100% reproduce it with a GWF, and an OP.... GWF gets too much temp hp... has to take damage.... once he takes a lot of damage... he can unstoppable again. I have it happen with an OP in Epic Demo, WOD, any T2, ANYWHERE. Just get a lot of temp hp with a pally spamming bubble and a GWF not taking damage.
I think one internal problem is the players in game are a LOT better. So gwf's don't just stand in red all the time, and good pally's can spam bubble 100% of the time b/c they use all the aura bugs with veng/courage proc'n that something of light that reduces cooldowns (not suppose to) which lets OP's spam encounters/dailies without recovery hence them all going 20k armor pen........... BUT - do that... or get a few good players in your office who can do it right.
Ask anyone in Absolute to get ahold of Dom (me) - I will get my GWF and a pally and do the bug every single time..... w/out fail... and you are more than welcome to join...
A: I'm not stating any biases towards fixes, lol, however, I personally play Tricker Rogue, Executioner tree, mainly with Duelist's Fury and Gloaming Cut.
And I always thought the at-will is named "Duelist's Flurry".
Stupid me. ):
scnr. P:
The Zisters' Magazine - Subscribe now and you'll never run out of style.
How to nerf LOL set.... Make it not buffable by EVERY FREAKING DAMAGE BUFF. If it is just a hit for weapon damage... it still out performs every single set in pve.... AND it isn't broken OP anymore.. other sets still blow compared to it... but it brings them closer.
Yes, dwarf racial has been broken for a very very very long time lol.... But since halfling is so OP for pve very few people know it. But... they started to try it when cowardice was broken. But now that you fixed it... not as many people care anymore.
My question is: what is that for? If dev's want to know which bugs should be fixed, then it's enough to spend 30 minutes on forum and read - all are listed plenty of time, most of them reported multiple times, most of them well know for a months.
Do we really need an "event" for that? More important for me is to know: What devs plan to do, to keep players in this game? Fixing few bugs isn't enough, trust me. And other question: Can we expect a list of major (in dev's opinion) bug and ETA of fixes?
If not - then, well.
THIS^^^^^^^^^^^^
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tassedethe13Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 806Arc User
edited January 2016
The most important thing is that i was on the stream.
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ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
Can I just say that I am beyond disappointed with this answer? If I may, why in the name of all that is holy are you worried about the community's backing NOW?
Go back in time, create a poll asking if removing AD from leadership was something people wanted. That change was implemented.
There is a difference between what absolutely has to happen based on hard evidence and opinion based judgement calls.
The leadership change is not a decision the devs made because they thought the community wanted it. They knew the community would not like the change. It was done because it had to be done for the benefit of the economy.
Lostmouth set is BiS for many classes but it is not necessarily causing a huge problem other than a lack of variety and options. The poll is not a promise or guarantee. The poll could result in the community saying no but they could "nerf" it anyway. Everybody could say yes and they might just buff other sets instead. They might do nothing at all. There's no definitive correct course of action because all of them are opinion based so it's just a general guage.
The developers will always do what is the right choice for the game whether or not the majority of players agree with it.
Not to be political in the least but the easy analogy is that if citizens of any country could vote on if they wanted to pay taxes then the vast majority would say no. However it is kind of hard (*coughs* impossible *coughs*) to run a government without money so taxes are still a fact of life whether or not we like it. Sometimes we have to do things we don't necessarily like for our own good.
I agree with the AD change being necessary, things were horrible before that. Although it was also needed to make more changes in AD costs for everything, and we are still waiting for that (boons among others). I hope we'll get those soon.
Can I just say that I am beyond disappointed with this answer? If I may, why in the name of all that is holy are you worried about the community's backing NOW?
Go back in time, create a poll asking if removing AD from leadership was something people wanted. That change was implemented.
There is a difference between what absolutely has to happen based on hard evidence and opinion based judgement calls.
The leadership change is not a decision the devs made because they thought the community wanted it. They knew the community would not like the change. It was done because it had to be done for the benefit of the economy.
Lostmouth set is BiS for many classes but it is not necessarily causing a huge problem other than a lack of variety and options. The poll is not a promise or guarantee. The poll could result in the community saying no but they could "nerf" it anyway. Everybody could say yes and they might just buff other sets instead. They might do nothing at all. There's no definitive correct course of action because all of them are opinion based so it's just a general guage.
The developers will always do what is the right choice for the game whether or not the majority of players agree with it.
