It is very hard to post responses when it is very clear the only response many of you want to see is that the leadership changes will be reversed.
Many of you see AD as a fixed value so you see less AD generation as less value gained when in truth you could be gaining less AD at more value than before. Supply and demand is an economic law even when applied to currency and the rate of AD generation just could not be counterbalanced between all of the leadership farming by bots and players alike. If the economy was healthy then we wouldn't have been sitting at 500:1 AD:Zen for nearly two years.
It reached a point where creating AD sinks to counteract the leadership farming would be exactly what many of you are calling this: detrimental to casual and new players. The economy was being completely offset by those with large farms and especially by the bots who sat and did nothing but farm leadership all day every day. You can't balance the economy with sinks to combat that AD revenue without making it unbearably hard on players who are new or do not want to manage leadership farms like a second job.
The old system was broken and it couldn't be fixed. My only complaint when I heard about this change was that it should have been done a long time ago.
People will have more AD than others due to the old system but that will balance out in time and is absolutely not a reason to cite the old broken as hell system to remain.
Bots will still exist but it will be far harder for them to create bots to grind game content than it will be for them to create account hopping leadership farms.
That doesn't mean it is perfect. The Community Team is not happy with the new Leadership Rewards to start and we definitely want AD to be generated more commonly for more in game activities. The best bit of feedback I collected from this thread was a player saying that he was forced to choose between running dungeons/skirmishes/pvp for AD or doing campaign missions for the one to two hours he had to play and I agree it that is a huge problem.
We are silent because many of you make it clear there is no common ground communication. It's hard to communicate and work together with people who make it clear the only thing they want to hear is 'the broken system is coming back.' The old system was broken and for most of the reasons advocates for it cite as the problem with the direction of the current changes.
The new system is not perfect. It needs tweaking and a lot of it and we are looking through threads such as this one to collect feedback for improvements like the example I provided earlier. If you want more two way communication you are going to have to step beyond the knee jerking 'we want the old system' and look towards what is truly wrong with this system.
The changes are making it hard on players in any event and as to "second jobs" I suggest you look at some of the copious examples of just how long it will take to hit AD cap on even a single character. THAT is a second job.
Bots can, and do, nearly everything a live player can do and they do it 24/7. Now they're just going to camp dungeons, skirmishes and PvP matches while continuing to farm RP. Between that and the huge bankrolls they've almost certainly got stashed away becoming even more valuable, they're not losing a thing while those of us who made 'legitimate' use of Leadership have lost one of our most reliable sources of in-game income. I don't have anything resembling BiS gear so I'd be kicked from Dungeon runs faster than I coud blink, PvP is even worse and that leaves Skirmishes.
As to the reason for your silence ... I call that rank cowardice. Sure many people just want the old system back regardless of the supposed reasons for its removal but a great many have also been putting forth ideas for offsetting its loss and/or ways to hit the botters and goldsellers where they live. Hiding your face because some people are being reactionary is to do a disservice to those that ARE open to discussion. Your silence isn't helping matters because those who are being unreasonable on this matter are the very same people who will point to that silence and use it as tacit proof of any conspiracy theory they may happen to subscribe to. An actual discussion is needed, not silence.
This. In the absence of alternative, people tend to assume the worst, especially if they've got reason to be skeptical of you already (the account wide companions, the charitably described as sluggish responses to the problems with Mod 6, etc, having severely damaged player trust) especially when that silence remains when people are offering suggestions, as well. That cynicism and toxicity will ferment and fester, and if you don't step in to try to speak to people, to give them someone they believe can and will take them seriously, you're just going to make things worse.
The fact that at least some of these AD drops seemed to be bugged is certainly not helping things...
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ghoulz66Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,748Arc User
People have jobs and things to do. Just let them do 2-3 epics top and reach the 24k RAD limit, so then they're satisfied instead of grinding 4 hours which most people can't devote that much time. That's why it's there in the first place. People are angry because they can't spend all this time on a single character just to reach the RAD limit.
I'm sure botters don't have 50 characters that can farm epics...
