There is a whole lot to digest, but all of the comments boil down to the same thing. The rewards for time spent don't mAke sense.not many are asking for freebies, most are willing to work/grind for it, we just can't do the grind with little or no return. Bump rng, add better loot as rewards. It seems pretty simple.
No my friend, they can't care less about "free play grinding"
They WANT you to buy keys... And no i will never buy keys for rng.
If i buy something with my money, i want something concrete not a chance at rng...
That's why i don't understand why all these people seems to agree that the solution is just "better chances of reward". There are not gona grant you 10% of getting nice stufff
If they do, nice rewards will become common and you'll have them for cheap at auction house.
Then the idea from Cryptic to milk us by buying keys will work for them a few weeks and that's all...
After that, the resut will be the exact contrary of what they expected...
Quoting this because it's the best, at least the most comprehensive, approach on the topic I've seen so far:
THE ISSUE
I think Moderator Ironzerg79 nailed it. He stated the peeking was only necessary because the loot is so bad. If nobody felt inclined to decline the loot in the first place, we wouldn’t have run into such a problem. But it doesn’t stop there, because the whole system currently is a lose-lose. It doesn’t create satisfaction for players and no revenue for the developers. Both the Daily Dungeon Chest Key as well as the Legendary Dragon Key from the ZEN market are overpriced and rendered useless without the peeking.
Thanks to the game’s design of repetition and the brutal RNG attached to it, chest loot is essentially reduced to Salvage and a few RPs. Hence players rightfully evaluate it that way. A Daily Dungeon Chest Key is 5,000 AD for non-VIPs, but not even CN or FBI might be able to get equal value back. Why would you buy additional keys and farm dungeons when you’re making a net minus every time? It’s like being a dairy famer in Europe…
NOBODY SHOULD BUY OR FARM FOR KEYS
Sure you generate an additional chance at a huge reward every time. Since those almost never drop however, they shouldn’t be part of the equation for players. Talking about the Legendary Dragon Key it’s getting even worse. At 500 ZAX you throw 25,000 AD into the additional chest every time and merely get ~5,000 back. The free campaign keys run into a similar problem. While you don’t need to buy them, the effort to continuously farm doesn’t match the reward in many cases.
LET’S SWITCH TO A DUAL SYSTEM
To solve the issue, I’d like to propose a dual system in which the daily chest and the additional chest(s) offer distinct loot. The daily chest, now called farm chest, should include some RADs, Salvage and RPs while the additional chest(s), the so called progression chest(s), include the latest gear, main prize or Tokens/Currency to get them. This does two things:
It allows farming one chest with your daily VIP/free keys. With bought additional ones from the Bazaar it’s possible to continue at decreased efficiency.
It takes the pressure off the Legendary Dragon and Campaign Keys to deliver equal value. Gear and BIS progression can’t be directly compared.
In this system the progression chest delivers just that. Little wealth, just the latest stuff. I think it’s important that the attached currency or campaign store also include BtA versions of major RNG prizes like Boon Books or Artifacts. Even at ludicrous price tags player are guaranteed to eventually get what they want from the progression chest. It’s also quite obvious that the average value of the farm chest has to surpass the cost of the Dungeon Key in the Bazaar.
REWORK CAMPAIGN TASKS
Additionally old campaign tasks should no longer produce a key limited to one dungeon. Let them produce the same key that can be used with progression chests in all content. I see why the devs want to have specific keys for new content, because it forces the players to play the current module, but the necessity for older modules is just not there. With the release of Sea of Moving Ice you could easily rework all key tasks up to Underdark. This would also help players to work around outdated content or bad game design. The prime example would be Icewind Dale. The areas are empty and acquiring the Kessell's Retreat Key a pure pain. If you happen to need anything from the skirmish, you can switch to other campaigns for a key.
There’s another idea I personally find quite intriguing. Why not let players interact with the progression chest multiple times until they run out of keys? That’s basically how the Arcane Coffers in the Dread Ring lairs work. Players that really want to buy into the progression could stockpile Legendary Dragon Keys and use them all at once. Free-2-players with limited time meanwhile could farm campaigns all week and use the keys on the weekend. I get though why devs and players could think this might not be a good idea.
Now let’s get through the list and touch on a few things afterwards.
NEW BOSS LOOT TABLE
The boss loot and daily incentives don’t reflect the new system as much, but it gets rid of a few inconsistencies. All group content minus skirmishes now drop some variant of the daily caches and daily skirmish or dungeon RADs. I like that dungeons are still treated separately, but since some modules feature Trials as their main endgame content, it doesn’t make sense to exclude them from the RAD progression and completely force players into other content instead.
I additionally had to scratch all Seals from bosses. These are progression items and only belong in the corresponding chest. As replacement all dungeon bosses now drop fixed RPs and keep their chance at some extra salvage.
NEW CHEST LOOT TABLE
I’ll admit this is quite a list and you might need to let that one sink in a bit. I mainly splitted the current rewards from dungeons into the two chests though. All RADs, Salvage and RPs went into the farm chest, all Seals, Currency and Gear into the progression chest. The one exception is Fangbreaker Island where Voninblod as farm and progression currency can be found in both chests. When opening the chests, you should roughly have the same amount of stuff in your inventory than currently.
SOME OPTIMIZATIONS
I tweaked the loot a bit so we have a more hierarchical system though. Farm chests of dungeons now always return more than Skirmishes, Castle Never more than T2s and Fangbreaker Island more than Castle Never. It’s also important that dungeons with the bought 5,000 AD Key remain viable against simply running Skirmishes and Trials. Those do not require a key for the farm chest and should trail.
I set the probability of getting a major reward in the progression chest at 2%. Running your two daily dungeons per day should result in one reward per month, which is not bad. You could probably even make a case for a lower percentage. A few differences to current loot should be noted:
T2 dungeons now include a chance at a Lesser Armor or Weapon Enchantment
Fangbreaker Island now drops Restoration Resources
A few more campaign resources were added to Tiamat
Several dungeons include a small chance to obtain Elemental gear directly
Demogorgon and Fangbreaker Island should drop Ring and Relic Choice Packs that let players choose the piece they need.
BOP, BTA OR BOE?
Let’s talk bind next. All Salvage and Refining Points should be BtA, which is a small nerf to the current situation. Since the farm chests have been upgraded and you can infinitely run content with a net plus, it’s an economy safeguard though. Progression gear remains BtA, the main rewards BoE (Rank 8s, Artifacts etc.).
CONCLUSION
I think this dual system does a lot of good things. First of all it enables players to actually farm dungeons. The most effective way remains cycling through the daily dungeons with multiple characters, but even players with only one char don’t run out of worthwhile stuff to do over the course of a day.
With more RP dropping from group content, dailies like Sharandar or Dread Ring are getting slightly devalued. On the other hand, campaign tasks are more viable than ever, because you actually need keys to progress. You either pay for Legendary Dragon Keys, or grind them since you no longer get gear progression from the free daily or VIP keys. This might look discouraging at first, but enables players to concentrate on the area they currently need. If you’re looking for progression, you can focus on farming keys and run a limited amount of dungeons. After finishing progression you can skip the progression chests and just farm through group content.
THE MONETIZATION IS STILL INTACT
The good news for the devs is, they still have plenty of barriers to monetize. VIP keys offer even more of an advantage, because it actually makes sense to run more than two dungeons per day now. Then there’s the Legendary Dragon Key, formerly THE overpriced epitome of a dysfunctional system. It can now be traded for progression and no longer has to measure its value against Salvage and some RPs. You want the current gear faster? Buy keys!
I can see why the devs could be hesitant to give players infinite loot and an option to farm dungeons. But even if you limit the amount of farm chests you can open per day or something, this would still make for a better system than we have now.
I wouldn't be so tough on the actual developers. Most will probably be gamers at heart and proud of the work they do. As they should, the actual gameplay side of NW minus some of the daft bugs that seem to take ages to fix is solid. I would assume gameplay is what keeps most of us coming back.
As an MMO it deserves to have a much larger audience than it does, but I think this is where management and shareholders come in. The horse they bet on is F2P and whales. Having millions of players like more traditional MMOs, such as FF14, isn't necessarily what they seem to be chasing. It's about getting the hooks in the types who either have lots of expendable cash, or sadly have gambling problems and spend more money than they should be. That is often F2P summed up, and the bet from management and shareholders is they'll make more money this way with less effort, than with more needing invested in development to attract more players who pay a small flat rate (monthly fee) and maybe occasionally buy some special mounts/skins for reasonable amounts. It is much harder psychologically to get someone to commit to a monthly fee even if it's a small amount, than get their impulses to kick in and drop 10~20$ at a time every random day they feel lucky or see their friends get something good. A monthly fee requires a perception of a great product that is for the gamers first, not for the bank balance.
