Wow. I go away for nine months or whatever it is, come back and in one afternoon find they've really managed to kitten this game up.
Really struggling to stay with it again after finding the REAL LIFE MONEY I spent on leadership has been flushed by these kittening people.
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ghoulz66Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,748Arc User
edited November 2015
I am pretty PO'd that they left transmute costs untouched still. I was looking forward to the the new gear preview but I simply can't afford to indulge in it anymore.
The only small step forward in this issue seems to be the removing of the AD costs from campaign keys with Underdark. I tried asking if there will be more "AD Changes" coming, but i didn't get any answer...
Can't recall but some things have been said during the Reddit AMA. Not sure there were any details though.
Anyway, we all know majority of AD sinks have to go. Taking the AD requirement from the campaign keys is a really nice thing dev's gave us. Again I'm repeating myself...small steps, small things that appear and make us players happier.
I would still add to his one halving the time to get the keys, having to wait for them 20 or 24h hours is something that should be changed.
Nancy - Dragonborn, SM Guardian Fighter A proud member of "mythical horde of DPS GFs"
1). Is SW more dps or tank based? 2). Yes. I am panzer! 3). Get ACT if you want to celebrate your epeen. 4). Horniness will not stand between me and what I believe - "MM"
There is currently 74 pages of comments so if someone already raised this I apologize beforehand.
What I I would like to say is that I'm not sure if more AD is necessarily better unless you plan to control the Zen exchange rate. ...
The Zen exchange rate appears to me to have been somewhat positively influenced by the AD nerf that happened a few months back. Note the sudden surge in Zen value on the exchange leading up to this past weekend, when there was rampant gossip about the %50 off sales - which turned out to be completely true, btw. At it's peak on Monday the rate was almost maxed out, at nearly 500 AD / 1 Zen.
Now that the weekend is in the rearview mirror and the zen sale is over, the rate is dropping - fast. Last time I looked today it was around 413 - 416 AD / 1 Zen.
That's a lot more fluidity than existed pre-AD nerf, when the rate literally never budged from 500 AD/ 1 Zen (thanks, botters).
The fact that there is some fluidity in the marketplace now has to be considered a significant improvement over the past.
I agree with a lot of the posters in this epic thread that more needs to be done to make the AD market appealing to casual / semi- casual gamers - the cost of the enhancement kits that professions can produce (for example) are way out of balance with the new economy. 1 Major Power Kit would cost me $100K of AD to make with a level 25 mailsmith, along with a variety of other exotic materials (like Unified Elements and a Dragon Egg). Mind that's after investing the time necessary to get a toon to progress to level 25 mailsmith.
I just hope the devs can do their number crunching and baselining of data a little faster. The space in time between the AD Leadership nerf and the first AD price nerf was way too long.
There is currently 74 pages of comments so if someone already raised this I apologize beforehand.
What I I would like to say is that I'm not sure if more AD is necessarily better unless you plan to control the Zen exchange rate. Yes people will earn more AD but because of that you can expect a rise in prices in the AH as well as the Zen exchange. That's what normally happens when you devalue a currency. So while casual players might find themselves earning more AD, the amount of goods they will be able to obtain with their new found riches will be less than before and thus make the whole exercise pointless in my opinion.
I love where you're coming from with this but I think you need to consider the long term effects and maybe come up with an idea that will allow more AD on the market without messing up the economy.
You're talking "inflation" effects. You believe that casual players actually getting to earn AD will make them more affluent (more money(AD) to spend) and there not be enough stuff for them to buy with their new found "wealth" and this will cause what there actually is to buy have it's cost increase, negating the the AD they just got more of---I'm getting that correct, right?
The problem with your assumption is this: Casual players, when they play are putting stuff up to be bought as well. There would be more "stuff" to buy if they were playing, there is the current problem, they aren't playing. Unless you rate logging in a character and invoking and then logging off perhaps to a few more alts, but ultimately doing nothing more than invoking as "playing".
