After the new changes AD-wise took place, I have to say that I really like them and I find them to be extremely fair for anyone playing the game casually, without taking too much time out of the designed playtime.
I find myself having more AD than before as I can more easily manage my time. Some days I can amass a lot of RAD, the others when I can't play I only have time to invoke and refine, which allows me to actually think in advance and organize better.
I really like not having to play through each repetitive dungeon 100 times in order to get AD, and I also like that the new system of Randoms is more intuitive and offers more RAD upon it's competition.
I do believe that it is extremely improved upon what it was as I was able to get tremendous amount of AD for farming superiority weaker content, which ultimately makes me playing something I do not like only for the sake of having more AD. Previous system was tremendously BOT friendly, which can't be really said about the newest system as it discourages botting.
I've yet to see a bot in any of the randoms and this makes me very happy!
As for AD, I think that the current system is more than enough.
True Neutral
Left the Game due to heavy Damage Control & Missing Spanish Language
The suggestion that this new cap is a RAISE is disingenuous to the point of willful untruth. For every single player who has more than two characters the cap is a nerf.
Of course, it may be the case that the vast majority of players may well be two tooners hitting 72k per day and desperate for that extra 28k...
I'd love to see what percentage of the active player base (lets say... last three months prior to the new Cap, and plaid at least twenty sessions in that period) have fewer than three charcters.
And of that number how many hit their daily 36/72k cap, and with what frequency.
Indeed.
Those with fewer characters and or play less essentially receive whatever benefit at the expense of players that have more characters/play more. If you play more you should be able to achieve/earn more than those that don't without an artificial cap.
Would be great to be given more information on how/what was calculated in regard to these changes.
One thing that has been true for a while now is that the rate of AD entering the game is much higher than the AD being used up.
We did pull data on how much of our player base earns over 100k RAD on any given day before implementing this change, and that percentage is lower single digits.
The quotes are puzzling because if there is apparently too much AD coming in vs going out the logical place to start would be AD sinks, starting at any other point won't remove the AD... Along with that if hitting 100k was achieved on "lower single digits" of accounts in general then why place a cap in the first place... Sooooooooo "lower single digits" of accounts in general are causing the market issues on PC?...
After the new changes AD-wise took place, I have to say that I really like them and I find them to be extremely fair for anyone playing the game casually, without taking too much time out of the designed playtime.
I find myself having more AD than before as I can more easily manage my time. Some days I can amass a lot of RAD, the others when I can't play I only have time to invoke and refine, which allows me to actually think in advance and organize better
It really feels like you equate fairness with your personal experience.
And actually, if you're earning more than before, then is that fair?
Finally, if the stated intent of the system was to limit the amount of AD generation, and you're earning more than before, would you admit that pretty strongly suggests that there are others who are earning quite a bit less?
Finally, if the stated intent of the system was to limit the amount of AD generation, and you're earning more than before, would you admit that pretty strongly suggests that there are others who are earning quite a bit less?
There are others who're earning far less.
I think that it is unfair to earn 500.000 AD in a single day and I was able to do so with the previous system, which is the reason I avoided it. I felt that it was unnecessary. And I was able to do it by simply running around River District, earning 50 Seals of the Protector, which I could use at a later stage.
I'm very glad that this form of exploit is completely void anymore as both seals are reduced as enemies are a bit tougher than they were.
Furthermore, there were people constantly botting with the previous system as dungeons were
a) easy to play and with a specific pathway for bots to choose from
b) Having some people playing with 50 chars daily, earning crazy amount of refinement money, thus inevetably influencing the economy.
As a player who's playing solo content mostly, I'm more than happy to earn around 100K daily + whatever I sell that day.
Within 5 days I return the investment of VIP and as such it is more than enough. In fact, it's generous from my perspective and wouldn't be changing it to anything else. Far too many people exploited the old system and this was absolutely going to happen sooner or later.
Whatever seems to be exploity and ruins the experience, thus allowing players to get unfair advantage, will get fixed/patched upon.
I do acknowledge that some people lost a lot in buying/purchasing extra slots for this purpose.
