The only way to be able to hurt exploiters who already exploited and got rich is to delete al ad from the game. With these changes people wont be able to exploit so easily but its not reatroactive.
That would hurt all legit players and propably cause most of them to leave. There doesn't seem to be any way of only hurting exploiters. You'll always end up hurting legit players too (more?).
It has been very obvious for a long time that the game is too easy to bot. So rewards needed to be moved behind more complex(unbottable) content. This was a fundamental flaw in the game design that is being corrected.
It will however mean a dramatic reduction in AD income, and completely change the nature of the game. In particlar it will be way less casual-friendly. So there probably will be a bit of loss of users associated with this. They might have to invest some money into advertisements to get those users back. Note: The change is not bad as such, but current players will react negatively to what is perceived as a very negative change and quit. New players will just know that this is the way it is and accept it.
My suggestion for some additional changes: * Many of the rewards from Leadership actually is not AD but the various RP items. The RP items might actually be more valuable than the pure AD, and they are currently sellable. So botters will still get a good income from botting Leadership and selling the RP. Consider making Leadership RP Bind to Account. * A large part of the population do not do dungeons etc. A way for solo play to give AD should come fast. The obvious solution would be to put some small AD amounts into the daily quests in the campaigns.
All over I think this change is good, putting rewards behind actually playing the game makes sense. But the transition is going to hurt and alienate a lot of players.
What worries me is that there have been increasingly more drastic changes lately. And that makes it look like the game is not doing well...
I'm thinking the same thing.
What bothers me most is the lack of consultation on everything. And the lack of response to our feedback.
After Scott making this statement (which is a drastic change without forewarning or consultation with the playerbase) I'm fairly certain we are not going to hear anything from the management team again regarding this. I know he tried to be earnest in his attempt make things better for the players when he took over, but his actions, and the actions of the developers before him, really do not fill me with much confidence.
Once the confidence of the players in the developers start dropping, there is not much hope left, in my view.
bioshrikeMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,729Arc User
If all I ever did was log in and manage professions, including leadership, then why is that *not* a valid playstyle? Why must my character always be a combatant in order to earn stuff? Why is going for a mercantile style of play any less valid than going into a dungeon and killing things? YOU, (the devs), decided not to implement one of a myriad of security measure which would have avoided this issue. YOU decided to let things carry on for so long. Furthermore, you aren't even replacing the loss of ADs with anything meaningful - how about revamping the leadership boxes, to include things like the much sought-after marks more often, or drastically reducing the time they take?
You create a game that encourages creating multiple characters, then you go out of your way to systematically punish people for doing so.
No... the solution is to address YOUR security shortcomings and holes, not to punish people that actually play the game - just not in the manner that YOU want them to...
<::::::::::::::)xxxo <::::::::::::::)xxxo <::::::::::::)xxxxxxxx(:::::::::::> oxxx(::::::::::::::> oxxx(::::::::::::::> "Is it better to be feared or respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both?" -Tony Stark Official NW_Legit_Community Forums
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thefabricantMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 5,248Arc User
My only major concern with these changes is the price of greater marks of potency. If you look at their prices and the sheer amount of them you need to fully refine pieces of gear, you will find that whilst it was possible through leadership to acquire that amount of AD, it is no longer possible at all. For a brief period of time whilst players still have AD from either botting or leadership, they will be able to afford new gear and equipment, but after a while, because the price of GMoP's is fixed and high and a large number of them is required, players will simply not be able to afford to perfect their gear. This goes for both paying customers and non paying customers. Whilst everything else in the NWO economy will adjust to these changes I feel, like the price of artifacts, gear and enchantments, the price of GMoP's never will.
Due to this, I recommend the following:
1) Either drastically lower the cost of GMoP's. 2) Drastically lower the amount of GMoP's required. 3) Drastically increase the amount of AD a player can acquire from these tasks and raise the refinement cap to 100k AD per day. This is the option I like the least as it inflates the prices of everything else. 4) Add GMoP's to the loot table of dungeons
Any of these fixes would resolve the problem, but atm, I foresee in mod 9 a situation where you have the sum total of 10 players with perfect gear, because nobody else, even the mega rich now, will have any AD left.
I am a person who said remove ad from leadership and buff rewards for playing the game.
I got to say i am really DISAPPOINTED in this change....
