I'm less upset at the loss of the Gateway as I am disappointed that, again, Cryptic has chosen the path of least resistance (aka the nuclear option) over finding a creative solution that at least attempts to salvage some of the useful features of the gateway. A read only AH? Read only mail? Guild roster, character sheets, read-only/non-interactive inventory, ZAX... Even if full AH, all professions and SCA had to be dropped due to bots, at least make the effort to leave something.
But no, true to form, Cryptic takes the uncreative, easiest approach without regard for its customers.
Then, gives some crappy companion as "compensation" As mentioned, it's probably a single Character bound thing too - might as well as insult to injury. Hopefully, they can be bothered to at least make it an account unlock like other promo companions so we all get it for free on every toon, reclaimable, forever...
Even read only profession is good. At least, I can see if the tasks are done and how many of them are done. If it is really a bot problem, they can do that. I don't think it is. This is probably another point for "it has nothing to do with bot". It is obvious to me that they had no interest to have a "solution" when they made the decision way before labour day.
*** The game can read your mind. If you want it, you won't get it. If you don't expect to get it, you will. ***
This makes me very sad indeed... I used the gateway to do professions and I used the gateway to buy things on the auction house.
It has been a regular part of my life for over three years... I would gateway every morning on my tablet and start my tasks. I would gateway at lunch time at work on my phone and collect my D20 roll. If I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't get back to sleep I would look for bargains on the auction house. If I had spare time I would treat myself to game of sword coast adventures.
Almost every day for years and now it's just stopped. Just like that. I feel like I can't play effectively or efficiently... I was getting into masterworks professions, but that seems impossible now. The chances of finding the right rare tasks have diminished...
I don't know what to do now... my heart isn't in it The gateway was a big part of how I play this game.
I think it's pretty clear, the current crew is completely incompetent and plan to run this game deep into the ground. I don't think I could have planned a better way to HAMSTER off the players if I tried. Truly mind boggling.
I'm less upset at the loss of the Gateway as I am disappointed that, again, Cryptic has chosen the path of least resistance (aka the nuclear option) over finding a creative solution that at least attempts to salvage some of the useful features of the gateway. A read only AH? Read only mail? Guild roster, character sheets, read-only/non-interactive inventory, ZAX... Even if full AH, all professions and SCA had to be dropped due to bots, at least make the effort to leave something.
But no, true to form, Cryptic takes the uncreative, easiest approach without regard for its customers.
Then, gives some crappy companion as "compensation" As mentioned, it's probably a single Character bound thing too - might as well as insult to injury. Hopefully, they can be bothered to at least make it an account unlock like other promo companions so we all get it for free on every toon, reclaimable, forever...
please do not mention the promo companions. reminds me of the promo companion fiasco where they took months and months and then they even gave the wrong amount of companions at end.
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tripsofthrymrMember, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,624Community Moderator
Here's a few observations I have thought of: 1. Watching the explosion of negative response from the gateway shutdown, I have something to say. If you think that Cryptic didn't weighed the pros and cons of alienating the player base against the time, effort, money and servers needed to keep the gateway up, you're dumb. Try to see it from their shoes, the bots have gotten so good that they can make a new account, make a character, complete the starting quests, invoke, run daily dungeons and skirmishes, and post up items for auction, then using the gateway they can max professions, spam run SCA for items and trawl the AH for any deals and repost all for profit. They can't ban accounts fast enough to fight the influx of new characters. And all that is happening with gateway up, 5% of traffic is legitimate players using it as its meant to, 95% bots abusing it to farm.
2. Trawling the AH with botters BREAKS the AH. This is the reason gateway is down. The servers got FRIED because some thousand accounts, set to trawl AH prices, so overworked the servers that they CAUGHT FIRE! Now with it down botters are going to have to logon, hopefully, potentially maximizing their exposure to devs and getting banned. Soon AH prices will start rising as bot accounts are banned and items become scarce, but will then drop and regulate because bots aren't artificially inflating prices for profit.
3. If you have an idea to make the game better, post it. If the community would pool all of its resources we could have easily come up with a solution before it came to this. And who knows if they do get the wonderful idea that fixes everything you can bet they will employ it and bring gateway back.
