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Official Feedback Thread: Astral Diamonds

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  • draconislupusdraconislupus Member Posts: 205 Arc User
    > @draconislupus said:
    > Fact is you want to reduce AD in the game make things that people will want to buy that have no value to anyone other that the person buying them, AD sinks. Strangling the players ability to make AD is not the way.
    >
    > You want AD sinks that players will use? Account Bound sick transmutes in the Wondrous Bazaar, Account Bound Unbind Scrolls in the Wondrous Bazaar (which would only change bound items from character bound to account bound and not all items could be effected by these, thinking primarily of quest gained items), and Account Bound Bonus RP Scrolls. To name a couple. Notice all of those are Account Bound. The biggest thing with AD sinks is they have to be one time use items and not sellable in the AH.
    >
    > As for the Unbind Scrolls I'm talking about them being around 500k AD. I realize that is a lot but think about what they are intended for. Example, I got a +5 ring and put it on because it is the only +5 ring I have. Now later I get the one I really want and I have an alt character now that I'm building that is a class that could really use that ring. I'd happily pay 500k AD to be able to send that ring to my other character. At no time could the ring or scroll be sold to make me more AD and 500k AD is now out of the game.

    I realize that I posted this way back on page 4 but I wanted to update it a bit. Instead of 1 flat 500k AD Unbind Scroll I think a tiered set like the ID scrolls would be better. Ranging from 100-500k based on item level with new ones as item levels go up. Since they finally got ID scrolls to work this shouldn't be a problem.

    And to be honest the Unbind Scrolls could even be character bound when bought but never should they take an item from anything more than character bound to account bound. Otherwise it wouldn't be an AD sinlk.
  • plasticbatplasticbat Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 12,183 Arc User
    adinosii said:

    I may be in the minority here, but I like how the proposed changes discourage people from running a large number of badly-geared alts through Random Queues. By this I mean both the first-time bonus and the change to make the leaver penalty account-wide.

    I am also in the minority side.
    I have pointed out the impact of the changes and how that could affect players.
    However, it does not affect me and could actually have positive impact to me.

    1. I hate RQ and I do not earn rAD through RQ. Hence, the RQ limit bonus does not affect me.
    2. Account wide 100K rAD refinement daily cap. I don't earn 100K rAD daily. In some day, I probably earn 0 rAD. Hence, the cap does not affect me but it does 'encourage' me to salvage my big stash of salvageable before mod 14.
    3. I prefer to earn AD instead of rAD.

    The positive impact to me (I can only speak for myself) are:
    1. RQ will give brave seal and I think the quality of players to do RQ will be better. Hence, I probably will do RQ. Not for rAD but for the seal.
    2. There may be a deflation. Not sure if it is good or bad to me at the moment. Anyway, if that happens, I will find a way to take advantage of it.
    3. Zax backlog will be smaller. Not a big impact to me but it is a somewhat positive effect.
    4. I always say the absolute amount of AD does not matter. What it matters is how much more AD I have comparing with (say) average. Since I don't earn rAD much comparing with 'average', my selfish thinking is this is a positive impact to me.
    5. Since people cannot just spend time to run RQ for their many characters to earn rAD like now, I hope there will be more quality dungeon runs like before mod 13. People is spending too much time for rAD run, there have been less people and less time to do "fun" dungeon run since the first day of mod 13. Personally, I did not have not many fun run since mod 13 (because the opportunity to do that is less).
    *** The game can read your mind. If you want it, you won't get it. If you don't expect to get it, you will. ***
  • pherrowpherrow Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 414 Arc User
    kreatyve said:

    My own 2 cents on this. Please know that the statements in this comment are based on my own opinions and not the views of anyone at Cryptic and in no way "official". I know for a fact that the devs are reading this thread. But I also doubt that they will change their minds on these changes. The fact is, they have all the data and numbers. The players may think they know, but there is no way a single person who is just playing the game and has no way to access the data that Cryptic has would even be able to guess at how much rAD the average player generates a day.

