I assumed the new developer they pulled from the XBOX version would actually attempt to fix the PC version.. It looked like he was at least trying. Now he's just the put the last nail in the coffin to kill this game. If this goes through I quit. Being able to have a steady stream of income from accessing leadership from the gateway was the last perk of this game. What they fail to realize is this means the "Botters" win and actual players lose. I say as a community we should turn the tables and stop using the in-game market and buying zen.. see how it effects their company "economy". Of course you can't protest or create change alone.. but must companies change their ignorant ways when their bottom line falters.
AGREED!!!! I'm not spending another dime until this is sorted out. The real world $$$$ tap is officially turned OFF.
Same thing here I bought alot of leadership assets and spent time building a couple of chars and I'm using the gateway instead of playing Clash of clans @ work.
Firstly - I am against botting because it unbalances the economy - I am just not convinced this step helps or was even necessary.
1. As a number of people of said - botting is happening in game. If someone can programme an invoke bot in game I am sure they can manage one in game that does professions. If anything more legit players will start considering these bots as they will not be able to keep up otherwise.
2. More importantly though, I don't understand why you don't just ban accounts that are using bots. Give someone a warning. If they continue, take out the account for a week. If they continue further, ban them for a month etc. I just don't understand why this isn't being done. I know it is more work, but getting leadership high is not something where you can just create another account for spammers. It should be an easy fix if you know who is botting.
3. A lot of legit players have invested months into getting leadership up to a decent level. Surely a change like this shouldn't just be suddenly dropped on people, but discussed and taken forward with some notice.
4. All in all I do favour a solution where in-game non-bottable content is what makes you the money. Dungeons, Dragons, whatever it takes, but there has to be a decent level of rewards. At the moment even salvage rewards are pathetic.
Whoever signed off this awful decision should do the honourable thing and resign. It's plainly clear they have no idea about game design and lack both player empathy, and the testicular fortitude to put their name to the blog, leaving Andy as the bad guy. Player numbers are dropping and this will only exacerbate the problem. Unless this was the plan all along.
Wow... I guess a "free-to-play" game only gets you talent at the bottom of the pool.
Bots are simple programs, with limited intelligence. PLEASE - PLEASE (did I say please?) invest a small portion of your income in some talent. I have been in the IT industry for 20+ years, and until now, I have not had enough reason (I am an introvert) to speak up... But holy ;()$&... Really... You guys need to take a deep breath, step back, and listen to the community.
To do a blanket disable of Leadership on the gateway to combat BOTS displays one of two things: laziness/lack of talent in the programming team or, the programmer's hands are tied and the decisions are being driven by corporate bureaucrats with a single directive - $$$$. Either way, the end result is going to be disastrous.
Seriously, there has to be a way to combat BOTS.
Over the last 45 minutes, while writing this RANT, I have thought about some solutions that might work in the to avoid mass hysteria and preserve/maintain profits...
And One short-term solution I came up with is fairly simple to implement - CAPTCHA!!! Although annoying, if communicated and implemented correctly, it could be used to combat the issue at hand immediately. A long-term solution could be to prevent the trade of any item bought with any portion of the in-game currency bound to character.
Is anybody on the cryptic team having an epiphany right now? If not, then please let me know, so I can stop wasting my time and money on an application that will not withstand the test of time.
I am a pretty new player to this game. Having a way to earn IG currency from accesible web page was one of the perks that made this game different.
Taking that opportunity away evens the score to games like WoW and to be fair, I won't have to pay as much on WoW to enjoy it even with subscription then I would have to here, when you take Leadership gateway away.
Besides you find a solution like profession quest stacking or something like it, I think I will leave this game as well. Cutting my losses, because I won't sink more money into this then I already have.
Is the gateway disable really a true anti bot viable option ? No !
New bot will log in game and launch the leaderships task, the normal player who used it before because it's ways faster than logging in game and some people work and they can't log in at some times so : they lost the way to use leadership ...
And the loading can be sometime pretty long so i'm actually using the gateway during loading for making me gain time ... I have 12 char (9 who have a decent level of leadership) and it take roughtly 15 min for me to make them pray and launch task ... So the evening then i wanna play with friend, i make them wait more than 15 min before being able to play, or i don't launch task and play with them but the next day i have the task finish later ... making me use a less long task in the day making me make less AD than i could ...
Another TRUE secure solution could be to make 3 random 10 lenght long number and random virtual keyboard you write the 3 random number in 3 different color and ask to enter 1 of them (based on color) on the virtual keyboard ... Make the access to gateway activated for 15 min (or 30 min) ... Bot can't actually pass this kind of system and it will let normal people still use gateway for normal use ... Make everyone happy ...
Well what you are doing is making the game lose to other arriving games (I'm actually on Beta of another game who is pretty nice and i know lots of people of my guild are ready to go on it actually ...)
So ... GL to survive another year (i should say 3 months even ...) with your current patch ...
Ps : why not make lots more item bound to account, making it usable for you and not sellable and why not making a report bot option ? Cause i created 3 new char for making use of leadership (so thx for forcing me to log them a lots more ...) to make myself a little more AD and then leveling them at blacklake see something like 12 people level 12~34 doing the exact same movement ... Make a report bot option then you can then disable them and if they transfered more than 80% of AD made to another account, ban it too ... Well it's your choice to choose the right thing to to or not ...
pps : Something unrelated, being able to use refinement put in class artifact to another artifact could help (I have 2 and i won't use them anymore and it's making me think more and more of droping the game ...) even if it's 70% reused, can't crit can't be doubled on double sublimation, no base bonus from level 0 artifact etc ... You put 1M refinnement in it, you can have back the equivalent of the exp on another artifact of same kind at 700k refinement level (my exemple : 1M put is roughtly level 78 => it give the 72 level equivalent = little lose to refinement used but not having a totally useless artifact ...) Well just keep it in mind for later but main message is more important ...
I really don't think the PTB will be impressed with people saying they are going to leave (IMO). For every established player that leaves there will be a hand full of noobs to take their place, and when those players become established and the PTB does something else to tick off those players there will be more noobs.
Me. I plan on sticking around to see what's what and pass on my observations and opinions to various gamer sites and webpages, I don't feel inclined to make anything up or post vindictively, I just think people should be informed about what's going on.
The PTB says they "discourage" anyone from visiting those web sites where you can buy astral diamonds under the threat of tossing you out of the game - then they appear to be doing everything in their power to not only make it necessary to have tons of astral diamonds to play the game, but make it difficult to actually obtain them... unless you purchase the in game currency and then convert it into astral diamonds.
They say this game is "free to play", but after a while every player seems to hit a brick wall and the only solution seems to be; either pay up or move on...
Not a single person who commented wants this patch to go live, and sadly Cryptic will not even read these comments to understand that they are not hurting botters at all and instead are hurting every single person who does not want to spend years to actually have enough astral diamonds to gear out their character.
