first i will note i am fluent in sarcasm, but the truth is more fun than making things up, and this made me think. after considered this for some time i get only 2 feelings _disgust and disappointment and a realization. this is truth here ,but can YOU see it?
1) yet 1 more wringing of the sponge to get every drop out - take less and be happy, as we only suggest, and how many times have we suggested to date has never influenced cryptic( well maybe what the cash cows and manipulating associated self interests exploiting constantly from preview). 2) more feeding from yet another approach to micro transactions praying on eye candy specials and less and less value in content and more and more exploitation on the community. less value will = less $$$ and less sales and yet more move on. rinse repeat.
as to the cabol and ah manipulating: its been going on for years and worse than ever look at the logs -repeat names- repeat mass listings, same names- buying every listing and inflating price. batieri for 3 mill, recent surge in price of better performing enchants/augments on preview bought out and re inflated week before it drops(last 3 mods the same trend). sure it doesnt happen ROFLMAO. i see it weekly and have actually seen it while i was browsing ah , but hey maybe the team missed it, or isnt looking,. buy keys rp it all to refine the high dollar item /sell the 1 in 1000 good drop cash in the no need to refine (ad cap whats that- none on sales instant ad ) so much looks like undervaluing and manipulation of product sold in good faith- yet again not what was purchased because its changed after sale...isnt that bait and switch/eye candy shuffle.
add value+ add desire. stop taking away and invest in your community and sales will continue, roll backs like the sponge being squeezed dry will only hasten the desert this game is headed for. almost dead for weeks till next mod..exploit opportunity...milk it and disappear for 3 months till the next frenzy starts. new players left hanging or cant keep up with the pace old vip feeling robbed and moving on.
add another shop with more currency to devalue and spread more obsolete items in it has 0 interest for me
add a reason to buy not more old content junk. add ad cost to used purposes by all players to sink the ad, not some devalued gamble(yes its also a lottery). use what we have thats long past a overhaul trade bars,not add something new to soon be just as worthless. show support to those that support you with meaningful vip rewards increased over time not paid to win, but special content / or seldom released item/ discounted sales 5-15% less than non vip( on current content ). bind it to account fine for the play not more price gouging ah sales. as a reward for supporting this ongoing sham of a f2p model. dont add more pay to win either but plz reward the players that support the game and risk their time,effort and support actually means something besides the $$$ or at the least add a new level of vip - Valued Customer!
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plasticbatMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 12,463Arc User
edited January 2020
Actually, what is the problem of AH?
Not enough buyer? Not enough seller? Price too high? Price too low? Not profitable to seller? Not reachable by buyer? Not enough to buy? Too much to sell?
Is it even something we really need to address? Or just a side show of one of the VIP features?
*** 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. ***
I don't see a problem with "automated" transactions involving a 3rd party (the ah), just like I don't see a problem with Amazon.com. If they're going to remove the 'no posting fee' perk from VIP, then I think they should remove the posting fee for everyone. The AH already takes 10% from items being sold.
I don't think they're are trying to solve any ingame economy issues with this idea, I think they are trying to solve the issue of unresponsive ah, by removing the ability for people to post and repost which at high enough volumes might act like an unintentional DoS attack of sorts.
That is not the result in NW. The result is in NW is, for the most part, like this:
Player 1 is a big time crafter. Crafts 1000's of items, has billions of AD (not an exaggeration). Player 2 is a small time crafter, wants to craft 1 or 2 items.
Player 2 posts an item, tries to undercut player 1, who is listing basically everything. Player 1 retaliates. The prices drop for a while, up to a point where it is no longer profitable to sell items and player 2 is selling at a loss (this is a reality). At this point, player 1 buys up player 2's item, relists both items for much higher and sells both for profit. Player 2 makes a loss, cannot continue crafting and quits crafting because of this. The real buyers (not the 2 fighting the AH war), then pay the inflated place of the monopoly (player 1).
That is the reality for the NW AH.
Removing no posting fee does not solve that situation. Player 1 can afford the posting fee for the sake of getting rid of Player 2. Player 2 cannot afford the posting fee to undercut the second time.
I saw that was done before VIP and I knew a person who were doing that as Player 1.
It creates a healthier economy, as more players will move towards manual trade rather than automated trade. Manual trade is slower to do, a complete pain if you are trying to trade items in bulk and difficult to monopolize.
I disagree that this will create a healthier economy only due to the reason that people will just not participate in the economy anymore. Manual trading is great for those that have the time and patience for it. Lets say that I am a player who plays daily but only plays for 30 minutes to an 1 each day. I log on, run whatever dailies i want to do and maybe a dungeon or trial and log off. On one of those random dungeons or maybe from a lockbox i get a pricey drop and i dont need it. As it is right now i can go ahead and sell the item on the auction house and get some sort of profit. To do this i have 3 options
1. undercut the lowest price by a lot - will most likely guarantee a quick sale but will give me much less than what the item is worth. 2. slightly undercut or match the lowest price - likely chance the item will be sold. profit is for the most part approximate of the item value based on supply. could possibly be undercut 3. post price above the lowest item - good for high rollover items but bad for low moving items. chance to sell but varies depending on item. will likely get full value for item if it sells.
Now if I do not have the "Posting Fee" to be able to do this the only thing i am able to do is a manual trade. Manual trading is a crapshoot at best if you are not fully engaged in the AH. you cant trade directly for AD, so you have to be constantly checking the prices of each item that is offered in return for yours. If i only have an hour to play i do not want to be spending that entire time sitting in PE spamming my trade offer and then being insulted by all the scam replies that come in before hopefully getting one that is actually of worth to what i am trading.
I personally think the Posting fee should be removed for the entirety of the population. Lets just take a look at Legendary mounts issue from earlier this week. I dont remember the actual posting fee % as i haven't worried about it in years and dont pay much attention to current prices but i think the fee was 10% and using the previous thread a 10k power legendary mount was ~12 million AD. so lets use the following example:
Jan 20th i pull a 10k power legendary mount list mount a the same matching price as current low on AH - 12 million non vip member - i lose 1.2 million ad up front. will be refunded if i sell Jan 21st new mod drops - 300-1000 new 10k power mounts hit the market 250 of those mounts get listed on AH 200 of those mounts undercut my current price 5 days later my mount doesn't sell
While there was no guarantee my mount was going to sell the chances were fairly high that it would have. No due to a bug in the game that was not fixed I just lost 1.2 million AD.
Posting fees or an all around bad thing in my opinion. At the start of the game they were mildly useful as it stopped very stupid original sky high prices but with so much AD in the economy right now it has no purpose.
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lordaeolosMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 167Arc User
Here I go breaking the formatting rules for my response!
The rate of free keys We currently grant a key a day, which is 30 a month. We want to preserve the value of VIP, so if lockbox odds are improved by 2x or even 3x, how would you view altering the rate of free keys to keep a similar value?
The cost for keys is not reflected by the average value obtained using them. If you look at Keys from a VIP perspective, then you are getting keys for a fraction of the Zen cost. The problem is of course, if you reduce the number of keys people can get per month you will have a rebellion on your hands. So over the course of time (partly due to VIP Keys) lockboxes have been gutted to the point of being insulting. The best bet here may actually by to lower the cost of buying lockbox keys Via normal means... if you look at the VIP cost, the vlaue from a lockbox is probably about right, but if you look at the cost to obtain keys from the Zen market, the average value doesn't even remotely come close to touching the cost sink.
Alternates to keys How would you feel about getting a currency with VIP that allowed you to get items other than keys from your daily login? Would you choose to get wards, enchanting stones, or other valuable items instead of keys if you had that option?
If going this route, then it should be a unified store with a unified currency... merge the Legacy store, Trade bars, Invoking, all into one place... Part of me feels that this is more of a solution looking for a problem type of suggestion
Current Benefits Which of the current benefits of VIP do you value and why?
What I value most: 1. Travel sign posts, bank access, mailbox, invoke anywhere! - These are massive QOL improvements, and should not go away. 2. No Auction posting fee. - I actually suggest taking this away... and at the same time remove the posting fee for everyone. 3. Injury Immunity - this just saves inventory space, and as a frequent user on the preview server, injuries are a real Pain in the Hamster... which bring me to another idea... Have VIP at the highest rank for anyone over in preview... it's free marketing, and it's silly it hasn't been done yet
Auction House Having one group able to list an item, de-list, and re-list again at no cost/penalty to undercut is not healthy for the Auction House and we’d like that to be a better experience for everyone. What are your thoughts in regard to this statement?
The Auction house is it's own problem, and deserves it's own CDP... saying the the de-list and re-list is not healthy is way to simplistic, and does not do justice to the root of the problem. In fact the Listing fee's won't hurt the "whales" at all.. it would be a control exercise that would only hurt the smaller guys.
"Don't ever become a pessimist... a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun, and neither can stop the march of events."
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darthpotaterMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,261Arc User
Big sellers undercut by 1 ad. So prizes doesnt go down because of this.
Posting fee is 2% so if you dont sell the item you lose 2%. For example you dont sell your legendary mount for 12M ad.... You lose 240K ad!!
If everyone has posting fees i bet you that items will be much cheaper because of the fear that is not sold.
Thats a fact, and everyone that played before vip know this.
Also, lots of items will have low initial prices because some people wont pay the fee, creating opportunities of buying cheap auctions, witch engage people to the game.
-no to changes - it has to stay 1/per day (right now the odds not worth the value of a key in 99/9% (far worse since u raised Zen/AD value) and changes to improve are 10 times slower than the market
Alternates to keys -due to the very, very small chance to get something good out of a lockbox this would be acceptable for me
Ranks - I dont care cause u be very fast maxed out and if u dont plan any higher than rank 12...so be it
Current Benefits -daily key...all other is a nice to have but makes no sense for me to buy vip without or less keys (without compensation)...reroll token is gamble as well and mostly the first would have been best choice...
Auction House -yes remove that feature Neverwinter should never have been a economic simulation game
But Im sure Im not the only guy which buy vip for the daily key only...if u lower that without compensation I wont buy anymore
First of, I have no idea for what is considered a good solution.
