Although people are complaining the AD income, bare in mind that zax is around 400 ad/zen right now. It is not low at all. I can see this change can boost my income by 50%, which is quite good. And I play regularly.
Although people are complaining the AD income, bare in mind that zax is around 400 ad/zen right now. It is not low at all. I can see this change can boost my income by 50%, which is quite good. And I play regularly.
How does a low ZAX help anyone? You buy Zen directly, convert to AD, you get less now.
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marcoparad85Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 38Arc User
Frankly I'm baffled. You promised you would look at the AD costs in the new economy and this is what you came up with? Amazing. I would like to know what's the logic you're following. You cut the prices of marks in the bazaar because they don't fit in the new economy but leave untouched the costs of companions upgrades, transmutation and more importantly all the AD requirements of the Stronghold's upgrades!!! Don't know what to say anymore, just watch out for the drop in logins in the next few weeks. Those are all the people you're losing to Black Desert. Congratulations for killing a good game.
All this time and this was all you could come up with. How utterly disappointing. This isn't even worth making an announcement for. I was actually holding out a little hope you guys would come to your senses and make some real changes that would bring us players back. Yet again, you have failed miserably and prove once again just how little you care for the players. And even more how little you listen to feedback. Wow, if this is the best you devs could come up with, I feel really sorry for you. Because this is pretty much one of the most pitiful changes ever. But I feel more sorry for the players. Especially the ones waiting for something to actually change in order to start playing again. This isn't it.
I'm not expecting to be a millionaire but is good as incentive to actually do those lairs as part of the grinding, instead of a loathsome activity. I can do dungeons to death but want more variety, dungeons too long gets boring as hell, normal or epic.
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klangeddinMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 882Arc User
How about sending the campaigns back to level 60 eh? You know, as the quests and the in-game text actually describe them. Would also help filling the exp holes after level 65 and we'd start earning more AD and stuff for stronghold a bit sooner.
DEV. what happened? why thinking those quest?? you need to think about the SIEGE SH, that's your recent feature that you want to be proud of.. BUT.... its not yet even 2 month, its failing already. LONG SUPER LONG QUEUE , meaning not much people queueing anymore, either they already have the set, or bc error system like stamina drain, too long pvp, node immune etc. make Siege SH also part of AD source. then people will start queue again, and siege is alive again.
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darkstarcrashMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,382Arc User
That amount is not enough for us players to reach some decent IL or spend it on SHs.
We need to be able to reach the rAD limit (24k) per DAY with each toon at level 70 to compensate the "sink" youselves created with your last change on Leadership. So, the best way to do so is to put AD into "Dailies"
Why exactly do we "need" to make 24k rAD per character?
You can easily reach a "decent" ilvl with much less income, especially with GMoP prices cut by 75%. Costs for player-priced items in the AH have also declined. Unless your definition of "decent" is full rank 12s and legendary/mythic artifact gear in all slots.
So in other words, if you're a level 70 (and ONLY a level 70) then you can earn an extra 15,000 AD a week by playing the same boring stuff over and over again. What difference is that going to make?? Do you devs even play your own game??? Do you have ANY idea of the AD requirements of a level 70 character???
Why don't you have small amounts of AD awarded on EVERYTHING in the game? You said yourself Scott that AD is a currency of time! So reward my time played with small amounts of AD that add up over a play session! I'm sick of playing ToS 10 times a day just so I can afford to barely upgrade a single character.
This game is an unholy grind from lvl 60 onwards. And you just made it worse. By forcing us to grind the same quests over and over again for AD, instead of allowing us to earn it doing anything we want in the game. When are you guys going to get it? You're killing your game with this stuff!
DEV. what happened? why thinking those quest?? you need to think about the SIEGE SH, that's your recent feature that you want to be proud of.. BUT.... its not yet even 2 month, its failing already. LONG SUPER LONG QUEUE , meaning not much people queueing anymore, either they already have the set, or bc error system like stamina drain, too long pvp, node immune etc. make Siege SH also part of AD source. then people will start queue again, and siege is alive again.
