What do you think of the change removing AD from leadership?

feanor70118

We have been informed that AD will no longer be generated by leadership, but there have been no changes to the game's numerous AD sinks nor the drop rate or sources for coalescent wards and greater marks of potency. Please vote and let the developers and PWE know the community's opinion on this subject. What do you think?

rversant

Personally I like the idea of removing it, But ultimately the reason leadership armies became a thing is because it was the only way too earn enough to do anything, so they need to add new ways too gain AD by playing that can help match the actual required intake. I think more BOUND RP needs to be added to Leadership / other rewards for it. Give it a box that has bound RP in it and a SUPER SUPER low chance for pres / coal wards at level 25 or something. make that investment into leadership still worthwhile for actual players.

I also think the "rewards" for doing content needs to be doubled.

karakla1

The idea to remove Rough Astral Diamonds (Shortterm RAD) from Leadership is a step in the wrong direction.

There could be an easy step to prevent bots from doing leadership and in the same time keep the RAD on leadership and encourage players to actually play the game.
The RAD could be locked behind a chest,... let us call it RAD-Chest. These Chests have a different qualities like every other item. If you unlock a common RAD-Chest (white color) you get 200 RAD, if you open an uncommon RAD-Chest (green color) you get 400 RAD, if you open a rare RAD-Chest (blue color) you get 800 RAD and if you open a epic RAD-Chest (purple color) you get 1.600 RAD.

The chests are account bound. To open a RAD-Chest you need a key, let us call it "Special-RAD-Chest-Key". You can buy one "Special-RAD-Chest-Key" for 10 elemental seals or 5 protectors seals at the Seal Vendor. The Key is account bound.
Problem solved. People need to run Dungeons to get the keys. They can easily play with one character a few hours to get enough seals for a couple of keys and shift them to other characters. To have different chest types is good for the business model of PWE, it is another item which can use up space in your inventory (new bags could be needed).
Casual Player can benefit from the chest system because if an double RAD-Event occures the RAD from these chests is also doubled.

In the same time it prevents alt abuse. Bots can't run dungeons properly and not in the dimension to sustain 50 alts on one account to open RAD-Chests continual but player with a decent amount of alts and time have still a chance to get on a decent amount of RAD to refine into AD by simply playing the game.

kvet

Except that bots have nothing to do with this. If they have reliable analytics on bot activity then they should use that data to remove the bots, not penalize a year+ investment of time and resources training and equipping alts to do leadership.

No, the not stuff is pure propaganda. This is about removing ingame income to push people to buy Zen. That's all it's about. Don't believe a word about bots, that's absolutely not what this is about.

foxxy

As long as we can get 24k at day as usual, not problem.

klangeddin

I fully support the new changes. With less rough AD entering the economy we should see a deflation that will eventually clear the ZAX backlog and send the game back to when it was possible to get Zen with AD without waiting weeks for it. It may take a while, though, the amount of AD that leadership armies poured into the economy so far is staggering, so I don't expect everything to be fixed overnight, but I think it's a step in the right direction.

Of course, the changes can't end here, more stuff has to be done. Leadership is in a really bad place now and it will need some form of compensation to not become an almost totally trivial profession. The 3 refining bags at rank 24 alone will not be enough to keep it competitive.

Also, something has to be done for solo players as well. Featured foundry quests and Heroic Encounters should award RAD as well, with a similar system to the one that was devised for Dungeons, Skirmish and PvP.

