The game is F2P but still has expenses which means that a minimum amount of ZEN needs to be sold each month.
The owner to the game will likely not accept that the game have red figures. My guess is that the owner/uper management told the game team to do something, or the game risks to be closed due to not generate enough profit.
Probably this is just first of many changes the game team do to try to get the player base to spend more ZEN. Question is if not some sort of subscription would be a better way to go. Only time will tell
ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
edited May 2018
I'm looking through the feedback here and I am seeing a lot of mixed results. Unfortunately the mixed results in my opinion seem to boil down to the amount of knowledge people have about economics and what they feel like this change was intended to do.
Let's start with how this will effect bots. The simple answer is: it won't. At all. If you are posting feedback about how this will not hinder bots at all you are right. Bots are not normally in the habit of buying additional character slots so each bot tends to be limited to 72K RAD refinement a day.
This isn't a change to hurt botters at all.
I have to make this next point abundantly clear: AD is only sold on the ZAX if other people are willing to buy it.
People seem to think they can have their cake and it it too with the ZAX. You can't. If the system is working correctly then people are selling their progression to other people. The Zen Exchange only works if people are willing to buy it. People are only willing to buy something if they don't have enough of it on their own. The cold hard truth of the system is that if it works correctly you will feel a cost to selling AD and you will feel a need to buy AD yourself. I personally don't like the system and would prefer a system where the two currencies were independent but that's not what is on the table for this thread.
The efforts of those giving feedback are better spent on discussing what would be a more reasonable cap. How many characters should be able to fully refine a day? 100K is 2.7 characters in the current system. Would 200K (5.5 characters) be more amicable?
Just keep in mind no matter what the system as it is right now is unsustainable and will be changing. You won't be able to refine 36K x the number of character slots. That's off the table and you would be better off arguing for a removal of the Zen Exchange altogether at that point.
The 100k cap is absolutely insane, players that can/do spend more time playing the game and grinding for currency SHOULD EARN MORE THAN EVERYONE ELSE. If you want to reduce the amount of AD in the economy you don't cut earnings you increase spending via hard AD sinks for stuff we actually want, crazy idea right? The only thing i'm interested in buying with AD nowadays is wards, why are there no wards in the WB Cryptic? . Not even going to bring up the fact that you obviously won't nerf the cost of marks/wards or make wards and other actualy useful stuff available in the WB to combat the cap.
The RQ reward nerf is actually pissing me off almost as much as the cap. Not going to go into details but these changes combined will instantly reduce my current daily income by 1/3rd or more and will ensure that i don't even hit the daily cap on most days after my couple million current RAD stockpile is fully refined. Why? Because i'm not going to play 15-18 epics per day to hit the 100k cap when right now i'm making 150-180k per day with more than half of it coming from RQ which is more efficient, less stressful and costs less than the eTOS dungeon+ key spam i do for salvage.
Limiting earnings is unacceptable, removing the ability to hit the cap through RQ with alts is just... i have no words for this. There is no way you can paint this BS change as positive for me and my main will be finished by the time the AD nerf kicks in so it affects me much less than anyone still struggling to gear up.
At this point I'm questioning, do you even play this game or know anything about your community? The 1st bad idea was you putting FBI and MSP along with Kessel's Retreat. But now you wanna throw Tomb of the Nine Gods in too. And Cradle in with Master Demo? Anything FBI or above should be in Expert along with whatever Ravenloft brings and that includes Cradle. If you disagree, I challenge you to take 5 12k item level toons on a developer stream and try to get thru any one of those 4 dungeons. Then take 5 level 30 characters thru leveling IG.
As for the rough AD changes, make it 100k per 5 characters and that might go over better. It's less than what we could earn now if we did salvage on 5 toons but reasonable enough to not make ADX get out of control. Ex. A person with 5 toons can earn 100k but one with 20 can earn 400k.
I think that players should earn AD on their strongest (main) character in order to give the support to other characters who do not have enough instead to make people to play with each character x 50 some dungeon untill they get strong enough.
This is why Main character should be a very special thing and get more benefits. Players could pay 200 ZEN to change their Main character options.
If there is a possibility to earn 100-200K AD on main character a day, that would be amazing. Making people to play on each character in order to get to 36K a day cap joining random queues is simply the most boring system of earning AD in this game.
More crafting. More Alchemy. More profession stuff. Less AD sinkholes where you get more refinements for investing. If there should be an AD sinkhole, make player homes.
There are so many possibilities to do than making people to play with 5+ character each day, let alone 50+ (I know some people do this) It's extremely time consuming and bottom line is - UNHEALTHY. If a player needs to play NWO for 8 H in order to get somewhere by the time a new mod emerges when the equipment gets obsolete, it defeats the purpose of playing a game.
There needs to be a strong sense of achievement and curently I doubt that there is such a thing around.
True Neutral
Left the Game due to heavy Damage Control & Missing Spanish Language
My biggest concern is with what it costs for RP, enchanting stones, coal wards etc to make enchantments the cost of those enchantments won't go down as much as you think. With the cap it will take even longer to buy that rank 14.
Also just by playing 6 hours on one toon you will be well over the 100k cap. We would still be sitting on tons rough AD more than we are now. I don't even farm toons and at one point was sitting on millions of rough AD.
Maybe have a system that refines AD daily automatically so if we don't log in it still converts. Or make it so you can turn rough AD into refinement points.
Maybe if high level enchantments were easier to level up it wouldn't have to be posted at such a high cost on the AH.
Put coal wards back into the trade bar merchant. This will help curb the high price of those enchantments which is by far the highest costing items.
All I know is as someone who pays money into this game I don't want a worse return in selling the zen I bought to get AD at a lower amount only to still not be able to afford the items in the AH.
> @freshstart#9299 said: > The 100k cap is absolutely insane, players that can/do spend more time playing the game and grinding for currency SHOULD EARN MORE THAN EVERYONE ELSE. If you want to reduce the amount of AD in the economy you don't cut earnings you increase spending via hard AD sinks for stuff we actually want, crazy idea right? The only thing i'm interested in buying with AD nowadays is wards, why are there no wards in the WB Cryptic? .
