Worst change ever. You have implemented a profession since the beginning where you have to spend a HUGE amount of time and REAL MONEY to make it actually worthwile. Now you are removing it, leaving all players who have invested frustrated and alone. The planned rewards for dungeons suck. The rewards for leadership suck now. The rewards for dailiy quest suck.
Ouch. Going to add my thoughts here, so forgive me if I'm treading ground already trodden!
Firstly, Leadership: I'm not going to lie, this is going to hit me hard. As a solo player, this is currently almost my only source of AD, and I'm not even one of the players going mad on it. I have 3 leadership characters, taking in a total of around 40k AD a day - so not that much. While I can understand the changes - as the current system of leadership armies plus time taken managing them is, well, ridiculous - I am obviously now concerned about how I will be able to earn any meaningful AD.
So moving on from there, we have the rewards for doing quests. I was one of the players who would do the daily (and weekly Protector's Bounty) foundry quests. Up until mod 6 that is, since when the foundry has been non-existant! Looking at the changes to AD gain in the group activities shows that players will be able to gain around 9k to 13k a day, depending on which they focus on. It's not without possibility that those with time can mix and match to hit the cap - which makes 'time' become an even more pressing factor.
We already see quite a few complaints about people getting vote-kicked because of low item level, or not being the desired class/have desired talents. I fear that this change will exacerbate this problem, with impatient players looking to complete runs/tasks as quickly as possible.
Whatever happens, solo players like myself will desire a way to gain AD. Personally I would suggest adding an AD amount to the daily campaign lair quests. If you were to add 500AD reward to the Sharandar, Dread Ring, random Harper, Need For Mead, 2 x Minsc, and Well Of Dragons (although this does not occur every day) lair quests; that would net 3,500 or 4,000 AD daily by themselves. Which seems a reasonable amount for the time spent. Other than those, I find it difficult to think up any other way of adding AD to the solo game.
Finally, I would look at professions and tradeable items. As it stands now, leadership is practically the only profession worth doing on a regular basis (arguably, alchemy is another). Even though the RP items will still be a draw, the time taken to level it without the AD rewards will put many people off. Professions as a whole need a rework to become a lot more useful than they currently are.
I would start with the rng for crafting the better/best items. I've said it before, but the chance of failing to craft these items with 4 purple tools and expensive mats needs to go. If you have invested in these tools/mats then you should be rewarded with guaranteed 100% success.
The crafted rewards in general need an overhaul to enable players to craft items that are desired by others. Maybe include a 'master-craftsman' category once players have maxed a certain number of professions, which allows them to craft unique looking items for transmute. And for crying out loud, add enhancement slots to the max level crafted leatherworking chest armours already! I've mentioned this 4 or 5 times on the forums now (inc the bug forum!), yet we still cannot craft max level Scourge Warlock, Hunter Ranger, or Trickster Rogue chest armour with an enhancement slot. The neglection of this really doesn't fill me with confidence that professions are being properly considered.
In general, it seems to me that there are not enough items at max level that are worth trading on the AH, or salvaging for AD, to be gained from solo play. I'm not asking for them to start raining down on us, but if you are going to take away the leadership AD, then we do need something. It also seems to me that it would be sensible for players to have more options on items to purchase with their AD - again, maybe consider more unique looking drops that people will want for transmute.
For now, I'm prepared to wait to see what plans you come up with though. I also wish you good luck in reading through all the replies to this (hope you have plenty of flame-retardant armour!). But don't wait too long - I don't wish to have to set my spider, Fluffy, on you...
I'm now concerned for pvp. At least with dungeons and skirmishes, the player has to slowly drag their character to its end chest. Not so much with pvp. These kind of changes might encourage more afkers and botters to join the queue, ruining it one match at a time for players who actually enjoy pvp.
Upgrade the Leaderchip proffession for 1 character take a lot of time, like 3-4 months, an in-game time since the gateway modification.
And this time is simply wasted : removing Ad but no compensation ? We need compensation : more xp, more gold, more BOA RP AND we need Strongholds rewards too.
Reducing the ad source and increasing the ad needed with each module is not a good way : players will not use their credit card instead managing Leadership : they will quit the game.
If they want you to play the game, then every quest that isn't bottable should give AD. Sharandar, Dread Ring, IWD, WoD dailies should ALL give AD. Stronghold dailies should all give AD. Every HE you do should give AD, WITH NO CAP. Every EE quest should give AD. If the goal is to reward playing the game, then they need to put their AD where their mouths are.
