The emphasis on leadership has been going on far too long for my liking anyway, and I wouldn't mind if it stopped producing AD all together as long as the game provides ample opportunities to make the same AD.
Well that's the crux of the problem isn't it? We have no real avenues to make ADs by actually playing the game anymore.
Our pain is self chosen.
The most important thing in life is to be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.
The emphasis on leadership has been going on far too long for my liking anyway, and I wouldn't mind if it stopped producing AD all together as long as the game provides ample opportunities to make the same AD.
That's the thing: As of right now, they don't.
It's their own fault people put so much time and effort into leadership armies. They took out every viable in-game option to get currency. The only way remaining was leadership. And now everyone that took the time and effort to use that one viable option available are screwed over by it.
Should be interesting to watch how this plays out. I for one am watching from a distance, with the door in my peripheral.
As a new father, full time worker, and grad student the gateway at work was the only time i had time to "play" and farmed leadership to save up AD for new things. Doesn't look like i'll have a reason to stick around after tomorrow.
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rickcase276Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,404Arc User
And bringing back the Protector's quests are not going to help everyone earn AD, as there are some people that only like to run campaign quests. So unless they start giving AD for doing all quests I do not see how they are going to be able to fix it for all player types. I am thinking the developers are more and more saying either play our game "our" way or do not play it at all.
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wyckedstudiosMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 36Arc User
As a new father, full time worker, and grad student the gateway at work was the only time i had time to "play" and farmed leadership to save up AD for new things. Doesn't look like i'll have a reason to stick around after tomorrow.
I don't believe that putting in a captcha will work at all with the issue at hand.
Why not? Using a Captcha as part of the sign-in process, like how it periodically pretends you've signed on from a new browser and demands an emailed code, doesn't sound too far off the mark.
Yea, its a bit like emptying and closing a bank, so it wont get robbed. It might solved the problem, but it does so in a way the removes the entire reason for its initial existence.
Spot on!
I am also anxious to see what the promised blog has to say about all this. Does the term "disabled" mean I can't even SEE the tasks, to see if they're completed or not? Can I see what the rare tasks are for this hour? Or (most likely) it is just not shown on the screen at all?
Geez - oh - pete. If the coders can automate leadership through the gateway, I have a feeling they can probably get around this. I just don't see how blocking leadership from the gateway is going to prevent botting - they obviously can automate logins, and retrieve professions in game. How does this help anything with the botters? <sigh>
beckylunaticMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 14,231Arc User
edited July 2015
Previous nerfs to legit AD gain from playing:
Removed three Rhix dailies by removing Gauntylgrym
Removed all Neverember dailies
Removed salvageable items from DR/Shar lair loot
Dungeon chests open with a key that costs nearly as much as the contents of the chest, and then only during Delves (one key per day is free)
Indirect nerfs to same:
Over many modules, made vast majority of gear BoP, therefore unsellable
Changes to mob HP make high-level skirmishes take longer, meaning fewer can be completed in an hour
Overflow rewards arrive less frequently, meaning the windfall of 30k rough AD is even fewer and farther between
Changes to Leadership tasks had basically balanced out when you hit rank 25, and invoking at 70 gives more rough AD than invoking at 60 used to*, if you can manage to get the 5th one in consistently, so those aren't exactly nerfs, but require more of the player's time to obtain.
Unavoidable and expensive AD sinks introduced (if you want to improve your character past scrub-level)
Cube of Augmentation - doesn't drop at all
Greater Mark of Potency - not really feasible to get enough as drops to upgrade keeping pace with refinement
Arguably mandatory expensive tat
One of the new legendary mounts that you can't buy as an account unlock
Companion upgrades - used to be personal preference in the majority of cases (vanity/cosmetic), but now can have a significant impact on performance between ranked-up active bonus improvements and the huge boost from having a legendary companion
I think that covers the bases.
*Edit: Actually, just getting to the 4th one is 2k/day like 60 used to be.
Heroic Encounter rewards will not change if the reward cannot be accepted for some reason.
The Overflow bag now has a Transfer button to put all of the items into your regular inventory.
Finally. The, probably, worst currently existing exploit is gone. Good job
I can appreciate that you're making attempts to combat exploitation, but this feels like an inelegant solution. You're right that there are insufficient avenues for AD generation in game, but this is a situation of the companies making.
Many legitimate players have invested time and effort into leveling up leadership to make this a viable option. Whilst nothing has been said about this, i can't help but foresee further changes.
