Exactly 2 lostmauth horns were the ONLY artifacts dropping for me EVER, too....the only chest I get a tiny little bit excited about opening is the second one in CN...no shard ever but at least the occasional r8 and even a sudden precision +5 once. I started to suspect artifacts aren´t even in the loot table anymore for the dungeons. The loot situation is depressing as hell and I figured they cannot improve it since players can chain-run these dungeons. Now they COULD improve the loot in the second chest if they limit the amount of times players can open it (except for players spending money on keys- and of course, given the current situation...the improvement would have to be dramatic...) That would actually be kinda good I guess if you lower the key cost (by that I mean the cost in time to make one, not -buy- one...that should not be necessary at all-> one key per day is okay but make the requirements reasonable) and improve the loot. Minus the idiotic justification given in this announcement. ...Think about it this way: making a key and running elol once a day with a good chance at great loot is better than to run it ten times with a soul-crushingly bad chance at loot. But given the fact they´re trying to SELL the keys I don´t think that´s going to happen. I dunno why they don´t try to sell something else. There´s so many more reasonable ideas.
Better still would be to finally revamp the dungeons to adjust them to the runaway power creep that has happened AND (re-)introduce new/old dungeons)-> more time/effort -> better loot! That -more than anything else- would be the solution for me. Most dungeons have become lame as hell already. But look what they did...the ONE dungeon that actually is (as I hear) a good challenge has the worst rewards. It´s tragicomic...:P Seriously...even if they threw the new armor set at me for free I´d just dump it. It apparently would just tempt me to run in circles digging up relics, and next mod chain-run HE and fish and endlessly repeat a "trial"....ALL of those things I do not enjoy. Feels like a relief to me to just opt out of all of that.
Of course, dungeons would have to be tiered since you cannot design a dungeon and its rewards with regards to time/effort with a power gap that meanwhile has to be measured in light-years. But that isn´t gonna happen and it would be a waste of time to even outline the suggestion.
If we are essentially going to be restricted to one free key per day per campaign then they absolutely need to remove blue gear from chests.
A +1 ring worth 2.2k salvage is not a decent reward. I understand them dropping as freebies but if players are now going to be limited to one chest reward per day then it needs to be an equal chance at a +3, 4 or 5.
Bear in mind that to even get that key, players have to run x3 gold for a lesser and x6 for a greater - whilst only being able to open a chest on one of those runs. This of course will increase the amount of people running 3k+ gold teams as they won't want newer players causing them to waste time with lower scores.
I've been running PoM a lot recently on my CW. Even with the supposed spawn fix I've only had gold twice. My usual paingiver score is over 40 million and most of the time that's more than the rest of the team put together. There's usually at least 2 players below 2k IL - which currently I don't mind as the chest reward is random and declinable - i.e. I don't need to make another key so don't care if we score a bronze and I get 33 Faerzress.
If I'm put in a position where I need to get gold every time so that I only have to do 3 to make my next key then I will not run with anyone under 3k - I simply cannot afford the time.
This is another problem, especially for pug groups. I'm pretty certain that the percent chance of getting better loot increases depending on how your grouped scored in the skirmish overall. So now if you score something other that gold you are shooting yourself in the foot if you open that chest. This is going to really effect a pug groups chance at completing a skirmish with a good score, people will be bailing on borderline groups because it will end up being a total waste of their time. At least with the old decline button (bug or feature you decide) you could still see maybe if the dice rolled in your favor getting a sub gold score...... if not you could just click decline and reque if you saw a +1 ring with a peridot
Think about this, it is one of those side consequences that i'm sure wasn't even considered.....
People will be bailing on boderline groups, which will fubar the que.....
I will ignore lie or not lie thing here and I'll focus on feedback how to improve this dungeon/skirmishes keys changes.
My ideas: - I do not like your idea at all. Why? I think it's great that rewards in this game are hidden behind real gameplay. The problem I have with upcoming change is that runing dungeons or skirmishes will not be rewarding as much as it is right now. It's easier to mindlessly farm HE in Storm Kings Thunder or farm Dread Ring Lairs or run Heralds in Well of Dragons than actualy run any dungeon or skirmish. Better rewards for time consumed. It shouldn't be like that in the game under the Dungeons & Dragons banner. - cost of Epic Dungeon Keys are too high. Right now chest drops are usualy worth about 3k-10k based on dungeon or skirmish (Kessel being the lowest, CN the highest). For most players the price for a key is higher than drop they can actualy get from the chest. VIP bonus helps here a bit, but usually you will get worse loot than cost of the key. - cost of Legendary Dragon Keys are WAY to high. Compare the price with Lockbox keys. In lockboxes you will get at least 15k AD worth of rewards + trade bars, very often rewards in 50-100k range and sometimes rewards worth milions of AD. For half that price you will usually get 3k AD worth rewards, in CN it will be higher ~10k AD, rarely you will get reward in 50-100k range and with 0.0001% chance you will get something worth 500k+ AD. Another thing is Lockbox Keys are sometimes on 40% sale from Invoking, while Legendary Dragon Keys are at 15% max discount. Which makes Lockboxes keys much better and Lockboxes keys do not require any involvement except clicking. That is unfair. - Drop rates should be higher, especially from extra chest that consumes Campaign Keys or Legendary Dragon Keys - Basic rewards should be worth at least the same amount of AD as the cost of a Key (5k AD). - I hope you will introduce new currency for every queued instances in this game, be it skirmish, dungeon or trial. For every completion you will get one point of this currency. After completing specific dungeon/skirmish/trial number of times (be it 100, 200, 500, maybe even 1000) you will get to chose one of rewards that potentialy have chance to appear in the end chest.
