Well, just look at the new AD sources they are planning to implement. Wow, a whole 15k a week, what a pitiful joke that is. Yet again they showed just how out of touch they are with not only the players but the entire game itself. And how very little they actually listen or care for their player base. They don't care to fix the game, they don't know how to fix the game, and they don't listen to all the amazing ideas from the players on how to improve the game. And there are plenty of great ideas to make this game fun again. But alas, great ideas falling on deaf ears and blind eyes. At this rate, mod8 will be the last mod for this game. There just won't be enough people around paying to keep the server up. And it will all be because no one at Cryptic cares for the people that play their game.
Not only most people don;t use steam. But NEW PLAYERS will most likely use arc.
We simply don't know how many players are online. I personally use the LEGIT channel to see how many are online. Didn't see differences, but they might be playing another game...
Not only most people don;t use steam. But NEW PLAYERS will most likely use arc.
We simply don't know how many players are online. I personally use the LEGIT channel to see how many are online. Didn't see differences, but they might be playing another game...
PvP leaderboard had 4k pages at its introduction (and they had lost players until then, too). Look at it now. Even if you say, that they screwed PvP up, you are ranked after one fight, so the numbers should be quite good to compare active player numbers.
- 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.
you get the exact same rewards (salvage wise) running a t1 and running a t2. only in the t1 you get a chance at an arti drop as well. how does that make any sense. half my t2 dungeons are a peridot or 2 and whatever is in the end chest ( which is generally less than the cost of a key). yeah if i run enough i get my fill of salvage and after 6-10 runs i have enough to buy a ring for 3k ad or add to my ever growing stack of shards. so yes the dungeon reward situation is really that bad.
PvP leaderboard had 4k pages at its introduction (and they had lost players until then, too). Look at it now. Even if you say, that they screwed PvP up, you are ranked after one fight, so the numbers should be quite good to compare active player numbers.
nah, then they'll use the excuse that people just arent pvping anymore.
After reading the Mod 8 MMO.com interview, I'm pretty discouraged. I still think it will be around, but the suckage factor only looks to be getting worse. The game keeps moving further away from what made it so amazing, and to be brutally honest, the hope that it will improve is essentially gone....new hope has emerged that this will be the do or die mod for some of the devs at cryptic...maybe we will get some new blood that understands fun = profit and who aren't relics of the Pacman era of game design.
Sadly, I don't see any changes coming down the pipe that is going to bring me back to play again. As a casual player and some one that likes to play solo a lot, I can see that we are just not wanted in this game anymore. The statement Scott made about looking into getting more for the solo/casual player seems to be nothing more than a lie at this point. You can't do the new professions unless you are in a guild and a large guild at that. At this point, I can honestly say that we need an entire new team behind this game as the ones we have don't care enough to even keep their word.
That depends, if the difficulty is for "solo players", then the guild players will burn through the new content with just sneezing at the new opponents. And i doubt, that this will happen... the difficulty will probably count in guild benefits in some way, so where does this leave a solo player in Underdark? Pretty much where Strongholds left him, on the sideline of this game.
If they bring the old dungeons back and bring NCL back, the game will revive. That's all.
Totally agree here Zeusom, that is the frustrating part of all of this, that the solution is so simple yet they can't seem to see it right in front of their noses.
If they bring the old dungeons back and bring NCL back, the game will revive. That's all.
Sorry, no. When you chop the roots off something, and half the limbs or more, even if it re-buds and survives, it is never the same again, and more than likely malformed at that.
They designed the game a certain way, took actual money so that people could play that way. Then they pulled the rug out from those players, most of those quit (but telling everyone that would hear (that's friends and family) along the way how they were robbed). Then they took the game another way (RP), built a lot of core content around it, when bugs and structural problems arose, rather than pause and fix those problems, they rammed on through piling more on top of the shaky foundation (artifacts).
Despite inflation of material needs for that content, they kept piling more and more and ignored the other cracks appearing. Once it appeared as a Jenga building and EVERYONE (including investors) could see that it had to give, they finally decided to do "something". That "something" once again pulled the rug out from players that had played by their rules and spent actual money, driving off another group of players (who also told everyone they got robbed)
So rather than be conservative in their measures and treat the disease and infuse healthy nutrients into the plant, they decided that they needed to start lopping off parts of the plant. So first they lopped off the photosynthesis limbs (content like dungeons etc.) the stuff that let the game process the life giving sunlight (what players actually enjoyed playing). Then they chopped off some roots (leadership) that the players relied on to prop up the Jenga structure. Then they stripped off some bark for where they were going to "inject" pesticide in (SH). But the pesticide was systemic and the wrong kind, so even more leaves and limbs died off.
