There needs to be a route to AD for solo players, sooner rather than later. This game should not require you to farm dungeon and skirmish content if you are a solo player.
I'd also like to see leadership fixed before the next expansion. It should take weeks not months to jazz it up, even if it needs to be a two step process (fix tasks that make NO SENSE now, re-evaluate everything later)
I would think AD for solo players in an MMO is a bit of a non sequitur. You gain AD by doing dungeons, skirmishes, quests, and PVP just like everyone else. As a solo player the main things you'll lose out on is the guild Stronghold and the increase of success in content that comes from not having to PUG for dungeons, PVP, and the like. That said, what changes in leadership would you like to see?
It really is not that difficult of an answer. All of the story-line, and campaign, quests should also reward AD for their completion as it something that rewards everyone for playing the game.
MMO quests are so stupid any bot would be able to do them. its not going to happen
LOL! The 100% automated, slightly attended, and manually run thru multi-boxing bots being used by the currency/item sellers are already running every dungeon, campaign zone, quest, and PVP zone for every drop/reward that is worth selling. Anyone who does not understand this is either new to MMO's or is being willfully ignorant. That is simply the reality of 98%+ of every MMO that has ever been released. The cost, and degradation of game performance, prohibits the use of the Deep Packet Inspection software by the vast majority of games. The cost of using in game GM's also prohibits the use of this bot removing tool in the vast majority of games of well. The last method that would actually work, the ability to claim any/every reward one time only, is also cost prohibitive as that requires the constant generation of new content....with one exception, the running of the available story-line quests.
AFAIK, you can only complete each story line quest 1 time, so please tell me how any bot can abuse that reward without creating a new account. The AD reward for campaign zones should reduce after completing the necessary amount of runs to unlock each successive boon/reward.
No game can expect to be profitable, let alone survive, if it punishes legitimate players in the never-ending battle against the cheaters and currency sellers who employ the methods described above.
Damaged who? Only exploiters were damaged. I too panicked for one day but at the same time was asking for that for months. Now things are reachable for normal players and it will be even more with GMOPS price lowered by much. Only problem is that VIP is less inviting now.
Well done but they should fix everything else... prices on the Zen market, upgrades costs, transmutation costs, etc.
I think, that you dont get it at all. Damaged exploiters? If someone really exploited, he has hundreds of millions of ADs, AS IT IS. By reducing income and making AD more valuable, you made them richer.
If you are talking about ppl with leadership on more than one char or even 'armies': If they really used this system since a few years, see above. If they are new players who build their 'army' to compensate the AD sinks and the inflation, they are not exploiters, but ppl who got screwed by PW. They spent millions of AD or even real money for a known system, used by GMs and promoted in this very forum and lost it all.
I said it in other posts and I say it again, they should have implemented all the changes asked for in this post AND the leadership changes and I would have said, done right.
What happened was a screw up and what is happening as damage control and if they dont do it fast, they will lose players in spades. If this adjustments take more than a few weeks/ month, they can pad their own backs, bc there wont be many players left, congratulating them on their changes.
PS. tolkienbuff, I recall your name from many insightful PvP related posts, did you take extended vacations? Good to see you back.
Chars: CW, DC, GF, GWF, HR and TR.
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theycallmetomuMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,861Arc User
Clearly the solution is to close Neverwinter permanently, and build Neverwinter Nights 3 as a single player campaign. Who's with me? Anyone? Anyone?
Clearly the solution is to close Neverwinter permanently, and build Neverwinter Nights 3 as a single player campaign. Who's with me? Anyone? Anyone?
I can tell you as someone who has been trying to fill the hole of this game with single player games that this doesn't work. The social aspect is why people play MMOs. We can rejoice, rage and cry together, a shared experience. It's why the forums have become that game for many who no longer play the actual game, or at least wait for certain staff members to be fired and the game to get back on track.
I am sad that Sword Coast Legends is delayed, but also heartened by the news. You know why? Feedback from the players caused them to re-evaluate certain parts of the game to make it a better experience. This is something I really hope the current team, or whoever replaces them when PWE sees this months numbers, is more attuned to.
