We earn less AD now since the Leadership change, therefore all AD costs should be reduced. All AD barriers to progession, campaign costs, companion upgrade costs, you name it, should be lowered and brought into line with the earnings of the average player. This is common sense, and can only benefit the community.
Is there any likelihood of companion upgrade prices being lowered? 1m AD used to be achieveable with leadership earnings - now it's totally out of my reach.
forget about some pet upgrades, its insane SH upgrade requirements that are killing, small guild with some 10 active ppl, even if they donate every last ad they get it would take forever to upgrade anything
I really appreciate your post ironzerg: it makes sense. I see only one possible point of conflict: $. In your scenario, players can progress ideally without buying anything (or a few) at the zen market. Someone proposed to have no AD cap: this may inflate again the market to some extent. Having your proposal accepted, requires a complete analisys and rework of the zen market: currently there's no value for money in it. IMO, the critical point is the level of economical profitability of the overall concept. The current model is simply outrageous: very expensive and low value for money. You proposal makes sense if at PWE they accept to move to something different from the simple "milking cows" approach to something more sophisticated which include the "value for money" concept. The lockbox key model works as a casino: managed by a not-transparent RNG, drop trash most of the times and designed to make you lose all your money. I can buy the 3 campains IWD, Shar and DR for 150$, a ruby (50K RP!!) for 800 zen : does it worth? Don't think so.
Post edited by rapo973 on
Oltreverso guild leader Maga Othelma - DC | Svalvolo - SW | Dente Avvelenato- GWF
@rapo973 they could change the Zen Shop to carry cosmetic items and cheap keys ( < $1 each ) and they'd be getting money from me. The shop, as it stands, is all out of whack (like the Rubies you pointed out) and because of that, even items and packs that have value in game feel as overpriced and greedy as the refinement items.
A 50% price cut to things like companions, boosters, services, etc... along with a massive expansion of cosmetics (especially since we're all seeing how the SH gear looks and they have a backlog of great-looking gear and weapons from pre-mod6 that they can implement as transmutes immediately). With the three characters I'm actively playing right now, I'd be happy to drop $6-10 on each one, to get them looking the way I want right now. In a month or so, I'd probably head back to the shop and drop some more cash to tweak their look, or completely change it.
But, that only works if I'm earning cool stuff in game (and progressing my gear/characters/boons) in a tangible sense, not just grinding for millions of RP, while destitute, and getting outdated equipment in T2 dungeons. That gets toxic pretty quick and if I was still a solo player, I wouldn't be here because of it. The changes they've been making recently are definitely trending in the pro-player direction, so I have hope something like @ironzerg79 's ideas here (and elsewhere) will be strongly considered, if not implemented right-out. @asterdahl and @strumslinger definitely have inspired a lot of good will too, by giving the feedback to those of us in the forums and for fighting to get the fun back into this game.
In the end, I think this idea will be brought to those in charge and maybe even has a chance of making it into the game - and I would like to just recognize that that faith has been restored from near to nothing only a relatively few months ago. So, cheers to our Community Managers and to our devs.
Well said. Both Alex and I have been fighting hard for this and will continue to fight hard for it. My account is completely broke because of our stronghold and I have dozens of companions that need upgrading...
why you need figth? why they dont understand their game?
@rapo973 they could change the Zen Shop to carry cosmetic items and cheap keys ( < $1 each ) and they'd be getting money from me. The shop, as it stands, is all out of whack (like the Rubies you pointed out) and because of that, even items and packs that have value in game feel as overpriced and greedy as the refinement items.
A 50% price cut to things like companions, boosters, services, etc... along with a massive expansion of cosmetics (especially since we're all seeing how the SH gear looks and they have a backlog of great-looking gear and weapons from pre-mod6 that they can implement as transmutes immediately). With the three characters I'm actively playing right now, I'd be happy to drop $6-10 on each one, to get them looking the way I want right now. In a month or so, I'd probably head back to the shop and drop some more cash to tweak their look, or completely change it.
This is exactly the point: value for money. Some items could be attractive but I don't buy them because they cost too much and more. I was attracted by the blacksmith: 1200 zen to buy a blue one. I would like to have it pourple....750K AD...no way...I don't buy it.