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krasensilverMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 27Arc User
I cant believe you ppl still trying to give feedbacks and suggestions since they already said this coming online like it is doesnt matter what you say or what you do. this is already a lost cause your thoughts means nothing to them you are just a wallet.
There's already been some good feedback on what to do about this issue. But on a larger scale so much is broken with the economy in this game.
Look at what dungeons people run. The devs have the numbers, we players have a good guess. What's the queue time fire cloak tower? What's the queue time for ToS? What's the queue time for EVERY OTHER LEVELING DUNGEON? The reward system encourages running those two and ignoring the rest. What's worse is it encourages fully geared level 70 toons to rush through with random low level players. They don't get to interact, they don't chat, they are confused and get yelled at because the 70 just wants their daily bonus AD. That's a bad experience for the new player. Why do you incentivize level 70s to do it? Why do you make the best time to AD ratio something that's so easily botted then use botting as a justification for other changes?
For T1 dungeons it's a bit more even, only because people have delays in making keys across the different campaigns. If you do "fix" that the keys for VT and MC will work in all T1 dungeons you are effectively taking those out of the game too. eLoL is clearly run more. Because the horn of blasting actually has value. People want it. Valindras artifact and whatever MC drops, not so much. What about parity on the artifact sets? Damage from the black ice set is laughable. And you let the lol-set bonus stay best in the game FOR A YEAR!!! Everyone ran it. Healers and tanks were using it. And you did nothing but watch FOR. A. YEAR.
Small aside: you are not even listing dungeons right in the queue! Shores of Tuern and Kessel's Retreat are skirmishes. This has to be told to new players in guild and alliance constantly. I have to bring this up in a discussion ABOUT DECLINING KEYS?!?!
Do you recall when the keys had an AD cost to craft and people *literally* didn't make them and took only the one chest? The AD cost to craft them was almost always more than the reward. And here we are taking a step backwards with dragon keys costing SEVERAL TIMES the AD value of the chest contents. This was a former state OF YOUR GAME! Is your staff turnover that great that no one remembers that change?
Now on to T2 dungeons. There's only eToS. Why run eCC or EGWD? Other than occasionally out of boredom, those aren't run. Show your players that you value their time by rewarding us for doing harder (or at least more time consuming) content.
Or, just watch as one dungeon is run over and over and over. You have the numbers. You tell us how much time it takes to bring back old dungeons, and then when they do come back you give us no incentive to actually play them.
You were already told the time and challenge to run FBI is too great to justify the difference in loot from CN. You didn't listen to that feedback, just like you won't listen to this.
Oh, and those +5 rings... big flop. A few people got lucky and actually got one they could use. Just as many got a slap in the face with one that was worthless. Charging bull? Vishion? Ambush? Cowardice? Etc... how sad to get a *legendary* drop only to THROW IT AWAY for salvage AD or surplus equipment in the guild coffer! You have the numbers, I dare you to trek me it doesn't happen. Show me characters actuality using these hike rings for something other than trolling PvP.
Shouldn't most characters be able to get one by the time the next mod comes out? That's how the MMO treadmill usually works. Get gear X sometime between when is released and when X+1 comes out. You didn't even do that right!
SIGH.
People want to feel progress, but you even shoot yourself in the foot with 2x weekends. It's so annoyingly hard to get RP that players ONLY spend it on those weekends. So, effectively my characters get better only a couple times a year! The rest of the time I'm just filling my bags and waiting. That doesn't feel like progress, it feels like sadness. Look at all the things I'll one day be able to do, as soon as the powers that be deem it time. Why is MY advancement so dependent on YOUR calendar?
Please ban my account. My characters are deleted, anything not bound has been given away. If the devs are really reading this they can verify that. I can't think of any other way to indicate this feedback is sincere, and ment for the best of the game and the players who remain. The flaws in this game RUN DEEP. There are just too many literal bugs and larger design problems that need to be fixed than whether or not I'm allowed to save a key and play again.
Declining keys is not the root cause, but it is the tipping point. Painting over the crack won't fix your foundation.
@terramak has made the following post in the Preview Section:
'Thanks for the feedback, folks. Most of the changes in this Preview update are from closer to the beginning of this week (as suggested by the build version), and we'll continue to keep an eye on the comments and questions.
As a general comment: As always, please treat your fellow players - your fellow people - with respect. While a significant bug (the dungeon key chest issue) is being addressed this update, as mentioned in the original post, we understand that some players have come to rely on this bug, and the nature of it caused some to perceive it as standard functionality.
I do not expect to pursue use of this functionality as an exploit. We understand that players are still putting time and energy into this content, whether or not they choose to use a key, and some may choose to do so until the moment the live servers go down for the module release.
Personally, I just hope folks don't burn themselves out from the feeling that they have to make optimal use of this bug before the module update. '
It would seem that this change will be going ahead regardless of anything that is being said by the people posting on this thread. It would have been nice if he could have put in an appearance on this thread to make this statement. As it stands, it just suggests that while the Devs may be reading this thread, they are paying absolutely no attention to what has and is being said which is a shame.