Where did you buff ingame rewards? Balls u even made my income by playing less... Still have BOP, still have 24k refinementlimit, still no neverember dailys, still have all the ad sinks, .... now on top of it, even only a capped amount of ad is possible to make. Srsly even as a non-leadership-army-user and being pro on removing ad from leadership, i am pissed. I told you this changes are only possible if u reverse/alter some other stuff too.....
What really I don't understand is how this will fight botters. I mean, everyone can setup a "circuit" for exp away. Do you think botters cannot do the same with 3 men dungeons? or skirmishes?
Exactly this.
Your real player who buys character slots will have their AD income massively diminished.
Your botter whom logs in with multiple accounts will adjust their code to speed run content with single characters per account because it makes no sense for a botter to pay for character slots. And they will still get invocation AD per account so... near as I can tell, this should make things just as lopsided as they are now. With the added kick in the junk that normal players now won't be able to afford any of the vendor AD items. Lovely.
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icyphishMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,255Arc User
I dont mind this change, but if this change drives the players away and leaves only bots to play with... then I dont see anyone would be interested in playing this game anymore....
And they will still get invocation AD per account so... near as I can tell, this should make things just as lopsided as they are now.
I think this might be another area they will nerf, now that you bring it up. No more AD from invoking will surely target the bots ... oh and us as well.
Your botter whom logs in with multiple accounts will adjust their code to speed run content with single characters per account because it makes no sense for a botter to pay for character slots.
Or they can just get 3 characters from separate accounts and bot skirmishs and dungeons. They wouldn't even have to talk to Rhix now! Just enter private instance, rinse and repeat.
Increased server load and instability issues for legitimate players ensues ...
Well done, once again punish the legitimate players who spent the last two years building their characters and leadership legitimately and reward the botters so they can make the AD even more easily..... once again without consulting the playerbase.
Bots will still keep making AD and exploiters will still find ways to get their AD. This only hurts the average players, but I guess that's fitting because I don't think this really about fixing the bot issue. It's just about trying to get more people to put money in the game, but it's going to back fire big time.
Another problem is that while time can mean AD, it also means Stronghold time. A huge time AND AD sink has just been introduced in the game, and the fairly decent AD my leadership was bringing in gave me the TIME to focus on helping my guild get everything built and upgraded. So much for that now.
Bang on the money here (no pun intended). I have one of each character, they pull their weight with Leadership so I can have TIME to play. I also invested my monthly gaming budget into THIS game, some of that to outfit leadership, play the lockbox casino game, or even just to buy wards when I need them. I spend about 100 bucks a month to enjoy the game and to be able to do what I like. I seriously considered stopping spending with some of the other slimy stunts that have been pulled like Dragon Hoards. This one takes the cake though, I absolutely will never spend another dime. You fooled me more than twice so shame on me. If your grand scheme is to keep pushing loyal customers away in favor of churn then this is another step in that direction, but I don't see the instances ballooning with loads of new players, so I'm not quite sure how that business model is working for you. You did well with Strongholds, but you are seriously HAMSTER playing with fire when you start messing with people's money.
And they will still get invocation AD per account so... near as I can tell, this should make things just as lopsided as they are now.
I think this might be another area they will nerf, now that you bring it up. No more AD from invoking will surely target the bots.
I fully expect this as well. But it's an untenable slippery slope. "We have to reduce the ability to get AD rewards from dungeons/skirmishes because the bots are speed running them and exploiting them".
No mechanism they have currently in game to earn AD is unbottable. No "real player" can play multiple accounts simultaneously. So a botter running programs on multiple accounts with scripts will always take advantage. Reducing the net income of players and bots won't matter if the percentage the bots win is always disproportionately high. All it will do is punish players who can no longer afford anything from the in game vendors.
I have 5 characters. Leadership and invokes helped it so that I could steadily gear them (as I enjoy them all). While I "get" what the devs claimed goals are with this, the statement previously made about punishing a somewhat casual player for having multiple characters resonates pretty strongly with me on this.
If none of the "anti botter" solutions actually prevent a botter from taking advantage over a normal player, then very little positive was actually accomplished. It's that simple.
