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Coalescent Wards, Preseveration Wards, and the Cost of Doing Business in Neverwinter.
cantankerousmage
Member Posts: 210 Arc User
Here's what I really want to know about this game. Why are Coalescent Wards 10$ in the Zen store? I've always wondered this. Ten dollars for a one-use, consumable item? And how many do we need to upgrade an enchantment to Transcendent? Would it be Cryptic's dream if everyone bought all the C Wards they need to take an enchantment from Lesser to Transcendent w/ real money? I don't get it. It would definitely cost well over 100$, maybe over 200$, to upgrade just one enchantment to Transcendent that way, and you have two your character can use. Not to mention if you wanted to upgrade weapon and armor enchantments on other characters. It's truly ridiculous. 180$ is all you would spend to play for a whole year on a game that had a 15$/month subscription. And they usually give you a discount if you pay for 3 months/6 months/1 year in advance, a larger discount the more time you pay for up front.
Seriously, C Wards should only cost 5$ at the most in the Zen store, and P Wards should be 20-25 for 1$. Still expensive, but that would be more reasonable. I'm not trying to cause trouble, I just want things to change. I can almost guarantee that Cryptic would make more money through sheer volume of sales if they lowered the price on the wards.
If Cryptic would make this price change, I believe that, not only would older players return to the game, they would retain more new players. Seriously, if I could only play on weekends and the occasional evening, I might quit through sheer frustration at the amount of time and/or money it would take to get even one character all the BIS (Best in Slot) end-game gear and have a 4k Item Level. For casual players, it could take years, depending on the amount of time they had, or didn't have, to dedicate to playing. It's only fun for so long to do the same quests and fight the same mobs/enemies over and over and over (and over) again in the endgame campaigns. It's much more fun when you can play multiple characters and have some variety at least. For the solo player, this is all even more tedious, and playing more than one character is almost a must if they don't want to become totally bored after about 2-3 months of endgame play. However, when it takes so long (to farm enough diamonds from doing dungeons/skirmishes, etc.) or costs so much money to get all the best stuff for just one character, it also makes things much more frustrating, especially for the casual player. Making the price of wards more reasonable in the Zen store would thereby also make them less expensive to purchase w/ diamonds on the Auction House, thereby speeding up the time it takes to achieve things in the game and making it more enjoyable for everyone. More people would play, more people would keep playing, and Cryptic would make more money because the player-base would be larger and more people would buy Zen. I'm really trying to help everyone, Cryptic included, by writing about this.
Seriously, C Wards should only cost 5$ at the most in the Zen store, and P Wards should be 20-25 for 1$. Still expensive, but that would be more reasonable. I'm not trying to cause trouble, I just want things to change. I can almost guarantee that Cryptic would make more money through sheer volume of sales if they lowered the price on the wards.
If Cryptic would make this price change, I believe that, not only would older players return to the game, they would retain more new players. Seriously, if I could only play on weekends and the occasional evening, I might quit through sheer frustration at the amount of time and/or money it would take to get even one character all the BIS (Best in Slot) end-game gear and have a 4k Item Level. For casual players, it could take years, depending on the amount of time they had, or didn't have, to dedicate to playing. It's only fun for so long to do the same quests and fight the same mobs/enemies over and over and over (and over) again in the endgame campaigns. It's much more fun when you can play multiple characters and have some variety at least. For the solo player, this is all even more tedious, and playing more than one character is almost a must if they don't want to become totally bored after about 2-3 months of endgame play. However, when it takes so long (to farm enough diamonds from doing dungeons/skirmishes, etc.) or costs so much money to get all the best stuff for just one character, it also makes things much more frustrating, especially for the casual player. Making the price of wards more reasonable in the Zen store would thereby also make them less expensive to purchase w/ diamonds on the Auction House, thereby speeding up the time it takes to achieve things in the game and making it more enjoyable for everyone. More people would play, more people would keep playing, and Cryptic would make more money because the player-base would be larger and more people would buy Zen. I'm really trying to help everyone, Cryptic included, by writing about this.
Post edited by cantankerousmage on
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I think you may have missed something important about all of this.
