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Reward for time played?
blureel
Member Posts: 163 Arc User
In the "AD changes" topic, Scott used the phrase "AD is meant to be a currency rewarded by playing the game...", but the tone taken by a number of the responses to his post made this into a more generalized statement - "Reward for time played."
Sentiment
While it's not fair to put words into Scott's mouth as he is speaking specifically about the changes to AD they're planning on implementing, I do think that this generalized sentiment is much more representative of how many of us feel about all of the recent changes to Neverwinter that came with the Level 70 cap raise and it's litany of "bad" changes.
The Obvious
It's obvious that fixing the economy is a big problem that's been around for quite a while. It's also obvious that many of these recent changes were put into place to try and solve the problem with the economy. It's also obvious that the botters are a big part of the problem with the economy. So, good luck with that.
Personally
I personally feel that the people in charge of this game in their pursuit to "eliminate" the botters have lost sight of how we gamers feel about the game and playing this game. Scott even says this about the Leadership changes - "We know this will be frustrating for those who were not exploiting..."
Zero rewards
So why will it be frustrating for those of use who were not exploiting? Because ALL of our TIME spent playing this game (NOT exploiting) means absolutely NOTHING to any of the game makers.
Before level 70 existed, everyone spent time and money getting the best level 60 purple gear sets. But, exploiters and botters were causing havoc to the economy. The solution? devalue ALL level 60 gear instantly by introducing Level 70 gear with huge HP stats.
So, ALL that time and money spent determining which was the best gear set to get, and collecting the pieces, became a waste of time. Specifically, more than a year's waste of time. Why? because it has zero value against "blue" level 70 gear with even modest HP increases. There was no transition of any kind. There was no exchange option. There was no upgrade. Nothing. Not a rewarding experience.
Before level 70 existed, we had plenty of different dungeons to run. Only 3 of those remain. All of them more difficult than before which means many more unfinished dungeons runs with PUGs. Why were they removed? We have less choices to play with now. Not a rewarding experience.
Before level 70 existed, Lord Neverember himself was helping me make AD to the point that I could actually compete against the pay to play players. This revelation caused me to believe in the Leadership farming and to spend my time building up my farm and running my farm (manually, not with any bots, which equated to over 2 hours a day to maintain). Now leadership truly has left Neverwinter. Nothing rewarding here.
Pessimism
In this quest to deal with the exploiters and the botters, I mostly feel like I'm the one being punished for their "crimes" instead of feeling like "Wow! Thank you Cryptic and PWE! Look at all this new content for us to play and to explore! This such a rewarding game to play!"
My interpretation of the real problem here -
Neverwinter wants to balance players who have time with players who have money to spend on this game. What drives that imbalance is the core fact that the players who have the money can "instantly" have the BiS gear while the players who have the time need lots of time to get that same gear. This fact in and of itself is fine, but in context of how this game is implemented, it becomes the "root of all evil".
Why? Because whether it was level 60 or now level 70, the endgame gear range is too wide and there's no way to "separate" the players with the "weak" gear from those with the "maxed" out gear. And the endgame content is primarily PvP and running dungeons which require good gear to get in, let alone get through.
So the imbalance between the players who have money to spend vs the players with time to spend becomes immediate and therefore problematic. PvP became matchups between "pay to win" players vs "regular" players with the majority of the outcomes decidedly in the favor of the pay to win players. PUGs in dungeon runs became a constant struggle to find the "right" team to play with full of kicking of "weaker" players and "Op" players leaving the teams and various points of the run depending on their toleration level.
This imbalance drives the desire to find other ways to compete against the players with money. So, out of game AD sellers become relevant (cheaper money solution). Exploiters (circumvent long dungeon times) find a following. And botting becomes the "optimal" game play (make money while doing something else - like work, go to school, etc.).
What is this imbalance, which was intentionally created, intended to do? Convert us players with time into players with money. Basic business.
So, does changing leadership or changing the gear sets and their stats have the potential to fix this problem? Probably not, because they're more like bandages being applied to a broken leg. A right solution to the wrong problem.
