aside: that is a perfect example of taking a perfect possible AD sink and making it Zen instead of AD. rrrrrrr!
Tradebars can't be acquired with AD, you have to pay zen either for VIP or direct for the keys.
Also to update my prior post. Average AD per key: 8786 AD for a VIP who gets the invoke bonus and gets full use. Yeah no wonder people are going nuts over VIP atm.
Paingiver is not an acurratte or Useful measure of your actual sustained damage output, (i.e DPS), in various ways it lies. For a true idea use ACT. Link below:
ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
edited October 2016
I am very well aware. I was saying that Coal Wards were a perfect example of something that should be an AD purchase. VIP made coal wards far cheaper than the Zen Store value (Coal Wards in the Zen store were historically a joke) but instead of removing it from the Zen Store they made it a zen store exclusive (except for a rather rare RNG chance) which causes further demand for Zen.
My point is those who set the store costs always err on the side of increasing demand for Zen.
Also, I completely agree Wendy. For some reason Cryptic has said on numerous occasions that they don't think they could support the game selling cosmetics. I completely disagree especially since another MMO/MOBA company reported a 1.6 Billion Dollar revenue last year on virtually all cosmetic options. I would happily pay for cosmetics but the current options are lackluster and frankly many of the free cosmetics given away as rewards look better than the paid variants.
I remember last year, when my husband looked over my bank statement and asked what I purchased for $50 on a gift card. I looked and told him, "Oh that was for some outfits I bought online." He asked, When are they being delivered? "Well... uh... they are for a game..." He just looked disgusted and walked away. Later on he asked me not to buy any virtual cars to go with my virtual clothing. You can see I am a sucker for good cosmetics in a game.
But that was another MMO not this one. To be honest, I don't think I have spent more than $20 on Neverwinter and I have been here since the alpha testing. They only need to try harder.
I don't mind spending some money, if the item in questions is: - account-wide - being sold at a reduced price - usefull for any character and that's it.
They can sit on the rest, until youknowwhat freezes over. And that's the reason why i'm still waiting for an upgrade on ViP...
Also yeah i totally agree wards are both overpriced and a perfect AD sink if sold for AD.
I mean to put the price of coalescent wards into perspective, if they could only be acquired via the zen store the price for a transcendent weapon/arm,our enchant would be 63,000 zen. Thats over 3 times the super expensive big spender pack cryptic offers in the zen store with the drow unlock on it. And bearing in mind the AH cut and ignoring the RP costs the minimum A price to break even for such an enchant would be 35 million AD. I doubt we'd see them below 40 million TBH. Hell even at the minimum 100 to 1 exchange rate they'd still be 7 million AD which is still up there with some of the most expensive items in the AH right now.
EDIT: DoH! forgot perfect and transcendent don't need identical lessers. Still thats 17 and of course i forgot the marks of potency. still thats 17 wards and 10 greater and 10 superior marks of potency. Thats still an enormous 17k AD and 3 million AD. Or a total after AH cut of 12.8 million AD. Even at minimum exchange rate it's still 5.25 million AD. Albeit you can get the marks a lot cheaper than that and knock a half a million off both at the minimum. And both those upper and lower values are quite high up the AH price table.
Like i said, wards, keys, bags, and bank slots would all make excellent AD sinks, though they could give the ZAX a massive army shot by putting epic keys in the adventure seal trader store at 200-400 seals a pop. People wouldn;t be running out to buy VIP so much if the keys could be got elsewhere and that would help reduce the ZAX pressure somewhat.
Paingiver is not an acurratte or Useful measure of your actual sustained damage output, (i.e DPS), in various ways it lies. For a true idea use ACT. Link below:
lirithielMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 2,482Arc User
With the (painstaking) ability to move AD around from one toon to another, having character-bound Coal Wards sold by a vendor wouldn't be such a bad thing. It's the ONE AD sink I would welcome IF it was for a reasonable price. But at 500k AD and up no thanks.
Our pain is self chosen.
The most important thing in life is to be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.
Over the course of my time in Neverwinter, I've dropped a good bit of cash. I've paid cash out for all the major packs (but not the class ones though, the few of those I have were from AD conversions while on sale) including the Founder's pack (now called Hero of the North). I've also paid out to participate in a few promotions as well (the ioun stone of radiance, for example and maybe a couple others). I haven't, however, done so in a very long time because frankly in the past year Neverwinter has at best delivered an experience worth my time but not my money. That is to say, they can count my active VIP account (again, paid for using AD conversion exclusively) among their stats. THAT is the extent I'm willing to trade to Cryptic for my use of Neverwinter at this time. I do not feel there is enough value being delivered to me that warrants me compensating Cryptic for above and beyond me giving them my time.
