let us ask devs for lockbox concept.

wylonus

most players wanted to see improvements and less junks.
would be nice if they included new housing items when they release player own home/housing in future.

new concept.
Mount
Legendary
Epic
Legendary insignas
epic insignas

Companion
Legendary
Epic
"Greater Companion Pack" = 1 random rank 10 rune, 10 companion tokens, or 1 legendary gear (3 sockets).
Companion pack = 1 random rank 9 rune, 5 companion tokens, or 1 epic gear (2 sockets).

Gems and assorteds
random legendary gem
random epic gems (depends on value) 2 high value/5 lower epic value gems
* (new concept) consumeable 2-3 hours bonus RP, not usable during bonus weekend events, once it use, timer begins.
Genie's Gift * if needed.

at last, if the housing released.
1 random legendary statue/water fountian
1 random epic master furniture
1 looter token (allow you to choose a chair from Arcane Reservor as plunderable item) or loot any from dungeons that allows to be plunderable, all looted items will be bound to account, one per day allowed.

planestrider

Since I cannot open a new thread, I wanted to add this in a thread at least thematically connected:

Some lockboxes read as follows:

"... contains one of the following:
[contents]
And one of the following:
[contents]"

Others, e.g. Many-Starred, read:

"... contains one of the following:
[contents]
Or one of the following:
[contents]"

Noticed the difference on first view?
The latter has not the slightest reason to part their really cool mounts and the other stuff into two, but tries to appear like the first. I dunno if this is intended, but if so, it's pretty, well, hamsterly. After all, the keys are being paid for with real money.

thefiresidecat

I want no more gems at all in the lockboxes. they are pure junk at this point in time. I liked the packs in past lockboxes, you could open or sell and they kept a decent price. the way it just spews junk at you now makes it so you cannot choose to pass on the junk or keep the junk. enchantments are also junk at this point in time. lockboxes used to be enough ad to keep a good chance of at least getting your money back. at this point it's like I might as well just light a bonfire and throw my ad in.

Rp is worthless
enchants are worthless
fashion is worthless


imo it would be better if they have to keep the junk in if they limited it to one of the categories. take the rp out of the first and third categories.

the other lockboxes of this new styling at least had good odds of not having pure rp. there was some variety. i've opened 20 odd excavated lockboxes now and got nothing but rp. I won't be opening more of them. that's for sure.

planestrider

Same for me, I'll only buy keys from spare ZEN I bought for sth else. RP is even worth less than wards - if they were at least coal, but others are cheap enough on the AH. The one useful object I pulled from around 10 Lockboxes was one medium sized bag. Everything else was one enchantment I could get from Sharandar, and RP. Simply putting some time in playing actually yields more worth for me and is more satisfying.

fyrstigor

Wow. 20 boxes, and 10. Such a huge sample size u guys have.

If u dont like new boxes, open old ones.

planestrider

Please try to stay polite; and to read correctly before you try to insult people. Also, huge amounts of boxes are irrelevant if the first bunch fails to provide a feel of being lucky. Instead, I'm obviously not the only person feeling about the lockboxes as some sort of personal mistake ... which will not earn the devs the money they deserve if things go wrong this way. This is not a scientific study which needs a huge sample size.

wylonus

this is one of old version, what i would like to see, "Sellback" for tradebars, so they can use t-bars for what they wants once they have enough bars to spend. ESO has that and it seem successful to me. sell back the prizes you dont like or dont need.
i agreed it is way too much RP Gems and folks want something back that they can use or get "awesome" since they were paid for, it seem almost like some school bullies make you throw away lunch money and go home hungry.

regenerde

30 keys is a decent "sample size" considering that's how many you can get from a month ViP, and that with using those keys on the old lockboxes there was a solid chance of getting enough AD for another round of ViP plus something extra from selling the loot (even just the rare packs without counting in any epic drops) directly.

But that seem to be not good enough for them anymore... they started with adding crappy "Adventurer" and "Fashion" packs to lockboxes, and continued to "revamp" lockboxes into something that just floods our inventories with mostly worthless junk.

And it's not just that, they also starting cutting into ways of "creating" AD in game to get players to spend money instead of their time in game to get something from the ZEN shop.

Sure, we can stick to the old lockboxes for now, but their numbers are limited, and that's what they're counting on, at some point everyone is going to be forced to either waste their keys on lockboxes with the new "design", let their keys rot in their inventories or simply find a better game - guess what most players will do at that point...

