A serious feedback about the state of the game

th3ph4t3 · February 2017

I'm writing this one knowing that it won't be read by anyone who could seriously accept my suggestions. It's just the last try of a player who used to love this game and is still totally in love with its DnD-based lore.

I work. I'm an IT engineer and I'm perfectly concious that I do all the things I do 8 hours a day and 5 days a week just because someone gives me money for it.
So I start writing having in mind that you, both the devs and the producers, need profit from this game. There's absolutely nothing wrong with it.

Thing is that I sincerely believe you're pushing this game in a state where spending money on it it's totally not worth to.

I'm around since the day 1 of Open Beta, I was here when the Caturday break out, I knew every single T2 dungeon exploit/cut-through there was in place before Mod 1 came out and I was one of the first players joining the legit community because... yeah, there were cut-thorugh but I prefer to run the content than wasting my time skipping it just to be full-geared and have no more content to play.

Back then, I was spending a pretty high amount of money in this game. Think I bought, just to quote one but defintely not the priced one, a dozen of respec tokens without even using the ZAX just searching the better build form my CW. I bought mounts for absolutely no reason (stable was not even in place back then) but aestethic, bought dyes, changed ZEN to AD to pay transmutes while I was short on AD just because I found some cool new gear to wear...

But what's more I was spending every single free hour playing the game, grinding the dungeons, farming content for diamonds just because I was in love with the game, I had a pretty good guild of friends to play with and both things lead me to spend even more money!

At this very moment the only thing I'm buying from Zen Store is VIP, and I'm not even paying for it, I just ZAX the diamonds I earn salvaging drops.

You know why? All my guildmates left the game something around Mod 6 and even if Legit Community is still pretty active and I'm able to find a group whenever I want to... I don't feel rewarded anymore for spending hours on the game.

Back in the day I had someone to play with, I did 12-hours-a-day-all-weekend-long Castlenever runs hoping to drop some overcosted Ancient Weapon and winning the dice roll! I had mine weap-set after maybe the 50th run, but I kept spamming the content, I kept zen-buying respecs to optimize my build for it, I kept zen-buying aesthetic s**t just to be uselessly cool at the eyes of my guildmates!

You know why? Winning the RNG game (yeah! that was RNG even back than and also one with pretty awful rates!) meant an AD shower. An AD shower meant I was grinding my way to min-max my character. Which at some point before the Mod 1 release... I did. Than I did a second time in Mod 1, another time when Mod 2 came out, I even grinded much more whit Mod 3 came out because, when Dragon's Hoard had no ICD, drop RPs was another good reason to grind cause I absolutely wanted to refine my artifact gear to Legendary... That moment came and I min-maxed again.

I was and I still am okay with the grindfest (only Mod 10 was really too much, I have to admit. That was so much that for the first time in 10 modules I skipped all of the contents of both 10 and 10.5 waiting and hoping for 11 to be better).

I'm okay with the awful drop-rates RNG. I'm OK with the VIP, I'm okay with the pay to skip for people who are lazier than me, I'm okay with spending a hell ton of money into a game if I find it to be a funny way to waste my spare time! Even if the ZAX could mean no more money to spend (and when I started playing, that was the case) I would spend them anyway! Just like League of Legends players, who have absolutely nothing useful to buy with real money, covered Riot Games with a dollars shower buying useless aestethics like skins!

Just give me a reason to grind content. It's not hard: bind on equip AH-resellable drops from the chests. Even with the new key system in place, I'm at the point that risking an AD loss in an unfortunate drops run is OK for me as long as the drop rates are not so low that risk becomes certain.
Give me a way to think is possibile to earn much diamonds to min-max my char again (which I haven't done anymore after Mod 6 came in becoming a mid/low geared player who slightly has the iLvL to join new content and don't even run it).
Understand that, for absurd as it sounds, I want to spend money on useless aesthetic things but I'm not going to spend a single cent to buy keys, blood diamonds and overpriced-but-needed things you flood the zen store with just because I feel you force me to putting a wall in front of my grindway-to-heaven! If people enjoy the game, they find a reason to spend money on it even if there's no reason too. Force the player to spend money and they won't. Is any of you, devs, giving money to someone who continuosly ask for? Having no reason to ask? I don't think so. But I think all of you waste a part of your money in useless things like all of us just beacuse... Damn! I earned it, now I deserve to spend money into something that makes me happy!

