that 'ad change' thread is just too fast... putting highlight ideas here, maybe someone will agree or show me where it's wrong...
1. Drastic cut of prices on WB, like 10k gmop instead of 100k etc. Other posts (buried in that other thread) show that the cost to progress is like thousands of dollars or years of time after this LS axe. (not even considering the recent addition of strongholds and it's ad-requirement... wow) 2. I liked the 1-70 AD-reward amp idea. 1-60 is best part of game, leverage that. Soften that 60-70 quest grind by giving LOTS of AD per quest. Then players hitting 70 will have some money to spend (customers for producers) 3. Stop all this BoP stuff and make items BoE, giving 70+ peeps something to sell.
Economy requires TWO things, sellers and buyers. Cutting the buyers revenue (LS-change) will eventually hit producers hard, and there will be no economy to even talk about. As for the rp-refine-game, the prices are just TOO HIGH, and it's Cryptic setting those prices indirectly through the WB. (OR give peeps more AD thru the grinding, but then personally, like i said in other thread, this makes no sense, because cryptic wants to remove the huge AD people are sitting on, not give them another 'bottable' method of building even more AD).
IMO you're missing the main point. They don't want you to get ADs at all. ADs are a way to enhance fast your toon without spending $$$.
They are forcing you to spend real $$ on this game and if you don't, you have to grind ADs for years.
You will not get any improvement.
It's not difficult to understand...all the decisions taken in the last 6 months go in this direction.
Petitions, complains and forum posts will not change anything.
You have just 1 chance: hit them where it hurts....keep on playing without spending any $. If all players do it, things may change at the next PWE financial report. But i don't think it will happen...
Sadly, I think you may be right. They will be shocked to learn their player base has evaporated because this "free to play" game has in fact become practically impossible to play for free. Even more tragically, it's entirely plausible that, upon discovering this, they will fire the staff which made this change, but then hire people who will take this many miles further.
If you want robofarming, go play farmville or something.
The issue with Crytic is that they promise a lot of things and 1. we are stull waiting for them (olds dunj, for example) 2. when they arrive, it's full of bugs or less beautifull than it was said
The issue with Crytic is that they promise a lot of things and 1. we are stull waiting for them (olds dunj, for example) 2. when they arrive, it's full of bugs or less beautifull than it was said
So, i'm out of patience
I am not, but they need to buff up these pathetic rewards before I can stand coming back. I left Star Trek Online because of the grindfest, (and a myriad of other reasons, but this one is the most relevant to the discussion) But, it followed me. The least they can do is make the grind worth the time.
If you want robofarming, go play farmville or something.
Pretty much agree with you on this. What bothers me the most is the complete and utter lack of quality in these game changing updates. They take a swift ax to the problem but the much needed salves and bandages aren't applied for an arbitrary number of weeks while the player base suffers.
Honestly, I don't see the comparison between daily rewards and leadership; one is active, the other is passive. One involves making an effort to go out and actually do stuff, the other involves clicking a few buttons and moving on.
You literally make my point for me. I'll not explain further, because anyone edified with deductive reasoning does not need it.
//Be careful what you ask for. To your dismay you might actually get it.
It's like the old joke about the guy who got one wish from a Genie, and he wished that his HAMSTER touched the floor... so the Genie removed his legs. Instead, of course, of simply lengthening his member.
While *technically* the results are the same, it's certainly not in the spirit of what was wanted/needed.
I see a lot of similarities with what's going on in my beloved game.
Taking all other things out of the equation, including the hamfisted way in which they removed AD from Leadership, the bottom line is AD should never have existed in the first place.
Every other game I've played, both subscription and F2P, has had one primary currency which you can earn through all aspects of play - mob farming, quests, daily quests, dungeons, crafting and trading, etc.
This let's players choose how they play the game, and how much time they spend playing. The more you play, the more you earn... which is basically what Cryptic want, right?
Convert all existing AD to gold and remove the pointless cap. If botting is a problem, do what all other MMO companies do, and tackle them head on with detection systems for automated behaviour, and aggressive policing based on player reporting.
I honestly think that doing this, along with a reasonable replacement for Leadership, is the only way they're going to salavage anything from this current mess.
Taking all other things out of the equation, including the hamfisted way in which they removed AD from Leadership, the bottom line is AD should never have existed in the first place.