Coal Wards used to be in the trade bar store but it caused confusion and the value wasn't uniform if I remember the reasoning behind their removal. And I believe pres wards were in the bazaar at that time too. It's all just a way for them to make money. Which I don't have a problem with. They wouldake more by reducing zen market prices and doing away with the exchange altogether though. Only thing I buy with zen is VIP so if they are looking for a way to get AD out of the economy offer 1 month VIP for 5 mil AD.
I haven't read all the comment so i don't know if it's already have been said but, if this is made to lower botting it probably won't, a limit to account base will just make more botting account, it will slow them down for a time but not in the long run. The Gateway patch probably did the same a little slower botting but not that much i'm pretty sure ... It's like the games protections, you bay a game and protection block you d1, you need to wait 1 week for patch and in the same time cracked version is already up ... So is it effective to slow, kinda, stop, not at all.
Limiting the 1rst run per 1 per char is a Huge nerf to people who actually play even if it's the lowest tiers of random queues.
100k is also a huge nerf, for base account actually you can do is 72k Ad a day so not a nerf, but for people who actually used zens to get more char slot (aka paid you directly or indirectly via Zen exchange) a 3rd char make it already at 108k max a day.
What you could do to still up the base (2 char) but still let people with more char still get a higher could be something like 70k Base + 15k per char (so 100k for 2 char, 115k 3 char, 130k 4rth char, etc) It will nerf at the 4rth char with this value, you can also do other value (50k + 25k per char) but if you are like me (and other people that i know) you have made at least 1 char of each class to know how it's played and know what to expect of other, or if it's needed you can switch to it ...
There can be other things to do against botting if it's what this change is for ...
Time for me to try to farm as much AD as i can before this change come up ... And after that i'll probably just play 1 tong/codg or new content MAYBE per day or on WE ... aka i'll more or less be dead to the game ... I knew i shouldn't have bought Zen nor VIP ... I won't buy any again ... Poor dev decision will be seen by player not buying more zen ...
We did pull data on how much of our player base earns over 100k RAD on any given day before implementing this change, and that percentage is lower single digits. That number goes even lower when looking at how many accounts earn over 100k RAD every single day.
This number though, how many are active accounts? How many of them are bot accounts? How did you define your sample size? Have you heard the saying, "There are lies, damn lies ... and statistics?". Without fleshing out what constitutes 'that percentage is lower single digits', then I do not know if you are affecting a rather significant amount of actual players of the game. Of course, you may have more information than you included in this post, but it does not fill me with assurance or confidence in these numbers.
First it is important to note this isn't a change due to botters as many people have suggested in this thread, it is a change to improve the value of Astral Diamonds.
That is where logically, you are entirely off the mark.
These changes will: A ) Affect players with multiple character slots and who play enough to reach the 100k AD mark.
These changes will not: B ) Affect bots who have multiple accounts (as account making is free) and probably only have 2 characters per account because that is the free amount.
Hence, even though you are not referencing (or indeed thinking about) the bots in this change, you are missing the point entirely, because it will affect players >> bots. I urge you to rethink this proposition, or indeed think about the indirect consequences of this change.
We could, as an example, raise the ZAX exchange cap to 1,000 on PC. It would rise up significantly to at least 750, but likely higher. This wouldn't make auction house items more affordable for players as the value of AD just decreased significantly and would drive up the auction house prices. This would require players to grind even more AD to buy what they did previously.
Thank you for not increasing the ZAX exchange cap. You already have the Russian servers at that rate, so you would have the data to see if that would work or not. Obviously not, as some Russian acquaintances have tens of millions of AD, and tens of thousands zen, spread over multiple alts. So that is not working.
Why is the exchange rate backlogged so much? As you are well aware it is a matter of inflow (zen -> AD i.e. people spending money to obtain AD), is less than outflow (AD -> zen). While this is a seasonal variation, if the inflow of AD is greater than any sinks, then you will have gradual inflation / AD reserve stockpiling. However, the fact that account-making is not limited will mean that the generation of AD is indeed infinite. While multiple accounts are not really appealing to the casual gamer, it is yet not out of reach of bots, and is rather conducive towards bots. Hence you are handing the bots a win in this matter, even if you are not referencing them.
I see that what you are attempting is a step towards reducing AD inflow, and I laud the desire to improve the 'workability' of the ZAX. It is indeed difficult, but you must get players on your side, rather than jading them; the manner in which ZAX workability is achieved is also important.
In my view, the desire for Zen/AD in this game can be broken into three main areas: [1] Character stat improvement, [2] Functionality & Sociability, [3] Aesthetics.
In [1] you have the Coalescent/Preservation wards and refinement items. Masterworks also fit here as a resource sink. These all help improve the character and their performance in quintessential dungeon delving and D&D.
In [2)] You have things which improve the gameplay experience of the players e.g. VIP, the Guild (i.e. buying Stronghold vouchers, but Boons contributes towards [1]), consumables (Scrolls of Life), Mounts (for mount speeds, but also contributes towards [1]), Campaign Unlocks etc
For [3] You have Transmutes, Races, Fashion Items, Dyes etc.
What is being added in each module that increases the desire to improve any of these 3 domains? - New artifact gear, mounts, campaign unlocks are some. But what are other ways you can create the desire to spend AD/Zen? - Perhaps adding consumables (which are actually relevant) to the Wondrous Bazaar? Campaign or Module specific consumables could be interesting, and would be changeable/renewable with each different module theme. The food vendor in Port Nyanzauru was an attempt, but they were weak and very unappealing in terms of actual differences it made to a player. E.g. A 'potion of vampirism' i.e. transmute into a vampire for a set period of time, may be interesting, and may be also worked into the alchemy profession. A potion of limited flight (i.e. not allowing true flight, because as we know, nothing truly flies in NW ) only usable in Barovia? Hell yeah I would use! Main thing is, keep it interesting and relevant to each module. - Transmutes have also been suggested. Transmutes can also be worked into the tailoring/armor making professions, requiring resources that could potentially be purchased at the Wondrous Bazaar. - Increased artwork for aesthetic items might also be interesting to players with each new module and has the potential for increasing AD/Zen outflow. - Another big desire for players to spend AD/Zen would be a new class or race. A vampire race would have allowed you to capitalise on race change tokens, campaign unlocks etc for a new character. The same goes for a new class.
