Challenge for the NW Devs

oliboyph · September 2015

It's quite clear that right now devs here at NW devs are just so detached from the game. I would like to issue a challenge to the devs.

Create a group of 5 players. Make them start at lvl 1. Level up their characters to 70, then level up your gear until you finish one epic dungeon. Let's see how long it takes you to be strong enough to finish one epic given the new changes you have made.

rollingonit · September 2015

I once offered a similar challenge in a different game. It had a more BIS challenge though, I offered to give them real $$ or the game equivalent. No one could do it. One person tried, but gave up.

It's not the same as yours, I think that challenge is actually possible in a reasonable amount of time; mine looking at the total cost of game, was nigh impossible.

oliboyph · September 2015

The reason for my challenge is of course to show that the amount of time needed is not reasonable. Remember i'm not saying reach lvl 70, but be strong enough to do one epic dungeon from scratch. It took me four months in previous AD setup to get 2.5k ilvl, and that's with 9 toons.

Given the changes, I want to see what direction that devs had in mind for new players to get to 2.5k ilvl? Or did they even take that into consideration?

Just to clarify I already have enough ilvl to do epic skirmishes, so I can just distribute drops from kessel's amongst my toons to try to earn about 100k ad a day. But what about the new players?

theycallmetomu · September 2015

Can we give them a zen purchases budget? Just to be fair. Something like 10 bucks per month or something. or maybe no zen, but they get VIP pass priviledges.

After all, I mean, it's clear that they want people spending SOME money on the game if they want to get along without excess grief. My biggest complaint is just how MUCH money you need to spend on the game if you want to get anything out of it.

therealairhead · September 2015

oliboyph said:

Given the changes, I want to see what direction that devs had in mind for new players to get to 2.5k ilvl? Or did they even take that into consideration?

I personally don't think they considered it at all, at least not in the sense of 'enticing new players'. They may have 'considered' it, but then decided it was a lost venture. I mean, look at what they've been doing the last 5 months... taking away content, invalidating existing gear, lowering player revenue. It's all a 'big squeeze'; to get as much money out of the players as possible. Game is 3 years old isn't it? Squeeze what money you can out of the game, and develop another one. (Aren't they working on a new secret game now?).

I've enjoyed playing. And I had a few toons at leadership-25 for 3 months, 8 more under 20, so I was in the red on my investment and got burned (wasted 800k ad and some real money for character-slots). That's depressing sure. Mod-6 was depressing as well. Devs just turning stuff off is depressing.

BUT the most depressing idea to me, is that all these actions are the actions of a company that has basically given up on growing/improving their product and bringing in new players,

For a new player, there are basically 3 different games now:
game-1: 1-60 is nice, good story, interesting, different classes play differently, it's fun imo.
game-2: 60-70 is ridiculously boring, campaigns are so-so.
game-3: 70+ gear improving game is insanely slow, and after the ad-leadership nerf, a practical impossibility unless one spends real money.

The only reasonable idea is that cryptic thinks for every 100 people who join, 95 will get to level-60, maybe 40 will get to level 70 and get most of the boons, and maybe 1 of them will get 'hooked' and pay a few thousand bucks. PLUS, they get all this by actually doing/maintaining less of the total-product (by removing content, rehashing old content etc.), take half their devs and have them work on the new secret game they have in dev, run the whole thing on cheap servers in a cheap data-center, etc. It all says they have given up on the 'enticing new player' part of the model. The 'heavily invested' will stay to some degree because they are just that, 'heavily invested'. New players will wander in, and 1/100 will spend big money, population will probably go down some, but overall, hang between the 2-3k steam mark. Rehash content, and it will just float along. Those of us that were in the middle of the third-game are just collateral damage.

Unknown · September 2015

This content has been removed.

oliboyph · September 2015

theycallmetomu said:
Can we give them a zen purchases budget? Just to be fair. Something like 10 bucks per month or something. or maybe no zen, but they get VIP pass priviledges.