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
Playing Dungeons Old: If you picked up the daily quest, you got 3,000 AD for one dungeon. If you had your chest key, you got an additional 3,000 AD. New: 1. Automatically get 3,000 AD for each of the first two dungeons. 2. In addition, get 150 to 750 AD for each dungeon played (up to a maximum 7,200 AD per day from dungeons). Amount varies by time.
Playing Skirmishes Old: If you picked up the daily quest, you got 3,000 AD for three skirmishes. New: 1. Automatically get 1,500 AD for each of the first two skirmishes. 2. In addition, get 50 to 500 AD for each skirmish played (up to a maximum 7,200 AD per day from skirmishes). Amount varies by time.
Playing PvP Old: If you picked up the daily quest, you got 4,000 AD for two matches. New: 1. Automatically get 2,000 AD for each of the first two matches. 2. In addition, get 200 to 300 AD per match played (up to a maximum 4,800 AD per day from PvP). Amount varies by time.
Across the board, these two changes are expected to put significantly more AD into the hands of anyone playing this queued content.
Yes please lets look at the actual numbers.
Dungeons:
We run dungeons in about 35 or so minutes. Lets round up to 45 minutes for AFKs time to get group ready etc.
2 runs for 6000 AD = 90 minutes
You still can make 1200 AD lets assume you get the max 750ad per run. You would need to run 2 more for 90 minutes more.
Skirmishes:
I will go with an average time of about 30 minutes per run. This would include time to do skirmish gather group etc etc.
2 runs for 3000 AD = 60 minutes.
Still can make 4200 AD for day. Again, assume the max per run of 500 you need 9 more runs for total of 270 minutes.
PvP:
I will be generous here and say 15 minutes wait time for queue and 20 minute matches.
2 runs for 4000 AD = 70 minutes
Still can earn 800 AD at max per match that is 3 more matches for 105 minutes.
Total time is:
90 + 90 + 60 + 270 + 70 + 105 = 685 minutes of play or 11.4 HOURS
11.4 HOURS for one character.
Let that sink in...
11.4 HOURS for 19200 AD.... and lets hope that is AD and not RAD.
Slowly let that sink in.... 11.4 HOURS to make 19200 AD
There is more to this announcement right? The Leadership changes are lowering times and increasing RP points gained right? Greater Marks of Potency are getting slashes to 750 AD each right?
Cause if the only changes that go live are the ones mentioned there will only be one word to describe what this is:
DISASTROUS!!!!!
I foresee a mass exodus of players who have (1) jobs, (2) kids, or (3) both. Apparently the folks at Cryptic think that their entire playerbase consists of unemployed 20-year-olds living with their parents.
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
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frozenfirevrMember, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,475Community Moderator
All that had to be done was the disabling of Speed bonus from Leadership assets if they wanted to reduce botting. Seriously! That was all they had to do. *sigh* I never delved much into Leadership, I login to alts (7) on the beginning of the session, collect and restart professions, and invoke (no additional assets used), and then play on my main after that (no more alts for the day). 5 of the 7 are new (bought for Leadership) and are lv 6 now. Wasted investment cause I can't really spend on anything but my main which is far from BiS. Would have made 10k each character each day, guess not anymore...
All that had to be done was the disabling of Speed bonus from Leadership assets if they wanted to reduce botting. Seriously! That was all they had to do.
Unfortunately, this isn't really true. I was using ALL white quality workers, no extras, on my Leadership tasks and I usually hit or at least grazed the AD cap every single day - manually. In game. So god only knows what the botters were making off of white quality workers.
Removing AD from Leadership entirely WAS necessary - BUT. They really should be replacing it with SOMETHING. I still think unbound RP stones (peridots, aquamarines, whatever) is the best idea. Yeah, those'll still be botted, and yeah, the prices will crash, but people at least will have their OWN source of unbound RP, AND have a chance to sell alongside botters for SOMETHING, and the profession wouldn't be generating AD out of thin air.
Ahahahahahahaahah i had just bought 20 char slots to create my army leadership too after 2 years ahahah By math the changes, without even considering leadership, will bring less AD. Well, lol is all what i can say i guess i will be doing less than 10k at day. Oh you may want to look at stronghold ad requirements.... See ya next year
drkbodhiMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 2,378Arc User
If you read this objectively this makes perfect sense.
It will tie the hands of bots hindering them earning more AD.