Oltreverso guild leader Maga Othelma - DC | Svalvolo - SW | Dente Avvelenato- GWF
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ironzerg79Member, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,942Arc User
I see only one possible point of conflict: $. In your scenario, players can progress ideally without buying anything (or a few) at the zen market.
That's exactly the point. Players should feel like they can progress without spending money. Right now, most don't...or feel like the grind to do so kills all the joy this game has for them.
In my opinion, there's an ungodly amount of money to be grabbed, if Cryptic would just reach for it.
And those ideas have been beaten to death more than a Drow caught in a Pwent bear hug.
Here's the two most obvious pots of gold that have been brought up repeatedly, but I'll continue to reiterate.
1) Player housing: Sell some stuff on the Zen market, put some drops in dungeons, make some unique pieces as rewards for achievements or event drops. The basis of the system is already there in the Foundry...and that's how you can monetize the Foundry as well. Player created content is awesome, just think outside the box here. It doesn't have to be long and involved quests. Housing IS User Generated Content, just on a small and more personal level.
2) Cosmetics: Again, beaten to death in threads like this. Players have been begging Cryptic for 2 years to let them fork over cash for more cosmetic options...and it's been widely ignored.
If it were up to me, I'd take my foot off the gas for a little bit. I'd make Module 9 the Hero Builder's Guidebook. Focus not on new maps or content, but new character options. More customization for characters, more player races, player housing, stronghold customization, and perhaps...a new paragon path for all the classes, if that includes a "top to bottom" examination of what's broken in regards to classes, with an effort made to fix it.
But...I'm becoming more and more frustrated every day. And every day I get to see on these forums, on reddit and in my own community how that frustration manifests and it's not fun at all
Thank you Ironzerg for your honest comment: I share your concerns and I'm defenitely with you. Ideed this game has the potential to generate revenues for years. It's hard for me to believe that what is so obvious and trivial for the community, it's not understood by the company. There's a huge gap abetween the players' expectations and what it's implemented: the announcement today of the new weekly sources of AD makes me fell with no hope and even fooled by the game developers.
Oltreverso guild leader Maga Othelma - DC | Svalvolo - SW | Dente Avvelenato- GWF
0
drkbodhiMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 2,378Arc User
Once again... kudos for a beautifully worded and right on the pulse post.
Atwil "At" - Tiefling TR / Saardush - Black Dragonborn GWF / White - Tiefling OP
Leadership Council of Civil Anarchy
SYNERGY Alliance
0
silverkeltMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,235Arc User
Im willing to spend money, but when the amount of money required to progress just basic levels of progress is required, there really is not much hope left. No average mmo player will spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars to just get boons and such .. what a joke at this point.
Im feeling even more disgruntled today then yesterday, with really no real sign of hope left at this point.
I had another long timer on my friends list quit this week, its just too much at this point.
You are totally right ironzerg79, actually i really can't understand why these changes havent done. And i'm not talnking about you'r companions example, i'm talking about everything.
I mean this is a company, you have an administration making decisions and controlling the economy (the game), and what is incredible to me, is the lackness of actions of this administration, everyone knows we need lot of changes and this administration does almost nothing, or you have to wait an eternity for a change.
The problems are on the table, it's time you people (administration) start taking actions on the problems. I mean this is not a hard problem guys, you are not designing an airplane, you only have to do an study of the market and economy (and come on is a game economy, is not the real one) and start taking decisions and making the changes.
The principal problem with this administration, they are more worried in launching new modules instead fixing the game problems, and this is totally wrong. You need to have the quality of the game as a priority.
Sorry about my english i try my best ...
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torontodaveMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 992Arc User
Personally I don't care about player housing.
I'd rather have real rewards for playing foundries, and real rewards for foundry authors.
Many authors working within a framework that acTUALLY rewards players would add so many hours of playable content + revitalize all players bored of playing the same dungeons/dailies.
I would like to see the preview gear screen enhanced with the ideas from its announcement thread.
NW-DSQ39N5SJ - 'To Infinity, and BEYOND!' - Spelljammer Quest. Skyships, Indiana Jones moments NW-DC9R4J5EH - 'The Black Pearl' - Spelljammer! Phlo Riders and Space Orcs
Thanks for all the fish.
I see only one possible point of conflict: $. In your scenario, players can progress ideally without buying anything (or a few) at the zen market.