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santralafaxMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 2,896Arc User
Damaged who? Only exploiters were damaged. I too panicked for one day but at the same time was asking for that for months. Now things are reachable for normal players and it will be even more with GMOPS price lowered by much. Only problem is that VIP is less inviting now.
Well done but they should fix everything else... prices on the Zen market, upgrades costs, transmutation costs, etc.
I think, that you dont get it at all. Damaged exploiters? If someone really exploited, he has hundreds of millions of ADs, AS IT IS. By reducing income and making AD more valuable, you made them richer.
If you are talking about ppl with leadership on more than one char or even 'armies': If they really used this system since a few years, see above. If they are new players who build their 'army' to compensate the AD sinks and the inflation, they are not exploiters, but ppl who got screwed by PW. They spent millions of AD or even real money for a known system, used by GMs and promoted in this very forum and lost it all.
I said it in other posts and I say it again, they should have implemented all the changes asked for in this post AND the leadership changes and I would have said, done right.
What happened was a screw up and what is happening as damage control and if they dont do it fast, they will lose players in spades. If this adjustments take more than a few weeks/ month, they can pad their own backs, bc there wont be many players left, congratulating them on their changes.
PS. tolkienbuff, I recall your name from many insightful PvP related posts, did you take extended vacations? Good to see you back.
Now it takes me 1/2 of the time to buy a Plague, 1/2 of the time to buy anything. I don't care about being BiS, I don't need even Legendary equipment to run content. I would run it easier but I can still do everything except dealing with BiS in PVP. That is what matter, things cost 1/2, and with the GMOPS reworking some things will cost even less. Now spending 500 Zen and converting it to AD has a meaning because those 200000 AD has value. Even RP cost less, except for exploiters, look at Resonance Stones prices.
^ This is what I'm talking about, everything is cheaper and continuing to get cheaper. Gaining 24-50k AD a day isn't that challenging and much more is even possible. The price of GMoPs are dropping today, everything is cheaper and easier to upgrade, zen is available through the Zax, Enchants are coming down. If you just look at the AD you had per day vs. what you'll have now then you will complain, but if you consider what doing away with insane inflation was doing then you'll see this is a healthier economy to deal with.
Thanks for your time.
On ambush rings: "How would you like PVE if all the mobs were invisible?"
My suggestion is to completely gut the whole astral diamond system from the game and base it all on GOLD! It would solve all of your problems besides creating more from a programming aspect.
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theycallmetomuMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,861Arc User
Clearly the solution is to close Neverwinter permanently, and build Neverwinter Nights 3 as a single player campaign. Who's with me? Anyone? Anyone?
I can tell you as someone who has been trying to fill the hole of this game with single player games that this doesn't work. The social aspect is why people play MMOs. We can rejoice, rage and cry together, a shared experience. It's why the forums have become that game for many who no longer play the actual game, or at least wait for certain staff members to be fired and the game to get back on track.
I am sad that Sword Coast Legends is delayed, but also heartened by the news. You know why? Feedback from the players caused them to re-evaluate certain parts of the game to make it a better experience. This is something I really hope the current team, or whoever replaces them when PWE sees this months numbers, is more attuned to.
They were selling SCL as being 5th edition, but it's hardly more tied to 5th edition than Neverwinter is to 4th. I just went ahead and asked for a refund.
That being said, I wouldn't expect them to completely redesign every single element of the game, I just don't intend on participating in it.
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theycallmetomuMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,861Arc User
Clearly the solution is to close Neverwinter permanently, and build Neverwinter Nights 3 as a single player campaign. Who's with me? Anyone? Anyone?
not from the same team these two games. and thankful for that since NWN1,2 were good games instead.
Yeah, not from the same team. But, I mean, a game doesn't have to be Baldur's Gate 2 in order to be a good implementation of a Dungeons and Dragon's rules set. I mean, look at Temple of Elemental Evil-
-wait, don't, you're probably thinking about how it was so buggy as to be borderline unplayable. Bad example!
There needs to be a route to AD for solo players, sooner rather than later. This game should not require you to farm dungeon and skirmish content if you are a solo player.