With the latest in the feature pullback feature (Gateway closing down), I realized that I had to put in my two cents again. It may not matter, but it's my two cents and it's gotta get out. Looking back to 2013 when I joined the game, I realize that the latest (and many of the past feature pullbacks) doesn't really affect me. I have a full set of gear on three mains, a full set of R12 on one and R10 on the second and R9s on the third - and I know MANY of friends who have full R12s on multiple chars - more than my measly one. This means I can continue to 'probably' enjoy the ever increasingly harder-not-worth-the-reward content for a few more months till the next feature pullback. But enough about me, when I first came to this game, I spent a few hundred bucks in the first few months. Why? Because it was a fun game for a new comer. I enjoyed many aspects of the game and the community. I still remember the first time I died and didn't know if resurrection would delete my toon. I panic strickenly asked around till someone told me NO. Then came the major injury. It's been a fun journey. But now, looking at the system, I cannot imagine being a new player in the game. I'm NOT going to recommend anyone to play NW because it's going look bad on me - I don't want to be that loser who asked someone to join what is probably the top deteriorating MMORPG at the moment. And let's face it, there's no selling point either. I can't help them - since everything's bound and cannot be shared. They will not be allowed to chat, move, trade or do anything. And maybe I'm mistaken, but distancing the whole community of players seems to be a bad idea. While I simply don't care enough to even comment on most of the changes, this is the second time in the past three years that I've been compelled to make a statement. Because it takes from me too. I'm one of those in the bottom of the creamy layer - and everyone below me is going to feel increasingly hard pressed to enjoy the game. I would love to point out many basic economic articles and research regarding how banning and regulating things leads to an INCREASED black market movement, on how it widens the distance between the haves and have nots. Why? Because it's NOT my job to keep people interested in the game - it's yours. When you (whoever takes a dime from what I've put into this game) ask ME to start doing YOUR job, you are inherently breaking many of the contracts of fair play. [At this point, your invocation changes have certainly broken the contract of VIP subscription]. As a side note, when you employ the opportunity to break contracts without fairness, be prepared to receive subtle back lash from the community along the same lines. Please again, stop thinking for solutions along the lines of repressiveness and start approaching problems progressively. If no one has an idea, fire them and begin searching for new people - with MOD 10, there is enough to do for most players (except the top 5%) without needing anything new or broken. Bring back the domination Solo Queue and take a break to look back at what and how things went wrong. Black markets DO NOT exist without a backer who earns from it. There are countless examples regarding this with marijuana (in the US & Colorado) - of how free world markets reduce prices, increase quality and income as opposed to severely regulated markets which increase burden, and redirect income. This is the EXACT problem you are facing. Your new ideas of income are failing because they are pushing players, not pulling them. Pushing to them to study alternate means to supplement the required push. I believe it's time to take a look at whoever is involved in your process again - because THEY are not delivering what they are paid to do. Using the guise of a 'tough call', they have made an easy call. In reality, a 'tough call' is when it's tough on you - it made you think, retrospect and learn, not tough because of the prospective back lash. Because, you can moderate people's words in the forums, but you can't stop them from leaving. Along the same lines, your recent post on the 2M+ adventures is nothing short of a desperate attempt to exemplify yourself and self-promote. Anyone with a couple of seconds to take a second look will know that while there may be ten million accounts - there are definitely aren't ten million players ever online or interested in this game. We have seen how zones lag when there are 40 people and a dragon in it, we see how many zones exist in the game, we would definitely know if there are even close to 25,000 unique players. This brings me to the reason on WHY you felt compelled to pull such a stunt. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't this based off of someone's data report? That someone was asked to do something that they weren't equipped to do and went desperate with proper reporting techniques - techniques that interest, intrigue and stand up to scrutiny.
Finally, please DO NOT PUNISH me for playing and loving this game. It is becoming increasingly harder to convince people to take up this game and the existing crowd is terribly ill equipped to handle the task. While couples here and there can find time to bond over this game once in a while, with time, that is not going to last. Time should be the only thing that allows players to move on, not your own doing.
Just my two cents.
Thanks Someone who can't find it in themselves to care anymore after typing all this.
No. I refuse to make a noise and thrash around to prove any point. Evolve and let's talk about it. If monkeys can do it, you should have no trouble with it.
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kreatyveMember, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 10,545Community Moderator
@panderus While I am trying to understand and cope with the decisions, I would like to please ask that you PLEASE do not put the Loyal gear in a lockbox. I would prefer it to be more readily available rather than have it in a lockbox. Trade bar store comes to mind, that way people still have to buy keys to get it, but are pretty much guaranteed to get the pieces they want/need.
My opinions are my own. I do not work for PWE or Cryptic. - Forum Rules - Protector's Enclave Discord - I play on Xbox Any of my comments not posted in orange are based on my own personal opinion and not official. Any messages written in orange are official moderation messages. Signature images are now fixed!
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kreatyveMember, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 10,545Community Moderator
2. Trawling the AH with botters BREAKS the AH. This is the reason gateway is down. The servers got FRIED because some thousand accounts, set to trawl AH prices, so overworked the servers that they CAUGHT FIRE!
Source?
My opinions are my own. I do not work for PWE or Cryptic. - Forum Rules - Protector's Enclave Discord - I play on Xbox Any of my comments not posted in orange are based on my own personal opinion and not official. Any messages written in orange are official moderation messages. Signature images are now fixed!
Ill ad my voice to the (probably useless) chorus. This is a bad decision.
