I see your point however I think you are too blinded by the change making life "better" to consider whether it's the way it should be.
They could have taken the old system, exactly as it was, reduced the number of runes required by half and changed the removal fee to be 25K AD for a rank 10 and we'd have a far superior system than this proposed mess.
The problem wasn't an AD fee for removing enchantments, it was that the AD fee was so stupidly out of range that nobody with a brain would use it. All this current system does is take that fee and mandate it gets paid one time per enchantment. If the fee wasn't rediculous it wouldn't have been a problem to begin with.
Now instead of trying to equip every character smart people will stick their tongues out at this stupid cost to upgrade and simply switch enchantments because 419K AD per enchantment is way out of line.
Yeah, yeah 'it is only 419K, that's not bad!' but each character has 14 slots just on their main gear, without including companions, and hat puts the price well over 5M AD to get full T10's and that's unnacceptable. Either put the fee to a decent amount (100-150K per enchantment) or better yet drop the removal fee to 25-50K and don't mandate the overpriced AD sink. Either option would be better than this...
Feedback: End Result: Again less bad doesn't make it good.
actually i don't think i'm blinded at all. i think i was more blinded by change when it was first presented.
of all the feedback i have given over the new refinement system, i still support the removal of the chance of success, a reduction in the price of marks and AD costs. everything else over that is a much better system.
being able to feed any enchant/runestone/shard as the upgrade RP is such a great idea and it keeps my inventory clear of stacks of r3/r4 enchants/runestones. being able to upgrade slotted enchantments means that i can get the benefit of the existing value of it while i'm leveling it up. in the current system, you can't do that. you either slot an enchantment that you're going to end up destroying or you don't slot at all until you have whatever rank enchant you're going for. what do people with rank 8-9 enchants do when it's time to upgrade? do they pay the 200k+ AD to remove that high rank enchant? it's nothing destroying a r5... maybe even a r6. but in the new system, you don't have to do that.
even if they were to keep the existing system and lower the cost of removing slotted enchants, we'd still be in the exact same situation we're in. we'd still have to keep inventory of enchants... more people might unslot but not nearly as much as they would with the new system.
"less bad" means i want the one that's less bad. because it's better that what we currently have.
a rant from a moderator means the new system is really really, i do not need to comment as this already speak for itself, i hope the devs realize this.
all due respect, but the mods are players just like us. their feedback holds equal weight with the community.
The new system is hands down better for Armor and Weapon Enchancements simply because the Coalescent Ward Requirements have been reduced but for the standard enchantments while the system is better in some ways I do not agree with mandatory AD fees (at least not the ridiculous amount stated).
Feedback Analysis:Less bad doesn't make it good.
I see your point however I think you are too blinded by the change making life "better" to consider whether it's the way it should be.
They could have taken the old system, exactly as it was, reduced the number of runes required by half and changed the removal fee to be 25K AD for a rank 10 and we'd have a far superior system than this proposed mess.
The problem wasn't an AD fee for removing enchantments, it was that the AD fee was so stupidly out of range that nobody with a brain would use it. All this current system does is take that fee and mandate it gets paid one time per enchantment. If the fee wasn't rediculous it wouldn't have been a problem to begin with.
Now instead of trying to equip every character smart people will stick their tongues out at this stupid cost to upgrade and simply switch enchantments because 419K AD per enchantment is way out of line.
Yeah, yeah 'it is only 419K, that's not bad!' but each character has 14 slots just on their main gear, without including companions, and hat puts the price well over 5M AD to get full T10's and that's unnacceptable. Either put the fee to a decent amount (100-150K per enchantment) or better yet drop the removal fee to 25-50K and don't mandate the overpriced AD sink. Either option would be better than this...
Feedback: End Result:Again less bad doesn't make it good.
True Astral Diamonds sinks are required for the sake of the game. As long as there are item sink systems (most of them are BoP, BoE), a steady way to put Astral Diamond into the game (i.e. refinement) and a relatively easy way to cap your refinement amount (i.e. salvaging), it's fairly easy to understand that the ingame economy is subject to inflation (i.e. more and more AD into the economy and the same amount of items).
Inflation is bad because, when it's out of control, the new players, that rely the most on refining for the beginning stages of their gaming experience, won't be able to buy items anymore from the AH. This thing leads to a vicious circle where a few people can afford items while the market is full of them.
I go out of my mind when I see a T1 helm go for more than 250k AD when they really are nothing special (e.g. "Master Duelist's Helmet").
tl; dr
A true AD sink was long required and finally we have it.