This almost follows the suggestions that were made in the anti-botting and Economy stabilizing posts. This tells me a few things... they are INDEED listening and they do INDEED care about the players. After all... without us they know they are not where they are.
Atwil "At" - Tiefling TR / Saardush - Black Dragonborn GWF / White - Tiefling OP
At Cryptic, we feel it’s very important that players with time (but not money) can ultimately experience our games the same way as someone with money (but not time). Our goal: if you play Neverwinter, you earn AD.
Why place a limit on the number of extra AD we can earn in a day (7200 max for dungeons or skirmishes) when you want to reward players that want to play? Shouldn't playing these dungeons give consistent rewards?
Daily Quests & Hourly Events Previously, there were separate daily quests that, if you remembered to take them, would reward bonus AD for completing Dungeons, Skirmishes, PvP, and Foundry. Unfortunately, based on our data, far too many people either didn’t know they needed to take these quests, didn't want to go through the effort, or they simply forgot.
Not me. I never forgot to get these quests, or to tell friends to collect them. Why are you punishing players like me?
On top of that, though we were expecting players to use the Foundry daily to get AD, we found the vast majority weren't doing so at all.
Perhaps if you made the Foundry operational and appealing to do more people would do them. I wanted to get started on authoring foundries, but after seeing all the setbacks foundry members have had, I’m not inclined to do so.
… we also previously scheduled events to run during fixed periods each day. So if you happened to be able to log in during very specific times, you would get bonus AD from the same sources as listed above. … … To correct this, we are removing the hourly bonus AD events.
I actually looked forward to these times to run this content. I noticed queue times were faster during this time. By removing a focal ‘hour’ to play content, you are also going to separate the player base to know when to queue up, and may increase queue times instead.
Additionally, there was no potential limit to the DD hour (as long as you got them, true), however there is now a CAP on the maximum amount you can earn per day. Why the arbitrary limit on how much AD can be made when players want to run content like dungeons and skirmishes? It is a contradiction of what you are seemingly trying to say above in, “Our goal: if you play Neverwinter, you earn AD”. Well, not if you want to play more than 2 dungeons or skirmishes a day, it seems.
Let’s look at some actual numbers: Playing Dungeons Old: If you picked up the daily quest, you got 3,000 AD for one dungeon. If you had your chest key, you got an additional 3,000 AD.
Incorrect, you only get an additional 3,000 AD during Dungeon Delve hour with the key, which you did not mention in the above statement.
Old: New: 1. Automatically get 3,000 AD for each of the first two dungeons. 2. In addition, get 150 to 750 AD for each dungeon played (up to a maximum 7,200 AD per day from dungeons). Amount varies by time.
What happens to the chest key requirements? Does it still reward anything else of value besides the blue Bind on Account items? Need I remind you that an epic chest key costs 5k AD, whereas a blue BoA item can refine only 3-5kAD? Also 150-750AD per run. Comparing this to the cost of a GMOP - it is tiny.
Old: Playing Skirmishes Old: If you picked up the daily quest, you got 3,000 AD for three skirmishes. New: 1. Automatically get 1,500 AD for each of the first two skirmishes. 2. In addition, get 50 to 500 AD for each skirmish played (up to a maximum 7,200 AD per day from skirmishes). Amount varies by time.
If you limit the daily amount to 3k AD for the first two skirmishes, then it is equivalent to the daily quest reward (barring having to do one extra skirmish). But running a skirmish during Skirmish hour could get you 1k AD, now each additional run is limited to 50-500AD. Sure we can run them any time we want now, but only if enough people are queuing – but now, how will people know to queue? 50-500AD per run is a tiny amount compared to the costs of levelling equipment i.e. GMOPs.
Playing PvP Old: If you picked up the daily quest, you got 4,000 AD for two matches.
Incorrect, you only got the 4000 AD if you completed 4 matches. Do you PvP?
New: 1. Automatically get 2,000 AD for each of the first two matches. 2. In addition, get 200 to 300 AD per match played (up to a maximum 4,800 AD per day from PvP). Amount varies by time.
Not everyone PvPs. I suggest that Cryptic does not force players to play the game that you want. This extra AD, may influence players to play who do not want to play PvP, much less win a match. It may also encourage botters. I am not advocating that these extra AD rewards should not be given, or be given to the winners only (due to today’s state of imbalance), but these changes can have unintended consequences you might not realise – I urge you to reconsider the whole thing.
Across the board, these two changes are expected to put significantly more AD into the hands of anyone playing this queued content.