Personally I think like a system we have now with the seer Sybella Artis in PE with a shop and getting a number of points for a log in a day, depending of your VIP level, could work quite well. also doing VIP account wide like you did with AD refining, could be an nice addition. (if you really want you could give a small amount of bonus point for each extra character played for more then xx-time that day)
Some people suggested to have tiers in goodies, "relative cheap" for bound to character, "normal" for bound to account, "expensive" or instead with gambling as with the present lockboxes "free" or even "super expensive" like a unlock of an epic mount for your whole account.
For VIP levels, I am in doubt about how you can do that. Personally I like systems that reward loyalty, so your VIP improves with time you have VIP, (I am thinking in years of having VIP).
Also having the option, like we have now to pay with the AD/Zen in game is really great. But having a monthly subscription, more or less like there is in STO, sounds pretty good to me as an extra way to get VIP/Veteran
I think the lowest levels of VIP should have quite vast the option to unlock the famous travel post, mailbox, bank portal and a sales-NPC. Workshop, Guild banker, Guild coffer would also be awesome As in the rewards... I am thinking of stuff in a higher need/more expensive class than what Sybella is selling now. I am thinking of Wards, inventory slots, bank slots etc. (those could be char bound until your character is maxed out) also companion fashion (if they wear clothes, those should be at least be able to "change" according to guild/alliance colors, also saddle blankets or collars colors from mounts/companions could be an option).
And at last, I think the instant gratification, that the daily key and lockboxes give at this moment shouldn't be forgotten... I have no good idea for an alternative there... but a mix or combination with the Vault of Piety (Ardent Favor or Celestial Synergy) could be a good way.
(sorry for the messed up structure, translation errors, typing English words but still speaking an strange language... trying to bring vague ideas into letters ans still being understandable is quite hard)
Play for fun, Work to get rich, These two are not compatible!
Uhm, manual trade is actually easier to oligolopise (monopolised by a few person), because an oligopoly consists of those people who can hoard up the things by only able to farm it or having the wealth to buy it from others, but because they don't have to place up their offer, they can hide the price information and oversell for those players that they see as having more money to pay for it.
Placing the offers publicly on an auction house actually prevents the thing called discriminative monopoly, because even if the wealth and power inequality leads to monopoly, they can't price discriminatively for the individual buyer as with personal offers, you can check their gear to see how much the person invested in the game.
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plasticbatMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 12,463Arc User
While there was no guarantee my mount was going to sell the chances were fairly high that it would have. No due to a bug in the game that was not fixed I just lost 1.2 million AD.
The good news to you is you did not lose 1.2 million AD because posting fee is not 10%. Transaction fee is.
*** 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. ***
totally fictional example so i didn't lose anything and darth posted it was actually 2% but that would still be a 240k loss due to a random bug. posting fee needs to be gone
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thefabricantMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 5,248Arc User
Uhm, manual trade is actually easier to oligolopise (monopolised by a few person), because an oligopoly consists of those people who can hoard up the things by only able to farm it or having the wealth to buy it from others, but because they don't have to place up their offer, they can hide the price information and oversell for those players that they see as having more money to pay for it.
Placing the offers publicly on an auction house actually prevents the thing called discriminative monopoly, because even if the wealth and power inequality leads to monopoly, they can't price discriminatively for the individual buyer as with personal offers, you can check their gear to see how much the person invested in the game.
I am actually against the idea of having automated trade at all, but that is a topic for another thread and not that 1, or pms. I think there are some interesting arguments that can be made on both sides.
Uhm, manual trade is actually easier to oligolopise (monopolised by a few person), because an oligopoly consists of those people who can hoard up the things by only able to farm it or having the wealth to buy it from others, but because they don't have to place up their offer, they can hide the price information and oversell for those players that they see as having more money to pay for it.
Placing the offers publicly on an auction house actually prevents the thing called discriminative monopoly, because even if the wealth and power inequality leads to monopoly, they can't price discriminatively for the individual buyer as with personal offers, you can check their gear to see how much the person invested in the game.
I am actually against the idea of having automated trade at all, but that is a topic for another thread and not that 1. I think there are some interesting arguments that can be made on both sides.
Another funny thing is: AH is not a trade house. It is an Auction House except people are not doing auction anymore like before VIP no posting fee created.
People probably don't remember or even notice anymore, before VIP no posting fee, most people posted their minimum and people bid on it. The posting fee is based on the minimum and not the maximum. Nobody get up at 3am in the morning to do sniper bet anymore these days. I still remember I did that at 3am in the morning to get a stack of rank 4 Dark enchantment.
*** 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. ***
In the first phase of this CDP we would like you to think and comment about these questions:
The rate of free keys
We currently grant a key a day, which is 30 a month. We want to preserve the value of VIP, so if lockbox odds are improved by 2x or even 3x, how would you view altering the rate of free keys to keep a similar value?
Alternates to keys How would you feel about getting a currency with VIP that allowed you to get items other than keys from your daily login? Would you choose to get wards, enchanting stones, or other valuable items instead of keys if you had that option
10-15 Lockbox Keys per month – These would now be in the new VIP store and players could go all in on keys only to max out at 15, or could opt for fewer keys and more of the other rewards which gives players more flexibility in what VIP offers them.
Moderator removed heavily edited quote.
Feedback Overview
Increasing the rarity of keys and improving the rewards from lockboxes without burning your game to the ground in the process.
Feedback Goal
What this feedback aims to do is keeping the developers from shootingthemselvesintheircollectivefootsie.
Feedback Functionality
Making lockbox keys more valuable can have many pitfalls, but is not something without its benefits if approached from a curated point of view. There is a limit to the value that can be given to a lockbox as is, for adding too much value while keeping them just as accessible will cause the worth of what was added to them to just and simply, plummet.
Let us just put aside the options that are easy, and will just as easily act as death knells for this game. If you downright halve the amount of keys you give players, even if you double the value of the items you put in future lockboxes you will have a riot on your hands, this much I can assure you. And I am highly dubious of that we want a careless blunder of that magnitude.
There are other ways to get the same thing done, that will not involve so many voices calling for developer blood.
I'll simply cover the quickest to come to mind,
Increase the amount of lockbox keys needed,
Between halving the amount of keys given to players, and doubling the amount needed to open a lockbox, the second will rustle far, far fewer feathers. If you want to minimize fallout over this approach, and to keep players from feeling like keys are simply less valuable now, you can announce it as "Unique tier/Legendary tier Lockboxes with improved loot!" so players feel that they're investing additional keys on better chances, rather than just the value of keys having dropped.
Goes without saying, this requires you to actually make the loot of these lockboxes better, not just say that it is. Might seem a needlessly obvious point to make, but with this company's track record, many players will want it severely emphasized.
Add lockbox reward tiers,
Fairly similar to the previous point, simply make it so that users can decide how many keys to use per attempt in order to reach different prize pools.
Add a "Legendary" version of Lockbox keys to the Zen Market, that either improves your chances on Lockboxes, or is needed for a new set of lockboxes with better loot.
This for example would be a suitable option if you finally decided to give us those long awaited mythic mounts you are challenged to work on by the limitations of consoles, or want to think up some other versions of mythic-tier rewards, unique fashion options, changes to character design and animation, player housing, something long lasting that players are bound to find especial and worth getting excited about.
Risks & Concerns
The biggest risks here are that the developers ignore the many warnings given by me and many others in this thread and find their foot too tantalizing a target.
Increasing the amount of Lockbox keys needed,
This is the beginning of a slippery slope of poor decisions. It can be tempting to use it as a quick and easy way to increase rarity and value "And for the next mod, it will cost five lockbox keys to open one of our new shiny boxes!" which would lead to all sorts of problems and player disillusion, so easy as it may look it must not be done carelessly.
While there might be some discontent involved, those that don't like this direction can simply continue opening older lockboxes without feeling as if their keys were made any less valuable or they have been taken advantage of by having the benefits which they paid VIP for cut in half.
In the end it may be advisable to prepare two different lockboxes, one for the old tier and one for the new, which while wouldn't require too many changes between them, would increase the workload slightly.
Adding a legendary Lockbox key to the Zen Market and Legendary Lockboxes,
This game has already far too many currencies to worry about. Its user interface is as user-unfriendly as it can be without actively trying to attack us (which to its credit, some times actually manages to do rather successfully) and at places it feels as if it was designed by duct-taping two squirrels together back to back, and flinging them at our faces.
A new legendary lockbox and lockbox-key tier will unavoidably add to this, and mean a significantly added workload, for there will need to be significant differences between "Legendary lockboxes" and "Normal Lockboxes" for the former to not simply replace the latter.
For them to increase sales, instead of just shifting them away from normal lockboxes, some serious effort would have to go into them. Whether the developer team has the resources for that or not, is something I am not privy to.
Post edited by kreatyve on
The stars are falling, and the old gods silent as death, with the blood sworn to rip you down from the night sky, what cost will pose too high?
Feedback Overview Heavily dislike most of the ideas proposed as they lessen our value Feedback Goal to provide examples
- We currently grant a key a day, which is 30 a month. We want to preserve the value of VIP, so if lockbox odds are improved by 2x or even 3x, how would you view altering the rate of free keys to keep a similar value?
Reducing the amount of keys does nothing to keep a similar value. the current crop of lockboxes effectively have very little value. If you dont hit that legendary chance the value of lockbox is nil. The only thing you are getting out of the lockbox is a small amount of RP that is 10X less than what i would get from just playing the game that game that day. Reducing the amount of keys does nothing but take away from what little value we currently get. as stated by others going from a .17% chance to a .51% chance does nothing effectively for 99% of people. All this does is devalue the keys that we get from VIP and increase the value of keys bought from other sources.
-Alternates to keys. How would you feel about getting a currency with VIP that allowed you to get items other than keys from your daily login? Would you choose to get wards, enchanting stones, or other valuable items instead of keys if you had that option?
This sounds like an okay idea but it all depends on how it is implemented and what is available instead of the keys. I think a single key is worth 125 zen (been too long since i looked) and a coal ward is work 1000 zen. that means that instead of keys i should be able to get a coal ward for the equivalent of 8 keys. Anything more than 8 keys and it is a rip off and will not be used. also i am not sure how you decide on the price of things that are not Zen items that may be included.