That said, besides the relative small fixed amount of AD you need to refine, you can still find the catalyzers by yourself, given that you don't need that many enchantments (as I guess you do, otherwise it's not "free" even with the current system).
FEEDBACK
This system is good for several reasons, not only strictly related to enchantment.
It's main downside is that it's not as intuitive as the current/previous one that was pretty straightforward.
34 page o.0 you really hate the new ench guys xD I still think's this is a great things, whit a simply add they will kill the farmer ( maybe gold seller too ). This is a nice enchant system, no more grab 4 piece and try your luck, dupe the stone so you get free rank 8-9. Now, whit this, you have to do dungeon and boss for get the rank 8+, so finally there a new reason for do all the boss in dungeon *-*
And I still gotta use those catalysts and pay AD. Now I'm not forced to pay ANY AD AT ALL. Got it?
If you farmed a perfect rank 10 Dark without paying a single AD, it would take you years to get the preservation wards and you would still have lost 12 million AD. 12 Million AD? That is right. That is the cost of 4778 rank 4s + the 600+ some PWs that you could have sold instead. After AH cut, still almost 11 million AD. Everything costs you, whether it is in time or in opportunity costs you could have had if you had done something else instead.
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I dont know, i think my math is pretty good. At least I can till the difference between a system that costs nothing and one that charges me for each fuse.
Its taken me months to gather a large enough pile of R5s to work from. Ive also gathered a large pile of preserve wards. I havent spent a dime for any of it. And currently I can fuse it all without any additional cost.
With the new system that pile of work will just be a big lump of useless. Until I can earn a pile of marks. And even if I take the time to earn enough, so just I can make use of my months of gathering. I will stll be rewarded for my months of preparation by being hit with a fuse fee.
Yea, my math is just fine.
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khimera906Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 898Arc User
This system is good for several reasons, not only strictly related to enchantment.
It's main downside is that it's not as intuitive as the current/previous one that was pretty straightforward.
Being less intuitive is a downside only if you don't take two second to figure out how it works. This kind of "leveling up" system is nothing new and anyone with some gaming experience will figure it out easily. In fact, I hope to see a similar upgrade system for armors and weapons.
The thing with AD sinks is that people have to use them if they want those sinks to be any effective. Is not like now we don't have AD sinks, but the fees are so high that people don't use them. And if they leave this system the way it is, we're just going to have another unused AD sink. Ambisinisterr has suggested some changes for the fees, which I think make sense, and I hope they are taken into consideration.
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uurbsMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 449Bounty Hunter
I dont know, i think my math is pretty good. At least I can till the difference between a system that costs nothing and one that charges me for each fuse.
Its taken me months to gather a large enough pile of R5s to work from. Ive also gathered a large pile of preserve wards. I havent spent a dime for any of it. And currently I can fuse it all without any additional cost.
*scnr*, but you do know, that the second paragraph just contradicts your first one? I, for myself, value my time as well as any other currency--and to go on full disclosure here: I even value my time the most valuable above anything else.
With the new system that pile of work will just be a big lump of useless. Until I can earn a pile of marks. And even if I take the time to earn enough, so just I can make use of my months of gathering. I will stll be rewarded for my months of preparation by being hit with a fuse fee.
I do understand where you're coming from, but if I may try to provide another point of view:
I think, that the amount of time you need to spend to gather the required materials, will go down. Let me break it down, to what I perceive:
raw material (being enchantments, runestones, shards), farmable: in the current system you need to use matching enchantments and in the new upcoming system you can use non-matching enchantments. Therefore I believe, that you can get the required material for the RPs faster than before.
additional/optional material (being preservation wards or coalescent wards), farmable: as the amount of upgrade/fusion steps will go down (e. g. for rank 4 to rank 7 from _21_ steps to just _3_ steps), the time required to get those wards, will go down as well.
new mandatory material (begin those "Mark of Potency"), farmable: this is kind of a deciding factor, as we have no true data for the amount of time needed to gain the required.
new direct AD cost, non-farmable: this is truely a drawback in comparison to the old system
Given a fixed amount of time, let's say for example you would need 1 hour (as someone else in this thread mentioned) to get enough matching rank 4 items to create a rank 7, you would get an abundance of other enchantments and runestones in the same time frame. As you would not need to wait till you got all the matching rank 4 items, you would be done faster than 1 hour. Now you have two options: either you get the ADs through other means or you could continue to use up the 1 hour and sell everything else you've gained in the time.
And, as in the future all enchantments and runestones of rank 1 to 4 will be beneficial and useful, the difference between those will not be as much as we have now (currently the most expensive rank 4 goes for nearly 2,000 ADs on the Auction House and the cheapest goes for 100 ADs), therefore the value of the abundance of enchantments you've aquired in said 1 hour, will be higher.
