Upgrading companions

areus · March 2017

If this has been asked before, I apologize. Ever since the major game changer with the removal of astral diamonds in the invocation process, has anybody at ARC thought about reducing the cost of upgrading for companions? Since it is generally known that level 20 and 25 companions are next to useless above your character's level of 60, and the ridiculous 'prices' being asked for companions in the Auction House (seriously, 400000, 500000 even a million for epic? 266,000 for an uncommon?) the only option is to upgrade. However, since lvl 20 to 25 is 50000, lvl 25 to 30 is 250000, lvl 30 to 35 is 500000 and lvl 35 to legendary is 1000000, and two runs in a dungeon is only worth approximately 11000, the time taken to get sufficient AD has become, well, stupid. (I know you get AD for skirmishes, dominations etc., but the return is pathetic and not worth the time or hassle.) Can the levels be reduced to something more obtainable like lvl 20 to 25 is 12500, lvl 25 to 30 is 50000, lvl 30 to 35 is 75000 and lvl 35 to legendary is 100000? This may also make those selling at the Auction House ask more realistic prices. No doubt there will be some people (i.e. an AD hoarder) that will get "up in arms" about what I have asked so I have one more question. If the idea about removing the AD from invocation was because of those hoarding AD, why didn't ARC/Cryptic reset every account to zero AD to make it fair all round? As I said this was a major game changer.

xinexix · March 2017

The goal here is to get you to spend money on zen to buy keys to open lockboxes for companion tokens.

markeen · March 2017

Or to use the Zen to AD conversion to buy from AH.

areus · March 2017

Couldn't agree more with both your comments. It really is about getting an income! You are left with the choice of spend real money or not.

fear · March 2017

i think they should add those bags of companion tokens to dungeon chests, each bag only has 45 but thats haftway to an epic companion

areus · March 2017

Absolutely. That would make dungeon running more 'fun' to do. And you would feel inclined to have a go. I'm afraid now, I'm bored stupid with it.

Another option would be to change the AD to the in-game money. Something like 20 gold for lvl 20 to 25? I don't think upgrading a companion should be something you have to use AD on. If you have to then they should allow us to collate the AD via the Moneycoins Bank like the tarmalune bars. (Not sure if I spelt that right!) I know about the AH 'option' but I found it took to much time. I go online to play. Thanks for your comment.

javviier · March 2017

multiple characters, multiple low level dungeons runs ... example... 7 characters = 100,000+ daily just the 36,000 from ur main and the 2 low level dungeons of the other 6 toons.... so u get 500,000 in less than a week, and im not even taking into consideration salvageable stuff / loot /or w/e .... so...... hard??? pfff!!!! just laziness, if ur too lazy, spend cash, if u dont have cash... shake that laziness off

fear · March 2017

lol, that last post is true but most people do not have the time todo all that on multiple different characters, IRL stuff tends to be more important right?

diloul31 · March 2017

^
This and we are not robots spending 2h doing the same dunjeons everyday with multiple characters is not fun at all.

Isn't a game suposed to be fun ?

xinexix · March 2017

4 extra char slots cost money too

fb97203243283265 · March 2017

Looool like most people have the time to make 7 characters and run each of them through all their dailys.. You must not have a job xD. Or kids. Or be married.

Obtaining tokens through vip daily keys is your best bet, or spend ad on firemane lockboxes until you get enough you usually dont lose too much on firemane

chimerax · March 2017

How do you think they make money to keep the game running ?

dukeguard · March 2017

Some people work have little time and have expendable income thus they spend real money to buy progress that would otherwise come from grinding. It's understandable. W/o these individuals this game won't last. Can't really blame Arc for doing what they did. Or you would rather they close the game?

