I'm happy that the devs admit there's a serious problem with the economy due to bots. This just seems a strange way to handle it. If you adjust one thing to limit botting, there should be another thing adjusted at the same time to help legitimate players. That's missing. I think it's vital to balance these things when you make a change that has a dramatic impact on players.
I'm sure there are thousands of decent suggestions in the forums about things that could be done to reduce botting that would likely not affect genuine players at all. Automated detection, e.g. bots running around the same instance endlessly, or selling literally thousands of enchants per day. If an account is generating extraordinary amounts of AD, surely it should be flagged and investigated at least. With gold sellers, accounts could be automatically banned from using chat and mail if lots of people use the report spam option.
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tripsofthrymrMember, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,624Community Moderator
edited July 2015
The hard core botters already have the means to do Leadership in game. This will not affect them (OK give them 24 hours to update their scripts), it will only penalize casual players.
I am fully capable of understanding the big picture that you refer to, as are most of the other posters here as evidenced by their well-considered replies. This is a horrible change that only hurts legitimate players.
Please reverse it.
On a side note, if you introduce a mechanic into the game that allows a resource to be generated at a rate of X and is initiated by a few mouse clicks, that resource being generated at rate X should not be game-breaking whether the few clicks are done by a person or by a bot.
ACK! I just found out about this... so i got my 13 toons i've been leveling up in leadership, just finally got my first greater-vorpal-enchant after saving up for 6 weeks. I check my toons using the browser every few hours, sneak in looks while at work etc. That's how i do it. Been playing for about 6 months and have given you guys 40-50 bucks or something so far.
So now... what?! WTF ?!!! So i can't hit the toons thru the day with my browser because of what? You guys are freakin wacked. I mean really wacked in the head. This is total BS.
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tripsofthrymrMember, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,624Community Moderator
3. For the same reason as above the legit farm from in game leadership will be more rewarding - because any AD generated through human-controlled leadership is going to be worth much more.
This one line undermines your entire claim. If botters have the technology to play PVP and run around maps opening skill nodes, they can apply that technology to pressing "N" in game and clicking a few times.
Actual, real, hard-core botters will just adapt.
Regular players will have lost a very nice convenience.
I'm reading this as saying that Cryptic considers me a bot. They can't possibly think this will stop actual bots. Like so many of their increase-the-nuisance "solutions" to botting, the effect of this one is mostly on players who have several characters and play whicher one Cryptic is not currently nerfing to oblivion. After being hit over the head with it so many times, I have finally figured out that their definition of "botting" is any character that generates income or benefit for an account and is not played beyond that role. Everyone who is complaining that this will make it more difficult to support a main character is music to Cryptic's ears.
more thoughts on why this is the dumbest change I've ever seen...
I played some Archeage last fall. Decent game, economics played an even bigger role in that game than NWO. They had a real bot problem. Bots would grab up land at near instant speed, so a 'subscriber' (like me) couldn't really claim available land (had to save up and buy it from these botters). It basically led me to cancel my sub, and move on to another game...
But what can a botter do hitting the leadership api... really?
1. They can avoid all downtime between tasks. The AD tasks take 16 and 20 hours. Using the browser, I check it (before going to bed, and during the day sometimes at work), so I loose maybe about an hour or so of dead time. What's that, 5% ? So a botter makes 5% more AD than me. Considering I'm looking at a 1+ years to get legendary stuff, (which will probably be made worthless with some future mod and I'm asked to do it again), AND considering this is really the ONLY way to get AD/gear/enchants in this game, WHO CARES?!! I sure don't care that someone makes 5% more AD than me, so what?!!
2. Botters can level leadership toons faster, again because they avoid the dead-time between the smaller time tasks (2-8 hours). Removing the gateway leadership tasks now makes this MUCH harder on me. I can only do a few tasks a day, so my 'dead-time' will increase drastically. However, a botter who figures how to run some program to log into the game and 'bot', will continue to level up toons fast, and my last 4 toons that I purchased during your last xp event, will take 5-6 months to get to max level now. SO basically, this change INCREASES the distance between myself and the botters, putting me even more behind.
This is the dumbest change I've ever seen. I'm actually embarrassed that I gave you guys a single dime.
Please tell me all the Leadership I loaded while in-game last night (Because, it was said Leadership will be available while in-game) that was removed today during the patch that we got all the resources back.
It is one thing to say Leadership will no longer be available in the Gateway, but to have them removed the following morning if you have leadership training in-game from the knight before and lose everything. That will be very bad! So basically, do not train the leadership that takes up to 8hrs if you don't plan on being in the game for that time.