So bribe them to play SH....0.o It's so good, it's the new shiny great thing that everyone should want, only they aren't wanting, so as a solution rather than make it fun enough to play on it's own, you say bribe them into it.
Sounds like there is more wrong with it than the ques etc. You pay people to do things you can't or won't do yourself. You don't like to scrub the toilet you pay someone to do so, so SH is so good you have to resort to paying them to do so. That's some toilet SH is......
And when are you guys going to fix Leadership?? Do you realize how amateur it is that you released that in the way that you did? You have a lvl 25 1 day quest that gives less reward than a lvl 23 4 hr quest. How has it taken you this long to address this? Why doesn't Leadership make sense? You've lost the confidence of your gaming community with these half-cocked responses and lack of a thought out and finalized plan. This is getting embarrassing.
Really?? That's IT? I don't generally play the dungeons or the skirmishes etc and I refuse to do pvp. I don't enjoy them and prefer to play solo. So apart from the Foundry & the invoking players like me get hardly any AD. But most of the boons & items that are for sale for AD are still ridiculously high in price!! Surely if you are going to reduce the amount of AD available to ALL players, you would reduce the cost of ALL items that require AD. You guys had a great game before you started stuffing around with it. VERY DISAPPOINTING. In fact even D&D online is looking better!! I hope someone from the Wizards of the coast reads these threads and realises the frustrations players have. Remember, not all of us want to play in groups.
Scott, this game is in a state of emergency and you need to realize that. Here's a list of things you and your team should be addressing immediately.
1. Lower fixed AD costs throughout the game for: - cubes of augmentation - boons - companion upgrades - weapon and outfit transmutes - Wondrous Bazaar
2. Give AD as a reward for absolutely every single thing in the game
3. Bring back the 11 dungeons so we can have some variety. Do you have any idea of sick I was of Cragmire Crypt back as a level 20 character?? Grinding to level 70 just so I can play it again is a cruel joke, not a fitting reward for my efforts. And the areas are now glaringly incomplete without the end dungeons. There's no payoff for doing an area. It's anti-climactic with no noteworthy ending.
4. Make it easier for us to gear up Alts. Alts are key to player satisfaction because it allows me to change gameplay and alleviate boredom. This is ESPECIALLY important when we're forced to do Kessel, Tuern and ELOL about 100 times just so we can get over 2k to play epic dungeons.
5. Bring relevance back to crafting. It is currently a complete waste of time. Nothing you make from any profession is worth any effort at all, other than the 2-slotted rings and the purple slotted shirts and pants. And even then, the costs are now prohibitive for just about the entire gaming population.
6. Give us more module style quests and less 'fetch 10 of these' missions and Heroic Encounters. A perfect example of what this game did right was the Linkletter quest. That was an actual quest. Like a module quest from actual Dungeons & Dragons. Why aren't there 100 more just like that? The Foundry seems to be able to do it. Maybe you should 'promote' top Foundry content directly into the game and make them official.
7. Allow level 70s to play every single skirmish in the game. Why do we lose access to that content? What is your reasoning behind this?
8. Do more CTA events. There should be something every single weekend. Give people a reason to play that's different and exciting once in awhile! CTA events give me something to play for over a 4 day span!
9. I know it's too late to reverse artifact gear, but that was a disaster. Turned everything into a mindless and boring grind. And took variety out of gearing up. I used to be able to play an area and play dungeons and get amazing gear that I could either keep or sell for AD. And then I could play another area and different dungeons to change it up. Can't do that anymore. Even the gear in the level 70 campaign areas is HAMSTER and mostly level 60. What's the point of level 60 in an area that I reach when I'm level 70 and possessing superior gear than the area rewards? Again, I'm not even sure that you guys play your own game. This stuff is glaringly obvious to those of us that play.