I don't know if your data say what I think about your profit in the last couple of years. But I certainly know that pushing playerbase out of your own game will not raise your profit, not in the long run. People who still spend money will stop when there will be noone else to play with.
I know that grabbing the most possibile money out of the pockets of these people is you created this game for. And you know what? It's OK! That's business and it's the same reason why every moring I wake up and go to work! But sounds like a very short-term strategy leading to a long-term unevitable failure. And you perfectly know it, you just probably think that's no way to go back to where you were. So it's better trying to milk everything possibile before it's too late.

But you have to try something you not tried before giving up. You have to! Just make people feel spending money on this game worth something by making this game rewarding again. Not only in terms of diamond-earnings. Make people feel spending their precious time on this game worth something.

Noone will read this, and if someone started reading probably thought: "TLDR;" a couple of dozens of text rows ago.
I'm okay even with this, but don't blame me for leaving this game. I tried all that I could. This is a last try and will just be totally ignored.

Bye,
Phate

darthpotater · February 2017

Well said

btairborne · February 2017

TLDR - you want more useless aesthetic things to spend money on instead of spending it on progression based things which are a barrier to your progress and you refuse to spend on, and the whole situation makes you unhappy.

I am going to correct you.
There's no forcing players to spend money on progression, there's an option to spend money in order to increase progression rate.

th3ph4t3 · February 2017

I understamd your point, that's why I didn't suggest to change to whole game to male it what I want it to be. I want aesthetic? I can buy. You want fast progression? You can buy. Everyone has his point and, as long as this means profit for Cryptic/PWE, is worth they sell things players ask for.

I understand your point, but I believe you missed mine. I did not write an hundred rows of text asking for more aesthetics. Open the Zen Market: there is plenty of.
I spent an hour writing that neverending poem to talk about the whole state of the game and pointing out that, in my honest opinion, it's not worth spending time and money into the game itself.

I am going to correct you: there's no forcing players to spend money on progression because there's no option to spend money in order to increse progression rate.
You cannot ZEN-buy legendary marks to refine you SKT runic weaps, you cannot ZEN-buy Underdark rings.
Even understanding you're willing to pay for progression, and I'm totally OK with it, I can't see what you could buy to progress faster.

dread4moor · February 2017

@th3ph4t3 well said.
Many of us, working folk more than willing to give real money (not pay to win but for skins, conveniences and fashion) are no longer paying because the game is no longer fun.
Edit:
From Mod2 to Mod 10 I bought keys almost every week. Not to "pay to win" cause you cannot win that way, but to support the Devs, show appreciation for the fun of playing and cause the lockboxes use to be fun with interesting loot.
Now, none of that is true. Hope they read your post, OP and take it to heart.

lunari · February 2017

I read your post and I totally agree with everything that has been mentioned. I may not have been around for that long, but I've been here for about a year or two. Like you mentioned, I loved the game from the start and wanted to get nice things from their store and decided to buy it. I had no problem in doing so because, like someone else has mentioned, it was to support them. Now? I only pay for VIP and I do it through ZAX as well. No need for me to pull out my purse to spend my real money. Why? Because I don't see a reason too. I would like to see new things being placed such as fashion. I love to be able to look totally different from the next while enjoying the content. I would like to see new mounts not just copy and paste and added different color. That's pure laziness and no sort of creavity whatsoever. If they are making money then why not start creating new stuff for the market? Yes, new mods come out every two times a year or so, but still as I said before. Most are copy and paste stuff and it can get boring REAL quick. I am also to the point where I am just losing interest of the game. Its sad because I was a loyal paying customer, but seems like we don't matter as a person, but rather as a wallet. Welp... the purse has sealed shut and will not be opened until I see something worth buying. If it doesn't happen soon? Sad to say but I will be going as well.

See here is the thing. Before I started this game I was coming from a game I truly enjoyed as well and they made me walk due to what you guys are heading for. So I am pretty much experiencing this all over again and it truly saddens me. Such a great game with so much potential.

th3ph4t3 · February 2017

Another simple solution would just be making the endgame equipment buyable from NPCs with some sort of seals just like the T2 gear. Even if the number of seals required is pretty high I'll still be certain that as some point I'll manage to get what I want.
RNG was not a problem back when if I dind't drop what I need I could sell what I dropped and stack AD to buy what I wanted to.

