Oh believe me, I bring it up every week. Every. Week. It's not just me, but the devs want them back, as well. For the time being, they're currently swamped with Strongholds as it's something that's completely different than what they've done in the past.
Why should I believe any word of what you're saying ?
This, right here, Sturm, is the crux of one of your major problems. Trust. Or the lack thereof. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Mod six and a lot of the more questionable decisions (ninja nerfs, the punishing grind (all for the sole sake of getting back into WOD with no new end-game content to speak of), removal of 75% of the game's dungeons and skirmishes, the account wide companion debacle that is still going on and which people seem to now firmly believe the devs are ignoring and hoping will go away with time, etc., and the general feeling that the Devs are off in their own little world, completely divorced from reality and the needs and concerns of their player base) have shattered player trust in the devs and anyone who associates with them. We've heard a lot of words. But as a member of the legal profession, let me tell you, if it ain't under oath, words are cheap.
I'm not blaming you directly, but the Powers That Be in this game have created an environment where people do not take you at your word. They've been burned too many times. And for your game's business model, that is absolutely toxic. Burned players that don't trust you? They don't spend money. They don't buy Zen. Neverwinter doesn't hold a monopoly on the high fantasy MMO genre or even the D&D license. Players can, will, and have gone to other games in droves since Mod 6 was released. And if your devs don't start doing everything in their power to correct this broken trust, you're going to be in for a universe of suffering and I'll be quite surprised if we're still here celebrating the 3rd anniversary of this game.
I don't say this to be mean spirited. I don't want to see this game fail. I've been here since May of 13. I've had a blast up till this mod, and I've stuck around in the hopes that things will get better. But you have a problem, and pretending it doesn't exist isn't going to help you one whit.
0
santralafaxMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 2,896Arc User
Oh believe me, I bring it up every week. Every. Week. It's not just me, but the devs want them back, as well. For the time being, they're currently swamped with Strongholds as it's something that's completely different than what they've done in the past.
Why should I believe any word of what you're saying ?
Personally, I believe Strumslinger, and welcome his opinion on things. However, maybe it isn't the right time for Strongholds, with all the problems Mod 6 introduced. Building on a shaky slope, and all that.
1. At first, leveling was too fast, which is why the development team increased the XP gain. True, they might have increased the grind by more than what players are used to, but in my personal opinion, eight hours isn't really that much for an MMO. That being said, Strongholds will make it easier to level in that range.
Leveling is now obscene. Way more than "8" hours to get from 60 to 70 even if ran with rank 12 Azures and inscribed garments.
You have to understand that most people leveling characters now are doing so on alts. I had to finish up 2 levels on my final alt after the new "more rewarding' exp curve was implemented, and lets just say that even with 2x exp it was BORING as hell. Needless to say, I will not be leveling any more new characters. Playing alts in this game is now dead. Sadly, with nothing good to farm (too many BoP drops now), there is nothing fun left in the game.
3. Serious question: once you're done leveling up all your artifact weapons to the max, what would you do next?
Serious answer :Probably, I'd get started on leveling my alts. Would be great if we could get a substantial +XP mod on the Class Sigil artifacts. The extra xp to level is very tough, and I'd honestly appreciate a bit of a break. Make the bonus 25% + 10% per other class artifact equipped. So if you've got lots of alts to 60, you can equip 4 of them and get a very nice bonus.
I agree that trust has been broken too far already, even if I personally would like to believe Strumslinger, I doubt that Cryptic/PWE is willing to make the changes needed to make the population happy again.
I tendto be a pessimistic though XD
The leveling path from 60-70 is painfully long and painfully boring. Who in the world possibly thought that it was a good idea to have it this way? This is as bad as oldschool Everquest leveling.
I jumped in this game very recently and spent a little money to help me level and support the game. I enjoyed leveling from 1-60, it was fast. Todays MMO world, people do not need 70+ levels of painfully slow and boring content to learn how to play their character. It isn't necessary, and too much time/resources are wasted developing a leveling path rather than focusing more on endgame. I am currently level 64 on a TR, with boosted Xp from the zen store and I think I am on my way to leaving Neverwinter behind me. I've barely played, but I have no interest in doing the rest of the god awful repeatable quests, especially since I hear the EXP required to level was INCREASED since mod 6 was dropped WITHOUT adding a path to make up for the added experience. So that means I'll have to continue to do the same god awful quests over and over in order to reach 70. As bad as I wanna hit 70 and start working for the gear and actually run a dungeon that doesn't get facerolled, I just don't think I have it in me to get that invested in it.
I can't believe an MMO would increase exp required to level without adding content to do so. Couple that with the many numerous bugs..makes it really hard for new players like myself to invest much more than a month or so in this game.
1. At first, leveling was too fast, which is why the development team increased the XP gain. True, they might have increased the grind by more than what players are used to, but in my personal opinion, eight hours isn't really that much for an MMO. That being said, Strongholds will make it easier to level in that range.
Why not make Elemental Evil more MMO-friendly? Vigilant quest mechanics disallow you to share quests, certain objectives have to be repeated by each member of team. A lot of communication difficulties arises when each member of team has own set of quests. Elemental Evil is wrong area to focus on XP slow down. 4 zones with 48 vigilance quests plus arc quests should give you all necessary 61-70 XP prior boosts. Which means each zone quests should provide progress for 2.5 levels. I started as late 68 in last zone, have completed 2/3 of it, so now i have 20% in my progress bar filled and I use invocations, azures for extra XP.
Sharandar, IWD, Dread Ring: You're supposed to do these after Elemental Evil now. If you're a new or casual player, this change doesn't exist as this is the way the game is supposed to be played now.
Doing Elemental Evil alone is not always enjoyable for everyone, so people seeking for fun somewhere else.
Oh believe me, I bring it up every week. Every. Week. It's not just me, but the devs want them back, as well. For the time being, they're currently swamped with Strongholds as it's something that's completely different than what they've done in the past.
Why should I believe any word of what you're saying ?
OMG, Give me a break. If you truly don't trust Cryptic then you should quit the game. right now. The fact is @strumslinger isn't a liar and that's why you should believe him. If you've ever had an actual job in a professional environment (not saying you haven't), then you will understand that there is a process to be followed for everything, and there are spheres of responsibility. Strumslinger doesn't have any control over what the developers are doing. He can inform, he can encourage, but he doesn't get to decide the direction. More importantly, there are factors at work that inform their dev priorities that we don't know and we may never know. A statement like yours displays an absolute lack of understanding about what goes into operating a business of any significant size.
So, if you think Strumslinger personally, and more broadly Cryptic as a whole, are just a pack of liars, then you should go away because you'll never be happy playing this game no matter what they do. If you'd rather be part of the solution, then stick around. Otherwise. I doubt anyone here will miss you.
