...People that do professions are playing as well, just not your way. People that sit on the AH to earn AD are playing as well, just not your way. People that sit in PE and do nothing but chat are playing, just not your way. People that do only PvP are playing, just not your way. People that do only dailies are playing, people that do only dungeons are playing, people that role play are playing, People that only log on gateway are playing, just not YOUR way. People that only pug, premake, guild etc etc. are PLAYING, just not the way you insist is the only way that is "legit" in your mind...
AMEN!!! Yes... this is so right on. I enjoy ALL of them. Yesterday, I leveled an alt to 60 so I could get the extra leadership slot. I did that to make more AD. Buying/selling rp items now, trying to read the market some. When I get enough RP, going to finally get my main-hand to legendary. I pvp, do dungeon runs, dailies for guild, stronghold dragons, skirmishes... what else is there? Social? I even made a new friend while leveling that alt, all because of leadership! lol
As for the gateway, it was written by Cryptic wasn't it? It's not some third-party company created interface is it? (Didn't think so).
Honestly, I kind of liked the way nwo did professions... 'just give a command for someone to do something, then they go do it'. It's the most hands-off profession system I've played. Spent too much time running around hitting mining spots in wow. EQ2 had me actually craft items like I was in a battle, (hot bubble forms in metal, quickly do skill x to deal with it, hit skill y to increase the heat, blah blah). I admit, eq2 crafting was fun in its novelty, for a while, then just started to feel demanding.
So Cryptic... turn the gateway stuff back on! For that matter, let me do MORE with the gateway, and give me a native android/iphone app (was there one?), and let me hit my mailbox and move items from mail to character in the gateway. Add the guild (who is online) info to the gateway, where I can see who's online, and show me guild-chat... get with it! Add stuff... (and of course bring all the dungeons back and/or create a few new ones, and the foundry (awesome game feature), and maybe some new pvp maps/game-types... like 'capture-the-relic') Ever since mod-6 you guys have been going backwards... taking away content... just stop it!
(edit: oh... to be fair, strongholds was new... good job! I'm not being cold or heartless and I know how limited resources are etc, but don't take away, work in the 'other direction' always... positive, more-stuff, more-ways ... it leads to more success imo)
As someone with a leadership army, I fully support the idea of removing ALL AD from Leadership - and replacing it with unbound RP items instead.
If something would have rewarded 500 AD? Replace it with a stone worth 500 RP. Preferably one that can be used on ANYTHING, and not these annoying 12 different refinement stones we have now.
If you need the AD? Sell it. If you need the RP? Use it. The important thing is it's not printing money into the economy. Giving people the ability to do this in the first place is what ruined your economy, guys. Give us the ability to make useful <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> that we can trade to others for money if we need it. That's how trades/professions work. You don't just magically pull money out of thin air.
And for that matter, let people who have maxed out other professions make useful stuff too. Useful, UNBOUND stuff.
Would you still support removing all RAD from Leadership, when it also removes everything you got this far from that RAD source? Or what if this change would also remove all your characters, and you have to start from scratch, would you still support it? Besides, 1 RP might be worth 1 AD during 2x RP events, but not the rest of the time. With a change like that, RP will be pretty much worthless...
The Devs should remove any profession from The Gateway, and only offer some mini games on it. The Devs should also increase the RAD from long (over 12hrs) LS missions. The Devs should also take a look at the professions in total, and upgrade every profression too.
Last but not least, if the Devs want to fight botters and goldsellers, then they should get real GMs into the game and do it that way.
Problem is that most people cant refine 24 or 48k AD in a day.I will totally agree with your proposal if there was some means to pump AD into the system because there are still huge AD sinks in the game because of those old days.You may not pull money from thin air but you cant also siphon money away from economy without replacing it properly.We may not see the effects for now but AD will become rarer commodity than it supposed to be.Then trade will really die because people cant spend money to slotted rings or pants or RP stones when they cant have Greater encahntments because of AD sinks required to do those encahntments
Would you still support removing all RAD from Leadership, when it also removes everything you got this far from that RAD source? Or what if this change would also remove all your characters, and you have to start from scratch, would you still support it? Besides, 1 RP might be worth 1 AD during 2x RP events, but not the rest of the time. With a change like that, RP will be pretty much worthless...
The Devs should remove any profession from The Gateway, and only offer some mini games on it. The Devs should also increase the RAD from long (over 12hrs) LS missions. The Devs should also take a look at the professions in total, and upgrade every profression too.
Last but not least, if the Devs want to fight botters and goldsellers, then they should get real GMs into the game and do it that way.
lol. This is ridiculous. I don't even know where to start with this. Why do you think that all AD refined from RAD should be removed just because Leadership stops giving RAD? Because you don't have as much as everyone else? Should we just remove all AD so that everyone is on equal footing with you, so it's not unfair? You're conflating a completely different issue with the one we're talking about. This comes off as very "I don't have anything, so I should be allowed to print money so I can catch up with everyone else".
Considering how much RP is needed, it will never be worthless. It'll probably fluctuate and maybe go down in value, especially at first, but you're forgetting something very, very important - if everyone stops having the ability to pull AD out of thin air, AD will become more valuable. Did you SEE what happened to the ZAX when they announced that Leadership was being removed from the gateway? Millions of Zen in backlog vanished and the price actually went down a few AD. AD became briefly, slightly, more valuable. 1 AD doesn't have to always equal 1 RP because if AD is worth more, you need LESS of it to buy things.
