Bots will still exist but it will be far harder for them to create bots to grind game content than it will be for them to create account hopping leadership farms.
Hate to say it, but bots can do just about anything in the game already. They will have little issue adapting without leadership and racking in large profits.
Thank you for an official post, all I asked was for someone from the game to make some kind of statement and you have provided one.
It is a shame that leadership happens to be the escape goat of the problem of the decline of the population but as I stated this game is good, it just sucks that me (others too) which have paid to support the game since we believe in it got the shaft.
What would be fair is if the company figures out a fair balance, and wipes all accounts to start over with the new set of rules in place. I for one would really hate it since I have over 18 months of time on just my hunter. But it would be nice to have everyone start off on the same playing field. Currently the only ones that will really profit from this change are the ones that botted leadership as you pointed out. They farmed enough AD to be set for awhile and as you read, many of the people who were paying customers will switch to buying that AD from the bot farmers... So its really a lose lose for the company.
Granted if they wiped the game and started fresh, many people will be so pissed and quit (but probably not as many that just quit over this leadership back breaking nerf).
But you will gain more new players since everyone will be level 1 and starting fresh...
For the record my Hunter has maxed all skills (I have all rank 4s in all my abilities) I also unlocked every boon and completed every quest offered to this date in the game. Im an achievement wh0r3 and Im even willing to start from square 1.
- our ability to earn AD has been cut by perhaps 70-90% - fixed-price items that are absolutely required to progress are priced exactly the same
To me, this is inexcusable. Changing leadership in this way is an earth-shaking change and demands due diligence. How else can we react except to ask, "why is this so?" Is it laziness? Is it a knee-jerk reaction to the present sad state of the NWO economy? Or, is it a calculated move to try to nudge -- in a rather forceful way -- players to buy Zen that they can convert to AD?
The way that this was done does not engender trust. The utter lack of communication to valid questions and suspicions does not, either -- AT ALL. You do not do something like this to a playerbase and then initiate a complete communication blackout.
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
theycallmetomuMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,861Arc User
I definitely agree that the problem is that, there are some very legitimate arguments to be made, but that the overall level of toxicity makes it impossible to have a productive conversation.
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shadowgod244Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 44Arc User
edited September 2015
they really are just ignoring the fanbase in favour of money grabbing which is a first class way to alienate the players, overnight the whole action house has crashed in value and is just bleeding out money and as a result the very few ways to make stable money (dread ring, WoD's) have literally been cut in half. people have offered a few different solutions to the bot problem such as capture but instead they choose the nuclear option as always (look at keys and coal wards) but this is a step to far you need to stick to the business model of the game being free to play and zen being a way of accelerating progression not have be the only way to get ahead.
not only has the removal of daily AD task SEVERELY crippled new and old players alike but it also means that pvpers are unable to get the needed seals of triumph required to obtain armour to be able survive the mess that is PVP. it is blatant that the wont do anything about bots because it inflates numbers in game which make the game look more popular than it actually is.
as for strongholds whilst is has brought new and old players alike into the game it has caused a wide gap between the small guilds who value community and the big players who just desire the newest weapons (still very annoyed about the stronghold weapons requiring rank 16 and not 8 as first stated) there are relativity simple fixes for this make the currencies scale to the amount of players you have so the more players you have the more you need, also have the appropriate currencies vouchers drop in the respective area (e.g VT gives dark vouchers).
a possible fix for the current AD problem would be to reintroduce old content as it was with the need or pass system so we can get nice gear bought and sold on the AH like we used to with castle never that way you would appease the fanbase whilst introducing another viable way to make diamonds after all this is meant to be a free game.
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ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
Bots will still exist but it will be far harder for them to create bots to grind game content than it will be for them to create account hopping leadership farms.
Hate to say it, but bots can do just about anything in the game already. They will have little issue adapting without leadership and racking in large profits.
That isn't what I meant.
I meant, logically, what will generate more revenue in less time: creating a bot to hop between characters and accounts to set and collect leadership tasks or having a single character grind for AD.
The obvious answer is that having one computer tied up to one character bot grinding for AD will generate far less than a bot hopping between hundreds of characters and/or accounts assignign set it and forget it leadership tasks.
neither the developers or myself think bots will have a hard time programming things to do. The change will effect how much AD they can generate in a given amount of time. Bots won't stop. They just won't have it easy. Think of it like a speed limit drop from a thousand miles per hour to 60. They'll still bot but they won't make far more than any player could hope to generate as the botting that they will have to do will be time gated by in game activities instead of number of accounts/characters hopped to.
So, you are telling us now. They made this change, with no obvious plan of direction to balance it for legit players?
"My only complaint when I heard about this change was that it should have been done a long time ago." I agree with this, and really I personally dont have a issue with this change in particular. If you read my posts its the 1 after another changes that came; not just this one alone. Terrible foresight.
People in this thread and others are giving you suggestions. We've noticed that in many cases before they largely go ignored. The prior track record and lost trust is really what hurt you guys the most.
It is very hard to post responses when it is very clear the only response many of you want to see is that the leadership changes will be reversed.
Many of you see AD as a fixed value so you see less AD generation as less value gained when in truth you could be gaining less AD at more value than before. Supply and demand is an economic law even when applied to currency and the rate of AD generation just could not be counterbalanced between all of the leadership farming by bots and players alike. If the economy was healthy then we wouldn't have been sitting at 500:1 AD:Zen for nearly two years.
It reached a point where creating AD sinks to counteract the leadership farming would be exactly what many of you are calling this: detrimental to casual and new players. The economy was being completely offset by those with large farms and especially by the bots who sat and did nothing but farm leadership all day every day. You can't balance the economy with sinks to combat that AD revenue without making it unbearably hard on players who are new or do not want to manage leadership farms like a second job.
