WP

What does the community think of a Gold/Token exchange stone? One where you can trade your gold for tokens at a very poor exchange rate or tokens to gold at an equally poor exchange rate? For example, 20 or more gold per token and 10 tokens per gold. With this idea, I'm trying to find the balance between keeping the grind difficulty the same, but giving players a choice which high end donation item they want to purchase.

Here's an example situation. Player is saving up for both the bag of holding (25MM gold) and Windriders (3.5MM tokens). He will eventually get both of them, but if he wanted to put all his resources, gold and tokens, toward one of them and sacrifice the gains he has toward the other, then that's an interesting gameplay choice.

At the exchange rates above, which I'm not married to, one would have to pay 70MM Gold to get the tokens for windriders, or 250MM tokens to get the gold for the bag of holding. Either way, a change like this wouldn't ruin the grind or make high end items too accessible, it would simply add a gold sink (because you cant trade back and forth) and give players a choice to make.

In fact, if a player were to utilize the exchange stone, they would actually be lengthening their long term gameplay time by choosing instant gratification over long term reward (assuming they want both gold and token items).

I personaly am against it. Im sure many have seen..... gold is not hard to come by. Gold only really holds value for the front end of the game. After your over the hump from farming gold for powerscrolls... check book... mid to low high end items.. and whatever toys your want from the gold stone... golds value drops to almost nothing. Tokens however are guarded... protected and much harder to come by... In my opinion the way they should be.

I'm Ok with whatever way it is decided. I just feel the value is tokens... and trading something that eventually turns into meaning nothing... regardless the ratio to trade in... doesnt make sense.

(this is not in response to any persons... it is about the subject)

Thanks for the response and insight Merch. Your post made me think of another point. That the value of gold and token donation house items, though priced accurately and according to how easy it is to farm gold/tokens, lean heavily toward tokens. Unless the donator items were balanced between the two currencies, then an exchange stone may only ever be used for Gold --> Tokens and not the other way around. That behavior would result in easier token farming, which is something I'm trying to avoid with this suggestion.

Buy creating and using an exchange stone, staff would setting an artificial value for exchange. We prefer to let the player economy work this out for itself. If newer players wish to sell their tokens for gold, great! And if older players are looking for tokens to buy, that is fine as well. The laws of supply and demand will govern.

GhostRiderGrey