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armenua
Member Posts: 108 Bounty Hunter
I come from subscribed games. I didn't mind paying the $15 a month and I don't mind spending $15 a month in this game. But I don't want to spend $100 to accomplish simple things in this game, though it seems that is what this company wants me to do. Kind of like a snake oil salesman.
Pardon me if my points are a bit scattered...
1. Respeccing is way too expensive dollar wise. This should be able to be accomplished in game and the cost should be reasonable, say 1 gold. As your are learning your character and the effects of the various skill points, you are going to want to tweak your skills differently. You have to balance between PvE and PvP or switch back and forth. However, the cost of respeccing is a little bit much to be able to do that comfortably. You almost have to create two characters of the same class and spec each one towards PvE or PvP. Is that really your idea of good development?
It costs $10 per respec because it requires 600 Zen and you can only buy in stacks of $5 for 500 Zen. [I am not a founder, nor am I willing to spend the kind of money it takes to be one (rather exorbitant rate)]. I have asked and been told the only way to do it is through Zen. The cost of Zen from AD is pretty high, at an average of 350ish per zen... for someone who doesn't want to or can't afford to spend a lot of cash.
2. The gear is pretty ugly, no offense. And if you happen to be able to upgrade to a blue item from green, the fashion of the outfit is abominable. I end up using the peasant gear. I went to change the appearance and they want 8500 AD. Really? That is outrageous. It should be a lot more affordable. I'm level 27. I have 10k AD. And you want me to spend 80% on it for a fashion item? That's gouging.
3. The Maps are basically dysfunctional. I do NOT understand why each map does not show you the way back to Protector's Enclave. It does for the maps up to, say, level 20, but after that, you have to memorize where you came in at. Unfortunately, you don't realize that until it's too late, and you have to beg the Zone chat to tell you where it is, or you have to wander around until you find it. The maps don't really help you with trails and other such things either. Please upgrade these to be actual USEFUL tools.
4. Speaking of that, there should be easier ways to get around. If you have had to return to Protector's Enclave to, say for instance, get your daily quests, you should be able to return to your current area of activity with ports that you have opened up. And NO it shouldn't cost Zen or thousands of AD to use them.
5. We should be able to transfer gold/AD between characters on the same account. If it is possible, I have not been able to figure out how.
6. (EDIT) Fix the search function on the AH. If I am looking for, say, a weapon for myself to upgrade what I've got, I can click and enter all the specific information I want, and yet the items displayed are still every level, every variation of that weapon (unless I ask for a specific name). If I specify level 20-25, only those weapons should display. And I should be able to specify a Buy Out option only, and I should be able to click on the column and have them shown to me highest>lowest or lowest>highest, This is a basic search function element, and yet your auction house search does not pay any attention to most of the specifics that they ask for. I know that the AH has been the victim of quite a few scans lately, but come on. Why have a bunch of search options if the actual search does not use them for parameters?
These are the items I can think of off the top of my head. The game will make money from selling services and items through their Zen set up, as many players don't mind spending cash on hurrying things up for themselves or having vanity items. The money system is pretty complicated and honestly not that easy to figure out.
Pardon me if my points are a bit scattered...
1. Respeccing is way too expensive dollar wise. This should be able to be accomplished in game and the cost should be reasonable, say 1 gold. As your are learning your character and the effects of the various skill points, you are going to want to tweak your skills differently. You have to balance between PvE and PvP or switch back and forth. However, the cost of respeccing is a little bit much to be able to do that comfortably. You almost have to create two characters of the same class and spec each one towards PvE or PvP. Is that really your idea of good development?
It costs $10 per respec because it requires 600 Zen and you can only buy in stacks of $5 for 500 Zen. [I am not a founder, nor am I willing to spend the kind of money it takes to be one (rather exorbitant rate)]. I have asked and been told the only way to do it is through Zen. The cost of Zen from AD is pretty high, at an average of 350ish per zen... for someone who doesn't want to or can't afford to spend a lot of cash.
2. The gear is pretty ugly, no offense. And if you happen to be able to upgrade to a blue item from green, the fashion of the outfit is abominable. I end up using the peasant gear. I went to change the appearance and they want 8500 AD. Really? That is outrageous. It should be a lot more affordable. I'm level 27. I have 10k AD. And you want me to spend 80% on it for a fashion item? That's gouging.
3. The Maps are basically dysfunctional. I do NOT understand why each map does not show you the way back to Protector's Enclave. It does for the maps up to, say, level 20, but after that, you have to memorize where you came in at. Unfortunately, you don't realize that until it's too late, and you have to beg the Zone chat to tell you where it is, or you have to wander around until you find it. The maps don't really help you with trails and other such things either. Please upgrade these to be actual USEFUL tools.