Queue times are not good at the moment, Scott. It can take upwards of 30 minutes to get a domination match, 20+ minutes for Gauntlgrym (more if it isn’t during GG or Dom hour). And why are you only giving extra AD for ‘queued content’. What about players who enjoy other content? Tiamat, Sharandar, Dread Ring, Elemental Evil Zones? Only targeting queued content is an incomplete way of addressing your goal of,” if you play Neverwinter, you earn AD”.
Leadership As you may remember, we recently disabled the ability to use the Leadership profession on Gateway. This was due to an extreme number of bots generating far too much AD, and creating havoc with the AD economy. By disabling the profession on Gateway, we were able to reduce this artificially inflated number. Unfortunately, botters found a way around this fix.
Of course they do. Botters play the same game that normal players do, at hundred-fold more in quantity. Are there not any other ways to impact botters without affecting players?
As we looked into the data, and as we analyzed what we could do to fix this exploit, we came to the conclusion that the way to stop the botters was to remove AD from the Leadership profession.
The only way to stop botters completely is by destroying the game. Think about it. Botters will always exist. A heavy handed approach punishing players is like executing 1/10 of your army because of one renegade. Decimation. Have we returned to the Roman times? Or I suppose losing 1/10 or your playerbase is sufficient cause to remove the botting renegade? Are there no more sophisticated methods to remove botters? Analyse # of log-ins, or IP, or repetitive activity. Monitoring if a real person is behind the screen (some people have suggested Captcha). Limit the number of accounts per IP address (I know VPN can circumvent this, but have you tried any of these methods?).
There will still be a few sources in there, but nothing that botters can use to continue breaking the economy. In some cases, AD was replaced with extra XP, but by and large, AD was straight- up removed from the profession.
You do realise that botters will still be able to access the ‘few sources in there’ better than any real player can? Reducing the amount of AD generation will increase its value, but it will still be in the hands of the botters, and those who’ve already benefited from it.
We know this will be frustrating for those who were not exploiting, but the downside of leaving AD in the profession was too severe. Once this work is done, Leadership will be re-enabled on Gateway. Remember, we want players to receive Astral Diamonds for the time they spend actively playing the game, so (beyond the exploit) it didn't really make sense to have something that runs in the background as a major source of this currency.
Try to think of why people run Leadership. If you play this game and are trying to get a character to have epic or legendary equipment, you will quickly realise the costs of this. Removing Leadership will remove a legitimate way for players to gain enough AD to progress their character. The amounts generated by ‘queued content’ as you have described above does not in any way come close to these refinement targets. The AD sinks will be out of proportion to what will be left in this game if you make this change. Stronghold sinks, Artifact equipment, Companion Upgrades (750k-1mil AD). I would suggest addressing these AD sinks and reducing their costs substantially before implementing this change as a stand-alone fix.
Leadership, while no longer a major source of AD, is still a good source for XP, Gold, and loot items. All of these things are valuable to regular players, but less so to botters.
The value of Leadership after these changes will be minimal to players after these changes. To players already trying to get epic or legendary gear, AD was the main reason why they worked so long to get Leadership up to max level.
Invocation & Salvage At this time there will be no changes made to Invocation and Salvage. We are, however, looking into some better messaging so players know when an item could be salvaged for Astral Diamonds OR used as Refinement Points.
Botters have a massive amount of characters at their disposable. If the relative value of AD increases, then botting to invoke will still give them that power over regular players. I note your caveat, “At this time”, there also, well played. This leadership change only serves to highlight the ineffectiveness of addressing the botting issue.
VIP VIP is changing slightly. Previously, you received +15% bonus AD at VIP Rank 1 for Daily Quests. At VIP Rank 2, you received +15% bonus AD on Hourly Events. Now, at Rank 1, you will get 15% bonus on all runs of Dungeons, Skirmishes, and PvP. For PvP in particular, this is a new source of Astral Diamonds.
PTW. This does nothing for those “players with time (but not money)”. Not if they want to juggle a VIP access per month while levelling their character
Future Changes Beyond addressing the group content listed above, and the botting issue of Leadership, we are also looking at ways for the solo player to earn this time currency. We are evaluating content like Heroic Encounters and Campaigns as likely places to make adjustments, while watching the above changes to make sure they're having the desired effect on group play.
Why ‘make adjustments’ when you could be out fixing bugs? Take a scroll down the forums in Player Feedback, PvE or PvP discussion and tell us your time could not be spent better making this a game a more enjoyable experience.