I understand that their goal is to "motivate" players to spend money here, what i don't understand is how they managed to come up with one bad decision after the other that would only lead to more players leaving the game in the long run. I've said it before, and i'm saying it again, i don't mind spending money on a game as long as i get something usefull/worthy in return, and looking at the new lockboxes or packs (the Gith race pack is an exception) i dare say they're far away from getting there.

autumnwitch

thefiresidecat said:

I want no more gems at all in the lockboxes. they are pure junk at this point in time. I liked the packs in past lockboxes, you could open or sell and they kept a decent price. the way it just spews junk at you now makes it so you cannot choose to pass on the junk or keep the junk. enchantments are also junk at this point in time. lockboxes used to be enough ad to keep a good chance of at least getting your money back. at this point it's like I might as well just light a bonfire and throw my ad in.

Rp is worthless
enchants are worthless
fashion is worthless


imo it would be better if they have to keep the junk in if they limited it to one of the categories. take the rp out of the first and third categories.

the other lockboxes of this new styling at least had good odds of not having pure rp. there was some variety. i've opened 20 odd excavated lockboxes now and got nothing but rp. I won't be opening more of them. that's for sure.

As someone with 16 characters I can assure you RP is not useless. They only thing I would say is make one of the three categorises not RP and/or Enchants.

thefiresidecat

there is a difference between worthless and useless.

What do you want to gear up 16 toons for? it should be plenty cheap for you to buy on the ah if that's what you want to do.

but, I'm talking about from a lockbox point of view. you can't get close to the value of the cost of a key from the lockboxes. I'm not asking for a legendary or even an epic all the time. Just a reasonable modest value for hte key. rp is not valuable at all. it's garbage. it's very easy to farm rp in game. which makes it basically free.

and yes 20 lockboxes is a very reasonable sample size to tell you what on average is going to drop from a box. the current box is on par with if one of the older boxes dropped a fashion pack 98 percent of the time. having boxes that basically open for you without giving you a chance at reselling is pooh, in my ever so humble opinion. but the other boxes of this nature at least gave a better odds of not getting pure rp. insignias and comp tokens and things along those lines were a hefty sprinkling of the common rewards which made it even out in value. honestly this new lb just seems broken to me.

fyrstigor

regenerde said:

30 keys is a decent "sample size" considering that's how many you can get from a month ViP, and that with using those keys on the old lockboxes there was a solid chance of getting enough AD for another round of ViP plus something extra from selling the loot (even just the rare packs without counting in any epic drops) directly.

But that seem to be not good enough for them anymore... they started with adding crappy "Adventurer" and "Fashion" packs to lockboxes, and continued to "revamp" lockboxes into something that just floods our inventories with mostly worthless junk.

And it's not just that, they also starting cutting into ways of "creating" AD in game to get players to spend money instead of their time in game to get something from the ZEN shop.

Sure, we can stick to the old lockboxes for now, but their numbers are limited, and that's what they're counting on, at some point everyone is going to be forced to either waste their keys on lockboxes with the new "design", let their keys rot in their inventories or simply find a better game - guess what most players will do at that point...

I understand that their goal is to "motivate" players to spend money here, what i don't understand is how they managed to come up with one bad decision after the other that would only lead to more players leaving the game in the long run. I've said it before, and i'm saying it again, i don't mind spending money on a game as long as i get something usefull/worthy in return, and looking at the new lockboxes or packs (the Gith race pack is an exception) i dare say they're far away from getting there.

U understand lockboxes is a gamble right? U get mad when u play the lottery and dont win?

Some player have very good luck with boxes. Some dont. Thats just how it is. If u have bad luck spend ur AD / ZEN on something else. U dont need to spend money on the game, or buying keys to be viable for content. U just have to play longer and grind a bit more, like all MMOs. ZEN is the shortcut for those who doesnt like to grind.

mordekai

RP is useful, but given how rare a "good" drop is, is it worth buying keys when you are going to likely end up with RP that you could probably buy for half of what you spent on the keys.

On XB we just got the Excavated Lockbox, and while it offers a LOT of potential for Companion Upgrade tokens, there is nothing else I would actually want from it.
The Legendary Mounts are Volcanic Flail Snail, War Triceratops and Armored Giant Strider.

I opened 20 yesterday to see what the Upgrade Token drops were like... no expectations... just to see what happened.