True Neutral
Left the Game due to heavy Damage Control & Missing Spanish Language
Short version: When I can play and play alot...I feel stuck because of 100k RAD. When I don't play...I don't play so I'm stuck on the same point when I come back. I don't feel motivated to play "actively" as I get stuck and don't enjoy relying on RNG drops for increased gains. Alternatives force me to make plans for 5-6 weeks based on calendar events...does not work for me most of the time...I'm a casual. There is less progression feeling now, as gains are limited and I buy/upgrade much more slowly.
Long version: Well, as a casual who does not have time to play every day, the change is not helping me. When I play actively, I try to maximize my gains which means I salvage on all my characters, or at least I used to. I managed to generate 300k AD (NOT raw) a day easily and if lucky with my drops the gain could go up to 500k or even 800k AD. How the old system helped me? It allowed me to get the AD I needed when I was active and "progress"/"feel the progression of my char" as I could buy/upgrade stuff I wanted. The latter always made sure I wanted to come back and keep playing. I could "grind" the stuff and buy it "immediately" and it motivated me further.
What is happening now: I have been playing every day and got more than 1 million RAD stuck...in 1 week I will stop playing so I estimate around 2kk RAD stuck when I return to uni. "You can just login for 2kk/100k days and press refine"...yes, of course, and what I will do with that? I won't be able to play...I won't be able to decide in 5 minutes what to buy, what's the best course of action...what's the best investment..because my info within the game will be outdated...I will simply have stuck AD which I won't be able to use..it will be waiting for my return... Now to buy something immediately, I must rely on a lucky drop that I can sell in AD or make months long plans based on events to generate AD (guild marks, sieges, x2 enchants, etc)...the "grinding" became much much slower...if you were a "casual salvager" like me...you are capped at 700k AD a week...unless you're lucky. 700K AD in 1 week/7days is...too little.
I think that it is unfair to earn 500.000 AD in a single day and I was able to do so with the previous system, which is the reason I avoided it. I felt that it was unnecessary. And I was able to do it by simply running around River District, earning 50 Seals of the Protector, which I could use at a later stage.
Pre-Mod 14 and outside of a double seals/seal discount event simply running River District HE's would literally take all day to accumulate enough seals for 500k AD and since those events are not common... Not to mention, about 2 minutes per HE (it takes longer than that for them to reset/travel to), at least 14 characters and not including the time to open the rewards, purchase the epic rings, etc., salvage, transfer to other characters, switch characters, etc... Precisely being able to switch to an instance with active HE's may have made it more possible... To achieve 500k AD worth of seals period in one session outside of the aforementioned events, more so consistently/legitimately was pretty much impossible.
I'm very glad that this form of exploit is completely void anymore as both seals are reduced as enemies are a bit tougher than they were.
Actively seal farming in RD pre-Mod 14 was not an exploit, farming seals via illegitimate means is though, there is quite the difference. Suspending/banning the illegitimate players would have done the job instead of reducing the seal rewards.
Furthermore, there were people constantly botting with the previous system as dungeons were
a) easy to play and with a specific pathway for bots to choose from
b) Having some people playing with 50 chars daily, earning crazy amount of refinement money, thus inevetably influencing the economy.
If a person was/is actively playing multiple characters they are earning whatever it is they get because they are putting in the time and effort. Botting multiple characters is not the same thing. Again, suspending/banning the illegitimate players would have done the job instead of the Mod 14 RQ/AD changes.
Far too many people exploited the old system and this was absolutely going to happen sooner or later.
Whatever seems to be exploity and ruins the experience, thus allowing players to get unfair advantage, will get fixed/patched upon.
The Mod 14 changes as they currently are were not essentially required. Essentially the goal was to reduce the amount of AD generated, the 100k cap alone would have done that though it was taken even further... Once again, getting rid of the illegitimate players would have essentially did the thing though instead of taking on the responsibility of doing so, the "easy" route was taken and legitimate players suffer because of it while the bots, etc. will still thrive and do what they do...
The Mod 14 changes are quite overbearing especially since the players taking the hit are the ones putting in the time to achieve their rate of progression. Who does anyone think is putting the bulk of items on the AH for sale? It arguably isn't the casual players...