Please do not even think about taking it to the next stage and adjusting the leadership profession.
Well. I guess you have finally given me and probably many many other players the final reason to find another game. The only profession I do was leadership so I could have a little ad for when I finally get an opportunity to play. Once you remove it from the gateway I will have no income to do anything with as the gateway is the only way I have time for to do professions. I usually log on from the crapper with my cell phone at work. Although, one amusing thing will come of this. Not only have you again hit legit players in your quest to put yourselves out of business. No one has any real reason to buy a char slots anymore for this game. Cheers
I"m sure you'll agree with me that in essence that is how it's supposed to be. You make money by being in the game. If you're not playing, you're not making progress. Seems fair in my opinion. We've been spoiled by a system that just screams "bots welcome!". The emphasis on leadership has been going on far too long for my liking anyway, and I wouldn't mind if it stopped producing AD all together as long as the game provides ample opportunities to make the same AD.
All leadership AD should be converted to things like white pearls, peridots, aquamarines, and resonance stones. They really need to remove all forms of botting meaningful AD from the game. Make chests at the end of dungeons give either 10k rads or 4k ad (already refined). This would allow people to easily reach the rad limit each day, and also give incentive to continue doing dungeons. Something similar could be done to pvp if they changed it to a solo queue and a premade queue. Something would have to be added like a report bot button on your team that would make a captcha appear that they had to answer or get kicked (and system could log who is botting and would be easy to find the exploiters). Finding any solutions similar to these that affect bots but do not punish players should be made instead of these bandaid fixes that just cause more problems and upset more people. Its not going to take long for them to write a script to run the profession bots in game. Just remove the ability to make AD with bots by putting it behind something that takes an actual brain to do (top end dungeons, etc) and it will save time in the long run.
On my personal impact I believe this will mean more ingame botting . more load on server and network connection. More lag and random dc.
Post edited by mynaam on
There are more than BIS players in this game RIP Real Tiamat, RIP Real Demogorgon RIP real Temple of the spider. Why remove non bis content to give to bis players ???? FORCING the majority of your player base to play 4 mod old dungeons and trial will have a bad result on player base Changes are getting so bad i would rather prefer no new changes (RIP ICE FISHING in winter fest)
... You couldn't have just integrated a Capcha in the Gateway?
Please consider that as a long-term solution.
I have posted in the developer corner part of forum as well, but I had not thought of this very simple solution. In fact this is one of many reasons why the announced change is not necessary or helpful.
1. Botters will just move in game.
2. We need to find ways of getting rid of botting altogether. A capcha sounds like a great idea. Banning botters (after a warning, then a series of increasing time bans) would easily deal with this being abused for leadership too.
3. Ultimately I believe that rewards in game should be the main source of AD but at present there it just doesn't work. Laggy dungeons (VT anyone?) don't help and the drops are worth very little when you consider that things cost millions of AD.
4. If you are making leadership worthless in the long run (this is after all our decision) please consider some kind of a leadership amnesty to get the AD and time back legit players have invested.
As a general note on the patch - It is also disappointing to see there aren't more fixes. It feels like all fixes are being held onto until Stronghold. Maybe you should come out and say that, but even if, not fixing performance issues is deadly for game enjoyment.
Oh I should add - I have read the blog. I agree with the aim of balancing the economy. But you in my view you should create the alternatives FIRST then make the change.
As for all those saying they are leaving etc. - they are saying this is a temporary fix while they are making changes.
I just wish the changes were all made in one go so that everyone can see if what is coming works for them.
Oh I should add - I have read the blog. I agree with the aim of balancing the economy. But you in my view you should create the alternatives FIRST then make the change.
As for all those saying they are leaving etc. - they are saying this is a temporary fix while they are making changes.
I just wish the changes were all made in one go so that everyone can see if what is coming works for them.
When they ninja-nerfed dragonhoard enchants and admited to their 'bot-fighting-action' they said, that they 'will look into it'. Guess what happened? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice...
They don't have time to revisit the changes they make no matter how drastically it damages the games reputation. Companion switcheroo, Exp change, Monster HP buff, Dungeon removal, Dungeon hour nerf, RP nerfs, DHE nerfs... the list goes on and on.
i remember people wanting to nerf the leadership farmers and one of the most popular solutions they made was disabling it on gateway since it can easily be scripted.
also, to people claiming it won't hurt the botters, i would like to ask why wouldn't it? are there absolutely zero botters in the gateway? although i do believe it would hurt the legit players, i dont think botters wont be affected at all.
