I had been debating on wasting words on this suggestion for a while, since now people have started posting backlash to Dragon Horde enchantments (imo emphasizing the wrong "fix"), I thought I would write this analysis. I have 3 sort of ideas that all add up to the same conclusion: every tier 2 + named should drop a bind on pickup black opal for every player in the group.
Point #1)
IMO the Neverwinter devs have contradicted the Neverwinter devs.
What do I mean by that?
I mean this, why when you are leveling does so much more exp come from completing quest then from defeat mobs? Sometime past a developer made the decision that your exp bar would move by leaps and bounds for doing discrete activities involving completing a task, and not so much at all from just grind bad guys. One should not take this decision for granted. In the early years of MMOs generally speaking the exp bar moved from grinding bad guys and quest exp was almost an after thought. It seems Neverwinter devs had something in mind when they decided you should advance based on completing specific things and not for grinding.
But where are we now with 7 artifact slots on the horizing that require 4 million RP each and the vast majority of that RP fueled by a 3% drop rate on grinding bad guys? We are specific in Everquest circa 2001. The devs hid it from themselves by cleverly masking their "exp" as "RP" and their "levels" as "levels of artifacts", but they still have nevertheless made the same game they originally rejected! They made the "Grind weenie mobs until you can't stand it any more" game.
But, I have one question for the devs: if you wanted your game to be defined by grinding weenies why did you bother with the huge emphasis on completing quest when you were designing the 1 through 60 grind? You confuse me, and to be honest, I think you snuck up on yourselves.... RP wasn't supposed to be exp, but it has effectively turned into that, so now you have the game you didn't want to design.
Point #2)
The group game has been deemphasized to the point of serious problems at this point. The 3% drops on RP from grinding weenies now basically dominates the productivity of grouping for long term character development. I assume you put in a group game because you wanted it to be meaningful....
Point #3)
Hi PWE and Cryptic, I checked and I can't figure out how you make money off of RP. You don't as far as I can tell. You make money off people that need to use RP, but you don't seem to make money off the actual RP, so your only incentive here should be structuring RP in the healthiest way possible for the game. Is that what you have done?
Point #4)
We live in a "7 orange pieces of gear" world as of Module 5. The people that want farming with 3% drop rate nerfed are barking up the wrong tree. The game has been officially designed around generating masses of RP, and it should be done through play and not through whatever else you imagine. That said the problem isn't the augs but the structuring of rewards, and essentially points 1 and 2.
Thus when I add up points 1 through 4 I come to one conclusion:
You should get more RP for killing named.
Your first reaction as a Cryptic employee might be: black opal are you nuts? Let me sort of reiterate:
1) you need 400 black opals to level an artifact, 1 per a named isn't that much...
2) you don't make money off RP you make money off things that need RP...
3) currently the game is skewed far to much away from killing hard things...
I like your Point 1, you make an interesting argument.
However I do dispute Point 3 with 2 words: Blood Rubies, they sell them on the Zen Market, 3 Rubies for 2000 Zen.
I agree with you that emphasis has gone away from doing fun things like pvp and hard pve content, in favor of grinding weenie mobs for rp. However, I do think that the dragon hoard enchantments, did their job. Rp is now cheap and for the most part accessible to everyone.
In the future i suggest more BoE gear, so that people can choose their grind more. For example, people could run dungeons to earn AD to buy Rp, rather than grinding for Rp directly.
I think what you meant to say is that they try to make money off RP. I seriously doubt they do, and if they do it can't be much. Converting zen to AD and buying from bots in the AH is way cheaper than buying blood rubies directly.
I don't think they make money off the black opals in the zen store. I do think they make money from people buying zen, converting to AD and using the bot-farmed refinement stones in the auction house to gear up their characters
Comments
However I do dispute Point 3 with 2 words: Blood Rubies, they sell them on the Zen Market, 3 Rubies for 2000 Zen.
In the future i suggest more BoE gear, so that people can choose their grind more. For example, people could run dungeons to earn AD to buy Rp, rather than grinding for Rp directly.
I don't think they make money off the black opals in the zen store. I do think they make money from people buying zen, converting to AD and using the bot-farmed refinement stones in the auction house to gear up their characters