Oh believe me, I bring it up every week. Every. Week. It's not just me, but the devs want them back, as well. For the time being, they're currently swamped with Strongholds as it's something that's completely different than what they've done in the past.
Why should I believe any word of what you're saying ?
OMG, Give me a break. If you truly don't trust Cryptic then you should quit the game. right now. The fact is @strumslinger isn't a liar and that's why you should believe him. If you've ever had an actual job in a professional environment (not saying you haven't), then you will understand that there is a process to be followed for everything, and there are spheres of responsibility. Strumslinger doesn't have any control over what the developers are doing. He can inform, he can encourage, but he doesn't get to decide the direction. More importantly, there are factors at work that inform their dev priorities that we don't know and we may never know. A statement like yours displays an absolute lack of understanding about what goes into operating a business of any significant size.
So, if you think Strumslinger personally, and more broadly Cryptic as a whole, are just a pack of liars, then you should go away because you'll never be happy playing this game no matter what they do. If you'd rather be part of the solution, then stick around. Otherwise. I doubt anyone here will miss you.
I swear every time I see people saying "why should I believe you" I think of them having aluminum foil on their heads saying they are shielding themselves from aliens.
Lets face it, there have been many problems with mod6. Everyone from the players to the devs know it. And the devs acknowledge it.
To those that have left, hey we understand. But to those that are still here, you must still like the game for something whether it be for the friends on there is still little hope.
Me personally I'm sitting back waiting to see what mod7-8 looks like. And so far with some of the updates I've been seeing, it honestly looks like they are trying. I mean if you want proof look at the new way to get the MH/OH in mod7. If you haven't go check out the articles/test server. Grant it, it seems like it's being done to never repeat a mistake again. At the same time it takes a lot for a person to admit when wrong and fix it then to blindly go down a self-destructing path. So with that, I'd say slightly hold your breathe for what's to come.
In terms of strum, thanks for trying and keep doing what you can. It is appreciated.
On the other side. I do hope the devs, or everyone for that matter has learned a good deal from mod6 going forward. And I hope that blog can give a bit more (or a lot more) transparency between the devs and the players.
0
beckylunaticMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 14,231Arc User
1. At first, leveling was too fast, which is why the development team increased the XP gain. True, they might have increased the grind by more than what players are used to, but in my personal opinion, eight hours isn't really that much for an MMO. That being said, Strongholds will make it easier to level in that range.
"Too fast" according to who? Neverwinter has been praised for not having the appallingly slow grind that I understand is perhaps more expected of MMOs. So what? Don't try to be other games, because that's not what we're here for. You've got a very small minority of players saying they want a slow levelling process (more often because of blowing through 1-60 so quickly) and a large majority who despise it, at least in the current form.
You say that Strongholds will make it easier to level, but that's nearly another month (assuming no release delay) of having to play within a really awful, un-fun system that is more inspiring of getting bored and giving up than soldiering through it. 140 vigilance tasks to earn one level? While still being able to only carry 4 tasks at a time? How could anyone have thought this was a good idea?
I want to bring up a point I edited out from the end of your post wherein you say the campaigns are now meant to be played after Elemental Evil. That's a ton of content that players are now largely locked out of for a long time because they can't reach the level cap so easily. Likewise the epic dungeons that they're wanting to play with their friends. The scaling dungeons don't exactly have much to offer. Neverwinter has been a game that largely takes place when you reach the cap, as much as the journey to 60 can be fun (journey to 70... meh), and it still is, except there's now a huge hurdle in the way of reaching that endgame, which was never there before.
And the change to overflow XP is unforgivable unless power points become a fixed reward for at least the first 5 (only because I think 10 would be pushing my luck) times a character earns one and the rewards get buffed again. The balance of this system was acceptable at 770k, but now it's back to "oh yippee, another peridot" levels of anticipation on earning overflow rewards. They need to arrive at a pace where they're contributing something to the character as opposed to just being a thing that happens sometimes and nobody especially cares because it's not like you're going to get anything good anyway.
2. This has and will again be brought up to the devs. Just remember, those people with crazy gear had to start somewhere and probably got defeated a lot too in their journey to becoming who they are now. With great power comes great responsibility.
Yeah, I probably could have all orange and teal stuff too if I had exploited (or paid for it, or if I was using 25+ alts for the sole purpose of feeding a main). The gear that truly requires earning it through playing is a very small portion of player power. This ties into complaints about the RP grind as well... it's bad enough to be told (not by you, Andy) that legendary equipment seems to be attainable due to the metrics showing that some of the player base had all their legendary equipment within a few days of release, therefore the system must be working great. It's worse to then have to fight those people with your own significantly less impressive kit.
So yes, please keep bringing up gear-based matchmaking. While there might be some who relish the idea of trying to cheat such a queue just so they can change their equipment and pugstomp away, there are a lot of people looking for a match with their approximate equals (regardless of *how* they got their stuff).
3. Serious question: once you're done leveling up all your artifact weapons to the max, what would you do next?
This question suggests that (the royal) you believe that we'd all stop playing the game immediately after inserting the final refining point, which further suggests that the rationale for every single change that has been made to make RP harder and harder to acquire through legit gameplay has been to keep us on a hamster wheel chasing unattainable goals, which will be replaced with new unattainable RP goals when the next module comes out anyway. It suggests that a neverending cycle of RP farming truly is a built-in solution for keeping players grinding away when the content fails to engage them.
Personally, I will probably never own a single piece of orange artifact equipment. It would only be taken away from me shortly thereafter anyway, so what's the point? I can level them up enough to be usable and not chase BiS. BiS is a nice idea, but for me, it's always going to be an idea, something in the abstract. I'm not as unhappy with that situation as some folks. I'm not all that motivated by possessions in real life either, but I do like having fun and having meaningful goals, and working towards orange isn't fun or meaningful in the current circumstances.
3. Serious question: once you're done leveling up all your artifact weapons to the max, what would you do next?
This question suggests that (the royal) you believe that we'd all stop playing the game immediately after inserting the final refining point, which further suggests that the rationale for every single change that has been made to make RP harder and harder to acquire through legit gameplay has been to keep us on a hamster wheel chasing unattainable goals, which will be replaced with new unattainable RP goals when the next module comes out anyway. It suggests that a neverending cycle of RP farming truly is a built-in solution for keeping players grinding away when the content fails to engage them.