RNG now IS a problem just because there's no chance to min-max apart from winning the Neverwinter lotto.
I spent less time in Mod 0 farming ADs aiming for a full set of R10 enchants than now tryng to drop the +4 Underdark rings. I'm not even aiming to +5, I just want the double enchant slot.

I'm not good at all at the RNG game and I still don't have my rings. And there's absolutely no way I can buy them. Which, moreover, is a loss in terms of profit: maybe someone lazier than me would just Zen-to-AD exchange to buy them if he ever could.

Did you got the point? I'm willing to grind content as long as I'm certain that at some well-known point, even if at a pretty far one, I will have what I want to.

Elemental Weaps is what I'm talking about: farming HE was a pain, expecially because I don't like HE at all. But I precisely knew the number of times I need to repeat, scheduled the whole thing having in mind how much free time I had got and I did it. I knew it were 100, I did 100.
ToD weaps is what I'm talking about: if you were bad at the RNG game you stille knew that after 3 loss you had a 100% win because you could simply exchange three wrong weap-set for the right one.

Can someone tell me how many runs have I to do to have my rings? How much fish I have to catch to have my relic restoration reagents?
That's the point! Noone wants to run content that:

a) won't pay them for the time spent (and this links to the resellable drops argument)

OR

b) will give them what they are farming for only after an unkown random number of trials

Lockboxes is where RNG shines: that's pure lotto and it's perfectly coeherent with the nature of the content itself.
Gearing up you char is where RNG should never ever happen without some sort of mitigation (see what I said about ToD to understand what I mean with mitigation).
C'mon guys, all I'm asking for is: make me sell my drops OR give me a number of max trials to reach what I want so that I can see the light at the end of tunnel. I said OR, not even AND!

Is this really so hard? Are there really so many problems with it?

bluebubbl3s · February 2017

I have been playing two and a half years, and i have seen the changes. and not all for the better in my opinion. i totally agree with your post.

i started to grind this new mod, unlocked the new dungeon which drops absolute HAMSTER (thanks for the flawless saphire in a chest which now I HAVE to burn keys on - cause that 1 saphire is so useful to a 3.1k+ geared player who has most stuff maxed out...), opened msva, did a few, grinded and fished my stupid HAMSTER off and for what? a stupid weapon set that i was never going to get to legendary without seriously running that stupid skirm all day every day until i have what i need. got over that real fast. forget best in slot, i go ok without that new gear thanks.

how i long for the old castle never, the old dungeons, the old gear sets (cause there was variety), the choices, the fun, the interesting things on the zen market, cause i too dont balk at paying for something if i think its worth it. not much is worth it these days. the game used to be so much more fun because it was a little more carefree, the game wasnt developed to make players take forever to get through content or to make a desperate money grab, and for the most part, people didnt mind that a mod took a little longer to come out cause there were heaps of dungeons to run and AD to be made.

sad state of affairs. my friends list is like a graveyard these days... they certainly arent spending money, and by the sounds of it, neither are the people who are still hanging in there.

niadan · February 2017

If there is no reason to buy things with real $ for progression or fashion...there will be no free to play game for those that don't spend $.

VIP is a great idea, but needs updating as new content gets updated. One simple change would be to add 3...yes 3 legendary dragon keys per day.

th3ph4t3 · February 2017

@niadan I agree, I'm just saying that adding rewards for content grinding in the forms of both seals to buy endgame stuff or AH-sellable drops could give a reason for both paying and non-payng players to investit time and money in the game.
Spending real money for fashion and/or fast progression (which both I did) will still be possibile and, I state, players in love with the game will spend more money on it.

santralafax · February 2017

If current VIP keys won't open SVA chests, an example, Legendary keys should be added at VIP 13, 14, 15. If you reach those levels you are clearly a longtime contributor.

Unknown · February 2017

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btairborne · February 2017

I agree they should understand pure range with such low %'s is what players hate the most in this game. What they should do is add a guaranteed reward for every so many completions for such things Legendary Rings, Relic Weapons and the Vivified Armor.

It reminds me how in another game players complained about RNG issues on Raid rewards, so a 20th completion award was added where at every 20th completion players could pick what they wanted from a list of items. This did a LOT for player morale.

@mimicking#6533

nitocris83 · February 2017

Thank you for taking the time to write this up. It didn't go unnoticed.

Unknown · February 2017

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nameexpired · February 2017

Well said!