This is not a bad decision, it's something worse: it's a defeat, a lose-lose situation for everyone: investments gone, expensive management and features removed. If you have no idea, no tools, no solutions to solve a problem, the only conclusion is this one. Imo this is also linked to the Xbox/PS4 develpments: gateway for all the platforms or nothing for everyone? The latter is easier, faster, cheaper and...fair to some extent. Are the professions and the AH the problems? Remove them only and at least we have a chance to get something for the companions. But that doesn't mitigate the effort to extend the gateway to xbox/ps4 while they have to manage and coordinate the asyncronous releases on 3 different platforms: close it and free resources. It's like when you're on diet: you want to lose weight cutting your arms or your legs..or both. Task complete.
Oltreverso guild leader Maga Othelma - DC | Svalvolo - SW | Dente Avvelenato- GWF
So wtf is gonna happen to the loyal gear, Lightfoot thief, and the rest of the sca stuff we could ONLY get there. And for the player base that suffers all we get a p.o.s green companion.....awesome
I have already mentioned this, but I have a task to have a discussion on what to do with the SCA related rewards. It has always been sort of disappointing you couldn't get them on consoles. Though the gear certainly has some amount of balance issues with Bonding Runestones and Augment companions since they give way more stats than comparable gear for the player. Though it may be less of an issue now that we are a few modules away from Elemental Evil.
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someonediesMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,257Arc User
3. If you have an idea to make the game better, post it. If the community would pool all of its resources we could have easily come up with a solution before it came to this. And who knows if they do get the wonderful idea that fixes everything you can bet they will employ it and bring gateway back.
ROTFL
They don't care about us.
Dead 🔪
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someonediesMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,257Arc User
So wtf is gonna happen to the loyal gear, Lightfoot thief, and the rest of the sca stuff we could ONLY get there. And for the player base that suffers all we get a p.o.s green companion.....awesome
I have already mentioned this, but I have a task to have a discussion on what to do with the SCA related rewards. It has always been sort of disappointing you couldn't get them on consoles. Though the gear certainly has some amount of balance issues with Bonding Runestones and Augment companions since they give way more stats than comparable gear for the player. Though it may be less of an issue now that we are a few modules away from Elemental Evil.
2. Trawling the AH with botters BREAKS the AH. This is the reason gateway is down. The servers got FRIED because some thousand accounts, set to trawl AH prices, so overworked the servers that they CAUGHT FIRE!
Source?
20 years of experience, time gateway servers were down is approx what would be needed to do physical replacement, wiring repair and testing. Plus another few days to come up with patches that obviously didn't work(only up for an hour before dropping again).
It's always a resources battle. You can't keep just throwing resources and time at a problem indefinitely. Sometimes you can't continue to put the resources into a losing battle, and a wise commander knows when to concede the field and call a tactical retreat--or cut off something that's costing more in resources than they can well afford.
In this case, at least two highly skilled software professionals offered to provide free resources to help solve this issue in a player-friendly manner. I am one of them. Nobody took the time to reach out and discuss other solutions before pulling the plug. There are very good solutions, some of which are easy to implement compared to the very real monetary cost of alienating so many players. @panderus@strumslinger the offer still stands. Why not spend twenty minutes on Skype to get a fresh perspective?
It wasn't an issue of not knowing if we COULD solve the issue, it was more about how much time have we already spent and how much more time will we need to continually put into it. Botting cannot be 'solved' in some ways, you can really only setup more and different roadblocks but at an increasing cost to development each time.
We have quite a bit of experience in keeping the botters at bay at this point and it wasn't a decision that was come upon lightly at all. The meeting we had went over a long agenda and recounted things we have already tried to resolve this issue as well as weigh all the pros and cons. We even went through the scenario of just keeping up the non botted features of Gateway but there were still some costs that still incurred with little gains (keeping the additional specialized servers up and the fact few people used them).
Hilarious thread. I wish I could count all the folks who say they'll quit or threaten the developers for this decision, but sadly that would take time. With a single character, the disappearance of gateway was a minor inconvenience at best for me and the usage was limited because of the lack of access to transfer mail items to inventory anyway. It will be interesting to see what this does to the prices of refinement items though.
Ah well, it will not prevent me from crafting many, many pairs of pants.
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beckylunaticMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 14,231Arc User
Just turn off the auction and mail availablity through the gateway. Problem solved. Further, I came back to the game and have been wanyting to play that little minigame this whole time, but it went down the same time I returned. Now I don't even get anything for losing out on what was arguably the only way to get decent gear for companions? Bad move.
First off, Cryptic made a call, get rid of gateway, it was their call to make regardless of how we "feel" about it. I'm not happy like a lot of others about this decision but I'll have to deal with it like I have with this game and so many others before it. I like what @lewstelamon01 said about the war and the way things go sometimes.... it just make sense to cut your loses. Here's my problem with how this situation was handled. When gateway was taken down there was no official communication about what happened and the reasons for it until 3 days later, not cool. It was a decision made by someone at the company to shut gateway down. It would have be nice (not required, obliviously) if someone would have just said officially that Gateway was brought down. I would not have been happy but I would at least be informed. It was good to hear from panderus after the 3 day weekend, what was going on and that Gateway was probably not going to be back that week. At least I knew now that I had to do all my stuff on-line, NP. I just like to be an informed end user so I can plan appropriately, nothing more really required.
