Since D&D has always used Gold|Silver|Copper currency, Why does AD even exist?
I don't know the answer to that question, you would have to ask the devs.
My opinions are my own. I do not work for PWE or Cryptic. - Forum Rules - Protector's Enclave Discord - I play on Xbox Any of my comments not posted in orange are based on my own personal opinion and not official. Any messages written in orange are official moderation messages. Signature images are now fixed!
I've yet to get much more than 10k a day per toon. Skirmishes still don't give the correct bonus on first two plays and as a result aren't even queued for anymore, PvP queues take half an hour to fill and give out 1,200 - damn it, put the hourly events and daily quests back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Run some 3 man dungeons. They are easy and grant the correct amount of AD.
Unfortunately they do not. The last 2 days I've run eCC and regular CC. ZERO AD from either. The log shows nothing about AD and I checked my inventory and looked at my rAD number before opening chest/killing boss.
My teammates either get zero or some weird random amount that's far less than 3,000 rAD. 120, 230 or weird numbers like that.
I believe there's a thread on the discussion about CC as well. I guess I will have to try TS and see if it grants diamonds. Wasted 2 hours for nothing.
Lets see, I do two foundry quests, 0ad. I do four foundry quests, 0ad. I do 2 skirmishes, 0ad. I do 4 skirmishes, 0ad. So where is this increase?
You should be getting AD from the chest at the end of the skirmishes/ Are you forgetting to open the chest? If you are opening the chest and not getting AD, please file a bug report.
Foundry quests aren't granting AD that this time. (Which I believe is a known issue, but I'll bug Andy about bugging the devs about it today).
I get the items, but never any AD.
I may not be the best player in the world, but at least I learn my Toon, and how to play them. b:laugh
[quote]I have no legendary artifacts, no legendary, anything, no rank 9s let alone 10s, and I have been doing leadership with 4 characters for the last 2+ years, and now I have a 5th almost to 20.[/quote]
I just dumped 3 million AD getting my artifacts to legendary and now we're looking at something dumb like 800k to get to legendary. I still don't really have a problem with it.
I've yet to get much more than 10k a day per toon. Skirmishes still don't give the correct bonus on first two plays and as a result aren't even queued for anymore, PvP queues take half an hour to fill and give out 1,200 - damn it, put the hourly events and daily quests back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Run some 3 man dungeons. They are easy and grant the correct amount of AD.
Unfortunately they do not. The last 2 days I've run eCC and regular CC. ZERO AD from either. The log shows nothing about AD and I checked my inventory and looked at my rAD number before opening chest/killing boss.
My teammates either get zero or some weird random amount that's far less than 3,000 rAD. 120, 230 or weird numbers like that.
I believe there's a thread on the discussion about CC as well. I guess I will have to try TS and see if it grants diamonds. Wasted 2 hours for nothing.
If you have the old daily dungeon quest you have to turn it in first before dungeons will automatically reward you with AD.
I've invested money in STO, in WoT, in AW. I really like Neverwinter but I've always feel that there is something off. The game is totally enjoyable until you got to level 60 (or 70? 72?, whatever it is now); as I got to level 60 it was kind of difficult since there is nothing engaging after that. You'll told me oh but it's the same with every mmorpg, ok, that only means that I probably never going to invest in this kind of game (the exception being STO, I haven't even gotten to max level but I love all kinds of ships and especially, I love Star Trek). Almost 2 years ago when I discovered Neverwinter I thought it was the best, I still think it is. However, I needed to left for several months due to work and studies, and the last changes, at least the ones I can tell: changing the levels for key areas, nerfing top equipment/weapons, and now this one have simply lost me. I don't know where I am with the game and honestly I see too much bad feedback coming from the community, so many bugs trowing away the intended changes. I understand that most likely all the changes have been necessary, but then it was likely due to things broken for so many time before taking actions to fix them. So, I just sold all my leadership HAMSTER (guys, tools, etc). I'm staying away for a long period until I see things stabilize. Because now is like being invited to a costume party with barbecue but when you get there is like ok now is a formal party with some weird snacks, the music is all messed up, the bartender and service are in a moody humor charging you for the drinks and not serving what they're supposed to. So ok, let me know when you make up your mind.
A Rebuke to the AD economy in Neverwinter...I know this will probably be overlooked at this point, but regardless, here goes....
I started playing Neverwinter 3-4 weeks ago and I'm not a casual player, but I'm not a power gamer either, I exist somewhere in between. There is a bit of a learning curve on the xbox as it's very difficult to socialize and get information in game. Out of game, you can ask on forums, but in game there isn't really a chat room to ask questions, nor would it be easy unless you had a keyboard...
Regardless, after reading this article, and experiencing the game first hand, I have to say, I'm super frustrated at the AD economy. It's setup to fail casual gamers and semi power gamers like myself. Here's why:
What I think is broken: 1) If AD rewards players time, then I'm disappointed. After playing numerous hours and getting up to level 66 and 60 on 2 characters, I had around 30k AD on each character. This was only thanks to invocations and the occasional daily quest. I had no idea how much AD I would need until I got to these levels as, around these levels, you start realizing that you are lacking in the soloability if you don't have some good enchantments on your items (think vorpal, rank 8-9 enchantments/runestones). Trying to purchase these items can cost upwards of 100k-1M AD/item in the auction house. Obviously I'm nowhere close to getting this. Not to mention, that's just 1 item, there's a ton of things you need...Furthermore, it's not like I can really get this stuff ingame, the drop rates on runestones and refining stones is fairly low compared to the amount it takes to go from rank 6-7, 7-8 (esp since you need 2 level 7 items to get to 8) It's like crawling up a pyramid of sand, how is this fun?...not to mention you have to spend AD to get the marks to upgrade since they don't drop in game (at least I have never seen a greater mark of anything drop)...then, god forbid you fail the upgrade and lose the components...(unless you spend ZEN to by wards...) All that being said, I like the concept, but the execution is lacking and unfun... 1a) it would seem that your runestones should advance as you advance, based that the highest level is like 12? I would assume that you'd achieve level 10-11 by 70 and then have something else to shoot for, like level 12...right now, I think the highest I've seen drop is level 5 for my level 66 toon...should I be seeing 7's or have the refinement available to turn what I have into an 8 by now?