Some suggestions
If you're going to change this game which is essentially what you guys tried to do with the level 70 cap raise, instead of just trying fix the botters, or fix exploits specifically, why not focus on creating a more rewarding game play experience where people are enticed to spend money instead of simply driven to compete against the players with money? where the game play is so rewarding that we don't care that there's an exploit or an AD seller or bots to help us (directly or indirectly) compete against the players with money.
In addition to the different mounts for sale, you could introduce customized mounts for sale and some for crafting which can be sold on the AH. It's nice that we all have a unicorn or a white tiger, etc. to differentiate ourselves, but how do differentiate between all of us white tiger riders? custom colored mounts?
Along the same lines, what about clothing customization? Can be Zen purchases as well as crafted items for sale on AH.
How about a wall of fame? Even just a personal one. Right now, I have a very long list of titles that "mark" my accomplishments in this game, but my only way to view ALL my accomplishments is in a drop down scrolling menu. Not a very rewarding experience when I'm reviewing 2 years of my time in this game. Or my Foundry cloaks of accomplishment. They just sit in my bank taking up precious inventory space and you don't get to see how they look except when you take the time to put them on which is like....never. It would be nice to see those cloaks proudly displayed on my trophy wall.
Just a few ideas for thought, that in my opinion, could go a long way towards making this game feel more rewarding for all the time I spent playing it.
Scott?
Sentiment
While it's not fair to put words into Scott's mouth as he is speaking specifically about the changes to AD they're planning on implementing, I do think that this generalized sentiment is much more representative of how many of us feel about all of the recent changes to Neverwinter that came with the Level 70 cap raise and it's litany of "bad" changes.
The Obvious
It's obvious that fixing the economy is a big problem that's been around for quite a while. It's also obvious that many of these recent changes were put into place to try and solve the problem with the economy. It's also obvious that the botters are a big part of the problem with the economy. So, good luck with that.
Personally
I personally feel that the people in charge of this game in their pursuit to "eliminate" the botters have lost sight of how we gamers feel about the game and playing this game. Scott even says this about the Leadership changes - "We know this will be frustrating for those who were not exploiting..."
Zero rewards
So why will it be frustrating for those of use who were not exploiting? Because ALL of our TIME spent playing this game (NOT exploiting) means absolutely NOTHING to any of the game makers.
Before level 70 existed, everyone spent time and money getting the best level 60 purple gear sets. But, exploiters and botters were causing havoc to the economy. The solution? devalue ALL level 60 gear instantly by introducing Level 70 gear with huge HP stats.
So, ALL that time and money spent determining which was the best gear set to get, and collecting the pieces, became a waste of time. Specifically, more than a year's waste of time. Why? because it has zero value against "blue" level 70 gear with even modest HP increases. There was no transition of any kind. There was no exchange option. There was no upgrade. Nothing. Not a rewarding experience.
Before level 70 existed, we had plenty of different dungeons to run. Only 3 of those remain. All of them more difficult than before which means many more unfinished dungeons runs with PUGs. Why were they removed? We have less choices to play with now. Not a rewarding experience.
Before level 70 existed, Lord Neverember himself was helping me make AD to the point that I could actually compete against the pay to play players. This revelation caused me to believe in the Leadership farming and to spend my time building up my farm and running my farm (manually, not with any bots, which equated to over 2 hours a day to maintain). Now leadership truly has left Neverwinter. Nothing rewarding here.
Pessimism
In this quest to deal with the exploiters and the botters, I mostly feel like I'm the one being punished for their "crimes" instead of feeling like "Wow! Thank you Cryptic and PWE! Look at all this new content for us to play and to explore! This such a rewarding game to play!"
My interpretation of the real problem here -
Neverwinter wants to balance players who have time with players who have money to spend on this game. What drives that imbalance is the core fact that the players who have the money can "instantly" have the BiS gear while the players who have the time need lots of time to get that same gear. This fact in and of itself is fine, but in context of how this game is implemented, it becomes the "root of all evil".
Why? Because whether it was level 60 or now level 70, the endgame gear range is too wide and there's no way to "separate" the players with the "weak" gear from those with the "maxed" out gear. And the endgame content is primarily PvP and running dungeons which require good gear to get in, let alone get through.
