I may have completely inaccurate information, but I've heard rumors that Cryptic has had to "supplement" the amount of Zen available on top of the amount of Zen purchased. If that is true, the question then becomes how much are they supporting the Zen exchange market?
If that info is incorrect, however, you are completely right. All Zax exchanges are transfers of previously purchased Zen with real money. And if it is, then this game is on pretty stable financial ground (in all likelihood).
I refuse to buy into conspiracy theories. Unless and until a dev or Julia says such things occur, they do not in my world.
I'm not looking for forgiveness, and I'm way past asking permission. Earth just lost her best defender, so we're here to fight. And if you want to stand in our way, we'll fight you too.
maybe it makes sense to make a bonus to AD global to the account depending on the number of characters on the account? for example, there are 2 characters on the account. they have a maximum of 100k on each bonus AD. the account can be a maximum of 200k bonus, but you can use all this bonus on one character when you get AA. it would be convenient.
They want to limit AD production and what you proposed is to increase AD production. Right now, it is 32K per character. You are asking to make it 100K per character.
I did not say to increase the 100k limit per day. I propose to change the existing system of bonus AD for prayer.
@noworries#8859 I have a question about the shared bank. will this shared bank be part of the regular bank you can summon wiht vip? will the mechanics be if I want to put 20 mil in the bank it won't be easily accessed by accident from any toon i'm on, say doing professions or what not?
if so I'm really excited about that change because currently the only way to get ad off your person is to put it in the exchange. and if you have too muhc you must actually buy zen even if you don't want to otherwise risking losing large sums by accident. or not being able to just consolidate across toons.
1. I expect it is part of the regular bank like where your gold is shared. 2. It really does not matter what Zax rate you put in. If you put in 500:1 and you get Zen before you cancel it, I would say "you lucky sun of the gun."
that's not the reason to take it out right away lol. I was just saying you don't have to take it down with the toon you want to give it to. right now it acts as a bank that keeps it out of your immediate pocket.
I agree that the Wonderous Bazzar is in need of an overhaul- some ideas: 1. Enchanting stones. 2. Stronghold vouchers - having to go back to single digit Mod campaigns while keeping up with current ones is getting tedious. I would happily sink AD into my guild and alliance. 3. I expect that many people are exchanging AD for zen to buy Pres Wards- I know that's the only way I buy them from the Zen Market. I've been burned by the RNG to many times to ever spend real money to get nothing again- there are many like me. Move pres wards to the bazzar and you'll knock a huge dent in the backlog with that one change. 4. The Dungeon Master's Guide could use a real overhaul, now with daily and weekly sources for AD from different locations, such a way to keep up with what a character has completed would have real AD value.
I like the account wide cap, but if it stays fixed it is really poor treatment of paying customers. It should start at 100k and go up a fixed amount for every 2 additional slots that have been purchased. Just the 100k limitation alone would change me from an avid (easily 20 hours a week) player to a casual (30-60 minutes a day) player almost overnight, because the amount of progress I can make will be artificially capped. Avid players "invest" in their game and casual players spend casually- just because you don't loose players doesn't mean you won't loose revenue...
They could raise up the daily account refinement amount to 500k. It will make very little difference. At least as long as the only the first random queue rewards are awarded per account, it will require a tremendous amount of time to acquire the salvage to make up for the remaining amount of AD that you will be short off.
I fear that this whole announcement is to create shock and fear, and then when we have all been sufficiently frightened, tell us - okay, we have heard your complaints and have decided to raise the daily cap to 200k . Yay! See how great developers we are... All the while knowing it won't make the slightest of difference, seeing as we can't reach the daily cap anyway...
Heh, I'm starting to be amused at everyone shaking their fist over the cap, while the ability to generate rAD is being gimped so hard that reaching 100k is going to be MUCH harder than before. If there was no cap coming, the 3% or whatever would still see their rAD earnings demolished without multi-accounting. That's why I say having both changes are redundant. The RQ AD changes make the cap rather pointless, the cap makes the RQ AD changes rather pointless. Either one would get the job done.
Right now, the cap is getting all the grief, but we will come to know the RQ changes as the true source of our suffering!
...resisting urge to make Hellraiser jokes... failing...: "Down the dark decades of your grinding, the 100k cap will seem like a memory of heaven..."