mebengalsfan · March 2017

areus#3844 said:
If this has been asked before, I apologize. Ever since the major game changer with the removal of astral diamonds in the invocation process, has anybody at ARC thought about reducing the cost of upgrading for companions? Since it is generally known that level 20 and 25 companions are next to useless above your character's level of 60, and the ridiculous 'prices' being asked for companions in the Auction House (seriously, 400000, 500000 even a million for epic? 266,000 for an uncommon?) the only option is to upgrade. However, since lvl 20 to 25 is 50000, lvl 25 to 30 is 250000, lvl 30 to 35 is 500000 and lvl 35 to legendary is 1000000, and two runs in a dungeon is only worth approximately 11000, the time taken to get sufficient AD has become, well, stupid. (I know you get AD for skirmishes, dominations etc., but the return is pathetic and not worth the time or hassle.) Can the levels be reduced to something more obtainable like lvl 20 to 25 is 12500, lvl 25 to 30 is 50000, lvl 30 to 35 is 75000 and lvl 35 to legendary is 100000? This may also make those selling at the Auction House ask more realistic prices. No doubt there will be some people (i.e. an AD hoarder) that will get "up in arms" about what I have asked so I have one more question. If the idea about removing the AD from invocation was because of those hoarding AD, why didn't ARC/Cryptic reset every account to zero AD to make it fair all round? As I said this was a major game changer.

I do agree that the cost of increasing a companion level seems a bit steep, just like the cost of respecting feats and boons is a bit steep.

However, you can run a bunch of skirmishes that include Kessell and Shores along with Throne, Master of the Hunt, Dread Legion, and PoM. The quickest of these is probably Shores or Kessell and in those instances you can get gear to sell for AD. I gotten some nice gear out of both Shores and Kessell and with a well equipped group you are talking about 5-6 minute runs easily.

Also what is stopping you from running dungeons more? Some sub bosses drop gear that you can salvage for rough AD. Between three characters I typically have over 100K on each for rough AD and whenever I get gear I can sell or trade I do so to get better companions or enchantments on my characters.

I don't think the companion leveling process will change at all. In fact, if anything, we may see further improvement to them with an even steeper price. Meaning Mythical with a cost to increase the companion to that level being around 5 million AD if not more.

This is a F2P game but with pay to advance design to allow players who are whales to come in and get the best stuff sooner and for those that are more to the true F2P model you get actually what you are paying for which is, wait F2P is not paying therefore it will take longer to achieve the same result as the whales.

I'm a firm believer in supporting the game and buying a sub and spending about $10-20 additional each month as I see fit. If I played this game as a F2P player I definitely would have paid much better attention to the market and other areas within the game earlier on as I know the first week to month some stuff was selling uber cheap on the broker.

xinexix · March 2017

Oh yeah there's no way they would make upgrade costs cheaper. It's all about the money.

areus · April 2017

javviier: Unfortunately I don't have the time to spend dungeon running like that. Also, the AD is spread over the 7 characters which means more time spent collating it via the Zen AH/Market option. That is why the Moneycoins Bank collation would be a big help.

nofear, diloul31 and xinexix: I agree with you.

Thanks again for your opinions.

areus · April 2017

mebengalsfan#9264 said:

areus#3844 said:
If this has been asked before, I apologize. Ever since the major game changer with the removal of astral diamonds in the invocation process, has anybody at ARC thought about reducing the cost of upgrading for companions? Since it is generally known that level 20 and 25 companions are next to useless above your character's level of 60, and the ridiculous 'prices' being asked for companions in the Auction House (seriously, 400000, 500000 even a million for epic? 266,000 for an uncommon?) the only option is to upgrade. However, since lvl 20 to 25 is 50000, lvl 25 to 30 is 250000, lvl 30 to 35 is 500000 and lvl 35 to legendary is 1000000, and two runs in a dungeon is only worth approximately 11000, the time taken to get sufficient AD has become, well, stupid. (I know you get AD for skirmishes, dominations etc., but the return is pathetic and not worth the time or hassle.) Can the levels be reduced to something more obtainable like lvl 20 to 25 is 12500, lvl 25 to 30 is 50000, lvl 30 to 35 is 75000 and lvl 35 to legendary is 100000? This may also make those selling at the Auction House ask more realistic prices. No doubt there will be some people (i.e. an AD hoarder) that will get "up in arms" about what I have asked so I have one more question. If the idea about removing the AD from invocation was because of those hoarding AD, why didn't ARC/Cryptic reset every account to zero AD to make it fair all round? As I said this was a major game changer.
I do agree that the cost of increasing a companion level seems a bit steep, just like the cost of respecting feats and boons is a bit steep.