An unfair advantage is something a player does that is not widely available to the player base and or against the rules. Actively running multiple characters was/is not an "UA", essentially any player can get +character slots and do the same. Players who are able to play longer than others is not an UA either.
ALL Rights Reserved for any and all suggestions, ideas, etc. from this user.
“There are changes that can be made that don’t require coding...” - TriNitY "No amount of coding will change human behavior" - TriNitY
greywyndMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 7,158Arc User
Nothing stopping you from getting 200k rAD regularly, same as it was before the change. The limit is on the refining; not on the gathering.
I'm not looking for forgiveness, and I'm way past asking permission. Earth just lost her best defender, so we're here to fight. And if you want to stand in our way, we'll fight you too.
Hello everyone, I tend not to post a great deal and rarely on these types of threads. I see these threads as intentional outlets for people to rant. The initial post is monitored for about 10 pages by the developers where you may see a post or two addressing one point out of the dozens of arguments and never addressing the main issue. After that the moderators are left to deal with the chaos, ensuring the violations are kept to a minimum and that the vulgarities are "hamsterized." All in all nothing really changes from the initial post. Now that being said I have decided to add my 2 cents into the mix in hopes that a developer may decided that while laughing at the tirade of don't do this posts he/she might actually read this post. I should point out that this thread will be a combination of anecdotal and factual information from the world at large. First of all I should give a little background on myself. I am originally from a working class/poor family. Through a great deal of hard work and long nights I was able to earn a scholarship to a fairly well known, yet not ivy league school. Unfortunately, the scholarship was not a full ride and I entered the US military as a means to an end. Following my military service I was able to use both my G.I Bill and a scholarship to attend the school I had initially been unable to afford. I graduated with a dual degree in Economics and Psychology. A fairly lucrative achievement as understanding the financial and psychological motivations of consumers was and I imagine continues to be a valuable asset to many businesses. I was largely successful in my field for many years and was even able to go into business for myself in a consulting aspect for a number of years prior to being injured in an accident. So coming from the real world, I have experienced both poverty, working class, middle and upper middle class living, spending, and consumer habits. These things may seem inconsequential to the layman but having experienced these varying facets of life gave me a unique perspective in business and further enable a broad scope view of all economics. Alright to address the initial complaint of there being an abundance of ad in the game that is not being spent. This is largely held by a very small percentage of players, akin to real world economics where 1% of the world's population control over 90% of it's wealth. Efforts to siphon off even a small amount of that accumulated wealth are often token and poorly conceived as is this current endeavor. Simply put, the wealthy did not become wealthy by giving away their money. Additionally, these wealthy few are not the ones running multiple dungeons to salvage across multiple characters. These individuals have found other ways to invest in the game and see returns. Mastercrafting has for a long time been one such avenue. Controlling various aspects of the auction house another. So again the changes being made are not likely to affect the population that is holding the majority of the stockpiled astral diamonds. Now for the middle class players, those individuals working the auction house, trading, and trying to maximize their own corner of the trade aspect of the game. These players are about to see business drop off significantly. Not initially mind you but as the reality of the ad cap comes to the fore, players will be more apt to hold ad for a longer amount of time rather than falling prey to impulse buys. Consequently, there may be a slight uptick in trading as the players with only 1 or 2 characters become flush with ad for the first time in Neverwinter. The effect will quickly wear off, leaving them with the reality that it is far easier to spend than to earn. Purchases will become more selective and the currently valuable trade aspect of the game will begin to wither away with few merchant type players being able to ply their wares and turn a profit. As the middle class struggles to maintain a hold on their fragile corner of the market they will begin to cut prices to earn ad and as the prices are cut lower and lower the wealthy will swoop in to buy in bulk at a fraction of the cost the items initially sold for. For a real world example, I encourage everyone to look at the decline of the mom and pop stores that previously populated the entirety of the American economy. Where once there were thousands of these retailers today there remains only a handful that still struggle to hold on. Now as for the working class or poorer players, those that have been grinding out their 36k a day who are about to find they are now able to refine whatever stockpile of rough ad they have accumulated. Congratulations, you are temporarily flush. The reality however is not as bright. Players will quickly come to see that they are refining their rough into ad far quicker than they are able to restock it. As days go on the stockpile will dwindle away. The initial spending will taper away as players begin to realize just how difficult it is to amass the amounts of AD they believed they would be able to when the change initially went into effect. For all intents and purposes the 100k ad a day per account has created a salary cap for the working class. Much like a minimum wage it has all of the best intentions without ever being able to achieve the intended outcome. It is for all