The old system was broken and it couldn't be fixed. My only complaint when I heard about this change was that it should have been done a long time ago.
People will have more AD than others due to the old system but that will balance out in time and is absolutely not a reason to cite the old broken as hell system to remain.
Bots will still exist but it will be far harder for them to create bots to grind game content than it will be for them to create account hopping leadership farms.
That doesn't mean it is perfect. The Community Team is not happy with the new Leadership Rewards to start and we definitely want AD to be generated more commonly for more in game activities. The best bit of feedback I collected from this thread was a player saying that he was forced to choose between running dungeons/skirmishes/pvp for AD or doing campaign missions for the one to two hours he had to play and I agree it that is a huge problem.
We are silent because many of you make it clear there is no common ground communication. It's hard to communicate and work together with people who make it clear the only thing they want to hear is 'the broken system is coming back.' The old system was broken and for most of the reasons advocates for it cite as the problem with the direction of the current changes.
The new system is not perfect. It needs tweaking and a lot of it and we are looking through threads such as this one to collect feedback for improvements like the example I provided earlier. If you want more two way communication you are going to have to step beyond the knee jerking 'we want the old system' and look towards what is truly wrong with this system.
Last time I checked the devs and everyone else involved are not children. If they cannot deal with harsh criticisms then they should find another line of work. Many of us actually work in professions where we deal with people and deal with these kind of issues and we do not send out people to cover for us and imply we are fragile flowers in hopes people will go easy. That's nonsense. Words on a screen that are actually pretty tame aren't an issue. Yes people are ready to leave because why shouldn't they? This is one of MANY issues that are grinding their gears. But somehow we're at fault for being upset and not being empathetic when next to none has been shown by the staff. I mean really now.
The plan they pulled off is heavy-handed and devoid of common sense and is very much in line with actions from Cryptic in other games where such actions negatively affected those communities. I mean really now, how exactly did they think the community was going to take this? What exactly did they think would happen in the long run? How exactly, among the sea of other issues they have before them (foundry issues, pvp issues, stronghold issues, pve balance issues, so on and so on), did they think people would deal with such a change? At the end of the day they did not think this through and it shows and will continue to do so with a dwindling population, less income, bad PR, and outright hate from former players let alone the lack of trust many remaining players may have on top of the ones whose willingness to stay will be shaken by seeing many of their friends go. This is utter mismanagement and it is appalling. I mean, come on.
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ghoulz66Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,748Arc User
Bots will still exist but it will be far harder for them to create bots to grind game content than it will be for them to create account hopping leadership farms.
Hate to say it, but bots can do just about anything in the game already. They will have little issue adapting without leadership and racking in large profits.
neither the developers or myself think bots will have a hard time programming things to do. The change will effect how much AD they can generate in a given amount of time. Bots won't stop. They just won't have it easy. Think of it like a speed limit drop from a thousand miles per hour to 60. They'll still bot but they won't make far more than any player could hope to generate as the botting that they will have to do will be time gated by in game activities instead of number of accounts/characters hopped to.
There's also the bots farming ghost stories and other areas endlessly piling up god knows how much loot to sell. If it weren't profitable they wouldn't be doing it still. Now how can they let them abuse that for so long without notice?
That to me sounds pretty bloody easy.
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ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
And this level of word twisting is why you guys don't get responses.
I am saying that everything was done with the intention to balance it for legitmate players as the old system did everything to penalize legitimate players as they could NEVER hope to compete the AD generation of bots and players who had large leadership farms.
The change is far from finalized but the one sure thing is that the old system was beyond broken.
And this level of word twisting is why you guys don't get responses.
I am saying that everything was done with the intention to balance it for legitmate players as the old system did everything to penalize legitimate players as they could NEVER hope to compete the AD generation of bots and players who had large leadership farms.
The change is far from finalized but the one sure thing is that the old system was beyond broken.
Terrible foresight, Ill just leave it at that. I dont have to twist your words, the actions show through.
It is very hard to post responses when it is very clear the only response many of you want to see is that the leadership changes will be reversed.
Many of you see AD as a fixed value so you see less AD generation as less value gained when in truth you could be gaining less AD at more value than before. Supply and demand is an economic law even when applied to currency and the rate of AD generation just could not be counterbalanced between all of the leadership farming by bots and players alike. If the economy was healthy then we wouldn't have been sitting at 500:1 AD:Zen for nearly two years.
It reached a point where creating AD sinks to counteract the leadership farming would be exactly what many of you are calling this: detrimental to casual and new players. The economy was being completely offset by those with large farms and especially by the bots who sat and did nothing but farm leadership all day every day. You can't balance the economy with sinks to combat that AD revenue without making it unbearably hard on players who are new or do not want to manage leadership farms like a second job.
The old system was broken and it couldn't be fixed. My only complaint when I heard about this change was that it should have been done a long time ago.
People will have more AD than others due to the old system but that will balance out in time and is absolutely not a reason to cite the old broken as hell system to remain.
Bots will still exist but it will be far harder for them to create bots to grind game content than it will be for them to create account hopping leadership farms.
That doesn't mean it is perfect. The Community Team is not happy with the new Leadership Rewards to start and we definitely want AD to be generated more commonly for more in game activities. The best bit of feedback I collected from this thread was a player saying that he was forced to choose between running dungeons/skirmishes/pvp for AD or doing campaign missions for the one to two hours he had to play and I agree it that is a huge problem.
We are silent because many of you make it clear there is no common ground communication. It's hard to communicate and work together with people who make it clear the only thing they want to hear is 'the broken system is coming back.' The old system was broken and for most of the reasons advocates for it cite as the problem with the direction of the current changes.