I'd also like to see leadership fixed before the next expansion. It should take weeks not months to jazz it up, even if it needs to be a two step process (fix tasks that make NO SENSE now, re-evaluate everything later)
I would think AD for solo players in an MMO is a bit of a non sequitur. You gain AD by doing dungeons, skirmishes, quests, and PVP just like everyone else. As a solo player the main things you'll lose out on is the guild Stronghold and the increase of success in content that comes from not having to PUG for dungeons, PVP, and the like. That said, what changes in leadership would you like to see?
It really is not that difficult of an answer. All of the story-line, and campaign, quests should also reward AD for their completion as it something that rewards everyone for playing the game.
MMO quests are so stupid any bot would be able to do them. its not going to happen
LOL! The 100% automated, slightly attended, and manually run thru multi-boxing bots being used by the currency/item sellers are already running every dungeon, campaign zone, quest, and PVP zone for every drop/reward that is worth selling. Anyone who does not understand this is either new to MMO's or is being willfully ignorant. That is simply the reality of 98%+ of every MMO that has ever been released. The cost, and degradation of game performance, prohibits the use of the Deep Packet Inspection software by the vast majority of games. The cost of using in game GM's also prohibits the use of this bot removing tool in the vast majority of games of well. The last method that would actually work, the ability to claim any/every reward one time only, is also cost prohibitive as that requires the constant generation of new content....with one exception, the running of the available story-line quests.
AFAIK, you can only complete each story line quest 1 time, so please tell me how any bot can abuse that reward without creating a new account. The AD reward for campaign zones should reduce after completing the necessary amount of runs to unlock each successive boon/reward.
No game can expect to be profitable, let alone survive, if it punishes legitimate players in the never-ending battle against the cheaters and currency sellers who employ the methods described above.
dude... just because people is botting in dungeons doesnt mean we have to make their life even easier. you first bring actual controls and then change whatever you want. priorities. right now the proposal of ad with common dailies ( sharandar, dread ring etc ) isnt feasible. ADs on bigger HE in stronghold is something i can see happening. so no im not ignorant, i think to side effects of stupid ideas.
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theycallmetomuMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,861Arc User
edited September 2015
Ahhh good point, we don't want to add content that bots can easily bot. Bleh. That DOES make getting AD from daily content somewhat problematic. hmm.
What about high difficulty solo content?
Or maybe foundry quests, that are rotating. So, like, every day, there'd be a "chosen" foundry quest that offers your daily AD allotment. Since it'd be a rotating pool, bots would have a harder time figuring out how to script through it. I mean, obviously, you hit enough buttons you get to where you're going but still. Hmm.
There needs to be a route to AD for solo players, sooner rather than later. This game should not require you to farm dungeon and skirmish content if you are a solo player.
I'd also like to see leadership fixed before the next expansion. It should take weeks not months to jazz it up, even if it needs to be a two step process (fix tasks that make NO SENSE now, re-evaluate everything later)
I would think AD for solo players in an MMO is a bit of a non sequitur. You gain AD by doing dungeons, skirmishes, quests, and PVP just like everyone else. As a solo player the main things you'll lose out on is the guild Stronghold and the increase of success in content that comes from not having to PUG for dungeons, PVP, and the like. That said, what changes in leadership would you like to see?
It really is not that difficult of an answer. All of the story-line, and campaign, quests should also reward AD for their completion as it something that rewards everyone for playing the game.
MMO quests are so stupid any bot would be able to do them. its not going to happen
LOL! The 100% automated, slightly attended, and manually run thru multi-boxing bots being used by the currency/item sellers are already running every dungeon, campaign zone, quest, and PVP zone for every drop/reward that is worth selling. Anyone who does not understand this is either new to MMO's or is being willfully ignorant. That is simply the reality of 98%+ of every MMO that has ever been released. The cost, and degradation of game performance, prohibits the use of the Deep Packet Inspection software by the vast majority of games. The cost of using in game GM's also prohibits the use of this bot removing tool in the vast majority of games of well. The last method that would actually work, the ability to claim any/every reward one time only, is also cost prohibitive as that requires the constant generation of new content....with one exception, the running of the available story-line quests.