    To say that they are ignoring this thread is a misnomer. They are not ignoring anything. They are reading it all. But they are simply choosing what they feel is the best course of action for the overall economy of the game. I can guarantee that if they looked into the accounts of most of the players that are complaining loudly against these changes, the majority of those players are not hitting 100k rAD daily with any sort of consistency, and certainly not the majority of the time. And as pointed out, if you are only hitting those numbers on certain days, you can just refine the AD on the days that you don't. This change is GOOD. It will help. Basic MMO economy knowledge shows that.

    So we should trust that in this specific situation the devs are getting it right because basic MMO eco knowledge says so? What other basic MMO strategies were missed along the way as they have implemented nonsensical changes? (bondings come to mind here). Even though they have stats to present us with a foundation of "why" this will work... based on the track record around here, can we trust that it will work as they say?

    As Oria1 has pointed out, their numbers may not present a solid case.

    Now, not to take the job the Devs have for granted...I understand we can't always give a simple fix. As if we can come in here for 2 seconds and see the obvious fixes they need to make instead...but damn. How nice would it be for the devs to say "We've an AD problem, help us find ways to create more logical AD sinks and we'll try to figure it out."? At this point they could weed through the the info and see what makes sense (after all, one change usually effects something else). Then after the change they can "keep an eye on it" as they always promise to do. Not that this can happen in every case but it seems like direction that could have been taken.

    Instead we have to trust this is in our best interest. But why? In many many cases in the past there have been changes that didn't seem to make sense. Chases where players (even without the "stats") knew better. Trust is a big thing. In my opinion, many players do not have the trust in Cryptic to make changes that help both the company and the player base.
  • plasticbatplasticbat Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 12,183 Arc User
    edited May 2018
    Moderator removed moderator edited quote.

    As far as I know you cannot mail most salvage to another account because they are account bound. You can mail the blue one which you can also sell that in AH.
    Post edited by kreatyve on
    *** The game can read your mind. If you want it, you won't get it. If you don't expect to get it, you will. ***
  • zirbselemutzirbselemut Member Posts: 2 Arc User
    to sink ad : just add an item removing the bind by character or by account in the wondrous bazaar. Make the price pretty high (1-2-5 M) it will be enough to sink a lot of ad .
  • linoge63linoge63 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 373 Arc User
    edited May 2018
    titi227 said:

    Personally I wouldn't mind the daily cap (again, i fully understand the others that do). The first run bonus on only 1 character does not bother me much either, because running randoms on my 5 different characters is a nasty chore. But, if you take that away and force me to "run salvage", which equals to finding a group and running the same dungeon 10 times. I don't think i will stick around for long, as i don't find that more sane than being forced to run alts. And yes, i'm saying being forced, because you see, I need to earn the diamonds because, even though i have VIP, upgrades cost a ton and my 11k main has zero chances to improve without loads of AD.

    Again, I welcome the changes, but with lots of support. Give us more varied ways to get RAD when playing the game. Bring some of those RAD's as quest rewards, for example. Give RAD for epic trial rewards, campaign main dailies, heroic events dailies etc. Reward us for playing different content instead for mindlessly farming the same dungeon with the same team, or running undergeared alts just for the random daily, like on a HAMSTER :) wheel.

    If they do input ways for us to enjoyably make 100K rad with our main toon other than running group only content into insanity then that will indeed be a game changer in a very positive way.
  • omegarealities#7219 omegarealities Member Posts: 1,004 Arc User
    edited May 2018
    Did I read somewhere that the bonus rough astral diamonds earned when invoking are included in the 100,000? Wow, first we take a hit when we earn them and then we take a second hit when we refine them.
  • lowjohnlowjohn Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,061 Arc User

    Did I read somewhere that the bonus rough astral diamonds earned when invoking are included in the 100,000? Wow, first we take a hit when we earn them and then we take a second hit when we refine them.

    ..... the bonus raw AD from invoking, that you then refine, does count towards the refinement cap.

    But that's not a double-hit. "Earn 50% more AD" doesn't count towards your cap. Praying doesn't progress you towards the cap.