I am MORE THAN WILLING to pay real money for an experience I enjoy. I paid tons while playing STO: Lifer sub + untold amounts of money likely tallied well into the thousands over my many years as a Cryptic customer playing STO, CO and NW. I don't play STO or CO actively anymore, though I do hit STO sometimes when I feel like blowing things up in space but don't feel like doing it in a flight simulator in BSGO (another game I played a lot years ago and spent money on happily reimbursing the company for the pleasure of playing).
Cryptic, in my view, does not deserve our money. I'm sure the folks on the game side are smart people, but the management and the people handling their business are... simply put... awful. I don't know what their resumes are, or what their qualifications say - all I can see is the outside in perspective (aka, Customer), and from that perspective - which frankly should be the ONLY PERSPECTIVE THAT MATTERS - is that Cryptic is a mess. They're poor communicators, they're poor at responding to customer needs, they're poor at delivering real value based on customer's desires, they're poor at maintaining their existing offerings, their poor at maintaining an image of trustworthiness.
The mantra in well-run, successful businesses is to be outside-in focused. Cryptic is not a well-run business, and given they can't muster the resources to keep the Foundry or the Gateway updated, they are also not particularly successful either (not the Neverwinter part, anyway). Again, that can be DIRECTLY related to their failure to take an outside-in perspective. This whole thread is yet another appear by CUSTOMERS for Cryptic to take that perspective - we've been begging them for years to do this, and their failure has manifested in a failed Gateway and a broken Foundry, massive content reuse (as opposed to true innovation - SH and Alliances for instance was a reuse from STO, it was not an innovation born from the Neverwinter team), along with piles of exploits, bugs and catastrophic missteps (if only on the communications/PR side) that have eroded customer confidence.
Maybe Cryptic can turn the ship at the management level. Maybe @mimicking#6533 can make a real difference and bridge gap massive chasm that has come between Cryptic's customers in Neverwinter and what seems to pass for reality within Cryptic when it considers what it's customers want. I don't know. By my count he's the third person to hold his post... maybe 3rd time's a charm? I have high hopes, but low expectations. I would love to be a paying Cryptic customer again.
I remember last year, when my husband looked over my bank statement and asked what I purchased for $50 on a gift card. I looked and told him, "Oh that was for some outfits I bought online." He asked, When are they being delivered? "Well... uh... they are for a game..." He just looked disgusted and walked away. Later on he asked me not to buy any virtual cars to go with my virtual clothing. You can see I am a sucker for good cosmetics in a game.
But that was another MMO not this one. To be honest, I don't think I have spent more than $20 on Neverwinter and I have been here since the alpha testing. They only need to try harder.
They can't make money out of fashion. You want to know why? Because the armor enchants that somehow worth using looks like the worst nightmare on fashion. And the only 3 Armor enchants that somehow look ok, are useless in terms of game mechanics.
Looks ok, but useless:
Thunderhead animation is hard to see in the screenshot but in game it's nice.
Why the spikes ????
And hamstrocity:
Can't use SF on any fashion with transparent texture:
They can't make money out of fashion. You want to know why? Because the armor enchants that somehow worth using looks like the worst nightmare on fashion. And the only 3 Armor enchants that somehow look ok, are useless in terms of game mechanics.
As it happens, I kind of like the NORMAL version of the Bloodtheft enchantment. Higher levels look really stupid and lesser doesn't give much visual, but the Normal version makes you look like a serial killer, whereas Perfect makes you look vaguely like Pig Pen who spent some time hanging out in Atlanta.
ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
Yeah...
I know they say it's complicated to change but it seriously needs to be changed. However, that goes back to my point of them not prioritizing a lot of valid market options. As Kvet touched upon they see data which directs them in a certain course but I have to question how much they ask themselves "why" they get that data.
Sadly I think they look at the data for cosmetics and UGC and discredit alloting resources in certain directions instead of considering WHY the data suggests players are not interested. UGC has kept old games alive for decades. Certain games make billions of dollars in cosmetic sales. If people are not playing UGC it's likely because of a reason other than the lack of interest...and at this point I can show a thousand threads which support that claim. If people aren't buying cosmetics it might just be because the number one most requested change of the last two years by the widest range of player types is removing the cosmetic killing armor and weapon enchantment animations. -.-
Also, just as an FYI since this is somewhat going off topic, I view topics such as this under a large umbrella of what effects the market prices. Afterall the only reason the black friday sale could be a concern is because the game already has a large backlog. If you feel like this is headed too far off your initial reason for posting this thread zurimor please let us know and we will direct it back to the Black Friday sale.