Are you frackin' kidding me? I spend millions of AD on 6 toons to get my adventurers so I can set my AD projects twice a day, once from work and once from home and now you're taking that away? Seems you can't understand that people can't log in to the game every 10 hrs, we do have to work you know! Why the hell can't you make a solution and not punish us legit gateway users? Like others have suggested a capcha would be the easiest way to get the bots out of business, but no, you're not even thinking about that are you? you go straight to punishing everyone, legit or otherwise. Cryptic this is a really low blow you pulled and you can be sure it will cost you big time!!
People who have a life, or a family or a life and a family outside Neverwinter can't spend endless hours grinding away at the game just to earn enough to obtain the kind of gear that will allow them to survive one shot from the lowest level opponent in places like the Well of Dragons.
And as much as I would like to, I can't always make the time to commit to a guild in order to find a party, especially since so many guilds require their members to participate at a certain level or they are booted out.
So I have to hang around places and beg someone to invite me to a party, just to be able to do the quests needed to get decent rewards, it's humiliating.
I started to play Neverwinter because it was fun and it gave me an opportunity to work of some stress from my job and real life... I don't want a "game" or the people who run the game to find new and inventive ways to pile on even more stress and frustration than I already have in my life.
One short-term solution I came up with is fairly simple to implement - CAPTCHA!!! Although annoying, if communicated and implemented correctly, it could be used to combat the issue at hand immediately.
This is what i came here to say, and i am surprised i needed to get to the las two comments to read it. It's so simple, you just add a captcha to the leadership tasks, both in the gateway and in-game, that lasts for let's say an hour, and there you have it, a "bot free" game. But no, this just wont do anything but annoy botters a little, as they have to change their bots, but actually <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> off legit players like me, who won't be able to make AD while, let's say, we're on our vacation (literally, this is what i planned to do while i'm unable to play the game, make at least some AD through my smartphone and a 3G connection... now i can't. and there are a lot of examples of legit uses like that). At least they say it's only going away "for now" and that they're "examining other solutions", so it might be temporary while they come up with/implement the new measure, but right now it just sucks.
Now, playng Devil's advocate a little bit, you have to understand that they need to do something about bots. Not only it's not fair to legit people, who are just powerless and can do nothing but wacth while the AH prices go up and up again, it's allowing third parties to farm AD in game and then selling it, with Cryptic never seeing even a cent of it. If players don't spend money because they have bot farms and they don't have a reason to, and the ones who does spend their money do so in third parties and not the actual game, the game goes down.
But, as many people said, this is not the way to fight that. I' okay with you tying to fight bots, but that fight should not negatively affect legit players.
Also, keep in mind that most botters don't sell their AD, they bot just because it's too hard and time consuming to make it in-game, to the point where, by the time you make it, there is something new and you need to make even more. If you remove bots the prices will go down, yes, but i seriously doubt they will go down enough, specially if you keep the prices on things like Greater Marks of Potency that high (that's not a bot-inflated price, that's your price), and the drops that low. For this to work you need to reach a balance, remove bots to give people a reason to spend money, that's fine, but you have to make it possible to get it for free, just by playing the game (and not absolutely tedious to do it), or it will become a Pay2Win game, and nobody likes that kind of game.
Honestly, i hope you Cryptic actually have all of this in mind and actually do what you say you are going to do: get another solution to stop bots and re-enable Leadership in Gateway, and make it rewarding and actually viable to make AD in game. If you do that and do it quickly and correctly, i think things should be fine.
Please listen to the feedback. Real players are tired of getting every possible way to earn AD removed. We all understand that bots need to be eliminated. The best way to fix the players being unhappy and to stop the bots is simple. Allow people to earn AD through content that cannot be botted. Bots do not beat things like 5 man heroic dungeons. If players earned something reasonable from them the players would be happy and bots would be broke because they cannot earn AD through game play. This current fix does nothing to stop bots, all ways to currently gain AD will still be accomplished better by bots than real players. Even if this caused players to be able to earn much more AD than you really want, at least it stops the bots. Since no one would be buying from bots, those people would be buying zen.
At the current price of items (12 mil for some trans enchants), it takes over 1 year to get that much at 24k AD per day. The prices will not come down much because items like Coal wards and GMOPs are all at pretty much fixed rates. Its understandable that the company wants to make money from Zen sales, but if people had to buy half as much there would probably be 4x as many players. People want to feel like they are progressing, even if you make it to the point that they cannot fully become best in slot without buying zen. Many of those extra players would buy zen. More players = more purchases. 5k people paying 20 bucks each is still less than 20k people paying 10 bucks each. Also many paying players leave to play more active games. People do not want to sit in a queue for 20 minutes because there are not enough players. 1 year at the starndard 24k AD per day for just 1 item is not free to play. A person who is severely undergeared with no possible in game way of upgrading will not play long and quits, leading to the payers quitting. More money can be made by making players happy and growing the player base than trying to squeeze what you can out of current players.
Well Devs? how's this forum thread for you? there is not a single comment from any1 that agrees with your plan of action..... this change will destroy the game. I play this game and truly enjoy making astrals at work or at school with the gateway, and do you know what I do with the astrals? I spend it on guildmates!!! and friends!!!! all of whom have a hard time playing this game as it is...a few players that ave been long time friends of mine just returned to the game...and I was DEFENDING you people, I told my friends that the old devs wrecked the game and ya'll are fixing it, but now your making it worse, this change ruins the game for everyone.
Reconsider this change, or I promise you.... I will not be the only one to quit, hundreds if not thousands of people will quit. The Game is too much of a grind as it is.
your limb got infected by diseases and you just cut it out ? and you think the infected will be cured? no the wound become larger and the bleeding will kill you
with this change legit player will lose primary resource of making AD and AD will be valueable more, and i will tell you what will happen
1. casual legit player will leave due to unable to make AD
2. the exploit and bot ingame will be more viral because it will be more profitable
3. exchange rate will be turn in AD favor that will make intermediate ZEN player cost too much to upgrade (GMOP), and this will make reduction on demand which is bad for marketing
4. when most casual and intermediate player leave this game and the population player almost died the whale player will leave this game too and you know what happen
we told you that there is a cliff in your decision path, think it over because when it's done.. i am afraid that it's to late to turning back
Disable leadership from gateway...so nice..i really start to hate that game..if you are going to remove Leadership from the gateway reduce also the AD in Xbox to be fair, and also everyone can do that in gateway so don't say that is unfair for others. The pc version of neverwinter is like <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> and in Xbox its so good cause of Microsoft.. REALLY??????
The only people this leadership gateway change is hurting is the honest working class people that play the game (those are the ones that actually buy Zen). Bottlers will continue to bot they will just do it in game. STO did the same thing with reducing EC & Delirium earning & because of that their number of players is at an all time low. I would have thought Cryptic would have learned from this the first time.
