Something tells me they kept the stronghold costs insanely high so that the most competitive players will splash lots of cash to get the stronghold maxed as soon as possible. When the metrics will show that the splashed cash on stronghold goodies has dropped big time, they'll nerf these requirements and make them accessible to small/medium sized guilds as well. And then they'll introduce another new insane grind to repeat the process described above. :P
I really wish this above will became true. Stronghold cost are astronomical for singel player, cost are hard for 50 players and pretty dull grind for 150 player ..Average guild size seems to be 5 - 15 actives(count out each big guild)...
There is allready "pay me and get Stronghold gear" messages so Guild shopping has began.
ps. taking break to other game untill mod8, just need change our guild policy to allow ½ year break when game became too dull grind or you just add "gone fishing, time unknow" to your personal info
Well, i was pretty "optimistic" with getting 50 building resources for the lumberyard, and then gathering the same amount of building resources for the other open structure plots, in the end having at least those small benefits for my guild.
But it turns out, that was just a dream... that turned into a nightmare.
Showing only 50 building resources as requirement for all the other possible structures was just a visual bug. The building resources stopped dropping the moment i finished the lumberyard. And it took a few days, before the other open plots started showing the real requirements... grrreat.
I mean, i would understand something like asking for 1k wood plus 25g for the farm, and 1k woods plus 1k food plus 50g for the next RANK 1 production building, and so on. That would be logical, but the Devs just went berserk with the requirements right from the start...
Let us not give small guilds a realistic chance to build up something, seems to be their new motto.
And if you think about taking a break until Underdark is here, you better start saving money... You're going to need it to buy your way into a successful guild by then, to gain access to the Stronghold benefits to even have a fighting chance in Underdark.
Well, i was pretty "optimistic" with getting 50 building resources for the lumberyard, and then gathering the same amount of building resources for the other open structure plots, in the end having at least those small benefits for my guild.
But it turns out, that was just a dream... that turned into a nightmare.
Showing only 50 building resources as requirement for all the other possible structures was just a visual bug. The building resources stopped dropping the moment i finished the lumberyard. And it took a few days, before the other open plots started showing the real requirements... grrreat.
I mean, i would understand something like asking for 1k wood plus 25g for the farm, and 1k woods plus 1k food plus 50g for the next RANK 1 production building, and so on. That would be logical, but the Devs just went berserk with the requirements right from the start...
Let us not give small guilds a realistic chance to build up something, seems to be their new motto.
And if you think about taking a break until Underdark is here, you better start saving money... You're going to need it to buy your way into a successful guild by then, to gain access to the Stronghold benefits to even have a fighting chance in Underdark.
Yeah, first week were cool... then we did reality check. END
ps. most of us do only influence grind per day, but back to old content NO, other REPEATS no, park game and wait "Underdark" YES.
Can't say SH is worth nothing because of boons and HE that drop resonance stones, but in general the mod is pretty boring for both PvP players (for now - because they have to PvE a lot to upgrade the strongold) and PvE (since they have to do the least favorite thing in the game: A LOT of daily quests. Srsly. Influence, companies, strohghold quests... and you'd better do it by all your characters). It is... not... very.... interesting.
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urlord283Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,084Arc User
I think this is a good Mod...
The only problem is "limits" on vital upgrade components like influence and unavailability of"Spare" gear.
Fix that and we have something great.... IMO
0
grogthemagnifMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,651Arc User
Did you know that at level 20 characters can start to participate in the Stronghold.
From the Cleric you can do the T1 Cragmire Crypts 3 player Dungeon for 4 Dungeoneer's Shards. At level 41 the Dungeon switches to Grey Wolf Den T1 3 player Dungeon At levels 55-59 the Dungeon switches to Temple of the Spider T1 3 player Dungeon
From the Builder you can get a quest to Recruit Workers/Mercenaries on alternate days in PE for 2 Heroic Shards.
From the Master of Coin you can get 2 Adventurer's Shards for doing 4 level appropriate Quests.
From the Ranger you can "Keep the Peace" in a level appropriate Zone for 2 Adventurer's Shards.
In a group you can do level 70 HEs for Influence from level 4 on. Be careful, at low levels you're Squishy.