We believe we can make the Astral Diamond economy much more stable and uniform for all players. Want to earn AD? Play Dungeons, Skirmishes, and PvP whenever you have time! Check back soon for more information on future additional AD sources.
Where are these 9 missing dungeons?: - Castle Never - Frozen Heart - Caverns of Karrundax - Lair of the Pirate King - Lair of the Mad Dragon - Cloak Tower - Throne of Idris - Spellplague Caverns - Dread Vault
We have only 6 dungeons to continue earning AD. Six. And 4 skirmishes, only 2 of which are queued often enough (due to the lack of rewards in the other two). Take some of the suggestions written above me by other players before going ahead with this change. At least by consulting players and responding to us, it might make things go a little bit better.
I feel like a hamster in a wheel trapped in an enclosure with constantly shifting rules of play.
Old customers have: Mio's of AD, mostly BiS, Power Points in excess. Is it reasonable for new customers to join? They will hardly compete or pull some weight in group content. This is what I experience so far. I never finshed any skirmish or dungeon, except for event skirmish.
zebular wrote: > All my available time each day was spent working Leadership. > [...] and instead spend that 30-90 minutes actually playing the game
It was your decision. You were free to do otherwise before.
I'm completely against this choice of devs. This choice will take the game only to close in few months becasuse the 80% of players will choose another game: there're so many free MMO now. This is just my opinion.
Just to ask, when this last great idea will be probably apply to the game?
There are so many excellent suggestions in this thread, what should be changed in the near future - I could only repeat them.
I can only add to the discussion by describing my next actions (maybe the reaction of many casual players). - exchange my zen for AD (zax will probably fall under 500 in some weeks) - stop spending ADs in SH probably forever - stop buying GMOPS in WB until price is reduced by at least 50% - stop buying from AH until Mod 8 because all prices will fall down considerably
I think, the producer will not adjust the AD cost of the AD sinks until next Mod and because of the uncertainty (prices in AH, prices in WB, strategy of producer) only few people will invest in improving their char and their SH => all progression in NW comes to a crashing halt.
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ironzerg79Member, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,942Arc User
Any chance we could get BoA Stronghold Vouchers added to the Leadership loot tables, as compensation for removing the AD? At least for those players who've invested in leveling up the profession it will remain somewhat worthwhile.
If you read this objectively this makes perfect sense.
It will tie the hands of bots hindering them earning more AD.
This almost follows the suggestions that were made in the anti-botting and Economy stabilizing posts. This tells me a few things... they are INDEED listening and they do INDEED care about the players. After all... without us they know they are not where they are.
Except this won't hinder bots at all. They just farm RP instead and get AD from that.
Bots will find a way around this and it's ridiculous to think otherwise. It could even affect the game more adversely than leadership did.
Any chance we could get BoA Stronghold Vouchers added to the Leadership loot tables, as compensation for removing the AD? At least for those players who've invested in leveling up the profession it will remain somewhat worthwhile.
And instead of selling AD, botters will sell fully maxed out Strongholds within months.
torontodaveMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 992Arc User
edited September 2015
I'm fine with AD removed from leadership as long as it's replaced with BOUND TO ACCOUNT resonance stones..
FEATURED foundries (vetted by cryptic) should also give AD reward. first 2 a day give 3k =P
NW-DSQ39N5SJ - 'To Infinity, and BEYOND!' - Spelljammer Quest. Skyships, Indiana Jones moments NW-DC9R4J5EH - 'The Black Pearl' - Spelljammer! Phlo Riders and Space Orcs
Thanks for all the fish.
Can I please request that you DO NOT make this change until you have worked out how to reward solo players, ie those who don't want to be forced in to doing group activities. I mostly play solo, at times and a pace that suits me, and do my professions and switch between various alts. I enjoy the game. With the above changes, which on the whole seem quite sensible, I would loose a lot of AD. I don't exploit Leadership, only some alts have it and none to a very high degree, and being on xbox I don't have foundry or gateway anyway. I play for serval hours every day - please find a way to make this work for me.
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torontodaveMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 992Arc User
The ability to gain more ad from doing what you enjoy is good. BUT you should not force players to do all 3 multiple times to get their 24k they used to have access too or we will see a huge number of AFK PvP bots, AFK Skirmish runners, and Toxic Dungeon runs with kicking for the fastest possible complete time too get their AD. this is not what we want.
