Driftwood Tavern April 2 - M16 Questions

nitocris83

Greetings Adventurers! During this morning's stream, two questions pertaining to Undermountain were asked and we wanted to share the answers obtained post-stream:

-Enchant exchange bind status: Our current tech does not allow for stores to have a concept of bind status, therefore the exchange cannot be set up to check bound to bound and unbound to unbound. It has a set parameter of any enchant going in, regardless of bind status, providing a bound enchant coming out. Because of potential for major exploitability, we cannot set the parameter so that the enchant the exchange provides back is unbound.

-"Equip" missing from tooltip: Tooltips have been undergoing some adjustments where stats are intended to be split on the items view so item stats are on top and stats from gem slots are listed under the gem slot. An unintended side effect of this is that unslotted enchantment lists all of its stuff without saying which goes to what slot so this is a bug being looked into.

dupeks

nitocris83 said:

-Enchant exchange bind status: Our current tech does not allow for stores to have a concept of bind status, therefore the exchange cannot be set up to check bound to bound and unbound to unbound. It has a set parameter of any enchant going in, regardless of bind status, providing a bound enchant coming out. Because of potential for major exploitability, we cannot set the parameter so that the enchant the exchange provides back is unbound.

Could players be provided a limited number of unbound swaps?

Allowing for instance once each for Armor / Weapon enchantments would be helpful since they are so "expensive" to bind.

I would also suggest that enchantments that are being completely phased out of use should trade for an unbound enchant of choice, but maybe that's too complicated.

adders79

Why don't you just keep the enchant vendor as a permanent fixture then we do not need to worry so much. I understand why you are doing it but for honest players it is another huge kick in the teeth to basically lose millions of AD in stock. Although considering there is no need to have enchants above level 8 except for in LoMM I guess it does not matter

athena

i agree, keep the vendor open that should stabilize Auction House pricing a bit, and allow players to 'feel' out their build better. Some players may come back to the game in months or years and have those phased out enchants that they cannot do anything with. Keeping a permanent exchange will help a great deal. Now i also agree there can be complications as dupeks was saying, so i suggest that you make it 'free' for the first month or two and then add a surcharge/fee/interest on further exchanges. Properly handled this could help balance the AH and draw players back to the game at the same time.

tassedethe13

@nitocris83

2 simple questions

1- Will the exchange vendor be permanent ?
2- Will we be allowed to exchange an infinite amount of time the same enchant ?

adinosii

athena#9205 said:

so i suggest that you make it 'free' for the first month or two and then add a surcharge/fee/interest on further exchanges.

If the vendor is permanent, then the fact that exchanged enchants are BtA is not really a big deal. Having it free for, say, a month, and then adding a fee, maybe something like 5% of the average AH price would be fair.

thefiresidecat

if that is the case why not simply disallow bound items from being used in the exchange?

mightyeriksson

It is no problem to exclude various items from being sold to vendors, so it shouldn't really be that difficult to code an exclusion of anything bound from the enchant-exchange?
I know for a fact, that it isn't a big problem to set those flags, but if the developer wants to claim so, there isn't much the players can do about it.

Or as others have said, make it a permanent addition.

jobu808

I could kind of see this coming as far as the BtA part. I mean did seriously think it was going to stay the way it was and have it to where people could change the cheapest thing on the AH into the most expensive at the click of a button?

I do think if it were a permanent fixture then it would make it a little easier on those who choose to use it and end up with bound enchants. I also agree that maybe at some point it should have a small fee for use when the next big thing causes everyone to change their enchants around.

rustlord

It could just come back on the next meta swap - like free respec when there is a class update.

My question is, how many times can you exchange the same enchantment after it comes out as BtA? @nitocris83

spidey

nitocris83 said:

Because of potential for major exploitability,

Potential major!!!! exploitability.....why is it allways to "protect" the players when Cryp makes such bad decissions?
And why can no one tell how you can exploit (major!!) in a new system? Afraid about a new hunting gate? So be honest:
Its not for the safety for the players. Its for the safety of Cryp and to make money.
But its still a very very bad decission.