intents and purposes naive economics. Players will initially spend more as they feel they have more but in reality their earning power has been significantly reduced. Earning power being the potential a player or person in the real world can earn based on the effort put in. For example a college graduate has more earning power than a high school graduate who in turn has more earning power than a college drop out. Of course, this is a very simple representation and there are external factors that can affect the reality of those examples. Alright, so to continue, having limited earning potential, in essence astral diamonds should become more valuable. however, that value is going to have the opposite effect as to the intended result. First of all, working class players will see their hard earned astral diamonds as an important currency. Without the potential to earn more, via alts for example they will be more inclined to hold it for major purchases, i.e. vip or the ever elusive legendary mount. Players who are hoarding their ad in such a way are not likely to be willing to sell the items they do not need for a lower price than the auction houses currently see. They value their astral diamonds more having had to work harder and longer for their vip or keys or whatnot. As I discussed above the market will see limited value in the trade house as only the most important items will have a place for trade and sell. Pres wards, coal wards, legendary mounts, the orcus set, mastercraft items, and the must have companions, air, fire, earth archons, eirenyes of belial, siege master, compy, etc. beyond that refinement will hold value but only to the degree allowed, a value that has been greatly reduced due to the repetative double gems that has currently plagued the game, every 2 - 3 weeks. Regardless, the items of value will be reduced in number to a set few. Of course the naive and newer players will buy items that won't really be of help, eventually they will either figure it out or someone will inform them and they will become even more stingy with their ad. Now, the middle class will have taken a huge hit and will need to either up their prices on the items they continue to hold that are of relevance to the game or fold entirely. In either case they will be subject to the whims of the elite players who are able to control the market. These players can choose to crash the value of an item to force the middle class to sell at a lower price, which they can then simply snatch up before reposting at a higher price once the would be competitor had been eliminated. Slowly but surely this will eliminate the middle class players. The elite players, the wealthy few that are the cause of the issue will continue to post and sell items for the prices they deem necessary. As they have no true need for more ad or zen having an item sit on the ah for a month or even more is no big deal. They are able to do as they wish, run content, torment the middle class traders, or simply take a week or two off with no adverse affects. While the game economy is very simple we see this play out every day in real world economics. Raising the minimum wage gave the working class poor a temporary reprieve in some instances but many businesses preemptively raised their prices to offset the increased income. Consequently, the raising of minimum wage simply caused a new round of inflation, what was interesting from an economic perspective was that the inflation in the real world was two fold. The preemptive inflation that came before the increase in minimum wage and the secondary increase that came following the increase. All in all the working class poor are getting less for their dollar now than they were prior to the increase.
The reality of how to fix the economic woes of the united states working class and middle class would have required a different fix entirely, the issue with US economics came from inflation itself. Minimum wage had simply not kept up with inflation where as the salaries of the top executives had. This is readily seen were one to take a snap shot of 1970 pay scales. In 1970 the highest paid worker at a company made on average 20x more than the lowest paid employee. So if the lowest paid employee made 4 dollars an hour the highest paid employee, i.e. the company ceo made 80 dollars an hour. In 2010 the rations was on average 200 to 1. Minimum wage being 8 dollars an hour there about saw the ceo making 1600 dollars an hour. All of this is readily available on line for anyone wanting to fact check. In many cases the ratio was even greater, and it was following the housing market crunch that put the worlds economy into such a horrid recession. This is just a real world example of the solution not addressing the problem. To properly address the problem a legislation would have had to be enacted to address the ration of highest to lowest paid employee earnings and not minimum wage but considering who pays to get politicians elected it is not likely that will ever happen. Unfortunately, without a real world grasp of economics it is unlikey that we will see changes to the gaming economy that will actually achieve the intended, or at least stated goals of the developers. The best suggestion I have at this point would be to forgo the green level mounts and companions that are being added to the wonderous bazaar and add blue or even purple level ones that players actually need. Creating ad sinks for companions players actually want is a great way to pull ad from the game and weaken the wealthy elites hold on the player base. If players are able to buy blue or epic air and fire archons from the wonderous bazaar the elite players that are holding onto multiple packs containing those items will be less able to extort huge sums from players. If you truly want to increase the value of AD in the game than the best way to do that is to have items that can only be bought with AD. Zen market specific items and AD specific items will lead to more of a balance than anything else I can think of at this time. Alright, That is my hopefully coherent and logical explanation of economics as far as game related play goes. I do apologize for any ramblings as I had to take pain killers during this post.