People should be able to hit their Rough CAP playing the game they enjoy. SO if you enjoy PVP and GG. you should be able to get up to 24k from PVP and GG content. if people enjoy Dungeons / Skirmishes, they should be able to hit their 24k CAP from that. if people like a mix, do both.
Leadership. Add Bound RP instead of AD too all the tasks you removed AD from. Give it some purpose!!!.
QFT.. We already know that PVP bots exist that will spawn and run to node2 to stand idle.
I'd hate to see a return of those. =/
NW-DSQ39N5SJ - 'To Infinity, and BEYOND!' - Spelljammer Quest. Skyships, Indiana Jones moments NW-DC9R4J5EH - 'The Black Pearl' - Spelljammer! Phlo Riders and Space Orcs
Thanks for all the fish.
Bots can do most things a human can do in terms of earning rewards in the game. The absolute best way to block them is at the point where they transfer stuff to their customer - the player who is buying from them. They will try to disguise it but they still have to transfer a large value of stuff in a fairly short window of time to one account. Surely that could be detected and vetted/blocked/whatever.
Although it's a moot point for now, as the AD thing is a done deal.
Comments
You have implemented a profession since the beginning where you have to spend a HUGE amount of time and REAL MONEY to make it actually worthwile.
Now you are removing it, leaving all players who have invested frustrated and alone.
The planned rewards for dungeons suck. The rewards for leadership suck now. The rewards for dailiy quest suck.
This game seems to suck.
Firstly, Leadership: I'm not going to lie, this is going to hit me hard. As a solo player, this is currently almost my only source of AD, and I'm not even one of the players going mad on it. I have 3 leadership characters, taking in a total of around 40k AD a day - so not that much. While I can understand the changes - as the current system of leadership armies plus time taken managing them is, well, ridiculous - I am obviously now concerned about how I will be able to earn any meaningful AD.
So moving on from there, we have the rewards for doing quests. I was one of the players who would do the daily (and weekly Protector's Bounty) foundry quests. Up until mod 6 that is, since when the foundry has been non-existant! Looking at the changes to AD gain in the group activities shows that players will be able to gain around 9k to 13k a day, depending on which they focus on. It's not without possibility that those with time can mix and match to hit the cap - which makes 'time' become an even more pressing factor.
We already see quite a few complaints about people getting vote-kicked because of low item level, or not being the desired class/have desired talents. I fear that this change will exacerbate this problem, with impatient players looking to complete runs/tasks as quickly as possible.
Whatever happens, solo players like myself will desire a way to gain AD. Personally I would suggest adding an AD amount to the daily campaign lair quests. If you were to add 500AD reward to the Sharandar, Dread Ring, random Harper, Need For Mead, 2 x Minsc, and Well Of Dragons (although this does not occur every day) lair quests; that would net 3,500 or 4,000 AD daily by themselves. Which seems a reasonable amount for the time spent. Other than those, I find it difficult to think up any other way of adding AD to the solo game.
Finally, I would look at professions and tradeable items. As it stands now, leadership is practically the only profession worth doing on a regular basis (arguably, alchemy is another). Even though the RP items will still be a draw, the time taken to level it without the AD rewards will put many people off. Professions as a whole need a rework to become a lot more useful than they currently are.
I would start with the rng for crafting the better/best items. I've said it before, but the chance of failing to craft these items with 4 purple tools and expensive mats needs to go. If you have invested in these tools/mats then you should be rewarded with guaranteed 100% success.
The crafted rewards in general need an overhaul to enable players to craft items that are desired by others. Maybe include a 'master-craftsman' category once players have maxed a certain number of professions, which allows them to craft unique looking items for transmute. And for crying out loud, add enhancement slots to the max level crafted leatherworking chest armours already! I've mentioned this 4 or 5 times on the forums now (inc the bug forum!), yet we still cannot craft max level Scourge Warlock, Hunter Ranger, or Trickster Rogue chest armour with an enhancement slot. The neglection of this really doesn't fill me with confidence that professions are being properly considered.
In general, it seems to me that there are not enough items at max level that are worth trading on the AH, or salvaging for AD, to be gained from solo play. I'm not asking for them to start raining down on us, but if you are going to take away the leadership AD, then we do need something. It also seems to me that it would be sensible for players to have more options on items to purchase with their AD - again, maybe consider more unique looking drops that people will want for transmute.
For now, I'm prepared to wait to see what plans you come up with though. I also wish you good luck in reading through all the replies to this (hope you have plenty of flame-retardant armour!). But don't wait too long - I don't wish to have to set my spider, Fluffy, on you...