10. As per a below comment, Power Points should be automatic 70+. It takes a ridiculous amount of XP to get the reward and that effort should come in the form of a Power Point. Until you sell Power Points in the Zen store, it should be readily available in-game to those who put in the time and effort.
Post edited by marsambassador on
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ghoulz66Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,748Arc User
Would love to do foundries, but alas, have no time for em because I need to work, not play.....
Why don't non-exploit featured ones give em still at least..?
Scott, this game is in a state of emergency and you need to realize that. Here's a list of things you and your team should be addressing immediately.
1. Lower fixed AD costs throughout the game for: - cubes of augmentation - boons - companion upgrades - weapon and outfit transmutes - Wondrous Bazaar
2. Give AD as a reward for absolutely every single thing in the game
3. Bring back the 11 dungeons so we can have some variety. Do you have any idea of sick I was of Cragmire Crypt back as a level 20 character?? Grinding to level 70 just so I can play it again is a cruel joke, not a fitting reward for my efforts. And the areas are now glaringly incomplete without the end dungeons. There's no payoff for doing an area. It's anti-climactic with no noteworthy ending.
4. Make it easier for us to gear up Alts. Alts are key to player satisfaction because it allows me to change gameplay and alleviate boredom. This is ESPECIALLY important when we're forced to do Kessel, Tuern and ELOL about 100 times just so we can get over 2k to play epic dungeons.
5. Bring relevance back to crafting. It is currently a complete waste of time. Nothing you make from any profession is worth any effort at all, other than the 2-slotted rings and the purple slotted shirts and pants. And even then, the costs are now prohibitive for just about the entire gaming population.
6. Give us more module style quests and less 'fetch 10 of these' missions and Heroic Encounters. A perfect example of what this game did right was the Linkletter quest. That was an actual quest. Like a module quest from actual Dungeons & Dragons. Why aren't there 100 more just like that? The Foundry seems to be able to do it. Maybe you should 'promote' top Foundry content directly into the game and make them official.
7. Allow level 70s to play every single skirmish in the game. Why do we lose access to that content? What is your reasoning behind this?
8. Do more CTA events. There should be something every single weekend. Give people a reason to play that's different and exciting once in awhile! CTA events give me something to play for over a 4 day span!
9. I know it's too late to reverse artifact gear, but that was a disaster. Turned everything into a mindless and boring grind. And took variety out of gearing up. I used to be able to play an area and play dungeons and get amazing gear that I could either keep or sell for AD. And then I could play another area and different dungeons to change it up. Can't do that anymore. Even the gear in the level 70 campaign areas is HAMSTER and mostly level 60. What's the point of level 60 in an area that I reach when I'm level 70 and possessing superior gear than the area rewards? Again, I'm not even sure that you guys play your own game. This stuff is glaringly obvious to those of us that play.
I agree with that list but I would also want see divided by 5 the amount of exp overflow needed to have at least a chance of getting a new Power Point. In case you hadnt notice that over 1,7M exp needed for fill the overflow bar vs the 1,5k the campaign quest give you is just a headshot for any new player or alt that is trying to take this game seriously. you cant add 4 rank tilll you are lvl70 and when you reach lvl70 you need that idiotic amount of exp to let the RNG god choose if u deserve a PP or not, facepalm.
This is good and yet another step in the right direction BUT we still need AD prices adjusted. Just to unlock Dwarven Valley is 30,000 AD. What the hell is that? For a damn Valley? On top of that my Needless Distractions/whatever the Ten Towns version is no longer allows me to complete it but dropping and reacquiring doesn't fix it either. Only 200 influence and can't gain more. Not to mention the boons at 16K+ for just one. The prices on those need to be changed a bit too.
Augmentation Cubes are way too much since the effect is random. If it were not random it wouldn't be too bad but with it being random the costs need to be far less. Damn near everything in the Bazaar is way overpriced as well. You changed some of that with the GMOP cost but that doesn't fix 170k transmute items.