A strong economy does not have billions of worthless currency marks floating around in it, it has less currency that is worth more. This is a basic economic principle.
I agree with taking AD out of leadership altogether and move it to content people have to actually play. Give AD for daily dungeons, for daily skirmishes, for daily foundry quests, etc.
I agree with taking AD out of leadership altogether and move it to content people have to actually play. Give AD for daily dungeons, for daily skirmishes, for daily foundry quests, etc.
Because that's the way you play. It is in YOUR best interest it be that way, maybe not others.
The "problem" of botters was a red herring, a simple CATCHA system would have stopped them, it would take an actual human to translate that to log on, it was a simple fix that if botters was the real reason for doing it, they would have done it. So is to much AD a problem? "Some" seem to think so, and they have a bias against people getting it through professions. Why, I ask? Those people played and worked to get to the point they could cash in.
"If" and I say that's a big "IF" to much AD is a ACTUAL problem, why would you punish people that followed the rules and worked and played to the point they could get what has been legit method up to this point?
I agree, for those like yourself that like to get their AD "legit" (in your mind not mine) they need to increase routes to AD through questing, dungeoning and skirmishing etc. (why, up to now has AD not been a quest reward, especially as a daily grind reward? Might make the "grind" part a little less so for those that "have" to grind if they got to their AD that way as a side benefit.)
There are two ways to handle too much AD (I don't think there are to many but that's IMO). 1. You can go back and totally redesign how professions work, running both the risk of negating all the hard work folks have played towards, and totally P.i.ssing them off (running the risk of customer migration out of the game) OR 2. Work on the spending options of AD, get things in game that people actually want to buy with AD, thereby consuming the 'excess" AD.
I personally think #2 is the best route, you don't run the risk of alienating players nor negating progress already earned.
Why have people gotten vast stockpiles of AD? They are either saving up for something that takes a huge amount of AD, or they haven't found anything they want enough to spend AD on.
They have put in a few content bottlenecking items in to "sink" the AD, but what happens when you do that? You create a alternative currency like GMoPs and dragon eggs. The problem from Cryptic's standpoint is, they want to make everything that people might desire, be a zen shop item, thereby there isn't really anything with a high demand being offered for AD.
How about a real effort to market AD stuff? There are white companions/mounts for gold, there are purple companions/mounts for zen (and yes some blue). How about considering AD as the "middle" currency, gold being low and zen high. Migrate all the blue Zen stuff to a AD vendor and let folks spend the AD directly there (yes make it high cost). With green stuff still be drop, event, special promo reward items?
How about make a wardrobe so folks that like to costume can do so without filling their bank or bags? The wardrobe isn't really integral it's sort of a green or blue level item, so make it a zen purchase to open, or a VIP perk, but make expansions to it be AD.
I'm sure there are lot's of things that could be thought up to have a AD spend on it, that people actually WANT so they wouldn't be sitting on a AD pile just waiting for the Zex or just SOMETHING they could want, start making things they want already!
Go this route, it still don't stop folks that are hardcore from stockpiling AD for Zex, that still encourages folks outside the AD piles to spend cash for zen, then zen for AD to get what they lack form AH or the new proposed AD vendor.
If the Devs want to do it right, they have to make sure that everyone starts at 0 again. So, anyone speaking for removing AD from LS really up to sacrifice it all for "the greater good" here?
of course it's my own opinion. I never said otherwise. for those who have leadership armies, it's clear they wouldn't like having it taken out of the game. but be honest, when you think about actualy playing a game, what do you think about? logging in with multiple characters and press ctrl+i, check professions and log out? because that to me is not and should never be the main purpose of the game.
If the Devs want to do it right, they have to make sure that everyone starts at 0 again. So, anyone speaking for removing AD from LS really up to sacrifice it all for "the greater good" here?
You're still coming off as "I don't have anything, so everyone else shouldn't either" here. You've already said you don't agree with removing AD from Leadership, this is just your way of trying to make people agree with you.
There is exactly ZERO percent chance of this ever happening. They would lose almost ALL of their players if they did this, aside from the fact that MOST of the farmed AD is tied up in Zen right now (it's why we have a 4M+ backlog). So, what, they just remove ALL of that Zen that was bought with farmed AD, too?
I started this game with a CW, then a DC. leveled them up to 40ish and never even touched the professions. Then I had my sister telling me why not? I was grousing about how I didn't have enough AD to do things I needed to do, I never even knew about the AD reward for leadership. So I started doing the professions and logiced out the advantage of more slots so worked out to get more profession slots.
Time moved on and I thought it would be nice to have a tank since my family guild had a low count there and our usual tank (my brother in law) wasn't logging on often, so a GWF I started, he had the advantage of professions from day one. Time moved on and the HR came into game and I just had to try them, that took up my 4th slot (did I mention I had one of the Feypacks in there that part of the reward was 2 more slots, well I got that somewhere in there).
So then the christmas event came along and I thought wouldn't that be a good time to start another toon since that content would let it lvl fast...so I bought a coin and got 2 more slots and started a TR. Another profession alt started . Time marched on and they finally added a SW and the other paragon paths for the toons I had so yes, I made a SW. And I just HAD to try the new fire path for a CW..fortunately my sis bought me a another pack and there were the next 2 slots!.
But then they finally they "fixed" the dps of GF so I had to try that as well! There all the slots used and I would switch ea every day and play a different toon, I would play hard core on my weekends and catch up whatever toon was lagging behind. Happyness and all good. I never set out to have a professions army, never was a invoke worrier, just tumbled on to it.
