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The Proof of the Impact that the Removal of Leadership AD has Caused
checkmatein3
Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 525 Arc User
I am a guild leader of a moderately-sized, semi-casual guild. We managed to save the guild from the previously depressing mod 6 hack job, officer abandonment, and promote activity from June through the first 20 days of Mod 7. We have been able to recruit fun, active players of all levels and playstyles to help build the structures in Strongholds and hold a massive guild lottery event (giving out prizes totalling over 30Mil in AD). Of the 150ish accounts in the guild, over 70% were active within 1 week of play. We were always able to do DF successfully and store up fangs for the new armor sets. It was fun to come online and go in the guild hall and see 25-40 of your friends at any one time running around doing quests, dungeons, DF, whatever. The coffers went up from regular players and big donors, alike. There was a great spirit of comraderie. The mob change to reduce the dmg from mod 6 and the hp nerf helped even more. The previous sins of the developers (removing unbound, set-based epic gear from dungeons; implementing burdensome AD sinks in enchants, artifacts, artifact-gear, and strongholds; etc) were almost forgotten. Almost...
Then, the removal of leadership came. With Guild Hall 8 and Market Place 4 already collected for and waiting to be built (construction times are the enemy), the online participation of the guild has dropped to less than 15%. I have asked for a courtesy 'I quit' message if anyone does decide to leave the game. I have received many such emails already. Regardless of what the developers say or what forum moderators edit, the latest change COMBINED with all the previous changes has caused the immediate reduction of active play. There can be no waiting. Even with the new PvP, the game is in throes. The economy is filled with AD sinks everywhere. Those of us who have been around since open beta know of what the economy was like prior to AD sinks. You did not need salvage or Refine points or greater marks of anything because the enchant system was superior (yes, it was) and the unbound epic sets that were earned from dungeon runs had no rp investment and had tremendous party based bonuses. Run a set of T2s and get your epic set, or... buy a set from the AH from those who ran it and are selling it for some nice AD. Do you want different sets? Run different dungeons. There was plenty of space in bags (yes, enchants took up space to level up, but not as much as all the rp does). Everything was unbound until you equipped it. And you could run a plethora of dungeons. Were you bored of Castle Never and the epic T2 drops? Go run Pirate King. Or, Frozen Heart. Or, for a challenge with little reward...epic Dread Vault (dungeons that 2 modules of new players have no idea about).
But, through the small changes, there were no options for players to earn a good income of AD, legitimately. So, the result were leadership armies. Remove the source of AD from gear and implement AD sinks in artifacts and artifact gear (which now, serendipitously have the set bonuses, but weak ones in comparison to the old sets), and players turn to what they can get. Then, through the painful dance of leadership this and leadership that, the removal of AD has left no means by which players can earn AD. The market will correct itself on some things. But, the AD sinks are still everywhere in the game. So, donations to the coffer are down. Participation is down. Morale is down. And the only hope is mod 8, with a new class (maybe), a nerf to the paladin (my guess since new class is always overpowered at beginning), and the return of dungeons. But, this is not sufficient. The restoration of a free economy with no AD sinks must happen first, and quickly. I do not know how long even the most loyal of players can hold out for these changes. But, the proof is in the proverbial pudding. Our guild is suffering since.
Thank you for your time in reading this.
BLUNTFORCE TRAUMA.
Officer in Guild Myrmidons
Then, the removal of leadership came. With Guild Hall 8 and Market Place 4 already collected for and waiting to be built (construction times are the enemy), the online participation of the guild has dropped to less than 15%. I have asked for a courtesy 'I quit' message if anyone does decide to leave the game. I have received many such emails already. Regardless of what the developers say or what forum moderators edit, the latest change COMBINED with all the previous changes has caused the immediate reduction of active play. There can be no waiting. Even with the new PvP, the game is in throes. The economy is filled with AD sinks everywhere. Those of us who have been around since open beta know of what the economy was like prior to AD sinks. You did not need salvage or Refine points or greater marks of anything because the enchant system was superior (yes, it was) and the unbound epic sets that were earned from dungeon runs had no rp investment and had tremendous party based bonuses. Run a set of T2s and get your epic set, or... buy a set from the AH from those who ran it and are selling it for some nice AD. Do you want different sets? Run different dungeons. There was plenty of space in bags (yes, enchants took up space to level up, but not as much as all the rp does). Everything was unbound until you equipped it. And you could run a plethora of dungeons. Were you bored of Castle Never and the epic T2 drops? Go run Pirate King. Or, Frozen Heart. Or, for a challenge with little reward...epic Dread Vault (dungeons that 2 modules of new players have no idea about).
But, through the small changes, there were no options for players to earn a good income of AD, legitimately. So, the result were leadership armies. Remove the source of AD from gear and implement AD sinks in artifacts and artifact gear (which now, serendipitously have the set bonuses, but weak ones in comparison to the old sets), and players turn to what they can get. Then, through the painful dance of leadership this and leadership that, the removal of AD has left no means by which players can earn AD. The market will correct itself on some things. But, the AD sinks are still everywhere in the game. So, donations to the coffer are down. Participation is down. Morale is down. And the only hope is mod 8, with a new class (maybe), a nerf to the paladin (my guess since new class is always overpowered at beginning), and the return of dungeons. But, this is not sufficient. The restoration of a free economy with no AD sinks must happen first, and quickly. I do not know how long even the most loyal of players can hold out for these changes. But, the proof is in the proverbial pudding. Our guild is suffering since.