4. Speaking of that, there should be easier ways to get around. If you have had to return to Protector's Enclave to, say for instance, get your daily quests, you should be able to return to your current area of activity with ports that you have opened up. And NO it shouldn't cost Zen or thousands of AD to use them.
5. We should be able to transfer gold/AD between characters on the same account. If it is possible, I have not been able to figure out how.
6. (EDIT) Fix the search function on the AH. If I am looking for, say, a weapon for myself to upgrade what I've got, I can click and enter all the specific information I want, and yet the items displayed are still every level, every variation of that weapon (unless I ask for a specific name). If I specify level 20-25, only those weapons should display. And I should be able to specify a Buy Out option only, and I should be able to click on the column and have them shown to me highest>lowest or lowest>highest, This is a basic search function element, and yet your auction house search does not pay any attention to most of the specifics that they ask for. I know that the AH has been the victim of quite a few scans lately, but come on. Why have a bunch of search options if the actual search does not use them for parameters?
These are the items I can think of off the top of my head. The game will make money from selling services and items through their Zen set up, as many players don't mind spending cash on hurrying things up for themselves or having vanity items. The money system is pretty complicated and honestly not that easy to figure out.
Post edited by armenua on
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Comments
1. I think this is purely a difference in perspective. While respeccing is nice, it's also not required nor is it something every player is going to do. Many players are just going to start a new character. As for the cost, if it costs 600 Zen and AD trades at 350 per zen, you could actually respec for $5 + 35000 AD. Not too bad if you're selling stuff on the auction house and generated AD from quests, invocation, and professions. It could probably be accomplished in about a week if you're not spending it. $5 to respec doesn't seem outrageous to me.
2. Purely a matter of personal taste although it does seem to me that stuff like unsocketing enchantments and changing appearance of gear is a bit overpriced. These are simple things that I'd think should cost under 1,000 AD but that's just me.
3-4. The maps always show you the location of the gate back to Protector's Enclave but if you're talking about the sparkly trail thing, that doesn't work in many areas if the location you're trying to reach isn't on the same map. I agree that this needs fixing as if it's going to be a main navigation feature, it should work everywhere. However, I've found that if you keep a quest that requires you to travel off the map (not a daily, an in-game quest), the sparkly trail thing does work. For example, I'm currently questing in Ebon Downs but I have a quest that requires me to go to Vellosk. When I need to get back to Protector's Enclave from all the way across the map, I click on this quest and it leads me back to the gateway. I think this thing needs upgrading but there are ways around it. You can also use teleport scrolls if you're impatient. I've 7 or so and have never used them.
5. You can transfer AD from one character to another using the Astral Diamond Exchange or Zen exchange or something. You basically post a ridiculous offer for Zen and then cancel the offer which dumps the AD into your Exchange account. Then, you can logon with another character and pick it up. Don't know about gold.
I agree that the economy is a little crazy with 97 different types of currency. Once you start delving into it and exploring all the features of this game, you can see better how it all works together and this isn't unprecedented even in real life. Historically, there have been many societies where there have been more than 1 currency floating around. I kind of like how there are always more than 1 way to get everything in the game. Paying just makes it easier but I see players' gripes about the Zen shop being overpriced. It seems like the prices don't reflect the worth of the items in the game.
Of course, the best feature of the game is the ability to craft many, many pairs of pants.
RE: REspeccing: Yes, I think $5 per respec is outrageous ... Like I said, certain specs for PvE and PvP are sometimes necessary, and yes, they make a difference in your accomplishments there. Also, for instance, like realizing you put points in one place and they are better served in other places, but you only discover that after playing the game. I am not saying it shouldn't be a bit of a chore, but at the moment, I think the cost of doing that is gouging their playerbase.
I have started to craft tailoring. But I don't follow the innuendo on your "craft many, many pairs of pants" comment. What do you mean? Do people really buy that?
In regard to the map ... NO it DOES NOT SHOW the exit to Protector's Enclave on every map. I am at Neverwinter Graveyard right now. Realized I had to return to PE for my dailies, and nowhere on the map did it show the exit. Your suggestion about a quest outside the area hasn't really worked for me, as it gives me the orange indicator, saying it can't find the path. There is also an area (forget the name of it now) at higher levels where you have to port through portals to complete the quests. Trying to find your way back to the beginning area of that map is near to impossible. Spent quite a bit of time a few days ago trying to find it. So, I guess you just haven't noticed that there is no indicator on the map.