Every other game I've played, both subscription and F2P, has had one primary currency which you can earn through all aspects of play - mob farming, quests, daily quests, dungeons, crafting and trading, etc.
This let's players choose how they play the game, and how much time they spend playing. The more you play, the more you earn... which is basically what Cryptic want, right?
Convert all existing AD to gold and remove the pointless cap. If botting is a problem, do what all other MMO companies do, and tackle them head on with detection systems for automated behaviour, and aggressive policing based on player reporting.
I honestly think that doing this, along with a reasonable replacement for Leadership, is the only way they're going to salavage anything from this current mess.
Pretty much Occam's razor. Either replace existing coinage with AD or vice versa.
//Be careful what you ask for. To your dismay you might actually get it.
It's like the old joke about the guy who got one wish from a Genie, and he wished that his HAMSTER touched the floor... so the Genie removed his legs. Instead, of course, of simply lengthening his member.
While *technically* the results are the same, it's certainly not in the spirit of what was wanted/needed.
I see a lot of similarities with what's going on in my beloved game.
Funny as it is: it's probably best analogy on situation I've seen so far XD
Instead of much needed additions and changes which many had wished for for economy: it got precious fragment of it butchered with a blunt axe without filling large empty space left afterwards with nothing but a thin air.
"You stand as inspiration. You are practically the Avatar of Buttkicking." -Quote towards Minsc "I choose You Jymaru!" ~for there are times when more than words need to do the talk
My guild chief is helping me see this whole thing in a different light; it's a shift in economic models from a strong allotment-based (rAD) system - which he says you're pretty much a sucker if you lean on that - to a player-exchange economy - sort of like moving from welfare to the stock exchange. It is a bit of a shock for people like me, but it has potential if you know what you're doing. That said, it's not what they're telling us it is.
If you want robofarming, go play farmville or something.
My guild chief is helping me see this whole thing in a different light; it's a shift in economic models from a strong allotment-based (rAD) system - which he says you're pretty much a sucker if you lean on that - to a player-exchange economy - sort of like moving from welfare to the stock exchange. It is a bit of a shock for people like me, but it has potential if you know what you're doing. That said, it's not what they're telling us it is.
So basically we're moving into barter? That's... befitting. I mean: all countries at massive financial crisis or at prolonged war and famine did move into barter at some point. Possible scenario I must admit. Your boss is rather interesting fellow to point that out.
"You stand as inspiration. You are practically the Avatar of Buttkicking." -Quote towards Minsc "I choose You Jymaru!" ~for there are times when more than words need to do the talk
Honestly, I don't see the comparison between daily rewards and leadership; one is active, the other is passive. One involves making an effort to go out and actually do stuff, the other involves clicking a few buttons and moving on.
You literally make my point for me. I'll not explain further, because anyone edified with deductive reasoning does not need it.
All of this guy's recent posts is about "careful what you wish for" or "you wanted leadership farming gone? well, all of the other changes that you are complaining about is because you wanted leadership farming gone, so LOL." He's just a leadership farmer who's very bitter. He's not going to explain anything because he's got nothing.
1 run is essentially 3-4k AD and it takes 15 minutes on a alt, less on a main.
You get the same AD from running a normal CC as ECC so I always run CC to when generating ADs. I can do it in 8 minutes on my main 2.5k GWF, I can just about one shot everying, the guys I drag through never really fight. I can do it in 15 minutes easy with my 60 CW and 63 GF. My 56 HR takes 20 minutes if someone doesn't drag him through.
+1 this ^
I did not realize this. I basically just soloed a normal CC on one of my characters in 5 minutes and got close to 4K RAD. This could be a way to replace the leadership AD. It might take a little longer than professions, but it's still a good source of AD for solo players.
Thanks you very much jcharais01 for pointing this out. Of course this will probably be nerfed soon so...
I am of the opinion that the dailies need to be returned AND Lord Neverember's Dailies as well.
I also asked about the Lord Protector quests in the AD changes thread. If the new trajectory is to reward AD for playing (which I think is fundamentally BS and it's all about zen sales), why were they removed, or, why were they not reinstated with this new strategy? Why re-invent the wheel? Why force running the same old, years-old, skirmishes and dungeons, more, and more often? Is it buy zen or arthritis medication?
