Update on the Trade Bar Store

klangeddin · February 2016

The problem with this change is that it wasn't properly compensated. (no, the mail with the blood ruby was a joke, don't even mention it).
They could have:

- raised those 1% success chances to something more human at least, like a 10%
- increased the drop rates of wards from celestial coffers
- allowed a way to convert preservation wards into coals and viceversa

Any of those would have made the change more bearable, but no, nothing. No wonder people got pissed.

wylonus · February 2016

eldes, i wasnt picking on zeb, just describing classic quote in how lucky he is, i kinda knew Zeb from other old online game, may have chat in /general chat with him few times, also he may have lead a group in newly opened dungeon vaults during patch days. it was honor to know zeb once again.

right now, i am still waiting a word from offical programmer reps when there is a new pricing adjustments and one of my most recent proposal in few pages ago. as i was told, it is very tall order and time consuming to make a full overhaul with Auction House, prices in those other shops, and moving items to specific menu and what currencies to be use. that would take months.

personally, they would use interns to train and have them assist with teams.

wildfirede · February 2016

I get it that it is costly to support the game and that besides the once in a playtime bag and mount - c.wards are the only thing that sells besides keys in the ZEN Store, but you just made the keys a lot less useful and @zebular - do you find that invoking with 30+ characters (log them in log them out few times a day) is an interesting way to spend your time ingame?

Cause if you are playing 1h/day you have to spend 90% of your game time on the change character screen.

*wording edit

wildfirede · February 2016

or simply reduce the zen price of c.wards to 500Z - that would be a price that imho more people would spend on those (or zaxchange for those).
And to stay on the topic - i think the other reason is to force people to hoard refining items = messy inventory = buy more bags

regenerde · February 2016

Any official statement about why we didn't receive a second round of free gifts on the PC side, or why another round of free gifts were issued on the Xbox side?

Or what about giving the PC players also that gift per certain number of Trade Bars in their pockets too?

tomerant · February 2016

wildfirede said:
i think the other reason is to force people to hoard refining items = messy inventory = buy more bags

Just leave it on the ground. I dont pick what I don't need ^.^

sockmunkey · February 2016

zebular said:
As I've said many times, I actually play all my characters. They were not created for Leadership and in fact, they all didn't always work Leadership. Each character has a "main" profession and once maxed, they'd work on another one. Only when I was low on AD is when I'd go a week or so on Leadership on them all. Best to not throw around absurd assumptions or accusations. Alas, it's clear you have some biased perception of me for whatever reason, which is truly sad. I am sorry I am an alt-a'holic and that threatens you, but really stooping to accusations of foul play is a new low, even for you.

You have clearly missed the point.

When people complain about the difficulty of earning wards now, and your rebuttal is chime in with "I get plenty, doing it my way" I feel its important to explain to everyone fully, what your way is. Because your way is not average, its not even close to average. So, I have to wonder what the point of your "1 per week, on average" rebuttal is for. Either you are encouraging people to adopt your methods, or you are bragging. What other reason could their possibly be?

I'm not threatened, I'm concerned. We have already established that farming chests, if not outright dangerous, is ultimately self destructive and likely to lead to further unpopular changes. So, for you to use it as an example or advice on why you, yourself, have plenty of wards. Especially as a person in authority, is something that should be objected to.

mrgiggles651 · February 2016

l0th4ri0 said:

zebular said:
Nah, I just have quite a number of characters I've invested in. I usually get at least one Coal a week, sometimes more, sometimes less. I have gone a few weeks without any and on the flip-side, the most I've gotten in one week's time is 4.
DUDE. That is some seriously consistent luck, unless we are talking like 50 chars here. Usually one a WEEK? Are you Irish or something? Holy HAMSTER!

He has 50 characters. His sig used to list them all.

vinceent1 · February 2016

ok Zeb, before, at leadership AD times, you make a lot of characters. Could you make a lot of characters now? honestly

is it useable way for now?

l0th4ri0 · February 2016

sockmunkey said:

I'm not threatened, I'm concerned. We have already established that farming chests, if not outright dangerous, is ultimately self destructive and likely to lead to further unpopular changes. So, for you to use it as an example or advice on why you, yourself, have plenty of wards. Especially as a person in authority, is something that should be objected to.

I don't know dude. Being a volunteer moderator on the forums isn't exactly a "position of authority". I would imagine it more as the playerbase's online "whipping boy", to be more accurate. Look at how much these poor bastages have to edit and delete in order to maintain some measure of decorum here. It's like wrangling a herd of angry cats with rabies.