1) Either drastically lower the cost of GMoP's. 2) Drastically lower the amount of GMoP's required. 3) Drastically increase the amount of AD a player can acquire from these tasks and raise the refinement cap to 100k AD per day. This is the option I like the least as it inflates the prices of everything else. 4) Add GMoP's to the loot table of dungeons
Any of these fixes would resolve the problem, but atm, I foresee in mod 9 a situation where you have the sum total of 10 players with perfect gear, because nobody else, even the mega rich now, will have any AD left.
Even if they do lower the price of GMOPs, you still have the wards to consider in upgrading equipment or enchantments.
Coalescent wards at their current price will still set the price point for high level enchants.
It's quite easy to stop any botting: remove the auction house, remove trade, remove mailing of items, remove guild bank... if there are no ways left to trade AD, gold, or items the botters will leave for sure... ;-)
It's quite easy to stop any botting: remove the auction house, remove trade, remove mailing of items, remove guild bank... if there are no ways left to trade AD, gold, or items the botters will leave for sure... ;-)
Once the game has become too inhospitable for bots, then bots will leave. The only thing is, the same environments that bots play are the same that we play. But perhaps the developers don't play as much as their regular players so may not realise this. They are abstracting their fight on bots on a different level.
Why use more sophisticated approaches to combating bots, when a nuclear detonation will work just as well?
I liked the idea someone else mentioned about making leadership provide RP items and possibly even GMOPs and simply make them bind on account. Then legit players still gain benefit in terms of helping gear themselves via leadership while reducing advantage botters gain.
Killing the value of leadership outright is the equivalent of throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
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zebularMember, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 15,270Community Moderator
1) Either drastically lower the cost of GMoP's. 2) Drastically lower the amount of GMoP's required. 3) Drastically increase the amount of AD a player can acquire from these tasks and raise the refinement cap to 100k AD per day. This is the option I like the least as it inflates the prices of everything else. 4) Add GMoP's to the loot table of dungeons
Any of these fixes would resolve the problem, but atm, I foresee in mod 9 a situation where you have the sum total of 10 players with perfect gear, because nobody else, even the mega rich now, will have any AD left.
Even if they do lower the price of GMOPs, you still have the wards to consider in upgrading equipment or enchantments.
Coalescent wards at their current price will still set the price point for high level enchants.
Wards are a non-factor in this for me. I still gain all the Coalescent Wards and Preservation Wards I need from Coffers and now as well from my VIP lockedbox keys, as I am gaining Tarmalune Bars from those boxes, which I can spend on Coalescents.
Regardless of my personal experience with Wards though, I do feel that all the AD sinks in the game should be evaluated for these AD Changes. Meticulously evaluated and adjusted accordingly.
Seriously you guys gotta stop smoking that HAMSTER, you've totally lost your mind with this one.
+1 /10char
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"
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cromejohnsenMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 207Arc User
Daily Quests & Hourly Events First I think it is a good change to make the ADs drop in the chest. What i dont like about it is that it is capped and then at such an incredible low amount that running a dungeon now is even less rewarding than before. For Example, I run a dungeon with my friends (aprox 7-15 min per t1 or t2 dungeon ) I have to open the chest in the end to get at least a blue or epic item reward. Problem is the Dungeon Key costs 5k ADs. Now if i do not salvage it for max. 5k AD (lets say i am lucky to get a chest piece) and put it into the guild hall for Surplus equipment because thats one of the AD sinks right now with Strongholds, I made Zero Progress (even Minus AD) in getting any AD in around 10 min. Same goes for the case if I decide to salvage it. Playing a dungeon more than twice a day now is not rewarded at all. In General you are making Minus Income. How is that being rewarded for playing DUNGEONS & DRAGONS ? You are not really rewarded for playing the game for more than 1 h per toon per day ? I do like my alts and different classes and their builds but I do want to spend more time on my main toon making progress instead of staring at the sky after 1 h into the game.
The Old system at least allowed me an my friends to play at specific times which were not absolutely ineffective or counter productive. It still was not rewarding at all but you could make more AD by playing at a specific time.
I am sorry Cryptic but this has to be changed, so that not RAW AD is dropping but smth. else like Refined AD, maybe 3k per Dungeon up to 30k a Day per toon. And what is the purpose for the Dungeon and SKirmish Time every day? Obviously they are going to be removed right? Because you do net get anything from it at all. No free Chest or improved Drop Rates.