Completely, 100% ignoring leadership, the new AD system is garbage. The events worked, the lord protector quests worked. The events drove people to the content temporarily, so queue times would drop. It helped to ease the pain to know you have to dredge over the same HAMSTER, but only for an hour, and be done with it. Now there are no options left. The statement about worrying if people missed events is insulting transparent.
The new fixes broke more then they fixed and fixed nothing. We have to hunt down microscopic partials on the floor to get needed currency. The VIP pack just lost a good chunk of it's value and seared buyer confidence with a blow-torch.
AD should be connected to daily quests. Something, anything, other then skirms and dungeons. How much soul sucking PUGS runs can you take with people picking up greens from the ground while the mobs bash you to death, people not moving because they queued and went AFK. People that go in with the idea of remaining AFK because they're burned out with running the same thing for 8 hours before you logged in. People with bare-bones-minimun gear scores trying to face-tank T1s/2s with a dps class and blaming the support memebers (DC/Tank). Clerics/OPs dropping laggy-azz skills in a zone where no one has a chance to die in. People that think getting parties killed is funny. Just etc etc etc...
There's just one conclusion: there is nothing valuable left. The requests from the players base are sistenatically ignored. They are not even able to implement correctly what they promise (see AD drop in SK) and they "forgot" to fix it today. I'm not pvp: the sh siege is nothing valuable for me: it's too long, dispersive. Maybe pvp players like it, idk... The enclave is empty: yesterday evening in Europe there were just 3 lfg. The zen market is very poor: there's no value for money. Very bad
Oltreverso guild leader Maga Othelma - DC | Svalvolo - SW | Dente Avvelenato- GWF
What i will say is that there are several types of gamers and Cryptic needs to address them all and make sure it's fun for all types and that the rewards are available for each style gamer (PVP/PVE/Crafter)
PVP: The rewards should be done in a way that does not reward AFKing and be tied directly to actions in the matches.
PVE: There needs to be some things that drop that players hope they can grind for and sell. Whether refining stones or rare blues etc.... I dont have the answers to that. The rewards shouldnt be repeat grindfests of the same content. Perhaps quests/dailies can offer a meager AD reward. I hate doing PUGs myself and prefer to game with my friends because you are far more likely to finish a dungeon with friends. I wish the rewards were more in line with the costs of items see STATIC PRICES below....
Crafting: The entire system needs an overhaul across the board. None of them really seem like they are rewarding as is. I'm no expert and only focused on the obvious that I won't bring up here.
STATIC PRICES: They are too high. If you want the economy to fall in balance with lower AD generation then you also need to lower the cost of GMOPs/Appearance changes (GOLD MAYBE?)/Companion Upgrades etc etc....
I hope this is in the light of what the OP was after for this thread.
1 run is essentially 3-4k AD and it takes 15 minutes on a alt, less on a main.
You get the same AD from running a normal CC as ECC so I always run CC to when generating ADs. I can do it in 8 minutes on my main 2.5k GWF, I can just about one shot everying, the guys I drag through never really fight. I can do it in 15 minutes easy with my 60 CW and 63 GF. My 56 HR takes 20 minutes if someone doesn't drag him through.
+1 this ^
I did not realize this. I basically just soloed a normal CC on one of my characters in 5 minutes and got close to 4K RAD. This could be a way to replace the leadership AD. It might take a little longer than professions, but it's still a good source of AD for solo players.
Thanks you very much jcharais01 for pointing this out. Of course this will probably be nerfed soon so...
I would suggest 2 things restore daily and hourly quest back to way they were and these simple changes
Restore dungeon hr give 3k ad in chest and 3k ad from completion total 6 k AD PVP 1k AD per match complete 4 matches quest get bonus 4k ad total 8k ad max daily. Then get seal of triumph and 4k ad for win of PVP like before.
Restore skirmish hr give 1500 AD per skirmish for 4500ad max and 4500 AD bonus for completion
this would give over achievers a daily Ad rough AD of 27k ad 3 over max refine any way but just doing as before change still 20k AD
restore ad to leadership with changes 1st 1 leadership per class with max per account 5 classes (Each Must be a diferent Clas IE HR<CW<GF<GWF<TR)other words max 5 leadership setups per account this way all players can play the character class they want and have AD to grow each.
