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Official Feedback Thread: Astral Diamonds

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  • namelesshero347namelesshero347 Member Posts: 2,109 Arc User
    LOL all these questions. The question people should be asking is how inconvenient would it be to use different computers to play different accounts so they can't be tracked from a single client install...
  • namelesshero347namelesshero347 Member Posts: 2,109 Arc User
    I didn't say people won't figure out a way. Where there is a will, there is a way! It's the extent someone is willing to go to hide his tracks. People using multiple accounts to benefit one account would be playing the game like a money launderer in RL.
  • raziel007#5495 raziel007 Member Posts: 7 Arc User
    So as change staying in effect? Clear no but debs think it's a good thing.
  • raziel007#5495 raziel007 Member Posts: 7 Arc User
    edited August 2018
    > @noworries#8859 said:
    > M14 brings about some changes to Rough AD. We monitor all of the AD earned, refined and spent on all platforms each day and have regular meetings to go over that data.
    >
    > One thing that has been true for a while now is that the rate of AD entering the game is much higher than the AD being used up. The easiest place to see this is with the Astral Diamond Exchange ( ZAX ). For PC it has been a long time since the ZAX was not trading at 500 to 1, and the backlog has continued to hit higher levels each year during its big spikes. The console ZAX exchange is also higher than in the past, although it fortunately has not had to deal with being capped very often yet.
    >
    > Overall, raising the cap is not a solution we believe would help in the long term or would be beneficial to the players. It would reduce the value of AD and would end up capped again as the overall AD wealth continued to grow.
    >
    > We’ve been developing approaches to help address the problem and to get Astral Diamonds to a more stable place. M14 has the first significant steps toward that goal with additional changes coming in future modules.
    >
    > At this point I’m sure you just want to get to the changes so here they are:
    > * Rough Astral Diamond Refinement cap has been raised to 100,000 a day and is now an account wide limit. You can refine 100,000 on a single character or across multiple characters.
    >
    > * Astral Diamonds can now go into the shared bank.
    >
    > * Some uncommon (green) quality mounts and companions will be moving from the Zen store to the Wondrous Bazaar store.
    >
    > * The Bonus RP event has had multiple improvements but also has a boost that can be purchased in the Wondrous Bazaar to increase your Bonus RP earnings during the event. Part of our plan to start offering more items for AD.
    >
    >
    >
    > Random Queues have also had a variety of changes which you can find out more information on in this thread: Official Feedback Thread: Changes to Random Queues
    >
    > Below are the AD changes to the random queues:
    > * Leveling Queue: 8,000 first run / 1,000 repeat
    >
    > * Intermediate Queue: 12,000 first run / 2,000 repeat / 2,400 role bonus
    >
    > * Advanced: 15,000 first run / 3,000 repeat / 3,000 role bonus
    >
    > * Expert: 5,000 role bonus
    >
    >
    >
    > The first run bonuses are now account gated meaning that only one character can earn those first run bonuses per day.
    >
    > The end goal of these changes, and future changes, is to get the AD markets into a better state for the players, allow the ZAX to work better and to make AD more meaningful and useful all around. We know these are big changes and all feedback and questions are welcome.

    As I see it this is only hurts the players that have spent zen on alt. A f2p account was capped at 72k 36k x2 so you rised what they can make but screwed the players like myself 12 toon 36k x 12 = 432,000 so what is the benefit for have alt? A better work around would have been to lower ad refine across the board
    Say something like 20k pre toon so the f2p play goes from 72k to 40k a day lower and they p2p 12x20000=240,000 also lower and keep the 1st play through bonuses for randoms 1 a day account wide so it makes it just a bit hard from the p2p account to get all tons done. But strightout screw player that played to be able to run multiple toon to get a leg up in a game is not the way to go. Make it so alt still have a benefit in the game
  • namelesshero347namelesshero347 Member Posts: 2,109 Arc User
    edited August 2018
    I would say that players with one toon are more likely to spend cash than players with alts. The main reason most people have alts was to get the additional income stream to funnel to the main. I spent some money early on when I had one toon. Once you get to a few alts up and running, there is little need to spend money unless you wanted something really fast. You can funnel all the AD to one god-like main, or develop each alt in turn. It is a rare player that will develop multiple alts at the same time.
  • greywyndgreywynd Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 7,083 Arc User

    It is a rare player that will develop multiple alts at the same time.