-Ranks. How would you feel about the removal of ranks on VIP, granting full benefits of VIP 12 while active? What do you value about ranks?
This is a tough one. I hate to see things that i had to work for be given out for no effort to others which is what this would propose. while in the long run it doesn't affect me personally it is a perceived loss of value to me. The one thing that it would do is remove the need to buy more ranks of vip at the same time for new users. if you only need a single month to have all the benefits why buy more especially if you dont know yet if you will turn into a long time player.
-Current Benefits - Which of the current benefits of VIP do you value and why?
The quality of life things. Mailbox, Bank, Travel signpost. The keys are a nice add on but not an integral thing to why i continue to my vip. I would not be happy to see them removed though.
- Auction House. Having one group able to list an item, de-list, and re-list again at no cost/penalty to undercut is not healthy for the Auction House and we’d like that to be a better experience for everyone. What are your thoughts in regard to this statement?
Yes and no. This is not a problem due to vip. This is a problem with the AH entirely. the posting fee is one thing i think should be removed from VIP and applied to everyone. The reasons for it are no longer valid and only have a negative effect on the players.
Here is an example of how VIP could look. Note: this is just an example but it is here to help provide insight and context into some of our thoughts:
VIP Example
- Instead of directly getting reroll tokens, VIP would be given a VIP currency and would have a store. The contents of this store would adjust over time but would likely start with things such as Preservation Wards, Enchanting Stones, Companion Upgrade Tokens, and yes Reroll Tokens.
no. we do not need another store. instead of affecting reroll tokens update the Tradebar store and have items be available for both tradebars and reroll tokens. This allows those people who run constant dungeons to keep what they have going and those who do not be able to use them in another way. taking them away only force us into rebuying them just adds another bureaucratic layer to our daily sessions.
- 10-15 Lockbox Keys per month – These would now be in the new VIP store and players could go all in on keys only to max out at 15, or could opt for fewer keys and more of the other rewards which gives players more flexibility in what VIP offers them. - Increased odd chances on items in Lockboxes moving forward.
as stated above reducing the keys obtained only devalues the keys we get from vip and increase the values of keys obtained elsewhere. Increasing the lockbox odds is a good thing and should be done regardless. the odds right now are really bad.
- A higher cap on refined AD per day for VIP, 15% more for a cap of 115,000
personally i like this idea but wonder on the long term application. the AD cap was change recently due to the amount AD going into the system and now you want to artificially increase it again?
- Ability for VIP to change loadouts away from campfires
would be a good boon for those who use them
- Increased health gain from VIP – grants every member of your group 1% of their base HP as additional Max HP. Maximum 5% with a full group of VIP.
you're wrong about needing 2 keys to open a lockbox not inciting a riot. we aren't stupid.
Post edited by kreatyve on
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plasticbatMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 12,463Arc User
edited January 2020
Reducing the amount of keys certainly will not give better value even if the chance of grand prize is higher. I use the term "grand prize" because the best item may not be legendary mount in the future and may not exist in the old lockbox.
Reasons: To increase the chance of the "grand prize", that means adjusting loot table. Which loot table? I take that as the future lockbox. Not the current lockbox and not the historic lock box. Well, I don't even open current lockbox (if I open lock box). That means reducing keys lead to less stuff I get from historic lockbox and I keep stacks of every lockbox since mod 3. Cryptic is not going back to re-do all the loot table of all the old lockbox. What was the grand prize of the lockbox from (say) mod 4? There was no Legendary mount.
The value of other stuff in lockbox is not nothing. It is something. Reducing keys means I have less of those "something".
I am not a dreamer of getting Legendary mount. If I can get one, good but as I said I am not a dreamer. When I open the old lockbox, I would be farming for certain particular middle tier items of that lockbox. Less keys means less chance as simple as that.
*** 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. ***
I am about up to page 3 currently and i would imagine some of the devs are further in than me. Listening and thinking before jumping in on comments and ideas.
With this in mind though I wanted to give my thoughts as a new but lvl 80 player at 22k item level (for context).
For me I only care about VIP for keys or rather the chance at getting cool items from the lock box (which generally i give away). I am sure there are plenty more reasons to be excited about VIP but for whatever reason I just haven't learnt to the other benefits of the system yet. This is partly because of poor discover ability and teaching (accessibility) around these benefits and also because I am still learning some other key aspects of the game that they relate to.
Personally I would like an option: something like the choice of a daily key or a currency (coin used to buy fixed priced items from not just the current lock box but ones before it as well as cosmetics and other personality items). That way if there is something i really want I can work toward it and when i am in the mood i can buy keys for fun. This coupled with lowering of odds would be great for me that is.
However it isn't about 'me' it is about the community and the world/experience moving forward. I just wanted to share my thoughts as a player. Personally I would like a 'Forge' as well where as a VIP member i could spend currency on backlog/roadmap items that I would like to see be moved up in priority I have other thoughts but this one will do for now.
Also don't forget the example is an example it is there to simply to provide some context into what we have been discussing. It isn't a statement of intent. As per the accessibility CDP we will discuss, list our top three favorite ideas and go from there.
Transparency is a double edged sword as it will be still be tainted and fairly say in regard to legacy actions and emotions around the game. Frankly i am happy to take that more painful edge because I know over time our intent for true collaboration will win through. We don't expect trust, but please don't thing that this CDP exercise is about winning back any trust that was or wasn't there in the past, it is instead about moving forward, pioneering, and a shared journey. Trust is something that is earned, our intent is clear, only delivery on intent will earn trust. But as I have said before not everyone is going to like the journey and it isn't going easy but it is an endeavor that is worthwhile.
Chris
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kreatyveMember, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 10,545Community Moderator
I am about up to page 3 currently and i would imagine some of the devs are further in than me. Listening and thinking before jumping in on comments and ideas.
With this in mind though I wanted to give my thoughts as a new but lvl 80 player at 22k item level (for context).
For me I only care about VIP for keys or rather the chance at getting cool items from the lock box (which generally i give away). I am sure there are plenty more reasons to be excited about VIP but for whatever reason I just haven't learnt to the other benefits of the system yet. This is partly because of poor discover ability and teaching (accessibility) around these benefits and also because I am still learning some other key aspects of the game that they relate to.
Personally I would like an option: something like the choice of a daily key or a currency (coin used to buy fixed priced items from not just the current lock box but ones before it as well as cosmetics and other personality items). That way if there is something i really want I can work toward it and when i am in the mood i can buy keys for fun. This coupled with lowering of odds would be great for me that is.
However it isn't about 'me' it is about the community and the world/experience moving forward. I just wanted to share my thoughts as a player. Personally I would like a 'Forge' as well where as a VIP member i could spend currency on backlog/roadmap items that I would like to see be moved up in priority I have other thoughts but this one will do for now.
Also don't forget the example is an example it is there to simply to provide some context into what we have been discussing. It isn't a statement of intent. As per the accessibility CDP we will discuss, list our top three favorite ideas and go from there.
Transparency is a double edged sword as it will be still be tainted and fairly say in regard to legacy actions and emotions around the game. Frankly i am happy to take that more painful edge because I know over time our intent for true collaboration will win through. We don't expect trust, but please don't thing that this CDP exercise is about winning back any trust that was or wasn't there in the past, it is instead about moving forward, pioneering, and a shared journey. Trust is something that is earned, our intent is clear, only delivery on intent will earn trust. But as I have said before not everyone is going to like the journey and it isn't going easy but it is an endeavor that is worthwhile.
Chris
If it were possible to choose between the key (every day!) or a currency to a special "VIP" store, I think that would go over better with the player base, than to remove daily keys in favor of a currency.
Personally, besides the key, having the signpost, vendor, seal vendor, and bank are all the best perks of VIP. Also the ability to invoke anywhere without having to carry a stack of Portal Altars is helpful too.
My opinions are my own. I do not work for PWE or Cryptic. - Forum Rules - Protector's Enclave Discord - I play on Xbox Any of my comments not posted in orange are based on my own personal opinion and not official. Any messages written in orange are official moderation messages. Signature images are now fixed!
ok, starting over. the only thing that ISN"T important to me about vip is moonstone mask access. I would like to be able to redirect the instant travel to where ever it is I most want to go. for me rn it would probably be yawning. but if someone else wants to go to moonstone mask they can assign it there! awesome. it's instant travel to order.
as a general rule though, vip is a sacred cow to many of us. we paid for it. we paid for a particular service and getting to rank 12 was not initially easy. many of us remember the struggle. devaluing it any way would anger a good portion of the player base GREATLY. (and that means changing the things we already have been sold, giving us more on top of that is never a problem)
oh the health potions are also not important. More rerolls less health potions. ta. (been pointed out some people like these so yeah, TOUCH NOTHING)
the daily key is something I personally really look forward to. I would like it if I didn't have to expressly claim it though if I have logged in. and I would like the rewards on all my toons if I log in with one. if I have to take a trip it would be nice to get a couple periods of time a year where the key would claim itself if I claimed vacation time or whatever.
the daily key I can guarantee has brought some players back from not coming back. many log in for their daily key even if they're not playing. this gives an opportunity for them to get sucked back in. (it's brought me back a couple times so I am at least one example and I'm pretty sure i'm not the only one)
there are a number of threads in the forums over the years of things we'd like changed in vip.
I do not want another currency but if you want to add one then please make it on top of what we have now. Please do not change anything about what we have now with the exception of maybe getting rid of the exclusivity of the posting fee and just letting everyone have it or moving it to R1.
Make Vip Ranks easier to get, cheaper to get whatever, but don't mess with what is there. we paid for it. we value it. we consider it a breach of contract to be lessened from what it is already. (i'm using we here.. some will disagree.. but many won't. )
as a general rule I'd rather vip was just mostly left alone. it's not broken. don't fix it unless you want to add some cool features in.
if you want to add a different pay service that is cash only great. I'd probably support it if it was separate from vip and worthwhile and offered things that vip did not offer. (if you offered gate way I'd be like shut up and take my money) another thing that i know people would pay decently for is a way to move their toon between console and pc. before I figured out my dexterity was just not good enough for pc I'd have paid a decent sum to move my toon (even binding everything to account because different economy) cross play with everything bound to you except for the platform you are on as home base would also be worth paying for. even if i'm fat fingered it would be awesome to have my fully decked out toon on the preview servers.
