ill just put this here with the impact of this current patch being so huge (think it pretty much killed the game) im going to stop lving up any of my alts as i think its pointless at thsi point, and my main, well advancing anything on him cost so damm much (he isnt close to finished at a 2600GS) and with no real way to earn AD i dont see any of that getting done so thats about it for me, wish i could get a refund on my 3k zen sitting on file but i dont see that happening, was hoping this game was going to make it until camelot unchained is released but it dosnt look like that is going to happen, sad too, has a great game core but "they" have complety screwed it up.
My guild lost 2! players with that. The other 20-30 have become more active, stopped logging in 2-3 times a day setting leadership tasks and leaving, and instead begun doing more skirmishes and dungeons, even playing PvP.
So far the change has helped our guild more than harmed it.
I do not really understand the logic behind OP's guild members leaving the game. First they were very active, actually playing and enjoying the game, and now, when they get more AD from doing exactly this they all of a sudden leave? Does not sound, as if the change really damaged the gameplay but hurt pride did. o.O
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schweifer1982Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,662Arc User
I am a guild leader of a moderately-sized, semi-casual guild. We managed to save the guild from the previously depressing mod 6 hack job, officer abandonment, and promote activity from June through the first 20 days of Mod 7. We have been able to recruit fun, active players of all levels and playstyles to help build the structures in Strongholds and hold a massive guild lottery event (giving out prizes totalling over 30Mil in AD). Of the 150ish accounts in the guild, over 70% were active within 1 week of play. We were always able to do DF successfully and store up fangs for the new armor sets. It was fun to come online and go in the guild hall and see 25-40 of your friends at any one time running around doing quests, dungeons, DF, whatever. The coffers went up from regular players and big donors, alike. There was a great spirit of comraderie. The mob change to reduce the dmg from mod 6 and the hp nerf helped even more. The previous sins of the developers (removing unbound, set-based epic gear from dungeons; implementing burdensome AD sinks in enchants, artifacts, artifact-gear, and strongholds; etc) were almost forgotten. Almost...
Then, the removal of leadership came. With Guild Hall 8 and Market Place 4 already collected for and waiting to be built (construction times are the enemy), the online participation of the guild has dropped to less than 15%. I have asked for a courtesy 'I quit' message if anyone does decide to leave the game. I have received many such emails already. Regardless of what the developers say or what forum moderators edit, the latest change COMBINED with all the previous changes has caused the immediate reduction of active play. There can be no waiting. Even with the new PvP, the game is in throes. The economy is filled with AD sinks everywhere. Those of us who have been around since open beta know of what the economy was like prior to AD sinks. You did not need salvage or Refine points or greater marks of anything because the enchant system was superior (yes, it was) and the unbound epic sets that were earned from dungeon runs had no rp investment and had tremendous party based bonuses. Run a set of T2s and get your epic set, or... buy a set from the AH from those who ran it and are selling it for some nice AD. Do you want different sets? Run different dungeons. There was plenty of space in bags (yes, enchants took up space to level up, but not as much as all the rp does). Everything was unbound until you equipped it. And you could run a plethora of dungeons. Were you bored of Castle Never and the epic T2 drops? Go run Pirate King. Or, Frozen Heart. Or, for a challenge with little reward...epic Dread Vault (dungeons that 2 modules of new players have no idea about).
But, through the small changes, there were no options for players to earn a good income of AD, legitimately. So, the result were leadership armies. Remove the source of AD from gear and implement AD sinks in artifacts and artifact gear (which now, serendipitously have the set bonuses, but weak ones in comparison to the old sets), and players turn to what they can get. Then, through the painful dance of leadership this and leadership that, the removal of AD has left no means by which players can earn AD. The market will correct itself on some things. But, the AD sinks are still everywhere in the game. So, donations to the coffer are down. Participation is down. Morale is down. And the only hope is mod 8, with a new class (maybe), a nerf to the paladin (my guess since new class is always overpowered at beginning), and the return of dungeons. But, this is not sufficient. The restoration of a free economy with no AD sinks must happen first, and quickly. I do not know how long even the most loyal of players can hold out for these changes. But, the proof is in the proverbial pudding. Our guild is suffering since.