Of my 20 main rewards I got 3 rank 9 enchantments, 1 Epic Insignia, 1 tarmalune tradebar jackpot (109), 15 x Jadeite
(18/20... Refinement)

Of my 20 "Refinement" rewards I got 2 Brilliant Diamonds, 2 Mark of Potency (R4), 1 Alexandrite, I Enchanting Stone (R6), 7 x two random R8 enchants, 7 Jadeite.

Of my 20 "Utility" rewards I got 1 Companion Upgrade Token (5 tokens) 4 Uncommon Profession Supplements, 2 rare Profession Supplements, 4 Blood Rubies, 6 Black Opals, 3 Flawless Sapphire.
(13/20... Refinement)

Over 50 of my 60 rewards were Refinement. Roughly 1 in 3 rewards were "Jadeite".

Now before another guru explains how lockboxes work and how they are Gambling and misses the point I'm trying to make, let me be clear that I KNOW that the chances of winning something good are slim.
(They are even slimmer when the "good" rewards are as HAMSTER as they are in the Excavated Lock Box)

My point is that just stuffing the lockboxes with varying shapes and sizes of RP to make it look like they are filled with all sorts of goodies is unimaginative, boring, and eventually even the "Hey, even when you lose, you win something... you don't get that with a lotto ticket" attitude will start to shift into "Hmmm.... I could buy so much more RP for this many Zen if I get it off the AH..."

Those "Utility" rewards known as Professions Supplements are as close to worthless as I can imagine.
You get ONE dose???
Making your own is cheap and easy and provides better results... I can't believe they have brought back Professions resources with Professions in the state they are at the moment, and to bring them back WITHOUT even a chance at the Legendary Tools is just lousy.

Just to make it clear, I'll be saving my VIP keys in the hope of something better in the future, and won't be buying any more keys for the foreseeable future. I'll buy RP as and when I need it, (not that I need much when it drops as freely as it currently does.)

Lock boxes don't need better odds of getting the really good stuff, they just need more interesting contents in general.

Use some HAMSTER Common Sense...
For example.
They just dropped a new Weapon Set in the Trade Bar Store on XBox... These will be bought by people with Trade Bars... which they get from...... (?????)
They will ether USE these weapons or SELL them, meaning a lot more artifact weapons will suddenly be in play.

So put CUBES OF AUGMENTATION in the accompanying lockbox.

It's just another signal at the lack of joined up thinking in the planning of this game.

regenerde

fyrstigor said:

regenerde said:

30 keys is a decent "sample size" considering that's how many you can get from a month ViP, and that with using those keys on the old lockboxes there was a solid chance of getting enough AD for another round of ViP plus something extra from selling the loot (even just the rare packs without counting in any epic drops) directly.

But that seem to be not good enough for them anymore... they started with adding crappy "Adventurer" and "Fashion" packs to lockboxes, and continued to "revamp" lockboxes into something that just floods our inventories with mostly worthless junk.

And it's not just that, they also starting cutting into ways of "creating" AD in game to get players to spend money instead of their time in game to get something from the ZEN shop.

Sure, we can stick to the old lockboxes for now, but their numbers are limited, and that's what they're counting on, at some point everyone is going to be forced to either waste their keys on lockboxes with the new "design", let their keys rot in their inventories or simply find a better game - guess what most players will do at that point...

I understand that their goal is to "motivate" players to spend money here, what i don't understand is how they managed to come up with one bad decision after the other that would only lead to more players leaving the game in the long run. I've said it before, and i'm saying it again, i don't mind spending money on a game as long as i get something usefull/worthy in return, and looking at the new lockboxes or packs (the Gith race pack is an exception) i dare say they're far away from getting there.

U understand lockboxes is a gamble right? U get mad when u play the lottery and dont win?

Some player have very good luck with boxes. Some dont. Thats just how it is. If u have bad luck spend ur AD / ZEN on something else. U dont need to spend money on the game, or buying keys to be viable for content. U just have to play longer and grind a bit more, like all MMOs. ZEN is the shortcut for those who doesnt like to grind.

You do understand that the design of older lockboxes were just fine the way they were, right?
And you do understand that the "new design" is not an improvement?
So, this is only wasting time and money in the end, and looking at how they're pushing one sale event/promotion after the other to probably meet their financial goals now, i'd say it's rather reasonable to question these changes.

