Dungeon Key Changes

insomnigeek

I've spent a lot of time in this game over the past couple of years, since my divorce. I joined a great guild, met lots of great people and had a lot of fun. I've even dropped some of my hard earned money into the game, thinking that I was helping make it better. Boy, was my return on investment bad! I've watched them continually make poor decisions, gouge every cent they could out of people, while failing to deliver good content. Instead, it's all about the daily grind. As I'm sure with many who play, time is precious in their lives, and the more time playing this game to better your character(s), the less time you have to do much more enjoyable things. The game doesn't feel like a game anymore, it feels like a job....a job where you have to pay just to be there. I really don't want to turn my back on the game, but if they keep doing things like this, I may have no other choice. What's the straw that breaks your back? To many, as I've read in this forum post, this is the straw. Yes, they've released versions on XBOX and PS4, but they're also in competition with all the new games coming out like Gears of War, Battlefield, etc. It won't take much for the console players to say "Screw this, I don't want to grind, I want to have fun!" and uninstall Neverwinter.

TL:DR Quit scr3wing us all, or we will take our hard earned money somewhere else!

galopikus

I feel like the best outcome this new form of player abuse can result in is everybody switching to World of Warcraft, where QoL is better and our wallets will stay fuller.

sockmunkey

pterias said:

By all rules of logic and common sense, using keys to look in chests without using them up should have never been how it worked. It's comical nonsense that you can use a key to look in a box and then decide later that you never actually used the key. Even Schrodinger's Cat would say what the hamster.

There is no logic here. You don't lose your house key just for unlocking the door. If you have a magic skeleton key you shouldn't lose it ever. If your DM tried it while playing a PnP game. You know the rest of the night will be nothing more then arguments and rules lawyering.

We accept it in a video game, only because we are conditioned that in order to gain something you must pay something. But that's not logic. Being able to peek, allowed players a way to make the most out of limited resources, or time. This is an RPG staple, use the doodad now? or save it for later when it might be more needed. Instead of being a game play choice, its now a reduced to a flat purchase for a random spin of the wheel.

blackjackwidow

I wasn't going to post, since there's nothing much to add, but then I realized I have to make a post. At least by having everyone who is offended by this announcement, declare so, someone MIGHT see that this is a lot of backlash. I don't expect that anyone associated with making this decision will actually read any of the posts, but at least we are giving Andy something to point to if he really is able to bring our concerns to the decision makers.


I am so incredibly offended by how stupid these guys think I am. Not long ago I was supposed to believe that web security programmers were somehow going to be freed up to better design the game. Now I'm supposed to believe that a clear game feature was just a bunch of accidental programming that is giving an unfair advantage to the minority of the players in the game (those who can read?). You can't be serious.

andorrabell

urabask said:

Rofl. They're seriously trying to imply that an interface with an accept and decline option was a bug. At least be honest about it.

This is ridiculous. People have run 1000s of CN runs, without ever getting a shard, or a useable orange ring.
People have bought legendary keys on the basis of the interface having a decline.

Anyone who "didn't know" you could decline a chest clearly could not read.

This is not an acceptable change unless it comes with a MASSIVE rework of the minimum loot in chests and the RNG for high end drops.

NO.

DO NOT DO THIS.

And to LIE blatantly like this and claim it's a bug no one knew about, PUHLEAZE, you should be ashamed of yourselves.

uptondarkdiamond

Don't forget this perk was introduced as feature when the daily dungeon event went the way of the dodo(sp) bird to give us a way to get something we wanted or was somewhat desirable.

I really wish I could find the posts about the preview dungeon chest, but i have been unsuccessful in this endeavor. All I have been able to find is a few people complaining after a patch release (OCT 2015) about not being able to preview chests.....