And this time is simply wasted : removing Ad but no compensation ? We need compensation : more xp, more gold, more BOA RP AND we need Strongholds rewards too.
Reducing the ad source and increasing the ad needed with each module is not a good way : players will not use their credit card instead managing Leadership : they will quit the game.
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
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
Removing AD from Leadership entirely WAS necessary - BUT. They really should be replacing it with SOMETHING. I still think unbound RP stones (peridots, aquamarines, whatever) is the best idea. Yeah, those'll still be botted, and yeah, the prices will crash, but people at least will have their OWN source of unbound RP, AND have a chance to sell alongside botters for SOMETHING, and the profession wouldn't be generating AD out of thin air.
By math the changes, without even considering leadership, will bring less AD. Well, lol is all what i can say i guess i will be doing less than 10k at day. Oh you may want to look at stronghold ad requirements.... See ya next year
It will tie the hands of bots hindering them earning more AD.
This almost follows the suggestions that were made in the anti-botting and Economy stabilizing posts. This tells me a few things... they are INDEED listening and they do INDEED care about the players. After all... without us they know they are not where they are.
...there cant be "mass exodus" in this playerbase - what is low allready, but obtaining, upgrading gear stops now...
THAT calculation "Rewards for playing", human cant do 11 hours play(if have life and family), but well known solutions do that...
I wanted to get started on authoring foundries, but after seeing all the setbacks foundry members have had, I’m not inclined to do so. You do realise that making things ‘automatic’ will also make things easier for the bots, don’t you? Why limit it to 2 runs of each when you want to reward people who play this game, regardless of the number of runs they do during a day? Not inconvenient for me. Talking to Rhix was as simple as pressing “L” and clicking on the Daily Rewards “Earn Epic Quests” button. I actually looked forward to these times to run this content. I noticed queue times were faster during this time. By removing a focal ‘hour’ to play content, you are also going to separate the player base to know when to queue up, and may increase queue times instead.
Additionally, there was no potential limit to the DD hour (as long as you got them, true), however there is now a CAP on the maximum amount you can earn per day. Why the arbitrary limit on how much AD can be made when players want to run content like dungeons and skirmishes? It is a contradiction of what you are seemingly trying to say above in, “Our goal: if you play Neverwinter, you earn AD”. Well, not if you want to play more than 2 dungeons or skirmishes a day, it seems. Incorrect, you only get an additional 3,000 AD during Dungeon Delve hour with the key, which you did not mention in the above statement. What happens to the chest key requirements? Does it still reward anything else of value besides the blue Bind on Account items? Need I remind you that an epic chest key costs 5k AD, whereas a blue BoA item can refine only 3-5kAD?
Also 150-750AD per run. Comparing this to the cost of a GMOP - it is tiny. If you limit the daily amount to 3k AD for the first two skirmishes, then it is equivalent to the daily quest reward (barring having to do one extra skirmish).
But running a skirmish during Skirmish hour could get you 1k AD, now each additional run is limited to 50-500AD. Sure we can run them any time we want now, but only if enough people are queuing – but now, how will people know to queue?
50-500AD per run is a tiny amount compared to the costs of levelling equipment i.e. GMOPs. Incorrect, you only got the 4000 AD if you completed 4 matches. Do you PvP? Not everyone PvPs. I suggest that Cryptic does not force players to play the game that you want.
This extra AD, may influence players to play who do not want to play PvP, much less win a match.
It may also encourage botters.
I am not advocating that these extra AD rewards should not be given, or be given to the winners only (due to today’s state of imbalance), but these changes can have unintended consequences you might not realise – I urge you to reconsider the whole thing. Queue times are not good at the moment, Scott. It can take upwards of 30 minutes to get a domination match, 20+ minutes for Gauntlgrym (more if it isn’t during GG or Dom hour).
And why are you only giving extra AD for ‘queued content’. What about players who enjoy other content? Tiamat, Sharandar, Dread Ring, Elemental Evil Zones?
Only targeting queued content is an incomplete way of addressing your goal of,” if you play Neverwinter, you earn AD”.
A heavy handed approach punishing players is like executing 1/10 of your army because of one renegade. Decimation. Have we returned to the Roman times? Or I suppose losing 1/10 or your playerbase is sufficient cause to remove the botting renegade?
Are there no more sophisticated methods to remove botters? Analyse # of log-ins, or IP, or repetitive activity. Monitoring if a real person is behind the screen (some people have suggested Captcha). Limit the number of accounts per IP address (I know VPN can circumvent this, but have you tried any of these methods?). You do realise that botters will still be able to access the ‘few sources in there’ better than any real player can?