Most casual players have stopped "playing" and are only "invoking" before they are on their way to another MMO. Most casual players are in "tread water" mode. Just hoping, praying, that anyone, anybody! over at NW will get their nogg'ns out of each others posteriors long enough to address their plight!
What are non-casuals doing? Grinding - a thing that an overwhelming number of players say they loath. They are grinding a limited number of the same dungeons/skirms/pvp repeatedly, ever heard of road fatigue? That's what everyone is getting. The same scenery with nothing of note for mile after mile, to the point that even though you are wide awake, you are in a pre-hypnosis state and don't react well when a actual event does happen.
Let's assume that casuals had a reason to get in the game and held on to their stuff and didn't AH it for the sake of argument. Let's assume that you are correct and the prices for "stuff" go up. So what? That's the new value, the casuals/solo's that put in more time are going to get more AD under a time spent vs reward scenerio, they will have more AD to spend to get what they feel they really need vs. the ones not putting in the actual time and effort.
Who the heck would suffer if it started a inflationary bubble? The grinders? No, they are the ones posting the stuff remember? They are getting the AD the casuals now have to spend. The newly affluent casuals? No. Even if they don't have stuff to in turn AH and everything get's more expensive...they are still better off than before when they had zip to spend, at worst they are where they were before the inflation. Who is the only group that "might" (and I doubt it since they adapt) suffer? Ad sellers.
Why? Well if everyone has their own AD, why would they need to buy it? AD sellers are the pawn brokers/shylocks of the MMO world. Don't have enough money to get by? Go sell some of your poo off at the pawn shop to put food on the table. Since we don't "need" stuff in game like we do to eat and survive in RL, if everyone has at least a marginal AD generation going on, they can "survive" until they have saved up enough to get the stuff and not really need the AD seller/shylock. The only people that use AD sellers are the gullible, they either get exploited by the AD seller ripping them off somehow, or even if they get the AD promised, they paid real life $ for digital currency to exchange for pixilated make believe stuff. AD sellers are strippers, some (the honest ones) take lot's of money to "entertain" their clients and the client merely goes home sexually frustrated. If they are the dishonest "stripper" they promise a bit more "entertainment" (illegal everywhere but parts of Nevada ) and the client get's rolled, they lose all their money and have zip for it.
I like the AD Changes and the salvageable drops help. I believe its a good fix and people now have to play to get AD rather then exploit.
So, I've been away since just before the Elemental Evil update opened. Coming back, I have been surprised and irritated by the changes I've seen. I was off playing STO and that is an amazingly poorly designed game which has only gotten worse since launch. I was annoyed to see NWO trending the same way when I got back.
Having played NWO for quite a while before my "vacation," it is my sense that the AD economy was never broken, it was not exploited. It worked exactly as intended. Leadership was promoted as ~the~ source for AD generation. Having a legion of Leadership drones plugging away at it was exactly how it was meant to work. There was a limit to how often one could perform each task that paid AD....omg, a check and balance system. If some players were abusing the system, punish those players rather than the entire playerbase.
From where I sit, these changes are designed solely to promote sales in the Zen Market. Poking around today, I noticed that all Dyes and Fashions are being moved from the Zen Market to the Trade Bar Market. Now, Trade Bars only come from opening Lockboxes and you can only open those with Keys you buy from the Zen Market. I could be wrong, but I believe the amount of bars varies from box to box. I am sure that opening a Lockbox is roulette, totally random chance to get what you actually want. This move is clearly designed to push players to buy keys, spend money on the Zen market, and lots to be sure to get enough keys to open enough boxes to get the particular item you want.
I have spent money in the Zen Market, in fact, I currently have over 4,000 zen. I had over 3500 for the entire year I was not playing. I do not mind paying for things I want, but "fixing" something that wasn't broken to push players to spend is a lousy business model. I've seen it in so many other games and I had a lot of admiration for Cryptic that they didn't do that. I would prefer being told, "we're making these changes to increase our income" rather than being told "we're doing this to support and protect you, the players."
When is this happening? Please reconsider putting this in next week BEFORE you have a solution for solo players, at least. Geez.