As mentioned above, before the "design" change, nearly any lockbox would allow the player to earn enough AD from loot sales to keep ViP going, even without counting on "luck" to receive one of the big prizes from them. During these days there were enough players around that all my loot of 30 lockboxes was sold within the hour - now it takes several days to sell my plunder.

So, it looks like most of the changes being made to the game this far have resulted in losing players, and the only thing i can't understand is how the people in charge can't (or don't want to) see that...

planestrider

Yes, it is a gamble, but a very bad one. The principle clashes completely with what games should do: REWARD the players. That doesn't mean each box should drop a War Triceratops on default, but something useful, actually rare stuff like coal wards, bigger amounts of preservation wards than a pack of 5 as the minimum, no hamstering refinement. Never never ever punish your players! And to "reward" the payment of real money with what can be gained easily in one mere hour of questing / running rqs is at beat a lame excuse and at worst cheating or punishment. It certainly feels like cheating for me. Consider that I might not have pulled the backpack out of one lockbox, I'd have decided to never pay for keys again. As it is, I might consider it in the future. If sth changes towards more fairness, it's more likely, since it has the effect even "bad" lockboxes should have, it motivates me to try again.

wylonus

Nightmare lockbox was 1 in 20 boxes for epic horse, now we get 1 in 700 chances for a legendary mound? i think i am about done with VIP.
they dont include housing, they dont include druids, bards or monks, all i see same stuffs,. there isnt Baba Yaga's Dancing Hut yet, not even a haunted mansion "Fun House" or ballroom ghost dancers. patches of nerfs after nerfs for nearly every patch updates, seem they are not done stopping the nerfs.
new race isnt that exciting.

callumf

Lockboxes haven't ever been that great. They did seem to have more variety in the past.

Ok I have opened maybe 400 lockboxes through VIP over the past few years.

NO legendary mount at all [Ok that seems fair enough, not moaning]

All in all maybe 12 Orange Items, 3 Profession Tools and 3 Enchanting Stones and probably 6 refining jewels...

I say they generally suck, and if a new player asks me about it I tell them not to bother. Sure some of the VIP benefits are useful and nice for QoL, but they aren't essential AT ALL.

ecrana

callumf#9018 said:

Ok I have opened maybe 400 lockboxes through VIP over the past few years.

NO legendary mount at all [Ok that seems fair enough, not moaning]

Considering the droprate for a lege mount, you still haven't even hit the average amount of lockboxes to have one drop.

And if you're not using the contents of lockboxes correctly, the value will suck for you.

Lockboxes have value when dealt with properly instead of "i didn't get a lege yet so lockboxes are a scam". Now, I wouldn't tell anyone to drop real world cash on keys for lockboxes.

But if you're basing the value of lockboxes off of the rarer items than yeah you're going to be disappointed. Especially if you're not opening large batches at a time.

callumf

ecrana#2080 said:

callumf#9018 said:

Ok I have opened maybe 400 lockboxes through VIP over the past few years.

NO legendary mount at all [Ok that seems fair enough, not moaning]

Considering the droprate for a lege mount, you still haven't even hit the average amount of lockboxes to have one drop.

And if you're not using the contents of lockboxes correctly, the value will suck for you.

Lockboxes have value when dealt with properly instead of "i didn't get a lege yet so lockboxes are a scam". Now, I wouldn't tell anyone to drop real world cash on keys for lockboxes.

But if you're basing the value of lockboxes off of the rarer items than yeah you're going to be disappointed. Especially if you're not opening large batches at a time.

I do use the contents "correctly" I think

They are still of very little value, or am I missing something when the vast majority of Lockbox Loot is Refining Gems - sure I could sell them for AD, but at a very small return?

By my calculations I reckon you can probably get 10k AD per day from Lockboxes on an average run. That isn't very much is it over a month - 300,000 AD?

Considering you can grind 100,000 per day that's three days grind.