@terramak has made the following post in the Preview Section:
'While a significant bug (the dungeon key chest issue) is being addressed this update, as mentioned in the original post, we understand that some players have come to rely on this bug, and the nature of it caused some to perceive it as standard functionality.'
No. This "bug" excuse could work for pc i guess. What about consoles? For as long as I can remember we've always had the same system in place. Do you mean to tell me you purposely introduced a system that was bugged? I remember beating my first dungeon, opening the chest, reading everything, deciding my key was more valuable than the trash offered so I hit decline LIKE THE OPTION I WAS GIVEN SAYS TO. Accept/ decline. Thats why dungeon delves was so great. If you choose to pretend it was an oversight upon introducing nw to xbox, explain ps4? We get it, you need $. Thats fine, but please at least lie to us better. It shows you care alittle.
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ironzerg79Member, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,942Arc User
edited October 2016
Of course, the key change is a done deal. I would accept that as a fact.
The issue here is that the loot in those chests is often times so bad, it costs you more to open the chest than to leave it. Again, the "rewards" actually make the player less wealthy.
That's the real problem here. As I said earlier, if this was said in a situation where players were happy with the contents 95%+ percent of the time, this would be a non-issue.
But the reality here is that the loot is so terrible, you literally have adventurers killing demon lords and dragons, opening up a ridiculously ornate chest stuffed with the spoils of victory, taking a peek and saying, "No, thanks."
That's the problem.
I honestly don't care about the key peek changes, because 9/10 times I rejected the chest. And I would guess that in those 1/10 times I did take it, probably half the time I still "lost" on the deal.
They could revert the key change and the players would still be the losers here. In fact, at this point, it would probably leave the players in a much worse situation if all they did was revert the changes and maintain their place as leading the industry in the "Worst Loot Ever" category.
EDIT: Ok, to be fair, I did a little more research and Neverwinter is not leading the "Worst Loot Ever" category.
Apparently number one is "OMG It's Full of Spiders Online", and number two is "World of Broken Glasscraft".
They could revert the key change and the players would still be the losers here. In fact, at this point, it would probably leave the players in a much worse situation if all they did was revert the changes and maintain their place as leading the industry in the "Worst Loot Ever" category.
I agree with you for the old contant, but it´s a different story with the new weaponset. To upgrade it you have to loot 3 chests for your special marks and for the final upgrade the droprate reaches the same as +5rings...so without the possibility to peek into the chest if the Mark I´m looking for is inside or not, it´s a total waste of time. The complete modul 10.5 can be dumped like this.
I just sent a post to WotC, and will be sending posts to PWE and Hasbro too.
I suggest you make your own posts to them too.
But be civil about it, swearing and ranting dont do anything.
Just point out the issues at hand and what have been the issues of past months.
As they are a part of this games development and resources. You should point out to them how you feel, we as customers and players are being treated and how the game is being treated.
LOL... you think them changing the way the keys work is worth trying to cause trouble for the game company. That's pathetic.
How about you write a letter complaining about every thing the devs give for FREE... and all the people that play this game without spending a dime?
“Improvise, Adapt and Overcome!”
― Clint Eastwood, Heartbreak Ridge
Guild Leader of Ardent Justice HQ: Always recruiting People not Pixels.
@ironzerg79 I and many others within my guild have accepted that this is indeed a done deal, and personally I'm not going to get hung up over whether it is/isn't a bug/exploit etc etc ad infinitum. The lack of official communication about this however, suggests really strongly that they're naive to the damage this change will make in the absence of a concurrent revamp of loot. That they also take it for granted that the community will just suck it up and carry on playing and opening their wallets. It seems that they don't appreciate at all how bad the loot is in the game.
Personally, I just hope folks don't burn themselves out from the feeling that they have to make optimal use of this bug before the module update.
Players aren't going to burn themselves out in a effort to make use of this "bug". They're already burnt out by the appalling drop rates, and that, the very crux of this issue, Cryptic seem to be oblivious to.
They have ignored feedback for the last few months including mod 10 grind/gating levels. so what does it matter.
We all feel defeated , they have beat us all down.
Its I guess the decision that is next for many of us.
It is terribly freeing to leave a mmo I will tell you that.. Ive done it several times. Usually take 5-6 months off and just enjoy actual life again. Puts games into perspective. If you are complementing that road, there might be a guide on how to quit the game right over at the site that shall not be named, there is a post about it already.
.... Most players in the game (that take part in Mod 10 content) will make more ad and progress their toons faster and cheaper than they ever did before (except exploiters or people that had leadership/invokation armies). The ONLY reason that is the case is because of the "grind/gating" related to the new armor and weapons.
This ONE time the devs finally let the gating/grinding benefit the majority of the Players in the game.. and not just their Zen sells.
Think a little bit deeper than the surface level.
“Improvise, Adapt and Overcome!”
― Clint Eastwood, Heartbreak Ridge
Guild Leader of Ardent Justice HQ: Always recruiting People not Pixels.
Part of the issue here is that if the loot table is ever changed for the better, which history teaches us it won't be, it is likely to come so long after the key change, that most of us have already abandoned all hope of it ever coming, and just moved on to a game with a worthwhile reward system.
Not only this, but they will: "Look into the the matter" "Evaluate the data" "Gather more data" "Have a meeting next week" "Pass it along to the right people" etc...
