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A New Players Thoughts on Zen
lupin6785
Member Posts: 9 Arc User
This game is great. I want more then anything for this game to be incredibly successful. So far I have invested $20 for two months of VIP, and I have no regrets. I'm a fairly new player and I decided to share my story and opinions, in an effort give my honest assessment of the Zen Store and maybe other folks could share their thoughts.
I tried this game for a week, and realized this was crazy fun. I decided then, I wanted to spend real money on it. My ideal purchase was a big cache of keys and the "renegade drow" pack with an extra month of VIP. Turns out, the prices are just too expensive to make me want to take that leap. Outside of VIP, I might have bought a key once because xbox gave me some starting zen. As of this post, I am refering to zen market prices that are current 9/3/2019.
The enchanted keys are $12 for 10 keys, the VIP is $10 for perks and 30 keys over a month. The price of keys is too steep for me, compared to Overwatch's price of $10 for 11 lootboxes. I'm not complaining about paying for VIP, but as a consumer I'm simply just not interested in buying additional keys with real money at a rate higher then Overwatch. To add to that, an Overwatch loot box purchase appeals more to my wallet because Blizzard posted the odds of success https://overwatch.fandom.com/wiki/Loot_Box . I'm already purchasing VIP just to do something Overwatch offers for free. Granted, Neverwinter has the astral diamond economy thrown into the equation, which would provide me with free keys, but at a rate of 10 keys every week. If I break it down, this is a total of 17 keys in week for $10 a month, versus Overwatch where you can earn 25 lootboxes a week and you only pay for the game once. Yes, the gear inside Neverwinter lock boxes is very significant and not "cosmetic", but earning 17 keys a week forces commitment only to earning keys and not focusing on my character. The odds are "winning" lockboxes are unknown and very low from my perspective. Let me state, I only use Overwatch on this example, because it is the only "lootbox" type item I have ever purchased.
I mentioned wanted to buy the "renegade drow" pack, but the ask price is $60. Sorry, I love the game, and I love the lore, but if you want me to pay the same price as Borderlands 3 which hasn't released yet... I can't. You aren't even throwing in the Drizzt hairstyle for that price. I'm sorry but Neverwinter has been out for awhile, and I feel these packs are more like DLC at best. Even some of the oldest packs are $60, so I can't even glance at the zen market and get a general idea of recent content.
That was my logic, and this post simply pertains to me as a fairly new customer. If the packs and keys were 50% cheaper of their price today, I would have started this game spending $40 instead of $20 and I might have spent $10 for 20 keys. I'd suggest taking packs off the Zen store and restructuring them to resemble DLC content purchases with real cash so you can sell them at a more reasonable price and get guaranteed money. I suppose you can mention that Neverwinter does offer coupons and events, maybe I can afford these things during those 50% deals. Until then, Neverwinter will simply continue to wall itself away from my money.
These prices annoyed me to the point that I took a small break just to play Neverwinter Nights EE and read more R.A.S. I'm back to playing again and I truly enjoy experience that is Neverwinter, but there are new games on the horizon. It might be some time to before I'm an "full time" customer again because I will likely just collect my keys and do a few daily tasks. Therefore, it might be some time before I make a another zen purchase. Hopefully this input can help Neverwinter snag an extra $20-30 from another casual DND fan like myself or maybe the game is fine with how they make money. Just as long as they keep making this game for me to keep playing.
I tried this game for a week, and realized this was crazy fun. I decided then, I wanted to spend real money on it. My ideal purchase was a big cache of keys and the "renegade drow" pack with an extra month of VIP. Turns out, the prices are just too expensive to make me want to take that leap. Outside of VIP, I might have bought a key once because xbox gave me some starting zen. As of this post, I am refering to zen market prices that are current 9/3/2019.