Or really, am I Missing something? I don't want to sound contentious, I just don't see any real value in the current Lockbox drops.

planestrider

I think the whole "gambling" principle lacks one detail, which could be compared with Diablo 3: The "Pity Legendary" drop after a certain amount of loot drops without one. The interval is set high enough that usually, one gets the next much earlier, but one cannot ever remain the unlucky hamster who never gets orange loot.
Point is that D3 leggies are essential for the gameplay. NW legendary mounts are not essential, but important enough, and to grind for the AD and buy one is extremely tough, all the more due to the cap of RAD which can be refined per day.
Other than D3, NW asks for payment in order to get chances at legendary mounts from lockboxes. So there are two possibilities to avoid disappointment: Either add some sort of pity leggie, e.g. a save chance to get top notch loot from a box, or simply raise the chances of getting top notch loot plus adding more useful "trash loot". If I pay ZEN for what I can collect in one single RAQ run plus one Dread Ring dungeon, I'd rather to the latter since it's a win-win-situation for me: Save gain of RP, having fun besides, no loss of money, additional chance of decent loot from chests, plus AD which will some time allow me to buy the leggie mount I want.

fyrstigor

Ur wrong in 1 thing though. Legendaries are not important for anything in Neverwinter.

planestrider

They are - if "only" for the very feel of success and luck. That's not a small thing to dismiss when you're working on game mechanics, it's a core part of gaming. Nobody plays a game for ratio, but for the emotional reward. That's what motivates people to do anything in life.

Also, 140% mounted speed.

fyrstigor

planestrider#4331 said:

They are - if "only" for the very feel of success and luck. That's not a small thing to dismiss when you're working on game mechanics, it's a core part of gaming. Nobody plays a game for ratio, but for the emotional reward. That's what motivates people to do anything in life.

Also, 140% mounted speed.

U said they where important for playing the game. And thats just a lie. The movespeed is a QoL improvement. The stats are actives u can easy do without in all game content and still be top teir.

Legendaries are important for lockboxes cause u need this 1 thing worth so much for anyone to wanna buy the keys.

planestrider

Huh. I said they're essential in D3, not NW, yet "important enough", which I specified in my next posting. Whether legendary mounts are actually unimportant concerning stats, I cannot tell, since I have no experience in ever finding one. So I could simply believe what you say, but it would mean to discard the feedback of others, and I'm not gonna ignore either side. What I can say something about is what I wrote in my earlier postings. Whether a leggie mount is actually important or not is almost not relevant in this context, since it's about the payment model of the game and how to encourage or discourage players to use it.

ecrana

callumf#9018 said:

They are still of very little value, or am I missing something when the vast majority of Lockbox Loot is Refining Gems - sure I could sell them for AD, but at a very small return?

We may be having different experiences because I don't open the newer lockboxes. I still have a backlog of older lockboxes that I prefer to open because I prefer those contents. At least, for now. That will probably change in the near future with the newer boxes having higher rank items in them.

wylonus

what we wanted.
see my old post,

new concept.
Mount
Legendary
Epic
Legendary insignas
epic insignas

Companion
Legendary
Epic
"Greater Companion Pack" = 1 random rank 10 rune, 10 companion tokens, or 1 legendary gear (3 sockets).
Companion pack = 1 random rank 9 rune, 5 companion tokens, or 1 epic gear (2 sockets).

Gems and assorteds
random legendary gem
random epic gems (depends on value) 2 high value/5 lower epic value gems
* (new concept) consumeable 2-3 hours bonus RP, not usable during bonus weekend events, once it use, timer begins.
Genie's Gift * if needed.

at last, if the housing released.
1 random legendary statue/water fountian
1 random epic master furniture
1 looter token (allow you to choose a chair from Arcane Reservor as plunderable item) or loot any from dungeons that allows to be plunderable, all looted items will be bound to account, one per day allowed.

what devs did....
they put refine gems in all 3 randomized list
mounds/companions (extremely low chances)
gems (95% repeated prizes)

pack bundle
chances of companion tokens
augmenation cubes
gems (95% repeatable refine items)

refine (3rd random/almost at 97% gems repeated) in 4-6 times in a row, same stuffs

that all garbages to some players, they may not want to invest VIP anymore, since we can farm Undermountain and get about 250k a day.

we hadnt been seeing enough crafter packages, or unique crafting materials, remember dragon egg? that was something special until they trashed our supply of special materials for workshop and most players hated it.

2 years ago, we were happy to get crafter guys if they are purple or blue, and hard to get tool packages and so if we had enough 4's to make upgrades, now that all gone, replaced with poorly redesigned tool makeovers, just like they ripped our winter festival fishing rods and extremely dont like to redo all the upgradings from scratch again and again to make players so mad that we wanted to throw rotten tomatoes at devs.
these Lockboxes currently not worth spending and devs are looking in wrong avenue to make us players to spend that we are not happy with.
as other mentioned, those older lockboxes does have a better value, last 8 released boxes are terrible, most prefer pre-mod 11 boxes. those boxes are slowly harder to get once it runs out.