Besides, Zeb gets coffers in an amount that over 99% of the playerbase will simply not. Just like they aren't going to be lining up to pay 10 bucks a ward, they aren't also all going to be assaulting the login servers with 30+ characters to pray/professions with. Maybe a couple extras, that's it.

I think the important thing to realize here is that you used to be able to rely on VIP to play just one character. It was enough with the tarm bars and the old store, plus the occasional (if lucky) decent drop from a lockbox. Those days are gone. This is going to be a net loss for the company. Who knows how much of a loss yet, but a loss. Driving slightly more people to the Zen store at the cost of most of the VIP subs? Bad move.

All this has done is ensure that a lot of ppl stop playing when they start to feel the item level bottleneck. I don't know if the skinner-box design of post 70 gameplay (progress bars EVERYWHERE! YAY!) is going to conquer common sense. Maybe it will. Maybe it will be enough time for the guys to get some real, actual endgame content produced. Tough call right now.

zebular · February 2016

vinceent1 said:
ok Zeb, before, at leadership AD times, you make a lot of characters. Could you make a lot of characters now? honestly

is it useable way for now?

I've actually made 5 new characters since the changes and leveled one character I hadn't gotten around to prior, she's at 58 now (paladin). As soon as I get done leveling my warlock (she's in her mid-60's) and the new paladin, I'm going to either begin leveling one of the new 5 or enjoy Maze Engine on of my main two characters, if Maze Engine comes out before then. Also, no, I don't have 50 characters. I think I am at 38 characters?

As for the bottleneck being related to refining enchants and artifacts. Meh... perfect and trans enchants or legendary/mythic artifacts are not needed. It's been said time and time again that the devs do not make content with people who have the best gear in the game in mind. They make content that can be completed by anyone who plays the game without them feeling forced to spend money to advance. I still don't have any Mythic artifacts and only one Legendary among all my characters. I also do not have any Perfect or Trans enchantments, just a few Greaters. I am doing fine without all of that supposed "BiS" stuff.

In my opinion, people put too much weight on some perceived notion that you have to have Perfects, Trans, or Mythic refined stuff. You do not. That stuff is there for those who wish to seek it out, they're not there as any sort of game requirement one has to achieve.

vinceent1 · February 2016

but the case is - we are not leadeship ad slaves anymore, but we are suppose to be invoking slaves? its not any better. i hope they find coal wards solution for next module

eldeskal · February 2016

zebular said:
It's been said time and time again that the devs do not make content with people who have the best gear in the game in mind. [...] people put too much weight on some perceived notion that you have to have Perfects, Trans, or Mythic refined stuff. [...] That stuff is there for those who wish to seek it out, they're not there as any sort of game requirement one has to achieve.

Hmm. This is absolutely true (says a nerfed CW with r9s, g.vorp, lesser barkshield---though I did spend all the AD I made for two mods on stacks of r5s to get mythic artifacts -- I've only ever had 3 or 4 coal wards, and two of those came from invoking.) I think this is a pretty important counterpoint when trying to understand the dev's intent with the economy.

There seem to be three types of people who pay:
1. those who want to support a game they like (VIP)
2. those who want specific mounts/fashion/etc. to enhance roleplaying/ambiance. (The various cash markets)
3. those who want an advantage (BiS PVP; coalescent wards and superior marks)

So as described, devs tanked the revenue generated by type 3, by providing those items through the interface for type 1. That is, people realized the cheap coals could make AD quick, by selling them to the BiS crowd, so the BiS crowd stopped spending. Now, everyone who bought VIP intending to make/save AD via this method is livid. Those who aligned well with the three intended pay-routes are still reasonably content.

* edit reworded a statement that might have implied I spent real money for my mythic artifacts

[Edit 2: For clarity, you're probably not going to get 3xGold in eDemo without the entire team having good gear --- that's gonna be a 3k+ affair---but in that vein, all the same rewards drop for 'silver'...just not as frequently]

vinceent1 · February 2016

zebular said:

vinceent1 said:
ok Zeb, before, at leadership AD times, you make a lot of characters. Could you make a lot of characters now? honestly

is it useable way for now?
I've actually made 5 new characters since the changes and leveled one character I hadn't gotten around to prior, she's at 58 now (paladin). As soon as I get done leveling my warlock (she's in her mid-60's) and the new paladin, I'm going to either begin leveling one of the new 5 or enjoy Maze Engine on of my main two characters, if Maze Engine comes out before then. Also, no, I don't have 50 characters. I think I am at 38 characters?