Also doesn't fix the 50k PER ITEM transmute costs which is insane since even if you played 5 characters and hit the cap on them all that is only enough for 2 transmutes. You are looking at 6-7 items on your main character to transmute which would be roughly 2.5 to 3 days depending on 6 or 7, providing you managed to max 5 characters. Now if you're a free player and only have 2 slots though, that's more like just under 1 piece a day so easily double what it would be if you had lots of characters to max.
Who has time for that EVERY DAY though? I don't but occasionally Ill max out like 3 or so but that's it. It is insane costs on everything that is the problem, the AD thing wouldn't be too bad but the fixed cost are simply far too high.
Don't forget the absolutely insane costs to upgrade companions as well. As of now I won't be bothering to upgrade them until I have nothing besides enchantments to rank up.
checkmatein3Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 525Arc User
15k AD per week per character is not sufficient to over come the AD sinks currently in the game in relation to the time that many non-casuals feel is proportional to achieve a sense of progress.
The problem, Devs, is that you have some formula that you are using to calculate the worth of time played in the game translated into game currency that is useable that is well below both the COST of the game and the player base's own estimation of worth.
This is why the release of such information is not encouraging, overall. It does nothing to address the issue of how vastly different you judge the game's value and our own.
Psychologically speaking, Neverwinter created such a rabid following from the earliest release for many reasons, but one of these was the satisfaction players received in having the ability to progress fairly quickly, not just in levels, but also in reaching end-game and BiS status. Currently, individual and guild-based progression is severly adjusted downward with the large AD sinks presently in the game, and the low rate of visible progress in a game that is historically less grindy (and in conjunction with less variation in content and rewards) works contrary to the player's encouragement. The result is what you see here on the forums and in the defection of loyal players from the game.
Here are two mathematical examples that prove the point:
EXAMPLE #1 Let us say a small guild is attempting to build barracks 2, with a cost of 2.8Mil AD. We will assume the guild has 20 active players for our calculation. Let us define active as doing sufficient content to earn 24k unrefined AD per day. The 'new' sources of AD would not help this guild in the least, because the maximum refining AD per day is still 24k. There is no benefit to the sources for this kind of player (or guild). The only thing it would do is to perhaps reduce the amount of time needed to hit the 24k AD cap each day. With 5 weekly quests at 3k AD each, you would save (about ) 1 DD or 1 salvage per day. Not much of a benefit. And this is only one of the categories for the structure, now you would add in the time a player may put in for the other categories. Adding AD as a reward for 1 weekly quest does little to pare down the time-to-progress or cost-benefit ratio.
EXAMPLE #2 Let us say active = 20k AD per day, instead of 24k. This would leave open 28k unrefined AD per week/ per character. In this case, the weekly quests would reduce the 28k down to 13k, for quests that were (most likely) already being fulfilled. So, there would be NO time saving, but an increase of 15k, and 300k for the guild coffers for these 20, active level 70 players per week. If we assume for our calculations, that each member donated all earned AD into the guild coffer, the total donation for the week would increase from 2.8Mil to 3.1Mil. Basically, the adding of AD to these quests will only save a guild 1 day of grinding for AD or about a 10% increase, and that is only if they adjust to the parameters of this calculation (which never happens). So, pyschologically, the small guild sees that the barracks 2 can be built with lots of play time and 100% sacrifice in 6 days instead of 7...only to have this repeated again, for barracks 3, barracks 4, GHx, and so on and so on, all the while IGNORING any direct AD that is useable for their own progress.