Not to be political in the least but the easy analogy is that if citizens of any country could vote on if they wanted to pay taxes then the vast majority would say no. However it is kind of hard (*coughs* impossible *coughs*) to run a government without money so taxes are still a fact of life whether or not we like it. Sometimes we have to do things we don't necessarily like for our own good.
Few flaws in that argument though. This is a video game - nothing exists in any form but 1's and 0's. There was no economy change that 'had' to happen - actual people weren't being forced int real poverty, etc. Trying to create an analogy between a video game and the real world is always going to be a reach.
One can assume that the economy change was made however to help increase revenue by decreasing a source of player generated income, and that's completely fine. But your application of one change being a "definitive correct course of action" when viewed inside of game terms and another not is completely arbitrary. Changing how leadership works, outside of the affect it had on revenue, was no more or less necessary for the game than changing how the Lostmauth set works. It affected some people more than others, made some people happy, made some people angry. At the end of the day, if more people are playing/paying after, it was a good choice. If less, then a bad choice. The only 'hard evidence' that was present with the economy choice and not the Lostmauth one is the direct effect it could have on their revenue stream, which leads into the next point:
"The developers will always do what is the right choice for the game" is by no means correct - they will do what is the right choice for them as a company. That doesn't always necessarily equate to the right choice for the game. Selling the product is no guarantee of ensuring the quality of a product. We want to HOPE that they can manage both, because we love the game and want to see it be both successful and incredibly fun, but if you're trying to seriously look at this from a standpoint of what is healthy or not for the game and your opinion *isn't* that having a single item set that is quite literally BIS for over half of all players then I don't know what to say other than I strongly disagree with it. Sort of flies in the face of the whole idea of 'balanced', you know.
At the end of the day though, it's the internet and we're arguing about internet games. I hope they come to a decision that I agree with and think will make the game more fun for what I hope is most people. If they don't, that's okay too, but that's not a game I believe will be particularly attractive for very long to people.
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ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
There was no economy change that 'had' to happen - actual people weren't being forced int real poverty, etc. Trying to create an analogy between a video game and the real world is always going to be a reach.
The flaw in yours is that you are essentially saying "it's only a game so real economics don't apply."
Economic laws are universal. It doesn't matter if it is digital or physical. The truth is most people don't understand that economics applies to more than just government printed currency and that's the only reason anybody would claim that economic laws do not apply in multiplayer games.
Just because it is just ones and zeroes doesn't mean there isn't value being traded and as long as value is traded then economic laws still apply. It's not the same economy as the US, UK, Ethiopean or whatever other county's economy but it is still an economy that follows the exact same economic laws.
So when people print more money than is being removed, and they were printing massive amounts of it, then the same thing that happens in real life occurs in the game: the value of the currency drops. Example.
Where you go really astray in the assumption it was "player" generated revenue. Most of the AD revenue was bot generated and this was the reason for the change. If legitimate players could generate a few hundred thousand AD a day while also playing the game imagine a bot company that only hopped between hundreds of accounts to do leadership. It had to be done to reduce the bot generated revenue because there was no possible way to implement enough sinks to remove the currency the bots were printing into the system. In fact, if they did create enough sinks to remove the bot revenue it would cause legitimate players to be forced into buying more AD in order to remove the AD they AND the bots generated.
Basic economics that apply regardless of whether the currency is Dollars, Euros, Zen or fish sticks.
Great discussions here, and thanks again for tuning in, folks.
Since I said I'd clarify in the forums re: major / minor builds, I'll do so here. Note that major / minor isn't official terminology or anything like that.
Our build versions look like this, as I'm sure you've seen when first logging into the game: NW.55.20160106a.3
Basically, if the final number (e.g. "3" in this example) changes and nothing else, then it's a minor build, usually with a couple targeted fixes. The patch notes you'll see on these are usually pretty short.
If the center-right value (e.g. "20160106a") changes, then it's what I call a major build, though that's not official terminology. It's a bigger update that generally takes some more fixes and changes that have had additional testing time. These usually have plenty of patch notes.
And then the center-left value (e.g. "55" in this example) mainly changes on the release of new modules. That's when major updates or additions to features, content, systems, etc. happen.
Another note: While I mentioned frequency and types of builds on the stream, the update cadence is always subject to change. It's meant to be a guideline of what folks can expect, rather than a strict schedule. (Example: We had a major build go out on January 14, then a minor build go out on January 21.)
The flaw in yours is that you are essentially saying "it's only a game so real economics don't apply."