But THEN they messed up the RP and made it a chasm of point/AD sink! How do I keep these toons geared and played? I don't, who has that much time? Well, then the OP comes in and i have to try him as well, so every other toon becomes a garage resident as I Lvl the OP.
So I never set out to have a profession army, I was a alt-aholic! BUT, I played every step of the way! AND I poured all the resources and TIME into lvling my professions to the lvl they are....by having the "army" it has allowed me to keep whatever toon I currently favored geared, while the others are parked.
The gateway let me quickly set the professions and collect and then get in game and actually play (as you define it). Then the bot red herring fiasco nixxed that. So now I "play" wasting my time logging in and out each toon in to collect professions and reset, invoke and then the next. THEN I get to "play" for half the time (or none) the time I did before.
So now I see folks say things like "take the AD from professions" or "make them play a dungeon to get any AD". And you wonder at my reaction? I WORKED to get all those toons to 63+. I WORKED to get the professions slots opened and lvled up to the point I get good rewards. (the OP is just now nearing L20 leadership and the8th slot). Someone is advocating taking all the rewards from my work, I DON'T LIKE THAT, and neither would you.
So how about you don't advocate robbing me, and I won't you. You want honest? You are advocating negating all the effort of everyone that has poured what they have into professions (time, materials,tools etc.) I'm not advocating taking rewards from "playing" your way (it would be robbing me from the current toon I'm playing after all.)
Try my idea from my post above, rather than "rob" alt army players or alt-aholics, actually create something we want to spend out AD on. DON"T MAKE IT A BOTTLENECK SINK. That creates it's own problems. You feel to much AD is ion the market (I don't), how about instead of advocating for what amounts to pay cuts and lay-offs we advocate for an expansion of out economy, grow our way out of what you perceive as the problem. Get everyone a job as it were, manufacture things they want to buy.
Right now in RL comparison terms, 3/4 of the people have a job and can't afford anything with their money. It's like there are no houses for sale except mansions, no cars for sale except limos, no boats for sale except yauhts, the only food for sale is tofu for the poor and caviar and champagne for the rich. In short, there is no poor/middle class items to purchase! You have the rich (zen) class consumer goods-a-plenty, the sweeps/lottery winner (lockbox/event) consumer goods. And the people on the dole (gold) consumer goods.
The real reason for the piles of AD is the workers are working, working HARD in many cases, going home, praying (invoking) and eating their tofuerky. Were are the goods they want to consume in this game? Where are the movie tickets, the economy cars, the ball game tickets? Were are the small modest homes with the white picket fences? They don't exist. Make the middle market goods and the "excess" AD will disappear. All without robbing those that worked their professions up. all without making them rage quit!
See, this long rant is essentially "Don't take my AD away, I need that for RP!" when I specifically said replace the AD with unbound RP.
Edited to add: I'd also like to point out that ALL professions really need more stuff that's sellable, that you can actually turn a profit on. Make AD making something that happens between players, don't bloat the economy with trillions of AD that people just pull out of their asses. That just devalues it, and makes all that RP we need for our gear cost a ridiculous amount of AD.
exactly, they think we want to take it away and not have a viable alternative. each and every character should be able to produce enough AD for his own progression. at the moment it doesn't work like that. at the moment it works that you need like 8 more chars to have ONE with decent gear and enchants. so no one is taking what you have worked for. all that you have gained from it is still there. but we are proposing that from now on have a system that rewards playing the game and not pressing the same buttons like a robot and then log out. To the person who said doing a dungeon is just pressing buttons aswell, there isn't much to add, it's clear that if you don't see the difference it's not worth to debate about it.
See, this long rant is essentially "Don't take my AD away, I need that for RP!" when I specifically said replace the AD with unbound RP.
Edited to add: I'd also like to point out that ALL professions really need more stuff that's sellable, that you can actually turn a profit on. Make AD making something that happens between players, don't bloat the economy with trillions of AD that people just pull out of their asses. That just devalues it, and makes all that RP we need for our gear cost a ridiculous amount of AD.
While that would decrease the relative cost of RP, it would increase the relative cost of things like GMOPs and Cubes of Augmentation. It would also eat up a lot more bag space. And most importantly, it would create a tremendous amount of deflation, which would lead to the entire in-game economy coming to a halt -- no one would spend their AD if their AD would keep getting more valuable, which would cut people off from selling stuff for AD.
We NEED deflation! The economy is in a state of hyperinflation right now. Everything you need costs millions of AD because there's way too much of it in the economy. Making MORE AD out of thin air is just going to continue to make the problem worse. You make tons upon tons of currency out of nothing, and suddenly, the currency is WORTH nothing. Take out the source of that, and the currency goes UP in value. This is a good thing.
I agree about all the professions getting stuff, why should LS be the money work horse? I DIDN'T say I need it for RP! My toons have all stalled at L5 runes/enchants, it's that dang coal bottleneck...
If they would take away the randomness of refining and the dumb wards and side materials I too would advocate for straight out RP in leadership. But they aren't going to do that are they? They have put in artificial bottlenecking mechanics into the refining process that STILL will need a huge AD sink.
If refining was a simple point for point process, even if it was a chasm of points, then yes, there wouldn't need to be AD for the refining process and half the AD earning potential wouldn't be needed. Then they could have RP straight out rewards, bound or not. But you still need GMoPs, coal wards, union, power, etc etc crud that sinks AD as well.