I've been in game since june 2015. I do believe in supporting my entertainment. but it's got to have some value in order to do that. in the last year this game has been more on the side of aggravation than value to my life. it feels like a bad marriage at times. lol.
a store for vip like others have said should just be a revamped trade bar store. people who buy keys straight out are in the same camp as people paying for vip. it's all the same club.
we want to give you our money but there has been a lack of new worthwhile content over the last couple years. we get the packs but that's about all we see of new purchasable content. I'd also like to see more things retired. and new things added. collectibles are a fun thing to mess with in a game as well as the I've been here since such and such badge of honor of having things that are unavailable in game.
I'd much rather the focus was on things that mattered and are broken. Bugs, classes that don't feel good. actual playable content. keeping the players engaged...none of this (changes to vip) matters if the content isn't there to keep us entertained.
if you as a newer player are having a hard time understanding the functionality of vip it's something that should be part of the tutorials. The QOL of vip is invaluable for long term players of this game. I remember ebon downs. 10 minutes across the map one way. get lost a few times. WTH is the exit? how do I get there. why is my mount so slow.. dang they're shooting at me, what mount. now i have to walk. HAMSTER I'm dead.. now where am i? this made me pay some cash for the travel post. I was like OMG this is awesome. I've recommended vip to new players over the years MANY Times. the key (if the lockboxes weren't pooh) is a good way for them to make some ad as well.
Vip is working fine. if you want examples of the negatives of changing something like this, search the forums for coal gate. ..there were others but I don't recall them. but coal gate in particular.
Post edited by thefiresidecat on
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plasticbatMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 12,463Arc User
edited January 2020
I just want to point out, for me, one of the important VIP feature to me (may be just me) is fast access to moonstone mask. Moonstone mask is where my characters park. The moonstone mask instance is fast to load (in PC anyway). And, its portal mechanism is faster than sigpost portal, only 2 clicks, no need to wait for sigpost to come up, to 'F' it, to choose where to go, etc. If it needs to improve, it would be getting rid of the animation. It looks cool seeing it but seeing and more importantly waiting for it 20 times per day is too much. But, it does help for cancelling the teleport if it was a mistake. So, please cut the animation time to half.
Health potion is also important to me. That is what all my characters carry. They don't use health stone. I still have all the free health stones and I don't need to use them. Health potion is good enough for most situation (for me) if I have to use it. The extra health potion are sold for gold which is also important to me. It is one of the biggest source of the easy gold for me.
Hence, please don't take them away.
*** 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. ***
I just want to point out, for me, one of the important VIP feature to me (may be just me) is fast access to moonstone mask. Moonstone mask is where my characters park. The moonstone mask instance is fast to load (in PC anyway). And, its portal mechanism is faster than sigpost portal, only 2 clicks, no need to wait for sigpost to come up, to 'F' it, to choose where to go, etc.
Health potion is also important to me. That is what all my characters carry. They don't use health stone. I still have all the free health stones and I don't need to use them. Health potion is good enough for most situation (for me) if I have to use it. The extra health potion are sold for gold which is also important to me. It is one of the biggest source of the easy gold for me.
Hence, please don't take them away.
I did suggest no health potions, but yeah whatever keep it all the same. DON"T TOUCH ANYTHING..
but what I was trying to say with moonstone mask was make it a directable target. let me assign the target. if for you it's moonstone sweet, you assign it to moonstone. for me for this mod it's yawning. I assign it there. bing we're all happy.
The chances of the lock box best items is and has always been too low. Now you want to stop a key a day ?. No wonder you loose players. After a 2 year break I come back to massive changes. No salvage. Old gear into refine points. No daily dungeon key. And now you want to take the daily key away?. I played this game for a long time and the only legendary mount I have is the Tesla I brought at Christmas after years of playing and not one. The ah still being manipulated and controlled to keep prices high. You should give players more not less, most of us are collectors so some saying getting a legendary mount easier is bad for te game how ?. You mean you have some and dont wont the prices to drop. These changes are making the people I game with consider staying. I came back because of my friends and it is a good game but the changes are for profit nothing else.
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plasticbatMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 12,463Arc User
The chances of the lock box best items is and has always been too low. Now you want to stop a key a day ?. No wonder you loose players. After a 2 year break I come back to massive changes. No salvage. Old gear into refine points. No daily dungeon key. And now you want to take the daily key away?. I played this game for a long time and the only legendary mount I have is the Tesla I brought at Christmas after years of playing and not one. The ah still being manipulated and controlled to keep prices high. You should give players more not less, most of us are collectors so some saying getting a legendary mount easier is bad for te game how ?. You mean you have some and dont wont the prices to drop. These changes are making the people I game with consider staying. I came back because of my friends and it is a good game but the changes are for profit nothing else.
I just want to point out replacing daily dungeon key with re-roll token is a good thing in general. You don't need to use the daily dungeon key to open the chest. You just open it. (Don't be confused with another locked chest which needs a different key before this change and after. That was not changed.) In other words, you did not lose opening the same chest.
You were limited to open that chest by the number of keys. Before, if you had 5 keys, you could only open 5 chests. Now, you can open them when you see the chest. In other words, you are allowed to open more chest than before.
In addition, what you gain is to use the re-roll token to change the outcome of the chest.
*** 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. ***
I am about up to page 3 currently and i would imagine some of the devs are further in than me. Listening and thinking before jumping in on comments and ideas.
With this in mind though I wanted to give my thoughts as a new but lvl 80 player at 22k item level (for context).
For me I only care about VIP for keys or rather the chance at getting cool items from the lock box (which generally i give away). I am sure there are plenty more reasons to be excited about VIP but for whatever reason I just haven't learnt to the other benefits of the system yet. This is partly because of poor discover ability and teaching (accessibility) around these benefits and also because I am still learning some other key aspects of the game that they relate to.
Personally I would like an option: something like the choice of a daily key or a currency (coin used to buy fixed priced items from not just the current lock box but ones before it as well as cosmetics and other personality items). That way if there is something i really want I can work toward it and when i am in the mood i can buy keys for fun. This coupled with lowering of odds would be great for me that is.
However it isn't about 'me' it is about the community and the world/experience moving forward. I just wanted to share my thoughts as a player. Personally I would like a 'Forge' as well where as a VIP member i could spend currency on backlog/roadmap items that I would like to see be moved up in priority I have other thoughts but this one will do for now.
Also don't forget the example is an example it is there to simply to provide some context into what we have been discussing. It isn't a statement of intent. As per the accessibility CDP we will discuss, list our top three favorite ideas and go from there.
Transparency is a double edged sword as it will be still be tainted and fairly say in regard to legacy actions and emotions around the game. Frankly i am happy to take that more painful edge because I know over time our intent for true collaboration will win through. We don't expect trust, but please don't thing that this CDP exercise is about winning back any trust that was or wasn't there in the past, it is instead about moving forward, pioneering, and a shared journey. Trust is something that is earned, our intent is clear, only delivery on intent will earn trust. But as I have said before not everyone is going to like the journey and it isn't going easy but it is an endeavor that is worthwhile.
Chris
Transparency is relative to how easily can be seen or understood. If the CDP says that they want to give us half of the keys, but internally increase the chances of the lockboxes to a double, the part that everyone will understand and see how you halved the amount of keys and then, if they have the trust or someone rigorously tests in on preview or on live, they can get a data of the internal changes. I'd personally prefer and valuewise the upgraded chances will reduce the variance, so it gives a better average with less keys used, which is good for most of the players.
But, I was already expected to believe in something that I cannot directly observe and have the knowledge to understand how it affects me positively. And also, some people just like opening lockboxes and get something good, so even if it's calculatively good, it just feels less good.
I don't think there is any bad reason or malice in this, I just think that the person who came up with idea not really checked how it looks from the other side of the table. And my personal tinfoil hat theory is: The decision was to fix the lockboxes and keys, but affected VIP as well, so the VIP got changed to fit into it. But the VIP got featured before the rewards, so it got explained before the wider changes, which made that it started the discussion featuring the "side effects" before the main thing can be seen.
What I'm trying to say that public relation is important and I don't think that raw bulletpoints will get the ideas precisely through, at least not on a community level. And if it cannot be simply understand, people will jump into their own conclusions. And some people will just do it regardless.
I personally do not like lockboxes. I would pick currency every single time over keys. If i could have 10 preservation wards every day i would be delighted. I am on board with VIP not having tiers, same benefits for all.
I would like a VIP perk of swapping enchantments without a gold cost. I have two paragons on my Cleric, one for dealing damage and one for healing. Everytime someone messages me and says "hey can you heal for us?" I have to unequip my enchantments and place them into my healer gear which makes me feel bad because it costs gold. I don't like feeling bad every time i change roles, I actually dread switching loadouts because of it. Maybe the enchants could be part of the loadouts?
Regarding the example, in short, that's just taking out value and making vip very pay2win. As a guy with over 300days left of vip i obviously don't want to see it devalued.
All ideas regarding getting less stuff for it are bad, people that currently have vip will be turned off.
Increasing rad cap makes it feel very pay to win. Changing loadout away from campfires is a craaaazy advantage. Increasing chances at lockbox rewards? Guys ! Come on !
Getting full benefits on day1 of vip ? Personally i think it's a great incentive for people to buy it, AS LONG AS VALUE STAYS THE SAME AS NOW, OR GETS BETTER.
And adding back the posting fee is just a generally bad idea, increase AH cut, add more ad sinks, make transmutes more expensive (i remember when transmuting got higher than 25k per item), just dont add the ah posting fee, people will just sit on the items and refuse to sell, and for more expensive things people will just start trading, avoiding the auction house.
I do not like lockboxes either. The only value they have had for me, personally, is: they paid for VIP. By that, paying for NW became a choice. I can pay as much as I want and as much as I can afford, but I don't have to, and still have access to: the slight RNG happiness every once in a while (or a year) of getting something slighty better than usual (happy Jules) and the most important goodies as people have already stated: Travelpost and so on and forth. I am not masochistic. I do not open ancient lockboxes for their small droprates on mounts. I open ancient lockboxes because they are the only ones with a realistic output even in times of 1:750. If I ever got a leg mount, I would have enjoyed it a lot. But to get twice the droprate of a HAMSTER droprate and for that getting half of the keys? No thanks. Keep the RP.
