Over the last 2 years on PC, the net amount of refined AD in the game (all characters of all players) has increased 75%. The overall AD in the game has been increasing at a good pace since the game launched, and this is true of all platforms. Some transmute and other sinks added aren't going to be able to curb that alone. I won't go into too much detail on the numbers, but on average players as a whole, just on PC, are generating 1 billion brand new refined AD every 3 days. Each console on average is 4 days to generate 1 billion AD. That number already factors in all of the AD spent during that time as well. This is why there needs to be better generation limits in conjunction with AD sinks.
We did pull data on how much of our player base earns over 100k RAD on any given day before implementing this change, and that percentage is lower single digits. That number goes even lower when looking at how many accounts earn over 100k RAD every single day. A player can always log in on days they aren't grinding out AD to refine extra RAD on their characters.
So from the above we can draw some conclusions.
If the "percentage that is lower single digits" (shall we say 3%) makes more than 100k that means the change will affect that 3% only. Which also means that 97% will not be affected by the change.
Since your change in rough AD is targeting to reduce the "generating 1 billion brand new refined AD every 3 days" amount and the other 97% of the player base will not be affected in anyway and the AD generation from them will continue undisturbed, that also means that the "percentage that is lower single digits" generates the larger portion of those "1 billion brand new refined AD every 3 days"
So, and just to see that I get ti right, The 3% of players, that generates more than 100k per day, is responsible for the situation we have now and help into generating a big portion, if not the larger part, of the 1 billion AD per 3 days, because as per your data, the other 97% since it wont be affected it wont change and will keep generating the same amount of AD if not more.
I hope you see the logical fallacy in those statements above.
PS Even if that was happening (which I doubt) we can easily speculate that, to do mass farm you need at BEST 20m per char (1X 3 man about 7-9m and a skimrish another 10m) which would take 17 hours at least, to 20 hours NON STOP farming per 24 hour day every day. Isn't it simpler to see who is logged 17-20 hours everyday, investigate and act? Cause I'm sure its not human... I think we all know the answer though.
Don't get me wrong, some of the changes like leavers penalty and the right scaling %, are a very good steps, but its not enough to have good intentions but to also have the right implementation when ti comes to AD.
I came back to the game less than a month ago, after a long hiatus (left after the dreaded mod 6). Wanted to give the game another go, since i've read that it went into a better direction, saw some nice changes on different forums etc.
All good, leveling was fine, enjoyed a few different classes which range now from lvl 40ish to 70. My main character is 11k itemlevel, working hard for upgrades. Their costs are in the millions. My main way to generate AD was through random queues.
The 100k cap seems needed and totally understandable, but changing the first random run bonus to shared account-wide, without means to compensate for the "lost" rAD, is overkill. True, now i run 5 random dungeons and 5 random skirmishes on my 5 characters, and that part of playing feels like a chore and brings me profound disgust. I don't like it, but at least it gets the job done. I would love not having to mindlessly run all those instances, but i expect a better alternative than 15 salvage dungeon runs to compensate. Idk, without new, better ways to make rAD from the activities people are actually doing, i don't see myself here for long.
> @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.
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adinosiiMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,294Arc User
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.
Hoping for improvements...
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plasticbatMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 12,452Arc User
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. ***
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.
I am one of the players who don't agree with the change. I don't even get close to the 100k cap.
Here are some questions for you:
1) why are you assuming that people voicing their opinion against this change should be affected directly by the change? I personally think this change is bad, even if it doesn't impact me at all. I'm certain I've never refined more than 700k AD in a single week (I have exceeded the 100k/day cap on some days tho). But I do think the change is bad for the game, hence it will impact me, indirectly;
2) why are you assuming that a player w/o full access to the data the devs have isn't able to contribute to the discussion? And if you're right, the devs should disclose those data, or what's the point of a feedback thread if any issue that is raised here is then dismissed with a "you don't know the data" argument?
3) "Basic MMO economy knowledge shows that". Well, you state that as a fact, but I assume that's your opinion. Let's talk about that, tho.
Basic economy states that the value of goods depends on supply and demand. What is supply tho?
Now, let's say that ADs are something new, supply would be the amount produced by refining. On that I agree.
But ADs are not new. There are players who have huge stacks of both ADs and zens, already. In many cases, that's the result of botting, even if they currently don't do it new, they may have done in the past. Very few players, who accumulated ADs only by legit means, can compete with them. If any, actually. BTW, this proves that yes, it is about botting. Anything economy related is about botting, as long as botters exist and existed in the past (and their past damage to the economy is not undone).
