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If you're a mostly-solo and/or non-PVP player, will the AD changes affect your decision to play?
panathea
Member Posts: 2 Arc User
"Astral Diamond Changes" posted by goatshark 9sept2015
http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter/#/discussion/1203585/astral-diamond-changes
http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter/#/discussion/1203585/astral-diamond-changes
If you're a mostly-solo and/or non-PVP player, will the AD changes affect your decision to play? 194 votes
I'll stop playing the game.
27%
53 votes
I'm happy with the coming changes, and will continue playing the game.
14%
28 votes
I'm unhappy with the coming changes, but will continue playing the game.
5%
11 votes
I'm unhappy with the coming changes, but will continue playing for a short while to see if solo/non-PVP players are given other ways to gain AD.
48%
95 votes
I'm not a solo or non-PVP player, but am voting only to see the results of this poll.
3%
7 votes
0
Comments
But...
No AD from Leadership, and no AD from the Foundry...
In my opinion, if anything, the amount of AD gained from Foundry quests should be *increased* -- not removed. (It's a very creative endeavor, and it's obvious that many authors have put a great deal of time, thought, and effort into these.)
And, if a player *must* be involved in skirmishes or dungeons to gain AD, then there should be solo options for both.
Without any doubt, *some* means must be provided for solo/non-pvp players to gain AD, without having to resort to buying from the Zen market to sell in AH. [While I've put a significant amount of real $$ into this game each month for Zen (mounts, companions, fashion, dyes for all characters), buying only to re-sell is not how I want to play, and I won't play that way.]
I *know* it's a massively multi-player game, but many people still want to play solo. And the last time I checked, contributions (financial or other) from solo players were just as good as any coming from others.
I hate to leave this game because I've enjoyed it, but if there's no way for me (as a solo/non-pvp player) to obtain what I need (AD) to improve my characters, then I will have no option but to seek another game at which to spend my gaming funds.
Maybe anyone involved in the marketing/development of this game is of the notion that the solo/non-pvp player base isn't large enough to be concerned about them/us, but I do wonder whether it's really the case that ignoring these players will have no significant effect. I think it's a very poor and risky business decision.
BUT - I do want to see them implement sources of AD for solo players now, plus take a look at the existing prices for key items/crafting/refining. I also want to see them coming up with a better crafting system all round, which provides value and usefulness to those players who want to put the effort into them.
I'm also critical of the planning made around this decision. They should have looked thoroughly at the current leadership rewards and mapped out worthwhile revisions to them before making this change. It often feels like the devs keep putting the cart before the horse when making decisions like this.
PnP Red Box DM & Player (74 - ?). NWN + SoU + HotU (4-03),
NWN Diamond Edition, Neverwinter Nights Complete (NWN + NWN2).
If you want a leadership army. Go make one. All you need to do is spend money on the character slots, AD or zen to get the resources you need to speed it up, and to invest the time into it to make it profitable. Seems more likely that you just dont want them to have something that you dont have. Anyone playing Neverwinter, right here, right now. Can make a leadership army if they choose to.
If that is how they choose to spend their time in Neverwinter, who are you, or me, or the devs to tell them that it is wrong and that they cannot do that? Here's a hint....nobody has that right...
The comment made was that the development team of Neverwinter felt that AD should be earned by someone playing the game. How are leadership people not playing?? But, that point aside.... If they really wanted AD to be earned through playing. Attach AD rewards on to all missions. Again, you will never see that happen.
all this is, is the people who are in charge of the game trying to enforce their ideas of how the game is to be played upon the player base, that's all this is. This will not stop AD farming, this will not stop people exploiting the game, and this will not stop people from building massive amounts of AD through less legitimate means.
The development team has failed you, the casual players because they've been spending all their time working on problems that they dont have the expertise to fix. And that's what is going to eventually bite them in the HAMSTER. They should be working on making the game more fun instead of trying to change the way people play it.
We've had our fair share over in the STO forums. Also some ridiculous ones and a couple from someone who loved getting hit with the Ban'leth on a daily basis.
As it is, even though I 'only' have 3 leadership characters and don't fill all their tasks with AD tasks. I still (without spending much money) have my character at 2.8k gearscore, and can solo any area and lair. It does amuse me though that so many players with large leadership armies seem to have worse equipped and specced characters; and yet are so resistant to this change. So it seems more likely that you don't want other players to have something that you do have... Actually, as it's their game the devs do have the right to tell us "what is wrong and that they cannot do that". As for the rest of us, we have the right to our state our opinions. If you don't like that, then take the hint and keep your's to yourself - or off to some other game where you can sit and moan about the same problems about not being bis (see, I can do strawmen too...)
Once again it's because there is too much AD in the system that has been made through either exploits, or by long time players who have had the time and resources to set up huge leadership armies that they can mindlessly refresh once a day. If that's 'playing the game', then I have several spreadsheets that might interest you...