Thanks to anyone who actually reads this. Vigilante
I apologize for having to post that in multiple postings. I tend to be long winded when I get going and felt if I was going to post on this type of forum I should be as thorough as possible.
Again thanks to anyone who reads my posts. Vigilante
"The first run bonuses are now account gated meaning that only one character can earn those first run bonuses per day."
What the hell.My account is from February 1st 2011 and have played consistently.I have seen nothing but nerfs on this game.It's so funny that every time it's "better for us" ...absolutely pathetic.A 100,000 AD cap per day would be fine if you guys didn't make it so we can only run 1 of each dungeons a day.Could build up the rough's and refine them on days where you do other things.When you guys stomp on us you really stomp on us.Time for something different.
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greywyndMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 7,158Arc User
You can hit the cap without really trying and build up several days' worth of rAD.
I'm not looking for forgiveness, and I'm way past asking permission. Earth just lost her best defender, so we're here to fight. And if you want to stand in our way, we'll fight you too.
Just not by running dungeons and that's what's devastating.Not everyone can run the advanced or expert due to IL to get anything worth salvaging.Every few months there's a huge kick in the grapes from this game.I wish I knew,I would have at least used up my 100k bonuses for all my characters.
AD-Zen backlog is still HUGE. Your goal to reduce that failed... very miserably! The only people I see happy with these changes are people who play on 1 toon, and they too will eventually start playing more toons and suffer what we are suffering. worried about toon armies? well guess what mate, I created 3 more toons over the weekend and geared them both up with primal, so its not hurting much to be honest.
All I wanna say is, please don't ruin the game for people who have been playing your game for a long time by making these changes geared towards making it easier for the newer players.
If you really want to set a refinement limit to the AD atleast make it a reasonable limit like 200k. 100k is chump change and doesnt get you anywere!
I implore you to see reason cryptic. The game just doesnt feel very motivating to play anymore because of this feeling of "being stuck and unable to progress anymore".
Increase refinement limit to 200,000 AD/day please.
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greywyndMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 7,158Arc User
Just not by running dungeons and that's what's devastating.Not everyone can run the advanced or expert due to IL to get anything worth salvaging.Every few months there's a huge kick in the grapes from this game.I wish I knew,I would have at least used up my 100k bonuses for all my characters.
There is more to the game than just the dungeons. Everyone can run Barovia and get the salvaged gear boxes to salvage.
I'm not looking for forgiveness, and I'm way past asking permission. Earth just lost her best defender, so we're here to fight. And if you want to stand in our way, we'll fight you too.
Comments
I find myself having more AD than before as I can more easily manage my time. Some days I can amass a lot of RAD, the others when I can't play I only have time to invoke and refine, which allows me to actually think in advance and organize better.
I really like not having to play through each repetitive dungeon 100 times in order to get AD, and I also like that the new system of Randoms is more intuitive and offers more RAD upon it's competition.
I do believe that it is extremely improved upon what it was as I was able to get tremendous amount of AD for farming superiority weaker content, which ultimately makes me playing something I do not like only for the sake of having more AD. Previous system was tremendously BOT friendly, which can't be really said about the newest system as it discourages botting.
I've yet to see a bot in any of the randoms and this makes me very happy!
As for AD, I think that the current system is more than enough.
Those with fewer characters and or play less essentially receive whatever benefit at the expense of players that have more characters/play more. If you play more you should be able to achieve/earn more than those that don't without an artificial cap.