And as @thefiresidecat pointed out, we have a VIP currency. There are reasons to nobody is really using it except for deepcrow hatchlings and to play the market.
Here is my Auction House posting fee anecdote: Back before I could afford Rank 12 VIP, I actually did manage to pull down a legendary pack from one of the lockboxes. But it was so expensive, and I was so poor, I could not even afford to post the item for sale, I could not afford just the listing fee. So I had no choice but to resort to "manual trade" as Sharp put it. And it was very frustrating. The whole process is very time consuming, because you have to spam PE chat or trade channels to try to sell your item, sometimes for hours at a time, and some people don't have hours and hours to do that sort of thing. If I only have an hour or two to play in a day, I want to run some dungeons, not sit around and try to negotiate with strangers who may or may not be trying to scam me. I had to deal with obvious scammers proposing ridiculously low-ball offers. I had to trust that the AH prices for items offered in trade were reliable, in order to judge if a proposed trade was equitable, and that the AH prices were not being manipulated by scammers. That orange pack started to look more like a burden than a blessing. Eventually I did trade it for some pretty good enchants (at least I thought it was a good trade deal). One of them was a Rank 12 Negation which I'm still using today (still Rank 12), so I at least got a lot of value out of it. But the process of selling it was a real drain. If I had to do that for every item I wanted to sell that was of even moderately high value today, I think I would tear my hair out.
Based on my experience, if I could have afforded the listing fee, I would have totally sold it on the auction house, even with the 10% cut from the AH sale, because it would have been worth avoiding all of the hassle of trying to sell it manually.
The billionaires will be able to afford any listing fee. It won't hurt them at all. It's the little guys who are screwed by the listing fee.
Feedback Overview The rate of free keys I'm 100% against decreasing the amount of keys. This feels like nothing more than a swindling being hidden behind salesmans lingo. • Right now you get 1 key/day and have 1 in 100 chance to get something good. • How about instead you get 1 key/10 days and have a 1 in 50 chance to get something good. Let me also add something that many here may agree with. You want to PRESERVE the value of VIP? If you 2x or 3x the drop rates of lockbox, you would only be doing what many people have been asking for years to see happen. That was to actually add value to the keys.
Now you want to talk about "well we can increase the drop rate but we'll probably have to take your keys to keep it fair". Snake. Oil. Got a bridge you want to sell me too?
Alternates to keys If my option is between keys (1 of the primary reasons I have VIP) or a currency to buy things I can get through many other avenues, I'm going to go with leave my keys alone.
If you want to ADD a currency and create a VIP store while leaving my daily key/current benefits alone, please continue with your thought ptocess. But I don't see any true value in adding ANOTHER currency and ANOTHER store to the game.
Ranks 100% against the removal of ranks, as someone that has had VIP for years. I enjoy the ranked system and as others have stated, I don't feel like some day 1 player should have access to all the vip goodies I have with just one payment. I mean call it what you want but you're basically trying to push a subscription model here. I would like more ranks if anything not an elimination.
I could even get behind a restructured ranking so newer players get access to more of the options (move signpost to rank 1, increase ad refinement at rank 2, etc) to entice newer players to buy in. But I like ranks and feel like they have a purpose and that is to differentiate your strongest supporters from the guy that comes in, pays for 2 months, then leaves. Anyone who doesn't see a value in rewarding loyalty is blind to the fact that this game needs vets to stay around just as much as it needs new blood.
Current Benefits Current valued benefits would be (in no particular order): • Reroll tokens.....because I paid for them and like rerolling chests since the rewards are usually garbage and I have to reroll in the hopes of getting something of value. I also run on many toons and this is a per character benefit. If it became a 1/per account benefit I would probably play a whole lot less, spend less, and support less. • Daily key because I like the chance at something from a lockbox and it's one of the few VIP perks with value • Moonstone Mask teleport because I leave my toons there • Team buff because who doesn't like extra HP (i like how in your example you listed extra hp % when it's already a current benefit which begs the question, do you know what VIP currently offers or are you trying to bamboozle us again?) • Signpost because if you ever took away my fast travel I would hunt you down...over the course of time since I would have to walk there...very slowly....ok forget it I would just be very angry • Invoke anywhere because needing a campfire to invoke is a nuisance • Summon mailbox & Summon bank because access to those at a moments notice is mandatory versus having to port somewhere to find one • Salvage anvil....oh wait you guys already stole that one from us ages ago and replaced it with nothing of value • Injury immunity because injuries are annoying and I paid for it • NO posting fees because I post things on the AH and don't feel like I should be charged to post it and sell it • Reduced Wondrous Bazaar costs because I paid for the discount and who doesn't want cheaper goodies
Hmmmm it's almost like I value pretty much everything I paid for. Imagine that? If I hadn't valued it, I wouldn't have paid for it.
New Benefits Stones, Wards, Health Stones 50% of coupon after a period of time Increased seals OR weekly seal limit expanded I like the idea someone had about transmutes Loadout swapping anywhere outside combat Reduced costs on profession tasks (this used to be a thing and no longer is with the workshop redo, another thing taken with no notice) Companion training cost reduction (this used to be a thing too and both were 25% reductions at VIP 12) Increased AD refinement cap. Nothing major and maybe a modest increase every few ranks. SH Coffer/Vendor/Bank Summon because it's painfully slow to load in to the SH
I'm on the fence about the currency idea but I have to be honest, that sounds like the Vault of Piety which hasn't been updated in god knows how long. So I'm thinking this restructuring is to also take the Vault away, mess with invoking benefits, and pitch it all to us in VIP as opposed to separate systems. I don't like that one bit if that's the case because it's like we're being bamboozled while you dangle this carrot in our face.
Auction House I don't see any issue with undercutting. You know who wins in an undercutting war? The buyer.
Yet again, I feel like you're trying to pitch one of the VIP perks in a negative light when the truth is you probably don't like that it's not as much of an AD sink as you want it be. So at least show the transparency you speak of and tell us "We want to remove the AH listing fee reduction because we need more AD sinks" instead of dancing around it using undercutters as some evil villain.
Feedback Goal The goal of my feedback is to provide some positive (and negative) input while also showing that over the years the value of VIP has slowly been diminished. So when the new guy shows up and says "how would you feel if i took some of the stuff you paid for to improve it's value"...well CW, it's already been diminished so how about you just give us the perks part and leave out the further reductions of our benefits.
Feedback Functionality It should work pretty well in the current design of NW considering I'm opting for adding benefits and restructuring ranks instead of redoing VIP from top to bottom.
Risks & Concerns I see this all the time across many industries. Someone comes in and wants to put their stamp on something. Sometimes it's good. Sometimes it's bad. But at the end of the day, I would say to Chris, "don't throw the baby out with the bathwater".
VIP needs a polishing. An update. Not a complete redo.
You're risking alienating even more vet players. This is not directed at you specifically but, overall, you guys can't afford to continue to anger your players with every system redesign. Trust has been lost in the team. The way to rebuild trust is through addition not subtraction.
Comments
1) yet 1 more wringing of the sponge to get every drop out - take less and be happy, as we only suggest, and how many times have we suggested to date has never influenced cryptic( well maybe what the cash cows and manipulating associated self interests exploiting constantly from preview).
2) more feeding from yet another approach to micro transactions praying on eye candy specials and less and less value in content and more and more exploitation on the community.
less value will = less $$$ and less sales and yet more move on. rinse repeat.
as to the cabol and ah manipulating: its been going on for years and worse than ever look at the logs -repeat names- repeat mass listings, same names- buying every listing and inflating price. batieri for 3 mill, recent surge in price of better performing enchants/augments on preview bought out and re inflated week before it drops(last 3 mods the same trend). sure it doesnt happen ROFLMAO. i see it weekly and have actually seen it while i was browsing ah , but hey maybe the team missed it, or isnt looking,. buy keys rp it all to refine the high dollar item /sell the 1 in 1000 good drop cash in the no need to refine (ad cap whats that- none on sales instant ad ) so much looks like undervaluing and manipulation of product sold in good faith- yet again not what was purchased because its changed after sale...isnt that bait and switch/eye candy shuffle.
add value+ add desire. stop taking away and invest in your community and sales will continue, roll backs like the sponge being squeezed dry will only hasten the desert this game is headed for. almost dead for weeks till next mod..exploit opportunity...milk it and disappear for 3 months till the next frenzy starts. new players left hanging or cant keep up with the pace old vip feeling robbed and moving on.
add another shop with more currency to devalue and spread more obsolete items in it has 0 interest for me
add a reason to buy not more old content junk. add ad cost to used purposes by all players to sink the ad, not some devalued gamble(yes its also a lottery). use what we have thats long past a overhaul trade bars,not add something new to soon be just as worthless. show support to those that support you with meaningful vip rewards increased over time not paid to win, but special content / or seldom released item/ discounted sales 5-15% less than non vip( on current content ). bind it to account fine for the play not more price gouging ah sales. as a reward for supporting this ongoing sham of a f2p model. dont add more pay to win either but plz reward the players that support the game and risk their time,effort and support actually means something besides the $$$ or at the least add a new level of vip - Valued Customer!
Not enough buyer? Not enough seller?
Price too high? Price too low?
Not profitable to seller? Not reachable by buyer?
Not enough to buy? Too much to sell?
Is it even something we really need to address? Or just a side show of one of the VIP features?
I don't think they're are trying to solve any ingame economy issues with this idea, I think they are trying to solve the issue of unresponsive ah, by removing the ability for people to post and repost which at high enough volumes might act like an unintentional DoS attack of sorts.
1. undercut the lowest price by a lot - will most likely guarantee a quick sale but will give me much less than what the item is worth.
2. slightly undercut or match the lowest price - likely chance the item will be sold. profit is for the most part approximate of the item value based on supply. could possibly be undercut
3. post price above the lowest item - good for high rollover items but bad for low moving items. chance to sell but varies depending on item. will likely get full value for item if it sells.