Ahh I hope someone important reads this #_# Definitely not how they should try to keep us in game
3. Serious question: once you're done leveling up all your artifact weapons to the max, what would you do next?
This question suggests that (the royal) you believe that we'd all stop playing the game immediately after inserting the final refining point, which further suggests that the rationale for every single change that has been made to make RP harder and harder to acquire through legit gameplay has been to keep us on a hamster wheel chasing unattainable goals, which will be replaced with new unattainable RP goals when the next module comes out anyway. It suggests that a neverending cycle of RP farming truly is a built-in solution for keeping players grinding away when the content fails to engage them.
Ahh I hope someone important reads this #_# Definitely not how they should try to keep us in game
Gonna second this.
0
drkbodhiMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 2,378Arc User
edited July 2015
The XP was increased when they released the XP boosts in the Zen store. Anyone would have to be an idiot to miss that correlation. Every thing that they seem to be doing is to create more need to buy Zen.
They are like the business that starts putting coin-operated bathroom stalls in the employee bathrooms... because they are finding a need to make investors and board members happy. This is a bottom line issue.. it is not a keeping the players here issue.
As I have said before... when there is a merger, even if it is a rumored merger, in the future, the company being merged has to show they have increased value. Teavana did that when Starbucks started opening tea houses to test the market and eventually was looking to buy them... I am sorry... merge with them. I know... because I used to work for Teavana. Their quality control and their product was greatly reduced so they could charge the same prices for an inferior product. Then they thought that no one would notice.
I am not saying that what we are getting is an inferior product, I just think that attempts are being made to distract us with M7 and M8, while they ignore the crumbling infrastructure.
I love the hell out of this game and wish someone had the balls to be 100% honest with us. To do that... it would mean taking action instead of using worthless words.
Post edited by lewstelamon01 on
Atwil "At" - Tiefling TR / Saardush - Black Dragonborn GWF / White - Tiefling OP
3. Serious question: once you're done leveling up all your artifact weapons to the max, what would you do next?
This question suggests that (the royal) you believe that we'd all stop playing the game immediately after inserting the final refining point, which further suggests that the rationale for every single change that has been made to make RP harder and harder to acquire through legit gameplay has been to keep us on a hamster wheel chasing unattainable goals, which will be replaced with new unattainable RP goals when the next module comes out anyway. It suggests that a neverending cycle of RP farming truly is a built-in solution for keeping players grinding away when the content fails to engage them.
Ahh I hope someone important reads this #_# Definitely not how they should try to keep us in game
Gonna second this.
And third.
I wasn't really concerned with having the "BiS" (actually, I wasn't concerned at all) before mod 6 hit. I was fairly new, but I had gotten to 60 with my main character and was happy jumping in and using my Combat HR powers and dodges to make a meaningful contribution to the group in a dungeon. That fun ended abruptly and completely with mod 6. The decisions to kick me out of the campaigns, kill my gear and artifact weapons, obliterate my paragon, my survivability, my strength, my value to the party... forced me to either give up and play the "right" class-paragon-build-gear-weapon-enchants-artifacts, to become a BiS-needing-pall obsessed with RP and Seals and DPS abandoning the feel and experiences you had with your character, or drag everyone (including yourself) down to the last campfire over and over and over and over. Or quit.
I like the people I met along the way and the new head of the developers promised to look into mod 6 and try to put things right, so I put my character down "just until they get it fixed" and started playing my toon: the grind to obtain BiS, to be helpful/relevant... survivable in mod 6. I got rid of everything I had worked for (even paid for Zen to buy out of the AH in a few cases). I bought a respec and changed to a Trapper. I started the mod 6 experience: grind toward BiS and die. And almost without exception the Sisyphusean grind has been increased with every patch since, the exceptions I can think of are those were blessedly little was done beyond a reset and bugs. I got to purples before the difficulty increase a few patches ago and now the mobs outlast me and I end up back at the campfires.
So, the grind is for what? I can't get Power Points, I can't get boons, I can't finish Shar, ToD, WoD, I'm a bloody one-shot sack-of-<font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> in IWD & PvP: I can't play my character unless I'm carried by someone(s) who already had the BiS, because they've been here for years and haven't been driven off yet. So, my HR toon sits in Protector's Enclave "until they get it fixed". I'm just hoping in Strongholds, I can feel like I bring some kind of value to team of those who have carried my broken character through this mod. At the moment, the frustration/reward is all out of balance, worse even then the time/reward on my OP, who sits at the pool in Shar.
The grind has stopped me from playing. The wall between me and being powerful enough to be functional has stopped me from playing. My goal in playing this game was to have powerful characters, who could help others rise up to becoming equally powerful. It was to have a myriad of characters - at least one of each class, maybe of each paragon. But, I have to look outside of this game for a reason to play my first two, and when I think about my <60 SW and how far they would have to go? That one is still on a roof they don't have a key for. I log in to them (I don't pray: that'll just make it worse), rotate their professions, and quit.
3. Serious question: once you're done leveling up all your artifact weapons to the max, what would you do next?
This question suggests that (the royal) you believe that we'd all stop playing the game immediately after inserting the final refining point, which further suggests that the rationale for every single change that has been made to make RP harder and harder to acquire through legit gameplay has been to keep us on a hamster wheel chasing unattainable goals, which will be replaced with new unattainable RP goals when the next module comes out anyway. It suggests that a neverending cycle of RP farming truly is a built-in solution for keeping players grinding away when the content fails to engage them.
Ahh I hope someone important reads this #_# Definitely not how they should try to keep us in game
Gonna second this.
And third.
*snip*
I disagree completely. Have you taken an opportunity to read and see how the Artifact Salvage feature works? In some cases, you may lose some RP, but you're not starting over endlessly. To upgrade to the new artifact, once you've done it, you salvage your current one and get an item. You'd have already gotten the other required item, and with those two, you buy the new artifact which comes to you at the same quality as the one you salvaged. That DOES mean if you are at lvl 139, you lose those extra levels in purple - so you have to decide if you'd rather get the RP and upgrade your current artifact to legendary first, or change now at the cost of the excess levels... BUT you not starting from 0. And if your artifact MH and/or OH is already legendary, then you get a straight across trade, no more RP needed.
There's nothing about artifact accessories or artifacts themselves, just the main/offhand sets... but I'm sure there'll be a similar mechanic. If there was one thing Cryptic heard loud and clear as half the players walked out the door after m6 it was -- "we don't want to start over with refining any more." They didn't apparently hear "we can't believe you took away 80% of the content!" - but that's a whole other thread
3. Serious question: once you're done leveling up all your artifact weapons to the max, what would you do next?
This question suggests that (the royal) you believe that we'd all stop playing the game immediately after inserting the final refining point, which further suggests that the rationale for every single change that has been made to make RP harder and harder to acquire through legit gameplay has been to keep us on a hamster wheel chasing unattainable goals, which will be replaced with new unattainable RP goals when the next module comes out anyway. It suggests that a neverending cycle of RP farming truly is a built-in solution for keeping players grinding away when the content fails to engage them.