That's exactly the point. Players should feel like they can progress without spending money. Right now, most don't...or feel like the grind to do so kills all the joy this game has for them.
In my opinion, there's an ungodly amount of money to be grabbed, if Cryptic would just reach for it.
And those ideas have been beaten to death more than a Drow caught in a Pwent bear hug.
Here's the two most obvious pots of gold that have been brought up repeatedly, but I'll continue to reiterate.
1) Player housing: Sell some stuff on the Zen market, put some drops in dungeons, make some unique pieces as rewards for achievements or event drops. The basis of the system is already there in the Foundry...and that's how you can monetize the Foundry as well. Player created content is awesome, just think outside the box here. It doesn't have to be long and involved quests. Housing IS User Generated Content, just on a small and more personal level.
2) Cosmetics: Again, beaten to death in threads like this. Players have been begging Cryptic for 2 years to let them fork over cash for more cosmetic options...and it's been widely ignored.
If it were up to me, I'd take my foot off the gas for a little bit. I'd make Module 9 the Hero Builder's Guidebook. Focus not on new maps or content, but new character options. More customization for characters, more player races, player housing, stronghold customization, and perhaps...a new paragon path for all the classes, if that includes a "top to bottom" examination of what's broken in regards to classes, with an effort made to fix it.
But...I'm becoming more and more frustrated every day. And every day I get to see on these forums, on reddit and in my own community how that frustration manifests and it's not fun at all
The main problem is that even when people continously ask for the same things the devs always choose the opposite direction. This game is intentd it to be F2P but P2P, but with P2P havinga meaning of "pay to progress". The dev team put a lot more effort on finding and removing any possible way that the players find to progress without having to pay than on fixing the bugs or the content they end up breacking just to not allow the people to progress. Most of the remaining players feels frustrated with this game since several months ago, I think the main reason because this game its still alive is because of the feeling that names like "Neverwinter", "Minsc", "Elminster" and now announcing "Drizzt" produce on the people, a lot more than the game experience that this game actually provide.
I think we can all agree with you, ironzerg. it's no secret that players don't feel we are treated fairly in this game. But sadly, it seems pretty evident that they are not aiming for player retention with this game. and therefore fairness isn't on top of their list. at the end we have 2 possible reasons why the game is at its current state, and both are not good news. Either the devs don't know how to fix these problems, which means they are not good at their jobs, or they are not allowed to fix what they want and are instead told to focus on other stuff more important for those who take the final decisions; which is also very bad news for players because it means bugs won't get fixed either, and we'll never get the game we want. I'm more inclined to believe in the second reason, and most actions (which say much more than words) taken by cryptic/PWE sure seem to point in that direction too.
I agree that the removal of AD from leadership was good for the health of the game in the long term. The problem is that changes to more of the AD sinks should have happened if not at the same time, then shortly there after. Also making up for the removal of AD by substituting some other rewards should have been done right away. For example: Battle Elemental Cultists - 24 hours to get less of a reward than you get for 4 hour task of Guard Young Noble on Trip, I mean, REALLY? I could go on! Then maybe we wouldn't have seen so many "rage quitters" ;-)
I'm a pretty patient guy, as I've stuck it out though a lot of bad decisions by the bean counters and management (I tend never to blame the devs, because I know!) but everyone runs low on patience and eventually gets frustrated and burned out.
I agree that the removal of AD from leadership was good for the health of the game in the long term. The problem is that changes to more of the AD sinks should have happened if not at the same time, then shortly there after. Also making up for the removal of AD by substituting some other rewards should have been done right away. For example: Battle Elemental Cultists - 24 hours to get less of a reward than you get for 4 hour task of Guard Young Noble on Trip, I mean, REALLY? I could go on! Then maybe we wouldn't have seen so many "rage quitters" ;-)
I'm a pretty patient guy, as I've stuck it out though a lot of bad decisions by the bean counters and management (I tend never to blame the devs, because I know!) but everyone runs low on patience and eventually gets frustrated and burned out.
Duck! After many people complaining about the leadership rewards being out of scale, I fully expect that they will nerf those as well. Just look at their track record on changes that have hurt the playerbase and game recently. As I imagine it takes longer to change all those "rewards", it will probably take them a little while to do it though. Just removing AD from the rewards was easier than changing the other rewards completely. And lets face it, removing the AD was a blatant move to try to drive up ZEN sales ( Which IMO was a total failure. ) and the other rewards wouldn't really accomplish that.