Thank you for your time in reading this.
BLUNTFORCE TRAUMA. Officer in Guild Myrmidons
We suffer the same fate to upgrade our guild hall we need AD what we dont have i will not buy soo much zen to fill it up .261.8 Millions AD need to upgrade your SH to maximum. Even if the zen stay at this rate its total 654500 zen = 6545 Euro from this sum i can buy a car !! And this is just 1 guild.
Well I blame those leadership army runners to force Cryptic to take this kind of measure.Are you seeing amount of the ZEN coming under their skirts.Most of this excess ZEN was made with those leadership armies and hold the ZEN amount at 500AD .Now they are spilling it before it looses its value too much
Dont be daft. Zen cannot be made with leadership armies. Zen is made by cryptic, for real money. Leadership armies create AD.
What Cryptic should have done is remove the Zen cap, so zen would become more valueable and people would have more incentive to buy Zen because that would give them more AD. I never understood that cap.
Our guild is suffering too BTW. I don't know how long we will retain the critical mass of people needed to be an active guild, but it won't be long. Below that it is no use carrying on as recruitment is in heavy competition now and supply of new people is low. There is no incentive in the game any more as virtually nothing is attainable in reasonable timespan compared to other games (pick one - even EVE is faster). As such I am seriously thinking of finding another game and advertising that to the guild.
If they did that, people would need MORE leadership armies in order to buy zen. Yes, the cap stopped people from having access to zen who, if willing to spend more, could purchase zen. But the reason they removed leadership AD in the first place is because it dominated who had AD, pure and simple.
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theycallmetomuMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,861Arc User
Yeah, honestly, when the thread devolves into "HERP DERP YER ALL A BUNCHA MORONS" it's not exactly productive to begin with.
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demonmongerMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,350Arc User
the economy was at 500 astral per 1 zen for 2 years.. up and down... that was stable for us... if it could go beyond 500 things could get out of control.. but with a solid cap.. things were fine..
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I hate paying taxes! Why must I pay thousands of dollars in taxes when everything I buy is taxed anyways!
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theycallmetomuMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,861Arc User
The entire idea behind the exchange is to let the zen float against the AD. Furthermore, the fixed cost meant that zen speculators were able to make money basically just by taking advantage of the limited supply of zen.
I haven't had a lot of time on since the change, but I would be guessing my Guild is pretty much unaffected by the change. Probably because most of the active players in the guild have been playing for 1-2 years, just a few new people that are supported by a strong core. Rather than a whole lot of new people that are more prone to turn over anyway.
People are always leaving the game.
This is not a sign the game is failing.
Because new people are always joining the game.
Right now there will be a big upheaval in the game's player base, but the long term effects of the change are likely to be positive overall.
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
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theycallmetomuMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,861Arc User
They'll be positive if the dev team manages to improve the implementation. But, if they just leave things as is, I suspect they're going to run into greater issues, even outside the overall toxicity of the player base.
You people are a freaking embarrassment to developers everywhere right now.
How is a post like this remotely helpful?
You know developers may not respond to forum posts but they generally lurk forums.
If everyone was nice about this they wouldn't get the message.
What result do you feel insulting them will provide?
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theycallmetomuMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,861Arc User
Honestly, player toxicity hurts the game way more than bad game design decisions, but since the latter feed the former, I guess that's not entirely true.
Player toxicity doesn't drive the dev team to make better decisions, though. I think we can prove that empirically.
My guild lost 2! players with that. The other 20-30 have become more active, stopped logging in 2-3 times a day setting leadership tasks and leaving, and instead begun doing more skirmishes and dungeons, even playing PvP.
So far the change has helped our guild more than harmed it.
