I just wish Scott and Co. had actually thought LS changes through enough to realize that if they wanted it to be accepted by the players that had been depending on it for advancing their growing stable of toons in a very grind heavy environment, they would need a fully fleshed out solution, not simply turning off the flow and hoping there wasn't a calamitous uprising as a result.
Not many would say there wasn't a problem, but exactly zero should be saying we are looking at a proper solution. Anyone who says we are will be rightly branded as delusional, uninformed or a straight up shill. I watched my guild that dated back to BETA 1 die because of this and had to find homes for my orphaned friends who wished to carry on, still hoping Scott and Co. would deliver a solution. It is heartbreaking how callously this was handled and how little the feelings of the players were taken into account. There is no expectation that anything will change for the better going forward and as much as I wanted to hang on and see if Mod 8 might bring a turnaround, I have spent quality time away from this mess and feel much better as a result. Maybe if I see that Mr Shicoff has left the building, but otherwise I'll count my blessings that I was able to break the addiction with his help.
So just a quick question for you guys. You know you can earn your full RAD reward from running non-epic dungeons, right? ...
New/lowlevel players don't have access to ToS, they can't do a quick run for some rAD. I just waited a long time for a pop of CC or even GWD to do my two dungeon runs with my level 45 character, but nothing.
Not to mention, how often is it necessary to report the bug, where you get into a dungeon run but not into the dungeon group, before it gets fixed? Since dungeon runs are now a vital part of earning some rAD per day, shouldn't that issue get at least some official statement? Which is then hopefully followed by a hotfix within a week, or something like that?
I think we can discuss about AD forever. Some facts about how much life: - http://steamcharts.com/app/109600 We know this is an incomplete stat, but it show us a trend. Quite negative. - We've been discussing about AD many times in many forum threads. Only GMoPs were reworked and no other action has been done despite some weak announcements. The dev blog is just focused on Underdark. - Quality of the life in NW. It would be nice to know how many bots are in game in order to know the real amount of players. Bots are an issue, but at the same time they increase the number of players -> Quite good when you have to report this value to your boss. - Quite difficult to run dungeons using lfg: it means that life is very low. If there is life, that's concentrated in SH only as isolated community from the rest of the game.
This is my understanding of the situation. Concerning the solutions, a lot of interesteing ideas form the players, zero/very limited reaction from the dev team, shifting the expectations on UD while we need solution now.
Oltreverso guild leader Maga Othelma - DC | Svalvolo - SW | Dente Avvelenato- GWF
and even I have posted some serious commentary on the cost of things post-AD changes.
HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA yeah, musta been that give me housing and let me sped lots of ad on it thread.
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clericalistMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 595Arc User
Ignoring the leadership changes (and they were a big slap in the face), there are many more problems.
- The dungeons provide no real rewards, after getting the seals, there is no reason to do any them. - There are so few dungeons - Players are expected to do deadly long grinds or pay huge amounts of cash, but the game keeps being drastically changed, this means that doing deadly long grinds are too risky to waste time on - The game still has way too many glaring bugs and design problems - Cryptic dictate with zero regard to the players, they live in bubble and have never once honestly discuss all the problems they are facing and what they are going to do about it.
I only log in to get my daily VIP (another con job that got many suckers like me to waste money on), there is no real life left in this game.
Ignoring the leadership changes (and they were a big slap in the face), there are many more problems.
- The dungeons provide no real rewards, after getting the seals, there is no reason to do any them. - There are so few dungeons - Players are expected to do deadly long grinds or pay huge amounts of cash, but the game keeps being drastically changed, this means that doing deadly long grinds are too risky to waste time on - The game still has way too many glaring bugs and design problems - Cryptic dictate with zero regard to the players, they live in bubble and have never once honestly discuss all the problems they are facing and what they are going to do about it.
I only log in to get my daily VIP (another con job that got many suckers like me to waste money on), there is no real life left in this game.
Can't say better myself. Good point about grinds, pretty each of them can be a trap.
A "180" from almost EIGHT MONTHS ago, where a lot has changed both in game and out<
Whats changed? You all seemed happy for the changes mod 6 brought. Nothing has changed economy wise between those changes and the Leadership nerf. Mod 7 only added more sinks and more reasons to actually rely on leadership. The Zax didn't even change over all that time. It has been pegged at 500 for much longer then those 8 months. Far longer then mod 6. Far longer then when your opinion was different.
So what specifically changed in those 8 months to justify the full 180 degree change? I'm honestly curious.
I already stated in the post prior.
No you didn't. Yes, you mentioned some personal issues, and that is completely understandable if that was the sole reason. The part I'm curious about is the where you said stuff changed BOTH IN-GAME and out. You talked about the out, just not the game part.
The difference is important. Changes to the game effect us all, you said changes to the game influenced your opinions. Understanding of that might help many of us here to be open to new opinions. But if the change of opinion is strictly personal in nature, then criticizing people for not understanding it and being angry over the changes, seems rather silly.
The difference is important. Changes to the game effect us all, you said changes to the game influenced your opinions. Understanding of that might help many of us here to be open to new opinions. But if the change of opinion is strictly personal in nature, then criticizing people for not understanding it and being angry over the changes, seems rather silly.
the only thing that changed since mod6's release is pwe's bottom line.
The game is an instance based MMO.In beggining that counted as disadvantage.But as times passes this is actually an advantage.
You log in you run some skirmishes or dd ,you are out.Compare this to Age of Conan for example or some older fantasy MMOs.And you complain about grind. You all complain but most of you are here for 2 years.everything is boring to you.(and to me) Nw is not a bad game as you think if you start fresh.
"But how i will be BiS?Imppossible now!!" .Well..it should never be easy to be BiS in first place.Sadly Cryptic responded very slowly to botting/glitching and exploiting. Influential forumers here were part of guilds that exploited literally tenths if not hundreds of millions of ad in the game. This led to the image -impression that running BiS is a must and something that should be achieved ASAP. Economy ruined.That was the first big mistake of cryptic.it should respond with an iron fist like blizzard and ban the exploiters.
Second mistake and biggest of all?By far? Arti gear.It should never be implemented in first place.Never.Cause it created a wall impossible to climb playing legit. Cryptic overdone it. Not in bad intend but seriously i think that at some point folks believed that all these players running purple arti gear 4 days after mod4 release,they somehow payed for it. Hell no.They bought it with exploited ad.That is a fact. In a MMO,if you want to keep it healthy ,you put biS gear in the game by playing ,as rewards. That was the case until /and, Mod3.Corrupted/purified gear /weapons could be aquired by playing the damn thing and not refining it. Coinsidense?Most BiS players hate Mod3 with passion and were here in the forums arguing and shaming the whole mod,during and pre -preview release of IWD. Yet IWD is still alive of players up to this day.
3rd mistake.Cryptic heared the same people that complained about mod3 ,the BiS players and since mod4 ,game took a new direction. Arti gear and refining.Downfall started from there.Easy time you stay BiS by paying with your (exploited) AD.
As for these people -not to flame but to state some facts- one measure of their judjement is the recent dom changes.most were here applauding the dom contesting changes.How much reduce percentage from pvp from then?50%100%? Do some self critisism for a time folks.They always think for themselves and think a fresh 70 will think the same.Not counting the fact that are 0.000000001% of the population and demand things for the rest.Nvm.Sadly cryptic employees still hold in high esteem these players .Sad.