Hit "L", click Daily (bottom right) and you can both get and turn in the quests without actually going anywhere.
D&D Home Page - What Class Are You? - Build A Character - D&D Compendium
a) Respeccing is generally a paid feature in F2P games, so it really only seems strange if your background is subscription-based games where respeccing is usually included in what you pay for ($60 for the box, $30 for each expansion, $15 each month). These games still, in addition, charge a fee in ingame currency (this is less a problem now, but back in vanilla WoW and TBC this was a huge issue).
b) In Neverwinter you really have many more power points than you need. Even if you max out every skill that could be remotely useful in PvE and PvP, you are likely to still have 10+ points left. Many guides don't even bother to tell you were to put the extras, because it doesn't really matter. You can only use a small number of spells at the same time. At level 30, where you seem to be right now, this seems like a bigger issue than it is. This is different from the hotbar/tab MMOs.
c) Feats can be respecced with Astral Diamonds and the prices are moderate as long as you are at lower level. It's 25k or so by level 30. Later on it becomes expensive enough to just buy a respec token if you want to re-do your feats from scratch. There should rarely ever be a need to respec the power points, though.
d) It doesn't cost $10. 600 Zen equal about 190k AD right now, which is a fraction of what higher end items yield in the AH. Since you can convert AD to Zen, and vice versa, you can get respec tokens simply by playing the game. At the time you might really need to min max, you are at a content level where making lots of AD is not an issue. Getting 200k AD certainly takes me less time and effort than those 50-100 gold it required in vanilla WoW.
As for your problem to find the exit to the enclave on the map without a sparkly path, most RPGs have more complex maps and no sparkly paths. You can open the map with "M". When I explored zones for the first time, I would open the map every so often for orientation. Other than the last two zones, the maps are all fairly linear.
And don't be afraid to kick in a couple bucks. Its a F2P game and needs to keep the lights on some how. This is a fantastic game and I wish to see it grow.
1. "Respeccing is way too expensive dollar wise. .... Is that really your idea of good development?..."
Dollar wise, I can't comment since what the company think people will pay for will definitely be different than what I feel is appropriate. However, I do think making it so expensive during beta is questionable. It definitely make respeccing something I wouldn't want to "play-around with", but instead go to forum and find the most efficient "cookie cutter" template and stick with that. If respeccing was cheaper and lot of people were playing around with it, and everyone sort of end up with similar spec, then it gives dev some additional data points to say some skill or another is favored by the player base. But right now, personally I am just playing with skills I picked because I am "stuck" with them.
2. The gear is pretty ugly,....
no interest in graphics at all.
3. The Maps are basically dysfunctional....
Agreed. Maps ARE kind of weird. when I opened them, I said "oh nice! nice margins on side with numbered point of interest!" but none of them are useful for anything. It would be nice to be able to right click on them and have glitter trail show me how to get there. And I agree showing ENTRANCE/EXIT of zone. First time I had to leave "Pirate's Skyhold" I was sorta lost for few seconds.
4. ...If you have had to return to Protector's Enclave to....
totally agreed. Almost every MMO I ever played had once an hour recall stone/hearth/whatever. Which is useful if you have guildie or group of friends you group with all the time since you can do your own stuff when they are not around but when you friends log on you can recall home and everyone will be in one place before heading out. Kind of strange way to make grouping unfriendly from pure quality of like point of view.
some of other stuff I have my reservation are
1) Beta / soft release ambiguity - I am not sure what stage of the game is in. From what I gather this is close beta, but kind of like soft release in that there will be no account wipe for "official release" so does that mean if I spend money on Z store it is "for real" and "for keeps"? or what exactly will happen to things once "official launch" happen? I usually spend real money on F2P game only after launch and right now this seem deliberately kept on grey area which makes me really un-easy to spend any money.
2) Insecurity - Too many of these exploit/hack issues not being discussed by dev. It kind of seems to happen often, and from the description of it, like the bag from zen store are not bound and you can really lose things without being able to physically secure your account with token authenticator or mobile authenticator makes me think it is extremely reckless to actually spend any money on this game at all.
3) unclear patch - seems some patch changes major game play mechanics without being clearly communicated. For example, I think the way quest dialogue works while in group changed recently, but there is no mention of it in patch note. If this is truly beta and some major game mechanic does change, it would be nice for us to know about it instead of finding it in-game.
Please don't escalate this, he's obviously unable to carry a discussion or disagree in a civil manner and thus resorts to lazily attacking you.