By spending money on this game (you mentioned 40 bucks just this morning, even) you have only reinforced to them that they absolutely SHOULDN'T change anything because this current configuration of how they have priced things just made them all the money you just have given them. Look at it from their perspective... they already have your money. The system works.
Now consider what the MMO in this fictional world would have to be like. How could it be successful? I would imagine that there would be a primary focus on making the leveling experience pretty awesome, maybe a little buggy due to how complex the game would have to be, but pretty fun. That's how you would hook the players into thinking that it is worth it to invest real world currency into keeping going. There would have to be OODLES of post levelcap gear, maybe organized into a special display tab that outlines all the stats and nifty bonuses that the player could access at any point during the leveling process to give them something to work towards. The carrot at the end of the stick, so to speak.
But server space and bandwidth is limited. Unless players are willing to spend enough money to pay for their time they have spent on my servers, plus pay for all the overhead of employees, advertising, and all of the other expensive things that make an MMO survive, then I will be hemorraging cash. So I have to "weed out" players who don't spend continuously. So endgame would be a GRIND. It would HAVE to be a grind. It can't be fun, or else people wouldn't pay me to try to make it more fun, or to skip some amount of the tedium I have purposely put in their way. Maybe I would sell "progress" in the endgame as items or unlocks, that would be nice to get paid AND not have the players using up the bandwidth at the same time. But mostly I want people to give me their money and then leave. Unless they are willing to pay me a LOT of money. Keeping my MMO alive isn't cheap.
Please understand that I am not saying that Neverwinter is like my fictional MMO outlined above. Nope. No sir. *cough*
Now on the other hand - since the removal of easy AD from Leadership - It is my opinion that they probably should look into lowering the Zen cost of some (if not all) items in the Zen store. However, it does appear to me that they are still making other changes to the economy, and are doing this very slowly, just to see what happens when they make certain adjustments. Maybe at some point in the not too distant future they will take a look at the Zen store itself.
Any of my comments not posted in orange are based on my own personal opinion and not official.
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it would be okay if they cost about $2-$2.50 each, or almost equal as 200/250 zens for each, i still refuse $10 dollar price tag, if they go low as $5 a piece, still not worth investment.
they would have been account bound instead open item.
i am tired of running those demons for rings for salvagings.
most of my enchants and runes are nowhere getting upgrades, and my artifact weapon isnt going closer than i like.
i am hurting for rubies since they pull out of T-bar merchant, i would had finished a few artifacts and some enchants during this 2x bonus points if they hadnt pull it out, and now my other alts are still waiting for thier turns to get upgrades.
and still not able to "join" that "Elite 3k item base" for tiamat runs, since they dont let in anyone with items under 3k even i am pretty close, still at 2.8k on my GF and rest of my alts are in 1.6k-2.2k.
just recently, i made a list on what my characters need, and list is getting bigger and becoming bottlenecked at that point, last 2x bonus i had 27 ranks 7s, 8s, and 9s runes/enchants that need wards and 35 greater marks, and now i need 38 runes/enchants and 44 greaters, and now adding about 22 coal-wards.
it is impossible with several shards that need wards to upgrading some existing prestige enchants because they are 1% chance of success.
last thing, i am running low on pres wards, amount of attempts got failed so many, it made that investing on pres wards are too risky.
doesnt devs know the meaning of the game were meant for fun and entertianing, all they seem wanting more profits and still not enough for them, all they do is take take take and take away.
higher prices mean less sellings, if they lower the price down to reasonable price range that players really like, and that mean more faster sales and profits grows. it is still pixel data to them.
devs should know the issues, it is driving some players seeking cheaper altenative, but have no choice to get accounts at risk of banning if they chose 3rd party sites on diamonds/zens conversions to bypass overpriced zen market cost.
And I can only shake my head at whoever said that the ZAX makes everything "free" in the zen store. Honestly.
One of the most nefarious and notorious P2W F2PMMORPGs, Allods Online, has the equivalent to the zax exchange.
This game isnt quite on that level yet, but almost every major change (refinement, loss of coals in TB, new mount system, cd on DH enchants, etc etc); has pushed it more to that side of the balance.