Now they have a "plan", it involves grafting on some leaves back (15k week (weak?) grind reward). But those leaves have a problem, they were from another diseased plant that nobody wanted, the disease is endemic to the species (grindfest/campaigns). They say they got other plans to "fix" the plant (maybe some astroturf to shade the area?) (AD generation/price "balance"). and not to worry that they got a horticulture specialist coming to graft on some more roots (Mod8). But while we wait for the specialist, we wait...................
Sadly, I don't see any changes coming down the pipe that is going to bring me back to play again. As a casual player and some one that likes to play solo a lot, I can see that we are just not wanted in this game anymore. The statement Scott made about looking into getting more for the solo/casual player seems to be nothing more than a lie at this point. You can't do the new professions unless you are in a guild and a large guild at that. At this point, I can honestly say that we need an entire new team behind this game as the ones we have don't care enough to even keep their word.
Well Underdark is for Solo players.
Sadly, I don't think so. With the new mastercraft professions gated behind SH, that means if you want them, you have to be in a guild. Want to play solo or just with a couple of friends and don't want to be in a guild at all, Cryptic is saying, we don't want you in our game, plain and simple. Want to just be in a small guild of 5 or 10, Cryptic says, we don't want you in our game either. Pretty easy to see that. It is quite easy to see that Cryptic doesn't want solo players or casual players in their game anymore. Everything from mod 6 on proves it. Underdark isn't here yet and we don't know everything but from what little info we have, it looks to be just another nail in the coffin for casual/solo players.
Oh well, if they don't want casual/solo players, if they want to squeeze me out, there are other MMO that like my money. That's the good thing about capitalism, someone is ALWAYS trying to make a better mousetrap, and they want money to go about it.
My money, your money, everyone's money can just be shuffled in NW's face as we move on past them to another MMO. What could be better lesson for them than for us to "PSYC"! them with our money while we leave in droves..them just whiffing the smell of the money they aren't going to ever get, is just sweet, sweet revenge for what they have done to us.
Well, i hope, that the Dusk footwear comes as bonus and not as something, that blocks you from getting something else/good out of the lockbox - the loottable for lockboxes is bad enough allready.
How about a real improvement for ALL lockboxes?
And i do hope, that the Dusk footwear can either be traded in for Trade Bars, or that we can sell it over the AH.
I also hope, that there're other ways to get that Dusk armor, then just going through the ZEN shop...
Last but not least, i'm still hoping to see the news, that rAD is added to ALL daily quests, since that would bring at least some life back to NWO.
— Dusk bodywear can purchased in the Tarmalune Trade Bar store. (you NEED to open lockboxes) — Dusk headwear can purchased in the Tarmalune Trade Bar store. (you NEED to open lockboxes) — Dusk armwear can be purchased as part of the Grazilaxx companion bundle in the Zen Market. (you NEED to BUY it from Zen Store) Remember the black ice armwear?? this is the same buy cost you $$ beside beeing f**d.. — Dusk footwear can be found in lockboxes. (you NEED to open lockboxes)
in any case, BIS PVE gear from lockboxes?? are we at Las Vegas or on NeverWinter??
@darlo4ragnar Dusk Armor is NOT BiS PvE gear. It's level 135, which is the same as Elven Armor. Elemental Elven, Dragonflight, and Elemental Dragonflight are all 137+. The new module also adds Drowcraft armor, which is level 135, upgradable to level 140 and that's all purchasable from a vendor.
From the looks of it, Dusk armor will NOT be upgradable.
So you're not getting BiS armor out of lockboxes. All of it will be earned via Underdark content. Personally, I'd take the time to understand the module a little bit more, as well as watch what happens as it gets tested on preview before making such wild and wildly false claims again.
Quite a loaded question there. Things changed, there's no more leadership ad armies to be profitable. To assume some other reason for no longer running leadership ad armies and promoting them is just weird.
Personally, I ran almost 30 characters each day doing leadership. The change has not negatively impacted my enjoyably of the game. On the contrary, it's allowed me to once again get back to having time to actually play my characters again instead of spending so much time working leadership.
It's not a loaded question, it's a direct one since it's addressing a 180.
You have said you don't have time to spend ingame to afford things, and that leadership AD gave you greater enjoyment ingame:
Leadership took maybe a minute or two per character, so it wasn't detracting from anyone's time in actually playing the characters. People aren't making more AD in the new system, they are making the same AD they always could with a character. Anyone including you could have made that same AD in the old system with your toons if you actually played them back then.
A "180" from almost EIGHT MONTHS ago, where a lot has changed both in game and out. See my reply above, for holding me to an opinion from nearly a year ago is quite absurd. As well, it was more like 15 minutes per character for me, as I didn't just sit and click professions then switch. I took time to do little things, like invoking, mail, grabbing dailies from various zones, chatting, and other organization things while on each character. Then add me needing to take care of real life issues inbetween... it could sometimes take me an hour or two just to get through all my characters
LOL nothing about the game and enjoyment of the game has changed for the better in the last year. Certainly nothing that removed the need for leadership.