soltasword

I hate it. It will take roughly 5 to 6 hours of playing on just 1 character to make the same amount of RAD as it does now on my 3 characters doing leadership for just a few minutes. And that time frame only depends on if I que for every dungeon and skirmish instantly every single time. And it also depends on if I get 500 RAD for every dungeon and skirmish I do. But it says you get 150 to 500 RAD meaning that if I run the fastest 3 man dungeon ( CC ), I will probably only get 150 every time literally meaning I have to run 47 dungeon runs every day for just 7000 RAD taking an estimated 11.5 ( 15 minutes per run ) hours of game time for just 7000 RAD. Even if I get 500 every run, I still have to run it 14 times to get that 7000 RAD. Skirmishes are just the same. So if I do both, I am looking up to an estimated 22 to 24 hours of game time every day to make my 19000 to 22000 RAD I can get in a few minutes on leadership. The math doesn't lie. At what point during that time am I supposed to do anything else in the game. I get 1 to 2 hours a day to play. If I do nothing else in the game but run dungeons, I can get 6000 to 10000 ( if lucky ) RAD a day. That means I do no other content in the game at all, EVER. No SH, no mod 8, no IW, no guild event, no Sharandar, no Dread Ring, no WoD. Absolutely nothing else but dungeons. Why ever even log in again.

If the devs wanted to punish and push away every single player in the game, this is it, short of just turning off the servers all together.

klangeddin

soltasword said:

So if I do both, I am looking up to an estimated 22 to 24 hours of game time every day to make my 19000 to 22000 RAD I can get in a few minutes on leadership. The math doesn't lie.

You will get 18,9k to 21k AD with 2 normal dungeons, 2 normal skirmishes and 2 pvp matches. I think it may be done in less than 1 hour. Now add salvage and invocation on top of that and you'll see that reaching the daily limit is not so out of reach.

Keep in mind that we still have no details about the PvP daily quest that gives the 4k AD in addition to the currency needed for pvp gear or the foundry daily quest.

canadascott

Well, I was going to spend some money on Cryptic today.

Not going to now. Congratulations devs.

d4rthd00fus

The only folks who will stand behind this decision as right are Cryptic shills and players who never bothered to create toons purely for leadership earnings. It was the wrong decision and if it actually comes to pass the game will never recover from it. The entire economy was created around the way things are now, take away current earning opportunities but don't give other viable sources then forget it. Like many others I will be headed for the door. You can't force folks to buy zen, and without purely F2P players who can't/won't buy zen the game becomes a ghost town and the devs will sit alone with the bots they never actually did anything about.

santralafax

klangeddin said:

I fully support the new changes. With less rough AD entering the economy we should see a deflation that will eventually clear the ZAX backlog and send the game back to when it was possible to get Zen with AD without waiting weeks for it. It may take a while, though, the amount of AD that leadership armies poured into the economy so far is staggering, so I don't expect everything to be fixed overnight, but I think it's a step in the right direction.

Of course, the changes can't end here, more stuff has to be done. Leadership is in a really bad place now and it will need some form of compensation to not become an almost totally trivial profession. The 3 refining bags at rank 24 alone will not be enough to keep it competitive.

Also, something has to be done for solo players as well. Featured foundry quests and Heroic Encounters should award RAD as well, with a similar system to the one that was devised for Dungeons, Skirmish and PvP.

You have to have enough AD to care about the ZAX backlog. If you do, no wonder you don't care about Leadership. Good for you!

Second, I'm not so sure this game is going to survive the ongoing changes (begining with Mod 6) long enough for this utopia you foresee. I certainly won't make it. And I only have 2 characters.

santralafax

klangeddin said:

You will get 18,9k to 21k AD with 2 normal dungeons, 2 normal skirmishes and 2 pvp matches. I think it may be done in less than 1 hour. Now add salvage and invocation on top of that and you'll see that reaching the daily limit is not so out of reach.

Keep in mind that we still have no details about the PvP daily quest that gives the 4k AD in addition to the currency needed for pvp gear or the foundry daily quest.

