to eventually do something about the weird design BUT there is only so much two programmers can do in a day’. But I feel like this is actually one the art-team could handle? Or wouldn’t consume much time?
I kinda ultimately suspect this is just another biproduct of the design philosophy we’ve seen of ‘we’re scared to change our controls to the economy in any way ever because things might get worse than they are now AND the site is ultimately meant to run with open registration AND we can sit and claim we’re running a free market (author’s note: lolololololol) and people will buy it because they’ll apply their ideas about scarcity based actual world economies to a totally controlled artificial-scarcity virtual economy”.