I think this is one battle development will be fighting. No matter how they try to revamp chest loot it's going to impact the economy. Even if stuff is bind on account/char, if it's useful loot it takes away from people getting frustrated and buying off the AH. The AH itself is basically a mafia led system where top guilds control the prices as their players have millions of AD from getting in early (maybe at a high cost of their own on keys/purchases). Any high value items that get undercut probably get bought to resell. The AH is basically a real life stock and trading market for the high value items. In all honesty it doesn't matter if your game is F2P, having the barrier of entry for 1 item at around 100$ is just crazy. I think the shard of orcus wand is possibly the most sought after item. The drop rate for it must be less than 1%. Every time it drops that is 1 player who effectively can get VIP for months on end for nothing, or many other high end items for nothing. If they don't equip it themselves and be taken out of the pool of players who may buy 10,000+Zen for 1 item. That is the scope of the churn management relies on to bring in money and that comes under threat if drop rates get tweaked. Obviously that 1 item being an extreme example, but even wards and high tier refinement stone drops have small ripple effects on the AH/Zen store. Even when it comes to the garbage rings and salvage that drops, there is the 36k a day refinement cap to try and frustrate you into buying AD/Zen. Or having an army of alts to do refinement, but again that requires slots to be bought and player time spent mailing salvage around. The recent patch "fixing" the mailing system so you can't dump a ton of rings/junk in it for pickup later on a few alts.
It's sad really, NW is a great game for the gameplay and lore/setting, but it deserves to be treated more like something such as TESO. I wish they had gone pay for the game, no monthly charge and then a VIP monthly sub which was optional. I still think there is food for thought to revamp NWs VIP system, but that is where effort comes in, and it's possible the developers won't be given such luxury. I've said on the forums before, remove VIP from the zen store and make it a monthly sub you pay for, not exchange for. That should bring in a steadier revenue without relying on whales to then give some thought for balancing loot without worrying about the economy. We all know how management goes at the top though, the F2P dream and mass income from whales is just too enticing for many suits. I mean it works, its just sad when its wrapped around otherwise great games, and not just left to mobile junk.
But anyway, hats off to community managers and most of the development team. Chances are you guys are gamers first, business people second. I don't doubt most decisions about how NW will be ran as a money making product will come from up top. I mean communication is probably on lockdown as well. I don't know many other games that have the devs so sparingly interact with the community and just leave it up to forum staff, who I believe are largely volunteers. Creating that barrier of distance from the actual company staff and the players.
Well if you're a console player, looks like nothing is getting fixed before Xmas. Such a shame, game was fun just got burried under a terrible loot/reward never ending grinding system that drove all the players away.
Oh the hypocrisy when something is broken in our favour how quickly it's patched and fixed. Yet 1 nearly 2 months after this first blew up, spinifex and dusty winds with not a single fix implemented or confirmation of fixes forthcoming.
Yerp, no devs in how many weeks capable of fixing anything? These guys must work part time or have no power (puppets) to influence change. Considering the angst without any confirmation on issues being resolved is pretty damaging. They do not care.
Fix the game, it's broken so bad you've lost a lot of players across all platforms. You're all going to unemployed soon enough if you don't do something NOW.
Just because they haven't commented, does not mean they aren't reading the thread. They did delay the changes after all, even though they only made a couple of comments in the original thread. Remind me on Monday, and I'll see if I can't get Andy to get someone to comment.
Hey gang, We are monitoring, reading the forums and making notes. I currently have 2.5 designers working on this. Rewards are inherently a challenge from every angle, and we are working to release something that will appeal to a broad range of players. Kreative's feedback is not as helpful as Aeaolan or Blackjackwidow or (I'm gonna spell this wrong, sorry) Maulwufumal's have been- all of which I have shared with my team. We do care, and caring sometimes takes time. Regards,
M.K.
Ummm.... thanks. I think. I left my feedback pages and pages ago. I don't want peridots from chests. I want a good chance at something awesome and useful. Companions. Mounts. Unbound fashion or gear that I can sell if I don't want to use. If something in a chest is not going to be something useful to me I want to be able to sell it for AD to someone who can make use of it. And no - not send it to an alt because it's account bound, because I generally don't play on any of my alts.
Dhoop- Kreatyve it wasn't your post I meant- it was someone who said that the devs were gonna be fired because players were dropping or some such. My apologies. I'll strive to be more careful in the future. Cheers M.K.
Just something general: the rewards should be more in line (as in "not completely out of touch") with the costs of items needed for character progression....looking at all those 7 digit price tags and progress bars from here to the moon there´s a most deplorable discrepancy. It is very wrong in a game like this if your best....well, nah...your -only- chance of progressing your toon at a reasonable pace before you die of old age is either behave like a bot 12h a day or playing broker at the auction house because doing the dungeon and the dragons doesn´t get you anywhere. Logic dictates that playing the ah doesn´t even in theory work for all players...just some at the expense of others....thus introducing an antisocial aspect, too. Not that playing like a little bot is social. Quite the contrary. The fun content has to be rewarding. You need to make money with players´wish to progress their toon and so it cannot be -too easy-. However, if the rewards are completely out of touch with the costs of progressing a toon and those costs are also quite ludicrous with regards to the exchange rate of actual real life currency to in game currency while at the same time there is little (rational) reason for this progression to begin with (PVP in shreds...dungeon situation deplorable)....I fail to see how this can be a winning strategy...:P
If you want to add more actual endgame content (DUNGEONS) for the top-geared toons....thus making long time players happy and giving newer or more casual players something to work towards....you need to make progression easier and NOT HARDER. Because if you want this awesome future content to be run by a sizeable number of players you have to allow newer/casual players to thicken the ranks of players queuing for it. Within a reasonable timeframe. I did FBI only once. Our lieutenant searched in all kinds of channels to get a group together. It was sunday evening (Europe) and we´re part of a big alliance (Synergy) and it was just depressing. There might be a lot of reasons for this. I certainly wished I could have made my toon go beserk on the chest at the end (only relics and seals...seriously?) and the pointless EFR requirement but one elephant in the room is the fact that a lot of players who might have had the time and interest to do it at the time we were asking are literally light-years away from being able to enter. So why not make players happy by rewarding them appropriately (with regards to the costs) for running the baby dungeons while at the same time giving them something really tempting to look forward to...not just the one dungeon that takes real dedication to get a group together and that has (regarding time/effort) the worst rewards in the game? The whole raison d´être of a game is being fun and rewarding. So why wouldn´t players who have FUN be more likely to spend money than players in pain due to all the grind and only paying to ease that pain. The grind isn´t an end in itself. It has to be justified by a sizeable chunk of content where a players efforts optimizing a toon can be tested. So...make progression easier by rewarding players for actually playing the game and then add a ton of superfun endgame content. Dungeons and PVP. Those should be the beating heart of the game because it´s what it´s made to excel at. Not the grind.
It´s not gonna happen, right? I know that. It just really bugs me that I cannot for the life of me understand WHY NOT?
1) I would like to see the dungeon loots be surprising a bit like the map in the bottle of the sea of moving ice. You can have many rewards some that you can sell or invest in yourself, there you could add some salvage pieces or transmutations items and with these you fill a pool of fine rewards for the dungeons. I'd really like to play again sometimes the T1 or T2 dungeons for transmutation skins or fashion that wouldn't bore and i'd like to get it for myself because I would want it not feeling obliged to get it.
2) I want to propose a new vendor. Every successful completion of any dungeon/skirmish run to reward you with a certain mark. (the L mark) This mark will be added to your currencies, bound to character and will be utilized with the new Vendor (L) . The L Vendor will give you a choice for every possible pool result you had for the dungeon or skirmish you collected the required 'L' marks from.
For example CN has a pool of rings with rank 1/2/3/4/5 1 artifact and some salvage
If your chance to get the rank 4 ring is 4% then by having acquired 50 (L) marks you are supposed to have obtained it with a 200% chance. But you are very unlucky and you still want that ring very much. The New Vendor should be placed to trade you the 50(L) marks with the ring you should have gotten from your 50 runs.
Apply that to a drop with a chance of 0.75% then in 266 runs you should have gotten it twice. Yet you haven't. Now you ll ve able to claim it and see a light at the end of the tunnel.
That reward system in addition with the one existing will reward even players that finish runs faster and those tired to the rng in the game who grinded endlessly without any final rewards (edemo) 300 runs edemo - no +5 rings.
You can make your own adjustments ofc you are the devs but this could be useful. That could even help control the economy in certain areas. (set the maximum value) Think of it as the reworked Trade Bar store for dundeons and skrimishes where you run 2400 times to be able to at least claim an epic mount.
I think it's 2.5 FTE (full time equivalent): it's a measure (a ratio) of the time allocated on a task vs. the total available time and not the measure of the number of real designers working on it. For example: You have three designers and they work 50 hours, 40 hours, and 10 hours per week - totaling 100 hours on that task. Assuming a full-time designer works 40 hours per week, your full time equivalent calculation is 100 hours divided by 40 hours, or 2.5 FTE. It could be a team of 5 designers, including the lead designer, totaling 100 hours, but it's again 2.5 FTE. It's ordinary project management.