Ahh I hope someone important reads this #_# Definitely not how they should try to keep us in game
Gonna second this.
And third.
*snip*
I disagree completely. Have you taken an opportunity to read and see how the Artifact Salvage feature works? In some cases, you may lose some RP, but you're not starting over endlessly. To upgrade to the new artifact, once you've done it, you salvage your current one and get an item. You'd have already gotten the other required item, and with those two, you buy the new artifact which comes to you at the same quality as the one you salvaged. That DOES mean if you are at lvl 139, you lose those extra levels in purple - so you have to decide if you'd rather get the RP and upgrade your current artifact to legendary first, or change now at the cost of the excess levels... BUT you not starting from 0. And if your artifact MH and/or OH is already legendary, then you get a straight across trade, no more RP needed.
There's nothing about artifact accessories or artifacts themselves, just the main/offhand sets... but I'm sure there'll be a similar mechanic. If there was one thing Cryptic heard loud and clear as half the players walked out the door after m6 it was -- "we don't want to start over with refining any more." They didn't apparently hear "we can't believe you took away 80% of the content!" - but that's a whole other thread
I hope you're right, that I can keep what I've put into this one, minus some 5 or so hard-won levels (because what's a few hundred-thousand RP *snark*), after losing a ton of my efforts to get my previous weapons to purple, only to find I have to grind and spend more AD to get to Blue? But, after 3 attempts to download the patch for Strongholds on Preview, only to have to wipe the game and reinstall... I'm working with what your defense (particularly because Andy pointed credit to you for working with him on recreating bugs) and my guild mates have been able to tell me about the new mechanic. Essentially, it seems you're throwing out "*snip*" the pith of my post to defend prior actions and nit-pick based on something they have explicitly told us was accidentally included and no where near production.
Obviously, I'd hate to be someone who put millions of RP in (and the time it takes to get that far) only to have to lose it to stay a hero of Neverwinter in mod 7, because that would be pretty mod6 of them. But, maybe that's it: no more obsolescence, maybe they will focus on having more than one path/paragon for each class? More than one play style. More than one gear set, aimed at the mod6 version of who you're supposed to be. I hope so. I'd like to buy a respec and get my character back. Let alone get back to playing/developing my other characters.
@kvet: I don't want you to feel attacked. I don't want strumslinger to feel attacked either.
Quite the opposite.
I am an IT by trade, because it puts food on my table - but I am a developer by passion. I've spent some years working as the go-between people (roughly speaking) in Andy's position, and as the messanger between the devs (of smaller projects), and the mangement. I've said it before (if you'd care to look into who you seem to be blowing off), but to reiterate: it sucks. It sucks telling people the opposite of what they want/expected is going to happen is in fact what is going to happen. It sucks to be the messenger of bad news. It sucks to have people you care about recoil at your name. It sucks to be the guy fighting for the people who need someone to fight for them and be the guy they least trust. It sucks to be the one to tell someone they have lost their job, because the process is what it is. Most of all, it sucks to tell someone they are fired because you were lied to and you lied to them as a result. I admire Andy for taking up the role he has. I doubt I could carry that burden with the grace he has. But, I probably wouldn't have kept my position as long as he has either: I have a lower <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>-cap than I think he does (based on a few incidents of great import have taken place - especially looking at you, Zen companions - since I've been here). I'm much more likely (given what I have seen in Neverwinter) to find a solution with the devs and tell management off, after the solution is imminent. And before you think that's a boast, it is also a failing. I trust Andy is trying to balance pressures better than I would. That's why I'm an IT, not a "real" dev: I haven't the stomach for the level of politics Andy has volunteered for.
I just hope that you (kvet) can appreciate that I want to help Neverwinter. I want it to be better then other MMOs. I want to be given a reason to spend $2-300 a year on this game for years to come. But, you have to accept and hear that it is not that game. It is not that product yet. And it was. They f**ked up. Either we can agree or not, but please don't quote me, if you are just going to cut it off and pick a fight. I don't see a reason for us to be in opposition, given what you said (and I quoted completely). I saw and experienced a different game than you. Maybe you could elaborate, as I did, on the experience you had - rather than trying to side-line and ignore what I said. Address me, my concerns, directly: don't wave me off - that is belittling and comes off (at least to the belittled) as nepotistic.
Many good critical posts have been written and i can only second those, which are about missing content, recycled bordom, called Leveling "new" areas, bugs, lags, 1 shot death races, unplayable PVP and what aches my DnD heart most, alt friendlines is dead, yep had all toons, now i have only 3 active, but i could only manange it that way, that i had to divide my resources between the 3.
Now my 2 cents coming up.
1. As i feared, Cryptic hasn't leaned the lesson and makes our gears obsolete again. As some said above, this maes building and maintaining alts, nearly impossible. Before Mod 6 i could buy/get them VT or MC weapons as a solution, but that this choice is also gone.
But my biggest fear is, that i would bet a lot on it, that they will make everything Mod 7 forces us to change obsolete again with Mod 8.
Where do i get this? Well, if we look at some items and their item level, it's pretty logical to calculate, that our gears will be made obsolete many times to come.
Please dear Cryptic wake up, wrong direction and please do prove me wrong, get back to the road where you left off before Mod 6.
2. You know Andy this place was full of people. Now i can count the posters on my hands per day.
Little anecdote, since i love history. LOL We had a great king in the 15th century in Hungary, his habit was to go amongst people in disguise, as an ordinary farmer or soldier, just to be able to hear and witness, how his kingdom was ruled by his inferiors. One day he came to his hometown, where he was born, it was the day on which peasents could go to the local judge to protest their problems. The king in disguise comes there and sees nobody outside the judge's house. He beginns to think, something must be wrong.
Of course, cause human nature works in a way, that we like to criticise things and add our opinions to good and bad things.
Now Andy, this place got too quiet...the topics, the posts change all too slowly compared as it was before Mod 6. Makes me think.
The real honest man is honest from conviction of what is right, not from policy.
Robert E. Lee
I only believe in statistics that I doctored myself.
Winston Churchill
The human race is a herd. Here we are, unique, eternal aspects of consciousness with an infinity of potential, and we have allowed ourselves to become an unthinking, unquestioning blob of conformity and uniformity. A herd. Once we concede to the herd mentality, we can be controlled and directed by a tiny few. And we are.
David Icke
They are like the business that starts putting coin-operated bathroom stalls in the employee bathrooms...