However, you can run a bunch of skirmishes that include Kessell and Shores along with Throne, Master of the Hunt, Dread Legion, and PoM. The quickest of these is probably Shores or Kessell and in those instances you can get gear to sell for AD. I gotten some nice gear out of both Shores and Kessell and with a well equipped group you are talking about 5-6 minute runs easily.

Also what is stopping you from running dungeons more? Some sub bosses drop gear that you can salvage for rough AD. Between three characters I typically have over 100K on each for rough AD and whenever I get gear I can sell or trade I do so to get better companions or enchantments on my characters.

I don't think the companion leveling process will change at all. In fact, if anything, we may see further improvement to them with an even steeper price. Meaning Mythical with a cost to increase the companion to that level being around 5 million AD if not more.

This is a F2P game but with pay to advance design to allow players who are whales to come in and get the best stuff sooner and for those that are more to the true F2P model you get actually what you are paying for which is, wait F2P is not paying therefore it will take longer to achieve the same result as the whales.

I'm a firm believer in supporting the game and buying a sub and spending about $10-20 additional each month as I see fit. If I played this game as a F2P player I definitely would have paid much better attention to the market and other areas within the game earlier on as I know the first week to month some stuff was selling uber cheap on the broker.

I have done the skirmishers as well (Master of the Hunt in 2mins 17 secs. Amazing. No time to think about it!) but it's not so much about running dungeons as the amount of times it has to be done to get sufficient AD to upgrade the companions. As said previously, allowing us to collate the AD like the tarmalune bars and in-game money would allow us to upgrade the companions quicker. I know this is a free to play game and I have spent a few hundred on various thing, but that does not mean certain parts of the game can't be altered, especially when they do a game changer like they did. On a personal level, I much prefer the quests and the companions are a major part of them. They are not required for dungeon running so they wouldn't be considered important. It is half a dozen of one and half a dozen of the other.

Many thanks for your opinion.

ravenskya · April 2017

I upgraded one companion from green to gold - it took forever. I did some of the lower levels by buying companion boxes off the AH when they were cheap. 2 tokens each, hoping for the jackpot or something I could sell that would give me the AD to buy another box. Now I look at all my other characters and just have to sigh... my Healadin is next in line and her main companion is at blue... TWO LEVELS?!? Ugh. A way to get tokens in game would be awesome

darthshanso · April 2017

ravenskya said:
I upgraded one companion from green to gold - it took forever. I did some of the lower levels by buying companion boxes off the AH when they were cheap. 2 tokens each, hoping for the jackpot or something I could sell that would give me the AD to buy another box. Now I look at all my other characters and just have to sigh... my Healadin is next in line and her main companion is at blue... TWO LEVELS?!? Ugh. A way to get tokens in game would be awesome

One thing this game isn't, is alt friendly. I try running two characters, and barely am able to keep up with Daily quests and dungeons. Once I'm done with them, twice...I'm ready to log off and go do something else. I love the combat system and all, but I don't know how long I can do this before I burn out and pack it in.

ravenskya · April 2017

Oh I don't do daily quests on everyone... actually I've been playing Mass Effect for the last week or so - I hop into neverwinter to grab my keys on everyone, run a dungeon or two on the healadin and that's it. Next double XP the goal is to get 100% of my alts to 60 or higher. If that goes quickly I'll take at least one more to 70.

Odds of them all getting gold companions are pretty low unless there is a better way to upgrade. Being able to consolidate companion tokens on to one character would be nice as well.

javviier · April 2017

areus#3844 said:
javviier: Unfortunately I don't have the time to spend dungeon running like that. Also, the AD is spread over the 7 characters which means more time spent collating it via the Zen AH/Market option. That is why the Moneycoins Bank collation would be a big help.

nofear, diloul31 and xinexix: I agree with you.

Thanks again for your opinions.

u can pass AD from character to character ( of the same account) without any fee... and if u dont have the time to do all those runs... then i guess IMO .. and sorry to say it this way... ur F*CKED!

mebengalsfan · April 2017

I have spent plenty on this game.

My GF and DC both have all of their companions at EPIC. Some were acquire through the AH or in content and others I bought or upgraded.

My CW has only one EPIC and that is the summoned companion.