2ndTo fix ad Bot solution and have players in game. 1 character from Account must complete any combo of the above IE 1 dungeon run and reward and 4 PVP matches and reward or 1 dungeon and reward and run 3 skirmishes and get reward this will generate reward of total of leadership for account coffer not player assigned
you must remember to do 2 of 3 dailies a day to collect 5 tunes of leadership @around 18k ad per tune generates 18k ad x4 +24k equals a total income max @ 96 k AD max but you will see far less going out in AD due to not all have that many classes any way. LAST also would have the ability to do leadership on Gateway for us who work
No one legit should have a problem with this it solves issue of grinding complaining. Issue of I can play just one toon a day and support all my others.
I am sorry for those who played by the rules of PW and lost the leadership but we needed something to fix the leadership Issue. This will help the economy and give solo players a hand also I play solo and might level a 2nd toon if thes changes were in place and I would defiantly spend money to give it a good kick start in game to keep from grinding 70 levels
The leadership nerf was needed and there are a myriad of other issues to discuss.
The people who are prattling on ad infinitum about the axed leadership diamonds want to get a whole lot of something for a whole lot of nothing, TBH IMHO. The end. The [admittedly dubious] stated intent was to reward players for time played; opening a window, clicking a handful of buttons and moving on hardly qualifies as RPG gaming, and is way too simple to script a bot for. It's a bot honeypot, plain and simple. Move on and roleplay. If you want robofarming, go play farmville or something.
ARE WE PERFECTLY CLEAR?
If you want robofarming, go play farmville or something.
ARE WE PERFECTLY CLEAR?
Rage against the zeitgeist.
0
theycallmetomuMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,861Arc User
Right. The focus needs to be on "so how ELSE do we get AD, and are the fixed prices set at a reasonable level"
Along with dealing with the issue of the haves and the have nots, as some players have millions of AD sitting in their accounts whereas others have zero because they burned it all on double RP weekend.
The leadership nerf was needed and there are a myriad of other issues to discuss.
The people who are prattling on ad infinitum about the axed leadership diamonds want to get a whole lot of something for a whole lot of nothing, TBH IMHO. The end. The [admittedly dubious] stated intent was to reward players for time played; opening a window, clicking a handful of buttons and moving on hardly qualifies as RPG gaming, and is way too simple to script a bot for. It's a bot honeypot, plain and simple. Move on and roleplay. If you want robofarming, go play farmville or something.
ARE WE PERFECTLY CLEAR?
TBH IMHO you sound like a bitter player that missed using leadership yourself. The problem was not AD in leadership, the problem was and is, that doing the dungeons / skirmishes is still not rewarding and is a dull grindfest. Playing leadership or the AH is no less legit than running a dungeon, and the AH is just as much click a few buttons and moving on as LS was.
There should have been an account wide rAD cap that just lets people earn the AD anyway they choose up to the cap. The account wide cap should be meaningful as well 24k AD / day is a joke, it should be 100k /day / account.
TBH IMHO you sound like a bitter player that missed using leadership yourself. The problem was not AD in leadership, the problem was and is, that doing the dungeons / skirmishes is still not rewarding and is a dull grindfest.Playing leadership or the AH is no less legit than running a dungeon, and the AH is just as much click a few buttons and moving on as LS was.
On bitterness; take care not to presume you know what is in another man's heart. A low and petty blow, the surest route to animosity.
On the boldfaced point, I could not agree more - that has been my point from the beginning. On the underlined I could not agree less. Read my lips …
>SIGH<
Just read my posts again. I will not escalate upon your comment further.
If you want robofarming, go play farmville or something.
ARE WE PERFECTLY CLEAR?
Rage against the zeitgeist.
0
theycallmetomuMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,861Arc User
An account wide RAD refining cap would have done two things:
1.) It would have strongly discouraged leadership armies, due to diminishing returns 2.) It would have made gearing alts more difficult.
I'm of the opinion that one character's existence shouldn't make it easier for another character to beef up, unless the first character is of high level beefiness and it's simply helping a player to make their second character "as good." EG, once you've beefed up your first character, your second character should be easier to beef up.
Well, the other thing is that an account wide refining cap wouldn't help stop people who have a multitude of accounts and trade AD back and forth between them, but that's against the game's rules anyway, so you just need to catch those people.
… wouldn't help stop people who have a multitude of accounts and trade AD back and forth between them, but that's against the game's rules anyway…
I'll have to remember that. Someone told me that was a good idea in STO, but if it's against the rules, I'd better stop. I wouldn't say I have multitudes, though.
