No, not all campaign gives weekly AD quest. e.g. SKT and RD. Those are the campaigns that make creating those token stupid. It is not stupid for other campaigns such as Dread Ring, sharanader, etc.
I'm displeased with the farm to reduce farm too. But to be completely fair, RD weekly gives a bit of AD via salvageable (2k-3k w/o bonuses). RD is also possible source for runic keys via EoE farm and volenblod is not as irritating to get as from SKT.
Should put never campaign currencies to Genie's gift then!
That will probably become the new "Efreeti's Gift"... same as the Genie's, but for stuff you need for later campaigns... they can be traded for 10 Of Any Campaign Currency, but you have to craft them and they take one week and cost 10'000 AD and 9 of the same curency to make... it's all about time saving after all.
@rgutscheradev hey m8, over 2 weeks without a comment since your initial post. It would be nice to know if this is because:
a. you are happy with the original idea & see no need of debate or b. you are reviewing the idea based on some of the feedback (the more constructive comments)
Please Do Not Feed The Trolls
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
Member of Casual Dailies - XBox
0
beckylunaticMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 14,231Arc User
To be fair, it's been only a little over a week since Trips updated on-behalf-of to say it was getting a look but was behind some priority fixes.
Still, since we're likely getting closer to a locked-in build, it would be reassuring to hear something.
@rgutscheradev hey m8, over 2 weeks without a comment since your initial post. It would be nice to know if this is because:
a. you are happy with the original idea & see no need of debate or b. you are reviewing the idea based on some of the feedback (the more constructive comments)
@rgutscheradev hey m8, over 2 weeks without a comment since your initial post. It would be nice to know if this is because:
a. you are happy with the original idea & see no need of debate or b. you are reviewing the idea based on some of the feedback (the more constructive comments)
I'm actually getting a feeling that these official feedback threads are created to went user anger before implementing changes rather than for the discussion and gathering feedback. At least it seems that unless the decision is practically set in the stone, they developers will not publish it. And once published, they will move only on insignificant details unless they will be addressing resulting disaster in later mods (mod 6 comes to mind). I'm practically in the dark, why cryptic managers/marketing/developers think that making so many users unhappy will bring them more money.
And clearly they heard nothing we said and decided to prodeed as is.
Founding Member of "Wrong Side of the Stronghold" Ravenskya - TR / Krisha Chaos - OP / Waffles - GF / Dex Domitor - HR Becky the trendy GWF - GWF / Too Toasty - SW / Falcor - DC / Morrigan - CW / Sir Didymus - OP
I'm the only one with 900+765 EoE on my 2 mains, while I struggle to get enough for the last boon on my alt? Best solution is a choice - either pay with currency, or with AD
Yes since you can trade EoE for Runic Keys. So it's around 80 keys your'e sitting on. Go farm FBI :P
My feedback, and several of my guild members have stated the same thing but do not participate in the forums, it is great that you are trying to find solutions to help ease the burden of alts, but this is not going to do that. All this does is keep some of your useless alts 6 months behind. Example: I have 2 DPS and 2 Tanks and did not have the time to run all 4, so I stopped running 1 tank and 1 DPS and left them as influence runners. Then when I wanted to add a DC, some of the new things such as buy a level 70 and campaign completion packs, power points, account bound mounts and the such, (I did all of those), eases the burden of creating a new alt, and I appreciate that, my DC is in good shape with a few clicks (and $).
However, the issue with the Signets of Patronage, is it does not keep my alts current, it keeps my alts 2 mods behind, which is not current, so I still have the same issue, I have to run all the content multiple times to stay current. Epic or Master Demogorgon was this way, unlock for one unlocks for all...That was very nice and I could catch up on the boons an whatnot later for the alts.
TR - Sun: 16000 IL OP - Sunshine: 16000 IL
Casual Dailies
0
beckylunaticMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 14,231Arc User
@rgutscheradev hey m8, over 2 weeks without a comment since your initial post. It would be nice to know if this is because:
a. you are happy with the original idea & see no need of debate or b. you are reviewing the idea based on some of the feedback (the more constructive comments)
I'm caught up on dev blogs now, and that article is literally the opening post of this feedback thread. I'd say that is less an indication that nothing will change and more that the post was scheduled a (relatively) long time ago. Robert's been on vacation. Temper expectations accordingly.