Reducing the amount of AD generation will increase its value, but it will still be in the hands of the botters, and those who’ve already benefited from it. Try to think of why people run Leadership. If you play this game and are trying to get a character to have epic or legendary equipment, you will quickly realise the costs of this.
Removing Leadership will remove a legitimate way for players to gain enough AD to progress their character.
The amounts generated by ‘queued content’ as you have described above does not in any way come close to these refinement targets.
The AD sinks will be out of proportion to what will be left in this game if you make this change. Stronghold sinks, Artifact equipment, Companion Upgrades (750k-1mil AD).
I would suggest addressing these AD sinks and reducing their costs substantially before implementing this change as a stand-alone fix. The value of Leadership after these changes will be minimal to players after these changes.
To players already trying to get epic or legendary gear, AD was the main reason why they worked so long to get Leadership up to max level. Botters have a massive amount of characters at their disposable. If the relative value of AD increases, then botting to invoke will still give them that power over regular players. I note your caveat, “At this time”, there also, well played.
This leadership change only serves to highlight the ineffectiveness of addressing the botting issue. PTW. This does nothing for those “players with time (but not money)”.
Not if they want to juggle a VIP access per month while levelling their character Why ‘make adjustments’ when you could be out fixing bugs? Take a scroll down the forums in Player Feedback, PvE or PvP discussion and tell us your time could not be spent better making this a game a more enjoyable experience. Where are these 9 missing dungeons?:
- Castle Never
- Frozen Heart
- Caverns of Karrundax
- Lair of the Pirate King
- Lair of the Mad Dragon
- Cloak Tower
- Throne of Idris
- Spellplague Caverns
- Dread Vault
We have only 6 dungeons to continue earning AD. Six. And 4 skirmishes, only 2 of which are queued often enough (due to the lack of rewards in the other two).
Take some of the suggestions written above me by other players before going ahead with this change. At least by consulting players and responding to us, it might make things go a little bit better.
I feel like a hamster in a wheel trapped in an enclosure with constantly shifting rules of play.
This hamster might just escape.
Is it reasonable for new customers to join?
They will hardly compete or pull some weight in group content.
This is what I experience so far. I never finshed any skirmish
or dungeon, except for event skirmish.
zebular wrote:
> All my available time each day was spent working Leadership.
> [...] and instead spend that 30-90 minutes actually playing the game
It was your decision. You were free to do otherwise before.
This choice will take the game only to close in few months becasuse the 80% of players will choose another game: there're so many free MMO now.
This is just my opinion.
Just to ask, when this last great idea will be probably apply to the game?
I can only add to the discussion by describing my next actions (maybe the reaction of many casual players).
- exchange my zen for AD (zax will probably fall under 500 in some weeks)
- stop spending ADs in SH probably forever
- stop buying GMOPS in WB until price is reduced by at least 50%
- stop buying from AH until Mod 8 because all prices will fall down considerably
I think, the producer will not adjust the AD cost of the AD sinks until next Mod and because of the uncertainty (prices in AH, prices in WB, strategy of producer) only few people will invest in improving their char and their SH => all progression in NW comes to a crashing halt.
Bots will find a way around this and it's ridiculous to think otherwise. It could even affect the game more adversely than leadership did.
FEATURED foundries (vetted by cryptic) should also give AD reward. first 2 a day give 3k =P
NW-DC9R4J5EH - 'The Black Pearl' - Spelljammer! Phlo Riders and Space Orcs
Thanks for all the fish.
I mostly play solo, at times and a pace that suits me, and do my professions and switch between various alts. I enjoy the game. With the above changes, which on the whole seem quite sensible, I would loose a lot of AD. I don't exploit Leadership, only some alts have it and none to a very high degree, and being on xbox I don't have foundry or gateway anyway. I play for serval hours every day - please find a way to make this work for me.
I'd hate to see a return of those. =/
NW-DC9R4J5EH - 'The Black Pearl' - Spelljammer! Phlo Riders and Space Orcs
Thanks for all the fish.
The absolute best way to block them is at the point where they transfer stuff to their customer - the player who is buying from them. They will try to disguise it but they still have to transfer a large value of stuff in a fairly short window of time to one account. Surely that could be detected and vetted/blocked/whatever.
Although it's a moot point for now, as the AD thing is a done deal.