Also, you would not need to wait month to get enough "Preservation Wards"--and even if you would, you also could sell the not-needed wards to get the ADs required for the upgrade.
Therefore the defining factor, in my opinion, will be the availability of the "Mark of Potency" and not the direct AD cost. My personal guess is, that it will not take you longer to get the "Mark of Potency" as it is now with the wards.
Being less intuitive is a downside only if you don't take two second to figure out how it works. This kind of "leveling up" system is nothing new and anyone with some gaming experience will figure it out easily. In fact, I hope to see a similar upgrade system for armors and weapons.
I think that your point of view is from a decent "educated" player. But my personal (and therefore very limited) experience tells me that most of the F2P gamers are somewhat "casual". They don't spend time trying to figure out how things work, they usually click here and there until they get the things done, one way or another. And these people are valuable customers nonetheless.
Having a system where you can refine a rank_6 enchantment using four rank_5 and being at loss it's counter-intuitive to say the least.
If you use a rank_5 instead of four rank_4 you should be on pair or the game shouldn't allow me to deliberately waste my AD/time without, at least, a simple warning. It's an attitude in game developing that many many players really appreciate.
The thing with AD sinks is that people have to use them if they want those sinks to be any effective. Is not like now we don't have AD sinks, but the fees are so high that people don't use them. And if they leave this system the way it is, we're just going to have another unused AD sink. Ambisinisterr has suggested some changes for the fees, which I think make sense, and I hope they are taken into consideration.
I'm sorry but I have to disagree: AD sinks can't be optional. This one isn't optional unless you think that someone can actually play endgame dungeons without weapon/armor enchantments and rank_5+ enchantments.
Anyway I agree with you that AD sinks should be tuned very carefully since they can hinder the gameplay experience. So far it seems to me that it's pretty fair considering that only using refined AD you just need 4 days to get a rank_4 of any kind (now you may need double than that for a dark).
*scnr*, but you do know, that the second paragraph just contradicts your first one? I, for myself, value my time as well as any other currency--and to go on full disclosure here: I even value my time the most valuable above anything else.
I do understand where you're coming from, but if I may try to provide another point of view:
I think, that the amount of time you need to spend to gather the required materials, will go down. Let me break it down, to what I perceive:
raw material (being enchantments, runestones, shards), farmable: in the current system you need to use matching enchantments and in the new upcoming system you can use non-matching enchantments. Therefore I believe, that you can get the required material for the RPs faster than before.
additional/optional material (being preservation wards or coalescent wards), farmable: as the amount of upgrade/fusion steps will go down (e. g. for rank 4 to rank 7 from _21_ steps to just _3_ steps), the time required to get those wards, will go down as well.
new mandatory material (begin those "Mark of Potency"), farmable: this is kind of a deciding factor, as we have no true data for the amount of time needed to gain the required.
new direct AD cost, non-farmable: this is truely a drawback in comparison to the old system
Given a fixed amount of time, let's say for example you would need 1 hour (as someone else in this thread mentioned) to get enough matching rank 4 items to create a rank 7, you would get an abundance of other enchantments and runestones in the same time frame. As you would not need to wait till you got all the matching rank 4 items, you would be done faster than 1 hour. Now you have two options: either you get the ADs through other means or you could continue to use up the 1 hour and sell everything else you've gained in the time.
And, as in the future all enchantments and runestones of rank 1 to 4 will be beneficial and useful, the difference between those will not be as much as we have now (currently the most expensive rank 4 goes for nearly 2,000 ADs on the Auction House and the cheapest goes for 100 ADs), therefore the value of the abundance of enchantments you've aquired in said 1 hour, will be higher.
Also, you would not need to wait month to get enough "Preservation Wards"--and even if you would, you also could sell the not-needed wards to get the ADs required for the upgrade.
Therefore the defining factor, in my opinion, will be the availability of the "Mark of Potency" and not the direct AD cost. My personal guess is, that it will not take you longer to get the "Mark of Potency" as it is now with the wards.
I could care less if the new system makes things slighty easier in some respecets. That really wont effect me much.
I feel like ive been a good player. Farmed and saved my assests and put them away for safe keeping. I was in no hurry I was content to wait till I was ready to bother with it all. Safe in the thought that all my hard work and saving was secure.
Except that now Im being told that I cant make use of my savings. In effect, I cant withdraw it without now paying a fee. All my hard work is now locked behind a pay wall and a new type of drop that needs to be collected before I can use what I have already earned.
I could care less if the new system makes things slighty easier in some respecets. That really wont effect me much.