    *Waves*
    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.
  • raziel007#5495 raziel007 Member Posts: 7 Arc User
    12 toon 8k to 16k
  • thanakitbackup#4394 thanakitbackup Member Posts: 2 New User
    edited August 2018
    > @"noworries#8859" said:
    ...
    > The first run bonuses are now account gated meaning that only one character can earn those first run bonuses per day.
    ...

    ----------------------------------------------

    This will encourage "bot user" but discourage "alt player"

    1. For "alt player" :
    I am "alt player". I put my time and afford to play the game fairly. I bought "character slot with zen". Increase my playing account up to 48 slots. Invest those zen for alt daily rAD farm on all alt characters that I spent zen for it. Now alt 47 characters could not earn daily rAD bonus due to the account wide. What is the point to buy "character slots" now? May be only need 10 slots for play all classes. That's all the real player need.

    ***If I still want to get daily rAD bonus rewards. No need to spend zen on "character slots" anymore. Just make 47 alt email, create 47 alt accounts. Log in those accounts 47 times and earn rAD rewards. Transfer rAD back to the main account through auction. No need to spend zen anymore. Similar result, just pay for the auction % cut.

    2. For "bot user" :
    Do not really care. The change does not affect much. Create 100+ free mail. Create 100+ free account. Log in 100+ times. Run bot once per account. Or simply make just few accounts and run bot 1,000+ times. Earn 1,000 repeat rAD. Whatever!

    This change makes me somewhat quit the game. Might play daily reward once a day but loss interest to play the game. Play other mmo games until it changes back.
  • greywyndgreywynd Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 7,083 Arc User


    ***If I still want to get daily rAD bonus rewards. No need to spend zen on "character slots" anymore. Just make 47 alt email, create 47 alt accounts. Log in those accounts 47 times and earn rAD rewards. Transfer rAD back to the main account through auction. No need to spend zen anymore. Similar result, just pay for the auction % cut.

    ...and hope you don't get caught up for being a gold seller.

    Wow, think I'm repeating myself.
    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.
  • regenerderegenerde Member Posts: 3,041 Arc User
    edited August 2018
    River District was filled with multiboxers running whole groups from one SHE to another for seals - but i guess they switched to running 1 star hunts, or joining the daily SHE train in Barovia now.
    I doubt, that it will take long before the seal reward from hunts get "balanced" as well...
    Post edited by regenerde on
    I do believe in killing the messenger...
    Want to know why?
    Because it sends a message!
  • greywynd said:


    ***If I still want to get daily rAD bonus rewards. No need to spend zen on "character slots" anymore. Just make 47 alt email, create 47 alt accounts. Log in those accounts 47 times and earn rAD rewards. Transfer rAD back to the main account through auction. No need to spend zen anymore. Similar result, just pay for the auction % cut.

    ...and hope you don't get caught up for being a gold seller.

    Wow, think I'm repeating myself.
    "Hope" being the key word - for multiple accounts. Regardless, people that are dead set on bending/breaking/taking advantage will do regardless of the control measures.
  • trinity706#8838 trinity706 Member Posts: 853 Arc User
    edited August 2018
    Yes it was stated that the ADX is queued on PC and capped at 500, what causes it though? Is it because people are not buying Zen and or were Arc quest farming for free Zen lowering the inclinations to purchase Zen (which was halted a while back)?... If they are not buying Zen on PC why is that? Zen market prices considered to be too high, not enough variety of sought after items, etc.? (Where's that item to unbind items to then bind on another character?) Less Zen being available will essentially increase the rate, probably hence why it sits at 500 on PC. If the ADX being capped/queued on PC is an issue why not sort it for the PC version? Reduce the prices of frequently bought Zen items (at least temporarily) and see if Zen purchases increase, if they don't then players essentially don't want to buy Zen...

    On console the ADX for the most part isn't capped nor queued, the last time it was essentially capped/queued (on PS4) was during the winter festival though it soon recovered. Hammering the markets that are not in the same situation is a bit overbearing especially when it seems like encouraging Zen sales is the basis without positively giving the players something different/more than what they had previously.