The new system is not perfect. It needs tweaking and a lot of it and we are looking through threads such as this one to collect feedback for improvements like the example I provided earlier. If you want more two way communication you are going to have to step beyond the knee jerking 'we want the old system' and look towards what is truly wrong with this system.
We know that the past system is not and will never be restored.. and to be honest that is alright. What most of us are upset about is the simple fact in which it was implemented with very little thought and an absolutely horrid execution.
The players (and maybe even the current development team) were not that ones who designed the game so that each account was capable of having 50 characters and who made trading between characters on the same account possible. Yet most played the game as it was designed without exploiting known loopholes, setting up automating scripts, and the many other similar structures that were built into the game.
We the players invested both our time and money into the game enjoying it how we felt it was most rewarding (playing the AH for profit, working our way through crafting, adventuring, fighting fellow players, etc.) Now the game that many of us have played since beta has been radically changed limiting our ability to enjoy and advance our characters in the game in what most feel was a meaningful way.
The implementation as previously mentioned was carried out with a dull axe when what was needed was a scalpel and input from the player. As others have noted, many alternatives were offered by players... all were met by silence. To me and probably many, silence equates to one thing.. that the company does not care about to players (and or the game enough) to ask for constructive comments from the players and a way forward for the betterment of the game's health.
Would it have been so hard to have a post stating that 'Here is a problem we see in the game, what our your thoughts to help the game improve for its long term health'.
In either way, what was done is done.. the past way of being able to afford to advance our characters is no more and will not be coming back... but so to is the trust and confidence of many of the player base. That is the problem that the game must now face and try to cope with if it hopes to be around for long.
So.. even though it is late.. how about post saying here is the problem that the game is facing.. how do you the players see a constructive way forward?
As to your comment about many seeing AD as a fixed value, that is because the cost needed by many to advance their characters are fixed by the Wonderous Bazaar. It would be no different if the AD value was held the same and the cost of MoPs increased 10 fold.
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ghoulz66Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,748Arc User
The change is far from finalized but the one sure thing is that the old system was beyond broken.
(emphasis mine)
I should hope so, and here is my problem with how this was handled. Only the negative portion comes first, with no announcement as to how legitimate players will me made whole. Out income is cut by at least half, yet fixed-price items remain the same. Then, over the course of four days, we are left twisting in the wind as to how to reconcile the two. I appreciate your responses today, but even those don't answer the question: "how will these changes be altered so as to not screw over legitimate players?" It's a valid question, because, at 8:52 PM EDT 9/16/2015 it DOES.
The secondary question, legitimate due to the lack of communication, is also valid: "why only the nerf and no compensation?" Is it due to laziness, incompetence, or is it deliberate? Once again, we are left twisting int he wind for four days with no answer. This change isn't a minor tweak, and a response is warranted.
I want to give the devs the benefit of the doubt and attribute it to lack of due diligence -- I really do, but that also leaves me disappointed. I'm only glad that they don't work where I work. I want our aircraft staying in the air, and I'm sure that our servicemen do as well.
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
The change is far from finalized but the one sure thing is that the old system was beyond broken.
And that right there is the largest issue people have with it. If the changes arn't finalized, why the need to rush in with half finished fixes?
Wouldn't it of been better to hold off on the leadership changes until they had a complete fix, rather then a promise that more will come in time? It would of gone a long way to reduce the venom here.
You cant honestly blame the community for feeling angry and betrayed for this half finished mess. There was no reason to rush into this, the problem was years in the making. A few more weeks would of changed nothing. And might of actually allowed Cryptic to implement a finalized, complete fix, rather then a hasty nerf and empty promises.
Another First Dungeon Run. ToS. AD upon completion: 2300. So much for that 3K bonus. I feel like an idiot for getting VIP.
I wouldn't have minded the change so much, if there were AD rewards for dailies or something like that. Heck, as I've said multiple times, make them part of a Vigilance Quest. Might give us a reason to actually want to do them. Because I've got one Beta toon, and two that are less than two months old. And due to this pesky thing called a "job" I don't have the time to run TOS, Abberant Assault, or what have you, for six hours a day to try and hit the quota across three toons. It's just not going to happen. And given that GMOPs aren't coming down in price as I can see any time soon, they're basically never going to advance.
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ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
I definitely agree that the problem is that, there are some very legitimate arguments to be made, but that the overall level of toxicity makes it impossible to have a productive conversation.
Indeed.
I mean I can explain everything but I made one post and have had my words twisted completely to the point I end up backtracking and arguing against statements I never said to begin with.
Valid arguments are being considered but two way communication requires people to stop twisting words and comparing apples to oranges.
Botting RP by farming nodes and such in ghost stories is not the same as botting AD. Certainly it needs to and is being addressed but it really is not relevant to the botting and farming of Leadership which generated AD at a rate which players could not hope to compete with. This is why the Zen Exchange has been capped for nearly two years and is why these changes are being made.
Yes they could just keep making more AD sinks but the more sinks they add the more hurt people who play the game instead of farm leadership become. As such the necessary act is to switch rewarding NW Farmville to rewarding playing Neverwinter.
It is very hard to post responses when it is very clear the only response many of you want to see is that the leadership changes will be reversed.
Many of you see AD as a fixed value so you see less AD generation as less value gained when in truth you could be gaining less AD at more value than before. Supply and demand is an economic law even when applied to currency and the rate of AD generation just could not be counterbalanced between all of the leadership farming by bots and players alike. If the economy was healthy then we wouldn't have been sitting at 500:1 AD:Zen for nearly two years.