After all, I mean, it's clear that they want people spending SOME money on the game if they want to get along without excess grief. My biggest complaint is just how MUCH money you need to spend on the game if you want to get anything out of it.

Well we can start them with the usual 50 bucks for use to buy mounts and bags at the start, and then 10 buck a month from then on. That sounds about average.

kreatyve · September 2015

We are going to leave this open for now, but please keep the comments constructive. Thank you.

oliboyph · September 2015

kreatyve said:
We are going to leave this open for now, but please keep the comments constructive. Thank you.

Look, the changes could be promising, but let's face it, they just made gearing up very hard for the have-nots in this game. Plus please check the bug categories. Not much attention there, but we are not getting the 3kAD on the first two runs in dungeon. Thanks.

kreatyve · September 2015

oliboyph said:

kreatyve said:
We are going to leave this open for now, but please keep the comments constructive. Thank you.
Look, the changes could be promising, but let's face it, they just made gearing up very hard for the have-nots in this game. Plus please check the bug categories. Not much attention there, but we are not getting the 3kAD on the first two runs in dungeon. Thanks.

Yes, this is a bit of an issue. The boss seems to be dropping the AD on the floor that needs to be ran over to pick up, similar to how you have to pick-up lockboxes, but people are getting their AD if they do this. Also, if you kill the boss outside of the boss room, the reports are saying that the AD won't drop in those cases.

sorce · September 2015

Look, if they are killing the boss outside of the boss room... Well they don't deserve the AD then.

kreatyve · September 2015

confusedpoof said:
Look, if they are killing the boss outside of the boss room... Well they don't deserve the AD then.

Agree. Also, I'm sorry for a bit of a derail. Please continue with the original topic.

Also - several of the devs have stated on various live streams with the CM's over the past 2 years that they do play the game on their off hours, on non-dev accounts. They don't reveal their @handles for various reasons, but I am pretty sure that they do play.

oliboyph · September 2015

kreatyve said:

oliboyph said:

kreatyve said:
We are going to leave this open for now, but please keep the comments constructive. Thank you.
Look, the changes could be promising, but let's face it, they just made gearing up very hard for the have-nots in this game. Plus please check the bug categories. Not much attention there, but we are not getting the 3kAD on the first two runs in dungeon. Thanks.
Yes, this is a bit of an issue. The boss seems to be dropping the AD on the floor that needs to be ran over to pick up, similar to how you have to pick-up lockboxes, but people are getting their AD if they do this. Also, if you kill the boss outside of the boss room, the reports are saying that the AD won't drop in those cases.

Oh, i'd better check this. The information was that it would be automatic, I don't bother picking up seals because i'm already mased, so I don't bother checking the blue stuff on the boss.

regenerde · September 2015

You might as well challenge them to run dungeons and skirmishes with the recommended itemlevel and not above it.
No GM or Dev tools, and they should stream those runs.

oliboyph · September 2015

kreatyve said:

oliboyph said:

kreatyve said:
We are going to leave this open for now, but please keep the comments constructive. Thank you.
Look, the changes could be promising, but let's face it, they just made gearing up very hard for the have-nots in this game. Plus please check the bug categories. Not much attention there, but we are not getting the 3kAD on the first two runs in dungeon. Thanks.
Yes, this is a bit of an issue. The boss seems to be dropping the AD on the floor that needs to be ran over to pick up, similar to how you have to pick-up lockboxes, but people are getting their AD if they do this. Also, if you kill the boss outside of the boss room, the reports are saying that the AD won't drop in those cases.

Nope, tried it just now. Character's 1st run only got 1.5k, 2nd run only 1.25k. I tried running over body of boss over and over again. This is normal TOS btw, so yeah boss is inside room.

oliboyph · September 2015

regenerde said:
You might as well challenge them to run dungeons and skirmishes with the recommended itemlevel and not above it.
No GM or Dev tools, and they should stream those runs.

