other ways the key changes are detrimental to the game

krzrsms

There are good things about the changes. The loot changes should have always existed, as it adds interest to what has become mundane. Truly before this you had 2 choices at the end of most dungeon runs, absolute detritus that you stopped needing a year ago and has near 0 value, or the best thing ever. Only on the odd occasion were we faced with a choice that was even remotely difficult to make.

Lets look at CN. Id put the times when you got a rank 8 at a CN chest in that latter category. Yes a rank 8 is nice, but do I need it? Other then that it was shard of orcus or nothing of value. Look at elol, some blue eq and rank 5s, or a horn of blasting, its all or nothing. Look at vt, stuff so worthless I dont even remember, or a shard of valindra. etc.

Most high IL people that want to do a CN or other high end dungeon have done the older content to death, literally thousands of times each. We have absorbed every last variation of value and fun from that content, most often on multiple characters and classes. So we're left with a pile of faerzress, or keys piled up from grinding content in the areas. Those in guilds may not have a lot of leftover currency because of that key stockpile, and the wish to donate and build their strongholds. It was a decent, if still grueling balance.

So if one goal is as it seems, to reduce an overstock of keys held by players it would have been accomplished just by adding some spice to the end chests as has been done. Slowly players would see something of interest that was of value to them, even if it wasnt monetarily the best decision. Its a fun idea to see a purple earth golem in master of the hunt, or some other high end niche item in an end chest.

So now lets look at what it takes in the new system after you wear down your pile of keys. Lets look at Greater Demonic keys, since they are a good key central to high IL lives right now. You want to be running CN often, because a Shard of Orcus was made BIS for most classes, and it takes thousands of runs to get one. (Im at 660 mostly with guildies and Ive seen 1 in our groups so far.) So even with a 5-10x improvement you're still looking at hundreds of runs.

So now you must do a 2 demonic skirmishes, without taking a chest (because that uses more faerzress for the key than you get from opening them) at 100 a piece, then at least 2 dhes for the other 100 needed. Likely you'll do 1 to 2 more dhes in order to finish off the local quest for that area. 40 minutes for the skirmishes, another 1/2 hour to find and finish the HEs. Lets round that down to an hour assuming perfect runs and for ease of calculation. Now you have 18 hours cooking time on that key. You have for a casual group about an hour to get to the end of CN, less for power groups, more for the inexperienced. Essentially at this point you've dedicated an entire day, and at least 2 hours of gaming time to getting there.

After dedicating this time to making the key how much is anyone going to want to bring someone up for training? The advertising for HDPS has skyrocketed in the last week. The number of pug groups gone down, and the impatience level is boiling. ..and this is just with people anticipating their key stocks going to 0, not when they've had to rehash ancient content to get there. This is already making the overall experience worse.

At the same time these keys are now competing openly with other goals like the endless hunger of stronghold coffers. This is great for those in level 20 guilds that have no needs. But if you're in a lower level guild wanting to improve you have to choose between making a key and a dungeon run, or donating to make that next boon level in a month or so.

These key changes have made people lives worse. They have made the game worse.

krzrsms

Oh yes.. another point that I forgot after writing the novel above.

This going to lead to a specialization of dungeons even worse than before. Want to go run a PUG group through MC just for funsies? Thats going to be a lot less likely, because everyone would have to have processed an extra key to get there.

No the work is only going to go into the flavor of the day BIS dungeons. Grind for SVA, grind for CN. No time for elol, tia, vt, et al.

greywynd

And if they had fixed the key issue when it first became a bug it would all be moot.

spookymoo

I play on PS4 and the key changes are hitting console on Tuesday squirreled in with the Sea of Moving Ice expansion. I have been reading all the recent posts with both interest and concern.

As on PC there are some high level guilds and high level players who will benefit as they may get better drops from CN for instance (although the drop rate/good loot rates are hard to quantify as usual). However the majority of players and guilds are still grinding to get boons, upgrade SH and upgrade gear. Many do not yet have twisted weapons and of course, consoles have not even started yet on the new campaign.

The PC community rightly are highlighting the concerns on the time it is going to take, not just to make the key, but also to get the currency (from running he's or skirmishes) in the first place. I can see the issues it could cause for guild progression too. And then what about events? We've just finished Winter Festival, a welcome change to get different gear and do something different from the relentless repetitive grind of dailies. So will these events be worthy of our farm time in the future if we only have time for farming to get keys?