Over the course of my time in Neverwinter, I've dropped a good bit of cash. I've paid cash out for all the major packs (but not the class ones though, the few of those I have were from AD conversions while on sale) including the Founder's pack (now called Hero of the North). I've also paid out to participate in a few promotions as well (the ioun stone of radiance, for example and maybe a couple others). I haven't, however, done so in a very long time because frankly in the past year Neverwinter has at best delivered an experience worth my time but not my money. That is to say, they can count my active VIP account (again, paid for using AD conversion exclusively) among their stats. THAT is the extent I'm willing to trade to Cryptic for my use of Neverwinter at this time. I do not feel there is enough value being delivered to me that warrants me compensating Cryptic for above and beyond me giving them my time.
Maybe Cryptic can turn the ship at the management level. Maybe @mimicking#6533 can make a real difference and bridge gap massive chasm that has come between Cryptic's customers in Neverwinter and what seems to pass for reality within Cryptic when it considers what it's customers want. I don't know. By my count he's the third person to hold his post... maybe 3rd time's a charm? I have high hopes, but low expectations. I would love to be a paying Cryptic customer again.
@carl103 - UGC = User Generated Content. AKA: The Foundry
Well said...
Through the course of years playing Neverwinter with buying Zen for myself and as gifts for 7 other people I've convinced to play I can easily estimate I've spent several hundred dollars, Zen gift cards were such a non-brainer birthday gift and Christmas stocking stuffer that I nor anyone who received those gift cards had no complaints.
Then things began to change, often inexplicably or without warning items that used to be unbound became bound, items that used to be bound to account became bound to character. Refinement of runestones and enchantments became more difficult and expensive the Zen exchange came and went offline, much of the gear that at would at one time be adequate for certain areas suddenly weren't and the list just keeps on going.
Now I'm the sole survivor of the 7 friends and relatives who used to play Neverwinter still playing others have moved on to other games from other providers and the only exception being 1 person who still occasionally plays STO (and almost constantly complains they should have spent their Zen there instead of Neverwinter)...
I'm a bit pig headed however and since I have so much invested in the game I choose to continue to play, but mostly because I haven't found anything better - so far - but I do periodically look.
Cryptic/PWE may get a few more USDollars from me for future purchases but in the past year the only thing I found worth spending any money on was the Black Friday type purchases...
Since I often have to deal with the real world, VIP purchase doesn't make any sense for me because on the days when I am not able to log on the items and benefits I would have received just disappear, key purchases for me don't do it because on the several times I have purchased a bunch of keys the odds of an actual worthwhile reward is just too infrequent IMO and the costs of things that can be purchased with the trade bars border on outrageous (also IMO).
Neverwinter/Cryptic seems to have little problem reeling in new players, some of who appear to be OK with spending their money (or their parent's money) on things in the game - probably because what's happening now is all they've known, but if the PTB's begin altering the attributes of armor, weapons, bags, mounts and other things like they have in the past, I think the company will have to try to attract yet another new group of new players because those current players who have spent money yet have little or nothing to show for it (specifically VIP bennies and freebies afforded to them from VIP benefits) will even more easily move on to something else.
But that's just my opinion.
DD~
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micky1p00Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,594Arc User
They can't make money out of fashion. You want to know why? Because the armor enchants that somehow worth using looks like the worst nightmare on fashion. And the only 3 Armor enchants that somehow look ok, are useless in terms of game mechanics.
As it happens, I kind of like the NORMAL version of the Bloodtheft enchantment. Higher levels look really stupid and lesser doesn't give much visual, but the Normal version makes you look like a serial killer, whereas Perfect makes you look vaguely like Pig Pen who spent some time hanging out in Atlanta.
The enchants shader should work the same way as companion skins, as you upgrade you unlock the higher tiers, but you always can use the lowers too.
After so much time... they could invest in making a shader selectable...... instead of killing a major revenue stream, from which companies like Valve make orders of magnitude more than Cryptic (fashion for dota2 and the (in)famous hats for TF2)
I know they say it's complicated to change but it seriously needs to be changed. However, that goes back to my point of them not prioritizing a lot of valid market options. As Kvet touched upon they see data which directs them in a certain course but I have to question how much they ask themselves "why" they get that data.
Sadly I think they look at the data for cosmetics and UGC and discredit alloting resources in certain directions instead of considering WHY the data suggests players are not interested.