> Unfortunately, a large number of people have been botting the Leadership profession, causing harm to the economy of the game.
Well maybe Cryptic should remove all AD/RP from Leadership and replacing it with gold/kits rewards alone to make every one happy. But we still living with only 24k AD character cap per day and not so many ways to hit it, especially for new poor geared players. Even filled 24k AD doesn't solve problem how to fund all these multi-million RP, GMOP, enchantment bills etc.
ryoshinetteMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 488Arc User
edited July 2015
No bug detected, everything is WAI. So no need to fix - easy. //sarcasm off
But seriously:
Cryptic is in trap. From one point of view they made an artifact system which is perfect for botting and it need boting, cause nowadays in game there is no other way to earn AD.
From another point of view they can count. They see, that population of players decreasing every day. So they cut of botting (imo in the worst way they could do it). The same situation was recently with dragon hoard enchant, imp farm etc.
Players are frustrated cause of this system (billions of RP needed to upgrade anything). They offer us new armours, mounts etc. Everything is bounded, we can't earn AD for upgrading our artifacts, enchants. We have to bot or buy AD in legal or illegal way. Btw is it so hard to shut all of those gold sellers? Some IP filter, it can't be so hard.
Give us back our dungeons with decent reward (not bounded) at the end, fix important bugs, offer some new pvp modes (stronghold will be dead like IWD now, trust me), balance characters (don't make every time a new class overpowered, aka OP now, HR before), give us a chance to earn money in a legit way - you will see, that people will back to this game. And even pay for new useless but nice looking mount or companion. Even, if next month you will change it's working mechanism (aka cocatrix and many others).
Comments
That's the problem. Leadership is really the only effective way to make any AD anymore.
Well that's the crux of the problem isn't it? We have no real avenues to make ADs by actually playing the game anymore.
The most important thing in life is to be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.
That's the thing: As of right now, they don't.
It's their own fault people put so much time and effort into leadership armies. They took out every viable in-game option to get currency. The only way remaining was leadership. And now everyone that took the time and effort to use that one viable option available are screwed over by it.
Should be interesting to watch how this plays out. I for one am watching from a distance, with the door in my peripheral.
^this
Why not? Using a Captcha as part of the sign-in process, like how it periodically pretends you've signed on from a new browser and demands an emailed code, doesn't sound too far off the mark.
I am also anxious to see what the promised blog has to say about all this. Does the term "disabled" mean I can't even SEE the tasks, to see if they're completed or not? Can I see what the rare tasks are for this hour? Or (most likely) it is just not shown on the screen at all?
Geez - oh - pete. If the coders can automate leadership through the gateway, I have a feeling they can probably get around this. I just don't see how blocking leadership from the gateway is going to prevent botting - they obviously can automate logins, and retrieve professions in game. How does this help anything with the botters? <sigh>
Removed three Rhix dailies by removing Gauntylgrym
Removed all Neverember dailies
Removed salvageable items from DR/Shar lair loot
Dungeon chests open with a key that costs nearly as much as the contents of the chest, and then only during Delves (one key per day is free)
Indirect nerfs to same:
Over many modules, made vast majority of gear BoP, therefore unsellable
Changes to mob HP make high-level skirmishes take longer, meaning fewer can be completed in an hour
Overflow rewards arrive less frequently, meaning the windfall of 30k rough AD is even fewer and farther between
Changes to Leadership tasks had basically balanced out when you hit rank 25, and invoking at 70 gives more rough AD than invoking at 60 used to*, if you can manage to get the 5th one in consistently, so those aren't exactly nerfs, but require more of the player's time to obtain.
Unavoidable and expensive AD sinks introduced (if you want to improve your character past scrub-level)
Cube of Augmentation - doesn't drop at all
Greater Mark of Potency - not really feasible to get enough as drops to upgrade keeping pace with refinement
Arguably mandatory expensive tat
One of the new legendary mounts that you can't buy as an account unlock
Companion upgrades - used to be personal preference in the majority of cases (vanity/cosmetic), but now can have a significant impact on performance between ranked-up active bonus improvements and the huge boost from having a legendary companion
I think that covers the bases.
*Edit: Actually, just getting to the 4th one is 2k/day like 60 used to be.
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
1) Continual removal of ways to generate ADs...
2) Introduction of many huge AD sinks over time...
Finally. The, probably, worst currently existing exploit is gone. Good job
Many legitimate players have invested time and effort into leveling up leadership to make this a viable option. Whilst nothing has been said about this, i can't help but foresee further changes.