It reached a point where creating AD sinks to counteract the leadership farming would be exactly what many of you are calling this: detrimental to casual and new players. The economy was being completely offset by those with large farms and especially by the bots who sat and did nothing but farm leadership all day every day. You can't balance the economy with sinks to combat that AD revenue without making it unbearably hard on players who are new or do not want to manage leadership farms like a second job.
The old system was broken and it couldn't be fixed. My only complaint when I heard about this change was that it should have been done a long time ago.
People will have more AD than others due to the old system but that will balance out in time and is absolutely not a reason to cite the old broken as hell system to remain.
Bots will still exist but it will be far harder for them to create bots to grind game content than it will be for them to create account hopping leadership farms.
That doesn't mean it is perfect. The Community Team is not happy with the new Leadership Rewards to start and we definitely want AD to be generated more commonly for more in game activities. The best bit of feedback I collected from this thread was a player saying that he was forced to choose between running dungeons/skirmishes/pvp for AD or doing campaign missions for the one to two hours he had to play and I agree it that is a huge problem.
We are silent because many of you make it clear there is no common ground communication. It's hard to communicate and work together with people who make it clear the only thing they want to hear is 'the broken system is coming back.' The old system was broken and for most of the reasons advocates for it cite as the problem with the direction of the current changes.
The new system is not perfect. It needs tweaking and a lot of it and we are looking through threads such as this one to collect feedback for improvements like the example I provided earlier. If you want more two way communication you are going to have to step beyond the knee jerking 'we want the old system' and look towards what is truly wrong with this system.
The changes are making it hard on players in any event and as to "second jobs" I suggest you look at some of the copious examples of just how long it will take to hit AD cap on even a single character. THAT is a second job.
Bots can, and do, nearly everything a live player can do and they do it 24/7. Now they're just going to camp dungeons, skirmishes and PvP matches while continuing to farm RP. Between that and the huge bankrolls they've almost certainly got stashed away becoming even more valuable, they're not losing a thing while those of us who made 'legitimate' use of Leadership have lost one of our most reliable sources of in-game income. I don't have anything resembling BiS gear so I'd be kicked from Dungeon runs faster than I coud blink, PvP is even worse and that leaves Skirmishes.
As to the reason for your silence ... I call that rank cowardice. Sure many people just want the old system back regardless of the supposed reasons for its removal but a great many have also been putting forth ideas for offsetting its loss and/or ways to hit the botters and goldsellers where they live. Hiding your face because some people are being reactionary is to do a disservice to those that ARE open to discussion. Your silence isn't helping matters because those who are being unreasonable on this matter are the very same people who will point to that silence and use it as tacit proof of any conspiracy theory they may happen to subscribe to. An actual discussion is needed, not silence.
It is very hard to post responses when it is very clear the only response many of you want to see is that the leadership changes will be reversed.
Many of you see AD as a fixed value so you see less AD generation as less value gained when in truth you could be gaining less AD at more value than before. Supply and demand is an economic law even when applied to currency and the rate of AD generation just could not be counterbalanced between all of the leadership farming by bots and players alike. If the economy was healthy then we wouldn't have been sitting at 500:1 AD:Zen for nearly two years.
It reached a point where creating AD sinks to counteract the leadership farming would be exactly what many of you are calling this: detrimental to casual and new players. The economy was being completely offset by those with large farms and especially by the bots who sat and did nothing but farm leadership all day every day. You can't balance the economy with sinks to combat that AD revenue without making it unbearably hard on players who are new or do not want to manage leadership farms like a second job.
The old system was broken and it couldn't be fixed. My only complaint when I heard about this change was that it should have been done a long time ago.
People will have more AD than others due to the old system but that will balance out in time and is absolutely not a reason to cite the old broken as hell system to remain.
Bots will still exist but it will be far harder for them to create bots to grind game content than it will be for them to create account hopping leadership farms.
That doesn't mean it is perfect. The Community Team is not happy with the new Leadership Rewards to start and we definitely want AD to be generated more commonly for more in game activities. The best bit of feedback I collected from this thread was a player saying that he was forced to choose between running dungeons/skirmishes/pvp for AD or doing campaign missions for the one to two hours he had to play and I agree it that is a huge problem.
We are silent because many of you make it clear there is no common ground communication. It's hard to communicate and work together with people who make it clear the only thing they want to hear is 'the broken system is coming back.' The old system was broken and for most of the reasons advocates for it cite as the problem with the direction of the current changes.
The new system is not perfect. It needs tweaking and a lot of it and we are looking through threads such as this one to collect feedback for improvements like the example I provided earlier. If you want more two way communication you are going to have to step beyond the knee jerking 'we want the old system' and look towards what is truly wrong with this system.
The changes are making it hard on players in any event and as to "second jobs" I suggest you look at some of the copious examples of just how long it will take to hit AD cap on even a single character. THAT is a second job.
Bots can, and do, nearly everything a live player can do and they do it 24/7. Now they're just going to camp dungeons, skirmishes and PvP matches while continuing to farm RP. Between that and the huge bankrolls they've almost certainly got stashed away becoming even more valuable, they're not losing a thing while those of us who made 'legitimate' use of Leadership have lost one of our most reliable sources of in-game income. I don't have anything resembling BiS gear so I'd be kicked from Dungeon runs faster than I coud blink, PvP is even worse and that leaves Skirmishes.
As to the reason for your silence ... I call that rank cowardice. Sure many people just want the old system back regardless of the supposed reasons for its removal but a great many have also been putting forth ideas for offsetting its loss and/or ways to hit the botters and goldsellers where they live. Hiding your face because some people are being reactionary is to do a disservice to those that ARE open to discussion. Your silence isn't helping matters because those who are being unreasonable on this matter are the very same people who will point to that silence and use it as tacit proof of any conspiracy theory they may happen to subscribe to. An actual discussion is needed, not silence.