So the imbalance between the players who have money to spend vs the players with time to spend becomes immediate and therefore problematic. PvP became matchups between "pay to win" players vs "regular" players with the majority of the outcomes decidedly in the favor of the pay to win players. PUGs in dungeon runs became a constant struggle to find the "right" team to play with full of kicking of "weaker" players and "Op" players leaving the teams and various points of the run depending on their toleration level.
This imbalance drives the desire to find other ways to compete against the players with money. So, out of game AD sellers become relevant (cheaper money solution). Exploiters (circumvent long dungeon times) find a following. And botting becomes the "optimal" game play (make money while doing something else - like work, go to school, etc.).
What is this imbalance, which was intentionally created, intended to do? Convert us players with time into players with money. Basic business.
So, does changing leadership or changing the gear sets and their stats have the potential to fix this problem? Probably not, because they're more like bandages being applied to a broken leg. A right solution to the wrong problem.
Some suggestions
If you're going to change this game which is essentially what you guys tried to do with the level 70 cap raise, instead of just trying fix the botters, or fix exploits specifically, why not focus on creating a more rewarding game play experience where people are enticed to spend money instead of simply driven to compete against the players with money? where the game play is so rewarding that we don't care that there's an exploit or an AD seller or bots to help us (directly or indirectly) compete against the players with money.
In addition to the different mounts for sale, you could introduce customized mounts for sale and some for crafting which can be sold on the AH. It's nice that we all have a unicorn or a white tiger, etc. to differentiate ourselves, but how do differentiate between all of us white tiger riders? custom colored mounts?
Along the same lines, what about clothing customization? Can be Zen purchases as well as crafted items for sale on AH.
How about a wall of fame? Even just a personal one. Right now, I have a very long list of titles that "mark" my accomplishments in this game, but my only way to view ALL my accomplishments is in a drop down scrolling menu. Not a very rewarding experience when I'm reviewing 2 years of my time in this game. Or my Foundry cloaks of accomplishment. They just sit in my bank taking up precious inventory space and you don't get to see how they look except when you take the time to put them on which is like....never. It would be nice to see those cloaks proudly displayed on my trophy wall.
Just a few ideas for thought, that in my opinion, could go a long way towards making this game feel more rewarding for all the time I spent playing it.
Scott?
Post edited by ironzerg79 on
0
Comments
1. I already have a lot invested in Neverwinter - this includes time, money, friendships made, and any other sort of effort I've put in. Regardless of any changes made, "they got me", and I'm not about to just abandon everything I've put into this game.
2. Call a spade "a spade" - If the devs really wanted to address botting and the economy, then they would - Neverwinter isn't the first game to face this, and their efforts have been woefully ineffective. This latest announcement is, as far as I'm concerned, a thinly veiled admission that people are earning too much without spending real money, and they can't have that.
3. While the game is, overall, very solo and alt friendly, the ability to earn ADs via leadership made this approach also pretty lucrative. This change greatly reduces the appeal of having many alternate characters. This strikes me as weird, given how a recent update made it so dungeons granted more seals, with some of the gear they are used to buy, being account-wide unlocks.
Overall, what really needs to happen is to park a real live GM in PE 24/7 - have them insta-ban RMT's right away, and actually address things like bots farming particular instances asap, (like AR in Sharandar used 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
This has a lot more to do with selling Zen. If people are making AD in some quantity through Leadership alts, they feel they have to do something to keep from losing revenue--or in attempt to force a new revenue stream.
In my case, I did not have a farm, I had a character that did Leadership for himself to augment his funds. On top of that I often bought Zen to convert to Astral Diamonds. I am no longer doing this, because I don't like PWE/Cryptic policy, lack of fairness, and regular goal post moving.
The game has a great core--whoever was employed there when they ramped it up knew what they were doing. I don't have a lot patience for the folks working it now. Many days I am on the verge of rage-quitting.
The complaint about the gear becoming obsolete is not 'fair' - all mmorpgs that raise the max level with a new module / expansion pack do this exact same thing. It is a fact of the genre. I didn't really *like* having to replace all my gear either, but that is the way things are and I dealt with it.