I had one character that leadership training on the Gateway, it now shows all empty/available slots. Looks to me like I lost that progress that was started the day before basically. I will not know the full effect until I get a chance to log in.
Question, are these slots still active once I log into the game. or if I load them with another skill does that erase all my progress. Basically I guess we do not train leadership as I see it. Just remove it all together if we are going to lose daily progress. Our time means nothing to these companies.
It's fine, stuff that you had active before the change can be collected via gateway. You just can't start anything new.
Look... this is a casual game.... Causal gamers.. need methods to interact with the game... that can help them save their limited IN-GAME time... by being able to participate in OUT-GAME activities... like rotating professions while at work.. or on their lunch break...
GET A CLUE... People with MONEY = WORK... people with TIME = NO MONEY! If you want to have everything earned IN-GAME.... THEN CREATE A SUBSCRIPTION OPTION... So people with "MONEY" can... still substitute it for TIME.
Also.. make gearing a character... a REASONABLE COST..
There isn't enough content generated with each MOD to actually keep true hardcore players engaged.
If a person runs ECC for approximately 3 weeks every day for their cache they'll generate enough seals for their Elven gear... there is not END GAME RAID... there is no PINNACLE BATTLE EVENT... that closes the Mod story line. No Uber Bad Guy at the end of the Rainbow who drops best of the best gear.. REFINEMENT should be an alternative path of gear improvement... not the ONLY PATH.
Or Maybe.. have end bosses drop BOP Refinement items worth 50k-100k (Tier 1 & Tier 2)... so people can earn large amounts of Refinement without IWD grinding for hours on end....
What's left? How else can gear be upgraded.... AD grind... Refinement of Artifacts, Artifact Gear, and Enchantments... for those.. you need Greater Marks of Potency (100k a pop) and lots..lots...lots.. (did I say lots) of refinement. More than can be reasonably farmed by a single individual. Since there is no alternative elite content equivalent... Epic Raid boss who drops legendary gear (or epics with equivalent stats)
I believe it was estimated that the refinement effort for the above items.. is approximately 60-70 million AD. (for a single character... so much for Alts)....
So Mr. Strumslinger,
Since this is your personal opinion... What would you consider a reasonable # of hours to accomplish the effort needed to be reasonably geared for a given MOD?
Generally, you'll need a 2.5kish Item level for a Tier 2 Dungeon currently. This means you'll need Full Tier 1 Gear, a Perfect Weapon Enchant (Vorpal if you are DPS), Epic Level Artifacts & Artifact Gear, and Rank 8-9 Enchantments/Runestones. So that's approximately 20-25 million in Gear.
So how long should it take for a person playing 2-4 hours maybe every other day.. maybe a longer session on a weekend??? 200 hours? 400 hours? Using the low side AD estimate... That means you would need to be able to generate 100,000 and 50,000 AD hourly
So given that the primary method of generating AD currently in the game... has a max of 24,000 AD daily on a single character.. and Dungeon Drops.. can only be salvaged into ROUGH AD.... If a person only had the 2 starting character slots and maxed out both characters AD refinement everyday... So let's take 20,000,000 / 48,000 a day = 416.6 days... (that if you hit your max EVERY DAY)
So are you saying... it should take a causal player.. A YEAR to be able to reasonably run a Tier 2.. and not be CARRIED by better equipped players?
Then again... after 3 weeks.. (maybe you have a guild that can carry you.. to get those daily caches)... what then... grind IWD for Peridots and White Pearls.. for the next 300+ days? Just so you can run a Tier 2 and not be carried?
If you want people to buy ZEN, instead of using 3rd Party Item and AD sellers... then... you need to make the ZEN items... a reasonable option that is inline with the cost of refinement. Blood Rudy Packs = 150,000 Refinement Points ... We'll say just in Artifact Gear / Artifacts you are looking at
I don't have the time this second to calculate the cost in ZEN between AD for GMOP, Coal Wards, and Blood Rubies... to create the AD and Refinement Points needed.. but I'm going to say... it's 3,000+ Dollars...
At that cost... PER CHARACTER... I can get a lot of $20 a month subscription based game time. That actually has enough content that can keep me entertained for 6 months between expansions.... (likely on several characters)... and a easy... linear path for obtaining gear for those characters.