This. In the absence of alternative, people tend to assume the worst, especially if they've got reason to be skeptical of you already (the account wide companions, the charitably described as sluggish responses to the problems with Mod 6, etc, having severely damaged player trust) especially when that silence remains when people are offering suggestions, as well. That cynicism and toxicity will ferment and fester, and if you don't step in to try to speak to people, to give them someone they believe can and will take them seriously, you're just going to make things worse.
The fact that at least some of these AD drops seemed to be bugged is certainly not helping things...
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ghoulz66Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,748Arc User
People have jobs and things to do. Just let them do 2-3 epics top and reach the 24k RAD limit, so then they're satisfied instead of grinding 4 hours which most people can't devote that much time. That's why it's there in the first place. People are angry because they can't spend all this time on a single character just to reach the RAD limit.
I'm sure botters don't have 50 characters that can farm epics...
That doesn't mean it is perfect. The Community Team is not happy with the new Leadership Rewards to start and we definitely want AD to be generated more commonly for more in game activities. The best bit of feedback I collected from this thread was a player saying that he was forced to choose between running dungeons/skirmishes/pvp for AD or doing campaign missions for the one to two hours he had to play and I agree it that is a huge problem.
if farming campaigns we could reach our ad quoata, or close to it, to have a choice how we want to make our ad for the day... would be really nice.
As to your comment about many seeing AD as a fixed value, that is because the cost needed by many to advance their characters are fixed by the Wonderous Bazaar. It would be no different if the AD value was held the same and the cost of MoPs increased 10 fold.
I feel like this right here is one of the biggest issues, when you get right down to the core of the matter. If you're going to cut AD generation heavily, intending to increase its value, that makes sense. It is something that hurts my income heavily, but I understand the basic reasoning and I think at a fundamental level, I begrudgingly support it.
But if your motivation is to increase the worth of the AD that is generated, then the fixed costs of the bazaar are a direct obstacle to that, surely? And when you admit that the changes are far from complete....the entire community is justifiably left wondering just what on earth their AD is worth.
I've read multiple stories of people recently buying heros and character slots with their money only to have it be money down the drain because of the rapid and extreme (to some) change. I think people want to know what the ultimate solution will be and they don't want poorly communicated, half solutions foisted upon them at pretty short notice.
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theycallmetomuMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,861Arc User
Agreed. Players should be able to get AD doing what they want to do. If players want to run skirmishes, they can run skirmishes. If they want to do daily quests, they can do daily quests.
I mean, the RAD refining limit already is a baked in limiter on how much AD a person can run in a day. Why not just have all campaign quests give RAD, and let the refining limit be the limiter?
"It is very hard to post responses when it is very clear the only response many of you want to see is that the leadership changes will be reversed."
You can't expect us to be happy when you made a knee-jerk change that fundamentally altered the entire game for the greater majority of us! This isn't a popularity contest. We have months, years and hundreds of dollars invested in this game and overnight you made it unplayable for some of us!!! As I said before, I don't want to wait in line to skirmish or dungeon run multiple times a day. I don't pvp AT ALL. I have no desire whatsoever to do so. I was perfectly happy living inside the rules and working my 9 characters all up to Level 70 and getting their Leadership skills to 20 - 25. I am a solo player and now have absolutely NO WAY to keep up let alone advance my team of characters without an outlay of cash or a complete change in how I play the game. You bet your life I want the system to go back to how it was. That's the game I've played for years. Those are the rules that I followed. That was the gaming system I supported with my finances and my time and it has now been broken beyond all repair overnight without any advance thought of how to fix it.
We're supposed to just 'hang in there' and be happy while you guys attempt something you don't even have a plan for? And on top of that be happy about it and not express our opinions?
Finding the botters is easy. Get rid of the cheaters and leave those of us who play within the rules alone!
0
theycallmetomuMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,861Arc User
They're not expecting people to be happy. They're participating or not participating in a conversation after assessing the value of said participation, which is determined by the level of unhappiness in the community.
This isn't a moralizing issue, it's just a cost benefits analysis.
Anyway, biggest concern I have right now: There is a 20 point spread between buy and sell orders on the ZAX. That tells me something is out of alignment. Obviously, the backlog told me the same thing, but that was that the cap was set to be too low.
They're not expecting people to be happy. They're participating or not participating in a conversation after assessing the value of said participation, which is determined by the level of unhappiness in the community.
This isn't a moralizing issue, it's just a cost benefits analysis.
Anyway, biggest concern I have right now: There is a 20 point spread between buy and sell orders on the ZAX. That tells me something is out of alignment. Obviously, the backlog told me the same thing, but that was that the cap was set to be too low.
The spread is due to the rapidly falling ratio of AD to Zen. Sell orders do not auto-adjust once placed and can take days to clear if not at the current market conditions.
It is very hard to post responses when it is very clear the only response many of you want to see is that the leadership changes will be reversed.
Many of you see AD as a fixed value so you see less AD generation as less value gained when in truth you could be gaining less AD at more value than before. Supply and demand is an economic law even when applied to currency and the rate of AD generation just could not be counterbalanced between all of the leadership farming by bots and players alike. If the economy was healthy then we wouldn't have been sitting at 500:1 AD:Zen for nearly two years.
It reached a point where creating AD sinks to counteract the leadership farming would be exactly what many of you are calling this: detrimental to casual and new players. The economy was being completely offset by those with large farms and especially by the bots who sat and did nothing but farm leadership all day every day. You can't balance the economy with sinks to combat that AD revenue without making it unbearably hard on players who are new or do not want to manage leadership farms like a second job.
The old system was broken and it couldn't be fixed. My only complaint when I heard about this change was that it should have been done a long time ago.