By cutting off legit channels to produce AD, the botter black market only becomes more powerful.
Those of us who can't sign in multiple times a day, every day, are losing the only feasible source of income we have. This move is going to give botters an easier time setting AH prices at insane levels legit players cannot afford and then offering those items for cash on their own sites as a way around those AD prices. This is how the back market works in IRL, this is how it will work here. IRL the black market profiteers usually have to use violence to subvert or choke the supply chains for necessities, here they just show up and the devs hand them the reins.
Well, this is yet another in a long string of decisions the devs have made to decrease the potential for AD gain. Here is the real problem guys. You continue to make decisions that limit the richness of the economy of neverwinter. There are multiple currencies and different ways of manipulating them to make them more or less effective so I understand that limiting botting without punishing legit players seems like a difficult task but consider for a moment what you're doing to regular players.
1) Dungeons don't yield valuable loot anymore:
The drops from dungeons that are worth anything are very, very rare if you can even complete the dungeon with the gear you have. Many items are bind on pickup. This makes these items essentially useless in terms of economy except to generate perhaps a 1k up to 10k in AD if you're lucky. Most just sells for gold.
2) There are certain prices that are set which are completely necessary which prevents an affordable market:
Greater marks of potency are at a set price, preservation wards, coal wards as well. These prices affect enchantments as well as Artifacts and artifact weapons and thus place limitations on the value of AD as these are absolutely necessary to gear up. So 100k GMOPs and 500K for 99 Pres wards or 600k for a coal ward (because the ones produced from praying are bound) takes away severely from the market's ability to evolve with supply and demand.
3) There are too many items that require too much refining and too many wards/GMOPs to complete. These items are insanely expensive to produce and they change WITH EVERY MOD. This is such a terrible economical oversight that players are punished with. If they are lucky enough to catch a double RP weekend to lvl up the next artifact/artifact weapon they still must pay the price in wards and GMOPs again. Why do this to players you're already making poor?
4) If costs of these items from the zen store reflect your idea of what these artifacts/artifact weapons should be worth it's pretty simple to see the type of insane math going on behind the economy. For example:
Artifact weapon RP requirement to rank up to Legendary: 4,625,200 RP
Cost per RP from Zen store: $20 per 150,000 RP (Blood Ruby Pack)
Simple math 4,625,200/150,000= 30.83 Blood Ruby Packs
30.83x $20 = $616.70 excluding wards and other Marks necessary for the upgrade.
At end game you need a Main hand, off hand, neck, and belt at this cost totaling $2,466.77
You will also need Mythic artifacts which require 10,469,635 RP and multiple stacks of wards and GMOPs
Now, this is in terms of actual zen store dollars it's easy to see if you P2W off the zen store one BIS toon is literally worth $5-10,000
Guys. This is a game. We are not all rich, we just want to play and have fun. Most of us are willing to drop the occasional $20.00 in game to help you guys out and get something cool in return. Ultimately these are just pixels. Please consider what you do when you dry up the economy.
One of the reasons botting is rampant is because the zen store is massively overpriced and easy to undercut. If you were to make the game more affordable for people who do wish to spend money you would see less of people trying to do things illegitimately.
Some suggestions:
1) Massively reduce zen store prices
2) Bring back the ability to sell equipment earned from dungeons and make dungeon equipment relevant in both PVP and PVE.
3) Give us fun ways of producing AD, stop making grindy day long progressions of event hopping or profession button mashing, or serially praying to our gods religiously.
4) Stop making everything so bound... we need to be able to trade things and sell things to continue to make the economy viable and rich enough to keep this game interesting and afloat.
This is pretty simple stuff guys, please help us out. Many of us have supported you monetarily, show us you care please bring back the fun and bring back a healthy, vibrant economy that doesn't require botting, leadership, or third party sites to make it possible to play and gear.
Tnks for your time.
On ambush rings: "How would you like PVE if all the mobs were invisible?"
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soullesslordsMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 54Arc User
All this does is drive people away I get that you need to make money but you need to understand the majority of the people playing are not rich but they have the most money. let me explain.
True story everyday on my way to work I gave a beggar a dollar same guy every day I thought 1 dollar wont hurt me and I felt better about my day from just 1 dollar. Then one day my routine changed I had to be several blocks over and guess who I saw the same beggar I watched and sure enough people gave him money, so I thought I have time I'll talk with him get to know him and you would be surprised what I learned.
I asked him so you have multiple spots he said yes I asked why don't you go to the rich neighbor hoods you could make more money he laughed and said nope can't I make less money, so I asked why is that? he said because rich people can add, and they are rich because they know the value of a dollar. He said poor people are more willing to give up that dollar because they can relate to my image.
This floored me now I had to know what he meant, so I said I don't get it, he said everyday you give me 1 dollar that's $30.00 dollars a month but you don't see it that way you just see 1 dollar at a time, rich people do see it as $30.00 dollars a month they also see that as $360.00 dollars a year then they quickly do the math and realize that If I average 300 people a day which he said he does that's $300.00 a day times 30 days equals 9,000 a month times 12 months is $108,000 a year, not bad for someone just sitting outside holding a cup.
I shook my head and said WOW!!!
He said its simple its easier to get 1dollar from million people than it is to get a million dollars from 1 person.
He said poor people don't see money between 1-5 dollars but any more than that then it becomes real to them because then that $50.00 dollars becomes a tank of gas or part of a light bill or their food money for the week.
The point I'm trying to make is lower the prices in the zen market and you will make money not everyone can afford to buy a $30 dollar mount and if they do scrape up the money do you think they are really going to buy the green and blue ones get real make them purple or dump them and my god get rid of the lock boxes and put that stuff on the zen market you have some cool stuff in them and make it at a reasonable price people will buy them, remember its easy to overlook 1 to 5 dollars but any more than that then it becomes real money.
I'm just guessing but lets do some math for you lets say that you have 3,000 players and on any average day lets just say half 1,500 spend 1 dollar a day that's simple 1,500 right but now multiply that by 30 days that's $45,00 a month times 12 months that's 540,000 a year. but I'm guessing that you have way more people than 3,000 or you wouldn't be working on this game and if you crank that up to an average of 10,000 people giving 1 dollar a day that's $300,000 a month and $3,600,000 a year, and I'm guessing that player base number is much higher than that.
Well, this is yet another in a long string of decisions the devs have made to decrease the potential for AD gain. Here is the real problem guys. You continue to make decisions that limit the richness of the economy of neverwinter. There are multiple currencies and different ways of manipulating them to make them more or less effective so I understand that limiting botting without punishing legit players seems like a difficult task but consider for a moment what you're doing to regular players.