If you think that Cryptic is not a big company, the message is that they are investing a lot of time and resources on this task.
I was trying to be humorous ( maybe unsuccessfully) , I really should have put an emoticon in there , but thanks for taking the time to give an explanation
Blitzy : PVE only Barbarian
Martin ConDion PVE only Ranger Guild Founder: -HunterS-
As a relatively new player, only recently getting my toons to level 70 I am, at present, not really having problems with the loot table even though I've not seen any of the shiny so many have already mentioned.
The reason why is that right now it still represents progression. I don't have high level enchants socketed, I don't have that many marks and my gear is not that great. My main is mostly drowcraft and the others are slowly moving up. I enjoy story lines and am in no rush to get to the bleeding edge of the game so accruing all the bits I need that full end game players already have is ok.
However, once I feel like I'm no longer progressing and the only things that help are those elusive shinies then I'm likely to draw back a bit because I know better than to hope RNGesus will smile on me. When that happens there needs to be a pretty much guaranteed currency I can accumulate knowing that at some point I'll be able to spend it to give my progression a kick-start.
If I know that the only way to reasonably progress is purely through RNGesus then you'll probably lose me simply because it is not fun.
From all the things said, this game looks to have the same problem that so many have and is one of the major causes of disappointment. The players and developers assign very different values to certain words, to a player "small" may be 5% while to a developer "large" may be 0.5%. Often the developer will honestly believe they are being generous, and with their value set, they are. Unfortunately when measured against the player value set its found..... lacking.
When talking about different loot items, that easy to communicate well but when talking about numbers, use numbers, don't just say "small" buff please.
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arcticblitzMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 126Arc User
From all the things said, this game looks to have the same problem that so many have and is one of the major causes of disappointment. The players and developers assign very different values to certain words, to a player "small" may be 5% while to a developer "large" may be 0.5%. Often the developer will honestly believe they are being generous, and with their value set, they are. Unfortunately when measured against the player value set its found..... lacking.
When talking about different loot items, that easy to communicate well but when talking about numbers, use numbers, don't just say "small" buff please.
I agree, I'd like to see more information as to why they have tuned the % chance to that level (and also with seal prices) with a chance for feed back,
for example : Item : +5 Swirly armor of number crunching set % chance : 25%. Seals : 20. Reason : As a key leveling armor for entry into the new area we felt that 1 out of 4 runs of this 30min dungeon should grant a piece of the armor, tuned playtime to reach the new area is 10 hours, you also receive 1 seal per run.
Blitzy : PVE only Barbarian
Martin ConDion PVE only Ranger Guild Founder: -HunterS-
Quoting this because it's the best, at least the most comprehensive, approach on the topic I've seen so far:
THE ISSUE
I think Moderator Ironzerg79 nailed it. He stated the peeking was only necessary because the loot is so bad. If nobody felt inclined to decline the loot in the first place, we wouldn’t have run into such a problem. But it doesn’t stop there, because the whole system currently is a lose-lose. It doesn’t create satisfaction for players and no revenue for the developers. Both the Daily Dungeon Chest Key as well as the Legendary Dragon Key from the ZEN market are overpriced and rendered useless without the peeking.
Thanks to the game’s design of repetition and the brutal RNG attached to it, chest loot is essentially reduced to Salvage and a few RPs. Hence players rightfully evaluate it that way. A Daily Dungeon Chest Key is 5,000 AD for non-VIPs, but not even CN or FBI might be able to get equal value back. Why would you buy additional keys and farm dungeons when you’re making a net minus every time? It’s like being a dairy famer in Europe…
NOBODY SHOULD BUY OR FARM FOR KEYS
Sure you generate an additional chance at a huge reward every time. Since those almost never drop however, they shouldn’t be part of the equation for players. Talking about the Legendary Dragon Key it’s getting even worse. At 500 ZAX you throw 25,000 AD into the additional chest every time and merely get ~5,000 back. The free campaign keys run into a similar problem. While you don’t need to buy them, the effort to continuously farm doesn’t match the reward in many cases.
LET’S SWITCH TO A DUAL SYSTEM
To solve the issue, I’d like to propose a dual system in which the daily chest and the additional chest(s) offer distinct loot. The daily chest, now called farm chest, should include some RADs, Salvage and RPs while the additional chest(s), the so called progression chest(s), include the latest gear, main prize or Tokens/Currency to get them. This does two things:
It allows farming one chest with your daily VIP/free keys. With bought additional ones from the Bazaar it’s possible to continue at decreased efficiency.
It takes the pressure off the Legendary Dragon and Campaign Keys to deliver equal value. Gear and BIS progression can’t be directly compared.
In this system the progression chest delivers just that. Little wealth, just the latest stuff. I think it’s important that the attached currency or campaign store also include BtA versions of major RNG prizes like Boon Books or Artifacts. Even at ludicrous price tags player are guaranteed to eventually get what they want from the progression chest. It’s also quite obvious that the average value of the farm chest has to surpass the cost of the Dungeon Key in the Bazaar.
REWORK CAMPAIGN TASKS
Additionally old campaign tasks should no longer produce a key limited to one dungeon. Let them produce the same key that can be used with progression chests in all content. I see why the devs want to have specific keys for new content, because it forces the players to play the current module, but the necessity for older modules is just not there. With the release of Sea of Moving Ice you could easily rework all key tasks up to Underdark. This would also help players to work around outdated content or bad game design. The prime example would be Icewind Dale. The areas are empty and acquiring the Kessell's Retreat Key a pure pain. If you happen to need anything from the skirmish, you can switch to other campaigns for a key.
There’s another idea I personally find quite intriguing. Why not let players interact with the progression chest multiple times until they run out of keys? That’s basically how the Arcane Coffers in the Dread Ring lairs work. Players that really want to buy into the progression could stockpile Legendary Dragon Keys and use them all at once. Free-2-players with limited time meanwhile could farm campaigns all week and use the keys on the weekend. I get though why devs and players could think this might not be a good idea.
Now let’s get through the list and touch on a few things afterwards.
NEW BOSS LOOT TABLE
The boss loot and daily incentives don’t reflect the new system as much, but it gets rid of a few inconsistencies. All group content minus skirmishes now drop some variant of the daily caches and daily skirmish or dungeon RADs. I like that dungeons are still treated separately, but since some modules feature Trials as their main endgame content, it doesn’t make sense to exclude them from the RAD progression and completely force players into other content instead.
I additionally had to scratch all Seals from bosses. These are progression items and only belong in the corresponding chest. As replacement all dungeon bosses now drop fixed RPs and keep their chance at some extra salvage.
NEW CHEST LOOT TABLE
I’ll admit this is quite a list and you might need to let that one sink in a bit. I mainly splitted the current rewards from dungeons into the two chests though. All RADs, Salvage and RPs went into the farm chest, all Seals, Currency and Gear into the progression chest. The one exception is Fangbreaker Island where Voninblod as farm and progression currency can be found in both chests. When opening the chests, you should roughly have the same amount of stuff in your inventory than currently.
SOME OPTIMIZATIONS
I tweaked the loot a bit so we have a more hierarchical system though. Farm chests of dungeons now always return more than Skirmishes, Castle Never more than T2s and Fangbreaker Island more than Castle Never. It’s also important that dungeons with the bought 5,000 AD Key remain viable against simply running Skirmishes and Trials. Those do not require a key for the farm chest and should trail.
I set the probability of getting a major reward in the progression chest at 2%. Running your two daily dungeons per day should result in one reward per month, which is not bad. You could probably even make a case for a lower percentage. A few differences to current loot should be noted:
T2 dungeons now include a chance at a Lesser Armor or Weapon Enchantment
Fangbreaker Island now drops Restoration Resources
A few more campaign resources were added to Tiamat
Several dungeons include a small chance to obtain Elemental gear directly
Demogorgon and Fangbreaker Island should drop Ring and Relic Choice Packs that let players choose the piece they need.
BOP, BTA OR BOE?
Let’s talk bind next. All Salvage and Refining Points should be BtA, which is a small nerf to the current situation. Since the farm chests have been upgraded and you can infinitely run content with a net plus, it’s an economy safeguard though. Progression gear remains BtA, the main rewards BoE (Rank 8s, Artifacts etc.).
CONCLUSION
I think this dual system does a lot of good things. First of all it enables players to actually farm dungeons. The most effective way remains cycling through the daily dungeons with multiple characters, but even players with only one char don’t run out of worthwhile stuff to do over the course of a day.
With more RP dropping from group content, dailies like Sharandar or Dread Ring are getting slightly devalued. On the other hand, campaign tasks are more viable than ever, because you actually need keys to progress. You either pay for Legendary Dragon Keys, or grind them since you no longer get gear progression from the free daily or VIP keys. This might look discouraging at first, but enables players to concentrate on the area they currently need. If you’re looking for progression, you can focus on farming keys and run a limited amount of dungeons. After finishing progression you can skip the progression chests and just farm through group content.
