No need to pick on zebular. The mods do all of us forum users a service, and they do it for free.
In short: RNGsus giveth and RNGsus taketh away.
If you read closely, zebular's (and related) posts give a method of acquiring coalescent wards if that is something you're concerned about...and in a "teach a man to fish" kind of way, rather than the Zen store's "buy a fish" route. I think of it as "an alternative VIP", that will become very interesting for the next 50%off black-friday sale assuming mod9 is not overly grindy.
If you read closely, zebular's (and related) posts give a method of acquiring coalescent wards if that is something you're concerned about...and in a "teach a man to fish" kind of way, rather than the Zen store's "buy a fish" route. I think of it as "an alternative VIP", that will become very interesting for the next 50%off black-friday sale assuming mod9 is not overly grindy.
I would not describe managing an army of 30 different prayerbots as "alternate VIP", but that's just me -- and who the hell do I think I am, anyway? I'm just some fat judgmental HAMSTER that thinks games should be fun and not repetitive login abuse.
If you read closely, zebular's (and related) posts give a method of acquiring coalescent wards if that is something you're concerned about...and in a "teach a man to fish" kind of way, rather than the Zen store's "buy a fish" route. I think of it as "an alternative VIP", that will become very interesting for the next 50%off black-friday sale assuming mod9 is not overly grindy.
No, he created that army of alts to farm leadership. We all know how well that worked out. I suspect that using an army of alts to farm chests will be the next thing on the forbidden list.
Considering the recent ban waves, I would not take it as any sound advice. As a mod, Zeb is probably the ONLY army holder that is safe.
games should be fun and not repetitive login abuse.
Fair point. Though in all honesty, we are talking about how to avoid a company's attempts to monitize a service they provide for free. I kinda expect it not to look "normal". If it were both 'fun' and 'free', why would anyone pay?
I'll put a stake in the ground on this one: I'll wager the following: no-one is going to be banned for buying multiple character slots, and using the legitimate services that come with them.
That said, there is a very real chance that if we all build prayer armies, that coalescent wards will be removed from the boxes, or that invocation becomes 'per account'. I.e., as with all things in this game, they can change the rules without notice, so caveat emptor.
Fair point. Though in all honesty, we are talking about how to avoid a company's attempts to monitize a service they provide for free. I kinda expect it not to look "normal". If it were both 'fun' and 'free', why would anyone pay?
Well, you see to get back to the point of this thread, we have the answer: VIP.
The point of VIP was so that you could pay a small steady payment of cash and skip mindless repetitive unfun HAMSTER like login abuse. You had these tarm bars from your daily key that you could use to buy coal wards and other nifty stuff. But then somebody in management apparently had a "moment", and now VIP is castrated.
The only 3 recourses left for reasonable advancement are Zebular-style farming alts, paying WAAAAY too much in the Zen store, or 3rd party spammers. Personally, I would very strongly suggest neither of the 3.
Look... this game is fun to level to 60 right now. It's kinda a little less fun to get to 70. But after 70, it's time to do something else. There's no endgame here. Once you hit 70 you've won. Play something else. If you can just say these things to yourself you'll realize that you don't need to worry about coal wards or refinement or any of that endgame HAMSTER. Just play it until it stops being fun and then quit.
I'll put a stake in the ground on this one: I'll wager the following: no-one is going to be banned for buying multiple character slots, and using the legitimate services that come with them.
Unless you happen to open too many gift boxes during the winter event.
Granted, they backed off and unbanned people after admitting their detection system was overzealous. They have, however, gone so far as to call leadership armies as exploitive in their own blogs. Something that was up to that point, considered perfectly acceptable and endorsed by the rule brokers. So, i'd personally not bet my account on what they might decide is the next fix for the economy.
So any advice, regardless of its source, that tells you to game the system by sheer weight of numbers. Should be vehemently called out as bad advice.
0
zebularMember, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 15,270Community Moderator
If you read closely, zebular's (and related) posts give a method of acquiring coalescent wards if that is something you're concerned about...and in a "teach a man to fish" kind of way, rather than the Zen store's "buy a fish" route. I think of it as "an alternative VIP", that will become very interesting for the next 50%off black-friday sale assuming mod9 is not overly grindy.
