Marks of Potency Pricing Changes

reiwulf

If the want to get rid of bots they should remove the one unguarded skillnode on ghost stories so theres not 2000 instances of it. It blows my mind they havent done that simple change

kominatcha

urabask said:

marcopeace said:

I bought GMoPs before leadership chagens and due to 2x refinement event the costs of marks of power and unions were too high. For this reason criptyc steal to me about 750k AD!?!?!?

And I bought 25 GMoPs and 10 greater marks (6 of which were greater marks of union at 70k a piece) for 2x RP. Suck it up.

This. My new moto is "Free to play, free to leave". While I do want this game to succeed the amount of detestable brats in this game make it daunting to have fun sometimes. Good thing I learned "selective hearing" and now apply it to reading. >:)

fogtripper

vinceent1 said:

dsn1118 said:

rickcase276 said:

Yes, there is still no way for a strictly solo player to gain AD in a reasonable amount per day. The most guaranteed per day is only 3k AD through invoking, for those that play only solo. This is by far not enough at all.

This game based on Dungeons&Dragons which means you will need a group to run the content at some point unless you are 4k+ geared beast.I dont know why people keep expecting to earn something without group play in this game

i understand your point but seriously, whats left of DaD adventures?

This guy here has a point. Beyond some bit of character creation, what in the main part of daily play resembles what Gygax originally conceived as D&D? The developers really need to take a stap back and ask themselves what their game has to do with D&D and how they might get back on the path. Or do away with any and all pretenses of being a D&D game.

mark88arsitek

How about the cost to UPGRADE Companion??? LOL. this never touch!

reiwulf

If you ask me, DnD inspired game focused mainly in battle was a mistake since the beginning. But it's all we have XD

aratech

reiwulf said:

If the want to get rid of bots they should remove the one unguarded skillnode on ghost stories so theres not 2000 instances of it. It blows my mind they havent done that simple change

I'm not entirely sure that would work. Contrary to what some believe, bots can
be programmed to fight. I encountered a bot in PVP this morning that was capable of fighting.

tyria501

This is a nice step forward but my confidence in this company is still in the dirt and they have not addressed the AD sinks for boons and Stronghold. They have a long way to go before I am willing to give them anymore money and a minor placatory gesture has not loosened my grip on my wallet.

urabask

aratech said:

reiwulf said:

If the want to get rid of bots they should remove the one unguarded skillnode on ghost stories so theres not 2000 instances of it. It blows my mind they havent done that simple change

I'm not entirely sure that would work. Contrary to what some believe, bots can
be programmed to fight. I encountered a bot in PVP this morning that was capable of fighting.

They'd have to find another node to farm though. They don't have geared level 70 characters going to farm GS.

reiwulf

Maybe they can fight. But the clearly prefer not to, or they wouldnt be so many only at ghost stories

wolfbladeone2

This is what we call a Hell Mary and most times it dose not work.

dufisto

reiwulf said:

Maybe they can fight. But the clearly prefer not to, or they wouldnt be so many only at ghost stories

its a question of speed. if they can do it faster without fighting why fight. but there are bot groups running the HE lap in IWP as i type this. removing the unprotected nodes will slow them down. putting an instance entrance limiter will slow them down. slowing them down means less RP farmed.

torontodave

The more I reflect on these changes the more I think they're silly.

I dont have a leadership army.

I have rank 10s. I recently upgraded them during the last 2xRP ... It was one of the 'gates' separating scrubs from BIS

now everyone can catch up to me easily. I dont feel so awesome for passing the gate. =/ not to mention all the wasted AD (750k+ on GMOPs)

We asked for more ways to *GENERATE LEGIT AD* .. not one of the gates to be opened. =x

reiwulf

I think it's a good change, that way it's easier to get to rank 10 and upgrade artifacts to a decent level, and if you really want to get rank 12 and mythic (which aren't needed and just for showing off), you need to invest lots of AD

urabask

kalindra said:

darkstarcrash said:

sockmunkey said:

So, any ideas yet on how solo players can generate AD? The new prices are nice, but if a players generation rate is zero, any price is meaningless.

--Invoke daily = 3k AD, over 2 1/2 hours

--Run 2 normal 3-man dungeons (I like nToS) = 6k+AD (at least after AD is auto-looted to your bag), 15 minutes for 2 runs. (Edit: note that you don't need a key to get the AD, either now or after they fix it).

But, since it takes time to run those, for the length of way alone, plus finding / queuing a party, plus disconnecting and starting all over again, that you probably can't do it for more than one or two toons if you're a casual.