Well I suppose that's not 100% true. I don't log in much at all anymore so I guess I don't really need AD.
Quite a loaded question there. Things changed, there's no more leadership ad armies to be profitable. To assume some other reason for no longer running leadership ad armies and promoting them is just weird.
Personally, I ran almost 30 characters each day doing leadership. The change has not negatively impacted my enjoyably of the game. On the contrary, it's allowed me to once again get back to having time to actually play my characters again instead of spending so much time working leadership.
It's not a loaded question, it's a direct one since it's addressing a 180.
You have said you don't have time to spend ingame to afford things, and that leadership AD gave you greater enjoyment ingame:
Leadership took maybe a minute or two per character, so it wasn't detracting from anyone's time in actually playing the characters. People aren't making more AD in the new system, they are making the same AD they always could with a character. Anyone including you could have made that same AD in the old system with your toons if you actually played them back then.
A "180" from almost EIGHT MONTHS ago, where a lot has changed both in game and out. See my reply above, for holding me to an opinion from nearly a year ago is quite absurd. As well, it was more like 15 minutes per character for me, as I didn't just sit and click professions then switch. I took time to do little things, like invoking, mail, grabbing dailies from various zones, chatting, and other organization things while on each character. Then add me needing to take care of real life issues inbetween... it could sometimes take me an hour or two just to get through all my characters
LOL nothing about the game and enjoyment of the game has changed for the better in the last year. Certainly nothing that removed the need for leadership. [...]
Quoted for truth.
IMHO the game has entered a downward spiral...
...by creating a situation where the player is urged to spend money - or either be doomed to meaninglessness, or to grind excessive amounts of playing time (instead of an entertaining and thrilling gaming experience that will entice the player to deliberately do so).
So players face the choice to either (a) spend RL cash to progress, or (b) resign and plod on slowly, or (c) resign and leave. The steeper the cliff, the higher the probability for non-(a) decisions becomes.
Now let's add some econoThink into the mixture: The 80/20-rule (aka Pareto principle).
Then it becomes fairly obvious that since Mod 6 the 20% generating 80% of turnover are the target group. By further application of the Pareto rule, these can be serviced with 20% of the effort, too.
@ironzerg79 have you seen the dusk geas bonus?? is so good that no matter the ils it has (or the BI infusion or not, that most of the people doesent do in any case), stats are really well divided (for GFs 3 pcs have crit, only the pvp sets has the same while all the other pve gear available has 1/2 pc with crit and the rest is all recovery) and the 2k self healing+5kHP+power+4kspeed(on SH map) when teamed up for the new HE on your SH is "freaking awesome"..
Looking at the set bonus of the Drowcraft armor, and reading the first reviews of the epic Demogorgon fight, it seems fairly obvious that Drowcraft armor will be mandatory if you want to fight epic Demogorgon.
So while Dusk armor is nice too, most likely the majority of the players will go for Drowcraft since they certainly want to get the goodies from epic Demogorgon.
Unfortunately Cryptic has no idea how to make money so they make huge mistakes with misguided changes trying to push players into spending and then blame bots. This has gotten tiresome and unfortunately has caused most players to go into spending lock down or leave the game entirely. Perhaps the ones in charge of these recent changes will get run off and trust will be gradually restored and new life may come to the game, but usually bad leaders get a pat on the back and good employees get fired instead. I just watch from the sidelines, train wrecks are safer that way but still morbidly fascinating.
Dude. QFT. I had NO problem opening my wallet $100 at a time regularly in earlier days. Not anymore. Not spending a dime until I see some changes. Keep pumping out silly mounts, bigger bags, and other fluff companion stuff instead of fixing the issues in the game already.
I have not been playing very long....but when I did start I remember channels for particular maps having 40+ channels all the time, no matter the time of day. Playing the same times as I used to I do see a dramatic decrease in many of the so called end game zones to having 4 or 5 channels. For the channels to drop that much from what it used to be is dramatic and says something about the future. Many with lots of time and money invested are still holding on in hopes of a turn around. Once they realize that there is no turn for the good (hopefully there is) they will be gone as well. Many great games have come to this same end in the same manner...bad corporate decisions and the un-willingness to listen to the fan base and then to introduce the greedy schemes to drain what they can while there is still some life left. It just sad to see!
Before the leadership change, any time I was in PE, the chat channel went by so fast, you couldn't even read it. Now, not only can you read it, but answer someone as well. It is that slow. It went from an Indie car racing around the track at full speed to driving in a 10 mph school zone.
Comments
But NEW PLAYERS will most likely use arc.
We simply don't know how many players are online. I personally use the LEGIT channel to see how many are online. Didn't see differences, but they might be playing another game...