THE MONETIZATION IS STILL INTACT
The good news for the devs is, they still have plenty of barriers to monetize. VIP keys offer even more of an advantage, because it actually makes sense to run more than two dungeons per day now. Then there’s the Legendary Dragon Key, formerly THE overpriced epitome of a dysfunctional system. It can now be traded for progression and no longer has to measure its value against Salvage and some RPs. You want the current gear faster? Buy keys!
I can see why the devs could be hesitant to give players infinite loot and an option to farm dungeons. But even if you limit the amount of farm chests you can open per day or something, this would still make for a better system than we have now.
you're thinking too small too cheap imo and the rewards table you have is so boring and unvaried. if they did that I'd quit. no point in playing anymore. they need to make it exciting again. that's just like it is now but ten percent more.
I hate to say it but the problem with this thread is it's completely unrealistic.
Please, explain how this thread is completely unrealistic. Sorry, wanting to play a game without investing hundreds upon hundreds of dollars to get "required" gear to play the content they create in any sort of timely fashion is not "unrealistic". By that logic, every game in existence that doesn't lock their gear, equipment, etc, by pay walls/gambling walls, is an "unrealistic" game. Might I add, there's thousands of those unrealistic games out there, and more are being created and released.
Do you for one second think they don't think...oh, if we give them complete HAMSTER rng, and content they can't play without this specific gear for their class, and give them these lockboxes that give them a chance at hope of acquiring this stuff....yeah, that's a great idea! But even better, lets give them HAMSTER rng in those lockboxes too! Then better yet, lets put stuff in a marketplace where when they finally get tired of not getting ANYTHING, they can pay REAL money for it, yeah..even better, we can HAMSTER them 3x that way! Then, lets add insult to injury, lets give them that awesome legendary ring they want, but of NO USE for them! Yeah, kick 'em right in the balls! Yeah, yeah! lets do that! Perfect idea....
I'm glad you are willing to bend over for this company. Thankfully the voice of the majority that is voicing their's here is much different. The bad news is what happens when that majority leaves.....
Would this force them to come out with new content? Of course it would, if they didn't, people would "beat" the game so to say, and move on. End game in NW is their RNG, not their content. MMO's are meant to be under constant development, improvement, and expansion, all 3 of which this game lacks at the core. Let's not even get into how they screwed consoles with their "mass" content drop, so most ppl skipped everything they could to get to year 3 end game, and missed everything else along the way. Or lets not talk about introducing alliances so early for PS4, and the HAMSTER storm that has caused.
Look at year 1 Destiny, The Division...you'll see first hand what happens to games when players don't get rewarded. NW is just as bad as both of those games, then add the gambling/paywall into the mix. Destiny finally fixed their HAMSTER for the most part after 3 years, The Division may honestly never recover. I paid $100 for gold addition, won't touch the game after the bs they did to that game. Aside from the campaign, that game has been a total let down. Both of those companies went into panic mode and rebuilt their rng, Destiny did several times.
Sorry to say I have to disagree with you, somewhat. I agree that a lot of what you're saying is the way it SHOULD be, BUT, you're forgetting 1 key point ~ This is a f2p game. This is how these games work. Do some google reviewing of cryptic/pwi and you'll see this is par for the course. This isn't a subscription based MMORPG, it's thew f2p cash cow method of get as much as you can up front and if/when it dies off - no big deal, we'll just copy and paste the code with some new skins and make a "new" game. Why do you think this game was originally released on PC with the SAME EXACT game breaking auction house exploit that Star Trek Online had? Hell, I think somewhere in this game there was even some NPC dialogue that was actually FROM Star Trek Online until they changed it. Simply put, this game was never meant to last as long as some other big MMORPGs. I mean cmon, if you've played any other major MMORPGS (and by the sounds of your commentary then you have), then you have to admit how hollow new content in this game is. The ad nauseum HE grinding, etc.
So yeah, I would agree with your thoughts if this were a subscription based game, but since its a F2P PWI/Cryptic game, then seriously, this is just business as usual for them.
just because it's how it's been.. or how it is doesn't mean that is how it has to be going forward. we're letting them know what we want. we're backing that up by closing our wallets/walking away if we don't get it.
the key point here is if a company treats its customers right they become repeat customers. If a company treats it's customers badly they go somewhere else.
they aren't delivering content. They aren't giving us something worthwhile.. so why on earth should we hand over hard money for it? Free to play is an illusion. they've made way more money off this than if they'd put a 60 dollar price tag on it and dlc price tags on it or they wouldn't be doing it this way. people spend stupid money on it.
they need to stop treating us like HAMSTER. that's the base line. they've been treating their player base like HAMSTER for years now. bad communication, not doing what they say they're going to do.. bait and switch.. they need to stop doing that and start treating their player base with some respect.
part of that is doing things like making the loot table worthwhile. re releasing the dungeons they took away. ect. communicating with us clearly adn in a regular fashion. and most importantly not HAMSTER us over. all the nerfs all the take aways they do.. how can they possibly expect to keep the money flowing in when they're alienating a vast swath of their player base? I'm one of those nasty 1%'ers. I have tons of expendable cash and i believe in supporting games I play regularly.. WHEN THEY TREAT ME RIGHT.. lol. but this game.. naw.. they need to give a lot more value for what they are asking for.
as far as never meant to last as long.. it's an mmorpg.. of course it was meant to last for ever. they're just doing it half assed. that's the PROBLEM.
there is nothing wrong with asking them to fix a problem on their end. we are the customer. we are not guests on their couch. for crissakes I hope when you go to a restaurant and find rat HAMSTER in your soup you don't make excuses for the chef? .... I'd be yelling for the manager and the health dept..
I hate to say it but the problem with this thread is it's completely unrealistic.
Please, explain how this thread is completely unrealistic. Sorry, wanting to play a game without investing hundreds upon hundreds of dollars to get "required" gear to play the content they create in any sort of timely fashion is not "unrealistic". By that logic, every game in existence that doesn't lock their gear, equipment, etc, by pay walls/gambling walls, is an "unrealistic" game. Might I add, there's thousands of those unrealistic games out there, and more are being created and released.
Do you for one second think they don't think...oh, if we give them complete HAMSTER rng, and content they can't play without this specific gear for their class, and give them these lockboxes that give them a chance at hope of acquiring this stuff....yeah, that's a great idea! But even better, lets give them HAMSTER rng in those lockboxes too! Then better yet, lets put stuff in a marketplace where when they finally get tired of not getting ANYTHING, they can pay REAL money for it, yeah..even better, we can HAMSTER them 3x that way! Then, lets add insult to injury, lets give them that awesome legendary ring they want, but of NO USE for them! Yeah, kick 'em right in the balls! Yeah, yeah! lets do that! Perfect idea....
I'm glad you are willing to bend over for this company. Thankfully the voice of the majority that is voicing their's here is much different. The bad news is what happens when that majority leaves.....
Would this force them to come out with new content? Of course it would, if they didn't, people would "beat" the game so to say, and move on. End game in NW is their RNG, not their content. MMO's are meant to be under constant development, improvement, and expansion, all 3 of which this game lacks at the core. Let's not even get into how they screwed consoles with their "mass" content drop, so most ppl skipped everything they could to get to year 3 end game, and missed everything else along the way. Or lets not talk about introducing alliances so early for PS4, and the HAMSTER storm that has caused.
Look at year 1 Destiny, The Division...you'll see first hand what happens to games when players don't get rewarded. NW is just as bad as both of those games, then add the gambling/paywall into the mix. Destiny finally fixed their HAMSTER for the most part after 3 years, The Division may honestly never recover. I paid $100 for gold addition, won't touch the game after the bs they did to that game. Aside from the campaign, that game has been a total let down. Both of those companies went into panic mode and rebuilt their rng, Destiny did several times.
Sorry to say I have to disagree with you, somewhat. I agree that a lot of what you're saying is the way it SHOULD be, BUT, you're forgetting 1 key point ~ This is a f2p game. This is how these games work. Do some google reviewing of cryptic/pwi and you'll see this is par for the course. This isn't a subscription based MMORPG, it's thew f2p cash cow method of get as much as you can up front and if/when it dies off - no big deal, we'll just copy and paste the code with some new skins and make a "new" game. Why do you think this game was originally released on PC with the SAME EXACT game breaking auction house exploit that Star Trek Online had? Hell, I think somewhere in this game there was even some NPC dialogue that was actually FROM Star Trek Online until they changed it. Simply put, this game was never meant to last as long as some other big MMORPGs. I mean cmon, if you've played any other major MMORPGS (and by the sounds of your commentary then you have), then you have to admit how hollow new content in this game is. The ad nauseum HE grinding, etc.