SH is a long, slow grind for tiny guilds. For much of the past couple of nights I was the only one on. By spending lots of AD on the AH, I managed to get our Surplus Equipment over the top by buying up lots of greens and blues (and donating a handful of old purples, but only a handful). I did much the same for gems by buying up stacks of R3 and R4 here and there. Now we're down to Adventurer's Shards of Power -- we need another 1100 or so until we can finally build the Farm. The grind is extremely long, slow, and boring, but we're inching forward as well as we can. That said, I have no idea how we will ever build the marketplace.
I would recommend a simple change for small guilds: increase the rewards if you solo the smallest HE's (since those are the only ones that are soloable anyway). It sure would be nice if we could get one or two Adventurer's Shards of Power every time we solo one.
Another recommendation: let the guild leader designate a weekly "meeting time". For an hour, the stronghold could spawn a few assets from the Summer Festival: picnic tables, a small band, a vendor, and maybe a pinata once every few minutes. It's not game-breaking, but it gives members a point of reference for when they could decide to meet. Oh, and have it show up on the event list next to the minimap.
0
grogthemagnifMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,651Arc User
Can't say SH is worth nothing because of boons and HE that drop resonance stones, but in general the mod is pretty boring for both PvP players (for now - because they have to PvE a lot to upgrade the strongold) and PvE (since they have to do the least favorite thing in the game: A LOT of daily quests. Srsly. Influence, companies, strohghold quests... and you'd better do it by all your characters). It is... not... very.... interesting.
Have to wait and see, if that's really good news... or how long Stronghold PvP will last. I sense a lot of "our guild is looking for Stronghold PvP" cries in the PE Zone chat incoming.
We don't all play Neverwinter to PvP. PvP will NOT SAVE STRONGHOLDS. Just is not going to happen. The change must come from .... Im not going to say it... WITHIN (Dang it, I said it!)
We need to see MORE OF THE PLAN in relation to the newest AD Leadership change. We need to see a drastic change in costs so small and medium size guilds can play the game. We need the dungeons and we need the Foundry UPDATED.
PW/Cryptic will simply never understand how to best communicate big changes with the playerbase. The AD/Leadership change was very likely a PW corporate move to make shareholders happy. Most publishers haven't the slightest idea how to talk to their player community, they are big corporations, afterall. They are good at drafting news releases designed for the media (because they pay a PR firm to do it). Direct one on one communication to the playerbase via the forums? Nope, it's a different language to them.
Cryptic needs to come up with a plan and I believe they are working on that plan as we speak. I just don't think they had very much time to come up with that plan. No question the mods are relaying the messages up to the community manager and the best ideas will get to the powers that be. Cryptic will probably have quite a bit of flexibility to make changes on the development side
green should give 20 points each blue should give 100 points each and keep purple at 810 points each.
right now BARELY no one puts in purple items due to how valuable AD is when you salvage the items. heck even the higher level blue items are better off to salvage them put in coffer for 20 measly points.
At the moment i still have some hope, that they might pick up the idea of adding Stronghold Vouchers to leadership tasks, i wrote into the AD changes thread. It will still take a lot of time to upgrade a Stronghold, but with a constant flow of vouchers, this whole grind might become a bit more reasonable.
Post edited by regenerde on
I do believe in killing the messenger...
Want to know why?
Because it sends a message!
0
rickcase276Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,404Arc User
Yes, there are things that need to come a bit quicker for smaller guilds to be able to get anywhere. My guild, with me the only active player, just today started guildhall level 3. Influence and the various shards are what need to be in leadership tasks more, to me.
Many players have moved to bigger guilds: some guilds are at full capacity, others will be at that point soon. I've no problem at all with the bigger guild: good for them. Many small friends-based guilds (I'm in one of them) are left aside: more precisely, we don't have alternatives to grow. Why don't we move? Because we don't like caos, we don't like to be considered a number contributing to the SH, we don't like to be an army-like guild. From my perspective, this will be another slap to the players bases and in my crystal ball I can see: - 50% players to leave for bad design, bad decsions, insane grinding, expensive play, bugs, etc etc - 25% to leave due to the stronghold - 12,5% keep on playing in big guilds - 12,5% bots farming gost stories
Probably I'm underestimating the numbers of bots
Oltreverso guild leader Maga Othelma - DC | Svalvolo - SW | Dente Avvelenato- GWF
Am trying to comprehend the need to cap the daily gain of Influence to 400/day given the astronomical costs to upgrade Stronghold structures. The only plausible reason is that Cryptic wants SH content to last longer with the intent for the grind to last more than a MOD.