Now if I do not have the "Posting Fee" to be able to do this the only thing i am able to do is a manual trade. Manual trading is a crapshoot at best if you are not fully engaged in the AH. you cant trade directly for AD, so you have to be constantly checking the prices of each item that is offered in return for yours. If i only have an hour to play i do not want to be spending that entire time sitting in PE spamming my trade offer and then being insulted by all the scam replies that come in before hopefully getting one that is actually of worth to what i am trading.
I personally think the Posting fee should be removed for the entirety of the population. Lets just take a look at Legendary mounts issue from earlier this week. I dont remember the actual posting fee % as i haven't worried about it in years and dont pay much attention to current prices but i think the fee was 10% and using the previous thread a 10k power legendary mount was ~12 million AD. so lets use the following example:
Jan 20th i pull a 10k power legendary mount
list mount a the same matching price as current low on AH - 12 million
non vip member - i lose 1.2 million ad up front. will be refunded if i sell
Jan 21st new mod drops - 300-1000 new 10k power mounts hit the market
250 of those mounts get listed on AH
200 of those mounts undercut my current price
5 days later my mount doesn't sell
While there was no guarantee my mount was going to sell the chances were fairly high that it would have. No due to a bug in the game that was not fixed I just lost 1.2 million AD.
Posting fees or an all around bad thing in my opinion. At the start of the game they were mildly useful as it stopped very stupid original sky high prices but with so much AD in the economy right now it has no purpose.
The problem is of course, if you reduce the number of keys people can get per month you will have a rebellion on your hands. So over the course of time (partly due to VIP Keys) lockboxes have been gutted to the point of being insulting.
The best bet here may actually by to lower the cost of buying lockbox keys Via normal means... if you look at the VIP cost, the vlaue from a lockbox is probably about right, but if you look at the cost to obtain keys from the Zen market, the average value doesn't even remotely come close to touching the cost sink. If going this route, then it should be a unified store with a unified currency... merge the Legacy store, Trade bars, Invoking, all into one place... Part of me feels that this is more of a solution looking for a problem type of suggestion
No need to remove ranks, they just need to be better streamlined
What I value most:
1. Travel sign posts, bank access, mailbox, invoke anywhere!
- These are massive QOL improvements, and should not go away.
2. No Auction posting fee.
- I actually suggest taking this away... and at the same time remove the posting fee for everyone.
3. Injury Immunity
- this just saves inventory space, and as a frequent user on the preview server, injuries are a real Pain in the Hamster... which bring me to another idea... Have VIP at the highest rank for anyone over in preview... it's free marketing, and it's silly it hasn't been done yet
The Auction house is it's own problem, and deserves it's own CDP... saying the the de-list and re-list is not healthy is way to simplistic, and does not do justice to the root of the problem. In fact the Listing fee's won't hurt the "whales" at all.. it would be a control exercise that would only hurt the smaller guys.
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Posting fee is 2% so if you dont sell the item you lose 2%. For example you dont sell your legendary mount for 12M ad.... You lose 240K ad!!
If everyone has posting fees i bet you that items will be much cheaper because of the fear that is not sold.
Thats a fact, and everyone that played before vip know this.
Also, lots of items will have low initial prices because some people wont pay the fee, creating opportunities of buying cheap auctions, witch engage people to the game.
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-no to changes - it has to stay 1/per day (right now the odds not worth the value of a key in 99/9% (far worse since u raised Zen/AD value) and changes to improve are 10 times slower than the market
Alternates to keys
-due to the very, very small chance to get something good out of a lockbox this would be acceptable for me
Ranks
- I dont care cause u be very fast maxed out and if u dont plan any higher than rank 12...so be it
Current Benefits
-daily key...all other is a nice to have but makes no sense for me to buy vip without or less keys (without compensation)...reroll token is gamble as well and mostly the first would have been best choice...
Auction House
-yes remove that feature Neverwinter should never have been a economic simulation game
But Im sure Im not the only guy which buy vip for the daily key only...if u lower that without compensation I wont buy anymore
Personally I think like a system we have now with the seer Sybella Artis in PE with a shop and getting a number of points for a log in a day, depending of your VIP level, could work quite well.
also doing VIP account wide like you did with AD refining, could be an nice addition. (if you really want you could give a small amount of bonus point for each extra character played for more then xx-time that day)
Some people suggested to have tiers in goodies, "relative cheap" for bound to character, "normal" for bound to account, "expensive" or instead with gambling as with the present lockboxes "free" or even "super expensive" like a unlock of an epic mount for your whole account.
For VIP levels, I am in doubt about how you can do that.
Personally I like systems that reward loyalty, so your VIP improves with time you have VIP, (I am thinking in years of having VIP).
Also having the option, like we have now to pay with the AD/Zen in game is really great. But having a monthly subscription, more or less like there is in STO, sounds pretty good to me as an extra way to get VIP/Veteran
I think the lowest levels of VIP should have quite vast the option to unlock the famous travel post, mailbox, bank portal and a sales-NPC. Workshop, Guild banker, Guild coffer would also be awesome
As in the rewards... I am thinking of stuff in a higher need/more expensive class than what Sybella is selling now. I am thinking of Wards, inventory slots, bank slots etc. (those could be char bound until your character is maxed out) also companion fashion (if they wear clothes, those should be at least be able to "change" according to guild/alliance colors, also saddle blankets or collars colors from mounts/companions could be an option).
And at last, I think the instant gratification, that the daily key and lockboxes give at this moment shouldn't be forgotten... I have no good idea for an alternative there... but a mix or combination with the Vault of Piety (Ardent Favor or Celestial Synergy) could be a good way.
(sorry for the messed up structure, translation errors, typing English words but still speaking an strange language... trying to bring vague ideas into letters ans still being understandable is quite hard)
Placing the offers publicly on an auction house actually prevents the thing called discriminative monopoly, because even if the wealth and power inequality leads to monopoly, they can't price discriminatively for the individual buyer as with personal offers, you can check their gear to see how much the person invested in the game.
People probably don't remember or even notice anymore, before VIP no posting fee, most people posted their minimum and people bid on it. The posting fee is based on the minimum and not the maximum. Nobody get up at 3am in the morning to do sniper bet anymore these days. I still remember I did that at 3am in the morning to get a stack of rank 4 Dark enchantment.
Making lockbox keys more valuable can have many pitfalls, but is not something without its benefits if approached from a curated point of view. There is a limit to the value that can be given to a lockbox as is, for adding too much value while keeping them just as accessible will cause the worth of what was added to them to just and simply, plummet.
Let us just put aside the options that are easy, and will just as easily act as death knells for this game. If you downright halve the amount of keys you give players, even if you double the value of the items you put in future lockboxes you will have a riot on your hands, this much I can assure you. And I am highly dubious of that we want a careless blunder of that magnitude.
There are other ways to get the same thing done, that will not involve so many voices calling for developer blood.
I'll simply cover the quickest to come to mind,
Between halving the amount of keys given to players, and doubling the amount needed to open a lockbox, the second will rustle far, far fewer feathers. If you want to minimize fallout over this approach, and to keep players from feeling like keys are simply less valuable now, you can announce it as "Unique tier/Legendary tier Lockboxes with improved loot!" so players feel that they're investing additional keys on better chances, rather than just the value of keys having dropped.
Goes without saying, this requires you to actually make the loot of these lockboxes better, not just say that it is. Might seem a needlessly obvious point to make, but with this company's track record, many players will want it severely emphasized.
Fairly similar to the previous point, simply make it so that users can decide how many keys to use per attempt in order to reach different prize pools.
This for example would be a suitable option if you finally decided to give us those long awaited mythic mounts you are challenged to work on by the limitations of consoles, or want to think up some other versions of mythic-tier rewards, unique fashion options, changes to character design and animation, player housing, something long lasting that players are bound to find especial and worth getting excited about.
The biggest risks here are that the developers ignore the many warnings given by me and many others in this thread and find their foot too tantalizing a target.
This is the beginning of a slippery slope of poor decisions. It can be tempting to use it as a quick and easy way to increase rarity and value "And for the next mod, it will cost five lockbox keys to open one of our new shiny boxes!" which would lead to all sorts of problems and player disillusion, so easy as it may look it must not be done carelessly.
While there might be some discontent involved, those that don't like this direction can simply continue opening older lockboxes without feeling as if their keys were made any less valuable or they have been taken advantage of by having the benefits which they paid VIP for cut in half.
In the end it may be advisable to prepare two different lockboxes, one for the old tier and one for the new, which while wouldn't require too many changes between them, would increase the workload slightly.
This game has already far too many currencies to worry about. Its user interface is as user-unfriendly as it can be without actively trying to attack us (which to its credit, some times actually manages to do rather successfully) and at places it feels as if it was designed by duct-taping two squirrels together back to back, and flinging them at our faces.
A new legendary lockbox and lockbox-key tier will unavoidably add to this, and mean a significantly added workload, for there will need to be significant differences between "Legendary lockboxes" and "Normal Lockboxes" for the former to not simply replace the latter.
For them to increase sales, instead of just shifting them away from normal lockboxes, some serious effort would have to go into them. Whether the developer team has the resources for that or not, is something I am not privy to.
Feedback Goal to provide examples
- We currently grant a key a day, which is 30 a month. We want to preserve the value of VIP, so if lockbox odds are improved by 2x or even 3x, how would you view altering the rate of free keys to keep a similar value?
Reducing the amount of keys does nothing to keep a similar value. the current crop of lockboxes effectively have very little value. If you dont hit that legendary chance the value of lockbox is nil. The only thing you are getting out of the lockbox is a small amount of RP that is 10X less than what i would get from just playing the game that game that day. Reducing the amount of keys does nothing but take away from what little value we currently get. as stated by others going from a .17% chance to a .51% chance does nothing effectively for 99% of people. All this does is devalue the keys that we get from VIP and increase the value of keys bought from other sources.
-Alternates to keys. How would you feel about getting a currency with VIP that allowed you to get items other than keys from your daily login? Would you choose to get wards, enchanting stones, or other valuable items instead of keys if you had that option?
This sounds like an okay idea but it all depends on how it is implemented and what is available instead of the keys. I think a single key is worth 125 zen (been too long since i looked) and a coal ward is work 1000 zen. that means that instead of keys i should be able to get a coal ward for the equivalent of 8 keys. Anything more than 8 keys and it is a rip off and will not be used. also i am not sure how you decide on the price of things that are not Zen items that may be included.