With current zen prices floating around 400:1 and market prices still out of the range of what most could afford (the prices shifted proportionally downward based on zen, not on worth) and with very little in-game avenue to reaching goals related to end-game targets, the player base is demoralized with the current status of AD sinks, and the addition of more means for unrefined AD does not reduce the fixed cost. Consider that the maximum AD a character can refine in 1 week is still 168k. Adding sources to make another 15k is less than a 10% change to hit that maximum. And the proposed benefit is only for those players near end game, as if a player could not amass some AD before the campaigns for progress that is satisfying.
PROPOSED SOLUTIONS: 1. I have posted elsewhere that adding a means of % unrefined AD reward in relation to questing EXP would help EVERY level hit the 24k unrefined level. Imagine if every QUEST reward unrefined AD on any character as 5% of the quest's EXP reward. Run a quest for 2000XP, earn 100 unrefined AD. The more you grind, the more you make. It encourage true alternate character play, because all quests and development are rewarding.
2. I have also stated that VIP 10-12 should have a cap raise for refined AD, so that you can get an income from players in the game who want to make more income. I have proposed VIP 1-9 24k, VIP 10, 30k, VIP 11 38k, VIP 12 50k per character. This will give cryptic a steady compensation from those players who want to keep earning AD at higher in-game levels.
3. Reduce the Guild category of AD coffer starting price by 50% and change the slope so that the increase is maybe steeper, so that lower levels are easier. Publish your expectation in clear goals on how you based the the progession in mod 7 IN COMBINATION with individual goals AND progression.
4. Reduce individual AD sinks by 10-50%, depending on the item. Others have given details on this proposal.
First off, Thanks to the design team for recognizing that recent changes make things hard for those of us with families and full-time jobs, and therefor not as much time on any given day. I appreciate that you guys are listening, and sincerely trying to make the game better, no matter how each of us might criticize whatever particular aspect of improvement you've made that we personally disagree with.
that said... I still think the best solution to Leadership spam/botting was not to eliminate AD from Leadership, but rather, to make the tasks that do reward AD take a really long time--thus drastically limiting how rapidly people could spam Leadership to earn extra AD. If those tasks all took 8, 12, 16 hours... the ability to abuse them would be dramatically lowered.
Alternatively, make the AD rewards scaled approriately to the time taken, so that it's normalized over time. A level 3 task that yields 100AD might take 4 hours, while a level 18 one that yields 500 AD would take 20 hours. same per-hour rate, just 'better' because it requires less micromanagement. (Maybe include *some* extra scaling so that higher-level characters can still earn more per hour, but don't go crazy with it--say, 800 in 20 hours instead of 500--and keep the duration of those tasks LONG.)
going along with 'rocket's post, a lot of us have RL commentments and play when we can. i might get to play a night a week or so and the only way i was able to get any appreciable amount of AD was thru Leadership. I realize that people have exploited with bots, but why not stop rough AD sharing between characters in the same account and bring AD back to Leadership. that way the intended purpose for the 24k AD refinement actually works. I'm sure this idea will raise the ire of some, but it seems that it would enforce the purpose of the limit IMHO.
It's a step in the right direction and it gives further motivation for me to continue campaign quests I have already completed for more than just the... I forgot what they're called- the refinement things. Have you considered maybe adding in a way to get them during quests? Even if it's say... 5000 for the final boss of any given area? Or even 1000 or so per single player dungeon? I know that's sort of a lot, but until you lower the price of everything to fit the inflation, then we'll need that.
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inyawayupdeepMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 206Arc User
It's a step in the right direction but without much impact, daily quests and storyline quests need to earn AD. While doing them to increase levels and receive boons and progress through the storyline we go broke.
Also as others have mentioned the costs for boons and campaign progression needs to be reduced to scale with the new economy as well as all the other fixed priced items in the game, a cat should not cost over 800K AD, In fact nothing should when we only get 24K that we can refine each day.
Over all I think what your trying to do will be good for the game, right now, I am able to outfit my characters with rank 7 enchants pretty easily, and have been transitioning to rank 8s and a couple of 9s and have started another alt, but I am always poor and I should mention that my VIP has helped me a bunch and deserves some credit.