Would be great to be given more information on how/what was calculated in regard to these changes. The quotes are puzzling because if there is apparently too much AD coming in vs going out the logical place to start would be AD sinks, starting at any other point won't remove the AD... Along with that if hitting 100k was achieved on "lower single digits" of accounts in general then why place a cap in the first place... Sooooooooo "lower single digits" of accounts in general are causing the market issues on PC?...
Things just aren't adding up. Keywords: have yet
AFK farmers are still in effect... Based on what?
It's not what you think, it's what you know...
“There are changes that can be made that don’t require coding...” - TriNitY
"No amount of coding will change human behavior" - TriNitY
Ongoing Issue: Legitmate Players Banned for Botting (Console) and the Future for "Dedicated" Players
Suggestions: (Implemented) \/\/ Rearrange Character on character Select Screen
And actually, if you're earning more than before, then is that fair?
Finally, if the stated intent of the system was to limit the amount of AD generation, and you're earning more than before, would you admit that pretty strongly suggests that there are others who are earning quite a bit less?
I think that it is unfair to earn 500.000 AD in a single day and I was able to do so with the previous system, which is the reason I avoided it. I felt that it was unnecessary. And I was able to do it by simply running around River District, earning 50 Seals of the Protector, which I could use at a later stage.
I'm very glad that this form of exploit is completely void anymore as both seals are reduced as enemies are a bit tougher than they were.
Furthermore, there were people constantly botting with the previous system as dungeons were
a) easy to play and with a specific pathway for bots to choose from
b) Having some people playing with 50 chars daily, earning crazy amount of refinement money, thus inevetably influencing the economy.
As a player who's playing solo content mostly, I'm more than happy to earn around 100K daily + whatever I sell that day.
Within 5 days I return the investment of VIP and as such it is more than enough. In fact, it's generous from my perspective and wouldn't be changing it to anything else. Far too many people exploited the old system and this was absolutely going to happen sooner or later.
Whatever seems to be exploity and ruins the experience, thus allowing players to get unfair advantage, will get fixed/patched upon.
I do acknowledge that some people lost a lot in buying/purchasing extra slots for this purpose.
Long version: Well, as a casual who does not have time to play every day, the change is not helping me.
When I play actively, I try to maximize my gains which means I salvage on all my characters, or at least I used to. I managed to generate 300k AD (NOT raw) a day easily and if lucky with my drops the gain could go up to 500k or even 800k AD.
How the old system helped me? It allowed me to get the AD I needed when I was active and "progress"/"feel the progression of my char" as I could buy/upgrade stuff I wanted. The latter always made sure I wanted to come back and keep playing. I could "grind" the stuff and buy it "immediately" and it motivated me further.
What is happening now: I have been playing every day and got more than 1 million RAD stuck...in 1 week I will stop playing so I estimate around 2kk RAD stuck when I return to uni. "You can just login for 2kk/100k days and press refine"...yes, of course, and what I will do with that? I won't be able to play...I won't be able to decide in 5 minutes what to buy, what's the best course of action...what's the best investment..because my info within the game will be outdated...I will simply have stuck AD which I won't be able to use..it will be waiting for my return...
Now to buy something immediately, I must rely on a lucky drop that I can sell in AD or make months long plans based on events to generate AD (guild marks, sieges, x2 enchants, etc)...the "grinding" became much much slower...if you were a "casual salvager" like me...you are capped at 700k AD a week...unless you're lucky. 700K AD in 1 week/7days is...too little.
The Mod 14 changes are quite overbearing especially since the players taking the hit are the ones putting in the time to achieve their rate of progression. Who does anyone think is putting the bulk of items on the AH for sale? It arguably isn't the casual players...
An unfair advantage is something a player does that is not widely available to the player base and or against the rules. Actively running multiple characters was/is not an "UA", essentially any player can get +character slots and do the same. Players who are able to play longer than others is not an UA either.