The main reasons the AD sinks already in the game aren´t getting the job done are: 1. the game is being absolutely flooded with the "AD sink items" like epic dungeon keys, cubes of augumentation, mops, gmops, smops (to a lesser degree umops and companion upgrade tokens) form a source that doesn´t require the destruction of AD. They´ve been, and are being put into lockboxes, and as the "trash drop" no less(defined as the most common and least desireable outcome of opening the lockbox or the respective pack from a lockbox). 2. actions removing AD from the game, like making/useing reinforcment kits/jewels, upgrading companions and improving artefact weapons with cubes have a bad cost/effect ratio
I don't think this is a good idea. Or better, i think that cryptic, as usual, did it the wrong way. Explanation:
100k AD refining limit account-wide and limit to 1 AD bonus per account: you (devs) said it's to limit the amount of ADs into the game. But that's not how it works the way you designed it. A lot of NW players play 1 or 2 toons. Which means that the change will make them generate MORE ADs. In the meanwhile, those with alt armies will farm less ADs. How about those who develop multiple toons and don't just create AD-farming alts? For example, i have 6 different toons, 6 different classes, and all are developed and being developed. Alts are at 11-12k, and geared. Your change will hurt players like me, more, and the game will get damaged too. Reason:
- botters will just create multiple accounts and keep farming - players with just 1-2 toons (a lot, i suspect) will actually create MORE ADs - players with alt armies just to farm ADs will generate less ADs and pretty much either balance the increased amount of ADs created by players in point n°2 - players who like to play and develop multiple alts and classes, and could use the ability of those alts to farm more ADs, will have to stop developing those alts. Because developing alts is a huge AD cost and time cost. If there's no return, only rich players and already BiS players (1% of total population?) will be able to play multiple toons. The rest of the players, will just PLAY LESS. So you'll bring your users to a point where they will play less and stop developing and creating alts. Which means the lower level zones will get empty again. - new players starting to play the game now, will find older content and zones, empty, which will damage the game.
So i believe that this way you just hurt the more dedicated players, make them play less, make players stop creating alts (after all you did to make it easier ), and more of all, developing them, which means also less people will be creating signets of patronage (which was a good AD-sink).
The right way to do this:
Random queues choice being like this low: 0-10k+ iLvL intermediate: 11-12k+ iLvL limit advanced: 13-14k+iLvL limit legendary: 15k+ iLvL limit
low rank dungeons/ skirmishes get the bonus limit to 1 per account, to limit the AD-farming through low level alt armies (from 0 to 10k iLvL, for example) higher rank dungeons progressively reduce the limit and increases the AD bonus. For example: low is 1 bonus per account, intermediate is 3 per account, advanced is 1 PER TOON, legendary is 1 per toon and increases the bonus. This means, doing an advanced random queue on 5 different alts with higher iLvL, allows the player to farm more AD. Reason: developing multiple toons to such iLvLs means a lot of AD spent (AD sink) and a lot of time spent playing the game, which must be rewarded.
This way you actually stimulate players to play multiple toons and develop them, because it eventually allows them to farm more ADs, have more fun, populate all the content (which is good for new players who start to play a old MMORPG and still find lower level content and zones populated), with a return of investment. Because you must give a return to players who develop alts and gear them up, something that compensates for the ADs and time spent to develop those toons.
Else, no sane player will ever bother to develop more than 1 toon. Which means, no player will buy your campaign completion items in zen shop, players will just play less, exc...
100k AD refining limit account-wide and limit to 1 AD bonus per account: you (devs) said it's to limit the amount of ADs into the game. But that's not how it works the way you designed it. A lot of NW players play 1 or 2 toons. Which means that the change will make them generate MORE ADs. In the meanwhile, those with alt armies will farm less ADs.
Maybe. But it would take much more time compared to today. Most players can easily make 22K AD plus salvage running the leveling and intermediate queues. Players with a well-geared toon can make another 18K AD plus salvage from the advanced queue. So thats 40K AD plus say 10K from salvage. Beyond that depends on how many repeats the player is willing to run. It would take a lot of repeats to get the 100K.
Also, players only need to make the item level numbers to RQ. Meaning the intermediate and advanced queues now have more undergeared players making the harder dungeon runs longer with higher chances of failure.
100k AD refining limit account-wide and limit to 1 AD bonus per account: you (devs) said it's to limit the amount of ADs into the game. But that's not how it works the way you designed it. A lot of NW players play 1 or 2 toons. Which means that the change will make them generate MORE ADs. In the meanwhile, those with alt armies will farm less ADs.
Maybe. But it would take much more time compared to today. Most players can easily make 22K AD plus salvage running the leveling and intermediate queues. Players with a well-geared toon can make another 18K AD plus salvage from the advanced queue. So thats 40K AD plus say 10K from salvage. Beyond that depends on how many repeats the player is willing to run. It would take a lot of repeats to get the 100K.
Also, players only need to make the item level numbers to RQ. Meaning the intermediate and advanced queues now have more undergeared players making the harder dungeon runs longer with higher chances of failure.
I hate to have to point this out, but you won't get salvageable items from sub-70 dungeons. I'm not sure why you think people will. I've never seen any salvageable gear drop from any non-epic dungeon no matter what level it is. Most days, I don't (and still won't) have time to run an epic dungeon. Even weekends, I'm focusing on other things, typically. I suspect after this change that I'll make epic dungeons more of a focus of my activity on weekends, but that's still just two or three days out of the week - and even then I'll probably run two or three times and have had my fill.