However this seem to have backfire and instead of lasting more than a MOD, the insane demands are driving people away from the game (rather than keeping them here).
They've recently made drastic changes (in the name of 'combating bots') to encourage players to play the game for ADs. Going along the same arguments, why not just lift the Influence cap or make it higher to allow players who wish to farm more per day to do so. Smaller guilds who are willing to grind it out at least have a chance to do so if they will. This also allows players who wish to spend more time on their main character(s) to so so rather than having to play several alternates just so they can rake in more Influence per day for the guild.
Many players have moved to bigger guilds: some guilds are at full capacity, others will be at that point soon. I've no problem at all with the bigger guild: good for them. Many small friends-based guilds (I'm in one of them) are left aside: more precisely, we don't have alternatives to grow. Why don't we move? Because we don't like caos, we don't like to be considered a number contributing to the SH, we don't like to be an army-like guild. From my perspective, this will be another slap to the players bases and in my crystal ball I can see: - 50% players to leave for bad design, bad decsions, insane grinding, expensive play, bugs, etc etc - 25% to leave due to the stronghold - 12,5% keep on playing in big guilds - 12,5% bots farming gost stories
Probably I'm underestimating the numbers of bots
As the leader of a small, friends-based guild I agree. You can count our active players on two hands (at best), and it's incredibly hard to hold onto new people. Dungeons are so difficult that we can't field enough people to run them, and upgrading the stronghold takes *forever*. We're plodding our way to GH3, but the required costs for surplus equipment and influence are just depressing. I have *no* idea whatsoever how we'll do GH4 with the requirement for dungeoneering shards.
Harper Chronicles: Cap Snatchers (RELEASED) - NW-DPUTABC6X Blood Magic (RELEASED) - NW-DUU2P7HCO Children of the Fey (RELEASED) - NW-DKSSAPFPF Buried Under Blacklake (WIP) - NW-DEDV2PAEP The Redcap Rebels (WIP) - NW-DO23AFHFH
My Foundry playthrough channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Ruskaga/featured
0
rickcase276Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,404Arc User
edited September 2015
Same boat I am in, as I am the only active member of my guild, and I can not run dungeons to get the shards. Well I can run them, but as soon as a CW uses icy terrain I freeze for 30 seconds or more, so not really good to try to run them. I got to guildhall 3 yesterday, so that is at least good. The way I figure, if I can make my marketplace level 2 I will be happy.
Many players have moved to bigger guilds: some guilds are at full capacity, others will be at that point soon. I've no problem at all with the bigger guild: good for them. Many small friends-based guilds (I'm in one of them) are left aside: more precisely, we don't have alternatives to grow. Why don't we move? Because we don't like caos, we don't like to be considered a number contributing to the SH, we don't like to be an army-like guild. From my perspective, this will be another slap to the players bases and in my crystal ball I can see: - 50% players to leave for bad design, bad decsions, insane grinding, expensive play, bugs, etc etc - 25% to leave due to the stronghold - 12,5% keep on playing in big guilds - 12,5% bots farming gost stories
Probably I'm underestimating the numbers of bots
I would love to know the bot to player to bot-player ratio of the game. lol
At this point, my guess is, that we're wastly outnumbered by bots... probably 2 bots per 1 player, and more players are leaving every day. But the numbers of Ghost Stories instances are also decreasing, were well over 2k a few days ago, and now they are around 1.8k.
The Steam Charts show a constant -1% decrease per day, we're at -12% right now. 3-5 more days, and the player number increase from August will be gone by then.
Comments
..Average guild size seems to be 5 - 15 actives(count out each big guild)...
There is allready "pay me and get Stronghold gear" messages so Guild shopping has began.
ps. taking break to other game untill mod8, just need change our guild policy to allow ½ year break when game became too dull grind or you just add "gone fishing, time unknow" to your personal info
But it turns out, that was just a dream... that turned into a nightmare.
Showing only 50 building resources as requirement for all the other possible structures was just a visual bug.
The building resources stopped dropping the moment i finished the lumberyard.
And it took a few days, before the other open plots started showing the real requirements... grrreat.
I mean, i would understand something like asking for 1k wood plus 25g for the farm, and 1k woods plus 1k food plus 50g for the next RANK 1 production building, and so on.
That would be logical, but the Devs just went berserk with the requirements right from the start...