Please do not even think about taking it to the next stage and adjusting the leadership profession.
All leadership AD should be converted to things like white pearls, peridots, aquamarines, and resonance stones. They really need to remove all forms of botting meaningful AD from the game. Make chests at the end of dungeons give either 10k rads or 4k ad (already refined). This would allow people to easily reach the rad limit each day, and also give incentive to continue doing dungeons. Something similar could be done to pvp if they changed it to a solo queue and a premade queue. Something would have to be added like a report bot button on your team that would make a captcha appear that they had to answer or get kicked (and system could log who is botting and would be easy to find the exploiters). Finding any solutions similar to these that affect bots but do not punish players should be made instead of these bandaid fixes that just cause more problems and upset more people. Its not going to take long for them to write a script to run the profession bots in game. Just remove the ability to make AD with bots by putting it behind something that takes an actual brain to do (top end dungeons, etc) and it will save time in the long run.
On my personal impact I believe this will mean more ingame botting . more load on server and network connection. More lag and random dc.
RIP Real Tiamat, RIP Real Demogorgon RIP real Temple of the spider. Why remove non bis content to give to bis players ????
FORCING the majority of your player base to play 4 mod old dungeons and trial will have a bad result on player base
Changes are getting so bad i would rather prefer no new changes (RIP ICE FISHING in winter fest)
I have posted in the developer corner part of forum as well, but I had not thought of this very simple solution. In fact this is one of many reasons why the announced change is not necessary or helpful.
1. Botters will just move in game.
2. We need to find ways of getting rid of botting altogether. A capcha sounds like a great idea. Banning botters (after a warning, then a series of increasing time bans) would easily deal with this being abused for leadership too.
3. Ultimately I believe that rewards in game should be the main source of AD but at present there it just doesn't work. Laggy dungeons (VT anyone?) don't help and the drops are worth very little when you consider that things cost millions of AD.
4. If you are making leadership worthless in the long run (this is after all our decision) please consider some kind of a leadership amnesty to get the AD and time back legit players have invested.
As a general note on the patch - It is also disappointing to see there aren't more fixes. It feels like all fixes are being held onto until Stronghold. Maybe you should come out and say that, but even if, not fixing performance issues is deadly for game enjoyment.
As for all those saying they are leaving etc. - they are saying this is a temporary fix while they are making changes.
I just wish the changes were all made in one go so that everyone can see if what is coming works for them.
When they ninja-nerfed dragonhoard enchants and admited to their 'bot-fighting-action' they said, that they 'will look into it'. Guess what happened? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice...
This will be interesting. I had a big speech, then realized I was wasting my time.
Now where are my nachos ...
Did you kind of get the feeling talking to the wall would be more productive? I did.
also, to people claiming it won't hurt the botters, i would like to ask why wouldn't it? are there absolutely zero botters in the gateway? although i do believe it would hurt the legit players, i dont think botters wont be affected at all.
> Unfortunately, a large number of people have been botting the Leadership profession, causing harm to the economy of the game.
Well maybe Cryptic should remove all AD/RP from Leadership and replacing it with gold/kits rewards alone to make every one happy. But we still living with only 24k AD character cap per day and not so many ways to hit it, especially for new poor geared players. Even filled 24k AD doesn't solve problem how to fund all these multi-million RP, GMOP, enchantment bills etc.
— (The unwritten rule)
But seriously:
Cryptic is in trap. From one point of view they made an artifact system which is perfect for botting and it need boting, cause nowadays in game there is no other way to earn AD.
From another point of view they can count. They see, that population of players decreasing every day. So they cut of botting (imo in the worst way they could do it). The same situation was recently with dragon hoard enchant, imp farm etc.
Players are frustrated cause of this system (billions of RP needed to upgrade anything). They offer us new armours, mounts etc. Everything is bounded, we can't earn AD for upgrading our artifacts, enchants. We have to bot or buy AD in legal or illegal way. Btw is it so hard to shut all of those gold sellers? Some IP filter, it can't be so hard.
Give us back our dungeons with decent reward (not bounded) at the end, fix important bugs, offer some new pvp modes (stronghold will be dead like IWD now, trust me), balance characters (don't make every time a new class overpowered, aka OP now, HR before), give us a chance to earn money in a legit way - you will see, that people will back to this game. And even pay for new useless but nice looking mount or companion. Even, if next month you will change it's working mechanism (aka cocatrix and many others).
Just my point of view.
.Suicide Squad.