As for the bottleneck being related to refining enchants and artifacts. Meh... perfect and trans enchants or legendary/mythic artifacts are not needed. It's been said time and time again that the devs do not make content with people who have the best gear in the game in mind. They make content that can be completed by anyone who plays the game without them feeling forced to spend money to advance. I still don't have any Mythic artifacts and only one Legendary among all my characters. I also do not have any Perfect or Trans enchantments, just a few Greaters. I am doing fine without all of that supposed "BiS" stuff.

In my opinion, people put too much weight on some perceived notion that you have to have Perfects, Trans, or Mythic refined stuff. You do not. That stuff is there for those who wish to seek it out, they're not there as any sort of game requirement one has to achieve.

problem is that between mediocre and bis stuff is huge difference. if they better scaling items it will be different story

asterotg · February 2016

Or they think, that most players cant keep 2 things in their mind, so they remove wards 'booo' and they give us a double RP-WE 'yay', hoping, that we forget the 'boo' part. They did that with 2xAD weekends before (dragon hoard nerf etc.).

wylonus · February 2016

my GF still at 2.8k item score, and not able to get invite for "3K Tiamat" runs, and it seem epic Demo would be winnable for super all 3 gold if wearing +3k, since i have tried and still getting short ended as 1 silver/2 gold because i never ever got any damn Twisty Ichors since it released.
Twisty Ichor is a myth to me, it doesnt exist, because RNG made it so. i hate it the most.

i have enough runes and enchants that is ready to get upgrade, and i need 7 more C-wards almost enough to reach 2.9k or closer to 3k, that what i see "bottleneck" situations, plus i have other runes and enchants are getting close to be ready for upgrades in about 2-3 weeks, and i would need about 15-20 C-wards and a stack of P-wards for those 20%-30%.
using P-wards they get burn thru with so many fails, and that is also costly.

taitinhakkaaja · February 2016

So much bad things have happened in a year. Leadership nerf, level up xp/reward, reward nerfs (iwd HE's) etc. life steal nerf, class balance issues, broken powers, insane lag etc etc.
Thing is i really don't care anymore! Gaming should be fun and a minute this starts to annoy me i just stop playing

Sadly it means few elol runs a week, nothing else.

eldeskal · February 2016

wylonus said:
Twisty Ichor is a myth to me, it doesnt exist, because RNG made it so.

Twisted Ichor is not random. You _always_ get 1 for a Silver overall finish in Epic Demogorgon, _always_ two for a Gold overall finish. Note that this is only with epic demo, and not normal demo, and also, the Twisted Ichor is in the chest at the end, which you need a Greater Demonic Key to open. (These keys are made by the campaign task, and are free) Your run with two-golds and a silver should've given you a silver overall...so you should've gotten at least one...

wylonus said:
a stack of P-wards for those 20%-30%.
using P-wards they get burn thru with so many fails, and that is also costly.

So, some of us have noticed that the RNG on some maps is better than the RNG on other maps... Haven't tested statistically, but most of my guild will return to the SH map to do anything that involves the RNG.

santralafax · February 2016

I had noticed the monthly 2xRP events well before the nerf. My assumption was that they wanted to sell more refining goods. Note that usually refining goods are on sale in one form or another during those weekends--to help you make up your mind. Now they are just trying to make it EVEN MORE profitable by force selling the Zen shop. Apparently selling keys isn't good enough. They could have simply raised the prices....

Another possiblity on the nerf is that they need to have parity for the two games so Microsoft has less ammunition to throw at them later. And, of course, both possibilities can be true at the same time.

santralafax · February 2016

taitinhakkaaja said:
So much bad things have happened in a year. Leadership nerf, level up xp/reward, reward nerfs (iwd HE's) etc. life steal nerf, class balance issues, broken powers, insane lag etc etc.
Thing is i really don't care anymore! Gaming should be fun and a minute this starts to annoy me i just stop playing
Sadly it means few elol runs a week, nothing else.

Call it new management, and their new devs, stretching their wings. Consistency has not been a hallmark over the last year--starting in April.

klangeddin · February 2016

taitinhakkaaja said:
So much bad things have happened in a year. Leadership nerf, level up xp/reward, reward nerfs (iwd HE's) etc. life steal nerf, class balance issues, broken powers, insane lag etc etc.
Thing is i really don't care anymore! Gaming should be fun and a minute this starts to annoy me i just stop playing
Sadly it means few elol runs a week, nothing else.