AFAIK, you can only complete each story line quest 1 time, so please tell me how any bot can abuse that reward without creating a new account. The AD reward for campaign zones should reduce after completing the necessary amount of runs to unlock each successive boon/reward.
No game can expect to be profitable, let alone survive, if it punishes legitimate players in the never-ending battle against the cheaters and currency sellers who employ the methods described above.
dude... just because people is botting in dungeons doesnt mean we have to make their life even easier. you first bring actual controls and then change whatever you want. priorities. right now the proposal of ad with common dailies ( sharandar, dread ring etc ) isnt feasible. ADs on bigger HE in stronghold is something i can see happening. so no im not ignorant, i think to side effects of stupid ideas.
Please don't deflect and explain how you would make it any easier on the bots(than it already is) by making AD rewards on story-line quests that you can only do 1 time per character? How does it make it easier (than it already is) by offering diminishing rewards on campaign quests? Simple changes as these would make it better for legitimate, and new, players.
Cyptic, and the players who have bought into their bot propaganda(which is being put forth at an increasing rate by some of the moderators), is/are not looking at the total picture. The changes will not end the bots used by players or currency sellers. Even if Cryptic employed the necessary tools to defeat the bots, they would simply begin multi-boxing to get around their implementation. Currency sellers play games in order to earn a living, not for fun as legitimate players do. Hardcore players will do whatever it takes to gain an advantage over other players. Whales will continue to pay to win. It is simply the way things are in the world of MMO's. *shrugs*
To alter a phrase from soylent green......BOTS are people! PEOPLE create bots to do tasks they don't want to do. Currency sellers use bots to do those tasks 24/7 so they can sell the stuff to other players and convert to RL currency.
What 2 things stop bots cold? NoRepeat-ability and randomness. Bots are scripts that do something again and again. Bots need a structure to go through, they are based on defined key strokes or motions.
Make content not be, do, rinse, repeat and the bot has no use. Make the content have random features in it and the bot fails, it's a dumb set of predefined motions, it doesn't "interpret" content like a human does, it mindlessly plods through what it was told to do, that's why bot log-on programs fail when confronted with capcha passwords, they can't figure out what the human eye can.
So IF bots are the big problem (I believe they are SOME not AII of the problem, they are being used as a red herring) design content that is either non-repeat or has as much randomness featured in it as possible.
Solo content: Npc has a story arc quest, set for your character, you go from a to b to c. There is nothing to "repeat" for a bot to exploit. If "dailies" must be a feature for factioning or attuning, make the dailies have as many varients as possible. Have it be 4 or more different quests that randomly spawn.
PvP content: If all it takes is you to engage once vs. other players to activate the match, then there after you can't be kicked or auto banned, if all you need do after then is sit at the campfire, bots will exploit that every minute of the week. You need vote kicks and other dynamics in, you can't even use the inactive feature, time out or auto kicks, they can program the bot to run in circles or go to goal area etc to get around that. Either a actual human gets to kick them to stop bot abuse, or the bot has to "engage" the other player more than 1 time in a given time frame.
Skirmish content: Bots can just sit at the campfire while every one else runs the skirmish OR they can have a bot party (who says they don't have multiple accounts?) once the skirmish is "finished" by human players it can go to reward spawn and get the reward and credit for it's "work". In the case of a bot party they need 1 or both of the following: areas of immunity (terrain feature they can range from and not be hit) or a healer/tank combo. The bot has to time strictures to it, 1 tank as long as it's healed can take hours to finally kill a boss if need be. The boss has to be structured in such a way that it don't only attack it's primary agro target.
Dungeon content: See skirmish, it's basicly the same problem and solution.
The current bot problem, now that leadership got the nerf bat to the back of the skull is "zoning" exploits. They zone places like ghost stories and farm the nodes. It's repeatable, and the same plodding steps 24/7. Either the zone maps have to have the resource nodes scrambled up and randomized where they spawn, or they have to have a limit to how often that instance is spawned for the character per day.
If you eliminate everything that is a grind, then the players that use bots to repeat a boring task will not even need or want them. If you eliminate things that are repeatable and introduce either randomness or a human check somewhere you will kill the currency sell bots.