I'm in the process of grinding for AD to acquire a good primary companion for my DC and than I need to grind out for AD or buy zen and sell it for AD using the Zen / AD exchange to upgrade my companion.

After that I still have four more companions that need to be upgraded. It takes roughly 1500 zen to upgrade from rare to epic. That would translate for me if I did all 5 of the companions between my DC and CW $75 in real world money for 5 digital items. Or it would take me 25 days using 3 characters to grind out for roughly 100K AD a day.

This does not include any items I can pick up and sell in the AH. But my luck is so bad that when I run with players I'm the lone player getting +1 or +2 gear. All others tend to get rare, epic, and legendary type of items.

Ran with a group and after 5+ runs this is what was each player pulled out.

Player 1: Owlbear Cub Companion, Epic Flail Snail, 2 Orcus Shards, and Orcus Belt
Player 2: Epic Flail Snail, White Tiger Mount, Orcus Shard, +5 Ring of Rising Life Steal and +5 Ring of Sudden Lifesteal
Player 3: Polar Bear Mount, +5 Ring of Sudden Defense, Orcus Belt, Epic Wheel of Elements
Player 4: Owlbear cub, Orcus Shard, Orcus Belt, an Epic Mount, +5 Ring of Orcus, and Bloodlord Visage
Me: 3 +1 Rings of Lifesteal and 2 +2 Rings of Sudden Lifesteal

They wanted to continue to spam CN as they stated, with you we are getting great loot, let's continue. I left after that the fifth or sixth run in CN. I'm the player that prayed at the end of each CN run. We all waited by the treasure box as someone mentioned have 5 for membership also helps with your odds. Nothing seems to improve my odds with this game RNG system.

I have gotten some good drops but not at the rate I have witness or experienced with others when I run on my DC. My DC probably has the worst drop rate in the game.

Best best piece of gear I have seen in any of my CN runs has been an Orcus Shard but that was on my GF and not my DC or CW.

My best loot drop I got IMO was from Kessell on my GF and that was my Epic Flail Snail.

When I run on my DC I see plenty of good loot being pulled from the chest for others, some of it is very much AH friendly. As for me, I get plenty of blue stuff I salvage for around 2-3k worth of rough AD. End result I need more runs to get the AD to get 500K to upgrade my companion as I do not get items to sell on the AH.

Trust me when I state I know how it is to grind to get stuff. The lack of seeing worth wild drops is why I am playing a bit less of NW lately. I'm still logging in but the way I feel now is very similar to how I felt around early September right before I took some time away from the game.

From what I have seen, time invested in this game does not really equal a better character or provides you what you need to really advance your character. The best way to really improve your character is invest into Zen and convert to AD and buy what you need.

sledneck220 · April 2017

javviier said:
multiple characters, multiple low level dungeons runs ... example... 7 characters = 100,000+ daily just the 36,000 from ur main and the 2 low level dungeons of the other 6 toons.... so u get 500,000 in less than a week, and im not even taking into consideration salvageable stuff / loot /or w/e .... so...... hard??? pfff!!!! just laziness, if ur too lazy, spend cash, if u dont have cash... shake that laziness off

What's your time soak each day to run 7 characters through 4 dung/skrims? Say it takes 10 min each skirm/dung (think about que and load times). Now that would take you 280 minutes/4.6 hours. I am lucky if I get 2 hours to play each day. And that's just the straight up grind. Now factor in doing stronghold stuff, or events, or dailies, or professions. Good luck my friend and you sir, have no accreditation to be calling someone else lazy.

armadeonx · April 2017

Speaking as someone who also runs 7 characters every day, you also have to factor in switching characters for invokes 6 times, professions, talking and breaks. To run all 7 through dungeons and skirmishes takes between 5 hrs and 7 hrs.

Most people quite simply don't have this amount of time for a game and that's actually a good thing.

trinity706 · April 2017

Players skin the cat however they like.

With Neverwinter players will spend time and possibly money as well. It's F2P so things will often come with a nice AD and or Zen tag on them. The more time a player has to play the less likely they are to spend money, the less time they have the more likely they are to spend money. If egos are factored in, they increase the chances of players spending money as well with trying to keep up with content and or other players.