That doesn't mean it is perfect. The Community Team is not happy with the new Leadership Rewards to start and we definitely want AD to be generated more commonly for more in game activities. The best bit of feedback I collected from this thread was a player saying that he was forced to choose between running dungeons/skirmishes/pvp for AD or doing campaign missions for the one to two hours he had to play and I agree it that is a huge problem.
if farming campaigns we could reach our ad quoata, or close to it, to have a choice how we want to make our ad for the day... would be really nice.
As to your comment about many seeing AD as a fixed value, that is because the cost needed by many to advance their characters are fixed by the Wonderous Bazaar. It would be no different if the AD value was held the same and the cost of MoPs increased 10 fold.
I feel like this right here is one of the biggest issues, when you get right down to the core of the matter. If you're going to cut AD generation heavily, intending to increase its value, that makes sense. It is something that hurts my income heavily, but I understand the basic reasoning and I think at a fundamental level, I begrudgingly support it.
But if your motivation is to increase the worth of the AD that is generated, then the fixed costs of the bazaar are a direct obstacle to that, surely? And when you admit that the changes are far from complete....the entire community is justifiably left wondering just what on earth their AD is worth.
I've read multiple stories of people recently buying heros and character slots with their money only to have it be money down the drain because of the rapid and extreme (to some) change. I think people want to know what the ultimate solution will be and they don't want poorly communicated, half solutions foisted upon them at pretty short notice.
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theycallmetomuMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,861Arc User
Agreed. Players should be able to get AD doing what they want to do. If players want to run skirmishes, they can run skirmishes. If they want to do daily quests, they can do daily quests.
I mean, the RAD refining limit already is a baked in limiter on how much AD a person can run in a day. Why not just have all campaign quests give RAD, and let the refining limit be the limiter?
"It is very hard to post responses when it is very clear the only response many of you want to see is that the leadership changes will be reversed."
You can't expect us to be happy when you made a knee-jerk change that fundamentally altered the entire game for the greater majority of us! This isn't a popularity contest. We have months, years and hundreds of dollars invested in this game and overnight you made it unplayable for some of us!!! As I said before, I don't want to wait in line to skirmish or dungeon run multiple times a day. I don't pvp AT ALL. I have no desire whatsoever to do so. I was perfectly happy living inside the rules and working my 9 characters all up to Level 70 and getting their Leadership skills to 20 - 25. I am a solo player and now have absolutely NO WAY to keep up let alone advance my team of characters without an outlay of cash or a complete change in how I play the game. You bet your life I want the system to go back to how it was. That's the game I've played for years. Those are the rules that I followed. That was the gaming system I supported with my finances and my time and it has now been broken beyond all repair overnight without any advance thought of how to fix it.
We're supposed to just 'hang in there' and be happy while you guys attempt something you don't even have a plan for? And on top of that be happy about it and not express our opinions?
Finding the botters is easy. Get rid of the cheaters and leave those of us who play within the rules alone!
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theycallmetomuMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,861Arc User
They're not expecting people to be happy. They're participating or not participating in a conversation after assessing the value of said participation, which is determined by the level of unhappiness in the community.
This isn't a moralizing issue, it's just a cost benefits analysis.
Anyway, biggest concern I have right now: There is a 20 point spread between buy and sell orders on the ZAX. That tells me something is out of alignment. Obviously, the backlog told me the same thing, but that was that the cap was set to be too low.
They're not expecting people to be happy. They're participating or not participating in a conversation after assessing the value of said participation, which is determined by the level of unhappiness in the community.
This isn't a moralizing issue, it's just a cost benefits analysis.
Anyway, biggest concern I have right now: There is a 20 point spread between buy and sell orders on the ZAX. That tells me something is out of alignment. Obviously, the backlog told me the same thing, but that was that the cap was set to be too low.
The spread is due to the rapidly falling ratio of AD to Zen. Sell orders do not auto-adjust once placed and can take days to clear if not at the current market conditions.
It is very hard to post responses when it is very clear the only response many of you want to see is that the leadership changes will be reversed.
Many of you see AD as a fixed value so you see less AD generation as less value gained when in truth you could be gaining less AD at more value than before. Supply and demand is an economic law even when applied to currency and the rate of AD generation just could not be counterbalanced between all of the leadership farming by bots and players alike. If the economy was healthy then we wouldn't have been sitting at 500:1 AD:Zen for nearly two years.