Now I will say this game is able to dodge that p2w term cause there is barely anything to win. Meaning it's endgame content is lacking in both PVE and PVP and now even foundry.
To OP, it's set at price for a whole bunch of reasons. The most obvious is $10 is not much to many North Americans (US/Canada). For other countries like central american/south america/east asian (not korea or japan) it can be quite alot, but since this is a NA server it's mostly been sold to americans who can throw money at their screen for a guaranteed chance for a shiner/more powerful object. We keep throwing money at them. so the pubs/devs keep setting these things up these ways.
Fox Stevenson - Sandblast
Oh Wonder - Without You
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
- Dylan Thomas
I just pretend we only need 1 coal ward, like marketing tells us. They never tell you the price if you wanted to upgrade something to max, ITS JUST 10 FOR A COAL WARD! (then youll get some players who'll say "it's so easy for free!", but they fail to mention theyve been playing for years, had a leadership army on 10 chars that took them 2-3 months to level leadership alone, farmed CN/ELOL like it was a 2nd job, or took advantage of bugs/glitches/exploits while and when they exist) BTW I was one of these players, but I also understand the increasing uphill battle a new player or returning player would face. Many are less empathetic to those outcries or are only looking out for their own or friends positions. All I wanted were epic/challenging dungeons, but they gave us lvling dungeons instead? seriously?
If marketing/sales told you a completed cost of an enchant upfront, people would run.
BTW I didnt check your math, but I know how this works. Here's some info about another f2p mmorpg I played. I was in the top PVE/PVP NA League Faction Guild before I quit, So i knew how absurd it could be.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MMORPG/comments/40kp6v/most_pay_to_win_item_youve_seen_in_an_f2p_mmorpg/
[–]KlanxO 10 points 2 months ago
Runes in allods online, you had 13 levels and had to combine 2 of the same rune to get a higher level (2 1's combined to a 2), each level giving 10% damage increase and damage mitigation, so level 13 gives 130% bonus, and it was expensive as hell, I remember the calculations back then and it was absurd, amounting to thousands of $$$..
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[–]Asmosk 9 points 2 months ago
Yes, by far the most p2w game i have played is Allods Online, to give more perspective:
Runes (mentioned above): you have 6 slots for them, maxing out 1 slot is around 1700 USD, for a total of 10200 USD.
Monthly mystery chests with clearly more OP items each time: mounts, battle mounts, enchants, character stat points etc. with very low chances of drooping desired item. If you want to stay ahead of power curve you should expect to spend around 100 USD per month for this.
Max blessing level: you can get to level 4 by playing the game and then you can unlock level 5 witch will buff your damage significantly. Materials for completing this are dropped from special mystery boxes and depending on your luck its expected to set your wallet behind by 60 to 100 USD.
Yah.... I know $10K USD.... That was just runes, similar but different to enchants. Ive seen some changes here that are similiar to that game. But they also have a "zen/ad" exchange as known as the "gold/gpotato" exchange, so you can play for free?
Then finally, at least that game had some decent structured endgame. This game almost completely is able to escape that moniker peeetoowin cause it's endgame is so lacking, even though it's refinement system is pretty much the same as any other of those games that have those moniker.
This is the core of my problem with this game. If you were to study my past posts, it was all good till refinement took such a prominent role in progression. It's monetization methods with the refine systems are setup as that "bad" moniker, but it has no content. So you lose on 2 levels.
Fox Stevenson - Sandblast
Oh Wonder - Without You
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
- Dylan Thomas
It's not even about greed, or anything selfish or immoral 99% of the time. There are just limits to things -- timeframes, deadlines, finite resources like computers and manpower. So you do the best you can.
HOWEVER
There are also "lines" that a company shouldn't cross. You can't keep promising the moon. You can't create a manipulative skinner box and then call it a game anymore. It's not nice to keep baiting and switching.