*snip*
This reminded me of an anecdote from my professional life that applies here. Part of my job responsibility includes overseeing digital marketing and development for a major software company (the platform team lives within the digital marketing function). Some years ago, the corporate .com site wasn't particularly mobile friendly. It was bad, exactly, but it certainly wasn't optimized (that is to say, it worked OK, but it was never designed that way, so that it was OK was purely by accident). The reason mobile was never a major priority was because our analytics showed a very low percent of traffic was coming from mobile (something like < 3%). That was still tens of thousands of visits monthly, but re-engineering a massive website to support 3% of visits better just never rose to priority over the long list of other things the digital team had on it's plate.
A question we always had, though, was.. was Mobile traffic low because our visitors don't visit typically on mobile, or is it low because the UX of the .com property was poor on Mobile.
Fast forward about 4 years. The site is completely responsive, and all aspects are designed with a mobile-first design methodology. From the first month the mobile UX was launched, mobile traffic increased by double digits EVERY MONTH until it finally reach a level that was clearly more what you'd expect given the audience and the prevalence of mobile usage. It still represents a minority of traffic, but the clear answer to our question was that mobile traffic was low because our mobile UX was poor.
I've been doing software development, digital marketing and everything in between for close to 2 decades at this point... I've had this sort Chicken and the Egg question come up countless times. It will take a leader at Cryptic with courage to challenge conventional wisdom. Heretofore, such a leader has not existed there, at least not that was obvious from the customer side - which effectively is the same as it not existing.
My personal management mantra: Just because it's what we've been doing doesn't mean it's the right way to do it, or that we should continued to do it into the future.
@kvet and @micky1p00 I agree with you, in fact, I put lesser fireburst on my main and thought something was wrong (glitched) with the game. There was this orange splooch when I mounted and dismounted my horse. Took me a bit before I realized it was the enchantment. I have a normal Frostburn on her now. Seems like they (the developers) could add a disable visuals for the enchantment.
By far I don't like the Shadow Clad, I won't get it no matter what. It reminds me of a bug zapper or a bad neon sign flickering. If I am at a campfire and some one has SC on them (no offense) I move to another instance. I find the effect that annoying.
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lirithielMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 2,482Arc User
Armor enchants should NOT be showing up on fashion.
Our pain is self chosen.
The most important thing in life is to be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.
I agree, armor enchants shouldn't show up on fashion, it would also be nice to be able to select which level of the enchant you would like to display when you do have an enchant slotted... preview of enchant effects would go on that wish list as well.
I'll tell you exactly why. They are too cheap to hire someone with enough experience and intelligence to come up with a proper game plan to fix the state of affairs. They just don't see the big picture and all their little poorly thought out digs to squeeze more $ out of their customer base is causing them to lose more and more players. It's not just about earning more money, it's doing it responsibly and with growth in mind. Otherwise they might as well just sell the game rights off and take their one time profit and leave as that is essentially what their shakedowns amount to.
They can't make money out of fashion. You want to know why? Because the armor enchants that somehow worth using looks like the worst nightmare on fashion. And the only 3 Armor enchants that somehow look ok, are useless in terms of game mechanics.
Actually I think they can make money from the sale of fashion, but it would take someone able to leave the narrow mindset that seems prevail currently.
For instance they offer Nobility Clothing, well why not open an area, say the Protector's Ballroom where the nobility can gather, hobnob, socialize? Certainly no one in battle garb or peasant's garb would be allowed into nobility setting like this, and perhaps occasionally receive some small token from their host say an rare but none the less coalescent ward drop?
The game also offers a Wedding Party outfit... hello... how about being able to attend an actual area where there is an actual wedding going on? Perhaps another outfit one for Bride and Groom where player characters can choose to exchange vows if they wish and receive a new title "Bonded to [fill in the blank} and where members attending a wedding party can offer token gifts to the 'happy couple'? (*Should include a no cost method to unbond from another character).
"Here's a level 5 enchantment for the next time you go adventuring, use it in good health - "two gold to buy a companion from the Grand Emporium" - "a pair of grieves with an item level of 115", etc."
There are Blacksmith's aprons - how about an area where a person can, with a little training and the proper tools and supplies, work on their armor to add a slight AC upgrade, or weapons to add a slight "keen" attribute to a blades and perhaps actually manufacture items to trade with another player or sell in the Auction House?
There are Courtesan outfits - I don't think that one would be too hard to figure out - a visit to the Neverwinter brothel area of the Moonstone Mask where properly outfitted characters can "socialize".