Wut. It takes like five seconds to get into a normal ToS run. If your toons are mid 60s it really shouldn't be hard to run most runs have an overgeared level 70 carrying everyone through it anyways.

aandrethegiant

zebular said:

So, for me, the reductions I am waiting for have yet to come; Which are massive Pricing reductions to Transmutation (AD), Companion Upgrades (AD), Mount Upgrades (AD), Costumes (Zen/AD), and Dyes (Zen).

I also am hoping to see more solo and alt-friendly ways to earn Astral Diamonds, such as Foundry Rewards (both player and designer), story-line mission rewards, and possibly even as character/account achievements. Foundry Authors and Players need to be earning AD too for their efforts and adventures.

This. I've been thinking since the AD mess, what a way to bring back the Foundry. The greatest scenario would be if they have a Foundry update in the bag that they can release with the new AD Foundry reward system.

To bring back the Foundry this way should have the added bonus of truly giving something the GUILDS can chew on together other then the same dang cycle.

equality00

Thank you, this did restore some faith and make made me decide to 'wait and see' what other changes are made.

I do agree with many that have stated already that there needs to be some other way to make AD other than just the current system. Not everyone runs Dungeons, PvP etc.

Simple fix would let missions once completed to offer some amount of AD/RAD. This is the only game I have ever played that doesn't give at least some amount of the games main currency for completing regular objectives.

I also feel the AD cap is a little low, 50K would be a lot better while also implementing AD/RAD from the mentioned way's above. It doesn't need to be 'HUGH' (in the voice of Donald Trump..hehe), anything would be better than nothing.

Thanks again!

psyb3rtr011

solerro said:

psyb3rtr011 said:

solerro said:

urabask said:

this is a lot more generous of a decrease in costs than I was expecting. Now they just need to work on Companion upgrade costs, armor kits, and Cube of Augmentation.

Depending on how they handle artifacts you could see a pretty generous decrease there too. At the very least getting your artifacts to epic is pretty damn easy.

^^

All this. Bag of chips optional.


Edit addition:

Agree with followup statement as well. If you have all rank 10 enchants, anything past that is utterly for bragging rights. If you have a gear score of 2.5k or higher, nothing should be giving you a seriously hard time with decent players.

What about us Solo gamers.... My main has a 2.7K Gear Score, and a Legendary Angel Companion (With a Base +37 of her States transferred to my Prime, up to +62% if I get Companions Gift to Activate) which are not counted in my GS. I still routinely get my butt handed to me in Dragon Well.

I would say your build isn't solo friendly then? That or you're playing a SW... in which case I sympathize.

I seem to solo fine on all my characters highest gear score on one is 2.5 and soloing is a cake walk, I sneeze and things die.

My other toons are between 2.1 and 2.3. Even on my damn SW, I get by with a combat medic, its slower and takes more work but I can still do it.

My main character is a Guardian Fighter, focused on Power, Critical Strike, Armor Penetration and Life Steal.

I can do most dailies, and a few Epics, but if you have ever played a GF, they are not mobile, and get easily surrounded.

However, in the Well of Dragons, Elemental Evil and Stronghold areas, I still find myself getting my HAMSTER handed to me in some Epics.

Such is life.

psyb3rtr011

ambisinisterr said:

I have to disagree with you there wylonus.

We've been sitting at max Zen Exchange for well over a year and far closer to two years. While the increase to professions didn't help Leadership has been a growing problem since day one.

And as I have tried to explain, the amount of AD entering the game due to leadership farms could not be combatted with reasonable AD sinks. They would have had to make everything cost so much AD that people who did not spend large amounts of time working on leadership have no chance of succeeding which really isn't right. Hence why they are making these changes with the intention of rewarding actual gameplay.

Leadership is not a new problem. It has been an ever growing problem.

Key word... GROWING! They could have nipped this in the bud early, and limited the number of Alts that could Craft, and resolved the issue.

psyb3rtr011

reiwulf said:

I think it's a good change, that way it's easier to get to rank 10 and upgrade artifacts to a decent level, and if you really want to get rank 12 and mythic (which aren't needed and just for showing off), you need to invest lots of AD

I know of a coupe uses where the 11 and 12 rank make a big differences. Any time something adds a better than 10% improvement for a step, it is valuable, and not just showing off....

elkysium

I still fail to see how all of you think it is a good thing.

Before i could make 7-15k AD a day per character now I'll be lucky enough to make 20k per day period with the time I have to play. Yep sounds like a real good move if you want to force your players to spend real money. I have been playing for 1 year and 1 month and still have nothing but greater weapon and armor enchants and rank 7s and 8s normal enchants. Why? Because I PLAY all 16 of my characters. I just don't have the time to play all of them every day. So why should my other characters suffer while I am playing one? This is what you have forced upon all of us...