I would pay to see that. They should have cams pointed on each of their faces.

tassedethe13 · September 2015

oliboyph said:

regenerde said:

I would pay to see that. They should have cams pointed on each of their faces.

New Zen market Item ?

"Leap of faith" 5 Devs with 2K GS trying to run One epic dungon with a time limit of 3 hours => 10 000 ZEN
* Pop corn not included *

drkbodhi · September 2015

I just got my main to 2.5 iL... after 6 months of playing.
My GWF was at 2.0 iL immediately since I was farming seals to buy him gear... with my main.
My CW took about 3 months to hit 2.0 iL... I wanted to test their ability to make gear like I did on my main.

dandare · September 2015

OMG... you try to make them play infinite time or pay in cash? Cause right now without cash they would not get strong enough for every content before new content with more difficulty arrives.

inyawayupdeep · September 2015

NO WAY, don't make it easy on them. No cash, no Zen unless they earn AD and convert it. No god mode and Dungeon must be legit using a mix of classes, no using five OPS, in fact have one person pug a dungeon whatever team make up the game comes up with is what should be used. This would and should be a humbling and useful information gathering experience, if you allow them anything it should be the ability to change the game itself to make it playable.

oliboyph · September 2015

I think we're getting off point here. The challenge is to see how they plan on getting the AD needed to have enough item lvl to run the epics. It's impossible right now.

1.)Toons can't contribute as much anymore.
2.)You need to invest too much time just to get a some AD even if the AD Drops gets fixed.
3.)Current AD Drop from Dungeons and Skirmishes are broken.

Just to clarify, this affects everyone. Hell even if you have Zen, unless you sell it for AD how do you buy your GMOPs?

What i just want to clarify here, is that their changes, do not affect the people that already have their gears, or their AD. It affect the people that are still working their way, or are just starting out.

theycallmetomu · September 2015

Yeah, the poor new players. People like me, we're happy with leadership AD removed. Means our millions of AD have that much more relative purchasing power! Well, people who have leadership armies (I stuck to only 2 chars) may complain that their income has dropped, but their comparative wealth is much higher now.

That being said? I'm kind of surprised the price of zen has recovered a bit; the price of zen seems to have stabilized around 452, which is way higher than I was anticipating. Since everyone who held huge amounts of zen inevitably liquidated their zen for AD, I'm somewhat surprised the market has decided "nah, 452 is a good number."

d4rthd00fus · September 2015

I think forcing them to only use RP dropped with the nerfed DH enchants, out of whack professions and other drops would be appropriate. No using botted RP from the AH of course. Also you can give them 1000 zen a month they must spend on blood rubies. Once they hit 70 in about a month and get their artifact weapons and gear, should only take them about another 2 years to get that stuff leveled up to where they can do an epic dungeon. Unfortunately by then they will be the only ones left on the server :P

ssinafey · September 2015

inyawayupdeep said:
NO WAY, don't make it easy on them. No cash, no Zen unless they earn AD and convert it. No god mode and Dungeon must be legit using a mix of classes, no using five OPS, in fact have one person pug a dungeon whatever team make up the game comes up with is what should be used. This would and should be a humbling and useful information gathering experience, if you allow them anything it should be the ability to change the game itself to make it playable.

I mostly support this. Maybe let'em spend some money on zen. Also to see how long itll take'em to actually reach the teamplay to complete all the current content (exluding maxingout SH ofc). Then reach certain IL trashhold, say 2,5k 3k ect. Also the pugging atleast 1 player can be awesome experience for them, to see just how weak pugging groups really are, not to mention how poorly the queue system works.

oliboyph · September 2015

ssinafey said:

I mostly support this. Maybe let'em spend some money on zen. Also to see how long itll take'em to actually reach the teamplay to complete all the current content (exluding maxingout SH ofc). Then reach certain IL trashhold, say 2,5k 3k ect. Also the pugging atleast 1 player can be awesome experience for them, to see just how weak pugging groups really are, not to mention how poorly the queue system works.