SOLO ISSUE: Where are the AD for campaign tasks, daily task, SOLO TASKS????? Playing the game does not = Skirmishes, PVP and Dungeons for all your players. Those need to go in WITH this change not at some unspecified future date.
Promises of "we are looking into it" are probably not going to tide them over. Maybe some of them will come back... "news very soon" is also not good enough. We don't trust you. Fix that.
Also please address the price of leveling up companions- it is stupidly high with this change.
Again, "we will be looking at this at some future date" is not good enough.
LEADERSHIP When you take away with one hand you better give with the other. We are talking *massive* investment in this profession and removing AD without adding something else is stealing from us. Please figure something out. Perhaps some account bound ways to make GMOPS and/or Coal Wards? Remove the cap on doing each task only three times?
SUMMARY: It's insane to announce this change without a tandem source for true solo players and addressing the current AD sinks in the game- especially the one that JUST launched in the last mod.
I have multiple alts with green comps that I cannot even begin to afford upgrading. All I read tells me I cannot solo without blue or purple comps, so what do I do? I CANNOT do groups, so I am left outside the game?
I have multiple alts with green comps that I cannot even begin to afford upgrading. All I read tells me I cannot solo without blue or purple comps, so what do I do? I CANNOT do groups, so I am left outside the game?
Yes, that is exactly what has happened. Your only options are to hope a guild is willing to take pity on you and carry you till you can carry yourself. Or struggle with random pugs and the headaches that come with them.
The only solo content that you can do to generate AD is invoking daily, or a small handful of weekly missions that allow you to generate a paltry 15,000 AD per week.
When is this happening? Please reconsider putting this in next week BEFORE you have a solution for solo players, at least. Geez.
SOLO ISSUE: Where are the AD for campaign tasks, daily task, SOLO TASKS????? Playing the game does not = Skirmishes, PVP and Dungeons for all your players. Those need to go in WITH this change not at some unspecified future date.
Promises of "we are looking into it" are probably not going to tide them over. Maybe some of them will come back... "news very soon" is also not good enough. We don't trust you. Fix that.
Also please address the price of leveling up companions- it is stupidly high with this change.
Again, "we will be looking at this at some future date" is not good enough.
LEADERSHIP When you take away with one hand you better give with the other. We are talking *massive* investment in this profession and removing AD without adding something else is stealing from us. Please figure something out. Perhaps some account bound ways to make GMOPS and/or Coal Wards? Remove the cap on doing each task only three times?
SUMMARY: It's insane to announce this change without a tandem source for true solo players and addressing the current AD sinks in the game- especially the one that JUST launched in the last mod.
I have multiple alts with green comps that I cannot even begin to afford upgrading. All I read tells me I cannot solo without blue or purple comps, so what do I do? I CANNOT do groups, so I am left outside the game?
New and fresh players struggling with gear vs. content difficulty and old geared players stops repeating same OLD content?
Well, Leadership with AD was nice game feature what hardly can be called "xploit"... its just human nature look shortest way around obstacle and group up with fools who like "claim obstacle" as achievement.
I started play game called "Dungeon & Dragons" and now it is "HE & Skirmish - Repeat and RUN" TM -infinite grind.
AD change has nothing to do with lack off true content and maybe old players should move next game, but AD change makes newcomers game quite difficult because they cant get gear what makes game play and campaigns more fun.
Well, maybe new players enjouy mo "HE & Skirmishes" game.
I have multiple alts with green comps that I cannot even begin to afford upgrading. All I read tells me I cannot solo without blue or purple comps, so what do I do? I CANNOT do groups, so I am left outside the game?
Yes, that is exactly what has happened. Your only options are to hope a guild is willing to take pity on you and carry you till you can carry yourself. Or struggle with random pugs and the headaches that come with them.
The only solo content that you can do to generate AD is invoking daily, or a small handful of weekly missions that allow you to generate a paltry 15,000 AD per week.