Spidey

artifleur

If preventing bound enchantments from being traded requires extra coding then please do the extra coding.

rustlord

what would happen is (historically speaking) opportunists would, in the beginning would buy out all the cheaper unlikable enchantments and exchange them for a better value enchantment... as i myself first thought. I gave it two minutes to sink in, its probably too good to be true


logistics is simple. value between enchantment types will very soon balance out. every enchantment will cost the same around one or two days of launch.

so maybe yes, it will be "exploited" a fair amount for a given length of time but the long term effects of that will be fair to everybody. not to mention, it gives people incentive to come back to the game and dump hard earned cash again. saying no to unbound is just shortsighted

davidmoki

All I see is another reason to delay mod 16, the changes are falling apart, but you guys are ignoring it "/

juergeng123

with this change you will kill the game Dont do the bound to Account exchange please.

zyek88

I understand the concern about exploitability but punishing honest players is a foolish approach to preventing it.

Correct me if I am wrong but the majority of enchantments are unbound to begin with so the impact of this exploit would be minimal.

Over the years more things have been getting bound. This feels more like an attempt to keep moving in that direction which historically angers players and makes honest players quit.

Others have posted reasonable solutions. Either put the effort in to making the system register bind status or make the vendor permanent.

sprat140

Is there a way to watch the replay of this stream?

hercules125

I really don't see the problem with allowing unlimited exchanges. All it does is set the value of enchantments to be the same regardless of type.

sirol

thefiresidecat said:

if that is the case why not simply disallow bound items from being used in the exchange?

If there is no others possibility, i like this one.

bpstuart

sprat140#9415 said:

Is there a way to watch the replay of this stream?

you can find it here

tassedethe13

tassedethe13 said:

@nitocris83

2 simple questions

1- Will the exchange vendor be permanent ?
2- Will we be allowed to exchange an infinite amount of time the same enchant ?

@nitocris83

hustin1

1. Will our existing Foundry cloaks be made reclaimable? (Foundry Apprentice, Foundry Graduate, etc.) I want to use mine as transmute(s) but I won't if it means it will be gone forever from a particular alt. The Foundry Graduate one is especially good for a Ranger.
2. Why not wait until April 22 to kill the Foundry since the new mod won't go live until the 23rd? Is it really necessary to do it on the 11th?
3. Could you consider featuring some Foundry quests before it goes away? None of have been featured in four years making certain achievements unobtainable.

ramesh84

nitocris83 said:

-Enchant exchange bind status: Our current tech does not allow for stores to have a concept of bind status, therefore the exchange cannot be set up to check bound to bound and unbound to unbound. It has a set parameter of any enchant going in, regardless of bind status, providing a bound enchant coming out. Because of potential for major exploitability, we cannot set the parameter so that the enchant the exchange provides back is unbound.

I could but I won't argue about that, will just say there are plenty of better and safer alternative proposals in feedback thread are compatible with current code and not too hard to implement.
That said, as I am 100% sure you won't step back on that choice, will you mind to provide an alert to players that the unbound good they are going to trade will turn on a bound claim?
I see the potential major exploitability in an unbound system (you actually aren't safe from another major one) but you can't ignore all the players not/partially logging on preview (claims were unbound at start) and reading forum/patch notes: they could be highly disappointed about exchanging an unbound item to get a (useless to me) bound loot without being warned about.
I am quite sick about legit players loosing access to many features but i guess I have to stop dreaming

trgluestickz

This is completely unacceptable, cryptic waited an entire month after the exchanges were announced to tell everyone this. The post announcing the mod 16 exchanges made 0 mention of this fact and Cryptic mislead almost everyone by doing this. This will result in huge financial losses for a massive amount of the population and almost everyone being stuck with items that aren't useful to them anymore. Most of the game's population just got screwed over by this shortsighted decision, not just exploiters.