It reached a point where creating AD sinks to counteract the leadership farming would be exactly what many of you are calling this: detrimental to casual and new players. The economy was being completely offset by those with large farms and especially by the bots who sat and did nothing but farm leadership all day every day. You can't balance the economy with sinks to combat that AD revenue without making it unbearably hard on players who are new or do not want to manage leadership farms like a second job.
The old system was broken and it couldn't be fixed. My only complaint when I heard about this change was that it should have been done a long time ago.
People will have more AD than others due to the old system but that will balance out in time and is absolutely not a reason to cite the old broken as hell system to remain.
Bots will still exist but it will be far harder for them to create bots to grind game content than it will be for them to create account hopping leadership farms.
That doesn't mean it is perfect. The Community Team is not happy with the new Leadership Rewards to start and we definitely want AD to be generated more commonly for more in game activities. The best bit of feedback I collected from this thread was a player saying that he was forced to choose between running dungeons/skirmishes/pvp for AD or doing campaign missions for the one to two hours he had to play and I agree it that is a huge problem.
We are silent because many of you make it clear there is no common ground communication. It's hard to communicate and work together with people who make it clear the only thing they want to hear is 'the broken system is coming back.' The old system was broken and for most of the reasons advocates for it cite as the problem with the direction of the current changes.
The new system is not perfect. It needs tweaking and a lot of it and we are looking through threads such as this one to collect feedback for improvements like the example I provided earlier. If you want more two way communication you are going to have to step beyond the knee jerking 'we want the old system' and look towards what is truly wrong with this system.
Again with the focus on leadership. I get it, I really do - but they've virtually completely nerfed ALL AD sources. ALL OF THEM. Putting leadership rewards back will only fix things for some portion of the player base - frankly, that portion that will not be likely to ever return. Fix it, fine - what about the rest of us??
You seem to think that besides leadership, all is well in the AD kingdom - that, or those of us hurt by the other changes are just a bunch of worthless leeches and should just shut up and stuff ourselves. I am not a leech. I am penniless. Does that mean I cannot be allowed a modicum of happiness? These people seem to think so. You say such changes are neccessary - but, this game is supposed to be free-to-play; the ready availability of AD before this... mound of dog dirt was dropped on our heads allowed people like us to really enjoy this game. And what am I hearing? I'm hearing we're indistinguishable and on par with pieces of programming (bots). I'm hearing people basically saying "good riddance!!" I want to cry!
Well, then there's the AH argument. Which is also HAMSTER. I've never seen an item drop that was valued at more than 1-2k. I RARELY see anything which goes for more than 500. I don't know where people get this stuff, but I can't get to it. They talk like you're picking up the equivalent of tricorns left and right and it's all happy days. I can only assume it's the epic/lv70 content. Which I hear is pretty much P2W. So, that's out of the question for sad saps like me who are just getting sadder now.
The lack of the daily and hourly boons alone will mean the next CTA will be pointless for me. I did a grind last time on Storm Front, and I still have a load of AD left over - I won't be seeing that this time around. Of course, I probably won't be playing at all, anyway. Not for a while at least.
I think they could reasonably appease a lot of players if they came up with some genuine measures along those lines, and quickly. Stuff like: - Increase rewards for completing all types of content. Allow GMOPs to drop from epic dungeons and skirmishes and to be bought with glory. The incidence of preservation wards from prayer boxes should increase. - Add some in-game sources of refined AD available through playing the game. - AD rewards for all content should be significant enough that you should get what you need in about 2 hours' worth of play per day per character. - Leadership boxes and rewards receive a major rework so that the profession remains viable and doesn't invalidate people's investments in it, but also becomes more of an optional thing.
Totally agree with that one point. Not because I don't have the time - I sure as hell do - but I actually enjoy the gameplay mechanic. But grinding sucks the fun out of it.Sorry for the epic long post, but I was away a while and had a lot to respond to and a lot to say all at once.
If you want robofarming, go play farmville or something.
ARE WE PERFECTLY CLEAR?
Rage against the zeitgeist.
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theycallmetomuMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,861Arc User
edited September 2015
Average RAD acquisition rate should be between 4 and 6 thousand per hour, I would say, if we assume that 24k is "the most anyone should reasonably earn in a given day to avoid socktubing."