--------------------------------------
As for the future?NW is here to stay.It has very good graphics (compared to other MMOS) ,it can be casual and hardcore at the same time.Superb action combat.Have you fought in Archeage?omg. WotC will push for new content every 6-7 months.Xbox brought new population. The competitors are in even worst shape.Archeage is ruined,the other sci fi cartoon one will going free to play.Rift has lower player base.
The new NW team is more responsive and creative .They will put the boat back to calm waters.So my advise is for all the old players:Stay in touch:take a break or whatever.But NW has years of life ahead of it.
Edit:Sorry for the wall of text. But i wanted to say it all : P
I truly believe that moderators should not get drawn into these debates. We've seen the consequences of that before. You are either a moderator or a punter. I don't believe you can be both, despite the valiant efforts of the new mods.
And glib suggestions like "just do dungeons" are not the solution.
If you make $10 hr, and a beer costs $5, you "earn" 2 beers an hr. If you make $100 hr and beers cost $50, you STILL earned 2 beers an hr. So they dropped the fixed cost rate for marks, IF...IF you made the same amount of wages as before this would be good for the player, he had improved purchasing power, i.e. got more for his money, his cost of living was improved.
Again, this only works for people running leadership armies. For the "average" player who was making $10/hr before the change and $10/hr after, reducing the cost of beer from $50 to $5 is a huge boost
Yes, the leadership change "hurt" players who had large leadership armies, there's not doubt about that. But overall it's better for new players and existing players who didn't enjoy the thought of investing 30 character slots and 6 months in order to have a "competitive" income, which long term is far better for the game.
I'll disagree with the above. I don't believe it took 6 months to get leadership to level 25 (I'm at 25 and took maybe 3 months?) But I'm old and senile now, so maybe I'm wrong.
Anyway, new character/player will more than likely want to level to 70. So they go through the regular storyline (Probably get to level 62 or thereabouts by the time they finish whispering cavern). Then on to EE and lots of grinding in Fiery Pit to get to level 70. I doubt many will be spending an extra hour doing their 2 dungeons/skirmishes to get 12k rAD.
So now they're at 70 and need to buy some blue gear to get IL high enough to get into eLoL to get even better gear. OR Maybe they want to do Sharandar/DR/IWD for boons. 75,000 AD for Sharandar boons alone. I haven't looked up/added DR/IWD, or ToD.
Prior to this, by the time I hit level 70, I think my OP had about 600,000 AD (but I think I might have bought the blood ruby 3 pack and sold 2 on the AH, and my memory may be a bit off). And I certainly didn't run dungeons/skirms for an hour every day.
New player, by that time may have like 20k AD? (I vaguely recall there's a main storyline quest for doing a dungeon and a skirmish). Not sure how much you get if you stay on for hours and invoke all the time. I play about 1.5-2 hours/day.
Once you're 70, IF you have a good group, you can run CC/ToS in about 8 min each (so if you PUG you may be doing about 12 min. each as people like to kill every single critter instead of racing to the end). Let's average it at 10. 20 min. for 6k AD. Then you have to do 2 skirms. If you have people that don't know what they're doing I think the DR skirm takes about 12 min with an "ok" group. Longer if you have people that don't use headphones or pay attention to chat and screw up the portals. Let's say 15 min. each. 30 min for another 6k AD Almost an hour for 12k AD. When I should be leveling my char or getting boons.
Oh wait, can't get the boons. Need AD. Off to run dungeons/skirms
this has been stated many times before, but still no movement from Cryptic: Costs need to be lowered or removed completely (boons shouldn't cost AD now) AD gaining methods need to be increased (quests should give out AD, IMO).
And don't get me started on stronghold AD requirements.
Given cryptic's past performance, I doubt we'll see anything any time soon.
For those of us who've played since Beta, this is very sad and frustrating. I'm learning to like Skyforge now.
The game is an instance based MMO.In beggining that counted as disadvantage.But as times passes this is actually an advantage.
You log in you run some skirmishes or dd ,you are out.Compare this to Age of Conan for example or some older fantasy MMOs.And you complain about grind. You all complain but most of you are here for 2 years.everything is boring to you.(and to me) Nw is not a bad game as you think if you start fresh.
"But how i will be BiS?Imppossible now!!" .Well..it should never be easy to be BiS in first place.Sadly Cryptic responded very slowly to botting/glitching and exploiting. Influential forumers here were part of guilds that exploited literally tenths if not hundreds of millions of ad in the game. This led to the image -impression that running BiS is a must and something that should be achieved ASAP. Economy ruined.That was the first big mistake of cryptic.it should respond with an iron fist like blizzard and ban the exploiters.
Second mistake and biggest of all?By far? Arti gear.It should never be implemented in first place.Never.Cause it created a wall impossible to climb playing legit. Cryptic overdone it. Not in bad intend but seriously i think that at some point folks believed that all these players running purple arti gear 4 days after mod4 release,they somehow payed for it. Hell no.They bought it with exploited ad.That is a fact. In a MMO,if you want to keep it healthy ,you put biS gear in the game by playing ,as rewards. That was the case until /and, Mod3.Corrupted/purified gear /weapons could be aquired by playing the damn thing and not refining it. Coinsidense?Most BiS players hate Mod3 with passion and were here in the forums arguing and shaming the whole mod,during and pre -preview release of IWD. Yet IWD is still alive of players up to this day.
3rd mistake.Cryptic heared the same people that complained about mod3 ,the BiS players and since mod4 ,game took a new direction. Arti gear and refining.Downfall started from there.Easy time you stay BiS by paying with your (exploited) AD.
As for these people -not to flame but to state some facts- one measure of their judjement is the recent dom changes.most were here applauding the dom contesting changes.How much reduce percentage from pvp from then?50%100%? Do some self critisism for a time folks.They always think for themselves and think a fresh 70 will think the same.Not counting the fact that are 0.000000001% of the population and demand things for the rest.Nvm.Sadly cryptic employees still hold in high esteem these players .Sad.
--------------------------------------
As for the future?NW is here to stay.It has very good graphics (compared to other MMOS) ,it can be casual and hardcore at the same time.Superb action combat.Have you fought in Archeage?omg. WotC will push for new content every 6-7 months.Xbox brought new population. The competitors are in even worst shape.Archeage is ruined,the other sci fi cartoon one will going free to play.Rift has lower player base.
The new NW team is more responsive and creative .They will put the boat back to calm waters.So my advise is for all the old players:Stay in touch:take a break or whatever.But NW has years of life ahead of it.
Edit:Sorry for the wall of text. But i wanted to say it all : P
I follow your arguments in most cases, beside the fact that cryptic acts to slow in fixing their stuff and I also think the moment they broke leadership they should have corrected the ingame cost for lots of stuff like respec/boons/compagnion upgrades etc. As always they act to slow and deliver half baked solutions, having trouble in correcting things afterwards. I also can see that they do work on it, what should have happend in advance, so there is hope.
I also think they really should deal much more drastically with all these spammers, AD sellers, botters and heavy exploiters as you said, it breaks their neck and deals massive damage to their economy. All in all I think the decision to disarmor the leadership armies was by far the most needed step to go, now they should adapt quick the ingame costs for other stuff
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ironzerg79Member, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,942Arc User
edited October 2015
@goldmoon So I accept the criticisms on the leadership issue. I understand how that's easily twisted into hypocrisy. And I'll suffer the slings and arrows of those lining up to point and sneer at me, both here and on other forums.