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zekethesinnerMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 805Arc User
All good as long as u will cover gap u just created here. maybe some amount AD (maybe some kind of boa vouchers for boa items, liek 10 vouchers for gmop, 50 for cward, 2 for preswards etc) into weekly quests? Gmops added into Boss and chest loot tables (can be, maybe should be boa), u dont need so great ad sink anymore. Also AD should be repalced with soemthing else than XP in leadership, more RP maybe? If u cant buy soemthing, we need to get at least couple of option to get it anyway. U cant jsut cut off 80% of AD income in game and call it a day, while prices dont change, zen prices dont change (and that will hurt) bazaar prices dont change.
Dot leave us on ice without skates and holding our hands on exit gates...
I do not give a jack HAMSTER about leadership army (I do have one but I would never made one if there are ways to get AD in game).
When I came back after a year break I would never thought I will level Leadership and get all those alts to be able to play the game.
Than you've removed 70% of the content, than nerfed dragon hoards, than f**ked up leadership and gave us this pathetic amount of AD to be earned via playing? playing for how long? a week? to earn the GMOP's the Coal Ward or anything that's needed to gear up?
Oh and while we're at it, what's the point of gearing up? to run dungeons for 6k AD ? O____O this has to be a joke.
One again.....I HATE Leadership, I only made those toons to be able to buy anything that's needed to progress. I would be more than happy to stop doing any leadership tasks and just spend this time playing the game but not for these stupid low prizes.
When Andy came here and said you guys are "looking into (God I hate this phrase....) the ways to earn the currency in game" I was sure it won't be done good enough but this...
I agree with previous posters. Leadership should never have AD generating tasks. Since it was your freaking idea to implement these, we all adapted to those stupid changes you've made. Now when you've baited us in the cancer, you're removing the option giving us absolutely nothing in return.
Make those AD's x3 and it will start being remotely fair.
And at the end...for God sake...stop talking about tackling bots, just stop! your actions through the years shown clear, you guys have no f**king idea how to do it.
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"
I am a bit sceptical about these changes. Before I write more though please bear in mind that like many others I raised this stuff when you made the gateway change. Your measures didn't address the core issue. So please listen when we suggest this won't do the trick and there may be better ways of achieving the same outcome.
My proposal: I think a much simpler solution would be to create a limit on how much AD an account as a whole can generate. This gives you a clear way of managing things much like the rAD refinement limit. So sure, someone can have 50 characters, but all that gives them is the choice of lots of toons.
Now this may mean botters just set up lots of different accounts, but surely you have means of spotting this and dealing with it?
I think a lot people are upset because they feel botters are not being punished at all. It can't be that hard to spot someone botting leadership - I can see it in my friends list, where people log on and off in seconds multiple times. You can see that too - and you should warn the botters once and then ban them if they persist.
I also feel that you should not make leadership pointless given how much time and money people have invested in it. Playing within the rules of the games is not exploiting. It was the route the game gave for getting AD rewards. XP rewards to me devalue playing the solo content and quests - it is too easy to level standing round a campfire. Please include Bind on Account RP (like you did with Dragon Hoard enchants) as a number of people have suggested. Otherwise you are still getting botter armies who sell RP making RP worthless (not that I don't like getting cheap RP, but I'm thinking of the future now).
Questions: You say you want to give more AD for playing content. I don't feel that you are giving a radical increase on the AD dropped by Dungeons etc. Does your daily cap (7,200) include the amount you get for the first two runs? If so I think you have actually reduced the amount of AD one gets from playing for time invested. Previously it was easy to time yourself to run during skirmish or dungeon hour, and get your daily reward plus the chest. Bam, done for the day. Now you have to run at least twice for the same amount. That is NOT an improvement. With a couple of PVP matches you could 8k AD (if you win - I'm assuming your "2 games" bit refers to playing GG - you may want to adjust domination).
You have also not mentioned the daily PVP victory quest. As we will still need seals of triumph, surely this will still be around?
Finally - I am unclear how the 15% increase from VIP works with a daily cap. Is the daily cap now 15% more also or do you just hit your cap faster?
PLEASE DONT JUST IMPLEMENT THIS WITHOUT CONSIDERING ALTERNATIVES
Right that's enough from me now. Going to have a look an preview
I'm just going to come out and say it: It's really damn cancerous that you claim you're rewarding players for their time even though you're putting a straight up obvious paywall for those who actually play longer than just a casual player who logs in 1-2 hours a day.