Just to give you post a caviat there Sock, that "solo weekly" you mention for 15k AD? That is L70 access only content. So until the player get's all the way to L70 with only the AD from invoking as their reward, they are once again forced grouping content to get any AD of worth along the way.
forced grouping is the opposite of "casual" what this game has always been advertised as.
So that's once again 2 promises broken by Cryptic: 1. The game is casual/alt/solo friendly. 2. That they have a time played vs. reward structure. If you are a casual player or a soloist there is 0 reward vs. time played structure in place, doesn't appear to be any relief in the near future, nor seems to be on the horizon either, If they had something in the works to rectify this problem they would certainly post about it and brag/hype it like they do the Mods or the "adjustment" to +50% AD for weekly, still leaving 90% of us out in the cold.
Their promises and time delay tactics of "looking into it" or "monitoring it closely" seem of the variety of promise like the infomercial type of "But wait! Order in the next 15 minutes, pay separate shipping and handling and we will double the order" variety. *not available everywhere, participation may vary, void where prohibited, some exclusions may apply CA, NJ, PA, NY add sales Tax, everywhere else multiply by 2x, divide by 3, rub your tummy while patting your head, moon walk while reciting the declaration of independence, hop forward 3 steps, then sideways 2 steps while quoting the alphabet backwards.
Considering I play the same amount of time as I did way before the changes took place and I have some AD left over for the next day, whereas I didn't have enough before, I'm happy with the current system. but ye obviously depends how much people play. for sure it is easier to make AD for players as long as they willing to put in the time. which is normal... if u want something work for it. I rly don't see why some ppl are still complaining about this.
It is because some people just actually have nothing better to do than moan, I pity the fool! XD Happy New Years Eve!
I the AD changes. Ty
- Major Peachy Bottom * Gutbuster's Brigade -
"Last request - microtransactions for alllll old skins for zen/weapon appearance changes, 500 zen to make ur wep glow the color/enchant you want it... You will make more off that one item than any other zen item ever made." freshour
"beckylunatic" Gateway AH should have column headers to sort by buyout, bid, end time, quantity, etc. These disappeared iirc with the module launch. It's obnoxious.
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santralafaxMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 2,896Arc User
Different people have different playstyles. They have specifically removed AD from some playstyles. They suggest it is due to bots. Not true. L...rs.
Considering I play the same amount of time as I did way before the changes took place and I have some AD left over for the next day, whereas I didn't have enough before, I'm happy with the current system. but ye obviously depends how much people play. for sure it is easier to make AD for players as long as they willing to put in the time. which is normal... if u want something work for it. I rly don't see why some ppl are still complaining about this.
You ever see that movie "office space"? Where rather than fire that guy that the manager wanted gone, the manager just kept up doing things to the guy hoping he would just "go away" rather than actually firing him. The manager kept moving his desk to more offensive places, eventually to the basement store room. The manager took his personal swingline stapler. The hapless employee would always mumble about they can't do this to me, maybe some time I'm going to do x, y or z to retaliate, eventually settling on burning everything down.
The final thing the manager did was cancel the guy's pay check, he didn't actually say "you're fired" or anything, he just made being there intolerable hoping he would quite and "solve the problem", so while the guy kept clocking in, doing the work, he kept not getting his check, there was always something wrong about his check not getting cut.
That's what they did to the casual, non-L70 players. They show up for work, clock in, do a full days work, clock out and go home, day after day they plug away, but by weeks end there is no AD. So all they get for their sweat from Mr. Manager is a *clicking tongue and a foot rocking motion* "rigghht, so, there doesn't seem to be any AD...so payroll will have to look into that.....they are closely monitoring it I'm sure....", *sips some coffee* "so ummm, I'm going to have to ask you to move your character to the basement....we need more room for other characters over here....sorry about no AD....so ummm, like I said, they will look into it, meantime I'll need this stapler, and you can move your character now......"
So we ARE working for it, but they decided to "downsize" us without actually telling us so, we are working for our AD and all we get for it is *click tongue* "riigghht, so we are looking into it....". We are the grumbling people that are getting insulted out the door, and we are mumbling how we just might burn it all down. Fire us or pay us, we at least deserve that.