So yeah, I would agree with your thoughts if this were a subscription based game, but since its a F2P PWI/Cryptic game, then seriously, this is just business as usual for them.
just because it's how it's been.. or how it is doesn't mean that is how it has to be going forward. we're letting them know what we want. we're backing that up by closing our wallets/walking away if we don't get it.
the key point here is if a company treats its customers right they become repeat customers. If a company treats it's customers badly they go somewhere else.
they aren't delivering content. They aren't giving us something worthwhile.. so why on earth should we hand over hard money for it? Free to play is an illusion. they've made way more money off this than if they'd put a 60 dollar price tag on it and dlc price tags on it or they wouldn't be doing it this way. people spend stupid money on it.
they need to stop treating us like HAMSTER. that's the base line. they've been treating their player base like HAMSTER for years now. bad communication, not doing what they say they're going to do.. bait and switch.. they need to stop doing that and start treating their player base with some respect.
part of that is doing things like making the loot table worthwhile. re releasing the dungeons they took away. ect. communicating with us clearly adn in a regular fashion. and most importantly not HAMSTER us over. all the nerfs all the take aways they do.. how can they possibly expect to keep the money flowing in when they're alienating a vast swath of their player base? I'm one of those nasty 1%'ers. I have tons of expendable cash and i believe in supporting games I play regularly.. WHEN THEY TREAT ME RIGHT.. lol. but this game.. naw.. they need to give a lot more value for what they are asking for.
as far as never meant to last as long.. it's an mmorpg.. of course it was meant to last for ever. they're just doing it half assed. that's the PROBLEM.
there is nothing wrong with asking them to fix a problem on their end. we are the customer. we are not guests on their couch. for crissakes I hope when you go to a restaurant and find rat HAMSTER in your soup you don't make excuses for the chef? .... I'd be yelling for the manager and the health dept..
WE ARE THE CUSTOMER.... dont' forget that.
Again, I would normally agree with what you're saying, just not when it comes to Cryptic/PWI ~ Let's not forget this isn't their first mmo, this is just another season in a series full of disappointments. I've been lost in another mmo lately (the one they directly stole the treasure maps from) and man, what a difference. It just serves to remind me how hollow this game has become. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for loot changes, for better content, for less lazily done content, I'm simply saying I don't expect it to happen because of this companys track record. We're not the first mmo they've made and we're not the first ones to get fed up with their tactics.
Basically, you can't buy a watch from a guy in the alley selling them from the back of a van and expect the same customer service that the guy at the Rolex store is going to give. In the mmo world, Cryptic/PWI are back alley sellers at best. Yeah, it sucks for those of us used to some of the older subscription models but these f2p's are what they are. They don't really care too much because they can always copy/paste the code with new skins into the new hyped best thing and do it all over again.
Ive enjoyed reading this thread and looking at the suggestions but i think we all need to be realistic. The fact that legendary keys saw a small price cut says louder than words that this change was to address an issue with players not buying enough zen. Any suggestions including zen market items being obtainable by grind alone only perpetuate the issue for the devs, why would they allow you free coal wards if they can sell them instead? A more reasonable compromise would be to improve the refinement chance to make lessers to maybe 40 or 50% and have it reduce down to 1% as the quality improves....the devs throw us some good will and we need to buy less wards.
The minimum requirement is to have rewards that are at least equal to the time spent, but i dont think just asking for this alone solves the problem. Everybody has a different version of what the equivelant reward should be and if you can just get it easily then the market is flooded.
I think the best answer personally is to address the RNG in the game. I dont believe its reasonable if i BUY keys for lockboxes that i should be paying for a chance at something. Ive always believed lockboxes should be removed entirely and we should have a way to earn legendary mounts or upgrade our epic mounts. I would love campaign or character specific quests that you could gain access too through regular play time in game, that could give you progress towards a legendary mount, or an artifact or whatever. The more valuable the reward the more of these quests you would need to complete and the reward would bind (similar to the maze engine daily quests)
Just an idea and it may be stupid, but i would rather earn it than gamble for it. If a little something is thrown my way like this i may not object to buying keys for dungeons as much as i do.
the answer is they aren't going to sell the coal wards they are going to lose players who won't be buying anything at all. at ten dollars each coal wards are MASSIVELY over priced. TEN DOLLARS and it won't even get you anywhere near a fully upgraded weapon enchant. NO.. for that you need to spend 140 dollars.. 140 dollars. I can go out to a very very expensive restaurant and get dinner for two and a good wine for that. heck that's an electricity bill for a lot of people. that's like a few days wages for many. here we get something virtual for that. Most a list games cost 40 percent of that. sorry but no. that's outrageous.
they need to rethink their business model if that's the case. you have to give your customer something worthwhile for their money. they aren't atm and they're losing their player base over it. saying oh they won't do that because they need to make money is meaningless because if you lose your player base you're going to be making Less than you were before. they need to give people a reason to play or they get nothing. they aren't giving people a reason to play. 14 coal wards for one enchantment.. 28 for both armor and weapon. then it's nice for your rank 12s too. if you have alts you'd like to play fergettabout it.
take away here is if they want people to spend money they have to make it worthwhile. this game is supposed to be free to play. you need coals to progress. it does make it questionable if this game is pay to win or free to play when you put paywalls up on an item like that. it should be earnable in the game. (the one or two you get a year praying doesn't really count). their big money is on keys.. all the keys. so put things in boxes that we want with keys. they should have lockboxes swing thru much more regularly. more vanity items. people will buy vanity.
and most importantly give more variety to what can be played. give us the dungeons back. balance pvp but leave pve OUT of that balance equation. give more modes for pvp and for pve make the rewards much more varied and interesting. if you have a happy and engaged player base they'll spend money.
the coal ward fiasco has not been forgiven by the community. AT ALL. that needs to be corrected and fixed. the core reason so many of us are very upset about this is because it feels like the game wants money for free. we aren't getting the support or the game that this kind of cash would warrant. they are like, we need more money and we are like we need more game. come on, we just got an update where the only thing we get is serious unfun grind with a lot of buggy aspects and a dungeon that requires you get a bunch of useless gear that requires more grind to keep up to even enter the dungeon and then when you get there requires three keys for a garbage loot drop? AND requires you're IL to be a certain rank which means you're probably going to have to spend a couple hundred dollars to play the content..
NEW A LIST GAMES COST LESS... whyyy why on gods green earth would anyone do that instead of just buying a few of those new a list games?
Im weighing up buying Skyrim remastered (done the original) or buying a new gaming PC and tgen Civ 6. Plus also returning to FF14 or ESO.
If you cant even outline findings / initial recommendations from the 2.5 devs after weeks then what chance do we have of seeing meaningful change that outweighs all the dmg done.
I'm so sick of reading, Cryptic doesn't earn enought money...
90% of games take years to develop and then a few month sales cover what was invested in the creation and distribution of the game plus the benefits... And these that i'm 100% sure cost a way more to produce than Neverwinter that looks like a ps2/ps3 game with crappy lag like hells and we are in 2016 area of fiber connexion, HDR and 4k.
Neverwinter is many years old now, they had money income from PC ( a lot), then from XBox and now from PS4.
I dont want to read : "Income aren't good enought"
Like i said in an other post, 100$-150$ a year should be the grand maximum spent for a game like this because in the end you spend a lotttttttttt of time playing it's ok to spend this amount instead of buying 3 games that you'll finish in 2 weeks.
Again, buying come with fun at playing, NOT PAYING TO AVOID HAMSTER ANNOYING CANCER GRIND !!!!!!
I bought an epic mount and a bag from zen market : 4500z and 1 month vip and a few things with real money when it was released on PS4 (total equal to the price of a real game around 60$)
Since then, i pay only suscription VIP to save AD instead of paying VIP with it...
And i think many players play/pay/spend like that too.
Why would Cryptic need more ? Are they delivering satisfying content ( ice wind sukks so hard and ad even more cancer grind to grind) Are they fixing all the technical failures line tiamat / well of dragons ? Are they giving us back dunjeons ? Aren't they nerfing to the ground one of the most played class (Scourge warlock) to make people spend money again in an other toon ? Is there real any consideration of customers or even communication ? ( Just take key udate, they already decided that we are willing to buy keys if chest contain good stuff, I WILL NEVER BUY A CHANCE AT RNG FOR FFS )
Do you realize if just 1 000 000 people spend 10$ a month how much money income it represent ? or even half that ??? (12 millions accounts of ps4, i don't know for PC and xbox).
the answer is they aren't going to sell the coal wards they are going to lose players who won't be buying anything at all. at ten dollars each coal wards are MASSIVELY over priced. TEN DOLLARS and it won't even get you anywhere near a fully upgraded weapon enchant. NO.. for that you need to spend 140 dollars.. 140 dollars. I can go out to a very very expensive restaurant and get dinner for two and a good wine for that. heck that's an electricity bill for a lot of people. that's like a few days wages for many. here we get something virtual for that. Most a list games cost 40 percent of that. sorry but no. that's outrageous.
they need to rethink their business model if that's the case. you have to give your customer something worthwhile for their money. they aren't atm and they're losing their player base over it. saying oh they won't do that because they need to make money is meaningless because if you lose your player base you're going to be making Less than you were before. they need to give people a reason to play or they get nothing. they aren't giving people a reason to play. 14 coal wards for one enchantment.. 28 for both armor and weapon. then it's nice for your rank 12s too. if you have alts you'd like to play fergettabout it.
take away here is if they want people to spend money they have to make it worthwhile. this game is supposed to be free to play. you need coals to progress. it does make it questionable if this game is pay to win or free to play when you put paywalls up on an item like that. it should be earnable in the game. (the one or two you get a year praying doesn't really count). their big money is on keys.. all the keys. so put things in boxes that we want with keys. they should have lockboxes swing thru much more regularly. more vanity items. people will buy vanity.
and most importantly give more variety to what can be played. give us the dungeons back. balance pvp but leave pve OUT of that balance equation. give more modes for pvp and for pve make the rewards much more varied and interesting. if you have a happy and engaged player base they'll spend money.
the coal ward fiasco has not been forgiven by the community. AT ALL. that needs to be corrected and fixed. the core reason so many of us are very upset about this is because it feels like the game wants money for free. we aren't getting the support or the game that this kind of cash would warrant. they are like, we need more money and we are like we need more game. come on, we just got an update where the only thing we get is serious unfun grind with a lot of buggy aspects and a dungeon that requires you get a bunch of useless gear that requires more grind to keep up to even enter the dungeon and then when you get there requires three keys for a garbage loot drop? AND requires you're IL to be a certain rank which means you're probably going to have to spend a couple hundred dollars to play the content..