Stop claiming your objective is to reward a player's time when it really isn't. The only thing you're "rewarding" is those who barely play the game. The AD gain throughout the day is pathetically decreasing exponentially for hardcore players and in the end this change decreases their possible AD gain drastically. I don't give a damn about leadership because I don't use it, but this is a joke.
Just come out and say it straight already. What you really wanted to say is: "At Cryptic, we feel it’s very important that players with time get limited to what they can earn because we feel it's required to have a paywall in order for us to make more zen sales".
You're already laughing in the face of all your active players with the rough astral diamond system, jacked us with the removal of sellable drops from dungeons, now this? This is a complete joke, even more so when you really think people believe your sugar coated words when it's a bunch of HAMSTER.
Don't even get me started on how costly refinement is, let alone GMOPs or any other mark.
End of game for me. I have 13 toons on 3 accounts, every of them doing leadership for AD, manually no bots no scripts. (3 accounts because of 3 shards there was couple years ago - when 2 were down there was 1 to play). I had put real money.. ok ok euros (€) to my main account. Lots of it.
I would like to play dungeons, skirmishes and PvP but due the lag, latency, ping or whatever you like to say it.... I can't. I am dead before I can react against heavy hitters ie other players, dragons, dungeon bosses etc. It goes like this; 1st my char dies, 2nd I see BIG red numbers, 3rd I see attack animation of my killer or maybe red circle under chars dead body.
Game servers are physically sooo far away from my home place that lag kills all fun of dungeons and skirmishes and in PvP I'am just dead weight or XP automate. Yes, my internet connection is 100 mb/s and working fine thx. There is from 0,5 to 1 sec delay normally, and with events running game is just rubber band I have to learn every gritter's attack pattern if I want to deflect them, and obviously that's not possible in PvP and won't work dungeons either.
Back then when there was T1 and T2 gear I bought them little by little from other players but that stuff is obsolete now. Now there is no way to get even 2nd best gears because they all come from dungeons or PvP. With 8 active chars it takes 4 hours to do Stronghold quests only and with that bad gear what I can get it's not "a walk in a park" no mam. Just little encounters, Sharandar and Dread Ring. Icewind is too hard for me even in party of 2.
AD helps me get some stuff sometimes and keep me playing but these new nerfs are driving me away from the game and maybe my wife too who has played this almost as long as myself. The game will give nothing compared to time we can use with it.
Good thing is that there will be more time to other games. Flying some planes, driving tanks, fighting with Tennos... Going out
So solo players can "wait and see, we are looking into it..." given you past in "looking into it..." I'm underwhelmed.
So all my efforts leveling professions and materials are now moot (we have told you since forever that LS was way to buff and others were way to gimped, we trader/crafter types were getting the shaft. We had to, out of defense, do LS more just to afford mats or get chest drops for other professions.
So me being the type that don't normally like dungeons (the player drama or the lagfests) that income is no route for me.
So me being the type that also rarely does skirmishs (same reason drama lag) that income is a route not for me.
I detest pvp (drama, lag and toxic atmosphere of rankers) THAT route is out for me to make AD.
Hmm whats left? "wait and see, we looking into it" since you specificly said you didn't want to link AD to daily grinds or quests ( I mean the solo stuff, not the quests to complete a skirm/dungeon/pvp match type quest) that possible route for AD is out as well...anything else?
Nope
So I guess I'll have to "wait and see, looking into it..." in some other MMO now. You stuck your heads so far up your posteriors you can't see or hear from the players, so let me put my hands and these flags up you bungwhole and semaphore you a message.
I would say good luck, but that would be a false sentiment on my part, so read this flag signal well...
Comments
It will however mean a dramatic reduction in AD income, and completely change the nature of the game. In particlar it will be way less casual-friendly. So there probably will be a bit of loss of users associated with this. They might have to invest some money into advertisements to get those users back. Note: The change is not bad as such, but current players will react negatively to what is perceived as a very negative change and quit. New players will just know that this is the way it is and accept it.
My suggestion for some additional changes:
* Many of the rewards from Leadership actually is not AD but the various RP items. The RP items might actually be more valuable than the pure AD, and they are currently sellable. So botters will still get a good income from botting Leadership and selling the RP. Consider making Leadership RP Bind to Account.
