Suggestion: Account-wide Campaign Progression

klangeddin

As the title says.
I have to say that doing all campaigns back from scratch with alts makes me feel like vomiting.
I can't even begin to describe how happy I would be if the character with the best progression counted for all characters of the same account.
Dailies and Weeklies (related to campaigns) would be tied to account as well and rewards changed from BoP to BoA.
Campaign currency would all be put in a single pool valid for all account as well of course.

With the recent leadership changes and reduced AD yieldings I feel it would also be fair to make the AD sinks less painful overall.

dufisto

then they couldnt charge you 50 bux per char for not having to do it a second time, or 3rd or 4th.

ironzerg79

I think changing the Campaign Unlocks to be account wide would be nice.

banaanc

i have suggested this before, this would be really nice + paying 50$ to unlock campaign for account would seem much better

ps. nice that we finally have a mod from forum users

drkbodhi

I actually like unlocking them as a progression. I find it interesting that my GWF has progressed through Shar and ToD faster than my TR main. My CW has taken a back-burner for a while at least, until I can get my GWF up to WoD and IWD. I am plowing through the last of IWD with my Main right now... and I am realizing the need for the progression.
When I was 60 everything opened up around the same time and it was almost too much to do... buy farming each zone. I like the change to being gated by level and ability.​​

santralafax

ironzerg79 said:

I think changing the Campaign Unlocks to be account wide would be nice.

They shoul just do it (I say, in the middle of campaigns, with a new main.) My GF already did the content fresh, dailies are driving me nuts this time around.

pando83

Yes please.
I want this ASAP.

Current system (re-farm ALL CAMPAIGNS ON EVERY ALT) makes no sense at all.

then they couldnt charge you 50 bux per char for not having to do it a second time, or 3rd or 4th.

No sane person would buy a 5000 zen item for each campaign on every alt toon. Seriously. Except ultra-rish exploiters or some real life rich guy, it's insane to even think someone would pay 50 USDx4 campaigns =200 USD for each alt toon they create.

You would sell more of these items if campaign progression was account wide. This way some guy/ new player would probably pay 50-100-150-200 USD that one time to skip the farming and get all the boons fast.

It would benefit both players and the purchase of the campaign-unlock, zen store items.

theycallmetomu

Count me as one of the people who thinks that it's ridiculous that each alt needs to run through the campaigns again, and that's as someone who doesn't use any alts!

santralafax

magenubbie said:

It would be nice for the player I suppose. On the other hand, there's enough clueless players out there who gear a new alt character at 70 and expect to beat Tiamat for example. In general, I'd say that people can use the practice doing the campaigns, especially IWD. It makes them better players.

I can see your point. I first went through them all with a GF. I wouldn't think it would be that different as a GWF--and it is! And I can say a character is much stronger after getting the boons than running without. A new 70 is not nearly as strong as a seasoned one.

However, I'm tired of the AD sinks in the game following the great nerfing of the economy--and the boons added up are a huge one. I am for account-wide Campaign completion.

oldbaldyone

No reason they couldn't ease the requirements at least for alts. You learn the class during the campaigns, yes, but the classes are not SO different that running the campaigns are going to teach you that much more than the 1-70 grind will.

If it takes 30 days to get through DR the first time, perhaps it could take 15 the second? Call it a gift of appreciation from a distant friend like with the artifacts. Lower the reqs so the same quantities progress you twice as far and be done with it.

I'm just thinking that new player, starts fresh today. They have at least 3 months of dailies and grinding to catch up - most players won't want to do that and will just move on.

klangeddin

I really don't buy the whole "you learn the class during campaigns" argument.

Most of campaign content is solo and it's not really that different from 61-70 content (enemies hit a bit harder and have more HP, but that's it), and the campaigns are not required for each other. i.e. you don't need a good chunk of progression in Icewind Dale to do Well of Dragons and Tiamat.
Even if there are portions you can't solo well in IWD or WoD you can still easily duo them with any random pick up on zone. Heck I did IWD as a duo with a level 69! (She unlocked campaign before mod 6)

What has a player been doing if he still has no clue by the time he reaches level 70 with an alt? (we're assuming there's a main that has filled the campaigns here) Leadership only? *coughs*

santralafax

magenubbie said:

Another thing that just occurred to me is that Cryptic sells campaign unlocks in the CS. That doesn't increase the chance of them making it easier for free even if it is an alt. But such a discount might bring the fun back for the altoholics among us.