And weaver, enough with turning the second cheek, each time someone throw steamy HAMSTER at my face should I say thanks for warming me? Yes, we play this by choice, yes, we can leave, but that doesn't mean we can't have a spine, an opinion, or need to like every rotten hamster thrown at us and say thanks, can we have more.
3+ years of a lot of time investment. Small'ish GH17 guild, with a lot of effort invested. We prefer not to leave, but the camel is tired and the straw is pilling up fast. For a long time now, a lot of people are around not for the game, but for the people they met and in spite of the game.
For all of you about to foolishly Rage Quit the game instead of using all this to your advantage: See ya!!
I just sent a post to WotC, and will be sending posts to PWE and Hasbro too.
I suggest you make your own posts to them too.
But be civil about it, swearing and ranting dont do anything.
Just point out the issues at hand and what have been the issues of past months.
As they are a part of this games development and resources. You should point out to them how you feel, we as customers and players are being treated and how the game is being treated.
LOL... you think them changing the way the keys work is worth trying to cause trouble for the game company. That's pathetic.
How about you write a letter complaining about every thing the devs give for FREE... and all the people that play this game without spending a dime?
Ugh.
The people that don't spend are necessary because the game couldn't maintain its pitiful player population without them. The player population would be less than half of what it is now : \
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matiagronxMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 251Arc User
terramak said: Personally, I just hope folks don't burn themselves out from the feeling that they have to make optimal use of this bug before the module update. '
@terramak So what exactly this means? That till the change hits live you will lower the loot chance EVEN MORE to prevent people from over-farming content now that this is gonna be "fixed"? Is this what you mean? You are mocking THOUSANDS of people, do you realize this? There was NEVER a bug with chest, it was YOUR DECISION to leave it as it is. As was the DOZENS OF deliberate BOSSES and MINIBOSSES BUGS throughout all the dungeons ALL these years to trivialize content for the "not so skilled"...your history is FULL of DECEPTION..will you PLEASE PUT A STOP TO IT?
micky1p00Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,594Arc User
In the spirit of feedback, but first some feedback background:
Neverwinter, unlike many other MMOs allows to convert AD to ZEN, so the base premise is:
AD = Time currency. We get that for doing things in game, farming, grinding, winning, etc.. ZEN = Bought with doing dailies in real life, grinding, farming, selling a kidney, marring rich, robbing a bank, etc....
With this we can classify all the players on the farming scale, from players that only farm ingame AD to players that mainly buy everything with ZEN. And ofcourse all the options in between, players who mainly farm AD but throw in some RL cash, others half half, and so on.
So how the game monetize? Cryptic wont monetize content like zones and classes (and kudos for that) so we have the usual:
1. Progress: Add money -> less grind. I'll be back to this, this is where loot comes, and the current key problem.
2. Hats, famous TF2 joke, but I mean fashion, emotes unlock, visual modifiers to skills, even visually different waking and running -> What Valve figured long ago and makes millions out of, and Cryptic fails completely to do. It's an issue of the chicken or the egg. No variety of items to buy, nowhere to put them (no dedicated inventory), no micro-transaction suitable items (Dota2 taunts cost cents, for example) So Cryptic doesn't see sales and neglects it even more.
3. QoL: bags, char slots, name change, respec, etc..
Here we have some important issues, like BtC non discardable bags. I can only attest to myself and people I know, but we wont buy more bags if it makes the old totally useless (can't transfer to alts) and take inventory space, they are not discard-able.
Respec should be offered by boon page / feat page, I don't want to respec everything again, just to change one boon. So I wont respec, offer me a cheaper version for each boon page and I will. And even if I use only those smaller re-specs eventually for everything and it will cost me more than a full re-spec it's still preferable in terms of QoL.
Look change: We had faces, faces gone for new faces. Now all the new elves look like children.
4. Gambling - Lockboxes.
There is probably more, but back to the important part, progress and monetization, long ago it worked simply like this: The time investing players did dungeons, got unbound loot and sold it to people who converted ZEN to AD and wanted to progress faster. At the end people payed with ZEN for faster progress, but bought it indirectly through the people who did dungeons. At the end Cryptic is the manufacturer of those items and get the full profit from this.
IMO, then came the resonator exploit and skewed the numbers so significantly that Cryptic decided to change the entire concept, and now the compete with the farming players. Notice what happens, now not only you have purple shovel for relics, companion with additional relic drop but now you can buy gear directly in the zen shop. So as I've said Cryptic now competes directly with players on selling the ZEN paying players gear and progress directly, to make it a complete monopoly they made all the dungeon drops bound. Now a player can't sell progress to another player in this way. The only thing left are marks and RP. And even here, you can buy RP from the zen shop and so on.
So what we end up? With people with ZEN that have absolutely no need for AD, people with AD with backlog of 8mil and frustration, and dungeons without any loot.
So where is the feedback / suggestion in this wall of text? Here it is:
1. Unbind the drops! Everything that can be not bound, shouldn't be bound, if someone wants to buy progress let them. You want to make some visual significance for people who completed a dungeon, add bound transmutes, titles, mount skins, etc... But the gear itself, components, marks or whatever that is progress should be unbound. This will make the drop actually worth much more, now this pesky box in a box in FBI that not for my class actually worth something. And with that the key I've used to open it wont make me look for someone to strangle in frustration.