As for your idea, the "botters" make far more from unbound RP ea day then they do the 12-15kish AD. It's a game of numbers, they can put white, green or blue RP items. With profession army you are statistically bound to get at least 1 blue a day that sells for 60k+. THAT AD is refined, you don't have that 24k/day cap hampering you. What RP you sell a day is all "profit", no refinement cap. If you were a botter what would you want more? Items to sell for tons of AD that you don't have to refine or top out at 24k/day? Do you want when you pull the slot machine want 24 quarters back as a "jackpot" or do you want $60+ or even on the rare chance hit the mega bucks?
the idea is to change the system enough that none of that is needed anymore. the current system is a very bad one, is there people who don't agree with that statement?
If the Devs want to do it right, they have to make sure that everyone starts at 0 again. So, anyone speaking for removing AD from LS really up to sacrifice it all for "the greater good" here?
You're still coming off as "I don't have anything, so everyone else shouldn't either" here. You've already said you don't agree with removing AD from Leadership, this is just your way of trying to make people agree with you.
There is exactly ZERO percent chance of this ever happening. They would lose almost ALL of their players if they did this, aside from the fact that MOST of the farmed AD is tied up in Zen right now (it's why we have a 4M+ backlog). So, what, they just remove ALL of that Zen that was bought with farmed AD, too?
And you're coming off as "Hey, everyone else should sacrifice things they have to make the world a better place, but i want to keep my stuff.".
I mean, this far i only see you banging the let's remove RAD from LS drums, but what are you prepared to give up in return?
No more RAD from daily quests? Or no more RAD from salvaging? Or what about making AH purchases account bound?
About turning RAD into RP: + I can refine my RAD from LS into AD, and then simply use it as i want to. - With RP instead, i have to wait for a sale, repost the offer may be several times before it's sold at last, and then there is of course the AH cut. - I wouldn't be in control anymore, i would be at the mercy of other players and the so called "market"...
And while i have constand demand for AD, i don't have a constant demand for RP. Not everyone is running after that refine button carrot...
why do you insist in trying to compare what would each person lose? the result would be better for eveyrone. no one would take away what you have earned till now.
because the idea was never to remove RAD from LS and it's over. it's just PART of a bigger plan. if you take each separate part of the plan without counting the others, then of course it's not going to work.
I agree about all the professions getting stuff, why should LS be the money work horse? I DIDN'T say I need it for RP! My toons have all stalled at L5 runes/enchants, it's that dang coal bottleneck...
If they would take away the randomness of refining and the dumb wards and side materials I too would advocate for straight out RP in leadership. But they aren't going to do that are they? They have put in artificial bottlenecking mechanics into the refining process that STILL will need a huge AD sink.
If refining was a simple point for point process, even if it was a chasm of points, then yes, there wouldn't need to be AD for the refining process and half the AD earning potential wouldn't be needed. Then they could have RP straight out rewards, bound or not. But you still need GMoPs, coal wards, union, power, etc etc crud that sinks AD as well.
As for your idea, the "botters" make far more from unbound RP ea day then they do the 12-15kish AD. It's a game of numbers, they can put white, green or blue RP items. With profession army you are statistically bound to get at least 1 blue a day that sells for 60k+. THAT AD is refined, you don't have that 24k/day cap hampering you. What RP you sell a day is all "profit", no refinement cap. If you were a botter what would you want more? Items to sell for tons of AD that you don't have to refine or top out at 24k/day? Do you want when you pull the slot machine want 24 quarters back as a "jackpot" or do you want $60+ or even on the rare chance hit the mega bucks?
And we NEED AD sinks, however, in this hypothetical solution where AD is removed from Leadership, as the economy recovers hopefully they would lower the price of the various marks that you need for refining, OR make them more easily attainable from things like running content.
And the important thing that you're not understanding here is that the AD bots make selling stuff on the AH comes from other players, they don't pull it out of their HAMSTER.
Since people in this thread seem to have no idea how hyperinflation affects the economy, or why all this AD is a bad thing, let me break it down into real world terms.
Imagine your home country suddenly starts printing out billions upon billions of dollars, or even trillions of dollars, and gives them to everyone in your country. For very little work, suddenly everyone in your country has hundreds of millions of dollars. What happens?
Well, at first, people go nuts spending it on stuff they want, but couldn't afford before. The vendors realize people have tons of money, and so they start raising prices. As more and more people are given more and more money, and pump more and more of it into local business, prices for everything starts to climb sharply. A 2 dollar loaf of bread suddenly costs ten million dollars. Sure, everyone in the country has billions of dollars, but that money becomes worthless.
This is exactly what is happening in the game right now. Because everyone was given the ability to print their own money for very little work, the price of everything is ridiculous. You need to remove the ability to do this, and, ideally, replace the hyperinflated currency with something else. Say, your hypothetical hyperinflated country switches to the Euro suddenly to fix the economy, at a rate of 100 Million dollars = 1 Euro. Everyone is given a reasonable amount of money to start over with, and prices stabilize.