    If you salvage a standard +1 ring for the standard 2200 AD, your prayer boost means you earn 3300 AD instead. When you refine that, both the standard 2200 *and* the bonus 1100 count towards the 100K cap, just like they count towards the 36K per-character cap right now.

    Put another way: Earning the pool of potential future AD, which is not AD *yet*, does not count towards the cap. Only actual Raw AD, that you actually refine into Spendable AD, counts towards the cap. It doesn't matter if you earned the Raw AD at 100% or 150% or 200% or whatever rate - all that matters is the solid, actual number that you actually click "refine" on.

    Does that make it a little clearer?
  • titi227titi227 Member Posts: 9 Arc User
    linoge63 said:

    titi227 said:


    Again, I welcome the changes, but with lots of support. Give us more varied ways to get RAD when playing the game.

    If they do input ways for us to enjoyably make 100K rad with our main toon other than running group only content into insanity then that will indeed be a game changer in a very positive way.
    Well, isn't that the idea, to enjoy the many aspects of the game? For example, I bet that completing the daily heroic event quest in dread ring with all those random players and all the running around is more time consuming than running eToS. Why only one of those has rewards? Why not reward people who are playing the game by enjoying regular activities, things which they want to do anyway? Why force everyone into streamlined, optimized, boring paths?

    The game has a lot to offer, why does the path have to be run dungeons (by the way, the same two "optimum" dungeons) for salvage, go buy stuff from AH, upgrade? It's silly, really. People want different things to do, yet the path they put people on is dungeon, reque, dungeon, reque etc until your eyes bleed or you hit the rAD cap, whatever comes first. Rinse and repeat tomorrow.

    The botters will find ways around the new systems (mainly multiple accounts). The changes are not limiting them, it's just some time lost micromanaging everything. I doubt they buy character slots so they probably run multiple accounts already. The changes will mainly hurt the regular people who play the game for fun and enjoy the various aspects of it, while wanting to progress.

    Also, the same changes are absolutely killing those guys who play legit for 8+ hours a day, people who bought lots of character slots, made alts and worked on them all, invested lots of real money into the game. I mean, they set a rule that if you make tons of alts (which implies buying character slots and gear and whatnot) then you can generate more resources, depending on dedication and time played. People adapt, buy character slots, rise alts, work on alts. Now they take this away and completely change the rule, they say "you can delete your alts, as from now only the first run counts per account". If i was a guy who worked on alts to prepare them (between others) for AD making, i'd quit on the spot.

    I propose salvage points. Limit salvage to 15k per account per day. I mean, let's do it all, the heck with it. Joking aside, I bet there must be a better solution than limiting the activities that generate rAD. The 100k cap i can live with, but the random que nerf, the severe decrease of income that casuals and regular people can generate per day is ridiculous. Some (if not most) people play for days to afford a r10 to r11 upgrade for one enchantment. Don't ruin the game for them.
  • pitshadepitshade Member Posts: 5,665 Arc User
    As someone who averages over 100k AD a day from refining, I can still understand why this might be necessary. That is, even though it does most certainly affect my earnings, I am open to the idea that it may be in the greater good. I have 11 characters, 13k to 16k and run all of them through Random Epic a few times a week as well as doing 5 of the 6 AD yielding weekly quests. (I would like to say shame on anyone who calls me a cheater for running RED 11x in a row.)

    When the change was made to provide a bonus to AD earned rather than straight AD from invoking, I made it my goal to claim that AD on each character. That goal has been ongoing but will have to come to an end in m14. It is mathematically impossible to ever clear that bonus out on more than 8 characters with this change. But ok, the AD generation in the game is too high and the Devs need to cap it. I can accept that and will adjust. However, I do feel that the First Run bonus being account wide is too much. We are capped on how much AD we can refine per day, so why does it matter if someone wants to run multiple characters. Their gain is capped. Because of the cap, a number of my characters will stop running dungeons. Because of the change, it is likely all but 1 will. How does this help the RQ? That's 2 tanks and 2 healers gone from the pool of people queuing. With only 1 character, I'll likely just accept the longer wait and go with a strong DPS. Even if I go with one of the supports on a given day, the other three sit idle.

