I'm sure Arc paid someone a significant amount of money to gain control of Neverwinter and the focus went from developing and innovating an amazing product to recouping those costs.
I should know by now that when games change hands, I should just bail out and go find something else to play. Viacom screwed me with neopets. Zynga screwed me with omgpop. And now Arc with neverwinter.
Hrmm...just to clarifying some things.
Cryptic is the company that developed and continues to work on Neverwinter. When we're talking about "the devs", this is Cryptic 100% of the way. PWE (see below) doesn't work on any development.
Perfect World Entertainment or PWE is the publisher for Neverwinter.
Arc isn't a company, but PWE's platform that connects together all their games into a single place, much like Steam.
Ancillary to this relationship is Wizards of the Coast or WotC, who own the D&D trademark. Cryptic has been collaborating with WotC to build stories and content that ties back into Neverwinter current D&D themes from other products (See Storm King's Thunder, Hoard of the Dragon Queen, or Princess of the Apocalypse).
No one's been sold to anyone since Neverwinter launched. Arc was introduced by PWE a couple years into the launch of Neverwinter, but it has nothing to actually do with Neverwinter, other than including it as one of the games tied to the platform, since it houses all of PWE's properties.
I'm sure Arc paid someone a significant amount of money to gain control of Neverwinter and the focus went from developing and innovating an amazing product to recouping those costs.
I should know by now that when games change hands, I should just bail out and go find something else to play. Viacom screwed me with neopets. Zynga screwed me with omgpop. And now Arc with neverwinter.
Hrmm...just to clarifying some things.
Cryptic is the company that developed and continues to work on Neverwinter. When we're talking about "the devs", this is Cryptic 100% of the way. PWE (see below) doesn't work on any development.
Perfect World Entertainment or PWE is the publisher for Neverwinter.
Arc isn't a company, but PWE's platform that connects together all their games into a single place, much like Steam.
Ancillary to this relationship is Wizards of the Coast or WotC, who own the D&D trademark. Cryptic has been collaborating with WotC to build stories and content that ties back into Neverwinter current D&D themes from other products (See Storm King's Thunder, Hoard of the Dragon Queen, or Princess of the Apocalypse).
No one's been sold to anyone since Neverwinter launched. Arc was introduced by PWE a couple years into the launch of Neverwinter, but it has nothing to actually do with Neverwinter, other than including it as one of the games tied to the platform, since it houses all of PWE's properties.
PWE is also the owner of Cryptic Studios, which they acquired from Atari about...5 years ago, give or take. At the time, Neverwinter was still in the very early stages of development.
ROLL TIDE ROLL
Great Weapon Fighter: Because when is today not a good day to die?
PC and PS4 player. Proud Guildmaster for PS4 Team Fencebane. Rank 5 Officer for PC Team Fencebane. Visit us at http://fencebane.shivtr.com
I wonder who choses the active bonus of companions, 55 movement, yeah so cool
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beckylunaticMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 14,231Arc User
For all the moaning about the gift companion having a bad bonus... so what?
If it had a great bonus, then it would be giving an unfair advantage to anyone who gets one as opposed to anyone who doesn't.
It was undoubtedly given the worst possible stats intentionally, because the point of it is to be a cute commemoration, not something to actually make you stronger. So they have made it an item that is nearly purely cosmetic.
It's much like the Caturday capes, other than not getting one per character.
For all the moaning about the gift companion having a bad bonus... so what?
If it had a great bonus, then it would be giving an unfair advantage to anyone who gets one as opposed to anyone who doesn't.
It was undoubtedly given the worst possible stats intentionally, because the point of it is to be a cute commemoration, not something to actually make you stronger. So they have made it an item that is nearly purely cosmetic.
It's much like the Caturday capes, other than not getting one per character.
It's a "free" trinket that cost me 800k AD, considering I had just purchased purple companions to play SCA on two characters. Now I have 8 bound level 25 purple companions that I will never use for anything.