There are a lot of options for the game to make money rather than dumbing down items that the players paid for and already have...
If the PTB's want to phase out an item in the game, keys currently being offered for example, do that phase them out over a period of weeks or months instead of BAM! introducing a new module and suddenly what you bought and paid for is no longer worth the money you paid to get it... just one caveat however if someone buys bag "A" and it is "unbound" for example, it should always remain as it was sold - "unbound" - then if the PTB's decide the bag they are selling should be "bound to account" instead of "unbound", discontinue (by phasing out) the sale of bag "A" and replace it with bag "B"... Identical in every way, except it is now "bound to account" (of course once an item has been phased out completely, the player may not sell it in the Auction House or if it can be sold in the Auction House the person that buys it buys it as "bound to account" not "unbound".
The game wants to generate more money from the players?
How about the developers and programmers actually doing a little work to earn it (no slight intended) instead of just repeatedly sticking it to the players?!?
Heck, I'd be happy if they'd fix up those dungeons they removed before I started playing and added them back to the game. For now my partner and I are just casually leveling up pairs of characters to level 70. I figure by the time I have 8 characters to 70 I should know which ones I really want to concentrate on, and hopefully there will be more content to do by then!
DCUO has the best "dressing selection" menu, whenever you find new armor/costume, they get "integraded" into menu instead of going to packback slots after you claim it. some of my character, my main has several hundreds to chose.
neverwinter doesnt have it or not in thier "technology" coding engine.
I can see two corrections to this backlog: 1) Nerf the lockbox drops - I think it's happening already. Runic Lockbox is so stingy. And next Giants lockbox has a (dud) artifact as a 'main' prize.
2) Raise the Zen/AD cap from 500:1. - If the bubble continues and the backlog sticks, then they would have no choice to raise it (even though it's not really to their advantage, hence there is a cap implemented in the first place).
I especially like your second suggestion. But I don't think they'll do it, any more than they'd seriously consider OP's suggestion to do away with the Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale.
As has been noted elsewhere in this thread - NW has devolved to the point where now it's all about monetization. Unless a new feature/nerf/"bug fix" benefits the bottom line for Cryptic, it's not happening.
Conversely, if you see heavy adverts for some new feature / enhancement - guaranteed it's because Cryptic is hoping it directly or indirectly drives Zen sales.
Developing rich new content just for the sake of making the game more enjoyable for the player base does not appear to be in Cryptic's mission and vision (if it ever was).
I suggested a wardrobe 3 years ago.. I mean goodness sake almost every other mmo has one.
but again.. look they can barely make 1 function dungeon every 6 months.. expecting them to make things like wardrobe is asking alot.
Again some developer thinking outside the box would seem to be indicated IMO.
I've played MMO and other platforms where there are actual fashion vendors that sell items, not just pre-packaged sets and one game specifically where players can purchase property, build on it and furnish that building with things like wardrobes, armories, stables and non game functioning "fashion" furnishings like dining halls, libraries, blacksmith shops and wizard laboratories along with hidden storeroom - dungeon expansions for those who like to go that route.
There are so many different things NW/PWE can do rather than just continue to nurf and remove content, of course it does require a bit more actual work on their part but ultimately it will speak to the survivability and popularity of Neverwinter IMO.
Comments
The most important thing in life is to be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.
Tradebars can't be acquired with AD, you have to pay zen either for VIP or direct for the keys.
Also to update my prior post. Average AD per key: 8786 AD for a VIP who gets the invoke bonus and gets full use. Yeah no wonder people are going nuts over VIP atm.
https://github.com/nilsbrummond/Neverwinter-ACT-Plugin
My point is those who set the store costs always err on the side of increasing demand for Zen.
Also, I completely agree Wendy. For some reason Cryptic has said on numerous occasions that they don't think they could support the game selling cosmetics. I completely disagree especially since another MMO/MOBA company reported a 1.6 Billion Dollar revenue last year on virtually all cosmetic options. I would happily pay for cosmetics but the current options are lackluster and frankly many of the free cosmetics given away as rewards look better than the paid variants.
But that was another MMO not this one. To be honest, I don't think I have spent more than $20 on Neverwinter and I have been here since the alpha testing. They only need to try harder.
- account-wide
- being sold at a reduced price
- usefull for any character
and that's it.
They can sit on the rest, until youknowwhat freezes over.
And that's the reason why i'm still waiting for an upgrade on ViP...
Sorry never heard that one before.
Also yeah i totally agree wards are both overpriced and a perfect AD sink if sold for AD.