No, he created that army of alts to farm leadership. We all know how well that worked out. I suspect that using an army of alts to farm chests will be the next thing on the forbidden list.
Considering the recent ban waves, I would not take it as any sound advice. As a mod, Zeb is probably the ONLY army holder that is safe.
As I've said many times, I actually play all my characters. They were not created for Leadership and in fact, they all didn't always work Leadership. Each character has a "main" profession and once maxed, they'd work on another one. Only when I was low on AD is when I'd go a week or so on Leadership on them all. Best to not throw around absurd assumptions or accusations. Alas, it's clear you have some biased perception of me for whatever reason, which is truly sad. I am sorry I am an alt-a'holic and that threatens you, but really stooping to accusations of foul play is a new low, even for you.
No offense, but you just claimed that you get "usually a coal ward once a week" from coffers.
But you aren't "farming alts"?
Okay.
Let's meet halfway on this: you know what you have to do to get a coal ward a week from coffers. We know too. No one is judging here. Out of the 3 ways I outlined earlier to get past the level 70 bottleneck, you chose to do the first one. It's perfectly within the rules, and nobody thinks you're immoral or whatever. The only thing I would have a problem with is if you had picked #3 (the goldspammers from Korea) to get ahead.
The point made earlier about alt farming was that if everybody did it, then the devs would probably have to nerf Invocation. I would assume that point is right, given what the devs have done to leadership and now the tarm store.
So, it's not a "sustainable model" for character growth. Big deal. It's not like everyone has the patience that you do, and is willing to login 30 (or however many it is) characters a day. I don't see the problem here. Keep alt farming.
I have 7 characters and did the daily invoke on each for a month. That's 2.5 chests times 7 chars over the course of a month. Know how many coal wards I got? ZERO. I quit spending the celestial coins on the chests after that and just buy the +stat potions for personal use or to sell on the AH.
You know what Cryptic should have done instead of a few days notice? They should have said "At the end of next month we are going to remove Coalescent Wards from the Trade bar store." This would have given everyone plenty of time to buy wards and not literally double the value of all higher end enchants almost over night. Transcendent Weapon and armor enchants were down to around 3-4 mil a pop on the Auction house, they are now back up to 6-7 million. I noticed Rank 11s also doubled, haven't bothered looking at 12s as I couldn't afford them before, never will now.
What type of economy fix is that ???????????
Not to mention the fact that i was paying for a service (VIP) for the sole reason that i could get trade bars from chests, and that service is now useless to me, everything else included with VIP is fluff and convenience. (I sure as hell have never pulled a multi million dollar drop from a lock box.) Cryptic got caught with their hand in the cookie jar on the Xbox trade bar deal and have now decided to say "oh there is no cookie jar for anyone, so its ok!".
No offense, but you just claimed that you get "usually a coal ward once a week" from coffers.
But you aren't "farming alts"?
Okay.
Let's meet halfway on this: you know what you have to do to get a coal ward a week from coffers. We know too. No one is judging here. Out of the 3 ways I outlined earlier to get past the level 70 bottleneck, you chose to do the first one. It's perfectly within the rules, and nobody thinks you're immoral or whatever. The only thing I would have a problem with is if you had picked #3 (the goldspammers from Korea) to get ahead.
The point made earlier about alt farming was that if everybody did it, then the devs would probably have to nerf Invocation. I would assume that point is right, given what the devs have done to leadership and now the tarm store.
So, it's not a "sustainable model" for character growth. Big deal. It's not like everyone has the patience that you do, and is willing to login 30 (or however many it is) characters a day. I don't see the problem here. Keep alt farming.
Farming? Nope, I wouldn't say so. What I do on days I have time to play is first invoke and do professions once on each character and by the time I get done, I invoke again on each as the 15 minutes have passed. The last character I invoke on is the character I chose to play that day or week, which changes each day or week as I cycle my focus between my characters. I then play that character until it's invoke time is available, then cycle invokes when it is convenient and then continuing to play on that character again. I keep doing this through out my game-time for that day and usually eventually end up fully invoking on all my characters by the time I quit playing for the day. If that is farming, then yeah I guess so. However, to me that is playing the game and all of my characters.