I do not really understand the logic behind OP's guild members leaving the game. First they were very active, actually playing and enjoying the game, and now, when they get more AD from doing exactly this they all of a sudden leave? Does not sound, as if the change really damaged the gameplay but hurt pride did. o.O
You do not get more AD from playing the game than you did before. In another thread I pointed out that I have 6 toons that are equipped to do dungeons. With the hourly event and quests I could get 5 - 6 of them through normal ToS in that hourly event. With my VIP status that was worth about 40k AD, once per day. The rest of my playtime was spent on my main doing heroics in SH, dailies, and dungeons with guildies for the various marks needed for guild improvements.
Now I don't have time to do anything on my alts and cannot make nearly as much an hour running just my main through epics or normals. You have to be completely insane to say that you make more by "playing the game" now than you could before this last update. Or maybe you are just a liar, that is the only other possibility.
I was somewhat hurt by the Leadership change but in my mind I can justify that. What was not justified was slowing down the rate of generating AP by actually playing toons. Thus I will continue to log in once a day on my main only to use the key for lockboxes that I get with my VIP status. Once that runs out with no change in the way to make AD I won't log in any longer.
I'm sorry but every time i see someone bring up ghost stories I can't help but laugh how far that joke has gone in the fearmongering community. You guys really didn't catch that joke when the guy made it that long ago? The magical bot monster who resides in "ghost stories".
the biggest impact I noticed personally is on my guild. People used to once in a while contribute purple items and alliance blue items to stronghold. ( i know i used to put TONS of alliance rings from elol/kessel etc.)
now since ad is harder to get from leadership removal and the removal of Rhix, my surplus equipment counts have BARELY moved since yesterday because its MORE important now to salvage for the AD than EVER BEFORE.
please make stronghold surplus equipments lower across the board or up green items to 20 "points" in coffer and blues to 100.
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inyawayupdeepMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 206Arc User
Just start calling for a removal of marks and Wards from the game to balance out (a little bit) what they did. That's our current problem, the fact we need the AD to buy these items, let's just ask that they be removed so we don't need so much AD. (or the bag space to hold it all).
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theycallmetomuMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,861Arc User
Yeah. I mean, the RP grind is 100% player driven, but marks of potency and wards are fixed cost ventures. If they got rid of the fixed costs necessary to play the game (as opposed to fixed costs to play the game better-eg high speed mounts and other zen shop purchases), then it wouldn't matter what player incomes are, prices would adjust to them.
Ok, lets put the purple item into the stronghold vault for surplus equipment. 16k needed, no problem, here are 20 epic items, I dont need RAD. What is left? 2.5 million ADs for the AD coffer, I earn plenty AD by running dungeons and skirmishes, done and done, sarcasm off.
I just invited a new player into our guild, who started playing a few days ago. After giving him a roundabout about our guild, I told him about the state of the game and his chances to gear up his char. The second part was highly depressing and contained a lot of 'once upon a time, but now...'.
Chars: CW, DC, GF, GWF, HR and TR.
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santralafaxMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 2,896Arc User
Except that that makes no sense; the people who should be leaving due to AD removal are the people who want to use AD to buy zen, aka us free to players. Why would the people who already are spending money, and thus are getting AD, be the ones more likely to leave?
Because we supplement our in-game earnings with dollar-bought Zen. If Cryptic isn't willing to meet us half-way, why bother. How much am I going to spend on a screen full of pixels? It would cost thousands to become BIS (I am not BIS) and for the most part, we don't spend THAT much money. I spend way more than I intended when I started this game. I could be a subscriber to another game for years on what I spent here over the last.
I am a paying player, and continually see my money and time wasted when the things I invested in, like leadership and enchantments were nerfed. To me, this is fraud. I spent a fortune perfecting my life drinker, so it would not die with one hit from a GWF or boss and they just took it away. I am done paying, there are other games out there that actually add new content instead of making you grind all the time.
