Developer Blog: Stronghold Cost Reductions

strumslinger · February 2016

We’ve decided it’s time to make it a little easier for guilds to increase their Guild Level.

http://www.arcgames.com/en/games/neverwinter/news/detail/9787073

l3thin4th · February 2016

Is it known when these changes will take place?

strumslinger · February 2016

l3thin4th said:
Is it known when these changes will take place?

When The Maze Engine launches. We haven't announced the release date yet.

scathias · February 2016

@strumslinger
Since these are all Mod 9 changes it might be a good idea to note in the blog that these are Mod 9 specific since many people who read the blog will not know this

kur667 · February 2016

Looks like great news

integrating with professions is nice as well

we are at Guildhall rank 8 now and we're kinda of depressed looking at all the stuff we were going to need to progress further, looking forward to seeing how big the cost reduction will be for us.

I don't read about any changes to the amount of influence needed though, but the ones that are mentioned are the ones we are usually short off.

strumslinger · February 2016

scathias said:
@strumslinger
Since these are all Mod 9 changes it might be a good idea to note in the blog that these are Mod 9 specific since many people who read the blog will not know this

Will do.

krymkac · February 2016

High time. When many small but friendly guilds vanished and big ones wasted tons of ad/rl money & hours upon hours of grinding. Seriously ppl been giving their feed back ever since sh went on preview. About how ridiculous requirements are. Yeah right "research".
Well better late than never I guess.

instynctive · February 2016

My "small but friendly guild" is actually thriving. SH is a long-term thing and we aren't in any sort of "race". We've made it up to GH L8 through "wasted tons of ad/rl money & hours upon hours of grinding". Unfortunately, with only 15 or so active members throughout, we did very well to get to where we're at now.

I would wager that the amount per person that my guild came up with for donations would rival the amount per person of any of the big guilds.

Regardless...

This is a step in the right direction... and the problems with SH were just as I predicted when it first went live (because on preview, the currency requirements were at least 1/10th of the live requirements).

orangebang · February 2016

instynctive said:
My "small but friendly guild" is actually thriving. SH is a long-term thing and we aren't in any sort of "race". We've made it up to GH L8 through "wasted tons of ad/rl money & hours upon hours of grinding". Unfortunately, with only 15 or so active members throughout, we did very well to get to where we're at now.

I would wager that the amount per person that my guild came up with for donations would rival the amount per person of any of the big guilds.

Regardless...

This is a step in the right direction... and the problems with SH were just as I predicted when it first went live (because on preview, the currency requirements were at least 1/10th of the live requirements).

When they do the "armada" idea for neverwinter from sto, maybe we small but friendly guilds will do better by banding in together. Like you guys, we're still plugging along no matter come what may.

urabask · February 2016

instynctive said:
My "small but friendly guild" is actually thriving. SH is a long-term thing and we aren't in any sort of "race". We've made it up to GH L8 through "wasted tons of ad/rl money & hours upon hours of grinding". Unfortunately, with only 15 or so active members throughout, we did very well to get to where we're at now.

I would wager that the amount per person that my guild came up with for donations would rival the amount per person of any of the big guilds.

Regardless...

This is a step in the right direction... and the problems with SH were just as I predicted when it first went live (because on preview, the currency requirements were at least 1/10th of the live requirements).

That's kind of the point in joining a big guild ...

vortican · February 2016

This is great! Casual players being able to use the profession system to donate to the guild is a great help to both the player and the guild. It looks like Mod 9 will not only add content but important new mechanics to existing content which will improve gameplay for average players.

More needs to be done for endgame and top tier PvE players but keep up the good work!

Now I must go back to crafting many, many pairs of pants.

ezedoz · February 2016

Definitely should give a credit to guilds who have spent a sum levelling their guild hall within the rules.

Our guild Hall is lvl 18, Im expecting credits.

Extremely unfair if you dont

vasamatta · February 2016

The reductions to the stronghold coofers are nice, but I still have a problem with how you raise the stronghold. The only way to get your stronghold to level 3 is to have four level one structures build. We have a lumberyard, a farm, and a marketplace. The only thing left to build are PvP structures. We have no intention of being a PvP guild, so why are we FORCED to not only build PvP structures but to go to PvP events. I have had some decent success at some PvP events, but with a item level of 2600 I seem to be outmatched. IN FACT I went to one domination event and the squad I was in was LITERALLY steamrolled. How we got 2 points were beyond me. We could not leave the platfrom. For all this I got 0, NADA, ZIP glory. A lot of good a glory bonus is if you can get steamroller. To get the 164,000 glory now seems to be nearly impossible when taken in to account that a lower item level player can 0 glory. I did get on a good team and get a little less than 700 glory. With the 30% glory boost that is a WHOOPING 721 glory. OH JOY, only 200 more PvP events to go. We can do the campaigns.

