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Dispeling the Myth that Voniblood and Black Ice Empowerment are the same

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    dupeksdupeks Member Posts: 1,789 Arc User

    And the worst thing is that we are continually hearing from the developer team that "we are not doing this or that becuase is very time-costly", "good idea but we are so bussy with other things", "we dont have manpower for...." etc. And the very few things they do are totally useless because of bad decisions.

    This seems rather astute.

    "We can't support Foundry because we need to do class balancing, and as much as we'd love to make SCA part of the main game, it would take too much work."

    Well, dear devs, we've all only got so many hours to spend on your game, and you want us to farm Influence, farm campaign currency, farm RP, farm AD, farm lanolin, farm voninblod....

    Basically, I think a lot of us are exhausted all the time.
    Sadly, I agree. I run SKT dailies on a couple of my toons for reputation and secrets which I'll maybe use one day, but I've given up even unlocking anything past the second boon because I get so angry each time I sit down to start grinding vblod.

    After thinking this through a bit more, I think I'm most angry because of how incredibly un-fun grinding out vblod is. Running around doing HEs is marginally better than running around harvesting relics, but is generally less efficient unless you have a really solid zerg group (and that comes with its own issues).

    The hands-down most efficient way to farm is to use 1) Zen-bought trowel 2) Trade-bar (Zen-adjacent) armor bonus 3) Zen-bought companion. If you have all those (I reluctantly bought 1&2), the grind goes SIGNIFICANTLY faster. Which just makes me furious, on principle I don't want to support a monetization mechanic that bullies me into spending money.

    Sure hoping they reconsider this ugly mistake.
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    silverkeltsilverkelt Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 4,235 Arc User
    Paying a company to skip ultra boring content, should be a BIG no from every player, rewarding them for giving us fun stuff.. totally different, its why I bought vip on day 1.. as it was a great value package overall.

    Eventually with stuff like mod 10 and the upcoming mod 11 or whatever it is.. they will drive players like me away, paying customers.

    Their arrogance and ignorance knows no bounds , why they are being so stubborn on this multi time gated, gear gated, zen gated, vblood gated nonsense is beyond anything I can counter to even think of a argument to support.

    In addition next mod is just as bad or worse, omg.. just omg.

    Each day that passes, I see more and more people just throw their hands up.. screw it, is the most common phase about the game these days..

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    dupeksdupeks Member Posts: 1,789 Arc User
    edited October 2016

    Paying a company to skip ultra boring content, should be a BIG no from every player, rewarding them for giving us fun stuff.. totally different, its why I bought vip on day 1.. as it was a great value package overall.

    Eventually with stuff like mod 10 and the upcoming mod 11 or whatever it is.. they will drive players like me away, paying customers.

    Their arrogance and ignorance knows no bounds , why they are being so stubborn on this multi time gated, gear gated, zen gated, vblood gated nonsense is beyond anything I can counter to even think of a argument to support.

    In addition next mod is just as bad or worse, omg.. just omg.

    Each day that passes, I see more and more people just throw their hands up.. screw it, is the most common phase about the game these days..

    Although I think you could be more diplomatic in your tone, I agree with the sentiment.

    I've promised myself not to buy a single dime of Zen until this situation is addressed (and I was a regular "customer" for years). If it goes on too long, I'll probably lose interest altogether.

    Edit: I wonder if I'm not the only one who is pulling back on Zen purchases because of this sour taste in my mouth. Maybe that's exacerbating the ZaX backlog in addition to the upcoming sale and Steam wallet snafu (hilarious and also not handled professionally).
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    ironzerg79ironzerg79 Member, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 4,942 Arc User

    Basically, I think a lot of us are exhausted all the time.

    @beckylunatic I agree 100%.

    Exhausted is the best way to describe it.
    "Meanwhile in the moderator's lounge..."
    i7TZDZK.gif?1
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    beckylunaticbeckylunatic Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 14,231 Arc User
    While I have talked a little bit in other threads about the inventory bullying (borrowed term from @wylonus ) that ties in with activities added in SKT, I did just have a small lightbulb moment about the specific comparison to black ice.