People will have more AD than others due to the old system but that will balance out in time and is absolutely not a reason to cite the old broken as hell system to remain.
Bots will still exist but it will be far harder for them to create bots to grind game content than it will be for them to create account hopping leadership farms.
That doesn't mean it is perfect. The Community Team is not happy with the new Leadership Rewards to start and we definitely want AD to be generated more commonly for more in game activities. The best bit of feedback I collected from this thread was a player saying that he was forced to choose between running dungeons/skirmishes/pvp for AD or doing campaign missions for the one to two hours he had to play and I agree it that is a huge problem.
We are silent because many of you make it clear there is no common ground communication. It's hard to communicate and work together with people who make it clear the only thing they want to hear is 'the broken system is coming back.' The old system was broken and for most of the reasons advocates for it cite as the problem with the direction of the current changes.
The new system is not perfect. It needs tweaking and a lot of it and we are looking through threads such as this one to collect feedback for improvements like the example I provided earlier. If you want more two way communication you are going to have to step beyond the knee jerking 'we want the old system' and look towards what is truly wrong with this system.
Again with the focus on leadership. I get it, I really do - but they've virtually completely nerfed ALL AD sources. ALL OF THEM. Putting leadership rewards back will only fix things for some portion of the player base - frankly, that portion that will not be likely to ever return. Fix it, fine - what about the rest of us??
You seem to think that besides leadership, all is well in the AD kingdom - that, or those of us hurt by the other changes are just a bunch of worthless leeches and should just shut up and stuff ourselves. I am not a leech. I am penniless. Does that mean I cannot be allowed a modicum of happiness? These people seem to think so. You say such changes are neccessary - but, this game is supposed to be free-to-play; the ready availability of AD before this... mound of dog dirt was dropped on our heads allowed people like us to really enjoy this game. And what am I hearing? I'm hearing we're indistinguishable and on par with pieces of programming (bots). I'm hearing people basically saying "good riddance!!" I want to cry!
Well, then there's the AH argument. Which is also HAMSTER. I've never seen an item drop that was valued at more than 1-2k. I RARELY see anything which goes for more than 500. I don't know where people get this stuff, but I can't get to it. They talk like you're picking up the equivalent of tricorns left and right and it's all happy days. I can only assume it's the epic/lv70 content. Which I hear is pretty much P2W. So, that's out of the question for sad saps like me who are just getting sadder now.
The lack of the daily and hourly boons alone will mean the next CTA will be pointless for me. I did a grind last time on Storm Front, and I still have a load of AD left over - I won't be seeing that this time around. Of course, I probably won't be playing at all, anyway. Not for a while at least.
I think they could reasonably appease a lot of players if they came up with some genuine measures along those lines, and quickly. Stuff like: - Increase rewards for completing all types of content. Allow GMOPs to drop from epic dungeons and skirmishes and to be bought with glory. The incidence of preservation wards from prayer boxes should increase. - Add some in-game sources of refined AD available through playing the game. - AD rewards for all content should be significant enough that you should get what you need in about 2 hours' worth of play per day per character. - Leadership boxes and rewards receive a major rework so that the profession remains viable and doesn't invalidate people's investments in it, but also becomes more of an optional thing.
Totally agree with that one point. Not because I don't have the time - I sure as hell do - but I actually enjoy the gameplay mechanic. But grinding sucks the fun out of it.Sorry for the epic long post, but I was away a while and had a lot to respond to and a lot to say all at once.
If you want robofarming, go play farmville or something.
Comments
It is a shame that leadership happens to be the escape goat of the problem of the decline of the population but as I stated this game is good, it just sucks that me (others too) which have paid to support the game since we believe in it got the shaft.
What would be fair is if the company figures out a fair balance, and wipes all accounts to start over with the new set of rules in place. I for one would really hate it since I have over 18 months of time on just my hunter. But it would be nice to have everyone start off on the same playing field. Currently the only ones that will really profit from this change are the ones that botted leadership as you pointed out. They farmed enough AD to be set for awhile and as you read, many of the people who were paying customers will switch to buying that AD from the bot farmers... So its really a lose lose for the company.
Granted if they wiped the game and started fresh, many people will be so pissed and quit (but probably not as many that just quit over this leadership back breaking nerf).
But you will gain more new players since everyone will be level 1 and starting fresh...
For the record my Hunter has maxed all skills (I have all rank 4s in all my abilities) I also unlocked every boon and completed every quest offered to this date in the game. Im an achievement wh0r3 and Im even willing to start from square 1.
- our ability to earn AD has been cut by perhaps 70-90%
- fixed-price items that are absolutely required to progress are priced exactly the same
To me, this is inexcusable. Changing leadership in this way is an earth-shaking change and demands due diligence. How else can we react except to ask, "why is this so?" Is it laziness? Is it a knee-jerk reaction to the present sad state of the NWO economy? Or, is it a calculated move to try to nudge -- in a rather forceful way -- players to buy Zen that they can convert to AD?
The way that this was done does not engender trust. The utter lack of communication to valid questions and suspicions does not, either -- AT ALL. You do not do something like this to a playerbase and then initiate a complete communication blackout.
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
not only has the removal of daily AD task SEVERELY crippled new and old players alike but it also means that pvpers are unable to get the needed seals of triumph required to obtain armour to be able survive the mess that is PVP. it is blatant that the wont do anything about bots because it inflates numbers in game which make the game look more popular than it actually is.
as for strongholds whilst is has brought new and old players alike into the game it has caused a wide gap between the small guilds who value community and the big players who just desire the newest weapons (still very annoyed about the stronghold weapons requiring rank 16 and not 8 as first stated) there are relativity simple fixes for this make the currencies scale to the amount of players you have so the more players you have the more you need, also have the appropriate currencies vouchers drop in the respective area (e.g VT gives dark vouchers).
a possible fix for the current AD problem would be to reintroduce old content as it was with the need or pass system so we can get nice gear bought and sold on the AH like we used to with castle never that way you would appease the fanbase whilst introducing another viable way to make diamonds after all this is meant to be a free game.