* A large part of the population do not do dungeons etc. A way for solo play to give AD should come fast. The obvious solution would be to put some small AD amounts into the daily quests in the campaigns.
All over I think this change is good, putting rewards behind actually playing the game makes sense.
But the transition is going to hurt and alienate a lot of players.
What bothers me most is the lack of consultation on everything. And the lack of response to our feedback.
After Scott making this statement (which is a drastic change without forewarning or consultation with the playerbase) I'm fairly certain we are not going to hear anything from the management team again regarding this. I know he tried to be earnest in his attempt make things better for the players when he took over, but his actions, and the actions of the developers before him, really do not fill me with much confidence.
Once the confidence of the players in the developers start dropping, there is not much hope left, in my view.
You create a game that encourages creating multiple characters, then you go out of your way to systematically punish people for doing so.
No... the solution is to address YOUR security shortcomings and holes, not to punish people that actually play the game - just not in the manner that YOU want them to...
"Is it better to be feared or respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both?" -Tony Stark
Official NW_Legit_Community Forums
My only major concern with these changes is the price of greater marks of potency. If you look at their prices and the sheer amount of them you need to fully refine pieces of gear, you will find that whilst it was possible through leadership to acquire that amount of AD, it is no longer possible at all. For a brief period of time whilst players still have AD from either botting or leadership, they will be able to afford new gear and equipment, but after a while, because the price of GMoP's is fixed and high and a large number of them is required, players will simply not be able to afford to perfect their gear. This goes for both paying customers and non paying customers. Whilst everything else in the NWO economy will adjust to these changes I feel, like the price of artifacts, gear and enchantments, the price of GMoP's never will.
Due to this, I recommend the following:
1) Either drastically lower the cost of GMoP's.
2) Drastically lower the amount of GMoP's required.
3) Drastically increase the amount of AD a player can acquire from these tasks and raise the refinement cap to 100k AD per day. This is the option I like the least as it inflates the prices of everything else.
4) Add GMoP's to the loot table of dungeons
Any of these fixes would resolve the problem, but atm, I foresee in mod 9 a situation where you have the sum total of 10 players with perfect gear, because nobody else, even the mega rich now, will have any AD left.
I got to say i am really DISAPPOINTED in this change....
Where did you buff ingame rewards? Balls u even made my income by playing less...
Still have BOP, still have 24k refinementlimit, still no neverember dailys, still have all the ad sinks, .... now on top of it, even only a capped amount of ad is possible to make. Srsly even as a non-leadership-army-user and being pro on removing ad from leadership, i am pissed. I told you this changes are only possible if u reverse/alter some other stuff too.....
Your real player who buys character slots will have their AD income massively diminished.
Your botter whom logs in with multiple accounts will adjust their code to speed run content with single characters per account because it makes no sense for a botter to pay for character slots. And they will still get invocation AD per account so... near as I can tell, this should make things just as lopsided as they are now. With the added kick in the junk that normal players now won't be able to afford any of the vendor AD items. Lovely.
Author of GWF Speed Demon PvP Build (Mod 11) <- Click to reveal the Speedy Beast! >:)
As long as the bots are defeated
Increased server load and instability issues for legitimate players ensues ...
No mechanism they have currently in game to earn AD is unbottable. No "real player" can play multiple accounts simultaneously. So a botter running programs on multiple accounts with scripts will always take advantage. Reducing the net income of players and bots won't matter if the percentage the bots win is always disproportionately high. All it will do is punish players who can no longer afford anything from the in game vendors.
I have 5 characters. Leadership and invokes helped it so that I could steadily gear them (as I enjoy them all). While I "get" what the devs claimed goals are with this, the statement previously made about punishing a somewhat casual player for having multiple characters resonates pretty strongly with me on this.
If none of the "anti botter" solutions actually prevent a botter from taking advantage over a normal player, then very little positive was actually accomplished. It's that simple.
Coalescent wards at their current price will still set the price point for high level enchants.
Why use more sophisticated approaches to combating bots, when a nuclear detonation will work just as well?
Killing the value of leadership outright is the equivalent of throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
Regardless of my personal experience with Wards though, I do feel that all the AD sinks in the game should be evaluated for these AD Changes. Meticulously evaluated and adjusted accordingly.