So, to reiterate, I do not think this was a bug but a feature added to the game (by the Devs) that made sense at the time and still makes sense now, unless an entire overhaul of RnG is done, otherwise its a really bad plan that will be poorly implemented and communicated.

xatmo99

So.. You basically just make every endgame chest work just like a lock box. lose key for random non rewarding junk. Better up the % that you can get better stuff out of chests or this is not going to become a very good outcome.

zwalk

Im sad about the time Ive invested to quit.over this

demonmonger

Our keys were not used up when peeking because we only used the key to push away the cobwebs from the keyhole... then we could peek inside and choose to turn our key and break it off inside said chest.

mentinmindmaker

Calling this a bug shows massive disrespect for the players intelligence. Be open about it and call it what it is: A policy change, most likely aimed at boosting Zen income.

Most chest drops are so sucky that the only way the extra chests can defend their existence is by letting us see and then decide as it is today. With this change the game value of the keys will drop so low they are not worth it.

The current system works well, and because chests are tuned so low, it does not introduce much super loot into the game. The key cost/loot value balance is ok. So why change a winning team?

If the intent behind this is boosting Zen key sales, this probably will have the opposite effect: The game value of the Zen keys is dropping hard with this change, so most likely people will buy less Zen keys rather than more.

I fail to see how this can contribute positively to the game in any way.

I sense a panic from Cryptic behind this: Player numbers falling -> Zen income reduced ->More pay points enforced in the game -> More players leaving -> Player numbers falling

Oh well, I never paid any money to Cryptic. So I guess I am not the kind of player they want to keep around anyways.
But people generally resent moneygrabbing in games, so Cryptic is walking a VERY thight line here between generating sufficient income and people leaving in masses.

crizpynutz

It says decline for F's sake...why else would you decline? If accepting uses the key and gives you the loot, what does decline do? What SHOULD it have done? I mean seriously.

demonmonger

I'm 100% sure the key change is to limit the amount of new artifact weapons on the market. In a few mods or so the key issue should be changed back.

midpoint

This change is a complete horse <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> money grab.

Implement this and you're going to lose a ton of your player base across all platforms.

Vote with your wallets people, I've paid these guys well and will no longer do so again if it's implented. I've done hundreds & hundreds of runs for no loot. You think we're about to pay up for keys for chests that have nothing in them.

dtay2

I have over 2,000 daily dungeon chest keys gained through VIP. I could not use up VIP keys in my lifetime. I have at most 5 Greater Demonic Keys, because that is how many I can make between weekends. If I don't have a key, I don't run a dungeon. They aren't worth the time. It is obvious to me that nobody at Cryptic has the slightest clue as to how keys are used in Neverwinter and why the decline feature was a great thing.

Such cluelessness comes through solidly with this change. If anything, Cryptic should be consolidating, cheapening, and abolishing the many keys needed for less than cutting edge content.

qexotic

Let's be honest, all they have done is look at their data and come to a really bad decision. They will have looked at the number of chests opened, then the number of chest contents accepted vs number declined. If the number declined was seen to be significantly higher than the number accepted then these will have been declared as 'lost revenue' where each declined chest would be counted as one less key being bought. Instead of coming up with a way of increasing the number of chests that are accepted, they have just taken the simpler option of making every chest be accepted once a key is used. Once this goes live, they will look at the number of keys used and compare this with the previous figure for the number of chests accepted. If the former is greater than the latter, then they will deem the change to have been a success. How the players feel about it will not be taken into consideration...only the data. Afterall, data never lies. Sadly, the Devs (or at least one of them) made it perfectly clear in the discussion over empowered armour that they do not consider the feedback on the forums to be representative of the views of the majority of people playing the game, only their data tells the true story...at least as far as they are concerned.

This latest move to extract even more of the fun out of the game is pretty much the final straw for me. I have around 120 days of VIP left to run. When they run out, I will be waving farewell to NW. I doubt I will be running too many dungeons after November 8th if this goes ahead.

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demonmonger

I pay the lottery once a month... but even then I know my money is going to help some other person if they win in the future... never winter key lottery helps no one. Not gonna play

andorrabell

And guys, I can tolerate your "chest within a chest" scheme for FBI, and even your new "obnoxious amount of rep or pay real money" scheme for the new event in 10b, but to go back and make those legendary keys USELESS in all prior content?