Next problem, as some in this thread have already said, how does taking Gateway down solve this problem? In your own communications about the "bots" from August 2015 when AD was taken out of leadership and Gateway was brought down but the "bot" problem persisted within the game, therefore AD had to be removed from leadership. How does taken Gateway solve this problem now, won't a similar situation exist that did in August 2015? I understand that it was not only crafting that was causing problems in Gateway, but all the things that could and can be done on Gateway are also done in the game, so does this mean than that the "bots" will just move to the game and do their nefarious activities? What does this solve?
The end users, like myself, maybe aren't seeing all the information and the game will actually be more stable with the move, IDK. Here's what I do know, I will have to log into the game more often now to keep up with my crafting, which is not cool. Will this not put more strain on the game?
I don't honestly see taken Gateway down as a good solution. The reason why is because of one simple problem, which I ask myself everyday. I like many others in this game have a crafting army. The reason I have this crafting army is because of 1 reason and 1 reason alone, RP. Before the AD nerf I had the army (not as big) to buy the necessary RP(and all associated reagents). Why the army? Well because when I was a young Neverwinter gamer I had learned a valuable lesson about buying RP components from the game store, I was not that rich and could never afford to make a decent enchantment using the game store. It was to expensive, it would have costed more than a yearly subscription for other on-line games to get 1, that is right 1, enchant to bis using the game store. So, I started searching the forums to figure out how to do this without costing me bank. The most common theme I found was to use a leadership army.....It took me a long time to get it were it was at. The process didn't happen over night(took almost a year of time and real life cash) and every click for my crafting is accounted for by my lack of being able to play the game. The question I ask myself is "why do I do this crafting stuff day in and day out when I would rather play the game"? RP, is the only reason I have so many alts. I would rather not deal with crafting alts but the alternative is ugly.
Last point I will make is this, in relation to my point of view on RP in game store and spending real life cash. There were many things that drew me into this game: DnD theme, the graphics, the combat, the foundry, all the dungeons, and gateway are just a few. But, the biggest one one was the fact that I could spend 35 dollars and have an account wide BiS mount, just like that. Anyone who has been around MMO's understands that getting from point A to point B faster usually requires a lot of grind and then is only offered to that character that did that grind, you all had a more open approach which I appreciated. When I saw the 35 dollar I got it immediately no hesitation, bypass the grind, yup sign me up!
The next thing I bought was the Dragonborn pack (first pack ever bought). The tipping point for me was the account wide pack, again no brainier. Again no hesitation, account wide stuff and being front of the line to get it!
The last thing I bought with real life cash was the Hero of Norath(sp), lots and lots of goodies for account wide! It took me awhile to come around to this one (lots of money for a one of purchase) but it offered lots of bells and whistles (account wide) and it was black Friday so it was half off, can't go wrong there .
See the theme, account wide unlocks that offer something for my future alt's to use when and if i build them.
Fast forward to now, the only way to get the best mount in game is through lock boxes or spending gobs or AD in the auction, which only upgrades 1 character, nope not going to do it. The best companions are only single character unlocks or not offered in game anymore, I will either use AD to buy from AH or convert to AD to Zen and buy from store only if its a must have. RP for game store, I just cant afford it sorry. For me to spend real life cash (I know you a Cyrptic have to make a living) I need to have some incentive. The account wide BiS mount, the account wide packs with plenty of goodies, and (in the case of the dragon born) account wide race unlock with account wide inventory pack(at time BiS inventory pack) offered exclusively to cash players before FTP, are the best way for me to support you. I love this game, please take some of my points and others into consideration for future upgrades. @panderus@strumslinger some things to consider, I don't mean to call you 2 out but from my point view you guys are always active one way or another on the forums and I appreciate that!
If you at Cryptic can solve this RP problem and make more account wide options in the game store I think it would go a long way in solving many of this games "botting" problems , IMHO.
Sorry, i could believe bots forced a gateway temp take down while you messed with somthing. But per your own posts on the leadership related gateway closure well back, (before i came back to playing even), admit this botting excuse is just that. An excuse. You admitted back then that closing the gateway stopped the bots for all of a few days. This isn't going to do anything to the number of bots or your need to combat them. And whilst it may be marginally more efficient to fight the bots solely on the live servers, it's not going to make the problem go away or free up significant resources.
And that just makes the claim that your doing it because combating botting on the gateway is chewing up too many resources a flat out lie, because closing the gateway isn't going to help you much if any. The only way this is going to free up major resources is if your going to stop fighting the bots on the game servers too, and i just don't see that happening, you've been much too aggressive even recently about it on live.
I'm not usually this negetive about you because you are a business, your job is to make money, and i believe you genuinely don't want an over-inflated AD economy, there's good business reasons to not have that. But here i honestly can't see a good business reason for what your doing, which leads me to believe it's not really about the resources thing. I suspect in practise however that this is good old human nature at work. You're so tired of banging your head against the gateway botting issue you'd rather give up than keep fighting a losing battle there and on live at the same time.