If the gateway is really gone forever, I hope they un-nerf the professions and make them profitable enough to play with again. Players became botters partly because profit margins became so slim (due to botters) that working the professions on a single account wasn't worth the time investment. You'd make as much profit spending the time running around blacklake opening skill nodes for bottom level profession assets to sell for pennies. The only way professions were profitable was by botting. So, in essence, trying to fight botting by nerfing, they drove more people to bot and existing botters to expand their footprint. The correct response was to mitigate the problem through IP filtering, not by destroying a game mechanic. I hope that if they take anything from this going forward, it's that addressing the abuse to the system is the solution; breaking the system not.
0
kreatyveMember, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 10,545Community Moderator
For all the moaning about the gift companion having a bad bonus... so what?
If it had a great bonus, then it would be giving an unfair advantage to anyone who gets one as opposed to anyone who doesn't.
It was undoubtedly given the worst possible stats intentionally, because the point of it is to be a cute commemoration, not something to actually make you stronger. So they have made it an item that is nearly purely cosmetic.
It's much like the Caturday capes, other than not getting one per character.
It's a "free" trinket that cost me 800k AD, considering I had just purchased purple companions to play SCA on two characters. Now I have 8 bound purple companions that I will never use for anything.
If the gateway is really gone forever, I hope they un-nerf the professions and make them profitable enough to play with again. Players became botters partly because profit margins became so slim (do to botters) that working the professions on a single account wasn't worth the time investment. You'd make as much profit spending the time running around blacklake opening skill nodes for bottom level profession assets to sell for pennies. The only way professions were profitable was by botting. So, in essence, trying to fight botting by nerfing, they drove more people to bot. The correct response was to mitigate the problem through IP filtering, not by destroying a game mechanic.
Bah, I upgraded 2 companions to legendary (one with AD) just for SCA. I'm not going to complain about the million AD I lost. Always, always, always assume that things will change with an MMO. Especially when spending a lot. Case in point - the first Angel of Protection that was available in the game sold for over 20 million. Now they are one of the cheapest epic companions.
My opinions are my own. I do not work for PWE or Cryptic. - Forum Rules - Protector's Enclave Discord - I play on Xbox Any of my comments not posted in orange are based on my own personal opinion and not official. Any messages written in orange are official moderation messages. Signature images are now fixed!
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ironzerg79Member, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,942Arc User
Yeah, I put 4 to Legendary for SCA...but I had fun, earned some good loot, so they probably paid for themselves at some point...maybe. But whatever, it's a game.
"It's a "free" trinket that cost me 800k AD, considering I had just purchased purple companions to play SCA on two characters. Now I have 8 bound level 25 purple companions that I will never use for anything."
This.
I was gearing up companions to play SCA and almost bought zen for that purpose. Now PWE won't see that money and probably never see real world money from me ever again.
I was gearing up companions to play SCA and almost bought zen for that purpose. Now PWE won't see that money and probably never see real world money from me ever again.
Imagine the loss I would have felt if I had dumped $100 into it. Thank god I didn't fall into that hole. It's not as bad as it could be. I could have spent money on the game.
For all the moaning about the gift companion having a bad bonus... so what?
If it had a great bonus, then it would be giving an unfair advantage to anyone who gets one as opposed to anyone who doesn't.
It was undoubtedly given the worst possible stats intentionally, because the point of it is to be a cute commemoration, not something to actually make you stronger. So they have made it an item that is nearly purely cosmetic.
It's much like the Caturday capes, other than not getting one per character.
I know, right? The way people are talking, you'd think they expected game-breaking legendary companions for simply gracing the Gateway with their presence. It's meant to be a token.
ROLL TIDE ROLL
Great Weapon Fighter: Because when is today not a good day to die?
PC and PS4 player. Proud Guildmaster for PS4 Team Fencebane. Rank 5 Officer for PC Team Fencebane. Visit us at http://fencebane.shivtr.com
Really? For all of the time spent leveling and researching companions to play Swordcoast with numerous characters I am rewarded by having a game that I enjoy "closed down" and in return for promoting this as one of the benifits to playing Neverwinter, to friends, I get a "green" pet? I return to my original question: "Really?"
On the plus side, companions should be falling dramatically in price just like professional assets. With the exception of a few BiS companions, there's no use for most of them.
Really? For all of the time spent leveling and researching companions to play Swordcoast with numerous characters I am rewarded by having a game that I enjoy "closed down" and in return for promoting this as one of the benifits to playing Neverwinter, to friends, I get a "green" pet? I return to my original question: "Really?"