A bunch of people are saying we're punishing players, but let's put things into perspective about the game as a whole instead of what each individual player sees. We have information you guys may not be aware of in that the amount of people botting in Leadership on Gateway is astounding! They're actually ruining the economy by having so much AD that it hikes everything up, but many aren't aware of this. By removing it, the economy will be more balanced as "illegal" currency would take a hit - yes, we know there are other ways, but one step at a time.
Let's not think about this in terms of individual and immediate problems. Just because it doesn't affect you directly, doesn't mean it's a bad thing. Manyyyyy people have asked us to take care of all the botters and their monopoly of AD, but when we do something to stop some of it, the same people berate us. I'm not sure about you, but this just doesn't sound right. So I'm asking you guys to look at the bigger picture instead of what's directly in front of you and ask yourself the same questions you're asking us.
I understand your frustrations, but again, look at the bigger picture. I'll be the first to acknowledge when a decision is questionable like the XP changes and whatnot, but this one is not questionable; it's just not obvious at first.
Many people say we never act on anything the community wants. Here we are acting on it - getting rid of a major source for botting, which will result in a more balanced economy.
This is my honest opinion and I am speaking for myself, not anyone else.
Farming AD from Gateway is very simple and efficient.
I took a look at some Java script more than once in order to understand WHY certain items were so expensive on the AH in compared to their availability.
A Gateway bot can handle multiple alts AND multiple accounts. You can easily earn millions of AD in one day.
Taking Leadership out of the gateway is therefore a choice that I actually agree with.
At the same time, I look at it in prospective.
Let's look at the playing community as a whole. A population.
What is the age average? How many individuals per age ranges?
Even if you have an average of 15 years old, even kids need to go to school. Therefore, it is impossible to log online every 2-12 hours CONSTANTLY. Therefore, Levelling Leadership will be hard. Extremely hard.
This can be solved by taking out of the gateway not ALL leadership tasks, but only those who reward AD.
Simply modify the table (which is now completely empty, I suppose).
On the AD production, my current AD production rate is around 14-18 k/ ton (depending on rare tasks and my timing on the gateway). I have 7 tons with leadership at MAX, therefore, I get 110-130k AD /day.
It would be nice if I could launch more than 3 Battle Elemental Cultists though. This would allow me, who will now launch tasks ONCE A DAY, to still get 18 k AD per ton.
And you can easily fight the online BOT by putting the task in a random order.
If my case represent a good portion of the playing community, then I will encourage both modification mentioned above
Strum, here's my issue with this decision -- it's just one more way that I feel like the game is pushing me away. (Warning: this may seem a little off topic as I build up to my point, but I'm, as you say, putting it into perspective. In this case my perspective as a casual player who has played off and on since beta.) I haven't logged into the game in weeks due to the lack of any new end game content. Running the exact same mod 1-5 dailies that I have been doing for literally years in some cases is not motivation to want to log in and play. We somehow have fewer dungeons to do now than we did a year ago, and even the ones that are there aren't really farmable, so why run them once you've already got your gear. Likewise, the next module is focused entirely on guilds. So for someone like me, who has no desire or even willingness to be in a guild, that is another entire module with no actual content for me and other casual types who don't want the guild dynamic as part of their gaming experience. Essentially, you guys are asking me to either shift my gaming style (not going to happen) or to hang on and wait until you eventually get some new content for casuals like myself. And I fully understand that development is cyclical and not every module can have content for every type of player; that is not the point I'm making here. I'm merely pointing out the sort of "holding pattern" that players like me often find ourselves in with NW.
This brings me to the leadership/gateway change. In the past, when I would feel bored with the available content in NW, the thing that has kept me involved with the game is the gateway. Since it's browser operated, I can log in on a break at work, maybe run a quick SCA and send out my leadership peeps, knowing that by building my characters' assets I was still in some way advancing my characters even though nothing in game was really calling to me at that moment. That way, when new content is released, I have built up some extra funds to enjoy it. As I mentioned at the outset of this post, I haven't logged into the game itself in weeks. But I've logged into gateway to do leadership and an occasional SCA run almost every day. Now that this leadership change is in place, I don't have much reason to log in to gateway either. Which means that, assuming the next module is entirely guild-focused as it has been advertised, by the time new content that I'm actually interested in is finally released, NW won't even be on my radar.
As others have pointed out -- professional botters will not likely be all that affected by this change in the long run. Players, however, and especially casual players, will be, and in ways you may not have even considered.
TL/DR version: using gateway for leadership served as a nice way of keeping me interested in the game even when there wasn't any in-game content that I was eager to play at a given moment. Without it, many on-again-off-again players will likely just disappear.