And, of course, if you want to make rewards frontloaded, then that rate increases for the first hour was decreasing for subsequent hours.
Put AD as rewards for doing Campaign lairs. They should easily be worth 1-2k. Well of Dragons and IWD lairs could be 2-2.5k. We need to generate income, and the current system is insufficient for their current pricing structure. Queues are taking far too long, and when they do fill, its more than likely an unbalanced group. A lot of people's guilds are being vacated. We couldn't even get a full instance of Tiamat (there's another 1-2k possibility), at a peak North America time.
"I don't know, I'm making it up as I go..." Featured Foundry Quest:Whispers of an Ancient Evil [v3] - NW-DQ4WKW6ZG Foundry Quest: Harper Chronicles: Blacklake - NW-DCPA4W2Q5
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theycallmetomuMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,861Arc User
edited September 2015
one other (slightly crazy, but possibly "crazy enough to work") idea was of making the AH gold based instead of AD based.
Then you'd just make all AD purchase items bind on pickup, so that goldspammers (and everyone else) can't use them as part of transactions.
At that point, the "AD is time, zen is money" tradeoff starts to make sense. Obviously, there's a lot of other adjustments that would need to go into that sort of thing-namely, GMOPs would likely need to be reconsidered, because otherwise bots could just use their AD to refine items, then sell the refined items on the AH for gold.
The problem is, then you open yourself up to TRADITIONAL grotesque inflation issues that MMOs tend to experience.
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ghoulz66Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,748Arc User
one other (slightly crazy, but possibly "crazy enough to work") idea was of making the AH gold based instead of AD based.
Then you'd just make all AD purchase items bind on pickup, so that goldspammers (and everyone else) can't use them as part of transactions.
At that point, the "AD is time, zen is money" tradeoff starts to make sense. Obviously, there's a lot of other adjustments that would need to go into that sort of thing-namely, GMOPs would likely need to be reconsidered, because otherwise bots could just use their AD to refine items, then sell the refined items on the AH for gold.
The problem is, then you open yourself up to TRADITIONAL grotesque inflation issues that MMOs tend to experience.
Solves nothing. Still have to grind long and hard for gold.
It is very hard to post responses when it is very clear the only response many of you want to see is that the leadership changes will be reversed.
Many of you see AD as a fixed value so you see less AD generation as less value gained when in truth you could be gaining less AD at more value than before. Supply and demand is an economic law even when applied to currency and the rate of AD generation just could not be counterbalanced between all of the leadership farming by bots and players alike. If the economy was healthy then we wouldn't have been sitting at 500:1 AD:Zen for nearly two years.
It reached a point where creating AD sinks to counteract the leadership farming would be exactly what many of you are calling this: detrimental to casual and new players. The economy was being completely offset by those with large farms and especially by the bots who sat and did nothing but farm leadership all day every day. You can't balance the economy with sinks to combat that AD revenue without making it unbearably hard on players who are new or do not want to manage leadership farms like a second job.
The old system was broken and it couldn't be fixed. My only complaint when I heard about this change was that it should have been done a long time ago.
People will have more AD than others due to the old system but that will balance out in time and is absolutely not a reason to cite the old broken as hell system to remain.
Bots will still exist but it will be far harder for them to create bots to grind game content than it will be for them to create account hopping leadership farms.
That doesn't mean it is perfect. The Community Team is not happy with the new Leadership Rewards to start and we definitely want AD to be generated more commonly for more in game activities. The best bit of feedback I collected from this thread was a player saying that he was forced to choose between running dungeons/skirmishes/pvp for AD or doing campaign missions for the one to two hours he had to play and I agree it that is a huge problem.
We are silent because many of you make it clear there is no common ground communication. It's hard to communicate and work together with people who make it clear the only thing they want to hear is 'the broken system is coming back.' The old system was broken and for most of the reasons advocates for it cite as the problem with the direction of the current changes.
The new system is not perfect. It needs tweaking and a lot of it and we are looking through threads such as this one to collect feedback for improvements like the example I provided earlier. If you want more two way communication you are going to have to step beyond the knee jerking 'we want the old system' and look towards what is truly wrong with this system.