“There are changes that can be made that don’t require coding...” - TriNitY
"No amount of coding will change human behavior" - TriNitY
Ongoing Issue: Legitmate Players Banned for Botting (Console) and the Future for "Dedicated" Players
Suggestions: (Implemented) \/\/ Rearrange Character on character Select Screen
I tend not to post a great deal and rarely on these types of threads. I see these threads as intentional outlets for people to rant. The initial post is monitored for about 10 pages by the developers where you may see a post or two addressing one point out of the dozens of arguments and never addressing the main issue. After that the moderators are left to deal with the chaos, ensuring the violations are kept to a minimum and that the vulgarities are "hamsterized." All in all nothing really changes from the initial post.
Now that being said I have decided to add my 2 cents into the mix in hopes that a developer may decided that while laughing at the tirade of don't do this posts he/she might actually read this post.
I should point out that this thread will be a combination of anecdotal and factual information from the world at large. First of all I should give a little background on myself. I am originally from a working class/poor family. Through a great deal of hard work and long nights I was able to earn a scholarship to a fairly well known, yet not ivy league school. Unfortunately, the scholarship was not a full ride and I entered the US military as a means to an end. Following my military service I was able to use both my G.I Bill and a scholarship to attend the school I had initially been unable to afford. I graduated with a dual degree in Economics and Psychology. A fairly lucrative achievement as understanding the financial and psychological motivations of consumers was and I imagine continues to be a valuable asset to many businesses. I was largely successful in my field for many years and was even able to go into business for myself in a consulting aspect for a number of years prior to being injured in an accident.
So coming from the real world, I have experienced both poverty, working class, middle and upper middle class living, spending, and consumer habits.
These things may seem inconsequential to the layman but having experienced these varying facets of life gave me a unique perspective in business and further enable a broad scope view of all economics.
Alright to address the initial complaint of there being an abundance of ad in the game that is not being spent. This is largely held by a very small percentage of players, akin to real world economics where 1% of the world's population control over 90% of it's wealth. Efforts to siphon off even a small amount of that accumulated wealth are often token and poorly conceived as is this current endeavor. Simply put, the wealthy did not become wealthy by giving away their money. Additionally, these wealthy few are not the ones running multiple dungeons to salvage across multiple characters. These individuals have found other ways to invest in the game and see returns. Mastercrafting has for a long time been one such avenue. Controlling various aspects of the auction house another. So again the changes being made are not likely to affect the population that is holding the majority of the stockpiled astral diamonds.
Now for the middle class players, those individuals working the auction house, trading, and trying to maximize their own corner of the trade aspect of the game. These players are about to see business drop off significantly. Not initially mind you but as the reality of the ad cap comes to the fore, players will be more apt to hold ad for a longer amount of time rather than falling prey to impulse buys. Consequently, there may be a slight uptick in trading as the players with only 1 or 2 characters become flush with ad for the first time in Neverwinter.
The effect will quickly wear off, leaving them with the reality that it is far easier to spend than to earn. Purchases will become more selective and the currently valuable trade aspect of the game will begin to wither away with few merchant type players being able to ply their wares and turn a profit. As the middle class struggles to maintain a hold on their fragile corner of the market they will begin to cut prices to earn ad and as the prices are cut lower and lower the wealthy will swoop in to buy in bulk at a fraction of the cost the items initially sold for. For a real world example, I encourage everyone to look at the decline of the mom and pop stores that previously populated the entirety of the American economy. Where once there were thousands of these retailers today there remains only a handful that still struggle to hold on.
Now as for the working class or poorer players, those that have been grinding out their 36k a day who are about to find they are now able to refine whatever stockpile of rough ad they have accumulated. Congratulations, you are temporarily flush. The reality however is not as bright. Players will quickly come to see that they are refining their rough into ad far quicker than they are able to restock it. As days go on the stockpile will dwindle away. The initial spending will taper away as players begin to realize just how difficult it is to amass the amounts of AD they believed they would be able to when the change initially went into effect. For all intents and purposes the 100k ad a day per account has created a salary cap for the working class. Much like a minimum wage it has all of the best intentions without ever being able to achieve the intended outcome. It is for all intents and purposes naive economics.
Players will initially spend more as they feel they have more but in reality their earning power has been significantly reduced. Earning power being the potential a player or person in the real world can earn based on the effort put in. For example a college graduate has more earning power than a high school graduate who in turn has more earning power than a college drop out. Of course, this is a very simple representation and there are external factors that can affect the reality of those examples. Alright, so to continue, having limited earning potential, in essence astral diamonds should become more valuable. however, that value is going to have the opposite effect as to the intended result.