So, I guess we should replace Astral Diamonds with some new currency. I know AD is supposed to be worth way more than gold in D&D lore or whatever, but this is where we are now. We could set a new currency, maybe platinum. Set the exchange rate at 500 AD per platinum, the current ZAX cap. Set the ZAX price down to 1 platinum per zen, capping at 100. Replace the RAD from quests with either platinum at the exchange rate, or something else people can use. Replace RAD in Leadership with unbound RP. It'll be chaos, but the economy will recover.
rhoriangelus is right. if we just ADD new ways to earn AD by playing but do nothing about the tons of AD being made in LS, then it woulc cause even more hyperinflation than we have now.
The major point still is, this was done to battle botting... but in the end, the bots are just ingame now doing their work. Or in other words, botters will allways find a way.
And btw. if you want to see the main income of the bots, go to Neverdeath Graveyard, Ghost Stories, have fun watching bots phase in and out of there within seconds at the entrance.
And you really want to turn RAD (=24k AD limit per day) into unbound RP, sellable over the AH for AD? Really?! Bots will be able to sell their RP at any time by adjusting the price 24/7, while normal players will be f...racked royaly, because they can't keep up with that.
I do believe in killing the messenger...
Want to know why?
Because it sends a message!
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bioshrikeMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,729Arc User
My suggestions to remove ADs from the economy (all these items would be BtA):
1. Add all previous weapon skins to the Wondrous Bazaar as free-to-transmute items, with prices varying based upon either their rarity or the desirability of the weapon skin. 2. Add some sing-color dye bottles to the Wondrous Bazaar, which are not available elsewhere - like white, silver, orange, etc. 3. Similar to 1, add all the old armor skins as free-to-transmute items, (again with costs varying based upon their rarity or desirability). 4. Add companion & mount dye packs. 5. Add special XP to RP overload enchantments - basically, when slotted, these enchantments apply a % of any XP you earn toward the RP of any qualifying item(s) you have equipped. Since these are overload enchantments, they'd have a limited lifespan, thus people would keep buying them. 6. Temporary speed boosters for mounts - basically,, these would provide an hour or so of increased speed for your mounts, capping at 140%. These boosters would increase the speed by 1 "rank", and could be stacked until you reach the cap. These still wouldn't take away from buying new mounts, as those have a permanent speed value and other appearances.
<::::::::::::::)xxxo <::::::::::::::)xxxo <::::::::::::)xxxxxxxx(:::::::::::> oxxx(::::::::::::::> oxxx(::::::::::::::> "Is it better to be feared or respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both?" -Tony Stark Official NW_Legit_Community Forums
My suggestions to remove ADs from the economy (all these items would be BtA):
1. Add all previous weapon skins to the Wondrous Bazaar as free-to-transmute items, with prices varying based upon either their rarity or the desirability of the weapon skin. 2. Add some sing-color dye bottles to the Wondrous Bazaar, which are not available elsewhere - like white, silver, orange, etc. 3. Similar to 1, add all the old armor skins as free-to-transmute items, (again with costs varying based upon their rarity or desirability). 4. Add companion & mount dye packs. 5. Add special XP to RP overload enchantments - basically, when slotted, these enchantments apply a % of any XP you earn toward the RP of any qualifying item(s) you have equipped. Since these are overload enchantments, they'd have a limited lifespan, thus people would keep buying them. 6. Temporary speed boosters for mounts - basically,, these would provide an hour or so of increased speed for your mounts, capping at 140%. These boosters would increase the speed by 1 "rank", and could be stacked until you reach the cap. These still wouldn't take away from buying new mounts, as those have a permanent speed value and other appearances.
Some of these are pretty good ideas. I particularly like the idea of adding old items you can't get anymore as transmutables.
The major point still is, this was done to battle botting... but in the end, the bots are just ingame now doing their work. Or in other words, botters will allways find a way.
And btw. if you want to see the main income of the bots, go to Neverdeath Graveyard, Ghost Stories, have fun watching bots phase in and out of there within seconds at the entrance.
And you really want to turn RAD (=24k AD limit per day) into unbound RP, sellable over the AH for AD? Really?! Bots will be able to sell even more RP, while normal players will be f...racked royaly.
Okay, once again... the important thing is that the AD that comes from the AH comes from other players, not from thin air. You clearly have no idea how currency actually works or why having more AD randomly appear from nothing is a bad thing in the long run.
If players have less AD to spend, bots will get less AD from them.
You want to remove RAD from LS, but you don't want to touch any other source of RAD. You just want to protect the way you play, and only cut into the way others play.
Bots can run dungeons and skirmishes, or salvage items too for RAD. Are you willing to remove/replace those sources of RAD too?
Btw. do you really think that botters won't buy cheap items from the AH, and then resell them for profit again? There goes your "AD from AH comes from players only" right out of the window.
Again, how far are you willing to go, to solve this problem really?
You want to remove RAD from LS, but you don't want to touch any other source of RAD. You just want to protect the way you play, and only cut into the way others play.
Bots can run dungeons and skirmishes, or salvage items too for RAD. So, are you willing to remove/replace that sources of RAD too?
Btw. do you really think that botters won't buy cheap items from the AH, and then sell them for profit again? There goes your "AD from AH comes from players only" right out of the window.
ANYTHING sold on the AH comes from OTHER PLAYERS. Bots still count as 'other players'. You are focusing on one tiny bit of what I suggested and throwing a tantrum over it because YOU want to be able to get a giant pile of AD for very little work, out of thin air, ignoring the fact that the only reason you need a giant pile of AD in the first place is because EVERYONE IS DOING THIS.
Seriously, just... go look up how currency and the economy and hyperinflation works. You clearly have no idea.