Also, I said, but perhaps you missed it... I am happy to spend the $15 per month on Zen. I want to support this game. Honestly, I really love it. I like the gameplay and the skills and all of that. It is really fun and the community, btw, is soooo much better than Tera or other games I've played.
RE: Astral Diamonds. My jaw drops at 190k AD. Like I said. I have 10k AD, and I've done the dailies since I've been allowed to do them. I seem to not have good timing for the hourly events. But I try to do them when they are available. i guess i should sell more stuff on the AH. I think that nobody wants the stuff that I get, as it is generally green and low level. Am I wrong about that? So if I had the AD I'd be happy to spend them on respeccing. Other games charge you ingame currency to do it, and I think that needs to be in place.
Oh, and thanks so much for the instructions on how to get my dailies without having to go to PE!!
There is a lot you can do from that page
Zen is under 300 AD this morning on Mindflayer .
You do not have to unsocket , you can place a better one over the old one .
As for the gear , this game is very customizable . I agree only a few sets each currently , but the game is new . You can place the graphic you like over any piece of gear , This will mean all end game character will not look alike . I really like this feature . Leveling up all the different blue gear has different graphics , so save the ones you like for when you get to 60 .
Teleport scrolls are available , and as a convenience they cost zen . This is the income strategy and will not change . No reason to charge all the people that wont use them to pay a monthly fee to teleport .
You said your use to spending 15 bucks a month , well buy 15 bucks worth of the convenience items you want . That's what I am doing .
You can play this whole game for FREE . You do not have to pay to raid , no fees to pvp , no fees to get past level 10 . Spend more time seeing what you can do in this game , not what you can not .
Thanks sock, I've been playing CO instead of NW for a couple days and forgot which button it was. LOL
D&D Home Page - What Class Are You? - Build A Character - D&D Compendium
2) I suspect gear will have more variety later on. ATM, agreed, but several things seem to be glossed over "for now", like emotes (look at the generated text... "unKool666 sit RoFlpwnzor" is what you get for emote text).
3) this is silly. The maps are linear with at most either 1 fork or 1 wraparound (2 ways to get to same place). Not only that, the campsites (there is always one within 5 feet of a zone door) show you where the way out is likely to be. You don't need a sparkly rainbow to see this, just look at the big map for 5 seconds and figure it out. I suppose a giant "EXIT" sign could be added but this is a weak complaint.
4) What do you want, a teleporter? You can get the daily quests from a menu anywhere, anytime. You can go to the AD store from anywhere. You can hit the AH from anywhere (but need town to get your mail if you buy or sell successfully). Really, if we had a mailbox in each zone's starting camp, the need to go to town would be quite rare --- that is the only major feature found in town, well that and your bank.
5) Gold can be sent in mail, I think. Not 100% sure. AD can be put on the exchange for a high rate so it will not sell, and then removed by the other character. I thought at first this was an exploit but given the OTHER exploits combined with the well known ability to do this, I think its safe to mention it here.
Edit: the only green stuff people want on the AH are crafted items (which can be upgraded to blue etc) or crafting materials (used to make things) etc. Junky green item drops are of no value even at low levels. Even blue gear is slow to sell unless its a weapon in the mid levels. Game levels too fast to spend big money on armor.
10k AD is not worth even $0.50. Its actually right now worth about a quarter.
With 5 characters praying and crafting I can make 50 zen (50 cents!) a day roughly without selling any drops or anything else. If you want some play money, I strongly advise making more characters that just sit in town and pray and craft. More character slots are $5 each but its an investment that will pay for itself in time.
if you're actually going to charge money ... um lol yeah $5 is way too much. like 10x too much. a freakin repec are you kidding me? should cost like .50 cents... at most. costs in general are way way over the top in this game, $10 for a bag, $20 for a mount, etc. ridiculous. take a couple of decimal points off that and I may.. MAY be willing to throw a few bucks at this game. it's good enough it's worth it, but you have to give me some value for my money. no way in hell I'm spending $60 for a mount, a bag, a decent pet and a repec token (which almost every char needs after reaching 60 to play high-end encounters vs leveling up).
maps are one of those things that is most definitely still "beta". some of them don't even line up, have you ever look at it while running around? you seem to run "off the map" in many many places. clearly unfinished.
Agree. Just ignore these kinds of posts.
Under 200k AD (600 Zen, $6) is something you can earn at a decent rate. Currently, items found in Castle Never sell for millions of AD. Even without that, you can sell crafting materials, sell wards from the 7-coins boxes (for 100s of thousand of AD), etc. and make AD and thus Zen. Leadership is also a good profession for making AD, especially if you have multiple characters (some of the resources made with it are better than the AD-yielding missions).