Masterworks is a tricky one for me. I understand it is designed as a huge AD/time sink, but it seems limited to only a select and very rich few. How can you access a larger population of players, with a renewable want? Is there anything that casual players can make that requires some AD/time, that is renewable? Some have suggested resources be placed in the Wondrous Bazaar as an AD sink. It might be interesting to try this, but it would also understand a good working knowledge of the Masterwork economy and price trends.
Hence, there are a myriad ways of improving the outflow of AD to improve the ZAX workability, rather than just restricting the inflow.
This seems like a solution but I feel the best fix is to get rid of random dungeon except for epic so botters cannot run 50 non-geared toons through and amass insane amount of AD. And give more RAD for the epic - especially MSP and FBI - so people would actually do them instead of disconnecting. For what it's worth, I think bots will just have 100 accounts with 10 toons each as opposed to 20 accounts with 50 toons each.
I am not a programmer but I think it would be extremely difficult to write a script for hard contents like FBI and MSP. Or even elol. So take the candy away from the easy mind numbing activities aka leveling dungeons and skirmish and you will get rid of a large population of bots. If you want experienced players to train and carry new players, then require 1 to 2 party member to be under item level of 13k or something like that in order to earn daily RAD.
Also, I hope this will reduce the amount of AD generation in game but I get a feeling it won't. People just create more accounts and spread out the AD generation that way. But it will be more painful I guess to move AD between accounts. You can use the AH and lose 10% auction fee. And extra VIP cost if you want VIP on all of them.
So, overall, I want to see how it will pan out. Think it would be better if you guys take away the RAD from the random dungeon and make the rewards for the epic more.
I play on Xbox and only have 2 characters I really play, so for me this is great, usually when I have time I’ll run a bunch of tong and then be sitting on 100-150k salvage that I will refine over the next couple days where I don’t have time to run multiple dungeons I’ll be doing my dailies or something else.
I read occasionally about the PC economy and it’s vastly different from Xbox likely due to no scripting/botting but Zen/AD has gone from 320s a few months ago to holding at 400 recently so I know something in the economy has changed.
I understand people’s frustrations but from a previous post the devs said the amount of people salvaging over 100k per account is in the single digits. The people in arms in this thread likely represent that single digit number of players as most casual players probably never come here unless they googled a problem/question and it was answered here. My suggestion is to have a decent up front return on AD from dungeons for players that only have a couple characters and then diminishing returns on each character after that until the cap is reached at 8 character (1 character per class) and it caps out around 150k a day. On Xbox that is a lot of money TBH, I would be able to afford a legendary mount (around 7 mill) in less than a month and a half from just dungeon running/AD refinement.
> @noworries#8859 said: > Additional AD sinks is also an area we are looking into and have some future plans already, but continue to investigate fun/rewarding ways to spend AD.
I have a suggestion on this part, I know coming up with set bonuses that are new and interesting is probably hard, but how about this to keep old gear relevant, increase build options and take AD and salvage out of the economy: allow us to upgrade old equipment via new equipment with an AD cost and upgrade stats according as it upgrades. In my mind it would work like this: you have a 400ilvl gear item and a 200ilvl and you want to keep the 200ilvl for bonus or whatever. You feed the 400 into the 200 with an AD cost, it only upgrades half the distance (so now you have a 300 ilvl item). This way you’ve got lots of people upgrading older items to keep them relevant and running old content to get them, increases build diversity, there is an AD sink, and people are using items they would have salvaged to upgrade old items.
I do know when this comes to Xbox and the 1 character, per account, per day reward limit for random dungeons that is what I will do. One character will run the dungeon, once. I am not going to waste my time running a random dungeon, with random people and receive nothing for it.
I have already essentially quit the game - too little too late. But I'm here because I have friends who still play and they messaged me that Ravenloft was coming so I popped in to see what is up.
Here is the point that you guys - as a business are either failing to understand, or are simply taking advantage of your customers on.
The last several changes that have truely upset the community may have been things that needed to happen. And a solution to the economy is clearly something that you are working towards. HOWEVER.
Every solution you have come up with, as a company, has taken parts of this game that people have spent real money on - and devalued them.
Example - I ran for almost a full year with the same keys in my inventory until you changed the key rules. I never had anything pop up in the chest that I wanted. Did the drops get better for me as promised? No, but now I had to do things in the game that held no interest for me if I wanted to open chests. My answer - I stopped opening chests.
Example2 - Myself and many others spent a lot of time, energy and $$ to upgrade our bonding runestones. Were they OP? Yes, however rather than coming up with a positive solution to the issue, you nerfed things that we paid for and decreased their value.
New Example - People have purchased (with real$) multiple character slots not because they wanted 55 GF's, but because they wanted AD. Now after they have invested money into that aspect of the game, you are once again devaluing their purchase from you.
To be honest I don't know how anyone could be tricked into handing you any money at all when clearly you have no issues removing the value of an actual purchase at any given time, and then having the audacity to make it sound like you did us a favor.
Though I waited a long time to set foot in ravenloft... I don't imagine it will happen. I will now head back to a game where I actually received an email stating "we discovered our drop rate was low, in the next weekly update the drop rate of needed items will be increased - please hold on to chests until then because at that point even previously earned chests will be included in the increased drops"
Founding Member of "Wrong Side of the Stronghold" Ravenskya - TR / Krisha Chaos - OP / Waffles - GF / Dex Domitor - HR Becky the trendy GWF - GWF / Too Toasty - SW / Falcor - DC / Morrigan - CW / Sir Didymus - OP
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misquamacus2Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 194Arc User
Personally, I think this is good. Reducing the production of AD in the game is a must if the ZAX exchange rate should have a chance to drop below 500. Unfortunately, this will have no effect on people that already have millions of AD. For me personally, I'd love to have more fashion items, transmutation items, different colors to choose from. Also, new emotes would be welcome
There will always be an incentive to make bots, especially when it is so easy to get the AD for a bot as it is now.