    Given that hopefully the scaling will work, (and I asked for this in the initial RQ thread) the flow of botters and speedrunners will dry up. The people in the leveling queues will be working for their AD, the same as people in the higher queues and if people in every queue are actually working to EARN the AD, there is no good reason to restrict them from getting it, given that the account is capped per day anyway.
    "We have always been at war with Dread Vault" ~ Little Brother
  • omegarealities#7219 omegarealities Member Posts: 1,004 Arc User
    lowjohn said:

    Did I read somewhere that the bonus rough astral diamonds earned when invoking are included in the 100,000? Wow, first we take a hit when we earn them and then we take a second hit when we refine them.

    ..... the bonus raw AD from invoking, that you then refine, does count towards the refinement cap.

    But that's not a double-hit. "Earn 50% more AD" doesn't count towards your cap. Praying doesn't progress you towards the cap.

    If you salvage a standard +1 ring for the standard 2200 AD, your prayer boost means you earn 3300 AD instead. When you refine that, both the standard 2200 *and* the bonus 1100 count towards the 100K cap, just like they count towards the 36K per-character cap right now.

    Put another way: Earning the pool of potential future AD, which is not AD *yet*, does not count towards the cap. Only actual Raw AD, that you actually refine into Spendable AD, counts towards the cap. It doesn't matter if you earned the Raw AD at 100% or 150% or 200% or whatever rate - all that matters is the solid, actual number that you actually click "refine" on.

    Does that make it a little clearer?
    I forgot the "if that's true" between wow and first. :)
  • xenotorchxenotorch Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 196 Arc User

    Has anyone considered putting the AD sinks in BEFORE restricting the earning of AD? See if that helps stabilize the problem. If you are worried about people buying the items and then selling the items in the AH, code those items as BtC or BtA.

    @noworries#8859

    This, so much this. Everytime you make a change, you say "we're keeping an eye on this and will adjust, and there are future changes to come". This equals uncertainty.

    How about a more holistic approach and introduce some of the adjustments AT the same time as these changes? Give us some hope and incentives to be positive instead of these doom and gloom threads. It would be so much more enjoyable to look forward to a positive instead of uncertainty - reminder there are jubilee sales coming up and a happy player base spends.

    As far as the economy goes, it will always be led by those who have the riches - forget anything else, they will continue to drive the market. This change maybe positive in the long run, but players are often short-term animals when there are other games out there to play. Again, hope is too often discounted but people thrive on it.

    Delay the change until you have other AD sinks in place. Or publish a clear date when revamps are coming in (hope, yes??)
    • An AD store to rival the Zen store. Include green/blue levels that can be upgraded with further AD sinks.
    • A revamped and relevant Zen store itself (the decision to take fashion out was a misguided one btw - as experts in MMO economics know every game that has fashion/transmutes/cosmetics in its cash store does relatively well, this should be obvious - no?). Look at the costs and be realistic - microtransactions, not macrotransactions as present. More and often.
    • Look at Stronghold costs again - lots of smaller guilds will thank you.
    • Look at Profession costs - thousands to produce a major kit? Who will pay the cost of manufacture so crafters get a profit under the proposed system? (The whole Professions aspect needs a makeover to be honest)
    • Lower the cost of companion upgrades - the average casual player cannot afford 500K from blue to purple never mind the 1m to Legendary.

    In short, you guys are making changes that affect our playstyles and enjoyment of the game. Someone mentioned making incremental changes (brilliant!) rather than this continual nuclear scorched-earth method. An incremental approach with the players fully informed of a timetable would be so much more positive and inclusive.
    Why wasn't more AD sinks introduced that could have prevented such a large economic imbalance? Many threads have had ideas on over the years as to things players would happily part with earned riches/cash. Instead, boom! Thread meltdown.

    I recognise that these changes will go ahead with no adjustments and no reduction in AD sink costs, probably to clear as much AD as possible in the shortest space of time. My fear is that those with the riches will hold onto them as they can afford to, whilst those who are reaching intermediate levels 8K-11K will find it difficult at first. But try to give us hope, share a potential roadmap with a timescale - yes, players will want to hold you to those but that is no difficulty with proper communication.