Economic laws are universal. It doesn't matter if it is digital or physical. The truth is most people don't understand that economics applies to more than just government printed currency and that's the only reason anybody would claim that economic laws do not apply in multiplayer games.
*snip*
Basic economics that apply regardless of whether the currency is Dollars, Euros, Zen or fish sticks.
Outside of the intimation that I don't understand how basic economic laws apply, economic laws are not at all universal, especially in multiplayer games. There are some that are applicable, like mudflation, in virtual economies that aren't at all applicable in the real world because in the real world you, as an individual, can't go out and create currency or goods from nothing. As such, it does follow similar economic laws, but not the exact same. But I'm not an economist, so what do I know - maybe I missed the part in college where they showed us how to go out and get given money created out of thin air for running around a cave for a bit.
The entire 'health' of the economy in NWO is only important for two reasons - 1) the affect it has on player enjoyment and thus retention and 2) the environment in which Zen (and thus AD) are sold. We have already clearly demonstrated that #1 isn't necessarily the driving force behind decisions, otherwise Lostmauth would be a no-brainer and dungeons would never have been removed. That only leaves 2.
Where you go really astray in the assumption it was "player" generated revenue. Most of the AD revenue was bot generated and this was the reason for the change.
As someone with such a strong grasp of economic theory should know, "bots" = "players" as far as Cryptic is concerned pertaining to #2 above - it's currency generated WITHOUT the sale of Zen. If it really was strictly a bot problem, why not just keep the change of removing Leadership from the gateway, or implement any of the other myriad suggestions put forward instead of removing AD generation from it entirely? For that matter, why not do something about the massive armies of bots that make the cheap and plentiful RP found on the PC AH available? It's because they aren't generating currency. Hell, if anything they're increasing the value of AD since you can buy RP at such a good rate.
I agree wholeheartedly with the change they made, by the way. I agree with the posters above like magnebubbie that it's created a much healthier system as a whole. But trying to view the change strictly through the lens of 'it was to make the game better guys because economic theooooory' is naive to the extreme.
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feanor70118Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,170Arc User
Please modify the Tooltip for the Dragon's Hoard Enchantment to reflect how they actually work.
Current: You have a x% chance after killing a foe to find a refining Stone at your feet. Multiple copies of this Enchantment increase the chance of a find.
Suggest: You have a x% chance after killing a foe to find a refining Stone at your feet. Multiple copies of this Enchantment increase the chance of a find. This occurs only every 30 seconds and there is a daily limit.
This way people can make an informed decision before spending a huge amount of time and effort before making them. Thx
And imagine if they actually informed us what the daily limit it. Or changed every tooltip on every feat, power and item that has 'a chance' of proccing to inform players what that chance is so we can make informed decisions? And the internal cooldowns on, for instance, tenebrous enchantments. And information on whether and how they stack. Imagine actually knowing the effect of the choices you make in your build and equipment. For some reason, Cryptic apparently thinks that's far too much to ask.
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feanor70118Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,170Arc User
Relocating "discard" to the bottom of the right-click menu for items was supposed to help prevent accidental discards, but actually resulted in placing it right next to "refine" or "refine enchantment" on everything but my MH and OH, which are buffered by "manage powers". So, on the majority of our stuff, "discard" is now immediately next to the options we need to access the most. Since this change, I've had more near-misses than ever. It's horrible user-unfriendly design. Even with a confirmation, I shouldn't be thrown into a mini-panic every time I go to refine something, because omgwhatifiscrewup?
IMO they should get rid of "discard" on anything you have equipped.
The "Destroy enchantment/Runestone" option should just be removed along with the unslotting cost. Shouldn't have to risk destroying a weapon enchant every time you want to swap it to another character.
That is actually a terrible idea. Have you ever unslotted an overload enchant at the same time you have another of the same kind in your inventory (because, for instance, it has 2 minutes of combat time left and you're about to queue for pvp)? Guess what happens: due to lack of forethought, you can not tell from the manage enchantments screen which of the two you are going to reslot. The solution? Destroy the nearly exhausted enchantment instead of unslotting it.
Getting rid of discard is an even worse idea. I am not sure that you are not, in fact, trolling.
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ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
Economic processes and economic laws are not interchangeable. There are laws of physics which, as far as we know, apply throughout the universe but those same laws create a number of different environments. Yes the economies are different just as one county's economy is different from any other but the fundamental laws that govern them are the same. Hopefully this makes sense.