Judging from beta till now, with my almost constant presence in NW as a guild leader providing me with a better view of every content change, i can say that its worst than that. Its not only the coin-operated bathroom stalls in the employee bathrooms..they also make u drink a litre of water every hour so you HAVE to go to the bathroom. Its not funny, its a manipulative way to enforce certain monetary strategies on the population. You DONT make a free to play game like this, its not the middleages of information technologies, wake up and smell the humans behind the screens. WE ARE NOT NUMBERS, u insult our intelligence with such practices and you will get "punished" eventually. We have hundreds of online or offline entertainment options, u though have ONE job, ONE income that we provide to you. Stop this absurd way of capitalizing. It would be a thousand times better to introduce a montly fee instead of rudely pushing us into ZEN like we are lobotomized cattle. I would pay the guy that created Karrundax dungeon if ONLY he asked me nicely. I will NOT pay or sacrifice my time to anyone who tries to manipulate me into something. Get real people, for once in this gaming industry, get real.
0
drkbodhiMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 2,378Arc User
edited July 2015
Cryptic was supposedly founded by a gamer. Where is that in the game? I do not see that there is much compassion for other gamers.
Yes, we all know it is a business... but TBH very successful businesses like CostCo, Bob's Red Mill and a vast number of unnamed high-quality, customer-service oriented companies with a yen for employee satisfaction above all else, are successful for a reason. It is called Kaizen... look it up. No one is more important than anyone else...
Every company is like a machine... the parts are all equally important and impossible to move without the customer (aka-power and grease). Yes the board needs to be placated, but they don't truly give a spit about anything but money. Money-based success is transient at best. Compassion-based success is a hoard of riches that pays back constantly.
When you have compassion for your employees, customers, vendors and anyone else you may impact... you will always generate income. When you force people to spend money in an closed environment, just to get ahead, the employees, customers, vendors and anyone else who you may impact... start to resent you, your company and your actions.
Yes... you will always get a slowly dwindling income stream from new blood... but the word has gotten out that your offerings are not worth the effort. It is not like Comcast who has VERY little competition and they feel they can treat their customers and employees like <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>. They are learning that there are now other, better options. Instead of paying for lack-luster service and horrible customer-service... it is called Hulu, Google, NetFlix, Roku and many others.
Please listen from the bottom to the top... change needs to happen. That change will not be coming from a board room... it will start in the basement and pay off in the board room.
Trust me on this... you may think I am just some <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> guy who thinks he knows <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>. I KNOW a LOT of <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>... most of that is how to fail and how not to fail... at anything. Life has given me multiple PhDs, the hard way. Unless you, as a company, see value in the experiences and people around you... you will fail. Not necessarily an immediate failure, but a slow painful death... based on many failures piled on top of each other.
Atwil "At" - Tiefling TR / Saardush - Black Dragonborn GWF / White - Tiefling OP
Yeah, you get in trade one color level lower but the same iL. Total rip off. I will stick with my arti weapon until it is maxed.
actually no.... You trade in your purple for purple so on so forth. If your artifact is like at 45 instead of the base 35 then you'll lose that true. But as long as it's within that rare, epic,legendary bracket you're fine.
Rift for example, you can level from 1-65 in nearly 12h gametime, if you really want to push it, you might even make it in less then 8h.
- A running subscription will give all your characters a 40% xp bonus.
- You can buy 160% xp vials, that run for 2h, either from the Rift shop or even the auction house for ingame currencies.
... and overall for a lot less then 60$ per character.
Besides, do you really think that players will just fall in and accept, that they won't be able to get better equipment and better xp rewards, unless they join the right guild?
Or what about the feedback thread, anything new about that one?
What feedback did make it to the Devs, and what feedback will even be considered?
And when will we see some changes based on that feedback ingame?
The XP needed 60-70 is a good pace for the Epic Tier of the game. But, it feels like hitting a wall compared to 1-60. However, I don't think the best choice is to make it faster to get to 70.
If you hit the EE content at 60 there is not enough XP to get you to 70 by the time you finish Spinward Rise.
The XP needed 60-70 is a good pace for the Epic Tier of the game. But, it feels like hitting a wall compared to 1-60. However, I don't think the best choice is to make it faster to get to 70.
If you hit the EE content at 60 there is not enough XP to get you to 70 by the time you finish Spinward Rise.
This is clearly broken.
They just expect you to pay up 60$ per character for the level boosters required, to level again at a normal pace to 70.
And i would really like to know, if that is working, and some people are buying those xp boosters... that would at least explain, why there is no real sign about changing the xp system back to normal again.
Comments
This, right here, Sturm, is the crux of one of your major problems. Trust. Or the lack thereof. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Mod six and a lot of the more questionable decisions (ninja nerfs, the punishing grind (all for the sole sake of getting back into WOD with no new end-game content to speak of), removal of 75% of the game's dungeons and skirmishes, the account wide companion debacle that is still going on and which people seem to now firmly believe the devs are ignoring and hoping will go away with time, etc., and the general feeling that the Devs are off in their own little world, completely divorced from reality and the needs and concerns of their player base) have shattered player trust in the devs and anyone who associates with them. We've heard a lot of words. But as a member of the legal profession, let me tell you, if it ain't under oath, words are cheap.
I'm not blaming you directly, but the Powers That Be in this game have created an environment where people do not take you at your word. They've been burned too many times. And for your game's business model, that is absolutely toxic. Burned players that don't trust you? They don't spend money. They don't buy Zen. Neverwinter doesn't hold a monopoly on the high fantasy MMO genre or even the D&D license. Players can, will, and have gone to other games in droves since Mod 6 was released. And if your devs don't start doing everything in their power to correct this broken trust, you're going to be in for a universe of suffering and I'll be quite surprised if we're still here celebrating the 3rd anniversary of this game.
I don't say this to be mean spirited. I don't want to see this game fail. I've been here since May of 13. I've had a blast up till this mod, and I've stuck around in the hopes that things will get better. But you have a problem, and pretending it doesn't exist isn't going to help you one whit.
Personally, I believe Strumslinger, and welcome his opinion on things. However, maybe it isn't the right time for Strongholds, with all the problems Mod 6 introduced. Building on a shaky slope, and all that.
Leveling is now obscene. Way more than "8" hours to get from 60 to 70 even if ran with rank 12 Azures and inscribed garments.
You have to understand that most people leveling characters now are doing so on alts. I had to finish up 2 levels on my final alt after the new "more rewarding' exp curve was implemented, and lets just say that even with 2x exp it was BORING as hell. Needless to say, I will not be leveling any more new characters. Playing alts in this game is now dead. Sadly, with nothing good to farm (too many BoP drops now), there is nothing fun left in the game.