2) I've purchased ZEN, thinking it would help me get AD. It hasn't. I could have converted the ZEN into AD via the exchange, but that means 100$ gets me like 1.3M AD? that seems a bit absurd, esp since AD farmers are selling 1M for $15... 2a) Buying keys, in the hopes of opening a box to get something cool to sell, hasn't yielded me much. Perhaps I'm just unlucky, but my sample size isn't small, I've opened around 100 boxes...yes, I've spent not only significant time but now money on this game...which, btw, I really do enjoy the game, just some of the mechanics I don't enjoy.
3) If you guys are anti AD farmers, then why did you set it up so that we, the players, have to farm dailies, skirmishes, and pvp (which, btw, pvp without major enchantments is about as fun as paper cuts)? Another way of saying this is: instead of enjoying the immense content of normal quests, I now must dedicate 1-2 hours of my day to running the same 3 daily quests and same 1-2 skirmishes over and over, day after day, week after week...wait, what? that doesn't seem right, nor fun...can't I spend my time online engaged in new content instead of stale dungeons? 3a) This makes the dailies no fun to run. Everyone just runs through them as fast as possible leaving others, like me, in the dust if we stop, even for a second, to loot something. So what's the point of running a daily? If it's to experience a bigger challenge, which requires coordination, and is therefore different/more fun overall, then you guys have achieved the opposite...I've seem multiple people essentially solo the dungeon, then get annoyed when they have to wait longer than 10 seconds for me to get to the final gate so they can go through and solo the boss...
4) What's the point of Gold/Silver/Copper? I have around 200 gold between both accounts, but it does me no good other than buying kits, potions, and removing enchantments from my items when I upgrade my equipment. Can I exchange gold for AD? Is there a point to it? Seems like this is overlooked... 4a) Likewise on the seals...yes you can exchange them for items that are probably below level by the time you have enough of them...but other than that, what's the point? If they are representative of game time, then couldn't they be exchanged for AD?
What I suggest: 1) make each quest in game reward AD in addition to XP. If the quest is repeatable, make the returns diminishing over time (i.e. after 10 times you get 0 AD).
2) make the dailies/skirmishes/pvp give you a 1/day 7200 AD each. Then, after that, no AD. Why should anyone be forced to run stale content over and over, day after day, week after week? 2a) Make the dailies give you 50k AD (or something like that) but only 1/week. (My favorite idea since it reduces farming to once per week instead of 1/day or the current 6/day) 2b) Update the daily dungeons to rotate every 3-4 days giving us non stale content to farm?
3) Put a cap on max bids in the AH. i.e. no item can be more than X AD...this would create a more manageable, stable economy. While free markets seems like a good idea, regulation often helps prevent abuses (like farmers). If the cap is 1Million per item, then you'll see a natural scale take place...right now they are absurd...
4) Allow us to exchange gold and seals for AD or bound items (like refining stones, etc) After all, the only way you can acquire that is via game time...
5) Salvage...expand it, allow us to salvage anything for AD. Sure beats the gold I get when I sell it...
6) Put AD as drops in the game. All those items that require kits in the dungeons could occasionally give AD for those of us who take the time to find them...
Anyway, these are just some of my suggestions. I haven't been around long enough to know the intricies and how my suggestions might break something. If anything, they are at least a brainstorm of ideas to get the juices flowing.
This is not meant to be snarky, I understand the the bottom line is for you guys to make money. I support that as without it, you can't produce new content. I'm not opposed to paying money and I'm not opposed to spending lots of time in game. What I'm opposed to is any system which makes the game less fun to play. Without fun you'll lose me (and people like me) which means less revenue.
Please, please, please figure out a better solution to the AD economy.
There is currently 74 pages of comments so if someone already raised this I apologize beforehand.
What I I would like to say is that I'm not sure if more AD is necessarily better unless you plan to control the Zen exchange rate. Yes people will earn more AD but because of that you can expect a rise in prices in the AH as well as the Zen exchange. That's what normally happens when you devalue a currency. So while casual players might find themselves earning more AD, the amount of goods they will be able to obtain with their new found riches will be less than before and thus make the whole exercise pointless in my opinion.
I love where you're coming from with this but I think you need to consider the long term effects and maybe come up with an idea that will allow more AD on the market without messing up the economy.
+ place Stronghold Vouchers in all the existing rAD slots of Leadership + add rAD rewards to all daily quests + increase the current rAD reward of all weekly quests
Wow. I go away for nine months or whatever it is, come back and in one afternoon find they've really managed to kitten this game up.
Really struggling to stay with it again after finding the REAL LIFE MONEY I spent on leadership has been flushed by these kittening people.
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ghoulz66Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,748Arc User
edited November 2015
I am pretty PO'd that they left transmute costs untouched still. I was looking forward to the the new gear preview but I simply can't afford to indulge in it anymore.
The only small step forward in this issue seems to be the removing of the AD costs from campaign keys with Underdark. I tried asking if there will be more "AD Changes" coming, but i didn't get any answer...
Can't recall but some things have been said during the Reddit AMA. Not sure there were any details though.
Anyway, we all know majority of AD sinks have to go. Taking the AD requirement from the campaign keys is a really nice thing dev's gave us. Again I'm repeating myself...small steps, small things that appear and make us players happier.
I would still add to his one halving the time to get the keys, having to wait for them 20 or 24h hours is something that should be changed.
Nancy - Dragonborn, SM Guardian Fighter A proud member of "mythical horde of DPS GFs"
1). Is SW more dps or tank based? 2). Yes. I am panzer! 3). Get ACT if you want to celebrate your epeen. 4). Horniness will not stand between me and what I believe - "MM"
There is currently 74 pages of comments so if someone already raised this I apologize beforehand.
What I I would like to say is that I'm not sure if more AD is necessarily better unless you plan to control the Zen exchange rate. ...
The Zen exchange rate appears to me to have been somewhat positively influenced by the AD nerf that happened a few months back. Note the sudden surge in Zen value on the exchange leading up to this past weekend, when there was rampant gossip about the %50 off sales - which turned out to be completely true, btw. At it's peak on Monday the rate was almost maxed out, at nearly 500 AD / 1 Zen.