The leadership nerf had to happen, the economy was broken with millions of backlog in the ZAX, in some occasions it took weeks (!) to be able to convert AD to ZEN. The undeniable fact is that after the change the ZAX price fell from 500+ to under 400 in a matter of days proves that the change was good for the overall health of the game. If anything the biggest problem is that it didn't happen at release (how could such a thing get past BETA is beyond me) and their unwillingness to act quick came back to bite them later, causing an uproar because many players (not just bots, who exacerbated the problem) had invested time and/or money to set up their own leadership army.
What do you think mod 7: Strongholds was for? To encourage guild team play? ppffftt... it was to remove all that AD from the economy without a massive rollback. Now they're nerfing costs because most of that AD must be gone.

putzboy78 · February 2016

klangeddin said:

The leadership nerf had to happen, the economy was broken with millions of backlog in the ZAX, in some occasions it took weeks (!) to be able to convert AD to ZEN. The undeniable fact is that after the change the ZAX price fell from 500+ to under 400 in a matter of days proves that the change was good for the overall health of the game. If anything the biggest problem is that it didn't happen at release (how could such a thing get past BETA is beyond me) and their unwillingness to act quick came back to bite them later, causing an uproar because many players (not just bots, who exacerbated the problem) had invested time and/or money to set up their own leadership army.
What do you think mod 7: Strongholds was for? To encourage guild team play? ppffftt... it was to remove all that AD from the economy without a massive rollback. Now they're nerfing costs because most of that AD must be gone.

And yet people are still spreading the lies that all the ad in the system came from leadership. How do we stop this rumor and educate the citizens of neverwinter?

santralafax · February 2016

klangeddin said:

The leadership nerf had to happen, the economy was broken with millions of backlog in the ZAX, in some occasions it took weeks (!) to be able to convert AD to ZEN. The undeniable fact is that after the change the ZAX price fell from 500+ to under 400 in a matter of days proves that the change was good for the overall health of the game.

I'll let the truth of the matter lie for the moment and assume you are correct. Could they have employed a less painful method--such as allowing Leadership AD on 1 character per account? Did they take any REAL steps to repair Leadership at that time?? Is it really repaired now? There has been improvements....

And doe this explaing away his other beefs, such as Lifesteal nerf? Did that happen months in advance to prepare us for the AD nerf?

Sorry if I'm a bit overheated, but it's been a tough year.

klangeddin · February 2016

putzboy78 said:

klangeddin said:

The leadership nerf had to happen, the economy was broken with millions of backlog in the ZAX, in some occasions it took weeks (!) to be able to convert AD to ZEN. The undeniable fact is that after the change the ZAX price fell from 500+ to under 400 in a matter of days proves that the change was good for the overall health of the game. If anything the biggest problem is that it didn't happen at release (how could such a thing get past BETA is beyond me) and their unwillingness to act quick came back to bite them later, causing an uproar because many players (not just bots, who exacerbated the problem) had invested time and/or money to set up their own leadership army.
What do you think mod 7: Strongholds was for? To encourage guild team play? ppffftt... it was to remove all that AD from the economy without a massive rollback. Now they're nerfing costs because most of that AD must be gone.
And yet people are still spreading the lies that all the ad in the system came from leadership. How do we stop this rumor and educate the citizens of neverwinter?

It's not a lie, the ZAX is the proof. Before leadership nerf = backlog, after leadership nerf = no backlog and huge price drop. It was NOT all the AD in the system, but it was a huge chunk of it and it was causing problems.
Leadership armies did something that was particularly harmful: IT PRINTED FRESH NEW AD INTO THE ECONOMY AT AN ALARMING RATE! This means AD hyperinflation, plain and simple.
Rough AD is the only way to increase the total AD in the system, ZAX and AH (actually, this one also takes it away with the fees and cuts) only transfer existing AD between players. So, what other sources of ROUGH AD were there that injected more AD into the economy than leadership armies? Invokes? I don't think so, but even if they did, those were partially nerfed as well, and they went hand in hand with leadership armies anyways. What else? Nothing else, that's what.

santralafax said:

klangeddin said:

The leadership nerf had to happen, the economy was broken with millions of backlog in the ZAX, in some occasions it took weeks (!) to be able to convert AD to ZEN. The undeniable fact is that after the change the ZAX price fell from 500+ to under 400 in a matter of days proves that the change was good for the overall health of the game.
I'll let the truth of the matter lie for the moment and assume you are correct. Could they have employed a less painful method--such as allowing Leadership AD on 1 character per account? Did they take any REAL steps to repair Leadership at that time?? Is it really repaired now? There has been improvements....

And doe this explaing away his other beefs, such as Lifesteal nerf? Did that happen months in advance to prepare us for the AD nerf?