Such is the nature of publicly posting opinions.
But understand this. Much like life, the only constant in an MMO is change. And you also have to accept the fact that sometimes that change is out of your control, so you make the best of it. The leadership situation is one of those changes.
People look to me for advice, which I'm happy to given, freely and openly. When asked years and months ago about generating Astral Diamond income, the advice to use Leadership was genuine and freely given. And it's advice I don't regret giving. Because at the time, and understanding the mechanics and direction of the game is was GOOD advice.
Would it have done anyone any good to whine and complain in those leadership threads? Would it have helped anyone to tell them to give up and quit, to walk away and never player? Or complain about terrible game designs and how things SHOULD be different? In those specific threads you're linking, no. In other threads, of course.
So if you're going back and reviewing all the posts I've made and threads I've started over the last 2 years, I challenge you to also link the ones were I've vocally spoken out against the grind, the excessive costs of refinement, the challenge of leveling new toons to 70, or gearing up alts. I've been an outspoke critic of decisions made, but I've also been one to offer advice for people open to listening to help navigate and adjust to changes, good or bad, to the game.
I know it's easier to point fingers and hurdle insults than to think critically about these issues. And I know how easy it is to cherry pick from thousands of my posts to make a case. And I'll shrug it off.
And given how much more I know now about how widely abused the Gateway and Leadership was, more so now than I did a few months ago, I know it's extremely unlikely that you'll see these leadership changes reverted.
And how many more comments and threads will I start, offering what I believe are reasonable and needed changes to the game to make things more fun and enjoyable for the average player here, and less of a grind and less punishing?
A "180" from almost EIGHT MONTHS ago, where a lot has changed both in game and out<
Whats changed? You all seemed happy for the changes mod 6 brought. Nothing has changed economy wise between those changes and the Leadership nerf. Mod 7 only added more sinks and more reasons to actually rely on leadership. The Zax didn't even change over all that time. It has been pegged at 500 for much longer then those 8 months. Far longer then mod 6. Far longer then when your opinion was different.
So what specifically changed in those 8 months to justify the full 180 degree change? I'm honestly curious.
I already stated in the post prior.
No you didn't. Yes, you mentioned some personal issues, and that is completely understandable if that was the sole reason. The part I'm curious about is the where you said stuff changed BOTH IN-GAME and out. You talked about the out, just not the game part.
The difference is important. Changes to the game effect us all, you said changes to the game influenced your opinions. Understanding of that might help many of us here to be open to new opinions. But if the change of opinion is strictly personal in nature, then criticizing people for not understanding it and being angry over the changes, seems rather silly.
Ah, I see what you mean. The part where I stated, "Yet if I wanted to keep affording the things I wanted, I could only do so by running a Leadership Army and to do so, on top of my alt-o'holic addiction and deteriorating health, meant I had even less time to spend playing the game once I got done doing Leadership rounds." is where in my head it made sense what I meant but I didn't elaborate.
So, to elaborate a bit:
For a while now, the game has slowly been becoming less and less friendly for multiple characters with the daily grinds. As more and more of my characters got to level 60 earlier this this year, it's become more and more of a chore to do all the newly added dailies, obtain new gear, obtain newer gear, afford new items, new level cap, and what-not and so on... on top of running Leadership. So, in short, the "in game part" is all about alt-friendliness, or lack there-of, both in gameplay and equipment/economy.
Also, a big part of my frustration is the Foundry, or lack there-of of any sort of commitment on the developer's part to make it what it was originally stated to be and should be to this day, an integral part of the game. There's little incentive to make or play foundry missions and then even if there was, due to the alt-unfriendliness of the game, I didn't even have the time to devote to the foundry.
I've cut back the number of characters that I actively play, drastically. From 28 down to 4 now. Still, I don't see how I'd have the time or in-game income to afford things with just those characters and be able to play the game without it feeling like a second job. It's like the game wants you to play a ton of characters just to afford things but on the same hand, says that if you do, you'd have to play grind them 24/7 (wee bit exaggeration for emphasis).
Im not against the change, Im against the improper implantation of it and how their EXTREMELY slow response to costing changes.
Until such a time they get on board fully, they are fully open to criticism by all.
+1. Actually, cost reduction should have been included the same day the revenue-reduction was implemented imo. Any day later than that, it's a mistake.
And if I'm honest with myself, I have to agree with Zeb about how leadership was becoming addictive/boring. I was just up to 17 toons, and was contemplating making more. It was getting pretty dull. It was the fact that it allowed me to see some 'toon-progress' at a reasonable pace that made it addictive. Now without it, what is there? No way I'm gonna run some dungeon over and over and over... would rather get a root canal.
Game overview: 1-60: blazing fast and fun (maybe too fast? I did it in 16 hours last toon) 60-70: kinda boring (was mod-6 computer generated?) Campaigns: fair, not that bad really. A few choices as far as timing etc. 70+: pay $1k or grind for a year+. ack! pvp: not much variety and the 'haves' just own, hence close-competitive matches are about 1 in 10.
And sadly, another part of the game I was really looking forward to enjoying was playing every class (dungeons and especially pvp). Each class plays differently, and it was kinda fun. But all the RP for artifacts, equip, stones, etc... make it impractical. This is probably the only MMO I've ever played where a player makes ALTs to support one main toon. Seems like in most games, it's the other way around...
Wow. I just read most of these posts. You guys don't sound like you're playing a game.. you sound like you're dabbling in the stock market.
To play Neverwinter, lesson #1, figure out how to finance the hero.
Uh... how about financing your character the way you are supposed to... by going out and adventuring ... you know.. DUNGEONS & DRAGONS...
upgraded companion: 350k for rank 1 500k for rank 2 750k for rank 3. 1M for rank 4. total cost 2.6M / 24k per day. = 109 days. upgraded horse: 600k for rank 2 1.4M for rank 3: 84 days.
going out adventuring gives no AD income. the only things that give ad income are skirmishes/dungeons( all 6 of them) and pvp. going out adventuring gets you gold. which you can use to buy potions and heal kits.
every time im in lostmauths lair and get a peridot for killing the dragon that is sitting on piles of gold and someone reminds me its DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS. i feel like hitting them with a brick. defeat valindra, thus saving neverwinter from imminent doom. here's yet another ring.
help every dorf in icewindale with their personal vendettas and you get to pay them 10's of thousands of ad for them to train you. and 100's of thousands of black ice for them to upgrade your armor. save the elves from being over run by redcaps. you get to pay them 10's of thousands of ad for them to train you. oh and heres a crappy ring. sorry we used to have decent equipment but none for you adventurer.
become a master weaponsmith, and none of your weapons are worth using.
yeah sure sounds like dungeons and dragons to me....
And with all of the talk of changes to the game, some of the ideas actually quite well thought out, the one element that continues to disturb me is just how silent the devs have been on this subject. The change to the GMoP pricing was a good first step, more need to be taken and sooner rather than later, but first and foremost the devs need to engage with their players. If we had an actual dialog running there's be less of an us v. them mentality around here.