[ Support Center • Rules & Policies and Guidelines • ARC ToS • Guild Recruitment Guidelines | FR DM Since 1993 ]
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"
First I think it is a good change to make the ADs drop in the chest. What i dont like about it is that it is capped and then at such an incredible low amount that running a dungeon now is even less rewarding than before.
For Example, I run a dungeon with my friends (aprox 7-15 min per t1 or t2 dungeon ) I have to open the chest in the end to get at least a blue or epic item reward. Problem is the Dungeon Key costs 5k ADs. Now if i do not salvage it for max. 5k AD (lets say i am lucky to get a chest piece) and put it into the guild hall for Surplus equipment because thats one of the AD sinks right now with Strongholds, I made Zero Progress (even Minus AD) in getting any AD in around 10 min.
Same goes for the case if I decide to salvage it.
Playing a dungeon more than twice a day now is not rewarded at all. In General you are making Minus Income.
How is that being rewarded for playing DUNGEONS & DRAGONS ?
You are not really rewarded for playing the game for more than 1 h per toon per day ?
I do like my alts and different classes and their builds but I do want to spend more time on my main toon making progress instead of staring at the sky after 1 h into the game.
The Old system at least allowed me an my friends to play at specific times which were not absolutely ineffective or counter productive. It still was not rewarding at all but you could make more AD by playing at a specific time.
I am sorry Cryptic but this has to be changed, so that not RAW AD is dropping but smth. else like Refined AD, maybe 3k per Dungeon up to 30k a Day per toon.
And what is the purpose for the Dungeon and SKirmish Time every day?
Obviously they are going to be removed right? Because you do net get anything from it at all. No free Chest or improved Drop Rates.
Dot leave us on ice without skates and holding our hands on exit gates...
(Sin)cerely
Kain
When I came back after a year break I would never thought I will level Leadership and get all those alts to be able to play the game.
Than you've removed 70% of the content, than nerfed dragon hoards, than f**ked up leadership and gave us this pathetic amount of AD to be earned via playing? playing for how long? a week? to earn the GMOP's the Coal Ward or anything that's needed to gear up?
Oh and while we're at it, what's the point of gearing up? to run dungeons for 6k AD ? O____O this has to be a joke.
One again.....I HATE Leadership, I only made those toons to be able to buy anything that's needed to progress.
I would be more than happy to stop doing any leadership tasks and just spend this time playing the game but not for these stupid low prizes.
When Andy came here and said you guys are "looking into (God I hate this phrase....) the ways to earn the currency in game" I was sure it won't be done good enough but this...
I agree with previous posters. Leadership should never have AD generating tasks. Since it was your freaking idea to implement these, we all adapted to those stupid changes you've made. Now when you've baited us in the cancer, you're removing the option giving us absolutely nothing in return.
Make those AD's x3 and it will start being remotely fair.
And at the end...for God sake...stop talking about tackling bots, just stop! your actions through the years shown clear, you guys have no f**king idea how to do it.
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"
Before I write more though please bear in mind that like many others I raised this stuff when you made the gateway change. Your measures didn't address the core issue.
So please listen when we suggest this won't do the trick and there may be better ways of achieving the same outcome.
My proposal:
I think a much simpler solution would be to create a limit on how much AD an account as a whole can generate. This gives you a clear way of managing things much like the rAD refinement limit. So sure, someone can have 50 characters, but all that gives them is the choice of lots of toons.
Now this may mean botters just set up lots of different accounts, but surely you have means of spotting this and dealing with it?
I think a lot people are upset because they feel botters are not being punished at all. It can't be that hard to spot someone botting leadership - I can see it in my friends list, where people log on and off in seconds multiple times. You can see that too - and you should warn the botters once and then ban them if they persist.
I also feel that you should not make leadership pointless given how much time and money people have invested in it. Playing within the rules of the games is not exploiting. It was the route the game gave for getting AD rewards. XP rewards to me devalue playing the solo content and quests - it is too easy to level standing round a campfire. Please include Bind on Account RP (like you did with Dragon Hoard enchants) as a number of people have suggested. Otherwise you are still getting botter armies who sell RP making RP worthless (not that I don't like getting cheap RP, but I'm thinking of the future now).
Questions:
You say you want to give more AD for playing content.