I suspect however there's as much lying to selves going on here as lying to us.
Paingiver is not an acurratte or Useful measure of your actual sustained damage output, (i.e DPS), in various ways it lies. For a true idea use ACT. Link below:
Whelp, now we have the go ahead for people to keep price-gouging companion gear at least in the short-term. Great. Even the cheapest, least-desired loyal gear is no less than 80k per piece now... when even a few weeks ago ya could get a loyal defender piece for, say, just a few thousand AD (or less). Just.. wow.
Could you guys have at least rolled out even a vague plan on what (if anything) is going to happen w/ rewards and functions unique to Gateway? The lack of transparency is gonna cause wild speculation and translate to players being hurt even more by it. Just like w/ the Leadership nerf, are we going to be in limbo for an arduous time before things are re-balanced? (like the fixed AD pricing reductions, which really took a while to roll out after the LS nerf, and imo ya'll still aren't fully done with to this day- and yes I'm still salty over that).
This all seems like throwing the baby out w/ the bathwater (again), and the players are that guy who comes into the room after-the-fact and has to ask 'what happened?'
I loved SCA, the dice were interesting and there was a real strategy to it in my experience. It was the first thing that appealed to me when I started playing and first bought VIP a couple months ago. I doubt I will spend money on this game again; SCA was one of my favorite features especially with my work schedule. You can't figure out how to fight scripts or sanitize user input to defend against what amounts to an automated attack; perhaps it's worth calling in a contractor who can - but it seems like there was more revenue to be gained by shutting it down over resolving issues. I have a feeling the decision to never make STO more functional like this one; even after putting a second DOFF-style game in the game, was due to your experience with malicious activity centered on Neverwinter. I'm assuming the in game economy was being ruined in some fashion, or it was determined that you were losing a real cash revenue stream? It will be interesting to see what happens to the in game economy and how many players or bot herders you lose in the game if you haven't already. It's too bad the actions of a few ruin an experience for others.
It's always a resources battle. You can't keep just throwing resources and time at a problem indefinitely. Sometimes you can't continue to put the resources into a losing battle, and a wise commander knows when to concede the field and call a tactical retreat--or cut off something that's costing more in resources than they can well afford.
In this case, at least two highly skilled software professionals offered to provide free resources to help solve this issue in a player-friendly manner. I am one of them. Nobody took the time to reach out and discuss other solutions before pulling the plug. There are very good solutions, some of which are easy to implement compared to the very real monetary cost of alienating so many players. @panderus@strumslinger the offer still stands. Why not spend twenty minutes on Skype to get a fresh perspective?
It wasn't an issue of not knowing if we COULD solve the issue, it was more about how much time have we already spent and how much more time will we need to continually put into it. Botting cannot be 'solved' in some ways, you can really only setup more and different roadblocks but at an increasing cost to development each time.
We have quite a bit of experience in keeping the botters at bay at this point and it wasn't a decision that was come upon lightly at all. The meeting we had went over a long agenda and recounted things we have already tried to resolve this issue as well as weigh all the pros and cons. We even went through the scenario of just keeping up the non botted features of Gateway but there were still some costs that still incurred with little gains (keeping the additional specialized servers up and the fact few people used them).
oh please. how do you say "keeping botter at bay" and there are 50+ lvl chat spam bots. let alone the others which farm things.
... The chances of finding the right rare tasks have diminished...
I don't know what to do now... my heart isn't in it The gateway was a big part of how I play this game.
I'm really sorry...
I hadn't thought of the rare tasks...they are going to need to make those less rare if they do a revamp. There were times I would log in each hour just to check what the new ones were...
@panderus While I am trying to understand and cope with the decisions, I would like to please ask that you PLEASE do not put the Loyal gear in a lockbox. I would prefer it to be more readily available rather than have it in a lockbox. Trade bar store comes to mind, that way people still have to buy keys to get it, but are pretty much guaranteed to get the pieces they want/need.
Lockbox is not likely where we would put them, no.
Personally, I would like to see the Lightfoot Thief come from some gameplay related activity.
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beckylunaticMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 14,231Arc User
@panderus While I am trying to understand and cope with the decisions, I would like to please ask that you PLEASE do not put the Loyal gear in a lockbox. I would prefer it to be more readily available rather than have it in a lockbox. Trade bar store comes to mind, that way people still have to buy keys to get it, but are pretty much guaranteed to get the pieces they want/need.
Lockbox is not likely where we would put them, no.
Personally, I would like to see the Lightfoot Thief come from some gameplay related activity.
Best suggestion I've seen is to add items to a seal store. I vote for Adventurer seals because companions are used by players of all levels. Increase the seal cap to accommodate higher pricing if necessary (higher caps on seals is good QoL anyway).
@panderus While I am trying to understand and cope with the decisions, I would like to please ask that you PLEASE do not put the Loyal gear in a lockbox. I would prefer it to be more readily available rather than have it in a lockbox. Trade bar store comes to mind, that way people still have to buy keys to get it, but are pretty much guaranteed to get the pieces they want/need.