Now it takes me 1/2 of the time to buy a Plague, 1/2 of the time to buy anything. I don't care about being BiS, I don't need even Legendary equipment to run content. I would run it easier but I can still do everything except dealing with BiS in PVP. That is what matter, things cost 1/2, and with the GMOPS reworking some things will cost even less. Now spending 500 Zen and converting it to AD has a meaning because those 200000 AD has value. Even RP cost less, except for exploiters, look at Resonance Stones prices.
Good for you, I am happy, that you can get the equip, that you desire, but that does not make this thing good. I am not complaining about lost revenue, but about lost trust and a bad implementation of the changes.
I, as an example, am a beta player, with 4 chars between 2.5 and 3k IL and one near BIS char, that 'lost' some of his R12s, due to the fact that I sold them, when they announced the new system. I will make new ones with the reworked system and have some profit. Due to the fact, that I have millions of ADs, I can push all my chars to 3k+ IL easily, bc my ADs more than doubled in value and gearing up got cheaper. I did well, but there is no chance in hell, that I or any of my guidmembers can contribute enough, to max the strongholds (+500 million ADs).
REAL exploiters have, as I said, hundreds of millions of ADs and they got even richer by this changes.
If you are refering to ppl with leadership armies as 'exploiters', they get RPs for free. Just 20 chars with maxed leadership gives them 60 lesser, normal or greater resonance stones A DAY and some more. Thats 50k (double RP 100k RP) A DAY.
As I said before, I will say again, they did not hurt exploiters, they made them richer. They did put a dent into the income of ppl with leadership armies, that is compensated by the higher value of stockpiled ADs.
They did hurt the trust of casual players who spent money and time to build some chars up and used leadership to boost their income. They did hurt 'normal' guilds, who cant build their strongholds up, bc they cant spent millions and millions of ADs for ONE UPGRADE.
IF most of the asked changes will be implemented, this COULD be a boost for the regular player. As it is, it is rushed and a screw up.
Chars: CW, DC, GF, GWF, HR and TR.
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santralafaxMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 2,896Arc User
They did hurt the trust of casual players who spent money and time to build some chars up and used leadership to boost their income. They did hurt 'normal' guilds, who cant build their strongholds up, bc they cant spent millions and millions of ADs for ONE UPGRADE.
IF most of the asked changes will be implemented, this COULD be a boost for the regular player. As it is, it is rushed and a screw up.
As usual in our society punish everyone instead of just punishing the cheaters. Trace the exploiters and kick them out. Some of us spent time and money updating leadership so we could have AD. I wonder if you could sue them for breach of contract???
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theycallmetomuMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,861Arc User
Only if you've bought VIP access for a certain period of time and then the game is taken off-line permanently before your VIP access runs out. Even then it'd be hard to collect.
Bots will ALWAYS be able to bot ANY content no matter what you do...
My highest character IL is 1.8k and that was using leadership on each character. There is no way in hell i can acquire the AD needed to upgrade any further with the time I have and the content I play which is PVP. Each match takes anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour depending on the skill of the players involved or in some cases to which ever side is undermanned due to bugs, dcs, afkers or people who are trying it and don't like it so they leave thereby ganking the team. That's assuming you didn't get dc'ed and have to wait 30 minutes. Even though the client recognizes the crash we are still penalized for it...
17 days of VIP left until I delete this game if the devs don't pull their heads out of their asses...
Not ONE SINGLE freaking patch without some type of massive game disrupting bugs, pathetic...
But hey they will probably just delete this like they do my other comments...
theycallmetomuMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,861Arc User
There are way more toxic posts they don't delete than toxic posts they do.
But, "I quit!" threads, for instance, are prohibited, so if you ever make one, expect it to get nuked. Even then, they usually just close the thread, rather than deleting it outright.
x asterotg: Stronghold requirements should be reviewed since were already out of touch. But if there are guilds lv. 8. It's because there were exploiters putting their dirt money in it.
At least if they review requirements things will level out because exploiters will have already spent their money.