Ignoring the leadership changes (and they were a big slap in the face), there are many more problems.
- The dungeons provide no real rewards, after getting the seals, there is no reason to do any them. - There are so few dungeons - Players are expected to do deadly long grinds or pay huge amounts of cash, but the game keeps being drastically changed, this means that doing deadly long grinds are too risky to waste time on - The game still has way too many glaring bugs and design problems - Cryptic dictate with zero regard to the players, they live in bubble and have never once honestly discuss all the problems they are facing and what they are going to do about it.
I only log in to get my daily VIP (another con job that got many suckers like me to waste money on), there is no real life left in this game.
- Dungeons provide AD in the form of salvageable drops, and seals can ber used to buy salvageable gear. So the dungeon reward situation is not too bad really. However would be nice to have some rare drop surprises of some value, that would make dungeons way more exciting. They are a bit dull. - Yes, we need more dungeons to bring more variation to game. Preferrably some Tier 3 ones that the well-geared teams can wipe in. That would be 2500+ required dungeons, with an effective required gear level of 3000. - Grinds are and have always been a part of MMORPGS. It is impossible to make content fast enough to keep up with the players. - I agree that Cryptic should put more priority into the bug fixing department. All the small unfixed bugs and problems is a constant annoyance, which likely turn some players away. For instance we should have had a class balance pass a long time ago to nerf the Lostmauth set, OP's, SW and GWF damage. - Cryptic did some unfortunate things, in particular mod 6 was too harsh(but a difficulty increase was needed), and the LS change was done too quickly. It would not have done much harm to let the botting go on 2-3 more weeks while they did a proper job fixing LS, and introduced more soloable AD sources. They panicked.
All over I have the impression that Cryptic is juggling with a VERY limited development team, and that attention to the daily game suffers since they are under contract with PWE to deliver mods at given times to match the WoTC AD&D market plans.
As allways, first there should be bug fixing, and then we might have a solid ground to talk about a nerf. Anything should actually start with talking with players, and not just some reaction based on some created situations...
For example SW, that "damage" you want to nerf, may come from the soul puppet, but only under certain conditions. If you don't believe me, make a SW, and let the soul puppet run solo against a training puppet. Not to mention, that the soul puppet has around 25k HP...
And only the epic versions of dungeons provide rAD, drops to salavage and seals. Besides there is rather a need for a few IL 1.8k dungeons, to let players "train" and gear up for the 2.0k dungeons, then some IL 2.4k dungeons, that maybe a handfull of players will ever see from the inside.
How much life left in the game?...not much, PE is empty now. You have refused to listen to the players and look at the result. Do devs even read these forums? Everything in this game has changed so profoundly that it is not the game I started playing 2.5 years ago. I have invested plenty of real cash in this game. It seems like a legal issue at this point, blatant changes after promises were made. How many times have the devs corrected a tooltip that "Incorrectly" stated something? Man I want this game to succeed, I just don't see how it can now. Why take the AD away? What exactly was it breaking? You made the new gear buyable only with a new currency that has a limit on how much you can have at once. There is no fun left in playing the market. Can't sell stuff because you've ruined the value of what took years to collect. Don't give me the dribble about bot's, who cares!!! The mods in here were even making leadership armies. You took something that I spent significant amounts of time building and rendered it valueless in your nasty attack on the players. I spent money on your game and you ripped me off. That's the bottom line.
Silverhand
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santralafaxMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 2,896Arc User
Yes, the leadership change "hurt" players who had large leadership armies, there's not doubt about that. But overall it's better for new players and existing players who didn't enjoy the thought of investing 30 character slots and 6 months in order to have a "competitive" income, which long term is far better for the game.
The Leadership changes hurt EVERYONE dong LeaderShip. I had 2 characters total. The bulk of my income came from LeaderShip, supplemented by PVP. They cut the amount of AD from PVP as well, because they could. Needless to say, I make less per day.
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plasticbatMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 12,383Arc User
How much life left in the game?...not much, PE is empty now.
Probably true but PE is not a good indication of emptiness because people stations in SH more. With VIP, you don't care where your character needs to stay anyway. I go to PE to buy seal gear for salvaging. Otherwise, I don't even go to PE at all.
*** The game can read your mind. If you want it, you won't get it. If you don't expect to get it, you will. ***
For a regular player you have the normal starting phase into the game which is leveling from 1 to 60 which is in my opinion a lot of fun even if it lacks certain mechanics. Like appealing crafting which is usefull for the leveling aspect of the game (after the introducing of crafting there are 0 crafting related quests in this game and the early crafting is really slow), the lack of immersion, clever quests (like special quests that doesn't need to kill hundred of enemies) and cutscenes for story purpose.
Level 61 to 70 is pure busy work. It is now a lot better because you get more XP and only need 8 vigilance quests instead of 16 which simply mean you are double as fast as before, but still this part of the content is boring and feels like busy work and while doing it, it lacks everything in my opinion a MMORPG can be. I mean, you fight a four different cults that threatens Neverwinter/Fearun with weapons of mass destruction but you never see or experience this kind of threat and the 4 areas are only there to keep you leveling in generic quests. I mean.... many other MMORPGs showed how you could have done it right, like doing some basic quests that trigger special heroic encounter if a certain amount of action is done, that grants good XP and Reward. Advanced quests could include phasing. A "technology" that means you change a part of an area for you because you progressed in the story. I mean... is it really so hard to make the content appealing that it feels like a crusade against the cultist instead of everyday buswork?
At Level 70 your progression is tied in the campaigns and your item level. The campaigns are the same busywork of like 4-6 daily quests per campaign that rewards you with special campaign currency to unlock campaign milestones and boons. Sharandar: You unlock new areas (before Module 6 you also unlocked the new dungeon). The three areas had everyone an own theme but there was no story progression it was simply like: We now have also an infestion of dark feys in the new area which mean you must do more dailies to progress further (it would be a good game design it would be more like a sinus curve, which means only a bit daily quests at the beginning to introduce with more and more work to do till you reach a decent amount of daily quests and then less and less till you reach the end of the campaign/story, but you get like the tripple amount of quests you must do and then it abruptly ends). In additon you can progress the boons to make you a bit stronger. Dread Ring: You unlock the boons and can additionally upgrade your glove for extra drops and maybe a free artifact (with an abysmal drop rate) which is now part of an artifactset which is now only usefull for one class because they changed the stats of the belt (before Module 6 you also unlocked the new dungeon). Icewindale: You unlock a new profession which granted you to the time the campaign was released the best armor (and now is used to upgrade your armor which makes all other armor professions almost useless), unlock new fashion (which costs refined blackice that you need to upgrade your armor. What an dumb idea.), unlock a quest to aquire a new companion (with an abysmal drop rate but can buyed from the auctionhouse for a decent amount of AD so don't bother to unlock this quest), unlock boons that make you a bit stronger and unlock a new skirmish (Sharandar and Dread Ring had those for free). Tyranny of the Dragon: unlock new areas or more likely old areas which you then only allowed to quests different dailies which are also the same (kill stuff/collect stuff/kill a dragon of a different color). You unlock then some tasks to gain gear which is useless because the task need a lot of campaign currency which only slows your progress to gain the cool stuff like boons or maybe one or two dragon hoard enchantments to get refining points for your later gear progression. You can unlock tasks to get dragon keys which is also a waste because you can buy them with Zen and if the current trend of cheaper zen goes on they are in general way cheaper then using the campaign task (the ZAX must reach 330 AD per Zen to be cheaper than most ingame tasks).
