Artifacts are really supposed to be one of a kind items.. can't do that in a game with a lot of players. But they should become more powerful as the bearer attunes himself to the artifact.. and said artifact comes to accept him/her.
(That is a bit off topic I guess. We know why artifacts were introduced, and it was not for continuity of story.)
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chemboy613Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,521Arc User
I find post 60 to be the most BORING part of this game. Farm these dungeons over and over and over.. it's ridiculous. And like you said, it's getting harder and harder to farm AD, as they're BOA'ing everything. Plus, they let the AH pricing run free range, so things get ridiculous quick. As soon as an item is hard to get and needed, you're paying massive out of pocket dollars to convert the amount of AD needed. It's absurd to pay 50-100 dollars for things in a game, when you can buy FULL games for that price.
Here's an off-the-wall idea: have a set of T1/2/3 level dungeons that you could select that dropped really good RP items instead of gear?
Harper Chronicles: Cap Snatchers (RELEASED) - NW-DPUTABC6X Blood Magic (RELEASED) - NW-DUU2P7HCO Children of the Fey (RELEASED) - NW-DKSSAPFPF Buried Under Blacklake (WIP) - NW-DEDV2PAEP The Redcap Rebels (WIP) - NW-DO23AFHFH
My Foundry playthrough channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Ruskaga/featured
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chemboy613Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,521Arc User
Here's an off-the-wall idea: have a set of T1/2/3 level dungeons that you could select that dropped really good RP items instead of gear?
I really like that idea. Because really, after they BOA them, the only option are going to be blood ruby packs or flawless sapphire from the bazaar. Either way you're paying 23-26 million AD to fully level an artifact. Takes 3,850,000 RP to get to legendary.
To be expected to grind that through random low drop rates or even real money cash is ridiculous. But if they started offering that stuff as dungeon drops, it would definitely help out a lot.
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darthpotaterMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,259Arc User
edited November 2014
The change is good fo the game if bosses/dungeons give lots of rp stones. We should concentrate our efforts in get that change because this BtA change wont go back.
If you can farm enough rp in dungeons, everybody will accept this change as good for the game and bad for ad sellers
The change is good fo the game if bosses/dungeons give lots of rp stones. We should concentrate our efforts in get that change because this BtA change wont go back.
If you can farm enough rp in dungeons, everybody will accept this change as good for the game and bad for ad sellers
You really think this change will be complimented with RP drops on dungeons?
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darthpotaterMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,259Arc User
The change is good fo the game if bosses/dungeons give lots of rp stones. We should concentrate our efforts in get that change because this BtA change wont go back.
If you can farm enough rp in dungeons, everybody will accept this change as good for the game and bad for ad sellers
This is another good suggestion. It is not that BoA RP is a bad idea in all circumstances, it's that BoA RP by ITSELF is a bad idea. Obviously if we were getting RP or had a good way of changing our epic drops into RP, that would be fine. What if a ring of pain was 20k RP? That would probably solve the problem, but whatever it is now isn't near enough to keep a BoA model valid.
BtA wont change much as things are kinda similar to how CN was. A "skilled" player can make around 1-2 mil RP per day and is all legit, no cheating, but taking advantage of game cracks just like leadership/invocation is.
As long as they keep this kind of system things just wont get a fix for the simple reason that it just cant be fixed and most likely they are happy with the money from it! Mind you that is the same management that cant make money from foundry...
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demonmongerMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,350Arc User
I am one of the most serious, most active players in your community.
I am the #1 MoF CW on the server - which has not ever been disputed.
In addition i have publishes numerous guides for this community. There is not a more knowledgeable, skilled, and helpful player than I am on this server. No one else has written as much as I have, or helped as many people as i have. Basically every MoF CW i have ever met has read my work.
I am at the core of your community, and a pillar thereof. When i speak, people listen. I have earned that respect.
Please let me explain my progress from Launch to now.
In the Launch patch, i was still gearing. Earning AD was difficult, but not impossible. Then we started farming CN and the AD started flowing. Yes there were a lot of bugs, and yes every farm group used those bugs, and we made some good AD then.
Same thing happened in Mod 1 - except now we had fomorian and seal equipment. It was worth testing. MC was a great design, thank you. However the drop rate of the mats were abysmal, making it impractical to farm for them. Hence we made AD in CN and then bought from AH to get fomorians. While not as good for the players as the CN system, this was fine as AD was convertible into power.
Mod 2 was about the same thing - only now the dread legion weapons hurt the CN weapon prices, but they were still good. CN was farmable. The point was - you could still make reasonable AD/HR by playing the game. And that was fine. I eventually burned out and took a break from mod 3.
Mod 3 - While i know you were trying to do something for PvPers, what we got was:
a) A lot of very boring and obnoxious dailies that took far too long to complete
b) Good PvP gear that took a long time to farm (which i guess is ok).
c) However the Gloves/weapons have TERRIBLE drop rates.
Hence, we all know people who have spent 2 months or more farming their gloves to go PvP.
The problem isn't that good items are hard to get - the problem is that good items are hard to get in the wrong way. You are rewarded for getting lucky on a RNG roll, NOT for your skill or ability. This trend continued into mod 4.
Mod 4 - Honestly, I like the new dungeons, the design was great! You fixed a ton of bugs and mechanics, and the gameplay is great! Thank you for this.
However, the artifact weapons now made CN unprofitable. There is now NO REASONABLE WAY for good players to make AD in game. Hence many of us are doing lockbox flipping or AH flipping, and hence making AD by playing the economy. I don't like playing the economy, but since my income from playing is so terrible and pitiful I have no other choice if i want to make a reasonable about of AD to gear up.
So I went from making almost 1M AD/day in mod 1/2 to now I make 150k AD/Day - through refining RAD mostly. This is actually very slow, considering the cost it was raising items to legendary.
Now let me fill in about how i helped you financially. I don't have a lot of money for various reasons.
However, I LOVE Neverwinter and I wanted to support you.
Now, in 2013, I spent 50$ in zen (for fashion mainly, lol), and i bought a feywild pack for 60$. I am very happy with the feywild pack. You gave us things we couldn't get through farming and hence was worth paying for.
Now, when you had your last big promotion, I spent 150$, which is significant to me right now, NOT to buy things, but to invest as capital on the AH so I could make AD. As I said, you have taken away all the ways to make AD by playing. I understand you want to sell zen, and you want us to play for... what? "rewards" ?