Supply of ADs to the market isn't just based on the ADs players produce today, it depends also to the amount coming out of those stacks. And the devs are not going to limit that in any way. They act as if those stacks didn't exist at all.
Basic economy suggests that with this change the devs are making those people a dominating force of the market even more than they already are today. All they have to do is to pump ADs, of which the have almost an unlimited supply, into the market, and we, the legit players, are now limited in our means to compete with them.
BTW, of course I don't know the data. Maybe I'm mistaken, and there aren't big stashes of ADs stored in multiple chars on multiple accounts. Maybe the amount of ADs produced in one day is significant compared to the overall amount accumulated in years. But I doubt it.
First it is important to note this isn't a change due to botters as many people have suggested in this thread, it is a change to improve the value of Astral Diamonds.
We could, as an example, raise the ZAX exchange cap to 1,000 on PC. It would rise up significantly to at least 750, but likely higher. This wouldn't make auction house items more affordable for players as the value of AD just decreased significantly and would drive up the auction house prices. This would require players to grind even more AD to buy what they did previously.
Limiting the ZAX to 500, helps give some stability to the value of AD, but not fully as there is still a lot of RAD entering the economy each day and only so much leaving. Our changes are intended to both help bring the prices in the AH, and the ZAX down, as well as help newer players and those with less playtime earn a bit more AD to help them out.
We did pull data on how much of our player base earns over 100k RAD on any given day before implementing this change, and that percentage is lower single digits. That number goes even lower when looking at how many accounts earn over 100k RAD every single day. A player can always log in on days they aren't grinding out AD to refine extra RAD on their characters.
Keeping the value in AD is an ongoing project for us and we will certainly be watching how this change impacts the ZAX and AH and can always make adjustments in the future to ease back the limits if that seems like the right choice.
Greetings noworries,
Thank you for commenting directly in this thread on the upcoming proposed changes as it pertains to AD and the generation of said item.
This is my first and likely last forum post here. (Advance warning for incoming wall-of-text yet I deemed it necessary to adequately describe my point of origin relating to this matter.)
As someone who started playing in late 2013, then left Neverwinter for 3-years, then returned in late 2016 and has been playing just about daily since then with 12 toons (and two additional unused character slots in case a new class were to be released) on my one (and only) account this is incredibly negative news.
My main character is a 15.2 GWF who can run any content in this game and does TONG with relative ease (pending the party composition, skill, and experience). Cradle is another matter, but we'll let that be in the here-and-now. My 11 alts represent all the existing classes, and they are all 10-12.5+K IL with the exception of one that is 9.9K IIRC. I created those alts because I like creating characters I find interesting in my mind's eye, typing up a background story for each of them, and creating a build that works in practical matters while also matching their appearance, outfits, gear - in short: fits their theme.
I didn't invest in all those toons for the sole purpose of AD farming, though that is very much something I've come to use them for as well as garnering greater insight into the workings of the individual classes which allows me to be better able to play them and come with useful suggestions during party runs - be they pre-formed or PUG ones. I work full-time. I have real-world adult responsibilities yet I also have significant disposable income and free-time. Granted, not everyone else will be in my situation, but this is mine. I easily farm ca. 120-180+K AD per day by just running 4-5 toons through the first random dungeon followed by the first random skirmish, occasionally having enough seals to buy rings for extra salvage plus whatever AD invoking bonuses and other salvage may have dropped during the course of those runs. I suppose that places me in that lower-end single digit percentage of the playerbase. So be it.
I haven't kept an up-to-date tally on what I've spent over the years on this game, but a rough ballpark estimate would place it in a four-digit sum of U.S. dollars. I stopped spending real-world money on this game ca. 6 months ago because I was tired of the constant nerfing you lot at Cryptic seem all-too-happy to do with just about every major patch and Mod. I comprehend that changes are sometimes needed, and yet I also comprehend that not all changes are inherently of equal merit nor is change merely for the sake of change something worth pursuing in all instances. I bought 1,100 Zen a month and a half ago or so. (Apropos, why is it that in the EU store one can only buy in increments of 9.99 Euros unlike in the NA store where you can purchase for 5.00 USD? The immediate answer that comes to my mind is: greed.) I bought that Zen because I didn't feel like waiting on the backlog in the ZAX in order to purchase an expansion token for my stored companions. So you see, the backlog can in fact lead to added sales for you lot.