The total 180 on Leadership producing AD is something else entirely. See the official thread on the subject for some of my thoughts about that.
PANIC!
a. people will probably stop buying ZEN to exchange for AD, simply not worth it anymore
b. a lot of people, that spend some money here or there, will move on to other games
c. the people staying, will have to deal with the fallout, and might also close their wallets for a while
In the end, there will be only one winner in all of this:
the botters
And about "rewarding playing the game"... didn't we got something similar to read, when they changed the XP system, and how did that turned out for the players?
Change your suggestions to a list or bullet points, instead of lengthy sentences.
The developers who read this forum are probably already fully aware of all the issues you mentioned.
Don't waste their limited time by stating what is already well known, especially not in such a verbose fashion.
http://forum.arcgames.com/neverwinter/discussion/1194402/feedback-needed-top-issues-currently-in-neverwinter-pc/p1
open for 2 months now, and what have the Devs actually taken from this thread, and implemented into the game?
In other games, when new gear is introduced, the old gear is still in game and still useful even when the level cap is raised. Yes, it is expected to have new level 70 gear that is "better" than level 60 gear because the new play area requires better gear. But, you also expected that your old level 60 gear would still be available so that you can still play the "old" level 60 areas and even create new chars to rank up from scratch all the way to level 70.
What's not expected is that the entire dungeon system where that level 60 gear dropped were ALL shut down with the exception of just 3 and the level 60 gear no longer dropped anywhere. Other games didn't "remove" the previous gear with the introduction of the new gear nor did the game play change surrounding the "old" gear. They didn't change all the former level 60 game play areas into level 70 game play areas. Level 60 simply disappeared from this game. All the old level 60 content was either removed from the game or modified to level 70 "levels". All level 60 BiS gear were made to be obsolete and no longer dropped in game...effectively removed from the game. Not upgraded. Removed.
The "natural" progression of new content in game is that it's added to the existing content. It doesn't replace the existing content. Neverwinter's earlier mods followed this. We got new gameplay areas with the game expansions and new gear to complement our existing gear (more artifacts and weapon artifacts). We even got a new game mechanic (RP).
The level 70 cap raise here "changed" the entire end game system simply by changing the gear...not a true upgrade of the gear either. We went from having 3 sets of gear to choose from at level 60 to just 1 set (on launch) and from gear with set bonuses to gear with none. That's called a nerf. Not an upgrade.
PvP changed. Set bonus gear were gone and the game tactics changed along with that. TR had bonus stealth time with their level 60 gear. Level 70 did away with that.
AD quests were removed from the game (Lord Neverember's). Why? Because there was too much AD coming into the game through "normal" game play. This wasn't related to the gear, but happened with the level 70 cap raise. So a clue to the governing reason behind the level 70 design. The removal of this triggered the Leadership farming problem we have now.
Dungeon running changed. There were no reason to have them because there was no loot in them anymore. Therefore, they were removed. Why? Because people were exploiting the bugs in the dungeons to "farm" the level 60 gear and inflating the economy. This is the real reason why level 60 gear was made "obsolete" and "removed" from the game.
The LFG channel was full of players saying things like "TR 12k+ LFG Castle Never (1/3)". Why? so they could farm the Level 60 BiS rings. Why just the first boss? Because people weren't playing the dungeons for the fun of running dungeons. They played the dungeons to make "money" and not spend real money on Zen.
If it were really about raising the level cap to 70 and adding a new level 70 game play area, then why eliminate ALL the level 60 gear and change ALL the level 60 game play areas to level 70? Please name some MMOs that do this? I didn't see that happen in Star Wars Galaxies or Lord of the Rings. I didn't get that impression when I played WoW.
So, to repeat, my post and complaint isn't about gear obsolescence. It's about changing the game in a series of bandage fixes which only attempt to fix the visible symptoms and not the root of the problem.
The game design inherently causes "player envy" between the players with time and the players with money. The players with money have the BiS gear immediately while the players with time have to spend time to get that same gear. That's to be expected.
What wasn't expected was the clear and severe mismatch in PvP between the BiS gear and the level 60 low end gear. It took too long for the players with time to reach the same level as the players with money. So long, that the forums became filled with players constantly complaining about all kinds of mismatches from gear to powers to abilities and so on.