Now that the weekend is in the rearview mirror and the zen sale is over, the rate is dropping - fast. Last time I looked today it was around 413 - 416 AD / 1 Zen.
That's a lot more fluidity than existed pre-AD nerf, when the rate literally never budged from 500 AD/ 1 Zen (thanks, botters).
The fact that there is some fluidity in the marketplace now has to be considered a significant improvement over the past.
I agree with a lot of the posters in this epic thread that more needs to be done to make the AD market appealing to casual / semi- casual gamers - the cost of the enhancement kits that professions can produce (for example) are way out of balance with the new economy. 1 Major Power Kit would cost me $100K of AD to make with a level 25 mailsmith, along with a variety of other exotic materials (like Unified Elements and a Dragon Egg). Mind that's after investing the time necessary to get a toon to progress to level 25 mailsmith.
I just hope the devs can do their number crunching and baselining of data a little faster. The space in time between the AD Leadership nerf and the first AD price nerf was way too long.
There is currently 74 pages of comments so if someone already raised this I apologize beforehand.
What I I would like to say is that I'm not sure if more AD is necessarily better unless you plan to control the Zen exchange rate. Yes people will earn more AD but because of that you can expect a rise in prices in the AH as well as the Zen exchange. That's what normally happens when you devalue a currency. So while casual players might find themselves earning more AD, the amount of goods they will be able to obtain with their new found riches will be less than before and thus make the whole exercise pointless in my opinion.
I love where you're coming from with this but I think you need to consider the long term effects and maybe come up with an idea that will allow more AD on the market without messing up the economy.
You're talking "inflation" effects. You believe that casual players actually getting to earn AD will make them more affluent (more money(AD) to spend) and there not be enough stuff for them to buy with their new found "wealth" and this will cause what there actually is to buy have it's cost increase, negating the the AD they just got more of---I'm getting that correct, right?
The problem with your assumption is this: Casual players, when they play are putting stuff up to be bought as well. There would be more "stuff" to buy if they were playing, there is the current problem, they aren't playing. Unless you rate logging in a character and invoking and then logging off perhaps to a few more alts, but ultimately doing nothing more than invoking as "playing".
Most casual players have stopped "playing" and are only "invoking" before they are on their way to another MMO. Most casual players are in "tread water" mode. Just hoping, praying, that anyone, anybody! over at NW will get their nogg'ns out of each others posteriors long enough to address their plight!
What are non-casuals doing? Grinding - a thing that an overwhelming number of players say they loath. They are grinding a limited number of the same dungeons/skirms/pvp repeatedly, ever heard of road fatigue? That's what everyone is getting. The same scenery with nothing of note for mile after mile, to the point that even though you are wide awake, you are in a pre-hypnosis state and don't react well when a actual event does happen.
Let's assume that casuals had a reason to get in the game and held on to their stuff and didn't AH it for the sake of argument. Let's assume that you are correct and the prices for "stuff" go up. So what? That's the new value, the casuals/solo's that put in more time are going to get more AD under a time spent vs reward scenerio, they will have more AD to spend to get what they feel they really need vs. the ones not putting in the actual time and effort.
Who the heck would suffer if it started a inflationary bubble? The grinders? No, they are the ones posting the stuff remember? They are getting the AD the casuals now have to spend. The newly affluent casuals? No. Even if they don't have stuff to in turn AH and everything get's more expensive...they are still better off than before when they had zip to spend, at worst they are where they were before the inflation. Who is the only group that "might" (and I doubt it since they adapt) suffer? Ad sellers.
Why? Well if everyone has their own AD, why would they need to buy it? AD sellers are the pawn brokers/shylocks of the MMO world. Don't have enough money to get by? Go sell some of your poo off at the pawn shop to put food on the table. Since we don't "need" stuff in game like we do to eat and survive in RL, if everyone has at least a marginal AD generation going on, they can "survive" until they have saved up enough to get the stuff and not really need the AD seller/shylock. The only people that use AD sellers are the gullible, they either get exploited by the AD seller ripping them off somehow, or even if they get the AD promised, they paid real life $ for digital currency to exchange for pixilated make believe stuff. AD sellers are strippers, some (the honest ones) take lot's of money to "entertain" their clients and the client merely goes home sexually frustrated. If they are the dishonest "stripper" they promise a bit more "entertainment" (illegal everywhere but parts of Nevada ) and the client get's rolled, they lose all their money and have zip for it.
I like the AD Changes and the salvageable drops help. I believe its a good fix and people now have to play to get AD rather then exploit.
So, I've been away since just before the Elemental Evil update opened. Coming back, I have been surprised and irritated by the changes I've seen. I was off playing STO and that is an amazingly poorly designed game which has only gotten worse since launch. I was annoyed to see NWO trending the same way when I got back.
Having played NWO for quite a while before my "vacation," it is my sense that the AD economy was never broken, it was not exploited. It worked exactly as intended. Leadership was promoted as ~the~ source for AD generation. Having a legion of Leadership drones plugging away at it was exactly how it was meant to work. There was a limit to how often one could perform each task that paid AD....omg, a check and balance system. If some players were abusing the system, punish those players rather than the entire playerbase.
From where I sit, these changes are designed solely to promote sales in the Zen Market. Poking around today, I noticed that all Dyes and Fashions are being moved from the Zen Market to the Trade Bar Market. Now, Trade Bars only come from opening Lockboxes and you can only open those with Keys you buy from the Zen Market. I could be wrong, but I believe the amount of bars varies from box to box. I am sure that opening a Lockbox is roulette, totally random chance to get what you actually want. This move is clearly designed to push players to buy keys, spend money on the Zen market, and lots to be sure to get enough keys to open enough boxes to get the particular item you want.
I have spent money in the Zen Market, in fact, I currently have over 4,000 zen. I had over 3500 for the entire year I was not playing. I do not mind paying for things I want, but "fixing" something that wasn't broken to push players to spend is a lousy business model. I've seen it in so many other games and I had a lot of admiration for Cryptic that they didn't do that. I would prefer being told, "we're making these changes to increase our income" rather than being told "we're doing this to support and protect you, the players."
When is this happening? Please reconsider putting this in next week BEFORE you have a solution for solo players, at least. Geez.