I can almost be ok with the 100K limit per day per account, however, limiting AD gained to pretty much just 1 RQ per day is going to kill the new players. It will have 0 impact on bots (they spit out new accounts whenever they need them so these limits mean nothing to them), but a huge impact on new players. How exactly is a new player going to earn AD with the new limits?
Prices won't come down, the big limiter are fixed price items like marks, wards companion upgrades. Likewise, I don't think this will have any impact at all on the Zen exchange.
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plasticbatMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 12,406Arc User
I can almost be ok with the 100K limit per day per account, however, limiting AD gained to pretty much just 1 RQ per day is going to kill the new players. It will have 0 impact on bots (they spit out new accounts whenever they need them so these limits mean nothing to them), but a huge impact on new players. How exactly is a new player going to earn AD with the new limits?
Prices won't come down, the big limiter are fixed price items like marks, wards companion upgrades. Likewise, I don't think this will have any impact at all on the Zen exchange.
It will have impact to Zax. If you don't have enough AD to do regular stuff, you don't have spare to buy Zen. If you are pissed and quit the game, you will not keep buying Zen from Zax and all your "frozen" AD is virtually going to an AD sink.
*** 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. ***
I can almost be ok with the 100K limit per day per account, however, limiting AD gained to pretty much just 1 RQ per day is going to kill the new players. It will have 0 impact on bots (they spit out new accounts whenever they need them so these limits mean nothing to them), but a huge impact on new players. How exactly is a new player going to earn AD with the new limits?
Prices won't come down, the big limiter are fixed price items like marks, wards companion upgrades. Likewise, I don't think this will have any impact at all on the Zen exchange.
Kill new players? Quite the opposite I believe. I´ve been around for years, and most players I´ve seen who never reached the endgame didn´t reach it because they got sucked into alting, but treated every single one like a main more or less.
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plasticbatMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 12,406Arc User
I can almost be ok with the 100K limit per day per account, however, limiting AD gained to pretty much just 1 RQ per day is going to kill the new players. It will have 0 impact on bots (they spit out new accounts whenever they need them so these limits mean nothing to them), but a huge impact on new players. How exactly is a new player going to earn AD with the new limits?
Prices won't come down, the big limiter are fixed price items like marks, wards companion upgrades. Likewise, I don't think this will have any impact at all on the Zen exchange.
Kill new players? Quite the opposite I believe. I´ve been around for years, and most players I´ve seen who never reached the endgame didn´t reach it because they got sucked into alting, but treated every single one like a main more or less.
Yes, if you have only one character to do RQ, you should earn more AD in mod 14 and refine faster for spending the similar effort as in mod 13.
*** 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. ***
I can almost be ok with the 100K limit per day per account, however, limiting AD gained to pretty much just 1 RQ per day is going to kill the new players. It will have 0 impact on bots (they spit out new accounts whenever they need them so these limits mean nothing to them), but a huge impact on new players. How exactly is a new player going to earn AD with the new limits?
Prices won't come down, the big limiter are fixed price items like marks, wards companion upgrades. Likewise, I don't think this will have any impact at all on the Zen exchange.
Kill new players? Quite the opposite I believe. I´ve been around for years, and most players I´ve seen who never reached the endgame didn´t reach it because they got sucked into alting, but treated every single one like a main more or less.
Yes, if you have only one character to do RQ, you should earn more AD in mod 14 and refine faster for spending the similar effort as in mod 13.
I would think most folks have at least 2 characters they can run the RQ on, even if one is only level 15? That is still a cut in their daily AD.
Random queues choice being like this low: 0-10k+ iLvL intermediate: 11-12k+ iLvL limit advanced: 13-14k+iLvL limit legendary: 15k+ iLvL limit
low rank dungeons/ skirmishes get the bonus limit to 1 per account, to limit the AD-farming through low level alt armies (from 0 to 10k iLvL, for example) higher rank dungeons progressively reduce the limit and increases the AD bonus. For example: low is 1 bonus per account, intermediate is 3 per account, advanced is 1 PER TOON, legendary is 1 per toon and increases the bonus. This means, doing an advanced random queue on 5 different alts with higher iLvL, allows the player to farm more AD. Reason: developing multiple toons to such iLvLs means a lot of AD spent (AD sink) and a lot of time spent playing the game, which must be rewarded.
This way you actually stimulate players to play multiple toons and develop them, because it eventually allows them to farm more ADs, have more fun, populate all the content (which is good for new players who start to play a old MMORPG and still find lower level content and zones populated), with a return of investment. Because you must give a return to players who develop alts and gear them up, something that compensates for the ADs and time spent to develop those toons.
Else, no sane player will ever bother to develop more than 1 toon. Which means, no player will buy your campaign completion items in zen shop, players will just play less, exc...
I don't disagree with what you are saying, but your proposal wouldn't really change the status quo. The bots are not impacted by this change at all, they just create double the accounts they have now. The only ones impacted are those with alts that they run through the RQ. Your change, just skews things such that you need those alts to be 11K or higher.
I would think most folks have at least 2 characters they can run the RQ on, even if one is only level 15? That is still a cut in their daily AD.