I think somebody said it here first, that it would be great if the campaign unlocks were account-wide, given their cost. $50 to unlock just Sharandar on one alt isn't worth it. Zen store is horribly overpriced for virtual equipment.

theycallmetomu

NWO has historically been casual friendly. Only reason it's "not built like that" is because now there's all this content out that didn't used to be out.

The argument "then maybe NWO isn't the game for them" is therefore a very silly one.

fogtripper

banaanc said:

i have suggested this before, this would be really nice + paying 50$ to unlock campaign for account would seem much better

Did I just read you post that you think throwing money at them would seem much better than simply applying campaigns completed to the entire account? Must EVERYTHING cost money?

santralafax

magenubbie said:

Really? what has changed? Nothing in essence. It's still the same thing: leveling to max level, campaigns every few months and dungeons. The order of things hasn't changed. Only now you need R7/8s instead of 6s for the end-game content.
There's just content added (and some temporary removed). Some of better quality than others, I won't deny that. But I repeat: what's the use of playing a game if you don't want to play the game?

There are many ways to play the game, on many levels. Apparently Professions is no longer one, but many of us do Campaign lairs and PVP, for instance. Others like to role play. Yet others are guild enthusiasts.

I'm not sure what value there is to doing 3 dungeons over and over? But some people like it.

theycallmetomu

magenubbie said:

santralafax said:

mpaign unlocks were account-wide, given their cost. $50 to unlock just Sharandar on one alt isn't worth it. Zen store is horribly overpriced for virtual equipment.

Those from the zen store.. Ah. now a few question marks I had vanish. Yea those should be account wide for the amount of money they cost. But still, I'm not in favor of such items for sale. I listed my reasons somewhere above.

theycallmetomu said:

NWO has historically been casual friendly. Only reason it's "not built like that" is because now there's all this content out that didn't used to be out.

The argument "then maybe NWO isn't the game for them" is therefore a very silly one.

Really? what has changed? Nothing in essence. It's still the same thing: leveling to max level, campaigns every few months and dungeons. The order of things hasn't changed. Only now you need R7/8s instead of 6s for the end-game content.
There's just content added (and some temporary removed). Some of better quality than others, I won't deny that. But I repeat: what's the use of playing a game if you don't want to play the game?

The thing that's changed is the amount of time a person needs to spend in order to be able to play along with veterans.

If it was supposed to take X months to get to peak when the game first started, then why exactly do we think it's optimal for it to take 3X months to get to peak now?

dfnce

So how they suppose to sell DR, SH and IWD 5k ZEN boon unlock packages ?

pando83

dfnce said:

So how they suppose to sell DR, SH and IWD 5k ZEN boon unlock packages ?

Do you believe someone ever paid 50$ to unlock one campaign on one toon? It's blatantly overpriced.
It's simple.

Campaigns are unlocked account-wide.

Those who don't want to "farm" the campaigns can buy account-wide campaign-unlock items from zen store.

If you know someone who would pay $200 per character please tell me. I'll personally take care of his mental illness. Or ask him for money since he must be a very rich guy.

Expecting players to either farm campaigns again and again on each toon, or play 200$ on each toon, is beyond reasonable.
I mean, seriously. There's even a limit to the amount of money/ time you can try to squeeze out of your player base. And those requirements are well beyond that.

Also: you should have fun while playing. Progressing should be the result.
Neverending farming of the same campaigns again and again repeating the same dailies again and again, or paying an absurd amount of money to skip the farming, is in no way funny.

davejustdave

I've always found the concept of paying money (real or pretend) to skip a whole chunk of game content to be a strange one.
The ultimate conclusion of that route is being able to buy an "instant win" token to "finish" the game. Surely the pleasure of playing is to slowly accumulate all the stuffs...

santralafax

davejustdave said:

I've always found the concept of paying money (real or pretend) to skip a whole chunk of game content to be a strange one.
The ultimate conclusion of that route is being able to buy an "instant win" token to "finish" the game. Surely the pleasure of playing is to slowly accumulate all the stuffs...