And I promise you bots do not mean players as far as Cryptic is concerned. When bots drive the value of AD down to the point that the economy no longer functions it becomes a problem. MMO's don't generate revenue if their economies do not work which is why ALL MMO's combat bots regardless of whether they have their real revenue tied to the in game economy or not.
The removal of leadership from the gateway did not drastically reduce the amount of botted currency. That was communicated out when the change when live. It made it harder on the bots for sure but it was nothing more than an inconvenience.
Bots are not as simple to stamp out as anybody might hope. It has nothing to do with any company liking them that has them be a persistent presence in every MMO in varying degrees. If there was a magic wand to remove them they'd wave it but alas in 20-30 years no MMO has ever managed to completely stop bots regardless of how much money they have thrown at it. As always if you have the solution you will be a rich person but considering how much MMO's have invested to combat bots it's really unlikely that there's some miracle cure they have not thought of.
And sure as players bots farming enchantments DROPS THE VALUE OF RP but that does not by definition increase the value of AD. It simply means the AD we have goes further in purchasing RP. The value of AD remains the same. However when bots generate AD the DROP THE VALUE OF AD and thus increase the amount of AD required to buy ALL services. Hence why the PC version of the game was above 500:1 AD:Zen for well over a year close to two years before the change.
I know that never occurred on Xbox and that does skew perceptions but the fact that far more AD was being generated than could possibly be sunk was the reason why AD was removed from leadership. The numbers spoke for themself. The end results speak for itself. Call it naive if you want but I would argue that saying there were motives other than correcting the economy is stretching it way too far.
Broken economies make for brokens games and broken games are not fun. If you're not having fun yolu're not going to spend money so thinking that bots don't effect any MMO company is not looking at the big picture.
The flaw in yours is that you are essentially saying "it's only a game so real economics don't apply."
Economic laws are universal. It doesn't matter if it is digital or physical. The truth is most people don't understand that economics applies to more than just government printed currency and that's the only reason anybody would claim that economic laws do not apply in multiplayer games.
*snip*
Basic economics that apply regardless of whether the currency is Dollars, Euros, Zen or fish sticks.
Outside of the intimation that I don't understand how basic economic laws apply, economic laws are not at all universal, especially in multiplayer games. There are some that are applicable, like mudflation, in virtual economies that aren't at all applicable in the real world because in the real world you, as an individual, can't go out and create currency or goods from nothing. As such, it does follow similar economic laws, but not the exact same. But I'm not an economist, so what do I know - maybe I missed the part in college where they showed us how to go out and get given money created out of thin air for running around a cave for a bit.
The entire 'health' of the economy in NWO is only important for two reasons - 1) the affect it has on player enjoyment and thus retention and 2) the environment in which Zen (and thus AD) are sold. We have already clearly demonstrated that #1 isn't necessarily the driving force behind decisions, otherwise Lostmauth would be a no-brainer and dungeons would never have been removed. That only leaves 2.
Where you go really astray in the assumption it was "player" generated revenue. Most of the AD revenue was bot generated and this was the reason for the change.
As someone with such a strong grasp of economic theory should know, "bots" = "players" as far as Cryptic is concerned pertaining to #2 above - it's currency generated WITHOUT the sale of Zen. If it really was strictly a bot problem, why not just keep the change of removing Leadership from the gateway, or implement any of the other myriad suggestions put forward instead of removing AD generation from it entirely? For that matter, why not do something about the massive armies of bots that make the cheap and plentiful RP found on the PC AH available? It's because they aren't generating currency. Hell, if anything they're increasing the value of AD since you can buy RP at such a good rate.
I agree wholeheartedly with the change they made, by the way. I agree with the posters above like magnebubbie that it's created a much healthier system as a whole. But trying to view the change strictly through the lens of 'it was to make the game better guys because economic theooooory' is naive to the extreme.
HOLY KNOWLEDGE BOMB!!!!!!!!!!!! - THIS GUY RIGHT HERE..... MEDALLION... HE DESERVES A MEDALLION.
Neverwinter Community admin.... you sir.... were officially powwwwwwwnnnnneeeeeddd. Rebuttal?
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ghoulz66Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,748Arc User
edited January 2016
Maybe the reason they couldn't reproduce the GWF bug, was because they weren't that well geared? I dunno, don't know about their chars.
You have to be wailing on mobs and going unstoppable frequently without taking much damage as possible. Happens to me all the time in groups where agro is left off me. When it happens you TRY to get yourself hurt or maimed.