Epic or Master Demogorgon was this way, unlock for one unlocks for all...That was very nice and I could catch up on the boons an whatnot later for the alts.
And we're getting that feature without even having to grind Patronage, in response to the Random Queues. Which is great, *but* means the motivation to grind Patronage instead of gradually working on boons directly on your alt(s) is vastly reduced especially considering current costs.
beckylunaticMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 14,231Arc User
I wanted to add some other thoughts about ways in which campaigns have been aggressively alt-unfriendly and ways in which campaigns that were structured differently have been better. Trying to restrict this to campaigns and things unlocked via campaign tasks and *not* gear in general (eg. getting boons/unlocks in IWD wasn't bad; Black Ice and HE drop woes only affected equipment).
Storm King's Thunder campaign store. Almost entirely BtC items, which means every character has to unlock each major item in turn, and acquire their own price reductions. You want epic Everfrost underwear? Grind for it. The grind for it again. And again as many times as applicable. You can't get one character with all the store unlocks and price reductions and buy everything with them because it doesn't work that way. This is somewhat infuriating.
Cloaked Ascendancy is similar but there are fewer items to buy and they unlock as a result of doing the campaign. Most alts only want one weapon set, if that, so it doesn't make a lot of sense to do the price reductions. (This impacts getting 100% completion.)
Alternatively, the Underdark store allowed you to buy any piece of equipment for any class straight-up. There were NO store unlocks. Buying for alts was a built-in feature.
Chult purchases seem to be leaning back towards alt-friendliness. Progressing the campaign adds items to the stores, but each item isn't its own unlock task. There are reports of not being able to purchase certain gear for other classes which may be a bug.
A trend since Underdark has been the introduction of Zen companions that grant bonus currency for a specific campaign, and occasionally other things. Grazilaxx, Watler, the Stronghold Cleric (not a campaign, but a highly situational currency bonus), Remorhaz, the Chultan Hunter... missing any? Now, I'm adamantly not a fan of these, even assuming all of them work perfectly all the time (which they don't). I don't necessarily object to there being the option to pay to progress a little faster, but the need to micromanage that bonus progress through the companion system is ludicrous, plus each companion only works on one character. That's a big fat NO from me. If I'd have to buy something multiple times to make use of it, it's got to work reasonably well all the time, not just for one little thing that I eventually probably won't even care about. As account unlocks, I might actually give some consideration to trying to make use of these, but not as a single-character bind. I got the Simril Holiday Helper, which didn't even work, but don't consider that a great loss because I didn't get it for the bonus, and I now have access to it forever.
And on that note, everything that grants bonuses to finding Ostorian relics only works for a single character and must be acquired again to use for alts. Minor exception for a Frostborn gear piece, if and only if you have same-class alts that you still consider worth playing to this extent. Voninblood is used for campaign tasks and unlocks, unlike Black Ice which was only used for gear.
beckylunaticMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 14,231Arc User
edited September 2017
It also sounds from other dev posts like they're gravitating away from designing the overall game to keep players coming back to completed campaign zones indefinitely (see Asterdahl on long-term viability of Hunts), which means that newer campaigns are unlikely to be revisited to give their daily and weekly quests more rewards that are useful outside of that campaign.
Which is well and fine when you're done and can comfortably turn your back forever if that's what you want, but doesn't feel good while you're in the process, or continuing to farm it for another purpose.
It's also not great for players who are relying on campaign-related weeklies as a significant part of their AD income, since that competes with other, more current activities.
Ok, I've had a chance to go through and do a more scientific pass on the patron token costs.
The old system was "a patron token costs about as much as 1 end-stage campaign task", which was a bit rough (and the campaigns vary a lot, so it wasn't always that consistent). The new system is more spreadsheet-y, and is based on computing the total amount you'll save from the token. The idea is that you'll gain roughly 5x as much campaign currency from the token as what it costs. The end result is that the token costs went down by about half on average (some more, some less -- Evidence of Evil even went up slightly, but that was the only one that increased). I tried to account for tasks that the alt was less likely to do, or almost certain not to do (like store unlocks or dungeon unlocks), so if you are going hardcore completionist on your alt you'll get much more than a 5x benefit on some campaigns, but 5x should be a (rough) "typical" benefit.