I mean to put the price of coalescent wards into perspective, if they could only be acquired via the zen store the price for a transcendent weapon/arm,our enchant would be 63,000 zen. Thats over 3 times the super expensive big spender pack cryptic offers in the zen store with the drow unlock on it. And bearing in mind the AH cut and ignoring the RP costs the minimum A price to break even for such an enchant would be 35 million AD. I doubt we'd see them below 40 million TBH. Hell even at the minimum 100 to 1 exchange rate they'd still be 7 million AD which is still up there with some of the most expensive items in the AH right now.EDIT: DoH! forgot perfect and transcendent don't need identical lessers. Still thats 17 and of course i forgot the marks of potency. still thats 17 wards and 10 greater and 10 superior marks of potency. Thats still an enormous 17k AD and 3 million AD. Or a total after AH cut of 12.8 million AD. Even at minimum exchange rate it's still 5.25 million AD. Albeit you can get the marks a lot cheaper than that and knock a half a million off both at the minimum. And both those upper and lower values are quite high up the AH price table.
Like i said, wards, keys, bags, and bank slots would all make excellent AD sinks, though they could give the ZAX a massive army shot by putting epic keys in the adventure seal trader store at 200-400 seals a pop. People wouldn;t be running out to buy VIP so much if the keys could be got elsewhere and that would help reduce the ZAX pressure somewhat.
https://github.com/nilsbrummond/Neverwinter-ACT-Plugin
The most important thing in life is to be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.
I am MORE THAN WILLING to pay real money for an experience I enjoy. I paid tons while playing STO: Lifer sub + untold amounts of money likely tallied well into the thousands over my many years as a Cryptic customer playing STO, CO and NW. I don't play STO or CO actively anymore, though I do hit STO sometimes when I feel like blowing things up in space but don't feel like doing it in a flight simulator in BSGO (another game I played a lot years ago and spent money on happily reimbursing the company for the pleasure of playing).
Cryptic, in my view, does not deserve our money. I'm sure the folks on the game side are smart people, but the management and the people handling their business are... simply put... awful. I don't know what their resumes are, or what their qualifications say - all I can see is the outside in perspective (aka, Customer), and from that perspective - which frankly should be the ONLY PERSPECTIVE THAT MATTERS - is that Cryptic is a mess. They're poor communicators, they're poor at responding to customer needs, they're poor at delivering real value based on customer's desires, they're poor at maintaining their existing offerings, their poor at maintaining an image of trustworthiness.
The mantra in well-run, successful businesses is to be outside-in focused. Cryptic is not a well-run business, and given they can't muster the resources to keep the Foundry or the Gateway updated, they are also not particularly successful either (not the Neverwinter part, anyway). Again, that can be DIRECTLY related to their failure to take an outside-in perspective. This whole thread is yet another appear by CUSTOMERS for Cryptic to take that perspective - we've been begging them for years to do this, and their failure has manifested in a failed Gateway and a broken Foundry, massive content reuse (as opposed to true innovation - SH and Alliances for instance was a reuse from STO, it was not an innovation born from the Neverwinter team), along with piles of exploits, bugs and catastrophic missteps (if only on the communications/PR side) that have eroded customer confidence.
Maybe Cryptic can turn the ship at the management level. Maybe @mimicking#6533 can make a real difference and bridge
gapmassive chasm that has come between Cryptic's customers in Neverwinter and what seems to pass for reality within Cryptic when it considers what it's customers want. I don't know. By my count he's the third person to hold his post... maybe 3rd time's a charm? I have high hopes, but low expectations. I would love to be a paying Cryptic customer again.EDIT @carl103 - UGC = User Generated Content. AKA: The Foundry
Sekhmet@kvetchus_
Guilds: Greycloaks, Blackcloaks, Whitecloaks, Goldcloaks, Browncloaks, Spiritcloaks, Bluecloaks, Silvercloaks, Black Dawn
Tredecim: The Cloak Alliance
And the only 3 Armor enchants that somehow look ok, are useless in terms of game mechanics.
Looks ok, but useless:
Thunderhead animation is hard to see in the screenshot but in game it's nice.
Why the spikes ????
And hamstrocity:
Can't use SF on any fashion with transparent texture:
Only few sets work:
Sekhmet@kvetchus_
Guilds: Greycloaks, Blackcloaks, Whitecloaks, Goldcloaks, Browncloaks, Spiritcloaks, Bluecloaks, Silvercloaks, Black Dawn
Tredecim: The Cloak Alliance
I know they say it's complicated to change but it seriously needs to be changed. However, that goes back to my point of them not prioritizing a lot of valid market options. As Kvet touched upon they see data which directs them in a certain course but I have to question how much they ask themselves "why" they get that data.