You devs forget some of us have royally been ganked by cryptic already and you just keep adding to that ganking...

P.S. Before hand I could get 8k from PVP, now 4.8K...

There is literally no point in playing when you receive less than what you did before for doing the same thing...

urabask

kalindra said:

urabask said:

Wut. It takes like five seconds to get into a normal ToS run. If your toons are mid 60s it really shouldn't be hard to run most runs have an overgeared level 70 carrying everyone through it anyways.

More like some minutes for me...
...maybe they use the same logic as in the 5 peps dungeons and your chances are better as a DC or GF?

But you have to TRAVEL the dungeon from end to end, which takes about 10 minutes or so (depending on the run speed of the slowest party member), even if you don't disconnect on the way and have to do in again - it seems to me like the additional bots in game and the remaining players forced to run theses old boring dungeons put more load on server and connectivity than the general loss of customers compensates and so we see more lags, rubberbands, unresponsive servers and disconnects than before.

And in the end, you almost never get you full amount of AD but some small change between 1k-2k and sometimes even just some few hundreds.
So, maybe we can do 4 or even 6 of those runs per hour, but to get even close to the daily cap of a single char, you are grinding ancient content for over an hour; that means a casual is unable to support more than two or three toons, less if
he want's to do some additional fun stuff besides grinding.

I play a CW and have no problems with queue times. There are a few parts you can skip by jumping that make it take a bit less time. I haven't disconnect aside from when the servers were getting DDoS'd. You should be running it more than two times anyways. Once they fix the AD problems it's not even something you grind. It's basically like running a dread ring lair.

psyb3rtr011 said:

Key word... GROWING! They could have nipped this in the bud early, and limited the number of Alts that could Craft, and resolved the issue.

Limiting the number of alts that could do it would have had no effect because botters would just use more accounts.

galaux

I think the cost of some of the crafted items should come down - such as the armor reinforcements. They cost way too much AD to make, particularly now that Leadership gives nearly no AD.

lairdbanshee

goatshark said:

As a reminder, we are currently investigating AD sources for players who don't want to run queued content.

Well, well, this statement and the (G)MoP reductions are a pleasant surprise. I thought those who still play had to wait for Underdark for any reasonable balancing after ADmageddon.
This is also only one little first step in a marathon. If you care to rekindle a playerbase you have a ton of work to do.

As a mostly-solo player, with limited time, I want to see these things:
A) either major relaxation of AD-necessity in growing a toon's stats, or a multitude of ways to generate the ADs necessary. Don't really care how you do it, as long as it takes about as long to reach end-game as it was in Mod2.
B ) Bring back the content that made us work hard. All the old dungeons we remember from Mod2.
C) I'd rather solo, but I didn't mind dungeoning If It Allowed Me To Generate A Toon's Living. Dredging dungeons for a spare Epic to sell on the AH once was a reason for being. Bring that back, please.
D) ADs for quests. Make special quests with randomized dungeon blueprints. Make randomized tricks that only humans can perform to get to the endchest. It is possible. Do it.
E) Fix The Damned Bugs. 'nuff said.
F) Make The Foundry The Keystone Of This Game. This is what brought me into the game in the first place, and then I laughed when I saw how constricted it was, and afterwards how it was never improved, and again after its rewards nerfed into uselessness. Worried about the farming Foundries? You should be. Then implement something like a (blueprint_area / spawn) formula. Too many spawns in too small a space and that Foundry suddenly does not generate ADs. You can make this work.
G) Tell a good quest story. That's what Gary envisioned D&D was all about. Although, most of the kids here would've hated his RL games: too much roleplaying and too many insta-deaths. But I digress, more quests like the early Spellplague series with the Linkletters would help.
H) Fix The Damned Bugs.

Oddly enough, my wife had the poor luck to start a toon right before ADmageddon. She wanted to help our small guild. Boy, is she screwed. Our guild is pretty much bare now, and she will have no way to come close to the ADs my three toons have amassed. I'm curious when she's gonna finally break 10k ADs, never mind her first million.

And then I realized new players like her are what Cryptic is banking on for the survival of the game. She has no idea how neat this game Used to be. She has no Leadership army, so she has no idea what's been lost recently, never mind how relatively few XP was needed to hit 60-70, never mind how Long Some Bugs Have Lasted. So people like her are the lone future hope unless you make the oldtimer's happy.

Then again, I really didn't think I'd see developments like this, this soon. So there's reason to visit these forums still, for me anyways. Maybe you will set things right here.