Regardless, I've recently stopped playing; it wasn't fun most of the time for me any more. I got tired of the mind-numbing, soul-destroying grind. I got tired of all the BS hoopla and intentionally obtuse, frustrating hoops you lot at Cryptic continually throw in to the works in order to artificially slow the playerbase down, in order to "encourage" us to spend real-world money. I got tired of the army of useless bots in random queues and the non-IL requirements for many of the RQs leading to 1.8K ILers in PoM. (I mean, really, what is a low-geared player going to do there against the types of demons he/she will face? Use harsh language? Please.) Worse yet are the AFK/Disconnect parasitic players who get away scot-free unless the remainder of the party wait for the vote-to-kick timer cooldown (and which can only be initiated once per-4-hours per player).
There is a running theme here: Negative reinforcement. If Cryptic were half as good at introducing positive reinforcement, incitements and rewards for doing various activities in this game as opposed to nuke-strike nerfing things, what a game this could be! Ah well. What might have been.
I have just over 5 million refined AD sitting on my main toon. I had been farming AD (legitimately - not with bots) to save up for the frankly outrageously priced legendary mounts on AH. (Here's another real-world money earning proposition for you: sell at least one legendary mount on the Zen store. It can look horrible. It can have lackluster combat power. Doesn't matter - it would sell just for the movement bonus alone. And since it would look horrible and have lackluster combat power, the sale of lockbox keys that you love so much would continue since a number of players would still want the more appealing/attractive legendary mounts.) As mentioned previously, I readily generate 120-180K+ AD per day by running 4-5 toons. If I go full-throttle and dive deep into "the grind" with all my alts, I can reach 300-maybe-400K AD, but it takes up the better part of a day and it is tiring. What this proposed change to AD does is effectively kill the ability for me - and other players like me, be they existing end-game players or new up-and-coming players - from buying and upgrading mounts, companions, upgrading materials, enchantments, etc. in a reasonable amount of time. I choose to define that as a period of time that isn't long enough to graduate with a diploma or advanced degree from a higher place of learning. Alternatively, in a time frame that is less than it takes to train combat troops (i.e. 4 months or so using NATO standards).
I had been toying with the idea of giving this upcoming Jubilee a shot and spending more real-world money to finally get my 15.2 IL GWF a legendary mount, and maybe a few more r11s-r13s, but as also mentioned previously I have decided to leave this game about 1½ weeks ago. Only yesterday did I see the announcement of Ravenloft in Mod 14, yet as enticing as that is, this latest incoming nerf is a step too-far for me. Thank you for your time, and thank you for making the decision to move on easier.
Best regards, KFD (a.k.a. Bromaldi "Brom" Sternsteel - GWF 15.2K IL - Order of The White Owl guild - Scion of Unity alliance)
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.
plasticbatMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 12,452Arc 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. ***
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 .
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.
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.
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.
im in the prosess of sharing my stuff amongst my guildies, when im done with that, im going to delete my account. im forfeting my 15.6k HR wich i love, and all his accumulated wealth. that is my statement on the way cryptic meets its players. I wish all players the best of luck.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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?
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. ***
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.
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?
I am fairly new and do not have a character that can get salvage reliably and I am not in a large guild so I can't do master crafting. I bought extra character slots to run dungeons with nine characters for astral diamonds. So now I will be limited to only one random bonus per day and no other way to make AD. This will not affect the BIG AD farmers that make millions of AD through the auction house because this does not require refinement or random dungeon runs at all. At least they made this announcement before the Jubilee, since I had planned to buy $300.00 worth of Zen. Now I just have to decide what game I will play instead of this one. I don't think that I can afford to play "free" games anymore.
I just want everyone to know that I'm willing to take a hit for the team. If the Devs need a good AD sink, I'm willing to take 20-30% of everyone's earnings on a daily basis - it'll be tough spending all that... but I'm willing to do it just to help everyone out.
Comments
If the "percentage that is lower single digits" (shall we say 3%) makes more than 100k that means the change will affect that 3% only. Which also means that 97% will not be affected by the change.
Since your change in rough AD is targeting to reduce the "generating 1 billion brand new refined AD every 3 days" amount and the other 97% of the player base will not be affected in anyway and the AD generation from them will continue undisturbed, that also means that the "percentage that is lower single digits" generates the larger portion of those "1 billion brand new refined AD every 3 days"
So, and just to see that I get ti right, The 3% of players, that generates more than 100k per day, is responsible for the situation we have now and help into generating a big portion, if not the larger part, of the 1 billion AD per 3 days, because as per your data, the other 97% since it wont be affected it wont change and will keep generating the same amount of AD if not more.