I would love to do more PvP if there was more of an attempt to make the side balanced.

I know --- JOIN A BIG GUILD. HMMM Done that. Been there on other games. Big egos. Too much trash talk. Conflict after conflict. A small group of player who like to get together and play a game for what it is-- A GAME -- is so much more enjoyable. The big guild - big ego thing gets old quickly. Finding a good leader and a group of fun players is not that easy. Those guilds are not a dime-a-dozen.

Please change the PvP structure requirementas or at least put more of an attempt to make PvP events balanced for everyone.
Going to a PvP event and getting 0 glory for trying is totally unacceptable.

hustin1 · February 2016

These are outstanding changes, and very welcome. My only concern after reading them is in gaining Influence. For our small guild, farming influence takes forever (we are at rank 6, currently working on our stable).

jrojasb · February 2016

What about stronghold weapon please help us

thecursedlich · February 2016

If the feedback were accepted earlier, they could launch all of this on mod 8, some guilds already put a lot of hard work to get where they are. I'll not say it's a bad change, it's a good one, but really late.
Probably the big guilds, the ones with GH 14+ will have to suck it up with all their spent AD and efforts and keep going like it never happened.
A 50% credit in the house woudn't hurt, it's easy to see how much a guild has spent, you have all the charts.

eldeskal · February 2016

To address one of the final lines in the post:

Strum, in the DevBlog post, said:
Also, we’ve been continuing to think about Strongholds and what else they need

May I humbly suggest a free-for-all PVP area? No factions, just a "if you're here, you're fair game" area---for testing out new things, etc.

[edit: I suppose it could even be a new PVP structure...perhaps "arena"]

fuzzytek · February 2016

I just started playing Neverwinter in December and I'm thrilled to see linking profession crafting into building up the stronghold. Our guild is very new still, just starting to work on a farm.

I really appreciate the note above by vasamatta - http://forum.arcgames.com/neverwinter/discussion/comment/12787831/#Comment_12787831

There can be a lot of areas that even when you try, and try very hard, you get rewarded with nothing or very very little. I had the toughest time finding a team to get through the Spiders required quest with my oathbound paladin. I end up having a lot of lag in game and most parties seem to run through the monsters rather than confronting them. What that leaves me (in a world of lag) with is a swarm of very nasty spiders to take on as the trailing member of the party. When its your first time through a dungeon quest it can be impossible to complete. Impatient parties kick the lagging member out.

triflen · February 2016

I would say when these changes do go live, there should be IMO, a chance to have what was already invested put forward as a credit in current stronghold coffers. You reduce the cost of ad per structure upgrade by 60 percent or so then add a 60 percent return of said resource so all guilds are on same footing and the larger guilds are not penalized for their already aggressive approach and the smaller guilds still benefit. I am not saying the smaller guilds do not deserve this break, on the contrary they do, but you can NOT penalize the already very active and determined guilds by making their progress a penalty of timing. Coding might be a bear, but that is your job, and the right thing to do as far as returning resources for already built structures. The credit could be in the form of vouchers, given to guilds leadership or those who can build the structures. The said sto armada system does not offer that said penalty, and larger guilds still have their place, as do smaller guilds. The smaller guilds chance to progress with said larger guilds help.

mynaam · February 2016

Really positive move for smaller guilds. I can't wait to see if this helps us with our progress.

Must say you were right on. The items that slowed down our progress is:

Fey
WOD
AD
Labor
Gems

In the case of laborers and gems I usually just buy some of the high end ones from the ad market when all tasks are done. Even though it was a bit hard on my AD it was not the end of the world(can get it in day or 2).

Since we are a small guild most of our guildies are not done with there boons so it is up to the few of us that is. This puts a lot of pressure on us to go on all our toons and farm these regions ... removing a bit of the fun making it more like work. These changes should dramatically reduce that bourdon. Thank you.

mynaam · February 2016

...please delete double post

putzboy78 · February 2016

I think fey should still receive a second option for earning it. I'd recommend adding a currency to those dungeons in sharandar (GC, WF, celedane). There's almost no reason to enter these things for the enchants (worthless) and five crescents. Some people will do celedane for the blink dog but its drop rate is terrible (I've finished sharandar on 7 toons and never seen the blink dog drop).