Oh, but the best part is that they thanks us for our understanding ... understanding what? That they fail to prevent botting, so they shut down utilities that many players have enjoyed. I for one do not agree with their lame story, nor with the decision to shut down Gateway.
Will there be a new app in store to continue assess the professions while away from consul.
I'm not an official source, but after this announcement, I think we can all agree that the answer to the question of another application allowing people to access their Neverwinter account while away from their computer/console is a clear and resounding "No".
the whole reason bonding pets are better then augmented ones is cause augmented are like normal companions stats wise and all but they don't fight or do anything. i love my bonded pet so i got no were to really complain here. but i can however complain a bit about augments.
i see no need to nerf bonding runestones. instead buff the overall augmentation pets or buff the augment effect.
Silvergriffon's Holistic Suggestion Agency
Augment companions used to be the vastly superior choice, and harder to get than regular companions. Bonding runestones were supposed to make people want to use the combat companions, but they were too good and made Augments greatly inferior. They recently reined in the Bonding stone a little bit, but they are still better than using an Augment companion.
Personally, I think that both should be good choices. Bonding stones are slightly less reliable and bursty, so it is reasonable that they grant more points when they proc. But, right now the gap is too wide. High rank Bonding runestones aren't really all that hard to get and the buff is up pretty much all the time in combat anyway.
I propose two changes.
First, I suggest that Augment companions be given an additional active bonus. Augmentation Affintiy: An active, but not summoned, Augment companion adds 10% of it's stats to the currently summoned companion. This bonus is increased to 100% of stats if the currently summoned companion is also an Augment.
Second, limit the total number of active Augment companions at any one time to two. Atempting to make a third one active will generate an error stating that you may only have two active Augment companions at one time and must make one of your currently active aguments idle before making this one active.
So, under my suggestions, if you have a summoned Augment plus an active Augment you get +100% of stats from each. If you have a summoned combat companion with Bonding runestones and two active Augments then your combat companion would have +20% of the Augment's stats making it more effective and survivable while also increasing the bonus to the character when the Bonding stones proc.
Numbers That Might Be Right (Excluding the companions base stats as this is a small number, probably varies widely, and I am lazy.)
Currently, a combat companion with 3 Rank 12 Bonding Runestones, Loyal Avenger gear with all Rank 12 enchantments gives the character 30,002 stat points when it procs. Currently, an Augment pet with all Rank 12 runestones, Loyal Avenger gear with all Rank 12 enchantments gives the character 11,517 stat points.
With my suggestion, if you have a summoned combat companion equipped as above along with two active Augments equipped as above the character gets 36,569 stat points when the stones proc. With my suggestion, if you have a summoned Augment companion equipped as above along with a second active Augment companion the character gets 23,142 stat points.
The Bonding stones could still deliver many more stat points but the ratio goes down from about 2.6:1 to about 1.6:1. I think that makes it more viable to chose either path.
Plus, from a revenue standpoint players will have two or even three companions that they will need to gear up for each character. Gearing up makes players spend money and/or play more (which ultimately causes somebody to spend money).
I disagree with all of this. Getting 3 rank 12 bonding stones takes massively more amount of time, AD and effort (and pain of burning hundreds of wards) than buying an augment. I see the augment as a first step and the bonding path as the end game. All part of leveling and improving your character. My main has an inactive augment and 3 rank 12 bonding. My alts all have augments. This seems natural to me.
I disagree with all of this. Getting 3 rank 12 bonding stones takes massively more amount of time, AD and effort (and pain of burning hundreds of wards) than buying an augment. I see the augment as a first step and the bonding path as the end game. All part of leveling and improving your character. My main has an inactive augment and 3 rank 12 bonding. My alts all have augments. This seems natural to me.
Bonding Runestones not hard to get? Not sure where you heard that. It is a major investment. I only have mine due to TB wards and companion packs from VIP.
Let me clarify. I meant that they are not harder to get than any other runestone. But, not everyone has VIP to open a lockbox every day, so you are correct that getting ahold of them in the first place can be more costly. I stand corrected on that point. And I do recognize that its a significant investment to rank up any runestone or enchantment.