If you want robofarming, go play farmville or something.
ARE WE PERFECTLY CLEAR?
Rage against the zeitgeist.
0
theycallmetomuMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,861Arc User
My understanding is that you're allowed a maximum of two, but basically, if you ever transfer millions of AD from one account to another, expect to get banned.
Comments
1. Drastic cut of prices on WB, like 10k gmop instead of 100k etc. Other posts (buried in that other thread) show that the cost to progress is like thousands of dollars or years of time after this LS axe. (not even considering the recent addition of strongholds and it's ad-requirement... wow)
2. I liked the 1-70 AD-reward amp idea. 1-60 is best part of game, leverage that. Soften that 60-70 quest grind by giving LOTS of AD per quest. Then players hitting 70 will have some money to spend (customers for producers)
3. Stop all this BoP stuff and make items BoE, giving 70+ peeps something to sell.
Economy requires TWO things, sellers and buyers. Cutting the buyers revenue (LS-change) will eventually hit producers hard, and there will be no economy to even talk about. As for the rp-refine-game, the prices are just TOO HIGH, and it's Cryptic setting those prices indirectly through the WB. (OR give peeps more AD thru the grinding, but then personally, like i said in other thread, this makes no sense, because cryptic wants to remove the huge AD people are sitting on, not give them another 'bottable' method of building even more AD).
Rage against the zeitgeist.
1. we are stull waiting for them (olds dunj, for example)
2. when they arrive, it's full of bugs or less beautifull than it was said
So, i'm out of patience
Rage against the zeitgeist.
Rage against the zeitgeist.
I'll not explain further, because anyone edified with deductive reasoning does not need it.
Every other game I've played, both subscription and F2P, has had one primary currency which you can earn through all aspects of play - mob farming, quests, daily quests, dungeons, crafting and trading, etc.
This let's players choose how they play the game, and how much time they spend playing. The more you play, the more you earn... which is basically what Cryptic want, right?
Convert all existing AD to gold and remove the pointless cap. If botting is a problem, do what all other MMO companies do, and tackle them head on with detection systems for automated behaviour, and aggressive policing based on player reporting.
I honestly think that doing this, along with a reasonable replacement for Leadership, is the only way they're going to salavage anything from this current mess.
Instead of much needed additions and changes which many had wished for for economy: it got precious fragment of it butchered with a blunt axe without filling large empty space left afterwards with nothing but a thin air.
WELCOME TO MY ART CORNER!
"I choose You Jymaru!" ~for there are times when more than words need to do the talk
Rage against the zeitgeist.
WELCOME TO MY ART CORNER!
"I choose You Jymaru!" ~for there are times when more than words need to do the talk
Rage against the zeitgeist.
Completely, 100% ignoring leadership, the new AD system is garbage.
The events worked, the lord protector quests worked. The events drove people to the content temporarily, so queue times would drop. It helped to ease the pain to know you have to dredge over the same HAMSTER, but only for an hour, and be done with it. Now there are no options left. The statement about worrying if people missed events is insulting transparent.
The new fixes broke more then they fixed and fixed nothing. We have to hunt down microscopic partials on the floor to get needed currency. The VIP pack just lost a good chunk of it's value and seared buyer confidence with a blow-torch.
AD should be connected to daily quests. Something, anything, other then skirms and dungeons. How much soul sucking PUGS runs can you take with people picking up greens from the ground while the mobs bash you to death, people not moving because they queued and went AFK. People that go in with the idea of remaining AFK because they're burned out with running the same thing for 8 hours before you logged in. People with bare-bones-minimun gear scores trying to face-tank T1s/2s with a dps class and blaming the support memebers (DC/Tank). Clerics/OPs dropping laggy-azz skills in a zone where no one has a chance to die in. People that think getting parties killed is funny. Just etc etc etc...
I'm not pvp: the sh siege is nothing valuable for me: it's too long, dispersive. Maybe pvp players like it, idk...
The enclave is empty: yesterday evening in Europe there were just 3 lfg.
The zen market is very poor: there's no value for money.
Very bad
Oltreverso guild leader
Maga Othelma - DC | Svalvolo - SW | Dente Avvelenato- GWF
What i will say is that there are several types of gamers and Cryptic needs to address them all and make sure it's fun for all types and that the rewards are available for each style gamer (PVP/PVE/Crafter)
PVP:
The rewards should be done in a way that does not reward AFKing and be tied directly to actions in the matches.
