Bring back SCA and leave out the AH, ZAX and Leadership, that is the way to go.
SCA is also the main thing that I miss. I got back into the game specifically because I was looking forward to playing SCA at lunch and such. There are a ton of free-to-play MMOs out there these days, and in general they're all pretty similar. Sure, some have this feature or that feature that make them more or less appealing to different types of players. But at the end of the day, most of them boil down to running around and killing bears and collecting logs (or killing demons & collecting magical shards, etc).
What really set this game apart, in my eyes, was having the browser-based aspect of the game that I could muck around with during lunch breaks at work. I enjoyed playing SCA, and it was fun to be able to score some cool things for my characters while I was still stuck at the office.
Personally, I wouldn't be opposed to them making the gateway a VIP 1 perk.
micky1p00Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,594Arc User
Remove all the short timed tasks, make longer tasks. Tasks should be either more or less immediate (in seconds - for events, masterworks due to it's complexity) Or very long. This will reduce server load, and increase the value of the crafting people. Also the gateway can be made read only (or disabled), and the access can be tied to certain in game elements like ViP, gametime played, and even campaign, quests, or dungeon completion.
For example, a 7 day Resonance Bag quest that give 10 Resonance Bags as a reward.
Increasing the rewards with long-term tasks in return for sparing the server..I see where you're going with this and it might prove to have some effect. You'd even win a little time. (7*24)/16=10.5, aka 8h time profit and 1 extra bag every 2 weeks.I'd probably take it, if for no other reason than that I only have to set the task once a week. convenience is always a nice thing to have.
But while it may alleviate the server pressure, it doesn't fix the actual problem: The server seems unable to handle the traffic. And most of the traffic doesn't come from professions. It comes from SCA and the AH. Mostly the AH I think. Database searches can be quite intensive. Especially when you can do 60-? searches a minute if you bot it. Much more than just opening a link and pressing ok, which you can do only about 400-450 times a day per account.
Then people start using heroes on a 7 day task and the AH gets flooded.
Doubtful. Do you post your weekly rewards from leadership at the end of the week? I don't. People would still wait for either double RP or until they have a full stack. And you're not generating more items either, so how would it flood the AH? Worst case, heroes (and profession packs) would get more expensive. Which I don't mind. Another lockbox item actually worth selling.
Prices drop during 2x RP so I wouldn't be surprised to see people start posting earlier.
But the root problem (up to 50+ chars x 9 manually slots on each char) will still remain, which means that some players will still bot the Gateway. Making Profession more noob, player and alt friendly would solve the problem for good.
I am pretty sure that Joe Common who plays the game and uses scripts to have his 50 man army running leadership tasks is not the problem. The real problems are the so called "Gold Sellers" (who do not sell gold as such). They use expensive equipment to double the number of active players at any time and sell you resources for real money. They are the issue. Cryptic could not care less if you bot your 50 toons on the gateway or not, as long as you do not misuse the system.
Post edited by zebular on
Imaginary Friends are the best friends you can have!
But the root problem (up to 50+ chars x 9 manually slots on each char) will still remain, which means that some players will still bot the Gateway. Making Profession more noob, player and alt friendly would solve the problem for good.
I am pretty sure that Joe Common who plays the game and uses scripts to have his 50 man army running leadership tasks is not the problem. The real problems are the so called "Gold Sellers" (who do not sell gold as such). They use expensive equipment to double the number of active players at any time and sell you resources for real money. They are the issue. Cryptic could not care less if you bot your 50 toons on the gateway or not, as long as you do not misuse the system.
Oh, they care, it's just not something they are going to actively pursue. It's sort of like the small time drug dealer on the corner. If a cop sees him, they are going to bring him in - but they aren't going to bother setting up a sting to catch him.
Post edited by zebular on
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andorrabellMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 437Arc User
you should get a reward from doing leadership or any profession on ONE character with a modifier based on the number of characters on an account with max profession of the same type. SH equipment coffer is basically useless now.
This would be glorious. Like Andorra Bell sets her leadership but uses: LIST TOON NAMES in tow, set it once but effectively run it with all toons with access to the quest? ++++ I'm sure coding would be a problem and also rare tasks but I'd love to see little heads of my other characters in the "optional assets" slot.
Even if it was just one that would cut the hell in half.
But the root problem (up to 50+ chars x 9 manually slots on each char) will still remain, which means that some players will still bot the Gateway. Making Profession more noob, player and alt friendly would solve the problem for good.