As it is now, with 10$/10€ exchanging for only 500,000AD, there isn't anything tempting me to buy zen just so I can exchange for AD. It will just go straight to wards or keys or whatever. Removing the cap will not help as the AD prices would just inflate. Reducing the amount of AD available on the other hand should over time lower the exchange rate and increase the perceived value of AD.
HAHAHA remember when they Try to have a character slot sale of 100 zen per 2 slots? and now they wanted to make that sale useless by focusing on one Character with the Highest IL to farm randoms and salvage to reach the cheap 100k ad cap. That is the BIGGEST SLAP a game DEVELOPER can give to LEGIT PLAYERS. As a player of 5 freaking years farming AD to buy ZEN so I can SPEND them opening Lockboxes that Gives HAMSTER like Adventurer Packs(great you get garbage potion with the cost of 50k ad per key). If this MOD will be implemented it will slow the progress of those who farm AD with their ALTs, Slow the sale from AH (of course who would sell their Glorious Legendaries wayyy down just to get AD) and ALTs will be useless and pointless for those new players who plan to play this game. And yes, of course the ultimate reason for this Great Nerf is the Great problem of BOTS. I wonder if ever they think of weighing this kind of decision they are making for the game. LEGIT players will be pissed, BOTS players will make new accounts and use the freaking BOTs and leave their PCs doing its automation.
Where do you think this game is headed??? you keep on Nerfing. Why are you doing this to us LEGIT players.
HAHAHA remember when they Try to have a character slot sale of 100 zen per 2 slots? and now they wanted to make that sale useless by focusing on one Character with the Highest IL to farm randoms and salvage to reach the cheap 100k ad cap. That is the BIGGEST SLAP a game DEVELOPER can give to LEGIT PLAYERS. As a player of 5 freaking years farming AD to buy ZEN so I can SPEND them opening Lockboxes that Gives HAMSTER like Adventurer Packs(great you get garbage potion with the cost of 50k ad per key). If this MOD will be implemented it will slow the progress of those who farm AD with their ALTs, Slow the sale from AH (of course who would sell their Glorious Legendaries wayyy down just to get AD) and ALTs will be useless and pointless for those new players who plan to play this game. And yes, of course the ultimate reason for this Great Nerf is the Great problem of BOTS. I wonder if ever they think of weighing this kind of decision they are making for the game. LEGIT players will be pissed, BOTS players will make new accounts and use the freaking BOTs and leave their PCs doing its automation.
Where do you think this game is headed??? you keep on Nerfing. Why are you doing this to us LEGIT players.
Not everyone bought slots to overcome AD refine limit. I have many character slots but I bought them mainly for storage purpose. What I am trying to say is: the character slot sales is not useless.
In addition, the dev already said this has nothing to do with the bots because bot does not buy character slot.
*** 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. ***
HAHAHA remember when they Try to have a character slot sale of 100 zen per 2 slots? and now they wanted to make that sale useless by focusing on one Character with the Highest IL to farm randoms and salvage to reach the cheap 100k ad cap. That is the BIGGEST SLAP a game DEVELOPER can give to LEGIT PLAYERS. As a player of 5 freaking years farming AD to buy ZEN so I can SPEND them opening Lockboxes that Gives HAMSTER like Adventurer Packs(great you get garbage potion with the cost of 50k ad per key). If this MOD will be implemented it will slow the progress of those who farm AD with their ALTs, Slow the sale from AH (of course who would sell their Glorious Legendaries wayyy down just to get AD) and ALTs will be useless and pointless for those new players who plan to play this game. And yes, of course the ultimate reason for this Great Nerf is the Great problem of BOTS. I wonder if ever they think of weighing this kind of decision they are making for the game. LEGIT players will be pissed, BOTS players will make new accounts and use the freaking BOTs and leave their PCs doing its automation.
Where do you think this game is headed??? you keep on Nerfing. Why are you doing this to us LEGIT players.
Not everyone bought slots to overcome AD refine limit. I have many character slots but I bought them mainly for storage purpose. What I am trying to say is: the character slot sales is not useless.
In addition, the dev already said this has nothing to do with the bots because bot does not buy character slot.
And if you spent 100 Zen on 2 slot, which is 50k, you've got back your investment in the same day.
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plasticbatMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 12,423Arc User
edited May 2018
On the bright side for my own, I will have many inventory slot free up. Why? I have many 'asset' waiting for the imaginary dream of the tiny possibility of the come back of 2xAD. Now, I can start to salvage hundreds of them.
Extra capable characters are still useful for extra AD bonus.
Post edited by plasticbat on
*** 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. ***
> @ambisinisterr said: > I'm looking through the feedback here and I am seeing a lot of mixed results. Unfortunately the mixed results in my opinion seem to boil down to the amount of knowledge people have about economics and what they feel like this change was intended to do. > > Let's start with how this will effect bots. The simple answer is: it won't. At all. > If you are posting feedback about how this will not hinder bots at all you are right. Bots are not normally in the habit of buying additional character slots so each bot tends to be limited to 72K RAD refinement a day. > > This isn't a change to hurt botters at all. > > > I have to make this next point abundantly clear: > AD is only sold on the ZAX if other people are willing to buy it. > > People seem to think they can have their cake and it it too with the ZAX. You can't. > If the system is working correctly then people are selling their progression to other people. The Zen Exchange only works if people are willing to buy it. People are only willing to buy something if they don't have enough of it on their own. The cold hard truth of the system is that if it works correctly you will feel a cost to selling AD and you will feel a need to buy AD yourself. > I personally don't like the system and would prefer a system where the two currencies were independent but that's not what is on the table for this thread. > > > The efforts of those giving feedback are better spent on discussing what would be a more reasonable cap. How many characters should be able to fully refine a day? 100K is 2.7 characters in the current system. Would 200K (5.5 characters) be more amicable? > > Just keep in mind no matter what the system as it is right now is unsustainable and will be changing. You won't be able to refine 36K x the number of character slots. That's off the table and you would be better off arguing for a removal of the Zen Exchange altogether at that point.