2. Make BtA / Claimable to account variations in the ZEN shop for things like the purple shovel, fashion (that somehow got into the t.bar) and all that group, and maybe companions of course for appropriate price.
People choose to get around transferring ZEN to AD buy buying items with ZEN and selling them on AH, with the backlog it's a nice profit, and yes, I've made a lot by selling wards and dyes and what not. But if the loot is unbound and ZEN store offers account bound and/or account unlock items, it creates a better deal and such forces the use of the exchange, and in this a much more healthier economy.
So at the end, loot should be unbound, those +4, +5 rings, new marks, relic armor, vivified stuff. components and what not. Don't force the gating and grind, make people want to run it repeatedly.
Another and less economical but more psychological standpoint: Every run should add progress, for example a ceiling for run, +5 ring should be in the store, for large amount of currency, in this it can be separated as key chest / boss drop BoE, but currency bought -> BoP. This way it gives the most options, the least frustration and yes the currency price must be very high to encourage people to buy the drops for AD, and the drop rate good enough that it's affordable (Or people wont buy ZEN wont convert to AD, and Cryptic wont make money)
I just sent a post to WotC, and will be sending posts to PWE and Hasbro too.
I suggest you make your own posts to them too.
But be civil about it, swearing and ranting dont do anything.
Just point out the issues at hand and what have been the issues of past months.
As they are a part of this games development and resources. You should point out to them how you feel, we as customers and players are being treated and how the game is being treated.
LOL... you think them changing the way the keys work is worth trying to cause trouble for the game company. That's pathetic.
How about you write a letter complaining about every thing the devs give for FREE... and all the people that play this game without spending a dime?
weawer, dont post under assumptions. What i wrote to WotC, Hasbro and PWE was not about reverting the key change. When this happened i posted to inform them that something in the communication and implementation side of things is very wrong and has been for ages.
I have posted a couple of suggestions how to handle the key change, not pushing it to go away.
IF they make the key change we should be able to review loots and it seems its up on preview, so as i see it, we managed to make a change, not to stop the key change but to be able to influence the loot-tables.
I, as a customer and a player have the right to give feedback, were it negative or positive.
I personally feel, that communication and pointing out flaws and good things to the core of the companies is good, always.
I dont know if you ever give feedback to the companies you deal with, its one of the easiest ways to inform your opinion on whats is done right or wrong and POSSIBLY make some things actually work as PROMISED.
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micky1p00Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,594Arc User
Part of the issue here is that if the loot table is ever changed for the better, which history teaches us it won't be, it is likely to come so long after the key change, that most of us have already abandoned all hope of it ever coming, and just moved on to a game with a worthwhile reward system.
Not only this, but they will: "Look into the the matter" "Evaluate the data" "Gather more data" "Have a meeting next week" "Pass it along to the right people" etc...
And weaver, enough with turning the second cheek, each time someone throw steamy HAMSTER at my face should I say thanks for warming me? Yes, we play this by choice, yes, we can leave, but that doesn't mean we can't have a spine, an opinion, or need to like every rotten hamster thrown at us and say thanks, can we have more.
3+ years of a lot of time investment. Small'ish GH17 guild, with a lot of effort invested. We prefer not to leave, but the camel is tired and the straw is pilling up fast. For a long time now, a lot of people are around not for the game, but for the people they met and in spite of the game.
For all of you about to foolishly Rage Quit the game instead of using all this to your advantage: See ya!!
1. I'm not the frothing raging type. I evaluate the advantages and disadvantages and make a decision. 2. I'm in no way a game economy expert, but I think I've learned to take to my advantage of economy changes here and there.
But I'm always willing to learn, where is this change has an advantage ? And don't to try to whitewash it with "better loot", the only change in the preview notes is keys. And history shows that feedback will not be heard, loot will not be changed, and this change will just fade.
So please, next time if you quote me, at least answer my posts to their points.
Comments
Better still would be to finally revamp the dungeons to adjust them to the runaway power creep that has happened AND (re-)introduce new/old dungeons)-> more time/effort -> better loot! That -more than anything else- would be the solution for me. Most dungeons have become lame as hell already. But look what they did...the ONE dungeon that actually is (as I hear) a good challenge has the worst rewards. It´s tragicomic...:P Seriously...even if they threw the new armor set at me for free I´d just dump it. It apparently would just tempt me to run in circles digging up relics, and next mod chain-run HE and fish and endlessly repeat a "trial"....ALL of those things I do not enjoy. Feels like a relief to me to just opt out of all of that.
Of course, dungeons would have to be tiered since you cannot design a dungeon and its rewards with regards to time/effort with a power gap that meanwhile has to be measured in light-years. But that isn´t gonna happen and it would be a waste of time to even outline the suggestion.
Think about this, it is one of those side consequences that i'm sure wasn't even considered.....
People will be bailing on boderline groups, which will fubar the que.....
Just think about it....
My ideas:
- I do not like your idea at all. Why? I think it's great that rewards in this game are hidden behind real gameplay. The problem I have with upcoming change is that runing dungeons or skirmishes will not be rewarding as much as it is right now. It's easier to mindlessly farm HE in Storm Kings Thunder or farm Dread Ring Lairs or run Heralds in Well of Dragons than actualy run any dungeon or skirmish. Better rewards for time consumed. It shouldn't be like that in the game under the Dungeons & Dragons banner.