I am pretty sure that Joe Common who plays the game and uses scripts to have his 50 man army running leadership tasks is not the problem. The real problems are the so called "Gold Sellers" (who do not sell gold as such). They use expensive equipment to double the number of active players at any time and sell you resources for real money. They are the issue. Cryptic could not care less if you bot your 50 toons on the gateway or not, as long as you do not misuse the system.
Oh, they care, it's just not something they are going to actively pursue. It's sort of like the small time drug dealer on the corner. If a cop sees him, they are going to bring him in - but they aren't going to bother setting up a sting to catch him.
I've never understood why people don't understand that botting is in fact cheating. Everyone sees it as if it's something the devs have given a pass on when pretty much every MMO ever discourages it. If they really were fine with everyone automating tasks they'd have made it a feature in the game. The fact that it's a pain to reset professions is why we even have them rewarding at the level that they do.
I have to agree with some that this is as much a design issue as a botting issue. Professions are botted because it's a repetitive task in which the tasks with a shorter duration also grant more rewards. That has to stop. No human individual can start tasks every four hours, two hours, one hour, 30 minutes. So why do they even exist? I'm sure there are other ways to reward activity. Most players prefer the long Leaderhsip tasks anyway so they can forget about professions for a day or whatever.
This is a very astute observation and one we feel strongly about as well in discussions the future and past of Professions.
I'd make all professions tasks take 30 seconds. Then I'd limit the "good" tasks by making their resources only available once a day or once a week. The gameplay of crafting should be gathering the ingredients. Currently the gameplay is employee management and robot bosses are outperforming humans.
I'd make all professions tasks take 30 seconds. Then I'd limit the "good" tasks by making their resources only available once a day or once a week. The gameplay of crafting should be gathering the ingredients. Currently the gameplay is employee management and robot bosses are outperforming humans.
Limiting the good tasks is sort of the route the old Dreadring/Sharandar weapons and Masterwork tasks have taken in the past and I feel have had good results by 'costing' the player to do some amount of gameplay first.
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ironzerg79Member, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,942Arc User
I'd make all professions tasks take 30 seconds. Then I'd limit the "good" tasks by making their resources only available once a day or once a week. The gameplay of crafting should be gathering the ingredients. Currently the gameplay is employee management and robot bosses are outperforming humans.
Limiting the good tasks is sort of the route the old Dreadring/Sharandar weapons and Masterwork tasks have taken in the past and I feel have had good results by 'costing' the player to do some amount of gameplay first.
@panderus One part that I absolutely loved about the game was using the crafting professions to create rare and powerful items via drops from the dungeons.
I wish this route would be re-examined as a way to make professions more valuable and worthwhile, but also to add more value back to dungeon drops. I remember the excitement of finally being able to craft my BiS Malabog's and later Fallen Dragon weapon set, as well as how good it felt to see one of theses pieces drop for the group, and actually being able to sell and split some worthwhile proceeds between everyone.
Such a good time from back in the day, and I would highly, highly encourage you to keep looking at things like this.
How can you make professions rewarding for those who are using them to supplement their game play, not substitute for game play? That's the magic question.
I have to agree with some that this is as much a design issue as a botting issue. Professions are botted because it's a repetitive task in which the tasks with a shorter duration also grant more rewards. That has to stop. No human individual can start tasks every four hours, two hours, one hour, 30 minutes. So why do they even exist? I'm sure there are other ways to reward activity. Most players prefer the long Leaderhsip tasks anyway so they can forget about professions for a day or whatever.
This is a very astute observation and one we feel strongly about as well in discussions the future and past of Professions.
Very short profession tasks (the ones with completion times counted in minutes) are really only tenable on the character you're playing at the moment... or if you're using Gateway. Feed the Needy, alchemy experiments, the normal materials gather and refine tasks, actually making items. Most of it feels like it was designed in a way that almost requires Gateway for support, and indeed we are prompted to check out Gateway for professions management when we're initially introduced to the profession system. They very much go hand in glove. Of course, all of this is inherently console-unfriendly from the outset. Looking for specific rare tasks when they change every hour is also brutal for everyone without Gateway.
Many tasks are designed with a 6-hour duration, which becomes 4 hours if I have a purple worker to assign to it, and purple workers are very accessible now compared to three years ago. If I want to assign a bunch of profession slots to crafting stronghold items, without Gateway, I'm looking at about 60% downtime because I can't restart tasks that are long-completed.