Broken economies make for brokens games and broken games are not fun. If you're not having fun yolu're not going to spend money so thinking that bots don't effect any MMO company is not looking at the big picture.
Ding ding ding. Now swap out 'balance' for 'economies' and you have your argument for why the Lostmauth set (which breaks the very definition of balance) breaks the game, and why fixing it should be considered just as necessary as the economic change.
We'll disregard that fact that again, physical laws aren't always applicable in all frames of reference and not get into that argument. You also didn't tell me where I can generate a valued currency out of thin air in the real world.
All in all though, so as not to let the snark overwhelm anything, must say again thank you to Andy and Terra for the stream and I'm very optimistic about the upcoming season as we move closer to Mod 9!
... Lostmouth set is BiS for many classes but it is not necessarily causing a huge problem other than a lack of variety and options. The poll is not a promise or guarantee. The poll could result in the community saying no but they could "nerf" it anyway. Everybody could say yes and they might just buff other sets instead. They might do nothing at all. There's no definitive correct course of action because all of them are opinion based so it's just a general guage.
The developers will always do what is the right choice for the game whether or not the majority of players agree with it. ...
The problem with it is that it in itself is the best source of damage for some classes -- above anything else the class can do. It skews the values of the stats that were just recently redone, overvaluing crit. It favors certain classes more and can elevate secondary strikers above strikers. It creates a situation that from now on the class will have to be balanced around the set bonus and no single consideration in the game can ever be made without first considering the interaction with the set bonus. It nullifies certain build and playstyles and makes everyone take the same one dimensional approach to be 'competetive' and any that play for fun instead of numbers run the risk of being avoided for not utilizing this cheesy broken item. Anyone forward looking has to realize just how much of a problem this is.
While I own three of these sets, this is one of the items that has caused me to not play the game anymore, and I would never return with it remaining in the broken state that it is in because I see what it will lead to. I know my opinion does not matter at all since I stopped playing but I still would like to see the game restored to some of its glory and feel that I must stress what seems just so obvious to me.
AD Changes... i could go with those changes and see them as necessarry, if AD costs would have been cut by the same % at the same time, if there were at least some efforts being made to remove bugged/exploited AD, if the players were given some working tools (improved ignore list, working editable chat/spam filter) against AD sellers, and last but not least, if the Devs would actually give us some answers on all the feedback we have given this far here http://forum.arcgames.com/neverwinter/discussion/1194402/feedback-needed-top-issues-currently-in-neverwinter-pc/p1 which is open for months now...
About bugs... just fix them. Start with items and then work your way towards classes.
@strumslinger what about your SW? And what about any improvements on the SW in general?
20. Q. Chat spam and botters? A. ... Forget your "solution", it won't do anything against the spam. Log into the game, go to PE, lower your "shields" (= press O, preferences, and go visible to all), and then just observe what happens... And here is something that might at least work for some of us: Both players have to be in PE and in the same instance for sending/receiving a friend request.
30. Q. Any plans to advance VIP? A. ... No plans? Really?
I watched the entire dev stream today. I was expecting it to be much more professional and to focus on all the issues and bugs that so many people spent so much time here identifying. I gained no new insight or knowledge from the stream other than, "If we fix one thing we might break another" and "we are working on dungeons that were removed".
For me, the acknowledgement that they are looking at giving small guilds a helping hand with respect to the stronghold was a bombshell. In our small guild, 80% of our active members have mostly stopped playing. Whenever I got a chance to talk to them, they kept telling me that the grind has burned them out. We've clawed our way to Guild Hall rank 6, but that involved me spending ludicrous amounts of AD (read: Zen, which comes from real dollars) buying up every voucher on the AH that wasn't nailed down. I've had to stop doing that, and so our progress has mostly stalled. Since the costs to upgrade anything increase with rank, this puts a real ceiling on what small guilds can achieve. Large guilds can grind, while small guilds either stall or are forced to spend ridiculous amounts of money to buy Zen (which the sell for AD on the ZAX) so they can buy the resources they need.
Harper Chronicles: Cap Snatchers (RELEASED) - NW-DPUTABC6X Blood Magic (RELEASED) - NW-DUU2P7HCO Children of the Fey (RELEASED) - NW-DKSSAPFPF Buried Under Blacklake (WIP) - NW-DEDV2PAEP The Redcap Rebels (WIP) - NW-DO23AFHFH
My Foundry playthrough channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Ruskaga/featured
Just caught up a little on the twitch recording...