Small changes are helpful but as I'm sure you can see get undesired responses. We need much more, either things must get cheaper or we need more AD please don't HAMSTER foot around, make noticeable changes and do it quickly.
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I would like to know what's the logic you're following. You cut the prices of marks in the bazaar because they don't fit in the new economy but leave untouched the costs of companions upgrades, transmutation and more importantly all the AD requirements of the Stronghold's upgrades!!!
Don't know what to say anymore, just watch out for the drop in logins in the next few weeks. Those are all the people you're losing to Black Desert. Congratulations for killing a good game.
Would also help filling the exp holes after level 65 and we'd start earning more AD and stuff for stronghold a bit sooner.
make Siege SH also part of AD source. then people will start queue again, and siege is alive again.
You can easily reach a "decent" ilvl with much less income, especially with GMoP prices cut by 75%. Costs for player-priced items in the AH have also declined. Unless your definition of "decent" is full rank 12s and legendary/mythic artifact gear in all slots.
So in other words, if you're a level 70 (and ONLY a level 70) then you can earn an extra 15,000 AD a week by playing the same boring stuff over and over again. What difference is that going to make?? Do you devs even play your own game??? Do you have ANY idea of the AD requirements of a level 70 character???
Why don't you have small amounts of AD awarded on EVERYTHING in the game? You said yourself Scott that AD is a currency of time! So reward my time played with small amounts of AD that add up over a play session! I'm sick of playing ToS 10 times a day just so I can afford to barely upgrade a single character.
This game is an unholy grind from lvl 60 onwards. And you just made it worse. By forcing us to grind the same quests over and over again for AD, instead of allowing us to earn it doing anything we want in the game. When are you guys going to get it? You're killing your game with this stuff!
It's so good, it's the new shiny great thing that everyone should want, only they aren't wanting, so as a solution rather than make it fun enough to play on it's own, you say bribe them into it.
Sounds like there is more wrong with it than the ques etc. You pay people to do things you can't or won't do yourself. You don't like to scrub the toilet you pay someone to do so, so SH is so good you have to resort to paying them to do so. That's some toilet SH is......
1. Lower fixed AD costs throughout the game for:
- cubes of augmentation
- boons
- companion upgrades
- weapon and outfit transmutes
- Wondrous Bazaar
2. Give AD as a reward for absolutely every single thing in the game
3. Bring back the 11 dungeons so we can have some variety. Do you have any idea of sick I was of Cragmire Crypt back as a level 20 character?? Grinding to level 70 just so I can play it again is a cruel joke, not a fitting reward for my efforts. And the areas are now glaringly incomplete without the end dungeons. There's no payoff for doing an area. It's anti-climactic with no noteworthy ending.
4. Make it easier for us to gear up Alts. Alts are key to player satisfaction because it allows me to change gameplay and alleviate boredom. This is ESPECIALLY important when we're forced to do Kessel, Tuern and ELOL about 100 times just so we can get over 2k to play epic dungeons.
5. Bring relevance back to crafting. It is currently a complete waste of time. Nothing you make from any profession is worth any effort at all, other than the 2-slotted rings and the purple slotted shirts and pants. And even then, the costs are now prohibitive for just about the entire gaming population.
6. Give us more module style quests and less 'fetch 10 of these' missions and Heroic Encounters. A perfect example of what this game did right was the Linkletter quest. That was an actual quest. Like a module quest from actual Dungeons & Dragons. Why aren't there 100 more just like that? The Foundry seems to be able to do it. Maybe you should 'promote' top Foundry content directly into the game and make them official.
7. Allow level 70s to play every single skirmish in the game. Why do we lose access to that content? What is your reasoning behind this?
8. Do more CTA events. There should be something every single weekend. Give people a reason to play that's different and exciting once in awhile! CTA events give me something to play for over a 4 day span!