I have run ELOL 15 times a day, every day, for almost a month now. I have gotten four belts, not the ones i wanted name you. That means i have looked at 700 chests. Hence the drop rate for a desired artifact belt is terrible. Farming it becomes impractical, unless you have tons of time.
Ok, say i want to buy off AH. Well, now that is between 3 and 4 million AD - a substantial amount of my investment capital. If i wanted to buy in, it is 80$ that I simply can't spend on this game.
However, this has been counterbalanced by cheap RP.
Expensive items that are hard to get are fine - they should be fine. Now they should be reasonably expensive to refine.
However, items are no longer hard to get, they are stupidly hard to get. Not because they require a lot of skill to acquire, but rather because they require a lot of dumb luck to get. I have seen players get the item I need TWICE in one hour because they are lucky. Meantime I have spent A MONTH and hours a day and not gotten my belt because I am LESS LUCKY.
This is infuriating enough, and made me consider playing other games. To think that I am one of the best players on the server, I have worked incredibly hard for this community, and I have given you a substantial amount of money, yet it is impossible for me to get what i need? This already made me incredibly annoyed and unmotivated.
However now you propose a change:
Items and Economy
All enchantments and other items that give RP dropped through Fey Blessing, Dragon Hoard and Tymora's Blessing enchantments are now Bound to Account. This change is not retroactive.
Ok, so this means we can no longer buy RP off the auction house. Within ONE HOUR the RP prices have doubled, and will shoot up like crazy.
So say I somehow (in a miracle) get my belt. by playing. Then i need 4.6 MILLION RP to refine it, which is over 1800 lesser resonance stones and/or over 9000 peridots. Now this means, optimistically, I would have to play ten hours a day, every day, for almost a MONTH to get ONE legendary item. This is completely impractical for me, and I have time to kill. You can only imagine what it would be like for someone who can only log on a few hours a week.
I know the hope is that I will buy more zen and buy RP with zen. But what? 3 blood rubies are 20$, which is 150k RP. This means it would cost me 600$ to have a legendary belt. 600$! No one in their right mind would ever pay so much!
So here is where we are
a) I can't make AD to buy the items i want by playing
b) I can't get the items I want by playing (because the drop rate is awful)
and now
c) I can't refine those items, should i have them, by playing.
So what is the point of playing!?!?
There isn't a point after this. The fact there is no practical way for skilled, committed players to progress except opening up their wallets and dropping an unreasonable amount of money on this game, means there is no point in playing the game anymore.
In short, if RP is BoA. I quit.
I can play ten hours a day, and at the end of the day i will... what? oh yeah, my artifact belt might go up half a level. Great. That money i invested and the thousands of hours i invested are sure doing great work for that half level...
The changes you have made to this game, every module, you are giving serious players less and less of a reason to play. Maybe casuals pay more money? I'm not sure. I already paid you 260$.
But now you are killing my incentive to play. If you do this, there is literally no reason for me to log on. I cannot make any substantial progress outside of spending hundreds of dollars. And for the 1800$ it would cost me to refine my new artifacts with zen-bought RP there are many, many, many other things i'd rather be doing than Neverwinter.
So in your efforts to "make more revenue" you are in fact disincentivizing the most valuable players in your community from playing. We are the people who understand this game. We are the people who write guides for your community. We organize channels, we organize events. It is not just your game, but US that draws people to play.
Once we leave, your community will be a bunch of clueless casuals. You will lose your largest assets because you didn't take care of us and nurture us. Instead you poison us for short term financial gains. Once all the good players have chosen to invest their time and money elsewhere, what will be left for you? Why play Neverwinter then?
There will be no reason. By focusing on short term financials you are destroying your own long term gains.
As a professional strategist - this is terrible strategy.
At the end of that day, it is you, the game company, that is losing most.
Please do not let this change hit live.
Thank you,
Chem.
Thank you for this post Chem.
I like many other players purchased zen to buy your CN items from auction house.
1) buy zen
2) convert zen
3) buy your items from AH
Many people have already stock piled RP items for mod 5 (it was about 60$ to make a legendary item)
Some people have maxed out their legendary items and artifacts by purcahasing RP items from AH.
Now that they are suggesting to make RP items bound, it seems I will not be dropping a car note worth of zen to upgrade anymore.
The bound RP items will hurt the cash flow into the game more than anything.
I strongly suggest you neverwinter higher ups reconsider this move.
Think about the balance gap that is going to widen over the next 2 months.
Think about us the players not being able to compete, this not even bothering to play.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I hate paying taxes! Why must I pay thousands of dollars in taxes when everything I buy is taxed anyways!
I fully agree with with Chem about the very bad direction the game is going in. However, IMO making the RP BoA is not the problem. It is making the problem worse, but in itself it is a good step. Neverwinter is the first MMO I have played where bots are cheered on, which says a lot about the state of the game. And I can fully understand that Cryptic does not want 3rd parties to bleed off their profits.
However, it needs to be balanced with another way for players to get the RP they need in a reasonable amount of time, and, most importantly, by playing the game. There are many ways to do this, but a good, simple and effective way to do this would be to put a big refining stone* or equivalent in every dungeon chest. That way we would improve our characters again by playing the game, which is the cornerstone of good MMO play.
*The value of the stone should be such that it takes about 30-50 runs to get an artifact or artifact equipment piece to legendary.
The point of this thread is a solution, what do you guys propose? I dont agree with reverting it because it's way too easy to get a legendary artifact.
Maybe Cryptic will bring something else soon, a better way to refine stuff or a better drop rate of BOP RP items lol
To Geeq5 post: My answer is the AH.
So you have full legendaries artifacts/artifact weapons , and you don't want others to have them the way you did (that you call it easy) ?
So, i've taken the time to read the entire thread, and good points have been raised.
Chem, I like that your post has created discussion, its good for the community and its good for game progress, however,
I don't think refinement being bound is the particular issue here. I main a TR and rp farming for this class is almost impossible. Binding refinement hurts my class the most.
I believe what cryptic are trying to do is turn a profit while providing a service (lets call it business) if you are a dedicated player and you have the time, then the game is free
If you are a not so casual player then the game could cost you anywhere from $50 - $500 over a year to accent your farming. I figure that to be around $1.30 per day if you spent $500 in a year, for hours of entertainment and some bonus social interaction.