Comments
As for the gateway, it was written by Cryptic wasn't it? It's not some third-party company created interface is it? (Didn't think so).
Honestly, I kind of liked the way nwo did professions... 'just give a command for someone to do something, then they go do it'. It's the most hands-off profession system I've played. Spent too much time running around hitting mining spots in wow. EQ2 had me actually craft items like I was in a battle, (hot bubble forms in metal, quickly do skill x to deal with it, hit skill y to increase the heat, blah blah). I admit, eq2 crafting was fun in its novelty, for a while, then just started to feel demanding.
So Cryptic... turn the gateway stuff back on! For that matter, let me do MORE with the gateway, and give me a native android/iphone app (was there one?), and let me hit my mailbox and move items from mail to character in the gateway. Add the guild (who is online) info to the gateway, where I can see who's online, and show me guild-chat... get with it! Add stuff... (and of course bring all the dungeons back and/or create a few new ones, and the foundry (awesome game feature), and maybe some new pvp maps/game-types... like 'capture-the-relic')
Ever since mod-6 you guys have been going backwards... taking away content... just stop it!
(edit: oh... to be fair, strongholds was new... good job! I'm not being cold or heartless and I know how limited resources are etc, but don't take away, work in the 'other direction' always... positive, more-stuff, more-ways ... it leads to more success imo)
If something would have rewarded 500 AD? Replace it with a stone worth 500 RP. Preferably one that can be used on ANYTHING, and not these annoying 12 different refinement stones we have now.
If you need the AD? Sell it. If you need the RP? Use it. The important thing is it's not printing money into the economy. Giving people the ability to do this in the first place is what ruined your economy, guys. Give us the ability to make useful <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> that we can trade to others for money if we need it. That's how trades/professions work. You don't just magically pull money out of thin air.
And for that matter, let people who have maxed out other professions make useful stuff too. Useful, UNBOUND stuff.
Or what if this change would also remove all your characters, and you have to start from scratch, would you still support it?
Besides, 1 RP might be worth 1 AD during 2x RP events, but not the rest of the time. With a change like that, RP will be pretty much worthless...
The Devs should remove any profession from The Gateway, and only offer some mini games on it.
The Devs should also increase the RAD from long (over 12hrs) LS missions.
The Devs should also take a look at the professions in total, and upgrade every profression too.
Last but not least, if the Devs want to fight botters and goldsellers, then they should get real GMs into the game and do it that way.
Considering how much RP is needed, it will never be worthless. It'll probably fluctuate and maybe go down in value, especially at first, but you're forgetting something very, very important - if everyone stops having the ability to pull AD out of thin air, AD will become more valuable. Did you SEE what happened to the ZAX when they announced that Leadership was being removed from the gateway? Millions of Zen in backlog vanished and the price actually went down a few AD. AD became briefly, slightly, more valuable. 1 AD doesn't have to always equal 1 RP because if AD is worth more, you need LESS of it to buy things.
A strong economy does not have billions of worthless currency marks floating around in it, it has less currency that is worth more. This is a basic economic principle.
Give AD for daily dungeons, for daily skirmishes, for daily foundry quests, etc.
The "problem" of botters was a red herring, a simple CATCHA system would have stopped them, it would take an actual human to translate that to log on, it was a simple fix that if botters was the real reason for doing it, they would have done it. So is to much AD a problem? "Some" seem to think so, and they have a bias against people getting it through professions. Why, I ask? Those people played and worked to get to the point they could cash in.
"If" and I say that's a big "IF" to much AD is a ACTUAL problem, why would you punish people that followed the rules and worked and played to the point they could get what has been legit method up to this point?
I agree, for those like yourself that like to get their AD "legit" (in your mind not mine) they need to increase routes to AD through questing, dungeoning and skirmishing etc. (why, up to now has AD not been a quest reward, especially as a daily grind reward? Might make the "grind" part a little less so for those that "have" to grind if they got to their AD that way as a side benefit.)
There are two ways to handle too much AD (I don't think there are to many but that's IMO).
1. You can go back and totally redesign how professions work, running both the risk of negating all the hard work folks have played towards, and totally P.i.ssing them off (running the risk of customer migration out of the game)
OR
2. Work on the spending options of AD, get things in game that people actually want to buy with AD, thereby consuming the 'excess" AD.
I personally think #2 is the best route, you don't run the risk of alienating players nor negating progress already earned.
Why have people gotten vast stockpiles of AD? They are either saving up for something that takes a huge amount of AD, or they haven't found anything they want enough to spend AD on.
They have put in a few content bottlenecking items in to "sink" the AD, but what happens when you do that? You create a alternative currency like GMoPs and dragon eggs. The problem from Cryptic's standpoint is, they want to make everything that people might desire, be a zen shop item, thereby there isn't really anything with a high demand being offered for AD.
How about a real effort to market AD stuff? There are white companions/mounts for gold, there are purple companions/mounts for zen (and yes some blue). How about considering AD as the "middle" currency, gold being low and zen high. Migrate all the blue Zen stuff to a AD vendor and let folks spend the AD directly there (yes make it high cost). With green stuff still be drop, event, special promo reward items?
How about make a wardrobe so folks that like to costume can do so without filling their bank or bags? The wardrobe isn't really integral it's sort of a green or blue level item, so make it a zen purchase to open, or a VIP perk, but make expansions to it be AD.
I'm sure there are lot's of things that could be thought up to have a AD spend on it, that people actually WANT so they wouldn't be sitting on a AD pile just waiting for the Zex or just SOMETHING they could want, start making things they want already!