I want to add that players might buy more fashion for ZEN if it were not sitting in normal inventory rivaling the BtA, BtC and unbound RP and all the other stuff you hang on to, like the Cloak of Lesser Etherealness.

th3ph4t3 said:
Did you got the point? I'm willing to grind content as long as I'm certain that at some well-known point, even if at a pretty far one, I will have what I want to.

Elemental Weaps is what I'm talking about: farming HE was a pain, expecially because I don't like HE at all. But I precisely knew the number of times I need to repeat, scheduled the whole thing having in mind how much free time I had got and I did it. I knew it were 100, I did 100.
ToD weaps is what I'm talking about: if you were bad at the RNG game you stille knew that after 3 loss you had a 100% win because you could simply exchange three wrong weap-set for the right one.

Can someone tell me how many runs have I to do to have my rings? How much fish I have to catch to have my relic restoration reagents?ants to run content that:

a) won't pay them for the time spent (and this links to the resellable drops argument)
OR
b) will give them what they are farming for only after an unkown random number of trials

Right again!

waywardwizard · February 2017

Ive been playing since the beginning with some off time. To put it frankly some things improved over time and many more others got worse. Dungeon runs, PVP, Tiamat lol. I recall the "glory days"..

They forgot this is also a game and only regard it as a business. The fun is (almost) none, all they do is design new ways to make people spend money. Money requires value in return. What value is there?

kallephi · February 2017

waywardwizard#4349 said:

They forgot this is also a game and only regard it as a business. The fun is (almost) none, all they do is design new ways to make people spend money.

That's exactly what I think

armadeonx · February 2017

I've played for about two years now and there have been pluses and minuses but my honest opinion on the current state of the game is that there appears to be a kind of top-down social & economic adjustment that appears to be geared toward:

forcing players to grind the same content until it becomes mind-numbing (Heroic Encounters are ok for a couple of weeks, but months? I don't think so).
locking new gear behind massive grind-walls, thus making it highly unattractive to run more than 1 character through (is this an attempt to dissuade players from running alts? It won't fix issues with player AD generation as a 2k character can generate just as much as a 4k character).
having chests in dungeons that require special keys that cost Zen then saying you "don't expect people to buy them unless they are farming something specific". That would be fine if the chest actually contained the specific item rather than a discouragingly low chance of it being in there. If I buy something, I want to get what I've paid for, not a (v.low) 'chance' at getting it.

A pet hate for me personally, is where the acquisition of required gear (new armor, weapons) is locked behind rng. I'm a big fan of the way Dragonflight armor, Twisted weapons etc are earned because you know the score; you earn the currency at a predictable rate and buy the gear within a given time frame. My guildies are running FBI 50+ times just to acquire one correct piece of armor. Given the time it takes to run this dungeon, that's a disheartening time-gate.

Let each chest contain a token (like twisted ichor) and a set quantity of tokens buys you the gear. Simple, predictable grinding.

I know you guys like to work on 'averages' but for every player obtaining gear within the 'average' time, there are a few poor souls at the losing end of the measure. This makes those players lose the will to play, their experience of the game is an overall negative and they have no way of resolving the issue other than to continue their attempts or stop playing.

There needs to be a light at the end of every tunnel you create (not a chance of a light) and you need to appreciate that players patience with certain tasks is not infinite.

spideymt · February 2017

As long as we got so many clueless fanboys like uralol we have to deal with such changes ingame.
But i have to admit:
Well said th3ph4t3!!

xavior44 · February 2017

nitocris83 said:
Thank you for taking the time to write this up. It didn't go unnoticed.

perfect what are you guys going to do about it i sure u see alot of our crying and complaining and it gets noticed BUT what are you going to do about this......

hustin1 · February 2017

Now that the set bonuses are gone from the old armor sets, it would be really, REALLY nice if two things happened:

1. They started dropping again in their usual BoE form (including the weapons, since we need them to get the set titles)
2. The armor pieces could be upgraded to level 70 using Black Ice Empowerment (or mastercraft!)

That would let us scratch our variety itch somewhat and it would let us get something that is actually useful rather than just for show. Right now we are all stuck going after the same gear with the same demoralizing grind (I'm totally passing on the loot from FBI and SVA -- I'll go if alliance members want to check them out, but otherwise no thanks). It's darned near impossible for classes like HR's to get in groups for them anyway, even at 4.2 IL.