With apologies for formatting (Excel cut and paste), here are the exact changes: PREVIOUS COST OF PATRON TOKEN Maze Engine 500 AS 10 TA Sharandar 10 VS 250 FS 60 GC 10 AC 10 IB Underdark 1000 F 200 DI Dread Ring 50 TS 0 SS 5 TC 100 VS ToD 5 FDF 1 LF 10 CS 10 DS 100 DC 50 PAL SKT 100 TTS 100 SO 50 RP 30,000 V IWD 100 KC 10 DG 10 AT Cloaked Asc. 120 EE 150 SMS 250 AT
REVISED COST OF PATRON TOKEN Maze Engine 100 AS 5 TA Sharandar 5 VS 80 FS 30 GC 5 AC 5 IB Underdark 700 F 100 DI Dread Ring 30 TS 0 SS 3 TC 25 VS ToD 4 FDF 1 LF 8 CS 8 DS 60 DC 40 PAL SKT 50 TTS 50 SO 10 RP 12,000 V IWD 60 KC 5 DG 5 AT Cloaked Asc. 140 EE 40 SMS 150 AT
Note that with this way of computing things, the patronage tokens that take a long time to earn are also giving the biggest benefit: the longer it takes to earn 10 Runic Pieces (say), the more benefit there is from not having to spend 50 Runic Pieces on your alt. That's why the math isn't explicitly looking at "how long does it take to earn each currency?" (which is way more subjective) and is instead just focusing on "is buying this patron token a good bargain?" Hopefully getting 5x what you put in will feel, in the long run, like a good bargain.
I realize there's some sticker shock when looking at the initial price of a patron token (even with the new lower prices), but keep in mind you really are getting a whole lot back for what you put in.
P.S. There are a few places where the 5x rule doesn't apply because a currency doesn't actually appear in the campaign proper, but it still felt right to include it. For example, it seemed weird not to charge any Demonic Ichor for an Underdark patronage token. I tried to keep those costs low.
These new costs are a lot better than the old ones, thank you very much for the reduction. We need to ask though, is the 50k AD cost still there? AD used to be a common thing in all the campaign tasks and that was removed for a number of reasons and I'm sure you have the documentation as to why it was removed. Adding an AD cost back into campaigns now feels like many steps back.
There is no reason that I can think of game wise that the AD cost needs to be included. All the campaign currency costs make sense, and as you said, the Underdark token not costing at least some Demonic Ichor would be weird. So in the same vein, bringing an AD cost into this token without an explainable story reason (like a vendor in PE who sells these patronage tokens and explaining that he needs the AD to cover the forging costs of making these tokens) just doesn't make sense. And we hate it when campaigns try to take our AD.
Yeah the cost is affordable to save 5x the currency or half the time or whatever, but it still feels wrong. Bump up the costs of campaign currency by 10% for the token or something, just ditch the AD fee
Thanks again for dropping the costs. Make sure you go and update that blog that got posted so that it isn't spreading misinformation that people will hate you for.
Guild - The Imaginary Friends We are searching for slave labor, will pay with food from our farm!
Thanks @rgutscheradev the new costs are indeed better. I do agree with @scathias point about AD. Devs previously stated that AD costs shouldn't be included in campaign tasks (when they removed them) so I'm hoping this will also be reviewed.
Please Do Not Feed The Trolls
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
Just a general question I might have otherwise missed.Being this is a Alt friendly idea and they have been pushing toward rewarding people that play .Will they be changing any of the campain currecy items that are character bound to account bound to allow the use of the excess stuff we get and have no longer any use for but would be a great time saver on Alts.??? Looking at the RD area as one example. Like the Arcane Focus reagent dig site only item.Some items are not bound at all while others are character only .
My main has 2 stacks of Arcane Focus that can't be used for anything at all.
Please Do Not Feed The Trolls
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
Member of Casual Dailies - XBox
3
beckylunaticMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 14,231Arc User
My main has 2 stacks of Arcane Focus that can't be used for anything at all.
How about when Mod 13 drops, the bind status of Arcane Focus changes from BtC to BtA. This will help with Alt progression and allow us to use the useless leftovers from Cloaked Ascendancy.
My main has 2 stacks of Arcane Focus that can't be used for anything at all.