I meant, logically, what will generate more revenue in less time: creating a bot to hop between characters and accounts to set and collect leadership tasks or having a single character grind for AD.
The obvious answer is that having one computer tied up to one character bot grinding for AD will generate far less than a bot hopping between hundreds of characters and/or accounts assignign set it and forget it leadership tasks.
neither the developers or myself think bots will have a hard time programming things to do. The change will effect how much AD they can generate in a given amount of time. Bots won't stop. They just won't have it easy. Think of it like a speed limit drop from a thousand miles per hour to 60. They'll still bot but they won't make far more than any player could hope to generate as the botting that they will have to do will be time gated by in game activities instead of number of accounts/characters hopped to.
"My only complaint when I heard about this change was that it should have been done a long time ago."
I agree with this, and really I personally dont have a issue with this change in particular. If you read my posts its the 1 after another changes that came; not just this one alone. Terrible foresight.
People in this thread and others are giving you suggestions. We've noticed that in many cases before they largely go ignored. The prior track record and lost trust is really what hurt you guys the most.
Fox Stevenson - Sandblast
Oh Wonder - Without You
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
- Dylan Thomas
The plan they pulled off is heavy-handed and devoid of common sense and is very much in line with actions from Cryptic in other games where such actions negatively affected those communities. I mean really now, how exactly did they think the community was going to take this? What exactly did they think would happen in the long run? How exactly, among the sea of other issues they have before them (foundry issues, pvp issues, stronghold issues, pve balance issues, so on and so on), did they think people would deal with such a change? At the end of the day they did not think this through and it shows and will continue to do so with a dwindling population, less income, bad PR, and outright hate from former players let alone the lack of trust many remaining players may have on top of the ones whose willingness to stay will be shaken by seeing many of their friends go. This is utter mismanagement and it is appalling. I mean, come on.
That to me sounds pretty bloody easy.
I am saying that everything was done with the intention to balance it for legitmate players as the old system did everything to penalize legitimate players as they could NEVER hope to compete the AD generation of bots and players who had large leadership farms.
The change is far from finalized but the one sure thing is that the old system was beyond broken.
Anyways, I just hope you guys figure it out.
Fox Stevenson - Sandblast
Oh Wonder - Without You
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
- Dylan Thomas
Nowhere near the same speed. Additionally that is not generating AD, it is generating RP.
All of this is not harsh criticism: it is simply logically incorrect comparisons.
The players (and maybe even the current development team) were not that ones who designed the game so that each account was capable of having 50 characters and who made trading between characters on the same account possible. Yet most played the game as it was designed without exploiting known loopholes, setting up automating scripts, and the many other similar structures that were built into the game.
We the players invested both our time and money into the game enjoying it how we felt it was most rewarding (playing the AH for profit, working our way through crafting, adventuring, fighting fellow players, etc.) Now the game that many of us have played since beta has been radically changed limiting our ability to enjoy and advance our characters in the game in what most feel was a meaningful way.
The implementation as previously mentioned was carried out with a dull axe when what was needed was a scalpel and input from the player. As others have noted, many alternatives were offered by players... all were met by silence. To me and probably many, silence equates to one thing.. that the company does not care about to players (and or the game enough) to ask for constructive comments from the players and a way forward for the betterment of the game's health.
Would it have been so hard to have a post stating that 'Here is a problem we see in the game, what our your thoughts to help the game improve for its long term health'.
In either way, what was done is done.. the past way of being able to afford to advance our characters is no more and will not be coming back... but so to is the trust and confidence of many of the player base. That is the problem that the game must now face and try to cope with if it hopes to be around for long.
So.. even though it is late.. how about post saying here is the problem that the game is facing.. how do you the players see a constructive way forward?
Besides, it's fair for a botter to mass farm then sell loot for ADs but players get squat for actually playing the game?
I should hope so, and here is my problem with how this was handled. Only the negative portion comes first, with no announcement as to how legitimate players will me made whole. Out income is cut by at least half, yet fixed-price items remain the same. Then, over the course of four days, we are left twisting in the wind as to how to reconcile the two. I appreciate your responses today, but even those don't answer the question: "how will these changes be altered so as to not screw over legitimate players?" It's a valid question, because, at 8:52 PM EDT 9/16/2015 it DOES.
The secondary question, legitimate due to the lack of communication, is also valid: "why only the nerf and no compensation?" Is it due to laziness, incompetence, or is it deliberate? Once again, we are left twisting int he wind for four days with no answer. This change isn't a minor tweak, and a response is warranted.
I want to give the devs the benefit of the doubt and attribute it to lack of due diligence -- I really do, but that also leaves me disappointed. I'm only glad that they don't work where I work. I want our aircraft staying in the air, and I'm sure that our servicemen do as well.
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
Wouldn't it of been better to hold off on the leadership changes until they had a complete fix, rather then a promise that more will come in time? It would of gone a long way to reduce the venom here.
You cant honestly blame the community for feeling angry and betrayed for this half finished mess. There was no reason to rush into this, the problem was years in the making. A few more weeks would of changed nothing. And might of actually allowed Cryptic to implement a finalized, complete fix, rather then a hasty nerf and empty promises.