Leadership needs a Hughe rework. But this step doesnt solve anything. Its quite sad that it is fact, that u can just make ad by making some clicks and then collect hours later the reward. And ppl who actually play the game make almost no AD. U might want to think to rethink this whole situation, so that ppl who actually play the game get more than ppl who are just click every few. Also this step u just did, doesn't solve anything, u just screwed the honest players. The bots and script-users will just adjust there script and it will take some minutes longer to start all charackters professions.
Someone who spents time in the game should have a whole lot more reward, then someone who makes some clicks. It is called time vs reward. And this game has the the worst one i have seen so far
[...] but let's put things into perspective about the game as a whole instead of what each individual player sees. We have information you guys may not be aware of
[...] but many aren't aware of this.
[...] Let's not think about this in terms of individual and immediate problems.
[...] So I'm asking you guys to look at the bigger picture instead of what's directly in front of you [...]
[...] it's just not obvious at first.
I have absolutely no interest in insulting you in any way, I do not know you, I have no quarrel with you personally.
Let me assure you though, i am not blind nor ignorant, and neither are "a bunch of" or "many people".
Artifacts: 4.whatever million RP to get one artifact to legendary, not even mythic. That´s a lot, but no, you have to add in several greater marks, of potency for example at 100k each. But wait, let´s also give it a very high fail chance so players can buy a ward for about 500k.
Lockbox mounts: What´s the actual drop chance on those? Considering you probably won´t get one for ~20 keys, which is pretty much the price for an account-wide Stormrider Clydesdale... So enjoy gambling, to each their own I guess.
Greater Black Ice gear: let me skip this part, I´m not going to comment on 250.000 refinded black ice, plus 75.000 just for the profession.
Just three examples for one point:
There are leadership armies because of dev/publisher greed, for no other reason. They are necessary for anyone with a job to remain solvent ingame without just forking out cash.
But if it´s all about the 10-20% whales... Enjoy 10-20% of your playerbase, I´m sure they will be happy to stay when the rest of us are gone.
I really appreciate your interaction with the community. But in this case, and from my personal point of view, there is nothing to defend here.
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canadascottMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 121Arc User
edited July 2015
Perspective? Here's my perspective,
I've already been through the loss of convenient online aps once already on Champions Online. I'm not going through this <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> again on another Cryptic game. So, good bye.
Once again, Cryptic responds to a problem with a lazy, brute force solution that inconveniences its users, rather than find something that accommodates the legitimate user. This is the same crappy sledgehammer nonsense you did with the Foundry that caused every Foundry author I know to leave the game, all over again. Lazy, lazy, lazy.
And yes, I am making sure the door doesn't hit me on the way out;no, you can't have my stuff, and get some new material. .
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schweifer1982Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,662Arc User
Ok guys i think this need to be stoped .
Some of you are soo angry they make stupid comments stupid suggestion LIKE "remove the ad from Leadership".
First they say its temporary not permanent change also ,they say you can do Leadership tasks in game .
Agan i want to point somthing out wishing somthing and when its come to reality then complain about it is a bit stupid.
I cant even imagine what endless cry will happen if your wish "remove the ad from Leadership" become reality.
I'd look at this from the point of view of an average (non whale) player who is happy to spend a little:
- Feeling like the only way to progress is massive grinding or buying Zen makes people reluctant to spend anything and gives little or no satisfaction when they do spend.
- Seeing bots generating millions of AD while you are grinding away and barely making any progress makes people think that it's unfair they should have to spend anything and so are less likely to.
- Taking away the only method to earn AD in your spare time via Gateway compounds the problem, meaning AD requirements get so high that you can neither afford to get around it nor have the time or will to grind for it. Not only do you not want to spend anything, you don't want to play any more.
Bots will carry on regardless, but changes like this aren't going to gain the game any players and will certainly lose some.
We have information you guys may not be aware of in that the amount of people botting in Leadership on Gateway is astounding!
Never has a point been missed so much. The reason people are botting Leadership is because you have no good ways to make AD in the game. You have CREATED the demand for Leadership botting just to be competitive in Neverwinter, and now you want to speak of 'fixing' that as if your company's greed didn't create the issue in the first place.
If playing the game had enough fun or rewards to it (instead of forcing long, tedious grinds on everything), there wouldn't be as many people looking to make AD from the Gateway before they continue. You've made most epic dungeons nearly impossible (or borderline worthless) to the average player, so you're going to have botting.