The enchanted keys are $12 for 10 keys, the VIP is $10 for perks and 30 keys over a month. The price of keys is too steep for me, compared to Overwatch's price of $10 for 11 lootboxes. I'm not complaining about paying for VIP, but as a consumer I'm simply just not interested in buying additional keys with real money at a rate higher then Overwatch. To add to that, an Overwatch loot box purchase appeals more to my wallet because Blizzard posted the odds of success https://overwatch.fandom.com/wiki/Loot_Box . I'm already purchasing VIP just to do something Overwatch offers for free. Granted, Neverwinter has the astral diamond economy thrown into the equation, which would provide me with free keys, but at a rate of 10 keys every week. If I break it down, this is a total of 17 keys in week for $10 a month, versus Overwatch where you can earn 25 lootboxes a week and you only pay for the game once. Yes, the gear inside Neverwinter lock boxes is very significant and not "cosmetic", but earning 17 keys a week forces commitment only to earning keys and not focusing on my character. The odds are "winning" lockboxes are unknown and very low from my perspective. Let me state, I only use Overwatch on this example, because it is the only "lootbox" type item I have ever purchased.
I mentioned wanted to buy the "renegade drow" pack, but the ask price is $60. Sorry, I love the game, and I love the lore, but if you want me to pay the same price as Borderlands 3 which hasn't released yet... I can't. You aren't even throwing in the Drizzt hairstyle for that price. I'm sorry but Neverwinter has been out for awhile, and I feel these packs are more like DLC at best. Even some of the oldest packs are $60, so I can't even glance at the zen market and get a general idea of recent content.
That was my logic, and this post simply pertains to me as a fairly new customer. If the packs and keys were 50% cheaper of their price today, I would have started this game spending $40 instead of $20 and I might have spent $10 for 20 keys. I'd suggest taking packs off the Zen store and restructuring them to resemble DLC content purchases with real cash so you can sell them at a more reasonable price and get guaranteed money. I suppose you can mention that Neverwinter does offer coupons and events, maybe I can afford these things during those 50% deals. Until then, Neverwinter will simply continue to wall itself away from my money.
These prices annoyed me to the point that I took a small break just to play Neverwinter Nights EE and read more R.A.S. I'm back to playing again and I truly enjoy experience that is Neverwinter, but there are new games on the horizon. It might be some time to before I'm an "full time" customer again because I will likely just collect my keys and do a few daily tasks. Therefore, it might be some time before I make a another zen purchase. Hopefully this input can help Neverwinter snag an extra $20-30 from another casual DND fan like myself or maybe the game is fine with how they make money. Just as long as they keep making this game for me to keep playing.
2
Comments
Never pay full price for something in the Zen store. This game literally throws coupons at you. Invoke often and you will get 40%off key coupons(among others), that's when you buy extra keys. Several times a year there are 40 or 50% off everything (almost) sales in the Zen store, that is when you buy packs, big ticket items, and stock up on saleable items.
Rather than a long post evaluating the game economics from your limited perspective and time in game. It might be better for you to simply ask how to maximize making AD in game to convert to Zen, when is the best time to buy/convert to Zen and other similar issues.
I was simply providing player feedback in the feedback forum. After coming back to the game and learning more about it and the community, I really do enjoy it. But as a new player, it did take a while to understand and appreciate the AD economy. I guess in a longwinded way, I was letting the zen market folks know how they could have received more money from a casual consumer who has only been playing a limited amount of time.
To be FTP, the game relies on two main type of player. (Before everyone weighs in with "that's not me" posts, I'll point out that they do not prevent other types of players, they just don't RELY on them for the business model. )
Cash Rich - Time Poor players or "Whales". These guys buy Zen in large amounts and buy direct from the Zen store, but also trade Zen for Astral Diamonds, in order to buy stuff on the Auction House. Stuff they haven't got the time to "Farm".
Time Rich - Cash Poor players, who spend hours a day in the game farming the stuff that they can then either use or sell, or duplicate and sell.
Of course they WANT as many "Casual" players as they can get to fill queues and make the game popular... the transitional nature of the CR-TP/TR-CP relationship is what pays to keep the servers running. And of course, any extra Zen they sell to these players is very welcome on their part...