Lethinath - DC
Fayn Fiddler - HR
Jean Fiddler - OP
Quinn Fiddler - TR
Tre'Davious Flynn - SW
Bogus Skullslicker - GF
Vanhankaupunginselk - CW
Alea - GWF
Noble Misfits
"You casual? Get lost, chum. You "Pro"? Anyone can say so - prove it by excelling in infiniGrind (TM) and spending RL biiiiiig time."
Let's see what that means to the lifeline drip feed of new players...
And i doubt, that this will happen... the difficulty will probably count in guild benefits in some way, so where does this leave a solo player in Underdark?
Pretty much where Strongholds left him, on the sideline of this game.
Sopi SW Youtube channel pvp brickabrack
They designed the game a certain way, took actual money so that people could play that way. Then they pulled the rug out from those players, most of those quit (but telling everyone that would hear (that's friends and family) along the way how they were robbed). Then they took the game another way (RP), built a lot of core content around it, when bugs and structural problems arose, rather than pause and fix those problems, they rammed on through piling more on top of the shaky foundation (artifacts).
Despite inflation of material needs for that content, they kept piling more and more and ignored the other cracks appearing. Once it appeared as a Jenga building and EVERYONE (including investors) could see that it had to give, they finally decided to do "something". That "something" once again pulled the rug out from players that had played by their rules and spent actual money, driving off another group of players (who also told everyone they got robbed)
So rather than be conservative in their measures and treat the disease and infuse healthy nutrients into the plant, they decided that they needed to start lopping off parts of the plant. So first they lopped off the photosynthesis limbs (content like dungeons etc.) the stuff that let the game process the life giving sunlight (what players actually enjoyed playing).
Then they chopped off some roots (leadership) that the players relied on to prop up the Jenga structure. Then they stripped off some bark for where they were going to "inject" pesticide in (SH). But the pesticide was systemic and the wrong kind, so even more leaves and limbs died off.
Now they have a "plan", it involves grafting on some leaves back (15k week (weak?) grind reward). But those leaves have a problem, they were from another diseased plant that nobody wanted, the disease is endemic to the species (grindfest/campaigns). They say they got other plans to "fix" the plant (maybe some astroturf to shade the area?) (AD generation/price "balance"). and not to worry that they got a horticulture specialist coming to graft on some more roots (Mod8). But while we wait for the specialist, we wait...................
My money, your money, everyone's money can just be shuffled in NW's face as we move on past them to another MMO. What could be better lesson for them than for us to "PSYC"! them with our money while we leave in droves..them just whiffing the smell of the money they aren't going to ever get, is just sweet, sweet revenge for what they have done to us.
How about a real improvement for ALL lockboxes?
And i do hope, that the Dusk footwear can either be traded in for Trade Bars, or that we can sell it over the AH.
I also hope, that there're other ways to get that Dusk armor, then just going through the ZEN shop...
Last but not least, i'm still hoping to see the news, that rAD is added to ALL daily quests, since that would bring at least some life back to NWO.
From the looks of it, Dusk armor will NOT be upgradable.
So you're not getting BiS armor out of lockboxes. All of it will be earned via Underdark content. Personally, I'd take the time to understand the module a little bit more, as well as watch what happens as it gets tested on preview before making such wild and wildly false claims again.
Vegas you get comps for playing and losing your money.....
Well I suppose that's not 100% true. I don't log in much at all anymore so I guess I don't really need AD.
IMHO the game has entered a downward spiral...
...by creating a situation where the player is urged to spend money - or either be doomed to meaninglessness, or to grind excessive amounts of playing time (instead of an entertaining and thrilling gaming experience that will entice the player to deliberately do so).
So players face the choice to either (a) spend RL cash to progress, or (b) resign and plod on slowly, or (c) resign and leave. The steeper the cliff, the higher the probability for non-(a) decisions becomes.
Now let's add some econoThink into the mixture: The 80/20-rule (aka Pareto principle).
Then it becomes fairly obvious that since Mod 6 the 20% generating 80% of turnover are the target group. By further application of the Pareto rule, these can be serviced with 20% of the effort, too.
...just many of the sidelined 80% fall for the sunk investments/costs fallacy and/or the escalation of commitment - and keep on playing this game, throwing good money after bad...
So while Dusk armor is nice too, most likely the majority of the players will go for Drowcraft since they certainly want to get the goodies from epic Demogorgon.
A sort of mod 3-esque hub and a few themed zones.
Re-edition of 3 of the old dungeons with revamped enemy stats amd boss mechanics, super hard with decent rewards.
A boon campaign which didn't add stats so much as interesting, but not pvp busting, abilities, though the new rings seem to be along that line.
Either a SHpvp fix with incentives to play beyond just getting gear, or another dom map.
IMO... lots
I think it is getting much better
Urlord