Yes it takes time to get your gear to a high standard but I believe that is the point. Every online game will have its pay to win aspect, if people want to spend $4000 supporting the game and being elitist then that's just fine with me.
Cryptic provide new content, people have more fun.
The only time it really becomes an issue is when you consider 60 pvp matchmaking. We all know what that's like.
What we need is a better way to make diamonds.
I have not been as fortunate as you have to make as much ad, but I have great gear and decent enchants so I really don't understand where you are coming from when you say you've had 4 belts in 30 days 'but not the one you want'... surely you sold them to turn a profit, which you could have spent on the equipment you need, and if not, why not.
And to the people calling for steadier drops at a higher value, I ask you to consider supply and demand. Over-supply and under-demand will kill you faster than having to be 'lucky' on drops
If you are looking for an arcade game you can conquer in a month you are probably better off buying a console.. just a thought.
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ironzerg79Member, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,942Arc User
edited November 2014
So let me take this time to refresh an original idea I put out a month ago when I saw they were adding new Artifact Equipment.
How about you have two different methods towards leveling up Artifacts.
Stones and Equipment. Grind all you want, toss them in until your fingers are sore.
OR
Make Artifact Equipment gain experience as you kill stuff with them. And make it take longer the more Artifact Equipment you're wearing. Say 50% of the experience you earn while wearing a piece of Artifact Equipment goes directly to that Artifact (in some ratio if you don't want it to be 1:1). For every other Artifact Equipment you're wearing, the experience gets split. If you have a weapon and belt, each get 25%. If you have a weapon, belt and neck, each get 33%, etc. Thus someone "lucky" enough to have multiple slots gains levels a bit slower, while someone who just has one gets to see it level a little faster.
That way people can "build affinity" with their Artifact Equipment by just playing the game...doing PvP, dungeons, open-world or whatever. Then at least it doesn't feel like such a grind.
How about you have two different methods towards leveling up Artifacts.
Stones and Equipment. Grind all you want, toss them in until your fingers are sore.
OR
Make Artifact Equipment gain experience as you kill stuff with them. And make it take longer the more Artifact Equipment you're wearing. Say 50% of the experience you earn while wearing a piece of Artifact Equipment goes directly to that Artifact (in some ratio if you don't want it to be 1:1). For every other Artifact Equipment you're wearing, the experience gets split. If you have a weapon and belt, each get 25%. If you have a weapon, belt and neck, each get 33%, etc. Thus someone "lucky" enough to have multiple slots gains levels a bit slower, while someone who just has one gets to see it level a little faster.
That way people can "build affinity" with their Artifact Equipment by just playing the game...doing PvP, dungeons, open-world or whatever. Then at least it doesn't feel like such a grind.
I like this idea, but people will always find a way to complain: I don't have TIME to level my art weapon cause I got X number of alts! THIS GAME IS NOT ALT FRIENDLY! (insert whine here).
StrawberryCheesecake TR BlackberryCheesecake CW
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] CheeseCake House
I like this idea, but people will always find a way to complain: I don't have TIME to level my art weapon cause I got X number of alts! THIS GAME IS NOT ALT FRIENDLY! (insert whine here).
if exp from quests would be added it would make it more alt friendly - u could level your artifacts while you grind daily quests
but it should be at least 100% exp split/or each artifact gets x% of exp you gain. you need 4.6 mil RP for an artifact, to get from 0 to lvl 60 it takes just 910k exp or smth like that, atm 1 "level" of overflow exp is 250k, about same is needed for 1 level of artifact at high levels and that overflow exp does not come so fast
also cryptic would make money from ppl buying exp boosters to level their artifacts faster
Paladin Master Race
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govmustMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 18Arc User
edited November 2014
I have to agree with chem to a point. This trend the game is going is not something I can support.
There is a lot of good ideas in this thread but the one that sticks out is the one which hits the problem at its core. Stop the need for bots to exists and you will win. All other are just patches to a bleeding wound.
Although I first liked the idea of artifact weapon you (devs) are going overboard with it. If you sticked with just one (weapon) and the artifacts you already introduced in the game (regular 3x artifacts), you wouldn't have had the bot problem in the 1st place.
What you now have is the problem that keeps on growing. People spend time doing stupid dailies/grinding rp instead of enjoying the game. Now that you decided to do necks/offhands/atifact sets you don't really have any other option but to stick with it and go rings and armor next and where will that lead us? More grind for rp.
Now I understand that mmo needs to have treadmill. I also understand that mmo needs a grinding part. But your job (as devs) is to make it FUN and the way it is now it simply is not. Your great HE idea just doesn't work. It turned into zergfest followed by idle time waiting for another zergfest. And what bugs me is that you saw that in IWD and sticked with it in ToD and you are still bringing more of it with mod5. Why do you keep insisting that its all ok. It's not. With the way you are going you are simply driving your players away...
Redesign your HE/daily idea. Remove idle time. Stop making people do hoard foundries instead of REAL content.
You guys are missing the point.
Bots are a problem, not a solution. If you have to rely on bots to get your gear, something is broken.
In a game without bots drop rates can be higher, RP cost can be lower, BoP can be relaxed.
But with bots, you cant do that. The AH will flooded with everything you need at cheap prices and all the players get BiS just for buying it all, and cheap.
We all suffer from the changes in the short term and it sucks, you got used to buy things at the AH house. But someone has to sell it for you. Who sells it for you? The guy who owns a bot army and uses them to farm 24/7. He'll get what yo need before you, no matter what the drop rates are. But if the drop rate is low, he'll make less money and that's discouraging for him. And discouraging him to the point he'll stop and move to another game is the long term goal.
i partially agree with you chem, and with some of the other posters, this game taking that route that probably will cause some of us old and some new players to quit.
and then i dont agree with some other things (chem you brag a bit imo), who do you think pay the AD for the CN equipment you were once so dire to get.
and where that AD coming from ? the casual players who dont want to spend so much time on the game , pay some $ to get that AD or save up those precious daily refined RAD.
and then there was 'the rise of the bots', because the game got popular, and those bots steal the revenue from cryptic/PWE.