*dribbling gas about the building from gas can* *reaching into pocket for a match.........*
There are definitely some AD aspects that are still broken. The 50k appearance change the way it currently is needs to go. At least add a consumable or something for a free appearance change you can get in a drop or from crafting in a profession or something. Then it's 50k if you don't have the free appearance change. Why not make skins something un-lockable for each character that you can apply later even without having that actual piece of gear in your inventory?
For example, I have a level 70 DC I love with 2.8 iLvL that I want to invest a bit in her appearance, but I'm not going to until I finish getting my (based on current) end game armor and make in Elemental. Otherwise, after making your sparkly new DF armor, spending 50k to transmute to your slick Armor of Lloth, you'll lose the transmute when you make it Elemental so, I either need to wait, or farm out 2 sets of Armor. Yay.
Yet another reason NOT to spend real world currency to purchase ZEN, to obtain in game items...
Some items are being removed from the Zen market to the Trade Bar market.
Of course you cannot buy Trade Bars like you can Zen, so you have to purchase Zen, to buy keys, to open chests FOR THE CHANCE that a chest will contain Trade Bars.
Yet another reason NOT to spend real world currency to purchase ZEN, to obtain in game items...
Some items are being removed from the Zen market to the Trade Bar market.
Of course you cannot buy Trade Bars like you can Zen, so you have to purchase Zen, to buy keys, to open chests FOR THE CHANCE that a chest will contain Trade Bars.
Well actually...it's a blatant attempt to get you to join a F2P (not F2P) model of upping for VIP, which takes zen and decays, so you can get the "free" key, to get the trade bars, to spend on digital content, that nobody wanted to pay the Zen for in the first place since it was so insanely priced.
So while convoluted to get there, it's still a "zen purchase", it's just a forced into a mold to get there Zen purchase. Before they moved all that HAMSTER to the trade bar market, people had stacks and stacks of trade bars they never spent, because there simply wasn't any HAMSTER they wanted bad enough to spend them on, at least now they are trying to fill up a trade bar market with items they "might" be enticed to buy with them, and they may buy VIP or slot machine boxes to get there as well.
All their pricing models have been whack for some time now, $30 for a zen market mount? really? $20-30 for a pet? $1.25 for a key to pull the handle on a slot box? If they would go for a small increment cost they would actually make more in the long run, all anyone needs do is take a trip to a casino and see how a "penny" slot now works, sell the keys for .25 and people that would balk at 1 key for 1.25 would buy 10 instead of 1 with a .25 cost. Have a mount cost $2.50 not $25 and the collectionists would buy all the mounts available at 2.50 rather than just 1, spending well in excess of the 1 buy at $25. It's all digital content, more can be created fairly easily, the people who are into collecting would line up to hand them money if the price was low enough. Want to steal an idea from another success story game? Make the same basic mount, but with lots of alternate skins like LoTRO does, have a wardrobe and a stables to store them in, have the cost low and people spend tons to fill up that stable and wardrobe, it's a digital content "penny" slot.
Now if they would just fix the AD generation and fix a way to consolidate all the other errant currencies out there, the seal mess is in serious need of reform for instance, so are all the area currencies, if they would put in a "collector" that gave a 2 for 1 level up for seals and area currencies it would be logical and nice, my alternate currency bags are chock full of clutter.
Fix the AD mess, that should take top billing over everything else, including another mod mess push, then as new mods get fosted off on us, make alt currencies get an exchange rate as part of it. The underdark mod would have been a great opportunity to story-line something, like the previous areas before underdark currencies could have had a collector gathering up "excess" stuff to help the effort to beat back the demons. In other games they had things like a war going on and they set up a vendor that took up things in exchange for the new contents rewards, you could turn in bandages and cloth and wood, metal scrap etc etc. to help the war effort.
Alas our current crew is short on imagination and solutions and long on the "in the works" promises that never seem to pan out.
Yet another reason NOT to spend real world currency to purchase ZEN, to obtain in game items...
