We all know pheons are a particularly prickly pain point when it comes to players trying to gear up their characters. What is also known is that the pheons are put in game as a method of income for the developers/publishers: you buy pheons to use the auction house.
What is making this issue worse over time is the natural inflation of gold and thus the cost of blue crystals (the primary method to obtain pheons) keeps rising. It has gotten so bad in certain regions (e.g. South America) that most players simply cannot use the AH at all and play with complete junk builds (which make late-game content very unenjoyable).
Thus something should be done to ease the situation without removing them entirely; the game is made to generate profits after all. But, giving away free pheons (or pheons from legion raids) for example is a simple but temporary solution and giving away too many could lead the developers to introduce new ways to profit-squeeze the players.
A better idea is to include something that transitions/normalizes the cost of pheons as the in game economy evolves. Such an idea can be implemented in a variety of ways to keep the players engaged in the economy while also generating decent profits from selling Royal Crystals (which gets sold for gold to generate the blue crystals for pheons). So please consider one or more of the following ideas:
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Pheon requirements per accessory/item scales with the value of the item (not simply the item tier and rarity). For example, higher quality level and +3/5 engravings would necessitate a higher pheon cost while there would be discounts for lower qualities and lower engraving totals. This incentivizes players to keep using the market and purchase items of the value they are comfortable with. A sub-20 quality relic with +3/3 engravings could be 10 pheons whereas an 80+ quality relic with +3/5 engravings could remain 25 pheons.
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Pheons sold in the game shop for blue crystals could have dynamic pricing scales depending on the cost of the blue crystal to gold exchange rate. Conversely, a new NPC could be added which sells pheons for gold directly (as a gold sink) at a high but not crazy price to set a market ceiling for pheons. For example, similar to selling stones of chaos, an NPC could sell pheons for 100 gold each, which for some regions, would be preferable to the current exchange rate. As gold becomes more scarce with this sink, at some point the pheons would again be purchased via blue crystals and thus profits would continue.
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Pheon costs for chance-based items should be removed: there should be no pheon costs for ability stones or tripod equipment unless the result is a success. However, upon succeeding an ability transfer or cutting an appropriate stone, the NPC offers the player a choice to keep the result in exchange for an amount of pheons (perhaps scaling with the tripod level or number of stone nodes). This removes the gambling aspect and ensures pheons go towards something the player actually wants. For example, you pay 100 pheons to keep the stone after cutting a 7/7/x stone, but pay no pheons if you want to give up and discard it. If you don’t have the pheons available, the NPC will hold the item for you until you can pay.
This is not an exhaustive list but just some ideas to keep the developers earning money while also addressing the player stress from pheons. What are your thoughts oh Pheons?