and cryptic/PWE is all about RoI which become less and less (much like how it happen in game life) so they change the rules, and btw according to reddit discussion with Ryan it appear that cryptic/PWE is about the retention of players : http://www.reddit.com/r/Neverwinter/comments/2kphsw/hi_reddit_my_name_is_ryan_and_i_am_the_product/clniaq0
and cryptic/PWE are little cryptic for me to understand but instead doing something that will raise their revenues they present some more of that grind hell stuff which bots love so much and some players appreciate because who the hell have the time to play 20 hours a day for a month - so grind fest bring revenue just not to them.
and what happens next, gear make some hardcore players so powerful that they solo some of the dungeons but the loot dropped from those dungeons worth too little nowdays because 'why do i need the CN weapon set if i can get my own artifact weapon' and those dungeons become boring in a way (rewardless and rather easy).
and no new interesting content seems to appear, just more heroic encounters - minor,major,epic and we might see in the future the legendary heroic encounter (tiamat ?) and loot drops in a frustrating rate and then grind more to make
that loot powerful.
and i hope you see how the loop continue, which is sad in my opinion.
so bots thrive even more, hardcore players complain (usually) and casual players are either pay up to get some stuff (sometimes from the bots - and being ban for that) or dont really play so much.
and here is the conundrum - those changes seems to make less and less people to play but more bots to farm and lower paying player base and increased amount of bots means less revenue - who can solve this ?.
and maybe i am in the minority here but i dont plan to get those artifact weapons anytime soon.
and addressing that alt friendly point (not the alt invoking/leadership/bot/other friendly) because i think it should being addressed - i like to play all the classes but you cant play them well if you wont keep them up in shape/gear/stuff, so its not about alt friendly or not.
just stating some of my observation. (someone in LFG looked for 14K+ GS for PK, or some 22K CW in MC announce he will be taking the 9-12 section)
the community loves this game (everybody , including the bots) and they (not the bots in this case) suggesting so many proposal which some are worth to be taking into consideration by cryptic/PWE in my opinion.
all in all i still love the game and keep playing it even though i get frustrated sometimes but cryptic/PWE should do something about the current route it taking.
For most of the days in 2014 i was just logging in invoking, sell some items (like the pocket pets i bought for around 80k and sold for few hundred thousand), do some leadership stuff.
With the AD i have now (without keeping into account all the stuff that is waiting to be sold) and the resonance stacks i allready bought i can get lots of artifact equipment pieces to legendary quite easily.
So for me this change isnt that bad at all, but if you look at it closely you will realize how redicolous the system was. Again I didnt pay real money - mostly just traded event items - logged in once a day for 20 minutes and I can get legendary equipment quite easily.
Is that how it should be? Well i dont really think so - legendary stuff shouldnt be so easy to achieve. With only 1 Million AD you could get a legendary artifact equipment piece (before patch notes). How redicolous is that? And at the same time people complain about that there is no endgame content (Hard goals like that are PART of having an endgame experience)
And all the people complaining: "OMG!!!!! How should i get my legendary weapon i would need to farm foundry for everrr!!! ZOMG!!111"
You know what? Then dont get a legendary weapon if it is not worth it for you. You all complain about the "developers" being greedy (allthough we dont know if that was their explicit choice) but i get the feeling that this angry people who have "gathered" here are the real greedy people. What is the problem with having an epic artifact equipment piece? Is it so humiliating for you?
And please dont tell me without a legendary weapon you cant suceed in PvP premades. Every rank 10 costs more AD than 1 legendary equipment piece (before patch notes)
I dont come here saying: "OMG!!! How should get my tenser's floating disk? its so epenzive!!!!! I would need to farm for ever!!!" Its upon you to decide if you want to do that. If that game has NOTHING ELSE FOR YOU TO OFFER THAN LEGENDARY EQUIPMENT - it has been said before - a gentleman would leave quietly...
OK come at me now i can take all of you with my legendary... oh wait still dont have that
Chem, I appreciate what you're pointing out. I really do, and you're right on most things. But don't play the money and ego cards. They'll only come back to haunt you in the end. Besides, just because you're a good theorycrafter and mage player doesn't automatically make you right in what you say, even though you are. So don't play that card.
Yeah I will have to agree with you on that!
I mean when I first started reading the topic I thought it was a joke topic, but I 100% support everything he says.
So next time let just focus on the task at hand, and ignore everything else.
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thefabricantMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 5,248Arc User
edited November 2014
Agree with OP.
Although, I will continue to get some fun out of the game without the best gear and slowly improve my characters until I get tired of the small amounts of fun content in the game and once I am bored of it, I will move on. The gear grind in this game is far to large to be feasible whilst still having fun....unless you a <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>.
So, i've taken the time to read the entire thread, and good points have been raised.
Chem, I like that your post has created discussion, its good for the community and its good for game progress, however,
I don't think refinement being bound is the particular issue here. I main a TR and rp farming for this class is almost impossible. Binding refinement hurts my class the most.
I believe what cryptic are trying to do is turn a profit while providing a service (lets call it business) if you are a dedicated player and you have the time, then the game is free
If you are a not so casual player then the game could cost you anywhere from $50 - $500 over a year to accent your farming. I figure that to be around $1.30 per day if you spent $500 in a year, for hours of entertainment and some bonus social interaction.
Yes it takes time to get your gear to a high standard but I believe that is the point. Every online game will have its pay to win aspect, if people want to spend $4000 supporting the game and being elitist then that's just fine with me.
Cryptic provide new content, people have more fun.
The only time it really becomes an issue is when you consider 60 pvp matchmaking. We all know what that's like.
What we need is a better way to make diamonds.
I have not been as fortunate as you have to make as much ad, but I have great gear and decent enchants so I really don't understand where you are coming from when you say you've had 4 belts in 30 days 'but not the one you want'... surely you sold them to turn a profit, which you could have spent on the equipment you need, and if not, why not.
And to the people calling for steadier drops at a higher value, I ask you to consider supply and demand. Over-supply and under-demand will kill you faster than having to be 'lucky' on drops
If you are looking for an arcade game you can conquer in a month you are probably better off buying a console.. just a thought.
Good points here.
We do need a valid way to make diamonds.
I understand the supply and demand question very well, Too much supply will devalue the items - which is obviously something cyrptic is going out of their way to avoid.
I don't think that is a bad thing at all. But what I do think is that limiting supply by "extremely low RNG" to limit supply isn't the best way. If the content was much more difficult and only those with high skill and/or gear could farm, that would be great with me.