I also admit that I hadn't really thought of it as bonding runestones being the end game choice over augments either. That's a really good way to look at it. But, I do still think that the margin for how much better bonding is vs. augment is too high.
What about simply increasing the stat point percentage for augments based on their rank? So, the more you invest in ranking them up, the more stat points you get. For example, 100% at green, 105% at blue, 115% at purple, 135% at legendary. Including the +15% for having a legendary companion that would total +150%. That's equal to 3 Rank 9 Greater Bonding runestones on a non-legendary companion. Would something like that help address the concern about comparative investment? It is definitely also a major investment to get a companion to legendary. Epic to legendary alone costs 1 million AD.
My real motivation behind the whole suggestion is that I am strongly in favor of diversity in appearance, builds, and strategies. There are far too many things that push us towards "sameness".
Some of us have character concepts or background stories that make them unlikely to have a companion fighting by their side on a regular basis. And the augments have had just as much work put into their appearance and animations and its a shame that there aren't more of them being shown off.
Let me clarify. I meant that they are not harder to get than any other runestone. But, not everyone has VIP to open a lockbox every day, so you are correct that getting ahold of them in the first place can be more costly. I stand corrected on that point. And I do recognize that its a significant investment to rank up any runestone or enchantment.
It is a lot of harder to get a bonding stone than any other runestone. I have tons of rank 9 for other type of runstones and I did not even need to refine them. (tons means from 20 to 50 unused). They just came as rank 9. I have only 4 rank 9 bonding stone which I needed to refine them one by one to rank 9.
I have VIP since the first day they introduced VIP.
*** The game can read your mind. If you want it, you won't get it. If you don't expect to get it, you will. ***
Augments are only a little more effective than non, and only at endgame with full BiS. The cost benifit ratios are highly in the favor of non-augments until endgame BiS, when you have nothing left to do but grind for that extra sliver of DPS.
I would be satisfied if we could just bring Sword Coast Adventures back. If that was not one of the items targeted by botters, I do not understand why it cannot be returned....
I would be satisfied if we could just bring Sword Coast Adventures back. If that was not one of the items targeted by botters, I do not understand why it cannot be returned....
yeah i agree, but then their would still be resources used up on gateway. at least we would have a way to get daily dice rolls, loyal gear, damarian shepherd, lightfoot thief, and a great dice game that we all enjoy. then make it compatible with consoles using a phone app or computer or something. botters use the mail system, auction house, and professions tab.
I would be satisfied if we could just bring Sword Coast Adventures back. If that was not one of the items targeted by botters, I do not understand why it cannot be returned....
yeah i agree, but then their would still be resources used up on gateway. at least we would have a way to get daily dice rolls, loyal gear, damarian shepherd, lightfoot thief, and a great dice game that we all enjoy. then make it compatible with consoles using a phone app or computer or something. botters use the mail system, auction house, and professions tab.
I would be satisfied if we could just bring Sword Coast Adventures back. If that was not one of the items targeted by botters, I do not understand why it cannot be returned....
yeah i agree, but then their would still be resources used up on gateway. at least we would have a way to get daily dice rolls, loyal gear, damarian shepherd, lightfoot thief, and a great dice game that we all enjoy. then make it compatible with consoles using a phone app or computer or something. botters use the mail system, auction house, and professions tab.
SCA was also being botted.
explain how? i cant see how it can be botted, if you don't mind filling out my curiosity.
I would be satisfied if we could just bring Sword Coast Adventures back. If that was not one of the items targeted by botters, I do not understand why it cannot be returned....
yeah i agree, but then their would still be resources used up on gateway. at least we would have a way to get daily dice rolls, loyal gear, damarian shepherd, lightfoot thief, and a great dice game that we all enjoy. then make it compatible with consoles using a phone app or computer or something. botters use the mail system, auction house, and professions tab.
SCA was also being botted.
So, instead of actually fighting bots directly, they just cut away any feature, that can be botted? They might have to close down the game next too, since it's being botted 24/7.
Hello army of same looking characters standing around the daily quests NPCs...
Btw. maybe i'm wrong, but i think i can recall a temp. shut down of the Gateway in the past because of bots, and all it did was send even more bots into the game in the end.
So, how are they going to deal with those (new) bots ingame now?