Some items are being removed from the Zen market to the Trade Bar market.
Of course you cannot buy Trade Bars like you can Zen, so you have to purchase Zen, to buy keys, to open chests FOR THE CHANCE that a chest will contain Trade Bars.
All lockboxes always contain at least a few Trade Bars in addition to whatever the drop is.
Comments
Really struggling to stay with it again after finding the REAL LIFE MONEY I spent on leadership has been flushed by these kittening people.
I tried asking if there will be more "AD Changes" coming, but i didn't get any answer...
Anyway, we all know majority of AD sinks have to go. Taking the AD requirement from the campaign keys is a really nice thing dev's gave us. Again I'm repeating myself...small steps, small things that appear and make us players happier.
I would still add to his one halving the time to get the keys, having to wait for them 20 or 24h hours is something that should be changed.
A proud member of "mythical horde of DPS GFs"
1). Is SW more dps or tank based?
2). Yes. I am panzer!
3). Get ACT if you want to celebrate your epeen.
4). Horniness will not stand between me and what I believe - "MM"
Now that the weekend is in the rearview mirror and the zen sale is over, the rate is dropping - fast. Last time I looked today it was around 413 - 416 AD / 1 Zen.
That's a lot more fluidity than existed pre-AD nerf, when the rate literally never budged from 500 AD/ 1 Zen (thanks, botters).
The fact that there is some fluidity in the marketplace now has to be considered a significant improvement over the past.
I agree with a lot of the posters in this epic thread that more needs to be done to make the AD market appealing to casual / semi- casual gamers - the cost of the enhancement kits that professions can produce (for example) are way out of balance with the new economy. 1 Major Power Kit would cost me $100K of AD to make with a level 25 mailsmith, along with a variety of other exotic materials (like Unified Elements and a Dragon Egg). Mind that's after investing the time necessary to get a toon to progress to level 25 mailsmith.
I just hope the devs can do their number crunching and baselining of data a little faster. The space in time between the AD Leadership nerf and the first AD price nerf was way too long.
The problem with your assumption is this:
Casual players, when they play are putting stuff up to be bought as well. There would be more "stuff" to buy if they were playing, there is the current problem, they aren't playing. Unless you rate logging in a character and invoking and then logging off perhaps to a few more alts, but ultimately doing nothing more than invoking as "playing".
Most casual players have stopped "playing" and are only "invoking" before they are on their way to another MMO. Most casual players are in "tread water" mode. Just hoping, praying, that anyone, anybody! over at NW will get their nogg'ns out of each others posteriors long enough to address their plight!
What are non-casuals doing? Grinding - a thing that an overwhelming number of players say they loath. They are grinding a limited number of the same dungeons/skirms/pvp repeatedly, ever heard of road fatigue? That's what everyone is getting. The same scenery with nothing of note for mile after mile, to the point that even though you are wide awake, you are in a pre-hypnosis state and don't react well when a actual event does happen.
Let's assume that casuals had a reason to get in the game and held on to their stuff and didn't AH it for the sake of argument. Let's assume that you are correct and the prices for "stuff" go up. So what? That's the new value, the casuals/solo's that put in more time are going to get more AD under a time spent vs reward scenerio, they will have more AD to spend to get what they feel they really need vs. the ones not putting in the actual time and effort.
Who the heck would suffer if it started a inflationary bubble? The grinders? No, they are the ones posting the stuff remember? They are getting the AD the casuals now have to spend. The newly affluent casuals? No. Even if they don't have stuff to in turn AH and everything get's more expensive...they are still better off than before when they had zip to spend, at worst they are where they were before the inflation. Who is the only group that "might" (and I doubt it since they adapt) suffer? Ad sellers.