The simple fact that you seem completely dense as to the cause here is troubling, to say the least.
Offline features in an online game, particularly an action based one, should not be the easiest way to make game currency. In fact, the whole gateway idea is bad. If players want to play a game offline, they should go to an offline game, not an action based MMORPG as Neverwinter Online called itself.
Regarding the entire anti-botting issue, frankly, if game developers really want to combat real world trading, they won't let gold spammers infect their games. Banning spammer accounts is not effective, particularly in a f2p game. However, putting a filter on their domain names has been an effective anti-rwt measure in games that are determined to do so. When a game developer tells its players stopping gold spammers is very hard, their lies fall apart obviously when smart players quickly point out why there are no gold spammers in other zones other than the starting one?
It is not that easy to ban all the real world traders, but it is also not that hard to stop the gold spamming. It is just a matter of whether the game developers want to.
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seventhpillarMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 216Arc User
So, now that leadership is *fixed*, can we now:
Remove GMOP requirements?
Make all armor drops BOE to include PVP items to sell?
Revert Coalescent Ward drops back prior to Mod 1?
Remove refining system and revert to old system?
Get meaningful drops at the last boss on dungeons that is sellable?
Get away from artifact weapons/equipment and go back to circa Castle Never?
Not complaining but everything on this game requires astronomical amount of AD. Lets just say to get rank 10, how many GMOPs you need? Then to 11? Then to 12? Same as for weapon/armor enchants but add in the cost of Coal Wards.
You guys are delusional if you think that they are either reading this or care. Strum pretty much laid it out...you don't know the facts, and therefore this change was made based on facts you don't know....case closed.
Less AD in game means more people buying Zen. Case closed. Money talks, and players walk.
They can do whatever they want, for whatever reason they want. They can even alter promotions after they end if they want. Doesn't have to make sense to anyone but them.
Within two days the ZEN will start to lower money because they no longer have BOTs change AD by ZEN, when that happens, people how happy they were with the measure, which happens to have the most ZEN buy, they will find that their ZENs are not worth 500AD, if not it will be worth 400 or 300AD.
In your face!
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seventhpillarMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 216Arc User
Well to be quite honest, if there isn't no viable way to earn AD since everything is BOP pretty much, Neverwinter will be Neverloggedin to a lot of players soon.
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obsiddiaMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,025Arc User
edited July 2015
Okay, so you can't do any complicated bot detection programming. How about putting a NOTICE on the Gateway???
Is text that hard? Not everyone comes to the boards, nor should they have to.
Oh... Since you mentioned the word, and we can say it for a fleeting second: BOT
Did you really think anyone could steal the power of the god of thieves?
Within two days the ZEN will start to lower money because they no longer have BOTs change AD by ZEN, when that happens, people how happy they were with the measure, which happens to have the most ZEN buy, they will find that their ZENs are not worth 500AD, if not it will be worth 400 or 300AD.
In your face!
So we can now pump even more Zen into the game to buy the ridiculous amount of RP, GMOP, companion upgrades and so on.
Guess you just missed my face - and the point.
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obsiddiaMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,025Arc User
Question for tech people here:
If all the Gateway bots move to in-game bots, what does that do to the server load?
Did you really think anyone could steal the power of the god of thieves?
So, i wont question this decision.. Most of the other here have said it all.. But, since leadership now is un-botable (If its not then this move is worthless at least) then un-nerf leadership to its previews state (Destroy enemy camp 12hours) and fix the problem with the graphics. It takes at least 15secs for the graphics to load in every toon.
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I'm sure there are thousands of decent suggestions in the forums about things that could be done to reduce botting that would likely not affect genuine players at all. Automated detection, e.g. bots running around the same instance endlessly, or selling literally thousands of enchants per day. If an account is generating extraordinary amounts of AD, surely it should be flagged and investigated at least. With gold sellers, accounts could be automatically banned from using chat and mail if lots of people use the report spam option.
I am fully capable of understanding the big picture that you refer to, as are most of the other posters here as evidenced by their well-considered replies. This is a horrible change that only hurts legitimate players.
Please reverse it.
On a side note, if you introduce a mechanic into the game that allows a resource to be generated at a rate of X and is initiated by a few mouse clicks, that resource being generated at rate X should not be game-breaking whether the few clicks are done by a person or by a bot.
Sci-fi author: The Gods We Make, The Gods We Seek, and Ji-min
So now... what?! WTF ?!!! So i can't hit the toons thru the day with my browser because of what? You guys are freakin wacked. I mean really wacked in the head. This is total BS.