I hope you see the logical fallacy in those statements above.
PS
Even if that was happening (which I doubt) we can easily speculate that, to do mass farm you need at BEST 20m per char (1X 3 man about 7-9m and a skimrish another 10m) which would take 17 hours at least, to 20 hours NON STOP farming per 24 hour day every day. Isn't it simpler to see who is logged 17-20 hours everyday, investigate and act? Cause I'm sure its not human... I think we all know the answer though.
Don't get me wrong, some of the changes like leavers penalty and the right scaling %, are a very good steps, but its not enough to have good intentions but to also have the right implementation when ti comes to AD.
All good, leveling was fine, enjoyed a few different classes which range now from lvl 40ish to 70. My main character is 11k itemlevel, working hard for upgrades. Their costs are in the millions. My main way to generate AD was through random queues.
The 100k cap seems needed and totally understandable, but changing the first random run bonus to shared account-wide, without means to compensate for the "lost" rAD, is overkill. True, now i run 5 random dungeons and 5 random skirmishes on my 5 characters, and that part of playing feels like a chore and brings me profound disgust. I don't like it, but at least it gets the job done. I would love not having to mindlessly run all those instances, but i expect a better alternative than 15 salvage dungeon runs to compensate. Idk, without new, better ways to make rAD from the activities people are actually doing, i don't see myself here for long.
> 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.
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).
Here are some questions for you:
1) why are you assuming that people voicing their opinion against this change should be affected directly by the change? I personally think this change is bad, even if it doesn't impact me at all. I'm certain I've never refined more than 700k AD in a single week (I have exceeded the 100k/day cap on some days tho). But I do think the change is bad for the game, hence it will impact me, indirectly;
2) why are you assuming that a player w/o full access to the data the devs have isn't able to contribute to the discussion? And if you're right, the devs should disclose those data, or what's the point of a feedback thread if any issue that is raised here is then dismissed with a "you don't know the data" argument?
3) "Basic MMO economy knowledge shows that". Well, you state that as a fact, but I assume that's your opinion. Let's talk about that, tho.
Basic economy states that the value of goods depends on supply and demand. What is supply tho?
Now, let's say that ADs are something new, supply would be the amount produced by refining. On that I agree.
But ADs are not new. There are players who have huge stacks of both ADs and zens, already. In many cases, that's the result of botting, even if they currently don't do it new, they may have done in the past. Very few players, who accumulated ADs only by legit means, can compete with them. If any, actually. BTW, this proves that yes, it is about botting. Anything economy related is about botting, as long as botters exist and existed in the past (and their past damage to the economy is not undone).
Supply of ADs to the market isn't just based on the ADs players produce today, it depends also to the amount coming out of those stacks. And the devs are not going to limit that in any way. They act as if those stacks didn't exist at all.
Basic economy suggests that with this change the devs are making those people a dominating force of the market even more than they already are today. All they have to do is to pump ADs, of which the have almost an unlimited supply, into the market, and we, the legit players, are now limited in our means to compete with them.
BTW, of course I don't know the data. Maybe I'm mistaken, and there aren't big stashes of ADs stored in multiple chars on multiple accounts. Maybe the amount of ADs produced in one day is significant compared to the overall amount accumulated in years. But I doubt it.
Thank you for commenting directly in this thread on the upcoming proposed changes as it pertains to AD and the generation of said item.
This is my first and likely last forum post here. (Advance warning for incoming wall-of-text yet I deemed it necessary to adequately describe my point of origin relating to this matter.)
As someone who started playing in late 2013, then left Neverwinter for 3-years, then returned in late 2016 and has been playing just about daily since then with 12 toons (and two additional unused character slots in case a new class were to be released) on my one (and only) account this is incredibly negative news.
My main character is a 15.2 GWF who can run any content in this game and does TONG with relative ease (pending the party composition, skill, and experience). Cradle is another matter, but we'll let that be in the here-and-now. My 11 alts represent all the existing classes, and they are all 10-12.5+K IL with the exception of one that is 9.9K IIRC. I created those alts because I like creating characters I find interesting in my mind's eye, typing up a background story for each of them, and creating a build that works in practical matters while also matching their appearance, outfits, gear - in short: fits their theme.