Additionally, the game's profession UI for assigning assets is terrible compared to Gateway. It doesn't filter your assets that are already in use, just greys them out, and they're not presented in any logical order, so every secondary asset slot you want to fill requires scrolling and fiddling. The more assets you own, the worse it is. But everything with tiered results, you really want to be using secondary assets on if you have them. Gateway's interface is nicer by miles, and also has the convenience of the profession vendor a click away.
If Gateway is permanently offline, the entire profession system requires an overhaul. Unfortunately, that probably won't solve the problem either, since we already learned that the profession botters simply converted to in-game scripting when you were experimenting with keeping AD in Leadership and simply disabling it on Gateway. If it didn't work then, it's ultimately not going to help now.
The people who wrote a script for starting their professions aren't doing anything you can't do. They just do it hands-free using existing technology. They gain nothing more in return than you do.
Anyone who is able to change over their professions exactly as efficiently as a script is arguably performing at superhuman levels. The script can catch everything exactly as soon as it finishes all day every day, never needs to sleep, never needs to pay attention to anything else, never gets bored, never decides to go to the pub instead of babysit mouseclicks.
Every time a human operator loses uptime on running professions around the clock because of the limitations of their body and mind, they are less efficient than having it automated.
The people who wrote a script for starting their professions aren't doing anything you can't do. They just do it hands-free using existing technology. They gain nothing more in return than you do.
Anyone who is able to change over their professions exactly as efficiently as a script is arguably performing at superhuman levels. The script can catch everything exactly as soon as it finishes all day every day, never needs to sleep, never needs to pay attention to anything else, never gets bored, never decides to go to the pub instead of babysit mouseclicks.
Every time a human operator loses uptime on running professions around the clock because of the limitations of their body and mind, they are less efficient than having it automated.
How dare you ? To go to a pub instead of clicking ! Heresy ! Blasphemy ! Shame ! Shame ! Shame ! Shame ! Shame !
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beckylunaticMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 14,231Arc User
Okayyyy... why would anyone write a script to restart their professions if they were going to build downtime into it?
Remove all the short timed tasks, make longer tasks. Tasks should be either more or less immediate (in seconds - for events, masterworks due to it's complexity) Or very long. This will reduce server load, and increase the value of the crafting people. Also the gateway can be made read only (or disabled), and the access can be tied to certain in game elements like ViP, gametime played, and even campaign, quests, or dungeon completion.
Okay everytime I see your name I wonder if you are Mitchypoo from Everquest. Coincidence, or correlation?
I have to agree with some that this is as much a design issue as a botting issue. Professions are botted because it's a repetitive task in which the tasks with a shorter duration also grant more rewards. That has to stop. No human individual can start tasks every four hours, two hours, one hour, 30 minutes. So why do they even exist? I'm sure there are other ways to reward activity. Most players prefer the long Leaderhsip tasks anyway so they can forget about professions for a day or whatever.
This is a very astute observation and one we feel strongly about as well in discussions the future and past of Professions.
My husband uses an alarm. Seriously. It's *awesome* when he's doing 15 minute tasks. Wait, does that make my husband not a human individual? EEEEKKKKK
Look, the game is already balanced around bots existing and how they impact the economy. All attempts to remove them have damaged the game more than they have helped. Resources towards this game, especially the PC side, are low. I don't think any of these are really in dispute.
As has been stated before: Make professions auto collect and auto repeat. Rebalance anything impacted by this (the biggest thing being RP costs) how you see fit: extended crafting times, increased RP cost (though I personally think the costs are already high enough even if this was implemented). Then most importantly, MOVE ON.
We have spent enough time on bots. At some point, concede defeat and move on to making stuff that actually makes the game FUN again. Defeating the bots is not going to make the game more fun. It is actually making it less fun.
1 - Make tasks repeatable and automatically collect them when done (assuming inventory space and resources of course). 2 - Rebalance costs/timing of tasks if you feel necessary, assuming people are now running professions 24/7. 3 - Put the gateway stuff in the game somehow and put some of the bETTER gateway features (AH sort by Qty, some other things) in the game. Call it a DAY!
If there were more resources dedicated to the game, maybe this is a battle that could be won. That said, even Pay to play games have the issue.