Thank you for your time in reading this.
BLUNTFORCE TRAUMA.
Officer in Guild Myrmidons
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Comments
RIP Real Tiamat, RIP Real Demogorgon RIP real Temple of the spider. Why remove non bis content to give to bis players ????
FORCING the majority of your player base to play 4 mod old dungeons and trial will have a bad result on player base
Changes are getting so bad i would rather prefer no new changes (RIP ICE FISHING in winter fest)
The problem is that this game, with the direction it took, tends to attract only this kind of player. Easy come, Easy spend, Easy leave.
Building a guild is a long time process, find core players, and then add a few more by recruitment wave. I Hope your guild is not too much damaged, and I hope mod 8 will be the savior and will make come back many players.
In the past week, we've collected *maybe* 20k of the nearly 300k Treasures of Tyranny to upgrade our next structure. No one wants to grind that out again. Again. Again.
We have a solid core group, but that's what we're down to. I've honestly considered many, many times that I should just throw in the towel, instead of keeping my Guild on life support... Mod 6 didn't kill us, but hurt us pretty bad. Mod 7 started out with a bang, but same thing... people are quickly losing interest.
"...I grab my wiener and charge!" - ironzerg79
If the stealth taxes on boons are immediately removed then you know they plan on staying around. If they aren't removed quickly then you know that the plan all along was to enter the market, extract as much $ as possible, then exit.
I do agree that the game is geared toward casual players, and that most of the objectives other than "dominate PVP" can be obtained fairly quickly (given all of the content that was removed). My OP got a few R7/R8's from my other toons but otherwise got there on his own. Within 2 months he was leveled, geared, and helping to clear even eCC (legitmately). No more challenges for him.
Love your signature graphic!
Sci-fi author: The Gods We Make, The Gods We Seek, and Ji-min
Further evidence of lacking participation - last night when I checked, there were only 3 full instances in PE (yet almost 2000 instances of bots running Ghost Stories).
Sci-fi author: The Gods We Make, The Gods We Seek, and Ji-min
I was talking about newcomers. Actually, the guild searchers are 80% newcomers, 20% members of small dying guilds ( still my personal feeling as guild leader )
I know the game is full of people who believe, because the gameplay is amazing ( even with some little bugs) and i am in this "MOD 8 WILL SAVE US" hype train.
As I look at the Zen exchange I see that my Zen now buys less AD than it did prior to this "fix". I also notice that AD prices have not dropped on the Bazaar. So Cryptic just jacked the price to play way up. I do not believe games operate for free. However, a smaller number of people playing means that they need to get more $$$ from those who stay. Of course we are not dealing with anyone who actually understands that blatantly greedy actions usually backfire in an environment that allows consumers multiple options (such as other games to go play). We also see the lack of knowledge by the posters who just tell people to leave, without understanding the negative impact it has on their gaming experience.
So is there still someone here left believing, that Underdark will manage to bring players back into the game?
RIP Real Tiamat, RIP Real Demogorgon RIP real Temple of the spider. Why remove non bis content to give to bis players ????
FORCING the majority of your player base to play 4 mod old dungeons and trial will have a bad result on player base
Changes are getting so bad i would rather prefer no new changes (RIP ICE FISHING in winter fest)
If you still think that the clearing rate of the backlog will be 1m AD per day at that time... think again.
ZEN doesn't just appear in game out of thin air, player have to buy it for real money.
Now take a look around you, and try finding some real players, who are still in the mood of spending money.
And an account wide limit for refining AD would have slowed those leadership armies down... but the Devs did nothing to clean up the AD from bugs and exploits for a very long time.
And i doubt, that they got all those AD bugs and exploits fixed too.
In other words, they are just trying to push more players into buy ZEN, and that will only backfire...
As a GL myself, what the OP said resonate a lot with me. Well said!
I wouldn't spend more good money after bad, but with the state of the AD Exchange, this is further reinforced.
http://steamcharts.com/app/109600
i know, only showing the players going through Steam... but it still shows a certain trend, and it's not a positive one.
Removing AD from the Leadership profession was done in the harshest way so that solo players with even 1 character were affected. And it did not call for nerfing the dailies whatsoever. We make less AD for our effort with the current scheme. Were the dailies a problem for you as well?
The official reason for the change to AD was "botters". You note that it was because of "Leadership Armies". You seem to have no problem with the management team lying to your face. Good luck with that.
would you invest with the beagle boys?
I'm of the opinion that the Wondrous Bazaar needs to be heavily modified or removed outright.
Do you now get it?
Players are leaving the game, and it does not matter if they invested time or money.
Lol I have a problem with the Company that runs the game.I was never sided with removing AD from leadership.I had 7 alts which I play time to time have level 20 leadership but people were botting the Leadership by the way.You can look it up from the net.There was an open topic about they were writing a script for ingame AD farming after they removed it from gateway.
The problem is that W. Bazaar items on the AH are not based on the player economy, but rather are fixed costs. So players having less AD income doesn't allow each dollar to buy more stuff from the bazaar, like AH items.
you think bot farming is what's keeping your profit margins low? No, you stupid morons, it's the fact that your managers want you to get stuff done on time rather than MAKE GOOD STUFF.
Gamers are sick of rush job BS. Give us some quality or just close the freaking game down and let us move on.
You people are a freaking embarrassment to developers everywhere right now.