NEW A LIST GAMES COST LESS... whyyy why on gods green earth would anyone do that instead of just buying a few of those new a list games?
i
Bang on. I am spending more and more time in other games, WOT for instance, I have spent way more on this game then I should have done only to have them keep clawing stuff back and nerfing character after character.
Other than Running Siege for the vouchers I have ceased grinding the new content, I opened |Fangbreaker Island and find it impossible to get a party to drop (even though I have the gear) then we find out that even if you get in its broken as all get out. The boons in the new campaign universally suck and I have become sick of it after three boons and only the last part of the campaign to finish (plus the last two boons).
I just cant motivate myself to keep grinding, I have given up on ever seeing the Epic dungeons return, I will hang on in there (on a reduced basis) because of my guildies otherwise I would be mothballing the game.
162 game days and change in the game and we are somewhere I never thought I would see, essentially the game is stagnant IMHO.
I'm so sick of reading, Cryptic doesn't earn enought money...
90% of games take years to develop and then a few month sales cover what was invested in the creation and distribution of the game plus the benefits...
And these that i'm 100% sure cost a way more to produce than Neverwinter that looks like a ps2/ps3 game with crappy lag like hells and we are in 2016 area of fiber connexion, HDR and 4k.
Neverwinter is many years old now, they had money income from PC ( a lot), then from XBox and now from PS4.
I dont want to read : "Income aren't good enought"
Like i said in an other post, 100$-150$ a year should be the grand maximum spent for a game like this because in the end you spend a lotttttttttt of time playing it's ok to spend this amount instead of buying 3 games that you'll finish in 2 weeks.
Again, buying come with fun at playing, NOT PAYING TO AVOID HAMSTER ANNOYING CANCER GRIND !!!!!!
I bought an epic mount and a bag from zen market : 4500z and 1 month vip and a few things with real money when it was released on PS4 (total equal to the price of a real game around 60$)
Since then, i pay only suscription VIP to save AD instead of paying VIP with it...
And i think many players play/pay/spend like that too.
Why would Cryptic need more ? Are they delivering satisfying content ( ice wind sukks so hard and ad even more cancer grind to grind)
Are they fixing all the technical failures line tiamat / well of dragons ?
Are they giving us back dunjeons ?
Aren't they nerfing to the ground one of the most played class (Scourge warlock) to make people spend money again in an other toon ?
Is there real any consideration of customers or even communication ?
( Just take key udate, they already decided that we are willing to buy keys if chest contain good stuff, I WILL NEVER BUY A CHANCE AT RNG FOR FFS )
Do you realize if just 1 000 000 people spend 10$ a month how much money income it represent ? or even half that ???
(12 millions accounts of ps4, i don't know for PC and xbox).
Spot on to you and Tibs both. I, like Tibs, am part of that 1% of players as well. Sad too, because Black Friday is right around the corner, and I will be spending money, but not with NW, I will be spending it with my old faithful F2P game I've been playing for 3 years. I'll probably just log in to spend some money and not even play, but the game and developers have treated me fairly, and it's my way of continuing to support a game I love for future players and the constant on going development of the game.
I've played tooo many F2P games that don't try to rob you blind for a chance to just bend you over with their rng. You know what you are purchasing.
If I spend $150 in a f2p game, I better be able to achieve current BiS in that game for current content, be it equipment, character, companions, mounts, etc.
If I choose to buy VIP, it better be worth it. Which, thankfully, is the ONLY thing in this game worth spending money on after you've played a while and realized their pay wall strategy.
I should never feel like I need to buy 3 full games, with dlc, money wise, to just progress one character.
The sad part is they get people's money in the beginning, the fresh 70's. So eager because the game is so fun before you hit end game, except for Spinward Rise, which is probably the single worst campaign I've ever played in a mmo. Someone seriously needs kicked in the junk for that horrendous creation. (yes sarcasm, kind of)
Like i say, remove all rng related content and make it earnable through quests or whatever. Then improve refine chances for lesser, standard and greater enchants so we can use preservation wards. 1% chance or anything close to that should only apply to pure, perfect and trans variants....even then 1% is far too low.
I have to seriously question the math in this game. Perhaps that's why everything has such a garbage drop rate.
I took 2 different artifacts to gold this weekend. Both had a 10% chance. One took 43 tries, the other took 32.
My friend took 37 tries on a 10% chance.
My BF also took two to gold - a 10% chance, both took over 20 preservation wards.
No one I know was able to get a 10% chance to upgrade in 10 or less wards. NO ONE (and shockingly I know quite a few people)- so unless there is a whole guild of people who got it on the first shot - it wasn't actually a 10% chance.
Now apply this to loot in a dungeon. Two of my characters are still holding on to their first eLoL key because there has never been anything in that chest I wanted. I have run that dungeon at least once a day on my two mains for 4 months, so probably 300-400 runs (minimum) and not once has anything dropped in that special key chest (the chest on the right)- less than a 1% chance to get anything out of that chest?
I'll repeat what I want: Coal wards stacks of preservation wards high level enchants armor/weapon kits large amounts of AD companion tokens HIGH level refinement artifacts trade bars enchanted keys more options for higher level gear (that doesn't require upkeep - this is a game not a job. It's imaginary gear - not a pet)
What I find in a level appropriate chest should give me the ability to take my character to the next level - that's how dungeons and dragons works, and has worked since the 70's.
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I imagine the developers are looking at these demands and thinking many of us are crazy. Of course the majority of you are right, but again i echo my previous point. If recent changes are intended to address the issue of less zen being purchased then there is no chance of coal wards or high AD rewards ever being included outside of the zen market. You are right to ask for it but it isnt going to happen. I would happily buy coal wards if my armor enchantments up to greater were makeable using preservation wards. At the moment we have to use a coal ward for EVERY stage, here in the UK that's £8 every time. So i can't make a max lvl armor enchantment for less than £50? I can get a brand new AAA game for that.
Is an update from the devs looking into this too much to ask for? Are you waiting until the black friday spend is over?
I for one just bought a new mid tier gaming PC so I can play Civ 6. Money i might have spent is no longer going your way.
I suspect with xmas coming if you decide to continue with the mushroom treatment further customers will leave to other new adventures, especially on the PS4.
Comments
@triviarage
No my friend, they can't care less about "free play grinding"
They WANT you to buy keys... And no i will never buy keys for rng.
If i buy something with my money, i want something concrete not a chance at rng...
That's why i don't understand why all these people seems to agree that the solution is just "better chances of reward".
There are not gona grant you 10% of getting nice stufff
If they do, nice rewards will become common and you'll have them for cheap at auction house.
Then the idea from Cryptic to milk us by buying keys will work for them a few weeks and that's all...
After that, the resut will be the exact contrary of what they expected...
As an MMO it deserves to have a much larger audience than it does, but I think this is where management and shareholders come in. The horse they bet on is F2P and whales. Having millions of players like more traditional MMOs, such as FF14, isn't necessarily what they seem to be chasing. It's about getting the hooks in the types who either have lots of expendable cash, or sadly have gambling problems and spend more money than they should be. That is often F2P summed up, and the bet from management and shareholders is they'll make more money this way with less effort, than with more needing invested in development to attract more players who pay a small flat rate (monthly fee) and maybe occasionally buy some special mounts/skins for reasonable amounts. It is much harder psychologically to get someone to commit to a monthly fee even if it's a small amount, than get their impulses to kick in and drop 10~20$ at a time every random day they feel lucky or see their friends get something good. A monthly fee requires a perception of a great product that is for the gamers first, not for the bank balance.