1) Dungeons don't yield valuable loot anymore:
The drops from dungeons that are worth anything are very, very rare if you can even complete the dungeon with the gear you have. Many items are bind on pickup. This makes these items essentially useless in terms of economy except to generate perhaps a 1k up to 10k in AD if you're lucky. Most just sells for gold.
2) There are certain prices that are set which are completely necessary which prevents an affordable market:
Greater marks of potency are at a set price, preservation wards, coal wards as well. These prices affect enchantments as well as Artifacts and artifact weapons and thus place limitations on the value of AD as these are absolutely necessary to gear up. So 100k GMOPs and 500K for 99 Pres wards or 600k for a coal ward (because the ones produced from praying are bound) takes away severely from the market's ability to evolve with supply and demand.
3) There are too many items that require too much refining and too many wards/GMOPs to complete. These items are insanely expensive to produce and they change WITH EVERY MOD. This is such a terrible economical oversight that players are punished with. If they are lucky enough to catch a double RP weekend to lvl up the next artifact/artifact weapon they still must pay the price in wards and GMOPs again. Why do this to players you're already making poor?
4) If costs of these items from the zen store reflect your idea of what these artifacts/artifact weapons should be worth it's pretty simple to see the type of insane math going on behind the economy. For example:
Artifact weapon RP requirement to rank up to Legendary: 4,625,200 RP
Cost per RP from Zen store: $20 per 150,000 RP (Blood Ruby Pack)
Simple math 4,625,200/150,000= 30.83 Blood Ruby Packs
30.83x $20 = $616.70 excluding wards and other Marks necessary for the upgrade.
At end game you need a Main hand, off hand, neck, and belt at this cost totaling $2,466.77
You will also need Mythic artifacts which require 10,469,635 RP and multiple stacks of wards and GMOPs
Now, this is in terms of actual zen store dollars it's easy to see if you P2W off the zen store one BIS toon is literally worth $5-10,000
Guys. This is a game. We are not all rich, we just want to play and have fun. Most of us are willing to drop the occasional $20.00 in game to help you guys out and get something cool in return. Ultimately these are just pixels. Please consider what you do when you dry up the economy.
One of the reasons botting is rampant is because the zen store is massively overpriced and easy to undercut. If you were to make the game more affordable for people who do wish to spend money you would see less of people trying to do things illegitimately.
Some suggestions:
1) Massively reduce zen store prices
2) Bring back the ability to sell equipment earned from dungeons and make dungeon equipment relevant in both PVP and PVE.
3) Give us fun ways of producing AD, stop making grindy day long progressions of event hopping or profession button mashing, or serially praying to our gods religiously.
4) Stop making everything so bound... we need to be able to trade things and sell things to continue to make the economy viable and rich enough to keep this game interesting and afloat.
This is pretty simple stuff guys, please help us out. Many of us have supported you monetarily, show us you care please bring back the fun and bring back a healthy, vibrant economy that doesn't require botting, leadership, or third party sites to make it possible to play and gear.
Tnks for your time.
This is one of the best and most well thought out posts. Thanks for writing this! Its 110% the Truth.
Every module is a massive massive AD sink. We went from BIS weapons being rare, BOE and dropping from the toughest dungeon in mod 0 (Castle Never) to module 1, were its now 100% bound because its made through professions (something I thought was dumb, should have been BOE still even after being made! which would have PROMOTED the economy) and then mod 2 we went to again BOP Fallen Dragon weapons and you introduce artifacts (MASSIVE cost) then nerf the best artifacts (AD sink - wasted) Then release artifact WEAPONS which are now no longer rare, and now you have to PAY to upgrade them.
I dont understand why you dont put the AD "earning" ability BACK into dungeons?!?! What was wrong with that model in the first place? Back when you had CN, TONS of players were willing to log in and run things, now you have "sectioned off" PVP players by making tenacity - so there is no reason for them to PVE. Also you have "sectioned off" profitability from dungeons by making everything BOP.
I dont see what harm would come from making EVERY bound item (or MOST of them) bound to account. Alowing players to use artifacts and artifact GEAR on other alts, use their enchants on other alts, reducing the cost of playing alts.... Then making ON PAR "BIS" items compared to Artifact Equipment DROP from dungeons and ABLE TO BE SOLD! On the AH!
Then you need to create a SOURCE of AD production. Daily quests offering 4k is a joke....
Again we have been saying it: REMOVE the "per character" refine limit and make a "per account" refine limit of like 200k. This limits bots effectiveness from leadership. THEN do things like increase the "AD salvage" amount from epic items that drop in dungeons to like 10-20k. Increase the "daily" quest AD to like 8k and then create MORE daily quests.
Now you have AD generation from dungeon running (selling items on the AH), from salvaging, from leadership still, and from daily quests, but its ALL capped. Players can now DECIDE which avenue they want to pursue to hit their "cap" and have many ways to achieve that per day. Then allowing you to swap artifacts and artifact equipment to alts, just like enchants, enables you to play the game on your alts without having to invest THOUSANDS of USD (which noone is willing to do!)
Ill tell you MY own experience doing leadership ONLY arrose from the massive AD sink each and every module. Up until ~ module 4/5 I never did leadership. But each module was an INSANE cost sink to get upgraded gear and you guys keep making massive sweeping changes which force us to REDO our entire characters artifacts and equipment.
MOdule 4/5 for GWFs Power stacking was ALL there was. You couldnt make a viable PVP GWF without 10k+ Power. Well what happens module 6? Nerf Intimidation and now we have to go buy negation enchant, feytouched enchant and change all our radiant enchants to crit or recovery..... We also have ALL NEW lvl 70 artifact gear!?
Now with module 7 coming its ANOTHER set of weapons..... ANOTHER MASSIVE AD sink..... Yet NO WAY TO EARN AD BY PLAYING THE GAME!!!!!!!!
Bots were out of control, but so is the expectation you guys place on the players and how you purposefully cripple the economy. If you dont take steps to adjust the game for the legitimate players who use professions as the only way to farm AD, the botters just get richer and leave the rest of us in the dust!
Picture a city, with LARGE skyscrapers, several smaller buildings and then the small shops on the ground floor. You just flooded the entire city several stories high... All the small shops and smaller buildings just got flooded, while the "CEOs(Botters)" who are sitting on the top floor of these sky scrappers look down and just feel bad for everyone else. They cant earn AD AS FAST anymore, I bet they will still find a way to bot, and the rest of the city is now just trying to figure out "whats next". For some players they will just leave the city and move to a different place. For those that choose to stay, its going to be a LONG time of picking up the pieces on the road to recovery, while the CEOs are picking out which color lambo they will buy this month.... They have already generated TONS of AD, you just cut off EVERYONEs supply which only makes the rich richer, the poor poorer.
Imagine if banks stopped lending to everyone. Who is affected? The poor people. Rich people will still buy mansions. Poor people cant finance their two bedroom home they wanted to buy...