On a positive note, I want to thank you very much @ironzerg79 for speaking out. I hope that they really listen to you and they don't remove you as a moderator as they tend to censor anything negative. And I want to also thank you for your excellent CW guide. I used it for my CW and it is working very well as I can solo pretty much anything except epic HE's.
There are a lot of good ideas here throughout, however sadly what is missing is perhaps the most important: A response of acknowledgment from the Developers, and perhaps even.... hold your breath, some communication that they have heard the player base and are actively, and thoughtfully DOING something meaningful about the points brought up here.
These leadership armies have not gone away, but merely transformed into profession armies and invocation armies. They are still being controlled by bots and still making enormous amounts of AD compared to the average player. The players characters need to be revised similar to companions. Players should have active characters and non-active characters. 10 active character slots are plenty for each player. If a character is switched out the slot would hold the refine limit, invocation cool down, profession cool down etc. 10 active characters at one time and release the limit on number of characters a player could have, because it wouldn't matter, everything would be tied to the slot.
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plasticbatMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 12,376Arc User
Commercial bots do not need to buy extra character slots. They just need to create new account. They spread their leadership army into many accounts.
*** The game can read your mind. If you want it, you won't get it. If you don't expect to get it, you will. ***
is it fair for players to re-farm all campaigns, all boons, from start to end, on every toon they create on the same account? Is it fair to spend 5000 zen to unlock a single campaign on a single toon?
or, perhaps, it's yet another useless source of frustration when a player knows that creating another toon to play another class, will mean weeks/ months spent re-farming the same campaigns again, to make the toon grow, or that he must spend right now close to 2M AD to unlock 1 campaign on a single toon.
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ironzerg79Member, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,942Arc User
At the very, very, very, very least...make the campaign boosters ACCOUNT WIDE unlocks. To me, that's a lot more fair...still think it's a bit pricey, but if you have a lot of alts, I guess on a per-character basis, it ends up being not too bad.
At the very, very, very, very least...make the campaign boosters ACCOUNT WIDE unlocks. To me, that's a lot more fair...still think it's a bit pricey, but if you have a lot of alts, I guess on a per-character basis, it ends up being not too bad.
Commercial bots do not need to buy extra character slots. They just need to create new account. They spread their leadership army into many accounts.
I'm not talking about commercial bots, I'm talking about player bots. Many players out there with 20-50 characters and some with multiple 50 character accounts. These players also have VIP accounts, they are not having a hard time upgrading their companions or paying for multiple alts.
Before pricing is adjusted for companions and everything else they need to take care of this.
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ironzerg79Member, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,942Arc User
They did take care of that when they eliminated AD from Leadership. And this was the big reason...I know people want to point fingers at "gold farmers", but plenty of real players were using various tools to automate Leadership.
They did take care of that when they eliminated AD from Leadership. And this was the big reason...I know people want to point fingers at "gold farmers", but plenty of real players were using various tools to automate Leadership.
My point is it's not "were using", but "are still using". They can make more in one day than the average player makes in a week with their profession/invocation armies and that's beyond what they make by actually playing the game.
They did take care of that when they eliminated AD from Leadership. And this was the big reason...I know people want to point fingers at "gold farmers", but plenty of real players were using various tools to automate Leadership.
Then why did the Devs not at least try the right approach by identifying those tools, and then letting GMs remove those accounts that uses them permanently, instead of just ripping out rAD from leadership? This "AD change" feels just unfished and extremely rushed, i can understand that we now have to wait even longer for more improvements in the AD department, because of Underdark... But i can't understand, why the Devs haven't informed the players earlier about changes, and then taken the time to make the changes alongside with improvements based on player feedback?
Also professional botters will just use other accounts after a bann and continue their "work", but real players will think twice about using anything automated again after they lost their account...
Or with the last AD change in mind, why couldn't the Devs extend the rAD reward to every daily quest, so that every character will be able to make some rAD while playing the game?
Aren't those the Devs own words, rewarding the players for playing the game? So why do we, the players, rather feel punished then rewarded right now?
Well said. Both Alex and I have been fighting hard for this and will continue to fight hard for it. My account is completely broke because of our stronghold and I have dozens of companions that need upgrading...