9. I know it's too late to reverse artifact gear, but that was a disaster. Turned everything into a mindless and boring grind. And took variety out of gearing up. I used to be able to play an area and play dungeons and get amazing gear that I could either keep or sell for AD. And then I could play another area and different dungeons to change it up. Can't do that anymore. Even the gear in the level 70 campaign areas is HAMSTER and mostly level 60. What's the point of level 60 in an area that I reach when I'm level 70 and possessing superior gear than the area rewards? Again, I'm not even sure that you guys play your own game. This stuff is glaringly obvious to those of us that play.
10. As per a below comment, Power Points should be automatic 70+. It takes a ridiculous amount of XP to get the reward and that effort should come in the form of a Power Point. Until you sell Power Points in the Zen store, it should be readily available in-game to those who put in the time and effort.
Why don't non-exploit featured ones give em still at least..?
Augmentation Cubes are way too much since the effect is random. If it were not random it wouldn't be too bad but with it being random the costs need to be far less. Damn near everything in the Bazaar is way overpriced as well. You changed some of that with the GMOP cost but that doesn't fix 170k transmute items.
Also doesn't fix the 50k PER ITEM transmute costs which is insane since even if you played 5 characters and hit the cap on them all that is only enough for 2 transmutes. You are looking at 6-7 items on your main character to transmute which would be roughly 2.5 to 3 days depending on 6 or 7, providing you managed to max 5 characters. Now if you're a free player and only have 2 slots though, that's more like just under 1 piece a day so easily double what it would be if you had lots of characters to max.
Who has time for that EVERY DAY though? I don't but occasionally Ill max out like 3 or so but that's it. It is insane costs on everything that is the problem, the AD thing wouldn't be too bad but the fixed cost are simply far too high.
Don't forget the absolutely insane costs to upgrade companions as well. As of now I won't be bothering to upgrade them until I have nothing besides enchantments to rank up.
The problem, Devs, is that you have some formula that you are using to calculate the worth of time played in the game translated into game currency that is useable that is well below both the COST of the game and the player base's own estimation of worth.
This is why the release of such information is not encouraging, overall. It does nothing to address the issue of how vastly different you judge the game's value and our own.
Psychologically speaking, Neverwinter created such a rabid following from the earliest release for many reasons, but one of these was the satisfaction players received in having the ability to progress fairly quickly, not just in levels, but also in reaching end-game and BiS status. Currently, individual and guild-based progression is severly adjusted downward with the large AD sinks presently in the game, and the low rate of visible progress in a game that is historically less grindy (and in conjunction with less variation in content and rewards) works contrary to the player's encouragement. The result is what you see here on the forums and in the defection of loyal players from the game.
Here are two mathematical examples that prove the point:
EXAMPLE #1
Let us say a small guild is attempting to build barracks 2, with a cost of 2.8Mil AD. We will assume the guild has 20 active players for our calculation. Let us define active as doing sufficient content to earn 24k unrefined AD per day.
The 'new' sources of AD would not help this guild in the least, because the maximum refining AD per day is still 24k. There is no benefit to the sources for this kind of player (or guild). The only thing it would do is to perhaps reduce the amount of time needed to hit the 24k AD cap each day. With 5 weekly quests at 3k AD each, you would save (about ) 1 DD or 1 salvage per day. Not much of a benefit. And this is only one of the categories for the structure, now you would add in the time a player may put in for the other categories. Adding AD as a reward for 1 weekly quest does little to pare down the time-to-progress or cost-benefit ratio.