Why? Well if everyone has their own AD, why would they need to buy it? AD sellers are the pawn brokers/shylocks of the MMO world. Don't have enough money to get by? Go sell some of your poo off at the pawn shop to put food on the table. Since we don't "need" stuff in game like we do to eat and survive in RL, if everyone has at least a marginal AD generation going on, they can "survive" until they have saved up enough to get the stuff and not really need the AD seller/shylock. The only people that use AD sellers are the gullible, they either get exploited by the AD seller ripping them off somehow, or even if they get the AD promised, they paid real life $ for digital currency to exchange for pixilated make believe stuff. AD sellers are strippers, some (the honest ones) take lot's of money to "entertain" their clients and the client merely goes home sexually frustrated. If they are the dishonest "stripper" they promise a bit more "entertainment" (illegal everywhere but parts of Nevada
Having played NWO for quite a while before my "vacation," it is my sense that the AD economy was never broken, it was not exploited. It worked exactly as intended. Leadership was promoted as ~the~ source for AD generation. Having a legion of Leadership drones plugging away at it was exactly how it was meant to work. There was a limit to how often one could perform each task that paid AD....omg, a check and balance system. If some players were abusing the system, punish those players rather than the entire playerbase.
From where I sit, these changes are designed solely to promote sales in the Zen Market. Poking around today, I noticed that all Dyes and Fashions are being moved from the Zen Market to the Trade Bar Market. Now, Trade Bars only come from opening Lockboxes and you can only open those with Keys you buy from the Zen Market. I could be wrong, but I believe the amount of bars varies from box to box. I am sure that opening a Lockbox is roulette, totally random chance to get what you actually want. This move is clearly designed to push players to buy keys, spend money on the Zen market, and lots to be sure to get enough keys to open enough boxes to get the particular item you want.
I have spent money in the Zen Market, in fact, I currently have over 4,000 zen. I had over 3500 for the entire year I was not playing. I do not mind paying for things I want, but "fixing" something that wasn't broken to push players to spend is a lousy business model. I've seen it in so many other games and I had a lot of admiration for Cryptic that they didn't do that. I would prefer being told, "we're making these changes to increase our income" rather than being told "we're doing this to support and protect you, the players."
The only solo content that you can do to generate AD is invoking daily, or a small handful of weekly missions that allow you to generate a paltry 15,000 AD per week.
Well, Leadership with AD was nice game feature what hardly can be called "xploit"... its just human nature look shortest way around obstacle and group up with fools who like "claim obstacle" as achievement.
I started play game called "Dungeon & Dragons" and now it is "HE & Skirmish - Repeat and RUN" TM -infinite grind.
AD change has nothing to do with lack off true content and maybe old players should move next game, but AD change makes newcomers game quite difficult because they cant get gear what makes game play and campaigns more fun.
Well, maybe new players enjouy mo "HE & Skirmishes" game.
forced grouping is the opposite of "casual" what this game has always been advertised as.
So that's once again 2 promises broken by Cryptic:
1. The game is casual/alt/solo friendly.
2. That they have a time played vs. reward structure.
If you are a casual player or a soloist there is 0 reward vs. time played structure in place, doesn't appear to be any relief in the near future, nor seems to be on the horizon either, If they had something in the works to rectify this problem they would certainly post about it and brag/hype it like they do the Mods or the "adjustment" to +50% AD for weekly, still leaving 90% of us out in the cold.
Their promises and time delay tactics of "looking into it" or "monitoring it closely" seem of the variety of promise like the infomercial type of "But wait! Order in the next 15 minutes, pay separate shipping and handling and we will double the order" variety. *not available everywhere, participation may vary, void where prohibited, some exclusions may apply CA, NJ, PA, NY add sales Tax, everywhere else multiply by 2x, divide by 3, rub your tummy while patting your head, moon walk while reciting the declaration of independence, hop forward 3 steps, then sideways 2 steps while quoting the alphabet backwards.
I
"Last request - microtransactions for alllll old skins for zen/weapon appearance changes, 500 zen to make ur wep glow the color/enchant you want it... You will make more off that one item than any other zen item ever made." freshour
"beckylunatic" Gateway AH should have column headers to sort by buyout, bid, end time, quantity, etc. These disappeared iirc with the module launch. It's obnoxious.