    Please don't come with the "trying to maintain consistency" spiel, the various versions differ anyway. The Dragonborn pack is not available on the Zen market for all versions. Also PC has/had access to "Arc quests" where they could earn Zen and Xbox has an "Arc point" system where they can redeem points for items. PS4, none of the above? Yeah, about that...

    Personally feel introducing AD sinks FIRST to try and positively influence the market would have been a better structured move than simply going straight to pulling the rug out from under players in regard to generating AD.
    ALL Rights Reserved for any and all suggestions, ideas, etc. from this user.

    “There are changes that can be made that don’t require coding...” - TriNitY
    "No amount of coding will change human behavior" - TriNitY

    Ongoing Issue: Legitmate Players Banned for Botting (Console) and the Future for "Dedicated" Players

    Suggestions: (Implemented) \/\/ Rearrange Character on character Select Screen
  • greywyndgreywynd Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 7,083 Arc User


    Personally feel introducing AD sinks FIRST to try and positively influence the market would have been a better structured move than simply going straight to pulling the rug out from under players in regard to generating AD.

    This I agree with.
    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.
  • regenerderegenerde Member Posts: 3,041 Arc User
    edited August 2018
    They should start with ZEN Charge Promotions where players don't have to contact the support over and over again to get their rewards. I mean, i can't recall a single promotion, that went from Start to Finish without any issues along the way. And that's not how you encourage your customers to spend more money in your business.

    Next stop should be creating DLCs/packs, that are actually worth spending ZEN for. The Class Packs were allright, and with some improvements could have become great... but they removed them from the store, and dumped the "Adventurer Packs" in there instead.

    It seems the drop rate for discount coupons from invoking bags has increased over the last few patches, but that's just another pointless move. Sure, they have also increased their discount worth here and there, but that's still not good enough to spend ZEN outside of the bigger seasonal sales.

    "AD sinks"... i look around in game, and only the Auction House and in some cases upgrading a specific companion seem to be worth "sinking" AD into. Anything else is more a case of "Ha. Ha. Ha." and "No.".
    I think introducing a new class on a more regular basis could have drained more AD from the game, then any of the nerfs they have handed down this far... not to mention, more classes = more Class Packs = more items to spend ZEN on.

    Anyway, just my 2 AD... and now back to refining rAD to the daily limit again.
    Post edited by regenerde on
    I do believe in killing the messenger...
    Want to know why?
    Because it sends a message!
  • wylonuswylonus Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 2,376 Arc User
    i noticed increased coupons lately, flooded with those, and once i buy zen for a month, and i dont see any coupons or not the ones i wanted, but when i am broke or low zen, all those "good coupons" get dropped allover my alts that i wanted, and sadly i cant use then and had to throw away.
  • frogwalloper#6494 frogwalloper Member Posts: 821 Arc User
    Just wondering.
    When do you think we'll get a good sense of whether or not the changes helped the pc exchange? Late September? Early October?
  • namelesshero347namelesshero347 Member Posts: 2,109 Arc User
    We can assume that the majority of accounts (1-2 toons) had their earnings potential increased 32-64K a day. And a minority of accounts (multi-toons and alt army) had their earnings potential dramatically decrease down to 100K. How much of this is a wash, only the devs know. But seeing how the ZAX rate looks the same as before, maybe it is mostly a wash.
  • greywyndgreywynd Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 7,083 Arc User
    wylonus said:

    i noticed increased coupons lately, flooded with those, and once i buy zen for a month, and i dont see any coupons or not the ones i wanted, but when i am broke or low zen, all those "good coupons" get dropped allover my alts that i wanted, and sadly i cant use then and had to throw away.

    Because they are an incentive to buy zen "NOW!"

    We can assume that the majority of accounts (1-2 toons) had their earnings potential increased 32-64K a day. And a minority of accounts (multi-toons and alt army) had their earnings potential dramatically decrease down to 100K. How much of this is a wash, only the devs know. But seeing how the ZAX rate looks the same as before, maybe it is mostly a wash.

    Wow! The change has only been active for a few weeks. You'd think that what they were looking to affect would happen overnight!
    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.
  • regenerderegenerde Member Posts: 3,041 Arc User

    We can assume that the majority of accounts (1-2 toons) had their earnings potential increased 32-64K a day. And a minority of accounts (multi-toons and alt army) had their earnings potential dramatically decrease down to 100K. How much of this is a wash, only the devs know. But seeing how the ZAX rate looks the same as before, maybe it is mostly a wash.