This one line undermines your entire claim. If botters have the technology to play PVP and run around maps opening skill nodes, they can apply that technology to pressing "N" in game and clicking a few times.
Actual, real, hard-core botters will just adapt.
Regular players will have lost a very nice convenience.
Sci-fi author: The Gods We Make, The Gods We Seek, and Ji-min
I played some Archeage last fall. Decent game, economics played an even bigger role in that game than NWO. They had a real bot problem. Bots would grab up land at near instant speed, so a 'subscriber' (like me) couldn't really claim available land (had to save up and buy it from these botters). It basically led me to cancel my sub, and move on to another game...
But what can a botter do hitting the leadership api... really?
1. They can avoid all downtime between tasks. The AD tasks take 16 and 20 hours. Using the browser, I check it (before going to bed, and during the day sometimes at work), so I loose maybe about an hour or so of dead time. What's that, 5% ? So a botter makes 5% more AD than me. Considering I'm looking at a 1+ years to get legendary stuff, (which will probably be made worthless with some future mod and I'm asked to do it again), AND considering this is really the ONLY way to get AD/gear/enchants in this game, WHO CARES?!! I sure don't care that someone makes 5% more AD than me, so what?!!
2. Botters can level leadership toons faster, again because they avoid the dead-time between the smaller time tasks (2-8 hours). Removing the gateway leadership tasks now makes this MUCH harder on me. I can only do a few tasks a day, so my 'dead-time' will increase drastically. However, a botter who figures how to run some program to log into the game and 'bot', will continue to level up toons fast, and my last 4 toons that I purchased during your last xp event, will take 5-6 months to get to max level now. SO basically, this change INCREASES the distance between myself and the botters, putting me even more behind.
This is the dumbest change I've ever seen. I'm actually embarrassed that I gave you guys a single dime.
It's fine, stuff that you had active before the change can be collected via gateway. You just can't start anything new.
GET A CLUE... People with MONEY = WORK... people with TIME = NO MONEY! If you want to have everything earned IN-GAME.... THEN CREATE A SUBSCRIPTION OPTION... So people with "MONEY" can... still substitute it for TIME.
Also.. make gearing a character... a REASONABLE COST..
There isn't enough content generated with each MOD to actually keep true hardcore players engaged.
If a person runs ECC for approximately 3 weeks every day for their cache they'll generate enough seals for their Elven gear... there is not END GAME RAID... there is no PINNACLE BATTLE EVENT... that closes the Mod story line. No Uber Bad Guy at the end of the Rainbow who drops best of the best gear.. REFINEMENT should be an alternative path of gear improvement... not the ONLY PATH.
Or Maybe.. have end bosses drop BOP Refinement items worth 50k-100k (Tier 1 & Tier 2)... so people can earn large amounts of Refinement without IWD grinding for hours on end....
What's left? How else can gear be upgraded.... AD grind... Refinement of Artifacts, Artifact Gear, and Enchantments... for those.. you need Greater Marks of Potency (100k a pop) and lots..lots...lots.. (did I say lots) of refinement. More than can be reasonably farmed by a single individual. Since there is no alternative elite content equivalent... Epic Raid boss who drops legendary gear (or epics with equivalent stats)
I believe it was estimated that the refinement effort for the above items.. is approximately 60-70 million AD. (for a single character... so much for Alts)....
So Mr. Strumslinger,
Since this is your personal opinion... What would you consider a reasonable # of hours to accomplish the effort needed to be reasonably geared for a given MOD?
Generally, you'll need a 2.5kish Item level for a Tier 2 Dungeon currently. This means you'll need Full Tier 1 Gear, a Perfect Weapon Enchant (Vorpal if you are DPS), Epic Level Artifacts & Artifact Gear, and Rank 8-9 Enchantments/Runestones. So that's approximately 20-25 million in Gear.
So how long should it take for a person playing 2-4 hours maybe every other day.. maybe a longer session on a weekend??? 200 hours? 400 hours? Using the low side AD estimate... That means you would need to be able to generate 100,000 and 50,000 AD hourly
So given that the primary method of generating AD currently in the game... has a max of 24,000 AD daily on a single character.. and Dungeon Drops.. can only be salvaged into ROUGH AD.... If a person only had the 2 starting character slots and maxed out both characters AD refinement everyday... So let's take 20,000,000 / 48,000 a day = 416.6 days... (that if you hit your max EVERY DAY)
So are you saying... it should take a causal player.. A YEAR to be able to reasonably run a Tier 2.. and not be CARRIED by better equipped players?