I wouldn't have minded the change so much, if there were AD rewards for dailies or something like that. Heck, as I've said multiple times, make them part of a Vigilance Quest. Might give us a reason to actually want to do them. Because I've got one Beta toon, and two that are less than two months old. And due to this pesky thing called a "job" I don't have the time to run TOS, Abberant Assault, or what have you, for six hours a day to try and hit the quota across three toons. It's just not going to happen. And given that GMOPs aren't coming down in price as I can see any time soon, they're basically never going to advance.
I mean I can explain everything but I made one post and have had my words twisted completely to the point I end up backtracking and arguing against statements I never said to begin with.
Valid arguments are being considered but two way communication requires people to stop twisting words and comparing apples to oranges.
Botting RP by farming nodes and such in ghost stories is not the same as botting AD. Certainly it needs to and is being addressed but it really is not relevant to the botting and farming of Leadership which generated AD at a rate which players could not hope to compete with. This is why the Zen Exchange has been capped for nearly two years and is why these changes are being made.
Yes they could just keep making more AD sinks but the more sinks they add the more hurt people who play the game instead of farm leadership become. As such the necessary act is to switch rewarding NW Farmville to rewarding playing Neverwinter.
Bots can, and do, nearly everything a live player can do and they do it 24/7. Now they're just going to camp dungeons, skirmishes and PvP matches while continuing to farm RP. Between that and the huge bankrolls they've almost certainly got stashed away becoming even more valuable, they're not losing a thing while those of us who made 'legitimate' use of Leadership have lost one of our most reliable sources of in-game income. I don't have anything resembling BiS gear so I'd be kicked from Dungeon runs faster than I coud blink, PvP is even worse and that leaves Skirmishes.
As to the reason for your silence ... I call that rank cowardice. Sure many people just want the old system back regardless of the supposed reasons for its removal but a great many have also been putting forth ideas for offsetting its loss and/or ways to hit the botters and goldsellers where they live. Hiding your face because some people are being reactionary is to do a disservice to those that ARE open to discussion. Your silence isn't helping matters because those who are being unreasonable on this matter are the very same people who will point to that silence and use it as tacit proof of any conspiracy theory they may happen to subscribe to. An actual discussion is needed, not silence.
The fact that at least some of these AD drops seemed to be bugged is certainly not helping things...
I'm sure botters don't have 50 characters that can farm epics...
But if your motivation is to increase the worth of the AD that is generated, then the fixed costs of the bazaar are a direct obstacle to that, surely? And when you admit that the changes are far from complete....the entire community is justifiably left wondering just what on earth their AD is worth.
I've read multiple stories of people recently buying heros and character slots with their money only to have it be money down the drain because of the rapid and extreme (to some) change. I think people want to know what the ultimate solution will be and they don't want poorly communicated, half solutions foisted upon them at pretty short notice.
I mean, the RAD refining limit already is a baked in limiter on how much AD a person can run in a day. Why not just have all campaign quests give RAD, and let the refining limit be the limiter?
You can't expect us to be happy when you made a knee-jerk change that fundamentally altered the entire game for the greater majority of us! This isn't a popularity contest. We have months, years and hundreds of dollars invested in this game and overnight you made it unplayable for some of us!!! As I said before, I don't want to wait in line to skirmish or dungeon run multiple times a day. I don't pvp AT ALL. I have no desire whatsoever to do so. I was perfectly happy living inside the rules and working my 9 characters all up to Level 70 and getting their Leadership skills to 20 - 25. I am a solo player and now have absolutely NO WAY to keep up let alone advance my team of characters without an outlay of cash or a complete change in how I play the game. You bet your life I want the system to go back to how it was. That's the game I've played for years. Those are the rules that I followed. That was the gaming system I supported with my finances and my time and it has now been broken beyond all repair overnight without any advance thought of how to fix it.
We're supposed to just 'hang in there' and be happy while you guys attempt something you don't even have a plan for? And on top of that be happy about it and not express our opinions?
Finding the botters is easy. Get rid of the cheaters and leave those of us who play within the rules alone!
This isn't a moralizing issue, it's just a cost benefits analysis.
Anyway, biggest concern I have right now: There is a 20 point spread between buy and sell orders on the ZAX. That tells me something is out of alignment. Obviously, the backlog told me the same thing, but that was that the cap was set to be too low.
You seem to think that besides leadership, all is well in the AD kingdom - that, or those of us hurt by the other changes are just a bunch of worthless leeches and should just shut up and stuff ourselves. I am not a leech. I am penniless. Does that mean I cannot be allowed a modicum of happiness? These people seem to think so. You say such changes are neccessary - but, this game is supposed to be free-to-play; the ready availability of AD before this... mound of dog dirt was dropped on our heads allowed people like us to really enjoy this game. And what am I hearing? I'm hearing we're indistinguishable and on par with pieces of programming (bots). I'm hearing people basically saying "good riddance!!" I want to cry!
Well, then there's the AH argument. Which is also HAMSTER. I've never seen an item drop that was valued at more than 1-2k. I RARELY see anything which goes for more than 500. I don't know where people get this stuff, but I can't get to it. They talk like you're picking up the equivalent of tricorns left and right and it's all happy days. I can only assume it's the epic/lv70 content. Which I hear is pretty much P2W. So, that's out of the question for sad saps like me who are just getting sadder now.
The lack of the daily and hourly boons alone will mean the next CTA will be pointless for me. I did a grind last time on Storm Front, and I still have a load of AD left over - I won't be seeing that this time around. Of course, I probably won't be playing at all, anyway. Not for a while at least. Totally agree with that one point. Not because I don't have the time - I sure as hell do - but I actually enjoy the gameplay mechanic. But grinding sucks the fun out of it.
Sorry for the epic long post, but I was away a while and had a lot to respond to and a lot to say all at once.
Rage against the zeitgeist.