-Ranks. How would you feel about the removal of ranks on VIP, granting full benefits of VIP 12 while active? What do you value about ranks?
This is a tough one. I hate to see things that i had to work for be given out for no effort to others which is what this would propose. while in the long run it doesn't affect me personally it is a perceived loss of value to me. The one thing that it would do is remove the need to buy more ranks of vip at the same time for new users. if you only need a single month to have all the benefits why buy more especially if you dont know yet if you will turn into a long time player.
-Current Benefits - Which of the current benefits of VIP do you value and why?
The quality of life things. Mailbox, Bank, Travel signpost. The keys are a nice add on but not an integral thing to why i continue to my vip. I would not be happy to see them removed though.
- Auction House. Having one group able to list an item, de-list, and re-list again at no cost/penalty to undercut is not healthy for the Auction House and we’d like that to be a better experience for everyone. What are your thoughts in regard to this statement?
Yes and no. This is not a problem due to vip. This is a problem with the AH entirely. the posting fee is one thing i think should be removed from VIP and applied to everyone. The reasons for it are no longer valid and only have a negative effect on the players.
Here is an example of how VIP could look. Note: this is just an example but it is here to help provide insight and context into some of our thoughts:
VIP Example
- Instead of directly getting reroll tokens, VIP would be given a VIP currency and would have a store. The contents of this store would adjust over time but would likely start with things such as Preservation Wards, Enchanting Stones, Companion Upgrade Tokens, and yes Reroll Tokens.
no. we do not need another store. instead of affecting reroll tokens update the Tradebar store and have items be available for both tradebars and reroll tokens. This allows those people who run constant dungeons to keep what they have going and those who do not be able to use them in another way. taking them away only force us into rebuying them just adds another bureaucratic layer to our daily sessions.
- 10-15 Lockbox Keys per month – These would now be in the new VIP store and players could go all in on keys only to max out at 15, or could opt for fewer keys and more of the other rewards which gives players more flexibility in what VIP offers them.
- Increased odd chances on items in Lockboxes moving forward.
as stated above reducing the keys obtained only devalues the keys we get from vip and increase the values of keys obtained elsewhere. Increasing the lockbox odds is a good thing and should be done regardless. the odds right now are really bad.
- A higher cap on refined AD per day for VIP, 15% more for a cap of 115,000
personally i like this idea but wonder on the long term application. the AD cap was change recently due to the amount AD going into the system and now you want to artificially increase it again?
- Ability for VIP to change loadouts away from campfires
would be a good boon for those who use them
- Increased health gain from VIP – grants every member of your group 1% of their base HP as additional Max HP. Maximum 5% with a full group of VIP.
Very nice perk
you're wrong about needing 2 keys to open a lockbox not inciting a riot. we aren't stupid.
I use the term "grand prize" because the best item may not be legendary mount in the future and may not exist in the old lockbox.
Reasons:
To increase the chance of the "grand prize", that means adjusting loot table.
Which loot table? I take that as the future lockbox. Not the current lockbox and not the historic lock box.
Well, I don't even open current lockbox (if I open lock box). That means reducing keys lead to less stuff I get from historic lockbox and I keep stacks of every lockbox since mod 3.
Cryptic is not going back to re-do all the loot table of all the old lockbox. What was the grand prize of the lockbox from (say) mod 4? There was no Legendary mount.
The value of other stuff in lockbox is not nothing. It is something. Reducing keys means I have less of those "something".
I am not a dreamer of getting Legendary mount. If I can get one, good but as I said I am not a dreamer.
When I open the old lockbox, I would be farming for certain particular middle tier items of that lockbox. Less keys means less chance as simple as that.
I am about up to page 3 currently and i would imagine some of the devs are further in than me. Listening and thinking before jumping in on comments and ideas.
With this in mind though I wanted to give my thoughts as a new but lvl 80 player at 22k item level (for context).
For me I only care about VIP for keys or rather the chance at getting cool items from the lock box (which generally i give away). I am sure there are plenty more reasons to be excited about VIP but for whatever reason I just haven't learnt to the other benefits of the system yet. This is partly because of poor discover ability and teaching (accessibility) around these benefits and also because I am still learning some other key aspects of the game that they relate to.
Personally I would like an option: something like the choice of a daily key or a currency (coin used to buy fixed priced items from not just the current lock box but ones before it as well as cosmetics and other personality items). That way if there is something i really want I can work toward it and when i am in the mood i can buy keys for fun. This coupled with lowering of odds would be great for me that is.
However it isn't about 'me' it is about the community and the world/experience moving forward. I just wanted to share my thoughts as a player. Personally I would like a 'Forge' as well where as a VIP member i could spend currency on backlog/roadmap items that I would like to see be moved up in priority I have other thoughts but this one will do for now.
Also don't forget the example is an example it is there to simply to provide some context into what we have been discussing. It isn't a statement of intent. As per the accessibility CDP we will discuss, list our top three favorite ideas and go from there.
Transparency is a double edged sword as it will be still be tainted and fairly say in regard to legacy actions and emotions around the game. Frankly i am happy to take that more painful edge because I know over time our intent for true collaboration will win through. We don't expect trust, but please don't thing that this CDP exercise is about winning back any trust that was or wasn't there in the past, it is instead about moving forward, pioneering, and a shared journey. Trust is something that is earned, our intent is clear, only delivery on intent will earn trust. But as I have said before not everyone is going to like the journey and it isn't going easy but it is an endeavor that is worthwhile.
Chris
Personally, besides the key, having the signpost, vendor, seal vendor, and bank are all the best perks of VIP. Also the ability to invoke anywhere without having to carry a stack of Portal Altars is helpful too.
Any of my comments not posted in orange are based on my own personal opinion and not official.
Any messages written in orange are official moderation messages. Signature images are now fixed!
as a general rule though, vip is a sacred cow to many of us. we paid for it. we paid for a particular service and getting to rank 12 was not initially easy. many of us remember the struggle. devaluing it any way would anger a good portion of the player base GREATLY. (and that means changing the things we already have been sold, giving us more on top of that is never a problem)
oh the health potions are also not important. More rerolls less health potions. ta. (been pointed out some people like these so yeah, TOUCH NOTHING)
the daily key is something I personally really look forward to. I would like it if I didn't have to expressly claim it though if I have logged in. and I would like the rewards on all my toons if I log in with one. if I have to take a trip it would be nice to get a couple periods of time a year where the key would claim itself if I claimed vacation time or whatever.
the daily key I can guarantee has brought some players back from not coming back. many log in for their daily key even if they're not playing. this gives an opportunity for them to get sucked back in. (it's brought me back a couple times so I am at least one example and I'm pretty sure i'm not the only one)
there are a number of threads in the forums over the years of things we'd like changed in vip.
I do not want another currency but if you want to add one then please make it on top of what we have now. Please do not change anything about what we have now with the exception of maybe getting rid of the exclusivity of the posting fee and just letting everyone have it or moving it to R1.
Make Vip Ranks easier to get, cheaper to get whatever, but don't mess with what is there. we paid for it. we value it. we consider it a breach of contract to be lessened from what it is already. (i'm using we here.. some will disagree.. but many won't. )
as a general rule I'd rather vip was just mostly left alone. it's not broken. don't fix it unless you want to add some cool features in.
if you want to add a different pay service that is cash only great. I'd probably support it if it was separate from vip and worthwhile and offered things that vip did not offer. (if you offered gate way I'd be like shut up and take my money) another thing that i know people would pay decently for is a way to move their toon between console and pc. before I figured out my dexterity was just not good enough for pc I'd have paid a decent sum to move my toon (even binding everything to account because different economy) cross play with everything bound to you except for the platform you are on as home base would also be worth paying for. even if i'm fat fingered it would be awesome to have my fully decked out toon on the preview servers.
I've been in game since june 2015. I do believe in supporting my entertainment. but it's got to have some value in order to do that. in the last year this game has been more on the side of aggravation than value to my life. it feels like a bad marriage at times. lol.
a store for vip like others have said should just be a revamped trade bar store. people who buy keys straight out are in the same camp as people paying for vip. it's all the same club.
we want to give you our money but there has been a lack of new worthwhile content over the last couple years. we get the packs but that's about all we see of new purchasable content. I'd also like to see more things retired. and new things added. collectibles are a fun thing to mess with in a game as well as the I've been here since such and such badge of honor of having things that are unavailable in game.
I'd much rather the focus was on things that mattered and are broken. Bugs, classes that don't feel good. actual playable content. keeping the players engaged...none of this (changes to vip) matters if the content isn't there to keep us entertained.
if you as a newer player are having a hard time understanding the functionality of vip it's something that should be part of the tutorials. The QOL of vip is invaluable for long term players of this game. I remember ebon downs. 10 minutes across the map one way. get lost a few times. WTH is the exit? how do I get there. why is my mount so slow.. dang they're shooting at me, what mount. now i have to walk. HAMSTER I'm dead.. now where am i? this made me pay some cash for the travel post. I was like OMG this is awesome. I've recommended vip to new players over the years MANY Times. the key (if the lockboxes weren't pooh) is a good way for them to make some ad as well.
Vip is working fine. if you want examples of the negatives of changing something like this, search the forums for coal gate. ..there were others but I don't recall them. but coal gate in particular.
Moonstone mask is where my characters park. The moonstone mask instance is fast to load (in PC anyway). And, its portal mechanism is faster than sigpost portal, only 2 clicks, no need to wait for sigpost to come up, to 'F' it, to choose where to go, etc. If it needs to improve, it would be getting rid of the animation. It looks cool seeing it but seeing and more importantly waiting for it 20 times per day is too much. But, it does help for cancelling the teleport if it was a mistake. So, please cut the animation time to half.
Health potion is also important to me. That is what all my characters carry. They don't use health stone. I still have all the free health stones and I don't need to use them. Health potion is good enough for most situation (for me) if I have to use it. The extra health potion are sold for gold which is also important to me. It is one of the biggest source of the easy gold for me.