Also with Neverwinter the things that are not "fun" more often than not grant the means to obtain what players are seeking (AD). Getting 36k AD on one or multiple characters quickly adds up. 28 days for over 1kk AD on 1 character, 14 days on 2, 9 on 3, so forth and so on. How much time a player has to play is independent of the game. It's an MMO, time is required.

areus#3844 said:
If the idea about removing the AD from invocation was because of those hoarding AD, why didn't ARC/Cryptic reset every account to zero AD to make it fair all round?

AD from invoking was removed for the most part because players were getting large amounts of AD from not actually playing the game (invoking and switching to multiple characters repeatedly is NOT playing the game). Why would Cryptic reset everyone's AD, there were a number of players that didn't abuse the AD from invoking so their AD shouldn't be reset.

When some players can't logon they don't shut the servers down for those that can...

fear · April 2017

lol well i guess they made upgrading companions MUCH faster for people willing to spend 1400 zen for that Companion Helper Pack, which honestly is wack IMO. It comes with ONLY 1 of those bags that contains just 45 companion upgrade tokens. 45 is not alot, it costs 90 tokens just to upgrade from rare(blue) to epic(purple). 120! to get to Legendary(orange). I still think they should of added that bag with the 45 cTokens in it to the dungeon/skrimish random loot drop table instead of pushing for even more Zen from people...

trinity706 · April 2017

Don't buy Zen or convert your AD for it, problem solved...

It's funny that so many players seemingly want so many more things to possibly be free for them in addition to the game that is F2P from the start...

Of course in a F2P game there will be things players have the option to buy with real money though Neverwinter even has the option to exchange in-game currency to available Zen and players STILL endlessly complain, the beauty of it is players don't have to spend a dime and the ugly of it is some think and feel that they do.

areus · April 2017

trinity706#8838 said:
Don't buy Zen or convert your AD for it, problem solved...

It's funny that so many players seemingly want so many more things to possibly be free for them in addition to the game that is F2P from the start...

Of course in a F2P game there will be things players have the option to buy with real money though Neverwinter even has the option to exchange in-game currency to available Zen and players STILL endlessly complain, the beauty of it is players don't have to spend a dime and the ugly of it is some think and feel that they do.

First of all this is not about getting things for free. What I have said concerns upgrading the companions. The values are stupidly high and need to be reduced in line with the paltry return for a dungeon run. Not everybody can spend hours on this game. Secondly, the idea of resetting everyones AD to zero is to make it a fair and even playing ground after they "modified" the invocation. There are people sitting on millions of AD which in turn makes the AH a joke. Have you seen the amounts being asked for various items? They are beyond the majority of players. Also, for sale on the AH, I have seen numerous 'players' have 6, 7 even 8 identical companions, I've never heard of. How did they get them so quickly? In 10 months of playing I have only had 3 comps from lockboxes. But that's another story

Yes, Cryptic/ARC are entitled to an income but not everybody can afford the high amounts of real money required for the amount of zen on the PS store. The 500 and 1000 zen amounts, basically get you nothing.
I hope that has cleared up any misunderstanding. Many thanks for your input.

areus · April 2017

nofear#4295 said:
lol well i guess they made upgrading companions MUCH faster for people willing to spend 1400 zen for that Companion Helper Pack, which honestly is wack IMO. It comes with ONLY 1 of those bags that contains just 45 companion upgrade tokens. 45 is not alot, it costs 90 tokens just to upgrade from rare(blue) to epic(purple). 120! to get to Legendary(orange). I still think they should of added that bag with the 45 cTokens in it to the dungeon/skrimish random loot drop table instead of pushing for even more Zen from people...

Again, couldn't agree more with the dungeon/skirmish drop. At least that is an incentive to do them!

fear · April 2017

Hopefully the developers/moderators that have the power to add a change like that to the random loot drop tables read this post or have it forwarded to them. This is even an issue for them players who have the ability to open lockbox after lockbox. They end up with too many companion upgrade tokens on 1 character which for some reason are stuck to your 1 character. You would think the tokens would be setup like the trade bars are but NOPE.. =/

sonicblast · April 2017

It's a grind just like most of the things in this game. They aren't actually that bad compared to some things you have to grind for in this game.

Upgrading companions

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