As for getting coals wards once a week... you misunderstand, I average at least one a week. I don't always play each day but if you add the days I do play, it would work out to averaging one a week that I play. Sometimes only play one day a week, so it could take me a week or two to gain that one coal ward.
You also have to understand that I used to have a lot of time to play my many characters, often playing a chosen character for 10+ hours, off and on, per day, every day for the first couple years of the game. Now, I don't have so much time, not nearly. Lately, I've mostly only been invoking once on my first character and doing his professions with about once a week having time to do a full invoke cycle while playing a chosen character.
As for a bottleneck, I haven't experienced such. The only slow-down I feel is between 68 to 70. Leveling to 68 is crazy fast. If you're getting a bottleneck earlier than that, you're probably skipping content or missing things you could do to get experience.
Quote from PC Games.com about Neverwinter's current state:
"Word of warning, though: Unless you approach the game casually, you'll probably have to spend money. It's become increasingly difficult to play for free, though certainly not impossible. "
That's the reality, as described by outside observers. I've noticed an uptick in BS posts from trolls/spin drs trying to convince gamers all is well - the future is bright - the game is getting better. And maybe it will. But only if you are willing to spend more $$$.
*The "bottleneck" I was referring to was the item level bottleneck. Massive amounts of refining points for artifacts and coal wards for various enchants are needed to get through. The entire progression of the post 70 game here is based on boons and refining, not XP as much.
And as for your farming... yes, if you are getting so many coffers that you routinely see coal wards, then you are farming like a maniac. Most ppl never see more than 1 or 2 EVER. But labels like "farmer" don't really mean much. As I mentioned before, there is no shame or stigma for alt farming. A LOT of ppl do it. And probably more have started since last Monday. Because of the changes to the tarmalune bar store.
It is simply a side-effect of what the last patch has wrought... people are NOT going to be lining up around the block to pay 10 bucks per coal ward. They just aren't. Think about how many coals you've gotten from your coffers over the years. Multiply that number by ten dollars. Would you have spent that money?
This is all I'm saying.
0
klangeddinMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 882Arc User
edited February 2016
The problem with this change is that it wasn't properly compensated. (no, the mail with the blood ruby was a joke, don't even mention it). They could have:
- raised those 1% success chances to something more human at least, like a 10% - increased the drop rates of wards from celestial coffers - allowed a way to convert preservation wards into coals and viceversa
Any of those would have made the change more bearable, but no, nothing. No wonder people got pissed.
eldes, i wasnt picking on zeb, just describing classic quote in how lucky he is, i kinda knew Zeb from other old online game, may have chat in /general chat with him few times, also he may have lead a group in newly opened dungeon vaults during patch days. it was honor to know zeb once again.
right now, i am still waiting a word from offical programmer reps when there is a new pricing adjustments and one of my most recent proposal in few pages ago. as i was told, it is very tall order and time consuming to make a full overhaul with Auction House, prices in those other shops, and moving items to specific menu and what currencies to be use. that would take months.
personally, they would use interns to train and have them assist with teams.
I get it that it is costly to support the game and that besides the once in a playtime bag and mount - c.wards are the only thing that sells besides keys in the ZEN Store, but you just made the keys a lot less useful and @zebular - do you find that invoking with 30+ characters (log them in log them out few times a day) is an interesting way to spend your time ingame?
Cause if you are playing 1h/day you have to spend 90% of your game time on the change character screen.
*wording edit
Please fix Zhentarim Warlock companion's skill "Arcane Warping" to the originally intended "Arcane Boost" zhentarim-warlock-companion
or simply reduce the zen price of c.wards to 500Z - that would be a price that imho more people would spend on those (or zaxchange for those). And to stay on the topic - i think the other reason is to force people to hoard refining items = messy inventory = buy more bags
Please fix Zhentarim Warlock companion's skill "Arcane Warping" to the originally intended "Arcane Boost" zhentarim-warlock-companion
Any official statement about why we didn't receive a second round of free gifts on the PC side, or why another round of free gifts were issued on the Xbox side?