How about you have two different methods towards leveling up Artifacts.
Stones and Equipment. Grind all you want, toss them in until your fingers are sore.
OR
Make Artifact Equipment gain experience as you kill stuff with them. And make it take longer the more Artifact Equipment you're wearing. Say 50% of the experience you earn while wearing a piece of Artifact Equipment goes directly to that Artifact (in some ratio if you don't want it to be 1:1). For every other Artifact Equipment you're wearing, the experience gets split. If you have a weapon and belt, each get 25%. If you have a weapon, belt and neck, each get 33%, etc. Thus someone "lucky" enough to have multiple slots gains levels a bit slower, while someone who just has one gets to see it level a little faster.
That way people can "build affinity" with their Artifact Equipment by just playing the game...doing PvP, dungeons, open-world or whatever. Then at least it doesn't feel like such a grind.
This isn't a bad idea, zerg. I wouldn't mind this either.
I have to agree with chem to a point. This trend the game is going is not something I can support.
There is a lot of good ideas in this thread but the one that sticks out is the one which hits the problem at its core. Stop the need for bots to exists and you will win. All other are just patches to a bleeding wound.
Although I first liked the idea of artifact weapon you (devs) are going overboard with it. If you sticked with just one (weapon) and the artifacts you already introduced in the game (regular 3x artifacts), you wouldn't have had the bot problem in the 1st place.
What you now have is the problem that keeps on growing. People spend time doing stupid dailies/grinding rp instead of enjoying the game. Now that you decided to do necks/offhands/atifact sets you don't really have any other option but to stick with it and go rings and armor next and where will that lead us? More grind for rp.
Now I understand that mmo needs to have treadmill. I also understand that mmo needs a grinding part. But your job (as devs) is to make it FUN and the way it is now it simply is not. Your great HE idea just doesn't work. It turned into zergfest followed by idle time waiting for another zergfest. And what bugs me is that you saw that in IWD and sticked with it in ToD and you are still bringing more of it with mod5. Why do you keep insisting that its all ok. It's not. With the way you are going you are simply driving your players away...
Redesign your HE/daily idea. Remove idle time. Stop making people do hoard foundries instead of REAL content.
The change is good fo the game if bosses/dungeons give lots of rp stones. We should concentrate our efforts in get that change because this BtA change wont go back.
If you can farm enough rp in dungeons, everybody will accept this change as good for the game and bad for ad sellers
agree here, BoA dragon hoard enchantment will mean nada if we can get something from dungeons. Like in tiamat will drop a blood ruby or something (boa, bop, boe doesn't matter we get it by DOING CONTENT, preferably boe so we can sell it if need be)
0
chemboy613Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,521Arc User
i partially agree with you chem, and with some of the other posters, this game taking that route that probably will cause some of us old and some new players to quit.
and then i dont agree with some other things (chem you brag a bit imo), who do you think pay the AD for the CN equipment you were once so dire to get.
and where that AD coming from ? the casual players who dont want to spend so much time on the game , pay some $ to get that AD or save up those precious daily refined RAD.
and then there was 'the rise of the bots', because the game got popular, and those bots steal the revenue from cryptic/PWE.
and cryptic/PWE is all about RoI which become less and less (much like how it happen in game life) so they change the rules, and btw according to reddit discussion with Ryan it appear that cryptic/PWE is about the retention of players : http://www.reddit.com/r/Neverwinter/comments/2kphsw/hi_reddit_my_name_is_ryan_and_i_am_the_product/clniaq0
and cryptic/PWE are little cryptic for me to understand but instead doing something that will raise their revenues they present some more of that grind hell stuff which bots love so much and some players appreciate because who the hell have the time to play 20 hours a day for a month - so grind fest bring revenue just not to them.
and what happens next, gear make some hardcore players so powerful that they solo some of the dungeons but the loot dropped from those dungeons worth too little nowdays because 'why do i need the CN weapon set if i can get my own artifact weapon' and those dungeons become boring in a way (rewardless and rather easy).
and no new interesting content seems to appear, just more heroic encounters - minor,major,epic and we might see in the future the legendary heroic encounter (tiamat ?) and loot drops in a frustrating rate and then grind more to make
that loot powerful.
and i hope you see how the loop continue, which is sad in my opinion.
so bots thrive even more, hardcore players complain (usually) and casual players are either pay up to get some stuff (sometimes from the bots - and being ban for that) or dont really play so much.
and here is the conundrum - those changes seems to make less and less people to play but more bots to farm and lower paying player base and increased amount of bots means less revenue - who can solve this ?.
and maybe i am in the minority here but i dont plan to get those artifact weapons anytime soon.
and addressing that alt friendly point (not the alt invoking/leadership/bot/other friendly) because i think it should being addressed - i like to play all the classes but you cant play them well if you wont keep them up in shape/gear/stuff, so its not about alt friendly or not.
just stating some of my observation. (someone in LFG looked for 14K+ GS for PK, or some 22K CW in MC announce he will be taking the 9-12 section)
the community loves this game (everybody , including the bots) and they (not the bots in this case) suggesting so many proposal which some are worth to be taking into consideration by cryptic/PWE in my opinion.
all in all i still love the game and keep playing it even though i get frustrated sometimes but cryptic/PWE should do something about the current route it taking.
Hey man, i understand this point too.
When I bought my frist two CN weapon sets (over 1M AD each), I farmed that AD running T2 dungeons - back in the days before we had artifacts or companion bonuses or boons. Yes, we could do T2 dungeons in a reasonable time with 10-11k GS (shockingly, right?)
So then i paid a good amount of CN for my CN weapons - probably farmed by someone who was further ahead of the game than me.
Once I geared up i learned to run CN myself. Probably at 11-12k GS. Yes, we died _a lot_. Yes, it was difficult until we figured it out. Then we got a system and farmed our tails off.
Truly, however you guys feel about that, it was a lot of time and a lot of effort. It was not some easy "hold down the mouse button and kill things in mobs farm" thing.
I get there needs to be a grind thing. I know many people who quit in mod 2 because they had full rank 10s and orange artifacts. Were they, and possibly me, making too much AD at the time? Likely.
However, replacing it with the current system - cut your income stream say 90% and increase the AD required for BIS item by what? 25%? 50%?