2 PVP matches will take 30-50 minutes under the newer PVP rules. Under the older PVP rules 2 matches could extend over an hour. I'll let someone else do the math on dungeons and skirmishes. What is a NORMAL dungeon?

reiwulf

Im torn on this. I like that the main source of ad is now actively playing the game and not pressing ctrl i and a few mouseclicks.
I dont like that solo play doesnt earn ad and fixed price items are too expensive to get them without a ls army.
Although they said the were going to revisit the prices.

icyphish

I think the change is bad in short term, but good for a long run, and in the future RP could become a more common form of currency instead of just AD and this could just help you to save up on your AH auction fee too

wentris

I think the wording of pool is biased.
About the change - I think rewards for active gameplay are too low now, the change to dungeons/skirmishes wont make up for leadership removal - in fact I think removal of hourly events will hurt me, rather than help.
Besides - AD from leadership rare tasks is almost untouched - perhaps you will no longer be able to maintain huge armies, but it will still be possible to perform it on few toons - it will require micromanagment now like any other profession always did, but apparently its not shut down for good.

arabatur

Bad change. I don't want to spend more time in game, it's just not as fun and certainly now not a productive use of my time.

klangeddin

santralafax said:

klangeddin said:

You will get 18,9k to 21k AD with 2 normal dungeons, 2 normal skirmishes and 2 pvp matches. I think it may be done in less than 1 hour. Now add salvage and invocation on top of that and you'll see that reaching the daily limit is not so out of reach.

Keep in mind that we still have no details about the PvP daily quest that gives the 4k AD in addition to the currency needed for pvp gear or the foundry daily quest.

2 PVP matches will take 30-50 minutes under the newer PVP rules. Under the older PVP rules 2 matches could extend over an hour. I'll let someone else do the math on dungeons and skirmishes. What is a NORMAL dungeon?

A normal dungeon is a non-epic one. The ones that you can start doing at level 20 or so and that require no gear score and are done with a party of 3. Those take 5-10 minutes nowadays. Non-epic skirmish (well, the Dread Ring one) takes a similar amount of time as well, epic skirmishes don't take much longer (but if the group is very bad you can wipe) and also yield stuff that can be salvage for additional RAD (and they do not require chest key). It may take 90 minutes overall in the worst case scenario, but certainly nowhere near the 22 to 24 hours that the previous poster had stated.

urabask

reiwulf said:

Im torn on this. I like that the main source of ad is now actively playing the game and not pressing ctrl i and a few mouseclicks.

I dont like that solo play doesnt earn ad and fixed price items are too expensive to get them without a ls army.

Although they said the were going to revisit the prices.

It'll be something dumb like a 15% decrease in prices.

I really doubt they're going to reduce any of them to be all that much less of a grind than they are now.

yokki1

when a company offers a subscription for a game people except a certain quality from it. nwo is far from the quality needed to ask for a subscription and yes vip is a subscription.

glubtal

Even as a solo player and with a good sized leadership army, I really like the changes here. Its about time to actually play the game instead of spending more than half my playtime managing alts.
So, good news and keep up the good work

suicidalgodot

The final blow to this game?

It'll crash the economy due to currency drain, lead to some massive deflation, and thereby make people keep their money instaed of buying ZEN - who would a) spend on a sinking ship, and b) buy ZEN to get AD at a rate of 1/100?

Unless the pricing of sink items (MoPs, AugCubes etc.) gets lowered massively, the economy is untenable with the new income rate - which realistically will be ca. 50-100k max per player.

linaduin

reiwulf said:

Im torn on this. I like that the main source of ad is now actively playing the game and not pressing ctrl i and a few mouseclicks.

I dont like that solo play doesnt earn ad and fixed price items are too expensive to get them without a ls army.

Although they said the were going to revisit the prices.

^ This

vinceent1

linaduin said:

reiwulf said:

Im torn on this. I like that the main source of ad is now actively playing the game and not pressing ctrl i and a few mouseclicks.

I dont like that solo play doesnt earn ad and fixed price items are too expensive to get them without a ls army.

Although they said the were going to revisit the prices.

^ This

they dont say it.

they say they will observe situation. so maybe revisit and change at winter (i think) or dont revisit at all

cant wait players who are happy now will be begging on forum where will be revisit finalize and dont get a answer at all for months (the same as dragon hoards drop revisit)

regenerde

This will do nothing against botters, it will only drive more players away from this game.