- cost of Epic Dungeon Keys are too high. Right now chest drops are usualy worth about 3k-10k based on dungeon or skirmish (Kessel being the lowest, CN the highest). For most players the price for a key is higher than drop they can actualy get from the chest. VIP bonus helps here a bit, but usually you will get worse loot than cost of the key.
- cost of Legendary Dragon Keys are WAY to high. Compare the price with Lockbox keys. In lockboxes you will get at least 15k AD worth of rewards + trade bars, very often rewards in 50-100k range and sometimes rewards worth milions of AD. For half that price you will usually get 3k AD worth rewards, in CN it will be higher ~10k AD, rarely you will get reward in 50-100k range and with 0.0001% chance you will get something worth 500k+ AD. Another thing is Lockbox Keys are sometimes on 40% sale from Invoking, while Legendary Dragon Keys are at 15% max discount. Which makes Lockboxes keys much better and Lockboxes keys do not require any involvement except clicking. That is unfair.
- Drop rates should be higher, especially from extra chest that consumes Campaign Keys or Legendary Dragon Keys
- Basic rewards should be worth at least the same amount of AD as the cost of a Key (5k AD).
- I hope you will introduce new currency for every queued instances in this game, be it skirmish, dungeon or trial. For every completion you will get one point of this currency. After completing specific dungeon/skirmish/trial number of times (be it 100, 200, 500, maybe even 1000) you will get to chose one of rewards that potentialy have chance to appear in the end chest.
Look at what dungeons people run. The devs have the numbers, we players have a good guess. What's the queue time fire cloak tower? What's the queue time for ToS? What's the queue time for EVERY OTHER LEVELING DUNGEON? The reward system encourages running those two and ignoring the rest. What's worse is it encourages fully geared level 70 toons to rush through with random low level players. They don't get to interact, they don't chat, they are confused and get yelled at because the 70 just wants their daily bonus AD. That's a bad experience for the new player. Why do you incentivize level 70s to do it? Why do you make the best time to AD ratio something that's so easily botted then use botting as a justification for other changes?
For T1 dungeons it's a bit more even, only because people have delays in making keys across the different campaigns. If you do "fix" that the keys for VT and MC will work in all T1 dungeons you are effectively taking those out of the game too.
eLoL is clearly run more. Because the horn of blasting actually has value. People want it. Valindras artifact and whatever MC drops, not so much. What about parity on the artifact sets? Damage from the black ice set is laughable. And you let the lol-set bonus stay best in the game FOR A YEAR!!! Everyone ran it. Healers and tanks were using it. And you did nothing but watch FOR. A. YEAR.
Small aside: you are not even listing dungeons right in the queue! Shores of Tuern and Kessel's Retreat are skirmishes. This has to be told to new players in guild and alliance constantly. I have to bring this up in a discussion ABOUT DECLINING KEYS?!?!
Do you recall when the keys had an AD cost to craft and people *literally* didn't make them and took only the one chest? The AD cost to craft them was almost always more than the reward. And here we are taking a step backwards with dragon keys costing SEVERAL TIMES the AD value of the chest contents. This was a former state OF YOUR GAME! Is your staff turnover that great that no one remembers that change?
Now on to T2 dungeons. There's only eToS. Why run eCC or EGWD? Other than occasionally out of boredom, those aren't run. Show your players that you value their time by rewarding us for doing harder (or at least more time consuming) content.
Or, just watch as one dungeon is run over and over and over. You have the numbers. You tell us how much time it takes to bring back old dungeons, and then when they do come back you give us no incentive to actually play them.
You were already told the time and challenge to run FBI is too great to justify the difference in loot from CN. You didn't listen to that feedback, just like you won't listen to this.
Oh, and those +5 rings... big flop. A few people got lucky and actually got one they could use. Just as many got a slap in the face with one that was worthless. Charging bull? Vishion? Ambush? Cowardice? Etc... how sad to get a *legendary* drop only to THROW IT AWAY for salvage AD or surplus equipment in the guild coffer! You have the numbers, I dare you to trek me it doesn't happen. Show me characters actuality using these hike rings for something other than trolling PvP.
Shouldn't most characters be able to get one by the time the next mod comes out? That's how the MMO treadmill usually works. Get gear X sometime between when is released and when X+1 comes out. You didn't even do that right!
SIGH.
People want to feel progress, but you even shoot yourself in the foot with 2x weekends. It's so annoyingly hard to get RP that players ONLY spend it on those weekends. So, effectively my characters get better only a couple times a year! The rest of the time I'm just filling my bags and waiting. That doesn't feel like progress, it feels like sadness. Look at all the things I'll one day be able to do, as soon as the powers that be deem it time. Why is MY advancement so dependent on YOUR calendar?
Please ban my account. My characters are deleted, anything not bound has been given away. If the devs are really reading this they can verify that. I can't think of any other way to indicate this feedback is sincere, and ment for the best of the game and the players who remain. The flaws in this game RUN DEEP. There are just too many literal bugs and larger design problems that need to be fixed than whether or not I'm allowed to save a key and play again.
Declining keys is not the root cause, but it is the tipping point. Painting over the crack won't fix your foundation.
'Thanks for the feedback, folks. Most of the changes in this Preview update are from closer to the beginning of this week (as suggested by the build version), and we'll continue to keep an eye on the comments and questions.