I think that's the point. Everyone takes a drop in AD earned. If everyone is earning less, the supply goes down and the cost of most items on the market down as there is less surplus. This leads to AD being worth more and zen being worth less (as the Amount of AD-> Zen goes down).
The thing that hurts are the items that won't change with the shrinking market. Companion leveling will cost the same as will the Marks from the Bazaar which are the same things the AD farmers are often buying and sinking AD into.
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plasticbatMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 12,406Arc User
I can almost be ok with the 100K limit per day per account, however, limiting AD gained to pretty much just 1 RQ per day is going to kill the new players. It will have 0 impact on bots (they spit out new accounts whenever they need them so these limits mean nothing to them), but a huge impact on new players. How exactly is a new player going to earn AD with the new limits?
Prices won't come down, the big limiter are fixed price items like marks, wards companion upgrades. Likewise, I don't think this will have any impact at all on the Zen exchange.
Kill new players? Quite the opposite I believe. I´ve been around for years, and most players I´ve seen who never reached the endgame didn´t reach it because they got sucked into alting, but treated every single one like a main more or less.
Yes, if you have only one character to do RQ, you should earn more AD in mod 14 and refine faster for spending the similar effort as in mod 13.
I would think most folks have at least 2 characters they can run the RQ on, even if one is only level 15? That is still a cut in their daily AD.
Correct me if I am wrong because my numbers may be off.
Say, you have one capable character who can do Epic dungeon and one who cannot.
Now, you can do: 2 character x 1 skirmish + 2 character x 1 dungeon + 1 Epic dungeon = 2 x 6000 + 2 x 7000 + 5000 = 31K.
In mod 14, using one character, you can do: Level + Intermediate + Advance + 2nd Level + 2nd Intermediate = 8000 + 12000 + 15000 + 1000 + 2000 = 38K.
Even if you don't want to do the 2nd runs: you still have 35K.
Logically, the 2nd runs won't be Level or Intermediate but Advance (since I can use one capable character): That would be: Level + Intermediate + Advance + 2nd Advance + 3rd Advance = 8000 + 12000 + 15000 + 3000 + 3000 = 41K.
*** 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. ***
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.
I like this post a lot. What all of this brings to the surface (to me, at least) is that the cap alone is not the issue (which I said in a previous post.) The real problem is that we are slowly having playing options taken away. First we were told we can't choose what dungeon to run to earn our daily rAD. We had to do what the system wanted us to, like it or hate it. Most of us rolled with it. We weren't happy, but we adjusted and waded miserably through the RQ system so that we could earn what we needed to advance our toons. Now we're being told that we can't choose what dungeon we run AND we get less rAD, so our advancement is slowed, our alts are close to useless (those cost Zen, by the way), and it's like the available content is shrinking. The cap itself is basically an addition to our frustrations, mainly because it's like we're supposed to act like this is a good thing when it is actually yet another limit. It doesn't matter if we reach it or not. It's the point of the entire big picture.
I rarely ever reached 100k a day. I didn't have time to. However, I don't know how I feel about those numbers we were given. I can think of two players off the top of my head that were hitting 100k a day with their alts, and I only played with about 10 people regularly. Were they not included because they may not have passed 100k two or three days a week?
Anyway, I don't know why I'm still annoyed. I've stopped playing, so I have no dog in this fight. I guess I'm disappointed and frustrated. NW had immense potential, but players keep getting told what to play, who to play it with, and have drop rates and rAD taken away from them. This game feels way more like a punishment than a pleasurable hobby. But yet again, anyone voicing their opinion is just see as a whiner. Complaints don't matter, nothing will change, and because people keep playing, hoping that things will change, all of these limits and nerfs are validated.
I hate to have to point this out, but you won't get salvageable items from sub-70 dungeons. I'm not sure why you think people will. I've never seen any salvageable gear drop from any non-epic dungeon no matter what level it is.
You get salvage from random leveling dungeon indirectly with seals. 60 seal of the brave is pretty good for one leveling dungeon run. Five days worth of leveling dungeon gets you one primal ring. A week of leveling dungeons gets you one piece of primal armor. Under two weeks of leveling dungeons gets you one primal artifact weapons. A total scrub and be completely decked out in primal gear in nine weeks running random leveling dungeons.
Wait... there is more! After getting a few primal pieces, they have enough iLevel to go into the intermediate queue and get carried for more AD and seals. They can get completely geared up sooner.
...but players keep getting told what to play, who to play it with, and have drop rates and rAD taken away from them. This game feels way more like a punishment than a pleasurable hobby. But yet again, anyone voicing their opinion is just see as a whiner. Complaints don't matter, nothing will change, and because people keep playing, hoping that things will change, all of these limits and nerfs are validated.
I agree with your entire post not just what I isolated.