Then again... after 3 weeks.. (maybe you have a guild that can carry you.. to get those daily caches)... what then... grind IWD for Peridots and White Pearls.. for the next 300+ days? Just so you can run a Tier 2 and not be carried?
If you want people to buy ZEN, instead of using 3rd Party Item and AD sellers... then... you need to make the ZEN items... a reasonable option that is inline with the cost of refinement. Blood Rudy Packs = 150,000 Refinement Points ... We'll say just in Artifact Gear / Artifacts you are looking at
I don't have the time this second to calculate the cost in ZEN between AD for GMOP, Coal Wards, and Blood Rubies... to create the AD and Refinement Points needed.. but I'm going to say... it's 3,000+ Dollars...
At that cost... PER CHARACTER... I can get a lot of $20 a month subscription based game time. That actually has enough content that can keep me entertained for 6 months between expansions.... (likely on several characters)... and a easy... linear path for obtaining gear for those characters.
Farming AD from Gateway is very simple and efficient.
I took a look at some Java script more than once in order to understand WHY certain items were so expensive on the AH in compared to their availability.
A Gateway bot can handle multiple alts AND multiple accounts. You can easily earn millions of AD in one day.
Taking Leadership out of the gateway is therefore a choice that I actually agree with.
At the same time, I look at it in prospective.
Let's look at the playing community as a whole. A population.
What is the age average? How many individuals per age ranges?
Even if you have an average of 15 years old, even kids need to go to school. Therefore, it is impossible to log online every 2-12 hours CONSTANTLY.
Therefore, Levelling Leadership will be hard. Extremely hard.
This can be solved by taking out of the gateway not ALL leadership tasks, but only those who reward AD.
Simply modify the table (which is now completely empty, I suppose).
On the AD production, my current AD production rate is around 14-18 k/ ton (depending on rare tasks and my timing on the gateway). I have 7 tons with leadership at MAX, therefore, I get 110-130k AD /day.
It would be nice if I could launch more than 3 Battle Elemental Cultists though. This would allow me, who will now launch tasks ONCE A DAY, to still get 18 k AD per ton.
And you can easily fight the online BOT by putting the task in a random order.
If my case represent a good portion of the playing community, then I will encourage both modification mentioned above
Lethinath - DC
Fayn Fiddler - HR
Jean Fiddler - OP
Quinn Fiddler - TR
Tre'Davious Flynn - SW
Bogus Skullslicker - GF
Vanhankaupunginselk - CW
Alea - GWF
Noble Misfits
This brings me to the leadership/gateway change. In the past, when I would feel bored with the available content in NW, the thing that has kept me involved with the game is the gateway. Since it's browser operated, I can log in on a break at work, maybe run a quick SCA and send out my leadership peeps, knowing that by building my characters' assets I was still in some way advancing my characters even though nothing in game was really calling to me at that moment. That way, when new content is released, I have built up some extra funds to enjoy it. As I mentioned at the outset of this post, I haven't logged into the game itself in weeks. But I've logged into gateway to do leadership and an occasional SCA run almost every day. Now that this leadership change is in place, I don't have much reason to log in to gateway either. Which means that, assuming the next module is entirely guild-focused as it has been advertised, by the time new content that I'm actually interested in is finally released, NW won't even be on my radar.
As others have pointed out -- professional botters will not likely be all that affected by this change in the long run. Players, however, and especially casual players, will be, and in ways you may not have even considered.
TL/DR version: using gateway for leadership served as a nice way of keeping me interested in the game even when there wasn't any in-game content that I was eager to play at a given moment. Without it, many on-again-off-again players will likely just disappear.
Someone who spents time in the game should have a whole lot more reward, then someone who makes some clicks. It is called time vs reward. And this game has the the worst one i have seen so far
If a lot of people think you´re doing something wrong... maybe you are?
I have absolutely no interest in insulting you in any way, I do not know you, I have no quarrel with you personally.
Let me assure you though, i am not blind nor ignorant, and neither are "a bunch of" or "many people".
Artifacts: 4.whatever million RP to get one artifact to legendary, not even mythic. That´s a lot, but no, you have to add in several greater marks, of potency for example at 100k each. But wait, let´s also give it a very high fail chance so players can buy a ward for about 500k.