I feel like ive been a good player. Farmed and saved my assests and put them away for safe keeping. I was in no hurry I was content to wait till I was ready to bother with it all. Safe in the thought that all my hard work and saving was secure.
Except that now Im being told that I cant make use of my savings. In effect, I cant withdraw it without now paying a fee. All my hard work is now locked behind a pay wall and a new type of drop that needs to be collected before I can use what I have already earned.
That is my problem with this system.
The transition to the new system may hurt a little (for someone; I'm barely in the same position as you do having stored about 84 Vorpal shards and a Greater Vorpal, aiming at a Perfect Vorpal myself), depending on how many wards are you going to sell for a good price but, in the long terms, this new system will be much better.
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anolaniaheMember, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 3Arc User
edited November 2013
Not sure if this has been covered but when refining shards into lesser versions it uses the catalysts(3 shards) from the stack but converts the rest to lesser versions. so a stack of 20 with 1 coal ward and a cost 25k ad created 17 lesser holy avenger enchants http://puu.sh/59x3q/648722691d.jpghttp://puu.sh/59xps/a5fd31f577.jpg
The transition to the new system may hurt a little (for someone; I'm barely in the same position as you do having stored about 84 Vorpal shards and a Greater Vorpal, aiming at a Perfect Vorpal myself), depending on how many wards are you going to sell for a good price but, in the long terms, this new system will be much better.
The new system could be much better if they remove the AD sink from low rank enchats, and lower the AD cost for high lvl enchats. That's the only way. You should not be forced to spend AD in low rank enchants, it's like munkey said, it's a wall that make people think on the so forbidden word that can't be said here. People that can buy zen and trade for AD will have a HUGE advantge on people who just farm AD. This kind of thing leads people out of the game, just search google for "games that sell power" and see their fate.
Seems you can refine slotted enchants but not runestones slotted into companions why?
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frost168Member, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited November 2013
After playing around with many aspects of this new module, and having the same negative first impressions of this new system as many, I can honestly say the new refining system is much better than the old one. Crunching my own numbers, seeing others crunch theirs, and taking into account many aspects of this system from time spent, to materials needed, and costs associated with it, I don't see how any side looses in this.
For people who like to just buy their enchants, the price should be lower than it is now. It simply requires much less runes and wards to make the upper end 8-10's and Greater - Perfects. Win Win for these people.
For those who don't want to spend a single AD making their enchants, the system requires half the resources the old system required. Simply sell the other half you would have had to have spent under the old system, to finance your AD and Mark costs. With any rune being able to be refined with any other rune, or enchant, or shard, this makes it even more efficient for you. Again. Win Win.
I no longer see how the new system is going to negatively affect the majority of the people. I only see it affecting botters, who will have to shell out up front AD's to make high ranking runes which may prove to be to cumbersome in the long run. only time will tell based on the new selling price of rank 7's and higher.
Even people who made AD's farming/selling runes to supplement their income can still do so. Runes will become priced based on their RP value, thereby again, stabilizing prices. Farmers will not have to convert tons of runes into 5s, but simply sell bulk 2's,3's,4's en mass with no losses from combines under the old system. There will be less of a reason that silvery runes are prices 1/5 the cost of Darks when the RP value of a silvery is half that of a Dark in terms of refining a Dark rune. Farmers should see the value of their "Junk" runes and enchants increase in value. again Win Win.
For myself and many guildies, this new system makes running "junk" dungeon instances worthwhile again. While neither system is absolutely perfect, I think the new one, with all the benefits added together, <unsocketing fees are now reasonable> brings most people back in line with the havs.
This is of course my opinion. I play this MMO like any MMO and partake in all aspects of the game and the economy. While u will have your extremists on both ends, the overwhelming majority of players will benefit from the new system in the long run. Things will change after it's immediate implementation, but as you can tell by AH prices, it already has.
I for one, as many I have talked to and shown how to use the new system all agree, we look forward to this new system being implemented and would like to thank the Devs for changing the unsocketing costs to gold, instead of the steep AD value. I will no longer have to settle on rank 5's and 6's and lessers on alts, but can swap out runes as I see fit, whenever I wish.
Sure, people with rivers of AD or money to spend will not be, very convenient.
Very, very sad....
There are pros and cons with the new system as there are pros and cons with the old system.
Whilst I wouldn't label myself as a fan of the new system, the single biggest benefit for me is the ability to unslot for gold. So, instead of hording and selectively using enchants, then disposing of them when I get new gear, I will now use them and move them around.