Lockbox is not likely where we would put them, no.
Personally, I would like to see the Lightfoot Thief come from some gameplay related activity.
Maybe an epic level leadership profession task??
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andorrabellMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 437Arc User
Perhaps now would be a good time to give us that 2xAD you owe us from a YEAR ago now pretty much. @panderus@strumslinger . Clearly making changes to the economy that are bad for us are not a problem to do at the drop of a hat so how about lets observe something we actually want.
Comments
If it is really a bot problem, they can do that. I don't think it is. This is probably another point for "it has nothing to do with bot". It is obvious to me that they had no interest to have a "solution" when they made the decision way before labour day.
It has been a regular part of my life for over three years... I would gateway every morning on my tablet and start my tasks. I would gateway at lunch time at work on my phone and collect my D20 roll. If I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't get back to sleep I would look for bargains on the auction house. If I had spare time I would treat myself to game of sword coast adventures.
Almost every day for years and now it's just stopped. Just like that. I feel like I can't play effectively or efficiently... I was getting into masterworks professions, but that seems impossible now. The chances of finding the right rare tasks have diminished...
I don't know what to do now... my heart isn't in it
I'm really sorry...
https://www.reddit.com/r/google/comments/4dqgp8/google_recaptcha_cracked_in_new_automated_attack/
It's one of the top google results from "recaptcha broken".
Sci-fi author: The Gods We Make, The Gods We Seek, and Ji-min
1. Watching the explosion of negative response from the gateway shutdown, I have something to say. If you think that Cryptic didn't weighed the pros and cons of alienating the player base against the time, effort, money and servers needed to keep the gateway up, you're dumb. Try to see it from their shoes, the bots have gotten so good that they can make a new account, make a character, complete the starting quests, invoke, run daily dungeons and skirmishes, and post up items for auction, then using the gateway they can max professions, spam run SCA for items and trawl the AH for any deals and repost all for profit. They can't ban accounts fast enough to fight the influx of new characters. And all that is happening with gateway up, 5% of traffic is legitimate players using it as its meant to, 95% bots abusing it to farm.
2. Trawling the AH with botters BREAKS the AH. This is the reason gateway is down. The servers got FRIED because some thousand accounts, set to trawl AH prices, so overworked the servers that they CAUGHT FIRE! Now with it down botters are going to have to logon, hopefully, potentially maximizing their exposure to devs and getting banned. Soon AH prices will start rising as bot accounts are banned and items become scarce, but will then drop and regulate because bots aren't artificially inflating prices for profit.
3. If you have an idea to make the game better, post it. If the community would pool all of its resources we could have easily come up with a solution before it came to this. And who knows if they do get the wonderful idea that fixes everything you can bet they will employ it and bring gateway back.
With the latest in the feature pullback feature (Gateway closing down), I realized that I had to put in my two cents again. It may not matter, but it's my two cents and it's gotta get out. Looking back to 2013 when I joined the game, I realize that the latest (and many of the past feature pullbacks) doesn't really affect me. I have a full set of gear on three mains, a full set of R12 on one and R10 on the second and R9s on the third - and I know MANY of friends who have full R12s on multiple chars - more than my measly one. This means I can continue to 'probably' enjoy the ever increasingly harder-not-worth-the-reward content for a few more months till the next feature pullback.
But enough about me, when I first came to this game, I spent a few hundred bucks in the first few months. Why? Because it was a fun game for a new comer. I enjoyed many aspects of the game and the community. I still remember the first time I died and didn't know if resurrection would delete my toon. I panic strickenly asked around till someone told me NO. Then came the major injury. It's been a fun journey. But now, looking at the system, I cannot imagine being a new player in the game. I'm NOT going to recommend anyone to play NW because it's going look bad on me - I don't want to be that loser who asked someone to join what is probably the top deteriorating MMORPG at the moment. And let's face it, there's no selling point either.
I can't help them - since everything's bound and cannot be shared. They will not be allowed to chat, move, trade or do anything.
And maybe I'm mistaken, but distancing the whole community of players seems to be a bad idea. While I simply don't care enough to even comment on most of the changes, this is the second time in the past three years that I've been compelled to make a statement. Because it takes from me too. I'm one of those in the bottom of the creamy layer - and everyone below me is going to feel increasingly hard pressed to enjoy the game.
I would love to point out many basic economic articles and research regarding how banning and regulating things leads to an INCREASED black market movement, on how it widens the distance between the haves and have nots. Why? Because it's NOT my job to keep people interested in the game - it's yours. When you (whoever takes a dime from what I've put into this game) ask ME to start doing YOUR job, you are inherently breaking many of the contracts of fair play. [At this point, your invocation changes have certainly broken the contract of VIP subscription].
As a side note, when you employ the opportunity to break contracts without fairness, be prepared to receive subtle back lash from the community along the same lines.