All this differences from a player to another it's because very few are old gamers that took advantage of greener times and exploiters both old and new. Now there are less way to exploit and economy leveled out. I'm happy.
I too had four toons (all level 70, all up for gaming), they were all doing Leadership, two level 19, two level 14. I'm ok to have renounced to 7k AD per day (total) if everyone gets leveled out. I asked for it. They should have been more open in rewarding for actual play anyway.
I am pretty much of the mind that the people who felt the leadership change was game breaking are gone (quite a few of my friends,sadly). I agree it's time to move forward with whatever economic plan they have put in place. Whatever direction they are going in , I wish they would get there a little more quickly.
I am ready to find my new money making niche
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silverkeltMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,235Arc User
One of the biggest issues since mod 4 in this game is their management of grind levels vs alt play. They have increasingly made it more and more difficult to play alts, which alot of us are NOT AT ALL happy with.
There was really no good reason to remove the AD, but I wasnt even opposed to it, I was opposed to HOW they did it, without also reducing costing 50-100% all across the board.
You also look at leadership (the longest (by far) profession to max)) and its a joke of what it was, nothing provides value, other then resonant stones, which you can only do 3 times a day. They could just remove everything except 1 500 exp reward you can spam to level and then the rest stones.
They cleary do not know what the players want on most levels (and yes, a small minority , like this OP want to be positive, even when we have lost a huge share of the playerbase) Im not a doom and gloom person per se, but it comes to the point, when you see the player population decrease 50% over a 6 month time spam give or take, that clearly, CLEARLY they effed things up.
Is this game better then it was at the start of mod 6? Yes, but like I pointed out hundreds of times, it was impossible to make it worse, if they did , none of us would be here, because the game wouldnt even be working.
They are WAY to slow at fixing items in a manner that benefits legit players, they also refuse to listen to one of our Major complaints, WE WANT to play alts, your game balance is too far off atm, reduction of grind is necessary.
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vinceent1Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,264Arc User
x asterotg: Stronghold requirements should be reviewed since were already out of touch. But if there are guilds lv. 8. It's because there were exploiters putting their dirt money in it.
At least if they review requirements things will level out because exploiters will have already spent their money.
All this differences from a player to another it's because very few are old gamers that took advantage of greener times and exploiters both old and new. Now there are less way to exploit and economy leveled out. I'm happy.
I too had four toons (all level 70, all up for gaming), they were all doing Leadership, two level 19, two level 14. I'm ok to have renounced to 7k AD per day (total) if everyone gets leveled out. I asked for it. They should have been more open in rewarding for actual play anyway.
I am pretty much of the mind that the people who felt the leadership change was game breaking are gone (quite a few of my friends,sadly). I agree it's time to move forward with whatever economic plan they have put in place. Whatever direction they are going in , I wish they would get there a little more quickly.
I am ready to find my new money making niche
looks like players who left after this gamebreaking decision has truth. current ingame AD rewarding is pathetic (pvp is even significantly lower thanks to winning quest removing). even new module was removed.....
Comments
You're thinking of Gemmed Exquisite items. I certainly don't want to reduce the profitability on those-I have all SORTS of tools!
AFAIK, you can only complete each story line quest 1 time, so please tell me how any bot can abuse that reward without creating a new account. The AD reward for campaign zones should reduce after completing the necessary amount of runs to unlock each successive boon/reward.
No game can expect to be profitable, let alone survive, if it punishes legitimate players in the never-ending battle against the cheaters and currency sellers who employ the methods described above.
If you are talking about ppl with leadership on more than one char or even 'armies': If they really used this system since a few years, see above. If they are new players who build their 'army' to compensate the AD sinks and the inflation, they are not exploiters, but ppl who got screwed by PW. They spent millions of AD or even real money for a known system, used by GMs and promoted in this very forum and lost it all.
I said it in other posts and I say it again, they should have implemented all the changes asked for in this post AND the leadership changes and I would have said, done right.
What happened was a screw up and what is happening as damage control and if they dont do it fast, they will lose players in spades. If this adjustments take more than a few weeks/ month, they can pad their own backs, bc there wont be many players left, congratulating them on their changes.