The only reason that I, and believe many others, are against the LS change is that it was not well thought out, and planned for, before being implemented. There is no reasonable way to earn the AD needed to continue progressing our 'toons without the AD sinks being removed and new sources of AD revenue being put in place. If they want players to invest their "play" time in to earning AD, then why didn't they add AD as one of the rewards for completing quests(just one of many examples posted throughout this thread). We should not(and believe most will not) have to wait months for "tweaks" that should have been part of the complete package before such a drastic change was made. That is the main source of outrage that I am seeing in the multiple threads.
The myth about all of the Leadership changes made recently pertaining to removing bots runs a pretty close second. Should have just told the truth that efforts were being made to fix the borked economy and you would have have had much more support from the get go as well.
There are other sources of outrage that include those that did invest RL cash into purchasing their Leadership assets, extra character slots, and/or VIP "memberships" with the belief it was going to be the main source of income so they could progress through the game. This really does seem like a bait and switch tactic to make easy money through ZEN sales when this occurs within a couple of weeks of VIP going live. Personally believe the decision to make this change was made after weaker than expected VIP sales and the failure of Strongholds to suck as much AD out the economy as was anticipated...and was not an intentional bait and switch play for money. The poorly thought out and slapdash changes to the LS rewards are at least circumstantial proof to show that it was a hasty decision to implement this change imho.
As for new players expecting to catch up with people who have been playing a game over 2 years, they better expect to grind for 30+ hrs/week, for at least 6-12 months to come even close. It is unreasonable to not expect anything otherwise and would be unfair to those who have sustained a game prior to the late comer joining the party if that was not the case. The reality is that those who start with the launch of any MMO will have an advantage over those that join at later dates. The longer time between initial character creation dates, the harder that gap becomes to overcome.
People are posting because they care about the game and want it to succeed. If we did not care, we would have left without saying anything at all.
Day 2 after changes. Spend the last 4 hours and 30 minutes farming AD. Spent 4 dungeon runs on TOS to get a total of 7.128k AD. 4 at Kessels, only got 4.7k, in all 4 runs someone get's disconnected, I don't know why this is the case but people are getting disconnected today. Did 2 pvp, so got 4k from that. Salvaged all drops i got fro kessels, and did a couple of epics and got 12k total from drops. I forgot that i'm VIP so i get 3 free epic keys, which is the only thing that allowed me to reach the 24k cap.
To cap my 24k AD took 4 hours and 30 minutes. I'm sorry but this is not acceptable. Unless your objective was to make free players peasants to cater to the zen buyers, then you've done goofed!
And regarding prices, how far down do you guys think prices will go? There's no way anyone will sell their GMOP's lower than 75k+10%. And people will always factor the value of GMOP's they used when selling. Never forget that GMOP's are the most important price driver in the game, and their prices will remain fixed.
"As the good archmage often admonishes me, I ought not to let my mind wander, as it's too small to go off by itself." -Danilo Thann[/quote]
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theycallmetomuMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,861Arc User
So, each GMOP takes 25 days of 4 hours playtime each.
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feanor70118Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,170Arc User
Supply side economics never worked in the real world when it tried to increase the supply of money to the rich, why should it work when it tries to decrease the supply of money? Cryptic/PWE could at least have spoken to someone with the least understanding of economics (instead of letting a decision be probably made by someone with a business degree, which is basically remedial high school disguised as specialized higher education.
I understand their main intention with the changes, but they need to either lower the costs for character progression, or raise the rewards for playing the game.
So, each GMOP takes 25 days of 4 hours playtime each.
If you're not VIP then you probably will only get about 15k a day with 4 hours of play. Considering that there are AD sinks in the game you probably will save about 10k a day. So 1 GMOP will take 8-9 days where you farm(not play, but farm) 4 hours a day.
"As the good archmage often admonishes me, I ought not to let my mind wander, as it's too small to go off by itself." -Danilo Thann[/quote]
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theycallmetomuMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,861Arc User
I understand their main intention with the changes, but they need to either lower the costs for character progression, or raise the rewards for playing the game.
I understand their main intention with the changes, but they need to either lower the costs for character progression, or raise the rewards for playing the game.
If they want, they can just fix leadership chest do drop better loot, and just bring back rhix. Bringing back rhix + current reward system might just be the right fix for the situation.