What is the statement. Campaigns are busy work. They have no character, have a artifical cooldown and after you are done with them, they are most likely useless in everyway only some minor tasks are usefull but you will soon be like: I could do Task XY to gain like 1-2k extra AD but hell no i am glad that i am done with it.
Then you are left with almost 0 AD because the Boons consume a lot of it. And must do Dungeons, Skirmishs and PvP do gain them. And sorry with only 3-6 Dungeons, 3 Skirmishs and 1 PvP Mod while the PvP Balance is broken and most of the time also unplayable because of the server lag this game can barely sustain the need of his players.
It could have worked with Stronghold if you had the possibilty to unlock content and be like "okay i farm now a lot of influence for my guild to help them upgrading faster" but there is also artifical cooldown to prevent you to progress too fast in this game. I mean, farming by choice is better than doing like 3-6 dailies (again) and then log off after 1 hour of gameplay. If the developer and publisher really think that artifical cooldown in dailies would really be a way to monetize your game than you are really dumb. At some point the player notice: "Okay i spend now a decent amount of money to progress a bit faster only to recognize i must spend now a lot more of my money to progress. Not gonna happen." You simply push you players away. A good and healthy way to monetize the game would be to sell cosmetic items. Different Sets of color, armor skins, fashion items, transmute items for mounts, transmute items for companions (some people are sick of ion stones skin and want maybe a parrot skin for their pirate outfit), etc. But since module 1 there is no new fashion item in the game even special color sets or single sets of one color is till the same and since the rework in module 6 we miss like 50% of the armor and weapon skins in this game as well because the items can't be aquired anymore. We also could dye our weapons, this feature was activly removed from the game. Some really good looking fashion items are hidden behind a wall of Trade Bars which mean you are forced to open lockboxes only to aquire Trade Bars to buy ONE PIECE of a fashion set of THREE ITEMS for 550! Trade Bars which mean to aquire the full set i need 1650 Trade Bars which means i must open 165-330 Lockboxes which means it costs around 20,625 - 41,250 Zen. The question is: Did such monetization worked? Plain answer: No. Barely no one is buying it. I saw in the whole 2,5 years in Neverwinter a handfull of people walking in these fashion items and maybe another handfull of offers in the auctionhouse. The rest of the player (like 99,9%) aren't bothering to buy it. Maybe it changes with the Trade Bar rework in the new module but i doubt it.
That is the reason i think, this game has not much life left in it.
Platypus wielding a giant hammer, your argument is invalild!
I think there's probably plenty of life left in the game due to the licence IP. But there's nothing left here for me anymore. The solo player experience is now dreadful, especially if you like playing alts. I haven't logged on for a couple of months and it's been weeks since I even visited the forums. I've found a new home.
That said, I'd love to be able to come back. I have time and money invested in my toons and if Cryptic gave me even the slightest reason to come back and play them I would. But at the moment this game is simply not a viable choice for the solo player who likes to play more than one toon.
I notice the developers say they want to 'address' the single player experience. They better do it quick if they want any of the players they've lost to retain enough interest to be lured back...
I think there's probably plenty of life left in the game due to the licence IP. But there's nothing left here for me anymore. The solo player experience is now dreadful, especially if you like playing alts. I haven't logged on for a couple of months and it's been weeks since I even visited the forums. I've found a new home.
That said, I'd love to be able to come back. I have time and money invested in my toons and if Cryptic gave me even the slightest reason to come back and play them I would. But at the moment this game is simply not a viable choice for the solo player who likes to play more than one toon.
I notice the developers say they want to 'address' the single player experience. They better do it quick if they want any of the players they've lost to retain enough interest to be lured back...
My reasons exactly, it's gone from an alt friendly, great solo experience, to a steaming pile of **** I'm glad my founders was a present because wasting that much cash on this MMO would have left a really bad taste in my mouth these days...
Yes, the leadership change "hurt" players who had large leadership armies, there's not doubt about that. But overall it's better for new players and existing players who didn't enjoy the thought of investing 30 character slots and 6 months in order to have a "competitive" income, which long term is far better for the game.
The Leadership changes hurt EVERYONE dong LeaderShip. I had 2 characters total. The bulk of my income came from LeaderShip, supplemented by PVP. They cut the amount of AD from PVP as well, because they could. Needless to say, I make less per day.
There's one aspect of the LS change that I don't see considered much; I think you could shorten your statement and end up with better version: "The Leadership changes hurt EVERYONE." period.
Who was buying those exquisite pants, shirts, and rings? I WAS. And it was with AD generated from LS. The price of those pants and rings had the price of dragon eggs built in, so how can the price of that go down? It can't. The price of those Rank-X stones had the 'government-set' price of gmops and cash-based/invoke-gated wards all built into it (they lowered gmop (good), but wards are still the same). Price can only decrease by the amount of the gmop cut and no more.
If they cut the revenue of players by 90%, they have to cut ALL fixed-costs by 90% OR (even-better) add tons of new content that will let players make up for the 90% cut. (but that's more work on their part, don't see that happening). There current plan seems to be to 'leverage' their existing content, add maybe 10% increase to ad-revenue. Not a good plan, because everyone has already done all the old content multiple times. So bad plan, bad implementation (LS change), and it goes down from there on...
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silverkeltMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,235Arc User
I think there's probably plenty of life left in the game due to the licence IP. But there's nothing left here for me anymore. The solo player experience is now dreadful, especially if you like playing alts. I haven't logged on for a couple of months and it's been weeks since I even visited the forums. I've found a new home.
That said, I'd love to be able to come back. I have time and money invested in my toons and if Cryptic gave me even the slightest reason to come back and play them I would. But at the moment this game is simply not a viable choice for the solo player who likes to play more than one toon.
I notice the developers say they want to 'address' the single player experience. They better do it quick if they want any of the players they've lost to retain enough interest to be lured back...
There is nothing.. every week, brings more discouragment it appears.
Everyone says the right things, but in stark reality, its much darker then it appears. You simply cannot play more then (1) one toon anymore, you simply cannot worry EVERY about new classes, whats the point?
They made it so broken, so harsh, so boring, so grindy, that players are exiting at rapid #s, this game , though being newer by almost 2 years, now has almost the same # of players in steam charts as rift online.
That is such a dramatic and telling drop off, I dont see how they will ever really recover at this point.
Comments
Not many would say there wasn't a problem, but exactly zero should be saying we are looking at a proper solution. Anyone who says we are will be rightly branded as delusional, uninformed or a straight up shill. I watched my guild that dated back to BETA 1 die because of this and had to find homes for my orphaned friends who wished to carry on, still hoping Scott and Co. would deliver a solution. It is heartbreaking how callously this was handled and how little the feelings of the players were taken into account. There is no expectation that anything will change for the better going forward and as much as I wanted to hang on and see if Mod 8 might bring a turnaround, I have spent quality time away from this mess and feel much better as a result. Maybe if I see that Mr Shicoff has left the building, but otherwise I'll count my blessings that I was able to break the addiction with his help.
I just waited a long time for a pop of CC or even GWD to do my two dungeon runs with my level 45 character, but nothing.