Unless you respec a lot because you write a guide or don't want to do any research on builds, this is really not as much of an issue as it seems at first. I felt the same way before the beta started, so I understand where folks come from, especially with a sub-based MMO background, but it's genuinely not an issue later on. (And I say this as someone who did buy several respec tokens because of my wizard guide and people having questions about feats.)
(I am still totally in favor of a test shard where we can try out builds, however -- and they said we'll get this, the test server.)
Gold can't be sent in the mail.
it's frankly ridiculous that I was level 60 with still the noobie slowass horse, noobie pet who dies when anyone sneezes, and no extra room in bank or bags. sure leveling is fast, but come on. at least sell bags and blue pets/mounts for a few gold, or 10-20k AD. not 100k's of thousands AD...
I stopped at line one. This is a F2P game, just because you only want to pay $1 for a respec, cuz you could farm it fast in game, does not mean ****. Man up or shut up chump.
Being able to respec almost for free makes it so that you can just throw points wherever you want with no thought, because you can fix it for free later.
Maps are meant to inform. The maps in this game do not inform you of very much. My suggestion is to upgrade the maps to at least show the enter/exit port by a diamond or some other means. I do not need a sparkly trail.
Actually, this is the first game I've ever played (I've played about 6 different games from about 4 different companies) that has not had a teleporting within the area once you have discovered the "campfire" stations. I was pretty surprised this game does not. Though I understand Lineage II, when it first came out, didn't have it. Anyway, this thread was meant as a suggestion thread. And my suggestion is to have teleports
If gold can be sent thru the mail, I'm not sure how. I have 2 accounts, too, and I suppose I could trade gold back and forth by selling something. And I did see that I could transfer AD around within my account by using the Zen/AD exchange. Once I knew what to do, it was easy.
Yah, I still think respec tokens should be able to be earned in game, either by leveling up, or maybe using seals or quest rewards, rather than having something as basic as your skills be tied up in cash money. There are plenty of items that people are more than willing to pay cash for. Respecing should not be one of them, in my opinion.
Oh, and I used L and found the Daily signup. Rather hard to miss, so I'm a bit embarrassed I never saw it, LOL.
6. (EDIT) Fix the search function on the AH. If I am looking for, say, a weapon for myself to upgrade what I've got, I can click and enter all the specific information I want, and yet the items displayed are still every level, every variation of that weapon (unless I ask for a specific name). If I specify level 20-25, only those weapons should display. And I should be able to specify a Buy Out option only, and I should be able to click on the column and have them shown to me highest>lowest or lowest>highest, This is a basic search function element, and yet your auction house search does not pay any attention to most of the specifics that they ask for. I know that the AH has been the victim of quite a few scans lately, but come on. Why have a bunch of search options if the actual search does not use them for parameters?
I remember back when re-specs didn't exist, and if you messed up your character you had to remake it. $6 per respec is more than fine. Should be $10 imo.
It isn't cheating the system, people buy Zen and sell it on the exchange, as people have said the average price for a respec is currently 190K AD which if you're doing T2 dungeons and selling the loot is fairly cheap (selling loot on the exchange doesn't cut into your refinement limit either as it's already refined).
Not only that but given the responses for the Questionite and Dilithium exchanges in CO and STO, unless they release some big C-Store content soon that people really want then the price should continue to drop.
It is a F2P game, not a charity. If you want convenience stuff like a fast horse or extra room in the bank, or even more space than you already get for free, then actually supporting the game with some money now and then will fix all of that. Many other F2P games won't give you access to all content, nor do they offer a way to convert in-game currency to cash store currency.
This logic is silly. May as well say something along the lines of:
Sure that mass genocide was terrible, so it's not so bad when someone targets a couple of hundred of people for murder.
Now on the other hand, if you REALLY want to respec (presumably at level 60) it means you literally played hundreds of hours. Is it that hard to spend some cash for a game you played for that long? I certainly don't mind. "I don't have any money" or "I think it's expensive" are personal reasons and you have to deal with them, no disrespect intended.
Here I agree. Furthermore dyes are pretty useless. This only works against the game diversity, to be honest. We end up having tons of almost identical characters, and that simply doesn't help.
Heh, I thought I was the only one struggling with that. Turns out I'm not. Yeah, it's annoying to me too, I had to use the "teleport" scroll a couple times because I couldn't really be arsed to look for an exit.
I agree. I got a few nice blue items which weren't for my character class and ended up donating them to the guild.