Players are giving GREAT feedback and GREAT ideas. You should listen to them while you still have a player base, before its too late and they have moved out of the "city" of Neverwinter.......
I don't believe this I use the gateway on a two screen pc one game and the other on gateway so I can do my professions don't think ill bother coming back if that's going to happen I'll find another game or go back to one of my other mmorpg games. I know im fairly new to the game only about 2-3 months and I spend about £10-£15 a week on game mainly on keys for boxes I know it doesn't sound a lot but a loss is a loss no matter what. Keep Leadership in gate way or loose players who do pay.
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alphastreamMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 209Arc User
I don't understand how the game can function this way. The game requires so much AD and it is so hard for an average player to gather AD. We have jobs and lives. We can't constantly log in to the game to run Leadership. The game becomes unplayable for us with this change because we cannot accomplish what the game intends for us to accomplish. My alternate character is a warlock and I'm still struggling to upgrade them to where they are effective. No way I can do that in a reasonable timeframe with this change.
Please, Cryptic, re-enable the Gateway for Leadership and find a different way to fight the bots.
Learn more about Dungeons & Dragons tabletop at Alphastream.org.
This is another in a series of well intentioned and poorly thought out changes to "fix" the economy. This change WILL reduce the amount of AD in circulation. It WILL lower AH prices on items. And while those intentions are good (although I seriously doubt they are motivated by anything other than trying to get more of our IRL money into investing in Zen). It will ALSO make Gateway essentially useless for most dedicated players who already have their Professions maxed. And, worst of all, it appears to us to be another giant EFF YOU to your players.
Over the past few months, you've decimated the ability to progress gear. You killed the drop rate of refinement items for reasons that are unfathomable and were never explained. Then you made a snap change without considering the consequences and made it WAY TOO easy. Then you hamstrung it again...Slap ouch. You raised the time it takes to complete leadership tasks to effectively make them less profitable....slap ouch. You made the best PvP gear in the game (the stuff that takes weeks of dedicated effort to grind out AND waste tons of resources investing in Black Ice to level 5 to get and make) and you GIVE IT AWAY. Now you decide to make the gateway a much less useful tool for those of us who access it from work to try to get AD. You guys are making some AMAZINGLY poor decisions from a PR and gameplay perspective. Coupled with your inability to produce well planned, tested and executed updates, you guys should be bending over backwards to keep folks happy, NOT alienating your core.
What this change won't do is stop farming from the professionals. They will simply modify the tools they have been using in other MMOs for years will now consume even more server resources by constantly logging in and out to tend to their farms. You think the daily evening lag spikes are bad now? imagine them around the clock as the servers are treated to a steady load of mindless bots logging in, logging out, logging in, logging out...
I urge you to reconsider this change. You need help in coming up with a solution to the problem, LAY OUT THE PROBLEM AS YOU SEE IT AND ASK THE COMMUNITY FOR SUGGESTIONS. Contrary to what zone chat makes it appear, there are some very smart folks who play the game and would love to see it stay around. Don't keep shafting the folks who like your game...ultimately, you guys are the ones who end up suffering.
This is very very well put. We now have a game that provides no rewards for actually playing it and no rewards for playing it through the gateway...
No Rewards + No Rewards= No Players
Someone might want to check my math... but I'm pretty that its accurate.
I don't like the change but the cost of a purple leadership asset was over half a million AD last time I checked. Because of in game currency inflation (likely due to botters have tons of AD to throw around) the price of things keeps rising faster than our efforts can produce AD. The more time passes the behinder we get. While I really hate the idea of disabling one of the few things I still enjoyed doing in the game if prices actually fall it may be worthwhile. I just wish there were a way to punish botters instead of players. I too bought 20+ character slots and have been leveling them all up just for leadership on the Gateway. Everything I build on this game gets taken away. There needs to be a better way or there's no point in doing anything. If the Gateway doesn't have Leadership you might as well just shut the Gateway down.
Anyway, bots will launch task from the game not from gateway now, so botter will still have advantage and real player who can't always log in ... Well you know ...
And if they implement new AD gain (not a problem for me) the bot will still find a way to use it at theire advantage ...
I'm pretty sure there is actually bots for farms event which give AD in groups anyway ...
Well I'll wait a week, i think they will see that it change nothing for bots, disavantage normal player and make the sites who sell AD being able to sell them even more ... So i hope they will see it in 1 week and take a step back ...
WHAT IN THE HECK ARE YOU GUYS THINKING?! doing that to leadership, andddddd I BET 70% of your player base isssss gone, yup gone. where IN THE HECK are you supposed to get AD from? If you press on with those changes to leadership, I don't think (oh sorry) I KNOW this game is NOT F2P anymore.
I'm done, f2p players ARE DONE! you've nerfed AD gains in every possible way. Do you guys even know what you are doing to the games MAIN profession? did you even sit down and think about it? did you think about it AGAIN? I don't think so. Go PLAY THE GAME, log into Neverwinter and sit in Protectors Enclave and ASK people, ANYONE for that matter, if that's fair. Even so, MAKE A FRKIN POLL before you do things like that.
That's why, we, as players are here. We're here to help you in developing this game. JUST PLAY THE GAME, and you will see. But if you don't listen, what's the point? You guys are becoming more of politicians then of gamers. Finding the best way to milk money from your players. I have soo much to air out from my chest but you guys just won't listen and if I write anymore, I'll get barred from the forums sooo - I'm out.
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silvergryphMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 740Arc User
edited July 2015
Change AD generation from Leadership to a bonus.
1. Remove all the AD generation from Leadership tasks.
2. Replace the AD generation with Account Bound RP.
200 AD becomes 1 White Pearl
400 AD becomes 2 White Pearls
800 AD becomes 1 Peridot
1200 AD becomes 2 Peridots
1600 AD becomes 1 Aquamarine
3. Add an AD bonus for completing the first 3 Rare Leadership tasks on each character each day.
800 Rough AD for completing your first Rare Leadership task.
1600 Rough AD for completing your second Rare Leadership task.
2400 Rough AD for completing your third Rare Leadership task.
4. Add Rare Leadership tasks that defer some other AD sinks.
Create a "Companion Training Drill" task that awards a Companion Upgrade Token
Create a "Mounted Combat Training" task that awards a new Mount Upgrade Token which would work like the Companion Upgrade Tokens only for mounts.
This way, you can still use Leadership to gain 4800 AD per character per day. A reasonable limit equal to running 3 of the 1600 AD tasks. The RP rewards would make further Leadership still rewarding in a way that is more difficult to directly expolit. And another route to upgrade Companions and Mounts would stimulate sales.
*Edited to indicate that the suggested new tasks would be Rare tasks.
**Second Edit - I put Sapphire when I meant Aquamarine.
Comments
AGREED!!!! I'm not spending another dime until this is sorted out. The real world $$$$ tap is officially turned OFF.