Sadly I think they look at the data for cosmetics and UGC and discredit alloting resources in certain directions instead of considering WHY the data suggests players are not interested. UGC has kept old games alive for decades. Certain games make billions of dollars in cosmetic sales.
If people are not playing UGC it's likely because of a reason other than the lack of interest...and at this point I can show a thousand threads which support that claim.
If people aren't buying cosmetics it might just be because the number one most requested change of the last two years by the widest range of player types is removing the cosmetic killing armor and weapon enchantment animations. -.-
Also, just as an FYI since this is somewhat going off topic, I view topics such as this under a large umbrella of what effects the market prices. Afterall the only reason the black friday sale could be a concern is because the game already has a large backlog. If you feel like this is headed too far off your initial reason for posting this thread zurimor please let us know and we will direct it back to the Black Friday sale.
Through the course of years playing Neverwinter with buying Zen for myself and as gifts for 7 other people I've convinced to play I can easily estimate I've spent several hundred dollars, Zen gift cards were such a non-brainer birthday gift and Christmas stocking stuffer that I nor anyone who received those gift cards had no complaints.
Then things began to change, often inexplicably or without warning items that used to be unbound became bound, items that used to be bound to account became bound to character. Refinement of runestones and enchantments became more difficult and expensive the Zen exchange came and went offline, much of the gear that at would at one time be adequate for certain areas suddenly weren't and the list just keeps on going.
Now I'm the sole survivor of the 7 friends and relatives who used to play Neverwinter still playing others have moved on to other games from other providers and the only exception being 1 person who still occasionally plays STO (and almost constantly complains they should have spent their Zen there instead of Neverwinter)...
I'm a bit pig headed however and since I have so much invested in the game I choose to continue to play, but mostly because I haven't found anything better - so far - but I do periodically look.
Cryptic/PWE may get a few more USDollars from me for future purchases but in the past year the only thing I found worth spending any money on was the Black Friday type purchases...
Since I often have to deal with the real world, VIP purchase doesn't make any sense for me because on the days when I am not able to log on the items and benefits I would have received just disappear, key purchases for me don't do it because on the several times I have purchased a bunch of keys the odds of an actual worthwhile reward is just too infrequent IMO and the costs of things that can be purchased with the trade bars border on outrageous (also IMO).
Neverwinter/Cryptic seems to have little problem reeling in new players, some of who appear to be OK with spending their money (or their parent's money) on things in the game - probably because what's happening now is all they've known, but if the PTB's begin altering the attributes of armor, weapons, bags, mounts and other things like they have in the past, I think the company will have to try to attract yet another new group of new players because those current players who have spent money yet have little or nothing to show for it (specifically VIP bennies and freebies afforded to them from VIP benefits) will even more easily move on to something else.
But that's just my opinion.
After so much time... they could invest in making a shader selectable...... instead of killing a major revenue stream, from which companies like Valve make orders of magnitude more than Cryptic (fashion for dota2 and the (in)famous hats for TF2)
This reminded me of an anecdote from my professional life that applies here. Part of my job responsibility includes overseeing digital marketing and development for a major software company (the platform team lives within the digital marketing function). Some years ago, the corporate .com site wasn't particularly mobile friendly. It was bad, exactly, but it certainly wasn't optimized (that is to say, it worked OK, but it was never designed that way, so that it was OK was purely by accident). The reason mobile was never a major priority was because our analytics showed a very low percent of traffic was coming from mobile (something like < 3%). That was still tens of thousands of visits monthly, but re-engineering a massive website to support 3% of visits better just never rose to priority over the long list of other things the digital team had on it's plate.
A question we always had, though, was.. was Mobile traffic low because our visitors don't visit typically on mobile, or is it low because the UX of the .com property was poor on Mobile.
Fast forward about 4 years. The site is completely responsive, and all aspects are designed with a mobile-first design methodology. From the first month the mobile UX was launched, mobile traffic increased by double digits EVERY MONTH until it finally reach a level that was clearly more what you'd expect given the audience and the prevalence of mobile usage. It still represents a minority of traffic, but the clear answer to our question was that mobile traffic was low because our mobile UX was poor.
I've been doing software development, digital marketing and everything in between for close to 2 decades at this point... I've had this sort Chicken and the Egg question come up countless times. It will take a leader at Cryptic with courage to challenge conventional wisdom. Heretofore, such a leader has not existed there, at least not that was obvious from the customer side - which effectively is the same as it not existing.