Or what about giving the PC players also that gift per certain number of Trade Bars in their pockets too?
As I've said many times, I actually play all my characters. They were not created for Leadership and in fact, they all didn't always work Leadership. Each character has a "main" profession and once maxed, they'd work on another one. Only when I was low on AD is when I'd go a week or so on Leadership on them all. Best to not throw around absurd assumptions or accusations. Alas, it's clear you have some biased perception of me for whatever reason, which is truly sad. I am sorry I am an alt-a'holic and that threatens you, but really stooping to accusations of foul play is a new low, even for you.
You have clearly missed the point.
When people complain about the difficulty of earning wards now, and your rebuttal is chime in with "I get plenty, doing it my way" I feel its important to explain to everyone fully, what your way is. Because your way is not average, its not even close to average. So, I have to wonder what the point of your "1 per week, on average" rebuttal is for. Either you are encouraging people to adopt your methods, or you are bragging. What other reason could their possibly be?
I'm not threatened, I'm concerned. We have already established that farming chests, if not outright dangerous, is ultimately self destructive and likely to lead to further unpopular changes. So, for you to use it as an example or advice on why you, yourself, have plenty of wards. Especially as a person in authority, is something that should be objected to.
Nah, I just have quite a number of characters I've invested in. I usually get at least one Coal a week, sometimes more, sometimes less. I have gone a few weeks without any and on the flip-side, the most I've gotten in one week's time is 4.
DUDE. That is some seriously consistent luck, unless we are talking like 50 chars here. Usually one a WEEK? Are you Irish or something? Holy HAMSTER!
He has 50 characters. His sig used to list them all.
I wasted five million AD promoting the Foundry.
0
vinceent1Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,264Arc User
ok Zeb, before, at leadership AD times, you make a lot of characters. Could you make a lot of characters now? honestly
I'm not threatened, I'm concerned. We have already established that farming chests, if not outright dangerous, is ultimately self destructive and likely to lead to further unpopular changes. So, for you to use it as an example or advice on why you, yourself, have plenty of wards. Especially as a person in authority, is something that should be objected to.
I don't know dude. Being a volunteer moderator on the forums isn't exactly a "position of authority". I would imagine it more as the playerbase's online "whipping boy", to be more accurate. Look at how much these poor bastages have to edit and delete in order to maintain some measure of decorum here. It's like wrangling a herd of angry cats with rabies.
Besides, Zeb gets coffers in an amount that over 99% of the playerbase will simply not. Just like they aren't going to be lining up to pay 10 bucks a ward, they aren't also all going to be assaulting the login servers with 30+ characters to pray/professions with. Maybe a couple extras, that's it.
I think the important thing to realize here is that you used to be able to rely on VIP to play just one character. It was enough with the tarm bars and the old store, plus the occasional (if lucky) decent drop from a lockbox. Those days are gone. This is going to be a net loss for the company. Who knows how much of a loss yet, but a loss. Driving slightly more people to the Zen store at the cost of most of the VIP subs? Bad move.
All this has done is ensure that a lot of ppl stop playing when they start to feel the item level bottleneck. I don't know if the skinner-box design of post 70 gameplay (progress bars EVERYWHERE! YAY!) is going to conquer common sense. Maybe it will. Maybe it will be enough time for the guys to get some real, actual endgame content produced. Tough call right now.
Comments
Sad but most efficient way to get wards.
*Sad that this is the most efficient way to get wards*
zhentarim-warlock-companion
Pure -> Transcendent Plague Fire weapon enchantment giving 80damge/20 seconds for 500k+ AD is a joke.
plague-fire-weapon-enchant-r11-vs-r12
+ Xbox players got something as compensation for every 200 Trade Bars.
+ A "Free Gift" pack.
+ And another "Free Gift" pack now.
Hmmm...
In short: RNGsus giveth and RNGsus taketh away.
If you read closely, zebular's (and related) posts give a method of acquiring coalescent wards if that is something you're concerned about...and in a "teach a man to fish" kind of way, rather than the Zen store's "buy a fish" route. I think of it as "an alternative VIP", that will become very interesting for the next 50%off black-friday sale assuming mod9 is not overly grindy.