I think this is one battle development will be fighting. No matter how they try to revamp chest loot it's going to impact the economy. Even if stuff is bind on account/char, if it's useful loot it takes away from people getting frustrated and buying off the AH. The AH itself is basically a mafia led system where top guilds control the prices as their players have millions of AD from getting in early (maybe at a high cost of their own on keys/purchases). Any high value items that get undercut probably get bought to resell. The AH is basically a real life stock and trading market for the high value items. In all honesty it doesn't matter if your game is F2P, having the barrier of entry for 1 item at around 100$ is just crazy. I think the shard of orcus wand is possibly the most sought after item. The drop rate for it must be less than 1%. Every time it drops that is 1 player who effectively can get VIP for months on end for nothing, or many other high end items for nothing. If they don't equip it themselves and be taken out of the pool of players who may buy 10,000+Zen for 1 item. That is the scope of the churn management relies on to bring in money and that comes under threat if drop rates get tweaked. Obviously that 1 item being an extreme example, but even wards and high tier refinement stone drops have small ripple effects on the AH/Zen store. Even when it comes to the garbage rings and salvage that drops, there is the 36k a day refinement cap to try and frustrate you into buying AD/Zen. Or having an army of alts to do refinement, but again that requires slots to be bought and player time spent mailing salvage around. The recent patch "fixing" the mailing system so you can't dump a ton of rings/junk in it for pickup later on a few alts.
It's sad really, NW is a great game for the gameplay and lore/setting, but it deserves to be treated more like something such as TESO. I wish they had gone pay for the game, no monthly charge and then a VIP monthly sub which was optional. I still think there is food for thought to revamp NWs VIP system, but that is where effort comes in, and it's possible the developers won't be given such luxury. I've said on the forums before, remove VIP from the zen store and make it a monthly sub you pay for, not exchange for. That should bring in a steadier revenue without relying on whales to then give some thought for balancing loot without worrying about the economy. We all know how management goes at the top though, the F2P dream and mass income from whales is just too enticing for many suits. I mean it works, its just sad when its wrapped around otherwise great games, and not just left to mobile junk.
But anyway, hats off to community managers and most of the development team. Chances are you guys are gamers first, business people second. I don't doubt most decisions about how NW will be ran as a money making product will come from up top. I mean communication is probably on lockdown as well. I don't know many other games that have the devs so sparingly interact with the community and just leave it up to forum staff, who I believe are largely volunteers. Creating that barrier of distance from the actual company staff and the players.
If they were they would fix game breaking bugs before nerfingor adding new stuff.
I don't want new content etc if my skills are broken.
Oh the hypocrisy when something is broken in our favour how quickly it's patched and fixed. Yet 1 nearly 2 months after this first blew up, spinifex and dusty winds with not a single fix implemented or confirmation of fixes forthcoming.
Cheers
M.K.
You need to make money with players´wish to progress their toon and so it cannot be -too easy-. However, if the rewards are completely out of touch with the costs of progressing a toon and those costs are also quite ludicrous with regards to the exchange rate of actual real life currency to in game currency while at the same time there is little (rational) reason for this progression to begin with (PVP in shreds...dungeon situation deplorable)....I fail to see how this can be a winning strategy...:P
If you want to add more actual endgame content (DUNGEONS) for the top-geared toons....thus making long time players happy and giving newer or more casual players something to work towards....you need to make progression easier and NOT HARDER.
Because if you want this awesome future content to be run by a sizeable number of players you have to allow newer/casual players to thicken the ranks of players queuing for it. Within a reasonable timeframe.
I did FBI only once. Our lieutenant searched in all kinds of channels to get a group together. It was sunday evening (Europe) and we´re part of a big alliance (Synergy) and it was just depressing. There might be a lot of reasons for this. I certainly wished I could have made my toon go beserk on the chest at the end (only relics and seals...seriously?) and the pointless EFR requirement but one elephant in the room is the fact that a lot of players who might have had the time and interest to do it at the time we were asking are literally light-years away from being able to enter.
So why not make players happy by rewarding them appropriately (with regards to the costs) for running the baby dungeons while at the same time giving them something really tempting to look forward to...not just the one dungeon that takes real dedication to get a group together and that has (regarding time/effort) the worst rewards in the game?
The whole raison d´être of a game is being fun and rewarding. So why wouldn´t players who have FUN be more likely to spend money than players in pain due to all the grind and only paying to ease that pain. The grind isn´t an end in itself. It has to be justified by a sizeable chunk of content where a players efforts optimizing a toon can be tested.
So...make progression easier by rewarding players for actually playing the game and then add a ton of superfun endgame content. Dungeons and PVP. Those should be the beating heart of the game because it´s what it´s made to excel at. Not the grind.
It´s not gonna happen, right? I know that. It just really bugs me that I cannot for the life of me understand WHY NOT?
I'd really like to play again sometimes the T1 or T2 dungeons for transmutation skins or fashion that wouldn't bore and i'd like to get it for myself because I would want it not feeling obliged to get it.
2) I want to propose a new vendor.
Every successful completion of any dungeon/skirmish run to reward you with a certain mark. (the L mark)
This mark will be added to your currencies, bound to character and will be utilized with the new Vendor (L) .
The L Vendor will give you a choice for every possible pool result you had for the dungeon or skirmish you collected the required 'L' marks from.
For example CN has a pool of rings with rank 1/2/3/4/5
1 artifact and some salvage
If your chance to get the rank 4 ring is 4% then by having acquired 50 (L) marks you are supposed to have obtained it with a 200% chance.
But you are very unlucky and you still want that ring very much.
The New Vendor should be placed to trade you the 50(L) marks with the ring you should have gotten from your 50 runs.
Apply that to a drop with a chance of 0.75% then in 266 runs you should have gotten it twice. Yet you haven't. Now you ll ve able to claim it and see a light at the end of the tunnel.
That reward system in addition with the one existing will reward even players that finish runs faster and those tired to the rng in the game who grinded endlessly without any final rewards (edemo) 300 runs edemo - no +5 rings.
You can make your own adjustments ofc you are the devs but this could be useful.
That could even help control the economy in certain areas. (set the maximum value)
Think of it as the reworked Trade Bar store
for dundeons and skrimishes where you run 2400 times to be able to at least claim an epic mount.
@mimicking#6533
Martin ConDion PVE only Ranger
Guild Founder: -HunterS-
The reason why is that right now it still represents progression. I don't have high level enchants socketed, I don't have that many marks and my gear is not that great. My main is mostly drowcraft and the others are slowly moving up. I enjoy story lines and am in no rush to get to the bleeding edge of the game so accruing all the bits I need that full end game players already have is ok.
However, once I feel like I'm no longer progressing and the only things that help are those elusive shinies then I'm likely to draw back a bit because I know better than to hope RNGesus will smile on me. When that happens there needs to be a pretty much guaranteed currency I can accumulate knowing that at some point I'll be able to spend it to give my progression a kick-start.
If I know that the only way to reasonably progress is purely through RNGesus then you'll probably lose me simply because it is not fun.
From all the things said, this game looks to have the same problem that so many have and is one of the major causes of disappointment. The players and developers assign very different values to certain words, to a player "small" may be 5% while to a developer "large" may be 0.5%. Often the developer will honestly believe they are being generous, and with their value set, they are. Unfortunately when measured against the player value set its found..... lacking.
When talking about different loot items, that easy to communicate well but when talking about numbers, use numbers, don't just say "small" buff please.
for example : Item : +5 Swirly armor of number crunching set % chance : 25%. Seals : 20. Reason : As a key leveling armor for entry into the new area we felt that 1 out of 4 runs of this 30min dungeon should grant a piece of the armor, tuned playtime to reach the new area is 10 hours, you also receive 1 seal per run.
Martin ConDion PVE only Ranger
Guild Founder: -HunterS-
you're thinking too small too cheap imo and the rewards table you have is so boring and unvaried. if they did that I'd quit. no point in playing anymore. they need to make it exciting again. that's just like it is now but ten percent more.
just because it's how it's been.. or how it is doesn't mean that is how it has to be going forward. we're letting them know what we want. we're backing that up by closing our wallets/walking away if we don't get it.
the key point here is if a company treats its customers right they become repeat customers. If a company treats it's customers badly they go somewhere else.
they aren't delivering content. They aren't giving us something worthwhile.. so why on earth should we hand over hard money for it? Free to play is an illusion. they've made way more money off this than if they'd put a 60 dollar price tag on it and dlc price tags on it or they wouldn't be doing it this way. people spend stupid money on it.
they need to stop treating us like HAMSTER. that's the base line. they've been treating their player base like HAMSTER for years now. bad communication, not doing what they say they're going to do.. bait and switch.. they need to stop doing that and start treating their player base with some respect.
part of that is doing things like making the loot table worthwhile. re releasing the dungeons they took away. ect. communicating with us clearly adn in a regular fashion. and most importantly not HAMSTER us over. all the nerfs all the take aways they do.. how can they possibly expect to keep the money flowing in when they're alienating a vast swath of their player base? I'm one of those nasty 1%'ers. I have tons of expendable cash and i believe in supporting games I play regularly.. WHEN THEY TREAT ME RIGHT.. lol. but this game.. naw.. they need to give a lot more value for what they are asking for.
as far as never meant to last as long.. it's an mmorpg.. of course it was meant to last for ever. they're just doing it half assed. that's the PROBLEM.
there is nothing wrong with asking them to fix a problem on their end. we are the customer. we are not guests on their couch. for crissakes I hope when you go to a restaurant and find rat HAMSTER in your soup you don't make excuses for the chef? .... I'd be yelling for the manager and the health dept..