Please again, stop thinking for solutions along the lines of repressiveness and start approaching problems progressively. If no one has an idea, fire them and begin searching for new people - with MOD 10, there is enough to do for most players (except the top 5%) without needing anything new or broken. Bring back the domination Solo Queue and take a break to look back at what and how things went wrong.
Black markets DO NOT exist without a backer who earns from it. There are countless examples regarding this with marijuana (in the US & Colorado) - of how free world markets reduce prices, increase quality and income as opposed to severely regulated markets which increase burden, and redirect income. This is the EXACT problem you are facing.
Your new ideas of income are failing because they are pushing players, not pulling them. Pushing to them to study alternate means to supplement the required push.
I believe it's time to take a look at whoever is involved in your process again - because THEY are not delivering what they are paid to do. Using the guise of a 'tough call', they have made an easy call. In reality, a 'tough call' is when it's tough on you - it made you think, retrospect and learn, not tough because of the prospective back lash. Because, you can moderate people's words in the forums, but you can't stop them from leaving.
Along the same lines, your recent post on the 2M+ adventures is nothing short of a desperate attempt to exemplify yourself and self-promote. Anyone with a couple of seconds to take a second look will know that while there may be ten million accounts - there are definitely aren't ten million players ever online or interested in this game. We have seen how zones lag when there are 40 people and a dragon in it, we see how many zones exist in the game, we would definitely know if there are even close to 25,000 unique players. This brings me to the reason on WHY you felt compelled to pull such a stunt. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't this based off of someone's data report? That someone was asked to do something that they weren't equipped to do and went desperate with proper reporting techniques - techniques that interest, intrigue and stand up to scrutiny.
Finally, please DO NOT PUNISH me for playing and loving this game. It is becoming increasingly harder to convince people to take up this game and the existing crowd is terribly ill equipped to handle the task. While couples here and there can find time to bond over this game once in a while, with time, that is not going to last. Time should be the only thing that allows players to move on, not your own doing.
Just my two cents.
Thanks
Someone who can't find it in themselves to care anymore after typing all this.
No. I refuse to make a noise and thrash around to prove any point. Evolve and let's talk about it. If monkeys can do it, you should have no trouble with it.
Any of my comments not posted in orange are based on my own personal opinion and not official.
Any messages written in orange are official moderation messages. Signature images are now fixed!
Any of my comments not posted in orange are based on my own personal opinion and not official.
Any messages written in orange are official moderation messages. Signature images are now fixed!
If you have no idea, no tools, no solutions to solve a problem, the only conclusion is this one.
Imo this is also linked to the Xbox/PS4 develpments: gateway for all the platforms or nothing for everyone? The latter is easier, faster, cheaper and...fair to some extent.
Are the professions and the AH the problems? Remove them only and at least we have a chance to get something for the companions. But that doesn't mitigate the effort to extend the gateway to xbox/ps4 while they have to manage and coordinate the asyncronous releases on 3 different platforms: close it and free resources.
It's like when you're on diet: you want to lose weight cutting your arms or your legs..or both. Task complete.
Oltreverso guild leader
Maga Othelma - DC | Svalvolo - SW | Dente Avvelenato- GWF
They don't care about us.
Dead🔪Dead🔪We have quite a bit of experience in keeping the botters at bay at this point and it wasn't a decision that was come upon lightly at all. The meeting we had went over a long agenda and recounted things we have already tried to resolve this issue as well as weigh all the pros and cons. We even went through the scenario of just keeping up the non botted features of Gateway but there were still some costs that still incurred with little gains (keeping the additional specialized servers up and the fact few people used them).
Ah well, it will not prevent me from crafting many, many pairs of pants.
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
Here's my problem with how this situation was handled. When gateway was taken down there was no official communication about what happened and the reasons for it until 3 days later, not cool.
It was a decision made by someone at the company to shut gateway down. It would have be nice (not required, obliviously) if someone would have just said officially that Gateway was brought down. I would not have been happy but I would at least be informed. It was good to hear from panderus after the 3 day weekend, what was going on and that Gateway was probably not going to be back that week. At least I knew now that I had to do all my stuff on-line, NP. I just like to be an informed end user so I can plan appropriately, nothing more really required.
Next problem, as some in this thread have already said, how does taking Gateway down solve this problem? In your own communications about the "bots" from August 2015 when AD was taken out of leadership and Gateway was brought down but the "bot" problem persisted within the game, therefore AD had to be removed from leadership. How does taken Gateway solve this problem now, won't a similar situation exist that did in August 2015?
I understand that it was not only crafting that was causing problems in Gateway, but all the things that could and can be done on Gateway are also done in the game, so does this mean than that the "bots" will just move to the game and do their nefarious activities? What does this solve?
The end users, like myself, maybe aren't seeing all the information and the game will actually be more stable with the move, IDK. Here's what I do know, I will have to log into the game more often now to keep up with my crafting, which is not cool. Will this not put more strain on the game?