Considering the recent ban waves, I would not take it as any sound advice. As a mod, Zeb is probably the ONLY army holder that is safe.
That said, there is a very real chance that if we all build prayer armies, that coalescent wards will be removed from the boxes, or that invocation becomes 'per account'. I.e., as with all things in this game, they can change the rules without notice, so caveat emptor.
The point of VIP was so that you could pay a small steady payment of cash and skip mindless repetitive unfun HAMSTER like login abuse. You had these tarm bars from your daily key that you could use to buy coal wards and other nifty stuff. But then somebody in management apparently had a "moment", and now VIP is castrated.
The only 3 recourses left for reasonable advancement are Zebular-style farming alts, paying WAAAAY too much in the Zen store, or 3rd party spammers. Personally, I would very strongly suggest neither of the 3.
Look... this game is fun to level to 60 right now. It's kinda a little less fun to get to 70. But after 70, it's time to do something else. There's no endgame here. Once you hit 70 you've won. Play something else. If you can just say these things to yourself you'll realize that you don't need to worry about coal wards or refinement or any of that endgame HAMSTER. Just play it until it stops being fun and then quit.
Granted, they backed off and unbanned people after admitting their detection system was overzealous. They have, however, gone so far as to call leadership armies as exploitive in their own blogs. Something that was up to that point, considered perfectly acceptable and endorsed by the rule brokers. So, i'd personally not bet my account on what they might decide is the next fix for the economy.
So any advice, regardless of its source, that tells you to game the system by sheer weight of numbers. Should be vehemently called out as bad advice.
[ Support Center • Rules & Policies and Guidelines • ARC ToS • Guild Recruitment Guidelines | FR DM Since 1993 ]
But you aren't "farming alts"?
Okay.
Let's meet halfway on this: you know what you have to do to get a coal ward a week from coffers. We know too. No one is judging here. Out of the 3 ways I outlined earlier to get past the level 70 bottleneck, you chose to do the first one. It's perfectly within the rules, and nobody thinks you're immoral or whatever. The only thing I would have a problem with is if you had picked #3 (the goldspammers from Korea) to get ahead.
The point made earlier about alt farming was that if everybody did it, then the devs would probably have to nerf Invocation. I would assume that point is right, given what the devs have done to leadership and now the tarm store.
So, it's not a "sustainable model" for character growth. Big deal. It's not like everyone has the patience that you do, and is willing to login 30 (or however many it is) characters a day. I don't see the problem here. Keep alt farming.
You know what Cryptic should have done instead of a few days notice? They should have said "At the end of next month we are going to remove Coalescent Wards from the Trade bar store." This would have given everyone plenty of time to buy wards and not literally double the value of all higher end enchants almost over night. Transcendent Weapon and armor enchants were down to around 3-4 mil a pop on the Auction house, they are now back up to 6-7 million. I noticed Rank 11s also doubled, haven't bothered looking at 12s as I couldn't afford them before, never will now.
What type of economy fix is that ???????????
Not to mention the fact that i was paying for a service (VIP) for the sole reason that i could get trade bars from chests, and that service is now useless to me, everything else included with VIP is fluff and convenience. (I sure as hell have never pulled a multi million dollar drop from a lock box.) Cryptic got caught with their hand in the cookie jar on the Xbox trade bar deal and have now decided to say "oh there is no cookie jar for anyone, so its ok!".
http://massivelyop.com/2016/02/10/neverwinter-trade-bar-store-bait-and-switch-causes-community-stir/
As for getting coals wards once a week... you misunderstand, I average at least one a week. I don't always play each day but if you add the days I do play, it would work out to averaging one a week that I play. Sometimes only play one day a week, so it could take me a week or two to gain that one coal ward.
You also have to understand that I used to have a lot of time to play my many characters, often playing a chosen character for 10+ hours, off and on, per day, every day for the first couple years of the game. Now, I don't have so much time, not nearly. Lately, I've mostly only been invoking once on my first character and doing his professions with about once a week having time to do a full invoke cycle while playing a chosen character.