SOLO ISSUE: Where are the AD for campaign tasks, daily task, SOLO TASKS????? Playing the game does not = Skirmishes, PVP and Dungeons for all your players. Those need to go in WITH this change not at some unspecified future date.
Promises of "we are looking into it" are probably not going to tide them over. Maybe some of them will come back... "news very soon" is also not good enough. We don't trust you. Fix that.
Also please address the price of leveling up companions- it is stupidly high with this change.
Again, "we will be looking at this at some future date" is not good enough.
LEADERSHIP When you take away with one hand you better give with the other. We are talking *massive* investment in this profession and removing AD without adding something else is stealing from us. Please figure something out. Perhaps some account bound ways to make GMOPS and/or Coal Wards? Remove the cap on doing each task only three times?
SUMMARY: It's insane to announce this change without a tandem source for true solo players and addressing the current AD sinks in the game- especially the one that JUST launched in the last mod.
I have multiple alts with green comps that I cannot even begin to afford upgrading. All I read tells me I cannot solo without blue or purple comps, so what do I do? I CANNOT do groups, so I am left outside the game?
I have multiple alts with green comps that I cannot even begin to afford upgrading. All I read tells me I cannot solo without blue or purple comps, so what do I do? I CANNOT do groups, so I am left outside the game?
Yes, that is exactly what has happened. Your only options are to hope a guild is willing to take pity on you and carry you till you can carry yourself. Or struggle with random pugs and the headaches that come with them.
The only solo content that you can do to generate AD is invoking daily, or a small handful of weekly missions that allow you to generate a paltry 15,000 AD per week.
When is this happening? Please reconsider putting this in next week BEFORE you have a solution for solo players, at least. Geez.
SOLO ISSUE: Where are the AD for campaign tasks, daily task, SOLO TASKS????? Playing the game does not = Skirmishes, PVP and Dungeons for all your players. Those need to go in WITH this change not at some unspecified future date.
Promises of "we are looking into it" are probably not going to tide them over. Maybe some of them will come back... "news very soon" is also not good enough. We don't trust you. Fix that.
Also please address the price of leveling up companions- it is stupidly high with this change.
Again, "we will be looking at this at some future date" is not good enough.
LEADERSHIP When you take away with one hand you better give with the other. We are talking *massive* investment in this profession and removing AD without adding something else is stealing from us. Please figure something out. Perhaps some account bound ways to make GMOPS and/or Coal Wards? Remove the cap on doing each task only three times?
SUMMARY: It's insane to announce this change without a tandem source for true solo players and addressing the current AD sinks in the game- especially the one that JUST launched in the last mod.
I have multiple alts with green comps that I cannot even begin to afford upgrading. All I read tells me I cannot solo without blue or purple comps, so what do I do? I CANNOT do groups, so I am left outside the game?
New and fresh players struggling with gear vs. content difficulty and old geared players stops repeating same OLD content?
Well, Leadership with AD was nice game feature what hardly can be called "xploit"... its just human nature look shortest way around obstacle and group up with fools who like "claim obstacle" as achievement.
I started play game called "Dungeon & Dragons" and now it is "HE & Skirmish - Repeat and RUN" TM -infinite grind.
AD change has nothing to do with lack off true content and maybe old players should move next game, but AD change makes newcomers game quite difficult because they cant get gear what makes game play and campaigns more fun.
Well, maybe new players enjouy mo "HE & Skirmishes" game.
I have multiple alts with green comps that I cannot even begin to afford upgrading. All I read tells me I cannot solo without blue or purple comps, so what do I do? I CANNOT do groups, so I am left outside the game?
Yes, that is exactly what has happened. Your only options are to hope a guild is willing to take pity on you and carry you till you can carry yourself. Or struggle with random pugs and the headaches that come with them.
The only solo content that you can do to generate AD is invoking daily, or a small handful of weekly missions that allow you to generate a paltry 15,000 AD per week.
Just to give you post a caviat there Sock, that "solo weekly" you mention for 15k AD? That is L70 access only content. So until the player get's all the way to L70 with only the AD from invoking as their reward, they are once again forced grouping content to get any AD of worth along the way.
forced grouping is the opposite of "casual" what this game has always been advertised as.
So that's once again 2 promises broken by Cryptic: 1. The game is casual/alt/solo friendly. 2. That they have a time played vs. reward structure. If you are a casual player or a soloist there is 0 reward vs. time played structure in place, doesn't appear to be any relief in the near future, nor seems to be on the horizon either, If they had something in the works to rectify this problem they would certainly post about it and brag/hype it like they do the Mods or the "adjustment" to +50% AD for weekly, still leaving 90% of us out in the cold.
Their promises and time delay tactics of "looking into it" or "monitoring it closely" seem of the variety of promise like the infomercial type of "But wait! Order in the next 15 minutes, pay separate shipping and handling and we will double the order" variety. *not available everywhere, participation may vary, void where prohibited, some exclusions may apply CA, NJ, PA, NY add sales Tax, everywhere else multiply by 2x, divide by 3, rub your tummy while patting your head, moon walk while reciting the declaration of independence, hop forward 3 steps, then sideways 2 steps while quoting the alphabet backwards.
Considering I play the same amount of time as I did way before the changes took place and I have some AD left over for the next day, whereas I didn't have enough before, I'm happy with the current system. but ye obviously depends how much people play. for sure it is easier to make AD for players as long as they willing to put in the time. which is normal... if u want something work for it. I rly don't see why some ppl are still complaining about this.
It is because some people just actually have nothing better to do than moan, I pity the fool! XD Happy New Years Eve!
I the AD changes. Ty
- Major Peachy Bottom * Gutbuster's Brigade -
"Last request - microtransactions for alllll old skins for zen/weapon appearance changes, 500 zen to make ur wep glow the color/enchant you want it... You will make more off that one item than any other zen item ever made." freshour
"beckylunatic" Gateway AH should have column headers to sort by buyout, bid, end time, quantity, etc. These disappeared iirc with the module launch. It's obnoxious.
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santralafaxMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 2,896Arc User
Different people have different playstyles. They have specifically removed AD from some playstyles. They suggest it is due to bots. Not true. L...rs.