Thanks... now I feel old... very old... btw, are you kids old enough to hold a job?
Well that's pretty rude. I won't divulge much of their personal lives but both of them are in their mid to late 20's which isn't entirely abnormal. There are plenty of older veterans in the studios as well it just happened to be that our CM and the developer he had on the show was young as well. Feel free to watch the other developer streams.
Oh yeah...and agree with above. Maybe you could not run streams when most of the folks who have jobs in the US are at work, and much of the rest of the world is asleep.
Just sayin...
International prime time is between 3-8 PM EST. This is when the most MMO Gamers are off of work at the same time frame due to Europe NOT being in bed and regions of the US being out of work. Being that it was between 5 and 6 PM EST it fell right in the middle of that range.
Beyond that, they have actual jobs to do and are not going to uproot their schedule and show up while they should be sleeping to get to work the next day and even if they did there would be a slew of people complaining that it was at a time period that didn't fit them...such as all the people who fit into the prime playing time MMO's discovered years ago.
I'm (at least) not asking for a change of "prime time" 3-8 PM EST, I'm asking for a change of the day of the week. Starting 11PM on a Thursday when kids have school the day after and adults have to go to work is not prime time for anyone in this part of the world, unless they don't have to get up early in the morning on Fridays.
The exact same time on Fridays on the other hand would mean no school or work on Saturday for most people here which means more would be able to participate.
So while your statement about it being prime time is correct, it's only correct on Fridays and Saturdays, for normal people anyway, who go to school or work Monday through Friday at normal office hours.
I'm not trying to pick a fight, just clarify my earlier request to change when these streams would benefit the most customers should be held.
rickcase276Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,404Arc User
What is weird, the unstoppable bug only affects one of my GWF (the lesser geared one). But it affected him worse when he was a sentinel, than now when he is a destroyer. For some reason it also would not give him the temporary hit points for going unstoppable, when he could go unstoppable, even though it was feated.
Comments
I think one internal problem is the players in game are a LOT better. So gwf's don't just stand in red all the time, and good pally's can spam bubble 100% of the time b/c they use all the aura bugs with veng/courage proc'n that something of light that reduces cooldowns (not suppose to) which lets OP's spam encounters/dailies without recovery hence them all going 20k armor pen........... BUT - do that... or get a few good players in your office who can do it right.
Ask anyone in Absolute to get ahold of Dom (me) - I will get my GWF and a pally and do the bug every single time..... w/out fail... and you are more than welcome to join...
Stupid me. ):
scnr. P:
We are always looking for new models --- Borderline Fashiondolls ---
The leadership change is not a decision the devs made because they thought the community wanted it. They knew the community would not like the change. It was done because it had to be done for the benefit of the economy.
Lostmouth set is BiS for many classes but it is not necessarily causing a huge problem other than a lack of variety and options. The poll is not a promise or guarantee. The poll could result in the community saying no but they could "nerf" it anyway. Everybody could say yes and they might just buff other sets instead. They might do nothing at all. There's no definitive correct course of action because all of them are opinion based so it's just a general guage.
The developers will always do what is the right choice for the game whether or not the majority of players agree with it.
Not to be political in the least but the easy analogy is that if citizens of any country could vote on if they wanted to pay taxes then the vast majority would say no. However it is kind of hard (*coughs* impossible *coughs*) to run a government without money so taxes are still a fact of life whether or not we like it. Sometimes we have to do things we don't necessarily like for our own good.
One can assume that the economy change was made however to help increase revenue by decreasing a source of player generated income, and that's completely fine. But your application of one change being a "definitive correct course of action" when viewed inside of game terms and another not is completely arbitrary. Changing how leadership works, outside of the affect it had on revenue, was no more or less necessary for the game than changing how the Lostmauth set works. It affected some people more than others, made some people happy, made some people angry. At the end of the day, if more people are playing/paying after, it was a good choice. If less, then a bad choice. The only 'hard evidence' that was present with the economy choice and not the Lostmauth one is the direct effect it could have on their revenue stream, which leads into the next point:
"The developers will always do what is the right choice for the game" is by no means correct - they will do what is the right choice for them as a company. That doesn't always necessarily equate to the right choice for the game. Selling the product is no guarantee of ensuring the quality of a product. We want to HOPE that they can manage both, because we love the game and want to see it be both successful and incredibly fun, but if you're trying to seriously look at this from a standpoint of what is healthy or not for the game and your opinion *isn't* that having a single item set that is quite literally BIS for over half of all players then I don't know what to say other than I strongly disagree with it. Sort of flies in the face of the whole idea of 'balanced', you know.