Sorry if I'm a bit overheated, but it's been a tough year.

I was specifically talking about the leadership AD, the lifesteal is another matter (although I'd say that pre mod 6 lifesteal was problematic as it made tanks and healers obsolete, but let's leave it aside for a moment).
Leadership will be mostly repaired in mod 9 with the new stronghold tasks, perhaps. It won't be completely useless anyway.
Could they have used another method? sure. But something had to be done and the current situation (concerning the leadership AD) is surely improved compared to what we had before mod 7. Do we seriously want to go back to the millions of ZAX backlog waiting days if not weeks to convert AD to ZEN?
The leadership nerf was probably the easiest way they thought of to solve this problem: it was not elegant, it was not promptly compensated (it took them a while before they reduced AD costs across the game or buffed leadership back), and it could have certainly been done better, I agree. But it was still better than doing nothing and let things continue as they were.

P.S. The 1 character per account leadership wouldn't really have solved the problem, it would have only partially alleviated it, you can transfer AD between accounts with AH, with some AD loss, yeah, and that may have discouraged -some- legit players, but bots would have continued regardless.

mentinmindmaker · February 2016

I think the more frequent RPx2 we have now is because Cryptic realized people were hoarding all their RP waiting for an x2, which caused it to go a long time between each time you could reap the benefits of your efforts. That obviously was not good for your enjoyment of the game.

More frequent RPx2 gives smoother gameplay and more enjoyment from game.

I don't see much income increase from more frequent RPx2, the same refining would happen anyways just more rare.

Not everything they do is a direct money grab.

Underlying everything is a need for Cryptic to make the game enjoyable and fun. That really is the biggest income booster for them. If people don't like the game they will leave(or never start playing), and then Cryptic certainly makes no money.

I however suspect the average player lifetime in NW is fairly short, 3-4 months maybe? That means a lot of Cryptic's income comes from people in the levelling phase or doing early gearing up. So it makes sense from a business perspective to focus content on where the money are.

The old NW players might not spend that much money, meaning they are a loss for Cryptic since they do consume system resources without buying much. So we should be happy they are throwing the high-IL people a bone in the form of ONE 2000+ dungeon. Keeping the high-IL people somewhat happy is just something they do to avoid too much noise about no endgame, which would scare new people away.

I don't think Cryptic is too concerned with keeping the old high-IL players

yokki1 · February 2016

mentinmindmaker said:

The old NW players might not spend that much money, meaning they are a loss for Cryptic since they do consume system resources without buying much. So we should be happy they are throwing the high-IL people a bone in the form of ONE 2000+ dungeon. Keeping the high-IL people somewhat happy is just something they do to avoid too much noise about no endgame, which would scare new people away.

I don't think Cryptic is too concerned with keeping the old high-IL players

endgame?

taitinhakkaaja · February 2016

There is no challenge left for me and i'm not even BIS player (3.6k). With mod 7 this game changed to absolute mindless grind fest. I just got tired of that and left guild, play game as long as it's fun for me.
Sure i lost some power (guild boons), but all content is so boringly easy i really don't need those boons... All i miss is guild chat.
What is left for high il players? Try to make record time runs of same old dungeons? PVP lol, what a joke... maybe next year they balance sw... Probably not

codenie · February 2016

Yep.
First the dev's say ssssst, its blow over. After more then a week it doesn't so now are the mods reacting.....

mrgiggles651 · February 2016

klangeddin said:

It's not a lie, the ZAX is the proof. Before leadership nerf = backlog, after leadership nerf = no backlog and huge price drop.

The price for AD from goldsellers has not changed since before the nerf. If anyone would be doing mass botting, it would be them.

santralafax · February 2016

mentinmindmaker said:
I think the more frequent RPx2 we have now is because Cryptic realized people were hoarding all their RP waiting for an x2, which caused it to go a long time between each time you could reap the benefits of your efforts. That obviously was not good for your enjoyment of the game.

More frequent RPx2 gives smoother gameplay and more enjoyment from game.

I don't see much income increase from more frequent RPx2, the same refining would happen anyways just more rare.

Not everything they do is a direct money grab.

I can hold both thoughts in my head. I find the regular 2xRP a good thing for players, but that doesn't mean it's not also a money grab. I also agree that they don't worry too much about high ilevel characters. They actually give more ways to become generally BIS (3.5+). But if you buy into those, there is still no great content for you.

PVPers (I do that as well) always have the latest, strongest equipment. Charge cards and lock boxes may be involved!

Update on the Trade Bar Store

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