I understand that the game needs to make money. I have paid real money into the game and I am sure many many players have invested much more money than I have. But I really think this key thing is a very bad idea. I can see how much ill will it has caused among the community. It's a very very bad idea.

cscriv79

PC to Console 'parity' only works and crosses over properly when it benefits their pockets and screws the player base over. Consoles still have many items unavailable that the PC has had for years.

ecrana

cscriv79 said:

PC to Console 'parity' only works and crosses over properly when it benefits their pockets and screws the player base over. Consoles still have many items unavailable that the PC has had for years.

+1 They talked about mods being released at the same time (or pretty darn close to each other) across all systems earlier last year. That never came to pass even if the releases were closer in date.

Now all of a sudden the key change gets pushed to console a week after the PC. I can only guess the reason has nothing to with system parity. This reeks of an attempt to make sure console players have less time to make extra keys through campaign currency. Less campaign keys made = more legendary keys sold = more $.

I'll say this much. I'm going to spend as much on legendary keys now as I have since I started playing this game. $0. Why would I spend money on keys to get garbage? I already know my free campaign keys have been sitting in my bag month after month not being used because...there was nothing but garbage to take. Now I'm supposed to take a risk with a paid key. Nope. Not happening.

krzrsms

I also am going to spend $0 on legendary keys. This is also making me question future purchases of VIP. For now Im holding off on renewing my VIP and Ill review after a few monthes. I am a firm believer in sending a game some $ that provides a nice bit of entertainment for me. However when the only response is to make our lives worse while neglecting innovation in the places that players consistently say they would throw money at them for.. no. Not going to fund that.

More time adding content, adding fashion, adding customization, adding story instead of the monthy or even weekly nerfs and key changes that make our lives worse as evidenced by the vast majority of feedback on this site, reddit, and on every channel in the game.

grimah

sorry I disagree. The previous way keys worked was silly. Made it so all you needed was a handful of keys and just take the good stuff.

The way it is now seems alot more logical, the rewards have been upped and drop rate improved (supposedly).

The one biggest issue with the key changes is how the new weapon set and superior marks work (drop rate seems to be the same to me), it really needs some adjustments or no one will bother trying for it.

diesel

grimah said:

sorry I disagree. The previous way keys worked was silly. Made it so all you needed was a handful of keys and just take the good stuff.

The way it is now seems alot more logical, the rewards have been upped and drop rate improved (supposedly).

The one biggest issue with the key changes is how the new weapon set and superior marks work (drop rate seems to be the same to me), it really needs some adjustments or no one will bother trying for it.

reward was upped? drop rate improved? don`t see any of this. only thing i can see is that now i`m out of keys. all i got for this week after key changes is 3x deepassknights chest and same +1/+4 rings.

p.s. any chance that i will buy key from zen market? NO! will not pay for HAMSTER that i dont need.

kallephi

The idea of needing a key to open a chest and get a REWARD is already ridiculous for itself.

I'm not going to mention hundreds of games (including free to play) where you have no need to spend a key to get a reward. Why? Because it's a REWARD. And a REWARD is a CONSEQUENCE of something worthy or unworthy.
If you take a D&D pen and paper game into consideration, are you going to put a locked chest by the end of a dungeon that can only be opened by making ANOTHER 20 hours quest? Yes, maybe if the chest contains vorpal sword, but not if it contains a ridiculous ring of protection +1 or a magic missile scroll.

I spent my time in a dungeon, so the chest should be UNLOCKED.

This requiring key + 20 hours casting time to make a key is totally ridiculous, terribly thought and a bad joke. A NORMAL/REGULAR person would never have this idea, this came from no sane mind, seriously. Ridiculous.
I'm in this game for 5 months only and I can't believe nobody have ever complained about this key-requiring stuff for opening the chests.

greywynd

The keys are also a means to making sure other content it run, so you can, you know, MAKE those keys.

jonkoca

I've a feeling the key changes are also aimed at extending content until mod 11. If the high end toon players are anything like me, they finished grinding svardbarg etc. about a week or so ago. And there is literally nothing to do after that. However, chances are that like me, their key supply on their mains is pretty much exhausted, but their alts, if they've been VIP for any length of time, are likely to have 100s of stockpiled keys.

So I spent last week on an underused alt, my cw, who has a 100 keys or so, doing dungeons and generally gearing up, not to mention grabbing stuff and AD for my main. Made a nice change. The new weird armors as well suit gearing up a "never will be bis, but is reasonably useful..." toon. May as well catch up on campaign boons too.

Planning to do it again on my TR. So I'm okay with it all, as long as the drop rates don't get nerfed.