Considering I play the same amount of time as I did way before the changes took place and I have some AD left over for the next day, whereas I didn't have enough before, I'm happy with the current system. but ye obviously depends how much people play. for sure it is easier to make AD for players as long as they willing to put in the time. which is normal... if u want something work for it. I rly don't see why some ppl are still complaining about this.
You ever see that movie "office space"? Where rather than fire that guy that the manager wanted gone, the manager just kept up doing things to the guy hoping he would just "go away" rather than actually firing him. The manager kept moving his desk to more offensive places, eventually to the basement store room. The manager took his personal swingline stapler. The hapless employee would always mumble about they can't do this to me, maybe some time I'm going to do x, y or z to retaliate, eventually settling on burning everything down.
The final thing the manager did was cancel the guy's pay check, he didn't actually say "you're fired" or anything, he just made being there intolerable hoping he would quite and "solve the problem", so while the guy kept clocking in, doing the work, he kept not getting his check, there was always something wrong about his check not getting cut.
That's what they did to the casual, non-L70 players. They show up for work, clock in, do a full days work, clock out and go home, day after day they plug away, but by weeks end there is no AD. So all they get for their sweat from Mr. Manager is a *clicking tongue and a foot rocking motion* "rigghht, so, there doesn't seem to be any AD...so payroll will have to look into that.....they are closely monitoring it I'm sure....", *sips some coffee* "so ummm, I'm going to have to ask you to move your character to the basement....we need more room for other characters over here....sorry about no AD....so ummm, like I said, they will look into it, meantime I'll need this stapler, and you can move your character now......"
So we ARE working for it, but they decided to "downsize" us without actually telling us so, we are working for our AD and all we get for it is *click tongue* "riigghht, so we are looking into it....". We are the grumbling people that are getting insulted out the door, and we are mumbling how we just might burn it all down. Fire us or pay us, we at least deserve that.
*dribbling gas about the building from gas can* *reaching into pocket for a match.........*
There are definitely some AD aspects that are still broken. The 50k appearance change the way it currently is needs to go. At least add a consumable or something for a free appearance change you can get in a drop or from crafting in a profession or something. Then it's 50k if you don't have the free appearance change. Why not make skins something un-lockable for each character that you can apply later even without having that actual piece of gear in your inventory?
For example, I have a level 70 DC I love with 2.8 iLvL that I want to invest a bit in her appearance, but I'm not going to until I finish getting my (based on current) end game armor and make in Elemental. Otherwise, after making your sparkly new DF armor, spending 50k to transmute to your slick Armor of Lloth, you'll lose the transmute when you make it Elemental so, I either need to wait, or farm out 2 sets of Armor. Yay.
Yet another reason NOT to spend real world currency to purchase ZEN, to obtain in game items...
Some items are being removed from the Zen market to the Trade Bar market.
Of course you cannot buy Trade Bars like you can Zen, so you have to purchase Zen, to buy keys, to open chests FOR THE CHANCE that a chest will contain Trade Bars.
Yet another reason NOT to spend real world currency to purchase ZEN, to obtain in game items...
Some items are being removed from the Zen market to the Trade Bar market.
Of course you cannot buy Trade Bars like you can Zen, so you have to purchase Zen, to buy keys, to open chests FOR THE CHANCE that a chest will contain Trade Bars.
Well actually...it's a blatant attempt to get you to join a F2P (not F2P) model of upping for VIP, which takes zen and decays, so you can get the "free" key, to get the trade bars, to spend on digital content, that nobody wanted to pay the Zen for in the first place since it was so insanely priced.
So while convoluted to get there, it's still a "zen purchase", it's just a forced into a mold to get there Zen purchase. Before they moved all that HAMSTER to the trade bar market, people had stacks and stacks of trade bars they never spent, because there simply wasn't any HAMSTER they wanted bad enough to spend them on, at least now they are trying to fill up a trade bar market with items they "might" be enticed to buy with them, and they may buy VIP or slot machine boxes to get there as well.
All their pricing models have been whack for some time now, $30 for a zen market mount? really? $20-30 for a pet? $1.25 for a key to pull the handle on a slot box? If they would go for a small increment cost they would actually make more in the long run, all anyone needs do is take a trip to a casino and see how a "penny" slot now works, sell the keys for .25 and people that would balk at 1 key for 1.25 would buy 10 instead of 1 with a .25 cost. Have a mount cost $2.50 not $25 and the collectionists would buy all the mounts available at 2.50 rather than just 1, spending well in excess of the 1 buy at $25. It's all digital content, more can be created fairly easily, the people who are into collecting would line up to hand them money if the price was low enough. Want to steal an idea from another success story game? Make the same basic mount, but with lots of alternate skins like LoTRO does, have a wardrobe and a stables to store them in, have the cost low and people spend tons to fill up that stable and wardrobe, it's a digital content "penny" slot.
Now if they would just fix the AD generation and fix a way to consolidate all the other errant currencies out there, the seal mess is in serious need of reform for instance, so are all the area currencies, if they would put in a "collector" that gave a 2 for 1 level up for seals and area currencies it would be logical and nice, my alternate currency bags are chock full of clutter.
Fix the AD mess, that should take top billing over everything else, including another mod mess push, then as new mods get fosted off on us, make alt currencies get an exchange rate as part of it. The underdark mod would have been a great opportunity to story-line something, like the previous areas before underdark currencies could have had a collector gathering up "excess" stuff to help the effort to beat back the demons. In other games they had things like a war going on and they set up a vendor that took up things in exchange for the new contents rewards, you could turn in bandages and cloth and wood, metal scrap etc etc. to help the war effort.
Alas our current crew is short on imagination and solutions and long on the "in the works" promises that never seem to pan out.
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The last 2 days I've run eCC and regular CC. ZERO AD from either.
The log shows nothing about AD
and I checked my inventory and looked at my rAD number before opening chest/killing boss.
My teammates either get zero or some weird random amount that's far less than 3,000 rAD. 120, 230 or weird numbers like that.
I believe there's a thread on the discussion about CC as well. I guess I will have to try TS and see if it grants diamonds.
Wasted 2 hours for nothing.
I just dumped 3 million AD getting my artifacts to legendary and now we're looking at something dumb like 800k to get to legendary. I still don't really have a problem with it. If you have the old daily dungeon quest you have to turn it in first before dungeons will automatically reward you with AD.