PS. tolkienbuff, I recall your name from many insightful PvP related posts, did you take extended vacations? Good to see you back.
I am sad that Sword Coast Legends is delayed, but also heartened by the news. You know why? Feedback from the players caused them to re-evaluate certain parts of the game to make it a better experience. This is something I really hope the current team, or whoever replaces them when PWE sees this months numbers, is more attuned to.
Thanks for your time.
That being said, I wouldn't expect them to completely redesign every single element of the game, I just don't intend on participating in it.
-wait, don't, you're probably thinking about how it was so buggy as to be borderline unplayable. Bad example!
you first bring actual controls and then change whatever you want.
priorities.
right now the proposal of ad with common dailies ( sharandar, dread ring etc ) isnt feasible.
ADs on bigger HE in stronghold is something i can see happening.
so no im not ignorant, i think to side effects of stupid ideas.
What about high difficulty solo content?
Or maybe foundry quests, that are rotating. So, like, every day, there'd be a "chosen" foundry quest that offers your daily AD allotment. Since it'd be a rotating pool, bots would have a harder time figuring out how to script through it. I mean, obviously, you hit enough buttons you get to where you're going but still. Hmm.
Cyptic, and the players who have bought into their bot propaganda(which is being put forth at an increasing rate by some of the moderators), is/are not looking at the total picture. The changes will not end the bots used by players or currency sellers. Even if Cryptic employed the necessary tools to defeat the bots, they would simply begin multi-boxing to get around their implementation. Currency sellers play games in order to earn a living, not for fun as legitimate players do. Hardcore players will do whatever it takes to gain an advantage over other players. Whales will continue to pay to win. It is simply the way things are in the world of MMO's. *shrugs*
PEOPLE create bots to do tasks they don't want to do. Currency sellers use bots to do those tasks 24/7 so they can sell the stuff to other players and convert to RL currency.
What 2 things stop bots cold? NoRepeat-ability and randomness.
Bots are scripts that do something again and again. Bots need a structure to go through, they are based on defined key strokes or motions.
Make content not be, do, rinse, repeat and the bot has no use. Make the content have random features in it and the bot fails, it's a dumb set of predefined motions, it doesn't "interpret" content like a human does, it mindlessly plods through what it was told to do, that's why bot log-on programs fail when confronted with capcha passwords, they can't figure out what the human eye can.
So IF bots are the big problem (I believe they are SOME not AII of the problem, they are being used as a red herring) design content that is either non-repeat or has as much randomness featured in it as possible.
Solo content: Npc has a story arc quest, set for your character, you go from a to b to c. There is nothing to "repeat" for a bot to exploit. If "dailies" must be a feature for factioning or attuning, make the dailies have as many varients as possible. Have it be 4 or more different quests that randomly spawn.
PvP content: If all it takes is you to engage once vs. other players to activate the match, then there after you can't be kicked or auto banned, if all you need do after then is sit at the campfire, bots will exploit that every minute of the week. You need vote kicks and other dynamics in, you can't even use the inactive feature, time out or auto kicks, they can program the bot to run in circles or go to goal area etc to get around that. Either a actual human gets to kick them to stop bot abuse, or the bot has to "engage" the other player more than 1 time in a given time frame.
Skirmish content: Bots can just sit at the campfire while every one else runs the skirmish OR they can have a bot party (who says they don't have multiple accounts?) once the skirmish is "finished" by human players it can go to reward spawn and get the reward and credit for it's "work". In the case of a bot party they need 1 or both of the following: areas of immunity (terrain feature they can range from and not be hit) or a healer/tank combo. The bot has to time strictures to it, 1 tank as long as it's healed can take hours to finally kill a boss if need be. The boss has to be structured in such a way that it don't only attack it's primary agro target.
Dungeon content: See skirmish, it's basicly the same problem and solution.
The current bot problem, now that leadership got the nerf bat to the back of the skull is "zoning" exploits. They zone places like ghost stories and farm the nodes. It's repeatable, and the same plodding steps 24/7. Either the zone maps have to have the resource nodes scrambled up and randomized where they spawn, or they have to have a limit to how often that instance is spawned for the character per day.