    Collecting black ice consumed one inventory slot for your pick. That's all. Yup, you had to refine it with a profession slot, which some might have found objectionable. But the entire process occupied a minimum of bag space. And this was during a time when the refinement explosion we live with today had not yet been implemented (much as how we had plenty of time to collect black ice because we didn't have so many other things to grind).

    Voninblod is just a vendor turn-in to make it usable, but you need one slot for your trowel, and then 3-4 slots for the relics. More slots depending if you gear swap or use excavator potions for farming. You have to pack your relics around until you go to the store. If you're trying to also do quests, and your character is carrying a typical load of refinement items, consumables, and stuff that you're going to dump into your stronghold when you get a chance, all this is creating pressure.
    Guild Leader - The Lords of Light

    Neverwinter Census 2017

    All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
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    silverkeltsilverkelt Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 4,235 Arc User
    @dupeks I thought I was being more restrained then usual!



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    dupeksdupeks Member Posts: 1,789 Arc User

    @dupeks I thought I was being more restrained then usual

    Haha ok that's fair. Not even one orange rodent made its way into that post :smiley:

    That said, I'm completely with you on the sentiment. I got done with some daily stuff earlier than usual yesterday. For a few minutes, I just sat there staring at the SKT campaign screen thinking about how much progress I'd make if I spend the next hour grinding relics while anger quietly bubbled underneath. I logged off instead.
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    silence1xsilence1x Member Posts: 1,503 Arc User
    dupeks said:

    I logged off instead.

    I've been doing this a lot lately - login, invoke on one toon, get my VIP key, logoff.

    I aim to misbehave
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    jazzfongjazzfong Member Posts: 1,079 Arc User
    Done all my boons in SKT, not a big deal if u willing to do 30 HE everyday, it is just 10 rotations in lonelywood, or 2 hours of non-stop farming. I didnt use trowel, just quest and HE. Now my volinblood is prepared for relic gear and mod 10b, but i agree the empowerment is a pain, at least decrease the cost and extend the duration.
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    ironzerg79ironzerg79 Member, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 4,942 Arc User
    jazzfong said:

    Done all my boons in SKT, not a big deal if u willing to do 30 HE everyday, it is just 10 rotations in lonelywood, or 2 hours of non-stop farming. I didnt use trowel, just quest and HE. Now my volinblood is prepared for relic gear and mod 10b, but i agree the empowerment is a pain, at least decrease the cost and extend the duration.

    Right, but it would've been impossible to do while wearing any gear that required empowerment. Had you been wearing a set of Relic gear or similar pieces, your Voninblood gain would've been about 1/10th of what it was.

    I've seen @asterdahl commenting on the importance of upgrading armors elsewhere, but hopefully he's been peeking in here and understands how the Empowerment system renders the Relic gear unusable. The small increase in power coming from the iLevel 150 gear doesn't even come close to be worth the cost of keeping it empowered.
    "Meanwhile in the moderator's lounge..."
    i7TZDZK.gif?1
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    silverkeltsilverkelt Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 4,235 Arc User
    @jazzfong

    That is all fine and dandy for 1 toon, imagine people like myself trying to unlock fbi on 2-3 toons or more.

    The inherent problem that we have laid out over and over , is that by locking FBI entry with the need to do that much grinding (at least 2 boons in campaign, unlock the fbi, unlcok the pants/shirt is the cheapest way to do it) it takes significant amount of vblood.

    WHEN you line this campaign up with EVERY campaign before it, NONE other even gets 50% as daunting. You can skip the last few WOD boons, they are good, but not game breaking, it doesnt lock out content, like this campaign does, it never was part of gearing , it really was just a couple of boons.

    This is the problem, by tying everything together, (gear, boons, unlock fbi and frost resistance acquisition) it really is way too much to do on a couple of toons.