I guess I'm done with this game.
1. As a number of people of said - botting is happening in game. If someone can programme an invoke bot in game I am sure they can manage one in game that does professions. If anything more legit players will start considering these bots as they will not be able to keep up otherwise.
2. More importantly though, I don't understand why you don't just ban accounts that are using bots. Give someone a warning. If they continue, take out the account for a week. If they continue further, ban them for a month etc. I just don't understand why this isn't being done. I know it is more work, but getting leadership high is not something where you can just create another account for spammers. It should be an easy fix if you know who is botting.
3. A lot of legit players have invested months into getting leadership up to a decent level. Surely a change like this shouldn't just be suddenly dropped on people, but discussed and taken forward with some notice.
4. All in all I do favour a solution where in-game non-bottable content is what makes you the money. Dungeons, Dragons, whatever it takes, but there has to be a decent level of rewards. At the moment even salvage rewards are pathetic.
Bots are simple programs, with limited intelligence. PLEASE - PLEASE (did I say please?) invest a small portion of your income in some talent. I have been in the IT industry for 20+ years, and until now, I have not had enough reason (I am an introvert) to speak up... But holy ;()$&... Really... You guys need to take a deep breath, step back, and listen to the community.
To do a blanket disable of Leadership on the gateway to combat BOTS displays one of two things: laziness/lack of talent in the programming team or, the programmer's hands are tied and the decisions are being driven by corporate bureaucrats with a single directive - $$$$. Either way, the end result is going to be disastrous.
Seriously, there has to be a way to combat BOTS.
Over the last 45 minutes, while writing this RANT, I have thought about some solutions that might work in the to avoid mass hysteria and preserve/maintain profits...
And One short-term solution I came up with is fairly simple to implement - CAPTCHA!!! Although annoying, if communicated and implemented correctly, it could be used to combat the issue at hand immediately. A long-term solution could be to prevent the trade of any item bought with any portion of the in-game currency bound to character.
Is anybody on the cryptic team having an epiphany right now? If not, then please let me know, so I can stop wasting my time and money on an application that will not withstand the test of time.
Thanks,
Jason C.
Taking that opportunity away evens the score to games like WoW and to be fair, I won't have to pay as much on WoW to enjoy it even with subscription then I would have to here, when you take Leadership gateway away.
Besides you find a solution like profession quest stacking or something like it, I think I will leave this game as well. Cutting my losses, because I won't sink more money into this then I already have.
New bot will log in game and launch the leaderships task, the normal player who used it before because it's ways faster than logging in game and some people work and they can't log in at some times so : they lost the way to use leadership ...
And the loading can be sometime pretty long so i'm actually using the gateway during loading for making me gain time ... I have 12 char (9 who have a decent level of leadership) and it take roughtly 15 min for me to make them pray and launch task ... So the evening then i wanna play with friend, i make them wait more than 15 min before being able to play, or i don't launch task and play with them but the next day i have the task finish later ... making me use a less long task in the day making me make less AD than i could ...
Another TRUE secure solution could be to make 3 random 10 lenght long number and random virtual keyboard you write the 3 random number in 3 different color and ask to enter 1 of them (based on color) on the virtual keyboard ... Make the access to gateway activated for 15 min (or 30 min) ... Bot can't actually pass this kind of system and it will let normal people still use gateway for normal use ... Make everyone happy ...
Well what you are doing is making the game lose to other arriving games (I'm actually on Beta of another game who is pretty nice and i know lots of people of my guild are ready to go on it actually ...)
So ... GL to survive another year (i should say 3 months even ...) with your current patch ...
Ps : why not make lots more item bound to account, making it usable for you and not sellable and why not making a report bot option ? Cause i created 3 new char for making use of leadership (so thx for forcing me to log them a lots more ...) to make myself a little more AD and then leveling them at blacklake see something like 12 people level 12~34 doing the exact same movement ... Make a report bot option then you can then disable them and if they transfered more than 80% of AD made to another account, ban it too ... Well it's your choice to choose the right thing to to or not ...
pps : Something unrelated, being able to use refinement put in class artifact to another artifact could help (I have 2 and i won't use them anymore and it's making me think more and more of droping the game ...) even if it's 70% reused, can't crit can't be doubled on double sublimation, no base bonus from level 0 artifact etc ... You put 1M refinnement in it, you can have back the equivalent of the exp on another artifact of same kind at 700k refinement level (my exemple : 1M put is roughtly level 78 => it give the 72 level equivalent = little lose to refinement used but not having a totally useless artifact ...) Well just keep it in mind for later but main message is more important ...
Me. I plan on sticking around to see what's what and pass on my observations and opinions to various gamer sites and webpages, I don't feel inclined to make anything up or post vindictively, I just think people should be informed about what's going on.
The PTB says they "discourage" anyone from visiting those web sites where you can buy astral diamonds under the threat of tossing you out of the game - then they appear to be doing everything in their power to not only make it necessary to have tons of astral diamonds to play the game, but make it difficult to actually obtain them... unless you purchase the in game currency and then convert it into astral diamonds.
They say this game is "free to play", but after a while every player seems to hit a brick wall and the only solution seems to be; either pay up or move on...
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And as much as I would like to, I can't always make the time to commit to a guild in order to find a party, especially since so many guilds require their members to participate at a certain level or they are booted out.
So I have to hang around places and beg someone to invite me to a party, just to be able to do the quests needed to get decent rewards, it's humiliating.
I started to play Neverwinter because it was fun and it gave me an opportunity to work of some stress from my job and real life... I don't want a "game" or the people who run the game to find new and inventive ways to pile on even more stress and frustration than I already have in my life.
Which appears to be exactly what is happening.
Now, playng Devil's advocate a little bit, you have to understand that they need to do something about bots. Not only it's not fair to legit people, who are just powerless and can do nothing but wacth while the AH prices go up and up again, it's allowing third parties to farm AD in game and then selling it, with Cryptic never seeing even a cent of it. If players don't spend money because they have bot farms and they don't have a reason to, and the ones who does spend their money do so in third parties and not the actual game, the game goes down.
But, as many people said, this is not the way to fight that. I' okay with you tying to fight bots, but that fight should not negatively affect legit players.
Also, keep in mind that most botters don't sell their AD, they bot just because it's too hard and time consuming to make it in-game, to the point where, by the time you make it, there is something new and you need to make even more. If you remove bots the prices will go down, yes, but i seriously doubt they will go down enough, specially if you keep the prices on things like Greater Marks of Potency that high (that's not a bot-inflated price, that's your price), and the drops that low. For this to work you need to reach a balance, remove bots to give people a reason to spend money, that's fine, but you have to make it possible to get it for free, just by playing the game (and not absolutely tedious to do it), or it will become a Pay2Win game, and nobody likes that kind of game.