Simply put, it's ok to lose (get your butt kicked in PvP) when you first turned level 60 because you had junk gear. But after 6 months of constantly losing because you can't level your gear fast enough, it's not fun. That's why I made it a point to say that I've been playing since beta, over 2 years now, and I'm finally getting close to "maxing" out my first char as player with time. That's a really long time to be constantly faced against players with money and their BiS gear all maxed out.
This imbalance between the players with time and the players with money combined with the severity of the length of time it takes to level your end game gear is the driving force behind all the exploits, botting, and out of game AD vendors.
My suggestion is to not focus on fixing the exploits, botting and AD issues. Instead, remember why we all game. It's to have fun. When it's fun to level gear and chars, we, the players, don't care about using exploits or botting or using outside vendors to get AD because we don't feel the "pressure" to find shortcuts. Why would I shortcut myself from having fun?
Yes, there are those who think it's fun to exploit, etc. That's why I used the word focus. The bugs need to be fixed, yes. But when the fix hurts the regular players, is it really a fix?
Even exploiters and botters get bored. If you remove the demand for their "services", they will also get bored and move on.
Yes, removing the exploited level 60 gear was an attempt at this. But I call it a bandage attempt, because the core issue wasn't addressed which is "why do SO MANY of the players feel the need to use a shortcut?" If this question isn't addressed and solved, there will always be someone else coming up with a new exploit, exposing a new bug, selling AD out of game, etc.
And here's a hint. I believe after leadership is nerfed, it won't be too long before another economy fix will have to be implemented because another exploit will have surfaced to meet the ever present need of players looking for shortcuts and/or lots of AD. And before you know it, Neverwinter expansions will simply be a series of flawed economy fixes under the guise of "new" content.
But this is just my opinion. I hope I'm wrong.
Out of game AD sellers are in direct competition with PWE and Cryptic.
Exploiters and botters fill the void between the have's and the have not's.
PWE and Cryptic have failed to fix the game by fixing these problems specifically. Caturday was their fix for the AH exploit. The AD spammers have only proliferated.
Lord Neverember's AD quests actually exposed the continued driving force behind exploits and bots. Everyone was able to "max out" their daily 24k conversion of rough AD with minimal game play effort. The math became simple after that. If I wanted to make 1 million AD, I just needed to max out 42 days straight. The botters said, why take 42 days on 1 char to make 1 million? Why not take 42 chars and make 1 million AD per day?
What need does all this AD fulfill? RP leveling, enchantment leveling, etc. The things that were intentionally made to take a long time to finish. But if you spent money, you can drastically reduce that amount of time.
So, the botting, the farming, and the exploiting competed directly with PWE's and Cryptic's goal of making money in game.
That is the core problem and why all the fixes are going to fail. They haven't addressed the core problem. They are only plugging the leaks in the HAMSTER and not rebuilding the HAMSTER.
I have no wish to give them a list of holes to plug. I wish for them to fix the entire mechanic of making money. Yes, I want them to make money because they are a business and it takes money to keep games like this running.
In my opinion, they have just made or implemented the wrong method of making money.
Personally I think that the reason for that is that Zen is losing value compared to the rather easy to get AD.
Based on the replies on this forum it seems that the problem with AD being to easy to farm have been such a long lasting problem, that long time players will have an insane amount of AD compared to new players, something that will make a lot of new players leave as they will have no realistic way of getting AD nor getting to end game content (such as lvl 70 pvp).
As it stands the only way to fix it would be a hard change to the value of AD.
Hard changes could be devaluing AD, introducing a new currency overnight or some other equal step to regain control of the economy.
Other changes could be to
Now the changes to leadership was necessary and hopefully it will remove a lot of the
Now based on the responses in another thread ( forum.arcgames.com/neverwinter/discussion/1203650/what-is-your-budget-for-neverwinter/p1 ) the average budget stated was between 50-100$ so about 5500-11000 zen.
So the average spender will at best have 5.5 mil AD or so per month, which equals 1or 2 rank 12 enchantments.