"As the good archmage often admonishes me, I ought not to let my mind wander, as it's too small to go off by itself." -Danilo Thann[/quote]
So, each GMOP takes 25 days of 4 hours playtime each.
If you're not VIP then you probably will only get about 15k a day with 4 hours of play. Considering that there are AD sinks in the game you probably will save about 10k a day. So 1 GMOP will take 8-9 days where you farm(not play, but farm) 4 hours a day.
I *have* a VIP and it's not giving the reward AD its supposed to.
after 2 days about 4 hours a day I made 164k ad that's not to bad I don't think just takes more work and leaves no time for my campaign stuff but if need to farm diamonds its possible.
I can believe you, but you have to break it down. In theory I see it, in practice its more daunting.
Pretty much what activities did you do, were you pugging? or LFGin or Guilding? Again in ideal conditions, or with select conditions I can see this. But for an avg player its hard to believe, please give more detail and share with playerbase and devs/mods. This isnt to steal your method, but just give everyone an idea on how. (and honestly maybe you dont want to, cause maybe theyll nerf it)
An actual ingame breakdown in practice, with proof even better, is something the devs/mods still havent shown us.
So, each GMOP takes 25 days of 4 hours playtime each.
If you're not VIP then you probably will only get about 15k a day with 4 hours of play. Considering that there are AD sinks in the game you probably will save about 10k a day. So 1 GMOP will take 8-9 days where you farm(not play, but farm) 4 hours a day.
I *have* a VIP and it's not giving the reward AD its supposed to.
do epics and use your keys to open chests to get drops you can salvage for 3-4k AD each. That's the only way being VIP will help.
"As the good archmage often admonishes me, I ought not to let my mind wander, as it's too small to go off by itself." -Danilo Thann[/quote]
The ZAX is on it's way back to 1 ZEN to 500 AD... it may take a few more days, but it's going to happen, until the next 2x RP event is here.
And since AD from Leadership is history, why are there no changes being made to the AD sinks in game at the same time? Where're those changes? What are those changes? When will we see them in game? You were pretty fast with removing AD from LS, can we see the same reaction time for those changes too now?
Another point, there're no real GMs in game, that are actually going after all that AD gained through bugs, exploits or real botting. And that should have been the first step, before removing AD from LS. Any change without a AD clean up is destined to just fail at some point. In fact, this radcial change only made those with tons of bugged/exploited AD even richer over night, by playing with the ZAX...
Then there should have been a presentable strategy ready right from the start, and a lot more then "We're looking into it." as reply to our feedback. Just some, "Hey we're yanking out all the AD for Leadership, but won't do a damn thing to actually keep Leadership a usefull profession. But enjoy our game and keep on paying.", isn't going to cut it anymore. Only dropping this information, and then run and ignore all the feedback in here or in several other threads, was a very bad move. And please don't tell us again, that our feedback is not being ignored. Just go into the Feedback Forum, take a look at the "official" Feedback Thread about Top Issues, it's open for 2 solid months, and practially nothing has been taken from that thread to improve the game. And there're a lot of reasonable suggestions in these forums, a lot more then some "Hello there, we want AD back into our LS, right now!", but to know that, you would have to actually read those threads...
Another fact, leveling Leadership up takes a lot of time, several MONTHS. Now what is it? Do have botters that much time to develop an account this far? Or... Are botters getting banned "every day" and can't risk such investment at all? Let me help you here... It's neither! Botters don't invest that much time into an account. But they can run their bots for months farming profession nodes. So how makes this change any sense at all, it being presented as great action to fight botters?
And now take a wild guess, who is profitting the most from this change? Again, let me help you here... NOT the regular player, BUT the botters are.
And last but not least, you should really be happy with still having some angry "customers" around. You might be able to calm those downs with some reasonable and fast actions, and they might even give the game another chance. But the ones that just leave silently, now of those you should be really afraid of...
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The fact that at least some of these AD drops seemed to be bugged is certainly not helping things...
I'm sure botters don't have 50 characters that can farm epics...
But if your motivation is to increase the worth of the AD that is generated, then the fixed costs of the bazaar are a direct obstacle to that, surely? And when you admit that the changes are far from complete....the entire community is justifiably left wondering just what on earth their AD is worth.