We are talking about increasing the time requirements 10-20 times over. If it took 1000-1500 hours of game time to get Rank 9s/10s and legendary artifacts - maybe that's fine. Maybe it should be a little more. But it certainly shouldn't be 10000 hours.
For most of the days in 2014 i was just logging in invoking, sell some items (like the pocket pets i bought for around 80k and sold for few hundred thousand), do some leadership stuff.
With the AD i have now (without keeping into account all the stuff that is waiting to be sold) and the resonance stacks i allready bought i can get lots of artifact equipment pieces to legendary quite easily.
So for me this change isnt that bad at all, but if you look at it closely you will realize how redicolous the system was. Again I didnt pay real money - mostly just traded event items - logged in once a day for 20 minutes and I can get legendary equipment quite easily.
Is that how it should be? Well i dont really think so - legendary stuff shouldnt be so easy to achieve. With only 1 Million AD you could get a legendary artifact equipment piece (before patch notes). How redicolous is that? And at the same time people complain about that there is no endgame content (Hard goals like that are PART of having an endgame experience)
And all the people complaining: "OMG!!!!! How should i get my legendary weapon i would need to farm foundry for everrr!!! ZOMG!!111"
You know what? Then dont get a legendary weapon if it is not worth it for you. You all complain about the "developers" being greedy (allthough we dont know if that was their explicit choice) but i get the feeling that this angry people who have "gathered" here are the real greedy people. What is the problem with having an epic artifact equipment piece? Is it so humiliating for you?
And please dont tell me without a legendary weapon you cant suceed in PvP premades. Every rank 10 costs more AD than 1 legendary equipment piece (before patch notes)
I dont come here saying: "OMG!!! How should get my tenser's floating disk? its so epenzive!!!!! I would need to farm for ever!!!" Its upon you to decide if you want to do that. If that game has NOTHING ELSE FOR YOU TO OFFER THAN LEGENDARY EQUIPMENT - it has been said before - a gentleman would leave quietly...
OK come at me now i can take all of you with my legendary... oh wait still dont have that
LOL, i understand the point here, but i think the point isn't so much that it's not possible to do what you do, but playing the AH is not playing the game. We should have a way to get legendary stuff by playing the game, not necessarily playing the AH - something i feel induced to do because my income has been reduced to a trickle.
However, what they are doing here (it looks like) is creating acute pressure for short term gains at the expense of their long term investment. Which means if they adopt this strategy - they will lose.
Bingo. I actually love this game. The game play is awesome. The environments are cool, and I actually really think they did a great job with the D&D stories part.
But if they keep going down the road of a cheap iPhone grinder game, they're going to lose.
Comments
(That is a bit off topic I guess. We know why artifacts were introduced, and it was not for continuity of story.)
This was the best option.
Honestly, I hate hate hate whining. I really do. I tell many people many times to stop whining.
I don't think this is whining and it's not just about me. Sometimes things are just so out of line we have to speak up.
Everything you need to know about CW:
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?780981-Chem-s-CW-Compendium-Everything-you-need-to-know
Here's an off-the-wall idea: have a set of T1/2/3 level dungeons that you could select that dropped really good RP items instead of gear?
Blood Magic (RELEASED) - NW-DUU2P7HCO
Children of the Fey (RELEASED) - NW-DKSSAPFPF
Buried Under Blacklake (WIP) - NW-DEDV2PAEP
The Redcap Rebels (WIP) - NW-DO23AFHFH
My Foundry playthrough channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Ruskaga/featured
ok, so I have been running ELOL - getting about 6k AD/run
Now what if this was like 20k RP, that would be great! Even 15k, great! Something in that range, and great.
Everything you need to know about CW:
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?780981-Chem-s-CW-Compendium-Everything-you-need-to-know
I really like that idea. Because really, after they BOA them, the only option are going to be blood ruby packs or flawless sapphire from the bazaar. Either way you're paying 23-26 million AD to fully level an artifact. Takes 3,850,000 RP to get to legendary.
http://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/Artifact
To be expected to grind that through random low drop rates or even real money cash is ridiculous. But if they started offering that stuff as dungeon drops, it would definitely help out a lot.
If you can farm enough rp in dungeons, everybody will accept this change as good for the game and bad for ad sellers
Caturday Survivor
Elemental Evil Survivor
Undermontain Survivor
Mod20 Combat rework Survivor
Mod22 Refinement rework Survivor
You really think this change will be complimented with RP drops on dungeons?
Caturday Survivor
Elemental Evil Survivor
Undermontain Survivor
Mod20 Combat rework Survivor
Mod22 Refinement rework Survivor
This is another good suggestion. It is not that BoA RP is a bad idea in all circumstances, it's that BoA RP by ITSELF is a bad idea. Obviously if we were getting RP or had a good way of changing our epic drops into RP, that would be fine. What if a ring of pain was 20k RP? That would probably solve the problem, but whatever it is now isn't near enough to keep a BoA model valid.
Everything you need to know about CW:
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?780981-Chem-s-CW-Compendium-Everything-you-need-to-know
As long as they keep this kind of system things just wont get a fix for the simple reason that it just cant be fixed and most likely they are happy with the money from it! Mind you that is the same management that cant make money from foundry...
Thank you for this post Chem.
I like many other players purchased zen to buy your CN items from auction house.
1) buy zen
2) convert zen
3) buy your items from AH
Many people have already stock piled RP items for mod 5 (it was about 60$ to make a legendary item)
Some people have maxed out their legendary items and artifacts by purcahasing RP items from AH.
Now that they are suggesting to make RP items bound, it seems I will not be dropping a car note worth of zen to upgrade anymore.
The bound RP items will hurt the cash flow into the game more than anything.
I strongly suggest you neverwinter higher ups reconsider this move.
Think about the balance gap that is going to widen over the next 2 months.
Think about us the players not being able to compete, this not even bothering to play.
However, it needs to be balanced with another way for players to get the RP they need in a reasonable amount of time, and, most importantly, by playing the game. There are many ways to do this, but a good, simple and effective way to do this would be to put a big refining stone* or equivalent in every dungeon chest. That way we would improve our characters again by playing the game, which is the cornerstone of good MMO play.
*The value of the stone should be such that it takes about 30-50 runs to get an artifact or artifact equipment piece to legendary.
So you have full legendaries artifacts/artifact weapons , and you don't want others to have them the way you did (that you call it easy) ?