Remove the zen as currency along with the exchange. And take a page out of WoW’s book, and either make us pay for vip with RL money or a monthly subscription to play, period. Maybe then you will earn enough to have actual people who can write code... heck! Maybe even employees who actually plays the game, and therefore offer insight... I know right, crash idea. Maybe then the content would offer more substance and the gear etc. starts to have an appeal in transmutes. Lords know it doesn’t now.
now I refine about 250k ad for day, with the new sistem I can refine 100k ad for day. A bot use a pg to refine 36k ad for today but botters use more of one account, so a bot can refine 360k ad for day using ten (36k * 10) accounts. With the new sistem, the same botter can refine up to 1kk ad for day (100k * 10).
So, if I'm honest I have less ad, if I'm a bot I will be rich.
Are you serious? Really you think people are stupid and still stay in a pay to play game full of bots and of bugs?
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plasticbatMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 12,423Arc User
now I refine about 250k ad for day, with the new sistem I can refine 100k ad for day. A bot use a pg to refine 36k ad for today but botters use more of one account, so a bot can refine 360k ad for day using ten (36k * 10) accounts. With the new sistem, the same botter can refine up to 1kk ad for day (100k * 10).
So, if I'm honest I have less ad, if I'm a bot I will be rich.
Are you serious? Really you think people are stupid and still stay in a pay to play game full of bots and of bugs?
A bot can refine 72K ad per account for today. Each account comes with 2 character slots. For the bot, it does not matter. They can have unlimited number of account anyway. It is more about how much they can get in 24 hours. Number of account and number of character are not significant to them as of now. I don't see how they will be any 'richer' than now, at least, not significantly.
*** 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. ***
First it is important to note this isn't a change due to botters as many people have suggested in this thread, it is a change to improve the value of Astral Diamonds.
We could, as an example, raise the ZAX exchange cap to 1,000 on PC. It would rise up significantly to at least 750, but likely higher. This wouldn't make auction house items more affordable for players as the value of AD just decreased significantly and would drive up the auction house prices. This would require players to grind even more AD to buy what they did previously.
Limiting the ZAX to 500, helps give some stability to the value of AD, but not fully as there is still a lot of RAD entering the economy each day and only so much leaving. Our changes are intended to both help bring the prices in the AH, and the ZAX down, as well as help newer players and those with less playtime earn a bit more AD to help them out.
We did pull data on how much of our player base earns over 100k RAD on any given day before implementing this change, and that percentage is lower single digits. That number goes even lower when looking at how many accounts earn over 100k RAD every single day. A player can always log in on days they aren't grinding out AD to refine extra RAD on their characters.
Keeping the value in AD is an ongoing project for us and we will certainly be watching how this change impacts the ZAX and AH and can always make adjustments in the future to ease back the limits if that seems like the right choice.
good post. we love numbers. I would really like it if for many of these kinds of changes you could share numbers with us. People like to see the rational behind things. I know I do. it certainly makes me want to put away my pitchfork anyway.
> Please ignore the botters and the salvage army whales. I, for one, appreciate the convenience this brings to me as a real player- someone working class, who doesn't play the game to compensate for real-life shortcomings. 100k AD is about the upper limit of what I can farm before entering the dreaded 'grind', and I feel like this will positively influence the market for players like me who are usually put off of pursuing the endgame if we can't find a good guild to help offset some of that AD farming. Borderline needing an army of 10 alts and 5 hours a day to make meaningful progress toward purchasing power is incredibly toxic to most players, and it's something that has personally driven off no less than six friends I used to play with- they simply couldn't stomach the long dry spells of fruitless grinding and loading screens from character swaps.
>
> KEEP THE CAP. 100%, any players you drive away with this change are effectively hurting the game. These are the kind of obsessive grinders that are pressuring for ever-simpler gameplay and giving a skewed vision of class balance based around their desire to repeatedly clear content for marginal rewards. Crunching things down to reward those of us who play in moderation, and do so with skill and attention, is the best thing you could possibly do. I'm in full support.
Working class? So HAMSTER anyone who is older on retirement, sick and can't work, younger kids who have all the free time in the world just because you "work"? Just because you play casually you expect every player to follow your lead? Selfish comment.
This change will hurt the players who actually play the game for more than an hour or two a day. The players who are dedicated enough to play the game 6+ hours a day are more than likely the ones who willing to spend money on events than the casual player.
I don't care how anyone plays this game but your opinion of "HAMSTER the diehard players just cater to us casual players" is incredibly selfish and will be the downfall of this game if the devs follow.
speaking for myself only, as a housewife who plays obsessively.. this won't hurt me at all. lol. my money does not come from refining ad. it's bonus money. I often forget to turn in my seals even. 100k is insignificant for me. I basically consider refining money to be my in game gambling fund. I see it as if you are playing more than a couple hours a day and this is your main source of funds you are really doing it wrong. I spend and spend and yet never seem to have under 7 mil on hand and I'm not a mastercrafter. lol (I haven't gone full bis yet though. no r14s of anything. I'm waiting for prices to drop. (xbox player)
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plasticbatMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 12,423Arc User
edited May 2018
It seems most people only pays attention to the rAD refinement account cap. Although it does not affect me at all (because I don't do RQ), the biggest rAD nerf is the RQ. 100K cap may sound like a big deal. Your ability of actually getting 100K rough AD should be the part to think about.
In short, IMO, 100K AD cap is not necessary a big deal in the future because you can't reach it easily. The bigger deal is you won't be able to reach it.
*** 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. ***
I think these are great changes, and well thought out - ought to definitely deflate the AD which is a very positive thing for the Exchange, and good for the Cryptic coffers too - which is good for all of us.