    You also have to factor in the players, that used the Protector's Jubilee Anniversary event, or the Vistani Rewards to recreate their alt army over several accounts.
    I doubt, that that kind of player simply "give up" when they're presented with another nerf aimed at their play style from the devs, those players will rather start looking for ways around it.
    And with the right setup, they might even be making more AD now then before...
    I do believe in killing the messenger...
    Want to know why?
    Because it sends a message!
  • utookmynickutookmynick Member Posts: 206 Arc User
    edited August 2018

    We can assume that the majority of accounts (1-2 toons) had their earnings potential increased 32-64K a day. And a minority of accounts (multi-toons and alt army) had their earnings potential dramatically decrease down to 100K. How much of this is a wash, only the devs know. But seeing how the ZAX rate looks the same as before, maybe it is mostly a wash.

    Possible, but too early to tell. There is a huge amount of wealth created from alt army, so that takes time to work through. Also, devs apparently messed up again recently: River District SHE and max AD refinement loophole that you can see in the recent patches that fixed these (refinement fix is today).

    It seems every time major changes are made, it is two steps forward and one step back.
  • frogwalloper#6494 frogwalloper Member Posts: 821 Arc User
    I suppose what I'm trying to ask is, at what time of year is the exchange least affected by special events and big sales? Anyone have a good guess when that might be - when we would get a clearer picture of how the exchange is responding to mod 14?

    This past summer was my first jubilee, and I was surprised just how far in advance it effected the exchange. I love games with an economy. It's invariably what interests me the most, and always what turns me away if it's poorly implemented. Right now, I'm dying for some data.
  • tassedethe13tassedethe13 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 806 Arc User

    I suppose what I'm trying to ask is, at what time of year is the exchange least affected by special events and big sales? Anyone have a good guess when that might be - when we would get a clearer picture of how the exchange is responding to mod 14?

    This past summer was my first jubilee, and I was surprised just how far in advance it effected the exchange. I love games with an economy. It's invariably what interests me the most, and always what turns me away if it's poorly implemented. Right now, I'm dying for some data.

    Now old players know that the next "surprise" sale will be black friday in November with another -40 or -50%.
    Time to hoard Zen if you have the AD
  • frogwalloper#6494 frogwalloper Member Posts: 821 Arc User
    So mid to late September, then?

    Just downloaded it on my junky pc - hope it will run well enough for me to watch the exchange.

    It kind of surprised me to see so many ps4 players snapping up zen so close to the release date. I'm looking forward to watching that exchange over the next few weeks and early September.
  • mordekai#1901 mordekai Member Posts: 1,598 Arc User

    It is a rare player that will develop multiple alts at the same time.

    greywynd said:

    It is a rare player that will develop multiple alts at the same time.

    *Waves*
    Me too.

    I have 8 characters and I play... 8 characters.
    None are BiS or close, but depending on my frame of mind I play whatever character I feel like.
    Im on XB and this chaos lands for us next week.
    Currently I run each toon through one random dungeon and one random skirmish per day. Once a week I'll run weeklies...
    Along with salvage and invoke bonus this allows each toon to contribute 25k AD to the pot. (the existing and perfectly adequate ZAX transfer system) daily for a total of 200k/day.

    If I need AD for something specific I can push and get 288k but rarely do because its a grindy ballache.

    As of next week I will be able to earn a maximum of half that typical daily amount.
    I will run one toon per day through their weeklies, RQs and a couple of ETOS to garner salvage.
    By rotating them this way each toon will have 8 days worth of invoke rAD bonus.

    Most of my AD get converted into Zen which I use to buy VIP, Keys, and Stronghold packs/chests.
    As of next week I have to decide Me or my Guild.
    From about 1.4 million AD a week to 700k...

    Without the daily ability to run 6 weeklies alongside 8 days worth of invoke I cannot begin to imagine the brain freezing grind of trying to earn 100k per day.

    The suggestion that this new cap is a RAISE is disingenuous to the point of willful untruth.
    For every single player who has more than two characters the cap is a nerf.

    Of course, it may be the case that the vast majority of players may well be two tooners hitting 72k per day and desperate for that extra 28k...