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theycallmetomuMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,861Arc User
Except that that makes no sense; the people who should be leaving due to AD removal are the people who want to use AD to buy zen, aka us free to players. Why would the people who already are spending money, and thus are getting AD, be the ones more likely to leave?
Because we supplement our in-game earnings with dollar-bought Zen. If Cryptic isn't willing to meet us half-way, why bother. How much am I going to spend on a screen full of pixels? It would cost thousands to become BIS (I am not BIS) and for the most part, we don't spend THAT much money. I spend way more than I intended when I started this game. I could be a subscriber to another game for years on what I spent here over the last.
I certainly agree that the return on dollars invested in NWO is pretty ridiculously low.
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theycallmetomuMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,861Arc User
I am a paying player, and continually see my money and time wasted when the things I invested in, like leadership and enchantments were nerfed. To me, this is fraud. I spent a fortune perfecting my life drinker, so it would not die with one hit from a GWF or boss and they just took it away. I am done paying, there are other games out there that actually add new content instead of making you grind all the time.
Things like enchantment nerfs, I feel like there should be buyback programs. "oh, your enchantment no longer does what you expected? Alright, you can trade it in for an equal rank enchantment of the same type."
Things like enchantment nerfs, I feel like there should be buyback programs. "oh, your enchantment no longer does what you expected? Alright, you can trade it in for an equal rank enchantment of the same type."
Good idea. At least then I would not feel like I was being ripped off.
I am a paying player, and continually see my money and time wasted when the things I invested in, like leadership and enchantments were nerfed. To me, this is fraud. I spent a fortune perfecting my life drinker, so it would not die with one hit from a GWF or boss and they just took it away. I am done paying, there are other games out there that actually add new content instead of making you grind all the time.
Things like enchantment nerfs, I feel like there should be buyback programs. "oh, your enchantment no longer does what you expected? Alright, you can trade it in for an equal rank enchantment of the same type."
That's what good companies do. Off the top of my head Blizzard does that in Hearthstone. Every time they change a card you can get full value on it for crafting another card of equal rarity. And that's in a CCG where the whole monetization model is based around bleeding people dry.
Not sure why PWE doesn't do things like that. They didn't do it in Blacklight either. They re-balanced all the armor in open beta and lost like 1/3 of their players. You think they'd learn eventually.
I feel like i just have to put my couple cents in it, not like itll be heard or change anything, since not even 1 mod or someone from staff responded to this topic, but still...
My guild is small, and we all feel the backfire of removing AD form leadership, not talking about investments we made, cuz we are all legit players who hate exploiting. Most of our members are still under 3k, which doesnt stop us from doing crazy things on dungeons...problem is, even running those dungeons brings no profit at all with recent changes. Im talking here about the amount of time, grind, and AD sink in SH alone. 2,5m AD for a 1st lvl boon structure, which only goes up more and more with each building rank. Which btw, isnt even scaled to the size of the guild itself.
Leadership was a great way for a casual f2p to earn his living, thats for sure. Player didnt have to buy ZEN to buy anything, just wait for a couple weeks, like in my case (8 alts) to get some major AD to go on a spending spree... The problem here is, no content is actually worth doing cuz of how unbalanced amount of RAD it gives...not to mention, the formula is based on god knows what, cuz it doesnt even work as intended. In other topic i said that we were doing research, and even the "daily AD bonus on 2 1st runs on dungeon" isnt working properly. Not to mention it doesnt even scale to the difficulty of the run itself. That is 1 major flaw in this system, its made in a rush, without giving it a serious thinking. 2nd thing is, devs didnt stop the botters, cuz they just switched to other content to bot...see the GS farming and number of intances. I havent even heard of 1 banned accout which was grinding there, or rather, botting there.
I have to agree about AD sink, and bag space sink in module 6, its just out of this world (even tho u can still "farm" it daily). But hey, we wanted to get stronger, that was a nice boost...