Btw: Scott, thanks for blanking your previous avatar. That, too, was a positive step. Whether you intended it or not, the former gave us an alleged perception into your soul. Just like this blanking did.

nightstalkor

tripsofthrymr said:

psyb3rtr011 said:

Profittted? Did you Price Men-At-Arms, Adventurers, & Hero's?

Yes, I created a return-on-investment spreadsheet actually. All the heroes and adventurers I have were purchased when adventurers were around 40K. All of my other toons (I have 15) use Footmen, because the time to recoop the cost of any other asset was nearly a year, if you don't have downtime running tasks (which means illegal botting). If you are a normal player that just sets your leadership tasks once a day, it would take even longer.

Anyone that purchased green or greater assets in the last 12 months or so is double-shafted by this change. You will now never, ever, ever earn back that investment. Something that all the people without leadership tend to completely ignore when calling us "whiners."

People should try to put themselves in other people's shoes before passing judgement

Oh so true... That's what makes anyone whining about losing AD's on GMoP's so dang funny. It's like the Darwin awards... Anyone that was foolish enough to buy GMoP's after the AD nerf deserves what they get.

For instance, I am one of those that has purchased a FEW Adventurers since Mod 6. Each one running at about 170k AD. And now, as you say, totally devalued and incapable of recouping my initial investment. My sympathy for recent GMoP buyers is thusly strangely non-existent.

My advice to all and sundry is to hold on to what you got for the next month or two until the dust settles. If you do otherwise, please don't come on these forums and gripe when NW devs perform further changes to the economy and it bites you... you know where.

unabletodisplay

I think this is a very positive move
If you have GMoP and are so lucky as to have a R11, upgrade that before the change to avoid a big loss in value of the GMoPs!

After the changes, 0.96GMoP per day with 24k refined is pretty darn good, should allow much better progress on artifacts for alts!

Hope you guys have plans for the purple marks as well (union/power/stability)!

torontodave

reiwulf said:

If the want to get rid of bots they should remove the one unguarded skillnode on ghost stories so theres not 2000 instances of it. It blows my mind they havent done that simple change

QFT

torontodave

aandrethegiant said:

zebular said:

So, for me, the reductions I am waiting for have yet to come; Which are massive Pricing reductions to Transmutation (AD), Companion Upgrades (AD), Mount Upgrades (AD), Costumes (Zen/AD), and Dyes (Zen).

I also am hoping to see more solo and alt-friendly ways to earn Astral Diamonds, such as Foundry Rewards (both player and designer), story-line mission rewards, and possibly even as character/account achievements. Foundry Authors and Players need to be earning AD too for their efforts and adventures.

This. I've been thinking since the AD mess, what a way to bring back the Foundry. The greatest scenario would be if they have a Foundry update in the bag that they can release with the new AD Foundry reward system.

To bring back the Foundry this way should have the added bonus of truly giving something the GUILDS can chew on together other then the same dang cycle.

yep. I'd love it if the foundry would drop dark fey vouchers/randomized vouchers.

Or in the next Stronghold Expansion they could add a foundry-earned currency required for upgrades.

theycallmetomu

I want a foundry quest punch card. For every 5 or 10 distinct foundry quests that qualify, I get a free TEN BILLION ASTRAL DIAMONDS!!!!!!!

Or, you know, Stronghold vouchers or GMOPs or whatever. The idea is to encourage diversity, not repeatedly grinding the same thing over and over.

The reason I never ran foundry dailies back when the daily quest was a thing was that the return on time invested was just gawdful.

aandrethegiant

Here's an idea to give the Foundry a popularity boost overnight.

How about a Foundry CRAFTING system similar to Greensteeel crafting in DDO? Find ingredients (somewhat rare % drop) in order to build/craft loot. Small Medium and Large ingredients would be for early, mid and end game quality gear, respectively. You could choose make weapons or wearable items with all kinds of stats.

Now there's a reason to run ANY AND ALL Foundry content!

soltasword

torontodave said:

reiwulf said:

If the want to get rid of bots they should remove the one unguarded skillnode on ghost stories so theres not 2000 instances of it. It blows my mind they havent done that simple change

I think bots are the only thing keeping the game going really. Think about it. There is no way you ( casual/solo players ) could play the game enough to get the amount of resources needed to upgrade your artifacts especially if you don't have hours a day to play. The drops are just not enough. But the bots have stacks upon stacks of cheap rp stuff that everyone needs. People buy zen to convert to ad to buy what the bots are selling. Especially now that there is no ad from leadership and no real way to get it in game at this time. Put 2 and 2 together and it kinda makes you think a little. As it stands now, those bots just might be making Cryptic money so why get rid of them.