I've read multiple stories of people recently buying heros and character slots with their money only to have it be money down the drain because of the rapid and extreme (to some) change. I think people want to know what the ultimate solution will be and they don't want poorly communicated, half solutions foisted upon them at pretty short notice.
I mean, the RAD refining limit already is a baked in limiter on how much AD a person can run in a day. Why not just have all campaign quests give RAD, and let the refining limit be the limiter?
You can't expect us to be happy when you made a knee-jerk change that fundamentally altered the entire game for the greater majority of us! This isn't a popularity contest. We have months, years and hundreds of dollars invested in this game and overnight you made it unplayable for some of us!!! As I said before, I don't want to wait in line to skirmish or dungeon run multiple times a day. I don't pvp AT ALL. I have no desire whatsoever to do so. I was perfectly happy living inside the rules and working my 9 characters all up to Level 70 and getting their Leadership skills to 20 - 25. I am a solo player and now have absolutely NO WAY to keep up let alone advance my team of characters without an outlay of cash or a complete change in how I play the game. You bet your life I want the system to go back to how it was. That's the game I've played for years. Those are the rules that I followed. That was the gaming system I supported with my finances and my time and it has now been broken beyond all repair overnight without any advance thought of how to fix it.
We're supposed to just 'hang in there' and be happy while you guys attempt something you don't even have a plan for? And on top of that be happy about it and not express our opinions?
Finding the botters is easy. Get rid of the cheaters and leave those of us who play within the rules alone!
This isn't a moralizing issue, it's just a cost benefits analysis.
Anyway, biggest concern I have right now: There is a 20 point spread between buy and sell orders on the ZAX. That tells me something is out of alignment. Obviously, the backlog told me the same thing, but that was that the cap was set to be too low.
You seem to think that besides leadership, all is well in the AD kingdom - that, or those of us hurt by the other changes are just a bunch of worthless leeches and should just shut up and stuff ourselves. I am not a leech. I am penniless. Does that mean I cannot be allowed a modicum of happiness? These people seem to think so. You say such changes are neccessary - but, this game is supposed to be free-to-play; the ready availability of AD before this... mound of dog dirt was dropped on our heads allowed people like us to really enjoy this game. And what am I hearing? I'm hearing we're indistinguishable and on par with pieces of programming (bots). I'm hearing people basically saying "good riddance!!" I want to cry!
Well, then there's the AH argument. Which is also HAMSTER. I've never seen an item drop that was valued at more than 1-2k. I RARELY see anything which goes for more than 500. I don't know where people get this stuff, but I can't get to it. They talk like you're picking up the equivalent of tricorns left and right and it's all happy days. I can only assume it's the epic/lv70 content. Which I hear is pretty much P2W. So, that's out of the question for sad saps like me who are just getting sadder now.
The lack of the daily and hourly boons alone will mean the next CTA will be pointless for me. I did a grind last time on Storm Front, and I still have a load of AD left over - I won't be seeing that this time around. Of course, I probably won't be playing at all, anyway. Not for a while at least. Totally agree with that one point. Not because I don't have the time - I sure as hell do - but I actually enjoy the gameplay mechanic. But grinding sucks the fun out of it.
Sorry for the epic long post, but I was away a while and had a lot to respond to and a lot to say all at once.
Rage against the zeitgeist.
And, of course, if you want to make rewards frontloaded, then that rate increases for the first hour was decreasing for subsequent hours.
Featured Foundry Quest: Whispers of an Ancient Evil [v3] - NW-DQ4WKW6ZG
Foundry Quest: Harper Chronicles: Blacklake - NW-DCPA4W2Q5
Then you'd just make all AD purchase items bind on pickup, so that goldspammers (and everyone else) can't use them as part of transactions.
At that point, the "AD is time, zen is money" tradeoff starts to make sense. Obviously, there's a lot of other adjustments that would need to go into that sort of thing-namely, GMOPs would likely need to be reconsidered, because otherwise bots could just use their AD to refine items, then sell the refined items on the AH for gold.
The problem is, then you open yourself up to TRADITIONAL grotesque inflation issues that MMOs tend to experience.
The myth about all of the Leadership changes made recently pertaining to removing bots runs a pretty close second. Should have just told the truth that efforts were being made to fix the borked economy and you would have have had much more support from the get go as well.