Lockbox mounts: What´s the actual drop chance on those? Considering you probably won´t get one for ~20 keys, which is pretty much the price for an account-wide Stormrider Clydesdale... So enjoy gambling, to each their own I guess.
Greater Black Ice gear: let me skip this part, I´m not going to comment on 250.000 refinded black ice, plus 75.000 just for the profession.
Just three examples for one point:
There are leadership armies because of dev/publisher greed, for no other reason. They are necessary for anyone with a job to remain solvent ingame without just forking out cash.
But if it´s all about the 10-20% whales... Enjoy 10-20% of your playerbase, I´m sure they will be happy to stay when the rest of us are gone.
I really appreciate your interaction with the community. But in this case, and from my personal point of view, there is nothing to defend here.
I've already been through the loss of convenient online aps once already on Champions Online. I'm not going through this <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> again on another Cryptic game. So, good bye.
Once again, Cryptic responds to a problem with a lazy, brute force solution that inconveniences its users, rather than find something that accommodates the legitimate user. This is the same crappy sledgehammer nonsense you did with the Foundry that caused every Foundry author I know to leave the game, all over again. Lazy, lazy, lazy.
And yes, I am making sure the door doesn't hit me on the way out;no, you can't have my stuff, and get some new material. .
Some of you are soo angry they make stupid comments stupid suggestion LIKE "remove the ad from Leadership".
First they say its temporary not permanent change also ,they say you can do Leadership tasks in game .
Agan i want to point somthing out wishing somthing and when its come to reality then complain about it is a bit stupid.
I cant even imagine what endless cry will happen if your wish "remove the ad from Leadership" become reality.
The ocean of forum tears .
- Feeling like the only way to progress is massive grinding or buying Zen makes people reluctant to spend anything and gives little or no satisfaction when they do spend.
- Seeing bots generating millions of AD while you are grinding away and barely making any progress makes people think that it's unfair they should have to spend anything and so are less likely to.
- Taking away the only method to earn AD in your spare time via Gateway compounds the problem, meaning AD requirements get so high that you can neither afford to get around it nor have the time or will to grind for it. Not only do you not want to spend anything, you don't want to play any more.
Bots will carry on regardless, but changes like this aren't going to gain the game any players and will certainly lose some.
Never has a point been missed so much. The reason people are botting Leadership is because you have no good ways to make AD in the game. You have CREATED the demand for Leadership botting just to be competitive in Neverwinter, and now you want to speak of 'fixing' that as if your company's greed didn't create the issue in the first place.
If playing the game had enough fun or rewards to it (instead of forcing long, tedious grinds on everything), there wouldn't be as many people looking to make AD from the Gateway before they continue. You've made most epic dungeons nearly impossible (or borderline worthless) to the average player, so you're going to have botting.
The simple fact that you seem completely dense as to the cause here is troubling, to say the least.
Regarding the entire anti-botting issue, frankly, if game developers really want to combat real world trading, they won't let gold spammers infect their games. Banning spammer accounts is not effective, particularly in a f2p game. However, putting a filter on their domain names has been an effective anti-rwt measure in games that are determined to do so. When a game developer tells its players stopping gold spammers is very hard, their lies fall apart obviously when smart players quickly point out why there are no gold spammers in other zones other than the starting one?
It is not that easy to ban all the real world traders, but it is also not that hard to stop the gold spamming. It is just a matter of whether the game developers want to.
- Remove GMOP requirements?
- Make all armor drops BOE to include PVP items to sell?
- Revert Coalescent Ward drops back prior to Mod 1?
- Remove refining system and revert to old system?
- Get meaningful drops at the last boss on dungeons that is sellable?
- Get away from artifact weapons/equipment and go back to circa Castle Never?
Not complaining but everything on this game requires astronomical amount of AD. Lets just say to get rank 10, how many GMOPs you need? Then to 11? Then to 12? Same as for weapon/armor enchants but add in the cost of Coal Wards.Less AD in game means more people buying Zen. Case closed. Money talks, and players walk.
They can do whatever they want, for whatever reason they want. They can even alter promotions after they end if they want. Doesn't have to make sense to anyone but them.
In your face!
How about putting a NOTICE on the Gateway???
Is text that hard? Not everyone comes to the boards, nor should they have to.
Oh... Since you mentioned the word, and we can say it for a fleeting second: BOT
So we can now pump even more Zen into the game to buy the ridiculous amount of RP, GMOP, companion upgrades and so on.
Guess you just missed my face - and the point.
If all the Gateway bots move to in-game bots, what does that do to the server load?