It can be challenging to deal with a customer base that demands a lot, but there are many ways to alleviate the pressure. The thing is, I'm pretty sure that Cryptic and/or PWE doesn't have the ability to give a HAMSTER. They have a predetermined schedule to do things, and that's all there is to it. In other words, feedback is pointless. Complaining is pointless. Posting on the forums to make suggestions is pointless. The only people who can hear you are other players, which is fine, but just keep it in mind that there is nothing you can do about it.
Please understand that I am not trying to sound doom and gloom about things, this is just the way it is. You can either accept it or not.
Yes, i agree for the principle, but you are looking at this from a limited point of view.
Endgame does not have to be grindy, a grindy game is made by lazzy people, let me explain:
We judge mostly the quality of a MMO by it's content, wich means, having a point of view like yours, already puts limits to how far the game can go and how fun it can be in the first place.
The more fun the game is, the more people it will attract, wich means, the more money it will bring in.
And no matter how limited is your server or you bandwidth, with more ressources (money), you can create/add servers, extend your capacities, hire more people.
It's a matter of point of view and only, as well as how much you want to make things better, or feel quite happy with how it is now.
If prices were more reasonnable, if they really did work on adding contents and make the game more interesting/less grindy at the end, that would surely attract more people, but if you keep taking things away from players, introduce more and more grind, make this game a money hole, it can't work, and it will eventually fall.
They just need to see the bigger picture, and think about the next years, not the few next months and how much money they can make on the short term, that is what has always been the issue here.
They make mistakes and force players to leave because people think they're being take for fools, wich is completly understandable, but it didn't have to be that way, and it still can change, the only thing that is limiting their action is time, because it will be too late at one point, and this might happen sooner than they think.
I have used my bank of CWs up and after this weekend have 4-5 items that are at full bar and waiting to refined and need this regent due to 1% success rate. I can assure you most of the player base will not spend $10.00 per upgrade. That is simply not a reasonable expectation of your customers.
But a game-saving foundry revamp would not be easy. It would also have to be timely. I wouldn't hold my breath, as it were. I would advise playing the game that we have already, and when it gets lame, quit. It's a fun game to play up to level 60ish or so.
For a perfect enchant, you need 8x lesser.
Lesser: 8X1 coal (if you make them from shards, requires 8 coals in total)
Normal 4x1 (You refine 2 lesser to a normal, requires 1 coal/normal enchantment, 4 in total)
Greater 2x1 (You refine 2 normal enchantment to a greater, requires 2 coals in total)
Perfect +1 (You refine 2 greater to a perfect, you need only 1 coal)
Pure =+1 (From here, you don't need 2 perfect, only the one you have, you upgrade it without a loss)
Transcendent +1 (Same, Pure upgrades to trans, no loss)
(In other words, you need:
1 coal for a lesser enchantment
2x1+1=3 coals for a normal (2 for the 2 lessers, and 1 to upgrade them to normal)
2x3 +1=7 coals for a greater, repeat (6 to upgrade 2 normal enchants, + 1 to upgrade it to greater)
15 (8 for lesser enchants, 4 for normal, 2 for greater + 1 for perfect) coals for a perfect
16 coals for pure
17 coals for transcendent)
So there's a pretty big gap between a greater and a perfect, but after that it's easier - but the superior marks are more expensive after perfect level though))
So it's 17 Coal ward to transcendent = 170$
However, some enchants can also be opened from lockboxes as a Normal level, so you can spare a lot of coal for that , skip all the lessers. Normal enchants are around 100-300K (vorpal and fey is more expensive, but their price will drop as soon as they will be available from lockbox) in AH, which is cheaper than a Coal ward. So you need to buy only 4 Normal enchants, then 2x coal for Greater, and 1x coal for perfect, Pure, Trans. = 5 coal wards to transcendent!
As most expensive case it's 170*2 = 340$ for weapon and armor.
(not counting the Rp needed for upgrade and potencies, which also adds to the amount. It's much more, if you buy Blood rubies for Zen, which would be stupid) Less, if you buy Normal enchants in AH. You can also buy coals in AH instead of Zenshop, it's a little cheaper.
Which, is still a lot, but at least not 1000+ $.
Correct me in my maths, if I'm mistaken, I wrote this stuff in a haste.