Many enchantments/insignias were reworked and the stat curve in mod 16 was changed significantly. This means almost everyone is now stuck with items that are no longer useful to them and many of them are no longer worth anything close to the value of the ones they will need to replace them with in the new module. Tons of players who were assured by their friends/guildies/other people that they wouldn't have to sell off the enchantments on their characters also lost an insane amount of money over this and are rightfully going to be furious.

Bottomline: Cryptic needs to come up with a better solution for preventing exploits than just HAMSTER over the game's entire population like this.

Also:

artifleur said:

If preventing bound enchantments from being traded requires extra coding then please do the extra coding.

^^ This a million times this.

juliofp70

hello

you can do 2 npcs insteed of one. one to trade bound to bound and the other unbound to unbound. both can stay active on mod 16 during the first 2 weeks before get closed.

alphastream

nitocris83 said:

Greetings Adventurers! During this morning's stream, two questions pertaining to Undermountain were asked and we wanted to share the answers obtained post-stream:

-Enchant exchange bind status: Our current tech does not allow for stores to have a concept of bind status, therefore the exchange cannot be set up to check bound to bound and unbound to unbound. It has a set parameter of any enchant going in, regardless of bind status, providing a bound enchant coming out. Because of potential for major exploitability, we cannot set the parameter so that the enchant the exchange provides back is unbound.

Woah. That is a major hit, given all the unbound runestones and enchants I have, some of which are changing drastically! I can't believe this. Good grief.

alphastream

thefiresidecat said:

if that is the case why not simply disallow bound items from being used in the exchange?

Could there be two stores, one for bound and one for unbound? I mean, this is a serious problem for many players.

darkheart

> @nitocris83 said:
> Greetings Adventurers! During this morning's stream, two questions pertaining to Undermountain were asked and we wanted to share the answers obtained post-stream:
>
> -Enchant exchange bind status: Our current tech does not allow for stores to have a concept of bind status, therefore the exchange cannot be set up to check bound to bound and unbound to unbound. It has a set parameter of any enchant going in, regardless of bind status, providing a bound enchant coming out. Because of potential for major exploitability, we cannot set the parameter so that the enchant the exchange provides back is unbound.
>
> -"Equip" missing from tooltip: Tooltips have been undergoing some adjustments where stats are intended to be split on the items view so item stats are on top and stats from gem slots are listed under the gem slot. An unintended side effect of this is that unslotted enchantment lists all of its stuff without saying which goes to what slot so this is a bug being looked into.

Ok, so because of "potential for major exploitability" you won't change it.

That is a big difference between can't and won't. You can change this but have made the decision not to, with the excuse of exploitability as the reason.Sad.

alphastream

First question: I have a bunch of old lockboxes. Let's say I open one during mod 16... does an Eldritch runestone still drop, and thus force me to having a bound runestone through the exchange?

Second question. It's been a few months after Mod 16. If an old lockbox would grant me an Eldritch runestone, does it still drop AND I can't even exchange it?

rickcase276

But if their system can not determine the status of an enchant being traded in, it would not if they made a bound-bound and an unbound-unbound store. Yes they could set the store to give all unbound enchants, but that would mean bound enchant would come out unbound too, which is where the exploit would be. All in all this is probably the only way they can do it, that or completely remove the exchange.

alphastream

I can't help but read posts like yesterday's environment post and conclude that this is all because the game is being run on a shoestring budget. The environment post was basically:
- The game is six years old, so this is hard.
- I'm the only person working on environment now, so this is hard.
- I'm being reassigned to a different project, so this will be even worse for the next person.

When they do this over and over, combined with tight deadlines they are unwilling to change, of course they can't fix something that is critical to the user base but unimportant to them.

I really want to be positive about this game, but it is getting harder and harder to not see the writing on the wall about what Cryptic is willing to do for us.