    Give us hope!

    Apologies for the wall of text :)
  • vordaynvordayn Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,283 Arc User

    I'm not going to bother opining on how the proposed change will impact the economy as the internet analysts and forum economists seem to have it covered....

    I am curious as to other AD sinks. Besides the obvious fashion and transmute options, is there any reason we can't have a store to purchase +5 rings? I understand these are highly desirable items, but there are a lot of whales who wouldn't hesitate to spend 5MM (Possibly more) AD on the new Gravestalker Ring or the ring that drops from Fane.

    Is there any legitimate reason not to do this or something like this?

    Thanks.

    To keep you playing.
    Vordon CW        Vordayn DC        Axel Wolfric GWF        Logain SW        Gawyn GF        Galad OP        Aspen Darkfire HR        Min TR
  • lowjohnlowjohn Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,061 Arc User



    I forgot the "if that's true" between wow and first. :)

    Fair. But the new system is live on preview, and I specifically logged in there and checked this exact thing before making that post.
  • plasticbatplasticbat Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 12,183 Arc User
    edited May 2018

    My mistake but similar concept. Set up alt accounts to fast run the salvage just like main. Transfer ADs back to main. more prep time, but the "3 percent" that supposedly control the AD economy ( or however Cryptic wants to put it ) in RAD would probably be determined to keep their control. They will find a way.

    This does not work well.

    1. there is no "quality" salvageable you can mail to an alt account because the "quality" salvageable are account bound. There is nothing else you can use for this 'similar concept' which is about moving stuff from one account to another to overcome rAD daily account cap limit. The only stuff you can use this trick is blue salvageable which gives tiny amount of rAD.
    2. There is no good way to transfer AD between account. The good old fashion way is through AH but there is a 10% cut and also taking a risk of being banned.

    Moving stuff between account is not something new. Using that for overcome rAD limit is not effective.
    *** The game can read your mind. If you want it, you won't get it. If you don't expect to get it, you will. ***
  • faredawg1faredawg1 Member Posts: 81 Arc User

    That's why we have a 20.000.000 AD backlog in pc atm

    I agree withe the 100k limit per day



    We have 20 million in the Exchage right now because the summer 40-50% Zen store sale is almost here and players know it takes about 1 day per million to get your AD changed to Zen....that's the ONLY reason. A week or two after the sale it will come back down. It will happen again in October for the November Black Friday sale. Happens every year. They are USING this known and rational fact to push their nerf.
  • faredawg1faredawg1 Member Posts: 81 Arc User
    The players who are are saying it will be a posative move, that hitting the 100K daily limit will make it easier to cap out...you do realize that the items you (should) want will not drop in price right? They are not lowering the cost of any Wards in the Zen Store. Nor are they lowering the cost of Keys or VIP from the Zen Store. They are NOT lowering the cost of upgrading your Companions, nor the cost of items in the Baazar needed to upgrade gear and gems, nor are they lowering the required amount of these items needed to upgrade your gear and gems. They are not increasing any loot drops, so the supply will still be absurdly low and demand for Ultimates will stay the same or increase with the addition of the new content. They are simply limitting the amount of AD you can earn each day to buy these essential things. They are cutting your pay but not the cost of your rent and utilities.

    They are saying they are doing this to balance the Exchange and to also effect prices on the AH. But everything you should want: Wards, Keys, Orange Mounts, Upgrade Resources, VIP Subscricptions; they are not lowering those prices. Forgive me if I'm forgetting anything that may seem essential to "buy", but these are what are imortant. These prices will stay the same but players will be SEVERLY RESTRICTED in the amount of AD they can earn to buy these things. If you are not currently chasing these items then either A) you have already attained an IL of 16K+ OR B you are not trying to attain those levels. If you are not, I don't know why you're playing, because you need them for the Endgame content, and most assuredly will need them for the Ravencraft new content.

    If the Dev's concerns are more focused on those who cannot adequetly run Chult, Omu and assumingly Ravencraft Content then those who can or are trying to reach that level, then why am I playing this game?
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