I would be satisfied if we could just bring Sword Coast Adventures back. If that was not one of the items targeted by botters, I do not understand why it cannot be returned....
yeah i agree, but then their would still be resources used up on gateway. at least we would have a way to get daily dice rolls, loyal gear, damarian shepherd, lightfoot thief, and a great dice game that we all enjoy. then make it compatible with consoles using a phone app or computer or something. botters use the mail system, auction house, and professions tab.
SCA was also being botted.
explain how? i cant see how it can be botted, if you don't mind filling out my curiosity.
I would be satisfied if we could just bring Sword Coast Adventures back. If that was not one of the items targeted by botters, I do not understand why it cannot be returned....
yeah i agree, but then their would still be resources used up on gateway. at least we would have a way to get daily dice rolls, loyal gear, damarian shepherd, lightfoot thief, and a great dice game that we all enjoy. then make it compatible with consoles using a phone app or computer or something. botters use the mail system, auction house, and professions tab.
SCA was also being botted.
So, instead of actually fighting bots directly, they just cut away any feature, that can be botted? They might have to close down the game next too, since it's being botted 24/7.
They are doing exactly that bit by bit... They removed old dungeons because... I don't know, people were running through pirate king for "free" GMOP. What was official statement, I forgot, "we want to redesign them" or some stupidity of similar caliber. Yea, they redesigned them into oblivion... So consider this as "redesigned gateway", yea... -.-
I would be satisfied if we could just bring Sword Coast Adventures back. If that was not one of the items targeted by botters, I do not understand why it cannot be returned....
yeah i agree, but then their would still be resources used up on gateway. at least we would have a way to get daily dice rolls, loyal gear, damarian shepherd, lightfoot thief, and a great dice game that we all enjoy. then make it compatible with consoles using a phone app or computer or something. botters use the mail system, auction house, and professions tab.
SCA was also being botted.
explain how? i cant see how it can be botted, if you don't mind filling out my curiosity.
I would be satisfied if we could just bring Sword Coast Adventures back. If that was not one of the items targeted by botters, I do not understand why it cannot be returned....
yeah i agree, but then their would still be resources used up on gateway. at least we would have a way to get daily dice rolls, loyal gear, damarian shepherd, lightfoot thief, and a great dice game that we all enjoy. then make it compatible with consoles using a phone app or computer or something. botters use the mail system, auction house, and professions tab.
SCA was also being botted.
So, instead of actually fighting bots directly, they just cut away any feature, that can be botted? They might have to close down the game next too, since it's being botted 24/7.
They are doing exactly that bit by bit... They removed old dungeons because... I don't know, people were running through pirate king for "free" GMOP. What was official statement, I forgot, "we want to redesign them" or some stupidity of similar caliber. Yea, they redesigned them into oblivion... So consider this as "redesigned gateway", yea... -.-
theirs tons of proof on how botting was happening in professions and in the mail system and also in the auction house. but their was no shred of info on botting with SCA. looked around for a while couldn't find any info. just looking at the ah now and mail system you can clearly see spams or works of botting. instead of using gateway they are in game. the price for some of the mats has gone up, cause botters are less active on professions; cant wait to see whatever prices are gonna rise cause botters are slightly less active for now.
Resources...hmm. What've we got in M10? Yet another farming zone - nothing new in terms of gameplay.
I am not saying it's bad, I am just saying that Resources is a matter of priorities.
Do we want a multidimensional world where different people enjoy things in their diversity or we want to put Resources on ever growing flat structure for perpetual grinding?
If M10 release is at the expense of Gateway in terms od Resources - I don't want it. Take it and give us Gateway back.
... and fire the guy(s) who made the decision to shutdown Gateway - he does not listen to the customers and he is killing the game!!!
Comments
Cryptic is the company that developed and continues to work on Neverwinter. When we're talking about "the devs", this is Cryptic 100% of the way. PWE (see below) doesn't work on any development.
Perfect World Entertainment or PWE is the publisher for Neverwinter.
Arc isn't a company, but PWE's platform that connects together all their games into a single place, much like Steam.
Ancillary to this relationship is Wizards of the Coast or WotC, who own the D&D trademark. Cryptic has been collaborating with WotC to build stories and content that ties back into Neverwinter current D&D themes from other products (See Storm King's Thunder, Hoard of the Dragon Queen, or Princess of the Apocalypse).