Let us not give small guilds a realistic chance to build up something, seems to be their new motto.
And if you think about taking a break until Underdark is here, you better start saving money...
You're going to need it to buy your way into a successful guild by then, to gain access to the Stronghold benefits to even have a fighting chance in Underdark.
ps. most of us do only influence grind per day, but back to old content NO, other REPEATS no, park game and wait "Underdark" YES.
The only problem is "limits" on vital upgrade components like influence and unavailability of"Spare" gear.
Fix that and we have something great.... IMO
From the Cleric you can do the T1 Cragmire Crypts 3 player Dungeon for 4 Dungeoneer's Shards.
At level 41 the Dungeon switches to Grey Wolf Den T1 3 player Dungeon
At levels 55-59 the Dungeon switches to Temple of the Spider T1 3 player Dungeon
From the Builder you can get a quest to Recruit Workers/Mercenaries on alternate days in PE for 2 Heroic Shards.
From the Master of Coin you can get 2 Adventurer's Shards for doing 4 level appropriate Quests.
From the Ranger you can "Keep the Peace" in a level appropriate Zone for 2 Adventurer's Shards.
In a group you can do level 70 HEs for Influence from level 4 on. Be careful, at low levels you're Squishy.
I sense a lot of "our guild is looking for Stronghold PvP" cries in the PE Zone chat incoming.
We need to see MORE OF THE PLAN in relation to the newest AD Leadership change. We need to see a drastic change in costs so small and medium size guilds can play the game. We need the dungeons and we need the Foundry UPDATED.
PW/Cryptic will simply never understand how to best communicate big changes with the playerbase. The AD/Leadership change was very likely a PW corporate move to make shareholders happy. Most publishers haven't the slightest idea how to talk to their player community, they are big corporations, afterall. They are good at drafting news releases designed for the media (because they pay a PR firm to do it). Direct one on one communication to the playerbase via the forums? Nope, it's a different language to them.
Cryptic needs to come up with a plan and I believe they are working on that plan as we speak. I just don't think they had very much time to come up with that plan. No question the mods are relaying the messages up to the community manager and the best ideas will get to the powers that be. Cryptic will probably have quite a bit of flexibility to make changes on the development side
But change must come from within... PW/Cryptic.
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green should give 20 points each
blue should give 100 points each
and keep purple at 810 points each.
right now BARELY no one puts in purple items due to how valuable AD is when you salvage the items. heck even the higher level blue items are better off to salvage them put in coffer for 20 measly points.
It will still take a lot of time to upgrade a Stronghold, but with a constant flow of vouchers, this whole grind might become a bit more reasonable.
Many small friends-based guilds (I'm in one of them) are left aside: more precisely, we don't have alternatives to grow. Why don't we move? Because we don't like caos, we don't like to be considered a number contributing to the SH, we don't like to be an army-like guild.
From my perspective, this will be another slap to the players bases and in my crystal ball I can see:
- 50% players to leave for bad design, bad decsions, insane grinding, expensive play, bugs, etc etc
- 25% to leave due to the stronghold
- 12,5% keep on playing in big guilds
- 12,5% bots farming gost stories
Probably I'm underestimating the numbers of bots
Oltreverso guild leader
Maga Othelma - DC | Svalvolo - SW | Dente Avvelenato- GWF
However this seem to have backfire and instead of lasting more than a MOD, the insane demands are driving people away from the game (rather than keeping them here).
They've recently made drastic changes (in the name of 'combating bots') to encourage players to play the game for ADs. Going along the same arguments, why not just lift the Influence cap or make it higher to allow players who wish to farm more per day to do so. Smaller guilds who are willing to grind it out at least have a chance to do so if they will. This also allows players who wish to spend more time on their main character(s) to so so rather than having to play several alternates just so they can rake in more Influence per day for the guild.
Blood Magic (RELEASED) - NW-DUU2P7HCO
Children of the Fey (RELEASED) - NW-DKSSAPFPF
Buried Under Blacklake (WIP) - NW-DEDV2PAEP
The Redcap Rebels (WIP) - NW-DO23AFHFH
My Foundry playthrough channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Ruskaga/featured
But the numbers of Ghost Stories instances are also decreasing, were well over 2k a few days ago, and now they are around 1.8k.
The Steam Charts show a constant -1% decrease per day, we're at -12% right now. 3-5 more days, and the player number increase from August will be gone by then.