The tradeoff of is that I won't be upgrading any existing or new enchants in the foreseeable future. I've just spend almost all my AD, I have ~80k between my two main characters, and I'd rather save that for other things. I've only gone beyond rank 5 for the old system once anyway, so no real change there. Besides, 5k AD for 30 attrib points, that can wait.
So the new system is arguably better for me, but only because I've had the benefits of the old system first.
So the new system is arguably better for me, but only because I've had the benefits of the old system first.
Yeah this is the case, I start playing not so many time ago, so I don't have time enough to use the benefits of the actual system. I will have to use the new system for greater enchants
I really like the new system idea, my great pain is the AD cost. If they reduce those AD costs, this system will be very very good. But if don't, I think they are shooting their foot here.
Even people who made AD's farming/selling runes to supplement their income can still do so. Runes will become priced based on their RP value, thereby again, stabilizing prices.
The problem with this idea is that the new system effectively doubles the supply of enchants since there is no combine loss. The massive increase in supply will drive prices down. On the other side farmers won't experience the supply loss either so they will have double the amount to sell. Then there are artifacts taking enchants so that will be a factor as well. Also while silvery enchants will go up in price, darks will go down.
As someone who makes 95% of their AD from selling enchants I'm rather concerned what this might do to the enchant prices. But there are far too many factors for me to make a guess as to what the final results will be.
What is clear is the risk item (item lost on failure) is being shifted from a cheap, easy to obtain item (enchants) to an expensive, harder to obtain item (catalysts). No doubt these new risk items will be offered in the Zen store right beside the risk protectors. Which is really what this change was about.
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khimera906Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 898Arc User
What is clear is the risk item (item lost on failure) is being shifted from a cheap, easy to obtain item (enchants) to an expensive, harder to obtain item (catalysts). No doubt these new risk items will be offered in the Zen store right beside the risk protectors. Which is really what this change was about.
These new "risk items" are not additional/optional like the ward, they are mandatory items and should never be in the Zen sop. If you would have payed some attention, you would have know by now that they can be bought with AD and can be farmed for free. That "easy to obtain item (enchants)" become less easy to obtain and a pain in the buttocks after you get beyond Rank 5.
And yes, the new system will cap the prices or Enchantment and Runes, because now we will have something concrete to compare the prices in the AH to.
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It's really hard to speculate what component will be the new show-stopper. On theory, less enchants should speed up the process, but what if the drop rates on Marks are horrendous, the enchants pile up in your inventory and you can't upgrade your stuff? This remains to be seen and opinions based on the assumption that this makes everything faster and cheaper could be misleading.
For people who like to just buy their enchants, the price should be lower than it is now. It simply requires much less runes and wards to make the upper end 8-10's and Greater - Perfects. Win Win for these people.
I no longer see how the new system is going to negatively affect the majority of the people.
It affects the majority because I'd think most players are living in the R5-R7 range, which gains only a minor speed upgrade but a major cost downgrade. R8-R10 and weapon enchants are getting cheaper, but that benefits the upper class.
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rapticorMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,078Arc User
edited November 2013
Really there seems to be two sides to this. The people who care about having top tier enchantments are in favor of it because it is apparently cheaper. Then there are the more casual people who think Rank ~6 is good enough and find any additional AD cost is be too much. If some sort of happy medium could be reached I'd think that would go a long way towards "selling" this to the user base as a whole.
Hopefully they will take feedback into consideration and tweak some things because I think if it goes live as it currently is that will be bad news. I have no idea on the stats but I'd think the majority of players are in the latter group.
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zebularMember, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 15,270Community Moderator
edited November 2013
. . . . . I should not be forced to play an economy market to fuse my enchantments or upgrade them. I should not be forced to pay ADs to do this either. Far too many things in this game already suck up ADs and now it's to the point where almost everything in the game can be bought with Astral Diamonds, which equates to being able to purchase raw power with RTM transactions. I remember a time when we were told specifically that "Power would not be sold." The marketing of this game has gone so far from the promises and ground work laid out, this refinement system is just the newest icing on the proverbial cake.
Really there seems to be two sides to this. The people who care about having top tier enchantments are in favor of it because it is apparently cheaper. Then there are the more casual people who think Rank ~6 is good enough and find any additional AD cost is be too much. If some sort of happy medium could be reached I'd think that would go a long way towards "selling" this to the user base as a whole.
Hopefully they will take feedback into consideration and tweak some things because I think if it goes live as it currently is that will be bad news. I have no idea on the stats but I'd think the majority of players are in the latter group.
