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: 12,457Arc 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.
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.
Comments
- 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.
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.