Go this route, it still don't stop folks that are hardcore from stockpiling AD for Zex, that still encourages folks outside the AD piles to spend cash for zen, then zen for AD to get what they lack form AH or the new proposed AD vendor.
So, anyone speaking for removing AD from LS really up to sacrifice it all for "the greater good" here?
for those who have leadership armies, it's clear they wouldn't like having it taken out of the game.
but be honest, when you think about actualy playing a game, what do you think about? logging in with multiple characters and press ctrl+i, check professions and log out? because that to me is not and should never be the main purpose of the game.
There is exactly ZERO percent chance of this ever happening. They would lose almost ALL of their players if they did this, aside from the fact that MOST of the farmed AD is tied up in Zen right now (it's why we have a 4M+ backlog). So, what, they just remove ALL of that Zen that was bought with farmed AD, too?
I started this game with a CW, then a DC. leveled them up to 40ish and never even touched the professions. Then I had my sister telling me why not? I was grousing about how I didn't have enough AD to do things I needed to do, I never even knew about the AD reward for leadership. So I started doing the professions and logiced out the advantage of more slots so worked out to get more profession slots.
Time moved on and I thought it would be nice to have a tank since my family guild had a low count there and our usual tank (my brother in law) wasn't logging on often, so a GWF I started, he had the advantage of professions from day one. Time moved on and the HR came into game and I just had to try them, that took up my 4th slot (did I mention I had one of the Feypacks in there that part of the reward was 2 more slots, well I got that somewhere in there).
So then the christmas event came along and I thought wouldn't that be a good time to start another toon since that content would let it lvl fast...so I bought a coin and got 2 more slots and started a TR. Another profession alt started
But then they finally they "fixed" the dps of GF so I had to try that as well! There all the slots used and I would switch ea every day and play a different toon, I would play hard core on my weekends and catch up whatever toon was lagging behind. Happyness and all good. I never set out to have a professions army, never was a invoke worrier, just tumbled on to it.
But THEN they messed up the RP and made it a chasm of point/AD sink! How do I keep these toons geared and played? I don't, who has that much time? Well, then the OP comes in and i have to try him as well, so every other toon becomes a garage resident as I Lvl the OP.
So I never set out to have a profession army, I was a alt-aholic! BUT, I played every step of the way! AND I poured all the resources and TIME into lvling my professions to the lvl they are....by having the "army" it has allowed me to keep whatever toon I currently favored geared, while the others are parked.
The gateway let me quickly set the professions and collect and then get in game and actually play (as you define it). Then the bot red herring fiasco nixxed that. So now I "play" wasting my time logging in and out each toon in to collect professions and reset, invoke and then the next. THEN I get to "play" for half the time (or none) the time I did before.
So now I see folks say things like "take the AD from professions" or "make them play a dungeon to get any AD". And you wonder at my reaction? I WORKED to get all those toons to 63+. I WORKED to get the professions slots opened and lvled up to the point I get good rewards. (the OP is just now nearing L20 leadership and the8th slot). Someone is advocating taking all the rewards from my work, I DON'T LIKE THAT, and neither would you.
So how about you don't advocate robbing me, and I won't you. You want honest? You are advocating negating all the effort of everyone that has poured what they have into professions (time, materials,tools etc.) I'm not advocating taking rewards from "playing" your way (it would be robbing me from the current toon I'm playing after all.)
Try my idea from my post above, rather than "rob" alt army players or alt-aholics, actually create something we want to spend out AD on. DON"T MAKE IT A BOTTLENECK SINK. That creates it's own problems. You feel to much AD is ion the market (I don't), how about instead of advocating for what amounts to pay cuts and lay-offs we advocate for an expansion of out economy, grow our way out of what you perceive as the problem. Get everyone a job as it were, manufacture things they want to buy.
Right now in RL comparison terms, 3/4 of the people have a job and can't afford anything with their money. It's like there are no houses for sale except mansions, no cars for sale except limos, no boats for sale except yauhts, the only food for sale is tofu for the poor and caviar and champagne for the rich. In short, there is no poor/middle class items to purchase! You have the rich (zen) class consumer goods-a-plenty, the sweeps/lottery winner (lockbox/event) consumer goods. And the people on the dole (gold) consumer goods.
The real reason for the piles of AD is the workers are working, working HARD in many cases, going home, praying (invoking) and eating their tofuerky. Were are the goods they want to consume in this game? Where are the movie tickets, the economy cars, the ball game tickets? Were are the small modest homes with the white picket fences? They don't exist. Make the middle market goods and the "excess" AD will disappear. All without robbing those that worked their professions up. all without making them rage quit!
Edited to add: I'd also like to point out that ALL professions really need more stuff that's sellable, that you can actually turn a profit on. Make AD making something that happens between players, don't bloat the economy with trillions of AD that people just pull out of their asses. That just devalues it, and makes all that RP we need for our gear cost a ridiculous amount of AD.
so no one is taking what you have worked for. all that you have gained from it is still there. but we are proposing that from now on have a system that rewards playing the game and not pressing the same buttons like a robot and then log out.
To the person who said doing a dungeon is just pressing buttons aswell, there isn't much to add, it's clear that if you don't see the difference it's not worth to debate about it.
I'm just going to leave this here:
My toons have all stalled at L5 runes/enchants, it's that dang coal bottleneck...