The real problem with this thing is, it only encouraged more and more players to put macros in foundry. Adding to already massive cuts in content, caused by exploiters, it kinda killed the fun of "getting stronger". And yes, im intentionally mentioning exploiters, cuz we all know why they removed tradeable gear from the game - cuz of GG exploit...which btw wasnt even fixed, but removed completly from content...
Same thing was at the start with sellable lockbox keys...they havent taken care of gold botters then, just went for the easiest thing possible - making keys BoA...and they are continuing to go for the easiest way possible with every major shitstorm about exploit/bug/botting problem they encounter.
Exploit on GG? lets remove content. Exploits on foundry with macros for farming rp? make'em BoA then remove foundry completly as a feature (u guys do remember how long foundry was unaviable even as a daily) Botters farming leadership? easy-peasy, lets remove it.
The problem with those actions are as follows - even less legit players playing and enjoing the game. Becouse botters/exploiters are still running free and are exploiting/botting on different part of the content. Not to mention the whole idea of having 50 chars per account...thats the botterlure itself.
Mod 6 was a total failure when it comes to economy and gameplay. Why? Becouse botting rp, becouse uber-ggeared players getting that stuff for nothing, not to mention not knowing how to actually use it in the right way... I still remember being in a party of guys with 20k+ GS that couldnt do eDV...that was pathetic. And the trend continues on, becouse all ppl are focusing on is their gear, like that will give'em skills to play. And how do they do that? Stop playing , stop learning, but focus on farming/botting/whatever, just to get that damn RP "cuz we have to be orange to complete content"/ The circle closes itself...
Removing old gear was a given fact, seeing the increase in both stats of players and mobs...those bonuses were no longer valid cuz of the amount of buff it was giving... And yes, ill say it clearly that majority of old SWs are still running on dungeons or skirmishes in old sharrandar set, cuz its just freaking bugged giving'em godly advantage.
Other thing, all the exploits that werent fixed by previous team are still here. Im talking about dungeons. We all know the exploit on GWD ECC and other stuff we can use if the party is too weak to finish the run.
And no, mod 7 havent done that. It didnt made us weaker. On the contrary, i think with all our stat increase it was neccessary to buff mobs and bosses to the point they are now. Just to stop ppl from making every class a dps one. Now atleast tank is for tanking, DC for keeping party alive, CW does way better job CC-ing than dpsing...
But those changes require from players switching their builds, not to mention most of their gear/enchants. Thats the real problem behind mod 7, ppl just refuse to adapt, wishing and hoping mod 8 will be a lot easier. And it wont be, itll be even harder and more challanging than the content we already have.
Given that, itll encourage even more botters and exploiters, cuz players have lost a legit way of making AD to sustain the needs of upgrading gear and artifacts. Not to mention the prices on AH havent changed a bit, amount or required donations to SH havent changed a bit, amounts of RP needed havent changed but bazaar prices are still the same...
A normal, regular player who has around 2h time to play the game will be able maybe to earn like 24-48k AD per day focusing only on making that AD, not to mention running quests for the guild SH. Now translate that to gmops needed to up enchants/runes/artis...its pure madness.
Removing AD from leadership aybe discouraged some of the botters army to pour artificially earned AD to market, but in the process destroyed the economy as a whole...Why? Becouse botters will still be botting leadership for RP items, which in time will probably significantly drop in price, taking away legit players another way of making some ADs from selling it. And there arent many ways of making AD left...Another thing is, what about ppl who have bajilions of milions AD on their accs? They practically became gods now, and are able to monopolize majority of items on AH, like artifacts and profession assets. Blocking normal players from upgrading their characters significantly.
And as ppl say in zone chat - playerbase decreased, botters remained, unpunished and free to roam and bot however they please. Removing another part of the content wont help in getting rid of those "humans", they will simply change to another part of content thats bottable, unless u want to remove the game as a whole.