— (The unwritten rule)
I tendto be a pessimistic though XD
I really hope they succeed but I'm very used to watching them faceplant.
I jumped in this game very recently and spent a little money to help me level and support the game. I enjoyed leveling from 1-60, it was fast. Todays MMO world, people do not need 70+ levels of painfully slow and boring content to learn how to play their character. It isn't necessary, and too much time/resources are wasted developing a leveling path rather than focusing more on endgame. I am currently level 64 on a TR, with boosted Xp from the zen store and I think I am on my way to leaving Neverwinter behind me. I've barely played, but I have no interest in doing the rest of the god awful repeatable quests, especially since I hear the EXP required to level was INCREASED since mod 6 was dropped WITHOUT adding a path to make up for the added experience. So that means I'll have to continue to do the same god awful quests over and over in order to reach 70. As bad as I wanna hit 70 and start working for the gear and actually run a dungeon that doesn't get facerolled, I just don't think I have it in me to get that invested in it.
I can't believe an MMO would increase exp required to level without adding content to do so. Couple that with the many numerous bugs..makes it really hard for new players like myself to invest much more than a month or so in this game.
Doing Elemental Evil alone is not always enjoyable for everyone, so people seeking for fun somewhere else.
— (The unwritten rule)
OMG, Give me a break. If you truly don't trust Cryptic then you should quit the game. right now. The fact is @strumslinger isn't a liar and that's why you should believe him. If you've ever had an actual job in a professional environment (not saying you haven't), then you will understand that there is a process to be followed for everything, and there are spheres of responsibility. Strumslinger doesn't have any control over what the developers are doing. He can inform, he can encourage, but he doesn't get to decide the direction. More importantly, there are factors at work that inform their dev priorities that we don't know and we may never know. A statement like yours displays an absolute lack of understanding about what goes into operating a business of any significant size.
So, if you think Strumslinger personally, and more broadly Cryptic as a whole, are just a pack of liars, then you should go away because you'll never be happy playing this game no matter what they do. If you'd rather be part of the solution, then stick around. Otherwise. I doubt anyone here will miss you.
Sekhmet@kvetchus_
Guilds: Greycloaks, Blackcloaks, Whitecloaks, Goldcloaks, Browncloaks, Spiritcloaks, Bluecloaks, Silvercloaks, Black Dawn
Tredecim: The Cloak Alliance
I swear every time I see people saying "why should I believe you" I think of them having aluminum foil on their heads saying they are shielding themselves from aliens.
Lets face it, there have been many problems with mod6. Everyone from the players to the devs know it. And the devs acknowledge it.
To those that have left, hey we understand. But to those that are still here, you must still like the game for something whether it be for the friends on there is still little hope.
Me personally I'm sitting back waiting to see what mod7-8 looks like. And so far with some of the updates I've been seeing, it honestly looks like they are trying. I mean if you want proof look at the new way to get the MH/OH in mod7. If you haven't go check out the articles/test server. Grant it, it seems like it's being done to never repeat a mistake again. At the same time it takes a lot for a person to admit when wrong and fix it then to blindly go down a self-destructing path. So with that, I'd say slightly hold your breathe for what's to come.
In terms of strum, thanks for trying and keep doing what you can. It is appreciated.
On the other side. I do hope the devs, or everyone for that matter has learned a good deal from mod6 going forward. And I hope that blog can give a bit more (or a lot more) transparency between the devs and the players.
"Too fast" according to who? Neverwinter has been praised for not having the appallingly slow grind that I understand is perhaps more expected of MMOs. So what? Don't try to be other games, because that's not what we're here for. You've got a very small minority of players saying they want a slow levelling process (more often because of blowing through 1-60 so quickly) and a large majority who despise it, at least in the current form.
Here's another topic on the matter that you might not have seen
https://www.reddit.com/r/Neverwinter/comments/3df9bz/post60_leveling_is_shockingly_bad/
You say that Strongholds will make it easier to level, but that's nearly another month (assuming no release delay) of having to play within a really awful, un-fun system that is more inspiring of getting bored and giving up than soldiering through it. 140 vigilance tasks to earn one level? While still being able to only carry 4 tasks at a time? How could anyone have thought this was a good idea?
I want to bring up a point I edited out from the end of your post wherein you say the campaigns are now meant to be played after Elemental Evil. That's a ton of content that players are now largely locked out of for a long time because they can't reach the level cap so easily. Likewise the epic dungeons that they're wanting to play with their friends. The scaling dungeons don't exactly have much to offer. Neverwinter has been a game that largely takes place when you reach the cap, as much as the journey to 60 can be fun (journey to 70... meh), and it still is, except there's now a huge hurdle in the way of reaching that endgame, which was never there before.
And the change to overflow XP is unforgivable unless power points become a fixed reward for at least the first 5 (only because I think 10 would be pushing my luck) times a character earns one and the rewards get buffed again. The balance of this system was acceptable at 770k, but now it's back to "oh yippee, another peridot" levels of anticipation on earning overflow rewards. They need to arrive at a pace where they're contributing something to the character as opposed to just being a thing that happens sometimes and nobody especially cares because it's not like you're going to get anything good anyway.
2. This has and will again be brought up to the devs. Just remember, those people with crazy gear had to start somewhere and probably got defeated a lot too in their journey to becoming who they are now. With great power comes great responsibility.
Yeah, I probably could have all orange and teal stuff too if I had exploited (or paid for it, or if I was using 25+ alts for the sole purpose of feeding a main). The gear that truly requires earning it through playing is a very small portion of player power. This ties into complaints about the RP grind as well... it's bad enough to be told (not by you, Andy) that legendary equipment seems to be attainable due to the metrics showing that some of the player base had all their legendary equipment within a few days of release, therefore the system must be working great. It's worse to then have to fight those people with your own significantly less impressive kit.
So yes, please keep bringing up gear-based matchmaking. While there might be some who relish the idea of trying to cheat such a queue just so they can change their equipment and pugstomp away, there are a lot of people looking for a match with their approximate equals (regardless of *how* they got their stuff).
3. Serious question: once you're done leveling up all your artifact weapons to the max, what would you do next?
This question suggests that (the royal) you believe that we'd all stop playing the game immediately after inserting the final refining point, which further suggests that the rationale for every single change that has been made to make RP harder and harder to acquire through legit gameplay has been to keep us on a hamster wheel chasing unattainable goals, which will be replaced with new unattainable RP goals when the next module comes out anyway. It suggests that a neverending cycle of RP farming truly is a built-in solution for keeping players grinding away when the content fails to engage them.