WE ARE THE CUSTOMER.... dont' forget that.
Basically, you can't buy a watch from a guy in the alley selling them from the back of a van and expect the same customer service that the guy at the Rolex store is going to give. In the mmo world, Cryptic/PWI are back alley sellers at best. Yeah, it sucks for those of us used to some of the older subscription models but these f2p's are what they are. They don't really care too much because they can always copy/paste the code with new skins into the new hyped best thing and do it all over again.
Any suggestions including zen market items being obtainable by grind alone only perpetuate the issue for the devs, why would they allow you free coal wards if they can sell them instead? A more reasonable compromise would be to improve the refinement chance to make lessers to maybe 40 or 50% and have it reduce down to 1% as the quality improves....the devs throw us some good will and we need to buy less wards.
The minimum requirement is to have rewards that are at least equal to the time spent, but i dont think just asking for this alone solves the problem. Everybody has a different version of what the equivelant reward should be and if you can just get it easily then the market is flooded.
I think the best answer personally is to address the RNG in the game. I dont believe its reasonable if i BUY keys for lockboxes that i should be paying for a chance at something. Ive always believed lockboxes should be removed entirely and we should have a way to earn legendary mounts or upgrade our epic mounts. I would love campaign or character specific quests that you could gain access too through regular play time in game, that could give you progress towards a legendary mount, or an artifact or whatever. The more valuable the reward the more of these quests you would need to complete and the reward would bind (similar to the maze engine daily quests)
Just an idea and it may be stupid, but i would rather earn it than gamble for it. If a little something is thrown my way like this i may not object to buying keys for dungeons as much as i do.
they need to rethink their business model if that's the case. you have to give your customer something worthwhile for their money. they aren't atm and they're losing their player base over it. saying oh they won't do that because they need to make money is meaningless because if you lose your player base you're going to be making Less than you were before. they need to give people a reason to play or they get nothing. they aren't giving people a reason to play. 14 coal wards for one enchantment.. 28 for both armor and weapon. then it's nice for your rank 12s too. if you have alts you'd like to play fergettabout it.
take away here is if they want people to spend money they have to make it worthwhile. this game is supposed to be free to play. you need coals to progress. it does make it questionable if this game is pay to win or free to play when you put paywalls up on an item like that. it should be earnable in the game. (the one or two you get a year praying doesn't really count). their big money is on keys.. all the keys. so put things in boxes that we want with keys. they should have lockboxes swing thru much more regularly. more vanity items. people will buy vanity.
and most importantly give more variety to what can be played. give us the dungeons back. balance pvp but leave pve OUT of that balance equation. give more modes for pvp and for pve make the rewards much more varied and interesting. if you have a happy and engaged player base they'll spend money.
the coal ward fiasco has not been forgiven by the community. AT ALL. that needs to be corrected and fixed. the core reason so many of us are very upset about this is because it feels like the game wants money for free. we aren't getting the support or the game that this kind of cash would warrant. they are like, we need more money and we are like we need more game. come on, we just got an update where the only thing we get is serious unfun grind with a lot of buggy aspects and a dungeon that requires you get a bunch of useless gear that requires more grind to keep up to even enter the dungeon and then when you get there requires three keys for a garbage loot drop? AND requires you're IL to be a certain rank which means you're probably going to have to spend a couple hundred dollars to play the content..
NEW A LIST GAMES COST LESS... whyyy why on gods green earth would anyone do that instead of just buying a few of those new a list games?
i
Im weighing up buying Skyrim remastered (done the original) or buying a new gaming PC and tgen Civ 6. Plus also returning to FF14 or ESO.
If you cant even outline findings / initial recommendations from the 2.5 devs after weeks then what chance do we have of seeing meaningful change that outweighs all the dmg done.
90% of games take years to develop and then a few month sales cover what was invested in the creation and distribution of the game plus the benefits...
And these that i'm 100% sure cost a way more to produce than Neverwinter that looks like a ps2/ps3 game with crappy lag like hells and we are in 2016 area of fiber connexion, HDR and 4k.
Neverwinter is many years old now, they had money income from PC ( a lot), then from XBox and now from PS4.
I dont want to read : "Income aren't good enought"
Like i said in an other post, 100$-150$ a year should be the grand maximum spent for a game like this because in the end you spend a lotttttttttt of time playing it's ok to spend this amount instead of buying 3 games that you'll finish in 2 weeks.
Again, buying come with fun at playing, NOT PAYING TO AVOID HAMSTER ANNOYING CANCER GRIND !!!!!!
I bought an epic mount and a bag from zen market : 4500z and 1 month vip and a few things with real money when it was released on PS4 (total equal to the price of a real game around 60$)
Since then, i pay only suscription VIP to save AD instead of paying VIP with it...
And i think many players play/pay/spend like that too.
Why would Cryptic need more ? Are they delivering satisfying content ( ice wind sukks so hard and ad even more cancer grind to grind)
Are they fixing all the technical failures line tiamat / well of dragons ?
Are they giving us back dunjeons ?
Aren't they nerfing to the ground one of the most played class (Scourge warlock) to make people spend money again in an other toon ?
Is there real any consideration of customers or even communication ?
( Just take key udate, they already decided that we are willing to buy keys if chest contain good stuff, I WILL NEVER BUY A CHANCE AT RNG FOR FFS )
Do you realize if just 1 000 000 people spend 10$ a month how much money income it represent ? or even half that ???
(12 millions accounts of ps4, i don't know for PC and xbox).
Other than Running Siege for the vouchers I have ceased grinding the new content, I opened |Fangbreaker Island and find it impossible to get a party to drop (even though I have the gear) then we find out that even if you get in its broken as all get out. The boons in the new campaign universally suck and I have become sick of it after three boons and only the last part of the campaign to finish (plus the last two boons).
I just cant motivate myself to keep grinding, I have given up on ever seeing the Epic dungeons return, I will hang on in there (on a reduced basis) because of my guildies otherwise I would be mothballing the game.
162 game days and change in the game and we are somewhere I never thought I would see, essentially the game is stagnant IMHO.
I've played tooo many F2P games that don't try to rob you blind for a chance to just bend you over with their rng. You know what you are purchasing.
If I spend $150 in a f2p game, I better be able to achieve current BiS in that game for current content, be it equipment, character, companions, mounts, etc.
If I choose to buy VIP, it better be worth it. Which, thankfully, is the ONLY thing in this game worth spending money on after you've played a while and realized their pay wall strategy.
I should never feel like I need to buy 3 full games, with dlc, money wise, to just progress one character.
The sad part is they get people's money in the beginning, the fresh 70's. So eager because the game is so fun before you hit end game, except for Spinward Rise, which is probably the single worst campaign I've ever played in a mmo. Someone seriously needs kicked in the junk for that horrendous creation. (yes sarcasm, kind of)
I took 2 different artifacts to gold this weekend. Both had a 10% chance. One took 43 tries, the other took 32.
My friend took 37 tries on a 10% chance.
My BF also took two to gold - a 10% chance, both took over 20 preservation wards.
No one I know was able to get a 10% chance to upgrade in 10 or less wards. NO ONE (and shockingly I know quite a few people)- so unless there is a whole guild of people who got it on the first shot - it wasn't actually a 10% chance.
Now apply this to loot in a dungeon. Two of my characters are still holding on to their first eLoL key because there has never been anything in that chest I wanted. I have run that dungeon at least once a day on my two mains for 4 months, so probably 300-400 runs (minimum) and not once has anything dropped in that special key chest (the chest on the right)- less than a 1% chance to get anything out of that chest?
I'll repeat what I want:
Coal wards
stacks of preservation wards
high level enchants
armor/weapon kits
large amounts of AD
companion tokens
HIGH level refinement
artifacts
trade bars
enchanted keys
more options for higher level gear (that doesn't require upkeep - this is a game not a job. It's imaginary gear - not a pet)
What I find in a level appropriate chest should give me the ability to take my character to the next level - that's how dungeons and dragons works, and has worked since the 70's.
Ravenskya - TR / Krisha Chaos - OP / Waffles - GF / Dex Domitor - HR
Becky the trendy GWF - GWF / Too Toasty - SW / Falcor - DC / Morrigan - CW / Sir Didymus - OP
Is an update from the devs looking into this too much to ask for? Are you waiting until the black friday spend is over?
I for one just bought a new mid tier gaming PC so I can play Civ 6. Money i might have spent is no longer going your way.
I suspect with xmas coming if you decide to continue with the mushroom treatment further customers will leave to other new adventures, especially on the PS4.