Next thing we will see will be probbaly removing skill nodes from all avoiable sources, cuz ppl are using macros or whatever else to farm those all day long. And what will be next? Captacha on pvp and dungeons cuz ppl already do have programs that allow them to get into the instance?
Problem with botters isnt solved, and sont be unless PWE puts some serious though on the problem. Adding that to the amount of exploits that are only added to the game with each new "content". And devs arent even able to fix minor bugs like the 1st prayer still bugged, we still have to do it twice to even do it. Stamina draining enchants in pvp...hell even bugged out boons from campains (most of us do know about avalanche and how much dmg it can do if someone is using it). So what will be next? Removing another part of content cuz devs cant fix it?
That is all form me for now. Althrou im still a beliver the mod 8 will somehow save the game, seeing what is done here i really am worried that i get my hopes up for nothing.
how about a pvp league and a pve league for those who dont like pvp. Have many diff tiers so its fair for all levels and the winner of each tier each day will be rewarded with a very generous amount of AD lets say 100k for lvl 70pvp winner 1 on 1, and 100kad for pve for the player who can clear out a prefixed mob the fastest? I can already see the ppl saying but but the highest geared pvp/pve player will win everytime, not so a player can only win the grand prize once a wee. Take note devs i jsut thought of this as i was typing it out took me 3 min, woulndt take much to create this it would give the players something fun to do and another way to earn AD for bending us over on the leadership nerf(if someone is going to complain about my idea, unless u can do better in 3 min dont bother)
The game definitively needs some economy changes. The dev team has removed one way of receiving AD, but did not change the economy along it. AD prices in game stores should decrease as a result.
It's important to notice that the game actually discourages you to have several characters. It takes too much grinding in campaigns and AD to bother for real. The only thing they're useful is the extra artifact.
It's true that you can get AD through dailies, but doing them all requires a lot of effort and time. If you're older than 20, you might not have it. And it's these people who have cash to support the game.
Also, as for Steam charts... God... players treat it as if it's some oracle how successful is the game. Bullears, it just shows you Steam connected players and completely ignores direct client. I know many players of different games who prefer direct client as Steam devours precious system resources to operate.
Comments
My guild lost 2! players with that. The other 20-30 have become more active, stopped logging in 2-3 times a day setting leadership tasks and leaving, and instead begun doing more skirmishes and dungeons, even playing PvP.
So far the change has helped our guild more than harmed it.
I do not really understand the logic behind OP's guild members leaving the game. First they were very active, actually playing and enjoying the game, and now, when they get more AD from doing exactly this they all of a sudden leave? Does not sound, as if the change really damaged the gameplay but hurt pride did. o.O
Even if the zen stay at this rate its total 654500 zen = 6545 Euro from this sum i can buy a car !!
And this is just 1 guild.
if it could go beyond 500 things could get out of control.. but with a solid cap.. things were fine..
People are always leaving the game.
This is not a sign the game is failing.
Because new people are always joining the game.
Right now there will be a big upheaval in the game's player base, but the long term effects of the change are likely to be positive overall.
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
If everyone was nice about this they wouldn't get the message.
Player toxicity doesn't drive the dev team to make better decisions, though. I think we can prove that empirically.
Now I don't have time to do anything on my alts and cannot make nearly as much an hour running just my main through epics or normals. You have to be completely insane to say that you make more by "playing the game" now than you could before this last update. Or maybe you are just a liar, that is the only other possibility.
I was somewhat hurt by the Leadership change but in my mind I can justify that. What was not justified was slowing down the rate of generating AP by actually playing toons. Thus I will continue to log in once a day on my main only to use the key for lockboxes that I get with my VIP status. Once that runs out with no change in the way to make AD I won't log in any longer.
now since ad is harder to get from leadership removal and the removal of Rhix, my surplus equipment counts have BARELY moved since yesterday because its MORE important now to salvage for the AD than EVER BEFORE.
please make stronghold surplus equipments lower across the board or up green items to 20 "points" in coffer and blues to 100.