Personally, I will probably never own a single piece of orange artifact equipment. It would only be taken away from me shortly thereafter anyway, so what's the point? I can level them up enough to be usable and not chase BiS. BiS is a nice idea, but for me, it's always going to be an idea, something in the abstract. I'm not as unhappy with that situation as some folks. I'm not all that motivated by possessions in real life either, but I do like having fun and having meaningful goals, and working towards orange isn't fun or meaningful in the current circumstances.
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
SAMOTHRACE
Trickster Rogue
────────────────────────────
Gonna second this.
They are like the business that starts putting coin-operated bathroom stalls in the employee bathrooms... because they are finding a need to make investors and board members happy. This is a bottom line issue.. it is not a keeping the players here issue.
As I have said before... when there is a merger, even if it is a rumored merger, in the future, the company being merged has to show they have increased value. Teavana did that when Starbucks started opening tea houses to test the market and eventually was looking to buy them... I am sorry... merge with them. I know... because I used to work for Teavana. Their quality control and their product was greatly reduced so they could charge the same prices for an inferior product. Then they thought that no one would notice.
I am not saying that what we are getting is an inferior product, I just think that attempts are being made to distract us with M7 and M8, while they ignore the crumbling infrastructure.
I love the hell out of this game and wish someone had the balls to be 100% honest with us. To do that... it would mean taking action instead of using worthless words.
And third.
I wasn't really concerned with having the "BiS" (actually, I wasn't concerned at all) before mod 6 hit. I was fairly new, but I had gotten to 60 with my main character and was happy jumping in and using my Combat HR powers and dodges to make a meaningful contribution to the group in a dungeon. That fun ended abruptly and completely with mod 6. The decisions to kick me out of the campaigns, kill my gear and artifact weapons, obliterate my paragon, my survivability, my strength, my value to the party... forced me to either give up and play the "right" class-paragon-build-gear-weapon-enchants-artifacts, to become a BiS-needing-pall obsessed with RP and Seals and DPS abandoning the feel and experiences you had with your character, or drag everyone (including yourself) down to the last campfire over and over and over and over. Or quit.
I like the people I met along the way and the new head of the developers promised to look into mod 6 and try to put things right, so I put my character down "just until they get it fixed" and started playing my toon: the grind to obtain BiS, to be helpful/relevant... survivable in mod 6. I got rid of everything I had worked for (even paid for Zen to buy out of the AH in a few cases). I bought a respec and changed to a Trapper. I started the mod 6 experience: grind toward BiS and die. And almost without exception the Sisyphusean grind has been increased with every patch since, the exceptions I can think of are those were blessedly little was done beyond a reset and bugs. I got to purples before the difficulty increase a few patches ago and now the mobs outlast me and I end up back at the campfires.
So, the grind is for what? I can't get Power Points, I can't get boons, I can't finish Shar, ToD, WoD, I'm a bloody one-shot sack-of-<font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> in IWD & PvP: I can't play my character unless I'm carried by someone(s) who already had the BiS, because they've been here for years and haven't been driven off yet. So, my HR toon sits in Protector's Enclave "until they get it fixed". I'm just hoping in Strongholds, I can feel like I bring some kind of value to team of those who have carried my broken character through this mod. At the moment, the frustration/reward is all out of balance, worse even then the time/reward on my OP, who sits at the pool in Shar.
The grind has stopped me from playing. The wall between me and being powerful enough to be functional has stopped me from playing. My goal in playing this game was to have powerful characters, who could help others rise up to becoming equally powerful. It was to have a myriad of characters - at least one of each class, maybe of each paragon. But, I have to look outside of this game for a reason to play my first two, and when I think about my <60 SW and how far they would have to go? That one is still on a roof they don't have a key for. I log in to them (I don't pray: that'll just make it worse), rotate their professions, and quit.
I disagree completely. Have you taken an opportunity to read and see how the Artifact Salvage feature works? In some cases, you may lose some RP, but you're not starting over endlessly. To upgrade to the new artifact, once you've done it, you salvage your current one and get an item. You'd have already gotten the other required item, and with those two, you buy the new artifact which comes to you at the same quality as the one you salvaged. That DOES mean if you are at lvl 139, you lose those extra levels in purple - so you have to decide if you'd rather get the RP and upgrade your current artifact to legendary first, or change now at the cost of the excess levels... BUT you not starting from 0. And if your artifact MH and/or OH is already legendary, then you get a straight across trade, no more RP needed.
There's nothing about artifact accessories or artifacts themselves, just the main/offhand sets... but I'm sure there'll be a similar mechanic. If there was one thing Cryptic heard loud and clear as half the players walked out the door after m6 it was -- "we don't want to start over with refining any more." They didn't apparently hear "we can't believe you took away 80% of the content!" - but that's a whole other thread
Sekhmet@kvetchus_
Guilds: Greycloaks, Blackcloaks, Whitecloaks, Goldcloaks, Browncloaks, Spiritcloaks, Bluecloaks, Silvercloaks, Black Dawn
Tredecim: The Cloak Alliance
I hope you're right, that I can keep what I've put into this one, minus some 5 or so hard-won levels (because what's a few hundred-thousand RP *snark*), after losing a ton of my efforts to get my previous weapons to purple, only to find I have to grind and spend more AD to get to Blue? But, after 3 attempts to download the patch for Strongholds on Preview, only to have to wipe the game and reinstall... I'm working with what your defense (particularly because Andy pointed credit to you for working with him on recreating bugs) and my guild mates have been able to tell me about the new mechanic. Essentially, it seems you're throwing out "*snip*" the pith of my post to defend prior actions and nit-pick based on something they have explicitly told us was accidentally included and no where near production.
Quite the opposite.
I am an IT by trade, because it puts food on my table - but I am a developer by passion. I've spent some years working as the go-between people (roughly speaking) in Andy's position, and as the messanger between the devs (of smaller projects), and the mangement. I've said it before (if you'd care to look into who you seem to be blowing off), but to reiterate: it sucks. It sucks telling people the opposite of what they want/expected is going to happen is in fact what is going to happen. It sucks to be the messenger of bad news. It sucks to have people you care about recoil at your name. It sucks to be the guy fighting for the people who need someone to fight for them and be the guy they least trust. It sucks to be the one to tell someone they have lost their job, because the process is what it is. Most of all, it sucks to tell someone they are fired because you were lied to and you lied to them as a result. I admire Andy for taking up the role he has. I doubt I could carry that burden with the grace he has. But, I probably wouldn't have kept my position as long as he has either: I have a lower <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>-cap than I think he does (based on a few incidents of great import have taken place - especially looking at you, Zen companions - since I've been here). I'm much more likely (given what I have seen in Neverwinter) to find a solution with the devs and tell management off, after the solution is imminent. And before you think that's a boast, it is also a failing. I trust Andy is trying to balance pressures better than I would. That's why I'm an IT, not a "real" dev: I haven't the stomach for the level of politics Andy has volunteered for.