It is possible to play for years become very end game BiS and never spend a single penny/dime in real money.
It is possible to generate 100'000 new AD a day in the game per account, and make as much as you want/can by selling on the AH. The generating 100k part is hard for a new player, particularly if they only have one character. (I have seven current Level 80s and don;t have to work very hard to hit that cap any more)
Since we are on X Box forum, we have it easier than PS and PC... this is because our version of the player driven Astral Diamond - Zen exchange (often referred to as something like "ADX" or "ZADX" or whatever... its usually used in context so easy to understand what someone means...) trades at about 450 AD for 1 Zen. (The other two are considerably higher)
Most people buy and sell in bulk of course, so its possible to create enough AD per week for about 1500 Zen. This costs No real money.
AD are created by "Refining" ROUGH Astral Diamonds. There is no limit to how many RAD you can earn in a day, but as I said, it's not as easy when you are starting out as it is when you have more access to the things that generate them (higher level Dungeon queues and weekly quests that unlock when you complete higher level campaigns for instance.)
As mentioned above, if you can... avoid paying full price for anything on the Zen Market. That's like going to one of those Furniture sales companies on the one week of the year there isn't a "SALE!!!!!!!!!" on and buying a table for 20% more than it is 51 weeks of the year.
The game economy is built on the principle that people will use discounts. They are there to encourage people who otherwise wouldn't to use Zen sooner rather than later... (That's called "Marketing" before people start screaming "CASH GRAB!!!!" and accuse the developers of being greedy corporate HAMSTER for trying to get people to spend money on their FREE game...)
There are regular snap sales of certain categories, and the vouchers drop from the little bags you get from Invoking that also contain Refining Stones. They also have two big sales on the Zen Market, one during Summer and one at Winter during the big In Game events run over those periods.
Trust me... if you stick with the game, you're obviously smart enough to find many ways to make the most of your RAD/AD/Zen, (and obviously hard earned cash) and if you have already joined a Guild, it's worth talking to some of the more experienced players for advice. If you haven't yet joined a guild, there are plenty out there. It might take a while to find your "people" but they are out there...
Good luck.
That being said .... there's actually very little of interest on the Zen Market that people really want to be.
The interesting sellers are usually the refining stones/keys/Race Re-rolls/new Race (once) and not much else. There's a lot of mounts/comps that are don't have a worthy bonus to bother buying along with a lot of the other stuff on there, there's just nothing to really grab the attention of the player.
If we could buy things that greatly increased the success rate for a Legendary drop from a lockbox, or a token that could be used to convert a Bound-To-Character item into a Bound-To-Account item so that we could move BTC items from one toon to another would be great.
It's not the first time that we've raised a request to get more worthwhile items from the Zen Market that people would actually pay for; with real world cash if necessary.
But as a new player, I always advise getting an account bound purple mount if you can afford it. If you think the game is something you are going to stick with and build a stable of characters.
Not sure if it's still up there, (I know some stuff disappears if you own it) but a while back the new Trained Basilisk mount was a good buy for new players.
Two Enlightened and a Universal slot, meant you could get Champions Return, Assassin's Covenant, Barbarians Revelry, or the Travellers Treasures (Free RAD...) bonuses.
I bought one cos the mounts are account wide, and that TT helps top up rAD when I'm short of time on my alts who aren't bashing dungeons. It's ugly, but it's also a +5000 Power mount. (And my only other acct wide mount was my White Tiger which I only bought cos it's just so HAMSTER cool.)
The Basilisk was definitely worth having during the sale for someone starting out and planning to stay the distance.
Xbox = 454 to 1
PS4 =554 to 1(Actually, not too bad)
PC: At 750 cap, none available with a 7 mil waiting list. So, probably about a week to get Zen. That may have changed but, 1 mil a day
was usually the amount in the past.
Historically, All of the exchanges will begin to skyrocket in mid-October to early November, with the peak on or near Thanksgiving weekend. This year with the new higher cap, it will probably differ a bit. I expect the PC waiting list may be several weeks by then.