The positive thing about the isolated part is that there will be more and more players that awaken and take a step back and ask self...is there a way I can enjoy playing and completely shift my attention away from elements that these restrictions and nerfs effect? Each player will arrive at different things BUT, these elements will NOT add to the game's revenue and the devs will end up with the opposite of what they seek with all these ugly nerfs when players from IL 4000 to 18000 nerf their attention on those restrictable and nerfable elements and focus on un-nerfable elements; that is, the ones that stay
People hate nerf. That's why u have to think carefully before u buff something so it does not over perform or to test out a system really thorough before u introduce it to the community so u do not pissed people off with nerf. Its not worth to early release a product that has not been tested only to have it nerf later on. But if this RAD nerf is for the best of the game, I'll accept it but I cant say for other people.
I can almost be ok with the 100K limit per day per account, however, limiting AD gained to pretty much just 1 RQ per day is going to kill the new players. It will have 0 impact on bots (they spit out new accounts whenever they need them so these limits mean nothing to them), but a huge impact on new players. How exactly is a new player going to earn AD with the new limits?
It's going to be particularly hard on anyone who doesn't run epics. The last few days I've been calculating my earnings from the four characters I run, and after this change, I'll personally be making 10% of what I used to every day, and because of the massive decrease to the amount of seals I'll bring home, that drops down to about 9% over time. Don't get me wrong, I'm still a fan of the measures, but I'll admit it does bother me a bit to think that the people most responsible for flooding the economy with AD are the ones who will be least affected by this - in that they'll still be the ones swamping the exchange - just at a slower pace than they would like.
the idea of vaping the ad at 100k account wide does nothing but hinder the game. as many pointed out slot of players only have 2 ton. cap now is 36 per ton so that's a increase not decrease. the player like my self have 10. which no matter how I bought them zen was still used. I farmed the heck out of rad to trade for zen to buy slot to earn more. which may seem like a problem but the fact of the matter is someone paid cash to be able to trade the zen. so by lower the rad I can make lower the amount of zen I can buy. cause you to make less money from player buy zen.
then you have the new player to the game with no means to make a real amount of ad the stay low and leave.
if your only looking for a way to clean up the backlog of ad add an new event or something that cost ad to get in to with high lvl reward and good drop rates aimed at higher in player.
like ultar illusion gambit friday-sunday cost of enter 500k-1mil a sure thing to get a plus 4 drop
or a list of epic where u can up the chest at the end for ad no need for a key
or have a vendor that sell upgrade ward for ad find something high and low player all want.
a legendary vendor where u can trade in ad for a deal to earn a legendary mount .
or even better just do a poll and see how many player want this suggest cap. because when it boils down to it I would guess 90% or more don't want a account wide ad cap set to 100k
You just created another hot topic on this forum. And its a pity, because it is quite similar to old „bonding nerf” one. Well this time you do communicate with us, but quite like before you do not seem to listen. Back then you announced a problem with power creep, and while players gave you huge pile of possible solution to that problem you decided to make your move any way.
In a prespective I start to think that it was your way to create a huge sink for AD but it seems it didnt worked out. Or was just a short term solution. Instead you lost some players and forced rest of us to grind to regain what we lost, and official reason power creep is still here and doing well, while unofficial – AD sink didnt worked out or worked but for not as long as you expected. But to the point.
This time you say that there is a problem with too much AD in game and ZAX backlog. And as experienced player I agree with that. Thing is I dont think your proposal od rAD refine cap will fix it.
Just to make clear – it wont affect me too much as I rarely claim more then 100k rAD a day, only after once a week hunting party, rest of the week I strugle to get 36k on main not to mention alts I dont play at all. I just hate grind, and prefere to test my luck on drops with private party then going to some RED madness. But this is just me. Most of my guildies do farm rAD, but then again very few of them are able to reach 100k.
So, if what @noworries typed is true, that just a small small amount of players refine over 100k rAD a day, that limit/cap wont work at all. I doubt that even the hardest grinding player gets more then 300-400k rAD a day, and even if so it wont create more then lest say 15% of whole rAD produced. It wont hurt bots, wont hurt most wealthy players as they dont refine AD at all. It will hurt regular average players. Well maybe you just wont to give another large group of players reason to leave this game (and they certainly wont create any more AD), but I guess its not a point. Besides if that game population is groving the number of AD producers grow as well, right? So you dont want a new players/potentioal customers? I doubt that too.
SO DON'T HURT PLAYERS. All that situation is your fault @devs. You should forseen this gona happened and be prepared. And just imagine – what would you do if you just being told that your salary is just cuted or limited because there is too much money on the globe? What would you say? OK – you right I am not gona feed my family and pay my bills? Really? Of course not, and sudenly you expect players to follow such idea? I asked before and will ask again – but this time its gona be last time – dont treat us – players - like idiots OK....