Hence, please don't take them away.
but what I was trying to say with moonstone mask was make it a directable target. let me assign the target. if for you it's moonstone sweet, you assign it to moonstone. for me for this mod it's yawning. I assign it there. bing we're all happy.
I have edited my post.
You don't need to use the daily dungeon key to open the chest. You just open it. (Don't be confused with another locked chest which needs a different key before this change and after. That was not changed.)
In other words, you did not lose opening the same chest.
You were limited to open that chest by the number of keys.
Before, if you had 5 keys, you could only open 5 chests. Now, you can open them when you see the chest.
In other words, you are allowed to open more chest than before.
In addition, what you gain is to use the re-roll token to change the outcome of the chest.
But, I was already expected to believe in something that I cannot directly observe and have the knowledge to understand how it affects me positively. And also, some people just like opening lockboxes and get something good, so even if it's calculatively good, it just feels less good.
I don't think there is any bad reason or malice in this, I just think that the person who came up with idea not really checked how it looks from the other side of the table. And my personal tinfoil hat theory is: The decision was to fix the lockboxes and keys, but affected VIP as well, so the VIP got changed to fit into it. But the VIP got featured before the rewards, so it got explained before the wider changes, which made that it started the discussion featuring the "side effects" before the main thing can be seen.
What I'm trying to say that public relation is important and I don't think that raw bulletpoints will get the ideas precisely through, at least not on a community level. And if it cannot be simply understand, people will jump into their own conclusions. And some people will just do it regardless.
I would like a VIP perk of swapping enchantments without a gold cost. I have two paragons on my Cleric, one for dealing damage and one for healing. Everytime someone messages me and says "hey can you heal for us?" I have to unequip my enchantments and place them into my healer gear which makes me feel bad because it costs gold. I don't like feeling bad every time i change roles, I actually dread switching loadouts because of it. Maybe the enchants could be part of the loadouts?
As a guy with over 300days left of vip i obviously don't want to see it devalued.
All ideas regarding getting less stuff for it are bad, people that currently have vip will be turned off.
Increasing rad cap makes it feel very pay to win.
Changing loadout away from campfires is a craaaazy advantage.
Increasing chances at lockbox rewards? Guys ! Come on !
Getting full benefits on day1 of vip ? Personally i think it's a great incentive for people to buy it, AS LONG AS VALUE STAYS THE SAME AS NOW, OR GETS BETTER.
And adding back the posting fee is just a generally bad idea, increase AH cut, add more ad sinks, make transmutes more expensive (i remember when transmuting got higher than 25k per item), just dont add the ah posting fee, people will just sit on the items and refuse to sell, and for more expensive things people will just start trading, avoiding the auction house.
The only value they have had for me, personally, is: they paid for VIP.
By that, paying for NW became a choice. I can pay as much as I want and as much as I can afford, but I don't have to, and still have access to: the slight RNG happiness every once in a while (or a year) of getting something slighty better than usual (happy Jules) and the most important goodies as people have already stated: Travelpost and so on and forth.
I am not masochistic. I do not open ancient lockboxes for their small droprates on mounts. I open ancient lockboxes because they are the only ones with a realistic output even in times of 1:750.
If I ever got a leg mount, I would have enjoyed it a lot. But to get twice the droprate of a HAMSTER droprate and for that getting half of the keys? No thanks. Keep the RP.
And as @thefiresidecat pointed out, we have a VIP currency. There are reasons to nobody is really using it except for deepcrow hatchlings and to play the market.
Back before I could afford Rank 12 VIP, I actually did manage to pull down a legendary pack from one of the lockboxes. But it was so expensive, and I was so poor, I could not even afford to post the item for sale, I could not afford just the listing fee. So I had no choice but to resort to "manual trade" as Sharp put it. And it was very frustrating. The whole process is very time consuming, because you have to spam PE chat or trade channels to try to sell your item, sometimes for hours at a time, and some people don't have hours and hours to do that sort of thing. If I only have an hour or two to play in a day, I want to run some dungeons, not sit around and try to negotiate with strangers who may or may not be trying to scam me. I had to deal with obvious scammers proposing ridiculously low-ball offers. I had to trust that the AH prices for items offered in trade were reliable, in order to judge if a proposed trade was equitable, and that the AH prices were not being manipulated by scammers. That orange pack started to look more like a burden than a blessing. Eventually I did trade it for some pretty good enchants (at least I thought it was a good trade deal). One of them was a Rank 12 Negation which I'm still using today (still Rank 12), so I at least got a lot of value out of it. But the process of selling it was a real drain. If I had to do that for every item I wanted to sell that was of even moderately high value today, I think I would tear my hair out.
Based on my experience, if I could have afforded the listing fee, I would have totally sold it on the auction house, even with the 10% cut from the AH sale, because it would have been worth avoiding all of the hassle of trying to sell it manually.
The billionaires will be able to afford any listing fee. It won't hurt them at all. It's the little guys who are screwed by the listing fee.
The rate of free keys
I'm 100% against decreasing the amount of keys. This feels like nothing more than a swindling being hidden behind salesmans lingo.
• Right now you get 1 key/day and have 1 in 100 chance to get something good.
• How about instead you get 1 key/10 days and have a 1 in 50 chance to get something good.
Let me also add something that many here may agree with. You want to PRESERVE the value of VIP? If you 2x or 3x the drop rates of lockbox, you would only be doing what many people have been asking for years to see happen. That was to actually add value to the keys.
Now you want to talk about "well we can increase the drop rate but we'll probably have to take your keys to keep it fair". Snake. Oil. Got a bridge you want to sell me too?
Alternates to keys
If my option is between keys (1 of the primary reasons I have VIP) or a currency to buy things I can get through many other avenues, I'm going to go with leave my keys alone.
If you want to ADD a currency and create a VIP store while leaving my daily key/current benefits alone, please continue with your thought ptocess. But I don't see any true value in adding ANOTHER currency and ANOTHER store to the game.
Ranks
100% against the removal of ranks, as someone that has had VIP for years. I enjoy the ranked system and as others have stated, I don't feel like some day 1 player should have access to all the vip goodies I have with just one payment. I mean call it what you want but you're basically trying to push a subscription model here. I would like more ranks if anything not an elimination.
I could even get behind a restructured ranking so newer players get access to more of the options (move signpost to rank 1, increase ad refinement at rank 2, etc) to entice newer players to buy in. But I like ranks and feel like they have a purpose and that is to differentiate your strongest supporters from the guy that comes in, pays for 2 months, then leaves.
Anyone who doesn't see a value in rewarding loyalty is blind to the fact that this game needs vets to stay around just as much as it needs new blood.
Current Benefits
Current valued benefits would be (in no particular order):
• Reroll tokens.....because I paid for them and like rerolling chests since the rewards are usually garbage and I have to reroll in the hopes of getting something of value. I also run on many toons and this is a per character benefit. If it became a 1/per account benefit I would probably play a whole lot less, spend less, and support less.
• Daily key because I like the chance at something from a lockbox and it's one of the few VIP perks with value
• Moonstone Mask teleport because I leave my toons there
• Team buff because who doesn't like extra HP (i like how in your example you listed extra hp % when it's already a current benefit which begs the question, do you know what VIP currently offers or are you trying to bamboozle us again?)
• Signpost because if you ever took away my fast travel I would hunt you down...over the course of time since I would have to walk there...very slowly....ok forget it I would just be very angry
• Invoke anywhere because needing a campfire to invoke is a nuisance
• Summon mailbox & Summon bank because access to those at a moments notice is mandatory versus having to port somewhere to find one
• Salvage anvil....oh wait you guys already stole that one from us ages ago and replaced it with nothing of value
• Injury immunity because injuries are annoying and I paid for it
• NO posting fees because I post things on the AH and don't feel like I should be charged to post it and sell it
• Reduced Wondrous Bazaar costs because I paid for the discount and who doesn't want cheaper goodies
Hmmmm it's almost like I value pretty much everything I paid for. Imagine that? If I hadn't valued it, I wouldn't have paid for it.
New Benefits
Stones, Wards, Health Stones
50% of coupon after a period of time
Increased seals OR weekly seal limit expanded
I like the idea someone had about transmutes
Loadout swapping anywhere outside combat
Reduced costs on profession tasks (this used to be a thing and no longer is with the workshop redo, another thing taken with no notice)
Companion training cost reduction (this used to be a thing too and both were 25% reductions at VIP 12)
Increased AD refinement cap. Nothing major and maybe a modest increase every few ranks.
SH Coffer/Vendor/Bank Summon because it's painfully slow to load in to the SH
I'm on the fence about the currency idea but I have to be honest, that sounds like the Vault of Piety which hasn't been updated in god knows how long. So I'm thinking this restructuring is to also take the Vault away, mess with invoking benefits, and pitch it all to us in VIP as opposed to separate systems. I don't like that one bit if that's the case because it's like we're being bamboozled while you dangle this carrot in our face.
Auction House
I don't see any issue with undercutting. You know who wins in an undercutting war? The buyer.
Yet again, I feel like you're trying to pitch one of the VIP perks in a negative light when the truth is you probably don't like that it's not as much of an AD sink as you want it be. So at least show the transparency you speak of and tell us "We want to remove the AH listing fee reduction because we need more AD sinks" instead of dancing around it using undercutters as some evil villain.
Feedback Goal
The goal of my feedback is to provide some positive (and negative) input while also showing that over the years the value of VIP has slowly been diminished. So when the new guy shows up and says "how would you feel if i took some of the stuff you paid for to improve it's value"...well CW, it's already been diminished so how about you just give us the perks part and leave out the further reductions of our benefits.
Feedback Functionality
It should work pretty well in the current design of NW considering I'm opting for adding benefits and restructuring ranks instead of redoing VIP from top to bottom.
Risks & Concerns
I see this all the time across many industries. Someone comes in and wants to put their stamp on something. Sometimes it's good. Sometimes it's bad. But at the end of the day, I would say to Chris, "don't throw the baby out with the bathwater".
VIP needs a polishing. An update. Not a complete redo.
You're risking alienating even more vet players. This is not directed at you specifically but, overall, you guys can't afford to continue to anger your players with every system redesign. Trust has been lost in the team. The way to rebuild trust is through addition not subtraction.