How about when Mod 13 drops, the bind status of Arcane Focus changes from BtC to BtA. This will help with Alt progression and allow us to use the useless leftovers from Cloaked Ascendancy.
That would also be "main friendly". Think about 7 alts to gather daily AF and pass them all to one fresh RD main.
*** The game can read your mind. If you want it, you won't get it. If you don't expect to get it, you will. ***
Would you be willing to drop the Voninblod requirement entirely from the SKT token? Alternate way of phrasing that question: does the token increase Voninblod farming rate for the recipient?
After all, despite being required in (IMO, ludicrously) large amounts by some of the final campaign tasks, completing the campaign quests does not yield a significant amount of Voninblod. It would take, for instance, 740 daily quests yielding 50 Voninblod apiece to yeild the 37,000 voninblod required for the final boon.
Farming Voninblod is not and has never been a compelling or interesting task, but rather a tedious activity we resign ourselves to as completionists or avoid entirely. It should be very easy to run a query to identify who is who, based on who's over 14k is missing the final SKT boon or two.
True, Mod11 boosted the relic turn in Voninblod rewards *and* gave us a means to trade RD Campaign currency for it, and there's been hints about Voninblod disappearing from restoring seal-purchased relic gear in 12b or 13.
But running around Bryn Shander for half an hour picking up pillars for an alt is near-infinitely less interesting than completing a week's worth of daily quests for the other currencies, even if I know it's the right choice because it will save me 5 hours of running around Bryn Shander on that alt*.
*: only true if the answer to the question, "Does the token increase Voninblod farming rate for the recipient?" is "Yes."
Ok, this might be a bit awkward, but let me try to explain.
I think the AD costs need to be there. It's not so much about this particular set of tasks, but about the game as a whole. Here’s the thing: any player can generate AD. That AD just gets added to the total amount of AD in the game. If there are more ways to generate AD than to consume it, more and more AD accumulates in the game.
Note I said “consume”, not just “spend”. A lot of the time, AD is used to buy stuff from the auction house or to buy Zen on the Exchange. Which is great, but it doesn’t destroy that AD (except for a small amount from the AH cut), it just moves it around. So it’s really important that there are as many ways to remove AD from the economy as there are to create it.
Right now, there aren’t a ton of big ways to get AD out of the system. The biggest (not counting the AH cut, which although small does add up) is probably the Wondrous Bazaar. But a lot of others have gone away or been much reduced: the AD costs of Stronghold advancement were drastically reduced, most AD costs were taken out of the campaign tasks, and the AD fees for changing item appearance and upgrading all but the top pet qualities were lowered. There were good reasons for all these changes, but they did decrease the number of ways for AD to leave the system.
So you might be thinking, “So what? Why should I care if there’s a bunch of AD sloshing around in the system?” The answer is that ultimately much of the value of AD depends on how much of it there is. As AD accumulates in the overall economy, it becomes less valuable to other players, leading to increased prices in the auction house and increased AD prices for Zen on the exchange. In other words, you have AD inflation. The fact that, on PC, the AD/Zen exchange is often capped is one reflection of this problem. It’s especially bad for new ftp players: they haven’t had the time to accumulate a bunch of AD yet, they can’t get the huge amounts of AD from selling things on the AH because they don’t have anything to sell yet, and the AD they can earn from “normal” game activities (amounts that are relatively fixed) isn’t that relevant in an economy driven by these huge amounts of AD sloshing around. (Paying players can to some extent buy their way out of this problem -- but not so well, if the exchange is capped!)
Now, I don’t think the NW economy is quite as bad as the picture I’ve painted above. BUT IT TOTALLY WOULD BE, if we didn’t sometimes do unpopular things (if you’ve been playing for a while, you know what kinds of things I’m talking about). Which isn’t to say every one of those unpopular things was perfectly managed or couldn’t have been done better or didn’t have any problems -- I’m not going to make that claim -- but I will say that stuff *like* that does have to happen in an MMO to keep the economy under control. We actually track all this pretty carefully, meeting regularly to go over how much AD was created (and how), how much was destroyed-spent (and on what), and how much total AD is currently in the economy.
In general, keeping the total AD in the economy under control happens in one of two ways: 1) Limit the way AD can be earned 2) Create more ways AD can be spent (destroyed-spent, not transferred-spent) Of those two, the second is usually less painful.