I didn't invest in all those toons for the sole purpose of AD farming, though that is very much something I've come to use them for as well as garnering greater insight into the workings of the individual classes which allows me to be better able to play them and come with useful suggestions during party runs - be they pre-formed or PUG ones. I work full-time. I have real-world adult responsibilities yet I also have significant disposable income and free-time. Granted, not everyone else will be in my situation, but this is mine. I easily farm ca. 120-180+K AD per day by just running 4-5 toons through the first random dungeon followed by the first random skirmish, occasionally having enough seals to buy rings for extra salvage plus whatever AD invoking bonuses and other salvage may have dropped during the course of those runs. I suppose that places me in that lower-end single digit percentage of the playerbase. So be it.
I haven't kept an up-to-date tally on what I've spent over the years on this game, but a rough ballpark estimate would place it in a four-digit sum of U.S. dollars. I stopped spending real-world money on this game ca. 6 months ago because I was tired of the constant nerfing you lot at Cryptic seem all-too-happy to do with just about every major patch and Mod. I comprehend that changes are sometimes needed, and yet I also comprehend that not all changes are inherently of equal merit nor is change merely for the sake of change something worth pursuing in all instances. I bought 1,100 Zen a month and a half ago or so. (Apropos, why is it that in the EU store one can only buy in increments of 9.99 Euros unlike in the NA store where you can purchase for 5.00 USD? The immediate answer that comes to my mind is: greed.) I bought that Zen because I didn't feel like waiting on the backlog in the ZAX in order to purchase an expansion token for my stored companions. So you see, the backlog can in fact lead to added sales for you lot.
Regardless, I've recently stopped playing; it wasn't fun most of the time for me any more. I got tired of the mind-numbing, soul-destroying grind. I got tired of all the BS hoopla and intentionally obtuse, frustrating hoops you lot at Cryptic continually throw in to the works in order to artificially slow the playerbase down, in order to "encourage" us to spend real-world money. I got tired of the army of useless bots in random queues and the non-IL requirements for many of the RQs leading to 1.8K ILers in PoM. (I mean, really, what is a low-geared player going to do there against the types of demons he/she will face? Use harsh language? Please.) Worse yet are the AFK/Disconnect parasitic players who get away scot-free unless the remainder of the party wait for the vote-to-kick timer cooldown (and which can only be initiated once per-4-hours per player).
There is a running theme here: Negative reinforcement. If Cryptic were half as good at introducing positive reinforcement, incitements and rewards for doing various activities in this game as opposed to nuke-strike nerfing things, what a game this could be! Ah well. What might have been.
I have just over 5 million refined AD sitting on my main toon. I had been farming AD (legitimately - not with bots) to save up for the frankly outrageously priced legendary mounts on AH. (Here's another real-world money earning proposition for you: sell at least one legendary mount on the Zen store. It can look horrible. It can have lackluster combat power. Doesn't matter - it would sell just for the movement bonus alone. And since it would look horrible and have lackluster combat power, the sale of lockbox keys that you love so much would continue since a number of players would still want the more appealing/attractive legendary mounts.) As mentioned previously, I readily generate 120-180K+ AD per day by running 4-5 toons. If I go full-throttle and dive deep into "the grind" with all my alts, I can reach 300-maybe-400K AD, but it takes up the better part of a day and it is tiring. What this proposed change to AD does is effectively kill the ability for me - and other players like me, be they existing end-game players or new up-and-coming players - from buying and upgrading mounts, companions, upgrading materials, enchantments, etc. in a reasonable amount of time. I choose to define that as a period of time that isn't long enough to graduate with a diploma or advanced degree from a higher place of learning. Alternatively, in a time frame that is less than it takes to train combat troops (i.e. 4 months or so using NATO standards).
I had been toying with the idea of giving this upcoming Jubilee a shot and spending more real-world money to finally get my 15.2 IL GWF a legendary mount, and maybe a few more r11s-r13s, but as also mentioned previously I have decided to leave this game about 1½ weeks ago. Only yesterday did I see the announcement of Ravenloft in Mod 14, yet as enticing as that is, this latest incoming nerf is a step too-far for me. Thank you for your time, and thank you for making the decision to move on easier.
Best regards,
KFD (a.k.a. Bromaldi "Brom" Sternsteel - GWF 15.2K IL - Order of The White Owl guild - Scion of Unity alliance)
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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??)
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
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.
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.
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?
I bought extra character slots to run dungeons with nine characters for astral diamonds. So now I will be limited to only one random bonus per day and no other way to make AD.
This will not affect the BIG AD farmers that make millions of AD through the auction house because this does not require refinement or random dungeon runs at all.
At least they made this announcement before the Jubilee, since I had planned to buy $300.00 worth of Zen. Now I just have to decide what game I will play instead of this one.
I don't think that I can afford to play "free" games anymore.