The average Zen buyer will take years to get BIS using money for even 1 character with the current pricing.
Overall there need to be changes made to the value of Zen to make it more interesting.
Also their is a lot of Zen options expected in a FTP game lacking currently - no instant 70 for Zen, or even skipping intro levels.
No access to gear that useable for more than a few hours game time, no boosters, no gear equalizers and so on.
The fact is, the instance content in NW is terrible. They expect us to spend hours playing FarmVille instead of minutes. That's all. And for what, nothing. This change isn't about bots - the logic there is completely flawed, and it's insulting Cryptic would even say it. If they want to find ways to get people to buy more zen, they should have just asked us the simple question: What can we do that you'd pay money for? They'd have so many suggestions they wouldn't know where to start. Instead they chose the deceitful path, offering up sweet koolaid which many have drunk by the barrel full, while knifing legit long term causal players in the back.
Sekhmet@kvetchus_
Guilds: Greycloaks, Blackcloaks, Whitecloaks, Goldcloaks, Browncloaks, Spiritcloaks, Bluecloaks, Silvercloaks, Black Dawn
Tredecim: The Cloak Alliance
Hmm... I thought the problem was 4K BIS premades. My bad.
beta through mod3 - i ran 6 BIS equipped characters
mod 3 through mod 4 - 2 BIS equipped characters
Mod 5 through current - 1 BIS equipped character
My game time hasn't decreased, only my ability to maintain multiple characters has decreased Jack Emmert said that while developing the game they knew they had to do a better job with creating content than they did in their previous titles. He acknowledge that content was important to a D&D franchise. I think they did a great job on the original zones. Somewhere in the mods they lost their way, and started taking the STO approach to Neverwinter and it appears Neverwinter is on the same path of destruction as STO. surprised?
Agreed, a part of progression in the games is new gear. My only concern is the massive costs of the new gear. The upgrade of artifact gear is a huge grind to undertake every three to four months. When gear was essentially farming dungeons for it, it was much more palatable.
Farming gear from a dungeon does not inflate the economy. It still complies to the laws of supply and demand. What inflates an economy is the mass introduction of currency not backed by a material. In NWO that material is game play and the currency is AD. AD was produced without gameplay by the ZAX exchange exploit. The inflation didn't come from leadership. Most people didn't turn to leadership (not all) until the costs of upgrading got so high (RP grind) and in game systems could not keep up (rewards from dungeons). And the cost of upgrading became high in an attempt to create AD sinks that would bleed the excess of AD out of the game. So effectively you has a select group use the ZAX exchange exploit who are/where loaded with AD. It inflated the economy and reduced the value of AD. Cryptic responded by reducing sources of AD in game (making all gear BOP) and introducing AD sinks (AD for boons, chest keys, marks for enchantments, SH structures, etc). The community responded by farming leadership. Now cryptic is responding by removing leadership. The issue is the changes will not impact the originators of the problem. Those individuals will still ride legendary mounts, have rank 12 enchants, and buy their way forward in SH.
Punish them, they are the ones that do it, but I think they don't want to do that because they think in time after this they will spend their money in the game, well wake up.... they not going to do that, so BAN them PERMANENT....
For months they do it and when I ask the why, they say we never get a ban for that, they not going to do anything against it, so why not ? Their comment on this issue is, we going to buy even more there because it's easier.
So my question is..... If you see or follow those sellers, then why can't you follow the buyers and do something against them ???
Everything they're doing, everything they are trying, all the plans that they have made and will make. Will never accomplish that one single fact.
Since before Neverwinter went live the excess AD illegally gained in game has been around. They may say that it has not, but that is a lie.
The sole use of removing AD from Leadership is just to keep those that do not have AD from catching up to those that have already stockpiled so much of it that they have everything in game. Without the use of real money of course.
I have seen conflicting figures, but lets just say that it would take in excess of $8000 to get your new character to a level to compete with the people who have been exploiting the game since day one.
Otherwise of using your own money. There is no way, short of investing a dozen years or spending many thousands of dollars to get a new character into gear equal to those at the highest level of the game. People with rank 12's and mythic equipment, who have been playing for 2 to 3 years...
That is the truth of Neverwinter.