Not to mention, how often is it necessary to report the bug, where you get into a dungeon run but not into the dungeon group, before it gets fixed?
Since dungeon runs are now a vital part of earning some rAD per day, shouldn't that issue get at least some official statement? Which is then hopefully followed by a hotfix within a week, or something like that?
Some facts about how much life:
- http://steamcharts.com/app/109600 We know this is an incomplete stat, but it show us a trend. Quite negative.
- We've been discussing about AD many times in many forum threads. Only GMoPs were reworked and no other action has been done despite some weak announcements. The dev blog is just focused on Underdark.
- Quality of the life in NW. It would be nice to know how many bots are in game in order to know the real amount of players. Bots are an issue, but at the same time they increase the number of players -> Quite good when you have to report this value to your boss.
- Quite difficult to run dungeons using lfg: it means that life is very low. If there is life, that's concentrated in SH only as isolated community from the rest of the game.
This is my understanding of the situation. Concerning the solutions, a lot of interesteing ideas form the players, zero/very limited reaction from the dev team, shifting the expectations on UD while we need solution now.
Oltreverso guild leader
Maga Othelma - DC | Svalvolo - SW | Dente Avvelenato- GWF
yeah, musta been that give me housing and let me sped lots of ad on it thread.
- The dungeons provide no real rewards, after getting the seals, there is no reason to do any them.
- There are so few dungeons
- Players are expected to do deadly long grinds or pay huge amounts of cash, but the game keeps being drastically changed, this means that doing deadly long grinds are too risky to waste time on
- The game still has way too many glaring bugs and design problems
- Cryptic dictate with zero regard to the players, they live in bubble and have never once honestly discuss all the problems they are facing and what they are going to do about it.
I only log in to get my daily VIP (another con job that got many suckers like me to waste money on), there is no real life left in this game.
— (The unwritten rule)
The difference is important. Changes to the game effect us all, you said changes to the game influenced your opinions. Understanding of that might help many of us here to be open to new opinions. But if the change of opinion is strictly personal in nature, then criticizing people for not understanding it and being angry over the changes, seems rather silly.
You log in you run some skirmishes or dd ,you are out.Compare this to Age of Conan for example or some older fantasy MMOs.And you complain about grind.
You all complain but most of you are here for 2 years.everything is boring to you.(and to me)
Nw is not a bad game as you think if you start fresh.
"But how i will be BiS?Imppossible now!!" .Well..it should never be easy to be BiS in first place.Sadly Cryptic responded very slowly to botting/glitching and exploiting.
Influential forumers here were part of guilds that exploited literally tenths if not hundreds of millions of ad in the game.
This led to the image -impression that running BiS is a must and something that should be achieved ASAP.
Economy ruined.That was the first big mistake of cryptic.it should respond with an iron fist like blizzard and ban the exploiters.
Second mistake and biggest of all?By far?
Arti gear.It should never be implemented in first place.Never.Cause it created a wall impossible to climb playing legit.
Cryptic overdone it.
Not in bad intend but seriously i think that at some point folks believed that all these players running purple arti gear 4 days after mod4 release,they somehow payed for it.
In a MMO,if you want to keep it healthy ,you put biS gear in the game by playing ,as rewards.
That was the case until /and, Mod3.Corrupted/purified gear /weapons could be aquired by playing the damn thing and not refining it.
Coinsidense?Most BiS players hate Mod3 with passion and were here in the forums arguing and shaming the whole mod,during and pre -preview release of IWD.
Yet IWD is still alive of players up to this day.
3rd mistake.Cryptic heared the same people that complained about mod3 ,the BiS players and since mod4 ,game took a new direction.
Arti gear and refining.Downfall started from there.Easy time you stay BiS by paying with your (exploited) AD.
As for these people -not to flame but to state some facts- one measure of their judjement is the recent dom changes.most were here applauding the dom contesting changes.How much reduce percentage from pvp from then?50%100%? Do some self critisism for a time folks.They always think for themselves and think a fresh 70 will think the same.Not counting the fact that are 0.000000001% of the population and demand things for the rest.Nvm.Sadly cryptic employees still hold in high esteem these players .Sad.
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As for the future?NW is here to stay.It has very good graphics (compared to other MMOS) ,it can be casual and hardcore at the same time.Superb action combat.Have you fought in Archeage?omg.
WotC will push for new content every 6-7 months.Xbox brought new population.
The competitors are in even worst shape.Archeage is ruined,the other sci fi cartoon one will going free to play.Rift has lower player base.
The new NW team is more responsive and creative .They will put the boat back to calm waters.So my advise is for all the old players:Stay in touch:take a break or whatever.But NW has years of life ahead of it.
Edit:Sorry for the wall of text.
You are either a moderator or a punter. I don't believe you can be both, despite the valiant efforts of the new mods.
And glib suggestions like "just do dungeons" are not the solution.
Anyway, new character/player will more than likely want to level to 70. So they go through the regular storyline (Probably get to level 62 or thereabouts by the time they finish whispering cavern). Then on to EE and lots of grinding in Fiery Pit to get to level 70. I doubt many will be spending an extra hour doing their 2 dungeons/skirmishes to get 12k rAD.
So now they're at 70 and need to buy some blue gear to get IL high enough to get into eLoL to get even better gear.
OR
Maybe they want to do Sharandar/DR/IWD for boons.
75,000 AD for Sharandar boons alone. I haven't looked up/added DR/IWD, or ToD.
Prior to this, by the time I hit level 70, I think my OP had about 600,000 AD (but I think I might have bought the blood ruby 3 pack and sold 2 on the AH, and my memory may be a bit off). And I certainly didn't run dungeons/skirms for an hour every day.
New player, by that time may have like 20k AD? (I vaguely recall there's a main storyline quest for doing a dungeon and a skirmish). Not sure how much you get if you stay on for hours and invoke all the time. I play about 1.5-2 hours/day.
Once you're 70, IF you have a good group, you can run CC/ToS in about 8 min each (so if you PUG you may be doing about 12 min. each as people like to kill every single critter instead of racing to the end). Let's average it at 10. 20 min. for 6k AD. Then you have to do 2 skirms. If you have people that don't know what they're doing I think the DR skirm takes about 12 min with an "ok" group. Longer if you have people that don't use headphones or pay attention to chat and screw up the portals. Let's say 15 min. each.
30 min for another 6k AD
Almost an hour for 12k AD.
When I should be leveling my char or getting boons.
Oh wait, can't get the boons. Need AD. Off to run dungeons/skirms
this has been stated many times before, but still no movement from Cryptic:
Costs need to be lowered or removed completely (boons shouldn't cost AD now)
AD gaining methods need to be increased (quests should give out AD, IMO).
And don't get me started on stronghold AD requirements.
Given cryptic's past performance, I doubt we'll see anything any time soon.
For those of us who've played since Beta, this is very sad and frustrating. I'm learning to like Skyforge now.
As always they act to slow and deliver half baked solutions, having trouble in correcting things afterwards.
I also can see that they do work on it, what should have happend in advance, so there is hope.
I also think they really should deal much more drastically with all these spammers, AD sellers, botters and heavy exploiters as you said, it breaks their neck and deals massive damage to their economy.