I want to address the points I've put in bold. The only content in the game you could say requires anything above R6 is PvP and Dungeons, Epic ones in particular. Every other piece of content that isn't an Epic Dungeon or PvP-based you can do with R6 and even R5's. It is therefore no surprise that more people would be in the group that regards paying AD to craft anything R6 and below an adverse change!
That said, however, I would not be opposed to paying AD upfront to craft my enchantments if only the system wasn't convoluted with a mixture of resources and the AD fees were constant and reliable instead of growing with each upgrade.
I think it was clear from the get-go that power would be sold, however you could decide how to pay for that power, with your time, your money or a mixture of both. This new system is taking that choice away and urging us to go into our wallets more than ever before.
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It's really hard to speculate what component will be the new show-stopper. On theory, less enchants should speed up the process, but what if the drop rates on Marks are horrendous, the enchants pile up in your inventory and you can't upgrade your stuff?
Out of interest, how have people found the drop rate for marks?
I did a bit of farming in Vellosk and got 2 lesser marks in ~60 nodes. Starting a new Hunter character you get 5 minor marks for free at rank 15, but have to pay for the rest (25 AD each). I've got no drops of lesser marks up to level 22 in Blackdagger ruins. Not that any of this really matters, I have no slottable gear at this point anyway.
The only content in the game you could say requires anything above R6 is PvP and Dungeons, Epic ones in particular. Every other piece of content that isn't an Epic Dungeon or PvP-based you can do with R6 and even R5's.
In terms of the basic quest and foundry content, which is all I generally do as a fairly casual player, you don't really need enchants at all. I've been running without on my DC for a while without issues.
If you would have payed some attention, you would have know by now that they can be bought with AD and can be farmed for free.
I am well aware of that. People can farm preservation wards as well. Meanwhile you can buy them on the Zen store. It's a F2P game made by a company in business to make money. Guessing their motivation isn't hard. Nothing wrong with that but it is what it is.
Comments
I'm not gonna argue with that, seems pointless. Ambisinisterr said everything.
actually i don't think i'm blinded at all. i think i was more blinded by change when it was first presented.
of all the feedback i have given over the new refinement system, i still support the removal of the chance of success, a reduction in the price of marks and AD costs. everything else over that is a much better system.
being able to feed any enchant/runestone/shard as the upgrade RP is such a great idea and it keeps my inventory clear of stacks of r3/r4 enchants/runestones. being able to upgrade slotted enchantments means that i can get the benefit of the existing value of it while i'm leveling it up. in the current system, you can't do that. you either slot an enchantment that you're going to end up destroying or you don't slot at all until you have whatever rank enchant you're going for. what do people with rank 8-9 enchants do when it's time to upgrade? do they pay the 200k+ AD to remove that high rank enchant? it's nothing destroying a r5... maybe even a r6. but in the new system, you don't have to do that.
even if they were to keep the existing system and lower the cost of removing slotted enchants, we'd still be in the exact same situation we're in. we'd still have to keep inventory of enchants... more people might unslot but not nearly as much as they would with the new system.
"less bad" means i want the one that's less bad. because it's better that what we currently have.
all due respect, but the mods are players just like us. their feedback holds equal weight with the community.
True Astral Diamonds sinks are required for the sake of the game. As long as there are item sink systems (most of them are BoP, BoE), a steady way to put Astral Diamond into the game (i.e. refinement) and a relatively easy way to cap your refinement amount (i.e. salvaging), it's fairly easy to understand that the ingame economy is subject to inflation (i.e. more and more AD into the economy and the same amount of items).
Inflation is bad because, when it's out of control, the new players, that rely the most on refining for the beginning stages of their gaming experience, won't be able to buy items anymore from the AH. This thing leads to a vicious circle where a few people can afford items while the market is full of them.
I go out of my mind when I see a T1 helm go for more than 250k AD when they really are nothing special (e.g. "Master Duelist's Helmet").
tl; dr
A true AD sink was long required and finally we have it.
That said, besides the relative small fixed amount of AD you need to refine, you can still find the catalyzers by yourself, given that you don't need that many enchantments (as I guess you do, otherwise it's not "free" even with the current system).
FEEDBACK
This system is good for several reasons, not only strictly related to enchantment.
It's main downside is that it's not as intuitive as the current/previous one that was pretty straightforward.
If you farmed a perfect rank 10 Dark without paying a single AD, it would take you years to get the preservation wards and you would still have lost 12 million AD. 12 Million AD? That is right. That is the cost of 4778 rank 4s + the 600+ some PWs that you could have sold instead. After AH cut, still almost 11 million AD. Everything costs you, whether it is in time or in opportunity costs you could have had if you had done something else instead.
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I dont know, i think my math is pretty good. At least I can till the difference between a system that costs nothing and one that charges me for each fuse.