LONG but Great post!!!
I just invited a new player into our guild, who started playing a few days ago. After giving him a roundabout about our guild, I told him about the state of the game and his chances to gear up his char. The second part was highly depressing and contained a lot of 'once upon a time, but now...'.
Because we supplement our in-game earnings with dollar-bought Zen. If Cryptic isn't willing to meet us half-way, why bother. How much am I going to spend on a screen full of pixels? It would cost thousands to become BIS (I am not BIS) and for the most part, we don't spend THAT much money. I spend way more than I intended when I started this game. I could be a subscriber to another game for years on what I spent here over the last.
I certainly agree that the return on dollars invested in NWO is pretty ridiculously low.
Things like enchantment nerfs, I feel like there should be buyback programs. "oh, your enchantment no longer does what you expected? Alright, you can trade it in for an equal rank enchantment of the same type."
Good idea. At least then I would not feel like I was being ripped off.
Not sure why PWE doesn't do things like that. They didn't do it in Blacklight either. They re-balanced all the armor in open beta and lost like 1/3 of their players. You think they'd learn eventually.
My guild is small, and we all feel the backfire of removing AD form leadership, not talking about investments we made, cuz we are all legit players who hate exploiting. Most of our members are still under 3k, which doesnt stop us from doing crazy things on dungeons...problem is, even running those dungeons brings no profit at all with recent changes. Im talking here about the amount of time, grind, and AD sink in SH alone. 2,5m AD for a 1st lvl boon structure, which only goes up more and more with each building rank. Which btw, isnt even scaled to the size of the guild itself.
Leadership was a great way for a casual f2p to earn his living, thats for sure. Player didnt have to buy ZEN to buy anything, just wait for a couple weeks, like in my case (8 alts) to get some major AD to go on a spending spree...
The problem here is, no content is actually worth doing cuz of how unbalanced amount of RAD it gives...not to mention, the formula is based on god knows what, cuz it doesnt even work as intended. In other topic i said that we were doing research, and even the "daily AD bonus on 2 1st runs on dungeon" isnt working properly. Not to mention it doesnt even scale to the difficulty of the run itself. That is 1 major flaw in this system, its made in a rush, without giving it a serious thinking.
2nd thing is, devs didnt stop the botters, cuz they just switched to other content to bot...see the GS farming and number of intances. I havent even heard of 1 banned accout which was grinding there, or rather, botting there.
I have to agree about AD sink, and bag space sink in module 6, its just out of this world (even tho u can still "farm" it daily). But hey, we wanted to get stronger, that was a nice boost...
The real problem with this thing is, it only encouraged more and more players to put macros in foundry. Adding to already massive cuts in content, caused by exploiters, it kinda killed the fun of "getting stronger". And yes, im intentionally mentioning exploiters, cuz we all know why they removed tradeable gear from the game - cuz of GG exploit...which btw wasnt even fixed, but removed completly from content...
Same thing was at the start with sellable lockbox keys...they havent taken care of gold botters then, just went for the easiest thing possible - making keys BoA...and they are continuing to go for the easiest way possible with every major shitstorm about exploit/bug/botting problem they encounter.
Exploit on GG? lets remove content.
Exploits on foundry with macros for farming rp? make'em BoA then remove foundry completly as a feature (u guys do remember how long foundry was unaviable even as a daily)
Botters farming leadership? easy-peasy, lets remove it.
The problem with those actions are as follows - even less legit players playing and enjoing the game. Becouse botters/exploiters are still running free and are exploiting/botting on different part of the content.
Not to mention the whole idea of having 50 chars per account...thats the botterlure itself.
Mod 6 was a total failure when it comes to economy and gameplay. Why? Becouse botting rp, becouse uber-ggeared players getting that stuff for nothing, not to mention not knowing how to actually use it in the right way...