Thanks Andy, yours, alex et al solidarity and support on this is appreciated. We all know how emotive the subject is, but i just wish they knew how painful this is for the community without timely counter balancing changes.
It's not just a matter of AD's, though that's the latest incarnation of things that just feel wrong.
Ever since mod 6, the game has become extremely unforgiving -- not only in the grind you have to undergo, but in the frustration level.
Case in point: Witch Fen
A few nights ago I did this with my 2.4k GF. She has all T1 gear, rank 8's or better, and a tricked-out powrie tagging along to provide dps. I had no trouble at all throughout the lair until I reached the bossfight. To say it was frustrating was an understatement.
No one likes dying. However, when you find yourself dying again, and again, and again, changing your tactics, and just hoping for that tiny speck of luck to get you through it, that's really not fun.
It's not fun at all.
Witch Fen's boss fight was designed for the world pre-mod 6, when you could do it solo with a reasonable chance of success. You could self-heal then, no matter what class you were. If you had regen, YOU HEALED. If twelve (12) seconds elapsed, YOU COULD DRINK A HEALING POTION. You could survive against Xylene and the trolls that she summons.
Not so today. Sure, an OP can (let's be honest, OP's can do anything -- they have no place being used as any yardstick in this regard), but many other classes are SOL.
Back to Witch Fen. There is no letup -- no chance to catch your breath and guzzle some potions. You have nonstop aggro from start to finish, so forget about self-healing unless RNG is unbelievably kind to you. Xylene and her trolls wear you down until they kill you.
Then they do it again -- and again, and again -- until you either ragequit or get that incredible stroke of luck with just a sliver of health left.
It's not fun, it's frustrating. There's a reason why zone chat is filled with people requesting groups for Sharandar lairs: the devs left them with mod-5 encounters but using mod 6 mechanics. It doesn't feel at all "fair", to paraphrase the OP, for a quest that's supposed to be (and EXPECTED to be) done solo.
I don't know if it's incompetence on the part of the devs or if they poached a hard-posterior from EQ, but it was a bad move. Like many players I'm limping along, but I won't ever be truly happy with the game again until this issue is remedied. I've said that "mod 6 ruined the game" and I stand by that claim. This is why.
Harper Chronicles: Cap Snatchers (RELEASED) - NW-DPUTABC6X Blood Magic (RELEASED) - NW-DUU2P7HCO Children of the Fey (RELEASED) - NW-DKSSAPFPF Buried Under Blacklake (WIP) - NW-DEDV2PAEP The Redcap Rebels (WIP) - NW-DO23AFHFH
My Foundry playthrough channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Ruskaga/featured
Comments
I see only one possible point of conflict: $. In your scenario, players can progress ideally without buying anything (or a few) at the zen market. Someone proposed to have no AD cap: this may inflate again the market to some extent.
Having your proposal accepted, requires a complete analisys and rework of the zen market: currently there's no value for money in it.
IMO, the critical point is the level of economical profitability of the overall concept. The current model is simply outrageous: very expensive and low value for money.
You proposal makes sense if at PWE they accept to move to something different from the simple "milking cows" approach to something more sophisticated which include the "value for money" concept.
The lockbox key model works as a casino: managed by a not-transparent RNG, drop trash most of the times and designed to make you lose all your money.
I can buy the 3 campains IWD, Shar and DR for 150$, a ruby (50K RP!!) for 800 zen : does it worth? Don't think so.
Oltreverso guild leader
Maga Othelma - DC | Svalvolo - SW | Dente Avvelenato- GWF
A 50% price cut to things like companions, boosters, services, etc... along with a massive expansion of cosmetics (especially since we're all seeing how the SH gear looks
But, that only works if I'm earning cool stuff in game (and progressing my gear/characters/boons) in a tangible sense, not just grinding for millions of RP, while destitute, and getting outdated equipment in T2 dungeons. That gets toxic pretty quick and if I was still a solo player, I wouldn't be here because of it. The changes they've been making recently are definitely trending in the pro-player direction, so I have hope something like @ironzerg79 's ideas here (and elsewhere) will be strongly considered, if not implemented right-out. @asterdahl and @strumslinger definitely have inspired a lot of good will too, by giving the feedback to those of us in the forums and for fighting to get the fun back into this game.