The combination of these two gives me pause, though - for a number of reasons:
"The first run bonuses are now account gated meaning that only one character can earn those first run bonuses per day."
1) This is pretty much going to depopulate the dungeons again, won't it? 2) 8,000 AD a day is a drastic decrease for your average player. It's, what 15-30% of what a player with 2-4 characters currently makes? I'm wondering how that'll effect things.
Maybe the first run should be worth more? Like 50% more. That's still a 50% cut, but it still gives time/dollar poor players something to spend.
Comments
The owner to the game will likely not accept that the game have red figures. My guess is that the owner/uper management told the game team to do something, or the game risks to be closed due to not generate enough profit.
Probably this is just first of many changes the game team do to try to get the player base to spend more ZEN. Question is if not some sort of subscription would be a better way to go. Only time will tell
/Onin
Let's start with how this will effect bots. The simple answer is: it won't. At all.
If you are posting feedback about how this will not hinder bots at all you are right. Bots are not normally in the habit of buying additional character slots so each bot tends to be limited to 72K RAD refinement a day.
This isn't a change to hurt botters at all.
I have to make this next point abundantly clear:
AD is only sold on the ZAX if other people are willing to buy it.
People seem to think they can have their cake and it it too with the ZAX. You can't.
If the system is working correctly then people are selling their progression to other people. The Zen Exchange only works if people are willing to buy it. People are only willing to buy something if they don't have enough of it on their own. The cold hard truth of the system is that if it works correctly you will feel a cost to selling AD and you will feel a need to buy AD yourself.
I personally don't like the system and would prefer a system where the two currencies were independent but that's not what is on the table for this thread.
The efforts of those giving feedback are better spent on discussing what would be a more reasonable cap. How many characters should be able to fully refine a day? 100K is 2.7 characters in the current system. Would 200K (5.5 characters) be more amicable?
Just keep in mind no matter what the system as it is right now is unsustainable and will be changing. You won't be able to refine 36K x the number of character slots. That's off the table and you would be better off arguing for a removal of the Zen Exchange altogether at that point.
The RQ reward nerf is actually pissing me off almost as much as the cap. Not going to go into details but these changes combined will instantly reduce my current daily income by 1/3rd or more and will ensure that i don't even hit the daily cap on most days after my couple million current RAD stockpile is fully refined. Why? Because i'm not going to play 15-18 epics per day to hit the 100k cap when right now i'm making 150-180k per day with more than half of it coming from RQ which is more efficient, less stressful and costs less than the eTOS dungeon+ key spam i do for salvage.
Limiting earnings is unacceptable, removing the ability to hit the cap through RQ with alts is just... i have no words for this. There is no way you can paint this BS change as positive for me and my main will be finished by the time the AD nerf kicks in so it affects me much less than anyone still struggling to gear up.
As for the rough AD changes, make it 100k per 5 characters and that might go over better. It's less than what we could earn now if we did salvage on 5 toons but reasonable enough to not make ADX get out of control. Ex. A person with 5 toons can earn 100k but one with 20 can earn 400k.
This is why Main character should be a very special thing and get more benefits. Players could pay 200 ZEN to change their Main character options.
If there is a possibility to earn 100-200K AD on main character a day, that would be amazing. Making people to play on each character in order to get to 36K a day cap joining random queues is simply the most boring system of earning AD in this game.
More crafting. More Alchemy. More profession stuff. Less AD sinkholes where you get more refinements for investing. If there should be an AD sinkhole, make player homes.
There are so many possibilities to do than making people to play with 5+ character each day, let alone 50+ (I know some people do this) It's extremely time consuming and bottom line is - UNHEALTHY. If a player needs to play NWO for 8 H in order to get somewhere by the time a new mod emerges when the equipment gets obsolete, it defeats the purpose of playing a game.
There needs to be a strong sense of achievement and curently I doubt that there is such a thing around.
Also just by playing 6 hours on one toon you will be well over the 100k cap. We would still be sitting on tons rough AD more than we are now. I don't even farm toons and at one point was sitting on millions of rough AD.
Maybe have a system that refines AD daily automatically so if we don't log in it still converts. Or make it so you can turn rough AD into refinement points.
Maybe if high level enchantments were easier to level up it wouldn't have to be posted at such a high cost on the AH.
Put coal wards back into the trade bar merchant. This will help curb the high price of those enchantments which is by far the highest costing items.
All I know is as someone who pays money into this game I don't want a worse return in selling the zen I bought to get AD at a lower amount only to still not be able to afford the items in the AH.
> The 100k cap is absolutely insane, players that can/do spend more time playing the game and grinding for currency SHOULD EARN MORE THAN EVERYONE ELSE. If you want to reduce the amount of AD in the economy you don't cut earnings you increase spending via hard AD sinks for stuff we actually want, crazy idea right? The only thing i'm interested in buying with AD nowadays is wards, why are there no wards in the WB Cryptic? .
Coal Wards used to be in the trade bar store but it caused confusion and the value wasn't uniform if I remember the reasoning behind their removal. And I believe pres wards were in the bazaar at that time too. It's all just a way for them to make money. Which I don't have a problem with. They wouldake more by reducing zen market prices and doing away with the exchange altogether though. Only thing I buy with zen is VIP so if they are looking for a way to get AD out of the economy offer 1 month VIP for 5 mil AD.
Limiting the 1rst run per 1 per char is a Huge nerf to people who actually play even if it's the lowest tiers of random queues.
100k is also a huge nerf, for base account actually you can do is 72k Ad a day so not a nerf, but for people who actually used zens to get more char slot (aka paid you directly or indirectly via Zen exchange) a 3rd char make it already at 108k max a day.
What you could do to still up the base (2 char) but still let people with more char still get a higher could be something like 70k Base + 15k per char (so 100k for 2 char, 115k 3 char, 130k 4rth char, etc) It will nerf at the 4rth char with this value, you can also do other value (50k + 25k per char) but if you are like me (and other people that i know) you have made at least 1 char of each class to know how it's played and know what to expect of other, or if it's needed you can switch to it ...
There can be other things to do against botting if it's what this change is for ...