All in all I think the decision to disarmor the leadership armies was by far the most needed step to go, now they should adapt quick the ingame costs for other stuff
Such is the nature of publicly posting opinions.
But understand this. Much like life, the only constant in an MMO is change. And you also have to accept the fact that sometimes that change is out of your control, so you make the best of it. The leadership situation is one of those changes.
People look to me for advice, which I'm happy to given, freely and openly. When asked years and months ago about generating Astral Diamond income, the advice to use Leadership was genuine and freely given. And it's advice I don't regret giving. Because at the time, and understanding the mechanics and direction of the game is was GOOD advice.
Would it have done anyone any good to whine and complain in those leadership threads? Would it have helped anyone to tell them to give up and quit, to walk away and never player? Or complain about terrible game designs and how things SHOULD be different? In those specific threads you're linking, no. In other threads, of course.
So if you're going back and reviewing all the posts I've made and threads I've started over the last 2 years, I challenge you to also link the ones were I've vocally spoken out against the grind, the excessive costs of refinement, the challenge of leveling new toons to 70, or gearing up alts. I've been an outspoke critic of decisions made, but I've also been one to offer advice for people open to listening to help navigate and adjust to changes, good or bad, to the game.
I know it's easier to point fingers and hurdle insults than to think critically about these issues. And I know how easy it is to cherry pick from thousands of my posts to make a case. And I'll shrug it off.
And given how much more I know now about how widely abused the Gateway and Leadership was, more so now than I did a few months ago, I know it's extremely unlikely that you'll see these leadership changes reverted.
So you can accept that as one of those things that won't change. And then you look for things that you CAN change. Since the leadership change, how many threads have I put up suggesting other changes that benefit the players? How many comments have I made agreeing with the players, NOT the developers, about the need for other adjustments?
And how many more comments and threads will I start, offering what I believe are reasonable and needed changes to the game to make things more fun and enjoyable for the average player here, and less of a grind and less punishing?
Lots.
So if some people want to make a false case by cherry picking comments and quotes, be my guest. But I would also appeal to the more reasonable members of this community,* of whom there are many,* *to continue to offer up productive and intelligent posts*,* discussing needed changes* * and opportunities that can* * help make Neverwinter a better game for everyone. *
Until such a time they get on board fully, they are fully open to criticism by all.
So, to elaborate a bit:
For a while now, the game has slowly been becoming less and less friendly for multiple characters with the daily grinds. As more and more of my characters got to level 60 earlier this this year, it's become more and more of a chore to do all the newly added dailies, obtain new gear, obtain newer gear, afford new items, new level cap, and what-not and so on... on top of running Leadership. So, in short, the "in game part" is all about alt-friendliness, or lack there-of, both in gameplay and equipment/economy.
Also, a big part of my frustration is the Foundry, or lack there-of of any sort of commitment on the developer's part to make it what it was originally stated to be and should be to this day, an integral part of the game. There's little incentive to make or play foundry missions and then even if there was, due to the alt-unfriendliness of the game, I didn't even have the time to devote to the foundry.
I've cut back the number of characters that I actively play, drastically. From 28 down to 4 now. Still, I don't see how I'd have the time or in-game income to afford things with just those characters and be able to play the game without it feeling like a second job. It's like the game wants you to play a ton of characters just to afford things but on the same hand, says that if you do, you'd have to
playgrind them 24/7 (wee bit exaggeration for emphasis).[ Support Center • Rules & Policies and Guidelines • ARC ToS • Guild Recruitment Guidelines | FR DM Since 1993 ]
Actually, cost reduction should have been included the same day the revenue-reduction was implemented imo. Any day later than that, it's a mistake.
And if I'm honest with myself, I have to agree with Zeb about how leadership was becoming addictive/boring. I was just up to 17 toons, and was contemplating making more. It was getting pretty dull. It was the fact that it allowed me to see some 'toon-progress' at a reasonable pace that made it addictive. Now without it, what is there? No way I'm gonna run some dungeon over and over and over... would rather get a root canal.
Game overview:
1-60: blazing fast and fun (maybe too fast? I did it in 16 hours last toon)
60-70: kinda boring (was mod-6 computer generated?)
Campaigns: fair, not that bad really. A few choices as far as timing etc.
70+: pay $1k or grind for a year+. ack!
pvp: not much variety and the 'haves' just own, hence close-competitive matches are about 1 in 10.
And sadly, another part of the game I was really looking forward to enjoying was playing every class (dungeons and especially pvp). Each class plays differently, and it was kinda fun. But all the RP for artifacts, equip, stones, etc... make it impractical. This is probably the only MMO I've ever played where a player makes ALTs to support one main toon. Seems like in most games, it's the other way around...
total cost 2.6M / 24k per day. = 109 days.
upgraded horse: 600k for rank 2 1.4M for rank 3: 84 days.
going out adventuring gives no AD income. the only things that give ad income are skirmishes/dungeons( all 6 of them) and pvp. going out adventuring gets you gold. which you can use to buy potions and heal kits.
every time im in lostmauths lair and get a peridot for killing the dragon that is sitting on piles of gold and someone reminds me its DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS. i feel like hitting them with a brick.
defeat valindra, thus saving neverwinter from imminent doom. here's yet another ring.
help every dorf in icewindale with their personal vendettas and you get to pay them 10's of thousands of ad for them to train you. and 100's of thousands of black ice for them to upgrade your armor.
save the elves from being over run by redcaps. you get to pay them 10's of thousands of ad for them to train you. oh and heres a crappy ring. sorry we used to have decent equipment but none for you adventurer.
become a master weaponsmith, and none of your weapons are worth using.
yeah sure sounds like dungeons and dragons to me....
- Yes, we need more dungeons to bring more variation to game. Preferrably some Tier 3 ones that the well-geared teams can wipe in. That would be 2500+ required dungeons, with an effective required gear level of 3000.
- Grinds are and have always been a part of MMORPGS. It is impossible to make content fast enough to keep up with the players.
- I agree that Cryptic should put more priority into the bug fixing department. All the small unfixed bugs and problems is a constant annoyance, which likely turn some players away. For instance we should have had a class balance pass a long time ago to nerf the Lostmauth set, OP's, SW and GWF damage.
- Cryptic did some unfortunate things, in particular mod 6 was too harsh(but a difficulty increase was needed), and the LS change was done too quickly. It would not have done much harm to let the botting go on 2-3 more weeks while they did a proper job fixing LS, and introduced more soloable AD sources. They panicked.
All over I have the impression that Cryptic is juggling with a VERY limited development team, and that attention to the daily game suffers since they are under contract with PWE to deliver mods at given times to match the WoTC AD&D market plans.
Anything should actually start with talking with players, and not just some reaction based on some created situations...
For example SW, that "damage" you want to nerf, may come from the soul puppet, but only under certain conditions.
If you don't believe me, make a SW, and let the soul puppet run solo against a training puppet. Not to mention, that the soul puppet has around 25k HP...
And only the epic versions of dungeons provide rAD, drops to salavage and seals. Besides there is rather a need for a few IL 1.8k dungeons, to let players "train" and gear up for the 2.0k dungeons, then some IL 2.4k dungeons, that maybe a handfull of players will ever see from the inside.