Chem, I like that your post has created discussion, its good for the community and its good for game progress, however,
I don't think refinement being bound is the particular issue here. I main a TR and rp farming for this class is almost impossible. Binding refinement hurts my class the most.
I believe what cryptic are trying to do is turn a profit while providing a service (lets call it business) if you are a dedicated player and you have the time, then the game is free
If you are a not so casual player then the game could cost you anywhere from $50 - $500 over a year to accent your farming. I figure that to be around $1.30 per day if you spent $500 in a year, for hours of entertainment and some bonus social interaction.
Yes it takes time to get your gear to a high standard but I believe that is the point. Every online game will have its pay to win aspect, if people want to spend $4000 supporting the game and being elitist then that's just fine with me.
Cryptic provide new content, people have more fun.
The only time it really becomes an issue is when you consider 60 pvp matchmaking. We all know what that's like.
What we need is a better way to make diamonds.
I have not been as fortunate as you have to make as much ad, but I have great gear and decent enchants so I really don't understand where you are coming from when you say you've had 4 belts in 30 days 'but not the one you want'... surely you sold them to turn a profit, which you could have spent on the equipment you need, and if not, why not.
And to the people calling for steadier drops at a higher value, I ask you to consider supply and demand. Over-supply and under-demand will kill you faster than having to be 'lucky' on drops
If you are looking for an arcade game you can conquer in a month you are probably better off buying a console.. just a thought.
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?777511-Official-Feedback-Thread-Artifact-Equipment&p=9263741&viewfull=1#post9263741
How about you have two different methods towards leveling up Artifacts.
Stones and Equipment. Grind all you want, toss them in until your fingers are sore.
OR
Make Artifact Equipment gain experience as you kill stuff with them. And make it take longer the more Artifact Equipment you're wearing. Say 50% of the experience you earn while wearing a piece of Artifact Equipment goes directly to that Artifact (in some ratio if you don't want it to be 1:1). For every other Artifact Equipment you're wearing, the experience gets split. If you have a weapon and belt, each get 25%. If you have a weapon, belt and neck, each get 33%, etc. Thus someone "lucky" enough to have multiple slots gains levels a bit slower, while someone who just has one gets to see it level a little faster.
That way people can "build affinity" with their Artifact Equipment by just playing the game...doing PvP, dungeons, open-world or whatever. Then at least it doesn't feel like such a grind.
I like this idea, but people will always find a way to complain: I don't have TIME to level my art weapon cause I got X number of alts! THIS GAME IS NOT ALT FRIENDLY! (insert whine here).
BlackberryCheesecake CW
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
CheeseCake House
if exp from quests would be added it would make it more alt friendly - u could level your artifacts while you grind daily quests
but it should be at least 100% exp split/or each artifact gets x% of exp you gain. you need 4.6 mil RP for an artifact, to get from 0 to lvl 60 it takes just 910k exp or smth like that, atm 1 "level" of overflow exp is 250k, about same is needed for 1 level of artifact at high levels and that overflow exp does not come so fast
also cryptic would make money from ppl buying exp boosters to level their artifacts faster
There is a lot of good ideas in this thread but the one that sticks out is the one which hits the problem at its core. Stop the need for bots to exists and you will win. All other are just patches to a bleeding wound.
Although I first liked the idea of artifact weapon you (devs) are going overboard with it. If you sticked with just one (weapon) and the artifacts you already introduced in the game (regular 3x artifacts), you wouldn't have had the bot problem in the 1st place.
What you now have is the problem that keeps on growing. People spend time doing stupid dailies/grinding rp instead of enjoying the game. Now that you decided to do necks/offhands/atifact sets you don't really have any other option but to stick with it and go rings and armor next and where will that lead us? More grind for rp.
Now I understand that mmo needs to have treadmill. I also understand that mmo needs a grinding part. But your job (as devs) is to make it FUN and the way it is now it simply is not. Your great HE idea just doesn't work. It turned into zergfest followed by idle time waiting for another zergfest. And what bugs me is that you saw that in IWD and sticked with it in ToD and you are still bringing more of it with mod5. Why do you keep insisting that its all ok. It's not. With the way you are going you are simply driving your players away...
Redesign your HE/daily idea. Remove idle time. Stop making people do hoard foundries instead of REAL content.
Bots are a problem, not a solution. If you have to rely on bots to get your gear, something is broken.
In a game without bots drop rates can be higher, RP cost can be lower, BoP can be relaxed.
But with bots, you cant do that. The AH will flooded with everything you need at cheap prices and all the players get BiS just for buying it all, and cheap.
We all suffer from the changes in the short term and it sucks, you got used to buy things at the AH house. But someone has to sell it for you. Who sells it for you? The guy who owns a bot army and uses them to farm 24/7. He'll get what yo need before you, no matter what the drop rates are. But if the drop rate is low, he'll make less money and that's discouraging for him. And discouraging him to the point he'll stop and move to another game is the long term goal.
sharing my 2 cents here.
i partially agree with you chem, and with some of the other posters, this game taking that route that probably will cause some of us old and some new players to quit.
and then i dont agree with some other things (chem you brag a bit imo), who do you think pay the AD for the CN equipment you were once so dire to get.
and where that AD coming from ? the casual players who dont want to spend so much time on the game , pay some $ to get that AD or save up those precious daily refined RAD.
and then there was 'the rise of the bots', because the game got popular, and those bots steal the revenue from cryptic/PWE.
and cryptic/PWE is all about RoI which become less and less (much like how it happen in game life) so they change the rules, and btw according to reddit discussion with Ryan it appear that cryptic/PWE is about the retention of players : http://www.reddit.com/r/Neverwinter/comments/2kphsw/hi_reddit_my_name_is_ryan_and_i_am_the_product/clniaq0
and cryptic/PWE are little cryptic for me to understand but instead doing something that will raise their revenues they present some more of that grind hell stuff which bots love so much and some players appreciate because who the hell have the time to play 20 hours a day for a month - so grind fest bring revenue just not to them.
and what happens next, gear make some hardcore players so powerful that they solo some of the dungeons but the loot dropped from those dungeons worth too little nowdays because 'why do i need the CN weapon set if i can get my own artifact weapon' and those dungeons become boring in a way (rewardless and rather easy).