Time for me to try to farm as much AD as i can before this change come up ... And after that i'll probably just play 1 tong/codg or new content MAYBE per day or on WE ... aka i'll more or less be dead to the game ... I knew i shouldn't have bought Zen nor VIP ... I won't buy any again ... Poor dev decision will be seen by player not buying more zen ...
These changes will:
A ) Affect players with multiple character slots and who play enough to reach the 100k AD mark.
These changes will not:
B ) Affect bots who have multiple accounts (as account making is free) and probably only have 2 characters per account because that is the free amount.
Hence, even though you are not referencing (or indeed thinking about) the bots in this change, you are missing the point entirely, because it will affect players >> bots. I urge you to rethink this proposition, or indeed think about the indirect consequences of this change. Thank you for not increasing the ZAX exchange cap. You already have the Russian servers at that rate, so you would have the data to see if that would work or not. Obviously not, as some Russian acquaintances have tens of millions of AD, and tens of thousands zen, spread over multiple alts. So that is not working.
Why is the exchange rate backlogged so much? As you are well aware it is a matter of inflow (zen -> AD i.e. people spending money to obtain AD), is less than outflow (AD -> zen). While this is a seasonal variation, if the inflow of AD is greater than any sinks, then you will have gradual inflation / AD reserve stockpiling. However, the fact that account-making is not limited will mean that the generation of AD is indeed infinite. While multiple accounts are not really appealing to the casual gamer, it is yet not out of reach of bots, and is rather conducive towards bots. Hence you are handing the bots a win in this matter, even if you are not referencing them.
I see that what you are attempting is a step towards reducing AD inflow, and I laud the desire to improve the 'workability' of the ZAX. It is indeed difficult, but you must get players on your side, rather than jading them; the manner in which ZAX workability is achieved is also important.
In my view, the desire for Zen/AD in this game can be broken into three main areas: [1] Character stat improvement, [2] Functionality & Sociability, [3] Aesthetics.
In [1] you have the Coalescent/Preservation wards and refinement items. Masterworks also fit here as a resource sink. These all help improve the character and their performance in quintessential dungeon delving and D&D.
In [2)] You have things which improve the gameplay experience of the players e.g. VIP, the Guild (i.e. buying Stronghold vouchers, but Boons contributes towards [1]), consumables (Scrolls of Life), Mounts (for mount speeds, but also contributes towards [1]), Campaign Unlocks etc
For [3] You have Transmutes, Races, Fashion Items, Dyes etc.
What is being added in each module that increases the desire to improve any of these 3 domains?
- New artifact gear, mounts, campaign unlocks are some. But what are other ways you can create the desire to spend AD/Zen?
- Perhaps adding consumables (which are actually relevant) to the Wondrous Bazaar? Campaign or Module specific consumables could be interesting, and would be changeable/renewable with each different module theme. The food vendor in Port Nyanzauru was an attempt, but they were weak and very unappealing in terms of actual differences it made to a player. E.g. A 'potion of vampirism' i.e. transmute into a vampire for a set period of time, may be interesting, and may be also worked into the alchemy profession. A potion of limited flight (i.e. not allowing true flight, because as we know, nothing truly flies in NW
- Transmutes have also been suggested. Transmutes can also be worked into the tailoring/armor making professions, requiring resources that could potentially be purchased at the Wondrous Bazaar.
- Increased artwork for aesthetic items might also be interesting to players with each new module and has the potential for increasing AD/Zen outflow.
- Another big desire for players to spend AD/Zen would be a new class or race. A vampire race would have allowed you to capitalise on race change tokens, campaign unlocks etc for a new character. The same goes for a new class.
Masterworks is a tricky one for me. I understand it is designed as a huge AD/time sink, but it seems limited to only a select and very rich few. How can you access a larger population of players, with a renewable want? Is there anything that casual players can make that requires some AD/time, that is renewable? Some have suggested resources be placed in the Wondrous Bazaar as an AD sink. It might be interesting to try this, but it would also understand a good working knowledge of the Masterwork economy and price trends.
Hence, there are a myriad ways of improving the outflow of AD to improve the ZAX workability, rather than just restricting the inflow.
I am not a programmer but I think it would be extremely difficult to write a script for hard contents like FBI and MSP. Or even elol. So take the candy away from the easy mind numbing activities aka leveling dungeons and skirmish and you will get rid of a large population of bots. If you want experienced players to train and carry new players, then require 1 to 2 party member to be under item level of 13k or something like that in order to earn daily RAD.
Also, I hope this will reduce the amount of AD generation in game but I get a feeling it won't. People just create more accounts and spread out the AD generation that way. But it will be more painful I guess to move AD between accounts. You can use the AH and lose 10% auction fee. And extra VIP cost if you want VIP on all of them.
So, overall, I want to see how it will pan out. Think it would be better if you guys take away the RAD from the random dungeon and make the rewards for the epic more.
I read occasionally about the PC economy and it’s vastly different from Xbox likely due to no scripting/botting but Zen/AD has gone from 320s a few months ago to holding at 400 recently so I know something in the economy has changed.
I understand people’s frustrations but from a previous post the devs said the amount of people salvaging over 100k per account is in the single digits. The people in arms in this thread likely represent that single digit number of players as most casual players probably never come here unless they googled a problem/question and it was answered here. My suggestion is to have a decent up front return on AD from dungeons for players that only have a couple characters and then diminishing returns on each character after that until the cap is reached at 8 character (1 character per class) and it caps out around 150k a day. On Xbox that is a lot of money TBH, I would be able to afford a legendary mount (around 7 mill) in less than a month and a half from just dungeon running/AD refinement.
> @noworries#8859 said:
> Additional AD sinks is also an area we are looking into and have some future plans already, but continue to investigate fun/rewarding ways to spend AD.