Honestly, i hope you Cryptic actually have all of this in mind and actually do what you say you are going to do: get another solution to stop bots and re-enable Leadership in Gateway, and make it rewarding and actually viable to make AD in game. If you do that and do it quickly and correctly, i think things should be fine.
Well Devs? how's this forum thread for you? there is not a single comment from any1 that agrees with your plan of action..... this change will destroy the game. I play this game and truly enjoy making astrals at work or at school with the gateway, and do you know what I do with the astrals? I spend it on guildmates!!! and friends!!!! all of whom have a hard time playing this game as it is...a few players that ave been long time friends of mine just returned to the game...and I was DEFENDING you people, I told my friends that the old devs wrecked the game and ya'll are fixing it, but now your making it worse, this change ruins the game for everyone.
Reconsider this change, or I promise you.... I will not be the only one to quit, hundreds if not thousands of people will quit. The Game is too much of a grind as it is.
with this change legit player will lose primary resource of making AD and AD will be valueable more, and i will tell you what will happen
1. casual legit player will leave due to unable to make AD
2. the exploit and bot ingame will be more viral because it will be more profitable
3. exchange rate will be turn in AD favor that will make intermediate ZEN player cost too much to upgrade (GMOP), and this will make reduction on demand which is bad for marketing
4. when most casual and intermediate player leave this game and the population player almost died the whale player will leave this game too and you know what happen
we told you that there is a cliff in your decision path, think it over because when it's done.. i am afraid that it's to late to turning back
Those of us who can't sign in multiple times a day, every day, are losing the only feasible source of income we have. This move is going to give botters an easier time setting AH prices at insane levels legit players cannot afford and then offering those items for cash on their own sites as a way around those AD prices. This is how the back market works in IRL, this is how it will work here. IRL the black market profiteers usually have to use violence to subvert or choke the supply chains for necessities, here they just show up and the devs hand them the reins.
1) Dungeons don't yield valuable loot anymore:
The drops from dungeons that are worth anything are very, very rare if you can even complete the dungeon with the gear you have. Many items are bind on pickup. This makes these items essentially useless in terms of economy except to generate perhaps a 1k up to 10k in AD if you're lucky. Most just sells for gold.
2) There are certain prices that are set which are completely necessary which prevents an affordable market:
Greater marks of potency are at a set price, preservation wards, coal wards as well. These prices affect enchantments as well as Artifacts and artifact weapons and thus place limitations on the value of AD as these are absolutely necessary to gear up. So 100k GMOPs and 500K for 99 Pres wards or 600k for a coal ward (because the ones produced from praying are bound) takes away severely from the market's ability to evolve with supply and demand.
3) There are too many items that require too much refining and too many wards/GMOPs to complete. These items are insanely expensive to produce and they change WITH EVERY MOD. This is such a terrible economical oversight that players are punished with. If they are lucky enough to catch a double RP weekend to lvl up the next artifact/artifact weapon they still must pay the price in wards and GMOPs again. Why do this to players you're already making poor?
4) If costs of these items from the zen store reflect your idea of what these artifacts/artifact weapons should be worth it's pretty simple to see the type of insane math going on behind the economy. For example:
Artifact weapon RP requirement to rank up to Legendary: 4,625,200 RP
Cost per RP from Zen store: $20 per 150,000 RP (Blood Ruby Pack)
Simple math 4,625,200/150,000= 30.83 Blood Ruby Packs
30.83x $20 = $616.70 excluding wards and other Marks necessary for the upgrade.
At end game you need a Main hand, off hand, neck, and belt at this cost totaling $2,466.77
You will also need Mythic artifacts which require 10,469,635 RP and multiple stacks of wards and GMOPs
Now, this is in terms of actual zen store dollars it's easy to see if you P2W off the zen store one BIS toon is literally worth $5-10,000
Guys. This is a game. We are not all rich, we just want to play and have fun. Most of us are willing to drop the occasional $20.00 in game to help you guys out and get something cool in return. Ultimately these are just pixels. Please consider what you do when you dry up the economy.
One of the reasons botting is rampant is because the zen store is massively overpriced and easy to undercut. If you were to make the game more affordable for people who do wish to spend money you would see less of people trying to do things illegitimately.
Some suggestions:
1) Massively reduce zen store prices
2) Bring back the ability to sell equipment earned from dungeons and make dungeon equipment relevant in both PVP and PVE.
3) Give us fun ways of producing AD, stop making grindy day long progressions of event hopping or profession button mashing, or serially praying to our gods religiously.
4) Stop making everything so bound... we need to be able to trade things and sell things to continue to make the economy viable and rich enough to keep this game interesting and afloat.
This is pretty simple stuff guys, please help us out. Many of us have supported you monetarily, show us you care please bring back the fun and bring back a healthy, vibrant economy that doesn't require botting, leadership, or third party sites to make it possible to play and gear.
Tnks for your time.
True story everyday on my way to work I gave a beggar a dollar same guy every day I thought 1 dollar wont hurt me and I felt better about my day from just 1 dollar. Then one day my routine changed I had to be several blocks over and guess who I saw the same beggar I watched and sure enough people gave him money, so I thought I have time I'll talk with him get to know him and you would be surprised what I learned.
I asked him so you have multiple spots he said yes I asked why don't you go to the rich neighbor hoods you could make more money he laughed and said nope can't I make less money, so I asked why is that? he said because rich people can add, and they are rich because they know the value of a dollar. He said poor people are more willing to give up that dollar because they can relate to my image.
This floored me now I had to know what he meant, so I said I don't get it, he said everyday you give me 1 dollar that's $30.00 dollars a month but you don't see it that way you just see 1 dollar at a time, rich people do see it as $30.00 dollars a month they also see that as $360.00 dollars a year then they quickly do the math and realize that If I average 300 people a day which he said he does that's $300.00 a day times 30 days equals 9,000 a month times 12 months is $108,000 a year, not bad for someone just sitting outside holding a cup.
I shook my head and said WOW!!!
He said its simple its easier to get 1dollar from million people than it is to get a million dollars from 1 person.
He said poor people don't see money between 1-5 dollars but any more than that then it becomes real to them because then that $50.00 dollars becomes a tank of gas or part of a light bill or their food money for the week.
The point I'm trying to make is lower the prices in the zen market and you will make money not everyone can afford to buy a $30 dollar mount and if they do scrape up the money do you think they are really going to buy the green and blue ones get real make them purple or dump them and my god get rid of the lock boxes and put that stuff on the zen market you have some cool stuff in them and make it at a reasonable price people will buy them, remember its easy to overlook 1 to 5 dollars but any more than that then it becomes real money.