If you eliminate everything that is a grind, then the players that use bots to repeat a boring task will not even need or want them. If you eliminate things that are repeatable and introduce either randomness or a human check somewhere you will kill the currency sell bots.
I, as an example, am a beta player, with 4 chars between 2.5 and 3k IL and one near BIS char, that 'lost' some of his R12s, due to the fact that I sold them, when they announced the new system. I will make new ones with the reworked system and have some profit. Due to the fact, that I have millions of ADs, I can push all my chars to 3k+ IL easily, bc my ADs more than doubled in value and gearing up got cheaper. I did well, but there is no chance in hell, that I or any of my guidmembers can contribute enough, to max the strongholds (+500 million ADs).
REAL exploiters have, as I said, hundreds of millions of ADs and they got even richer by this changes.
If you are refering to ppl with leadership armies as 'exploiters', they get RPs for free. Just 20 chars with maxed leadership gives them 60 lesser, normal or greater resonance stones A DAY and some more. Thats 50k (double RP 100k RP) A DAY.
As I said before, I will say again, they did not hurt exploiters, they made them richer. They did put a dent into the income of ppl with leadership armies, that is compensated by the higher value of stockpiled ADs.
They did hurt the trust of casual players who spent money and time to build some chars up and used leadership to boost their income. They did hurt 'normal' guilds, who cant build their strongholds up, bc they cant spent millions and millions of ADs for ONE UPGRADE.
IF most of the asked changes will be implemented, this COULD be a boost for the regular player. As it is, it is rushed and a screw up.
Bots will ALWAYS be able to bot ANY content no matter what you do...
My highest character IL is 1.8k and that was using leadership on each character. There is no way in hell i can acquire the AD needed to upgrade any further with the time I have and the content I play which is PVP. Each match takes anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour depending on the skill of the players involved or in some cases to which ever side is undermanned due to bugs, dcs, afkers or people who are trying it and don't like it so they leave thereby ganking the team. That's assuming you didn't get dc'ed and have to wait 30 minutes. Even though the client recognizes the crash we are still penalized for it...
17 days of VIP left until I delete this game if the devs don't pull their heads out of their asses...
Not ONE SINGLE freaking patch without some type of massive game disrupting bugs, pathetic...
But hey they will probably just delete this like they do my other comments...
Dorlin: Level 65 GF/2nd Account: Calias/62
Elkysium: Level 65 CW/2nd Account: Krystalyn/62
Artemis: Level 65 TR/2nd Account: Fayne/62
Zantoth: Level 65 DC/2nd Account: Nemea/62
Kryndar: Level 65 HR/2nd Account: Lilith/62
Goreb: Level 65 GWF/2nd Account: Tysha/62
Bamidor: Level 65 OP/2nd Account: Valindra/62
But, "I quit!" threads, for instance, are prohibited, so if you ever make one, expect it to get nuked. Even then, they usually just close the thread, rather than deleting it outright.
I am ready to find my new money making niche
There was really no good reason to remove the AD, but I wasnt even opposed to it, I was opposed to HOW they did it, without also reducing costing 50-100% all across the board.
You also look at leadership (the longest (by far) profession to max)) and its a joke of what it was, nothing provides value, other then resonant stones, which you can only do 3 times a day. They could just remove everything except 1 500 exp reward you can spam to level and then the rest stones.
They cleary do not know what the players want on most levels (and yes, a small minority , like this OP want to be positive, even when we have lost a huge share of the playerbase) Im not a doom and gloom person per se, but it comes to the point, when you see the player population decrease 50% over a 6 month time spam give or take, that clearly, CLEARLY they effed things up.
Is this game better then it was at the start of mod 6? Yes, but like I pointed out hundreds of times, it was impossible to make it worse, if they did , none of us would be here, because the game wouldnt even be working.
They are WAY to slow at fixing items in a manner that benefits legit players, they also refuse to listen to one of our Major complaints, WE WANT to play alts, your game balance is too far off atm, reduction of grind is necessary.
looks like players who left after this gamebreaking decision has truth. current ingame AD rewarding is pathetic (pvp is even significantly lower thanks to winning quest removing). even new module was removed.....