I don't honestly see taken Gateway down as a good solution. The reason why is because of one simple problem, which I ask myself everyday. I like many others in this game have a crafting army. The reason I have this crafting army is because of 1 reason and 1 reason alone, RP. Before the AD nerf I had the army (not as big) to buy the necessary RP(and all associated reagents).
Why the army? Well because when I was a young Neverwinter gamer I had learned a valuable lesson about buying RP components from the game store, I was not that rich and could never afford to make a decent enchantment using the game store. It was to expensive, it would have costed more than a yearly subscription for other on-line games to get 1, that is right 1, enchant to bis using the game store.
So, I started searching the forums to figure out how to do this without costing me bank. The most common theme I found was to use a leadership army.....It took me a long time to get it were it was at. The process didn't happen over night(took almost a year of time and real life cash) and every click for my crafting is accounted for by my lack of being able to play the game. The question I ask myself is "why do I do this crafting stuff day in and day out when I would rather play the game"? RP, is the only reason I have so many alts. I would rather not deal with crafting alts but the alternative is ugly.
Last point I will make is this, in relation to my point of view on RP in game store and spending real life cash. There were many things that drew me into this game: DnD theme, the graphics, the combat, the foundry, all the dungeons, and gateway are just a few. But, the biggest one one was the fact that I could spend 35 dollars and have an account wide BiS mount, just like that. Anyone who has been around MMO's understands that getting from point A to point B faster usually requires a lot of grind and then is only offered to that character that did that grind, you all had a more open approach which I appreciated. When I saw the 35 dollar I got it immediately no hesitation, bypass the grind, yup sign me up!
The next thing I bought was the Dragonborn pack (first pack ever bought). The tipping point for me was the account wide pack, again no brainier. Again no hesitation, account wide stuff and being front of the line to get it!
The last thing I bought with real life cash was the Hero of Norath(sp), lots and lots of goodies for account wide! It took me awhile to come around to this one (lots of money for a one of purchase) but it offered lots of bells and whistles (account wide) and it was black Friday so it was half off, can't go wrong there
See the theme, account wide unlocks that offer something for my future alt's to use when and if i build them.
Fast forward to now, the only way to get the best mount in game is through lock boxes or spending gobs or AD in the auction, which only upgrades 1 character, nope not going to do it. The best companions are only single character unlocks or not offered in game anymore, I will either use AD to buy from AH or convert to AD to Zen and buy from store only if its a must have. RP for game store, I just cant afford it sorry. For me to spend real life cash (I know you a Cyrptic have to make a living) I need to have some incentive. The account wide BiS mount, the account wide packs with plenty of goodies, and (in the case of the dragon born) account wide race unlock with account wide inventory pack(at time BiS inventory pack) offered exclusively to cash players before FTP, are the best way for me to support you. I love this game, please take some of my points and others into consideration for future upgrades. @panderus @strumslinger some things to consider, I don't mean to call you 2 out but from my point view you guys are always active one way or another on the forums and I appreciate that!
If you at Cryptic can solve this RP problem and make more account wide options in the game store I think it would go a long way in solving many of this games "botting" problems , IMHO.
Thank you for reading.
And that just makes the claim that your doing it because combating botting on the gateway is chewing up too many resources a flat out lie, because closing the gateway isn't going to help you much if any. The only way this is going to free up major resources is if your going to stop fighting the bots on the game servers too, and i just don't see that happening, you've been much too aggressive even recently about it on live.
I'm not usually this negetive about you because you are a business, your job is to make money, and i believe you genuinely don't want an over-inflated AD economy, there's good business reasons to not have that. But here i honestly can't see a good business reason for what your doing, which leads me to believe it's not really about the resources thing. I suspect in practise however that this is good old human nature at work. You're so tired of banging your head against the gateway botting issue you'd rather give up than keep fighting a losing battle there and on live at the same time.
I suspect however there's as much lying to selves going on here as lying to us.
https://github.com/nilsbrummond/Neverwinter-ACT-Plugin
Could you guys have at least rolled out even a vague plan on what (if anything) is going to happen w/ rewards and functions unique to Gateway? The lack of transparency is gonna cause wild speculation and translate to players being hurt even more by it. Just like w/ the Leadership nerf, are we going to be in limbo for an arduous time before things are re-balanced? (like the fixed AD pricing reductions, which really took a while to roll out after the LS nerf, and imo ya'll still aren't fully done with to this day- and yes I'm still salty over that).
This all seems like throwing the baby out w/ the bathwater (again), and the players are that guy who comes into the room after-the-fact and has to ask 'what happened?'
<CO docs> .: Petco :. // Base DPS Sheet (needs revision) // PSA on Power Activation Delay
- Themed Tanks // Misc Build Dump // Ayonachan's Gift Horse (stat data)
- Be safe and have fun, champs - for science!
Personally, I would like to see the Lightfoot Thief come from some gameplay related activity.
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
@panderus @strumslinger . Clearly making changes to the economy that are bad for us are not a problem to do at the drop of a hat so how about lets observe something we actually want.
https://www.theholycrusaders.com/