So what that means is, we have to always be on the lookout for things that cost AD, and that are actually worth that cost. Adding AD costs to existing things is pretty mean (that’s why, although I think some of the AD cost removal in the past was probably a mistake, I’m not looking to re-introduce any of those costs), so it needs to be new things. I think the Patron Tokens are a pretty good case: it’s a new thing you couldn’t do before, and it represents weeks of savings to a player. Having it cost a few days’ worth of AD I think is fair. It’s different from a “normal” campaign task, so having it cost AD doesn’t block your primary campaign progression (and overall, it *increases* your alt campaign progression, even with the AD cost). I realize it’s a bit painful -- any significant AD cost is going to be painful, because AD is so valuable to every player -- but to maintain that value that AD has, we have to do stuff like charge real AD costs for things players want to do.
I realize this explanation probably won’t make the AD cost popular, but I hope it least it will make it seem that there is some reasoning behind it.
Comments
a. you are happy with the original idea & see no need of debate
or
b. you are reviewing the idea based on some of the feedback (the more constructive comments)
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
Member of Casual Dailies - XBox
Still, since we're likely getting closer to a locked-in build, it would be reassuring to hear something.
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
Ravenskya - TR / Krisha Chaos - OP / Waffles - GF / Dex Domitor - HR
Becky the trendy GWF - GWF / Too Toasty - SW / Falcor - DC / Morrigan - CW / Sir Didymus - OP
However, the issue with the Signets of Patronage, is it does not keep my alts current, it keeps my alts 2 mods behind, which is not current, so I still have the same issue, I have to run all the content multiple times to stay current. Epic or Master Demogorgon was this way, unlock for one unlocks for all...That was very nice and I could catch up on the boons an whatnot later for the alts.
OP - Sunshine: 16000 IL
Casual Dailies
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
Storm King's Thunder campaign store. Almost entirely BtC items, which means every character has to unlock each major item in turn, and acquire their own price reductions. You want epic Everfrost underwear? Grind for it. The grind for it again. And again as many times as applicable. You can't get one character with all the store unlocks and price reductions and buy everything with them because it doesn't work that way. This is somewhat infuriating.
Cloaked Ascendancy is similar but there are fewer items to buy and they unlock as a result of doing the campaign. Most alts only want one weapon set, if that, so it doesn't make a lot of sense to do the price reductions. (This impacts getting 100% completion.)
Alternatively, the Underdark store allowed you to buy any piece of equipment for any class straight-up. There were NO store unlocks. Buying for alts was a built-in feature.
Chult purchases seem to be leaning back towards alt-friendliness. Progressing the campaign adds items to the stores, but each item isn't its own unlock task. There are reports of not being able to purchase certain gear for other classes which may be a bug.
A trend since Underdark has been the introduction of Zen companions that grant bonus currency for a specific campaign, and occasionally other things. Grazilaxx, Watler, the Stronghold Cleric (not a campaign, but a highly situational currency bonus), Remorhaz, the Chultan Hunter... missing any? Now, I'm adamantly not a fan of these, even assuming all of them work perfectly all the time (which they don't). I don't necessarily object to there being the option to pay to progress a little faster, but the need to micromanage that bonus progress through the companion system is ludicrous, plus each companion only works on one character. That's a big fat NO from me. If I'd have to buy something multiple times to make use of it, it's got to work reasonably well all the time, not just for one little thing that I eventually probably won't even care about. As account unlocks, I might actually give some consideration to trying to make use of these, but not as a single-character bind. I got the Simril Holiday Helper, which didn't even work, but don't consider that a great loss because I didn't get it for the bonus, and I now have access to it forever.
And on that note, everything that grants bonuses to finding Ostorian relics only works for a single character and must be acquired again to use for alts. Minor exception for a Frostborn gear piece, if and only if you have same-class alts that you still consider worth playing to this extent. Voninblood is used for campaign tasks and unlocks, unlike Black Ice which was only used for gear.
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
Which is well and fine when you're done and can comfortably turn your back forever if that's what you want, but doesn't feel good while you're in the process, or continuing to farm it for another purpose.
It's also not great for players who are relying on campaign-related weeklies as a significant part of their AD income, since that competes with other, more current activities.