Its taken me months to gather a large enough pile of R5s to work from. Ive also gathered a large pile of preserve wards. I havent spent a dime for any of it. And currently I can fuse it all without any additional cost.
With the new system that pile of work will just be a big lump of useless. Until I can earn a pile of marks. And even if I take the time to earn enough, so just I can make use of my months of gathering. I will stll be rewarded for my months of preparation by being hit with a fuse fee.
Yea, my math is just fine.
The thing with AD sinks is that people have to use them if they want those sinks to be any effective. Is not like now we don't have AD sinks, but the fees are so high that people don't use them. And if they leave this system the way it is, we're just going to have another unused AD sink.
Ambisinisterr has suggested some changes for the fees, which I think make sense, and I hope they are taken into consideration.
I do understand where you're coming from, but if I may try to provide another point of view:
I think, that the amount of time you need to spend to gather the required materials, will go down. Let me break it down, to what I perceive:
Given a fixed amount of time, let's say for example you would need 1 hour (as someone else in this thread mentioned) to get enough matching rank 4 items to create a rank 7, you would get an abundance of other enchantments and runestones in the same time frame. As you would not need to wait till you got all the matching rank 4 items, you would be done faster than 1 hour. Now you have two options: either you get the ADs through other means or you could continue to use up the 1 hour and sell everything else you've gained in the time.
And, as in the future all enchantments and runestones of rank 1 to 4 will be beneficial and useful, the difference between those will not be as much as we have now (currently the most expensive rank 4 goes for nearly 2,000 ADs on the Auction House and the cheapest goes for 100 ADs), therefore the value of the abundance of enchantments you've aquired in said 1 hour, will be higher.
Also, you would not need to wait month to get enough "Preservation Wards"--and even if you would, you also could sell the not-needed wards to get the ADs required for the upgrade.
Therefore the defining factor, in my opinion, will be the availability of the "Mark of Potency" and not the direct AD cost. My personal guess is, that it will not take you longer to get the "Mark of Potency" as it is now with the wards.
Having a system where you can refine a rank_6 enchantment using four rank_5 and being at loss it's counter-intuitive to say the least.
If you use a rank_5 instead of four rank_4 you should be on pair or the game shouldn't allow me to deliberately waste my AD/time without, at least, a simple warning. It's an attitude in game developing that many many players really appreciate.
I'm sorry but I have to disagree: AD sinks can't be optional. This one isn't optional unless you think that someone can actually play endgame dungeons without weapon/armor enchantments and rank_5+ enchantments.
Anyway I agree with you that AD sinks should be tuned very carefully since they can hinder the gameplay experience. So far it seems to me that it's pretty fair considering that only using refined AD you just need 4 days to get a rank_4 of any kind (now you may need double than that for a dark).
I could care less if the new system makes things slighty easier in some respecets. That really wont effect me much.
I feel like ive been a good player. Farmed and saved my assests and put them away for safe keeping. I was in no hurry I was content to wait till I was ready to bother with it all. Safe in the thought that all my hard work and saving was secure.
Except that now Im being told that I cant make use of my savings. In effect, I cant withdraw it without now paying a fee. All my hard work is now locked behind a pay wall and a new type of drop that needs to be collected before I can use what I have already earned.
That is my problem with this system.
The transition to the new system may hurt a little (for someone; I'm barely in the same position as you do having stored about 84 Vorpal shards and a Greater Vorpal, aiming at a Perfect Vorpal myself), depending on how many wards are you going to sell for a good price but, in the long terms, this new system will be much better.
Sorry if Repost,
The new system could be much better if they remove the AD sink from low rank enchats, and lower the AD cost for high lvl enchats. That's the only way. You should not be forced to spend AD in low rank enchants, it's like munkey said, it's a wall that make people think on the so forbidden word that can't be said here. People that can buy zen and trade for AD will have a HUGE advantge on people who just farm AD. This kind of thing leads people out of the game, just search google for "games that sell power" and see their fate.
Sure, people with rivers of AD or money to spend will not be, very convenient.
Very, very sad....
For people who like to just buy their enchants, the price should be lower than it is now. It simply requires much less runes and wards to make the upper end 8-10's and Greater - Perfects. Win Win for these people.
For those who don't want to spend a single AD making their enchants, the system requires half the resources the old system required. Simply sell the other half you would have had to have spent under the old system, to finance your AD and Mark costs. With any rune being able to be refined with any other rune, or enchant, or shard, this makes it even more efficient for you. Again. Win Win.