ROOT OF THE PROBLEM is not where you think. Its really not important how many alts players have, and how much rAD they are able to produce. Problem is that those produced AD are not being removed from a system. I think I wont be wrong if I say that 90% of items players buy are taken form AH – witch means that only 10% of those items value are removed from system. Rest of ADs just change places between accounts/players. So players not only generate AD but also items they want so sell/buy on AH. Effectivly most of those items are taken from a system while used on characters but AD remain in place. No to mention that your bright ideas like double seals or seal discounts create even more AD. And on top of that – ZEN store disounts on all kind of wards. Rich players buy them, then resell later with substantial profit – rinse repeat. I dont blame them. Its resonable approach, but that leads to situation where after couple of such cycles they hoard tons of AD to the point where they can effectivly control the market.
Solution? - as many, many other mentioned – SINKs. What kind?– read this topic. From me you gona get one idea for free. And thats gone be a hard sink. There is only one currency in game witch keeps its value no matter what– SMOPs/GMOPs. Thats because it has a same value for every one. I dont take VIP discounts cos sellers onAH sell those with minimal profit. But that is currency – just check whole that hunt trade offers on zones. Thats a real currency with most stable value in game.
Put preservation and coalescent wards to wondrous bazar. Then remove VIP discount – so those always sought after items wont be bought cheaper to resell for profit by richest players. Never again offer any discount on them. And here you go.
And if you want to kill some reach whales in the proces – do that stright after jubilee. When they spend their stashed ZEN to buy wards to resell them in a few months with lot of profit. But of course make a new price on Woundrous Bazar lot lower then it is now on ZEN store
Players gona love you for that, and those few hurt whales... well they dont buy ZEN from you for real cash anyway so....
And of course rework ZEN store – influx of a fresh stuff always encourge peoples – like all old skins for example:D – BtA of course – not to resell , and some „Gift for friend” program would be welcomed as well.
Really @devs you got tons of smart comments here on the table made by very differnt players. Use some of them. You really hate this game or players so much that you need to keep choosing wrong decisions every time?
Comments
1. Enchanting stones.
2. Stronghold vouchers - having to go back to single digit Mod campaigns while keeping up with current ones is getting tedious. I would happily sink AD into my guild and alliance.
3. I expect that many people are exchanging AD for zen to buy Pres Wards- I know that's the only way I buy them from the Zen Market. I've been burned by the RNG to many times to ever spend real money to get nothing again- there are many like me. Move pres wards to the bazzar and you'll knock a huge dent in the backlog with that one change.
4. The Dungeon Master's Guide could use a real overhaul, now with daily and weekly sources for AD from different locations, such a way to keep up with what a character has completed would have real AD value.
I like the account wide cap, but if it stays fixed it is really poor treatment of paying customers. It should start at 100k and go up a fixed amount for every 2 additional slots that have been purchased. Just the 100k limitation alone would change me from an avid (easily 20 hours a week) player to a casual (30-60 minutes a day) player almost overnight, because the amount of progress I can make will be artificially capped. Avid players "invest" in their game and casual players spend casually- just because you don't loose players doesn't mean you won't loose revenue...
Right now, the cap is getting all the grief, but we will come to know the RQ changes as the true source of our suffering!
...resisting urge to make Hellraiser jokes... failing...:
"Down the dark decades of your grinding, the 100k cap will seem like a memory of heaven..."
1. the game is being absolutely flooded with the "AD sink items" like epic dungeon keys, cubes of augumentation, mops, gmops, smops (to a lesser degree umops and companion upgrade tokens) form a source that doesn´t require the destruction of AD. They´ve been, and are being put into lockboxes, and as the "trash drop" no less(defined as the most common and least desireable outcome of opening the lockbox or the respective pack from a lockbox).
2. actions removing AD from the game, like making/useing reinforcment kits/jewels, upgrading companions and improving artefact weapons with cubes have a bad cost/effect ratio
Explanation:
100k AD refining limit account-wide and limit to 1 AD bonus per account: you (devs) said it's to limit the amount of ADs into the game. But that's not how it works the way you designed it. A lot of NW players play 1 or 2 toons. Which means that the change will make them generate MORE ADs. In the meanwhile, those with alt armies will farm less ADs. How about those who develop multiple toons and don't just create AD-farming alts? For example, i have 6 different toons, 6 different classes, and all are developed and being developed. Alts are at 11-12k, and geared. Your change will hurt players like me, more, and the game will get damaged too. Reason:
- botters will just create multiple accounts and keep farming
- players with just 1-2 toons (a lot, i suspect) will actually create MORE ADs
- players with alt armies just to farm ADs will generate less ADs and pretty much either balance the increased amount of ADs created by players in point n°2
- players who like to play and develop multiple alts and classes, and could use the ability of those alts to farm more ADs, will have to stop developing those alts. Because developing alts is a huge AD cost and time cost. If there's no return, only rich players and already BiS players (1% of total population?) will be able to play multiple toons. The rest of the players, will just PLAY LESS. So you'll bring your users to a point where they will play less and stop developing and creating alts. Which means the lower level zones will get empty again.
- new players starting to play the game now, will find older content and zones, empty, which will damage the game.