In the end, I think this idea will be brought to those in charge and maybe even has a chance of making it into the game - and I would like to just recognize that that faith has been restored from near to nothing only a relatively few months ago. So, cheers to our Community Managers and to our devs.
Prices are way too high and income is waaaayyy to low. Progression behind a paywall is not good invitation to a game, ever.
Oltreverso guild leader
Maga Othelma - DC | Svalvolo - SW | Dente Avvelenato- GWF
In my opinion, there's an ungodly amount of money to be grabbed, if Cryptic would just reach for it.
And those ideas have been beaten to death more than a Drow caught in a Pwent bear hug.
Here's the two most obvious pots of gold that have been brought up repeatedly, but I'll continue to reiterate.
1) Player housing: Sell some stuff on the Zen market, put some drops in dungeons, make some unique pieces as rewards for achievements or event drops. The basis of the system is already there in the Foundry...and that's how you can monetize the Foundry as well. Player created content is awesome, just think outside the box here. It doesn't have to be long and involved quests. Housing IS User Generated Content, just on a small and more personal level.
2) Cosmetics: Again, beaten to death in threads like this. Players have been begging Cryptic for 2 years to let them fork over cash for more cosmetic options...and it's been widely ignored.
If it were up to me, I'd take my foot off the gas for a little bit. I'd make Module 9 the Hero Builder's Guidebook. Focus not on new maps or content, but new character options. More customization for characters, more player races, player housing, stronghold customization, and perhaps...a new paragon path for all the classes, if that includes a "top to bottom" examination of what's broken in regards to classes, with an effort made to fix it.
But...I'm becoming more and more frustrated every day. And every day I get to see on these forums, on reddit and in my own community how that frustration manifests and it's not fun at all
Ideed this game has the potential to generate revenues for years. It's hard for me to believe that what is so obvious and trivial for the community, it's not understood by the company.
There's a huge gap abetween the players' expectations and what it's implemented: the announcement today of the new weekly sources of AD makes me fell with no hope and even fooled by the game developers.
Oltreverso guild leader
Maga Othelma - DC | Svalvolo - SW | Dente Avvelenato- GWF
Im feeling even more disgruntled today then yesterday, with really no real sign of hope left at this point.
I had another long timer on my friends list quit this week, its just too much at this point.
I mean this is a company, you have an administration making decisions and controlling the economy (the game), and what is incredible to me, is the lackness of actions of this administration, everyone knows we need lot of changes and this administration does almost nothing, or you have to wait an eternity for a change.
The problems are on the table, it's time you people (administration) start taking actions on the problems. I mean this is not a hard problem guys, you are not designing an airplane, you only have to do an study of the market and economy (and come on is a game economy, is not the real one) and start taking decisions and making the changes.
The principal problem with this administration, they are more worried in launching new modules instead fixing the game problems, and this is totally wrong. You need to have the quality of the game as a priority.
Sorry about my english i try my best ...
I'd rather have real rewards for playing foundries, and real rewards for foundry authors.
Many authors working within a framework that acTUALLY rewards players would add so many hours of playable content + revitalize all players bored of playing the same dungeons/dailies.
I would like to see the preview gear screen enhanced with the ideas from its announcement thread.
NW-DC9R4J5EH - 'The Black Pearl' - Spelljammer! Phlo Riders and Space Orcs
Thanks for all the fish.
But sadly, it seems pretty evident that they are not aiming for player retention with this game. and therefore fairness isn't on top of their list.
at the end we have 2 possible reasons why the game is at its current state, and both are not good news. Either the devs don't know how to fix these problems, which means they are not good at their jobs, or they are not allowed to fix what they want and are instead told to focus on other stuff more important for those who take the final decisions; which is also very bad news for players because it means bugs won't get fixed either, and we'll never get the game we want.
I'm more inclined to believe in the second reason, and most actions (which say much more than words) taken by cryptic/PWE sure seem to point in that direction too.
I agree that the removal of AD from leadership was good for the health of the game in the long term. The problem is that changes to more of the AD sinks should have happened if not at the same time, then shortly there after. Also making up for the removal of AD by substituting some other rewards should have been done right away. For example: Battle Elemental Cultists - 24 hours to get less of a reward than you get for 4 hour task of Guard Young Noble on Trip, I mean, REALLY? I could go on! Then maybe we wouldn't have seen so many "rage quitters" ;-)
I'm a pretty patient guy, as I've stuck it out though a lot of bad decisions by the bean counters and management (I tend never to blame the devs, because I know!) but everyone runs low on patience and eventually gets frustrated and burned out.