Almost 2 years ago when I discovered Neverwinter I thought it was the best, I still think it is. However, I needed to left for several months due to work and studies, and the last changes, at least the ones I can tell: changing the levels for key areas, nerfing top equipment/weapons, and now this one have simply lost me. I don't know where I am with the game and honestly I see too much bad feedback coming from the community, so many bugs trowing away the intended changes.
I understand that most likely all the changes have been necessary, but then it was likely due to things broken for so many time before taking actions to fix them. So, I just sold all my leadership HAMSTER (guys, tools, etc). I'm staying away for a long period until I see things stabilize. Because now is like being invited to a costume party with barbecue but when you get there is like ok now is a formal party with some weird snacks, the music is all messed up, the bartender and service are in a moody humor charging you for the drinks and not serving what they're supposed to. So ok, let me know when you make up your mind.
I started playing Neverwinter 3-4 weeks ago and I'm not a casual player, but I'm not a power gamer either, I exist somewhere in between. There is a bit of a learning curve on the xbox as it's very difficult to socialize and get information in game. Out of game, you can ask on forums, but in game there isn't really a chat room to ask questions, nor would it be easy unless you had a keyboard...
Regardless, after reading this article, and experiencing the game first hand, I have to say, I'm super frustrated at the AD economy. It's setup to fail casual gamers and semi power gamers like myself. Here's why:
What I think is broken:
1) If AD rewards players time, then I'm disappointed. After playing numerous hours and getting up to level 66 and 60 on 2 characters, I had around 30k AD on each character. This was only thanks to invocations and the occasional daily quest. I had no idea how much AD I would need until I got to these levels as, around these levels, you start realizing that you are lacking in the soloability if you don't have some good enchantments on your items (think vorpal, rank 8-9 enchantments/runestones). Trying to purchase these items can cost upwards of 100k-1M AD/item in the auction house. Obviously I'm nowhere close to getting this. Not to mention, that's just 1 item, there's a ton of things you need...Furthermore, it's not like I can really get this stuff ingame, the drop rates on runestones and refining stones is fairly low compared to the amount it takes to go from rank 6-7, 7-8 (esp since you need 2 level 7 items to get to 8) It's like crawling up a pyramid of sand, how is this fun?...not to mention you have to spend AD to get the marks to upgrade since they don't drop in game (at least I have never seen a greater mark of anything drop)...then, god forbid you fail the upgrade and lose the components...(unless you spend ZEN to by wards...) All that being said, I like the concept, but the execution is lacking and unfun...
1a) it would seem that your runestones should advance as you advance, based that the highest level is like 12? I would assume that you'd achieve level 10-11 by 70 and then have something else to shoot for, like level 12...right now, I think the highest I've seen drop is level 5 for my level 66 toon...should I be seeing 7's or have the refinement available to turn what I have into an 8 by now?
2) I've purchased ZEN, thinking it would help me get AD. It hasn't. I could have converted the ZEN into AD via the exchange, but that means 100$ gets me like 1.3M AD? that seems a bit absurd, esp since AD farmers are selling 1M for $15...
2a) Buying keys, in the hopes of opening a box to get something cool to sell, hasn't yielded me much. Perhaps I'm just unlucky, but my sample size isn't small, I've opened around 100 boxes...yes, I've spent not only significant time but now money on this game...which, btw, I really do enjoy the game, just some of the mechanics I don't enjoy.
3) If you guys are anti AD farmers, then why did you set it up so that we, the players, have to farm dailies, skirmishes, and pvp (which, btw, pvp without major enchantments is about as fun as paper cuts)? Another way of saying this is: instead of enjoying the immense content of normal quests, I now must dedicate 1-2 hours of my day to running the same 3 daily quests and same 1-2 skirmishes over and over, day after day, week after week...wait, what? that doesn't seem right, nor fun...can't I spend my time online engaged in new content instead of stale dungeons?
3a) This makes the dailies no fun to run. Everyone just runs through them as fast as possible leaving others, like me, in the dust if we stop, even for a second, to loot something. So what's the point of running a daily? If it's to experience a bigger challenge, which requires coordination, and is therefore different/more fun overall, then you guys have achieved the opposite...I've seem multiple people essentially solo the dungeon, then get annoyed when they have to wait longer than 10 seconds for me to get to the final gate so they can go through and solo the boss...
4) What's the point of Gold/Silver/Copper? I have around 200 gold between both accounts, but it does me no good other than buying kits, potions, and removing enchantments from my items when I upgrade my equipment. Can I exchange gold for AD? Is there a point to it? Seems like this is overlooked...
4a) Likewise on the seals...yes you can exchange them for items that are probably below level by the time you have enough of them...but other than that, what's the point? If they are representative of game time, then couldn't they be exchanged for AD?
What I suggest:
1) make each quest in game reward AD in addition to XP. If the quest is repeatable, make the returns diminishing over time (i.e. after 10 times you get 0 AD).
2) make the dailies/skirmishes/pvp give you a 1/day 7200 AD each. Then, after that, no AD. Why should anyone be forced to run stale content over and over, day after day, week after week?
2a) Make the dailies give you 50k AD (or something like that) but only 1/week. (My favorite idea since it reduces farming to once per week instead of 1/day or the current 6/day)
2b) Update the daily dungeons to rotate every 3-4 days giving us non stale content to farm?
3) Put a cap on max bids in the AH. i.e. no item can be more than X AD...this would create a more manageable, stable economy. While free markets seems like a good idea, regulation often helps prevent abuses (like farmers). If the cap is 1Million per item, then you'll see a natural scale take place...right now they are absurd...
4) Allow us to exchange gold and seals for AD or bound items (like refining stones, etc) After all, the only way you can acquire that is via game time...
5) Salvage...expand it, allow us to salvage anything for AD. Sure beats the gold I get when I sell it...
6) Put AD as drops in the game. All those items that require kits in the dungeons could occasionally give AD for those of us who take the time to find them...
Anyway, these are just some of my suggestions. I haven't been around long enough to know the intricies and how my suggestions might break something. If anything, they are at least a brainstorm of ideas to get the juices flowing.
This is not meant to be snarky, I understand the the bottom line is for you guys to make money. I support that as without it, you can't produce new content. I'm not opposed to paying money and I'm not opposed to spending lots of time in game. What I'm opposed to is any system which makes the game less fun to play. Without fun you'll lose me (and people like me) which means less revenue.