No one's been sold to anyone since Neverwinter launched. Arc was introduced by PWE a couple years into the launch of Neverwinter, but it has nothing to actually do with Neverwinter, other than including it as one of the games tied to the platform, since it houses all of PWE's properties.
Great Weapon Fighter: Because when is today not a good day to die?
PC and PS4 player. Proud Guildmaster for PS4 Team Fencebane. Rank 5 Officer for PC Team Fencebane. Visit us at http://fencebane.shivtr.com
If it had a great bonus, then it would be giving an unfair advantage to anyone who gets one as opposed to anyone who doesn't.
It was undoubtedly given the worst possible stats intentionally, because the point of it is to be a cute commemoration, not something to actually make you stronger. So they have made it an item that is nearly purely cosmetic.
It's much like the Caturday capes, other than not getting one per character.
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
If the gateway is really gone forever, I hope they un-nerf the professions and make them profitable enough to play with again. Players became botters partly because profit margins became so slim (due to botters) that working the professions on a single account wasn't worth the time investment. You'd make as much profit spending the time running around blacklake opening skill nodes for bottom level profession assets to sell for pennies. The only way professions were profitable was by botting. So, in essence, trying to fight botting by nerfing, they drove more people to bot and existing botters to expand their footprint. The correct response was to mitigate the problem through IP filtering, not by destroying a game mechanic. I hope that if they take anything from this going forward, it's that addressing the abuse to the system is the solution; breaking the system not.
Any of my comments not posted in orange are based on my own personal opinion and not official.
Any messages written in orange are official moderation messages. Signature images are now fixed!
"It's a "free" trinket that cost me 800k AD, considering I had just purchased purple companions to play SCA on two characters. Now I have 8 bound level 25 purple companions that I will never use for anything."
This.
I was gearing up companions to play SCA and almost bought zen for that purpose. Now PWE won't see that money and probably never see real world money from me ever again.
Great Weapon Fighter: Because when is today not a good day to die?
PC and PS4 player. Proud Guildmaster for PS4 Team Fencebane. Rank 5 Officer for PC Team Fencebane. Visit us at http://fencebane.shivtr.com
Are you having a Relapse?
I also admit that I hadn't really thought of it as bonding runestones being the end game choice over augments either. That's a really good way to look at it. But, I do still think that the margin for how much better bonding is vs. augment is too high.
What about simply increasing the stat point percentage for augments based on their rank? So, the more you invest in ranking them up, the more stat points you get. For example, 100% at green, 105% at blue, 115% at purple, 135% at legendary. Including the +15% for having a legendary companion that would total +150%. That's equal to 3 Rank 9 Greater Bonding runestones on a non-legendary companion. Would something like that help address the concern about comparative investment? It is definitely also a major investment to get a companion to legendary. Epic to legendary alone costs 1 million AD.
My real motivation behind the whole suggestion is that I am strongly in favor of diversity in appearance, builds, and strategies. There are far too many things that push us towards "sameness".
Some of us have character concepts or background stories that make them unlikely to have a companion fighting by their side on a regular basis. And the augments have had just as much work put into their appearance and animations and its a shame that there aren't more of them being shown off.
Champions Online Advanced Forum Search
I have VIP since the first day they introduced VIP.
botters use the mail system, auction house, and professions tab.
They might have to close down the game next too, since it's being botted 24/7.
Hello army of same looking characters standing around the daily quests NPCs...
Btw. maybe i'm wrong, but i think i can recall a temp. shut down of the Gateway in the past because of bots, and all it did was send even more bots into the game in the end.
So, how are they going to deal with those (new) bots ingame now?
What've we got in M10? Yet another farming zone - nothing new in terms of gameplay.
I am not saying it's bad, I am just saying that Resources is a matter of priorities.
Do we want a multidimensional world where different people enjoy things in their diversity or we want to put Resources on ever growing flat structure for perpetual grinding?
If M10 release is at the expense of Gateway in terms od Resources - I don't want it. Take it and give us Gateway back.
... and fire the guy(s) who made the decision to shutdown Gateway - he does not listen to the customers and he is killing the game!!!