So i believe that this way you just hurt the more dedicated players, make them play less, make players stop creating alts (after all you did to make it easier ), and more of all, developing them, which means also less people will be creating signets of patronage (which was a good AD-sink).
The right way to do this:
Random queues choice being like this
low: 0-10k+ iLvL
intermediate: 11-12k+ iLvL limit
advanced: 13-14k+iLvL limit
legendary: 15k+ iLvL limit
low rank dungeons/ skirmishes get the bonus limit to 1 per account, to limit the AD-farming through low level alt armies (from 0 to 10k iLvL, for example)
higher rank dungeons progressively reduce the limit and increases the AD bonus. For example: low is 1 bonus per account, intermediate is 3 per account, advanced is 1 PER TOON, legendary is 1 per toon and increases the bonus. This means, doing an advanced random queue on 5 different alts with higher iLvL, allows the player to farm more AD. Reason: developing multiple toons to such iLvLs means a lot of AD spent (AD sink) and a lot of time spent playing the game, which must be rewarded.
This way you actually stimulate players to play multiple toons and develop them, because it eventually allows them to farm more ADs, have more fun, populate all the content (which is good for new players who start to play a old MMORPG and still find lower level content and zones populated), with a return of investment. Because you must give a return to players who develop alts and gear them up, something that compensates for the ADs and time spent to develop those toons.
Else, no sane player will ever bother to develop more than 1 toon. Which means, no player will buy your campaign completion items in zen shop, players will just play less, exc...
With changes like this, the player base might be down to double digits and cryptic will be asking for Zen purchases just to sign into the game.
Also, players only need to make the item level numbers to RQ. Meaning the intermediate and advanced queues now have more undergeared players making the harder dungeon runs longer with higher chances of failure.
Prices won't come down, the big limiter are fixed price items like marks, wards companion upgrades. Likewise, I don't think this will have any impact at all on the Zen exchange.
If you don't have enough AD to do regular stuff, you don't have spare to buy Zen.
If you are pissed and quit the game, you will not keep buying Zen from Zax and all your "frozen" AD is virtually going to an AD sink.
The thing that hurts are the items that won't change with the shrinking market. Companion leveling will cost the same as will the Marks from the Bazaar which are the same things the AD farmers are often buying and sinking AD into.
Say, you have one capable character who can do Epic dungeon and one who cannot.
Now, you can do:
2 character x 1 skirmish + 2 character x 1 dungeon + 1 Epic dungeon = 2 x 6000 + 2 x 7000 + 5000 = 31K.
In mod 14, using one character, you can do:
Level + Intermediate + Advance + 2nd Level + 2nd Intermediate = 8000 + 12000 + 15000 + 1000 + 2000 = 38K.
Even if you don't want to do the 2nd runs: you still have 35K.
Logically, the 2nd runs won't be Level or Intermediate but Advance (since I can use one capable character):
That would be:
Level + Intermediate + Advance + 2nd Advance + 3rd Advance = 8000 + 12000 + 15000 + 3000 + 3000 = 41K.
I rarely ever reached 100k a day. I didn't have time to. However, I don't know how I feel about those numbers we were given. I can think of two players off the top of my head that were hitting 100k a day with their alts, and I only played with about 10 people regularly. Were they not included because they may not have passed 100k two or three days a week?
Anyway, I don't know why I'm still annoyed. I've stopped playing, so I have no dog in this fight. I guess I'm disappointed and frustrated. NW had immense potential, but players keep getting told what to play, who to play it with, and have drop rates and rAD taken away from them. This game feels way more like a punishment than a pleasurable hobby. But yet again, anyone voicing their opinion is just see as a whiner. Complaints don't matter, nothing will change, and because people keep playing, hoping that things will change, all of these limits and nerfs are validated.
Wait... there is more! After getting a few primal pieces, they have enough iLevel to go into the intermediate queue and get carried for more AD and seals. They can get completely geared up sooner.
...but players keep getting told what to play, who to play it with, and have drop rates and rAD taken away from them. This game feels way more like a punishment than a pleasurable hobby. But yet again, anyone voicing their opinion is just see as a whiner. Complaints don't matter, nothing will change, and because people keep playing, hoping that things will change, all of these limits and nerfs are validated.
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I agree with your entire post not just what I isolated.
The positive thing about the isolated part is that there will be more and more players that awaken and take a step back and ask self...is there a way I can enjoy playing and completely shift my attention away from elements that these restrictions and nerfs effect?