I have a suggestion on this part, I know coming up with set bonuses that are new and interesting is probably hard, but how about this to keep old gear relevant, increase build options and take AD and salvage out of the economy: allow us to upgrade old equipment via new equipment with an AD cost and upgrade stats according as it upgrades. In my mind it would work like this: you have a 400ilvl gear item and a 200ilvl and you want to keep the 200ilvl for bonus or whatever. You feed the 400 into the 200 with an AD cost, it only upgrades half the distance (so now you have a 300 ilvl item). This way you’ve got lots of people upgrading older items to keep them relevant and running old content to get them, increases build diversity, there is an AD sink, and people are using items they would have salvaged to upgrade old items.
Not everyone here has a flawed sense of economy.
I have already essentially quit the game - too little too late. But I'm here because I have friends who still play and they messaged me that Ravenloft was coming so I popped in to see what is up.
Here is the point that you guys - as a business are either failing to understand, or are simply taking advantage of your customers on.
The last several changes that have truely upset the community may have been things that needed to happen. And a solution to the economy is clearly something that you are working towards. HOWEVER.
Every solution you have come up with, as a company, has taken parts of this game that people have spent real money on - and devalued them.
Example - I ran for almost a full year with the same keys in my inventory until you changed the key rules. I never had anything pop up in the chest that I wanted. Did the drops get better for me as promised? No, but now I had to do things in the game that held no interest for me if I wanted to open chests. My answer - I stopped opening chests.
Example2 - Myself and many others spent a lot of time, energy and $$ to upgrade our bonding runestones. Were they OP? Yes, however rather than coming up with a positive solution to the issue, you nerfed things that we paid for and decreased their value.
New Example - People have purchased (with real$) multiple character slots not because they wanted 55 GF's, but because they wanted AD. Now after they have invested money into that aspect of the game, you are once again devaluing their purchase from you.
To be honest I don't know how anyone could be tricked into handing you any money at all when clearly you have no issues removing the value of an actual purchase at any given time, and then having the audacity to make it sound like you did us a favor.
Though I waited a long time to set foot in ravenloft... I don't imagine it will happen. I will now head back to a game where I actually received an email stating "we discovered our drop rate was low, in the next weekly update the drop rate of needed items will be increased - please hold on to chests until then because at that point even previously earned chests will be included in the increased drops"
Ravenskya - TR / Krisha Chaos - OP / Waffles - GF / Dex Domitor - HR
Becky the trendy GWF - GWF / Too Toasty - SW / Falcor - DC / Morrigan - CW / Sir Didymus - OP
There will always be an incentive to make bots, especially when it is so easy to get the AD for a bot as it is now.
As it is now, with 10$/10€ exchanging for only 500,000AD, there isn't anything tempting me to buy zen just so I can exchange for AD. It will just go straight to wards or keys or whatever. Removing the cap will not help as the AD prices would just inflate. Reducing the amount of AD available on the other hand should over time lower the exchange rate and increase the perceived value of AD.
And yes, of course the ultimate reason for this Great Nerf is the Great problem of BOTS. I wonder if ever they think of weighing this kind of decision they are making for the game. LEGIT players will be pissed, BOTS players will make new accounts and use the freaking BOTs and leave their PCs doing its automation.
Where do you think this game is headed??? you keep on Nerfing.
Why are you doing this to us LEGIT players.
In addition, the dev already said this has nothing to do with the bots because bot does not buy character slot.
Why? I have many 'asset' waiting for the imaginary dream of the tiny possibility of the come back of 2xAD.
Now, I can start to salvage hundreds of them.
Extra capable characters are still useful for extra AD bonus.
> I'm looking through the feedback here and I am seeing a lot of mixed results. Unfortunately the mixed results in my opinion seem to boil down to the amount of knowledge people have about economics and what they feel like this change was intended to do.
>
> Let's start with how this will effect bots. The simple answer is: it won't. At all.
> If you are posting feedback about how this will not hinder bots at all you are right. Bots are not normally in the habit of buying additional character slots so each bot tends to be limited to 72K RAD refinement a day.
>
> This isn't a change to hurt botters at all.
>
>
> I have to make this next point abundantly clear:
> AD is only sold on the ZAX if other people are willing to buy it.
>
> People seem to think they can have their cake and it it too with the ZAX. You can't.
> If the system is working correctly then people are selling their progression to other people. The Zen Exchange only works if people are willing to buy it. People are only willing to buy something if they don't have enough of it on their own. The cold hard truth of the system is that if it works correctly you will feel a cost to selling AD and you will feel a need to buy AD yourself.
> I personally don't like the system and would prefer a system where the two currencies were independent but that's not what is on the table for this thread.
>
>
> The efforts of those giving feedback are better spent on discussing what would be a more reasonable cap. How many characters should be able to fully refine a day? 100K is 2.7 characters in the current system. Would 200K (5.5 characters) be more amicable?
>
> Just keep in mind no matter what the system as it is right now is unsustainable and will be changing. You won't be able to refine 36K x the number of character slots. That's off the table and you would be better off arguing for a removal of the Zen Exchange altogether at that point.
Remove the zen as currency along with the exchange. And take a page out of WoW’s book, and either make us pay for vip with RL money or a monthly subscription to play, period. Maybe then you will earn enough to have actual people who can write code... heck! Maybe even employees who actually plays the game, and therefore offer insight... I know right, crash idea. Maybe then the content would offer more substance and the gear etc. starts to have an appeal in transmutes. Lords know it doesn’t now.
now I refine about 250k ad for day, with the new sistem I can refine 100k ad for day.
A bot use a pg to refine 36k ad for today but botters use more of one account, so a bot can refine 360k ad for day using ten (36k * 10) accounts. With the new sistem, the same botter can refine up to 1kk ad for day (100k * 10).
So, if I'm honest I have less ad, if I'm a bot I will be rich.
Are you serious? Really you think people are stupid and still stay in a pay to play game full of bots and of bugs?
For the bot, it does not matter. They can have unlimited number of account anyway. It is more about how much they can get in 24 hours. Number of account and number of character are not significant to them as of now. I don't see how they will be any 'richer' than now, at least, not significantly.
In short, IMO, 100K AD cap is not necessary a big deal in the future because you can't reach it easily. The bigger deal is you won't be able to reach it.