At the end of the day though, it's the internet and we're arguing about internet games. I hope they come to a decision that I agree with and think will make the game more fun for what I hope is most people. If they don't, that's okay too, but that's not a game I believe will be particularly attractive for very long to people.
Economic laws are universal. It doesn't matter if it is digital or physical. The truth is most people don't understand that economics applies to more than just government printed currency and that's the only reason anybody would claim that economic laws do not apply in multiplayer games.
Just because it is just ones and zeroes doesn't mean there isn't value being traded and as long as value is traded then economic laws still apply. It's not the same economy as the US, UK, Ethiopean or whatever other county's economy but it is still an economy that follows the exact same economic laws.
So when people print more money than is being removed, and they were printing massive amounts of it, then the same thing that happens in real life occurs in the game: the value of the currency drops. Example.
Where you go really astray in the assumption it was "player" generated revenue. Most of the AD revenue was bot generated and this was the reason for the change. If legitimate players could generate a few hundred thousand AD a day while also playing the game imagine a bot company that only hopped between hundreds of accounts to do leadership.
It had to be done to reduce the bot generated revenue because there was no possible way to implement enough sinks to remove the currency the bots were printing into the system. In fact, if they did create enough sinks to remove the bot revenue it would cause legitimate players to be forced into buying more AD in order to remove the AD they AND the bots generated.
Basic economics that apply regardless of whether the currency is Dollars, Euros, Zen or fish sticks.
Since I said I'd clarify in the forums re: major / minor builds, I'll do so here. Note that major / minor isn't official terminology or anything like that.
Our build versions look like this, as I'm sure you've seen when first logging into the game:
NW.55.20160106a.3
Basically, if the final number (e.g. "3" in this example) changes and nothing else, then it's a minor build, usually with a couple targeted fixes. The patch notes you'll see on these are usually pretty short.
If the center-right value (e.g. "20160106a") changes, then it's what I call a major build, though that's not official terminology. It's a bigger update that generally takes some more fixes and changes that have had additional testing time. These usually have plenty of patch notes.
And then the center-left value (e.g. "55" in this example) mainly changes on the release of new modules. That's when major updates or additions to features, content, systems, etc. happen.
Another note: While I mentioned frequency and types of builds on the stream, the update cadence is always subject to change. It's meant to be a guideline of what folks can expect, rather than a strict schedule. (Example: We had a major build go out on January 14, then a minor build go out on January 21.)
The entire 'health' of the economy in NWO is only important for two reasons - 1) the affect it has on player enjoyment and thus retention and 2) the environment in which Zen (and thus AD) are sold. We have already clearly demonstrated that #1 isn't necessarily the driving force behind decisions, otherwise Lostmauth would be a no-brainer and dungeons would never have been removed. That only leaves 2.
Which brings me to this: As someone with such a strong grasp of economic theory should know, "bots" = "players" as far as Cryptic is concerned pertaining to #2 above - it's currency generated WITHOUT the sale of Zen. If it really was strictly a bot problem, why not just keep the change of removing Leadership from the gateway, or implement any of the other myriad suggestions put forward instead of removing AD generation from it entirely? For that matter, why not do something about the massive armies of bots that make the cheap and plentiful RP found on the PC AH available? It's because they aren't generating currency. Hell, if anything they're increasing the value of AD since you can buy RP at such a good rate.
I agree wholeheartedly with the change they made, by the way. I agree with the posters above like magnebubbie that it's created a much healthier system as a whole. But trying to view the change strictly through the lens of 'it was to make the game better guys because economic theooooory' is naive to the extreme.
Getting rid of discard is an even worse idea. I am not sure that you are not, in fact, trolling.
There are laws of physics which, as far as we know, apply throughout the universe but those same laws create a number of different environments. Yes the economies are different just as one county's economy is different from any other but the fundamental laws that govern them are the same. Hopefully this makes sense.
And I promise you bots do not mean players as far as Cryptic is concerned. When bots drive the value of AD down to the point that the economy no longer functions it becomes a problem. MMO's don't generate revenue if their economies do not work which is why ALL MMO's combat bots regardless of whether they have their real revenue tied to the in game economy or not.
The removal of leadership from the gateway did not drastically reduce the amount of botted currency. That was communicated out when the change when live. It made it harder on the bots for sure but it was nothing more than an inconvenience.