I don't feel that you are giving a radical increase on the AD dropped by Dungeons etc. Does your daily cap (7,200) include the amount you get for the first two runs? If so I think you have actually reduced the amount of AD one gets from playing for time invested. Previously it was easy to time yourself to run during skirmish or dungeon hour, and get your daily reward plus the chest. Bam, done for the day. Now you have to run at least twice for the same amount. That is NOT an improvement. With a couple of PVP matches you could 8k AD (if you win - I'm assuming your "2 games" bit refers to playing GG - you may want to adjust domination).
You have also not mentioned the daily PVP victory quest. As we will still need seals of triumph, surely this will still be around?
Finally - I am unclear how the 15% increase from VIP works with a daily cap. Is the daily cap now 15% more also or do you just hit your cap faster?
PLEASE DONT JUST IMPLEMENT THIS WITHOUT CONSIDERING ALTERNATIVES
Right that's enough from me now. Going to have a look an preview
Stop claiming your objective is to reward a player's time when it really isn't. The only thing you're "rewarding" is those who barely play the game. The AD gain throughout the day is pathetically decreasing exponentially for hardcore players and in the end this change decreases their possible AD gain drastically. I don't give a damn about leadership because I don't use it, but this is a joke.
Just come out and say it straight already. What you really wanted to say is:
"At Cryptic, we feel it’s very important that players with time get limited to what they can earn because we feel it's required to have a paywall in order for us to make more zen sales".
You're already laughing in the face of all your active players with the rough astral diamond system, jacked us with the removal of sellable drops from dungeons, now this? This is a complete joke, even more so when you really think people believe your sugar coated words when it's a bunch of HAMSTER.
Don't even get me started on how costly refinement is, let alone GMOPs or any other mark.
I have 13 toons on 3 accounts, every of them doing leadership for AD, manually no bots no scripts. (3 accounts because of 3 shards there was couple years ago - when 2 were down there was 1 to play). I had put real money.. ok ok euros (€) to my main account. Lots of it.
I would like to play dungeons, skirmishes and PvP but due the lag, latency, ping or whatever you like to say it.... I can't.
I am dead before I can react against heavy hitters ie other players, dragons, dungeon bosses etc.
It goes like this; 1st my char dies, 2nd I see BIG red numbers, 3rd I see attack animation of my killer or maybe red circle under chars dead body.
Game servers are physically sooo far away from my home place that lag kills all fun of dungeons and skirmishes and in PvP I'am just dead weight or XP automate. Yes, my internet connection is 100 mb/s and working fine thx.
There is from 0,5 to 1 sec delay normally, and with events running game is just rubber band
I have to learn every gritter's attack pattern if I want to deflect them, and obviously that's not possible in PvP and won't work dungeons either.
Back then when there was T1 and T2 gear I bought them little by little from other players but that stuff is obsolete now. Now there is no way to get even 2nd best gears because they all come from dungeons or PvP. With 8 active chars it takes 4 hours to do Stronghold quests only and with that bad gear what I can get it's not "a walk in a park" no mam.
Just little encounters, Sharandar and Dread Ring. Icewind is too hard for me even in party of 2.
AD helps me get some stuff sometimes and keep me playing but these new nerfs are driving me away from the game and maybe my wife too who has played this almost as long as myself. The game will give nothing compared to time we can use with it.
Good thing is that there will be more time to other games. Flying some planes, driving tanks, fighting with Tennos...
Going out
So all my efforts leveling professions and materials are now moot (we have told you since forever that LS was way to buff and others were way to gimped, we trader/crafter types were getting the shaft. We had to, out of defense, do LS more just to afford mats or get chest drops for other professions.
So me being the type that don't normally like dungeons (the player drama or the lagfests) that income is no route for me.
So me being the type that also rarely does skirmishs (same reason drama lag) that income is a route not for me.
I detest pvp (drama, lag and toxic atmosphere of rankers) THAT route is out for me to make AD.
Hmm whats left? "wait and see, we looking into it" since you specificly said you didn't want to link AD to daily grinds or quests ( I mean the solo stuff, not the quests to complete a skirm/dungeon/pvp match type quest) that possible route for AD is out as well...anything else?
Nope
So I guess I'll have to "wait and see, looking into it..." in some other MMO now. You stuck your heads so far up your posteriors you can't see or hear from the players, so let me put my hands and these flags up you bungwhole and semaphore you a message.
I would say good luck, but that would be a false sentiment on my part, so read this flag signal well...
Goodbye.