Each player will arrive at different things BUT, these elements will NOT add to the game's revenue and the devs will end up with the opposite of what they seek with all these ugly nerfs when players from IL 4000 to 18000 nerf their attention on those restrictable and nerfable elements and focus on un-nerfable elements; that is, the ones that stay
The last few days I've been calculating my earnings from the four characters I run, and after this change, I'll personally be making 10% of what I used to every day, and because of the massive decrease to the amount of seals I'll bring home, that drops down to about 9% over time. Don't get me wrong, I'm still a fan of the measures, but I'll admit it does bother me a bit to think that the people most responsible for flooding the economy with AD are the ones who will be least affected by this - in that they'll still be the ones swamping the exchange - just at a slower pace than they would like.
then you have the new player to the game with no means to make a real amount of ad the stay low and leave.
if your only looking for a way to clean up the backlog of ad add an new event or something that cost ad to get in to with high lvl reward and good drop rates aimed at higher in player.
like ultar illusion gambit friday-sunday cost of enter 500k-1mil a sure thing to get a plus 4 drop
or a list of epic where u can up the chest at the end for ad no need for a key
or have a vendor that sell upgrade ward for ad find something high and low player all want.
a legendary vendor where u can trade in ad for a deal to earn a legendary mount .
or even better just do a poll and see how many player want this suggest cap. because when it boils down to it I would guess 90% or more don't want a account wide ad cap set to 100k
Dear Devs
You just created another hot topic on this forum. And its a pity, because it is quite similar to old „bonding nerf” one. Well this time you do communicate with us, but quite like before you do not seem to listen. Back then you announced a problem with power creep, and while players gave you huge pile of possible solution to that problem you decided to make your move any way.
In a prespective I start to think that it was your way to create a huge sink for AD but it seems it didnt worked out. Or was just a short term solution. Instead you lost some players and forced rest of us to grind to regain what we lost, and official reason power creep is still here and doing well, while unofficial – AD sink didnt worked out or worked but for not as long as you expected. But to the point.
This time you say that there is a problem with too much AD in game and ZAX backlog. And as experienced player I agree with that. Thing is I dont think your proposal od rAD refine cap will fix it.
Just to make clear – it wont affect me too much as I rarely claim more then 100k rAD a day, only after once a week hunting party, rest of the week I strugle to get 36k on main not to mention alts I dont play at all. I just hate grind, and prefere to test my luck on drops with private party then going to some RED madness. But this is just me. Most of my guildies do farm rAD, but then again very few of them are able to reach 100k.
So, if what @noworries typed is true, that just a small small amount of players refine over 100k rAD a day, that limit/cap wont work at all. I doubt that even the hardest grinding player gets more then 300-400k rAD a day, and even if so it wont create more then lest say 15% of whole rAD produced. It wont hurt bots, wont hurt most wealthy players as they dont refine AD at all. It will hurt regular average players. Well maybe you just wont to give another large group of players reason to leave this game (and they certainly wont create any more AD), but I guess its not a point. Besides if that game population is groving the number of AD producers grow as well, right? So you dont want a new players/potentioal customers? I doubt that too.
SO DON'T HURT PLAYERS. All that situation is your fault @devs. You should forseen this gona happened and be prepared. And just imagine – what would you do if you just being told that your salary is just cuted or limited because there is too much money on the globe? What would you say? OK – you right I am not gona feed my family and pay my bills? Really? Of course not, and sudenly you expect players to follow such idea? I asked before and will ask again – but this time its gona be last time – dont treat us – players - like idiots OK....
ROOT OF THE PROBLEM is not where you think. Its really not important how many alts players have, and how much rAD they are able to produce. Problem is that those produced AD are not being removed from a system. I think I wont be wrong if I say that 90% of items players buy are taken form AH – witch means that only 10% of those items value are removed from system. Rest of ADs just change places between accounts/players. So players not only generate AD but also items they want so sell/buy on AH. Effectivly most of those items are taken from a system while used on characters but AD remain in place. No to mention that your bright ideas like double seals or seal discounts create even more AD. And on top of that – ZEN store disounts on all kind of wards. Rich players buy them, then resell later with substantial profit – rinse repeat. I dont blame them. Its resonable approach, but that leads to situation where after couple of such cycles they hoard tons of AD to the point where they can effectivly control the market.
Solution? - as many, many other mentioned – SINKs. What kind?– read this topic.
From me you gona get one idea for free. And thats gone be a hard sink.
There is only one currency in game witch keeps its value no matter what– SMOPs/GMOPs.
Thats because it has a same value for every one. I dont take VIP discounts cos sellers onAH sell those with minimal profit. But that is currency – just check whole that hunt trade offers on zones. Thats a real currency with most stable value in game.
Put preservation and coalescent wards to wondrous bazar. Then remove VIP discount – so those always sought after items wont be bought cheaper to resell for profit by richest players. Never again offer any discount on them. And here you go.
And if you want to kill some reach whales in the proces – do that stright after jubilee. When they spend their stashed ZEN to buy wards to resell them in a few months with lot of profit. But of course make a new price on Woundrous Bazar lot lower then it is now on ZEN store
Players gona love you for that, and those few hurt whales... well they dont buy ZEN from you for real cash anyway so....
And of course rework ZEN store – influx of a fresh stuff always encourge peoples – like all old skins for example:D – BtA of course – not to resell
Really @devs you got tons of smart comments here on the table made by very differnt players. Use some of them. You really hate this game or players so much that you need to keep choosing wrong decisions every time?