Please, please, please figure out a better solution to the AD economy.
Thanks
The Legendary Outlaws
Preferences:
PvE and PvP - Pathfinder Combat
What I I would like to say is that I'm not sure if more AD is necessarily better unless you plan to control the Zen exchange rate. Yes people will earn more AD but because of that you can expect a rise in prices in the AH as well as the Zen exchange. That's what normally happens when you devalue a currency. So while casual players might find themselves earning more AD, the amount of goods they will be able to obtain with their new found riches will be less than before and thus make the whole exercise pointless in my opinion.
I love where you're coming from with this but I think you need to consider the long term effects and maybe come up with an idea that will allow more AD on the market without messing up the economy.
+ add rAD rewards to all daily quests
+ increase the current rAD reward of all weekly quests
Really struggling to stay with it again after finding the REAL LIFE MONEY I spent on leadership has been flushed by these kittening people.
I tried asking if there will be more "AD Changes" coming, but i didn't get any answer...
Anyway, we all know majority of AD sinks have to go. Taking the AD requirement from the campaign keys is a really nice thing dev's gave us. Again I'm repeating myself...small steps, small things that appear and make us players happier.
I would still add to his one halving the time to get the keys, having to wait for them 20 or 24h hours is something that should be changed.
A proud member of "mythical horde of DPS GFs"
1). Is SW more dps or tank based?
2). Yes. I am panzer!
3). Get ACT if you want to celebrate your epeen.
4). Horniness will not stand between me and what I believe - "MM"
Now that the weekend is in the rearview mirror and the zen sale is over, the rate is dropping - fast. Last time I looked today it was around 413 - 416 AD / 1 Zen.
That's a lot more fluidity than existed pre-AD nerf, when the rate literally never budged from 500 AD/ 1 Zen (thanks, botters).
The fact that there is some fluidity in the marketplace now has to be considered a significant improvement over the past.
I agree with a lot of the posters in this epic thread that more needs to be done to make the AD market appealing to casual / semi- casual gamers - the cost of the enhancement kits that professions can produce (for example) are way out of balance with the new economy. 1 Major Power Kit would cost me $100K of AD to make with a level 25 mailsmith, along with a variety of other exotic materials (like Unified Elements and a Dragon Egg). Mind that's after investing the time necessary to get a toon to progress to level 25 mailsmith.
I just hope the devs can do their number crunching and baselining of data a little faster. The space in time between the AD Leadership nerf and the first AD price nerf was way too long.
The problem with your assumption is this:
Casual players, when they play are putting stuff up to be bought as well. There would be more "stuff" to buy if they were playing, there is the current problem, they aren't playing. Unless you rate logging in a character and invoking and then logging off perhaps to a few more alts, but ultimately doing nothing more than invoking as "playing".
Most casual players have stopped "playing" and are only "invoking" before they are on their way to another MMO. Most casual players are in "tread water" mode. Just hoping, praying, that anyone, anybody! over at NW will get their nogg'ns out of each others posteriors long enough to address their plight!
What are non-casuals doing? Grinding - a thing that an overwhelming number of players say they loath. They are grinding a limited number of the same dungeons/skirms/pvp repeatedly, ever heard of road fatigue? That's what everyone is getting. The same scenery with nothing of note for mile after mile, to the point that even though you are wide awake, you are in a pre-hypnosis state and don't react well when a actual event does happen.
Let's assume that casuals had a reason to get in the game and held on to their stuff and didn't AH it for the sake of argument. Let's assume that you are correct and the prices for "stuff" go up. So what? That's the new value, the casuals/solo's that put in more time are going to get more AD under a time spent vs reward scenerio, they will have more AD to spend to get what they feel they really need vs. the ones not putting in the actual time and effort.
Who the heck would suffer if it started a inflationary bubble? The grinders? No, they are the ones posting the stuff remember? They are getting the AD the casuals now have to spend. The newly affluent casuals? No. Even if they don't have stuff to in turn AH and everything get's more expensive...they are still better off than before when they had zip to spend, at worst they are where they were before the inflation. Who is the only group that "might" (and I doubt it since they adapt) suffer? Ad sellers.
Why? Well if everyone has their own AD, why would they need to buy it? AD sellers are the pawn brokers/shylocks of the MMO world. Don't have enough money to get by? Go sell some of your poo off at the pawn shop to put food on the table. Since we don't "need" stuff in game like we do to eat and survive in RL, if everyone has at least a marginal AD generation going on, they can "survive" until they have saved up enough to get the stuff and not really need the AD seller/shylock. The only people that use AD sellers are the gullible, they either get exploited by the AD seller ripping them off somehow, or even if they get the AD promised, they paid real life $ for digital currency to exchange for pixilated make believe stuff. AD sellers are strippers, some (the honest ones) take lot's of money to "entertain" their clients and the client merely goes home sexually frustrated. If they are the dishonest "stripper" they promise a bit more "entertainment" (illegal everywhere but parts of Nevada
Having played NWO for quite a while before my "vacation," it is my sense that the AD economy was never broken, it was not exploited. It worked exactly as intended. Leadership was promoted as ~the~ source for AD generation. Having a legion of Leadership drones plugging away at it was exactly how it was meant to work. There was a limit to how often one could perform each task that paid AD....omg, a check and balance system. If some players were abusing the system, punish those players rather than the entire playerbase.
From where I sit, these changes are designed solely to promote sales in the Zen Market. Poking around today, I noticed that all Dyes and Fashions are being moved from the Zen Market to the Trade Bar Market. Now, Trade Bars only come from opening Lockboxes and you can only open those with Keys you buy from the Zen Market. I could be wrong, but I believe the amount of bars varies from box to box. I am sure that opening a Lockbox is roulette, totally random chance to get what you actually want. This move is clearly designed to push players to buy keys, spend money on the Zen market, and lots to be sure to get enough keys to open enough boxes to get the particular item you want.
I have spent money in the Zen Market, in fact, I currently have over 4,000 zen. I had over 3500 for the entire year I was not playing. I do not mind paying for things I want, but "fixing" something that wasn't broken to push players to spend is a lousy business model. I've seen it in so many other games and I had a lot of admiration for Cryptic that they didn't do that. I would prefer being told, "we're making these changes to increase our income" rather than being told "we're doing this to support and protect you, the players."