As a general comment: As always, please treat your fellow players - your fellow people - with respect. While a significant bug (the dungeon key chest issue) is being addressed this update, as mentioned in the original post, we understand that some players have come to rely on this bug, and the nature of it caused some to perceive it as standard functionality.
I do not expect to pursue use of this functionality as an exploit. We understand that players are still putting time and energy into this content, whether or not they choose to use a key, and some may choose to do so until the moment the live servers go down for the module release.
Personally, I just hope folks don't burn themselves out from the feeling that they have to make optimal use of this bug before the module update. '
It would seem that this change will be going ahead regardless of anything that is being said by the people posting on this thread. It would have been nice if he could have put in an appearance on this thread to make this statement. As it stands, it just suggests that while the Devs may be reading this thread, they are paying absolutely no attention to what has and is being said which is a shame.
ManaBurns (CW) Level 70 (15400)
PS4 Guild: Somewhat Serious (Co Leader)
The issue here is that the loot in those chests is often times so bad, it costs you more to open the chest than to leave it. Again, the "rewards" actually make the player less wealthy.
That's the real problem here. As I said earlier, if this was said in a situation where players were happy with the contents 95%+ percent of the time, this would be a non-issue.
But the reality here is that the loot is so terrible, you literally have adventurers killing demon lords and dragons, opening up a ridiculously ornate chest stuffed with the spoils of victory, taking a peek and saying, "No, thanks."
That's the problem.
I honestly don't care about the key peek changes, because 9/10 times I rejected the chest. And I would guess that in those 1/10 times I did take it, probably half the time I still "lost" on the deal.
They could revert the key change and the players would still be the losers here. In fact, at this point, it would probably leave the players in a much worse situation if all they did was revert the changes and maintain their place as leading the industry in the "Worst Loot Ever" category.
EDIT: Ok, to be fair, I did a little more research and Neverwinter is not leading the "Worst Loot Ever" category.
Apparently number one is "OMG It's Full of Spiders Online", and number two is "World of Broken Glasscraft".
http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter#/discussion/1224253/in-official-feedback-thread-dungeon-key-changes
<blockquote class="UserQuote">
They could revert the key change and the players would still be the losers here. In fact, at this point, it would probably leave the players in a much worse situation if all they did was revert the changes and maintain their place as leading the industry in the "Worst Loot Ever" category.
I agree with you for the old contant, but it´s a different story with the new weaponset. To upgrade it you have to loot 3 chests for your special marks and for the final upgrade the droprate reaches the same as +5rings...so without the possibility to peek into the chest if the Mark I´m looking for is inside or not, it´s a total waste of time. The complete modul 10.5 can be dumped like this.
How about you write a letter complaining about every thing the devs give for FREE... and all the people that play this game without spending a dime?
― Clint Eastwood, Heartbreak Ridge
Guild Leader of Ardent Justice HQ: Always recruiting People not Pixels.
FOUNDER and OWNER of the SKT3K Channel: SKT Only Content 3k+. http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter/#/discussion/1228278/skt-content-for-the-non-elite-video-links-provided
The lack of official communication about this however, suggests really strongly that they're naive to the damage this change will make in the absence of a concurrent revamp of loot. That they also take it for granted that the community will just suck it up and carry on playing and opening their wallets.
It seems that they don't appreciate at all how bad the loot is in the game. Players aren't going to burn themselves out in a effort to make use of this "bug". They're already burnt out by the appalling drop rates, and that, the very crux of this issue, Cryptic seem to be oblivious to.
.... Most players in the game (that take part in Mod 10 content) will make more ad and progress their toons faster and cheaper than they ever did before (except exploiters or people that had leadership/invokation armies). The ONLY reason that is the case is because of the "grind/gating" related to the new armor and weapons.
This ONE time the devs finally let the gating/grinding benefit the majority of the Players in the game.. and not just their Zen sells.
Think a little bit deeper than the surface level.
― Clint Eastwood, Heartbreak Ridge
Guild Leader of Ardent Justice HQ: Always recruiting People not Pixels.
FOUNDER and OWNER of the SKT3K Channel: SKT Only Content 3k+. http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter/#/discussion/1228278/skt-content-for-the-non-elite-video-links-provided
http://www.giphy.com/gifs/waving-great-goodbye-x6FdZZgXksZHy
― Clint Eastwood, Heartbreak Ridge
Guild Leader of Ardent Justice HQ: Always recruiting People not Pixels.
FOUNDER and OWNER of the SKT3K Channel: SKT Only Content 3k+. http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter/#/discussion/1228278/skt-content-for-the-non-elite-video-links-provided
The people that don't spend are necessary because the game couldn't maintain its pitiful player population without them. The player population would be less than half of what it is now : \
So what exactly this means? That till the change hits live you will lower the loot chance EVEN MORE to prevent people from over-farming content now that this is gonna be "fixed"? Is this what you mean? You are mocking THOUSANDS of people, do you realize this? There was NEVER a bug with chest, it was YOUR DECISION to leave it as it is. As was the DOZENS OF deliberate BOSSES and MINIBOSSES BUGS throughout all the dungeons ALL these years to trivialize content for the "not so skilled"...your history is FULL of DECEPTION..will you PLEASE PUT A STOP TO IT?