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
The old system was "a patron token costs about as much as 1 end-stage campaign task", which was a bit rough (and the campaigns vary a lot, so it wasn't always that consistent). The new system is more spreadsheet-y, and is based on computing the total amount you'll save from the token. The idea is that you'll gain roughly 5x as much campaign currency from the token as what it costs. The end result is that the token costs went down by about half on average (some more, some less -- Evidence of Evil even went up slightly, but that was the only one that increased). I tried to account for tasks that the alt was less likely to do, or almost certain not to do (like store unlocks or dungeon unlocks), so if you are going hardcore completionist on your alt you'll get much more than a 5x benefit on some campaigns, but 5x should be a (rough) "typical" benefit.
With apologies for formatting (Excel cut and paste), here are the exact changes:
PREVIOUS COST OF PATRON TOKEN
Maze Engine 500 AS 10 TA
Sharandar 10 VS 250 FS 60 GC 10 AC 10 IB
Underdark 1000 F 200 DI
Dread Ring 50 TS 0 SS 5 TC 100 VS
ToD 5 FDF 1 LF 10 CS 10 DS 100 DC 50 PAL
SKT 100 TTS 100 SO 50 RP 30,000 V
IWD 100 KC 10 DG 10 AT
Cloaked Asc. 120 EE 150 SMS 250 AT
REVISED COST OF PATRON TOKEN
Maze Engine 100 AS 5 TA
Sharandar 5 VS 80 FS 30 GC 5 AC 5 IB
Underdark 700 F 100 DI
Dread Ring 30 TS 0 SS 3 TC 25 VS
ToD 4 FDF 1 LF 8 CS 8 DS 60 DC 40 PAL
SKT 50 TTS 50 SO 10 RP 12,000 V
IWD 60 KC 5 DG 5 AT
Cloaked Asc. 140 EE 40 SMS 150 AT
Note that with this way of computing things, the patronage tokens that take a long time to earn are also giving the biggest benefit: the longer it takes to earn 10 Runic Pieces (say), the more benefit there is from not having to spend 50 Runic Pieces on your alt. That's why the math isn't explicitly looking at "how long does it take to earn each currency?" (which is way more subjective) and is instead just focusing on "is buying this patron token a good bargain?" Hopefully getting 5x what you put in will feel, in the long run, like a good bargain.
I realize there's some sticker shock when looking at the initial price of a patron token (even with the new lower prices), but keep in mind you really are getting a whole lot back for what you put in.
P.S. There are a few places where the 5x rule doesn't apply because a currency doesn't actually appear in the campaign proper, but it still felt right to include it. For example, it seemed weird not to charge any Demonic Ichor for an Underdark patronage token. I tried to keep those costs low.
Thanks for this new functionality :-)
Twitch
Patreon
There is no reason that I can think of game wise that the AD cost needs to be included. All the campaign currency costs make sense, and as you said, the Underdark token not costing at least some Demonic Ichor would be weird. So in the same vein, bringing an AD cost into this token without an explainable story reason (like a vendor in PE who sells these patronage tokens and explaining that he needs the AD to cover the forging costs of making these tokens) just doesn't make sense. And we hate it when campaigns try to take our AD.
Yeah the cost is affordable to save 5x the currency or half the time or whatever, but it still feels wrong. Bump up the costs of campaign currency by 10% for the token or something, just ditch the AD fee
Thanks again for dropping the costs. Make sure you go and update that blog that got posted so that it isn't spreading misinformation that people will hate you for.
We are searching for slave labor, will pay with food from our farm!
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
Member of Casual Dailies - XBox
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
Member of Casual Dailies - XBox
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
Would you be willing to drop the Voninblod requirement entirely from the SKT token?
Alternate way of phrasing that question: does the token increase Voninblod farming rate for the recipient?
After all, despite being required in (IMO, ludicrously) large amounts by some of the final campaign tasks, completing the campaign quests does not yield a significant amount of Voninblod. It would take, for instance, 740 daily quests yielding 50 Voninblod apiece to yeild the 37,000 voninblod required for the final boon.
Farming Voninblod is not and has never been a compelling or interesting task, but rather a tedious activity we resign ourselves to as completionists or avoid entirely. It should be very easy to run a query to identify who is who, based on who's over 14k is missing the final SKT boon or two.