What I would rather like to do is upgrade one of my Forest Lord, Grand Warden, or Royal Guard sets and wear those. I'm wearing Umbral on my main, but it would be nice if I could use mastercraft or Empowerment to make something comparable. It would be even better if my much younger HR could acquire the pieces to do it. Likewise, it would be neat if my DC could upgrade her Draconic Templar (which looks really neat, IMO) and if my CW could upgrade her High Vizier. I know, there are transmutes, but that doesn't address the problem of having to do the same mind-numbing grind on every alt.

hustin1 · February 2017

Now that the set bonuses are gone from the old armor sets, it would be really, REALLY nice if two things happened:

1. They started dropping again in their usual BoE state (the weapons would be nice as well, as you need them to get the set titles)
2. You could upgrade them with either Black Ice Empowerment, or even better, mastercraft (or both!).

I wear umbral on my main, but Drowcraft on most everyone else. It would be really nice if, for instance, my DC could upgrade her Draconic Templar to level 70. Or if some of my newer companions could acquire the pieces to do it.

I know, there are transmutes, but that doesn't solve the issue of having to do the same demoralizing grind on every alt. This would not only give us variety of look but also variety of experience. That's much more important than one might think to a player with alts.

Edit: Bleh. The disappearing-post gremlin paid me a visit. Mods, please feel free to remove or condense as appropriate.

soullesslords · February 2017

I agree give us things we want to buy from the zen store I have spent close to 4k on this game and as of now my wallet is closed because people I play with are leaving or are gone just a small few remain. here are things that will get me spending again.

1. legendary mounts
2. Stronghold instant upgrade buttons I'm tired of the grind and the long wait after you finally get the stuff for upgrades you let us buy instant campaign completions why not strongholds, different levels completions.
3. gift packs from the zen store I have many players that don't have money but I would love to buy them gifts like an epic mount that are account wide unlock as if they purchased it themselves I know you can buy gift cards but some people in different countries can't redeem the codes without having to go through proxies to much work make it easier.
4. More bank space for the guild and for ourselves I have maxed everything out how about a bag of unlimited storage.
5. Different costumes that DON'T HAVE SPIKES.
6. Player housing that could double as unlimited storage in the stronghold would be nice.
7. I would like to be able to buy anything in the lock boxes after you release a new lock box.
8. I would like to be able to purchase profession packs with things like dragon eggs, unified elements, greater marks of stability, power, union and so forth I'm tired of going back over old content to get a chance at something I need because I'm willing to pay for convenience.

These are some of my requests and before you flame me for wanting to pay for things I can grind for remember it's people like me that pay real money that keep the game going, the programmers and other people behind the scene don't work for free and need paying customers.

demonmonger · February 2017

I also have spent thousands on this game, but I gave up on spending as well. I don't feel comfortable spending on a game where the direction and focus constantly changes. I feel I am paying a bit polar schizophrenic salesman 1000.00 dollars for a promised item, just to be handed something else I never asked for in turn.

Unknown · February 2017

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dread4moor · February 2017

@soullesslords
"... and before you flame me for wanting to pay for things I can grind for remember it's people like me that pay real money that keep the game going, the programmers and other people behind the scene don't work for free and need paying customers."

Agreed. Nothing you mentioned is truly "pay to win" anyway.
Good suggestions. I would buy some of those.
I used to spend money every month. Glad to give Cryptic my money cause they deserved it.
Just not fun anymore, so stopped buying zen.
Doesn't seem like they care, though.

demonmonger · February 2017

@grubbyhands yes the dragon hoard nerf pissed me off too..

I don't really have much reason to play anymore.

Feels like the company smiled at me lured me to a dark corner and molested my wallet... then said shut up and go..

fizgigtiznalkie · February 2017

I think just switching the dragon keys from a 5 pack to a 20 or 25 pack would alleviate a lot of issues people are having at the moment.

louchristan · February 2017

I used to be a big spender in this game and reach the limit all the time but I stop spending money now because I don't like the way this game is heading, all grinding and no fun. There is nothing worth buying in the Zen store and mod 10 is a drag for progression. I still will spend money if the game provide some fun after a hard day at work but the prolong grinding is not what I consider fun. This game has a lot of potential to be the best game but too bad they messed it up just because they want to make some fast buck.

viciouscosity · February 2017

There is so much stuff they need to do for this game to be fun again. The over homogenizing of gear and removal of all those dungeons at mod 6 is still something I find unbelievable, don't understand, and the game is still recovering from. And the abominable state of pvp is such a turn off. We need more to do at end game, that is fun and not grindfest.

A serious feedback about the state of the game

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