I no longer see how the new system is going to negatively affect the majority of the people. I only see it affecting botters, who will have to shell out up front AD's to make high ranking runes which may prove to be to cumbersome in the long run. only time will tell based on the new selling price of rank 7's and higher.
Even people who made AD's farming/selling runes to supplement their income can still do so. Runes will become priced based on their RP value, thereby again, stabilizing prices. Farmers will not have to convert tons of runes into 5s, but simply sell bulk 2's,3's,4's en mass with no losses from combines under the old system. There will be less of a reason that silvery runes are prices 1/5 the cost of Darks when the RP value of a silvery is half that of a Dark in terms of refining a Dark rune. Farmers should see the value of their "Junk" runes and enchants increase in value. again Win Win.
For myself and many guildies, this new system makes running "junk" dungeon instances worthwhile again. While neither system is absolutely perfect, I think the new one, with all the benefits added together, <unsocketing fees are now reasonable> brings most people back in line with the havs.
This is of course my opinion. I play this MMO like any MMO and partake in all aspects of the game and the economy. While u will have your extremists on both ends, the overwhelming majority of players will benefit from the new system in the long run. Things will change after it's immediate implementation, but as you can tell by AH prices, it already has.
I for one, as many I have talked to and shown how to use the new system all agree, we look forward to this new system being implemented and would like to thank the Devs for changing the unsocketing costs to gold, instead of the steep AD value. I will no longer have to settle on rank 5's and 6's and lessers on alts, but can swap out runes as I see fit, whenever I wish.
Whilst I wouldn't label myself as a fan of the new system, the single biggest benefit for me is the ability to unslot for gold. So, instead of hording and selectively using enchants, then disposing of them when I get new gear, I will now use them and move them around.
The tradeoff of is that I won't be upgrading any existing or new enchants in the foreseeable future. I've just spend almost all my AD, I have ~80k between my two main characters, and I'd rather save that for other things. I've only gone beyond rank 5 for the old system once anyway, so no real change there. Besides, 5k AD for 30 attrib points, that can wait.
So the new system is arguably better for me, but only because I've had the benefits of the old system first.
Yeah this is the case, I start playing not so many time ago, so I don't have time enough to use the benefits of the actual system. I will have to use the new system for greater enchants
I really like the new system idea, my great pain is the AD cost. If they reduce those AD costs, this system will be very very good. But if don't, I think they are shooting their foot here.
The problem with this idea is that the new system effectively doubles the supply of enchants since there is no combine loss. The massive increase in supply will drive prices down. On the other side farmers won't experience the supply loss either so they will have double the amount to sell. Then there are artifacts taking enchants so that will be a factor as well. Also while silvery enchants will go up in price, darks will go down.
As someone who makes 95% of their AD from selling enchants I'm rather concerned what this might do to the enchant prices. But there are far too many factors for me to make a guess as to what the final results will be.
What is clear is the risk item (item lost on failure) is being shifted from a cheap, easy to obtain item (enchants) to an expensive, harder to obtain item (catalysts). No doubt these new risk items will be offered in the Zen store right beside the risk protectors. Which is really what this change was about.
And yes, the new system will cap the prices or Enchantment and Runes, because now we will have something concrete to compare the prices in the AH to.
It affects the majority because I'd think most players are living in the R5-R7 range, which gains only a minor speed upgrade but a major cost downgrade. R8-R10 and weapon enchants are getting cheaper, but that benefits the upper class.
Hopefully they will take feedback into consideration and tweak some things because I think if it goes live as it currently is that will be bad news. I have no idea on the stats but I'd think the majority of players are in the latter group.
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That said, however, I would not be opposed to paying AD upfront to craft my enchantments if only the system wasn't convoluted with a mixture of resources and the AD fees were constant and reliable instead of growing with each upgrade.
I think it was clear from the get-go that power would be sold, however you could decide how to pay for that power, with your time, your money or a mixture of both. This new system is taking that choice away and urging us to go into our wallets more than ever before.
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I did a bit of farming in Vellosk and got 2 lesser marks in ~60 nodes. Starting a new Hunter character you get 5 minor marks for free at rank 15, but have to pay for the rest (25 AD each). I've got no drops of lesser marks up to level 22 in Blackdagger ruins. Not that any of this really matters, I have no slottable gear at this point anyway.
In terms of the basic quest and foundry content, which is all I generally do as a fairly casual player, you don't really need enchants at all. I've been running without on my DC for a while without issues.
I am well aware of that. People can farm preservation wards as well. Meanwhile you can buy them on the Zen store. It's a F2P game made by a company in business to make money. Guessing their motivation isn't hard. Nothing wrong with that but it is what it is.