EXAMPLE #2
Let us say active = 20k AD per day, instead of 24k. This would leave open 28k unrefined AD per week/ per character. In this case, the weekly quests would reduce the 28k down to 13k, for quests that were (most likely) already being fulfilled. So, there would be NO time saving, but an increase of 15k, and 300k for the guild coffers for these 20, active level 70 players per week. If we assume for our calculations, that each member donated all earned AD into the guild coffer, the total donation for the week would increase from 2.8Mil to 3.1Mil. Basically, the adding of AD to these quests will only save a guild 1 day of grinding for AD or about a 10% increase, and that is only if they adjust to the parameters of this calculation (which never happens). So, pyschologically, the small guild sees that the barracks 2 can be built with lots of play time and 100% sacrifice in 6 days instead of 7...only to have this repeated again, for barracks 3, barracks 4, GHx, and so on and so on, all the while IGNORING any direct AD that is useable for their own progress.
With current zen prices floating around 400:1 and market prices still out of the range of what most could afford (the prices shifted proportionally downward based on zen, not on worth) and with very little in-game avenue to reaching goals related to end-game targets, the player base is demoralized with the current status of AD sinks, and the addition of more means for unrefined AD does not reduce the fixed cost. Consider that the maximum AD a character can refine in 1 week is still 168k. Adding sources to make another 15k is less than a 10% change to hit that maximum. And the proposed benefit is only for those players near end game, as if a player could not amass some AD before the campaigns for progress that is satisfying.
PROPOSED SOLUTIONS:
1. I have posted elsewhere that adding a means of % unrefined AD reward in relation to questing EXP would help EVERY level hit the 24k unrefined level. Imagine if every QUEST reward unrefined AD on any character as 5% of the quest's EXP reward. Run a quest for 2000XP, earn 100 unrefined AD. The more you grind, the more you make. It encourage true alternate character play, because all quests and development are rewarding.
2. I have also stated that VIP 10-12 should have a cap raise for refined AD, so that you can get an income from players in the game who want to make more income. I have proposed VIP 1-9 24k, VIP 10, 30k, VIP 11 38k, VIP 12 50k per character. This will give cryptic a steady compensation from those players who want to keep earning AD at higher in-game levels.
3. Reduce the Guild category of AD coffer starting price by 50% and change the slope so that the increase is maybe steeper, so that lower levels are easier. Publish your expectation in clear goals on how you based the the progession in mod 7 IN COMBINATION with individual goals AND progression.
4. Reduce individual AD sinks by 10-50%, depending on the item. Others have given details on this proposal.
Guild--And the Imaginary Friends
that said... I still think the best solution to Leadership spam/botting was not to eliminate AD from Leadership, but rather, to make the tasks that do reward AD take a really long time--thus drastically limiting how rapidly people could spam Leadership to earn extra AD. If those tasks all took 8, 12, 16 hours... the ability to abuse them would be dramatically lowered.
Alternatively, make the AD rewards scaled approriately to the time taken, so that it's normalized over time. A level 3 task that yields 100AD might take 4 hours, while a level 18 one that yields 500 AD would take 20 hours. same per-hour rate, just 'better' because it requires less micromanagement. (Maybe include *some* extra scaling so that higher-level characters can still earn more per hour, but don't go crazy with it--say, 800 in 20 hours instead of 500--and keep the duration of those tasks LONG.)
Have you considered maybe adding in a way to get them during quests? Even if it's say... 5000 for the final boss of any given area? Or even 1000 or so per single player dungeon? I know that's sort of a lot, but until you lower the price of everything to fit the inflation, then we'll need that.
Also as others have mentioned the costs for boons and campaign progression needs to be reduced to scale with the new economy as well as all the other fixed priced items in the game, a cat should not cost over 800K AD,
In fact nothing should when we only get 24K that we can refine each day.
Over all I think what your trying to do will be good for the game, right now, I am able to outfit my characters with rank 7 enchants pretty easily, and have been transitioning to rank 8s and a couple of 9s and have started another alt, but I am always poor and I should mention that my VIP has helped me a bunch and deserves some credit.
Small changes are helpful but as I'm sure you can see get undesired responses. We need much more, either things must get cheaper or we need more AD please don't HAMSTER foot around, make noticeable changes and do it quickly.