I just hope that you (kvet) can appreciate that I want to help Neverwinter. I want it to be better then other MMOs. I want to be given a reason to spend $2-300 a year on this game for years to come. But, you have to accept and hear that it is not that game. It is not that product yet. And it was. They f**ked up. Either we can agree or not, but please don't quote me, if you are just going to cut it off and pick a fight. I don't see a reason for us to be in opposition, given what you said (and I quoted completely). I saw and experienced a different game than you. Maybe you could elaborate, as I did, on the experience you had - rather than trying to side-line and ignore what I said. Address me, my concerns, directly: don't wave me off - that is belittling and comes off (at least to the belittled) as nepotistic.
Many good critical posts have been written and i can only second those, which are about missing content, recycled bordom, called Leveling "new" areas, bugs, lags, 1 shot death races, unplayable PVP and what aches my DnD heart most, alt friendlines is dead, yep had all toons, now i have only 3 active, but i could only manange it that way, that i had to divide my resources between the 3.
Now my 2 cents coming up.
1. As i feared, Cryptic hasn't leaned the lesson and makes our gears obsolete again. As some said above, this maes building and maintaining alts, nearly impossible. Before Mod 6 i could buy/get them VT or MC weapons as a solution, but that this choice is also gone.
But my biggest fear is, that i would bet a lot on it, that they will make everything Mod 7 forces us to change obsolete again with Mod 8.
Where do i get this? Well, if we look at some items and their item level, it's pretty logical to calculate, that our gears will be made obsolete many times to come.
Please dear Cryptic wake up, wrong direction and please do prove me wrong, get back to the road where you left off before Mod 6.
2. You know Andy this place was full of people. Now i can count the posters on my hands per day.
Little anecdote, since i love history. LOL We had a great king in the 15th century in Hungary, his habit was to go amongst people in disguise, as an ordinary farmer or soldier, just to be able to hear and witness, how his kingdom was ruled by his inferiors. One day he came to his hometown, where he was born, it was the day on which peasents could go to the local judge to protest their problems. The king in disguise comes there and sees nobody outside the judge's house. He beginns to think, something must be wrong.
Of course, cause human nature works in a way, that we like to criticise things and add our opinions to good and bad things.
Now Andy, this place got too quiet...the topics, the posts change all too slowly compared as it was before Mod 6. Makes me think.
Robert E. Lee
I only believe in statistics that I doctored myself.
Winston Churchill
The human race is a herd. Here we are, unique, eternal aspects of consciousness with an infinity of potential, and we have allowed ourselves to become an unthinking, unquestioning blob of conformity and uniformity. A herd. Once we concede to the herd mentality, we can be controlled and directed by a tiny few. And we are.
David Icke
Judging from beta till now, with my almost constant presence in NW as a guild leader providing me with a better view of every content change, i can say that its worst than that. Its not only the coin-operated bathroom stalls in the employee bathrooms..they also make u drink a litre of water every hour so you HAVE to go to the bathroom. Its not funny, its a manipulative way to enforce certain monetary strategies on the population. You DONT make a free to play game like this, its not the middleages of information technologies, wake up and smell the humans behind the screens. WE ARE NOT NUMBERS, u insult our intelligence with such practices and you will get "punished" eventually. We have hundreds of online or offline entertainment options, u though have ONE job, ONE income that we provide to you. Stop this absurd way of capitalizing. It would be a thousand times better to introduce a montly fee instead of rudely pushing us into ZEN like we are lobotomized cattle. I would pay the guy that created Karrundax dungeon if ONLY he asked me nicely. I will NOT pay or sacrifice my time to anyone who tries to manipulate me into something. Get real people, for once in this gaming industry, get real.
Yes, we all know it is a business... but TBH very successful businesses like CostCo, Bob's Red Mill and a vast number of unnamed high-quality, customer-service oriented companies with a yen for employee satisfaction above all else, are successful for a reason. It is called Kaizen... look it up. No one is more important than anyone else...
Every company is like a machine... the parts are all equally important and impossible to move without the customer (aka-power and grease). Yes the board needs to be placated, but they don't truly give a spit about anything but money. Money-based success is transient at best. Compassion-based success is a hoard of riches that pays back constantly.
When you have compassion for your employees, customers, vendors and anyone else you may impact... you will always generate income. When you force people to spend money in an closed environment, just to get ahead, the employees, customers, vendors and anyone else who you may impact... start to resent you, your company and your actions.
Yes... you will always get a slowly dwindling income stream from new blood... but the word has gotten out that your offerings are not worth the effort. It is not like Comcast who has VERY little competition and they feel they can treat their customers and employees like <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>. They are learning that there are now other, better options. Instead of paying for lack-luster service and horrible customer-service... it is called Hulu, Google, NetFlix, Roku and many others.
Please listen from the bottom to the top... change needs to happen. That change will not be coming from a board room... it will start in the basement and pay off in the board room.
Trust me on this... you may think I am just some <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> guy who thinks he knows <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>. I KNOW a LOT of <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>... most of that is how to fail and how not to fail... at anything. Life has given me multiple PhDs, the hard way. Unless you, as a company, see value in the experiences and people around you... you will fail. Not necessarily an immediate failure, but a slow painful death... based on many failures piled on top of each other.
actually no.... You trade in your purple for purple so on so forth. If your artifact is like at 45 instead of the base 35 then you'll lose that true. But as long as it's within that rare, epic,legendary bracket you're fine.
Rift for example, you can level from 1-65 in nearly 12h gametime, if you really want to push it, you might even make it in less then 8h.
- A running subscription will give all your characters a 40% xp bonus.
- You can buy 160% xp vials, that run for 2h, either from the Rift shop or even the auction house for ingame currencies.
... and overall for a lot less then 60$ per character.
Besides, do you really think that players will just fall in and accept, that they won't be able to get better equipment and better xp rewards, unless they join the right guild?
Or what about the feedback thread, anything new about that one?
What feedback did make it to the Devs, and what feedback will even be considered?
And when will we see some changes based on that feedback ingame?
This is clearly broken.
Aelar Hawkwind - Archer
Karrin Feywinter - Mistress of Flame
Errin Duskwalker - Executioner
Darquess - Soulbinder
They just expect you to pay up 60$ per character for the level boosters required, to level again at a normal pace to 70.
And i would really like to know, if that is working, and some people are buying those xp boosters... that would at least explain, why there is no real sign about changing the xp system back to normal again.