My personal management mantra:
Just because it's what we've been doing doesn't mean it's the right way to do it, or that we should continued to do it into the future.
Sekhmet@kvetchus_
Guilds: Greycloaks, Blackcloaks, Whitecloaks, Goldcloaks, Browncloaks, Spiritcloaks, Bluecloaks, Silvercloaks, Black Dawn
Tredecim: The Cloak Alliance
I agree with you, in fact, I put lesser fireburst on my main and thought something was wrong (glitched) with the game. There was this orange splooch when I mounted and dismounted my horse. Took me a bit before I realized it was the enchantment. I have a normal Frostburn on her now. Seems like they (the developers) could add a disable visuals for the enchantment.
By far I don't like the Shadow Clad, I won't get it no matter what. It reminds me of a bug zapper or a bad neon sign flickering. If I am at a campfire and some one has SC on them (no offense) I move to another instance. I find the effect that annoying.
The most important thing in life is to be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.
For instance they offer Nobility Clothing, well why not open an area, say the Protector's Ballroom where the nobility can gather, hobnob, socialize? Certainly no one in battle garb or peasant's garb would be allowed into nobility setting like this, and perhaps occasionally receive some small token from their host say an rare but none the less coalescent ward drop?
The game also offers a Wedding Party outfit... hello... how about being able to attend an actual area where there is an actual wedding going on? Perhaps another outfit one for Bride and Groom where player characters can choose to exchange vows if they wish and receive a new title "Bonded to [fill in the blank} and where members attending a wedding party can offer token gifts to the 'happy couple'? (*Should include a no cost method to unbond from another character).
"Here's a level 5 enchantment for the next time you go adventuring, use it in good health - "two gold to buy a companion from the Grand Emporium" - "a pair of grieves with an item level of 115", etc."
There are Blacksmith's aprons - how about an area where a person can, with a little training and the proper tools and supplies, work on their armor to add a slight AC upgrade, or weapons to add a slight "keen" attribute to a blades and perhaps actually manufacture items to trade with another player or sell in the Auction House?
There are Courtesan outfits - I don't think that one would be too hard to figure out - a visit to the Neverwinter brothel area of the Moonstone Mask where properly outfitted characters can "socialize".
There are a lot of options for the game to make money rather than dumbing down items that the players paid for and already have...
If the PTB's want to phase out an item in the game, keys currently being offered for example, do that phase them out over a period of weeks or months instead of BAM! introducing a new module and suddenly what you bought and paid for is no longer worth the money you paid to get it... just one caveat however if someone buys bag "A" and it is "unbound" for example, it should always remain as it was sold - "unbound" - then if the PTB's decide the bag they are selling should be "bound to account" instead of "unbound", discontinue (by phasing out) the sale of bag "A" and replace it with bag "B"... Identical in every way, except it is now "bound to account" (of course once an item has been phased out completely, the player may not sell it in the Auction House or if it can be sold in the Auction House the person that buys it buys it as "bound to account" not "unbound".
The game wants to generate more money from the players?
How about the developers and programmers actually doing a little work to earn it (no slight intended) instead of just repeatedly sticking it to the players?!?
Just my two cents ~
Caturday Survivor
Elemental Evil Survivor
Undermontain Survivor
Mod20 Combat rework Survivor
Mod22 Refinement rework Survivor
but again.. look they can barely make 1 function dungeon every 6 months.. expecting them to make things like wardrobe is asking alot.
some of my character, my main has several hundreds to chose.
neverwinter doesnt have it or not in thier "technology" coding engine.
As has been noted elsewhere in this thread - NW has devolved to the point where now it's all about monetization. Unless a new feature/nerf/"bug fix" benefits the bottom line for Cryptic, it's not happening.
Conversely, if you see heavy adverts for some new feature / enhancement - guaranteed it's because Cryptic is hoping it directly or indirectly drives Zen sales.
Developing rich new content just for the sake of making the game more enjoyable for the player base does not appear to be in Cryptic's mission and vision (if it ever was).
I've played MMO and other platforms where there are actual fashion vendors that sell items, not just pre-packaged sets and one game specifically where players can purchase property, build on it and furnish that building with things like wardrobes, armories, stables and non game functioning "fashion" furnishings like dining halls, libraries, blacksmith shops and wizard laboratories along with hidden storeroom - dungeon expansions for those who like to go that route.
There are so many different things NW/PWE can do rather than just continue to nurf and remove content, of course it does require a bit more actual work on their part but ultimately it will speak to the survivability and popularity of Neverwinter IMO.