There will be even more botters farming dungeons, skirmishes, PvP and Strongholds 24/7.

By the time the Devs or rather the Managment realises the damaged they have done to this game with this change, it will be too late.

Btw. your poll is just useless, it's that far away from reality... you must be living in your own little universe.

If they want to fight botters, they would bring GMs into the game... but that's not going to happen.

Beside, please do show a single action against botters they have taken in the past, that actually hit the botters and not the normal players.

Btw. isn't it high time to blog and stream about Underdark by now?
Unless the new module is also going the way of the AD from LS...

ironzerg79

So my question is this. Was leadership a fun aspect of the game for people? Did people honestly enjoy the "cookie clicker" aspect of leadership? Or was it the results that made people happy?

In other words, do you feel the game would be more fun for people if:

A) Players were essentially required to run 20-30 or more Leadership toons to be able to play the game

or

b) Playing the game was more rewarding, and provided a more clear path to advancement

Because A is the status quo. If the planned leadership changes were reverted, it would essentially require players to continue to play "cookie clicker" for most of their time, in the hopes that what little slivers of time they had not managing a leadership army was more fun. As well as maintain a very easily exploitable profession for bots and AD farmers.

Or we can go do the path of B, and while it's filled with uncertainty, hope that the benefit to the overall "fun" of Neverwinter, as in just playing the actual game, becomes more rewarding.

Biased polls aside, that's the real choice we're looking at here.

vinceent1

ironzerg79 said:

So my question is this. Was leadership a fun aspect of the game for people? Did people honestly enjoy the "cookie clicker" aspect of leadership? Or was it the results that made people happy?

In other words, do you feel the game would be more fun for people if:

A) Players were essentially required to run 20-30 or more Leadership toons to be able to play the game

or

b) Playing the game was more rewarding, and provided a more clear path to advancement

Because A is the status quo. If the planned leadership changes were reverted, it would essentially require players to continue to play "cookie clicker" for most of their time, in the hopes that what little slivers of time they had not managing a leadership army was more fun. As well as maintain a very easily exploitable profession for bots and AD farmers.

Or we can go do the path of B, and while it's filled with uncertainty, hope that the benefit to the overall "fun" of Neverwinter, as in just playing the actual game, becomes more rewarding.

Biased polls aside, that's the real choice we're looking at here.

so man, what exactly you will do as community moderator, to preserve devs promises on this case and help create that better game you talking? please answer thank you

linaduin

ironzerg79 said:

So my question is this. Was leadership a fun aspect of the game for people? Did people honestly enjoy the "cookie clicker" aspect of leadership? Or was it the results that made people happy?

In other words, do you feel the game would be more fun for people if:

A) Players were essentially required to run 20-30 or more Leadership toons to be able to play the game

or

b) Playing the game was more rewarding, and provided a more clear path to advancement

Because A is the status quo. If the planned leadership changes were reverted, it would essentially require players to continue to play "cookie clicker" for most of their time, in the hopes that what little slivers of time they had not managing a leadership army was more fun. As well as maintain a very easily exploitable profession for bots and AD farmers.

Or we can go do the path of B, and while it's filled with uncertainty, hope that the benefit to the overall "fun" of Neverwinter, as in just playing the actual game, becomes more rewarding.

Biased polls aside, that's the real choice we're looking at here.

The principle might be sound but the devil is in the detail. Players were making up to 24 RAD per char per day with minimal time investment to afford the ridiculous prices Cryptic demands and advance one or a few chars. Now they can earn 24 RAD per char for hours of repetitive gameplay. Solo and casual players are cut out of game’s economy. No thought has been put in to AD costs of key items like GMOPs to account for the impact – not that we’ve heard anyway. If this was part of a well thought out, comprehensive plan that was well communicated it might fly - it wasn’t. Bot's have the spare time to beat it - we don't.