    I'd love to see what percentage of the active player base (lets say... last three months prior to the new Cap, and plaid at least twenty sessions in that period) have fewer than three charcters.
    And of that number how many hit their daily 36/72k cap, and with what frequency.

    I assume the devs have such information available or at least very similar metrics. Because if they ran this change without studying that sort of data there is no way they can predict the outcome beyond, "You pray to Torm... roll d20.... 18 or higher and the economy miraculously balances..."
  • trinity706#8838 trinity706 Member Posts: 853 Arc User
    MMO's have toiled with bots for decades and you would think that by now publishers/developers would at least try and utilize some manpower/resources to suspend/ban offending accounts and keep them suppressed though seemingly some would rather use those resources to compose drag nets that catch innocent accounts, simply change portions of the game which harms innocent players overall and or conceal apparent ulterior motives inside things that clearly could have been implemented differently.

    Situations where account suspensions/bans would pretty much have been sufficient (at the bold point):
    - Gateway > Bots (Leadership) > Leadership removed from Gateway.
    - Leadership re-enabled on Gateway (fewer RAD granted) > Bots AD from Leadership removed.
    - AD from invoking > Bots > AD removed, added BRAD (bonus rough AD).
    - Unbound drops from enchantments (dragon's hoard, fey blessing, etc.) > Bots > Bound enchantments.
    - Arc quests available for years on PC > free zen for PC players > Bots > PC market "unbalanced" (500 ADX, queued Zen trading) > disable Arc quests > change RQ's/AD generation for console versions as well even though the markets there are not in the same condition.

    Essentially at any given time the abusers could have had a headhunt mounted against them and been sorted, why not though? Not taking down those accounts, which more than likely would have remedied the resulting issues of them, negating the "need" to implement various changes goes to show that preserving those systems/functionality wasn't intended. It's like those issues were allowed to fester only to then later supposedly spend resources on foreseeable futile attempts just to say "we tried" and then move forward with changes that will seemingly produce more revenue at the cost of playability for the player base...

    Time and time again bots are somewhere in the reasoning for a change/update, if the common denominator is bots then take them out, the tools are available. As long as bots are placed somewhere in the reasoning and considerable efforts not be made to control them then at any given time overbearing changes can be implemented and wrongfully justified with the "because of bots" trump card since bots essentially can't be completely stopped...

    CS can see activity on every account, develop/implement a multi-layered system that flags consistent/similar repeat events with each layer being more and more precise at matching the repeat events, human controlled events tend to not be as precise as that of a bot. Hell, have staff manually and periodically go through and investigate various accounts, a couple every day or so is better than nothing.

    With the RQ (Mod 14)/AD changes, instead of taking down the bots/negative players, etc. to preserve those systems/reduce the amount of AD generated by those means and or making those changes on PC since that market is essentially "warped", those systems were changed on ALL versions to the point where the positive players suffer and buying Zen is essentially the only way to get Zen market items (VIP, etc.) being that cheaper Zen will mean less quantities of it being available at any given time (especially during events) which is quite different from Zen being readily available on the console markets. In other words cheaper Zen will arguably introduce ADX queues on the console markets...

    There's a recurring notion along the lines of players not:
    panderus said:

    making game progression without actually having to play the game

    Though essentially with each change/update the amount of progress players make from playing the game within a given period of time is essentially reduced... Wanting players to play the game, in-game for progress while the goal posts keep getting moved, you can't have it both ways...

    It's not fair to the player base for various changes to come about in response to offending players (in part at least) when the offending players could be taken out to reduce/prevent issues that they cause and various systems maintaining their initial functionality. What percentage/amount of legitimate players contributed to the RAD generation that sparked the Mod 14 changes in comparison to bots, etc.? It seems like whatever numbers included RAD generated by bots which would have skewed the results. If bots were generating a considerable amount of RAD and it was affecting the market/economy (which they have the ability to do), taking them out will reduce/remove those amounts and their influence on the economy...
    ALL Rights Reserved for any and all suggestions, ideas, etc. from this user.

    “There are changes that can be made that don’t require coding...” - TriNitY
    "No amount of coding will change human behavior" - TriNitY

    Ongoing Issue: Legitmate Players Banned for Botting (Console) and the Future for "Dedicated" Players

    Suggestions: (Implemented) \/\/ Rearrange Character on character Select Screen
This discussion has been closed.