On a positive note, I want to thank you very much @ironzerg79 for speaking out. I hope that they really listen to you and they don't remove you as a moderator as they tend to censor anything negative. And I want to also thank you for your excellent CW guide. I used it for my CW and it is working very well as I can solo pretty much anything except epic HE's.
A response of acknowledgment from the Developers, and perhaps even.... hold your breath, some communication that they have heard the player base and are actively, and thoughtfully DOING something meaningful about the points brought up here.
Bring the reasoning further:
is it fair for players to re-farm all campaigns, all boons, from start to end, on every toon they create on the same account? Is it fair to spend 5000 zen to unlock a single campaign on a single toon?
or, perhaps, it's yet another useless source of frustration when a player knows that creating another toon to play another class, will mean weeks/ months spent re-farming the same campaigns again, to make the toon grow, or that he must spend right now close to 2M AD to unlock 1 campaign on a single toon.
I wish it wasnt even offered.
What I want is to move a eye of lathander around.. lol, I could use it on one of my toons.
Before pricing is adjusted for companions and everything else they need to take care of this.
This "AD change" feels just unfished and extremely rushed, i can understand that we now have to wait even longer for more improvements in the AD department, because of Underdark...
But i can't understand, why the Devs haven't informed the players earlier about changes, and then taken the time to make the changes alongside with improvements based on player feedback?
Also professional botters will just use other accounts after a bann and continue their "work", but real players will think twice about using anything automated again after they lost their account...
Or with the last AD change in mind, why couldn't the Devs extend the rAD reward to every daily quest, so that every character will be able to make some rAD while playing the game?
Aren't those the Devs own words, rewarding the players for playing the game?
So why do we, the players, rather feel punished then rewarded right now?
Ever since mod 6, the game has become extremely unforgiving -- not only in the grind you have to undergo, but in the frustration level.
Case in point: Witch Fen
A few nights ago I did this with my 2.4k GF. She has all T1 gear, rank 8's or better, and a tricked-out powrie tagging along to provide dps. I had no trouble at all throughout the lair until I reached the bossfight. To say it was frustrating was an understatement.
No one likes dying. However, when you find yourself dying again, and again, and again, changing your tactics, and just hoping for that tiny speck of luck to get you through it, that's really not fun.
It's not fun at all.
Witch Fen's boss fight was designed for the world pre-mod 6, when you could do it solo with a reasonable chance of success. You could self-heal then, no matter what class you were. If you had regen, YOU HEALED. If twelve (12) seconds elapsed, YOU COULD DRINK A HEALING POTION. You could survive against Xylene and the trolls that she summons.
Not so today. Sure, an OP can (let's be honest, OP's can do anything -- they have no place being used as any yardstick in this regard), but many other classes are SOL.
Back to Witch Fen. There is no letup -- no chance to catch your breath and guzzle some potions. You have nonstop aggro from start to finish, so forget about self-healing unless RNG is unbelievably kind to you. Xylene and her trolls wear you down until they kill you.
Then they do it again -- and again, and again -- until you either ragequit or get that incredible stroke of luck with just a sliver of health left.
It's not fun, it's frustrating. There's a reason why zone chat is filled with people requesting groups for Sharandar lairs: the devs left them with mod-5 encounters but using mod 6 mechanics. It doesn't feel at all "fair", to paraphrase the OP, for a quest that's supposed to be (and EXPECTED to be) done solo.
I don't know if it's incompetence on the part of the devs or if they poached a hard-posterior from EQ, but it was a bad move. Like many players I'm limping along, but I won't ever be truly happy with the game again until this issue is remedied. I've said that "mod 6 ruined the game" and I stand by that claim. This is why.
Blood Magic (RELEASED) - NW-DUU2P7HCO
Children of the Fey (RELEASED) - NW-DKSSAPFPF
Buried Under Blacklake (WIP) - NW-DEDV2PAEP
The Redcap Rebels (WIP) - NW-DO23AFHFH
My Foundry playthrough channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Ruskaga/featured