For a regular player you have the normal starting phase into the game which is leveling from 1 to 60 which is in my opinion a lot of fun even if it lacks certain mechanics. Like appealing crafting which is usefull for the leveling aspect of the game (after the introducing of crafting there are 0 crafting related quests in this game and the early crafting is really slow), the lack of immersion, clever quests (like special quests that doesn't need to kill hundred of enemies) and cutscenes for story purpose.
Level 61 to 70 is pure busy work. It is now a lot better because you get more XP and only need 8 vigilance quests instead of 16 which simply mean you are double as fast as before, but still this part of the content is boring and feels like busy work and while doing it, it lacks everything in my opinion a MMORPG can be. I mean, you fight a four different cults that threatens Neverwinter/Fearun with weapons of mass destruction but you never see or experience this kind of threat and the 4 areas are only there to keep you leveling in generic quests.
I mean.... many other MMORPGs showed how you could have done it right, like doing some basic quests that trigger special heroic encounter if a certain amount of action is done, that grants good XP and Reward. Advanced quests could include phasing. A "technology" that means you change a part of an area for you because you progressed in the story. I mean... is it really so hard to make the content appealing that it feels like a crusade against the cultist instead of everyday buswork?
At Level 70 your progression is tied in the campaigns and your item level. The campaigns are the same busywork of like 4-6 daily quests per campaign that rewards you with special campaign currency to unlock campaign milestones and boons.
Sharandar: You unlock new areas (before Module 6 you also unlocked the new dungeon). The three areas had everyone an own theme but there was no story progression it was simply like: We now have also an infestion of dark feys in the new area which mean you must do more dailies to progress further (it would be a good game design it would be more like a sinus curve, which means only a bit daily quests at the beginning to introduce with more and more work to do till you reach a decent amount of daily quests and then less and less till you reach the end of the campaign/story, but you get like the tripple amount of quests you must do and then it abruptly ends). In additon you can progress the boons to make you a bit stronger.
Dread Ring: You unlock the boons and can additionally upgrade your glove for extra drops and maybe a free artifact (with an abysmal drop rate) which is now part of an artifactset which is now only usefull for one class because they changed the stats of the belt (before Module 6 you also unlocked the new dungeon).
Icewindale: You unlock a new profession which granted you to the time the campaign was released the best armor (and now is used to upgrade your armor which makes all other armor professions almost useless), unlock new fashion (which costs refined blackice that you need to upgrade your armor. What an dumb idea.), unlock a quest to aquire a new companion (with an abysmal drop rate but can buyed from the auctionhouse for a decent amount of AD so don't bother to unlock this quest), unlock boons that make you a bit stronger and unlock a new skirmish (Sharandar and Dread Ring had those for free).
Tyranny of the Dragon: unlock new areas or more likely old areas which you then only allowed to quests different dailies which are also the same (kill stuff/collect stuff/kill a dragon of a different color). You unlock then some tasks to gain gear which is useless because the task need a lot of campaign currency which only slows your progress to gain the cool stuff like boons or maybe one or two dragon hoard enchantments to get refining points for your later gear progression. You can unlock tasks to get dragon keys which is also a waste because you can buy them with Zen and if the current trend of cheaper zen goes on they are in general way cheaper then using the campaign task (the ZAX must reach 330 AD per Zen to be cheaper than most ingame tasks).
What is the statement. Campaigns are busy work. They have no character, have a artifical cooldown and after you are done with them, they are most likely useless in everyway only some minor tasks are usefull but you will soon be like: I could do Task XY to gain like 1-2k extra AD but hell no i am glad that i am done with it.
Then you are left with almost 0 AD because the Boons consume a lot of it. And must do Dungeons, Skirmishs and PvP do gain them. And sorry with only 3-6 Dungeons, 3 Skirmishs and 1 PvP Mod while the PvP Balance is broken and most of the time also unplayable because of the server lag this game can barely sustain the need of his players.
It could have worked with Stronghold if you had the possibilty to unlock content and be like "okay i farm now a lot of influence for my guild to help them upgrading faster" but there is also artifical cooldown to prevent you to progress too fast in this game. I mean, farming by choice is better than doing like 3-6 dailies (again) and then log off after 1 hour of gameplay.
If the developer and publisher really think that artifical cooldown in dailies would really be a way to monetize your game than you are really dumb. At some point the player notice: "Okay i spend now a decent amount of money to progress a bit faster only to recognize i must spend now a lot more of my money to progress. Not gonna happen." You simply push you players away.
A good and healthy way to monetize the game would be to sell cosmetic items. Different Sets of color, armor skins, fashion items, transmute items for mounts, transmute items for companions (some people are sick of ion stones skin and want maybe a parrot skin for their pirate outfit), etc.
But since module 1 there is no new fashion item in the game even special color sets or single sets of one color is till the same and since the rework in module 6 we miss like 50% of the armor and weapon skins in this game as well because the items can't be aquired anymore. We also could dye our weapons, this feature was activly removed from the game. Some really good looking fashion items are hidden behind a wall of Trade Bars which mean you are forced to open lockboxes only to aquire Trade Bars to buy ONE PIECE of a fashion set of THREE ITEMS for 550! Trade Bars which mean to aquire the full set i need 1650 Trade Bars which means i must open 165-330 Lockboxes which means it costs around 20,625 - 41,250 Zen.
The question is: Did such monetization worked? Plain answer: No. Barely no one is buying it. I saw in the whole 2,5 years in Neverwinter a handfull of people walking in these fashion items and maybe another handfull of offers in the auctionhouse. The rest of the player (like 99,9%) aren't bothering to buy it. Maybe it changes with the Trade Bar rework in the new module but i doubt it.
That is the reason i think, this game has not much life left in it.
That said, I'd love to be able to come back. I have time and money invested in my toons and if Cryptic gave me even the slightest reason to come back and play them I would. But at the moment this game is simply not a viable choice for the solo player who likes to play more than one toon.
I notice the developers say they want to 'address' the single player experience. They better do it quick if they want any of the players they've lost to retain enough interest to be lured back...
Aelar Hawkwind - Archer
Karrin Feywinter - Mistress of Flame
Errin Duskwalker - Executioner
Darquess - Soulbinder
Ah well, we all live and learn.
Who was buying those exquisite pants, shirts, and rings? I WAS. And it was with AD generated from LS. The price of those pants and rings had the price of dragon eggs built in, so how can the price of that go down? It can't. The price of those Rank-X stones had the 'government-set' price of gmops and cash-based/invoke-gated wards all built into it (they lowered gmop (good), but wards are still the same). Price can only decrease by the amount of the gmop cut and no more.
If they cut the revenue of players by 90%, they have to cut ALL fixed-costs by 90% OR (even-better) add tons of new content that will let players make up for the 90% cut. (but that's more work on their part, don't see that happening). There current plan seems to be to 'leverage' their existing content, add maybe 10% increase to ad-revenue. Not a good plan, because everyone has already done all the old content multiple times. So bad plan, bad implementation (LS change), and it goes down from there on...
Everyone says the right things, but in stark reality, its much darker then it appears. You simply cannot play more then (1) one toon anymore, you simply cannot worry EVERY about new classes, whats the point?
They made it so broken, so harsh, so boring, so grindy, that players are exiting at rapid #s, this game , though being newer by almost 2 years, now has almost the same # of players in steam charts as rift online.
That is such a dramatic and telling drop off, I dont see how they will ever really recover at this point.