Exactly, thought I hope they realize that it's the reason why pugging groups are weak. These players are playing the dungeon to get the gear they need to do that dungeon. Only way to way around is to get 4 epic artifacts, and all rank 9's + Normal Soulforged, that's about 7M worth of gears, or 70 GMOP's how long will it take you to get 70 GMOP's? What's the road map? I hope they take this challenge seriously. I think we all feel that there seems to be a disconnect between dev's and players.

silverkelt · September 2015

I dont think that is a issue, anyone can get to 2k+ with about 65-70 days played with most of the boons involved.

That is enough to do the t1s easier enough .

However, to advance further then the early 2k range takes millions and millions of AD. Thats the issue, with a leadership army you could slowly chip away at it, but now, its a nightmare.

Costing is the only issue in this game, fix costing, fix the game.

tantrumusmaximus · September 2015

theycallmetomu said:
Can we give them a zen purchases budget? Just to be fair. Something like 10 bucks per month or something. or maybe no zen, but they get VIP pass priviledges.

After all, I mean, it's clear that they want people spending SOME money on the game if they want to get along without excess grief. My biggest complaint is just how MUCH money you need to spend on the game if you want to get anything out of it.

Good suggestion but come on keep it realistic

... $100/mo is more in line with what they think players should be spending LOL

silverkelt · September 2015

again.. getting to the point of running a t1 is simply not a challenge.

I challenge them to get to item lvl 3k to even start competing in pvp. Thats the real issue and more in line with what many of us are trying to do. It will take them years on the 200 a year budget for the most part, especially now.

Ill give your vip rank 1 a month advancement (thats 120 a year ) a couple of bags (30 bucks) 1 epic mount (30 dollars) and a stone (20 bucks)

So they can have a budget of 200.00 in zen to start with.

Come back to us and let us know, no other items may be purchased, players dont buy cwards, players done buy pres wards and the like for the most part. (or if we did, it was to resell them honestly ((especially the pres wards))

Average MMO player simply doesnt drop more then 2-400 dollars a year on a game, any more then that and its ridiculous costing for entertainment value in the end. I dont mind spending a few hundred dollars(maybe up to a thousand) in a lifetime of a game(3-4 years spread out), if I get value of entertainment back(considering I dropped cable years and years ago, mmos are my entertainment)

But your zen costing is ridiculous(always has been).. I do not know one person in real life who would drop 2k just to play a game... Im sure there are people on here who would, but I just dont know anyone who think that is feasible. In addition, nor do I know anyone who thinks its healthy to set up a game to require 8-10 hours a day of playing every day just to advance.. its not.

Build your games around more typical averages. Cater to the middle class and your game will flourish. Pandering to the top 10 and bottom 10 % of any game , never has really worked out well for all involved.

You can have the average play time of slightly over 2 hours a day mmo average. (call it 2.5) , you ALSO have to drop in 400 influence a day in your guild coffers.

BY the time you get something to the point of upgrading the game rules will change over and over and over and over and over and over..

Good luck!

theycallmetomu · September 2015

Well ,ultimately, for any such "challenge" to be meaningful, it has to be what the devs expect of us.

Maybe the devs DON'T expect us to get to 3k item level. Maybe the existence of 3k item level requirements is just because somehow there's a bunch of crazy BiSers running around. It's like "Well, we're going to give them something to do, but we recognize that SHOULD be unattainable, and we have no idea how they got there."

Maybe!

regenerde · September 2015

No boons, unless they farm AD for those boons by themself with running dungeons, skirmishes and PvP with random groups under the current regulations.
Just let them have VIP, but nothing else extra, and as allready mentioned, they should stream these runs too...

strous1 · September 2015

Wont happen. They would prove our point for us, and they don't want to do that.

Challenge for the NW Devs

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