There are other sources of outrage that include those that did invest RL cash into purchasing their Leadership assets, extra character slots, and/or VIP "memberships" with the belief it was going to be the main source of income so they could progress through the game. This really does seem like a bait and switch tactic to make easy money through ZEN sales when this occurs within a couple of weeks of VIP going live. Personally believe the decision to make this change was made after weaker than expected VIP sales and the failure of Strongholds to suck as much AD out the economy as was anticipated...and was not an intentional bait and switch play for money. The poorly thought out and slapdash changes to the LS rewards are at least circumstantial proof to show that it was a hasty decision to implement this change imho.
As for new players expecting to catch up with people who have been playing a game over 2 years, they better expect to grind for 30+ hrs/week, for at least 6-12 months to come even close. It is unreasonable to not expect anything otherwise and would be unfair to those who have sustained a game prior to the late comer joining the party if that was not the case. The reality is that those who start with the launch of any MMO will have an advantage over those that join at later dates. The longer time between initial character creation dates, the harder that gap becomes to overcome.
People are posting because they care about the game and want it to succeed. If we did not care, we would have left without saying anything at all.
To cap my 24k AD took 4 hours and 30 minutes. I'm sorry but this is not acceptable. Unless your objective was to make free players peasants to cater to the zen buyers, then you've done goofed!
And regarding prices, how far down do you guys think prices will go? There's no way anyone will sell their GMOP's lower than 75k+10%. And people will always factor the value of GMOP's they used when selling. Never forget that GMOP's are the most important price driver in the game, and their prices will remain fixed.
NW-DHNVMMGVJ Dragons horde part one.
http://youtu.be/0KbqTWeJqxc
Pretty much what activities did you do, were you pugging? or LFGin or Guilding? Again in ideal conditions, or with select conditions I can see this. But for an avg player its hard to believe, please give more detail and share with playerbase and devs/mods. This isnt to steal your method, but just give everyone an idea on how. (and honestly maybe you dont want to, cause maybe theyll nerf it)
An actual ingame breakdown in practice, with proof even better, is something the devs/mods still havent shown us.
Fox Stevenson - Sandblast
Oh Wonder - Without You
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
- Dylan Thomas
And since AD from Leadership is history, why are there no changes being made to the AD sinks in game at the same time?
Where're those changes?
What are those changes?
When will we see them in game?
You were pretty fast with removing AD from LS, can we see the same reaction time for those changes too now?
Another point, there're no real GMs in game, that are actually going after all that AD gained through bugs, exploits or real botting.
And that should have been the first step, before removing AD from LS.
Any change without a AD clean up is destined to just fail at some point.
In fact, this radcial change only made those with tons of bugged/exploited AD even richer over night, by playing with the ZAX...
Then there should have been a presentable strategy ready right from the start, and a lot more then "We're looking into it." as reply to our feedback.
Just some, "Hey we're yanking out all the AD for Leadership, but won't do a damn thing to actually keep Leadership a usefull profession. But enjoy our game and keep on paying.", isn't going to cut it anymore.
Only dropping this information, and then run and ignore all the feedback in here or in several other threads, was a very bad move.
And please don't tell us again, that our feedback is not being ignored.
Just go into the Feedback Forum, take a look at the "official" Feedback Thread about Top Issues, it's open for 2 solid months, and practially nothing has been taken from that thread to improve the game.
And there're a lot of reasonable suggestions in these forums, a lot more then some "Hello there, we want AD back into our LS, right now!", but to know that, you would have to actually read those threads...
Another fact, leveling Leadership up takes a lot of time, several MONTHS.
Now what is it?
Do have botters that much time to develop an account this far?
Or...
Are botters getting banned "every day" and can't risk such investment at all?
Let me help you here... It's neither!
Botters don't invest that much time into an account.
But they can run their bots for months farming profession nodes.
So how makes this change any sense at all, it being presented as great action to fight botters?
And now take a wild guess, who is profitting the most from this change?
Again, let me help you here... NOT the regular player, BUT the botters are.
And last but not least, you should really be happy with still having some angry "customers" around.
You might be able to calm those downs with some reasonable and fast actions, and they might even give the game another chance.
But the ones that just leave silently, now of those you should be really afraid of...