The final thing the manager did was cancel the guy's pay check, he didn't actually say "you're fired" or anything, he just made being there intolerable hoping he would quite and "solve the problem", so while the guy kept clocking in, doing the work, he kept not getting his check, there was always something wrong about his check not getting cut.
That's what they did to the casual, non-L70 players. They show up for work, clock in, do a full days work, clock out and go home, day after day they plug away, but by weeks end there is no AD. So all they get for their sweat from Mr. Manager is a *clicking tongue and a foot rocking motion* "rigghht, so, there doesn't seem to be any AD...so payroll will have to look into that.....they are closely monitoring it I'm sure....", *sips some coffee* "so ummm, I'm going to have to ask you to move your character to the basement....we need more room for other characters over here....sorry about no AD....so ummm, like I said, they will look into it, meantime I'll need this stapler, and you can move your character now......"
So we ARE working for it, but they decided to "downsize" us without actually telling us so, we are working for our AD and all we get for it is *click tongue* "riigghht, so we are looking into it....". We are the grumbling people that are getting insulted out the door, and we are mumbling how we just might burn it all down. Fire us or pay us, we at least deserve that.
*dribbling gas about the building from gas can* *reaching into pocket for a match.........*
For example, I have a level 70 DC I love with 2.8 iLvL that I want to invest a bit in her appearance, but I'm not going to until I finish getting my (based on current) end game armor and make in Elemental. Otherwise, after making your sparkly new DF armor, spending 50k to transmute to your slick Armor of Lloth, you'll lose the transmute when you make it Elemental so, I either need to wait, or farm out 2 sets of Armor. Yay.
Some items are being removed from the Zen market to the Trade Bar market.
Of course you cannot buy Trade Bars like you can Zen, so you have to purchase Zen, to buy keys, to open chests FOR THE CHANCE that a chest will contain Trade Bars.
So while convoluted to get there, it's still a "zen purchase", it's just a forced into a mold to get there Zen purchase. Before they moved all that HAMSTER to the trade bar market, people had stacks and stacks of trade bars they never spent, because there simply wasn't any HAMSTER they wanted bad enough to spend them on, at least now they are trying to fill up a trade bar market with items they "might" be enticed to buy with them, and they may buy VIP or slot machine boxes to get there as well.
All their pricing models have been whack for some time now, $30 for a zen market mount? really? $20-30 for a pet? $1.25 for a key to pull the handle on a slot box? If they would go for a small increment cost they would actually make more in the long run, all anyone needs do is take a trip to a casino and see how a "penny" slot now works, sell the keys for .25 and people that would balk at 1 key for 1.25 would buy 10 instead of 1 with a .25 cost. Have a mount cost $2.50 not $25 and the collectionists would buy all the mounts available at 2.50 rather than just 1, spending well in excess of the 1 buy at $25. It's all digital content, more can be created fairly easily, the people who are into collecting would line up to hand them money if the price was low enough. Want to steal an idea from another success story game? Make the same basic mount, but with lots of alternate skins like LoTRO does, have a wardrobe and a stables to store them in, have the cost low and people spend tons to fill up that stable and wardrobe, it's a digital content "penny" slot.
Now if they would just fix the AD generation and fix a way to consolidate all the other errant currencies out there, the seal mess is in serious need of reform for instance, so are all the area currencies, if they would put in a "collector" that gave a 2 for 1 level up for seals and area currencies it would be logical and nice, my alternate currency bags are chock full of clutter.
Fix the AD mess, that should take top billing over everything else, including another mod mess push, then as new mods get fosted off on us, make alt currencies get an exchange rate as part of it. The underdark mod would have been a great opportunity to story-line something, like the previous areas before underdark currencies could have had a collector gathering up "excess" stuff to help the effort to beat back the demons. In other games they had things like a war going on and they set up a vendor that took up things in exchange for the new contents rewards, you could turn in bandages and cloth and wood, metal scrap etc etc. to help the war effort.
Alas our current crew is short on imagination and solutions and long on the "in the works" promises that never seem to pan out.