    Most people I know that are fine with the current system, have A. 1 toon, and/or B. got the remo/trowel or a combination of both.

    I JUST ask that they tone this down to be more in line with the rest of their campaigns. ITS JUST too much otherwise.

    IF They just dropped gating into FBI, this would solve 50% of the issue, I still personally think VBLOOD acquisition is way too harsh, boring and unfun ..

    even many that dont think the rest of it, usually tell me its boring even for them and the trowel to get vblood.

    Its a game, we come to do some grinding sure, but not to this level.
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    nathan#8975 nathan Member Posts: 225 Arc User
    He speaks the truth. I opted out after two days
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    bitt3rnightmar3bitt3rnightmar3 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 788 Arc User

    And the worst thing is that we are continually hearing from the developer team that "we are not doing this or that because is very time-costly", "good idea but we are so busy with other things", "we don't have manpower for...." etc. And the very few things they do are totally useless because of bad decisions.

    This seems rather astute.

    "We can't support Foundry because we need to do class balancing, and as much as we'd love to make SCA part of the main game, it would take too much work."

    Well, dear devs, we've all only got so many hours to spend on your game, and you want us to farm Influence, farm campaign currency, farm RP, farm AD, farm lanolin, farm voninblod....

    Basically, I think a lot of us are exhausted all the time.

    Which is why I have two fully geared level 70 alts that are just Farmers because I don't have hours in the day to do ANYTHING else with them.

    Three characters is about my limit and I'm also playing support classes because I enjoy it. If I wanted this game to be easier on time for me I'd just quit tanking and heal/buff debuff support and focus only on my CW or a DPS who does things very quickly. But if everyone does that then who will run higher level content since you need some support classes for content not to take forever?

    --very exhausted supporter of everyone else.

    Relmyna - AC/DC Righteous + Haste| Nadine - CW MoF (working on it)|Buffy - GF SM Tact| Hrist - Justice Tankadin|Healadin (Wannabe Tank)| Lena -MI Sabo TR (Farmer) | Jeska - GWF SM Destroyer (Farmer) | Maggie - HR PF Trapper (Wannabe DPS)
    --
    I'll never retrace my steps.

    Some of my best friends are Imaginary.


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    sm0ld3rsm0ld3r Member Posts: 236 Arc User
    dupeks said:

    Paying a company to skip ultra boring content, should be a BIG no from every player, rewarding them for giving us fun stuff.. totally different, its why I bought vip on day 1.. as it was a great value package overall.

    Eventually with stuff like mod 10 and the upcoming mod 11 or whatever it is.. they will drive players like me away, paying customers.

    Their arrogance and ignorance knows no bounds , why they are being so stubborn on this multi time gated, gear gated, zen gated, vblood gated nonsense is beyond anything I can counter to even think of a argument to support.

    In addition next mod is just as bad or worse, omg.. just omg.

    Each day that passes, I see more and more people just throw their hands up.. screw it, is the most common phase about the game these days..

    Although I think you could be more diplomatic in your tone, I agree with the sentiment.

    I've promised myself not to buy a single dime of Zen until this situation is addressed (and I was a regular "customer" for years). If it goes on too long, I'll probably lose interest altogether.

    Edit: I wonder if I'm not the only one who is pulling back on Zen purchases because of this sour taste in my mouth. Maybe that's exacerbating the ZaX backlog in addition to the upcoming sale and Steam wallet snafu (hilarious and also not handled professionally).
    I think he was about as diplomatic as can be expected. These folks are completely incompetent. Sadly, I think they are flushing out whatever remaining players they have with these extremely poor design choices. I logged in last night and tried to muster up some energy to play and just couldn't do it. It's simply not fun.
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    stevedudemanstevedudeman Member Posts: 130 Arc User
    edited October 2016
    jazzfong said:

    Done all my boons in SKT, not a big deal if u willing to do 30 HE everyday...

    If you play everyday like me, that's only 900 HE's a month...per toon!
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