PVE:
There needs to be some things that drop that players hope they can grind for and sell. Whether refining stones or rare blues etc.... I dont have the answers to that. The rewards shouldnt be repeat grindfests of the same content. Perhaps quests/dailies can offer a meager AD reward. I hate doing PUGs myself and prefer to game with my friends because you are far more likely to finish a dungeon with friends. I wish the rewards were more in line with the costs of items see STATIC PRICES below....
Crafting:
The entire system needs an overhaul across the board. None of them really seem like they are rewarding as is. I'm no expert and only focused on the obvious that I won't bring up here.
STATIC PRICES:
They are too high. If you want the economy to fall in balance with lower AD generation then you also need to lower the cost of GMOPs/Appearance changes (GOLD MAYBE?)/Companion Upgrades etc etc....
I hope this is in the light of what the OP was after for this thread.
Restore dungeon hr give 3k ad in chest and 3k ad from completion total 6 k AD
PVP 1k AD per match complete 4 matches quest get bonus 4k ad total 8k ad max daily. Then get seal of triumph and 4k ad for win of PVP like before.
Restore skirmish hr give 1500 AD per skirmish for 4500ad max and 4500 AD bonus for completion
this would give over achievers a daily Ad rough AD of 27k ad 3 over max refine any way
but just doing as before change still 20k AD
restore ad to leadership with changes
1st 1 leadership per class with max per account 5 classes (Each Must be a diferent Clas IE HR<CW<GF<GWF<TR)other words max 5 leadership setups per account this way all players can play the character class they want and have AD to grow each.
2ndTo fix ad Bot solution and have players in game. 1 character from Account must complete any combo of the above IE 1 dungeon run and reward and 4 PVP matches and reward or 1 dungeon and reward and run 3 skirmishes and get reward this will generate reward of total of leadership for account coffer not player assigned
you must remember to do 2 of 3 dailies a day to collect 5 tunes of leadership @around 18k ad per tune generates 18k ad x4 +24k equals a total income max @ 96 k AD max but you will see far less going out in AD due to not all have that many classes any way. LAST also would have the ability to do leadership on Gateway for us who work
No one legit should have a problem with this it solves issue of grinding complaining. Issue of I can play just one toon a day and support all my others.
I am sorry for those who played by the rules of PW and lost the leadership but we needed something to fix the leadership Issue. This will help the economy and give solo players a hand also I play solo and might level a 2nd toon if thes changes were in place and I would defiantly spend money to give it a good kick start in game to keep from grinding 70 levels
The leadership nerf was needed and there are a myriad of other issues to discuss.
The people who are prattling on ad infinitum about the axed leadership diamonds want to get a whole lot of something for a whole lot of nothing, TBH IMHO. The end. The [admittedly dubious] stated intent was to reward players for time played; opening a window, clicking a handful of buttons and moving on hardly qualifies as RPG gaming, and is way too simple to script a bot for. It's a bot honeypot, plain and simple. Move on and roleplay. If you want robofarming, go play farmville or something.ARE WE PERFECTLY CLEAR?
Rage against the zeitgeist.
Along with dealing with the issue of the haves and the have nots, as some players have millions of AD sitting in their accounts whereas others have zero because they burned it all on double RP weekend.
Rage against the zeitgeist.
There should have been an account wide rAD cap that just lets people earn the AD anyway they choose up to the cap. The account wide cap should be meaningful as well 24k AD / day is a joke, it should be 100k /day / account.
On the boldfaced point, I could not agree more - that has been my point from the beginning. On the underlined I could not agree less. Read my lips …
>SIGH<
Just read my posts again. I will not escalate upon your comment further.
Rage against the zeitgeist.
1.) It would have strongly discouraged leadership armies, due to diminishing returns
2.) It would have made gearing alts more difficult.
I'm of the opinion that one character's existence shouldn't make it easier for another character to beef up, unless the first character is of high level beefiness and it's simply helping a player to make their second character "as good." EG, once you've beefed up your first character, your second character should be easier to beef up.
Well, the other thing is that an account wide refining cap wouldn't help stop people who have a multitude of accounts and trade AD back and forth between them, but that's against the game's rules anyway, so you just need to catch those people.
Rage against the zeitgeist.