The only solo content that you can do to generate AD is invoking daily, or a small handful of weekly missions that allow you to generate a paltry 15,000 AD per week.
Well, Leadership with AD was nice game feature what hardly can be called "xploit"... its just human nature look shortest way around obstacle and group up with fools who like "claim obstacle" as achievement.
I started play game called "Dungeon & Dragons" and now it is "HE & Skirmish - Repeat and RUN" TM -infinite grind.
AD change has nothing to do with lack off true content and maybe old players should move next game, but AD change makes newcomers game quite difficult because they cant get gear what makes game play and campaigns more fun.
Well, maybe new players enjouy mo "HE & Skirmishes" game.
forced grouping is the opposite of "casual" what this game has always been advertised as.
So that's once again 2 promises broken by Cryptic:
1. The game is casual/alt/solo friendly.
2. That they have a time played vs. reward structure.
If you are a casual player or a soloist there is 0 reward vs. time played structure in place, doesn't appear to be any relief in the near future, nor seems to be on the horizon either, If they had something in the works to rectify this problem they would certainly post about it and brag/hype it like they do the Mods or the "adjustment" to +50% AD for weekly, still leaving 90% of us out in the cold.
Their promises and time delay tactics of "looking into it" or "monitoring it closely" seem of the variety of promise like the infomercial type of "But wait! Order in the next 15 minutes, pay separate shipping and handling and we will double the order" variety. *not available everywhere, participation may vary, void where prohibited, some exclusions may apply CA, NJ, PA, NY add sales Tax, everywhere else multiply by 2x, divide by 3, rub your tummy while patting your head, moon walk while reciting the declaration of independence, hop forward 3 steps, then sideways 2 steps while quoting the alphabet backwards.
I
"Last request - microtransactions for alllll old skins for zen/weapon appearance changes, 500 zen to make ur wep glow the color/enchant you want it... You will make more off that one item than any other zen item ever made." freshour
"beckylunatic" Gateway AH should have column headers to sort by buyout, bid, end time, quantity, etc. These disappeared iirc with the module launch. It's obnoxious.
The final thing the manager did was cancel the guy's pay check, he didn't actually say "you're fired" or anything, he just made being there intolerable hoping he would quite and "solve the problem", so while the guy kept clocking in, doing the work, he kept not getting his check, there was always something wrong about his check not getting cut.
That's what they did to the casual, non-L70 players. They show up for work, clock in, do a full days work, clock out and go home, day after day they plug away, but by weeks end there is no AD. So all they get for their sweat from Mr. Manager is a *clicking tongue and a foot rocking motion* "rigghht, so, there doesn't seem to be any AD...so payroll will have to look into that.....they are closely monitoring it I'm sure....", *sips some coffee* "so ummm, I'm going to have to ask you to move your character to the basement....we need more room for other characters over here....sorry about no AD....so ummm, like I said, they will look into it, meantime I'll need this stapler, and you can move your character now......"
So we ARE working for it, but they decided to "downsize" us without actually telling us so, we are working for our AD and all we get for it is *click tongue* "riigghht, so we are looking into it....". We are the grumbling people that are getting insulted out the door, and we are mumbling how we just might burn it all down. Fire us or pay us, we at least deserve that.
*dribbling gas about the building from gas can* *reaching into pocket for a match.........*
For example, I have a level 70 DC I love with 2.8 iLvL that I want to invest a bit in her appearance, but I'm not going to until I finish getting my (based on current) end game armor and make in Elemental. Otherwise, after making your sparkly new DF armor, spending 50k to transmute to your slick Armor of Lloth, you'll lose the transmute when you make it Elemental so, I either need to wait, or farm out 2 sets of Armor. Yay.
Some items are being removed from the Zen market to the Trade Bar market.
Of course you cannot buy Trade Bars like you can Zen, so you have to purchase Zen, to buy keys, to open chests FOR THE CHANCE that a chest will contain Trade Bars.
So while convoluted to get there, it's still a "zen purchase", it's just a forced into a mold to get there Zen purchase. Before they moved all that HAMSTER to the trade bar market, people had stacks and stacks of trade bars they never spent, because there simply wasn't any HAMSTER they wanted bad enough to spend them on, at least now they are trying to fill up a trade bar market with items they "might" be enticed to buy with them, and they may buy VIP or slot machine boxes to get there as well.
All their pricing models have been whack for some time now, $30 for a zen market mount? really? $20-30 for a pet? $1.25 for a key to pull the handle on a slot box? If they would go for a small increment cost they would actually make more in the long run, all anyone needs do is take a trip to a casino and see how a "penny" slot now works, sell the keys for .25 and people that would balk at 1 key for 1.25 would buy 10 instead of 1 with a .25 cost. Have a mount cost $2.50 not $25 and the collectionists would buy all the mounts available at 2.50 rather than just 1, spending well in excess of the 1 buy at $25. It's all digital content, more can be created fairly easily, the people who are into collecting would line up to hand them money if the price was low enough. Want to steal an idea from another success story game? Make the same basic mount, but with lots of alternate skins like LoTRO does, have a wardrobe and a stables to store them in, have the cost low and people spend tons to fill up that stable and wardrobe, it's a digital content "penny" slot.
Now if they would just fix the AD generation and fix a way to consolidate all the other errant currencies out there, the seal mess is in serious need of reform for instance, so are all the area currencies, if they would put in a "collector" that gave a 2 for 1 level up for seals and area currencies it would be logical and nice, my alternate currency bags are chock full of clutter.
Fix the AD mess, that should take top billing over everything else, including another mod mess push, then as new mods get fosted off on us, make alt currencies get an exchange rate as part of it. The underdark mod would have been a great opportunity to story-line something, like the previous areas before underdark currencies could have had a collector gathering up "excess" stuff to help the effort to beat back the demons. In other games they had things like a war going on and they set up a vendor that took up things in exchange for the new contents rewards, you could turn in bandages and cloth and wood, metal scrap etc etc. to help the war effort.
Alas our current crew is short on imagination and solutions and long on the "in the works" promises that never seem to pan out.