I still remember being in a party of guys with 20k+ GS that couldnt do eDV...that was pathetic. And the trend continues on, becouse all ppl are focusing on is their gear, like that will give'em skills to play. And how do they do that? Stop playing , stop learning, but focus on farming/botting/whatever, just to get that damn RP "cuz we have to be orange to complete content"/ The circle closes itself...
Removing old gear was a given fact, seeing the increase in both stats of players and mobs...those bonuses were no longer valid cuz of the amount of buff it was giving... And yes, ill say it clearly that majority of old SWs are still running on dungeons or skirmishes in old sharrandar set, cuz its just freaking bugged giving'em godly advantage.
Other thing, all the exploits that werent fixed by previous team are still here. Im talking about dungeons. We all know the exploit on GWD ECC and other stuff we can use if the party is too weak to finish the run.
And no, mod 7 havent done that. It didnt made us weaker. On the contrary, i think with all our stat increase it was neccessary to buff mobs and bosses to the point they are now. Just to stop ppl from making every class a dps one. Now atleast tank is for tanking, DC for keeping party alive, CW does way better job CC-ing than dpsing...
But those changes require from players switching their builds, not to mention most of their gear/enchants. Thats the real problem behind mod 7, ppl just refuse to adapt, wishing and hoping mod 8 will be a lot easier. And it wont be, itll be even harder and more challanging than the content we already have.
Given that, itll encourage even more botters and exploiters, cuz players have lost a legit way of making AD to sustain the needs of upgrading gear and artifacts. Not to mention the prices on AH havent changed a bit, amount or required donations to SH havent changed a bit, amounts of RP needed havent changed but bazaar prices are still the same...
A normal, regular player who has around 2h time to play the game will be able maybe to earn like 24-48k AD per day focusing only on making that AD, not to mention running quests for the guild SH. Now translate that to gmops needed to up enchants/runes/artis...its pure madness.
Removing AD from leadership aybe discouraged some of the botters army to pour artificially earned AD to market, but in the process destroyed the economy as a whole...Why? Becouse botters will still be botting leadership for RP items, which in time will probably significantly drop in price, taking away legit players another way of making some ADs from selling it. And there arent many ways of making AD left...Another thing is, what about ppl who have bajilions of milions AD on their accs? They practically became gods now, and are able to monopolize majority of items on AH, like artifacts and profession assets. Blocking normal players from upgrading their characters significantly.
And as ppl say in zone chat - playerbase decreased, botters remained, unpunished and free to roam and bot however they please. Removing another part of the content wont help in getting rid of those "humans", they will simply change to another part of content thats bottable, unless u want to remove the game as a whole.
Next thing we will see will be probbaly removing skill nodes from all avoiable sources, cuz ppl are using macros or whatever else to farm those all day long. And what will be next? Captacha on pvp and dungeons cuz ppl already do have programs that allow them to get into the instance?
Problem with botters isnt solved, and sont be unless PWE puts some serious though on the problem. Adding that to the amount of exploits that are only added to the game with each new "content". And devs arent even able to fix minor bugs like the 1st prayer still bugged, we still have to do it twice to even do it. Stamina draining enchants in pvp...hell even bugged out boons from campains (most of us do know about avalanche and how much dmg it can do if someone is using it). So what will be next? Removing another part of content cuz devs cant fix it?
That is all form me for now. Althrou im still a beliver the mod 8 will somehow save the game, seeing what is done here i really am worried that i get my hopes up for nothing.
It's important to notice that the game actually discourages you to have several characters. It takes too much grinding in campaigns and AD to bother for real. The only thing they're useful is the extra artifact.
It's true that you can get AD through dailies, but doing them all requires a lot of effort and time. If you're older than 20, you might not have it. And it's these people who have cash to support the game.
Also, as for Steam charts... God... players treat it as if it's some oracle how successful is the game. Bullears, it just shows you Steam connected players and completely ignores direct client. I know many players of different games who prefer direct client as Steam devours precious system resources to operate.