Bots are not as simple to stamp out as anybody might hope. It has nothing to do with any company liking them that has them be a persistent presence in every MMO in varying degrees. If there was a magic wand to remove them they'd wave it but alas in 20-30 years no MMO has ever managed to completely stop bots regardless of how much money they have thrown at it. As always if you have the solution you will be a rich person but considering how much MMO's have invested to combat bots it's really unlikely that there's some miracle cure they have not thought of.
And sure as players bots farming enchantments DROPS THE VALUE OF RP but that does not by definition increase the value of AD. It simply means the AD we have goes further in purchasing RP. The value of AD remains the same. However when bots generate AD the DROP THE VALUE OF AD and thus increase the amount of AD required to buy ALL services. Hence why the PC version of the game was above 500:1 AD:Zen for well over a year close to two years before the change.
I know that never occurred on Xbox and that does skew perceptions but the fact that far more AD was being generated than could possibly be sunk was the reason why AD was removed from leadership. The numbers spoke for themself. The end results speak for itself. Call it naive if you want but I would argue that saying there were motives other than correcting the economy is stretching it way too far.
Broken economies make for brokens games and broken games are not fun. If you're not having fun yolu're not going to spend money so thinking that bots don't effect any MMO company is not looking at the big picture.
Neverwinter Community admin.... you sir.... were officially powwwwwwwnnnnneeeeeddd. Rebuttal?
You have to be wailing on mobs and going unstoppable frequently without taking much damage as possible. Happens to me all the time in groups where agro is left off me. When it happens you TRY to get yourself hurt or maimed.
We'll disregard that fact that again, physical laws aren't always applicable in all frames of reference and not get into that argument.
All in all though, so as not to let the snark overwhelm anything, must say again thank you to Andy and Terra for the stream and I'm very optimistic about the upcoming season as we move closer to Mod 9!
The problem with it is that it in itself is the best source of damage for some classes -- above anything else the class can do. It skews the values of the stats that were just recently redone, overvaluing crit. It favors certain classes more and can elevate secondary strikers above strikers. It creates a situation that from now on the class will have to be balanced around the set bonus and no single consideration in the game can ever be made without first considering the interaction with the set bonus. It nullifies certain build and playstyles and makes everyone take the same one dimensional approach to be 'competetive' and any that play for fun instead of numbers run the risk of being avoided for not utilizing this cheesy broken item. Anyone forward looking has to realize just how much of a problem this is.
While I own three of these sets, this is one of the items that has caused me to not play the game anymore, and I would never return with it remaining in the broken state that it is in because I see what it will lead to. I know my opinion does not matter at all since I stopped playing but I still would like to see the game restored to some of its glory and feel that I must stress what seems just so obvious to me.
if AD costs would have been cut by the same % at the same time,
if there were at least some efforts being made to remove bugged/exploited AD,
if the players were given some working tools (improved ignore list, working editable chat/spam filter) against AD sellers,
and last but not least, if the Devs would actually give us some answers on all the feedback we have given this far here
http://forum.arcgames.com/neverwinter/discussion/1194402/feedback-needed-top-issues-currently-in-neverwinter-pc/p1
which is open for months now...
About bugs... just fix them. Start with items and then work your way towards classes.
@strumslinger what about your SW? And what about any improvements on the SW in general?
20. Q. Chat spam and botters?
A. ...
Forget your "solution", it won't do anything against the spam. Log into the game, go to PE, lower your "shields" (= press O, preferences, and go visible to all), and then just observe what happens...
And here is something that might at least work for some of us: Both players have to be in PE and in the same instance for sending/receiving a friend request.
30. Q. Any plans to advance VIP?
A. ...
No plans? Really?
Blood Magic (RELEASED) - NW-DUU2P7HCO
Children of the Fey (RELEASED) - NW-DKSSAPFPF
Buried Under Blacklake (WIP) - NW-DEDV2PAEP
The Redcap Rebels (WIP) - NW-DO23AFHFH
My Foundry playthrough channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Ruskaga/featured
The exact same time on Fridays on the other hand would mean no school or work on Saturday for most people here which means more would be able to participate.
So while your statement about it being prime time is correct, it's only correct on Fridays and Saturdays, for normal people anyway, who go to school or work Monday through Friday at normal office hours.
I'm not trying to pick a fight, just clarify my earlier request to change when these streams would benefit the most customers should be held.
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