NOPE- this will cause you to lose players AND money spent on keys, not increase it. You can't ask people to spend real money keys on chests that most often contain complete JUNK. It's not going to happen.

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demonmonger

#NeverwinterLivesMatter

andorrabell

The key difference is that spending Money on a Lockbox is gambling, we know it's gambling, whatever it's cool that you get junk most of the time.

Finishing a DUNGEON should not result in you having to spend money to gamble on getting junk. If the chests don't guaranteed contain things you want or needs it's a huge nerf, on items we have bought with real money. Not okay, not even a little bit.

demonmonger

We already know whas going to happen.
Soon this discussion will be closed and all changes will go live. Any further comments after that will end up in the lower depths.

Captain the titanic is sinking what should we do?

Keep playing the music and pretend nothings wrong....

Aye aye captain...

deadmeat

All I have left to do is run dungeons for items I need, if I am forced to waste keys on HAMSTER then I'll quickly run out of keys, once I run out I have nothing to do in the game, so I will quit.

viperwitch23

So they say minority knew about the ''bug'' and majority did not?
Everyone who ever ran a dungeon must of have noticed ''ACCEPT/DECLINE'' buttons
Haven't they?
Or they didn't look at what they were clicking at all?
Really this is dumb fix
It would like ''fix'' 95% of players outta CN then outta NDEMO
I don't know about edemo
Those who run eDemo are mostly after Twisted Ichors so they open chest any way to get them
I open normal demo chests to get extra 50 Faezzers.
But to peek into second eLOL chest to decide if I want to spend a key on another ring or on armor is a good idea
Apparently not so good any more.
So now we shouldn't even click second chest unless you are ready to loose that key
Disappointing
Really disappointing

Perhaps here is still hope they reconsider or give us a choice of loot at last

viperwitch23

deadmeat#0959 said:

All I have left to do is run dungeons for items I need, if I am forced to waste keys on HAMSTER then I'll quickly run out of keys, once I run out I have nothing to do in the game, so I will quit.

You mean second special keys or Daily chest keys?

zerappus

One, I think this equalizes the pain between buyers and sellers. For the longest time, NW is a buyer's market. A month or so ago someone brazenly suggested that ViP no longer remove the posting fee penalty, where sellers are normally punished for failing to sell ( in short hurt the sellers even more while leaving the buyers untouched).

Now, it's come full circle, the dungeoneers who get their no-competition, tax-free ad are now getting hit.

Two, having said that, I think there should be a form of compromise (given the drop-rate reality). Cryptic should allow +5 rings to be RANDOMLY transmutable to another +5 ring:

Pay 50k AD to randomly transmute a +5 Ring to another +5 Ring.
Pay 10k AD to randomly transmute a +4 Ring to another +4 Ring.
Pay 2k AD to randomly transmute a +3 Ring to another +3 Ring.

This also doubles as an elusive/much-needed AD SINK that's currently missing in-game. A player who already owns a +5 ring would appreciate this consolation.

viperwitch23

Current amount of wanted Zen is 7.5mill the biggest one and some 150k of other amounts.

demonmonger

I have just come to the conclusion that talking about this is not worth my Internet data.

Let's all give the devs something to remember....

Stop playing for 6 months.

tripsofthrymr

zerappus said:

Two, having said that, I think there should be a form of compromise (given the drop-rate reality). Cryptic should allow +5 rings to be RANDOMLY transmutable to another +5 ring:

Pay 50k AD to randomly transmute a +5 Ring to another +5 Ring.
Pay 10k AD to randomly transmute a +4 Ring to another +4 Ring.
Pay 2k AD to randomly transmute a +3 Ring to another +3 Ring.

This also doubles as an elusive/much-needed AD SINK that's currently missing in-game. A player who already owns a +5 ring would appreciate this consolation.

I like this idea. The current drop rate for +4 and +5 rings is too low to make it worth buying a key in the hope of getting one. Not sure it's worth making a free one through campaigns, either. Too much grind for too little average reward.

demonmonger

I'm so happy I didn't buy another year of vip this month....