As for a bottleneck, I haven't experienced such. The only slow-down I feel is between 68 to 70. Leveling to 68 is crazy fast. If you're getting a bottleneck earlier than that, you're probably skipping content or missing things you could do to get experience.
[ Support Center • Rules & Policies and Guidelines • ARC ToS • Guild Recruitment Guidelines | FR DM Since 1993 ]
"Word of warning, though: Unless you approach the game casually, you'll probably have to spend money. It's become increasingly difficult to play for free, though certainly not impossible. "
That's the reality, as described by outside observers. I've noticed an uptick in BS posts from trolls/spin drs trying to convince gamers all is well - the future is bright - the game is getting better. And maybe it will. But only if you are willing to spend more $$$.
And as for your farming... yes, if you are getting so many coffers that you routinely see coal wards, then you are farming like a maniac. Most ppl never see more than 1 or 2 EVER. But labels like "farmer" don't really mean much. As I mentioned before, there is no shame or stigma for alt farming. A LOT of ppl do it. And probably more have started since last Monday. Because of the changes to the tarmalune bar store.
It is simply a side-effect of what the last patch has wrought... people are NOT going to be lining up around the block to pay 10 bucks per coal ward. They just aren't. Think about how many coals you've gotten from your coffers over the years. Multiply that number by ten dollars. Would you have spent that money?
This is all I'm saying.
They could have:
- raised those 1% success chances to something more human at least, like a 10%
- increased the drop rates of wards from celestial coffers
- allowed a way to convert preservation wards into coals and viceversa
Any of those would have made the change more bearable, but no, nothing. No wonder people got pissed.
right now, i am still waiting a word from offical programmer reps when there is a new pricing adjustments and one of my most recent proposal in few pages ago. as i was told, it is very tall order and time consuming to make a full overhaul with Auction House, prices in those other shops, and moving items to specific menu and what currencies to be use. that would take months.
personally, they would use interns to train and have them assist with teams.
Cause if you are playing 1h/day you have to spend 90% of your game time on the change character screen.
*wording edit
zhentarim-warlock-companion
Pure -> Transcendent Plague Fire weapon enchantment giving 80damge/20 seconds for 500k+ AD is a joke.
plague-fire-weapon-enchant-r11-vs-r12
And to stay on the topic - i think the other reason is to force people to hoard refining items = messy inventory = buy more bags
zhentarim-warlock-companion
Pure -> Transcendent Plague Fire weapon enchantment giving 80damge/20 seconds for 500k+ AD is a joke.
plague-fire-weapon-enchant-r11-vs-r12
Or what about giving the PC players also that gift per certain number of Trade Bars in their pockets too?
When people complain about the difficulty of earning wards now, and your rebuttal is chime in with "I get plenty, doing it my way" I feel its important to explain to everyone fully, what your way is. Because your way is not average, its not even close to average. So, I have to wonder what the point of your "1 per week, on average" rebuttal is for. Either you are encouraging people to adopt your methods, or you are bragging. What other reason could their possibly be?
I'm not threatened, I'm concerned. We have already established that farming chests, if not outright dangerous, is ultimately self destructive and likely to lead to further unpopular changes. So, for you to use it as an example or advice on why you, yourself, have plenty of wards. Especially as a person in authority, is something that should be objected to.
is it useable way for now?
Besides, Zeb gets coffers in an amount that over 99% of the playerbase will simply not. Just like they aren't going to be lining up to pay 10 bucks a ward, they aren't also all going to be assaulting the login servers with 30+ characters to pray/professions with. Maybe a couple extras, that's it.
I think the important thing to realize here is that you used to be able to rely on VIP to play just one character. It was enough with the tarm bars and the old store, plus the occasional (if lucky) decent drop from a lockbox. Those days are gone. This is going to be a net loss for the company. Who knows how much of a loss yet, but a loss. Driving slightly more people to the Zen store at the cost of most of the VIP subs? Bad move.
All this has done is ensure that a lot of ppl stop playing when they start to feel the item level bottleneck. I don't know if the skinner-box design of post 70 gameplay (progress bars EVERYWHERE! YAY!) is going to conquer common sense. Maybe it will. Maybe it will be enough time for the guys to get some real, actual endgame content produced. Tough call right now.