I felt that way when I first saw them and I still do. But when you talk about alts, or a second character, it is more reasonable to opt out of doing them--but for much less than $200. You already know the story re-doing seems like overkill. Some campaign requirements, esp. in WOD, are really out-of-date when you look at changes from EE for instance. Why would you buy a Dragon-Forged Artifact, for instance? Dragon Hoard enchantments aren't much of a reward anymore since the nerf, etc.

I don't think people who have never done the campaigns should be allowed to buy them--though I don't know how they'd go about tracking that.

theycallmetomu

I'm not sure I like the idea of a total campaign bypass. However, I do think that newcomers should be able to complete the campaigns in a small fraction of the time it took the oldies (such as myself) to complete them.

theycallmetomu

Well, skipping the repetition. But I guess you could argue that repetition shouldn't be there in the first place.

santralafax

I'm not so big on the "paying" to skip campaigns. I like the OPs suggestion of account-wide campaign completion. The tokens are something sold in the Zen store. You can get Cryptic for that. Re-doing the campaigns is a lot of repetition of repetitive grinding while bringing up a new character. I want to focus on the new stuff.

If there were options for multi-classing or changing classes, I wouldn't even have 2 characters. I'm the opposite of an alt-oholic.

instynctive

It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't have to keep grinding to same campaign areas once I've finished my boons.

Okay, granted, I could stop grinding, but that would leave the SH short on campaign treasures, and exactly what else is there to do? I don't PvP, and no, I'm not going to start. I'm running epic dungeons now as much as I've been grinding campaign areas. I do 3 SH HEs per day per character... All the Builder quests I save up and do them all at once after a week.

Guess I'm just having a rough day... feels like shoveling quicksand.

dfnce

pando83 said:

dfnce said:

So how they suppose to sell DR, SH and IWD 5k ZEN boon unlock packages ?

Do you believe someone ever paid 50$ to unlock one campaign on one toon? It's blatantly overpriced.
It's simple.

Campaigns are unlocked account-wide.

I agree they overpriced. I wish they were account-wide. But description now is "Character unlock".

So i never tried to buy them. But right now i would collect AD and buy enough ZEN to buy tiamat boons. I simply refuse to kill so many copies of tiamat second time.

pando83

davejustdave said:

I've always found the concept of paying money (real or pretend) to skip a whole chunk of game content to be a strange one.
The ultimate conclusion of that route is being able to buy an "instant win" token to "finish" the game. Surely the pleasure of playing is to slowly accumulate all the stuffs...

Finally. Someone who gets it. If you don't wanna play the alt through the game, then don't. If you do enjoy the progressing through the game, go for it. Your choice. I don't mind either way.
But what good is playing a game if you pay to skip playing?

It's kinda simple.
The game does not work under the concept "have fun playing fun content and, as a result, grow up with your toon".

The game works under the concept "farm stuff, be it campaigns or dailies, over and over, like a job, to make your toon stronger and have more fun in end-game content, mainly PvP or epic dungeons".

You basically create a "problem" (alienating, extremely long, farm-based, campaign system with repetitive dailies, which, once completed, unlocks only once on each toon) and then sell the solution (overpriced campaign unlock zen items).

If you notice, many design choices are quite unreasonable, at least if you want to make a fun and pleasant experience for your customer.

Instead, the system works like this:

game is initially funny, fast progression and good rewards. Customer gets addicted.
past that point, many frustrating elements are introduced, which the player can overcome only through either steely dedication and hours of gameplay, or paying money.

Also, RNG plays a big part. Give humans a high reward with a 0.5% chance to "drop" it while farming something, and they will farm like ants, cause our brain works like this.

If players could play for fun and progress in the meanwhile, in a reasonable way/ time, nobody would pay, or at least not enough players would pay.