Neverwinter, unlike many other MMOs allows to convert AD to ZEN, so the base premise is:
AD = Time currency. We get that for doing things in game, farming, grinding, winning, etc..
ZEN = Bought with doing dailies in real life, grinding, farming, selling a kidney, marring rich, robbing a bank, etc....
With this we can classify all the players on the farming scale, from players that only farm ingame AD to players that mainly buy everything with ZEN. And ofcourse all the options in between, players who mainly farm AD but throw in some RL cash, others half half, and so on.
So how the game monetize?
Cryptic wont monetize content like zones and classes (and kudos for that) so we have the usual:
1. Progress: Add money -> less grind. I'll be back to this, this is where loot comes, and the current key problem.
2. Hats, famous TF2 joke, but I mean fashion, emotes unlock, visual modifiers to skills, even visually different waking and running -> What Valve figured long ago and makes millions out of, and Cryptic fails completely to do. It's an issue of the chicken or the egg. No variety of items to buy, nowhere to put them (no dedicated inventory), no micro-transaction suitable items (Dota2 taunts cost cents, for example) So Cryptic doesn't see sales and neglects it even more.
3. QoL: bags, char slots, name change, respec, etc..
Here we have some important issues, like BtC non discardable bags. I can only attest to myself and people I know, but we wont buy more bags if it makes the old totally useless (can't transfer to alts) and take inventory space, they are not discard-able.
Respec should be offered by boon page / feat page, I don't want to respec everything again, just to change one boon. So I wont respec, offer me a cheaper version for each boon page and I will. And even if I use only those smaller re-specs eventually for everything and it will cost me more than a full re-spec it's still preferable in terms of QoL.
Look change: We had faces, faces gone for new faces. Now all the new elves look like children.
4. Gambling - Lockboxes.
There is probably more, but back to the important part, progress and monetization, long ago it worked simply like this:
The time investing players did dungeons, got unbound loot and sold it to people who converted ZEN to AD and wanted to progress faster. At the end people payed with ZEN for faster progress, but bought it indirectly through the people who did dungeons. At the end Cryptic is the manufacturer of those items and get the full profit from this.
IMO, then came the resonator exploit and skewed the numbers so significantly that Cryptic decided to change the entire concept, and now the compete with the farming players.
Notice what happens, now not only you have purple shovel for relics, companion with additional relic drop but now you can buy gear directly in the zen shop.
So as I've said Cryptic now competes directly with players on selling the ZEN paying players gear and progress directly, to make it a complete monopoly they made all the dungeon drops bound. Now a player can't sell progress to another player in this way. The only thing left are marks and RP. And even here, you can buy RP from the zen shop and so on.
So what we end up? With people with ZEN that have absolutely no need for AD, people with AD with backlog of 8mil and frustration, and dungeons without any loot.
So where is the feedback / suggestion in this wall of text? Here it is:
1. Unbind the drops! Everything that can be not bound, shouldn't be bound, if someone wants to buy progress let them. You want to make some visual significance for people who completed a dungeon, add bound transmutes, titles, mount skins, etc...
But the gear itself, components, marks or whatever that is progress should be unbound.
This will make the drop actually worth much more, now this pesky box in a box in FBI that not for my class actually worth something. And with that the key I've used to open it wont make me look for someone to strangle in frustration.
2. Make BtA / Claimable to account variations in the ZEN shop for things like the purple shovel, fashion (that somehow got into the t.bar) and all that group, and maybe companions of course for appropriate price.
People choose to get around transferring ZEN to AD buy buying items with ZEN and selling them on AH, with the backlog it's a nice profit, and yes, I've made a lot by selling wards and dyes and what not. But if the loot is unbound and ZEN store offers account bound and/or account unlock items, it creates a better deal and such forces the use of the exchange, and in this a much more healthier economy.
So at the end, loot should be unbound, those +4, +5 rings, new marks, relic armor, vivified stuff. components and what not. Don't force the gating and grind, make people want to run it repeatedly.
Another and less economical but more psychological standpoint:
Every run should add progress, for example a ceiling for run, +5 ring should be in the store, for large amount of currency, in this it can be separated as key chest / boss drop BoE, but currency bought -> BoP.
This way it gives the most options, the least frustration and yes the currency price must be very high to encourage people to buy the drops for AD, and the drop rate good enough that it's affordable (Or people wont buy ZEN wont convert to AD, and Cryptic wont make money)
I have posted a couple of suggestions how to handle the key change, not pushing it to go away.
IF they make the key change we should be able to review loots and it seems its up on preview, so as i see it, we managed to make a change, not to stop the key change but to be able to influence the loot-tables.
I, as a customer and a player have the right to give feedback, were it negative or positive.
I personally feel, that communication and pointing out flaws and good things to the core of the companies is good, always.
I dont know if you ever give feedback to the companies you deal with, its one of the easiest ways to inform your opinion on whats is done right or wrong and POSSIBLY make some things actually work as PROMISED.
1. I'm not the frothing raging type. I evaluate the advantages and disadvantages and make a decision.
2. I'm in no way a game economy expert, but I think I've learned to take to my advantage of economy changes here and there.
But I'm always willing to learn, where is this change has an advantage ? And don't to try to whitewash it with "better loot", the only change in the preview notes is keys. And history shows that feedback will not be heard, loot will not be changed, and this change will just fade.
So please, next time if you quote me, at least answer my posts to their points.