It is time the development team concentrated on making the game more fun for the real players, instead of engaging the bots in a war that they can not win (and a war that they enjoy fighting).
It's time to make America Neverwinter great again!
0
andorrabellMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 437Arc User
edited September 2016
Well said Gipsy. I'd add, keep SCA, keep the ability at least to *LOOK* at our character inventories and what's going on with TS, -- if you need to THEN make the SCA rewards account bound and give us a 2ndary location to get them. Professions seems obvious, but please DO NOT gate them behind the hell that is masterwork professions. Level 20 maybe.
Comments
What really set this game apart, in my eyes, was having the browser-based aspect of the game that I could muck around with during lunch breaks at work. I enjoyed playing SCA, and it was fun to be able to score some cool things for my characters while I was still stuck at the office.
Personally, I wouldn't be opposed to them making the gateway a VIP 1 perk.
This will reduce server load, and increase the value of the crafting people.
Also the gateway can be made read only (or disabled), and the access can be tied to certain in game elements like ViP, gametime played, and even campaign, quests, or dungeon completion.
The real problems are the so called "Gold Sellers" (who do not sell gold as such). They use expensive equipment to double the number of active players at any time and sell you resources for real money. They are the issue. Cryptic could not care less if you bot your 50 toons on the gateway or not, as long as you do not misuse the system.
Even if it was just one that would cut the hell in half.
Make it so!!!
https://www.theholycrusaders.com/
Stop the bots!
Sci-fi author: The Gods We Make, The Gods We Seek, and Ji-min
I wish this route would be re-examined as a way to make professions more valuable and worthwhile, but also to add more value back to dungeon drops. I remember the excitement of finally being able to craft my BiS Malabog's and later Fallen Dragon weapon set, as well as how good it felt to see one of theses pieces drop for the group, and actually being able to sell and split some worthwhile proceeds between everyone.
Such a good time from back in the day, and I would highly, highly encourage you to keep looking at things like this.
How can you make professions rewarding for those who are using them to supplement their game play, not substitute for game play? That's the magic question.
Many tasks are designed with a 6-hour duration, which becomes 4 hours if I have a purple worker to assign to it, and purple workers are very accessible now compared to three years ago. If I want to assign a bunch of profession slots to crafting stronghold items, without Gateway, I'm looking at about 60% downtime because I can't restart tasks that are long-completed.
Additionally, the game's profession UI for assigning assets is terrible compared to Gateway. It doesn't filter your assets that are already in use, just greys them out, and they're not presented in any logical order, so every secondary asset slot you want to fill requires scrolling and fiddling. The more assets you own, the worse it is. But everything with tiered results, you really want to be using secondary assets on if you have them. Gateway's interface is nicer by miles, and also has the convenience of the profession vendor a click away.
If Gateway is permanently offline, the entire profession system requires an overhaul. Unfortunately, that probably won't solve the problem either, since we already learned that the profession botters simply converted to in-game scripting when you were experimenting with keeping AD in Leadership and simply disabling it on Gateway. If it didn't work then, it's ultimately not going to help now.
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
Every time a human operator loses uptime on running professions around the clock because of the limitations of their body and mind, they are less efficient than having it automated.
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
Shame ! Shame ! Shame ! Shame ! Shame !
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
https://www.theholycrusaders.com/
https://www.theholycrusaders.com/
As has been stated before: Make professions auto collect and auto repeat. Rebalance anything impacted by this (the biggest thing being RP costs) how you see fit: extended crafting times, increased RP cost (though I personally think the costs are already high enough even if this was implemented). Then most importantly, MOVE ON.
We have spent enough time on bots. At some point, concede defeat and move on to making stuff that actually makes the game FUN again. Defeating the bots is not going to make the game more fun. It is actually making it less fun.
1 - Make tasks repeatable and automatically collect them when done (assuming inventory space and resources of course).
2 - Rebalance costs/timing of tasks if you feel necessary, assuming people are now running professions 24/7.
3 - Put the gateway stuff in the game somehow and put some of the bETTER gateway features (AH sort by Qty, some other things) in the game. Call it a DAY!
If there were more resources dedicated to the game, maybe this is a battle that could be won. That said, even Pay to play games have the issue.
It is time the development team concentrated on making the game more fun for the real players, instead of engaging the bots in a war that they can not win (and a war that they enjoy fighting).
It's time to make
AmericaNeverwinter great again!https://www.theholycrusaders.com/