True, Mod11 boosted the relic turn in Voninblod rewards *and* gave us a means to trade RD Campaign currency for it, and there's been hints about Voninblod disappearing from restoring seal-purchased relic gear in 12b or 13.
But running around Bryn Shander for half an hour picking up pillars for an alt is near-infinitely less interesting than completing a week's worth of daily quests for the other currencies, even if I know it's the right choice because it will save me 5 hours of running around Bryn Shander on that alt*.
*: only true if the answer to the question, "Does the token increase Voninblod farming rate for the recipient?" is "Yes."
Ok, this might be a bit awkward, but let me try to explain.
I think the AD costs need to be there. It's not so much about this particular set of tasks, but about the game as a whole. Here’s the thing: any player can generate AD. That AD just gets added to the total amount of AD in the game. If there are more ways to generate AD than to consume it, more and more AD accumulates in the game.
Note I said “consume”, not just “spend”. A lot of the time, AD is used to buy stuff from the auction house or to buy Zen on the Exchange. Which is great, but it doesn’t destroy that AD (except for a small amount from the AH cut), it just moves it around. So it’s really important that there are as many ways to remove AD from the economy as there are to create it.
Right now, there aren’t a ton of big ways to get AD out of the system. The biggest (not counting the AH cut, which although small does add up) is probably the Wondrous Bazaar. But a lot of others have gone away or been much reduced: the AD costs of Stronghold advancement were drastically reduced, most AD costs were taken out of the campaign tasks, and the AD fees for changing item appearance and upgrading all but the top pet qualities were lowered. There were good reasons for all these changes, but they did decrease the number of ways for AD to leave the system.
So you might be thinking, “So what? Why should I care if there’s a bunch of AD sloshing around in the system?” The answer is that ultimately much of the value of AD depends on how much of it there is. As AD accumulates in the overall economy, it becomes less valuable to other players, leading to increased prices in the auction house and increased AD prices for Zen on the exchange. In other words, you have AD inflation. The fact that, on PC, the AD/Zen exchange is often capped is one reflection of this problem. It’s especially bad for new ftp players: they haven’t had the time to accumulate a bunch of AD yet, they can’t get the huge amounts of AD from selling things on the AH because they don’t have anything to sell yet, and the AD they can earn from “normal” game activities (amounts that are relatively fixed) isn’t that relevant in an economy driven by these huge amounts of AD sloshing around. (Paying players can to some extent buy their way out of this problem -- but not so well, if the exchange is capped!)
Now, I don’t think the NW economy is quite as bad as the picture I’ve painted above. BUT IT TOTALLY WOULD BE, if we didn’t sometimes do unpopular things (if you’ve been playing for a while, you know what kinds of things I’m talking about). Which isn’t to say every one of those unpopular things was perfectly managed or couldn’t have been done better or didn’t have any problems -- I’m not going to make that claim -- but I will say that stuff *like* that does have to happen in an MMO to keep the economy under control. We actually track all this pretty carefully, meeting regularly to go over how much AD was created (and how), how much was destroyed-spent (and on what), and how much total AD is currently in the economy.
In general, keeping the total AD in the economy under control happens in one of two ways:
1) Limit the way AD can be earned
2) Create more ways AD can be spent (destroyed-spent, not transferred-spent)
Of those two, the second is usually less painful.
So what that means is, we have to always be on the lookout for things that cost AD, and that are actually worth that cost. Adding AD costs to existing things is pretty mean (that’s why, although I think some of the AD cost removal in the past was probably a mistake, I’m not looking to re-introduce any of those costs), so it needs to be new things. I think the Patron Tokens are a pretty good case: it’s a new thing you couldn’t do before, and it represents weeks of savings to a player. Having it cost a few days’ worth of AD I think is fair. It’s different from a “normal” campaign task, so having it cost AD doesn’t block your primary campaign progression (and overall, it *increases* your alt campaign progression, even with the AD cost). I realize it’s a bit painful -- any significant AD cost is going to be painful, because AD is so valuable to every player -- but to maintain that value that AD has, we have to do stuff like charge real AD costs for things players want to do.
I realize this explanation probably won’t make the AD cost popular, but I hope it least it will make it seem that there is some reasoning behind it.