I'm just guessing but lets do some math for you lets say that you have 3,000 players and on any average day lets just say half 1,500 spend 1 dollar a day that's simple 1,500 right but now multiply that by 30 days that's $45,00 a month times 12 months that's 540,000 a year. but I'm guessing that you have way more people than 3,000 or you wouldn't be working on this game and if you crank that up to an average of 10,000 people giving 1 dollar a day that's $300,000 a month and $3,600,000 a year, and I'm guessing that player base number is much higher than that.
This is one of the best and most well thought out posts. Thanks for writing this! Its 110% the Truth.
Every module is a massive massive AD sink. We went from BIS weapons being rare, BOE and dropping from the toughest dungeon in mod 0 (Castle Never) to module 1, were its now 100% bound because its made through professions (something I thought was dumb, should have been BOE still even after being made! which would have PROMOTED the economy) and then mod 2 we went to again BOP Fallen Dragon weapons and you introduce artifacts (MASSIVE cost) then nerf the best artifacts (AD sink - wasted) Then release artifact WEAPONS which are now no longer rare, and now you have to PAY to upgrade them.
I dont understand why you dont put the AD "earning" ability BACK into dungeons?!?! What was wrong with that model in the first place? Back when you had CN, TONS of players were willing to log in and run things, now you have "sectioned off" PVP players by making tenacity - so there is no reason for them to PVE. Also you have "sectioned off" profitability from dungeons by making everything BOP.
I dont see what harm would come from making EVERY bound item (or MOST of them) bound to account. Alowing players to use artifacts and artifact GEAR on other alts, use their enchants on other alts, reducing the cost of playing alts.... Then making ON PAR "BIS" items compared to Artifact Equipment DROP from dungeons and ABLE TO BE SOLD! On the AH!
Then you need to create a SOURCE of AD production. Daily quests offering 4k is a joke....
Again we have been saying it: REMOVE the "per character" refine limit and make a "per account" refine limit of like 200k. This limits bots effectiveness from leadership. THEN do things like increase the "AD salvage" amount from epic items that drop in dungeons to like 10-20k. Increase the "daily" quest AD to like 8k and then create MORE daily quests.
Now you have AD generation from dungeon running (selling items on the AH), from salvaging, from leadership still, and from daily quests, but its ALL capped. Players can now DECIDE which avenue they want to pursue to hit their "cap" and have many ways to achieve that per day. Then allowing you to swap artifacts and artifact equipment to alts, just like enchants, enables you to play the game on your alts without having to invest THOUSANDS of USD (which noone is willing to do!)
Ill tell you MY own experience doing leadership ONLY arrose from the massive AD sink each and every module. Up until ~ module 4/5 I never did leadership. But each module was an INSANE cost sink to get upgraded gear and you guys keep making massive sweeping changes which force us to REDO our entire characters artifacts and equipment.
MOdule 4/5 for GWFs Power stacking was ALL there was. You couldnt make a viable PVP GWF without 10k+ Power. Well what happens module 6? Nerf Intimidation and now we have to go buy negation enchant, feytouched enchant and change all our radiant enchants to crit or recovery..... We also have ALL NEW lvl 70 artifact gear!?
Now with module 7 coming its ANOTHER set of weapons..... ANOTHER MASSIVE AD sink..... Yet NO WAY TO EARN AD BY PLAYING THE GAME!!!!!!!!
Bots were out of control, but so is the expectation you guys place on the players and how you purposefully cripple the economy. If you dont take steps to adjust the game for the legitimate players who use professions as the only way to farm AD, the botters just get richer and leave the rest of us in the dust!
Picture a city, with LARGE skyscrapers, several smaller buildings and then the small shops on the ground floor. You just flooded the entire city several stories high... All the small shops and smaller buildings just got flooded, while the "CEOs(Botters)" who are sitting on the top floor of these sky scrappers look down and just feel bad for everyone else. They cant earn AD AS FAST anymore, I bet they will still find a way to bot, and the rest of the city is now just trying to figure out "whats next". For some players they will just leave the city and move to a different place. For those that choose to stay, its going to be a LONG time of picking up the pieces on the road to recovery, while the CEOs are picking out which color lambo they will buy this month.... They have already generated TONS of AD, you just cut off EVERYONEs supply which only makes the rich richer, the poor poorer.
Imagine if banks stopped lending to everyone. Who is affected? The poor people. Rich people will still buy mansions. Poor people cant finance their two bedroom home they wanted to buy...
Players are giving GREAT feedback and GREAT ideas. You should listen to them while you still have a player base, before its too late and they have moved out of the "city" of Neverwinter.......
Please, Cryptic, re-enable the Gateway for Leadership and find a different way to fight the bots.
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This is very very well put. We now have a game that provides no rewards for actually playing it and no rewards for playing it through the gateway...
No Rewards + No Rewards= No Players
Someone might want to check my math... but I'm pretty that its accurate.
And if they implement new AD gain (not a problem for me) the bot will still find a way to use it at theire advantage ...
I'm pretty sure there is actually bots for farms event which give AD in groups anyway ...
Well I'll wait a week, i think they will see that it change nothing for bots, disavantage normal player and make the sites who sell AD being able to sell them even more ... So i hope they will see it in 1 week and take a step back ...
I'm done, f2p players ARE DONE! you've nerfed AD gains in every possible way. Do you guys even know what you are doing to the games MAIN profession? did you even sit down and think about it? did you think about it AGAIN? I don't think so. Go PLAY THE GAME, log into Neverwinter and sit in Protectors Enclave and ASK people, ANYONE for that matter, if that's fair. Even so, MAKE A FRKIN POLL before you do things like that.
That's why, we, as players are here. We're here to help you in developing this game. JUST PLAY THE GAME, and you will see. But if you don't listen, what's the point? You guys are becoming more of politicians then of gamers. Finding the best way to milk money from your players. I have soo much to air out from my chest but you guys just won't listen and if I write anymore, I'll get barred from the forums sooo - I'm out.
1. Remove all the AD generation from Leadership tasks.
2. Replace the AD generation with Account Bound RP.
- 200 AD becomes 1 White Pearl
- 400 AD becomes 2 White Pearls
- 800 AD becomes 1 Peridot
- 1200 AD becomes 2 Peridots
- 1600 AD becomes 1 Aquamarine
3. Add an AD bonus for completing the first 3 Rare Leadership tasks on each character each day.- 800 Rough AD for completing your first Rare Leadership task.
- 1600 Rough AD for completing your second Rare Leadership task.
- 2400 Rough AD for completing your third Rare Leadership task.
4. Add Rare Leadership tasks that defer some other AD sinks.This way, you can still use Leadership to gain 4800 AD per character per day. A reasonable limit equal to running 3 of the 1600 AD tasks. The RP rewards would make further Leadership still rewarding in a way that is more difficult to directly expolit. And another route to upgrade Companions and Mounts would stimulate sales.
*Edited to indicate that the suggested new tasks would be Rare tasks.
**Second Edit - I put Sapphire when I meant Aquamarine.
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