and no new interesting content seems to appear, just more heroic encounters - minor,major,epic and we might see in the future the legendary heroic encounter (tiamat ?) and loot drops in a frustrating rate and then grind more to make
that loot powerful.
and i hope you see how the loop continue, which is sad in my opinion.
so bots thrive even more, hardcore players complain (usually) and casual players are either pay up to get some stuff (sometimes from the bots - and being ban for that) or dont really play so much.
and here is the conundrum - those changes seems to make less and less people to play but more bots to farm and lower paying player base and increased amount of bots means less revenue - who can solve this ?.
and maybe i am in the minority here but i dont plan to get those artifact weapons anytime soon.
and addressing that alt friendly point (not the alt invoking/leadership/bot/other friendly) because i think it should being addressed - i like to play all the classes but you cant play them well if you wont keep them up in shape/gear/stuff, so its not about alt friendly or not.
just stating some of my observation. (someone in LFG looked for 14K+ GS for PK, or some 22K CW in MC announce he will be taking the 9-12 section)
the community loves this game (everybody , including the bots) and they (not the bots in this case) suggesting so many proposal which some are worth to be taking into consideration by cryptic/PWE in my opinion.
all in all i still love the game and keep playing it even though i get frustrated sometimes but cryptic/PWE should do something about the current route it taking.
Well i am Free2play
For most of the days in 2014 i was just logging in invoking, sell some items (like the pocket pets i bought for around 80k and sold for few hundred thousand), do some leadership stuff.
With the AD i have now (without keeping into account all the stuff that is waiting to be sold) and the resonance stacks i allready bought i can get lots of artifact equipment pieces to legendary quite easily.
So for me this change isnt that bad at all, but if you look at it closely you will realize how redicolous the system was. Again I didnt pay real money - mostly just traded event items - logged in once a day for 20 minutes and I can get legendary equipment quite easily.
Is that how it should be? Well i dont really think so - legendary stuff shouldnt be so easy to achieve. With only 1 Million AD you could get a legendary artifact equipment piece (before patch notes). How redicolous is that? And at the same time people complain about that there is no endgame content (Hard goals like that are PART of having an endgame experience)
And all the people complaining: "OMG!!!!! How should i get my legendary weapon i would need to farm foundry for everrr!!! ZOMG!!111"
You know what? Then dont get a legendary weapon if it is not worth it for you. You all complain about the "developers" being greedy (allthough we dont know if that was their explicit choice) but i get the feeling that this angry people who have "gathered" here are the real greedy people. What is the problem with having an epic artifact equipment piece? Is it so humiliating for you?
And please dont tell me without a legendary weapon you cant suceed in PvP premades. Every rank 10 costs more AD than 1 legendary equipment piece (before patch notes)
I dont come here saying: "OMG!!! How should get my tenser's floating disk? its so epenzive!!!!! I would need to farm for ever!!!" Its upon you to decide if you want to do that. If that game has NOTHING ELSE FOR YOU TO OFFER THAN LEGENDARY EQUIPMENT - it has been said before - a gentleman would leave quietly...
OK come at me now i can take all of you with my legendary... oh wait still dont have that
Yeah I will have to agree with you on that!
I mean when I first started reading the topic I thought it was a joke topic, but I 100% support everything he says.
So next time let just focus on the task at hand, and ignore everything else.
Although, I will continue to get some fun out of the game without the best gear and slowly improve my characters until I get tired of the small amounts of fun content in the game and once I am bored of it, I will move on. The gear grind in this game is far to large to be feasible whilst still having fun....unless you a <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>.
Good points here.
We do need a valid way to make diamonds.
I understand the supply and demand question very well, Too much supply will devalue the items - which is obviously something cyrptic is going out of their way to avoid.
I don't think that is a bad thing at all. But what I do think is that limiting supply by "extremely low RNG" to limit supply isn't the best way. If the content was much more difficult and only those with high skill and/or gear could farm, that would be great with me.
Everything you need to know about CW:
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?780981-Chem-s-CW-Compendium-Everything-you-need-to-know
This isn't a bad idea, zerg. I wouldn't mind this either.
Everything you need to know about CW:
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?780981-Chem-s-CW-Compendium-Everything-you-need-to-know
agree with this. +1
Everything you need to know about CW:
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?780981-Chem-s-CW-Compendium-Everything-you-need-to-know
agree here, BoA dragon hoard enchantment will mean nada if we can get something from dungeons. Like in tiamat will drop a blood ruby or something (boa, bop, boe doesn't matter we get it by DOING CONTENT, preferably boe so we can sell it if need be)
Hey man, i understand this point too.
When I bought my frist two CN weapon sets (over 1M AD each), I farmed that AD running T2 dungeons - back in the days before we had artifacts or companion bonuses or boons. Yes, we could do T2 dungeons in a reasonable time with 10-11k GS (shockingly, right?)
So then i paid a good amount of CN for my CN weapons - probably farmed by someone who was further ahead of the game than me.
Once I geared up i learned to run CN myself. Probably at 11-12k GS. Yes, we died _a lot_. Yes, it was difficult until we figured it out. Then we got a system and farmed our tails off.
Truly, however you guys feel about that, it was a lot of time and a lot of effort. It was not some easy "hold down the mouse button and kill things in mobs farm" thing.
I get there needs to be a grind thing. I know many people who quit in mod 2 because they had full rank 10s and orange artifacts. Were they, and possibly me, making too much AD at the time? Likely.
However, replacing it with the current system - cut your income stream say 90% and increase the AD required for BIS item by what? 25%? 50%?
We are talking about increasing the time requirements 10-20 times over. If it took 1000-1500 hours of game time to get Rank 9s/10s and legendary artifacts - maybe that's fine. Maybe it should be a little more. But it certainly shouldn't be 10000 hours.
Everything you need to know about CW:
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?780981-Chem-s-CW-Compendium-Everything-you-need-to-know
LOL, i understand the point here, but i think the point isn't so much that it's not possible to do what you do, but playing the AH is not playing the game. We should have a way to get legendary stuff by playing the game, not necessarily playing the AH - something i feel induced to do because my income has been reduced to a trickle.
Everything you need to know about CW:
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?780981-Chem-s-CW-Compendium-Everything-you-need-to-know
Bingo. I actually love this game. The game play is awesome. The environments are cool, and I actually really think they did a great job with the D&D stories part.
But if they keep going down the road of a cheap iPhone grinder game, they're going to lose.