First of all, working class players will see their hard earned astral diamonds as an important currency. Without the potential to earn more, via alts for example they will be more inclined to hold it for major purchases, i.e. vip or the ever elusive legendary mount. Players who are hoarding their ad in such a way are not likely to be willing to sell the items they do not need for a lower price than the auction houses currently see. They value their astral diamonds more having had to work harder and longer for their vip or keys or whatnot. As I discussed above the market will see limited value in the trade house as only the most important items will have a place for trade and sell. Pres wards, coal wards, legendary mounts, the orcus set, mastercraft items, and the must have companions, air, fire, earth archons, eirenyes of belial, siege master, compy, etc. beyond that refinement will hold value but only to the degree allowed, a value that has been greatly reduced due to the repetative double gems that has currently plagued the game, every 2 - 3 weeks. Regardless, the items of value will be reduced in number to a set few. Of course the naive and newer players will buy items that won't really be of help, eventually they will either figure it out or someone will inform them and they will become even more stingy with their ad.
Now, the middle class will have taken a huge hit and will need to either up their prices on the items they continue to hold that are of relevance to the game or fold entirely. In either case they will be subject to the whims of the elite players who are able to control the market. These players can choose to crash the value of an item to force the middle class to sell at a lower price, which they can then simply snatch up before reposting at a higher price once the would be competitor had been eliminated. Slowly but surely this will eliminate the middle class players. The elite players, the wealthy few that are the cause of the issue will continue to post and sell items for the prices they deem necessary. As they have no true need for more ad or zen having an item sit on the ah for a month or even more is no big deal. They are able to do as they wish, run content, torment the middle class traders, or simply take a week or two off with no adverse affects.
While the game economy is very simple we see this play out every day in real world economics. Raising the minimum wage gave the working class poor a temporary reprieve in some instances but many businesses preemptively raised their prices to offset the increased income. Consequently, the raising of minimum wage simply caused a new round of inflation, what was interesting from an economic perspective was that the inflation in the real world was two fold. The preemptive inflation that came before the increase in minimum wage and the secondary increase that came following the increase. All in all the working class poor are getting less for their dollar now than they were prior to the increase.
Unfortunately, without a real world grasp of economics it is unlikey that we will see changes to the gaming economy that will actually achieve the intended, or at least stated goals of the developers. The best suggestion I have at this point would be to forgo the green level mounts and companions that are being added to the wonderous bazaar and add blue or even purple level ones that players actually need. Creating ad sinks for companions players actually want is a great way to pull ad from the game and weaken the wealthy elites hold on the player base. If players are able to buy blue or epic air and fire archons from the wonderous bazaar the elite players that are holding onto multiple packs containing those items will be less able to extort huge sums from players. If you truly want to increase the value of AD in the game than the best way to do that is to have items that can only be bought with AD. Zen market specific items and AD specific items will lead to more of a balance than anything else I can think of at this time. Alright, That is my hopefully coherent and logical explanation of economics as far as game related play goes. I do apologize for any ramblings as I had to take pain killers during this post.
Thanks to anyone who actually reads this.
Vigilante
Again thanks to anyone who reads my posts.
Vigilante
What the hell.My account is from February 1st 2011 and have played consistently.I have seen nothing but nerfs on this game.It's so funny that every time it's "better for us" ...absolutely pathetic.A 100,000 AD cap per day would be fine if you guys didn't make it so we can only run 1 of each dungeons a day.Could build up the rough's and refine them on days where you do other things.When you guys stomp on us you really stomp on us.Time for something different.
All I wanna say is, please don't ruin the game for people who have been playing your game for a long time by making these changes geared towards making it easier for the newer players.
If you really want to set a refinement limit to the AD atleast make it a reasonable limit like 200k. 100k is chump change and doesnt get you anywere!
I implore you to see reason cryptic. The game just doesnt feel very motivating to play anymore because of this feeling of "being stuck and unable to progress anymore".
Increase refinement limit to 200,000 AD/day please.