Look, I'm not saying the implementation is a good one, but holy cow does this player base have some warped entitlement issues.
they need to redo the numbers.
there wont be many left waiting for mod 8, i will be watching incoming mass exodus.
no AD for foundrys, then there will be no new storyline or unique adventures. many will just give up.
sick of the lies, what they said, "we will look into it", they wont do it, they just go around it just buy themselves time to plan more nerfings and grounding into MMO graveyard.
Short and sweet is necessary for memes. They get wordy and the punchline gets lost.
Well, unless the wordiness IS the punchline.
Now even more players will buy AD for real money, it's cheaper then buying ZEN for AD...
And considering how many botters are still running free all over this game, there seems to be little to no risk to do so.
What will PWE/Cryptic next move be?
Remove the Auction House, because botters use it to move their AD from the seller to the buyer account?
Whatever they decide to do, it will take them months... but look there, they're bringing Stronghold PvP into the game at the same time... that should keep the players bussy.
As far as people talk they leaving, well they always say that, in mod 6 and now and they are still here so that I don't believe anymoe.
if you don't believe that a lot of players allready left the game, take a look at those charts.
Now write those numbers down, and take a look again at the end of this week, and again at the end of this month.
I know, those are not the complete player numbers, but those charts show a certain trend...
Players came back for a new module, but they couldn't keep those players ingame.
I see much Delta Rising Level rage here over a fix to a serious exploit. I'm sure they will have something down the road, but this was something that had to be shut down quickly.
We had a somewhat similar thing, but it wasn't exactly something that could be exploited by bots. When they introduced Specilizations into STO, they also had a Dilithium reward for after you completed your specializations entirely. Every time you "Leveled up" you would get a Dilithium reward. What they never expected was for people to power grind through the spec trees like mad and start getting lots of Dilithium.
Cryptic pulled that real fast. While I was nowhere near that, some people were up in arms over it just like people here. Eventually things balanced out. While we still don't have that after Spec dilithium, we've still got other sources especially those of us with maxed reputations.
And before anyone says that the reps can be exploited... only way to get the marks is to actually PLAY related content. Can't exactly bot that.
Now... before I get accused of being a "White Knight" or "Cryptic Apologiser" (been called that before as an insult by someone who REALLY HATED Cryptic yet hung out on the forums and wouldn't listen to reason), I take a wait and see approach to things like this in STO, and I will do the same here in Neverwinter. Its only a game after all. And an MMO at that. Things are always changing. No point in ranting and raving immediately after something happens and demanding that they undue it or else. Blowing up doesn't solve anything, and is more likely to get ignored by the Devs. Enough rage, and the forums might get slapped with post timers and the silent treatment from Devs.
I know from experience. Right after Delta Rising expansion... the forums went Nuclear and... I think we started with a 5 minute timer between posts because of the rage. Finally got dropped down to 2 minuts, then something a lot more reasonable. But the rage didn't solve anything. It just hurt the community. So... My personal opinion is... just wait and see what happens.
So, even if we can all agree the profession itself is a problem, and that alone is debatable. No one has yet to offer any reason why it had to be fixed this quickly, and in this haphazard, unfinished, manner. For a problem, this large, and this long in the making, I fail to see any rational reason for the rush to suddenly fix this.
I think the problem in part is that people feel like they're being accused of cheating (sometimes because they ARE being accused of cheating). Leadership armies were not, as long as you stayed to one account, cheating. They're just using a broken game mechanic.
The broken game mechanic is not being fixed, it's merely being removed.
And while I agree that innocent players may have been adversly affected, its also possible that Gold Sellers and other less than legit exploiters were also affected. So... double edged sword.
I'll maintain my wait and see stance. No point in flipping out.
Time spent actually devoted to the problem, rather then hacking away at it. Would of gone far to eliminate entire need to "wait and see"
This is no different.
Cryptic jumped on something. People lose it. Life goes on. Fix comes.
Not the first time. Won't be the last time.
That makes about as much sense as the other changes regarding astral diamonds as far as I'm concerned...
For the Trekies who might not fully understand what happened here, let me elaborate.
What this change did was remove Dilithium from all dailies and removed any dilithium awards from managing duty officers. Our dungeons are equal to your STFs, but most of our dungeons have been removed to be "reworked" months ago, we are still waiting for them. We have been reduced to 3. Our Skirmishes are equal to your Fleet actions. The are level locked, so while there are several, you only get access to a few at any given time. At max level that is only 3. For PVP, we only have 2 maps. Instead of dailies in the normal sense, we get rewards directly from each run. But each additional run rewards less, up to a final daily cap. The payouts are low enough that if someone did all possible activities, the maximum number of times, it would still not be enough to reach the daily refine limit.
So that is it, 3 activities, with 8 maps, as the soul means to earn regular income . Keep in mind that AD is also our auction house currency. So its like loosing both dilithium and credits at the same time. And all this because people made too much by a crafting system very much similar to your duty officer system.