If they would take away the randomness of refining and the dumb wards and side materials I too would advocate for straight out RP in leadership. But they aren't going to do that are they? They have put in artificial bottlenecking mechanics into the refining process that STILL will need a huge AD sink.
If refining was a simple point for point process, even if it was a chasm of points, then yes, there wouldn't need to be AD for the refining process and half the AD earning potential wouldn't be needed. Then they could have RP straight out rewards, bound or not. But you still need GMoPs, coal wards, union, power, etc etc crud that sinks AD as well.
As for your idea, the "botters" make far more from unbound RP ea day then they do the 12-15kish AD. It's a game of numbers, they can put white, green or blue RP items. With profession army you are statistically bound to get at least 1 blue a day that sells for 60k+. THAT AD is refined, you don't have that 24k/day cap hampering you. What RP you sell a day is all "profit", no refinement cap. If you were a botter what would you want more? Items to sell for tons of AD that you don't have to refine or top out at 24k/day? Do you want when you pull the slot machine want 24 quarters back as a "jackpot" or do you want $60+ or even on the rare chance hit the mega bucks?
I mean, this far i only see you banging the let's remove RAD from LS drums, but what are you prepared to give up in return?
No more RAD from daily quests?
Or no more RAD from salvaging?
Or what about making AH purchases account bound?
About turning RAD into RP:
+ I can refine my RAD from LS into AD, and then simply use it as i want to.
- With RP instead, i have to wait for a sale, repost the offer may be several times before it's sold at last, and then there is of course the AH cut.
- I wouldn't be in control anymore, i would be at the mercy of other players and the so called "market"...
And while i have constand demand for AD, i don't have a constant demand for RP.
Not everyone is running after that refine button carrot...
It's that plain and simple.
And the important thing that you're not understanding here is that the AD bots make selling stuff on the AH comes from other players, they don't pull it out of their HAMSTER.
Since people in this thread seem to have no idea how hyperinflation affects the economy, or why all this AD is a bad thing, let me break it down into real world terms.
Imagine your home country suddenly starts printing out billions upon billions of dollars, or even trillions of dollars, and gives them to everyone in your country. For very little work, suddenly everyone in your country has hundreds of millions of dollars. What happens?
Well, at first, people go nuts spending it on stuff they want, but couldn't afford before. The vendors realize people have tons of money, and so they start raising prices. As more and more people are given more and more money, and pump more and more of it into local business, prices for everything starts to climb sharply. A 2 dollar loaf of bread suddenly costs ten million dollars. Sure, everyone in the country has billions of dollars, but that money becomes worthless.
This is exactly what is happening in the game right now. Because everyone was given the ability to print their own money for very little work, the price of everything is ridiculous. You need to remove the ability to do this, and, ideally, replace the hyperinflated currency with something else. Say, your hypothetical hyperinflated country switches to the Euro suddenly to fix the economy, at a rate of 100 Million dollars = 1 Euro. Everyone is given a reasonable amount of money to start over with, and prices stabilize.
So, I guess we should replace Astral Diamonds with some new currency. I know AD is supposed to be worth way more than gold in D&D lore or whatever, but this is where we are now. We could set a new currency, maybe platinum. Set the exchange rate at 500 AD per platinum, the current ZAX cap. Set the ZAX price down to 1 platinum per zen, capping at 100. Replace the RAD from quests with either platinum at the exchange rate, or something else people can use. Replace RAD in Leadership with unbound RP. It'll be chaos, but the economy will recover.
Or in other words, botters will allways find a way.
And btw. if you want to see the main income of the bots, go to Neverdeath Graveyard, Ghost Stories, have fun watching bots phase in and out of there within seconds at the entrance.
And you really want to turn RAD (=24k AD limit per day) into unbound RP, sellable over the AH for AD?
Really?!
Bots will be able to sell their RP at any time by adjusting the price 24/7, while normal players will be f...racked royaly, because they can't keep up with that.
1. Add all previous weapon skins to the Wondrous Bazaar as free-to-transmute items, with prices varying based upon either their rarity or the desirability of the weapon skin.
2. Add some sing-color dye bottles to the Wondrous Bazaar, which are not available elsewhere - like white, silver, orange, etc.
3. Similar to 1, add all the old armor skins as free-to-transmute items, (again with costs varying based upon their rarity or desirability).
4. Add companion & mount dye packs.
5. Add special XP to RP overload enchantments - basically, when slotted, these enchantments apply a % of any XP you earn toward the RP of any qualifying item(s) you have equipped. Since these are overload enchantments, they'd have a limited lifespan, thus people would keep buying them.
6. Temporary speed boosters for mounts - basically,, these would provide an hour or so of increased speed for your mounts, capping at 140%. These boosters would increase the speed by 1 "rank", and could be stacked until you reach the cap. These still wouldn't take away from buying new mounts, as those have a permanent speed value and other appearances.
"Is it better to be feared or respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both?" -Tony Stark
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If players have less AD to spend, bots will get less AD from them.
You just want to protect the way you play, and only cut into the way others play.
Bots can run dungeons and skirmishes, or salvage items too for RAD.
Are you willing to remove/replace those sources of RAD too?
Btw. do you really think that botters won't buy cheap items from the AH, and then resell them for profit again?
There goes your "AD from AH comes from players only" right out of the window.
Again, how far are you willing to go, to solve this problem really?
Seriously, just... go look up how currency and the economy and hyperinflation works. You clearly have no idea.