Dread, Tyranny and Winter have new demonic heroic encounter quests to increase what can be earned in their respective zones and are far more interesting to run

Everyone runs dread for the greater marks
Tyranny gets plenty of farming via heralds
Winter is still viable because of people farming black ice and open world pvp

There is really no reason to enter sharandar except the weekly AR quest. Add some currency to those mini-dungeons to help encourage people to enter to get their daily key and farm for their stronghold. Running all those fetch quests for 1000 stronghold coffer credits is not a good ROI for the end gamers and sharandar is still the longest/hardest area to get your boons from

gusmichael · February 2016

And AD Donations at people's strongholds comes to a grinding halt in anticipation of a significant decrease in their necessity. One which occurs "Spring 2016"?! (Which is in June for all we know) These incessant hype updates simply break the game until the next mod is released. Players in-game have a (supremely unwarranted) optimism about fixes like this and the queing system; maybe someone should remind them about the recent "fix" surrounding party kicking abilities that makes Epic Demogorgon every troll's favorite place to idle.

We players at least deserve a firm date at which we can just stop playing until. No reason to overtly waste our time with grinds to be removed at an undetermined future date.

Don't put this garbage on the patch screen until you've actually patched it.

regenerde · February 2016

In a few words, too little and too late.

In more words:
When you removed rAD from Leadership, you had the golden opportunity to keep this profession relevant by adding Stronghold Vouchers to all rAD slots.
But nothing happened.

And when i see the rare task "Diamond Shipment" popping up, it reminds me again and again of this failure.
Just another rare task in Leadership waisting space.

Then came the release of Stronghold to the Xbox, and there was again an opportunity to adjust the stronghold structure costs to something more reasonable.
And again, nothing happened.

Which would have been simple and easy, and could have been done quickly.
But instead we now have to wait several months for a more complicate change?

And could we please get a list of current structure costs compared with the new structure costs?

Anyway, i would also like to ask for an option to pause ViP, or an option that will let us buy ViP packs without actually using them directly up. So that we can just stop wasting our ViP time, while waiting for another necessarry update to come around.

Thank you, and take care.

Edit: Will all the new profession tasks be rank 23, or are there any new lower ranking profession tasks too?

mysteriasdrassa · February 2016

At first glance, as a small guild leader, I had to say AWESOME! And still do pretty much, but really, I would have to say that you really missed Frozen Treasures, unless you plan on including these on the list of fixes. Feywild, Tyranny, and Dark are some of the easiest to accumulate once you finish the trees.

xenotorch · February 2016

vasamatta said:
The reductions to the stronghold coofers are nice, but I still have a problem with how you raise the stronghold. The only way to get your stronghold to level 3 is to have four level one structures build. We have a lumberyard, a farm, and a marketplace. The only thing left to build are PvP structures. We have no intention of being a PvP guild, so why are we FORCED to not only build PvP structures but to go to PvP events.

Panic not, the Guild Hall itself actually counts as one of the four structures, so you do not need a PvP structure at all. We nearly made this mistake at the same point.

eldeskal · February 2016

(several people) said:
we should be compensated for our early investments in SH

I could only agree if there were no benefit to be had from early investment. However, guilds who made the investment to ramp up to higher levels did get an advantage: namely boons. (And for context, my guild is slogging through the rank-12 requirements at present)

In PVP the effect of having a boon everyone else is unable to get is obvious.
In PVE, you get the benefit of the boons while the devs hands are still tied to "re-balance" the content...can't make the content harder while 90% of the players don't have the boons.

So you paid a high price to be an early adopter. This always happens. Recall that the Intel Pentium 90 had a preview cost $13k; a year later it was a commodity processor at $200. Intel did not refund the early adopter cost; early adopters get an advantage over competitors.

There is 0 chance of getting a credit. This is probably okay (IMHO).

truckula · February 2016

Ok, I have to agree you really missed out on IWD, but also Influence. With the daily caps on what you can gain from the HE's and the almost obscene requirements to even be able to participate in those HE's, even with a lot of players unless they are max level, they can not contribute to this requirement at all. We do not have a lot of max level players, most of ours we recruit when they are low level and train them up, but this takes time, lots and lots of time. Years and years worth of time. We will keep plugging away, but I hope this update happens very soon.

davehedgehog1 · February 2016

Frozen Treasures are going to be our blocking point. When most members are playing with ping of around 400 and are happy to just be playing the game, Cryptic can't help our ping but when you add in rubberbanding and lag at IWD most won't bother trying. If the lag and rubberbanding wasn't there, then would really appreciate the steps that are being taken, not just with stongholds but across the whole game.

ryoshinette · February 2016

So preliminary calculations and rules we had to follow were totally fail? Am I right? Death is a part of life. Here it comes.

seijida · February 2016

I have to say, as a leader of a new, small guild, I am really happy to read this. But we are struggling way more on Icewindale at the moment, then on Gems or Equipment, even though this is not easy too.
In general, Cost on everything should just be reduced really much on low Guildhall Levels and increase with the growing guild level. That would be even more fair in my eyes. Just sayin..^.

Developer Blog: Stronghold Cost Reductions

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